Obliterating Islamic State (ISIS)

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 29 Apr 2015 07:45

Tuvaluan wrote:
Karthik S wrote: So if ISIS does attack from Paki soil, then the problem will be that we have to deal with Pak as ISIS will be operating from their territory.
If the Paki army controls pakistan, how will ISIS attack India from Paki soil without the support of the Paki army? I fail to see the basis for assuming that ISIS or any other group can operate from Paki soil and attack India without the blessing of the Paki army? All these millions of paki threads are clearly completely useless if the basic points of the threads are not making it through to BRF readers.

ISIS is not a Paki group and for this I assume it will not work with or listen to paki establishment on its operations against India.
Seriously, do you really think the paki army will sit around and have any terrorist group set a precedent of ignoring them? Come on, now. Have you really been reading the paki threads that you are actually making such statements? sheesh, man. Anyone who has followed the violent politics of these terrorist groups knows that the paki army keeps a firm grip on the family jewels of each and every terrorist group operating in Pakistan, and use violence against anyone not falling in line. This is all well known.

Tuvaluan, my point is not if ISIS will operate with the backing/assistance/ok of pak army. I am just saying that we'll be in the same position as other previous terrorist attacks where we couldn't retaliate as "State" actors weren't involved.
This is the point I made, we don't know if ISIS can be controlled by the paki army. It may most likely collaborate but not sure if paki army will use the same yard stick when it comes to ISIS.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 29 Apr 2015 07:49

Paki army is the same as ISIS, a violent armed group that has Islamic dominance goals. The ISIS got a new name and definition only because some of them are anti-west. If ISIS magically reduced itself to attacking India alone we will be back to the golden period of 1947 to 2011 when America was happy and content that Islamic terror was under control - ignoring everything that happened in India. ISIS would never be called a threat then.

India fortunately, has experience in dealing with ISIS from 1947 and we have been dealing with nuclear armed ISIS from 1986. I would be happy to see the nuclear armed ISIS turn its attention to the west.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 28 Aug 2015 19:29

Y. Kanan wrote:And by the way, comparing ISIS to LTTE is in very poor taste. That's just equal-equal nonsense; LTTE was never anything like ISIS.

UlanBatori wrote:Yes, any LTTE analogies are very misplaced, whatever one may think of the LTTE's actions.

The LTTE and ISIS differ ideologically and objectively, however, as far as their modus operandi and tradecraft are concerned, they both have some similarities, such as:

* Both LTTE and ISIS leaders strengthened their power through a cult of personality and a series of savage internal purges such as infighting and factional differences.
* Both LTTE and ISIS had initial territorial gains, rapid growth and conquests whereby holding that territory as a non-state entity - reliant solely on local support
* Both LTTE and ISIS sized and used equipment, weapons and ammunitions from increasingly clobbering and disorganized local armies with whom they fought
* Both LTTE and ISIS set up and administered some formidable revenue resources largely form inside and outside sourcing via a de facto state
* Both LTTE and ISIS attracted and recruited women and children as part of their army
* Both LTTE and ISIS eventually became a threat to regional and global security.....

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 28 Aug 2015 19:49

Tuan wrote:
* Both LTTE and ISIS leaders strengthened their power through a cult of personality and a series of savage internal purges such as infighting and factional differences.
* Both LTTE and ISIS had initial territorial gains, rapid growth and conquests whereby holding that territory as a non-state entity - reliant solely on local support
* Both LTTE and ISIS sized and used equipment, weapons and ammunitions from increasingly clobbering and disorganized local armies with whom they fought
* Both LTTE and ISIS set up and administered some formidable revenue resources largely form inside and outside sourcing via a de facto state
* Both LTTE and ISIS attracted and recruited women and children as part of their army
* Both LTTE and ISIS eventually became a threat to regional and global security.....

You've again started with this psy-ops ****, not to mention that some of the above points are false hoods.

"weapons and ammunitions from increasingly clobbering and disorganized local armies with whom they fought" -- in the last decade of its existence, LTTE *bought* its weapons from the international market from donations made by SL Tamil expats -- it did not steal weapons from the SL army, and even if they did, it was because they had the opportunity to take it.

Here are some crucial differences that you seem to be avoiding -- these differences are more important and obvious than the "similarities" you are spelling out.

1. LTTE never operated or created terror outside of Sri Lanka, unlike islamic state.
2. LTTE never recruited cadres who were not of sri lankan tamil origin, not recruit people from all countries, like ISIS is doing.
3. LTTE was funded by sri lankan tamil expatriates and refugees, not by theocracies as ISIS is.
4. LTTE did not take over any country -- they were fighting for civil rights for tamils and when sinhala bigots refused, they started fighting for a separate country.
5. LTTE was not motivated by religious literature or theocratic ideals unlike ISIS
6. LTTE never claimed that its goal was to take over territory belonging to other countries and overthrow their governments unlike ISIS -- LTTE wanted a separate state so that they would not have to live as second-hand citizens in Sri Lanka, like they are now.

I could go on, but will stop here. You are definitely not a SL Tamilian like you are claiming -- that much is clear. You are likely some Sinhala expat.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 28 Aug 2015 20:02

You're wrong Tuvaluan.... I have to respectfully disagree with you because if you look deeply into LTTE international operations and Google The Tiger International inc, you shall find out how LTTE had recruited even westerners to do their dirty jobs and spanned as wide as Australia to Canada.

It is all outdated but here is one such paper published by the Canadian secret service:
http://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/com77e.htm

Another one from Asiaweek
http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol/tiger%2 ... tional.htm

p/s: please don't bring about my nationality into this as it is irrelevant to this discussion.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 28 Aug 2015 20:33

Tuan wrote: p/s: please don't bring about my nationality into this as it is irrelevant to this discussion.

It is very relevant -- you are spewing a lot of nonsense under the pretense you are a tamilian so that people will not call you out as someone with an agenda, since a Tamilian would not have a reason to speak against the LTTE, right?

Also, Because as I just pointed out, your entire comparison of LTTE to ISIS is utterly bogus since they are not unique to ISIS or LTTE -- there were even larger differences that I pointed out with respect to motivation, funding and recruiting that proves LTTE was nothing like ISIS.

As for your "references", let us start with AsiaWeek:

rawing on the loyalties and resources of members of a global Tamil diaspora, the network -- call it LTTE International Inc. -- links commercial companies and small businesses, informal banking channels, a fleet of ships, political offices, aid and human rights organizations, arms dealers and foreign mercenaries.

LTTE recruited foreign mercenaries, who were in it for the money -- ISIS is drawing in motivated believers of an Islamic Caliphate that rules the planet. If you cannot tell the difference between the two....

Coming to your paper from the CSS -- I do not see any mention of foreign recruits at all. Perhaps you should point out to the exact sentences in these articles that buttress your point because a preliminarty keyword search reveals that there is nothing there to support your view that LTTE recruited foreign citizens who were not mercenaries to fight for the SL tamil cause

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 28 Aug 2015 20:49

Please note that I did mention that the LTTE and ISIS differ ideologically and objectively; that should have explained to you that it doesn't matter by which means one entity/organization draws or indoctrinate or radicalize its recruits. Point here is that, LTTE was/is by large international, contrary to your claim that it is local.

http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries ... s/LTTE.HTM

Apart from the military operations which the LTTE conducted in the North-eastern parts of the country against Government forces and the highly successful suicide killings operations in other parts of the country, a major aspect of the LTTE’s operations was its publicity, fund-raising and military procurement strategies.

The LTTE is still believed to have a wide network of publicity and propaganda activities with offices and cells located in at least 54 countries. The largest and most important centres were located in leading western states with large Tamil expatriate communities, most notably the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada and Australia. In addition to these States, the LTTE is also known to be represented in countries as far-flung as Cambodia, Burma, South Africa and Botswana. It’s publicity networks covering Europe, Australia and North America also included radio and TV satellites.

Apart from publicity, another important aspect of LTTE’s strategy is fundraising. The majority of financial support comes from six main areas, all of which contain large Tamil Diasporas: Switzerland, Canada, Australia, the UK, the US, and the Scandinavian countries. The LTTE has established a wide network of offices and cells practically across the globe. They have secured a considerable degree of visibility in the United Kingdom – the headquarters of its "International Secretariat" – as well as in Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia and South Africa. These networks of offices and cells carry out propaganda, organise the procurement and movement of weapons and raise funds from the Tamil Diaspora.

There also have been reports that the LTTE raises money through drug running, particularly heroin from Southeast and Southwest Asia. The LTTE is in a particularly advantageous position to traffic narcotics due to the highly efficient international network it has developed to smuggle munitions around the world. Many of these arms routes pass either directly through or very close to major drug producing and transit centres, including Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, southern China, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Military and arms procurement played a vital part in the LTTE’s battle against the Government sources. The LTTE arms network was headed by Kumaran Pathmanathan colloquially known as "KP." At the heart of the KP’s operations was a highly secretive shipping network. The ships frequently visit Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa, Burma, Turkey, France, Italy and Ukraine, scouting for arms. In addition to setting up a number of lucrative businesses, the LTTE established a state-of-the-art boatyard that manufactured a dozen different boats, including a mini-submarine for debussing divers.

Tuvaluan wrote:It is very relevant -- you are spewing a lot of nonsense under the pretense you are a tamilian so that people will not call you out as someone with an agenda, since a Tamilian would not have a reason to speak against the LTTE, right?

You must be living in a cave! Many SL Tamilians wrote books condemning the LTTE!

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 28 Aug 2015 21:43

Tuan wrote: Please note that I did mention that the LTTE and ISIS differ ideologically and objectively; that should have explained to you that it doesn't matter by which means one entity/organization draws or indoctrinate or radicalize its recruits. Point here is that, LTTE was/is by large international, contrary to your claim that it is local.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? LTTE collected funds internationally from SL Tamil expats as I already mentioned. Pardon the yelling but LTTE DID NOT RECRUIT CITIZENS OF OTHER COUNTRIES WITHOUT A SL TAMIL BACKGROUND AS VOLUNTEERS. That is a very important difference even if you want to pretend it is not.

You must be living in a cave! Many SL Tamilians wrote books condemning the LTTE!

Condemning the LTTE is all fine as long as it is not based on BS like you are doing, and done in another place outside of this thread, where it is OT. You pointed to two links as "proof" that LTTE recruited volunteers internationally, and when it was pointed out that mercenaries don't count, now you have switched goalposts and started pretending that your actual point was that LTTE had an international network, which was never in question in the first place. The question is about the composition of the cadre.

ISIS recruits british, american, Indian, saudi, etc. citizens who were born and raised in those respective countries -- LTTE never did anything of that sort, anyone who was a foreign citizen got that status by virtue of being a Srilankan Tamil refugee.

You cannot just BS your way through such important differences without being called out on it.

Not to mention you are WAY off topic -- this is the ISIS thread, not the LTTE thread, so please stop this LTTE focus and get back to ISIS.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 28 Aug 2015 22:15

I think you have overlooked the obvious though, in the research world it is said there are no wrong answers in research because all results improve your understanding of the situation.

The same is true here in that even in disagreement you can learn something even is what doesn't work.

Besides doesn't a debate require two opposing points of view.

Enough said, I have to call it off since there is no point in arguing with someone who has no clue of netiquette....

Oh no.... you edited out the big bold fonts aha

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 28 Aug 2015 23:07

Tuan wrote: I think you have overlooked the obvious though, in the research world it is said there are no wrong answers in research because all results improve your understanding of the situation.

"There are no wrong answers" eh? I guess facts are just silly things meant to fill up pages in a book. Comparisons need to be legitimate if you don't want to make conclusions from your premises --- if you start with a set of bad premises, everything you conclude is questionable by definition.

Besides doesn't a debate require two opposing points of view.

Enough said, I have to call it off since there is no point in arguing with someone who has no clue of netiquette....

Opposing views need to be grounded in verifiable facts -- so far you have not been able to back up your claim that LTTE recruited women and children from different nationalities like ISIS...but hey, let's just pretend that netiquette is more important than backing up your claims with proof.

Yes, I unbolded as that seemed too much of a scream. Glad it causes you mirth.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 29 Aug 2015 03:39

Tuvaluan wrote:Are you being deliberately obtuse? LTTE collected funds internationally from SL Tamil expats as I already mentioned. Pardon the yelling but LTTE DID NOT RECRUIT CITIZENS OF OTHER COUNTRIES WITHOUT A SL TAMIL BACKGROUND AS VOLUNTEERS. That is a very important difference even if you want to pretend it is not.

