ISIS in Iraq and Syria

712 said:
It puzzles me how these maps often show a lot of IS territory as narrow strips following the main roads, but the lands to either side are left blank. Are IS allergic to traveling off A roads, or do the map-makers want to make them appear less successful than they are?
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Most of IS 'territory' in Syria is empty desert, so along the main roads and the Euphrates Valley are the places where people live. Here's a picture I took of the Syrian desert north-east of Damascus in 2008 to give you an idea:

3881915813_5a4cd7d704_b.jpg
 
Reports that YPG in Efrin are moving east to try and take the Bab al-Salameh border crossing north of Azaz from Ahrar and the other rebels. Risky business IMO.
 
2cents said:
Most of IS 'territory' in Syria is empty desert, so along the main roads and the Euphrates Valley are the places where people live. Here's a picture I took of the Syrian desert north-east of Damascus in 2008 to give you an idea:
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I get that, but if they hold the main roads and valleys it's pretty obviously their territory.
 
712 said:
I get that, but if they hold the main roads and valleys it's pretty obviously their territory.
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I guess this map kind of portrays it a bit better?

img_3319.png
 
2cents said:
Reports that YPG in Efrin are moving east to try and take the Bab al-Salameh border crossing north of Azaz from Ahrar and the other rebels. Risky business IMO.
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Is that where Turkey has threatened to lose its shit if the Kurds take it? Because if so now's the perfect time to call their bluff.
 
Kaos said:
Is that where Turkey has threatened to lose its shit if the Kurds take it? Because if so now's the perfect time to call their bluff.
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Exactly. I guess the Kurds got a nod from Putin and are making their move with Russian air support. If they succeed they'll be facing ISIS directly from both sides. Turkey won't take it lying down though.
 
2cents said:
Exactly. I guess the Kurds got a nod from Putin and are making their move with Russian air support. If they succeed they'll be facing ISIS directly from both sides. Turkey won't take it lying down though.
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:drool:

If they pull this off then they've secured the Northern corridor for themselves, and Turkey can do feck all about it.
 
Kaos said:
:drool:

If they pull this off then they've secured the Northern corridor for themselves, and Turkey can do feck all about it.
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They'd still have to oust ISIS from Jarablous to connect Kobane. And I don't think they're going to enjoy occupying these areas for reasons we've discussed before.
 
NATO is harbouring the Islamic State
The friend of our enemy is our friend
Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War
Pipelines
Europe’s dance with the devil

Syrian passports discovered near the bodies of two of the suspected Paris attackers, according to police sources, were fake, and likely forged in Turkey. Earlier this year, the Turkish daily Meydan reported citing an Uighur source that more than 100,000 fake Turkish passports had been given to ISIS. The figure, according to the US Army’s Foreign Studies Military Office (FSMO), is likely exaggerated, but corroborated “by Uighurs captured with Turkish passports in Thailand and Malaysia.” Further corroboration came from a Sky News Arabia report by correspondent Stuart Ramsey, which revealed that the Turkish government was certifying passports of foreign militants crossing the Turkey-Syria border to join ISIS. The passports, obtained from Kurdish fighters, had the official exit stamp of Turkish border control, indicating the ISIS militants had entered Syria with full knowledge of Turkish authorities.

The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just
supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate
in Syria. “The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed,” said the official.
“There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/isis-syria-turkey-us

The former ISIS fighter told Newsweek that Turkey was allowing ISIS trucks from Raqqa to cross the “border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February.” ISIS militants would
freely travel “through Turkey in a convoy of trucks,” and stop “at safehouses along the way.”

http://europe.newsweek.com/isis-and...rds-former-isis-member-reveals-turkish-282920

Turkey has also played a key role in facilitating the life-blood of ISIS’ expansion: black market oil sales. Senior political and intelligence sources in Turkey and Iraq confirm that Turkish authorities have actively facilitated ISIS oil sales through the country.
Last summer, Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, an MP from the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, estimated the quantity of ISIS oil sales in Turkey at about $800 million — that was over a year ago.
By now, this implies that Turkey has facilitated over $1 billion worth of black market ISIS oil sales to date.

