ISIS: The New Al Qaeda And Face Of Militant Terror
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Step aside Al Qaeda: the face and identity of global terrorism now seems to be taking on a new, dynamic, more powerful and revitalized form named The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria - otherwise commonly referred to as the ISIS. ISIS is reported to be a jihadist group active in Iraq and Syria, formed in April 2013 as an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). It has since been disavowed by al-Qaeda and considered to be a rival faction, but has still become one of the main jihadist groups fighting government forces in Syria and is making military gains in Iraq.
The civil war in Syria has left a vacuum of authority in large tracts of the country, which fueled a resurgence of the ISIS group as it capitalized fully on Syria’s ensuing vulnerabilities. The leader and face of the organization is said to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have been born in Samarra, north of Baghdad in 1971. A BBC.com report states that he later joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 US-led invasion. He then formed his own militant group in the Samarra and Diyala areas, where his family was from, before joining al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2010 he emerged as the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the groups that later became ISIS. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi reportedly graduated to the top job at the age of 39, after Abu Omar al Baghdadi was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.
Baghdadi is regarded as a battlefield commander and tactician, which analysts say makes ISIS more attractive to young jihadists than al-Qaeda, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Islamic theologian. Baghdadi is even being referred to now as the “new (Osama) Bin Laden”. Not much is known publicly about Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, but a biography posted on jihadist websites last year said he held a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from a university in the capital. The Iraqi government in January released a photograph of him that depicts an unsmiling bearded figure in a black suit. Al Baghdadi is known to have served four years in a U.S. prison camp for insurgents at Bucca in southern Iraq, during which time he is thought to have developed a network of contacts and honed his ideology. He was released in 2009.
The Washington Post says of Baghdadi: “Several facts, however, are clear: Baghdadi leads the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. He is a shrewd strategist, a prolific fundraiser and a ruthless killer. The United States has a $10 million bounty on his head. He has thrown off the yoke of al-Qaeda command and just took his biggest prize yet in Mosul, an oil hub that sits at the vital intersection of Iraq, Turkey and Syria. And in just one year of grisly killing, he has in all likelihood surpassed even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in international clout and prestige among Islamist militants.”
No wonder then, that he has been separately described in various quarters, as the world’s “most powerful jihadi leader”, “The true heir to Osama bin Laden” and “the world’s most dangerous man”, among other similar titles of notoriety.
The precise size of the ISIS organization is unclear but it is thought to include thousands of fighters, including many foreign jihadists. Prof Peter Neumann of King's College London reportedly estimated that about 80% of Western fighters in Syria have joined the group. ISIS claims to have fighters from the UK, France, Germany and other European countries, as well as the US, the Arab world and the Caucasus.
In terms of overall clout and potential impact, correspondents are quoted as saying that ISIS appears to be surpassing al-Qaeda as the world's most dangerous jihadist group, with CNN describing it as “the most dangerous militant group in the world.” A senior U.S. counterterrorism official reportedly told CNN this week that ISIS looks at Syria and Iraq as "one interchangeable battlefield, and its ability to shift resources and personnel across the border has measurably strengthened its position in both theaters." For western counterterrorism agencies, the ISIS combination of fanaticism and disciplined organization is the nightmare scenario. In the words of the Soufan Group (a political risk consultancy): "ISIS has become indisputably the most effective and ruthless terrorist organization in the world."
U.S. counterterrorism officials said ISIS attacks show the degree to which Islamist militants have established a revolving door between Iraq and Syria, with fighters flowing easily between the two countries and fueling conflict in both. The Obama administration has also expressed concern about the fall of Mosul. The Wall Street Journal quoted the State Department as stating that ISIS "is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region." As is typical of jihadist groups, ISIS is also strictly Sharia (Islamic law) based and has reportedly begun to impose Sharia law in the towns it controls. Examples reported include boys and girls being separated at school, and women forced to wear the niqab or full veil in public.
It however seems clear that professing Christians caught up between the fighting are being made to bear the full brunt of the ISIS attacks. Christian Headlines.com reports that bodies of Christian children and their parents litter the chaotic streets of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, as violent Muslim extremists have seized a terrorized city Iraqi Christians once considered their last safe refuge.
