WarSclerotic

Amid a trail of Al Qaeda atrocities, world leaders call on someone else “to stamp out the disease”.

Debka

US Secretary of State John Kerry tried to turn attention away from President Barack Obama highly-criticized  admission Thursday, Aug. 28, “We don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq” – with an article in the New York Times, calling for a “coalition of nations… to stamp out the disease of the Islamic state group.”

Obama said only that the strategy under preparation won’t be ready before next month.

debkafile’s counter-terrorism sources note that until then, and until Kerry’s coalition of nations comes together and decides what to do, Al Qaeda’s IS’s campaign of bloody atrocities and conquests will remain unchecked. And so will the spread of what the British Prime Minister David Cameron called, in a special news conference Friday, “the poisonous ideology of Islamist extremism.”

Cameron warned that, while there was much talk about the threat to Europe of returning home-grown Islamists, “IS is already here.” The return of at least 500 people from fighting in Syria and Iraq “for Islamic State extremists attempting to establish a caliphate” represented a “greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before.”

New laws, said the British premier, would make it easier to take passports away from people traveling abroad to join the conflict.

Announcing the elevation of the UK terror threat from “substantial” to “severe,” Cameron cited the example of the British Islamist who took part in the beheading of the American journalist James Foley on Aug. 18.

He also confirmed that Al Qaeda’s Islamic State perpetrated the May 24 attack on the Jewish Museum of Brussels, in which the Israeli couple, Emanuel and Miriam Riva, was murdered  – as further evidence that Islamist terror was already loose on the streets of Europe.

He was the first prominent world leader to assign the Brussels attack to Al Qaeda, which Israeli officials have so far avoided doing.
The “severe” threat level was imposed in the UK only twice before: in 2006 after the discovery of liquid bombs aimed at airliners and when, the following year, extremists attempted to bomb Glasgow Airport and London’s West End.

Friday, IS released another indescribable video showing the beheading of a Kurdish soldier among 15 captured Peshmerga in orange boiler suits, who were grouped before a Mosul mosque. It was labeled “2nd Message to America” and threatened to execute the entire group if Iraqi Kurdistan continued to cooperate with the United States.

Just a few hours earlier, footage was shown of the mass execution of 300 Syrian soldiers forced to run through the desert in their underwear. They were said to have been taken prisoner at the Syrian air base of Tabqa.
Those barbaric scenes were flashed across the world by international media.
Less noticed was the video tape released on Thursday, Aug. 28, by Al Qaeda’s Sinai branch, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, which showed the beheading of four local citizens and their admission that they had collaborated with Israeli intelligence to identify targets for Egyptian and Israeli air raids. This tape runs 30 minutes.

Egyptian security sources said the four had been abducted Tuesday near the northern Sinai town of Sheikh Zuwaid.
And not far away, in the Gaza Strip, Hamas last week summarily executed 29 alleged collaborators with Israeli intelligence, three of them women, and seven in a public square.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has characterized Hamas as belonging to the same family of murderous extremists as the Islamic State. Israel did indeed fight a limited, inconclusive war on the Palestinian fundamentalists, but no order has gone out for an operation to rescue the 43 Fiji members of the UN Disengagement Observer Force, who were abducted by the Syrian Al Qaeda Nusra Front just 150 meters from its Golan border.

UNDOF policed the Golan buffer zone for 40 years until it was overrun in the fighting between Syrian insurgents including Islamists and the Syrian army. So far there have been no executions, but the danger to the observers is ever present.

Saturday, Saudi sources reported that Qatar had undertaken to broker their release from Nusra on behalf of the UN. Israel, which spurned Qatar in the role of middleman for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, now finds the emirate, which champions Islamist terrorists in the Middle East, assigned a task in its northern back yard. An IDF rescue operation would have prevented this intervention, as well as delivering a timely, preemptive blow to Al Qaeda fighters sitting on Israel’s borders.

It would also have gone far toward muting the many Israeli critics of their government’s decision to curtail the 50-day Gaza operation by a truce, before Hamas was finished off for good.
Bur after the IDF campaign against Hamas, the Israeli prime minister was ready to line up with Western leaders, who make speeches about the horrors of the Islamist extremists and shore up their defenses, while at the same time avoiding putting their hands in the wasps’ nest and their boots on the ground, for tackling them in their Middle East lairs. “Coalitions” and “allies” are assigned the brunt of this mission.
Hoping against hope to jerk them into action, Saudi King Abdullah Saturday issued a wake-up call. He asked Western foreign ambassadors summoned to his palace in Jeddah to convey an urgent message to their leaders: Terrorism at this time is an evil force that must be fought with wisdom and speed,” said King Abdullah. “And if neglected I’m sure after a month it will arrive in Europe and a month after that in America.”

