WarSclerotic

Boko Haram’s new caliphate, Long War Journal, Laura Grossman, August 25, 2014

(The “JV team” may have acquired a new squad. — DM)

He [Shekau] also vaguely threatens the United States, Israel, and France, saying: “Who is America in the sight of Allah? …. We don’t fear you at all. …. We were the ones who carried out all these attacks. Not just Gwoza, all the attacks you see in Borno or any country we are the ones carrying them out. This is the life for us; it is our world and we are living it out…. This is the speech I have to make; which is a warning for worse things to come. Better submit to Allah before it becomes too late.”

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In a continuing escalation of violence, Boko Haram has now taken its campaign to another level, seizing and controlling large swaths of land in Nigeria’s northeast. The group’s five-year rampage has killed over 10,000 people, and the government’s declaration of a state of emergency last year in the northeastern states of Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa has done little to quell the violent insurgency. Boko Haram capped its recent takeover of Gwoza, a Borno town with a population of 50,000, by declaring an Islamic caliphate in the region.

Celebrating this achievement, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a video over the weekend, which was obtained by AFP. In the 52-minute film, Shekau declares the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria, asserting that “[f]or us there is nothing like Nigeria but Islamic Caliphate.” He does not mention the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi or his recent declaration of a caliphate.

In Boko Haram’s latest video, Shekau is shown standing in front of three SUVs, wearing military fatigues with a Kalashnikov slung across his body, as he rants to the camera while holding a notebook in his left hand from which he reads. He claims: “Allah commands us to rule Gwoza by Islamic law. In fact, he commands us to rule the rest of the world, not only Nigeria, and now we have started.” Filmed in what looks to be a forest clearing, the video does not clearly indicate whether Shekau is in Gwoza or at some other location.

As in other Boko Haram videos, Shekau appears flanked by four of his fighters who each stand at attention, wearing a mask and holding the muzzle of a rifle. He declares that Boko Haram is responsible for recent attacks in Abuja, Damaturu, Damboa, and other areas of the country, and thanks Allah for their success.

Shekau further declares that the areas of Nigeria under Boko Haram’s control now constitute a caliphate, stating, “We are in an Islamic Caliphate. We have nothing to do with Nigeria. We don’t believe in this name.” The UN humanitarian office, OCHA, confirmed reports earlier this month that Gwoza was controlled by the rebels.

During the first week of August, Boko Haram stormed Gwoza, killing at least 50 people, and raising its flag over the area. At the time of the attack, there were no Nigerian forces present to protect civilians.

Gwoza and its surroundings are no stranger to Boko Haram. In February, 121 people were killed in the village of Izghe, and on May 25, over 20 churchgoers were killed in Gwoza town during a service. The following day, six churches were among many properties set alight in Gwoza by the insurgents. Gwoza’s emir, Alhaji Idrissa Timta, was shot and killed by Boko Haram members in May. His successor, who is also his son, went missing in the Boko Haram attacks on Gwoza that occurred on Aug. 6.

Since early August, the Gwoza area has been subject to several more attacks. On Aug. 23, Boko Haram hit a police training academy outside of Gwoza for the third time this month. In the latest attack, at least 35 Nigerian police officers went missing. The Nigerian government has “refused to confirm whether the officers were killed in the raid, taken by Boko Haram, or had gone in hiding from the armed fighters,” however.

The video also contains footage of Boko Haram fighters raiding villages, and Nigerian soldiers running away from the insurgents. Boko Haram members are shown walking alongside and behind several trucks and vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns. The video also shows that Boko Haram has more than one armored personnel carrier for its operations. And footage is included of Boko Haram fighters pillaging what looks to be a recently raided military base; the viewer is shown boxes of bullets and other ammunition, mortars, and other artillery being loaded into trucks.

