West Asia News and Discussions (YEMEN, gulf)

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 30 May 2015 09:56

Southee barbaria and jordan are the two non-hot entities. Both have schisms. The southees are warming up. Jordan will be the last to join the party.

Unless the ukrainians have a summer surprise planned (they have guns and ammo in place, just the lighter is missing) which might detract attention, it is the turn of the southees to face some music.

There isnt any coverage of the yemen border or iraq border. Some big incident only (the border crossing wasnt enough) will grab attention. Lets see how long, yemen was a long simmering delayed ignition type event. Barely switching on when there was time between syria and ukraine.

I predict more to happen in southee than any place else over the summer. And no one else will be bothered as long things stay in southee and the current lot.

Turkey has elections? dont they? That might upset something, if there is fragmentation. But rigging will make sure that calculation doesnt change.

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 30 May 2015 10:28

My thoughts on the same:

I still believe that the US is trying to work through the maze... mostly wrong footed and stumbling along blindly more than strutting along confidently.

However, there is a bit more than what has been discussed, IMO. The US wants to move on and move out. For several other factors too. Think China, Russia, the Russia China embrace and the possible troubles it could all bring up.

The US wants a deal with Iran. Desperately. Think Kerry who moves to Rossiya to meet Putin a few days after the Defense celebrations. After about 20 months of no bilateral meetings between Russia and US. Rumor has it [oilprice had a nice article that was also linked in ZH?] that Kerry asked for Rossiya support in Iran deal and Putin concurred. The bribe for Russia? Ukraine noise will recede. [We see more Russian troops being amassed in the border. Me thinks its Putin trying to see how much the West will digest and keep quiet about. Heh!].

Why is this important currently. This move is having a lot of blowback - from Israel, from KSA from most Sunni countries. And they are downright skeptical of Obamas moves to reintegrate Iran into mainstream. [It has led to the Israeli PM taking unprecedented measures to address the US politicos w/o meeting the US president, has allowed the KSA to not send their King to US for the meeting with the President, has led to a sudden kiss and make up of Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and KSA. Who knew? It has also led to a lot of other consolidations in the ME. Think Egypt, Turkey, KSA, Qatar etc etc coming from both sides of the eqn and allowing minor squabbles to lie low, in the near term]. With so much happening, the US *cant* support the IS more. Why? Because it will lose a potential deal with Iran. The US cant support the Iranians / their proxies more. Why? Because it will isolate the Sunni kingdoms even more and allow the dirty linen to be washed in the Thames and Hudson. Directly and shamelessly. So, US will have to walk a very tight rope. For a long time to come. Which also means there is going to be a semblance of ME rebalancing - Iran proxies will take out Sunni jihadists. Iran will play its weight and counterbalance KSA ambitions of Gulf superpower. There will be no peace but the violence will hopefully be bottled up within the confines of the Arab deserts.

There are lots of qns to be asked though - what happens to the territorial integrity of Syria? Iraq? Yemen? heck, even Libya. Will they fail even more to rump levels. And so on and so forth. But the US will at least want to move out as its more worried about China lately. If they miss out now, they will have missed a chance to stop things at the bud...

So, net-net, it does look like the US is doing its damndest best in the ME to keep everyone happy so it can clinch an Iranian deal. So, it means it supports Iran sometimes, against IS so it doesn't do absolutely bad stuff. It also means US wittingly / unwittingly supports IS sometimes so Iranian proxies don't win it all. And so on and so forth. On a case by case basis which makes it bad viewing and look like unplanned strategy.
As it is, most countries have gone ahead and starting making plans for a "non-sanctions" regime against Iran. And rumor has it that once the walls are broken, NO COUNTRY is ready to build up the wall of sanctions again. It will be a gush. Why are they doing it? I have no clear answer but it does look like the US isn't in complete control of the KSA and Sunni entities either. So, it does look like a face saving way to come out and make them (ME powers) grab each others scrotum while these guys go ahead and look at the more distant future of a battle with China.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 30 May 2015 10:43

Politics and strategy aside, the pressure now has nowhere to go but up towards barbaria. Afg hasnt ever quietened. I doubt any of these others will be peaceful anytime soon either.

Barbaria is not a big deal, but if behrain, uae types start rising up it might have the unintentional benefit of killing most of the hawala nonsense.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 30 May 2015 11:33

vkji: Perhaps (and I am just speculating), the disconnect is that I do not see "the US" as a monolithic entity in action, planning, strategy or agenda. Note that I refer to "the sh1ts behind ISIS" but I do not seriously believe that these are the actual entities who are supposed, by law, to do the planning, strategy or agenda of the USA as its elected representatives or those appointed by those representatives. I don't think WW1 was started by the elected representatives either - you may see where my prejudices/ historical biases may be coming from.

I think POTUS BO is a basically decent American patriot. Enough American voters agreed with that assessment, twice, the last time after seeing 4 years of his performance. But his basic decency, coupled with just a bit too much perhaps of predictability and conventional understanding of the ME, now translates into a terrible vulnerability and into inaction. IOW, like Hamlet, he seems to be wondering: 2 b(omb), or not 2b? (the cra* out of the ISIS and all their backers) I also think he has lost control of his intel assets, either because his appointee as head has been hamstrung by subordinates, or because the entire establishment that has the wrong sorts of competence, has been bought out by other interests established in Duplee City.

The present course leads to war, no 2 ways about it. The longer the US waits, the more that war will cost. The US is **responsible** for the Iraq mess, no question about that either. Saddam would have made short work of the ISIS, hain? Or, are we saying that ISIS is Saddam's Followers? I don't believe it for a moment, though the targeting of Shiites and Kurds is INTENDED to convey that impression.

The present scenario is cast as Sunni-Shia, but I think it is absolutely not that. One day the Sunni extremists and Shia will join against the common enemy, the Kufr of the Great Satan. And then the cost in American lives and limbs will be immeasurably higher than if BO acts even today.

The sad thing is that the entire US Armed Forces and Intel have been revamped in a hurry in the past 20 years to take on precisely these things: urban warfare, terrorism, financial support and logistics for 'unconventional warfare', desert warfare, Special Forces, and finally, UAVs and UCAVs and guided missiles with pinpoint accuracy. Yet we see America hiding as the Moderate, civilized people in the Middle East are systematically being eradicated or enslaved: the Mediterranean turned into a 'vast graveyard' (quote from Pope Francis in Bloomberg) as refugees die trying to escape their historic homelands. How is this in American strategic interests?

It goes against EVERYTHING that BO stood for: he wanted America to be respected more than she is feared - now we are being driven to a situation where Fear is the only solution. He wanted to withdraw from Iraq and set up a democratic government - now it is being turned into total defeat and destruction, with the worst-case types threatening to take over. Can you believe that America's only hope today is that IRAN establishes and props up a DEMOCRATIC government in Iran?

