17 replies to this topic

[freedom78]

In a Chamberlain-esque act of appeasement to Flagg, who believes that to care about issues at home we must first care about "'real' problems", I am starting the official ISIS/ISIL thread, using the title to mock them whilst insisting that I didn't steal any of this from either Queen or David Bowie.  I've begun with the below timeline from CNN.  Enjoy!

*******************************************************************************************************************************

 

(CNN) -- Here's a look at Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

 

Facts:
Started as an al Qaeda splinter group.

 

Also known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and Islamic State (IS).

 

The aim of ISIS is to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria.

 

ISIS is known for killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out public executions, crucifixions and other acts. It has taken over large swaths of northern and western Iraq.

 

The group currently controls hundreds of square miles. It ignores international borders and has a presence from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad. It rules by Sharia law.

 

ISIS's initial strategy for revenue was through extortion and robbery. Recently, al-Baghdadi's strategy shifted to generating resources through large-scale attacks aimed at capturing and holding territory.

 

Unable to serve under the new Iraq government after Saddam Hussein's military was disbanded, former Iraqi soldiers became ISIS fighters, according to Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges.

 

Leader:
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Very little is known about al-Baghdadi, but a biography posted on jihadist websites in 2013 said he earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from a university in Baghdad.

 

He formed the militant group in Salaheddin and Diyala provinces north of the Iraqi capital before joining al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Baghdadi was detained for four years in Camp Bucca, which was a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq. He was released in 2009.

 

After ISIS declared the creation of the so-called "Islamic State," he began using the name Al-Khalifah Ibrahim, and now goes by that name with his followers.

 

Timeline:
 

2004 - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi establishes al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

 

2006 - Under al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda in Iraq tries to ignite a sectarian war against the majority Shia community.

 

June 7, 2006 - Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, takes his place as leader of AQI.

 

October 2006 - AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri announces the creation of Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), and establishes Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its leader.

 

April 2010 - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes leader of ISI after Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri are killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.

 

April 8, 2013 - ISI declares its absorption of an al Qaeda-backed militant group in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the al-Nusra Front. Al-Baghdadi says that his group will now be known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

 

April 2013 - Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani rejects ISIS's attempt to merge with the group.

 

February 3, 2014 - Al Qaeda renounces ties to ISIS after months of infighting between al-Nusra Front and ISIS.

 

May 2014 - ISIS kidnaps more than 140 Kurdish schoolboys in Syria, forcing them to take lessons in radical Islamic theology.

 

June 9, 2014 - Monday night into Tuesday, militants seize Mosul's airport, its TV stations and the governor's office. ISIS frees up to 1,000 prisoners.

 

June 10, 2014 - ISIS takes control of Mosul.

 

June 11, 2014 - ISIS takes control of Tikrit.

 

June 21, 2014 - ISIS takes control of Al-Qaim, a town on the border with Syria, as well as three other Iraqi towns.

 

June 28, 2014 - Iraqi Kurdistan restricts border crossings into the region for refugees fleeing the fighting.

 

June 29, 2014 - ISIS announces the creation of a caliphate (Islamic state) that erases all state borders, making al-Baghdadi the self-declared authority over the world's estimated 1.5 billion Muslims. The group also announces a name change to the Islamic State (IS).

 

June 30, 2014 - The United Nations announces that an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes.

 

June 30, 2014 - The Pentagon announces the United States is sending an additional 300 troops to Iraq, bringing the total U.S. forces in Iraq to nearly 800. Troops and military advisers sent to Iraq are there to add security to the U.S. Embassy and the airport in Baghdad, and to provide support to Iraqi security forces.

 

July 2014 - In Syria, all the cities between Deir Ezzor city and the Iraq border have fallen to ISIS, says Omar Abu Leila, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army.

 

July 3, 2014 - ISIS takes control of a major Syrian oil field, al-Omar. It is the country's largest oil field and can produce 75,000 barrels of oil daily.

 

July 17, 2014 - In Syria's Homs province, ISIS claims to have killed 270 people after storming and seizing the Shaer gas field.

 

July 24, 2014 - ISIS militants blow up Jonah's tomb, a holy site in Mosul.