In the latest message, Shekau vows to strike back at local community members who have joined vigilante groups in the region to protect themselves and their families. Going further, Shekau threatens:

And I swear by Allah that we will never stop killing you, because Allah commanded us to kill people like you. If we pity you and spare you, one day you will become infidels. So, to us, having pity on you is an act of disbelief. You can continue to run or hide your identities in women’s attire, but we will get to you and remove the women’s clothing off of you. Then, while you are shouting for mercy, we will strike, smash your heads and kill you all. Even if you don’t do anything to us we will kill you …. We would do it even to avenge our brethren. You killed our brethren in large numbers.

He also vaguely threatens the United States, Israel, and France, saying: “Who is America in the sight of Allah? …. We don’t fear you at all. …. We were the ones who carried out all these attacks. Not just Gwoza, all the attacks you see in Borno or any country we are the ones carrying them out. This is the life for us; it is our world and we are living it out…. This is the speech I have to make; which is a warning for worse things to come. Better submit to Allah before it becomes too late.”

At the end of the video, Boko Haram includes gruesome footage showing approximately 20 men in civilian clothes lying on their stomachs with their hands tied behind their backs being executed by gunfire at close range. Two other men are beaten to death with shovels after they allegedly tried to escape dressed as women.

Responding to the video, the Nigerian military rejected Shekau’s claims, releasing a statement on Twitter stating that Nigeria’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state is still intact.” The military has also promised to mount an offensive in the northeast “soon.”

In addition to Gwoza, several other areas in Nigeria’s north, particularly in Borno state, as well as one town in Yobe state, are thought to be under Boko Haram’s control

The video provides the first reported instance of Shekau referring to a larger caliphate, a term and goal frequently mentioned by Islamic terrorists around the world, but it may suggest that Boko Haram’s aims are not exclusively local. In a video released last month, Shekau had voiced his support for Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State, as well as for leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

It is unclear whether Shekau’s declaration of a caliphate in Nigeria amounts to an attempt to link his group to the Islamic State caliphate recently claimed in Syria and Iraq by al Baghdadi, or “if he is referring to a separate Nigerian caliphate.”

Today the BBC reported that some 480 Nigerian troops have fled Boko Haram and crossed over the border into the Cameroon, and are being accommodated in the town of Maroa. The soldiers are said to have fled clashes with Boko Haram in the border towns of Gamboru Ngala and Banki in Borno state; the terror group killed over 300 people in Gamboru Ngala in May. The Nigerian military dismissed reports of a rout or mass defection and claimed the soldiers were conducting a “tactical manoeuvre.”

Missing MH370 Flight May Be Used To Possibly Attack U.S. On 9/11/14, Ret. USAF General Claims
By Rida Ahmed r.ahmed@hngn.com | Aug 25, 2014 04:27 PM EDT

(A plane full of explosives, chemical agents, nuclear waste?? So we have to wait for a book to come out to find out about this dire threat? You’ve got to be kidding me.-LS)

Ret. Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney told Fox News Channel’s “America’s News HQ” host Uma Pemmaraju on Saturday that United States might be witness to another terror attack on September 11 this year, according to Breitbart.

In order to address the increasing threat of ISIS, an al-Qaeda breakaway group, the U.S. should “go to DEFCON 1, our highest state of readiness and be prepared as we lead up to 9/11,” because “we may even see a 9/11/14,” the network military analyst said.

In the interview, the missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 was also referenced by McInerney. On March 8, Flight 370 went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Despite extensive land and sea searches, officials have failed to find any sign of the missing Boeing 777-200ER, which was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew. It’s believed that the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, west of Australia.

“On the seventh of September, a major news network and publishing network are going to put out a book. It is going to be earth shattering of what’s happening and what happened. The fact is we may even see a 9/11/14 MH-370 surface again. We should go to DEFCON 1, our highest state of readiness and be prepared as we lead up to 9/11,” he said.

When Pemmaraju asked, “When you say a major news organization is coming forward with a publication, what are you referring to specifically? Can you allude to that, give us more details?”

McInerney responded, “I can’t give you any more than what I’ve just said. But it is going to be extremely important and America should take notice. We are less safe today than we were six years ago.”

At this point, the general warned that America should raise the terror level ahead of the anniversary of 9/11, Breitbart reported.