I am sure many are

Most (e.g., desis) because they don't (yet) see this as a case of
Ask not for whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee.
They won't until it is too late. But the ones I refer to, are

because this is exactly their agenda. Who do you think they are? Surely not the occupants of the WHOTUS. His legacy is being trashed far worse than Carter's was trashed by the Iran Hostage Situation (latest rumors claim that the Republican-controlled 'extra-constitutional' armed forces made a deal with the Ayatollah's boys to **NOT** end the hostage situation until after the US elections).

Bottom like after all that rant: So no, I do not believe that "The US" is monolithic. Right now it appears viciously cannibalistic and self-destructive.

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 30 May 2015 14:41

^^ With all its missiles, US cant stop rise of Islamic fundamentalism. The longer US stays away from middle east, the longer it will stay away from being a target of the terrorists and become a unifying factor for all the pigs under the moon.
Let them kill each other. In fact India should do the same. Encourage the vermin to kill each other off.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 30 May 2015 16:13

Same wisdom goes for India, I presume?

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 30 May 2015 16:19

@Bhurishrava: We have 200 million (potential) canon fodder for the ISIS as of today. If ISIS strengthens, if ISIS and its kind gain territory, money and above all legitimacy, those forces will find a way home - our home. Khorasan is just not another word in Arabic. They are trying, but the setbacks they suffered in some parts due to American bombing but mostly through a resolute Kurdish fightback at Kobane diminished their aura of invincibility.

It should be among Indian interests to subdue or assist in subduing the great plague of middle east. The horror of Yezidis could be the horror of Indians lest we keep smirking on the sides.

Islamic Fundamentalism cannot be stopped by missiles. Islam cannot be moderated. Nor can we lower our gaurd. Self defence cannot be taken lightly. We must counter, if required for perpetuity.

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 30 May 2015 16:24

ISIS types or incrementalism in Green Doctrine of the Islamic fundamentalists was in the past restricted by geography. In the age of Internet, the Islamists across the globe are communicating and spreading their ideas. Some time back there was a news linked on evolution of ISIS and it clearly showed how fundamentalists in Middle East were regularly exchanging notes with others in Australia - Europe etc including issues like declaring Al-Baghdadi 'The Khalifa'.

If we let them blossom in middle east, we maybe laying out the red carpet in India too.

wig · Post by **wig** » 30 May 2015 18:11

Why ISIS' favorite tactic for overrunning cities is brilliant, devastating, and insane. it involves having multi ton bombs in vehicles
excerpts

Since ISIS exploded onto the scene in Iraq in June 2014, the group has managed to overrun cities garrisoned by contingents of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) that were multiple times larger than the attacking militant forces. In May, ISIS seized control of Ramadi after months of battles against the ISF, Iraqi police, and members of Sunni tribes who opposed ISIS.
Altogether, the ISF had assembled a force of about 2,000 soldiers in Ramadi which were fighting against between 400 and 800 militants. Despite having many more troops, ISIS still managed to take control of the city due to their devastating and insane tactic of using waves of multi-ton suicide car bombs.

According to The Soufan Group, ISIS used upwards of 30 car bombs in its Ramadi offensive. At least some of those bombs were large enough to level an entire city block. In multiple instances, the car bombs were preceded by ISIS-manned construction equipment that could barrel through concrete blast barriers which opened the way for the suicide operatives.

"There is little defense against a multi-ton car bomb; there is none against multiple such car bombs. ... the Islamic State is able to overwhelm once-thought formidable static defenses through a calculated and concentrated use of suicide bombers," The Soufan Group notes. "The Islamic State has neither a shortage of such explosives nor a shortage of volunteers eager to partake in suicide attacks."

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 481489.cms

Bhurishrava · Post by **Bhurishrava** » 30 May 2015 20:18

@ dejay
They are a threat. Noone says they are not. What one needs to do is to get the yahoos to kill the yahoos. Thats what Parrikkar says too. Nothing wrong with it.
We do not need to get involved overtlyinto the mess. Thats my point.
And one needs to strengthen Iran. Its the bulwark against senseless islamic arab morons and a unified terrorist state/entity in west asia

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 01 Jun 2015 10:35

In all the gloom and doom scenarios over ISIS's extraordinary successes,one factor may be a potent virus which will eventually destroy them......Money! The amount of largesse which they are acquiring through the spoils of victory is no laughing matter.One used to drop one's jaw at the LTTE annual income years ago,but the ISIS billionaires take the terrorist cake. They are the modern-day equiv. of Ghengiz Khan and his hordes of Mongols sweepoing across Europe,only this time these hordes of ISIS are sweeping across the lucrative Middle east with much of the world's oil. The Mosul loot includes this staggering booty!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/j ... s-in-mosul

Isis captured 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles from Iraqi forces in Mosul
Iraq’s prime minister reveals extent of equipment loss when Isis overran the army last year in the country’s second-largest city

Agence France-Presse

Monday 1 June 2015
Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles when the Islamic State jihadist group overran the northern city of Mosul, the prime minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday.

“In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons,” Abadi said in an interview with Iraqiya state TV. “We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone.”

While the exact price of the vehicles varies depending on how they are armoured and equipped, it is clearly a hugely expensive loss that has boosted Isis’s capabilities.

Last year, the US State Department approved a possible sale to Iraq of 1,000 Humvees with increased armour, machine-guns, grenade launchers, other gear and support, which was estimated to cost $579 million.

Clashes began in Mosul, Iraq’s second city, late on June 9, 2014, and Iraqi forces lost it the following day to Isis, which spearheaded an offensive that overran much of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland.

Syria and Iraq can’t be solved by western boots on the ground
Mary Dejevsky

The militants gained ample arms, ammunition and other equipment when multiple Iraqi divisions fell apart in the country’s north, abandoning gear and shedding uniforms in their haste to flee. Isis has used captured Humvees, which were provided to Iraq by the United States, in subsequent fighting, rigging some with explosives for suicide bombings.

Iraqi security forces backed by Shiite militias have regained significant ground from Isis in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces north of Baghdad. But that momentum was slashed in mid-May when Isis overran Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where Iraqi forces had held out against militants for more than a year.

Ultimately,the West/US will have to turn back to that famous quote by a US soldier in Vietnam who said about the attack on Ben Tre in the Tet offensive,
"we had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it"..The only US weapon of war that the VC truly respected were the B-52s.Past time to bring them on to defeat ISIS,no matter where they are holed up.Guys,as in Vietnam,"you have to destroy Iraq in order to save it!

PS:Here's the origin of the famous quote.

Then the 3/39 returned. Or I should say that 75 percent of them returned. The fighting in Saigon had been intense. After only a few days rest, they were air-lifted by chopper to retake the town of Ben Tre. Ben Tre had been occupied by the VC during Tet. The VC had dug in heavily, and were not ready to retreat without a big fight. So the still exhausted and depleted infantry troops of the 3/39 were thrown into another vicious fight. I cannot tell you how much respect that I have for those guys. True heroes, every one of them. Tough, plucky, and mostly draftees. I still remember my wonder at the ability of America’s youth to endure.