UN troops under fire in Syria said to be fleeing to Israel | JPost | Israel News.

LAST UPDATED: 08/30/2014 15:03

United Nations peacekeepers reportedly fleeing across border into Israel, amid clashes with rebels in Golan Heights buffer zone; 44 Fijian UNDOF peacekeepers remain unaccounted for.

United Nations peacekeepers stationed on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights buffer zone were fleeing the embattled country on Saturday and heading towards Israeli territory, according to Al Jazeera. The report said UN troops were abandoning their posts following attacks by militant rebels in the area.

It was not clear how many UN forces have left their posts or from what nationality they were.

The report comes after clashes broke out between a group of Philippine peacekeepers trapped in the Golan Heights and Islamist militants who were surrounding their position.

According to the defense chief of the Philippines, Voltaire Gazmin, some 40 Philippine troops manning one of two camps on the Syrian side of the frontier came under attack.

Another defense official said all the Philippine troops were safe.

A further 35 troops were at another site, about 4 km away but were not engaged in the clashes.

The troops are part of UNDOF, a UN force that has monitored the disengagement zone between Israel and Syria since 1974 in the wake of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

44 Fijian UNDOF peacekeepers seized by al-Qaida-linked militants this week along the rocky frontier between Syria and the Golan Heights are still unaccounted for. They were captured from their post about eight kilometers away from the Philippine troops.

“There was a firefight but I would like to assure everyone that our troops are safe at the moment,” said Ramon Zagala, chief of the Armed Forces public affairs office. He did not give any more details.

Australia was the latest country to criticize the detention of 44 UN peacekeepers by Syrian rebels and called for their release.

In a statement issue on Saturday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that “as a member of the UN Security Council, Australia demands the unconditional and immediate release of all the detained United Nations peacekeepers.”

Judicial Watch: Feds’ Bulletin Describes Threat of Imminent Terrorist Attack on Southern Border
By Andrew C. McCarthy August 29, 2014 1:47 PM National Review

(Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost.-LS)

For those of us who’ve been raising alarms about both the jihadist threat and the national-security vulnerability created by the Obama administration’s non-enforcement of the immigration laws, this is not a surprise — particularly less than two weeks before September 11. But it is nonetheless jarring to read. Judicial Watch has just put out this statement:

The tip of the spear gets the shaft. So do all but Islamists, Dan Miller’s Blog, August 29, 2014

Israel is the tip of the spear pointed at those whose “holy” goal is the eradication not only of Israel but of freedom, “non-believers” and apostates everywhere.

Israel has been stalled in her quest to remain a free and democratic nation — she is the only one — in the otherwise Islamist Middle East. Hamas and associated Islamic jihadists in Gaza have hindered her only slightly. She could overcome them in relatively short order were it not for unwanted, hypocritical and harmful interference from fantasy-based ideologues such as President Obama and other members of “the international community.” The worst hindrances have been due to those in the West who claim to view Islam as the religion of peace, not death. They ignore reality while continuing to demand that Israel forfeit her legitimate right to defend herself against the existential dangers posed by Islamic jihad. They live in decreasingly free and democratic societies and reject for Israel the freedoms they themselves have forfeited.

The public beheading of James Foley, an American citizen, by a British citizen affiliated with the Islamic State (“IS”) brought much public attention to and produced outrage at the IS. It is good to be outraged at the IS. But it is only part of the problem because the religious ideology and actions of the IS are based on, consistent with and required by Islam.

The ideology

Islamic ideology that eliminates freedom and demands the slaughter of “unbelievers” and apostates is summarized in the video presented above. Here are two rather more serious efforts: Nothing to do with Islam, Part one and Part two. Part one states,

This fundamental error continues today, as Muslim violence and anti-Semitism are explained by every factor instead of the essential one––the theology, jurisprudence, and history of Islam.

[S]uch fantasies endanger our attempts to destroy a committed enemy who is motivated by a storied history of conquest and domination, and inspired and justified by the most cherished beliefs of millions of their co-religionists. [Emphasis added.]