Tuvaluan wrote:Opposing views need to be grounded in verifiable facts -- so far you have not been able to back up your claim that LTTE recruited women and children from different nationalities like ISIS

Oh geez, that's a tough one - Adele? a well known LTTE female cadre from Australia; you'd say there's only one such instance, however, there might as well be many unknown ones....

India and Sri Lanka must seek war crimes against Adele Balasingham, for fostering LTTE suicide terrorism
http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=Ind ... 0121231_04

Whatever arguments given for the LTTE to exist or prevail, Adele Balasingham though spouse of the LTTE's theoretician was a nurse by profession, a woman from the West taking pride in training young girls as young as 10years to kill. She proudly hands the only piece of jewelry these LTTE women are likely to ever wear - a tag on wrist, neck and waist for identification purposes. Their only hairstyle is two plaits and the only songs these girls would ever sing were hosanahs of Prabakaran. Jump forward to post-conflict these rehabilitated LTTE females are now seen on the catwalk modeling fashion whilst some have taken up hairdressing and beauty culture. It is not difficult to understand what LTTE and Adele has denied these young females.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... qbj8PHTtHY#!

Adele was responsible for training, arming and tying a vile of cyanide around the necks of these innocent children. Orders were simple - if captured commit suicide by taking the cyanide. Terrorists giving such orders is excusable but a Western woman and a nurse at that is nothing compared to her parents being proud of their daughter training child soldiers. The UK authorities appear unconcerned about a war criminal living happily in Surrey after training thousands of young girls to their deaths. Of course, UK authorities have done little over the years to really clamp down on LTTE terrorism and one wonders why it would even allow its capital to be used as the international head quarters of the LTTE despite LTTE being banned in the UK. Why ban an entity as a terrorist organization if UK allows it to hold demonstrations, collect funds, influence its politicians, have them speak on LTTE stages....strange in deed.

The tragedy is that Adele and the LTTE were responsible for turning probably talented individuals into killers. Many of whom have committed suicide on the orders given. None of these Black Tigers had any evidence of psychological disorder nor were they mentally imbalanced. Therefore the accountability for denying them their youth falls at the feet of LTTE and Adele. Contrary to the promoted norm of self-sacrifice is the reality that these women suffered from peer pressure, social stigma and fear - this is what made the suicide service possible. A third of the LTTE comprised women and it is believed 6000 of them died in combat and Adele Balasingham is diretly culpa able for their deaths and the parents of these young girls should take legal action. LTTE has killed over 250 Tamil half of which have been killed during ceasefires. It has recruited close to 5000 Tamil children most of whom are from low-income, low caste families which is why not too many Tamils abroad or those living in Sri Lanka's south or Tamil politicians have cared to denounce recruitment of child combatants ever.

The LTTE's female military unit was headed by Adele Balasingham she christened them "Freedom Birds" - with no worries economically, socially, or politically, all these girls were focused towards was to kill. If these cadres had freedom why would there be any need to keep them under tight surveillance and accompany them even to the washroom and be severely punished for wanting to leave? The "freedom" LTTE has given Tamil women and in fact all of its cadres is by breaking their will to think, their ability analyze right from wrong and hypnotized them into killer machines. Once their natural thinking abilities have been broken it is easy for any group to have its followers function as zombies and remote controlled. The trust these young girls had placed in Adele was such that she was even refered to as "Aunty" - what aunty would lead children as young as 10 to their deaths?

Where is the "freedom" when anyone attempting to leave faces summary execution? When there are enough of men who desert the army, there are hardly a handful of surviving LTTErs who have managed to successfully flee the LTTE! Given the argument that these females or males for that matter have self- sacrificed their lives to free Tamils from the Sinhalese - the all important question is why are there no suicide attempts after the demise of the LTTE especially since there is a big hue and cry over "militarization" of the North? This categorically proves that Tamil women were misled to their deaths by a program enticing them to kill and be killed spearheaded by the LTTE and facilitated by Adele Balasingham. It is clear that LTTE suicide killers never functioned in a vacuum and as Simone de Beauvoir aptly says suicide bombers are not born they are made.

Proof of Adele Balasingham being a LTTE key member is given in the Norwegian Government website (SL) where she is a member of the LTTE delegation during the 2002 round the world peace talk sessions held in Thailand (3 sessions), Oslo, Germany and Japan.

http://www.norway.lk/Embassy/Peace-Process/peace/

If suicide bombers are made its relevance to terrorism is not far behind. Given the inaction of global authorities towards eliminating terrorism it is for us to accept that terrorism is today nothing but an international political tool used to manipulate and influence Governments. In Asia, terrorism is being used to Balkanize Asia. With LTTE's track record of assassinating 2 political leaders, the significance of Sri Lanka's President telling India that Sri Lanka saved India by eliminating the LTTE is something that carries a weight of meaning. It is in this backdrop that India needs to shower more gratitude than it currently does and a good start may be is for India to insist from UK Government for action against Adele Balasingham for war crimes.

The calls for action against Adele Balasingham comes in the need to depart from thinking of terrorism or rather suicide terrorism along the lines of theoretical, ideological and political perspectives only.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 29 Aug 2015 06:15

Tuan wrote: Oh geez, that's a tough one - Adele? a well known LTTE female cadre from Australia; you'd say there's only one such instance, however, there might as well be many unknown ones....

So "Balakrishnan" is a genuwine australian name is it? No chance she is related to a sri lankan tamil, eh? So, even this pathetic attempt to "prove" that LTTE is like ISIS is a bit sorry, like your earlier attempts. "There may be many unknown adeles" is quite a classic, must admit. In some other thread people were talking about inductive and deductive reason -- that is actually a false classification. The bottomline in both types of thinking is to ensure that your premises are as close to reality as possible, if you are going to let the conclusions affect your reasoning.

ISIS's goal allegedly is to raise a caliphate, based on some bogus notion of creating a fortress of Islam, much like Pakistan -- any connection to the genuine aspirations of SL Tamils asking for nothing more than to be treated as equals in their home country Sri Lanka is purely superficial, if we look at the motivations for terrorism as a key differentiator.

The strongest statement that you can make comparing LTTE and ISIS is that

1) terrorist groups collect money from as many sources as possible, across countries
2) they motivate as many people as they can based on some core idea, as in freedom for SL tamils from Sinhala bigotry that is codified in the SL constitution or Islamo-fascist ideas in the Quran.
3) Age and Sex are not barriers when it comes to recruitment

The larger point is that all of these points apply to the Kurds, the syrian rebels too, so all you have done so far is prove that LTTE was a terrorist group. Since your research has made this fantastic discovery, I suggest something far more in line with this calibre of thinking. I think you should work on "the sun rises in the east in some parts of the world" as your next project -- that seems to me like a smooth transition from your current groundbreaking research that has proven that the LTTE is a terrorist group. Congratulations on your sincere efforts, and I mean all this very sincerely.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 29 Aug 2015 08:26

JE Menon wrote:<<So if the international community wants to get rid of ISIS, hypothetically speaking, they have to get rid of the head region of ISIS, the “cephalothorax” of the spider, instead of fighting with its eight legs.>>

Tuan, the trouble seems to be locating the head, and to figure out why it's doing what it is doing... Rest assured that to the extent that ISIS is fighting India, India is taking the fight to it....

Menon ji, good question indeed! Let’s look at the Canadian approach in responding to ISIS threat. This summer the Canadian Prime Minister Harper was proposing to the parliament to extend and expand Canada’s military mission one more year particularly targeting Syria. However the opposition parties, both New Democrats and Liberals, are opposing this and suggesting that Canada should involve in humanitarian missions, such as helping to solve the refugee crisis and other aid work in Iraq and Syria.

IMHO, the opposition parties’ idea does have a long term strategic advantage and we could benefit from it down the road. First we have to isolate the insurgents/terrorists from the general populace. Let the refugees come out and settle them in other countries thereby showcasing the soft power of Canada/NATO rather than PM Harper’s hard power strategy which is bombing Iraq and Syria. By weeding the insurgents out of legitimate refugees, we can eventually apply Mao Tse Tung’s theory that “insurgents are like fish in an ocean of people”. By separating the “ocean” of general populace from the insurgent “fish” we will be able to determine the survival of the enemy insurgents/terrorists.

Then there is a question of how should one separate the ocean of population from the insurgent fish?

Well, if we're able to win the hearts and minds of the general populace they will do the job for you, which is the core strategy of COIN doctrine. Yes, we have to win the hearts and minds of the people. That’s where a great nation’s soft power plays its part. As I've already mentioned here in BRF, hard power is vital in order to safe guard a nation’s interest, however, when we confront an enemy of different faces we have to explore other options and tools to combat them by the means of non-military strategies. An ideology has to be fought with another set of ideologies, rather than by swords and guns; may it be a religious ideology, ethno-nationalist ideology or secessionist ideology.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 29 Aug 2015 18:12

As long as there is state support to ISIS (and Turkey, KSA among others are known to provide state support), any military campaign is a recipe to waste soldiers and money -- Afghanisthan is a prime example of it. The US with all its military forces, was basically forced to give up without achieving much, after a decade of wasting lives and money.

Given how ISIS recruits foreigners, the safest route to not allowing ISIS to exfiltrate to other nations under the guise of refugees, is to not allow refugees from ISIS related states. It is resettling such people in France, Sweden etc. that has created a local islamist populace that provides footsoldiers for ISIS. Resettling people under the guise of exhibiting soft power seems rather silly.

How is using "Hard power" going to safeguard Canada in this case? Rather iffy proposition at the very basis of it. ISIS is not actively working against Canada's interests, so It is not Canada's problem and there is no case to be made about fighting ISIS as a national interest for Canada. OTOH, maybe Canada and NATO should allow more ISIS cadres to infiltrate into their territories, and India can then ask those governments to resolve their issues by talking to the ISIS cadre down the line. I can already feel that thought envelop me with the warmth of schadenfreude.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 29 Aug 2015 19:29

Tuvaluan wrote:Given how ISIS recruits foreigners, the safest route to not allowing ISIS to exfiltrate to other nations under the guise of refugees, is to not allow refugees from ISIS related states. It is resettling such people in France, Sweden etc. that has created a local islamist populace that provides footsoldiers for ISIS.

Good point! Since it is Middle Eastern crisis the solution should be confined within Middle Eastern region. Migrants should be resettled in countries such as Turkey, Jordan or Egypt not Europe, given the ongoing migrant influx in the region.

To deny access by would-be jihadists to infiltrate/exfiltrate other countries disguised as refugees, we can set up buffer zones.

This is how they do it:

Will a Turkish border deal block IS recruits?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34060925

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 30 Aug 2015 19:06

Turkey is the biggest funder and supporter of ISIS to date, and Turkey commits ethnic cleansing of the Kurds under the guise of fighting ISIS - all of this was clear from the reports on various threads here. BBC's "news" is not worth the bytes it consumes on your hard drive.

the ISIS was deliberately allowed to become powerful during Obama's watch with the US's support. This was stated by no less a person that high ranking DIA officer in the US govt -- posted in one of the threads. Best not to quote any BS from western press like the British BS corporation on the ISIS (or ISI for that matter) if you want avoid spewing nonsense.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 01 Sep 2015 22:41

'Killing me softly with his song': Twitter account mocks ISIS jihadists by imagining enraged militants are singing karaoke classics in series of hilarious tweets

* New Twitter account shows how militants would look singing pop songs
* ISIS Karaoke captions images of the extremists with Western music lyrics
* The hilarious satire has amassed 35,000 followers in just a few weeks
* It depicts jihadis singing Destiny's Child, Katy Perry and the Beastie Boys

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 01 Sep 2015 23:53

Biography of ISIS leader by William McCants

The Believer

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 14 Sep 2015 18:14

Tuvaluan wrote:Also, Because as I just pointed out, your entire comparison of LTTE to ISIS is utterly bogus since they are not unique to ISIS or LTTE -- there were even larger differences that I pointed out with respect to motivation, funding and recruiting that proves LTTE was nothing like ISIS.

Tuvaluan, i thought you may find it amusing.

Where In-fighting generates Fervour & Power: ISIS Today, LTTE yesterday

“Division and in-fighting will sap and weaken any organisation or ideological current.” This formulation (mine) may seem a common-sense dictum.

Let me challenge this notion with another dictum: “fratricidal militant fission sparks dedication, skill and organisational power.” The recent, explosive expansion in Syria and Iraq of Sunni militants under the banner of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) can be placed alongside the rise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) among Tamil militants in the 1970s-to-90s as potential illustrations of a thesis that undermines common-sense notions. In the LTTE case too one could say that “success breeds legitimacy” as Mendelsohn argues for ISIS in clarifying how that organisation’s military might and its capture of swathes of territory in recent months enabled it to supplant such Al-Qaeda branches as Jabhat al-Nusra (2014a).