I sometimes wonder if I am the only one who remembers them. So I willingly tell this story, so you can help me to remember. Their deeds should not be forgotten. The 3/39 Inf. Bn. suffered 100% casualties during the year 1968. I watched it. It is something that still haunts me. Eight hundred young men gone, dying bravely to serve the country they so loved.

Anyway, the fighting in Ben Tre went badly for the Americans. House-to-house all the way. The VC were so well dug in and barricaded that progress got stalled. So, in desperation, artillery and air strikes were called in on the town. Much of the town was heavily damaged in the resulting melee, but the town was retaken.

Several days later, Major Robert Black (the Rach Kein U.S. Army Advisor) invited me to attend with him an evening briefing that the 3/39 was going to give for a group of journalists and Saigon army brass. I had never before been invited to attend an infantry battalion briefing. I accepted the invitation. The briefing was held in a Vietnamese house that served as the S-3 office. It was about 7 houses East of where the VC barbershop was at one time set up. The house was on the left side of the road as you drove through the infantry compound, just about across from the infantry mess hall.

Anyway, the living room of the house was packed, mostly with civilians. The purpose of the briefing was to explain the battle of Ben Tre. Such briefings are usually conducted by the S-3, in this case, Major Booris. He was a heavy-set fellow.

He was also not my favorite officer. This was because he was the guy who told the infantry on guard to open fire on us the morning when we were walking back to Rach Kein across the rice paddies. This was when we had chased the VC who had ambushed the infantry Road Runners that one infamous and well-remembered morning (but that is another story). Fortunately for us, the infantry sergeant (an E-5) on duty had ignored the major’s orders. I’ll never forget his grin as he told me that he had saved our bacon by ignoring the S-3’s orders. He could clearly see that we were friendlies, so he withheld his fire.

Anyway, at one point the journalists were pressing Major Booris to explain why it had been necessary to wipe out the town. They were definitely pressing the point that perhaps too much force had been applied by the US forces. Major Booris was trying his best to put a good face on the situation. But at one point he got flustered, and blurted out, “We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it.” I have to admit that I almost laughed when he said that. It was a really unfortunate comment. But Major Booris, in his defense, was trying his best to defend his battalion’s honor. His CO, Lt. Colonel Anthony P. Deluca, deftly jumped to his feet and interceded to rescue Major Booris from this difficult moment. He smoothly carried the rest of the conversation. I really liked LTC Deluca. He was a good combat leader, and he was always fair to Task Force Builder.

Anyway, that was the only briefing of the infantry that I ever attended. But it turned out to be the most famous. Some of the journalists present at that briefing seized Major Booris’ comment, and they really publicized it. As I recall, it appeared on the cover of Newsweek or Time magazine within the month. And it has gone down in history as an example of the some of the insanity that was Vietnam.

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 01 Jun 2015 11:25

UB saar - agreed. All good points. Particularly the thing about different power structures in the US. Which is pretty true in any country for that matter. Which makes matters more complicated and makes for very interesting viewing: all this push and pull.

However, regardless of how hard the push / pull factor is, the US (read BO, and perhaps a lot of the state apparatus to ensure that the deal gets done) remains committed to an Iranian deal and the matter needs to be seen through that lens. [So, it might be that there is a tactical move to ensure the deal gets done and all western geopol interests that are "overall harmful" are kept in mind now w/o acting but to be looked into immediately after the deal...

The larger news today is that IS has occupied Sirte. The homeland and fief of Muamar Gaddafi. That will mean a real and significant threat to Misrata and Libyan dawn... and predictably the IS fellas have called them "Despicable scum". [Not exactly that because that is NoKO exclusive lang usage!]

Something close: “The apostates of Fajr Libya [Libya Dawn] ... must know that a war is coming to cleanse the land of their filth unless they repent and go back to their true religion.”

Besides, looks like they have controlled a fair bit of the 8th wonder of the world, per Gaddafi. The Great Man Made River. Ouch.

I wonder who teaches IS strategy. Could it possibly be a Chinese influence? They always go after the most critical resources and bottle necks - typically oil and more importantly water. Think Mosul, Baiji, Erbil etc etc.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 02 Jun 2015 17:55

What "strategy" ISIS needs to do what it does seriously?

Please remember that Muslims (or for that matter every majority) are the "silent" majority. The pussillaneous silent majority never have any rights and never made history.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 02 Jun 2015 18:20

That 2300-Humvee quote makes me wonder, when you combine it with the shocked Iraqi reaction: WHO GAVE THE ORDER TO WITHDRAW?
Think about it. Very scary.

There **is** (no pun) another line of thought: That the news media are as right as usual

If u were Eyeraki, wouldn't u consider these guys to be the Forces of Liberation routing the Infidel Occupiers? The guys ruling Eyerak (except for a few) are also Eyerakis who have watched their nation, lives, families, loved ones, property all destroyed by the American invasion and occupation. Turned from a nation of high-rolling Upper-Middle-Classers into a land of desperate Stone Age creatures scratching in caves to survive from one moment to the next. For 25 years.

This invasion may be as popular as the VietCong coming into Saigon 1975. Yes, a lot of "atrocities" (so, for that matter, is a B-52 dropping napalm, or what the US/NATO forces did in Falluja and Basra*, hain?) but in the end, Liberation. Honor and Dignity and Sovirginity. Religious Purity aka Pakistaniyat.

So maybe it is quite OK with them to fire the few obligatory American-trained shots in the general direction, then get out of there. Get the choppers ready, get the bar in LA / mansion in New Jersey ready..

This is the shape of the Iraqi Great War of Liberation?

Look at the tactics: Earth-moving equipment rolling ahead of the soosai-hum jeeps. Remember Desert Storm ground war start, 1991? Entire border defences were simply buried and crushed under a wave of rock and sand and soil moved by these giant earthmoving bulldozers. Thousands believed killed in their trenches, buried alive and then run over as the tank brigades followed. The IS is using these perhaps for effectiveness, but also to convey some memories? Which says a lot about who their officer corps may be?

*Basra 1991: Declared "Free Fire Zone". Est. 80,000+ dead. Few of them were "Saddam's Imperial Guards".

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Jun 2015 21:06

would be ironic if libya too fell to the IS. presently I thought it was divided among no less than 5 warlords/armies.

for months during the libyan 'rebellion' the 'freedom fighters' made sporadic attempts to break out of benghazi along the coast road toward tripoli and achieved nothing much in 6 months. finally NATO ships lifted 100s of stormtroopers directly from benghazi to tripoli harbour, perhaps some guard details were paid off and tuareg tribes in the west were supplied Milan ATGMs by the french to end to the deadlock.