Part one explains these statements at great length with multiple specific references to passages from the Koran.

Part two states,

We in the West correctly find such views “extreme,” or “savage” and “barbaric,” but they are not “fringe” anomalies conjured out of textual misreadings by an extremist cult. They derive from the history and sacred texts of Islam, the clear meaning of which is illustrated on page after page of Muslim history. And they are being acted upon today across the Muslim world, as evidenced by the nearly 24,000 violent attacks perpetrated by Muslim terrorists since 9/11. Contrary to Obama, ISIL does speak for a religion. It’s called Islam. [Emphasis added.]

Groups like ISIL or al Qaeda do not embrace “extreme religious views,” or “twist the overall message of religious texts,” as the New York Post has it. They act on a venerable tradition within Islam, one based on writings some Muslims have construed differently because of inconsistencies among various texts. But that doesn’t change the fact that the jihadists have within the faith long-established precedents for their actions, a tradition with millions of Muslim adherents worldwide, including the leaders of Turkey and Qatar who finance the vicious terrorist group Hamas, and the Mullahcracy in Iran, the world’s foremost supporter of Islamic terrorism. [Emphasis added.]

Part two explains these statements at great length, again with multiple and specific references to passages from the Koran.

Islamic jihad continues to Metastasize

Iraq — here’s a lengthy video from Vice News that provides useful summaries and insights.

Syria

By some estimates, the Islamic State group occupies up to 35 percent of Syria, or about a third of the country. It has consolidated its hold over an impressive stretch of territory from its westernmost end on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo, across northern Syria and most of the east. It spreads into most of the Sunni-dominated areas of northern and western Iraq, right up to the edges of Baghdad. That terrain includes the oil fields of Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zour province and parts of Hassakeh. It also includes parts of Aleppo province, including the major towns of Manbej and al-Bab, where the group’s black flags flutter over government buildings and main squares. Because it controls territory on both sides of the border, the group can move fighters, weapons and goods between Iraq and Syria with relative ease.

. . . .

The Islamic State’s declared capital is Raqqa, a city in northeastern Syria along the Euphrates River. With a population of 500,000, Raqqa is the group’s power base. Foreign fighters, some with their families, have flocked there from all over the world. Although it always has been a conservative city with strong tribal presence, Raqqa was once a diverse, thriving commercial center. Today, it is patrolled 24 hours a day by vice squads known as the Hisba — armed fighters in long robes who make sure their strict interpretation of Islam is observed. The militants have banned music and smoking, and have forced women to cover up. They have carried out beheadings in the main square for violators of Shariah, or Islamic law. People who were killed have had their bodies hung from crosses. The group recently imposed a curriculum in Raqqa schools, scrapping subjects such as philosophy and chemistry. [Emphasis added.]

Africa and Boko Haram —

As Boko Haram has continued to unleash its violence across northern Nigeria, the group seems to be gaining ground. Under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram has evolved from a terrorist group into an insurgency that seeks to establish an Islamic state. And Boko Haram’s tactics have changed accordingly, from smash and dash attacks, killing thousands, into attempts to grab and hold territory. [Emphasis added.]

In a video obtained last weekend by Agence France Presse (AFP), Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau celebrated the group’s recent successes and gave a warning to those opposed to him and his ideology. Shekau is shown standing in front of three SUVs, wearing military fatigues with a Kalashnikov slung across his body, as he rants, in a mixture of Arabic and Hausa, to the camera. He holds a notebook in his left hand from which he reads.

After Shekau’s video was released, it was widely reported that he had declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate covering significant parts of Nigeria. Shekau’s video came less than two months after Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State, declared that he now rules as “Caliph Ibrahim” over large swaths of Iraq and Syria. With that in mind, Shekau’s appearance was widely interpreted as either an attempt to hitch his group to Baghdadi’s bandwagon, or to grab the spotlight for himself by capitalizing on caliphate fever.

But a careful analysis of Shekau’s recording shows that his words were likely misinterpreted. According to a translation obtained by The Long War Journal, Shekau highlights recent attacks perpetrated by his group throughout Nigeria. “Thanks be to God who gave victory to our brethren in Gwoza and made it a state among the Islamic states,” Shekau says. “Thanks be to God who brought grief to the unbelievers like Israel and Britain, or England, and their father America.” [Emphasis added.]

Aside from her problems with Hamas, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, Israel is now facing the IS in the Golan Heights.

