West Asia News and Discussions

[ramana]

A_Gupta, RB why dont we for a start collect the stories here on Facebook page and see if it develops mass.
I suspect the trauma was too much to recount and besides there was no place to collect the memories.

Which publisher will publish such stores when all think the Gulf is golden goose to send our workers to.
I was shocked by R Vaidya's tweet last night that "what attarction does the gulf have for our workers?"

How about good jobs!

[ramana]

That First Post article by R Jagannathan starts out right but suddenly loses itslef as he doesnt get the basci transformation of Islam that was engineered by Wahabandis.

Islam was and is and will not be a normal religion.

[saip]

Does India tax incomes earned abroad by Indian citizens?

[UlanBatori]

Yes, if resident in India, global income is subject to Indian tax (I suppose there is some provision for credit on tax already paid to phoren country). If non-resident, then the part of income earned abroad while non-resident is not taxed, I believe.

Citjenship not an issue there. Residence is.

Is there a dhaga to and about the desi banks + tax babucracy conspiracies against ppl who try to pay taxes?

[anmol]

[Agnimitra]

In general, though, the Kurds have exploited the situation by grabbing towns in the north - and its interesting how there's been no major confrontation between them and ISIS. The Kurdish government has fallen out with the Iraqi Government in a major way for the past few years - it has been selling oil independently of the Iraqis.

Maliki has been a failure and his policy of purging the government of non-Shia and marginalising the Sunnis has greatly helped ISIS. The vast Iraqi army, with the billions that was poured into it, fled all the towns taken in the past few days without putting up any resistance.

[nachiket]

The vast Iraqi army, with the billions that was poured into it, fled all the towns taken in the past few days without putting up any resistance.

Agnimitra saar, the original Iraqi army was dismantled by Paul Bremer and a new one raised. The incompetence of the present one is mainly the fault of the Americans, along with (I suspect) the divided loyalties of Sunni officers due to Maliki's policies.

[Skanda]

The War Nerd: Here’s everything you need to know about “too extreme for Al Qaeda” I.S.I.S.

Interesting and Comprehensive article on ISIS by War Nerd.

As the Scriptures remind us, “Do not believe the hype.” The hype of the moment is ISIS, the Sunni militia that just drove the so-called Iraqi Army out of Mosul, Tikrit, and other Iraqi cities.

This is one of those dramatic military reverses that mean a lot less than meets the eye. The “Iraqi Army” routed by ISIS wasn’t really a national army, and ISIS isn’t really a dominant military force. It was able to occupy those cities because they were vacuums, abandoned by a weak, sectarian force. Moving into vacuums like this is what ISIS is good at. And that’s the only thing ISIS is good at.

ISIS is a sectarian Sunni militia—that’s all. A big one, as militias go, with something like 10,000 fighters. Most of them are Iraqi, a few are Syrian, and a few hundred are those famous “European jihadis” who draw press attention out of all relation to their negligible combat value. The real strength of ISIS comes from its Chechen fighters, up to a thousand of them. A thousand Chechens is a serious force, and a terrifying one if they’re bearing down on your neighborhood. Chechens are the scariest fighters, pound-for-pound, in the world.

But we’re still talking about a conventional military force smaller than a division. That’s a real but very limited amount of combat power. What this means is that, no matter how many scare headlines you read, ISIS will never take Baghdad, let alone Shia cities to the south like Karbala. It won’t be able to dent the Kurds’ territory to the north, either. All it can do—all it has been doing, by moving into Sunni cities like Mosul and Tikrit—is to complete the partition of Iraq begun by our dear ex-president Bush in 2003. By crushing Saddam’s Sunni-led Iraq, the Americans made partition inevitable. In fact, Iraq has been partitioned ever since the invasion; it’s just been partitioned badly, into two parts instead of the natural three: the Kurdish north, and the remainder occupied by a weak sectarian Shia force going by the name of “The Iraqi Army.” The center of the country, the so-called “Sunni Triangle,” had no share in this partition and was under the inept, weak rule of the Shia army.

By occupying the Sunni cities, ISIS has simply made a more rational partition, adding a third part, putting the Sunni Triangle back under Sunni rule. The Shia troops who fled as soon as they heard that the ISIS was on the way seem to have anticipated that the Sunni would claim their own territory someday. That’s why they fled without giving even a pretense of battle.

So, Iraq is now partitioned on more natural, sensible lines, thanks to ISIS. It’s going to be a messy transition, as Iraqi transitions tend to be, with mass executions of collaborators like those already happening in Mosul and Tikrit.

But in the long run, ISIS has simply swept into a power vacuum, like it’s done from the start.

ISIS has always been good at generating scary stories about itself, like the notion that it was kicked out of Al Qaeda for being “too extreme.” It’s true that ISIS has a beef with Zawahiri, the nominal head of Al Qaeda, but the issue isn’t extremism. Their quarrel was a turf war about who would get the Al Qaeda franchise in Syria, and it just showed ISIS’s most pronounced characteristic in action: A real knack for moving in on vulnerable turf.

In fact, ISIS’s quarrel with Zawahiri was a lot like a corporate boardroom feud. It’s always worth remembering that Jihadis are just friggin’ people, and their disagreements tend to be about very ordinary organizational issues. Granted, it’s a little harder to see that when they solve those disagreements with public beheadings and overly-cinematic rituals, but at heart this is just standard human behavior—primates squabbling for rank and power, Game of Thrones with Islamic voiceover.

Even the name, “I.S.I.S.,” is the result of a series of policy disputes and turf wars. “I.S.I.S.” is an English-language acronym, standing for “The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams [Greater Syria].” You may have seen people insist on calling it “I.S.I.L.,” because they translate “al-Shams” as “the Levant,” the old-fashioned term for the Eastern Mediterranean shore. Arabs don’t use either of these acronyms; the Arabic acronym for the group is “Daash,” as in this headline describing the aftermath of I.S.I.S.’s conquest of Mosul: “Daash Executed 12 Imam [sic] who refused to pledge allegiance.”

The most important thing about this name is that it’s clear about policy—“Islamic State”—and very flexible about territory. The Islamic State is supposed to cover the whole world, so it doesn’t matter very much which chunk of turf it starts on. None of the borders of the Arab Middle East—Iraq, Syria, Jordan—mean much if you believe in a Caliphate that should encompass the whole Ummah, every believer in the world. So I.S.I.S. has always been vague about territory. It’s a fluid group, moving away from pressure and toward chaos, toward regions where authority is weak and there’s room to expand. Think of I.S.I.S. as something between a liquid and a gas, always striving to fill a void.