ISIS or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham

I have no expertise in Middle-Eastern and Arabic politics so my conjectures here are based on news items and their thin foundations. Though the present struggle between different Islamic forces in Iraq and its borders has been presented as a sectarian struggle involving Sunni forces challenging the authority of a state led by Shia elements, one gathers that ISIS developed out of power struggles among the Sunni peoples and their Al-Qaida branches in specific regions of Syria and Iraq.

Antony Loyd’s account certainly indicates such a process. The ISIS commander is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose real name is Ibrahim al-Badri. He is said to have “cemented his power through a cult of personality and a series of savage internal purges.” This path was consolidated by a parallel process: “the core organisational structure of ISIS” was shaped by another man, Haji Bakr, who had “gained the trust of the notoriously paranoid al-Baghdadi and was given command of ISIS’s all-Iraqi military council” (Loyd 2014).

Haji Bakr (alias Samir Abd Mouhammad al-Khleifawi) has not lived to witness the fruits of his work. He “died in a shoot-out alongside his gun-toting Iraqi wife after their house was surrounded by local Syrian rebels as fighting between ISIS and its erstwhile allies raged.” Significantly, Haji Bakr had previously been a Colonel in Saddam Hussein’s army and been arrested and held by the Americans at Camp Bucca “where four of the six current most senior ISIS figures, including al-Baghdadi, were also incarcerated.” It was, argues Loyd, “in the shadows of the watchtowers of the US prison [that] “the nexus between Saddam’s henchmen and Islamic extremists began.”

They were in prison, presumably, as subjects of US-Iraqi justice. This justice did not extend to execution by extra-judicial or judicial processes. But the bare bones of this story suggest that their experiences and discussions in prison promoted their present path of extremist vengeance.[ii]Speculatively, I suggest that their dedication to the jihadist project was deepened by this experience at the same time that their bonds and trust in one another were consolidated. Camaraderie is not only a vital ingredient in spurring the success of sporting teams. It is an essential force for the killing machines we call “regiments.” This is particularly so where camaraderie and esprit de corps secures discipline … and discipline that is ruthlessly enforced. These capacities seem to have been augmented by intelligent propaganda and the use of social media that has been aided by the labyrinthine world of international diplomacy (Sepahpour-Ulrich 2014).

The fervour forged within the ISIS corps seems to have even brought them into conflict with Al-Qaida elements in their part of the world. Fervour has been matched by brutal ferocity in combating and eliminating those Sunni militants that stood in their path. The present military successes of ISIS, it seems, stem in part from its organisational capacities and the uncompromising severity with which it deals with other militants and opponents in its chosen path. Its conquering success has been such that on 30 June 2014 it announced that it had established a “caliphate” — thus resurrecting an image of time-honoured Islamic Ottoman power in an iconic style that could garner strands of support in many parts of the Islamic world.

Having argued that in-fighting among the radical Sunnis has paradoxically strengthened the capacities of the section, namely, ISIS, that emerged dominant, let me immediately hedge my thesis. The rise of a powerful political force invariably calls for a multi-factorial analysis and can rarely be attributed to one factor. So my surmise that fratricidal conflict among radical Sunni jihadists honed ISIS into a powerful, skillful and ruthless fighting force must be carefully linked to other contextual factors in surveying the picture of its rise over time with due attention to contingencies that may have kicked in from moment to moment. Clearly, the looming presence of Israel, viewed by Islamic peoples as a cancer in the Middle East on the one hand, and, on the other hand, their readings of the American war against Saddam and US policy in general on the other, have provided central contextual influences in this process, Addressing this set of issues calls for analytical work from a regional specialist who can, then, weigh my speculative argument as one aspect of a wider study.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

ISIS today is not an isolated instance where internal fission has generated power and revolutionary strength. The movement for Tamil liberation in Sri Lanka during the 1970s and 1980s was also featured by fratricidal splintering and tussle among the several militant organisations. Their competition with one another sustained extremism as well as a depth of commitment to the creation of a separate Tamil state. Eventually, by the late 1980s, the LTTE led by Velupillai Pirapāharan emerged as the dominant force by ruthlessly decimating or suffocating the other armed militant organisations.

The Sri Lankan Tamil emphasis on self-determination emerged early — in 1949-51 when the Federal Party was formed. Only now is it becoming evident that the demands of the middle class gentlemen who espoused this cause had threads of extremism and a maximalist orientation that did not bode well for political compromise. [iii] However, one must also emphasise the standard thesis: the explosive emergence of Sinhala linguistic nationalism in the 1950s and the massive electoral triumph of this current under the cry of “Sinhala Only” at the General Elections of 1956 frightened and angered many Tamils. These set off set the process which sharpened the Sinhala-Tamil division, a process that has been well-documented.[iv]The Federal Party quickly became the dominant force among the Sri Lankan Tamil people in the north and east as well as in metropolitan Colombo — with such rhetoricians as EMV Naganathan and V. Navaratnam matching the Sinhala extremists (KMP Rajaratne, IMRA Iriyagolle for instance) in volatile speech (Roberts 2014b: 4-5).

As the job opportunities and considerable privileges held by the Tamils were reduced by the processes associated with the “1956 revolution” during the course of the 1960s (Roberts 1988: 43-46; Samaraweera 1974), the new generational cohorts of Tamil political activists flirted with militant and revolutionary thoughts. The youth wing of the Federal Party was one repository of such firebrand thinking; but there were several other mushroom associations that appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[v]

Curtailing a complicated story that has yet to find its Namier,[vi]the mid-late 1970s witnessed the presence of several militant underground organisations that were convinced that the ‘unjust hegemony of the Sinhalese’ would never be secured through the parliamentary process and were therefore preparing to challenge the existing order by revolutionary methods of the sort associated with Che Guevera, the JVP and the Naxalites, albeit in search of the liberation goal of statehood secured by Bangladesh in 1971. By then the Federal Party itself had lost faith in the existing order and had morphed into the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF). Aware of the radical currents among the SL Tamil youth in the Jaffna Peninsula as well as those abroad, the TULF adopted the Vaddukoddai Resolution on 14 May 1976 whereby it committed itself to the goal of “Thamilīlam” as independent state. This moment marks the transformation of Tamil sectional nationalism into a separatist nationalism seeking statehood.[vii]

At this point in 1976 the new militant organisations and the TULF were potentially opposed to each other; but there was no open split. On the contrary, some of the youthful militants are known to have sustained links and conversations with Amirthalingam and other leaders of the TULF — not surprisingly given the fact that some of them had emerged from the youth wing of the Federal Party as the latter was constituted in the 1960s.[viii] At this stage the sharpest hostility of the militants was directed at Tamil politicians in the government camp and police officers and others seen as threats to their cause. Indeed, a number of these men were assassinated in the period 1975 to 1981. Though the process of disenchantment with their moderate Tamil leaders had been in gestation for some time, one can say that the militants’ total disenchantment with these men occurred after the arson attack on the Public Library in Jaffna town by state functionaries in mid-1981.

At this stage, that is from 1976 to 1981 and thereabouts, there were several militant organisations: with TELO, PLOTE, LTTE and EROS as the most prominent. The Marxist-inspired EROS had its main engines in London — a breeding ground for Third World revolutionary ferment and a locale where Leftist activists from all nationalities as well as Palestinian and Arab militants stimulated each other. There was occasional and fitful cooperation between these different Tamil militants — in Britain, in Tamilnadu and within Sri Lanka. A major split within EROS resulted in the formation of EPRLF under K. Padmanaba in 1980. Rivalry among the groups was latent and occasionally flared into the open, one instance being when Pirapāharan and Uma Maheswaran (now a PLOTE leader[ix]) shot at each other on the streets of Chennai on 19th May 1982.

The horrendous pogrom directed against Tamils living in the Sinhala-majority regions in late July 1983 not only turned Sri Lanka into a pariah state in international eyes, but also generated massive support for violent military resistance among the SL Tamil peoples everywhere. In the north and east of Sri Lanka recruits to the militant organisations multiplied thousandfold and Tamil youth streamed across to India where the Tamilnadu government as well as central government agencies set up military training camps. It seems that each militant group had its own training camps — usually with Indian aid. TELO was perhaps the strongest in 1983/84, perhaps because it was the most favoured by the Indian central government.

By twisting their arms the Indian government assembled these group leaders, the TULF and a Sri Lankan delegation at talks overseen by India at the ‘neutral’ venue Thimpu in July 1985. No political compromise or modus vivendi was worked out. The militant Tamil groups returned to their guerrilla warfare in the north and east, while the TULF leaders returned to their havens in Colombo and Madras (since they were persona non grata in the Jaffna Peninsula and the north).

Though facing a common enemy, namely the government of Sri Lanka and its armed forces, the incipient competition among the militant organisations soon broke open. In April-May 1986 the LTTE forces raided the TELO camps within the Jaffna Peninsula and gunned down about 400 cadres including the leader Sri Sabāratnam.[x]

Though EROS maintained a presence within the Peninsula after this landmark moment, the other militant organisations were forced to leave the Tamil resistance in the north in LTTE hands and shifted their cells to Tamilnadu or elsewhere in Sri Lanka.[xi] The EROS cadre were eventually absorbed by the LTTE or drifted into the wilderness. When the Central Committee of EPRLF assembled at their HQ in Chennai on the 19th June 1990 a Tiger commando group raided the house and shot every one of them, 14 all told inclusive of K. Padmanabha, the leader.[xii]

In short, the LTTE had now in 1990/91 secured near-total control of the resistance struggle, one that was already in its hands from the late 1980s by virtue of (1) the admiration which its personnel had secured among the Tamil people for their embodiment of uyirayutham (dedication of life for cause[xiii]) in the kuppi (cyanide capsule) carried by them at all times;[xiv](2) the fact that a significant segment of the personnel who directed the LTTE was drawn from the Karaiyar caste community[xv] and that a core element, including Pirapāharan, came from the smuggling haven of Velvettithurai (VVT in short); (3) Pirapāharan’s strategic vision in seeing the importance of sea power[xvi]in circumstances were the Karaiyar seafaring experience enabled the LTTE to bring this vision into fruition; (4) the success they revealed in stymying the might of the IPKF between October 1987 and late 1989; (5) the emphasis which Pirapāharan and his directorate attached to propaganda, up-to-date communication equipment and “scenario planning,”[xvii]and (6) their assassination of a whole array of moderate Tamil politicians (SATP n. d.).

Pirapāharan is said to have been an avid student of military treatises, either in Tamil translation or via intermediary conversations. These included Clausewitz and Sun Tzu and the works on Che Guevera. Two of the surviving cadre in the early years of clandestine LTTE preparations also affirm that Pirapāharan admired Adolph Hitler and even had a Tamil version of Mein Kampf in his stock of books (Ragavan 2009b & Iyer 2012b).

Nazi ideology was not the attraction. Rather I surmise that he was drawn to Hitler’s charismatic domination of the German dispensation and that he (wrongly) attributed the success of the German Army (Wehrmacht) in World War Two to Hitler. In particular he seems to have been attracted by the discipline, rapid movement and blitzkrieg strikes of the German military machine. When organising the rudimentary training for the small band of recruits within the incipient LTTE in the Vanni jungles during the early 1970s he argued that “the discipline and firmness” displayed by Hitler’s army was the model to follow and insisted that he, as commander, should receive a salute informed by that of the Nazis.[xviii] This was one sign of his conviction that an unified command was critical for the Tamil cause — a lesson he also derived from his reading of the history of the kingdoms of southern India in medieval times (Roberts 2014b: 19-20).

A standard policy in infantry warfare is for an army’s snipers to target officers on the enemy side of any battlefront. Pirapāharan went a step higher: he targeted the generals and presidents ranged against the Tamil cause. The LTTE consistently killed leading personalities in all the parties deemed to be obstacles in the path of Tamililam under the flag of the LTTE.[xix]This line of ruthless politics was so frequent and so successful that one can say that it was not merely a tactic, but a course developed to the level of strategy.

As strategy it was underpinned by remarkable long term planning guided by and aligned with contextual developments in the enemy camp. The right-wing UNP Presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake was eliminated on 24th October 1994 several weeks prior to the general elections in the south so that Chandrika Kumaratunga and her SLFP party could come to power. Later, Lakshman Kadirgamar, a thorn in the flesh for the LTTE in international affairs, was eliminated on 12th August 2005 during the lead up to the Presidential Elections where the LTTE favoured the victory of Mahinda Rajapaksa as President (because a hawkish Sri Lankan government suited their long-term hopes), but did not wish to have a capable man in the Rajapaksa party as either Prime Minister or Foreign Minister.[xx]

The most striking example of long-term planning by Pirapāharan and his confidantes, however, is the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The decision (deemed an error, later in retrospect, by no less a person than Anton Balasingham) was taken in the interests of the LTTE’s ultimate goal. But it was probably laced with motives of vengeance. In this my speculation, it was an act of retribution for the airs of superiority adopted by Rajiv Gandhi in July 1987 during the face to face meeting at Delhi where (the polished, tall, debonair) Gandhi pushed the (rustic, short) LTTE leader into accepting an Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka. That memory was accentuated when the relationship between the LTTE and IPKF soured and they went to war: the Tigers lost 632 fighters during the course of that struggle (Jeyaraj 2006).