Unsurprisingly, then, Turkey’s anti-ISIS bombing raids have largely been
token gestures. Under cover of fighting ISIS, Turkey has largely used the opportunity to bomb
the Kurdish forces of the Democratic Union Party (YPG) in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in
Turkey and Iraq. Yet those forces are widely recognized to be the most effective fighting ISIS on the ground.

Last year, Claudia Roth, deputy speaker of the German parliament, expressed
shock that NATO is allowing Turkey to harbour an ISIS camp in Istanbul, facilitate
weapons transfers to Islamist militants through its borders, and tacitly support IS oil sales.
Nothing happened.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...puty-speaker-turkey-must-end-support-of-isis/

In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2014,
General Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked by Senator Lindsay Graham whether
he knew of “any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL”?
General Dempsey replied:
“I know major Arab allies who fund them.”

In other words, the most senior US military official at the time had confirmed that ISIS was
being funded by the very same “major Arab allies” that had just joined the US-led anti-ISIS coalition.
These allies include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait in
particular — which for the last four years at least have funneled billions of dollars
largely to extremist rebels in Syria. No wonder that their anti-ISIS airstrikes, already miniscule,
have now reduced almost to zero as they focus instead on bombing Shi’a Houthis in Yemen, which, incidentally, is
paving the way for the rise of ISIS there.

German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer, who spent 10 days inside the Islamic State, reported
last year that ISIS is being “indirectly” armed by the West:
“They buy the weapons that we give to the Free Syrian Army, so they
get Western weapons — they get French weapons… I saw German weapons, I saw American weapons.”

Which then begs the question as to why Hollande and other Western leaders expressing their determination to “destroy” ISIS using all means necessary, would prefer to avoid
the most significant factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS’ emergence in the context of
ongoing Gulf and Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region.
There are many explanations, but one perhaps stands out: the West’s abject dependence on
terror-toting Muslim regimes, largely to maintain access to Middle East, Mediterranean and Central Asian
oil and gas resources.

Assad’s brutality and illegitimacy is beyond question — but until he had
demonstrated his unwillingness to break with Russia and Iran, especially
over their proposed pipeline project, US policy toward Assad had been ambivalent.
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Full article:https://medium.com/insurge-intellig...lamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.ud79nytsq
 
MUFAN79 said:
Full article:https://medium.com/insurge-intellig...lamic-state-s-backers-d24db3a24a40#.ud79nytsq
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You can also add this...

Senior Western official: Links between Turkey and ISIS are now 'undeniable'

To be honest, it's pretty clear. ISIS can't arise out of nothing. Everybody knows Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are the ones who created and supported ISIS, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, ...etc. in Syria. The problem is the hypocrisy by those who pretend to fight terrorism, while being in bed with their sponsors/creators/supporters.
 
Turkey 'charges two editors' over claims Ankara supplied arms to Syria jihadists
Istanbul (AFP) - A court in Istanbul on Thursday charged two journalists from the opposition Cumhuriyet daily with spying for publishing an article which claimed that Turkey's secret services had sent arms to Islamist rebels in Syria, Turkish media reported.

Editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, the paper's Ankara bureau chief, stand accused of spying and "divulging state secrets", the reports said. Both men were taken into custody.
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http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-charges-two-editors-over-claims-ankara-supplied-200501632.html

I have to say, those might be the worst kept secrets ever. :lol:

By the way, since they're being tried by the Turkish court for "spying" and exposing the state secrets, can we drop the "claim" part?
 
Jippy said:
By the same token the US interned all Japanese residents during the war.
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It would never happen these days in the West. There is too much internet for one. If you started trying to forcibly eject people, which would turn violent and cause serious disturbances, the video would be on social media within minutes, there would be an outpouring of outrage which would amplify the civil unrest. Whilst the internet does allow the government to snoop on us, in some regards it restrains them as well.
 
Danny1982 said:
You can also add this...

Senior Western official: Links between Turkey and ISIS are now 'undeniable'

To be honest, it's pretty clear. ISIS can't arise out of nothing. Everybody knows Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are the ones who created and supported ISIS, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, ...etc. in Syria. The problem is the hypocrisy by those who pretend to fight terrorism, while being in bed with their sponsors/creators/supporters.
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So............it is all the West's fault again. Damn!