Threats to the United States

At least one, probably two, and possibly three American citizens have died while fighting for Islamist jihadists.

In February it was estimated that at least 50 U.S. citizens are fighting in Syria, and are liable to bring terrorism back to their home country once the war is over. [Emphasis added.]

The State Department estimates there are about 12,000 foreign fighters from at least 50 countries in Syria.

A “hundred or so” Americans are now thought to be fighting on behalf of the IS in Syria. Approximately three hundred are now thought to be fighting on behalf of the Islamic State there and elsewhere, presumably including Iraq.

There have been “significant increases” in “terror chatter” as September 11th approaches. Yet the FBI recently identified no Islamist terror threats to the United States.

The FBI’s most recent [August 14, 2014] national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.[Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Instead, the internal FBI intelligence report concluded in its 2013 assessment published this month that the threat to U.S. internal security from extremists is limited to attacks and activities by eight types of domestic extremist movements—none motivated by radical Islam. [Emphasis added.]

They include anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with “sovereign citizen” nationalists, and anarchists. Other domestic threat groups outlined by the FBI assessment include violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.

. . . .

Former FBI Agent John Guandolo said he was not surprised the report did not include any reference to domestic-origin Islamic terror.

“It should not surprise anyone who follows the jihadi threats in the United States that the FBI would not even include ‘Islamic terrorism’ in its assessment of serious threats to the republic in an official report,” Guandolo said.

“Since 9/11, FBI leadership—as well as leaders from Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, CIA, Pentagon, and the National Security Council—relies on easily identifiable jihadis from the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas, al Qaeda and elsewhere to advise it on how to deal with ‘domestic extremism.’” [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

The domestic threat assessment is the latest example indicating the FBI has been forced by Obama administration policies from focusing on the domestic terror threat posed by radical Islamists. [Emphasis added.]

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R., Texas) said in a 2012 House floor speech that the FBI was ordered to purge references to Islam, jihad, and Muslims in its counterterrorism “lexicon” guidelines for its reports.

As a result, the FBI is hamstrung from understanding the threat of terrorism from groups like al Qaeda that have declared jihad, or holy war, on the Untied States, Gomert said.

Guandolo, the former FBI agent, said the vast majority of U.S. Islamic organizations were identified in recent U.S. terrorism trials as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent group for the Palestinian terror group Hamas. Thus, these groups are aligned with the same objectives as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al Qaeda, and others, he said. [Emphasis added.]

“Our FBI is not teaching their agents and analysts this information; they are not sharing it with local and state law enforcement officials; and they are not investigating and pursuing the very individuals and organizations which are supporting and training jihadis in America,” Guandolo said.

That apparently is not sufficient for our domestic Islamists, who are now demanding an overhaul of Federal, State and local police departments to banish any training materials offensive to Islamists.

Meanwhile Britain has raised the threat level to “severe,” the second highest level meaning that an attack is “highly likely.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron raised Friday the nation’s terrorism threat level to “severe,” saying bluntly that “poisonous” Islamic extremism is causing widespread problems that are spreading from the Middle East to other parts of the world.

. . . .

“I believe we will be fighting for years, and perhaps decades,” Mr. Cameron said, adding that the U.K. has already taken many actions, such as “legislating so that we can prosecute people on all aspects of terrorism.”

Mr. Cameron estimated about 500 people have traveled to the Middle East for terrorism training and to join the Islamic State.

He dismissed the theory that poverty fosters terrorism.

“The [current] terrorist threat was not created by the Iraq War … it existed even before the horrific attacks on 9/11,” he said. “It cannot be solved by addressing poverty, or dictatorships or instability in the region. The root cause is quite clear: a poisonous ideology of Islamic extremism that is condemned by all … [and that will] force people to live in a Medieval state” that includes beheadings, the enslavement of people, the rape of women.

. . . .

Mr. Cameron’s actions come as the U.S. response to the Islamic State remains in limbo. President Obama said Thursday the White House currently has no policy for dealing with the terrorist group.

According to the White House Press Secretary, the Obama Nation is “unlikely”

to raise its terrorist threat level — at least in the short-term — after the U.K. did so Friday in response to a threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

As noted in the video embedded below, illegal immigration by Islamists across our southern non-borders also presents substantial threats to our national security.

Finally, the situation seems to have come to the attention of the Feds. Inexcusably late but better than never.

Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued.  Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat. [Emphasis added.]

Specifically, Judicial Watch sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Violent crimes are so rampant in Juarez that the U.S. State Department has issued a number of travel warnings for anyone planning to go there. The last one was issued just a few days ago. [Emphasis added.]

Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to “carry out an attack on the border,” according to one JW source.  “It’s coming very soon,” according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as “ISIS and Al Qaeda.” An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed, another source confirms. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to multiple inquiries from Judicial Watch, both telephonic and in writing, about this information. [Emphasis added.]

The disturbing inside intelligence comes on the heels of news reports revealing that U.S. intelligence has picked up increased chatter among Islamist terror networks approaching the 13^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. While these terrorists reportedly plan their attack just outside the U.S., President Obama admits that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat ISIS. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” the commander-in-chief said this week during a White House press briefing. “I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.”

The administration has also covered up, or at the very least downplayed, a serious epidemic of crime along the Mexican border even as heavily armed drug cartels have taken over portions of the region. Judicial Watch has reported that the U.S. Border Patrol actually ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they’re “too dangerous” and patrolling them could result in an “international incident” of cross border shooting. In the meantime, who could forget the famous words of Obama’s first Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; the southern border is “as secure as it has ever been.” [Emphasis added.]

What will President Obama say and do? Not much.

U.S. citizens returning from Iraq and Syria present a different problem.

Americans who have traveled to foreign countries to train and fight with terror groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL) are not being barred from freely returning to America, where they post a substantial terror threat, according to a leading member of Congress. [Emphasis added.]

U.S. intelligence agencies have been tracking Americans who travel abroad to join jihadist groups, but there is no law on the books restricting travel to countries posing a substantial terror threat, according to Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.). He is proposing a new law that would significantly restrict travel to Syria and other “nations of concern.”

Wolf, who originally introduced the bill earlier this year, is leading a new push to pass legislation that would imprison for up to 20 years Americans who travel to these countries following the reported deaths of at least two Americans who had travelled to Syria to fight alongside ISIL.

At least 300 Americans are believed to be fighting alongside ISIL, according to U.S. intelligence sources, who have reportedly expressed concern about these fighters returning to carry out terror attacks in America.

. . . .

“Limited U.S. intelligence about their activities in the region effectively means our law enforcement can do nothing when they return home, despite concerns about their activities, contacts and training while in Syria,” Wolf writes. “I think most would agree we need to do more to prevent these terrorists from returning freely to the U.S.” [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

“The U.S. is not taking any substantial steps to discourage Americans from going over to fight—and these would-be fighters can see there is little price to pay for doing so,” the letter states. “This is an untenable situation that puts our country at greater risk of attack from a radicalized American who trains and fights with these groups and later returns home.”

The actions of Ohama’s America in response to the Islamist threat have been consistent with President Obama’s views and defenses of Islam

President Obama announced on August 28th that He does not yet have a strategy, telling the IS something it could easily have concluded from the actions and inactions of the Obama Nation. His strategy, such as it is, is concisely stated in His (claimed) autobiography, The Audacity of Hope.

As our national security falls into a shambles, our military deterrent has all but vanished.

F-16s grounded. Blackhawks covered in foam. Just two Army brigades combat ready. Half the cruiser fleet rendered inoperable. New nukes delayed—for two years. The percentage of the economy devoted to defense at pre-9/11 levels. Bipartisan experts terrified of the consequences. America’s deterrent—our ability to discourage and respond to aggression—is gone. [Emphasis added.]

It was thrown away. First, President Obama cut defense massively, constraining the Pentagon and hollowing out the force. He was helped not only by Democrats in Congress but also by Republicans, who agreed to the budget sequester in 2011. Democrats want more money for social programs; Republicans want to cut the deficit. They are both guilty of short-term thinking.

The effects of defense cuts are felt not only in one budget. They are felt over time—in weapons not developed or devised, forces not raised, troops not adequately trained and equipped. The government cashes out a peace dividend just once. Later, we all pay. [Emphasis added.]

But don’t fret! President Obama’s charming ways, superior intellect and multicultural understanding of the beauties of Islam will force the bad guys to reform and become good little Obamabots.

President Obama, along with Secretary Kerry, really should go to Iraq, Syria and other IS strongholds and discuss things with them while enjoying rounds of golf and listening to Secretary Kerry’s sailing fantasies.