It started with a small group of Sunni militants who agreed, around the turn of the Millenium, to overthrow the monarchy in Jordan. You may remember a shadowy Scarlet Pimpernel figure called “Al Zarqawi,” who was built up into the Mister Big of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq by US public-relations mouthpieces. He was called “Al Zarqawi” because he came from the town of Zarqa, a town in Jordan founded by Chechen refugees who gave the peaceful Arabs an infusion of Chechen ferocity.

Zarqawi’s group didn’t do very well in Jordan. Jordan’s Bedouin security guys don’t play around, as the PLO found out in what came to be known as Black September.

By 2002, Zarqawi was in bad shape, on the run with a bullet in his leg. Things were looking bleak for Sunni Islamists all over the Middle East…until the Spring of 2003, when a couple of guys named Bush and Cheney gave them new life by invading Iraq, crushing Saddam’s Sunni-dominated Iraqi state, and pushing millions of Iraqi Sunni into armed insurgency.

Within a few months, insurgent groups formed in every Sunni neighborhood in Iraq. That’s how insurgencies begin, with the strongest, most charismatic guys in the neighborhood (let’s face it, Sunni insurgencies are male-dominated, and I’m not going to go bother with de-gendered pronouns here) rounding up their cousins, choosing a pious, identifiably Sunni name, and planning a first strike.

It’s a brutal learning curve for these groups. Some are penetrated and betrayed before they can do anything—somebody’s cousin wasn’t as trustworthy as they thought. Some are wiped out the first time they attack an army patrol, or lose the leaders who kept the group together. Some break up over trivial ego issues, and the loser informs on the winner. The death rate is appalling in this sped-up unnatural selection, and those who survive it are the ones who are willing to be flexible about territory, moving away from pressure, toward chaos, rather than fighting to the death.

Zarqawi’s career is a classic example of that fluidity. Even after jumping from Jordan to Iraq after the invasion, he didn’t move immediately to the Arab cities of the Sunni Triangle. He started with a Kurdish jihadi group, Ansar al-Islam, that was holed up in Halabja, a hill village a few miles from Suleimaniya, where I used to teach. When I was there in 2010, locals still boasted of the battle that drove Ansar al-Islam out of Halabja, killing most of the core membership.

Zarqawi survived that attack and landed in the Sunni Triangle, working with the usual alphabet soup of jihadi groups, which go through more name-changes than a band full of speed freaks. Some of these names, coming straight out of the gaudy tradition of Islamic rhetoric, really don’t translate very well—“The Oath of the Scented Ones” being a prime example.

Zarqawi’s group, one of many forming and bursting in the Sunni Triangle, went through several name changes before it finally settled on the no-nonsense title of “The Islamic State of Iraq,” or “I.S.I.” in the Autumn of 2006. By then, Zarqawi was dead, vaporized in a U.S. air strike in June 2006.

At the time, American reporters crowed over his death, going for the old “Mister Big” theory of insurgency that never fits the facts. Insurgent groups go through leaders like Spinal Tap went through drummers, and often the cull makes them stronger, since every new generation selects for the most ruthless, cunning survivor in the group. Eager martyr types die fast. Macho idiots die even faster. Only the most cautious, hard-bitten, businesslike jihadis survive long enough to move up to a leadership position.

It’s amazing how well combat selects for talent. Nothing rewards talent less than a peacetime army, and nothing rewards it faster than an army actually in combat. And irregular forces, which usually suffer something like a 10:1 casualty rate against conventional occupiers, go through a nightmare-quick selection process.

ISIS went through a lot of commanders before one stuck. He was a product of Islamic schools and US prison camps. He called himself Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, which means exactly nothing except that he’s claiming to be from Baghdad. He got out of prison in 2009 and walked into a leadership vacuum created by an airstrike which killed his predecessor—nothing like airstrikes to make room at the top—and oversaw ISIS’s move away from pressure once again, out of the cities toward the deserts of Anbar Province where Sunni sheikhs maintained strong clan networks. It wasn’t much, but it was a safe base, and that’s something any mixed militia/guerrilla force requires.

ISIS got its second great break when The Syrian Civil War exploded in 2012. They looked west, across the Anbar deserts, and saw a huge organizational opportunity opening up in Syria. Assad’s troops had abandoned most of Eastern Syria to focus on defending the Alawite heartland along the coast. That vacuum created an opportunity for lots of people: The Syrian Kurds, who occupied a tier along the Turkish border in the northeast; dozens of local mafia/resistance groups, who mobilized to profit from the wide-open borders; and the nucleus of ISIS, who saw a chance to set up a little emirate in this new no-man’s-land in the wastelands of eastern Syria, along the borders with Anbar.

That’s the key here: ISIS is a physics demonstration in guerrilla form. It began as a Jordanian insurgent group. Jordan was too tough to crack, and the group was under deadly strain until Bush and Cheney gave it new life with the 2003 invasion. It moved into Iraq, first to the north, in Kurdistan, and then, as the pressure grew up there, to the south and west, landing in Anbar. And when a new low-pressure system opened up to the west in Syria, ISIS flowed into it like a rain cloud—right along a natural pathway, the Euphrates River, which flows eastward into Anbar from Syria.

Syria should have been ISIS’s greatest moment, but things didn’t work out for it there. Not because it was “extreme,” but because it tried too hard to dominate the market against savvy local competition. Syria was a wide-open market for jihadi organizers, free to operate openly over most of the country after decades of effective repression. Money was pouring in from fat armchair jihadis in Saudi, Kuwait, and the Emirates—enough to pay jihadis a first-world salary of $1,500/mo. If you had a good line of patter and a few Quranic passages memorized, you could score some investment money. And military entrepreneurs poured in to take advantage of the opportunity; so many that by 2013, there were 1,200 different jihadi groups operating in Syria.

These baby militias popped up, prospered for a while, then vanished like Ethiopian restaurants. And out of the chaos, ISIS was ready to make its move, with a decade of guerrilla knowledge gained the hard way over the border in Iraq. ISI (soon to be ISIS) started well, grabbing the strategic town of ar-Raqqah in central Syria, upriver on the Euphrates from ISI’s home base in Anbar, over the border. ISI(S) now had a safe base of operations, a luxury it had never experienced before.

ISI(S) felt entitled to lead the jihad. Syria, Iraq—what was the difference? Those were fake borders anyway (which is sort of true, actually). The Sunni on the Syrian side were the natural allies of the Sunni in Anbar, and ISI(S) had been leading them in Anbar for years.

So Abu Bakr started asserting himself a little in Syria. A little too much, in fact. Jihad may be a universal, but politics, as they say, is always local—and the locals weren’t happy with the foreign fighters telling them how to do their war. It wasn’t a matter of being more “extreme,” or more “Islamist.” In fact, every single Sunni militia in Syria is “Islamist.” There are no secularists in Syria, at least none who’ll admit it. It ain’t a healthy thing to admit. All 1,200 resistance groups are “extreme” and “Islamist.” There’s not much point in being a friggin’ jihadi if you don’t believe in jihad.