I always knew that SA, Turkey and Qatar were 110% double hard solid world citizens. They are Muslim after all, right.
 
At the end of it all I am reminded only that the Saddam Hussein and Bashir Al-Asaad regimes were secular, inclusive of different faiths and creeds. What a ridiculous world has been created by the meddling of the west, by the blind eye turned to the states of regression (Saudis and Qatar) whilst the relatively progressive were ousted and destroyed. For shame.

The separation of chruch and state is the critical progression of development and that moment has been destroyed in the Middle East by meddling morons.
 
FortBoyard said:
At the end of it all I am reminded only that the Saddam Hussein and Bashir Al-Asaad regimes were secular, inclusive of different faiths and creeds. What a ridiculous world has been created by the meddling of the west, by the blind eye turned to the states of regression (Saudis and Qatar) whilst the relatively progressive were ousted and destroyed. For shame.

The separation of chruch and state is the critical progression of development and that moment has been destroyed in the Middle East by meddling morons.
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Nothing did more to discredit secularism in the Arab world than the nature of Ba'thist Iraq and Syria.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
So............it is all the West's fault again. Damn!

I always knew that SA, Turkey and Qatar were 110% double hard solid world citizens. They are Muslim after all, right.
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What does this mean??

He didn't absolve the countries in the region of fault...he simply said, a duplicitous foreign policy also cannot be ignored.
 
FortBoyard said:
Please elaborate
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Made this point a couple times already in the thread so I'll quote myself:

2cents said:
You can't separate the rise of ISIS and other jihadist groups in the Middle East from the nature and failures of the regimes which preceded them. Regimes explicitly based on secular ideologies such as Arab nationalism and socialism made a lot of promises when they seized power from the colonial-backed governments, and with the partial exception of some land distribution policies, they broke every one. In doing so, they enabled an authoritarian state to intrude into every aspect of what was an inherently conservative society's life, disrupting time-honored methods of conflict resolution and empowering a series of military strongmen to lord it over everyone else. No wonder people turned to religion when the secular regimes' failure became clear after 1967. It's unfortunate that it just happened to coincide with the rise of Saudi oil money and the Iranian revolution to produce the toxic mix we have now.

Furthermore, while these regimes proclaimed themselves to be secular, they became increasingly based on sectarian and/or tribal ties (e.g. Alawites in Syria, Sunni Tikritis in Iraq), further accelerating the turn towards a more narrowly-based identity politics. And their brutalization of Arab society undoubtedly paved the way for the atrocities we now associate with ISIS and the others. Obviously Saddam's brutal methods of retaining control in Iraq are well-known, but not many recall these days the ferocity with which Hafiz al-Assad put down the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Syria during the late 70s and early 80s, which culminated in the Hama Massacre in 1982 (estimated 10,000-20,000 dead). But more than those standout atrocities, there was the everyday terror of the power of a state which used violence as the ultimate arbiter in ordering social relations.

So the idea that it's a choice between Assad or ISIS in Syria obscures the fact that you wouldn't have one without the other - they're basically codependent at this stage.

(None of this is to necessarily excuse the American and Soviet/Russian governments and other from the short-sighted backing they've given to the various horrible regimes throughout the years.)
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Would just add that the idea that Saddam's Iraq was secular in the last decade doesn't hold up, he introduced a program of Islamicization called the Faith Campaign, introduced huddud laws, banned alcohol, etc., all of which certainly helped shape the milieu from which ISIS eventually emerged.
 
Then there's the big elephant in the room of most Iraqi ISIS generals being ex Ba'athi military.

Saddam's ba'athism became a very different beast on its own, diverging from the movement's foundations in the Levant. He made it a cult of personality while introducing a sectarian element to it. Its actually a bit of a misconception that he was this secular bastion in the region. Most jihadist actually idolise him and use his death (or 'martydom' as they claim it) to inspire themselves and others.

There's a reason why him and the Assad family despised each other.
 
2cents said:
Made this point a couple times already in the thread so I'll quote myself:



Would just add that the idea that Saddam's Iraq was secular in the last decade doesn't hold up, he introduced a program of Islamicization called the Faith Campaign, introduced huddud laws, banned alcohol, etc., all of which certainly helped shape the milieu from which ISIS eventually emerged.
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Very enlightening thank you. Much food for thought.