Payback was a sweet thought, especially as the prospect of a return to power by Gandhi and his Congress Party at the forthcoming General Elections in India in mid-1991 was considered a likely setback for LTTE goals. The critical point here is that the LTTE began considering such a course of action as early as March 1989, some 14 months before the eventual assassination. They began compiling a document entitled The Satanic Force which was meant to illustrate their victory over the Indian military and to demonize the Indian Peacekeeping Force Gandhi (and thus Gandhi) for its atrocities. By May 1991 this had grown into a two-volume compendium (Kaarthikeyen & Raju 2004: 123–24, 73 & 134). The LTTE directorate even sent both Kāsi Anandan and Arjuna Sittampalam on separate and ‘innocent’ missions to meet Rajiv Gandhi in order to sound out his thinking (Kaarthikeyen & Raju 2004: 155, 74-75). Their reports, clearly, did not deter Pirapāharan from adhering to his original determination. In a carefully planned operation[xxi]a Tiger suicide bomber decimated Gandhi (and many others) at an election rally at Sriperumbudur on 22nd May 1991 (Roberts 2010c).

The world may never have deciphered who was behind this job if the LTTE”s standard operational practice of filming some of their military strikes had not gone amiss. Their hired cameraman died in the blast; but his camera did not. The assassins, Dhanu and Sivarāsan, were on film in, so to speak, flagrante delicto. The plot unfolded and led the Indian sleuths, among other paths, to The Satanic Verse compendium as well. Pirapāharan’s vengeance backfired and cast one nail in the coffin-as-process that was eventually to envelop the LTTE: that nail was India’s enmity.

In Review

Such long-term contingency thinking, in my interpretation, sharpened both the tactical and strategic implications of the ruthlessness displayed by the LTTE in eliminating rivals within its own constituency so that it could secure a monopoly of violence. The logistical and fighting capacity to outgun the other militants seems to replicate the successes revealed thus far by ISIS in sidelining or eliminating other Sunni extremists in the regions of Syria and Iraq it now commands. The presence of a major “near enemy” in the form of the Shia population and a Shia government on the one hand and, on the other hand, the looming image of a “far enemy” in the figure of USA as the ‘captain’ of the infidel West[xxii] provides a context and major incentives for the vigour of the ISIS men and women. The critical significance of these factors in motivating ISIS in its drive to create its own state does not erase the speculation that a history of fratricidal in-fighting among Sunni extremists honed the organisational ability and murderous capacity that has enabled ISIS to gain command of the radical Sunni forces.

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Jeyaraj, D. B. S. 2008 “Liberation Tigers at Thirty-Two: Whither the LTTE,” …………………. http://www.transcurrents.com, 6 May 2008.

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Kaarthikeyen, D.R. and R. Raju 2004 The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination. The Investigation, Slough: New Dawn Press Inc.

Kearney, Robert N. 1967 Communalism and Language in the Politics of Ceylon. Durham, N C: Duke University Press.

Kearney, Robert N. 1973 The Politics of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Loyd, Anthony 2014 “Syrian Gravesite marks ISIS Beginnings,” The Australian, 16 June 2014 … also at http://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2014/06/1 ... s-leaders/

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Mendelsohn, Barak 2014a “Collateral Damage in Iraq, The Rise of ISIS and the Fall of al Qaeda” 15 June 2014, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... endelsohn/ collateral-damage-in-iraq

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Narayan Swamy, M. R. 1994. Tigers of Sri Lanka, Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt Ltd.

Narayan Swamy, M. R.2003 Inside an Elusive Mind. Prabhakaran, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications.

Narayan Swamy, M. R. 2009 “Prabhakaran: from Catapult Killer to Ruthless Insurgent,” IANS, 18 May 2009 – see http://twocircles.net/node/148596.

Phadnis, Urmila 1976 Religion and Politics in Sri Lanka, NewDelhi: Manohar, 1976,

Poor Man’s Smart Bomb 2014 “Low-Cost Precision Weapons: A Bibliography on Suicide Attacks,” 23 June 2014, http://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2014/06/2 ... e-attacks/.

Ragavan 2009a “Interview with Ragavan on Tamil Militancy (Early Years),”http://kafila.org/ 2009/02/16/interview-with-ragavan-on-tamil-militancy-part-i/

Ragavan 2009b “Prabhakaran’s Timekeeping. Memories of a Much-mythologised Rebel Leader by a Former LTTE Fighter,” Sunday Leader, 24 May 2009.

Rajasingham, K. T. n. d. “Sri Lanka: The Untold Story, Rajiv Gandhi’s Assassination,” Asia Times,http://www.lankalibrary.com/pol/rajiv.htm.

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Roberts, Michael 1979b “Problems of Collective Identity in a Multi-Ethnic Society: Sectional Nationalism vs Ceylonese Nationalism, 1900-1940,” in M. Roberts (ed.) Collective Identities, Nationalisms and Protest in Modern Sri Lanka,Colombo: Marga Institute, pp. 337-60.

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Roberts, Michael 2012a “Inspirations: Hero Figures and Hitler in Young Pirapāharan’s Thinking,” Colombo Telegraph, 12 February 2012, http://thuppahi.wordpress.com /2012/11/26/ velupillai-pirapaharan-veera-maranam/……..rep. in Roberts, Tamil Person and State: Essays, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, pp.69-89, in press.

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Roberts, Michael 2014b “Ideological and Caste Threads in the Early LTTE,” in Roberts, Tamil Person and State: Essays, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, pp.1-43 (in press)

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Tekwani, Shyam 2009 ‘The Man who destroyed Eelam,” http://www.tehelka.com/home/ 20090523/default.asp.

Wilson, A. J. 1994 S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and the crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, 1948-1977, London: Hurst & Company.

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Wriggins, W. Howard 1960 Ceylon. Dilemmas of a New Nation, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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For instance Chulov 2014, Loyd 2014; Mendelsohn 2014a; and the recent Wikipedia account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_St ... the_Levant.

[ii] This happened among elements of the Janatha Vimukti Peramna in Sri Lanka. They were imprisoned in 1971 after their first insurgency seeking to seize power by force failed. When a new government released them in 1977 they re-established themselves and when contextual circumstances gave them the opportunity in 1987 launched an underground revolutionary insurgency that was far more threatening to state power in the southern and western reaches of Sri Lanka.

[iii] The recent recovery of the Resolution and the speech delivered by SJV Chelvanayakam (see ITAK 201$) at the inaugural meeting of the “Federal Freedom Party” reveals that (a) these spokesman were demanding equivalence with the Sinhalese majority and (B) presenting maximalist claims in territorial terms (c) by maximizing their demographic proportions through an unilateral adoption of the Muslim Moors as “Tamil-speaker.” In other words this particular set of Tamil political activists — a minority voice among the SL Tamils then — did not require Sinhalese extremism of the sort seen in the mid-1950s to press Tamil claims in ways that boded ill for compromise.

[iv] See Wriggins 1960; Arasaratnam !967 & 1979; Kearney !967 & 1972; Phadnis 1976; Wilson 1994 & 2000 and L. Sabaratnam 2001.

[v] For instance, the Eelath Thamil Ilagnar Eyakkam, the Ceylon Tamil Youth movement, the Thesiya Ilankai Manna, the Thamil Manavar Peravia and the Tamil Liberation Organisation (Roberts 2014b: 9). Also see Hellmann-Rajanayagam 1994.

[vi] Sir Lewis Namier (1888-1960) is a renowned historian in Enaland associated in particular with his detailed empirical study of electoral and patronage politics in h the late 18th century in his The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (London, 1929).

[vii] This contention has been clarified earlier in Roberts 1978 and 1979a & 1979b.

[viii] See Roberts 2014b: 5, 12; Sabaratnam 2003 and Narayan Swamy 1994: 26, 30, 62-64.

[ix] Maheswaran (a Vellalar) had been a major figure in the LTTE in the mid-1970s, but left after a split.

[x] Sri Sabāratnam was from the Kaikular caste and became leader after the previous leaders, Kuttimani and Thangavelu (both Karaiyar in origin) had been murdered in the Welikade prison massacre of July 1983.

[xi] EPRLF, PLOTE and to a lesser extent the other groups remained strong in the Eastern Province and there were intermittent fights and killings in the area involving the LTTE as well.

[xii] See Bala Skandan 2006 and Subramanian 1997.

[xiii] In innovative style this commitment was also described as an act of “that-kodai,” or “self-gift” (Chandrakanthan 2000: 164) and directed acts of defensive suicide, fasts-unto-death in protest and, eventually, military/naval strikes and assassination jobs (see Roberts 2005. 2006 and 2014b).

[xiv] See my articles on the “sacrificial devotion” demonstrated by the LTTE (Roberts 2005a, 2006a and 2006b).

[xv] The Karaiyar were “traditionally associated” with fishing and were therefore outside an agrarian order dominated by the Vellalar caste who not only constituted over half the population, but also controlled most of the land and wells. Some mid-20th century anthropological studies have indicated that the Karaiyar made up about 10 per cent of the population in the Jaffna Peninsula as against 50 per cent Vellalar, 9% Koviyar and 9 per cent each for Pallar and Nalavar (two of the depressed castes (Roberts 2005a: 70), but this computation should not be seen as definitive.

[xvi] “Geographically the security of Tamil Eelam is interlinked with that of its seas” said Pirapāharan on one occasion (quoted in Tekwani 2009: 10).

[xvii] See Roberts 2006a: 80-84 and Taraki 2004.

[xviii]Iyer 2012a and 2012b. This influence did not extend to Nazi racism and/or anti-Semitism. However, the dictatorial leanings that Pirapāharan revealed from these early days and the initial circumstances of an underground military struggle clearly resulted in the LTTE becoming fascist in its ruthlessness and its use of the Tamil peoples (Narayan Swamy 2003 and …. +++

[xix] See SATP n. d. for a lengthy and imposing list.

[xx] Mahinda Rajapaksa received 50.29 per cent of the votes cast and defeated Ranil Wickremasinghe of the right-wing UNP (48.43 %) by a narrow margin. As noted in Wikipedia, “Wickremasinghe’s hopes for victory were effectively dashed when the LTTE ordered Tamil voters, most of whom would likely have voted for him, to boycott the polls.”

[xxi] A remarkable investigative operation guided by DR Kaarthikeyen worked out the whole process in impressive detail (Kaarthikeyan & Raju 2004). .

[xxii] I believe the concepts “near enemy” an d “far enemy” are inspired by the writings of the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1906-66). He is best known of his use of the concept of “jahilliyah” (understood as a state of ignorance in the Quran) in ways that essentialised the term to refer to the ills of modernity” (see Euben 199: chap 3.)

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 14 Sep 2015 18:54

Tuvaluan, i thought you may find it amusing.

Tuan, yes, very droll, that comparison. As the saying goes, anyone can write a load of cr@p and cite a load of references -- after all that is how the world turns around in the world of political "science" and social "science".

ISIS has been instigated by outside powers, specifically the US, after it destroyed Iraq's Ba'ath bureaucracy and "mistakenly" left behind an entire warehouse of weapons and Humvees for the IS cadre to go flaunting around in the global media. The entire article you posted is full of circumstantial nonsense being dressed up as "political analysis"...article is not worth the disk space it consumes somewhere on this planet. There are too many bogus points not worth refuting, but this one stands out in demonstrating the agenda of the writers of the article:

Nazi ideology was not the attraction. Rather I surmise that he was drawn to Hitler’s charismatic domination of the German dispensation and that he (wrongly) attributed the success of the German Army (Wehrmacht) in World War Two to Hitler.

The author "surmises" a load of nonsense, where as the reality, expounded in its full glory in the " rise and fall of the third reich" is that the German socialist party and German industrialists created hateful propaganda to harness the existing hatred for the Jews in Europe, just because they were not christians. Hitler just rose to the top of the socialist party by being in it at the right time, and even there he needed the assistance of the rest of the Nazi warlords.