 

August 8, 2014 - Two U.S. F/A-18 jet fighters bomb artillery of Sunni Islamic extremists in Iraq. President Barack Obama has authorized "targeted airstrikes" if needed to protect

U.S. personnel from fighters with ISIS. The U.S. military also could use airstrikes to prevent what officials warn could be a genocide of minority groups by the ISIS fighters.

 

August 19, 2014 - In a video posted on YouTube, U.S. journalist James Foley, missing in Syria since 2012, is decapitated by ISIS militants. The militants then threaten the life of another captured U.S. journalist, believed to be Steven Sotloff.

 

September 2, 2014 - ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff. Sotloff's apparent executioner speaks in what sounds like the same British accent as the man who purportedly killed Foley. He's dressed identically in both videos, head to toe in black, with a face mask and combat boots. He appears to be of similar build and height. He waves a knife in his left hand, as did the militant in the video of Foley's death.

 

September 11, 2014 - The CIA announces that the number of people fighting for ISIS may be more than three times the previous estimates. Analysts and U.S. officials initially estimated there were as many as 10,000 fighters, but now ISIS can "muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria," a CIA spokesman tells CNN.

 

September 13, 2014 - ISIS militants post video on a website associated with the group, showing the apparent execution of British aid worker David Haines. This makes him the third Western captive to be killed by the Islamist extremist group in recent weeks. ISIS directs a statement at British Prime Minister David Cameron, threatening more destruction if Britian continues its "evil alliance with America." At the end of the video, the executioner threatens the life of Alan Henning, another British citizen held captive. The executioner appears to be the same one who killed both Steven Sotloff and James Foley.

 

September 23, 2014 - The United States carries out airstrikes against ISIS. The bombing is focused on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, a city in northern Syria.

 

October 3, 2014 - ISIS releases a video showing the apparent beheading of hostage Alan Henning. It blames the killing on the UK for joining the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. In the same video, the group threatens the life of American aid worker Peter Kassig, also known as Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2...sis-fast-facts/

[freedom78]

One of the more interesting articles I've read about ISIS and Syria...not dated (thanks NBC!) but I read this a few weeks back and never got around to posting it here:

***************************************************************************************************

Washington Risks Falling for Syria's ISIS Strategy, Again

By Richard Engel

 

The CIA estimates there are now as many as 31,000 ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq murdering and enslaving anyone who opposes them — a death cult obsessed with publishing its own brutality online, such as the latest beheading video of British aid worker David Cawthorne Haines.

 

But the White House is vowing to fight, declaring the United States is now at war with ISIS and will build an international coalition to crush the group. So far, the most enthusiastic response has come from the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad. It’s hardly surprising. In fact, it follows a consistent Syrian tactic of using Islamic militants to create instability — and then relying on the U.S. to destroy them.

 

Washington fell for it once, and may do so again. ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime. Now Syria wants the U.S. to destroy the group. We’ve seen this movie before.

 

April 2003

In April 2003, the Middle East looked very different from today. U.S. troops had just invaded Iraq. The world watched American air power, armor and troops smash Saddam Hussein’s army in 21 days, while American forces barely took any casualties themselves.

 

Saddam, back then the Arab world’s most notorious strongman, was on the run. The rhetoric in Washington and on American television was very aggressive; there was a swagger for all to see. From the Middle East, it looked like the American war machine was out of its stable and wasn’t ready to go back inside. Not yet, anyway.

 

American television commentators and military analysts openly discussed which regime should be attacked after Iraq. Would it be Syria, or perhaps Iran, a spoke in the axis of evil?

 

A week after Baghdad fell to U.S. troops, Bill Bristol of the Weekly Standard told Fox News, “It’s not a matter of having a hit list or picking targets one by one, or something like that. We need to be serious about weapons of mass destruction, and about states that sponsor terror. Syria has a weapons of mass destruction program. They are major sponsors of terror.”

 

Charles Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post in 2005: “Syria is the prize. It is vulnerable and critical, the geographic center of the axis, the transshipment point for weapons, and the territorial haven for Iranian and regional terrorists. … If Syria can be flipped, the axis is broken.”

 

A good neighbor?

Syria and Iran decided to do everything they could to bog down the Americans in Iraq to discourage Washington from launching any new wars in the Middle East.