Meanwhile, House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said on August 17 that he believes the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has put the U.S. in more danger than it was in the lead up to the Sept. 11 attacks more than a decade ago, CBS News reported. “Before 9/11, there were single-level threat streams coming to the United States. So, pretty serious. Obviously they got in and conducted the attacks on 9/11. Now you have multiple organizations, all al Qaeda-minded, trying to accomplish the same thing,” Rogers said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“Now you have two competing terrorist organizations, both of them want to get their credentials to the point where they can say, ‘We are the premier terrorist organization.’ Both want to conduct attacks in the West for that reason. And guess what? That means we lose at the end. If either one of those organizations is successful, we lose.”

“The threat matrix is so wide and it’s so deep. We just didn’t have that before 9/11,” Rogers said.

Photos of ISIS flag at key sites send chill through Israel
By Paul Alster  Published August 26, 2014  FoxNews.com

ISIS likes to recruit the young.

(As if Irael didn’t have enough crap to deal with.-LS)

HAIFA, Israel –  The chilling black flag of the Islamic State is popping up on social media in Israel, including one image of the terror banner snapped against the backdrop of the nation’s holiest site — prompting fears the ultra-violent jihadist group could have sympathizers inside the Jewish state.

A photo that recently appeared on Twitter showed the flag held aloft on the Temple Mount, the most sensitive religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem, that includes the Golden ‘Dome of the Rock’ mausoleum and the ‘Al Aqsa’ Mosque, sacred to Muslims, adjacent to the Western Wall, the holiest place for Jews. Other online postings have shown the flag being flown in Nazareth, where the fast-growing Muslim community lives side-by-side with Christian Arabs in a sometimes tense environment, and also in Acre, the ancient port city close to Israel’s border with Lebanon in the north. The images have stirred fears the terror group previously known as ISIS has sympathizers in Israel

“If you look at ISIS as a code, a brand name, or a symbol to identify with, then you can find people in the area [who identify with it] not just in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, but around the region.”- Yoram Schweizer, Israeli terror expert

The  black flag predates Islamic State, but the terrorist army has co-opted it as a battle banner. The words inscribed on it, known in Islam as the Shahada, translate to “There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”

In another disturbing development that raised the specter of the Islamic State in Israel, a YouTube clip aired on an evening news program showing a young girl believed to be from the Israeli Arab village of Taibe. In the video, the girl is encouraged by an adult off-camera to decapitate a doll with a long knife to the cries of ‘Allah Hu’Akbar,’ The video ends with a photo of the moment immediately prior to the recent execution by ISIS of U.S. journalist James Foley, leaving the viewer in no doubt where the inspiration for the macabre indoctrination of the vulnerable child comes from.

In a written response to questions from FoxNews.com, Israel’s Justice Ministry confirmed that ISIS has been declared a terror organization, and that the ministry is “concluding the examination towards declaring ISIS an unlawful association”, a move that could render any support for the Islamic State illegal in the State of Israel.

Islamic State has vowed to expand its so-called caliphate into Israel and “liberate” Jerusalem.

“This is not the first border we will break, Inshallah [God willing]” an English-speaking Chilean recruit to ISIS, (who goes by the name of Abu Saffiya), states in a video allegedly filmed at an abandoned army post on the Iraq-Syria border earlier this summer and originally highlighted by the Jerusalem Post. “Abu Bakhr al-Baghdadi [leader of ISIS] says, ‘God will break all barriers… Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon…all of them until we reach Al Quds [Jerusalem].’”

Support for the bloodthirsty group is far more overt in the Palestinian-controlled territories of Gaza and the West Bank, where it may even be seen as an eventual threat to current Palestinian leadership. In June, Islamic State supporters held a rally in southern Gaza to celebrate the early successes of Islamic State in capturing key Iraqi cities such as Mosul and Tikrit,” according to the Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

“During the support rally, held on June 12, 2014, ISIS and Al Qaeda flags were waved, and slogans were heard in favor of establishing an Islamic caliphate (the Islamic State), and against the Jews,” stated a report by the center. “The support rally was dispersed by the Hamas police.”