So no, LTTE was nothing like Nazis or ISIS -- both of which are fascist movements that take inspiration from religious hatred and power mongering in the international order. LTTE arose because sinhalas refused to share power with their own tamil citizens and treated them as second hand citizens. The contrast is stark enough to make the entire article you posted quite silly and motivated.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 14 Sep 2015 20:03

Sept 13, 1948 was beginning of Operation Polo to end Razakars seige in Hyderabad.

Razakars were proto-ISIS.

Meanwhile Robert Spencer writes

The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS by Robert Spencer
2015 | ISBN: 1621574539 | English | 384 pages |

ISIS rocketed onto the world stage seemingly out of nowhere, beheading American hostages, bulldozing international borders, routing the American-trained Iraqi Army, carving out a new state that rules eight million people and a territory larger than the United Kingdom. But who are they? Where did ISIS come from, and how did they rise to power in so little time? What is driving them—and how can they be stopped?

New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer reveals the blood-drenched history and inner workings of the Islamic State—its military conquests, how it is financing its expansion, and the ideology that is driving its success. As Spencer reveals, the Islamic State has taken the first steps on the path to becoming a serious world power—steps that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda dreamed of but were afraid to take. The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS is your one-stop easy reference for all you need to know about ISIS—and how "infidels" can stop its reign of terror.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 17 Sep 2015 02:46

15 year old Danish girl, hooked on ISIS brutality, kills mom with help from mom's 29yr old Muslim boyfriend:

Danish teen who killed mum ‘inspired by Isis’

A 15-year-old girl who murdered her mother was fascinated by the terror group Isis and viewed online Islamist propaganda including videos of beheadings.

Lisa Borch, now 16, was sentenced to nine years in prison on Monday for stabbing her mother to death in October 2014.

During the girl’s trial, it was revealed that she had become radicalized by watching Islamist propaganda online. On the night she stabbed her mother, Tine Rømer Holtegaard, last year with the assistance of her 29-year-old boyfriend, Bakhtiar Mohammed Abdullah, Borch had been watching videos of beheadings.

After stabbing Holtegaard at least 20 times, Borch called the police and reported that she had seen “a white man” running from their home in the northern Jutland town of Vissel. When police arrived, prosecutors said that Borch would not pull herself away from her iPhone and computer and merely pointed upstairs toward her mother’s dead body.

Prosecutors said that Borch and her Abdullah agreed to kill Holtegaard together but in court both blamed each other for the act.

The obsession with Isis, alternately known as Islamic State (IS), went beyond watching videos. The pair also reportedly discussed travelling to Syria to fight alongside the terror group.

Following Monday’s conviction, Borch’s stepfather has stepped forward to say that the teenaged Dane was obsessed with the terror group. He fears that she will become even more radicalized in prison.

“She loves to talk about IS and their brutal behaviour in the Middle East,” 58-year-old Jens Holtegaard told Ekstra Bladet.

“I don’t even dare to think about what might develop while she is serving time. She needs professional treatment,” he added.

Along with Borch’s nine-year sentence, Abdullah will spend 13 years behind bars. The two have also been ordered to pay a total of 216,000 kroner in restitution to Borch’s siblings and 254,000 kroner to widower Jens Holtegaard. Borch was also stripped of her right to an inheritance.

The pair have appealed against the decision to the High Court.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 22 Sep 2015 19:22

58 ISIS defectors -including 7 women- speak out against the outfit. These folks should be treated as an asset and turned against ISIS.

ISIS Defectors Reveal Disillusionment

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 28 Sep 2015 20:53

How to defeat ISIS: 10 ideas
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/28/opinions/ ... index.html

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 29 Sep 2015 21:24

WHere are the vaunted Chechen miltia fighters in Syria these days. Last year their videos were allover the media showing the dogged fights they put up against the SAA.

Looking at this video, I hope Putin makes every Russian soldier see this before going into Syria. VERY GRAPHIC!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPQxtGv ... 1443547004

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 05 Feb 2017 00:38

My article on Modern Diplomacy Magazine

The Sri Lankan Counterterrorism Model: Intelligence Innovation Outside the Anglosphere
http://moderndiplomacy.eu/index.php?opt ... Itemid=154

It will take only matter of weeks to obliterate ISIS if NATO wanted; however, the West including NATO uses ISIS as a catalyst to speed up the process of balancing their economic equilibrium, that is, they pursue "cost-benefit analysis" whereby NATO engages a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. Cost-benefit analysis is used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits. In other words, the West is orchestrating a commercial warfare under the guise of counterterrorism, in my opinion.

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 06 Feb 2017 09:06

Tuan wrote:My article on Modern Diplomacy Magazine

The Sri Lankan Counterterrorism Model: Intelligence Innovation Outside the Anglosphere
http://moderndiplomacy.eu/index.php?opt ... Itemid=154

It will take only matter of weeks to obliterate ISIS if NATO wanted; however, the West including NATO uses ISIS as a catalyst to speed up the process of balancing their economic equilibrium, that is, they pursue "cost-benefit analysis" whereby NATO engages a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. Cost-benefit analysis is used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits. In other words, the West is orchestrating a commercial warfare under the guise of counterterrorism, in my opinion.

Good work Tuan Ji. However, I felt connection of the fight against ISIS (or lack of it) and lessons that could be drawn from fight against LTTE could be explored in greater detail in the context of Syria, Libya and Indian Subcontinent separately. JMT.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 07 Feb 2017 06:12

Deejay, as for your request, I am posting the entire article here from my blog with an annotated bibliography. Please note that this article was slightly modified and published on ModernDiplomcy.EU

https://theofivefile.wordpress.com/

Deconstructing the Sri Lankan Counterterrorism Model for the Obliteration of ISIS

By Kagusthan Ariaratnam

January 2017
The 05 File Project

Introduction

In reading Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) of the ongoing counterterrorism operations in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, I have noticed a pattern in the Islamic State terrorists’ “modus operandi”, that of an analogical spider. Spiders have eight legs and two body parts, including the head region (cephalothorax) and the abdomen. Most spiders have toxic venom, which they use to kill their prey. So, if the international community wants to get rid of ISIS, hypothetically speaking, they must get rid of ISIS’ cephalothorax, rather than fight with its eight legs. What I try to pinpoint here is that, while ISIS's headquarters (cephalothorax) are in Syria, their means of survival (abdomen) depend on how much area they control in Iraq. Thus, before this ISIS "spider" transforms into a "multi-headed" and "multi-pronged" spider, the international community must target their headquarters in Syria.

Of course, ISIS will replace their cephalothorax; but, it is important that counterterrorism efforts maintain target on any/all future headquarters. All we need is the collection of accurate and effective tactical military intelligence. Although international intelligence agencies have feet of clay, particularly in dealing with an enemy of many different faces, I feel that they deserve a more involved role than just being the eyes and ears of any one nation. Recommendations for an appropriate tradecraft to achieve collective intelligence are the need of the day. Although there is no truth to search for, no absolute truth, since everything is subjective, the valuable role that intelligence agencies play in producing deterrence is paramount. Achieving a state of global deterrence is what I consider the essential argument.

Countering Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Model

Sri Lanka, a small South Asian island nation located in the Indian Ocean, has been politically and economically destabilized as a result of ethnic conflict that has lasted over three decades. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the “Tamil Tigers”, a secessionist-cum-terrorist organization, fought against the Sri Lankan government to establish a separate homeland for Tamils in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. This organization was as a trendsetter for other terrorist groups around the world. Many organizations, including al-Qaeda, Taliban and now ISIS have used LTTE’s tactics as a template for terrorism. In May 2009, the Sri Lankan security forces militarily obliterated LTTE.

Prior to this obliteration, Sri Lankan political and military analysts, as well as laymen alike, had been closely monitoring the military operation in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka where the battle to liberate the rest of the Wanni region was fast approaching. They knew that it was a “do or die” situation for the LTTE. During the last five weeks of the battle, the LTTE claimed they had pinned down and killed approximately 1000 Sri Lankan troops by infiltrating offensively into the army’s defense lines.

The LTTE desperately attempted, in vain, to infiltrate the military’s forward defenses, but ultimately left more than 100 of their own cadres killed and just as many injured. The LTTE was preparing for a large-scale offensive attack toward the existing military defenses at Palamathalan and North of Puthkkudiyirippu, engaging over 200 cadres including suicide bombers and Sea Tigers. Following the initial thrust, the LTTE planned to send waves of around 200 cadres as reinforcements. According to the Sri Lankan security forces, this was the first time during recent battles that the LTTE had engaged many of its 'high profiles' to the battlefront. Security sources say that top LTTE commanders, such as Banu, Soosai, Swarnam, Theepan, Pottu Amman, Lawrence, Ratnam Master, Sasikumar Master, Thinesh Master and few other high profilers, were directly involved in masterminding the pre-emptive assaults.

The timely detection and precise ground intelligence received from the directorate of military intelligence was proven valuable, as LTTE’s offensive waves were received with intense military counter-attacks. The Sri Lankan security forces could finally claim that the Mullaittivu battle was reaching its final phase. Over 150 cadres were killed during the initial thrust while the rest were hunted down by the 2nd Commando Regiment, 12th Gajaba Regiment, 12th Gemunu Watch, and 8th Gemunu Watch troops during the last 48 hours of the final battle.

As claimed repeatedly by defense experts, the fighting power of the LTTE was enormously weakened by the scarcity of military supplies and manpower. This contributed to the defeat of the LTTE. The last LTTE offensive attempt was initiated from the control of a 65-kilometer radius, reminding troops that the LTTE was still capable of planning, preparing and executing surprise raids on any advancing military. It was against this backdrop that security forces were forced to rethink strategy and implement unconventional warfare tactics, that is, to lead by military intelligence.

By utilizing OSINT, intelligence agencies can extract up to 95% of strategic intelligence, however, tactical intelligence depends on human intelligence (HUMINT) which refers to any information that can be gathered from human sources. Other categories of intelligence include: signals intelligence (SIGINT) which is obtained by intercepting and decrypting communications information and transmissions; and imagery intelligence (IMINT) which is obtained by studying photographs taken from air or space. It is no secret that the Sri Lankan security forces have been trying to strengthen their HUMINT gathering capacity for some time now. In fact, they have been openly recruiting former LTTE cadres and other Tamil militants who were working with security forces as “paramilitary” groups. In addition, the Sri Lankan Army’s Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) and/or Special Force Regiment (SF) also plays a vital role in the forces’ HUMINT gathering efforts.

The Sri Lankan security forces were planning to exploit their latest HUMINT during the final military operation in order to fully liberate the Wanni terrain and wipe out LTTE completely, as the security forces had done in the eastern province. The directorate of military intelligence engineered a “break-away” faction, just like Karuna Amman’s defection in 2004. In fact, Karuna Amman was providing HUMINT to the directorate, and at the same time, convincing some LTTE senior cadres to run away from the LTTE and surrender to the security forces. It can therefore be seen that the security forces’ HUMINT played a vital role. The military’s signal intelligence infiltrated and analyzed the LTTE’s communications and transmissions systems for the purpose of convincing these cadres to surrender. All in all, the fusion of the military's SIGINT and the contribution of Amman’s HUMINT was an effective strategy.

Given the status quo in Sri Lanka, it was very easy to conduct projects of psychological warfare, since security forces were moving in quickly and most of the non-hardcore LTTE cadres and leaders were in low morale within the organization. As a result of human nature, LTTE cadres prioritized their survival during those days. Nonetheless, security forces were not successful in the defection of LTTE top leaders like Banu, Soosai, Swarnam, Theepan, Pottu Amman, Lawrence, or Nadesan. This is because these men were married to female LTTE cadres and bore children together. Consequently, security forces sought young, but clever, LTTE cadres for the job. It was indeed a good strategy, proven by the fact that Karuna Amman was made a minister following his defection, and, by the fact that former LTTE child soldier Pillaiyan was appointed chief minister of the eastern province.

Conclusion

As a terrorist organization that possessed an army, navy, and rudimentary air force, the LTTE set a threatening example for other terrorist groups; and therefore, they were not only a threat to the domestic stability of Sri Lanka but also to the security of the regional and global systems. This explains the support from the international community for the Sri Lankan government during its war against terrorism. This support contributed to the eventual annihilation of LTTE.

By and large, the Sri Lankan security forces were attempting to engineer a defection within the LTTE, as they battled to destroy LTTE leadership. In other words, security forces were attempting to engineer defection against the “cephalothorax” of the spider, instead of fighting with its eight legs. The defection of LTTE’s top commander, Karuna Amman, along with two-thirds of the organization’s manpower created a desperate split within the LTTE, weakening the organization. The Sri Lankan military intelligence exploited this situation and enlisted Karuna Amman and his cadres in the Sri Lankan army as a paramilitary group, making their fight against terrorism easier. Moreover, the killing of LTTE’s supreme leader Veluppillai Pirabhakaran reinforces the argument and importance of the spider analogy. This also reinforces the argument that military intelligence deserves a primary and active role in counterterrorism efforts.