Catholic Priest Najeeb Michaeel described the situations as “very critical and even apocalyptic”: “Most of the inhabitants of the city have already abandoned their houses and fled into the villages…many thousands of armed men from the Islamic Groups of Da’ash have attacked the city of Mosul for the last two days. They have assassinated adults and children. The bodies have been left in the streets and in the houses by the hundreds, without pity. What we are living and what we have seen over the last two days is horrible and catastrophic…Pray for us. I’m sorry that I can’t continue. They are not far from our convent. Don’t reply. We are now surrounded and threatened with death.”
And according to Nina Shea of National Review: “The population, particularly its Christian community, has much to fear…the ruthlessness of ISIS, an offshoot of al-Qaida, has been legendary. Its beheadings, crucifixions, and other atrocities against Christians and everyone else who fails to conform to its vision of a caliphate have been on full display earlier this year, in Syria.”
The BBC reports about 150,000 people have fled Mosul, population about 1.8 million."Mosul soon will be emptied of Christians," said a World Watch Monitor source. "This could be the last migration of Christians from Mosul. Christian families are terrified. An elderly woman and her adult daughter reported they were still in their house in Mosul. They posted on the Internet: "God, please save us and Mosul" and added that only they and one other Christian family were left in their neighborhood.
CNN.com and most news agencies and reports seem to agree that ISIS is trying to establish an Islamic caliphate, emirate or state, stretching across the region straddling Syria and Sunni areas of Iraq. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has thrived and mutated during the ongoing civil war in Syria and in the wake of the security vacuum that followed the final exit of American forces from Iraq. Now ISIS is seemingly achieving its ominous and forceful expansionist goals with relative ease, virtually unchecked: ISIS captured the city Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, in January and currently controls large swathes of northern Iraq. Operations in Falluja and elsewhere in the western province of Anbar were strategically designed to draw Iraqi forces away from the north. ISIS is skilled at creating multiple attacks simultaneously in different areas, keeping the demoralized Iraqi army confused and off balance.
And with the latest seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and advances on others, the ISIS caliphate kingdom appears within reach. ISIS controls hundreds of square miles where state authority has evaporated. It ignores international borders and has a presence all the way from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad.
Although the capture of Fallujah was disturbing, it was the ISIS conquest of Mosul in June that sent shockwaves around the world. The Islamist militants took control of Sunni Muslim-dominated Mosul after hundreds of its fighters overwhelmed government military forces in a lightening attack on Monday, forcing up to 500,000 people to flee the city and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to call a national state of emergency. According to the Wall Street Journal, Osama al Nujaifi, speaker of Iraqi parliament, said insurgents had seized not only Mosul, but the entire province of Nineveh, where the city of nearly two million people is located. "What happened in the past few days and what happened today is a complete occupation of the province of Nineveh," said Mr. Nujaifi,whose brother, Atheel, is governor of the province.
Mosul residents said they were shocked at the ease of the takeover by hundreds of rebels. The militants freed up to 1,000 inmates from Mosul's central prison, according to senior police officials. They are also in control of Mosul airport, local television stations and considerable amounts of US-supplied military hardware. Videos showed victorious insurgents waving black flags emblazoned with Islamic script—the standard brandished by al Qaeda militants world-wide.The New York Times quoted James Jeffrey, a former United States ambassador to Iraq: “It’s a shock…it’s extremely serious. It’s far more serious than Falluja.”
Some analysts expect critical parts of the Iraqi oil infrastructure around Mosul to be among its future targets.
Despite the extensiveness and ambition of its operations, ISIS is also well financed. Their revenue streams over time are reported to have included extortion methods such as demanding money from truck drivers and threatening to blow up businesses. Robbing banks and gold shops was another. The strategy appeared to be to use the income to help finance a growing stream of suicide attacks and assassinations calculated to poison the political atmosphere to ISIS’s advantage. It would also finance the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters and spectacular prison raids that liberated hundreds of fighters, as well as attacks on police patrols and the assassination of officials.
Now, al Baghdadi has a new strategy for generating resources: large-scale attacks aimed at capturing and holding territory. Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group, a U.S.-based consultancy, says that in the latest iteration of this strategy, ISIS will "use cash reserves from Mosul's banks, military equipment from seized military and police bases and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails to bolster its military and financial capability."