For now, experts who spoke to FoxNews.com do not believe Islamic State poses a clear and present threat to Israel, but they acknowledge the group’s appeal and rapid growth in the region is worrisome.

“Up to now we haven’t seen ISIS infrastructure in Israel, in Gaza, or in the West Bank” Schweizer said. “You may find it in future, but right now they’re too busy [in Iraq and Syria] to invest in Israel itself, or in the West Bank.”

Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter @paul_alster and visit his website: www.paulalster.com

The US Is Reportedly Giving Information About ISIS To Syria’s Assad Regime

USAF

(The enemy of my enemy is my friend.  So what happens when they’re both enemies?-LS)

The U.S. has begun reconnaissance flights over Syria and is sharing intelligence about jihadist deployments with Damascus through Iraqi and Russian channels, sources told AFP on Tuesday.

“The cooperation has already begun and the United States is giving Damascus information via Baghdad and Moscow,” one source close to the issue said on condition of anonymity.

The White House and State Department flatly denied the report.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One that the U.S. does not recognize the Assad regime and had “no plans” to coordinate with them in regards to any campaign against ISIS.

“As a matter of US policy, we have not recognized” Assad as the leader in Syria, Earnest said, according to a transcript. “There are no plans to change that policy and there are no plans to coordinate with the Assad regime.”

When asked if Earnest’s comments also represented a denial of the AFP report, White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden told Business Insider it did.

State Department spokesperson Marie Harf also denied the report.

The comments came a day after Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Syria was willing to work with the international community against the jihadist Islamic State group, and U.S. officials said they were poised to carry out surveillance flights over Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said foreign drones had been seen over the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on Monday.

“Non-Syrian spy planes carried out surveillance of Islamic State positions in Deir Ezzor province on Monday,” the Britain-based monitoring group’s director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

On Tuesday, Syrian warplanes bombed Islamic State positions in several areas of Deir Ezzor, an oil-rich province in the east of Syria, most of which is held by the jihadists.

A regional source told AFP that “a Western country has given the Syrian government lists of Islamic State targets on Syrian territory since just before air raids on Raqa, which started in mid-August.”

The Islamic State, which emerged from Al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch but has since broken with the worldwide network, controls large parts of Deir Ezzor and seized full control of Raqa province, further up the Euphrates Valley, on Sunday, with the capture of the army’s last position, the Tabqa air base.

It has declared an Islamic “caliphate” in areas under its control in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where US war planes have been targeting its positions since August 8.

U.S. officials said Monday that Washington was ready to send spy planes into Syria to track the group’s fighters but that the moves would not be coordinated with the government in Damascus.

Muallem warned Monday that any unilateral military action on its soil would be considered “aggression.”

Israel-Hamas truce deal in effect from Tuesday 7 p.m. Heavy Palestinian rocket salvo last minute kills Israeli, DEBKAfile, August 26, 2014, 7:27 PM (IDT)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi were able to bring Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip to accept an unlimited ceasefire in hostilities in effect from 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, based on the 2012 deal. Netanyahu did not ask for his ministers’ endorsement, knowing he did not have majority support in the cabinet. Hamas violated all eleven agreed during during the 50-day Gaza conflict.

Up to the last minute, Hamas kept up heavy rocket fire, causing one Israeli death and injuring seven people, three seriously, in an Eshkol District kibbutz. It is too soon to tell whether Hamas will honor the deal during the month’s run-up to negotiations on a durable truce accord to be brokered by Egypt.

There is no certainty that Israel and Hamas deal were not presented with different drafts for approval by Egypt, which will require nimble footwork from Cairo diplomats to bridge at some point, or that Operation Defensive Edge is indeed over.

DEBKAfile reported earlier Tuesday.