The importance of intelligence as capital in counterterrorism is further illustrated by the response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States, since the international community came together to share intelligence on terrorist organizations in order to dismantle their operations throughout the world. This essentially crippled the LTTE’s maritime logistics support to which their survival depended on. The LTTE’s threat to global security was obliterated at the hands of the international collaboration of intelligence agencies. Since the modus operandi and tradecraft of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and the recent ISIS are replica of the LTTE in Sri Lanka, I believe that the international community is capable of combatting ISIS by utilizing the same model that Sri Lankan military used against the LTTE.

Lessons

Does this latest military defeat of a terrorist organization make us ponder the improbable? Can we learn anything from the Sri Lankan experience to deal with ISIS? Can we apply a similar counterinsurgency or counterterrorism model to which the Sri Lankan military used against LTTE?

Annotated Bibliography

Balasingham, A. (2001). The Will to Freedom: An Inside View of Tamil Resistance. Mitcham, England: Fairmax.
This book is an insider’s look at the armed conflict by the LTTE, which portrays them as freedom fighters. As an historical account, The Will to Freedom clearly examines important events, episodes, and the turning points of the 30-year long conflict. This book will be an important source for this essay because it sheds light on the unknown characteristics of the LTTE leaders, cadres and their mindset, motivation, strengths, and weaknesses.

Balasuriya, M. (2011) The Rise and Fall of the LTTE. Colombo Sri Lanka: Asian Network on Conflict Research.
As an Inspector General of Sri Lankan Police, Balasuriya examines three main areas in his book. First, he addresses the crucial element for defeating the LTTE – political leadership and well-trained armed forces, police, and intelligence services. Second, he looks into the government of Sri Lanka’s realistic approach to war and peace. Third, he explores the LTTE’s genesis, growth, decline, infighting, and defeat by Sri Lankan security forces and the international collaborators, particularly the United States, India, and China. As such, this book will be a valuable account for this paper because it focuses on the LTTE’s history and reasons for its defeat.

Chandraprema, C.A. (2012) Gōta’s War: The Crushing of Tamil Tiger Terrorism in Sri Lanka. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Ranjan Wijeratne Foundation
This book presents a clear picture of the importance of political and military leadership for wiping out terrorism in Sri Lanka. The author gives credit to the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, as well as the Secretary of Defense, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for political and military victories respectively. The book will be an important account for this paper because it points outs how Gota (Gotabaya Rajapaksa) planned, prepared and executed the war against the LTTE successfully in the midst of many obstacles.

De Silva, K.M. (2012) Sri Lanka and the Defeat of the LTTE. New Delhi, India: Penguin
In his book, the veteran Sri Lankan historian De Silva outlines the history of ethnic tension in Sri Lanka since its independence in 1948. Then he examines the origin, development, and demise of the LTTE, the triumphant Sri Lankan government and the security forces. Finally, De Silva talks about the necessity of post-war reconciliation, rehabilitation, and rebuilding of the country as well. As such, contents of De Silva’s book will support this paper’s arguments regarding the causes of the LTTE defeat.

DeVotta, N. (2009) The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Lost Quest for Separatism in Sri Lanka. Asian Survey, 49(6), 1021-1051.
This journal article analyzes the root causes of the Sri Lankan conflict, such as discrimination and oppression of its own minorities by the successive Sri Lankan government. This led to the birth of the LTTE which engaged in terrorism and fascistic rule in the areas they controlled, thereby weakening the Tamil community. DeVotta goes on to explain that the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s extra-constitutional counterterrorism strategies led to the eventual defeat of the LTTE. As such, this journal article is important because it provides an opinion on the ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka that contributed to the development and demise of the LTTE.

Gunaratna, R. (2002). Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. New York, NY: Barkley.
As a leading scholar who wrote more than six books on the LTTE, and who heads a counterterrorism think-tank in Asia-Pacific, Professor Gunaratna now writes about Al-Qaeda comparing the organization’s ideologies, structures, tactics, and operations to other terrorist organizations, especially the trendsetter LTTE. Gunaratna writes this book based on al-Qaeda’s documents and his own interviews with al-Qaeda associates, which led to five years of an extensive research. This book points out the obvious in that al-Qaeda copies all their operational tactics from the LTTE, and therefore, this book’s findings will immensely contribute to this paper.

Gunaratna, R. (1997) International and Regional Security Implications of the Sri Lankan Tamil Insurgency. Colombo, Sri Lanka: Unie Arts.
Basing on surrendered and arrested LTTE cadres’ interviews, the author Gunaratna discusses how LTTE became a threat to regional and global security. This book analyzes the LTTE organization’s structure, strategies, tactics, and profiles. This is one of those books that led Western nations’ to label the LTTE as a terrorist organization rather than a freedom movement. Thus, this book’s contents will be useful for understanding the reasons why Western nations banned and fought against the LTTE.

Hoffman, B. (2009) The first non-state use of a chemical weapon in warfare: The Tamil Tigers’ assault on East Kiran. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 20(3-4), 463-477.
This journal article explores a shocking detailed account of the LTTE as the first non-state actor using chemical weapons in East Kiran, Sri Lanka against the Sri Lankan security forces in June 1990. The article begins with the general background of the LTTE and goes on to state how innovative and lethal they are as a terrorist organization. The article concludes with the outline of the motivations behind a terrorist group to use chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and suggestions on how governments can prevent this from happening in the future. Therefore, this journal article provides a key understanding into the dangerous dimensions of the LTTE and possible consequences for the global security.

McCants, W. F. (2015). The ISIS apocalypse: the history, strategy, and doomsday vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin's Press.
The Islamic State is one of the most lethal and successful jihadist groups in modern history, surpassing even al-Qaeda. Thousands of its followers have marched across Syria and Iraq, subjugating millions, enslaving women, beheading captives, and daring anyone to stop them. Thousands more have spread terror beyond the Middle East under the Islamic State's black flag. Based almost entirely on primary sources in Arabic, including ancient religious texts and secret al-Qaeda and Islamic State letters that few have seen, McCants explores how religious fervor, strategic calculation, and doomsday prophecy shaped the Islamic State's past and foreshadows its dark future.

Mayilvaganan, M. (2008) Is it Endgame for LTTE? Strategic Analysis, 33(1), 25-39.
This journal article examines the LTTE’s struggle during the “Global War on Terrorism” following the post-9/11 scenario. The author enlists the factors contributing to the defeat of the LTTE, such as internal conflict, international pressure, the predominance of the Sri Lankan military, scarcity of arms and new recruits, which are some of the elements. Mayilvaganan further questions the regional and global implications of the anticipated defeat of the LTTE. Therefore, this journal article validates this paper’s argument about the impact of the 9/11 attacks on the LTTE.

Narayanswamy, M.R. (2003) Inside an Elusive Mind: Prabhakaran. New Delhi, India: Konark.
As one of India’s leading authors on terrorism, Narayanswamy writes about why the LTTE was armed, trained and funded by the Indian government in order to placate India’s geopolitical interests in the late 1980s. This book is an interesting portrait of a man who was the only decision maker and the supreme leader of the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization. Narayanswamy also throws light on the hitherto unknown facts of the Indian intelligence interventions in Sri Lanka that led to the eventual assassination of India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE. Therefore, this book’s contents will be beneficial for this paper because they provide evidence on how state-sponsored terrorism becomes a threat to the regional and global security.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 10 Mar 2017 06:32

Islamic State leader Baghdadi abandons Mosul fight to field commanders, U.S. and Iraqi sources say

ISOLATED

At the height of its power two years ago, Islamic State ruled over millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the outskirts of Baghdad in Iraq.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces began an operation five months ago to recapture Mosul, a city at least four times the size of any other the group has held. The biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, it has been slow going, in part because hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in harm's way.

The 100,000-strong Iraqi force fully captured the eastern half of Mosul in January, and commanders began an operation to cross the Tigris and take the western half last month. Progress has since been steady and the coalition says its victory is now inevitable, which would dismantle the caliphate in Iraq.

The intelligence sources point to a sharp drop in Islamic State postings on social media as evidence that Baghdadi and his circle have become increasingly isolated.

Baghdadi himself has not released a recorded speech since early November, two weeks after the start of the Mosul battle, when he called on his followers to fight the "unbelievers" and "make their blood flow as rivers."

Since then, sporadic Islamic State statements mention attacks carried out by suicide bombers at various locations in Iraq and Syria, but place no particular emphasis on Mosul, despite the city being the main center of fighting.

Neither Baghdadi nor any of his close aides released any comment on the fall of the eastern part of the city in January.

The group's presence on Telegram, a social media network that had become its main platform for announcements and speeches, has tapered off. The coalition estimates that Islamic State activity on Twitter has fallen by 45 percent since 2014, with 360,000 of the group's Twitter accounts suspended so far and new ones usually shut down within two days.

"GAME IS UP"

In what is likely to be a major symbolic victory for the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, they are now closing in on the area around Mosul's Great Mosque on the western bank of the Tigris, where Baghdadi proclaimed his caliphate.

More than half of the 6,000 jihadists left to defend the city have been killed, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, the author of the book "World of Daesh", who also advises the Iraqi government. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

U.S. commanders sound upbeat and say the battle for the city is now in a late stage.

"The game is up," U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield south of Mosul, adding that some of Islamic State's foreign fighters are trying to leave the city.

Those left behind to fight, mostly Iraqis, are putting up a "very hard fight" on the tactical level but they are no longer an integrated force, as coalition air strikes took out command and control centers, car bombs and weapon caches, he said.

"They have lost this fight and what you're seeing is a delaying action," he said.

Although the loss of Mosul would effectively end Islamic State's territorial rule in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials are preparing for the group to go underground and fight an insurgency like the one that followed the U.S.-led invasion.

The "caliphate" as a state structure would end with the capture of Raqqa, its de facto capital in Syria, possibly later this year.

Raqqa is far smaller than Mosul, but mounting operations against Islamic State in Syria has been trickier than in Iraq, because the group's many Syrian enemies have mostly been pre-occupied fighting among themselves in a civil war since 2011.

Nevertheless, Islamic State has faced setbacks in Syria over the past year against three main foes: U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab militias, the Russian-backed Syrian army, and mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels backed by Turkey.

"The inevitability of their destruction just becomes really a matter of time," said Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition, adding that the group's leadership was now focused on little more than survival.

The last official report about Baghdadi was from the Iraqi military on Feb. 13. Iraqi F-16s carried out a strike on a house where he was thought to be meeting other commanders, in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, it said.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is moving in a remote, mostly-desert stretch populated exclusively by Sunni Arab tribes north of the Euphrates river, according to Hashimi.

The area stretches from the town of Baaj, in northwestern Iraq, to the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal on the Euphrates.

"It's their historic region, they know the people there and the terrain; food, water and gasoline are easy to get, spies are easier to spot" than in crowded areas, he said.

The U.S. government has had a joint task force to track down Baghdadi which includes special operations forces, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies as well as spy satellites of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

But Baghdadi seems to have learnt the lessons from the 2011 capture and killing of Osama bin Ladin, and relies on multiple couriers and not just one, unlike the al Qaeda founder, say U.S. intelligence sources.

He also switches cars during trips, a lesson learnt from the 2011 drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an al Qaeda figure in Yemen.

Baghdadi has not publicly appointed a successor, but Iyad al-Obaidi, also known as Fadel Haifa, a security officer under former dictator Saddam Hussein, is known to be the de facto deputy, according to Iraqi intelligence sources.

More than 40 leading members of the group have been killed in coalition air strikes, but the insurgency is likely to continue even if Mosul is captured and Baghdadi and his aides are killed, according to Iraqi security experts.

"There will be other commanders rising because the structure of the organization remains," said Fadhil Abu Ragheef, an Iraqi security expert specialized in IS affairs.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Mar 2017 06:57

If ISIS in Iraq and Syria is being decimated then what is this ISIS surfacing in India? Especially in TN and Kerala

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 10 Mar 2017 08:14

India is a different ball game together. What worked in Middle East will not work in India. One important difference is that in Middle East they were directly and indirectly supported by 'foreigners' - the West and other Middle Easterners in terms of money and weapons. It will be very difficult to continuously funnel money to radicals.

It does appear India is very fragile from one angle, but it has the cohesiveness that will take ages to break. While India might not act as swiftly as China, it has its civilization way of tackling ISIS.

If with all the support it got in those places it is being obliterated, imagine how it will be chewed out in India.