The issue was power and precedence. Who owned the resistance? Of course, there were front groups like the “Free Syrian Army” (pause for laughter), set up to convince the West to give up some serious weaponry by playing at being “moderate.” But how many divisions did the FSA ever have? None, really—a few officers who’d defected from Assad’s army, but very few fighters willing to die for the cause.

There were only two real claimants, ISI and Jabhat al-Nusra, and both were as extreme and Islamist as anyone could ask. JaN had deeper roots in Syria, but ISI had been bleeding for jihad for ten long years, and Abu Bakr felt entitled by that decade of combat to step in as emir of the Syrian operation. Like a good CEO, he moved west to take over the new, expanding Syrian operation, and changed the firm’s name from ISI to ISIS to reflect the new Syrian focus.

But when you have 1,200 different factions to deal with, you have at least 1,200 egos to massage, and every damn one of them has a few dozen, or a few hundred, men ready to kill, and die, at his command. These nay-sayers were not in the mood to let some Iraqi interloper take over the Syrian revolution, and insisted on localizing what ISIS saw as the inherently universal mandate of jihad. The local/universal tension is deep in Islam, which borrowed Christianity’s universalizing mandate. In theory, a Chechen who knows the Quran is as entitled to tell a Syrian what to do as anyone else. In practice, he’s a jerk, and if he tells you to do things a different way than your family has done them for generations, you don’t care how many verses he can quote at you. You’re pissed off.

ISIS’s Syrian forces were full of loudmouthed young Islamic pedants, all heavily armed, and all eager to tell the locals how to live. It didn’t go over very well. It wasn’t about “extremism” as much as “localism.” ISIS was eventually forced out of Aleppo in favor of Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic Front—both every bit as extreme as ISIS, but with more local recruits who didn’t rub everybody the wrong way quite as much. Zawahiri chimed in from his hiding place in Pakistan to scold ISIS, saying in typically florid jihadi lingo something that amounted to “You’re gonna screw us up in Syria just like you and Zarqawi did in Iraq!” His verdict was that ISIS should move east to Iraq, and Jabhat al Nusra should be Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria.

Abu Bakr did not take kindly to this sort of provincialism. When you’ve been fighting for ten years, and seen pretty much everybody you care about killed, often in fairly gruesome ways, you don’t really want to hear a lot of noise about how local sensibilities must be respected, and corporate HQ back in the mountains of Pakistan must be obeyed.

ISIS replied with a program of assassinations directed at dissenting jihadis, starting in January 2014. When they killed al-Suri (“The Syrian”), Zawahiri’s envoy sent to settle the dispute, in February 2014, it was flat-out war between ISIS and every other faction in Syria. More than 2,000 casualties later, that feud is still simmering.

But as the pressure ramped up in Syria, a new low-pressure area was opening up to the east in Iraq. Since the Americans left Iraq at the end of 2011, ISIS had been picking away at their Shia replacements, always testing, looking for weakness. And they found plenty of it. In July 2013 they broke into Abu Ghraib prison—yes, THAT Abu Ghraib—and broke out hundreds of their comrades who were fed back into the war against the Shia in Iraq. The Shia security services were showing weakness, and it doesn’t take long in the gigantic maximum-security institution we call Iraq for your fellow inmates to smell weakness and jump you.

All ISIS had to do was tilt to the east, along the axis of the Euphrates River. This river defines the territory of the Sunni insurgency. It starts in Syria, passes through ar-Raqqah, ISIS’s HQ in Syria, and crosses into Iraq, passing through ISIS strongholds like Ramadi and Fallujah before veering south toward the Gulf. The Euphrates defines the insurgency, not because ISIS fighters actually need it to travel but because, before the 20th century, settlement was only possible along its banks, so the Sunni Arabs built their towns along the river.

And at the beginning of 2014, ISIS, facing a tough fight from angry jihadi rivals in Syria, simply headed downstream, along the Euphrates, back to the area of weakness it had smelled in Iraq. Think of the Euphrates as a see-saw; when pressure on the western end pushed it up, ISIS just slid down to the other end of the plank, the city of Fallujah. ISIS took control of Fallujah at the beginning of the year 2014.

That wasn’t such a shock. Fallujah has always been a combative Sunni city, as the US military discovered a couple of times during the US occupation. Many irregular forces grab cities for short periods as a show of strength, then retreat when the regular army moves in. But that didn’t happen in Fallujah, and that was very bad news for Maliki and the Shia coalition that rules Iraq (more or less). Their expensive, American-trained army was unable to take back Fallujah, which is still in ISIS’s hands.

That was showing weakness on a Vegas-size billboard, and other Sunni strongholds got the message very quickly, especially Mosul, where Saddam’s officer corps has been simmering since it was dismissed with prejudice by the US occupiers. Mosul fell to ISIS in the second week of June, 2014.

ISIS now controls most of Anbar as well as a huge chunk of eastern and central Syria. It’s a de facto Sunni state, straddling the Syria/Iraq border between Kurdish and Shia territory.

And that’s as far as it will go. ISIS has done well to take back its natural constituency, the Sunni center of Iraq. It will push against the Shia to the south, but they’ll fight much better on their own turf. And if it has any sense, it won’t even try to push against the Persh Merga. I used to see the Pesh Merga every day, and they ain’t nobody to mess with.

So out of all this chaos and blood comes something like a vindication of the laws of physics, as expressed in ethnic turf wars. But with one modification of those laws: Some things really don’t abhor a vacuum, especially transnational ethnic militias. They love a vacuum more than Alice did on the Brady Bunch.

[nachiket]

Part of the price to be paid:

Maliki must go.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/19/politics/ ... ?hpt=hp_t1

The US needs to take responsibility for the disasters that result when they decide to bestow their gift of western democracy on another country. Instead, we hear this nonsense about"the price to be paid." A couple of years from now, a similar disaster will unfold in Afghanistan with the Taliban playing the role of ISIS. Wonder what price the Afghans will have to pay then.

[Jarita]

I can understand why the Arabs call them daash. Isis sounds like a tranny belly dancer ( which they may very well be on the side)

[anmol]

ISIS Terror Group Controlled By Saudi Royal Family

by Brandon Turbeville Activist Post[/b] June 18th 2014

As ISIS marches across the sands of Iraq, the vast majority of Americans are no doubt convinced yet again that what amounts to a coordinated fighting army is merely the product of bearded fanatics hiding in caves hating America “for its freedoms.”