This has worked perfectly for them so far: in seizing Mosul, ISIS has suddenly become “the richest terror group ever” after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars - the equivalent of $429m (£256m) - from Mosul's central bank, according to the regional governor. Jack Moore, writing for the International Business Times reported: “Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish television reports that ISIS militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen. Following the siege of the country's second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands.”
Part of ISIS strategy to maintain popular support is through trying to capture and channel the resentment of the Sunni street. In both Syria and Iraq, it is reportedly trying to win favor through “dawa” - organizing social welfare programs and even recreational activities for children, distributing food and fuel to the needy, and setting up clinics.
However its soft underbelly is proving to be its rivalry with Al Qaeda backed nemesis Al- Nusra, which is said to be making common cause with other groups in an anti-ISIS front led by Al Qaeda’s embattled and embittered Ayman al-Zawahiri. And by taking Mosul, which Iraq's Kurds see as in their sphere of interest, ISIS may invite greater cooperation between the Iraqi army and experienced Kurdish fighters.
Meanwhile in the U.S, the political fallout has begun: Following nine years of U.S.-led war, at a cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, the attacks touched off Republican criticism of the Obama administration's failure to negotiate a security agreement that would have allowed the U.S. to keep troops in the country beyond 2011. Pentagon officials said they don't view the attack as a dangerous turning point that requires urgent action.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department press secretary was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying: "But our efforts to help them with counterterrorism is not something that we turn off-and-on like a light switch….ultimately, this is for the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government to deal with”.
These comments seem to have been demonstrated by recent U.S reaction to threats within Iraq. As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is reported to have secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials quoted by the New York Times. But Iraq’s appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.
The rising insurgency in Iraq seemed likely to add to the foreign policy woes of the Obama administration, which has recently faced sharp criticism for its swap of five Taliban officers for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, and must now answer questions about the death of five Americans by friendly fire in Afghanistan on Monday night. Critics have long warned that America’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq, without leaving even a token force, invited an insurgent revival. The apparent role of the ISIS in Tuesday’s attack helps vindicate those critics, among them the former ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, who has called for arming more moderate groups in the Syrian conflict.
Of a similar view is Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and National Security Council official, who reportedly claimed that Iraqi officials at the highest level said they had unsuccessfully requested manned and unmanned U.S. airstrikes this year against ISIS camps in the Jazira desert.
Meanwhile, apparently sensing that U.S military help would no longer be forthcoming, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered a state of emergency for the entire country and called on friendly governments for help, without mentioning the United States specifically. As the Sunni insurgents have grown in strength, those requests have persisted. In a May 11 meeting with American diplomats and Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, Mr. Maliki said he would like the United States to provide Iraq with the ability to operate drones. But if the United States was not willing to do that, Mr. Maliki indicated he was prepared to allow the United States to carry out strikes using warplanes or drones.
On the local Iraqi front, some analysts said the scale of the disaster could force a rare agreement among the country's divided political groups."It's potentially driving all factions toward a government of national unity," said Michael Knights, an Iraq expert and researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "If you wanted a wake-up call, this is it."
The rout in Mosul was a humiliating defeat for Iraq’s security forces, led by Prime Minister Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government, and equipped and trained by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars. As the New York Times put it: “The Iraqi Army apparently crumbled in the face of the militant assault, as soldiers dropped their weapons, shed their uniforms for civilian clothes and blended in with the fleeing masses”.
The situation in Mosul continued to deteriorate. According to residents, by nightfall on Tuesday (11th June), the city was calm but there was no electricity, water supplies were running low and there was little fuel to run generators. The bodies of militants had been taken away for burial, but the corpses of security forces still lay in the streets.
That’s bad enough news for the Middle East, but perhaps Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis captures best in the Washington Post, the risk to the global community: “ISIS’s rise at the expense of Zawahiri’s movement signals that a new, more dangerous hybrid,based on state development by wrecking everything in its path is emerging from the Syrian terrorist incubator.Ultimately, ISIS seeks to create an Islamic state from where they would launch a global holy war. Perhaps that war is now beginning as Baghdadi’s ISIS eclipses Zawahiri’s al-Qaeda.”
