Pan-Islamic merged mega thread

[jollyjacktar]

More on how ISIS raises and recruits child soldiers. Deprogramming all these children at the end of the conflict will be one unholy mess, and the damage they sustain now will probably make them far less productive as adults, further crippling any possible rebuilding of society in that region:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/10/horror-of-isis-child-soldiers-state-of-terror

It shouldn't be impossible, after all there were many (former) Hitler Youth running around after the dust settled.

 

[a_majoor]

It shouldn't be impossible, after all there were many (former) Hitler Youth running around after the dust settled.

Of course not, if *we* are willing to put in the time and resources that it will take.

Do you think that Canadians or people in the West are going to support raising the political and social infrastructure to the ground, then occupying a Middle Eastern nation (or a block of them) for half a century with a huge garrison force and at the same time spend billions on a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild the infrastructure and create and support the social and political institutions needed to create a functioning democracy?

I think that unless there is a huge cultural change here in the West, the correct answer is going to be.....no.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I agree and I hope the rest of the west does too.  Personally, I think that any of the little bastards that you see toting AK's, baying like wolves at the displays of barbarism alongside the adults and participating in murders of men in orange coveralls are not worth the effort.  Except what effort is required to mount some iron on the wing of an aircraft and hit the pickle button at the right time.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Do you think that Canadians or people in the West are going to support raising the political and social infrastructure to the ground, then occupying a Middle Eastern nation (or a block of them) for half a century with a huge garrison force and at the same time spend billions on a "Marshall Plan" to rebuild the infrastructure and create and support the social and political institutions needed to create a functioning democracy?

Isn't that always the tug-of-war:  elements in the West want to be seen as doing SOMETHING, but nobody has the resources or political backbone to do something that will solve the problem for as long as it takes to solve the problem.
"Politicians like to panic. They need activity; it's their substitute for achievement!"

 

[Fishbone Jones]

More on how ISIS raises and recruits child soldiers. Deprogramming all these children at the end of the conflict will be one unholy mess, and the damage they sustain now will probably make them far less productive as adults, further crippling any possible rebuilding of society in that region:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/10/horror-of-isis-child-soldiers-state-of-terror

Not if we just kill them all first. By the time we get them to where we can attempt re-education, it'll be to late. They'll be poison by that time and not worth the effort.

 

[a_majoor]

Not if we just kill them all first. By the time we get them to where we can attempt re-education, it'll be to late. They'll be poison by that time and not worth the effort.

Sadly, I think that COA is also off the table, both for the reasons noted above, and for the fact that even with nuclear weapons a 100% pK is virtually impossible.

So someone is going to have to deal with these damaged children, or be prepared to manage the consequences of leaving them in place.

 

[cryco]

Just for a second I placed myself in the shoes of a parent who's child is kidnapped and brainwashed into this system.
Quite a horrible feeling; yet once they become the next generation, it will indeed be too late for most.

 

[cupper]

Interesting take on psychological games ISIS is using

Why did victims in Islamic State beheading videos look so calm? They didn’t know it was real.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/11/why-did-victims-in-islamic-state-beheading-videos-look-so-calm-they-didnt-know-it-was-real/

For all their stage-managed professionalism, the videos of killings released by the Islamic State have often left viewers confused about the exact circumstances of what was being shown in the video. Their videos of beheadings, for instance, do not show the act itself, which initially led some to speculate that they may have been faked.

More unnervingly, there was also the calm with which many hostages spoke to the camera. Why would hostages comply with Islamic State propaganda, if they knew that it would result in their death? Some even suggested that perhaps the hostages had struck a deal with their captors for a more humane death.

According to a new Sky News interview with an Islamic State defector, that wasn't the case. Instead, he explained that the hostages were calm because they had been in this situation before. They did not know they were about to die.

The former Islamic State member, referred to as "Saleh," told the British television company that the extremist group would put the hostages through mock executions. Saleh himself told the hostages that they would not be killed, recalling that he said to them, "Don't worry, doesn't matter, nothing dangerous for you." However, Sky News reports that Saleh knew the plan was always to kill the hostages eventually, despite any limited kindness shown to them by their captors.

Similar reports of mock executions have surfaced before: Last year, the New York Times reported that American journalist James Foley was subjected to them, as well as beatings and waterboarding. Counterterrorism officials recently told ABC News they believed these mock executions explained why hostages appeared compliant in videos.