I can't help but feel alas that while I deplore the politics and authoritarian methodologies of the regimes mentioned they were a milestone in the progression of the Middle East toward freedom and equality, my point sounds like I am condoning these individuals but I am not. I merely believe that they were further along the spectrum of progress. I feel that without the Western support for the Islamic revivalist States Iraq and Syria would have eventually evolved into the crucible of Western style societies in the region. We are now at square one.
 
FortBoyard said:
At the end of it all I am reminded only that the Saddam Hussein and Bashir Al-Asaad regimes were secular, inclusive of different faiths and creeds. What a ridiculous world has been created by the meddling of the west, by the blind eye turned to the states of regression (Saudis and Qatar) whilst the relatively progressive were ousted and destroyed. For shame.

The separation of chruch and state is the critical progression of development and that moment has been destroyed in the Middle East by meddling morons.
Click to expand...

Iraqis and their neighbours were living the good life under Saddam tbf. Party central!
 
2cents said:
Made this point a couple times already in the thread so I'll quote myself:



Would just add that the idea that Saddam's Iraq was secular in the last decade doesn't hold up, he introduced a program of Islamicization called the Faith Campaign, introduced huddud laws, banned alcohol, etc., all of which certainly helped shape the milieu from which ISIS eventually emerged.
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Good read. My brother fought in Iraq and made a few Iraqi friends (translators etc. Who were employed by the army, he brought one back with him on his return, very interesting fella) and this seems to be the feeling regarding Saddams rule.
 
RedTiger said:
What an absolute psycho :wenger:
It's obviously a wedding reception but I do wonder about the current lives of all those guests, are they still in Iraq? Are they dead or did Europe and America take them in?

I'd really like to know their backstory just because I'm nosey.
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Alot of the Hussein family acquantainces are living it up in Dubai, Doha or other parts of the Gulf. Others have moved to Europe whereas some have 'mysteriously' disappeared.
 
2cents said:
I guess this map kind of portrays it a bit better?

img_3319.png
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Good map, although I think a few days out-of-date. I haven't checked all cities and towns, but I know the SAA has already regained Mahin and is closing in on Qaryatayn and Palmyra.
 
PedroMendez said:
any news on the kurdish advances around Azaz?
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This morning YPG are denying involvement. Also last night I read that Jamal Marouf, who was the leader of an FSA-affiliated faction in Idlib who fled to Turkey after Nusra decided they'd had enough of him last year, is involved on the Kurdish side. Loads of opposition supporters calling him a traitor and CIA/Putin/Kurdish/ISIS stooge.
 
Neutral said:
What does this mean??

He didn't absolve the countries in the region of fault...he simply said, a duplicitous foreign policy also cannot be ignored.
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He said 'the problem is', that is laying the blame if you ask me.

And I would never deny that Western foreign policy has played a big part in the mess in the Middle East.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
He said 'the problem is', that is laying the blame if you ask me.

And I would never deny that Western foreign policy has played a big part in the mess in the Middle East.
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You are looking at it as a continuation of the previous statement.

Whereas it's a separate statement where he means - we can't very well be on the offensively militarily...condemn their barbaric behavior AND at the same time say those who fund them and inspire them are allies.

The hypocrisy is the problem he is referring to.
 
Danny1982 said:
You can also add this...

Senior Western official: Links between Turkey and ISIS are now 'undeniable'

To be honest, it's pretty clear. ISIS can't arise out of nothing. Everybody knows Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are the ones who created and supported ISIS, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, ...etc. in Syria. The problem is the hypocrisy by those who pretend to fight terrorism, while being in bed with their sponsors/creators/supporters.
Click to expand...

Istanbul (AFP) - A court in Istanbul on Thursday charged two journalists from the opposition Cumhuriyet daily with spying for publishing an article which claimed that Turkey's secret services had sent arms to Islamist rebels in Syria, Turkish media reported.

Editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, the paper's Ankara bureau chief, stand accused of spying and "divulging state secrets", the reports said. Both men were taken into custody.
Click to expand...
We've known all along that Erdogan supports ISIS. Perhaps now European leaders can stop pretending otherwise.
 
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