It would seem that the ground for the next phase towards annihilating Israel, and attacking Christian and Western interests everywhere, is being prepared. ISIS appears to be evolving into the perfect global springboard from which jihadists can steal, kill and destroy in any place where ISIS or Sharia do not have full control.
The civil war in Syria has left a vacuum of authority in large tracts of the country, which fueled a resurgence of the ISIS group as it capitalized fully on Syria’s ensuing vulnerabilities. The leader and face of the organization is said to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, believed to have been born in Samarra, north of Baghdad in 1971. A BBC.com report states that he later joined the insurgency that erupted in Iraq soon after the 2003 US-led invasion. He then formed his own militant group in the Samarra and Diyala areas, where his family was from, before joining al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2010 he emerged as the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the groups that later became ISIS. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi reportedly graduated to the top job at the age of 39, after Abu Omar al Baghdadi was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.
Baghdadi is regarded as a battlefield commander and tactician, which analysts say makes ISIS more attractive to young jihadists than al-Qaeda, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Islamic theologian. Baghdadi is even being referred to now as the “new (Osama) Bin Laden”. Not much is known publicly about Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, but a biography posted on jihadist websites last year said he held a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from a university in the capital. The Iraqi government in January released a photograph of him that depicts an unsmiling bearded figure in a black suit. Al Baghdadi is known to have served four years in a U.S. prison camp for insurgents at Bucca in southern Iraq, during which time he is thought to have developed a network of contacts and honed his ideology. He was released in 2009.
The Washington Post says of Baghdadi: “Several facts, however, are clear: Baghdadi leads the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. He is a shrewd strategist, a prolific fundraiser and a ruthless killer. The United States has a $10 million bounty on his head. He has thrown off the yoke of al-Qaeda command and just took his biggest prize yet in Mosul, an oil hub that sits at the vital intersection of Iraq, Turkey and Syria. And in just one year of grisly killing, he has in all likelihood surpassed even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in international clout and prestige among Islamist militants.”
No wonder then, that he has been separately described in various quarters, as the world’s “most powerful jihadi leader”, “The true heir to Osama bin Laden” and “the world’s most dangerous man”, among other similar titles of notoriety.
The precise size of the ISIS organization is unclear but it is thought to include thousands of fighters, including many foreign jihadists. Prof Peter Neumann of King's College London reportedly estimated that about 80% of Western fighters in Syria have joined the group. ISIS claims to have fighters from the UK, France, Germany and other European countries, as well as the US, the Arab world and the Caucasus.
In terms of overall clout and potential impact, correspondents are quoted as saying that ISIS appears to be surpassing al-Qaeda as the world's most dangerous jihadist group, with CNN describing it as “the most dangerous militant group in the world.” A senior U.S. counterterrorism official reportedly told CNN this week that ISIS looks at Syria and Iraq as "one interchangeable battlefield, and its ability to shift resources and personnel across the border has measurably strengthened its position in both theaters." For western counterterrorism agencies, the ISIS combination of fanaticism and disciplined organization is the nightmare scenario. In the words of the Soufan Group (a political risk consultancy): "ISIS has become indisputably the most effective and ruthless terrorist organization in the world."
U.S. counterterrorism officials said ISIS attacks show the degree to which Islamist militants have established a revolving door between Iraq and Syria, with fighters flowing easily between the two countries and fueling conflict in both. The Obama administration has also expressed concern about the fall of Mosul. The Wall Street Journal quoted the State Department as stating that ISIS "is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region." As is typical of jihadist groups, ISIS is also strictly Sharia (Islamic law) based and has reportedly begun to impose Sharia law in the towns it controls. Examples reported include boys and girls being separated at school, and women forced to wear the niqab or full veil in public.
It however seems clear that professing Christians caught up between the fighting are being made to bear the full brunt of the ISIS attacks. Christian Headlines.com reports that bodies of Christian children and their parents litter the chaotic streets of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, as violent Muslim extremists have seized a terrorized city Iraqi Christians once considered their last safe refuge.
Catholic Priest Najeeb Michaeel described the situations as “very critical and even apocalyptic”: “Most of the inhabitants of the city have already abandoned their houses and fled into the villages…many thousands of armed men from the Islamic Groups of Da’ash have attacked the city of Mosul for the last two days. They have assassinated adults and children. The bodies have been left in the streets and in the houses by the hundreds, without pity. What we are living and what we have seen over the last two days is horrible and catastrophic…Pray for us. I’m sorry that I can’t continue. They are not far from our convent. Don’t reply. We are now surrounded and threatened with death.”