The interview with Saleh, however, appears to have been the first confirmation of the practice from someone linked to the Islamic State. The interview is exclusive to Sky News, so The Post cannot independently confirm Saleh’s identity. But Shashank Joshi, a senior research fellow at the British security think tank Royal United Services Institute, said that the use of the kind of “psychological warfare” that Saleh describes seems characteristic of Islamic State.

“Indeed if you did not have that it would be very difficult to stage manage these killings,” he said in a phone interview.

The Islamic State militants may have decided on this tactic based on the experiences of their predecessors. Writing for The Post last year, Aki Peritz, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst, noted that in videos of killings from the Iraq war, hostages who knew they were going to be killed often acted unpredictably and gave upsetting pleas for their lives. In one video from 2004, a South Korean named Kim Sun Il screamed for his life: "I don't want to die. I don't want to die." His captors were from Jamaat al-Tawhid, a precursor group to the Islamic State.

If the mock execution reports are true, they may also explain why the killings themselves were not shown on film. Even if the hostages realized what was happening at the last minute, they may still have put up a struggle that would have ruined the video's propaganda elements. In one video shot over a decade ago in Iraq, Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi is said to have pulled off his mask and confronted his captors just before he was shot. "Now you'll see how an Italian dies," he was reported to have shouted.

 

[OldSolduer]

Just for a second I placed myself in the shoes of a parent who's child is kidnapped and brainwashed into this system.
Quite a horrible feeling; yet once they become the next generation, it will indeed be too late for most.

The truly formative years of a child's life are between the ages of 3 - 8. They learn 50% of what they will know by age 8, including behavior etc. This is what I have read and heard.

If we are to reprogram these kids it has to be done very early.

 

[a_majoor]

More Westerners going to join the fight against ISIS. While the numbers are still highly skewed towards the Jihadis (thousands of them pouring in from all over the world vs a hundred or so Westerners), it is interesting to see how the activities of ISIS is raising and hardening opposition to their activities. We now have national armies (Syria, Iraq, Iran and Jordan, plus the US led air campaign), trans national groups (Hezbollah), ethnic and tribal militias, Christian militias and foreign fighters in the field against ISIS. One question which no one seems to have raised is in the aftermath, what is going to happen with all these armed groups when their allience of conveinience is no longer in effect?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2997356/ISIS-Hunting-Club-formed-eight-former-British-soldiers-poses-shotguns-prepares-fight-alongside-Kurdish-fighters-halt-cancerous-spread-Islamic-State.html

'ISIS Hunting Club' formed by eight former British soldiers poses with shotguns as it prepares to fight alongside Kurdish fighters and halt the 'cancerous spread' of Islamic State

Ex-servicemen will be travelling to northern Syria to fight ISIS militants
Eight-strong unit currently training in Europe before joining Kurd militias
They say they will be fighting for 'freedom and democracy' in the face of ISIS' 'cancerous, perverted form of Islam'
Men say they are volunteering their skills to Kurdish YPG and Peshmerga
Special Forces-trained unit are called the International Volunteer Force

ByJohn Hall for MailOnline

Published: 17:44 GMT, 16 March 2015 | Updated: 21:48 GMT, 16 March 2015

An eight strong volunteer unit of former British servicemen are preparing to travel to Syria to fight against militants from the Islamic State terrorist organisation, it has been claimed.

The ex-soldiers - some of whom have Special Forces training - call themselves the International Volunteer Force and will fight alongside the Kurdish resistance in the north of the country.

Images posted on social media purportedly show the men taking part in special training exercises in Europe ahead of their journey to Syria, where they join an estimated 100 other Western volunteers to have joined the Kurdish peshmerga and YPG armies in the fight against ISIS terrorists.

Images posted on social media purportedly show the men taking part in special training exercises in Europe ahead of their journey to Syria, where they join an estimated 100 other Western volunteers battling ISIS

The images were posted on a Facebook page titled 'Sgt Tom', which carries the colours of the Kurdish flag and disguises the faces of all the men photographed.

The images show the men wearing military fatigues and clothing suited to fighting in a desert environment while clutching large assault rifles.

Alongside captions making threats towards ISIS militants, one image appears to act a as the group's manifesto, identifying the leader as the aforementioned 'Sgt Tom' who says he is a former serviceman travelling to 'defeat you [ISIS] and the evil you stand for'.
 
'Poor foreign policies, weak government and law have allowed the spread of a cancerous, perverted form of Islam to our shores,' he adds.

He goes on to state that ISIS 'do not have the right to claim Islam as their own property to pervert and undermine a magnificent that to true Muslims, is based on peace'.