Although the overwhelming majority of the American public will never look any closer than a variant of the cleverly crafted description provided above, those that do pay some modicum of attention to current events will discover that, according to the mainstream media and Western governments, the leader of ISIS is none other than Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, the alleged creator of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

However, upon further study, it is revealed that the true leader is not Baghdadi at all. Indeed, the leader is not even an Iraqi.

The commander of ISIS is none other than Saudi Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal, the brother of Prince Saud al-Faisal and Prince Turki al-Faisal.

Of course, information regarding Faisal’s control over ISIS has been known for some time, yet the Western media has conveniently neglected to report on it.

In a 2007 article published by Reuters entitled “Senior Qaeda Figure In Iraq A Myth: U.S. Military,” Dean Yates writes that a senior al-Qaeda operative informed U.S. Military interrogators that the Islamic State of Iraq was nothing more than a front for another organization and that its leader, Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi was himself a fictional person.

In fact, Brigadier General Kevin Bergner told a news conference that Baghdadi did not exist and that “he” was merely an attempt to put an Iraqi face on what was a “foreign-driven network.”


Bergner stated that “In his [Khalid al-Mashadani – the captured al-Qaeda fighter] words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al Qaeda in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq.”

Bergner further stated that Mashadani informed the U.S. Military that the fictional leader Baghdadi was played by an actor whenever his character surfaced on the Internet.

Yet, while Mashadani confessed that Baghdadi was indeed a fictional character, very little was revealed regarding the true leader of the group, at least nothing that was reported by Reuters. However, while this may lead many to believe that Mashadani and his Egyptian colleague Abu Ayyab al-Masri were the mastermind behind al-Qaeda in Iraq or the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS), the rabbit hole goes somewhat deeper.

Still, Baghdadi does apparently have some real history pointing to the fact that, at least at some point, he may have truly existed. As Voltaire Net has reported,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is an Iraqi who joined Al-Qaeda to fight against President Saddam Hussein. During the U.S. invasion, he distinguished himself by engaging in several actions against Shiites and Christians (including the taking of the Baghdad Cathedral) and by ushering in an Islamist reign of terror (he presided over an Islamic court which sentenced many Iraqis to be slaughtered in public). After the departure of Paul Bremer III, al-Baghdadi was arrested and incarcerated at Camp Bucca from 2005 to 2009. This period saw the dissolution of Al-Qaeda in Iraq[/i], whose fighters merged into a group of tribal resistance, the Islamic Emirate of Iraq.

On 16 May 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was named emir of the IEI, which was in the process of disintegration. After the departure of U.S. troops, he staged operations against the government al-Maliki, accused of being at the service of Iran. In 2013, after vowing allegiance to Al-Qaeda, he took off with his group to continue the jihad in Syria, rebaptizing it Islamic Emirate of Iraq and the Levant[/i]. In doing so, he challenged the privileges that Ayman al-Zawahiri had previously granted, on behalf of Al-Qaeda, to the Al-Nusra Front in Syria, which was originally nothing more than an extension of the IEI.
http://activistpost.net/backyardliberty.htmlOf course, all of the information above could indeed be nothing more than information dreamed up and served to a gullible public for the purposes of a propaganda narrative as well as the creation of a leader for prospective members of ISIS.

Regardless, false assumptions surrounding the true leadership of ISIS would be called into question in January of 2014 when Al-Arabiya, a Saudi-owned and operated news agency, published an article as well as a video of an interrogation of an ISIS fighter who had been captured while operating inside Syria.

When asked why ISIS was following the movement of the Free Syrian Army and who had given him the orders to do so, the fighter stated that he did not know why he was ordered to monitor the FSA’s movement but that the orders had come from Abu Faisal, also known as Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal of the Saudi Royal Family.

An excerpt from the relevant section of the interrogation reads as follows:
Interrogator: Why do you (ISIS) monitor the movement of the Free Syrian Army?

ISIS Detainee: I don’t know exactly why but we received orders from ISIS command.

Interrogator: Who among ISIS gave the orders?

ISIS Detainee: Prince Abdul Rachman al-Faisal, who is also known as Abu Faisal.
Such revelations, of course, will only be shocking news to those who have been unaware of the levels to which the Saudis have been involved with the funding, training, and directing of death squad forces deployed in Syria. Indeed, the Saudis have even openly admitted to the Russian government that they do, in fact, a number of varied terrorist organizations across the world.

Even tired mainstream media organizations such as Newsweek (aka The Daily Beast) can no longer ignore the facts surrounding the Saudis’ involvement with the organization of terrorist groups across the world.

Clearly, the American public would do well to ignore the typically peddled stories handfed to them by the American corporate media outlets. The narratives suggesting that terrorism is made up of cave-dwelling religious lunatics is not simply insufficient to explain current developments, it is inaccurate and entirely misleading.

With the close relationship held between the United States and Saudi Arabia, if the U.S. wishes to stop the spread of terrorism in Iraq, it will immediately demand that the Saudis cease funding it.

Unfortunately, however, for a number of reasons, such a request is not likely to happen.

[Paul]

The saudis and uncle sam are playing good cop bad on this. Saudis are trying to gain in iraq what they have lost in syria. Iran is too smart to fall for this charade.

[ramana]

Paul, What will happen is KSA will get whats coming to it along with its backers.

[Paul]

That could take some time to happen. As the weaker state I suspect Jordan will unravel before and the rump state of kurdistan will hurt turkey as well. All this thanks to that idiot Paul Bremmer who dismantled the entire Iraqi army.

Paradoxically Iran could provide a geographic buffer and absorb this spread. Hence for this scenario - iran is the buffer, pakistan the frontier and India is the hinterland.

[ramana]

Paul, Don't forget

"Buddhi Karma ansuram!"

[Singha]

I have a strange feeling baghdad will be abandoned and left to its fate as a open city to the mercies of the ISIS, just like the talibs staged a surprising overnight retreat from kabul to the south, so surprising some of their sleeping cadres were caught napping(literally) when the leading units of northern alliance walked in the next morning.

only the presence of the some media and red cross/red crescent "may" act as a moral compass not to indulge in a bloodbath.

normally when a army prepares for a major battle, there are lots of logistical preps, civil work, units moving around and massing in force....

its a huge area, with wide ring roads and such .... small squads of Irani Quds etc cannot be expected to make any difference in such a large city. its a place that needs 2 divisions of manpower to make an attempt at holding properly.

[UlanBatori]

So if these Sunni ISIS types find they are not happy in sunny (meaning arid) Eyerak, they can't get to the oil on account of the Kurds, they can't get to the sea on account of the Shia in Basra, well... where can they go? They are not very welcome in happy, Assad-ruled Syria, and I bet Jordan doesn't look forward to their presence, the American drones are all over the Eyerak skies with Hellfires...