Battered by Hamas’ escalating rocket and mortar assaults, Israelis are again tossed on the uncertain waters of an imminent ceasefire which never materializes. This illusion is propagated again by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi. Washington has also been enlisted to the effort by drafting a resolution for the UN Security Council. It was tabled at the request of the White House with quiet backing from Netanyahu for the purpose of blocking the European measure, which is backed by Qatar, one of the Hamas’ few supporters and host to its political leader Khaled Meshaal.

Why is President Barack Obama standing behind Egypt and Israel this time?

His reasoning is complicated. Netanyahu and El-Sisi, who speak regularly and discreetly by phone, have been persuaded by their intelligence services that Meshaal is an impediment – not just to a temporary ceasefire, but to any sort of accommodation for ending the Gaza conflict. They are convinced that all the Palestinian factions, including Hamas-Gaza, would go for an end to the war, in the hope of a Gaza deal leading to a settlement between Israel and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Those intelligence analysts cling to the hypothesis that Hamas-Gaza really wants to end the war, and this assumption dominates top-level thinking in Jerusalem and Cairo, in the face of all Hamas’ actions to the contrary in 50 days of escalating Hamas warfare up until Tuesday, Aug. 26.

This dichotomy leaves Israelis increasingly confused and uncertain about how to conduct their lives, especially in the areas closest to the Gaza Strip, which have been largely depopulated by non-stop Hamas short-range rocket and mortar fire.

The theory found a champion this week in an unexpected quarter: Khaled al-Batsh, one of the top men of Islamic Jihad, the pro-Iranian Palestinian terrorist movement which is Hamas’ most active partner in the offensive against Israel.

He suddenly announced he was in favor of a truce.

Lest he be suspected of overnight conversion to peace-lover, DEBKAfile’s intelligence services turns to another hidden aspect of the Gaza conflict for an explanation: The Palestinian group’s patrons, Iran and Hizballah, are working hard to paint their ally Syrian President Bashar Assad as the only force in the Middle East capable of fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – IS. If their proposition is accepted, they will reciprocate by bringing about a halt in the Gaza hostilities. They would also be able to show themselves in the light of the real forces of peace and moderation in the region.

The US-Egyptian-Israeli line therefore hinged on the presumption that a deal introducing Tehran to the Gaza equation would be beneficial, because Meshaal, who relies heavily on Iranian support, would not be able to spurn an Iranian demand to stop the fighting in Gaza.

But this math has not panned out.  Meshaal showed his nerves were strong enough to withstand the potion mixed for him in Washington, Jerusalem, Cairo, Ramallah. He not only stuck to his guns against ending the Gaza conflict, he outmaneuvered them all by enlisting Hamas’ secretive military chief Muhammed Deif to this end. The object of an Israeli targeted assassination on Aug. 19, Meshaal said that Deif had survived the attack and they were in close contact.

Whether he spoke the truth or not cannot be determined at this point. But by bandying Deif’s name and claiming he too was flat against a ceasefire, Meshaal set a clear course for the war to continue, irrespective of efforts to bring about a truce in the fighting. Deif’s word in the movement is law, which no Hamas member would dare defy.

So, at this point, all the schemes and machinations for ending the Gaza crisis by diplomacy are in deadlock, DEBKAfile’s intelligence and military sources report.

The two options remaining to the leaders of Egypt and Israel are: 1) Unable to break Khaled Meshaal’s will, they must find a way to persuade Hamas-Gaza that it is in their best interests to defy, or even sack, him. 2)  To apply military pressure that is beyond Hamas’ capacity to resist – i.e., effective IDF ground action – to stop the fighting by sheer force.

Of course, if the Hamas political chief were to surprise everyone by caving in and accepting a truce, that would be a third option. But there are no signs of this happening. His movement continued meanwhile to signal its true intentions in no uncertain terms Tuesday, Aug. 26, Day 50 of the Gaza conflict, by unveiling a new 340mm rocket with an extra large warhead which crashed down on a private home in Ashkelon, injuring 59 people – the largest number of casualties by any single rocket so far. Two houses were leveled and dozens more damaged.

And so Hamas Gaza graphically belied the hypothesis of its intentions which guide – or misguide – Washington, Jerusalem and Cairo.