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 03 Jun 2015 18:50

Have the guys in the US lost their marbles. They say that about 10k IS types have been killed in air strikes. I wonder how that's even possible!

They said that about ~10-20k militants might be involved with IS. If 10k are finished then it means the war is over and victory is near?

More than 10,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed since an international coalition began a campaign against the group in Iraq and Syria, the US says.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32990299

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 03 Jun 2015 19:18

All is premature declaration of progress and victory on the side of truth and justice is so these same guys can all claim IS is in resurgence a few weeks or months from now -- just manufacture this pitched battle between "good and evil" while the IS goes from strength to strength on the ground. The Iraqi claim that the IS is on the defensive is laughable given recent events, but this is the same place that produced Chemical Ali who announced boldly that Saddam was winning a war approximately 3 minutes before his surrender.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 04 Jun 2015 06:49

They said that about ~10-20k militants might be involved with IS. If 10k are finished then it means the war is over and victory is near?

They are saying that 10K have been killed, but strength of IS remains at 10K because they are recruiting faster than they can be killed. I think ISIS is getting local Sunnis to sign up, and they may be quite enthusiastic, unlike the govt. 'forces'. They can smell victory over the Great Satanic Aggressor after 25 years of torture and humiliation.

Now it is beginning to make sense: Pentagon types are seeing the writing on the wall. Without a massive infusio of B-O-T-G, there is no chance here.

But remember that Saddam did not have much love for or from KSA. Interesting.

anmol · Post by **anmol** » 04 Jun 2015 12:40

Declassified DIA document: http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content ... sion11.pdf

stopwar.org.uk

How the US helped ISIS carve its caliphate in blood across Iraq and Syria
Stop the War Coalition

The essential premises of the US 'war on terror' make al Qaeda an existential enemy in one country while it's a strategic asset in another.

I HAVE YET to see any reference in the mainstream media to the publication by the conservative foundation Judicial Watch of previously classified US intelligence documents obtained as the result of a freedom of information lawsuit.

This inattention is alarming, because one of these documents provides some disturbing background behind the nightmarish caliphate that is now being carved in blood across Syria and Iraq.

Take these observations contained in aninformation report on Syria by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) dated August 12 2012 on the 'general situation' in Syria in the summer of 2012:

Internally, events are taking a clear sectarian direction

The Salafist, The Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition, while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime.

AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media.

AQI had major pockets and bases on both sides of the border to facilitate the flow of materiel and recruits.

In a section on 'the future assumptions of the crisis', the report put forward the following hypothesis:

'Development of the current events into proxy war: with support from Russia, China, and Iran, the regime is controlling the areas of influence along coastal territories…On the other hand, opposition forces are trying to control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Der Zor), adjacent to the western Iraqi provinces (Mosul and Anbar), in addition to neighboring Turkish borders.

Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey are supporting these efforts. This hypothesis is most likely in accordance with the data from recent events, which will help prepare safe havens under international sheltering, similar to what transpired in Libya when Benghazi was chosen as the command center of the temporary government.'
So in the summer of 2012, opposition forces in which Salafi/AQI elements were the 'major forces' were seeking to control territory in eastern Syria with the support of the Gulf States, Turkey – and Western countries. And the DIA was suggesting that such assistance might take the form of a safe haven, constructed under the rubric of a Libya-style no fly zone! And what would these 'safe havens' be like? Well the DIA offered the following possibility:

'If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).'
Might the world's leading democracy have a problem with a 'Salafist Principality' for sectarian/strategic reasons? Not as far as we can tell from this document, at least in Syria. Iraq was another matter, however, because such an enclave so close to the Iraqi border would benefit al-Qaeda:

'This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the assumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters.'
This might even result in: 'The renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi arena.'

The DIA's assessment was 'unevaluated intelligence', so we don't know how other agencies or the administration itself responded to the information that it provided. Nevertheless the published document tells us that some elements in the US government at least:

1. Knew that al-Qaeda/Salafism was the dominant element in an opposition that it was still insisting at the time was largely 'moderate'
2. That its allies regarded a 'Salafi Principality' as a potential strategic asset in order to combat and reverse the 'Shia expansion' and bring about regime change in Syria.
3. That the US might be prepared to support these developments through the construction of a 'safe haven' protected by western air power.

In the event, the no fly zone proved politically impossible. But the proxy war prediction proved to be horribly accurate. And so did the Salafi Principality scenario – in the shape of the ISIS Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, a 'Salafist Principality' that now makes al-Qaeda seem like 'moderates'.

At the very least, you would think that these documents would provoke a wider discussion about American foreign policy in Syria and the Middle East; about the long historical use by American intelligence agencies of jihadist/Salafist groups as strategic instruments; about the morality and the wisdom of supporting a 'Salafist Principality' while claiming that you were seeking to promote a moderate democratic opposition; about imperial collusion in a proxy war that was part of a wider sectarian conflict aimed at reversing 'Shia expansion' across the Middle East, which may threatens to wreak incalculable harm on the region for decades; about the essential premises of the 'war on terror' in which al Qaeda can be an existential enemy in one country and a strategic asset in another.

But that would be an uncomfortable and unpleasant conversation to have. It would entail asking all kinds of disturbing and questions that governments never like to answer. So maybe we shouldn't be surprised that these revelations have so far passed largely unnoticed and uncommented on.

Because who in their right mind would want to get involved in a conversation like that?

Source: Matt Carr's Infernal Machine

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 05 Jun 2015 14:12

Qassem Suleimani is back. Looks like some 15k shiny men are ready to go to Syria. Loads of goodies and such, per Suleimani and IRNA.

Men from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan lined up to a. beef up Syria defence b. to recapture lost territory. Damascus, Latakia and Aleppo, Idlib etc in mind.

habal · Post by **habal** » 05 Jun 2015 16:08

UlanBatori wrote: Now it is beginning to make sense

Ok.

facing great odds including ground fire and SAM fire, UK and USA continue to serve and protect ..

ISIL

mind you this is slightly old news which means they were actively aiding ISIL in buildup to the Ramadi assault.

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.as ... 1204001534

Iraqi Army Downs 2 UK Planes Carrying Weapons for ISIL

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq's army has shot down two British planes as they were carrying weapons for the ISIL terrorists in Al-Anbar province, a senior lawmaker disclosed on Monday.
"The Iraqi Parliament's National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL," Head of the committee Hakem al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

He said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this regard.

The senior Iraqi legislator further unveiled that the government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from people and security forces in al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL in terrorist-held areas.

The Iraqi lawmaker further noted the cause of such western aids to the terrorist group, and explained that the US prefers a chaotic situation in Anbar Province which is near the cities of Karbala and Baghdad as it does not want the ISIL crisis to come to an end.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 05 Jun 2015 16:21

Chemical Ali who announced boldly that Saddam was winning a war

And ur point is...?