The solution is obvious. Sunni Heaven. All kinds of room. Oil. Money. Holy land! Saudi Arabia!!!! I guess I better shake out my piggy bank and buy oil shares. Gold is going up too, finally.

Desert Storm in reverse. Haj a few months early.

[Paul]

As Mao said, the side that dominates the countryside at night will win the war.

[anmol]

[Singha]

there is a series of videos on youtube named aleel al-sawareem that shoes these ISIS hordes moving around the countryside in convoys of pickups bringing "true justice" to the people


here is a video(near middle of the page) that shows a squad of men randomly driving around and killing innocent shias in and around mosul per the headline
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... 0474449001

in another pic a chechen type commander checks out a american humvee he is gifted.

[Singha]

you can see a photo of a towed 155mm howitzer they have apparently captured and are towing toward baghdad.

in this pic none look iraqi - they look central asian and chechen to me



'UNBELIEVERS' MUST REPENT: ISIS IMPOSES STRICT SHARIA LAW IN CAPTURED TERRITORIES
In the swathe of seized regions across northern Iraq, ISIS has declared hardline Sharia law, publishing the following set of strict rules:
People have tried secular rule - now it is time for an Islamic state
Women should wear loose-fitting clothes and leave home only when necessary
Shrines and graves should be destroyed
Only flag allowed to be carried is the ISIS one
Places have been opened for police and soldiers of the 'unbelievers' to repent
Drugs, cigarettes or alcohol banned
Tribal leaders must not become traitors by working with the government
All Muslims to pray at the mosque at the correct time
Money we have stolen from the government is for the public. Only the imam of mosques can spend it - thieves will have their hands cut off
We are the soldiers of Islam and we have taken on the responsibility of re-establishing the caliphate
Translated by The Independent

[Singha]

As Mao said, the side that dominates the countryside at night will win the war.

+has mobility - access to vehicles, spares and fuel. with no clear frontlines, good roads and vast deserts, its going to be a war that can be won by mobile light units, perhaps armed with good intel , and air support.

ie the US army can win it as they are trained and equipped for it with air cover interop also.

the iraqi army or shia militias might have some stomach to defend their own shrines and towns but are NOT capable of this ISIS mode of warfare honed for years in syria on ksa and western funds.

I doubt the iranians are equipped for this either, and in any case have no 24x7 dynamic intel from drones and air assets on call.

unless khan chacha commits to atleast a afghan type SF + B52 + drone campaign, I am afraid Iraq is totally lost inside of 6 months.

the next to fall will be the remnant shia sultanates on the rim of the persian gulf and the KSA takeover will be complete and all land upto the turkish border as a sunni neo-TSP of sorts with KSA backing from the rear for plausible deniability.

turkey will be ok behind its powerful army and nato supply chain.

syria will have tremendous pressure as every jihadi worth his shalwar will make a beeline to kill the remnant shia regime.

iran will be under tremendous pressure and might have to wage a limited war to depopulate and create a buffer zone upto some favourable border like a river or deep canal.

I am not sure if this outcome is part of the american "plan" for the region, in which case they will do nothing now and throw the shias under the bus.

[SSridhar]

Saudi Arabia is ecstatic at the success of ISIS but they are going to be consumed by this fire too. They are foolishly confident that they could contain the upsurge if it ever touches their land just as they did in 2004-2006 timeframe. It will be a different ballgame now.

[Singha]

beiji refinery is on verge of falling. small detail of trapped soldiers still holding on to control room but rest is under black flag.
no sign or attempt at relief column.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... et-UK.html

With jihadist fighters closing in on Baghdad with such apparent ease, could they really take control of Iraq? And do they even want to?
Here, Andreas Krieg, a Middle East security analyst at King's College London in Qatar, gives MailOnline his verdict on ISIS's chances of toppling Baghdad and whether they can achieve their ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic state.

Will ISIS try to take Baghdad?
It is clear that ISIS is moving towards Baghdad so it seems they are trying to take Baghdad.
It would be unrealistic to seize Baghdad considering the concentration of Iraqi military, private armed contractors, Shi’a militias and armed neighborhood watches there.
Also, I think that the U.S. will draw a red line when it comes to Baghdad.
It depends how far ISIS is willing to go into Baghdad before they realise that it might not be worth the costs. One needs to consider as well that ISIS as a jihadist organisation also tries to spread fear and terror.

So what's the alternative?
For them, it might be sufficient to demonstrate to the population of the city that they are not safe as long as they support Maliki (the Iraqi Prime Minister).
They can do that by drawing Iraqi security forces into fierce urban combats or by using their terrorist wing to plant bombs. These tactics, however, will not bring about control of the city.
They might enter the city and bring about a stalemate, but it seems unlikely at this moment to expect Baghdad to fall.

What happens then?
In order to achieve their strategic objective of creating an actual caliphate (Islamic state), they do not need Baghdad.
It would be more sensible at this point to consolidate power and control over these areas under its responsibility.

What is a caliphate?
The idea of caliphate in their minds is quite a vague concept. All jihadi as well as many moderate Islamist organisations ultimately seek to establish a caliphate.
ISIS is the one organisation that has come the closest of actually controlling territory.
For Al Qaeda, the concept of the caliphate is a more utopian concept. This is where ISIS breaks with Al Qaeda and its own past.
They have proclaimed Al Baghdadi as the Emir of their caliphate, which now comprises large areas stretching from northern Syria to Iraq.

How will they go about establishing one?
ISIS is mostly regarded as a foreign entity as most of its fighters are not from the Levant. Most of ISIS in Iraq are not from Iraq and most of ISIS in Syria are not from Syria.
So they need to recruit mujahedeen from abroad in order to not just keep on fighting but also hold the territory and establish a governance structure.
So far, they have taken only basic public services such as collecting garbage, collecting taxes (zakat), enforcing Sharia law, replacing Imams in bigger cities with their own Imams etc.
But for the most part administering is done through coercion.
Law and order is enforced by deterrence. They have public show trials where defendants get publicly lashed or executed.
With limited forces available to administer the country, the local population could probably cause major problems if they rose up against ISIS.
ISIS control is very fragile as people only co-operate due to fear not because they want to. Just because they have seized territory from official statutory power, it does not make them a statutory power.
But they are learning and if there are able over the coming months and years to consolidate their power, they might be able to erect a quasi-regime loosely keeping all those territories together.

[Philip]

Iraq crisis: US to send in Special Forces as President Obama signals change of heart

Decision sparks controversy in America and alarm among its allies in the region as insurgency leads to rapprochement with Iran
David Usborne Thursday 19 June 2014

President Obama has announced a limited first step to put the US military back into Iraq by authorising the deployment up to 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi armed forces contain the uprising of jihadist militants that is threatening to break the country apart.