Gaza cease-fire set to begin at 7 p.m. goes into effect, but sirens persist, Jerusalem Post, August 26, 2014

(Why were the cabinet members not asked to vote on the ceasefire? To take the blame collectively? — DM)

Hamas official Abu Marzouk says Egyptian-brokered truce represents “a victory for the resistance”; officials say Israeli cabinet members briefed on cease-fire, but not asked to vote on it.

Sisi, Mashaal and Netanyahu Photo: REUTERS

Israel and the Palestinians agreed to an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire to end Gaza hostilities which went into effect at 7 p.m. Israeli time on Tuesday.

Despite the Egyptian announcement of the cease-fire, red alert sirens continued to be heard in Israel’s southern communities after 7 p.m. An Israeli was killed by one of dozens of mortar shells fired at the Eshkol Regional Council just before the cease-fire was set to commence.

Senior Israeli officials said that the cabinet ministers were updated by phone that Israel would accept the cease-fire. The eight-person security cabinet was briefed on the decision to accept the cease-fire, but not asked to vote on it.

The Egyptian proposal which the sides agreed to entails an unlimited cease-fire letting material in to rehabilitate Gaza under supervision. In addition, each side will raise other demands within a month.

The announcement came after Palestinian officials had earlier stated that a deal had been reached to end the nearly two months of fighting.

“An agreement has been reached between the two sides and we are awaiting the announcement from Cairo to determine the zero hour for implementation,” said Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri.

Cairo’s initiative, Palestinians officials said, called for an indefinite halt to seven weeks of hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza’s blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt and a widening of the enclave’s fishing zone in the Mediterranean.

Under a second stage that would begin a month later, Israel and the Palestinians would discuss the construction of a Gaza sea port and an Israeli release of Hamas prisoners in the West Bank, the officials said.

Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk tweeted that the negotiations had ended and an understanding has been reached, “culminating in the resilience of our people and the victory of our resistance.”

Al Hayat quoted a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader as telling the paper that the group wanted the agreement to “stop the brutal aggression” and avoid the deaths of Palestinian children, adding that the Israelis had “targeted civilians to put pressure on the resistance.”

The official said Israel was “eager to reach an agreement” despite its “arrogance,” noting that senior Israeli officials had been involved in indirect talks. He added that the Egyptian proposal would strengthen the role of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, including by assisting in supervision of the Rafah crossing. He added that Israel had “failed to achieve its goals,” which were to “disarm the resistance and prevent tunnel construction.”

Israeli officials stressed on Monday evening that as long as Hamas continues firing rockets and mortars there will be no “Cairo cease-fire process,” even as the terror group said efforts were carrying on to reach an agreement.

The Islamic Jihad’s Khaled al-Batsh said in a statement early Monday that the armistice would be based on the 2012 understandings reached between Israel and the Palestinian groups, in addition to Egypt’s latest proposal for rebuilding the Gaza Strip and expanding the fishing zone for local fishermen.

Welcome to the real world, Chuck Hagel, Times of Israel Blogs, Ben Levitas, August 26, 2014

Had Hagel been awake he would have noticed that Hamas, complies with all the traits that concern him about ISIL.

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The American Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, seems to have been given a wake up call by The Islamic State (IS) or The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or The Caliphate, as it wants to be known. Clearly he has been in a deep slumber not to have noticed that IS is no different to the numerous Jihadist groups now sowing death and destruction over wide tracts of North and Central Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia.

Is it truly “beyond anything that we’ve seen’? Does it pose a greater terrorism threat than Al Qaeda, as claimed by the Defense Secretary on Friday, the 22nd August?

“ISIL is as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen,” Hagel said in a news conference one day after President Barack Obama lashed out at the militant Islamic group.

“They’re beyond just a terrorist group,” Hagel said. “They marry ideology, sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess, they are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything that we’ve seen. So we must prepare for everything. And the only way you do that is take a cold, steely, hard look at it and get ready.”