What would Winston Churchill do?

That’s an interesting question, helpful answers to which can be found in The Gathering Storm. Answers to the question are, unfortunately, not relevant because Churchill is dead and there is no one living who even approaches him in prescience, resolve and ability to do what needs to be done.

Iraqi Christians Weigh Taking Up Arms Against the Islamic State
By Rania Abouzeid National Geographic Posted 2014-08-27 19:15 GMT

(Finally some of my fellow Christians are running out of cheeks.-LS)

Dohuk, Iraq — Of all the many ancient peoples who once lived in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Iraq’s Assyrian Christians pride themselves on having persisted in their traditional homeland for millennia, even as other civilizations thrived then disappeared, as languages and cultures died out, as ethnic groups melted into the ways and genetic pools of their conquerors.

But today Iraq’s Assyrians, and its Christians in general, fear that their place in this multiethnic, multisectarian mosaic society is shrinking, under severe threat from the ultraconservative Islamist group the Islamic State (IS).

It isn’t the first time that Iraq’s Christians have faced such a foe. The IS’s earlier incarnation, al Qaeda in Iraq–a group that formed after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003–also menaced Christians, and others, prompting tens of thousands to flee into exile.

Now, the particularly harsh nature of the IS’s assault on Christians, Yazidis, Shiite Muslims, and others who do not share allegiance to the IS’s brand of ultraconservative Sunni Islam has led some of Iraq’s Christians to take the unusual step of shedding their historical passivity and consider taking up arms to defend and eventually govern themselves.

The Assyrian Patriotic Party, one of several Assyrian political organizations, has armed and dispatched a symbolic, rather than an active, force of some 40 members to join the Kurdish Peshmerga fighting the IS in the northwest of Iraq, according to party official Henry Sarkis.

The Peshmerga are the official forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government. It is the first such action by Iraqi Christians since some Christians fought briefly alongside the Kurds against Saddam Hussein.

Sarkis, 44, is the newly appointed branch chief of the party’s office in Dohuk, a northern governorate in the semiautonomous Kurdish region that borders Syria and Turkey.

The 40 men constitute what Sarkis calls the “first wave,” and the unit has adopted the name Dukha, an Assyrian word that means “sacrifice.”

“We keep talking about Jesus and peace, and now we’ve reached the point where it’s not enough,” he said in an interview at his party’s headquarters in Dohuk. “The age of waiting for the Peshmerga to take back territory while we sit is over. We took the decision that, with our limited abilities, we will try to participate.”

The party bought weapons with money donated by members in the diaspora, Sarkis said, and is looking to raise more funds through donations to increase its stockpile.

Sarkis’s men are mainly behind the front line, around the town of Sharfiyah, not so much fighting alongside the Peshmerga as holding territory the Kurdish forces have gained or are pushing forward from.

A Perilous Shift

Still, it marks a significant shift in the attitude of Iraq’s Christians, a shift that’s fraught with peril.

Since 2003, Iraq’s Christian community has been viewed by other Iraqis as a passive victim of the country’s many conflicts, not an active aggressor.

Taking up arms will make the Christians direct participants, armed targets who pose military rather than just ideological opposition to ultraconservative Islamist groups.

Sarkis acknowledges this but said his party is prepared to accept the consequences. “We’re being killed in our homes, so why not defend ourselves? Then even if we die, we die with dignity,” he said. “We didn’t want to reach this point–we just want to live in our areas.”

Before 2003, Iraq held about 1.5 million Christians. The number today is fewer than 500,000, say community leaders, the majority having been driven out by war and all the trouble it inflicts and breeds, including corruption and insecurity.

According to the CIA’s World Factbook, Shiites now make up 60 to 65 percent of Iraq’s population, Sunnis 32 to 37 percent, and Christians just 0.8 percent. Most remaining Christians live on the Nineveh Plains, an area that is also home to other ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq, including the Yazidis and the Turkomans.

Fall of Mosul

On June 10, Mosul, the capital of the Nineveh governorate, in northern Iraq, fell to IS-led militants in a blitzkrieg advance. The IS was ruthless with its enemies, uploading videos of mass executions of soldiers and security forces they’d captured. The Iraqi Army melted away, rather than try to repel the incursion.

Weeks later, the Kurdish Peshmerga also retreated from some areas in the face of an IS-led onslaught. Kurdish troops are now fighting, with the aid of limited U.S. air strikes, to regain territory.