The plan, drawn up by the Pentagon, was endorsed by the President during an emergency meeting of his full national security team in the White House earlier. The advisers, likely to be made up of special forces personnel, would probably be dispersed in groups to new joint US-Iraqi operations centres in Baghdad and in the north of the country, and would be involved in training Iraqi personnel and helping to gather and analyse intelligence.

While still holding back from air strikes, Mr Obama did not rule them out as a future option. “We will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if we conclude the situation on the ground requires it,” he said. John Kerry, the Secretary of State, will consult with allies in the Middle East this weekend.

Addressing speculation about the future of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Mr Obama said “it is not our job to choose Iraq’s leaders”. But he went on: “I don’t think it is any secret that right now at least there are deep divisions between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish leaders,” in the country.

Hinting that Mr Maliki may not be the best person to heal divisions, he added that “only those who can govern inclusively” can end the upheaval. “The test is before him and other Iraqi leaders as we speak,” Mr Obama said. “The fate of Iraq is in the balance.”

Mr Obama, who came to office on a pledge to withdraw the US from Iraq – a process he completed when the last US soldiers left in 2011 – insisted that the advisers he is sending would not engage in combat. “American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq,” he said in the White House briefing room.

“We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq,” Obama told reporters. “Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by Iraqis.”

Isis militants with a captured Iraqi army vehicle at a checkpoint outside the Baiji refinery, north of Baghdad, yesterday Isis militants with a captured Iraqi army vehicle at a checkpoint outside the Baiji refinery, north of Baghdad, yesterday
Nonetheless, there will be inevitable questions asked about the risk of “mission creep” once the US re-involves itself, however limited at the outset. Even as the crisis in Iraq has burgeoned, sentiment on Capitol Hill has been running strongly against the US becoming embroiled once more in a sectarian struggle that it may or not be able to influence. It is clear that should any of these personnel find themselves fired upon they would fire back.

Officials in Washington confirmed that the US is already flying fighter jets from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf to help gather intelligence about the size and speed of the advance by rebel fighters, most of them tied to Isis, which is linked to al-Qa’ida. They also acknowledged conversations with Iran about the crisis.

Earlier, Mr Kerry said the contacts with Iran were limited in scope and would not extend to military coordination in Iraq. “We are interested in communicating with Iran,” he said. “That the Iranians know what we’re thinking, that we know what they’re thinking and there is a sharing of information so people aren’t making mistakes.”

The notion of a rapprochement between Iran and the US triggered by the Iraqi insurgency has triggered alarm bells among some of America’s traditional allies in the region, notably Saudi Arabia. The Sunni-led Kingdom considers the Shia regime in Iran as its greatest foe. In a statement, the Saudi embassy in London said Riyadh opposed “all foreign intervention and interference in the internal affairs of Iraq. Instead, we urge all the people of Iraq, whatever their religious denominations, to unite to overcome the current threats and challenges facing the country.”

Among those on Capitol Hill giving voice to worries about even a modest deployment of forces was House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi. “I think that you have to be careful sending special forces because that’s a number that has a tendency to grow. And so I’d like to see the context, purpose, timeline and all the rest for anything like that,” she said.

[Singha]

I guess US is drawing its red line at baghdad. seems happy to let the sunni areas come under the caliphate so long as prolonged series of massacres are avoided and the remnant shias allowed to move to south of country.

perhaps that way the tribal blood fueds can be contained and the baathist+ISIS combine can get their own little sandbox to rule over and plot revenge on iran, syria or whoever is the chosen kafir of the day.

this will also keep KSA ambitions under control from US Pov, because it wants a strong KSA but not too strong and independent.

probably thats least cost option for Obama to complete his term without a expensive involvement and handover the time bomb to his successor

a mix of drones and helicopter borne iraqi SF units should be able to track down and shatter a couple of large ISIS war party convoys to send a message home.

[vijaykarthik]

If Eyerak is majority Sunni, and the guvrmand came after Democratic Election approved by Yoo Ess, how is it that Maliki and his gang are Shia and have so much power? Only answer can be that he is an American puppet. I am confused. Did he refuse to grant US forces immunity in Iraq and hence fall out of favor? In Vietnam that would have called for a simple coup with a shot to the head (Diem), or a squad breaking into the Cabinet conference room with Sten guns (Burma, Ong San). Why go to all this hassle instead? I guess the CIA is like Ulysses per Alfredi Bin Tennisi:

Tho' much is taken, little abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved Cuba and Iran and Nicaragua, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of herrowic (hamburgers),
Made weak by time and fate and budget, but strong on paper
To strive, to seek, to mess up, and not to think.

Mmh, No. I think that data point is perhaps wrong. Iraq is majority Shia. About 60% (65% per wiki) is Shia. Its weird that Sad-damn was a Sunni leader and so were the concoction of the Baathists. And the Shias were foaming in their mouths against the mal-representation. Al-Maliki might be a puppet but he is an Iran approved puppet too.
Qassim Suleimani was run through all the names before he approved Al-Maliki. Of course, its a different story that he tried checking for other possible names this time around but finally had to rally around Al-Maliki. He might be a turd, but hes own turd might well be Iran's opinion... and from what I am given to understand, the US discreetly checks with Iran every time before wholesale changes are done in Iraq... at least after the latest Iraqi democracy episode. Interestingly, Al-Maliki perhaps never won the elections last time around? Well, public will never get to know about WHAT really happened in the elections.

Long story short: Its Qassim Suleimani that's the puppet master. US might have alternate opinions... but they best leave them unaddressed and pretty much allow him to run his fief.

[Anand K]

The mass shooting and beheading-happy sh1theels of the ISIS are surely be Chechen/Dagestani/ityadi Caucasus components. They used to do this a lot in the Chechen Wars and before that in the two 1991-1993 Caucasus conflicts (where they were first trained in the Defense Against Kufir Arts by..... drumrolls the ISI, who also sent in jobless veterans of the Afghan Jihad). Shamil Basayev himself beheaded a large number of people - in one particularly infamous "sitting" he personally beheaded dozens of Georgian civilians in Sukhumi stadium.

[vijaykarthik]

further thinking out aloud on a few more points:
If the ISIS had any sense, they will perhaps take a step back and THINK. Most of the regions that they have taken till date are oil rich. I need to admit that I haven't been tracking the maps too keenly. But from the limited quick glimpses, it doesn't seem as if they can do a lot with the oil that gets generated there. Will they be able to monetize the oil revenues and sell it and look at a perpetual income stream? that will be a serious qn that needs answering. If that were so; can Iraq do something to ensure that they can cut the supply lines / trade routes.