 

Syria unleashed Islamic militants into Iraq. The repressive regime in Damascus had many extremists in its prisons. Saddam did the same thing, emptying his jails before the Americans invaded. I remember seeing Islamic radicals walking around Baghdad in the weeks before the American war.

 

By 2004, the Islamic militants were doing what was expected of them. They were fighting American troops. They were blowing themselves up at checkpoints. They were creating what in the early days U.S. troops called the “insurgency.” Back then, most of the Islamic militants, especially foreign fighters, flowing into Iraq came though Syria. The border was open to them.

 

American generals in Iraq and newly minted Iraqi officials complained bitterly, accusing Syria of trying to sabotage the democratic experiment in Iraq. The Syrian border town of Qa’im was the main gateway Islamic radicals used to go to Iraq. Syria became the passageway for extremists from Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations to fight a jihad against American forces in Iraq.

 

In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, John Negroponte, told The Washington Post that stability in Iraq depended on persuading Iran and Syria “to stop the flow of militants and munitions across their borders. … Forty to 70 foreign fighters every month come over the Syrian border.”

 

Then-President George W. Bush was also hopeful Syria would “do everything in her power to shut down the transshipment of suiciders and killers into Iraq. We expect Syria to be a good neighbor to Iraq.”

 

I visited Qa’im several times and interviewed Iraqi officials who said Islamic militants were openly crossing with assistance from Syrian border guards.

 

Over the next several years, the Islamists — who eventually called themselves al Qaeda in Iraq — would bog down American troops. The Islamic militants even managed to take over the Iraqi city Faluja, almost the same way ISIS took over the Iraqi city of Mosul this summer.

 

Assad turns

But by 2008, the Assad regime was changing its position. The Islamic radical in Iraq had grown into a serious and uncontrollable threat, challenging not just American forces, but potentially destabilizing the entire region, including Syria. An American war against Syria no longer looked imminent. The President Bush-era was winding down. A new president would soon be in office. Assad decided to turn on the Islamists and help the U.S. military clean up the mess he was in part responsible for creating. Assad’s regime began arresting Islamic militants in Damascus. Assad became a secret and effective partner behind the scenes. U.S. special operations forces even occasionally operated inside Syria.

In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq’s main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria.

 

“You have to understand, the Syrian government was one of our best friends,” said a U.S. military source with direct knowledge of American special operations. “They were incredibly cooperative. The Syrians were picking up people for us.”

 

Assad was soon rehabilitated. Suddenly, he was portrayed as a stable modernizer who could be trusted. Damascus even became chic. Travel magazines pitched Damascus as a safe and exotic destination. In 2012, Vogue Magazine published a glowing profile of Bashar Assad’s wife Asma, entitled, “A Rose in the Desert.”

 

But by the time the article hit the stands, Syria and its ruling family — which Vogue described as “widely democratic” — were in crisis again. The Arab Spring was tearing through the Middle East with support from the administration of President Obama.

 

The administration had abandoned Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak. In Libya, rebels were taking up arms, eventually supported directly by American and European air power. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime would soon be toppled, too. The Libyan leader was murdered and sexually assaulted by an angry mob. Syrians were starting to rise up. They thought they’d get American air cover just like the Libyans.

 

The Obama administration said it would back the Free Syrian Army, making numerous promises to send them money and weapons. The Syrian rebels expected the U.S. military would impose a no-fly-zone over Syria. Assad unleashed the Islamists again. The first time, he wanted to bog down U.S. forces in Iraq. This time, he wanted to bog down the rebels and their American backers.

 

Assad's gamble

Assad emptied Islamic radicals from his prisons. It was a gamble, but the regime evidently hoped by injecting the militants into the pool of rebels, he’d poison the water. Assad’s main argument was that he was fighting terrorists, not bombing civilians asking for democracy.

 

The regime added extremists to the mix to make sure he was correct. Almost immediately, the Islamists began attacking the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army. The moderate rebels were secular and talked about bringing elections and democracy. The Islamists, not yet called ISIS, wanted a strict Islamic state, according to their purist salafi interpretation of Islam. The Obama administration never gave the rebels the support it promised.