'I am not right wing, nor fascist, I am not anti-Islam nor anti any religion,' Sgt Tom says before adding 'I am a free man in a free country and free to fight for freedom and democracy'.

'Your heinous crimes have stirred my inner morality, I will not turn against peaceful Muslims but I am sickened by what you [ISIS] do and as such...I volunteer my skill-set to the people of Kurdistan.'

The group have called themselves IVFOR (International Volunteer Force) but some of them are understood to have tattoos bearing the moniker 'ISIS Hunting Club'.

They will be leaving 'within weeks' to join the YPG militias that have so bravely defended northern Syria against ISIS in recent months - most notably in the town of Kobane, which the terrorists besieged for four months before being flushed out.

Speaking to the Evening Standard newspaper, one of the former soldiers said the group had bought uniforms and are training every day and have even created a lightning a sword based logo and adopted the Latin motto 'Cita et Certa', meaning Swift and Sure.

'I and colleagues have formed a small unit which is open for any English-speaking individuals from any nation,' the former soldier was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

He added that the group had already raised more than £13,000 to fund their trip - with one of the men selling his sports car to raise the money.

There are estimated to be as many as 100 Western volunteers fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq, including ex-public schoolboy Macer Gifford who has joined the fight against ISIS and insisted he would never be captured alive vowing: 'I’ve got a grenade in my pocket and I’ll take them with me'.

Many of the Britons who have travelled to fight the terrorists are ex-military and have joined the Kurdish People's Protection Unit - known as the YPG.

This group have a designated foreign legion for Western fighters, known as the Lions of Rojava, which is believed to be led by American Jordan Matson.

Last month 25-year-old Konstandinos Erik Scurfield became the first Briton to die in action against ISIS, having joined the Lions of Rojava within days of leaving the British army last November.

The former Royal Marine from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, was hit by mortar fire while fighting alongside Kurdish forces near the Syrian city of Qamishli.

Over the weekend his body was returned to his family in a special ceremony attended by hundreds of Syrian Kurds. His coffin, which was draped in both the Kurdish flag and the Union Jack, was handed over to his father and uncle in a special ceremony on the Syria-Iraq border.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2997356/ISIS-Hunting-Club-formed-eight-former-British-soldiers-poses-shotguns-prepares-fight-alongside-Kurdish-fighters-halt-cancerous-spread-Islamic-State.html#ixzz3UeQMMwiu
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[CougarKing]

ISIS has drones? WTF? 

Defense News

Officials: US Bombs ISIS Drone in Iraq

WASHINGTON — US warplanes have bombed a small drone used by Islamic State extremists in Iraq, marking the first time American-led forces had targeted an unmanned aircraft flown by the jihadists, officials said Wednesday.

The strike took place on Tuesday near the western city of Fallujah, destroying "a remotely piloted aircraft" and a vehicle with the IS forces, according to a statement from the US military command overseeing the campaign against the group.

The drone, used for battlefield surveillance, was "small-scale" and not a sophisticated aircraft equivalent to some US-made robotic planes that can fly at high altitudes or launch missiles, US defense officials said.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[Remius]

ISIS has drones? WTF? 

Defense News

probably a store bought quad copter with a go pro camera....

 

[a_majoor]

ISIS has drones? WTF? 

Defense News

While store bought drones with cameras seem like children's toys to us, they are very sophisticated pieces of equipment (I remember trying to build model airplanes out of balsa wood when I was a child; building working aircraft at any scale isn't easy at all), and provide a capability that until recently only fairly wealthy Western armies had. I'd actually be pretty worried about this development.

 

[Remius]

While store bought drones with cameras seem like children's toys to us, they are very sophisticated pieces of equipment (I remember trying to build model airplanes out of balsa wood when I was a child; building working aircraft at any scale isn't easy at all), and provide a capability that until recently only fairly wealthy Western armies had. I'd actually be pretty worried about this development.

And anyone with an Internet account can get them fairly easily.  I can see why they targeted it.

 

[Robert0288]

And anyone with an Internet account can get them fairly easily.  I can see why they targeted it.

That and with some minor tweaking those things can get extremely dangerous very quickly.

 

[dimsum]

ISIS has drones? WTF? 

That confusion is one of the reasons why "drone" isn't the preferred term. 

If the article were talking about manned airplanes, the journalist (one would hope) would qualify it with light, medium, heavy, armed, fighter, bomber, transport, etc.  When one says "drone" these days, Joe Public thinks it can be anything from Quadcopters to Global Hawk-sized RPAs. 