Besides, its interesting to have a quickie raid and a surge. And cities and armies can miss them. Its a totally different matter to sustain and have a hold and control. That needs people. People that ISIL currently doesn't have. they can either sustain the regions they have and hold them or take the best people for newer surges and end up losing the captured territory. Whichever way the ISIL needs to think. else, they risk petering out the AAP way.

[Dilbu]

Saudi Arabia is ecstatic at the success of ISIS but they are going to be consumed by this fire too. They are foolishly confident that they could contain the upsurge if it ever touches their land just as they did in 2004-2006 timeframe. It will be a different ballgame now.

I have a feeling this is going to hit Saudis the most. Even if it is temporarily contained these fires they have started will come home sooner than later.

[Philip]

But then the Saudis have the Paki fireworks.They'll just pay ISIS to travel east and cleanse Persia of the Shiites.Alternatively, have tea with Basher Assad!

[rohitvats]

Very detailed update for today from Orbat.Com. Gives good insight:

Iraq - We suppose the big news yesterday is that 300 US Special forces are headed to Iraq to act as “advisors” to “senior” Iraq military leaders. Fifty will be in Baghdad and they will work in their usual 12-man teams. No guesses that those outside Baghdad will be looking for bad guys and will do the Forward Air Control thing if strikes are need. We’ve used the word “suppose” because we are dubious if this means anything in the real world, as opposed to the US Power elite’s Alternate Universe.


We have our President pathetically bleating that US help is contingent on moderate Sunnis and Shias getting together. He badly needs Bo-Peep to rescue him, poor baby lamb, because where are you going to find moderate Shias and Sunnis in Iraq? There weren’t any in 1918; none in 1970 which is about when Saddam took over; none in 2003 when he was overthrown, definitely zip in 2006 when the Sunnis unleashed great violence on the Shias; and even more zip in 2013-14 when the Sunnis started attacking Shias again.

<SNIP>

· Meanwhile, little happening on the ground because everyone is preparing for the next round. Baghdad as usual is blowing smoke from the wrong orifice and destroying its already zero credilibility. According to Baghdad, the rebels have been defeated at Baiji refinery, Tel will have been cleared yesterday; Samarra is clear, rebels are gone from Diyala, the rebels have suffered stunning defeats in Anbar (where Iraq Army has been sitting on its fat tushies for more than five months doing nothing to dislodge the rebels) and an offensive against Mosul is about to begin.

· In Baiji, we have to admit the Iraqis have put up a good fight. But – there’s always a but, isn’t there – there is a catch. First, the troops are Army and also like police commandos. These form Baghdad’s Praetorian Guard. They are 100% Shia. After learning that ISIS claims it executed 1700 Iraqi troops, we’d think the last thing the troops at Baiji are about to do is accept ISIS promises of safe passage in return for laying down arms. Next, ISIS has no interest in destroying Baiji refinery. They want to seize it to run, gaining control over another asset that will bring them more cash than they already have. The defenders have nothing to lose; in fact, if they are about to be overrun, the logical thing is to blow the refinery. So let us just say ISIS is fighting under a severe handicap. The real situation on the ground is that while people are shooting each other, both sides appear to be hanging on to their sections of the refinery.

· In Baquba, ISIS first took the city, lost it to a Shia militia counterattack; took it again; lost it again; launched a third attack which is also going to fail because they’re up against militia – who are the real fighters in Shia Iraq.

· Yesterday there were reports that private security contractors from Dora refinery (Baghdad) were being heli-lifted to – get this, Tel Afar, not to Baiji where they are badly needed. This may have something with reports that ISIS is giving Baghdad helicopters a tough time. Reports also say that south of the Tigris in Baghdad Shia militias are in control, not the Army or Police divisions. No surprise, given that most of the Iraq Army seems to be ineffective. In fact, the whole thing needs to be scrapped and rebuilt.

· Guess what? It isn’t going to us who are going to rebuild the Iraq Army. Its going to be Iran’s IRGC. One of their most senior generals is already fighting inside Iraq, using an Iran-organized/funded militia that did a lot of fighting against the US. And frankly, the IRGC has done an outstanding job with Hezbollah and Assad’s forces. The Syrian Army as we knew and loved no longer exists, by the way. IRGC has scrapped it. And recall Hezb actually fought the Israelis to a standstill in Lebanon – without drones, fighter planes, tanks, self-propelled artillery etc. US Americans hate Hezb and Iran so much – Editor included – that we have not understood IRGC are top of the line in advising – and in accompanying combat forces they train. Even Editor only realized this about ten days ago. One’s prejudices can blind one, and Editor is including himself.

<SNIP>

[rohitvats]

Update from 19 June from Orbat.com - again, gives good insight into the power dynamics and who's who in this quagmire:

Iraq - Baquba is a city just to the north of Baghdad. ISIS overran it in its first rush to Mosul and then down. Once Shia militias got into the fighting, ISIS lost the city. Then it counterattacked on Tuesday, and the Shia militia repulsed them. Just a small proof of our statement that once the Shia militias started operating, that was the end of the ISIS advance. The militias will also soon take Samarra, the next important city north of Baquba, because this is the site of an important Shia mosque.

Will they go further, to Tikrit and perhaps even to Mosul? Personally, editor is dubious because the Shia prefer to operate defensively. Like the Kurds, they want to be left alone by everyone. Pushing into Sunni territory, where Shias are in a minority, is unlikely to be on their agenda.

· Meanwhile, there are reports that Iraq 1st and 7th Divisions, assigned for the protection of northern Anbar (the rest is barely populated), and which have been unable to push ISIS/allies out of Fallujah/Ramadi, have pulled closer to Baghdad for defense of the Capital. Well, Anbar is Sunni territory; the Army is certainly not going to fight for Anbar. How do we know? It hasn’t since ISIS/allies took it over in January 2014. Will the militias fight to do more than create a buffer for Baghdad? Again the question arises, why should they.

· Up in the north, ISIS/allies have done something quite stupid. They entered the Kurd city of Jalula, which is right on the border with Iraq. Kurds asked them to leave. ISIS/allies refused. So the Kurds have launched a big counteroffensive which includes artillery and armor. http://t.co/Xbr7BLWrzT

Fighting in the narrow streets of a 1000-year old city is not going to be easy, but this can end only one way, with ISIS/allies pushed out and taking casualties in a venture that is wholly irrelevant to their objection of a joint Iraq/Syria. ISIS/Allies are also taking a very big risk: the Kurds may just decide they need a buffer between themselves and Sunni Iraq, and they could push an offensive for that purpose. The area is quite mixed: Sunnis, Turkomen, Shia, Kurds and so on. Protecting the Kurds will become Kurdistan’s rationale for continuing an offensive. Kurdistan will grow, and Sunni territory will shrink. For what? Because ISIS/Allies are suffering from hubris and think they are hot poopy.