The Infidel Invaders have gone back licking wounds and are unwilling to come back - if the reports are to be believed, they are selling weapons now to the Believers. The Believers are indeed winning the war. Minor battles at the start may have gone wrong, but the Mother of All Battles and the war are clearly being won by the Ummah, hain? The noose is steadily tightening around the lampposts of Baghdad.

The problem with the '2300 Humvees captured in Ramadi' is that it sounds way too convenient. More likely, they came factory-direct via Turkey to the IS.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 05 Jun 2015 18:05

The problem with the '2300 Humvees captured in Ramadi' is that it sounds way too convenient. More likely, they came factory-direct via Turkey to the IS.

Not just the 2300 Humvees -- how about the warehouse full of US weapons supplies for Iraq that were "captured" from the Iraqi government forces? Not only did the believers get top of the line Hummers in a sizeable quantity, they also found warehouses full of US ammo to use. And even more conveniently, the US military knows exactly how much money the believers are making money from selling oil, and have even written white papers on all this....though it is sheer bad luck that they cannot tell you who is buying all of this oil from the believers either as payment or as goods.

Not only that, the IS has managed to open their own banks in their caliphate and are now considered a legitimate bank by all the GCC states -- makes money laundering so much more easier from all the sale of Iraqi crude in the international market. Just send money to Qatari banks and the IS will get it within 24 hours, and vice versa for payments from the IS. Just like the Paki BCCI was eventually discovered right after the exit of US forces in the 80s, the US and EU will discover is SHEER HORROR about the existence of these banks that laundered money for the IS.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Jun 2015 19:33

Batoriji

Would have to search & find the reference. But I remember reading a reporter's account where he went to eyrack after 1991/2001 desert storm and for tens and hundreds of miles all he saw was destruction entire villages, towns raged to ground by bomb rides and thousands of eyraki military and civilian vehicles burning all along the highway.

His estimate ran into million....

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 05 Jun 2015 20:45

ramay - that was the highway of death out of kuwait and back into iraq, a very large chunk of the retreating forces were trapped on the open highway and totally exposed to air attack. after a while even the pilots asked to stop attacking the remnants of that column
it was several km's but not several 100's

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 06 Jun 2015 05:10

Enjoy...

The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing's A-6 Intruder aircraft blocked Highway 80, bombarding a massive vehicle column of mostly Iraqi Regular Army forces with Mk-20 Rockeye II cluster bombs, effectively boxing in the Iraqi forces in an enormous traffic jam of sitting targets for subsequent airstrikes. Over the next 10 hours, scores of U.S. Marine and U.S. Air Force aircraft and U.S. Navy pilots from USS Ranger (CV/CVA-61) attacked the convoy using a variety of ordnance. Vehicles surviving the air attacks were later engaged by arriving coalition ground units, while most of the vehicles that managed to evade the traffic jam and continued to drive on the road north were targeted individually. The road bottle-neck near the Mutla Ridge police station was reduced to a long uninterrupted line of more than 300 stuck and abandoned vehicles sometimes called the Mile of Death. The wreckage found on the highway consisted of at least 28 tanks and other armored vehicles with many more commandeered civilian cars and buses filled with stolen Kuwaiti property.[citation needed]

The death toll from the attack remains unknown and controversial. British journalist Robert Fisk claimed to have "lost count of the Iraqi corpses crammed into the smouldering wreckage or slumped face down in the sand" at the main site and to see hundreds of corpses strewn up the road all the way to the Iraqi border. American journalist Bob Drogin reported seeing "scores" of dead soldiers "in and around the vehicles, mangled and bloated in the drifting desert sands." Some independent estimates go as high as 10,000 or more casualties (even "tens of thousands"), but this is a highly unlikely number. A 2003 study by the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) estimated fewer than 10,000 people rode in the cut-off main caravan; and when the bombing started most simply left their vehicles to escape through the desert or into the nearby swamps where some died from their wounds and some were later taken prisoner. According to PDA, the often repeated low estimate of the numbers killed in the attack is 200-300 reported by journalist Michael Kelly (who personally counted 37 bodies), but a minimum death toll of at least 500-600 seems more plausible.[6]

In 1993, The Washington Post interviewed an Iraqi survivor of the attacks:[6]

There were hundreds of cars destroyed, soldiers screaming. [...] It was nighttime as the bombs fell, lighting up charred cars, bodies on the side of the road and soldiers sprawled on the ground, hit by cluster bombs as they tried to escape from their vehicles. I saw hundreds of soldiers like this, but my main target was to reach Basra. We arrived on foot.

Iraqi forces including the elite Iraqi Republican Guard's 1st Armored Division Hammurabi were trying to either redeploy or escape on and near Highway 8 east of Highway 80.[5] They were engaged over a much larger area in smaller groups by U.S. artillery units and a battalion of AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships operating under the command of General Barry McCaffrey. Hundreds of predominantly military Iraqi vehicles grouped in defensive formations of approximately a dozen vehicles were then systematically destroyed along a 50-mile stretch of the highway and nearby desert.

This engagement was not publicly known until almost two weeks later and remains relatively obscure; although most of the graphic images of scorched corpses considered among the iconic images of the war, and attributed to the Highway of Death, were actually taken on Highway 8 rather than Highway 80.[7] The PDA estimated the number killed there to be in the range of 300-400 or more, bringing the likely total number of fatalities along both highways to at least 800 or 1,000.[6] A large column composed of remnants of the Hammurabi Division attempting to withdraw to safety in Baghdad were also engaged and obliterated deep inside Iraqi territory by Gen. McCaffrey's forces a few days later on March 2 in a controversial post-war "turkey shoot"-style incident known as Battle of Rumaila.[5]
Controversies
Abandoned vehicles clog the Basra-Kuwait highway out of Kuwait City after the retreat of Iraqi forces. A view from top of an Iraqi tank on February 26, 1991. The car in the centre is a Mercedes-Benz W126 S-class

The offensive action for which Highway 80 is infamous became controversial with some commentators alleging disproportionate use of force, saying that the Iraqi forces were retreating from Kuwait in compliance with the original UN Resolution 660 of August 2, 1990; and the column allegedly included Kuwaiti hostages[8] and civilian refugees. The alleged refugees included women and children family members of pro-Iraqi, PLO-aligned Palestinian militants and Kuwaiti collaborators who had fled shortly before the returning Kuwaiti authorities pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait. Activist and former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark alleged that these attacks violated the Third Geneva Convention, Common Article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat."[9] Clark included it in his 1991 report WAR CRIMES: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal.[10]

Additionally, journalist Seymour Hersh, citing American witnesses, alleged that a platoon of U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicles from the 1st Brigade, 24th Infantry Division opened fire on a large group of more than 350 disarmed Iraqi soldiers who had surrendered at a makeshift military checkpoint after fleeing the devastation on Highway 8 on February 27, apparently hitting some or all of them. The U.S. Military Intelligence personnel who were manning the checkpoint claimed they too were fired on from the same vehicles and barely fled by car during the incident.[4] Journalist Georgie Anne Geyer criticized Hersh's article, saying that he offered "no real proof at all that such charges—which were aired, investigated and then dismissed by the military after the war—are true."[11]

Another, relatively minor, controversy regarded looting of functional Iraqi weapons after the battle, before the Military Police were deployed to guard the wreckage. Some scavenging Saudi civilians allegedly sold Iraqi assault rifles on the black market to buyers from the broader Middle East.[12]

General Norman Schwarzkopf stated in 1995:[13]

The first reason why we bombed the highway coming north out of Kuwait is because there was a great deal of military equipment on that highway, and I had given orders to all my commanders that I wanted every piece of Iraqi equipment that we possibly could destroy. Secondly, this was not a bunch of innocent people just trying to make their way back across the border to Iraq. This was a bunch of rapists, murderers and thugs who had raped and pillaged downtown Kuwait City and now were trying to get out of the country before they were caught.

Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the future Secretary of State, said the "shooting gallery" scenes carnage was the reason to end the Persian Gulf War hostilities after the Liberation of Kuwait campaign. Powell wrote later in his autobiography My American Journey that "the television coverage was starting to make it look as if we were engaged in slaughter for slaughter's sake."

According to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, however, "appearances were deceiving":[14]
Photojournalist Peter Turnley published photographs of mass burials at the scene.[15] Turnley wrote:

I flew from my home in Paris to Riyadh when the ground war began and arrived at the “mile of death” very early in the morning on the day the war stopped. Few other journalists were there when I arrived at this incredible scene, with carnage that was strewn all over. On this mile stretch were cars and trucks with wheels still turning and radios still playing. Bodies were scattered along the road. Many have asked how many people died during the war with Iraq, and the question has never been well answered. That first morning, I saw and photographed a U.S. military “graves detail” burying many bodies in large graves. I don't recall seeing many television images of these human consequences. Nor do I remember many photographs of these casualties being published.

Time magazine commented:[8]

The pictures were among the most stunning to come out of the gulf war: mile after mile of burned, smashed, shattered vehicles of every description—tanks, armored cars, trucks, autos, even stolen Kuwaiti fire trucks—littering the highway from Kuwait City to Basra. To some Americans, the pictures were also sickening. (...) After the war, correspondents did find some cars and trucks with burned bodies, but also many vehicles that had been abandoned. Their occupants had fled on foot, and the American planes often did not fire at them. That some Kuwaiti civilians who had been kidnapped by the fleeing Iraqis probably also perished on what became the highway of death is a true tragedy. Which proves once more that even in an era of precision weapons, war is hell; it can be civilized to some extent by rules of conduct, but the most humane thing to do is to end it as quickly as possible.

Guys, the main lesson here is what happens when 18th century oiseules command forces in the age of modern weapons. This is the main horror that I have about Indian preparations - remember the Kargil Colonel who sat on his thumbs and ordered his men to "go bring them down by the scruff of the neck"?

You read accounts of the Ukraine war where there are a few glimpses of modern weaponry, and shudder at strategies based on tanks, fixed defense etc. Basically, unless something goes very wrong, there is no reason why every single missile won't hit and destroy everything around its target. Not a chance for the targets. And the next gen is going to be hypersonic-cruise missiles and massed UAV attacks.

nandakumar · Post by **nandakumar** » 06 Jun 2015 10:11

The old war tactic of sending wave after wave of soldiers armed with perhaps nothing more than bolt action rifles to overwhelm forces with superior artillery as was the case in the Korean war is no longer valid. You can send a million strong infantry across fortified positions but they will be destroyed 100%.

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 06 Jun 2015 10:32

^case in point: when the Shiite militias mentioned that they will go in droves to liberate Tikrit, the Iraqi mil establishment rejected the notion and asked for American air raids instead.

Nowadays, I think the concept of fixed defense posts / c&c structures etc are so yesterday and they will be the first few places to be attacked in the case of air raids / attacks. Tanks might still have an adv - particularly the new ones. That's mainly because MBT's usually are also accompanied by infantry and the latest MBT's also have APS and radar and also have a fitted AA gun. Besides, there is stealth technology too that's used. I think the T-14 Armata is as good as it gets. Almost.

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 06 Jun 2015 14:56

What kind of tank is this? Gun pointed backwards like Pakistan Army?

My point is that targeting is now done with instant feedback control, not with "artillery spotters" etc. So every single munition can in concept at least, hit its designated target. No more need for "rolling artillery barrage" etc except to make noise: just certain death delivered with pinpoint accuracy. There was a report from Mariupol, Ukraine, how the UkBapZis rolled 3 tanks into the compound of a school. MINUTES later, two missiles came over, hitting two of the tanks. Pieces of the occupants were hanging from nearby trees. The occupants of the 3rd tank got out and ran as fast as they could - that tank was not targeted.

During the NATO invasion of Afghanistan, my yak-stable in Ulan Bator was asked for help with a certain altruistic gizmo*. It would be dropped from a passing airplane. As it reached around 4000 meters (I don't remember..) the case would open, and some number of little parachutes would be scattered around over a wide area. Each would float down gently and silently, with a couple of microphones listening - for engines. When one was detected and triangulated, the rocket in it would fire, and take the warhead directly into the source of the engine noise.

Cousins of these gizmos, disguised as fruits, leaves etc would be hung from trees (or maybe dropped by parachute into them) to sit and wait for something with an engine to pass by.

There can now be fleets of drones over the combat area 24-7, with high-res GPS and infrared cameras as well. How tough is it to send the calling card at hypersonic speed, wherever something is detected? I was reading about the Pinaka being deployed - although larger than an artillery shell, there is a whole pack of them on each truck, ready to launch. Each can be absolutely deadly, from 60 km away!!!!

* Not that it washes my hands, but we told them how to solve their problems in one 1-hour meeting instead of weeks of expensive tests. Maybe sped up deployment considerably.

Maybe it helped in the de-Pakification of Afghanistan.

All of this makes me ask again: How tough is it, REALLY, to stop the IS if NATO wanted to? Are they so powerless?

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 06 Jun 2015 15:09

UlanBatori wrote:What kind of tank is this? Gun pointed backwards like Pakistan Army?

My point is that targeting is now done with instant feedback control, not with "artillery spotters" etc. So every single munition can in concept at least, hit its designated target. No more need for "rolling artillery barrage" etc except to make noise: just certain death delivered with pinpoint accuracy. There was a report from Mariupol, Ukraine, how the UkBapZis rolled 3 tanks into the compound of a school. MINUTES later, two missiles came over, hitting two of the tanks. Pieces of the occupants were hanging from nearby trees. The occupants of the 3rd tank got out and ran as fast as they could - that tank was not targeted.