And according to Nina Shea of National Review: “The population, particularly its Christian community, has much to fear…the ruthlessness of ISIS, an offshoot of al-Qaida, has been legendary. Its beheadings, crucifixions, and other atrocities against Christians and everyone else who fails to conform to its vision of a caliphate have been on full display earlier this year, in Syria.”
The BBC reports about 150,000 people have fled Mosul, population about 1.8 million."Mosul soon will be emptied of Christians," said a World Watch Monitor source. "This could be the last migration of Christians from Mosul. Christian families are terrified. An elderly woman and her adult daughter reported they were still in their house in Mosul. They posted on the Internet: "God, please save us and Mosul" and added that only they and one other Christian family were left in their neighborhood.
CNN.com and most news agencies and reports seem to agree that ISIS is trying to establish an Islamic caliphate, emirate or state, stretching across the region straddling Syria and Sunni areas of Iraq. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has thrived and mutated during the ongoing civil war in Syria and in the wake of the security vacuum that followed the final exit of American forces from Iraq. Now ISIS is seemingly achieving its ominous and forceful expansionist goals with relative ease, virtually unchecked: ISIS captured the city Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, in January and currently controls large swathes of northern Iraq. Operations in Falluja and elsewhere in the western province of Anbar were strategically designed to draw Iraqi forces away from the north. ISIS is skilled at creating multiple attacks simultaneously in different areas, keeping the demoralized Iraqi army confused and off balance.
And with the latest seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and advances on others, the ISIS caliphate kingdom appears within reach. ISIS controls hundreds of square miles where state authority has evaporated. It ignores international borders and has a presence all the way from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad.
Although the capture of Fallujah was disturbing, it was the ISIS conquest of Mosul in June that sent shockwaves around the world. The Islamist militants took control of Sunni Muslim-dominated Mosul after hundreds of its fighters overwhelmed government military forces in a lightening attack on Monday, forcing up to 500,000 people to flee the city and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to call a national state of emergency. According to the Wall Street Journal, Osama al Nujaifi, speaker of Iraqi parliament, said insurgents had seized not only Mosul, but the entire province of Nineveh, where the city of nearly two million people is located. "What happened in the past few days and what happened today is a complete occupation of the province of Nineveh," said Mr. Nujaifi,whose brother, Atheel, is governor of the province.
Mosul residents said they were shocked at the ease of the takeover by hundreds of rebels. The militants freed up to 1,000 inmates from Mosul's central prison, according to senior police officials. They are also in control of Mosul airport, local television stations and considerable amounts of US-supplied military hardware. Videos showed victorious insurgents waving black flags emblazoned with Islamic script—the standard brandished by al Qaeda militants world-wide.The New York Times quoted James Jeffrey, a former United States ambassador to Iraq: “It’s a shock…it’s extremely serious. It’s far more serious than Falluja.”
Some analysts expect critical parts of the Iraqi oil infrastructure around Mosul to be among its future targets.
Despite the extensiveness and ambition of its operations, ISIS is also well financed. Their revenue streams over time are reported to have included extortion methods such as demanding money from truck drivers and threatening to blow up businesses. Robbing banks and gold shops was another. The strategy appeared to be to use the income to help finance a growing stream of suicide attacks and assassinations calculated to poison the political atmosphere to ISIS’s advantage. It would also finance the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters and spectacular prison raids that liberated hundreds of fighters, as well as attacks on police patrols and the assassination of officials.
Now, al Baghdadi has a new strategy for generating resources: large-scale attacks aimed at capturing and holding territory. Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group, a U.S.-based consultancy, says that in the latest iteration of this strategy, ISIS will "use cash reserves from Mosul's banks, military equipment from seized military and police bases and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails to bolster its military and financial capability."
This has worked perfectly for them so far: in seizing Mosul, ISIS has suddenly become “the richest terror group ever” after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars - the equivalent of $429m (£256m) - from Mosul's central bank, according to the regional governor. Jack Moore, writing for the International Business Times reported: “Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish television reports that ISIS militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen. Following the siege of the country's second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands.”