Will India be hurt in the process? Sure. Will people suffer? Yes, sadly so. When the fat lady sings, it will be India that would be standing.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 10 Mar 2017 19:24

I completely agree with you SwamyG!

Unlike the collective society in India, inequality is a major driver of Middle Eastern terrorism, and Western nations have themselves largely to blame for that inequality.

In my opinion, if you see the bigger picture, much of the Global South, which includes the poor countries of the world that are largely located in Asia, South America, and Africa. This part of the world is home to roughly five billion people, who are living in extreme poverty, and as such, relationships around the world are not balanced (Shah, 2009). Income inequality and poverty involve powerlessness and invisibility, including a lack of money, basic nutrition, health care, education, freedom, personal autonomy. In fact, 80% of global resources are consumed by only one billion who live in the Global North that includes the wealthy industrialized countries of Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia, and Japan (World Bank Group, 2010). While most of the industrialized countries are located in the North, there are exceptions; for example, both Australia and New Zealand are wealthy countries located in the South. As a rule, states in the Global North are democratic and technologically advanced, have a high standard of living, and experience very low population growth (Ravelli & Webber, 2015). Is it fair or justifiable that developing countries must try to survive on only 20% of the world’s resources? No! Because terrorism that is rooted in inequality of a grieved man is best combated politically, diplomatically, economically, socially, culturally, religiously, and educationally rather than militarily alone, by uniting the whole global community as one system. (^^^This paragraph is form one of my papers that I wrote)

Piketty writes that the Middle East's political and social system has been made fragile by the high concentration of oil wealth into a few countries with relatively little population. If you look at the region between Egypt and Iran — which includes Syria — you find several oil monarchies controlling between 60 and 70 percent of wealth, while housing just a bit more than 10 percent of the 300 million people living in that area. (Piketty does not specify which countries he's talking about, but judging from a study he co-authored last year on Middle East inequality, it appears he means Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. By his numbers, they accounted for 16 percent of the region's population in 2012 and almost 60 percent of its gross domestic product.)

This concentration of so much wealth in countries with so small a share of the population, he says, makes the region "the most unequal on the planet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... 2ae26ca6bc

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 10 Mar 2017 19:31

SwamyG wrote:India is a different ball game together. What worked in Middle East will not work in India. One important difference is that in Middle East they were directly and indirectly supported by 'foreigners' - the West and other Middle Easterners in terms of money and weapons. It will be very difficult to continuously funnel money to radicals.

It does appear India is very fragile from one angle, but it has the cohesiveness that will take ages to break. While India might not act as swiftly as China, it has its civilization way of tackling ISIS.

If with all the support it got in those places it is being obliterated, imagine how it will be chewed out in India.

Will India be hurt in the process? Sure. Will people suffer? Yes, sadly so. When the fat lady sings, it will be India that would be standing.

The only civilization way of India that I see is that of Shivaji Maharaj.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 10 Mar 2017 20:53

Everyone has an opinion about Donald Trump, including ISIS recruits

"What we noticed about the Syrian conflict from the very beginning was that a lot of these Western fighters were young kids so they had Twitter accounts. They had Facebook accounts. They had a variety of social media platforms and unlike previous conflicts," he says. And when these guys traveled over to Syria, they kept their Twitter and Facebook accounts active. "They were reporting in real time about what they were doing, how they were finding their life in Syria."

Amarasingam said back in 2013 and 2014, it was pretty easy to "just reach out to them as you would to any other person on Twitter and actually ask for interviews and see if you could get a conversation going." During that time, he was in touch with 10 or 15 foreign fighters.

But that scenario has changed in recent months. A lot of these fighters aren't online anymore.

"Many of them have vanished from the online community and others have died. It's been a bizarre research project," Amarasingam says. Currently, he is in touch with three ISIS foreign fighters from Britain, France and Canada, and a few more who belong to Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda-linked group in Syria.

There's no typical profile for the ISIS jihadis he's in touch with. "They come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds," Amarasingam says. Some are converts and others are born into Islam but only start practicing it seriously later. "Some come from broken homes. Others are perfectly fine. Some are high school dropouts. Others have fairly high-level educations and were working in $100,000-paying jobs with a wife and a kid at the time that they left."

When Donald Trump was elected US president, Amarasingam was eager to get their reaction: "Initially they were kind of surprised at my question. They didn't seem to be paying too much attention, at least the ones I was speaking to. And they kind of argued that what's the big deal? It's just another American president. It's not like we fared any better under George W. Bush or Obama. We're still dealing with drones. It doesn't really mean a lot."

But as the weeks and months followed, the ISIS recruits starting to think of Trump as an asset to their cause.

"I think particularly after the so-called 'Muslim ban' and his ongoing use of the terms 'radical Islamic terrorism.' That's had interesting consequences, in that they see not what that effect has on them but what it might have for other members of the Muslim community in general and on recruitment," Amarasingam says.

He says the ISIS members he communicates with see Trump's rhetoric as doing their work for them: "They see him as speaking the truth and bringing to light what was always the hidden agenda in the US under Bush, Clinton and Obama."

Previous presidents always reassured American Muslims that the fight against extremism was not a war on Islam but a war on a very small subset of terrorist groups. "Trump kind of muddies that boundary and says Islam itself hates us," Amarasingam says. Some ISIS jihadis have told Amarasingam that they are hoping American Muslims will now realize that the earlier distinction between Islam and terrorism was fake, and will question their place in America.

Interestingly, according to Amarasingam, ISIS so far has not used Trump in any of their propaganda material. "You'd think Trump would be a perfect foil to throw into a propaganda video of some kind," he says, "but I think they're hoping that his rhetoric will spur on disaffected Muslim youth to take up their cause."

Amarasingam admits that his ISIS sample is small, but he thinks it still has value.

"A good chunk of what they say is of course propaganda that they've put out in their videos and it's not that different from what they tell you privately. But when you ask them about their parents, their siblings, their education, their life in the United States or the UK, you do get a more human picture of where they took the turns that eventually led them to their life in Syria and fighting for ISIS. If we're talking about prevention," he says. "If we're talking about spending all this money to prevent future kids from leaving, at a fundamental level we need to understand what led them there. And I think that's where the value comes in."

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 12 Mar 2017 05:03

For U.S., Many Options but No Clear Path in Middle East

For the past 30 years, the Middle East has been the theater of most American military engagements — a timeline that covers the bombing of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli, the first Gulf War, the missile attacks on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the renewal of American military operations in Iraq and the recent bombing of the ISIS command center in Syria.

In the eyes of many Americans, involvement in the region's seemingly endless quarrels has brought the country nothing but grief.

President Trump inherited the current wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan from President Obama, who inherited them from President George W. Bush. Decisions will soon need to be made that will give the new administration ownership of the ongoing campaigns.

The violence in Afghanistan has intensified, and the commander of American forces there says he needs more troops. With U.S. combat support, Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and Shiite militias may in the coming months recapture Mosul in Iraq, but the U.S. commander of the campaign against ISIS recommends against withdrawal at that time. How Trump responds will set policy.

The fall of ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria will not end the war.
Four (or eight) years from now, Trump may in turn pass these military campaigns on to his successor. The fall of ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria will not end the war. ISIS will go underground and continue the fight through insurgencies and terrorism. The Taliban has not left the battlefield. And there are still ISIS and al Qaeda affiliates spread across Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 14, three authorities on terrorism variously spoke of the struggle going on for anywhere from another 15 to 40 years — another two generations.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is likely preparing options for Trump to escalate the fight against ISIS. Although a review of U.S. actions is appropriate, it is not likely to find a solution that has thus far eluded the government. There are no easy options.

Some suggest attacking the root causes driving the terrorist campaigns while reducing the ungoverned spaces where terrorists find sanctuary. This would require addressing chronic grievances, resolving ongoing conflicts, creating stability, ensuring better governance (if not democracy), and providing the security that will permit social and economic development. All of these are difficult to accomplish, and the United States is at the margin of its influence. They would require major investments and take many years to achieve.

Meanwhile, the terrorist threat will continue.

Negotiations, even with terrorists, should never be off the table. Conceivably, deals with more-pragmatic Taliban factions might be possible. Negotiations with al Qaeda or ISIS leaders, who see the conflict as a life-and-death struggle mandated by God, are hard to envision, although some lower-level commanders might be persuaded to cut a deal. And not all of the groups allied with al Qaeda or ISIS may share their partner's determination to fight to the death.

It may be more realistic to think in terms of interim arrangements aimed at lowering the level of violence rather than war-ending agreements.
It may be more realistic to think in terms of interim arrangements aimed merely at lowering the level of violence: seeking local accommodations rather than war-ending agreements.

Can the timeline be shortened and the jihadists defeated more quickly through escalation?

The Pentagon no doubt can offer a detailed list of options. Suggestions may begin with reinforcing the 6,000 or 7,000 U.S. service personnel currently working with the Iraqi army and irregular forces in Syria to increase their effectiveness. Without personnel on the ground to target and coordinate operations, airpower is largely ineffective over the long run. This would be a useful step, but not a quick solution.

Some have argued for relaxing the rules of engagement to allow a less-constrained use of airpower. But targets are limited, and bombing errors can lead to backlash and erode international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, a post-9/11 success story that provides vital intelligence.

Others have argued for American combat forces to be redeployed. Putting American boots on the ground raises questions of what exactly they would do and how the move would affect the war. More troops might more quickly capture Raqqa, Syria, but then what?

Deploying American troops also runs the risk of changing the dynamics of the contest while fueling the jihadist narrative and assisting terrorist recruiting. Sending in combat troops might be a popular course of action, especially in the immediate wake of a major terrorist incident in the United States, but whatever initial domestic political support exists for using American ground forces could quickly evaporate.

Partnering with the Russians to destroy ISIS also has been mentioned as a strategy, but it comes with high political cost and offers the U.S. little military benefit. America has enough airplanes and know-how to bomb targets, but associating the U.S. with the kind of ruthless military operations Russia conducted in Syria would cause deep concern in the American military, repel allies and could undercut U.S counterterrorist efforts.

Many U.S. military successes have been achieved by working with allies, including local governments and irregular forces. This was the case in Afghanistan in 2001, with the Sunni tribes in Iraq's Anbar Province in 2006 and, most notably, with the Kurds in the current conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Early U.S. attempts to field carefully vetted, U.S.-trained rebel formations in Syria achieved less success. Those failures merit more analysis and suggest that it is not enough to train guerrillas and drop them onto the battlefield. Their reliability and effectiveness depend on continued engagement — having Americans with them — and direct combat support.

The United States also may be able to do more with state partners in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia recently formed an alliance of Muslim states to fight Islamic extremists. The initiative, however, was not embraced in Washington.

Many Americans are uncomfortable with the Saudis. Some see Saudi financial support for the spread of the intolerant ideology of Wahhabist Islam as a major source of jihadist radicalization worldwide, while others are critical of Saudi Arabia's record on human rights. Some in the Obama administration saw a close relationship with Saudi Arabia as an obstacle to what they hoped would presage a more friendly relationship with Iran — a relationship that has yet to happen.

These objections notwithstanding — that few allies will meet our strict standards — pursuing local alliances makes sense. Politically, local forces are more effective than American combat units. They also have certain operational advantages. And they don't always have to be crack combat units — in some cases, they need only to out-recruit their opponents.

Finally, the U.S. could consider the idea of creating an international force, locally recruited but trained, paid and led by experienced military commanders from the region and beyond. This option may be the only one available for areas where no government or government forces exist.

Should the United States then avoid the costs and tribulations of further military involvement by withdrawing from the region, leaving local belligerents to sort things out by themselves?

Doing so seemingly would get the United States out of a costly mess and enable the country to focus on rebuilding its own economy, which is far more important to U.S. long-term strategic goals. It would also enable the armed forces to rebuild to meet threats that endanger the republic more than errant jihadists, which law enforcement has mostly contained.

This course of action has great appeal, but few have defined precisely what “getting out” means. Withdrawing all American forces from Afghanistan? Ending military support for Iraq's forces? Halting the bombing in Syria? Ending American support for the Kurds and allied Arab formations? Would the United States continue drone strikes and special operations as part of its counterterrorist campaign? Should the United States continue to support the Saudi-led fight in Yemen? Should it continue to provide training and other forms of military assistance to willing allies in the region?

Withdrawal also comes with risks. The United States has achieved what seemed to be a measure of success on several occasions — in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Yemen — only to see things fall apart when it pulled out or turned its attention to other fronts.

Many in the United States would say it's not our fight: What are the downsides of withdrawal to the United States?

What are the downsides of withdrawal to the United States?