The IS gave Mosul’s estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Christians three options: convert to Islam, pay a tax, or die. Instead they fled en masse to villages on the Nineveh Plains, as well as farther north into the Kurdish heartland.

As few as 40 Christians remain in Mosul, according to Duraid Tobiya, 53, an Assyrian from the city and an adviser on minority affairs to the governor of Nineveh.

He said that the few who stayed were too sick, too old, or too poor to leave–so much so that the IS exempted them from paying the jizya, a tax on non-Muslims.

“I’m from Mosul–this is the first time I’ve been displaced,” Tobiya said. “I lived through everything else that happened in Mosul, but it’s all very different from what’s happening now.”

This time, he said, he had no faith in either the Iraqi Army or the Kurdish Peshmerga to protect Christians and other minorities, such as the Yazidis and Turkomans, against a much more dangerous foe, because both forces initially abrogated their duties.

Iraq’s Christians, like all of the country’s sectarian communities, do not speak with one voice. There are numerous political parties with varying platforms.

The solution as Tobiya saw it, was one of two options: “either mass emigration or an internationally protected safe zone. We have no other options. We are against emigration, because we are not only the sons of this country but its original inhabitants.”

All dozen or so Christians interviewed by National Geographic adamantly shared the demand for a safe zone, akin to the two no-fly zones the West established in 1992 to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the forces of former leader Saddam Hussein.

But 1992 was a long time ago in terms of Western resources and commitment to the region–especially at a time when President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to pivot away from the troubles of the Middle East. Still, Tobiya and others insisted it’s a viable option.

“We must protect ourselves–and also have international protection,” he said.

Long-term Plans

In another part of Dohuk, behind the high concrete walls of the Assyrian Democratic Movement’s headquarters, the local branch leader, Farid Yacoub, 42, says his party too is moving to arm its men.

It is registering volunteers, having gathered more than 2,000 names from the Dohuk governorate alone. But unlike Assyrian Patriotic Party leaders, Yacoub is recruiting men to protect Christian areas after they’ve been won back from the IS and its allies.

The intention is not to participate in the battle to reclaim those areas. “We have lots who are volunteering, who want to fight, but we don’t have the means to arm them,” he said.

The party doesn’t want Christian villages such as Al Hamdaniyah (Qaraqosh) to be controlled or protected by the Peshmerga after they’ve been reclaimed. “Our people don’t trust them any more,” Yacoub said.

There’s a bigger issue here. Nineveh has long been caught in a conflict between the central government in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north.

Some Christians on the Nineveh Plains have pushed to govern themselves, but Kurdistan also has claims on their territory and wants to absorb it into its zone.

Earlier this year, long before the country descended into the current level of mayhem and fragmentation, Baghdad “agreed in principle” to turn the Nineveh Plains, as well as two other areas, Fallujah and Tuzkhurmatu, into provinces. This would enable the Christians to manage their own affairs and secure an independent share of the national budget.

The Assyrian Democratic Movement doesn’t want the Nineveh Plains to be part of Kurdistan, but Sarkis said his Assyrian Patriotic Party does.

Sarkis’s men are working with the Peshmerga, independent of the national government’s recent call for volunteers to fight the IS.

“Let’s be honest,” he said. “When the [Shiite-led] government asked for volunteers, it’s because the war is sectarian, between Shiites and Sunnis. They didn’t volunteer to protect Christians. They did so to fight Sunnis.”

Yacoub, on the other hand, is not working with the Peshmerga and said his men are waiting for the central government to train and arm them, though with the proviso that they return to their areas.

“Our men said they were worried because they didn’t want to defend areas other than theirs. We want to defend areas where our people are, specifically the Nineveh Plains,” Yacoub said. “We’re nationalists, but the circumstances that Iraq is living through now necessitate that we have a safe place, a place for us.”

Turning to Lebanon’s Christians

Of all the dwindling Christian communities in the Middle East in recent times, only the Lebanese have picked up arms during civil turmoil. Lebanese Christians battled not only Muslims but also each other during their country’s brutal 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990.

Duraid Tobiya, the adviser to the Nineveh governor, is also a member of Yacoub’s Assyrian Democratic Movement. He said that since the fall of Mosul, his party had received a delegation from the Lebanese Forces, a militia turned political party, and had also sent representatives to Lebanon twice to meet with the party.