During the NATO invasion of Afghanistan, my yak-stable in Ulan Bator was asked for help with a certain altruistic gizmo*. It would be dropped from a passing airplane. As it reached around 4000 meters (I don't remember..) the case would open, and some number of little parachutes would be scattered around over a wide area. Each would float down gently and silently, with a couple of microphones listening - for engines. When one was detected and triangulated, the rocket in it would fire, and take the warhead directly into the source of the engine noise.

Cousins of these gizmos, disguised as fruits, leaves etc would be hung from trees (or maybe dropped by parachute into them) to sit and wait for something with an engine to pass by.

There can now be fleets of drones over the combat area 24-7, with high-res GPS and infrared cameras as well. How tough is it to send the calling card at hypersonic speed, wherever something is detected? I was reading about the Pinaka being deployed - although larger than an artillery shell, there is a whole pack of them on each truck, ready to launch. Each can be absolutely deadly, from 60 km away!!!!

* Not that it washes my hands, but we told them how to solve their problems in one 1-hour meeting instead of weeks of expensive tests. Maybe sped up deployment considerably. Maybe it helped in the de-Pakification of Afghanistan.

All of this makes me ask again: How tough is it, REALLY, to stop the IS if NATO wanted to? Are they so powerless?

The saudi led effort to cut the bottom off the international oil market is beginning to sound a bit ominous. It looks like an iceberg with a massive part of the scheme well out of sight. Wonder who is teaching whom a lesson??

UlanBatori · Post by **UlanBatori** » 06 Jun 2015 18:14

Logically, this would be a scheme to get as much money as possible, and buy up the competition by starving them into submission. Much easier to own PV companies, solar thermal companies, and hence their best technology and patents, than to try to build indigenous conversion to other sources of income. I bet the "wall of money" that is so bravely shoring up US and Canadian oil sands, is coming mostly from OPEC. Then they get to manipulate prices of petroleum **AND** renewable energy.

Next stop: Nuclear. Look at the price of uranium: Peaked ~$138/lb around 2008 - now at $36. No one is talking about THAT price crash. So one may find that a "wall of money" is also shoring up that industry by buying up the mines and refineries.

India should grab these supplies while the Sale lasts.

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 06 Jun 2015 18:29

Looks like a Houthi scud was negotiated and done with by the Saudis. Was supposed to hit an airbase, per reports.

Multatuli · Post by **Multatuli** » 07 Jun 2015 10:35

UlanBatori wrote:

That 2300-Humvee quote makes me wonder, when you combine it with the shocked Iraqi reaction: WHO GAVE THE ORDER TO WITHDRAW?

During the first wave of major victories of ISIS in Iraq, 3 Iraqi divisions collapsed/disintegrated within weeks (if I remember it correctly). The officers just left/fled hours before ISIS attacked, an airplane was waiting for some of the top generals. Without their officers to lead them many Iraqi soldiers also deserted. Yet, the most remarkable thing is that thousand of privates still decided to fight the ISIS, without their officers, without any support from the Iraqi government. In fact these Iraqi soldiers ran out of ammunition, weapons and even food, but still they kept on fighting (the civilian population would give them food). A few news reporters interviewed the Iraqi privates, both those who deserted and those who decided to fight the ISIS (effectively on their own), they said that their officers betrayed them because they were bought of. They also said that ISIS would not have captured the towns, military bases, etc. so easily if the officers had not deserted them.

Who payed those Iraqi officers to flee hours before ISIS attacked?

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 07 Jun 2015 15:30

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/war ... 02380.html
Patrick Cockburn
Sunday 7 June 2015

War with Isis: As the militant threat grows, so does the West's self-deception
World View: Chinese mandarins used to claim rhubarb was a war-winning weapon. Our leaders also fantasise.

In the declining years of the Chinese empire, high officials developed a handy way of dealing with military setbacks and defeats by foreign powers. They simply announced that the heroic forces of the emperor had won yet another victory against the barbarian enemy.

To do those officials credit, they saw that serial mendacity was only a short-term solution to their problems and the news about China’s calamitous defeats could not be permanently suppressed. But they believed that by the time this became apparent, one of their country’s hidden strengths would have kicked in which would give them a tremendous advantage in any drawn-out conflict.

China’s secret war winner – officials had been told by their expert advisers – was that China was the world’s leading producer of rhubarb. This was much used in traditional Chinese medicine and was deemed the only effective cure for constipation. These experts confidently advised the policy-makers of the day that all they needed to do was to cut off the West from its rhubarb supplies and its leaders would ultimately be forced to grovel for peace.

Of course, it is easy enough to deride the ludicrous wishful thinking of those long forgotten mandarins, explaining away defeat and vainly seeking to stem the barbarian advance. But their self-delusions have much in common with those of Western and Middle Eastern politicians, soldiers and diplomats seeking to halt the seemingly unstoppable progress of Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq and Syria in the 12 months since Isis captured Mosul on 10 June 2014.

Grim experience had not prevented Western and regional leaders from being influenced by gusts of false optimism. Before the fall of Mosul, nobody seemed to pay much attention to the fact that Isis had captured Fallujah and was operating freely from the Iranian border to Aleppo. After Isis seized much of northern and western Iraq last June, one might have expected it to be taken seriously, and so it was, briefly. But then Middle East conspiracy theorists intervened, claiming that Isis was just the old Baath party disguised in Islamic garb, while in Baghdad it became conventional wisdom that Isis had done a deal with the Kurds who had stabbed the Iraqi army in the back.

Read more: • Part one of Patrick Cockburn's War with Isis
• Part two of Patrick Cockburn's War with Isis

This widely believed theory of an Isis-Kurdish plot was knocked on the head when Isis attacked and defeated the Iraqi Kurds in August. But Isis action provoked a US air campaign against Isis, and American air strikes were central to stopping Isis from overrunning the Syrian Kurdish militia fighting heroically to hold the city of Kobani during a four-and-a-half month siege.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon produced a fantastical scenario about an imminent recapture of Tikrit, and on 31 March Iraqi government finally took over the small city after a month-long assault. At around about this time I noticed that I was treated with scepticism when I tried to persuade people that Isis was getting stronger rather than weaker. True, Isis had failed to take Kobani, but it had stood up to a pounding by at least 700 US airstrikes in a confined area, strong proof of its forces’ discipline and resolution. I spoke to many leaving Isis and they confirmed that Isis was conscripting local young men everywhere. If the self-declared caliphate has a population of six million, then its recruitment pool is very large.

Isis did not fight hard for Tikrit and may have held it with as few as 500 fighters. Yet its fall led to absurdly exaggerated hopes in Baghdad and worldwide that Isis was collapsing, though there was little real evidence for this. More important, the Iraqi army was not coming back together after the defeats of last year. One Iraqi security official estimated to me that its real strike force was only between 10,000 and 12,000 men (Golden Division, Swat and a few other units). This was before the Ramadi débâcle.