· You will notice we have saved the news about the start of the US intervention in Iraq for last. That’s because it is the least important in the order of happenings. Around-the-clock UAV and F-18/EF-18 missions off USS Bush are being flown, and the US is reestablishing its technical intelligence capabilities. The purpose behind the latter is to map the ISIS/Allied leaders causing all these problems, in preparation for offing them.

· Well, once you start mapping ISIS leaders in Iraq, it’s a short step to map them in Syria. Now, al-Maliki is calling for US air strikes, and we’re not sure why. He has no one to fight with him to recover the north, so ultimately what good are the airstrikes going to do? And US is not in the business of bombing folks to increase Maliki’s prestige in his narrow circle. Since the ISIS/Allied advance has stopped, there is no need for US bombing to stop further territory from falling into the enemy’s hands. US purposes are served by decapitating ISIS’s leadership – whacking al-Douri of Saddam fame will be icing on the cake, though it has to be admitted this wily old bird (now 70) has proved very, very elusive. Indeed, folks started thinking the US was losing it when it insisted all these years al-Douri is alive. Not only is he alive, but his militia had a lot to do with the fall of Ramadi and Fallujah, and has been working with ISIS.

· Now, just because there is no reason for the US to bomb all the way to Mosul and Tel Afar and the Syria border doesn’t mean the US won’t do it. For one thing, once the missiles and smart-bombs start flying, the US gets into its ADHD video-game-war mode and is not interested in the “Whys”. It just wants to continue till all the bad guys are wiped out. Moreover, the US is STILL insisting Iraq stay unified. Okay. If that’s what the US wants then it had better send two divisions to Saladin/Nineveh, because an air campaign by itself is not going to achieve anything except add to the confusion – see Libya 2011. And Maliki’s soldiers are absolutely not going to fight for him to recover the northern provinces. Indeed, it is not clear to us that the Iraqi Army can fight even if it wants to. Sending 3-4 divisions north means exposing Baghdad and Shia territory which has to be defended.

· But – there’s logic and there’s Washington. When it comes to a battle between the two, guess who loses. Hint: it isn’t Washington. Forget about walking and chewing gum at the same time, Washington cannot even get the wrapper off the gum.

· Re our note yesterday that Pakistani dead are being flown back to Pakistan from Syria, Colonel. Saleem Akhtar (Pakistan Army, retired) notes that many Pakistani workers and illegal immigrants to the Middle East die. Good point. We, of course, are not talking numbers. The Pakistanis are right there at the front line. Unlike the Americans, who fight from fortified bases and then behind serious armor and firepower, the Pakistanis are right up there with the insurgents. They have to be taking casualties. Editor’s point was more he never seems to know anything until its old news to the entire human and Martian races.

<SNIP>

[Singha]

so the red line is likely ISIS push on Baghdad. I am hoping some of the chechen and CAR hotheads disobey orders from above and muster up 500 'technicals', any captured towed arty and make a beeline for the northern and southern approaches to baghdad to teach a lesson to maliki and kill more shias.

I am sure the ISIS leadership would first like to consolidate gains, ethnically cleanse their entire region, wipe out pockets of resistance and make a show of establishing a state apparatus and caliphate...though who they will undertake trade and commerce with to sustain as a country remains uncertain. none of the neighbours look like they want any part of ISIS - kurds, assad, jordan, shias, iranians....they are 100% surrounded by hostile regimes. how are they even able to fly in reinforcements from all over I am not sure.

to establish a viable nation state they must have access either to the persian gulf, which means capture shia areas south of baghdad bordering iran or get hold of the syrian coastline.....they will need a clear logistical tail back to the suppliers and sponsors ... a proxy type western back govt in syria with ISIS as the puppetmaster would have been the ideal situation to get supplies under full western protection, yet play with the hounds also.

[ramana]

GD, Ombaba dithering is to allow the Sunni to over run Iraq. its Like Nehru dithering to allow Pakis to take Kashmir and let Nizam declare independent state in Deccan.

Now that Ghani is leading in Afghanistan, looks like Iran is sandwiched between SunniIraq and Sunni Af-Pak.

This is buffer for KSA.

Old 'Wells of Power' Caroe's strategy.

[Y. Kanan]

GD, Ombaba dithering is to allow the Sunni to over run Iraq. its Like Nehru dithering to allow Pakis to take Kashmir and let Nizam declare independent state in Deccan.

Now that Ghani is leading in Afghanistan, looks like Iran is sandwiched between SunniIraq and Sunni Af-Pak.

This is buffer for KSA.

Old 'Wells of Power' Caroe's strategy.

Al-Sadr and the other Shiite militia leaders won't stand for that. They've already proven brave enough to take on American firepower; I'm sure their militias are more than capable of standing up to ISIS, especiallly if they have some Iranian military support. As pointed out in of the articles above, the Iranians are really good at this sort of thing. Their support of the faltering gov't forces in Syria was decisive enough to completely halt all Sunni gains and turn things around in a series of counteroffensives.

Nobody expected that; everyone was predicting the imminent collapse of the Syrian regime back in 2011-2012 but with Iran's help they defied all the experts and won.

The only wild card is will the US attack Iranian forces so that ISIS can roll in and conduct their mass extermination of the Shia. Such a move would be morally outrageous but historically the US has never had a problem backing genocidal people (Yahya Khan 1971, anyone?). So anything's possibe at this point.

But absent open US intervention against the Iranians, I don't see how ISIS\KSA can take over the Shiite areas of Iraq.

[uddu]

Have we parked our cars silently next to Basrah fully packed with goodies if time arises. Also need to send in eagles which can fly all way to Iraq if need arises. Have some of them stay somewhere close monitor the activities from the air on a regular basis. The owls also must be ready and closeby when the need arises to scoop down for rescue friendlies and to kill rats.

[TSJones]

Top Iraqi cleric Sistani calls for new "effective" government:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-t ... aq-n136461

Part of the price to be paid, you want to save your country? Get a new government.

[uddu]

The chances of ISIS moving to Anbar province is much more. After that Jordan is within limits and then to Israel. That way they may try to get leverage and support to further spread beyond Baghdad.
If there is a collective effort, the ISIS can be destroyed starting from Syria Iraq.

[Paul]

It will be easy to topple the hashemites. The palestinians outnumber the local pop and the place is overrun with refugees from syria. Bush never thought he had a tiger by the tail. Saddam Hussein and OBL must be laughing from their graves.