Part of ISIS strategy to maintain popular support is through trying to capture and channel the resentment of the Sunni street. In both Syria and Iraq, it is reportedly trying to win favor through “dawa” - organizing social welfare programs and even recreational activities for children, distributing food and fuel to the needy, and setting up clinics.
However its soft underbelly is proving to be its rivalry with Al Qaeda backed nemesis Al- Nusra, which is said to be making common cause with other groups in an anti-ISIS front led by Al Qaeda’s embattled and embittered Ayman al-Zawahiri. And by taking Mosul, which Iraq's Kurds see as in their sphere of interest, ISIS may invite greater cooperation between the Iraqi army and experienced Kurdish fighters.
Meanwhile in the U.S, the political fallout has begun: Following nine years of U.S.-led war, at a cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, the attacks touched off Republican criticism of the Obama administration's failure to negotiate a security agreement that would have allowed the U.S. to keep troops in the country beyond 2011. Pentagon officials said they don't view the attack as a dangerous turning point that requires urgent action.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department press secretary was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying: "But our efforts to help them with counterterrorism is not something that we turn off-and-on like a light switch….ultimately, this is for the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government to deal with”.
These comments seem to have been demonstrated by recent U.S reaction to threats within Iraq. As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is reported to have secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials quoted by the New York Times. But Iraq’s appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.
The rising insurgency in Iraq seemed likely to add to the foreign policy woes of the Obama administration, which has recently faced sharp criticism for its swap of five Taliban officers for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, and must now answer questions about the death of five Americans by friendly fire in Afghanistan on Monday night. Critics have long warned that America’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq, without leaving even a token force, invited an insurgent revival. The apparent role of the ISIS in Tuesday’s attack helps vindicate those critics, among them the former ambassador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, who has called for arming more moderate groups in the Syrian conflict.
Of a similar view is Kenneth M. Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and National Security Council official, who reportedly claimed that Iraqi officials at the highest level said they had unsuccessfully requested manned and unmanned U.S. airstrikes this year against ISIS camps in the Jazira desert.
Meanwhile, apparently sensing that U.S military help would no longer be forthcoming, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered a state of emergency for the entire country and called on friendly governments for help, without mentioning the United States specifically. As the Sunni insurgents have grown in strength, those requests have persisted. In a May 11 meeting with American diplomats and Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of the Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, Mr. Maliki said he would like the United States to provide Iraq with the ability to operate drones. But if the United States was not willing to do that, Mr. Maliki indicated he was prepared to allow the United States to carry out strikes using warplanes or drones.
On the local Iraqi front, some analysts said the scale of the disaster could force a rare agreement among the country's divided political groups."It's potentially driving all factions toward a government of national unity," said Michael Knights, an Iraq expert and researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "If you wanted a wake-up call, this is it."
The rout in Mosul was a humiliating defeat for Iraq’s security forces, led by Prime Minister Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government, and equipped and trained by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars. As the New York Times put it: “The Iraqi Army apparently crumbled in the face of the militant assault, as soldiers dropped their weapons, shed their uniforms for civilian clothes and blended in with the fleeing masses”.
The situation in Mosul continued to deteriorate. According to residents, by nightfall on Tuesday (11th June), the city was calm but there was no electricity, water supplies were running low and there was little fuel to run generators. The bodies of militants had been taken away for burial, but the corpses of security forces still lay in the streets.
That’s bad enough news for the Middle East, but perhaps Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis captures best in the Washington Post, the risk to the global community: “ISIS’s rise at the expense of Zawahiri’s movement signals that a new, more dangerous hybrid,based on state development by wrecking everything in its path is emerging from the Syrian terrorist incubator.Ultimately, ISIS seeks to create an Islamic state from where they would launch a global holy war. Perhaps that war is now beginning as Baghdadi’s ISIS eclipses Zawahiri’s al-Qaeda.”
It would seem that the ground for the next phase towards annihilating Israel, and attacking Christian and Western interests everywhere, is being prepared. ISIS appears to be evolving into the perfect global springboard from which jihadists can steal, kill and destroy in any place where ISIS or Sharia do not have full control.
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/June17/172.html#QXvBrlLid1rYgerD.99
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