Don't you have a Brit passport ?
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
- Thread starter Suli
- Start date
Don't you have a Brit passport ?
Yep. But my country of birth is on my passport along with my very Shia surname, so for some reason that triggers the custom officials to turn into absolute shitbags.
Funny enough I get treated very well in other Arab nations including Saudi and UAE, its just the Jordanians who seem to have a massive chip on their shoulder for whatever reason.
Fair enough. I once transited through Queen Alia with a colleague whose surname was Nasrullah. He got harassed by the guy checking passports until my colleague jabbed back by yelling at him, at which point he was allowed to go through.
Talk about times changing. We hardly make the podium these days.
I had a Bosnian passport back then. The visa should have been there waiting for me. The Jordanian guy at the counter looked into a box full of papers in front of him in 5 seconds or so, just randomly, and then waved I should go back because my visa isn't there. We started having a little argument because I asked him to look through the papers, surely it's in that box somewhere, so he started yelling and then a few other guys came with batons and literally showed me back into the plane. Apart from not being able to travel I was furious because I spent ca. 700 euros for the flights and everything and I knew I won't see that money again. They're just Nazis that's what they are.
New IS video shows child soldier (couldn't be older than thirteen or fourteen maybe?) executing alleged Arab-Israeli Mossad agent.
There is no podium in the ME, it's been blown up.
IS have started recruiting Christian Arabs, is what I hear aswell.
Surely they're going to be used as cannon fodder?Seems totally legit.
Maybe. I'm trying to find the article where I read it to post.
Yup.
A couple of converts joined them in Lebanon, the story has been blown out of proportion. Also they're technically not Christians anymore, the danger is that they can easily evade checkpoints and security points as they have Christian names.
What are their names
One is called Elie and the other Georges (iirc) which in Lebanon are strictly Christian names. Both live in Tripoli which is the hub of salafist movements in Lebanon.
Now ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attacks in Tunis. What a lovely bunch of animals.
IS will claim atrocities from organisations that have pledged allegiance.
Are ISIS actually still selling oil and making good money from it? And who exactly is buying?
They were making up to $3million a day at their peak through selling crude oil from captured oil fields. But they're not longer making as much these days as they continue to lose ground to the Iraqi/Kurdish/Syrian forces who are taking back the major oil fields.
No idea who's buying (it would be really interesting to follow the money trail!), but considering they're selling at half the global value, I wouldn't say they'd be short of buyers.
who would have thought......
@PedroMendez You know you are not allowed to post that because we were told Shia militias only fight to protect their loved ones and there's no sectarian reasons for their fighting.
Get a grip, no one is giving them a free pass here.
But comparing them to ISIS remains to be a silly thing to do.
Meanwhile somewhere Kaos and Danny are sharpening their knives.
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Sharpened and hit already. Well that was quick.
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Sharpened and hit already. Well that was quick.It's not at all silly thing to say if you're not biased enough and bit arsed to have a look just on Youtube for starters. There are countless videos of shia militias and shabiha of your beloved dictator Assad committing crimes and atrocities against civilians on similar level to ISIS.
Yup-some of Assad's loons, and other Shia factions committed some acts so depraved that it makes IS look saintly (I think I mentioned which groups in this thread earlier).
Specifically with the video posted above-this is really sad to see, and I really feel for the people in Iraq living through this. Between the US drones, IS, the Shia/Kurdish militia, how are they expected to live?
There have been atrocities committed by all sides in this meta-conflict - Assad, the rebels, the Iraqi security force, the militia, ISIS, the Sunni Tribesmen etc. But to say that their crimes have had equal bearings is ludicrous.
But lets go back to the militias for a minute. They appoximately number over 20,000 - now these are made up of civilian volunteers, Badrists, Iranian proxy militias, ex army types, the whole lot really. They have almost no tangible leadership or structure except for the tenuous guidance of the elite Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Ayatollah Sistani who doesn't really do anything bar dropping a few ambiguous spiritual fatwas. So you have an idea as to how chaotic this whole thing is, especially as many of these groups were fighting one another not too long ago.
Its because of this chaos and lack of accountability that has unfortunately led to some militia groups within to carry out appalling sectarian atrocities. Another thing to bear in mind is that some of these militiamen still bear the physical and emotional scars from Saddam's reign and have likely seen their loved ones butchered, tortured or disappear thanks to Saddam's ba'athist thugs, so they still feel freshly resentful towards Sunnis. This of course doesn't justify their brutal retaliatory crimes, but its different to beheading aid workers and burning Christians and Shias to send a macabre message.