The real military balance of power between Isis and its enemies – so different from self-deceiving propaganda – was made all too apparent on 17 May when Isis defeated elite Iraqi soldiers to take Ramadi. Four days later, on 21 May in Syria, Isis routed the Syrian army and captured Palmyra and has since struck at Syrian opposition units north of Aleppo and at the north-eastern city of Hasaka.

There has been a seemingly unstoppable progress of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in the 12 months since Isis captured Mosul on 10 June 2014 (AP)

Three points need to be made about why these victories are particularly significant. Firstly, Isis is attacking on multiple fronts many hundreds of kilometres apart, showing greater military strength than last year. Secondly, it is winning despite US airstrikes that were supposed to have stopped it in its tracks and to be grinding it down. Thirdly, these latest attacks did not come as a surprise as at Mosul, but, even though they had been foreseen, the Iraqi and Syrian armies were unable to stop them.

How did Western policy-makers react to these stunning defeats? Sadly, their response was very similar to those Chinese officials a couple of centuries back. They denied the extent of the military disasters and pretended that it is Isis which is on the retreat. The US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that the territory Isis controls is getting smaller and “more than 10,000” Isis fighters have been killed in US airstrikes. The first point is probably untrue and is, in any case, meaningless in a quasi-guerrilla war, while high Isis casualties suggest it has far more men under arms than is generally believed if it is still attacking in so many places at the same time. The UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was insisting that the capture of Tikrit, for which Isis did not fight hard, was more important than the fall of Ramadi for which the Iraqi army had battled for months. Both men were speaking in the wake of a conference in Paris which was about how to combat extremists and which had decided that no new strategy was necessary.

Many of the leaders at this meeting were evidently hearing soothing words from their advisers and intelligence services about how some contemporary version of the Chinese rhubarb monopoly will doom Isis to long-term defeat. Over the past year I have listened to a torrent of spurious reasons why Isis will ultimately be defeated, though none of them have been borne out by events. A US favourite used to be “arming the Sunni tribes”, but this only just worked in 2006-07, when backed by 150,000 US troops, and in Iraq against al-Qaeda, which was much weaker than Isis. Tribes in Iraq and Syria that tried this a second time round have been slaughtered.

Optimists reassure me that Isis will wither away because its extremism and violence are disliked by the people it rules. This may be true of its sentiments, but it has no plans to run for election and will kill anybody who opposes it. Others argue that Isis is running out of money, which, even if correct, is not going put out of business a religious cult of great savagery that believes it is divinely inspired. Isis can be defeated but only when total priority is given to doing so and when policy-makers reject self-deceiving recipes for bringing about its demise.

Falijee · Post by **Falijee** » 07 Jun 2015 19:21

Israeli Generals Back Nuclear Deal With Iran — Split With Netanyahu

An Israeli military source authenticated the quotes to Reuters, confirming that they reflected thinking at the highest levels of the armed forces.

Comment: Have not seen confirmation of this report any other place.

Tuvaluan · Post by **Tuvaluan** » 07 Jun 2015 19:29

Optimists reassure me that Isis will wither away because its extremism and violence are disliked by the people it rules. This may be true of its sentiments, but it has no plans to run for election and will kill anybody who opposes it. Others argue that Isis is running out of money

Sounds very similar to the claim made by some on this forum that muslims are about to give up islam -- only reason muslims are cheesed of with ISIS is because those guys are actually following the Koran verbatim and it gives "moderate muslims" a lot less room to dissemble about Islam's core principles being about "peace and love" rather than genocide and slavery. "ISIS is running out of money" seems rather incredible given that they are able sell all of the oil from their oil fields in the international market and their "caliphate" is not very large in terms of size and population.

vijaykarthik · Post by **vijaykarthik** » 08 Jun 2015 11:21

Falijee wrote:Israeli Generals Back Nuclear Deal With Iran — Split With Netanyahu

An Israeli military source authenticated the quotes to Reuters, confirming that they reflected thinking at the highest levels of the armed forces.
Comment: Have not seen confirmation of this report any other place.

There is no doubt that allowing Iran to have its own nukes is the safest option. Every bugger has his. Why leave out Iran? [Rhetorical qn: How is a Shia nbomb going to be any bigger / more dangerous than a Sunni / Indu / Western / Sino / Ruski / Jewish bomb? They are all the same. And anyone who knows to read, is reasonably sane, knows that a nbomb is a political weapon nowadays.]
I am sure Netanyuhu will privately admit that allowing 'em to have it and counter the KSA morons is a sensible strategy too. At least his intelligence officials will grudgingly admit it. That's reality and that's come out in the article. No big news really.

habal · Post by **habal** » 08 Jun 2015 19:58

US Warplanes Strike Iraqi Army Bases in Fallujah, Kill 6 Soldiers

TEHRAN (FNA)- Fighter jets of the US-led coalition against ISIL once again struck the Iraqi forces' positions in the province of Anbar, in Western Iraq, on Saturday.
The US-led coalition warplanes hit the bases of Iraqi army's Hezbollah battalions in Fallujah in Anbar province, killing 6 soldiers and injuring 8 others.

The US has repeatedly struck the popular forces' positions in different parts of Iraq.

On March 29, the US fighter jets struck the positions of Iraq's popular forces during their fierce clashes with ISIL terrorists near Tikrit, injuring a number of fighters.

The US and coalition forces conducted eight airstrikes near Tikrit, but they hit the popular forces' positions instead of ISIL.

Multatuli · Post by **Multatuli** » 09 Jun 2015 00:22

vijaykarthik wrote:

There are lots of qns to be asked though - what happens to the territorial integrity of Syria? Iraq? Yemen? heck, even Libya. Will they fail even more to rump levels. And so on and so forth.

Presently all the groups are fighting each other for control of territory, each wants to expand, some even want to control the entire country. If Iraq/Syria/Libya/Yemen are formally broken up with the approval of all the major combatants then the fighting too would come to an end. And it would become difficult to export the instability to neighboring countries like Jordan. The present borders have to be preserved for this reason.

Falijee · Post by **Falijee** » 09 Jun 2015 02:40

Paki criticizes Dubai's Airport . Says that become a hub for lost luggage and bad service

Dubai International is becoming notorious for the loss of checked-in baggage in transit

Our flight was late touching down and passengers had to hurry across the sprawling Dubai terminal. That was not the only indignity. Somewhere midway we were intercepted by Emirates ground staff and raked into a corner in order to gather all the Jeddah bound passengers. One thought a different flight had been arranged as the scheduled one might have had to leave without us. Not quite. We were again herded to the same departure gate, having been delayed en route, quite inexplicably and barely made it to the plane. The natural upshot of this helter skelter and mindless marshalling was that many of us found our checked-in baggage missing on arrival at Jeddah.

During my tenure of duty in Saudi Arabia (1998-2002), besides learning about how Saudis regarded various nationalities, one also discovered the uncharitable sentiment where, after Yemenis, Egyptians were held in the lowest esteem by the Arab world.