Well, a U.S. withdrawal could result in further destabilization of surrounding countries. It would leave ungoverned spaces not unlike those in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, which allowed al Qaeda to flourish. The withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq in 2011 is sometimes cited as a contributing factor to the rise of ISIS. American withdrawal would alter political calculations in Iraq, and it would leave Iran in a commanding position in the region. It could prompt further and more significant military action against the Kurds by Turkey.

Withdrawal would be perceived as another demonstration that the United States is an unreliable ally, which could have strategic implications beyond the Middle East, in places like Europe and East Asia, where there already are concerns about American commitment to its allies.

But the principal reason for U.S. military involvement in these conflicts is that it is seen as necessary to prevent terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. Would withdrawal reduce or increase that risk?

Al Qaeda's original objective was to drive the United States — the “far enemy” — out of the Middle East, although some analysts argue that the purpose of the 9/11 attacks was exactly the opposite, to draw the United States into the fight. How would al Qaeda react now to American withdrawal?

Although it encourages homegrown terrorist attacks, ISIS thus far has not followed al Qaeda's earlier pattern of launching large-scale terrorist attacks on the United States, although both groups continue to call on homegrown terrorists to carry out attacks in the U.S. If the United States were to withdraw, would ISIS see launching attacks on the U.S. as being in its strategic interest?

Would any administration that ordered a withdrawal be able to politically withstand a subsequent terrorist attack? And if one were to occur, what options would the United States then have?

Whether and how the United States ends, or substantially reduces, its military role remains unexplored territory. Yet Americans are reluctant to accept that this is an open-ended contest. U.S. officials need to devote as much strategic thinking about how this war might end as they have (or have not) devoted to participating in it.

The struggle against jihadist terrorism has been a long fight, and it has a long way to go. There are no shortcuts. When the United States thinks there are no costs attached to a strategy, it creates trouble. All options come with risks.

However, the various courses of action are not mutually exclusive. The United States may increase its military efforts in one place while at the same time seeking to lower the level of violence in another. Choices in every case, however, require that the nation reexamine its national interests and clarify its objectives.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 12 Mar 2017 16:18

https://swarajyamag.com/world/trumps-mi ... -and-islam

Trump's likely approach to Middle East

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 14 Mar 2017 00:49

JEM, Well written article. Contrast your article to the one from Rand posted above.

Y9u show the clear path of Iran, Israel and Islam while Rand beats around the bush due to focus on Sunni Islam.

No wonder there is morass in Duplicity.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 14 Mar 2017 01:57

Tuan wrote:For U.S., Many Options but No Clear Path in Middle East

For the past 30 years, the Middle East has been the theater of most American military engagements — a timeline that covers the bombing of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli, the first Gulf War, the missile attacks on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the renewal of American military operations in Iraq and the recent bombing of the ISIS command center in Syria.

In the eyes of many Americans, involvement in the region's seemingly endless quarrels has brought the country nothing but grief.

President Trump inherited the current wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan from President Obama, who inherited them from President George W. Bush. Decisions will soon need to be made that will give the new administration ownership of the ongoing campaigns.

The violence in Afghanistan has intensified, and the commander of American forces there says he needs more troops. With U.S. combat support, Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and Shiite militias may in the coming months recapture Mosul in Iraq, but the U.S. commander of the campaign against ISIS recommends against withdrawal at that time. How Trump responds will set policy.

The fall of ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria will not end the war.

Four (or eight) years from now, Trump may in turn pass these military campaigns on to his successor. The fall of ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria will not end the war. ISIS will go underground and continue the fight through insurgencies and terrorism. The Taliban has not left the battlefield. And there are still ISIS and al Qaeda affiliates spread across Africa, the Middle East and western Asia.

{But defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria robs ISIS of the breeding grounds needed to foster recruitment from all the troubled regions. The Taliban has sanctuary in Pakistan and that fosters and sustains them. Its not the same as ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The AlQ affiliates are just that, affiliates and not the real thing. They are regional outfits claiming linkage to the global AlQ the dregs are still in Pakistan, Quetta area to be precise. The liberation of Baluchistan will end the Taliban sanctuary grounds.}

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 14, three authorities on terrorism variously spoke of the struggle going on for anywhere from another 15 to 40 years — another two generations.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is likely preparing options for Trump to escalate the fight against ISIS. Although a review of U.S. actions is appropriate, it is not likely to find a solution that has thus far eluded the government. There are no easy options.

Some suggest attacking the root causes driving the terrorist campaigns while reducing the ungoverned spaces where terrorists find sanctuary. This would require addressing chronic grievances, resolving ongoing conflicts, creating stability, ensuring better governance (if not democracy), and providing the security that will permit social and economic development. All of these are difficult to accomplish, and the United States is at the margin of its influence. They would require major investments and take many years to achieve.

{In other words nation building. Which US is not interested in.}

Meanwhile, the terrorist threat will continue.

Negotiations, even with terrorists, should never be off the table. Conceivably, deals with more-pragmatic Taliban factions might be possible. Negotiations with al Qaeda or ISIS leaders, who see the conflict as a life-and-death struggle mandated by God, are hard to envision, although some lower-level commanders might be persuaded to cut a deal. And not all of the groups allied with al Qaeda or ISIS may share their partner's determination to fight to the death.

{Precisely while some hard case believe in millennialism, majority want life here in, not here after. So the strategy should be induce them to prefer life here in.}

It may be more realistic to think in terms of interim arrangements aimed at lowering the level of violence rather than war-ending agreements.
It may be more realistic to think in terms of interim arrangements aimed merely at lowering the level of violence: seeking local accommodations rather than war-ending agreements.

Can the timeline be shortened and the jihadists defeated more quickly through escalation?

The Pentagon no doubt can offer a detailed list of options. Suggestions may begin with reinforcing the 6,000 or 7,000 U.S. service personnel currently working with the Iraqi army and irregular forces in Syria to increase their effectiveness. Without personnel on the ground to target and coordinate operations, airpower is largely ineffective over the long run. This would be a useful step, but not a quick solution.

Some have argued for relaxing the rules of engagement to allow a less-constrained use of airpower. But targets are limited, and bombing errors can lead to backlash and erode international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, a post-9/11 success story that provides vital intelligence.

Others have argued for American combat forces to be redeployed. Putting American boots on the ground raises questions of what exactly they would do and how the move would affect the war. More troops might more quickly capture Raqqa, Syria, but then what?

Deploying American troops also runs the risk of changing the dynamics of the contest while fueling the jihadist narrative and assisting terrorist recruiting. Sending in combat troops might be a popular course of action, especially in the immediate wake of a major terrorist incident in the United States, but whatever initial domestic political support exists for using American ground forces could quickly evaporate.

Partnering with the Russians to destroy ISIS also has been mentioned as a strategy, but it comes with high political cost and offers the U.S. little military benefit. America has enough airplanes and know-how to bomb targets, but associating the U.S. with the kind of ruthless military operations Russia conducted in Syria would cause deep concern in the American military, repel allies and could undercut U.S counterterrorist efforts.

Many U.S. military successes have been achieved by working with allies, including local governments and irregular forces. This was the case in Afghanistan in 2001, with the Sunni tribes in Iraq's Anbar Province in 2006 and, most notably, with the Kurds in the current conflict in Syria and Iraq.

Early U.S. attempts to field carefully vetted, U.S.-trained rebel formations in Syria achieved less success. Those failures merit more analysis and suggest that it is not enough to train guerrillas and drop them onto the battlefield. Their reliability and effectiveness depend on continued engagement — having Americans with them — and direct combat support.

The United States also may be able to do more with state partners in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia recently formed an alliance of Muslim states to fight Islamic extremists. The initiative, however, was not embraced in Washington.

Many Americans are uncomfortable with the Saudis. Some see Saudi financial support for the spread of the intolerant ideology of Wahhabist Islam as a major source of jihadist radicalization worldwide, while others are critical of Saudi Arabia's record on human rights. Some in the Obama administration saw a close relationship with Saudi Arabia as an obstacle to what they hoped would presage a more friendly relationship with Iran — a relationship that has yet to happen.

These objections notwithstanding — that few allies will meet our strict standards — pursuing local alliances makes sense. Politically, local forces are more effective than American combat units. They also have certain operational advantages. And they don't always have to be crack combat units — in some cases, they need only to out-recruit their opponents.

Finally, the U.S. could consider the idea of creating an international force, locally recruited but trained, paid and led by experienced military commanders from the region and beyond. This option may be the only one available for areas where no government or government forces exist.

{So while not supporting the KSA idea, RAND wants to do the same thing! Has any mercenary force ever worked for a sovereign power interests?}

Should the United States then avoid the costs and tribulations of further military involvement by withdrawing from the region, leaving local belligerents to sort things out by themselves?

Doing so seemingly would get the United States out of a costly mess and enable the country to focus on rebuilding its own economy, which is far more important to U.S. long-term strategic goals. It would also enable the armed forces to rebuild to meet threats that endanger the republic more than errant jihadists, which law enforcement has mostly contained.

This course of action has great appeal, but few have defined precisely what “getting out” means. Withdrawing all American forces from Afghanistan? Ending military support for Iraq's forces? Halting the bombing in Syria? Ending American support for the Kurds and allied Arab formations? Would the United States continue drone strikes and special operations as part of its counterterrorist campaign? Should the United States continue to support the Saudi-led fight in Yemen? Should it continue to provide training and other forms of military assistance to willing allies in the region?

Withdrawal also comes with risks. The United States has achieved what seemed to be a measure of success on several occasions — in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Yemen — only to see things fall apart when it pulled out or turned its attention to other fronts.

Many in the United States would say it's not our fight: What are the downsides of withdrawal to the United States?

What are the downsides of withdrawal to the United States?

Well, a U.S. withdrawal could result in further destabilization of surrounding countries. It would leave ungoverned spaces not unlike those in pre-9/11 Afghanistan, which allowed al Qaeda to flourish. The withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq in 2011 is sometimes cited as a contributing factor to the rise of ISIS. American withdrawal would alter political calculations in Iraq, and it would leave Iran in a commanding position in the region. It could prompt further and more significant military action against the Kurds by Turkey.

Withdrawal would be perceived as another demonstration that the United States is an unreliable ally, which could have strategic implications beyond the Middle East, in places like Europe and East Asia, where there already are concerns about American commitment to its allies.

But the principal reason for U.S. military involvement in these conflicts is that it is seen as necessary to prevent terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. Would withdrawal reduce or increase that risk?

Al Qaeda's original objective was to drive the United States — the “far enemy” — out of the Middle East, although some analysts argue that the purpose of the 9/11 attacks was exactly the opposite, to draw the United States into the fight. How would al Qaeda react now to American withdrawal?

Although it encourages homegrown terrorist attacks, ISIS thus far has not followed al Qaeda's earlier pattern of launching large-scale terrorist attacks on the United States, although both groups continue to call on homegrown terrorists to carry out attacks in the U.S. If the United States were to withdraw, would ISIS see launching attacks on the U.S. as being in its strategic interest?

Would any administration that ordered a withdrawal be able to politically withstand a subsequent terrorist attack? And if one were to occur, what options would the United States then have?

Whether and how the United States ends, or substantially reduces, its military role remains unexplored territory. Yet Americans are reluctant to accept that this is an open-ended contest. U.S. officials need to devote as much strategic thinking about how this war might end as they have (or have not) devoted to participating in it.

The struggle against jihadist terrorism has been a long fight, and it has a long way to go. There are no shortcuts. When the United States thinks there are no costs attached to a strategy, it creates trouble. All options come with risks.

{PAKISTAN}

However, the various courses of action are not mutually exclusive. The United States may increase its military efforts in one place while at the same time seeking to lower the level of violence in another. Choices in every case, however, require that the nation reexamine its national interests and clarify its objectives.

Looks like preserving Pakistan is the unstated objective of this RAND article.
If so they will get more of the same and faster downhill.

Tuan · Post by **Tuan** » 14 Mar 2017 03:23

Ramana ji, it is not only preserving Pakistan but this entire war on terror is a hoax. Like I mentioned here before, it will take only matter of weeks to obliterate ISIS if the US wanted; however, the West including the US uses ISIS as a catalyst to speed up the process of balancing their economic equilibrium, that is, they pursue "cost-benefit analysis" whereby the US engages a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. Cost-benefit analysis is used to determine options that provide the best approach to achieve benefits.

Further more, economic equilibrium is a condition or state in which economic forces are balanced. Economic equilibrium may also be defined as the point at which supply equals demand for a product, with the equilibrium price existing where the hypothetical supply and demand curves intersect.

In other words, the West is orchestrating a commercial warfare under the guise of counterterrorism, in my opinion.

You will soon figure out to whom and what the US is supplying and to whom and what the ME is demanding, and vice versa.