 

The Islamists grew, and for Assad, were increasingly convenient. He could point to the radicals — and parade them on Syrian television — as evidence that the opposition was nothing more than a band of dangerous zealots. Syrian state television never talked about the rebels asking for democracy. It described the government’s war on terrorism. The regime even gave the Islamists a boost.

 

Assad’s forces bombed the secular Free Syrian Army, killing thousands of civilians in the process, but rarely targeted the Islamists. It allowed the militants — later known as ISIS — to have a safe haven. Things are changing once again. The Islamists have grown so strong that like in Iraq in 2008, they have become a danger to the region and Assad’s regime.

 

Assad doesn’t have the precision weapons or American-style special operations forces to find and kill the Islamists. He wants the Americans to do what they did after 2008. He wants U.S. forces to clean up the mess he made. Syrian government officials are now calling on the administration to join the Syrian government to fight ISIS together. If the U.S. starts bombing ISIS, it will be helping Assad. It’s the same tactic Syria used effectively in Iraq — and nothing is more often replicated than success.

 

First published September 14th 2014, 12:06 pm

 

 

 

[artcinco]

ISIS is baaaad.... mmmkay....

 

[PERM BANNED]

Is there anyone who doesn't condemn ISIS? The question is what should the U.S. do. Obama allowed this to fester. Despite the fact he hasnt created a single policy besides abstention in the middle east, he and the left cheered and took credit for the withdrawal from Iraq. He has to accept that his inaction and numerous bluffs have created the environment to allow ISIS.

Or you can believe both Panetta and Gates are liars.

[artcinco]

We should have left a residual force and a seriously large base there. See Germany, Japan. But since we did not, arm the Kurds and bomb ISIS to smithereens.

[artcinco]

Naked Man Accused Of Raping Pit Bull In Neighbor’s Yard, Says ISIS Sent Him

[PERM BANNED]

I just caught freedom's opening comment. Am I Hitler in all of this? Better him that that commie Stalin.

[freedom78]

I was making myself into Chamberlain, more than you into Hitler.  "Forum peace in our time", I declare!

[artcinco]

French Artist’s Calls For Peace Ends in Brutal Beating By Local Muslims

[freedom78]

So it appears we're ramping up the US presence and putting more boots on the ground...thoughts?

[PERM BANNED]

Strongly oppose.  The Arab nations neighboring Syria and Iraq have large enough ground forces to annihilate ISIS, and unlike the US, they're able to do so without their hands tied.  The US should only be involved in a supportive role providing air support.  No American should die while Arabs and Europeans sit comfortably on their ass.  Though I would support the US transporting millions of refugees directly to Europe.  

[freedom78]

If you look at a map of ISIS controlled territory, you can immediately see how smart the group is.  They've avoided any serious confrontation with the Turks, thus avoiding any compelled NATO involvement.  They've had some interaction with Jordan, but have mostly stayed out of Jordanian territory.  They've avoided direct conflict with the Saudis.  And, of course, they've had little interaction with Israel.

 

Fuck, we've armed everyone in the regions (and where we haven't, the Russians have), so they should be able to win this fight.  The only thing that occurs to me is that Jordan and the Saudis are probably enjoying watching Iran do the fighting (and dying). 

 

This conflict also highlights how myopic our view from abroad is.  "Terrorist" Iran is fighting with "The Great Satan" against terrorist ISIS.  "Terrorist" Hamas has cracked down on shows of ISIS support.  Whoever decided that terrorist vs. non-terrorist was the best way to categorize the world was a fool. 

 

Every time I hear about ISIS, I can't help but think: "You know who'd be good at crushing ISIS?  Saddam!"  Granted, if he were still there they wouldn't be.

[artcinco]

Obama made the mistake of pulling out. Now Putin and Russia are in there.

[freedom78]

Perhaps you can elaborate, but I don't see the mistake.  If Putin wants to get bogged down in the Middle East to bolster a weakened ally that doesn't even have friends left in his own region, then by all means have at it.  If Russia is fully successful, ISIS is defeated and we have the Syrian status quo, pre-Arab spring, which is an Assad government. 

 

I don't expect that Russia can "beat" ISIS with air power any more than we could.

[artcinco]

I just think by us pulling out and not having bases and a presence like we did in Japan, South Korea, and Germany, that a vacuum was created that was filled with Isis.