 

[jollyjacktar]

Some good news.  Full story and photos at link below.

Canadian jihadist Ahmad Waseem who travelled to Syria likely killed by Kurdish forces, says researcher
Douglas Quan | March 20, 2015 | Last Updated: Mar 20 7:02 PM ET

A researcher studying Canadian foreign fighters believes a Windsor, Ont. man turned jihadist has been killed in Syria.

Amarnath Amarasingam said Friday that Ahmad Waseem was likely killed two or three days ago by Kurdish forces in Tal Hamis in northeast Syria.

Mr. Amarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University who is in contact with 30 to 40 foreign fighters as part of his research project, says rumours circulated recently that someone going by the name of Abu Turab had been killed.

He said Friday that he sent a photograph of Mr. Waseem, who has previously identified himself on social media using that name, to two foreign fighters who are friends of his and they confirmed he had been killed.

Mr. Amarasingam said he also examined images on the website LiveLeak that purport to show the bodies of Islamic State fighters recently killed in an ambush. One of them bears a strong resemblance to Mr. Waseem.

The RCMP was unable Friday to confirm the status of Mr. Waseem, who is wanted on a charge of passport fraud.

A woman who answered the phone at Mr. Waseem’s family home in Windsor seemed aware of reports of his death but declined to comment. “It’s a personal matter,” she said.

Mr. Waseem attended Holy Names Catholic High School and St. Clair College.

Shaikh Mohamed Mahmoud, the imam at the Windsor mosque, has previously said that Mr. Waseem travelled to Egypt for study, but then went to Turkey.

Mr. Waseem returned home in 2013 claiming that he had been injured near the border with Syria. The imam said he tried to encourage Mr. Waseem to help Syrians by getting involved in humanitarian work. His mother also took away his passport.

But it didn’t work and Mr. Waseem returned to Syria.

Mr. Waseem has previously called Osama bin Laden a “hero” on social media and given advice about how to join the fight in Syria.

The RCMP confirmed earlier this month that Mohammed El Shaer, a friend of Mr. Waseem’s who is also on the force’s “high-risk traveller” list, was being sought after leaving the country without a valid passport.

The RCMP could not confirm that he had ended up in Syria, but Mr. Waseem posted a photo of the two of them together with the caption, “Canadian Muslims guess which ‘high-risk traveller’ made it into Sham?” He was referring to Syria.

In a recent post on the website Jihadology, Mr. Amarasingam said he believes there may be as many as 60 Canadians fighting in Syria and Iraq and that at least 12 have died in the fighting.

National Post

With files from Stewart Bell

http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/20/ahmad-waseem-likely-killed-in-syria/

 

[a_majoor]

The PanIslamic Civil War expands further int Yemen. Looking at the multitude of factions (tribes, Shia vs Sunni, Iranians, ISIS, Saudi Arabia) all involved, the withdrawl of US troops is probably the most sensible COA, given you really never know who you are dealing with or what side they are on (or in that region, if they will stay bought):

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/yemen-falls-apart

Yemen Falls Apart
23 March 2015

Suicide-bombers killed at least 137 people and wounded more than 350 in Yemen at two Shia mosques in the capital city of Sanaa on Friday. The very next day, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized control of the city of al-Houta, and the day after that, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel movement conquered parts of Taiz, the nation's third-largest city. Rival militias are battling for control of the international airport in the coastal city of Aden, and the US government just announced that American troops are evacuating Al Anad airbase.

ISIS is taking credit for the Sanaa attacks. “Infidel Houthis should know that the soldiers of the Islamic State will not rest,” it said, “until they eradicate them and cut off the arm of the Safavid (Iranian) plan in Yemen.” Al Qaeda has a much larger footprint in Yemen, so the ISIS claim is a little bit dubious, but ISIS is on the rise there and its attitude toward Shia Muslims is more bloodthirsty—more explicitly genocidal as the quote above shows—than Al Qaeda's.

Regardless of who committed the latest round of atrocities, everything in Yemen is about to become much, much worse. The region-wide storm of sectarian hatred has been gathering strength by the year for more than a decade, and it blew the roof off Yemen earlier this year when the Houthis, who are Shias, seized control of the capital and sent Sunni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi into semi-exile in Aden.