If Hagel had not been as prepossessed by Al Qaeda, he would have noticed that all the traits that he ascribes to ISIL exist amongst many nascent organizations, and he would have woken from his sleepwalking a lot earlier. While he and President Obama, have been disengaging from the world, a myriad groups bearing the ISIL signature have been gaining pace. While US policy has vacillated, failing to support allies or potential allies in Syria, even when ‘red Lines’ were crossed with the use of chemical weapons, not once, but repeated times, extremists have taken note and gained courage to step into the breaches. While America, wavered to support and supply arms to allies, like General Sisi in Egypt, who took an unequivocally strong stand against the destructive forces of Islamic fundamentalism, he had to turn to Russia for arms to wage his battles.

Had Hagel been awake he would have noticed that Hamas, complies with all the traits that concern him about ISIL. Hamas is a sophisticated terrorist group. It has adopted training methods from Iran. Iran has Hizbollah have also supplied technical assistance in designing tunnels. It controls every facet of life in Gaza. It demands complete loyalty and the public execution of 18 so-called traitors this week, is merely the latest in a continuing history of such callous and barbaric acts. Children are forced to dig tunnels and metalworkers are conscripted by force to make rockets. Hamas controls all the trade through the tunnels and the taxes collected provide a steady income into its fiscus. Hamas has an ideology which it has ‘married’ to Islamic religious sources and its Charter quotes liberally from the Quran. It is dedicated to ethnically cleansing the land of Israel of Jews and is specifically committed to the genocide of Jews everywhere.

Despite Hamas being considered a terrorist organization, according to Forbes “international aid organizations and many countries kept on sending money to Gaza, purportedly for humanitarian aid. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, raises money for Gaza through its Web site, with payments going through WorldPay (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group ), the Arab Bank PLC in Gaza and HSBC in Amman, Jordan. Those funds come in addition to UNRWA’s annual budget of $400 million.

The $7 billion to $10 billion that the Palestinian Authority has received since 1993 has come from the European Union, the U.N., the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other Arab League countries. France alone has sent more than $3 billion. This influx of cash has done little to advance the development of a viable Palestinian state or of peace in the region. Rather, it has helped to fuel the Palestinian leadership’s terrorist agenda, and kept the Palestinian people oppressed and disenfranchised.”

Hamas is committed to fighting Israel until the latter is destroyed. It sees this as a divine mission. It is a nihilistic ideology, because any cost endured by the Palestinian people, is irrelevant. It prevents civilians from vacating buildings which Israel has warned it has earmarked for attack-it cynically sends them back onto the roofs. It fires its missiles from schools, mosques and private dwellings. It inverts the truth to create its own mythology and narrative. It justifies arming itself as resisting the occupier, whereas the so-called ‘occupier’ has no interest in war with the Palestinian people and has vacated every last centimeter of Gaza land. It justifies the tunnels as a means of obtaining food and medicine, whereas all of these are supplied continuously through official crossings by Israel. It overlooks completely the aggressive intent of the tunnels that burrow well into Israeli territory, with the sole intent of killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians. It deliberately fires missiles and mortars into Israel with the intent of killing as many civilians as possible. Mashaal latest lie, is to ask for more sophisticated missiles, so that they can be targeted more accurately to avoid civilians. Unfortunately there will be a willing audience to believe him.

Despite Hagel’s alarm, the best that he and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey could proffer, was that the U.S. role in eliminating ISIL will remain limited to air attacks and that unless they expanded operations to Syria, their efforts were likely to be pointless. A more appropriate solution was posited by. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) who encouraged Obama to go after ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq.

“We must get beyond half-measures, tactical responses, and defensive actions,” the senators said in a statement. “We need to develop a comprehensive strategy — political, economic, and military — to go on the offensive against ISIS, both in Iraq and Syria.”

With Jihadis joining from Western countries in large numbers, the West’s vaunted secular and human rights lifestyle will come under increasing attack. If the Western military leaders, continue to remain largely powerless and directionless in confronting these dark and barbaric forces, they may just wake up too late!