Tag: Iraq (page 2)

For the first time since the 1920's, the New York Times is featuring an editorial on the front page of the paper. It calls for gun control.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

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Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee held a conference at which several experts spoke about ISIS and foreign fighters. I found this media recap of the presentation of Scott Atran from the Centre for Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Oxford University very interesting. (He is highly credentialed, and his research in the field includes interviews with captured ISIS fighters and still fighting al Nusra fighters.)

He debunks several of the memes currently making the rounds as to ISIS' intentions and strategy, and the reasons young Western recruits find ISIS so attractive. He also explains why the U.S. counter-messaging campaign has been such a failure.[More...]

ISIS has released Dabiq #12, the 12th issue of its glossy English magazine. (no links to magazine in comments please.) It says a soda can was used to take down the Russian Plane.

There's an article by John Cantlie, "Shift and Paradigm, Part 2". He refers to events in June and July, so at least he was still alive then, and hopefully is today.

He writes about the future course of ISIS: [More...]

Obama today authorizes the first boots on the ground in Syria. The White House still claims they won't be in a combat role.

On CNN today, a Republican called that distinction false, saying the dividing line is whether our troops will be in harm's way and because these troops will be battling ISIS, they will be in harm's way and there will be casualties. At least some Democrats are voicing disapproval. [More...]

President Obama's advisers are promoting the greater use of special forces and stepping up air fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

The debate over the proposed steps, which would for the first time position a limited number of Special Operations forces on the ground in Syria and put U.S. advisers closer to the firefights in Iraq, comes as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter presses the military to deliver new options for greater military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Apparently, the Pentagon agrees we've hit a "stalemate" in the battle against ISIS. [More...]

The U.S. raided an Islamic State prison in Iraq to free hostages. Most of those jailed were locals, some are said to be ISIS members suspected of being spies. About 20 of them were Iraqi security forces.

One U.S. Special Forces member was killed.

The raid was led by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

Charles Lister's article today on our epic misreading of the problem in Syria is getting tons of praise from analysts on Twitter. Shorter version: The U.S. is walking into an abyss on Syria. Some quotes:

[T]he US and its European partners remain dangerously disconnected from Syria's realities. The threat posed by IS has become a convenient obsession, while the more complex dynamics in the rest of the country appear all but ignored and misunderstood.

... IS remains a potent force in Syria and must be countered, but it will not be marching on Damascus anytime soon, contrary to some uninformed fear mongering. Al-Qaeda also poses a pressing and more long-term threat, perhaps more so than has been acknowledged. But at the end of the day, the root cause of the entire Syrian crisis is Assad and his regime.

Our efforts in Syria to date: "To label the mission a catastrophic failure would be a generous assessment." [More...]

In December, 2014, the U.S. announced that airstrikes had killed senior ISIS member Hajii Mutazz, aka Fadel Ahmed Abdullah al-Hiyali aka Abu Muslim al Turkmani. He was described by the U.S. as the "right hand man" of leader al Baghdadi.

Today the U.S. announced he was killed in an airstrike this week on August 18.

Via Frontline: [More....]

Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of news site Rai al-Youm and the author of several books on Islamic extremism including this new book on ISIS, has a column today about how the West still doesn't comprehend ISIS.

He says The West and the invasion of Iraq are responsible for the creation and expansion of ISIS. ISIS is a bigger threat than al Qaida ever was, but we cannot defeat ISIS militarily.

The Islamic State is one year old today. Its long term goal remains the creation of a "lasting and expanding" Caliphate.

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ISIS yesterday released a new video of kids in Raqqa training to be fighters and snipers. In it, they talk about the Crusaders, defeating opposing forces and threaten to kill President Obama. The physical training is almost the same as in the adult training videos.

What's unusual is that some of these kids these do not appear to be children of ISIS sympathizers, but Syrian kids who were traumatized by the Bashar regime. [More...]

President Obama has ordered 450 military trainers to deploy to Iraq to train Iraqi forces in the Anbar region. The new training facility would be at Taqaddum, which is near Ramadi in the eastern part of the province.

Obama decided on the new troop deployment in response to a request from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the White House said. The two leaders met on the margins of the G7 summit in Germany earlier this week.

The White House press release is here. [More...]