The Houthis see their takeover of the city and government institutions as a natural progression of the revolution in 2011 that toppled former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but it isn't, not really. While they enjoy some backing beyond their Shia support base, the sectarian dimension is inescapable. Shias make up almost half the population, and the Sunni majority is keenly aware that minorities in the Middle East are capable of seizing power and lording it over everyone else—especially if they're sponsored by a regional mini superpower like Iran. Syria has been ruled by the Iranian-backed Alawite minority for decades, and Saddam Hussein used brute force to bring the Sunni minority to power in Iraq.

Still, the Houthis have virtually no chance of ruling the entire country. Their “territory,” so to speak, is restricted to the northwestern region surrounding the capital. Previous governments had a rough go of it too. South Yemen was a communist state—the so-called People's Democratic Republic of Yemen—until the Soviet Union finally ruptured, and four years after unification with North Yemen, the armed forces of each former half declared war on each other.

Far more likely than a comprehensive Houthi takeover is a new and more dangerous phase of Yemen's endless self-cannibalization—more dangerous because this otherwise parochial and irrelevant conflict has been internationalized, with ISIS, the Saudis, and Iran squaring off against each other in yet another regional proxy war.

The Houthi movement is named after Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, an insurrection leader killed by the former government in 2004. They are Shias, but unlike the “Twelver” Shia Muslims of Iran—who revere eleven imams and await the birth of the occluded twelfth—most of Yemen's Shias are “Fivers.” Iran doesn't mind. From its point of view, better the odd “Fiver” Shias than Sunnis, but all that really matters is that the Houthis are willing to say yes to Tehran, its weapon shipments, and its top-notch military advisors and trainers.

The next-door Saudis, of course, are backing what's left of Hadi's former government down in Aden. They've been Yemen's primary patron since the 1930s and won't sit back and idly watch as Iran's Islamic Revolution is exported to their back yard any more than the United States would have allowed the Moscow to conquer Canada during the Cold War.

Yemen's conflict is tribal, sectarian, and political at the same time, and it's becoming increasingly internationalized even as the US is leaving. It's also a little bizarre. Last month, President Hadi declared Aden the new capital, though no one in the world, not even his allies, recognize it as such. A few days ago a Houthi-commanded military jet flew over the city from Sanaa and fired missiles at his residence.

The US has few friends and even less leverage, especially now that it's all falling apart, so Washington is washing its hands and bringing everyone home. All we can really hope for there is less instability, not so much because Yemen's local squabbling affects us—until now it hardly registered outside the country—but because dangerous adversaries that threaten the West are hoping to expand their base of operations and their ability to export malfeasance everywhere else. Let's not forget that Osama bin Laden's family is of Yemeni origin, as was Anwar Al-Awlaki, one of Al Qaeda's chief propagandists before the Pentagon vaporized him with a Hellfire missile in 2011. The deadliest bomb-maker in the world plies his trade with Yemen's branch of Al Qaeda and has planned at least three attacks against commercial airliners. And now that Iran is involved in the Saudi family's sphere of influence and the Sunni majority is backsliding, ISIS and Al Qaeda are gaining even more traction.

Consider the city of Radaa. Al Qaeda briefly seized power there in 2012, but local tribesmen and government troops drove them out. Now that the Houthis are in the saddle in Sanaa, however, the tribes in Radaa are siding with Al Qaeda again. Al Qaeda's takeover of al-Houta three days ago shows that Radaa is anything but an isolated case.

All this parallels events in Iraq. The Sunni tribes of Anbar Province forged an alliance with American soldiers and Marines against Al Qaeda in the mid-2000s, but after the US withdrew and President Nouri al-Maliki ruled the country as a heavy-handed Iranian proxy, many tribes in Anbar switched their allegiance to ISIS.

Yemen may well turn into the Iraq or Syria—take your pick—of the Arabian Peninsula. All the US can really do at this point is watch in horror as the Middle East continues to chew its own leg off and malefactors with global ambitions thrive in the chaos.

 

[CougarKing]

Saudi Arabia about to intervene in Yemen?

Reuters

Exclusive: Saudi Arabia building up military near Yemen border - U.S. officials

By Mark Hosenball, Phil Stewart and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict.

The buildup follows a southward advance by Iranian-backed Houthi Shi'ite militants who took control of the capital Sanaa in September and seized the central city of Taiz at the weekend as they move closer to the new southern base of U.S.-supported President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The slide toward war in Yemen has made the country a crucial front in Saudi Arabia's region-wide rivalry with Iran, which Riyadh accuses of sowing sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[jollyjacktar]

Saudi Arabia about to intervene in Yemen?

Reuters

They're saying on the radio this morning that SA has stated if the rebels don't halt their advance on Aden, SA will come across and make them.