No one is saying the militias are squeaky clean, and honestly there are many subsidiaries within them I'd rather bugger off out of Iraq entirely, but to compare them collectively to ISIS is utter nonsense. Like it or not, they're the most effective buffer against ISIS at the moment and if it weren't for them, much of Southern Iraq including Baghdad would have likely fallen to ISIS. The key to winning this war is winning the hearts and minds of Iraq's estranged Sunni population, and indeed this does seem to be slowly happening as Sunni tribesmen are currently fighting alongside Shia militia in Tikrit as we speak, but until then the militias serve as the best means since the army ain't doing squat.
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What have the Kurdish 'militia' done? They've pretty much been the only faction in all this to maintain a clean-ish, dignified reputation.
Maybe I misheard the video then, but I thought it said the Shia and Kurds carried out the arson and destruction?
I think you misunderstood that. They say, that a coalition of Peshmerga/shia-militias reconquered the territory, but not that both sides are responsible for the destruction.
In the video they are travelling with Peshmerga and the kurdish commander is talking about the destruction by shia militias. The HRW report also points in their direction.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-baghdads-brutal-battle-against-isis-20150313
In the video they are travelling with Peshmerga and the kurdish commander is talking about the destruction by shia militias. The HRW report also points in their direction.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-baghdads-brutal-battle-against-isis-20150313
I think you did.
To echo Pedro, the Shia and Kurds are indeed fighting together as a domestic Anti-ISIS coalition, but the sectarian crimes have been carried out by elements of the Shia militias. The Kurds have pretty much kept out of sectarian motives, bar desecrating the odd Saddam memorial (but who could blame them really).
They're taking Tataouine dammit!
Has anyone decided what order we should be bombing people in Yemen yet? Don't want to get it wrong like we did with Assad.
The fact that there's truth in this, is sad.
I read a stat today-
"In the past year, the Assad regime has killed 32,507 people, 75% of whom were civilians.
In contrast, IS has killed 3,657 people, 85% of whom are military targets."
You got a source for that? Sounds like a load of bull tbh.
Its all such a mess...
When you look at Iraq, Yeman to a degree Oman in makes me wonder how long before the troubles spread to Dubai, UAE, Bahrain, and Quatar - counties with a large wealth gap between rich and poor and ones where you suspect could be fertile recruiting grounds in the future for poor and disenfranchised youngsters wanting change in the region...
Saudi will of course probably try to intervene but at some point perhaps they will end up focused more internally than externally... in short Im staying well away from the world cup over in Quatar - and if unfortunately my predictions are true the world cup may not even happen over there (though on the plus side England could probably host something at short notice in the summer!)
When you look at Iraq, Yeman to a degree Oman in makes me wonder how long before the troubles spread to Dubai, UAE, Bahrain, and Quatar - counties with a large wealth gap between rich and poor and ones where you suspect could be fertile recruiting grounds in the future for poor and disenfranchised youngsters wanting change in the region...
Saudi will of course probably try to intervene but at some point perhaps they will end up focused more internally than externally... in short Im staying well away from the world cup over in Quatar - and if unfortunately my predictions are true the world cup may not even happen over there (though on the plus side England could probably host something at short notice in the summer!)
It was a statistic released by Najib Ghadbian, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces' representative to the UN.
It was then requoted in an article released by the Guardian yesterday.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/images-syrian-torture-shock-new-yorkers-united-nations
lies damn lies and statistics...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/07/isis-s-gruesome-muslim-death-toll.html
which cites a UN report painting a very different picture but I doubt there are any independent truly verifiable statistics out there.
Too many people are getting killed though and it seems that the only solution people have to offer is killing the people who are doing the killing.
I'd wager that the number of civilians killed by Assad, in the same timeframe, outweighs the numbers there significantly.
But, it's not a competition, of course. Too many people are being killed.
Ahh, so a completely impartial source then?
Possibly though if isis had access to chemical weapons, an airforce and barrel bombs plus as much heavy artillery as assad then who knows...
As you say its not a competition its all a bit sad and it seems to be spreading with no real idea as to how to stop it becoming an all out regional clusterfek.