He didn’t elaborate about the nature of the meetings, saying only that “we want to benefit from their experience. We explained our situation, and they explained their experience in Lebanon.” He added, “We might proceed with some things, apply them on the ground.”

Antoinette Geagea, a spokesperson for the Lebanese Forces in Beirut, confirmed the meetings. She said they were part of a series her party had undertaken with Christian spiritual and political leaders from Nineveh and Kurdistan, as well as Kurdish parties, in the wake of the fall of Mosul.

“There are many different views among Iraq’s Christians,” she said. “The Lebanese Forces told them that they must unite. We told them that if you all agree on a position, we will stand with you and help you.”

That help could be political, in the form of lobbying international and regional players, or humanitarian. Or “if they want to protect themselves, we will put our experience at their disposal,” Geagea said. “We told them they must decide on the best solution to help Christians stay in their country.”

“We’re Still Here”

Yaqoob Yaqo, one of the Assyrian Democratic Movement’s members of parliament in Kurdistan, said that more than a hundred thousand Christians fled in the wake of the IS advances into their areas. “The problem is that even if [the IS] withdraws, a hundred thousand won’t return.”

He rattled off a long list of massacres and episodes of persecution directed against his people, but despite that litany, he wasn’t downbeat.

“We’re still here,” he said, adding that his community has lived in these lands for 6,700 years, persisting after the fall of the Assyrian empire in 612 B.C. and practicing as Christians for the past 2,000 years.

“I feel strong when I think about our history, that all of these great powers couldn’t uproot us from here,” he said. “We’re still here, but we want our own security.”

URGENT — Britain raises terror threat level to severe – BNO News.

LONDON, ENGLAND (BNO NEWS) — The United Kingdom on Friday raised its international terrorism threat level from substantial to severe due to the crisis in Iraq and Syria, saying a terrorist attack is “highly likely” though there is no intelligence to suggest an attack is imminent.

“The increase in the threat level is related to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West,” said British Home Secretary Theresa May. “Some of these plots are likely to involve foreign fighters who have travelled there from the UK and Europe to take part in those conflicts.”

Severe is the second highest level on the five-step scale of threat levels.

(Copyright 2014 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnone

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JTAC raised the terror alert, that is the UK Joint Terror group and is not political. That is the security services and military advising the Prime Minister through their group, so this is not politically done. It is MI5/MI6/Military/Police committee who feed in to government.

They are CONVINCED there is a real and concrete terror threat based on intel coming out of ISIS. There is worry of a simultaneous serious of attacks affecting both the UK and USA. perhaps aviation again.

They know something is coming. The what, when and where they are not getting right now. This is not a general ISIS warning type thing, but REAL intel of a real risk. JTAC are normally very wary of raising our level here. Again, this is not a political thing. JTAC made the request to government.

It IS linked to ISIS out of Syria/Iraq, likely affects both the UK and USA and that is all they know. They also believe the beheading of Foley was a calling card, signalling their intent to strike.

They will only raise the alert status to imminent when an attack is actually under way. This is the most serious alert the UK has, short of the attack actually being in progress. (I know that is weird, but they only go to imminent when it is actually happening in terms of the bad guys heading to the target)

I am told it is the most dangerous threat since 9/11.

COBRA is set to meet shortly. I am told the US national security meeting was primarily focused around the threat last night. 

it seems to be both sides of the pond are on alert, but the US has yet to go public. I am told that might happen soon. The whole national security meeting with Obama yesterday was focused around the threat.- Janey 

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message2570971/pg1936

Fort Hood shooter says he wants to become ‘citizen’ of Islamic State caliphate
By Catherine Herridge Published August 29, 2014 FoxNews.com

Nidal Hasan, pictured above, proudly wearing his new Soldier of Allah uniform. General Hasan for the Midwest division is best known for his bravery while shooting unarmed soldiers on an enemy military base near his battlefield.

(Here’s a man (questionable) who was willing to die, we were told, in the name of ‘workplace violence’.-LS)

The convicted shooter in the Fort Hood massacre has written a letter to the leader of the Islamic State saying he wants to become a “citizen” of the caliphate, in the latest example of the terror group’s reach inside the U.S.

The letter from Nidal Hasan, obtained by Fox News, comes after two Americans reportedly died fighting for ISIS in Syria. Sources late Wednesday identified the second as Abdirahmaan Muhumed, of Minneapolis. Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis reported that Muhumed was killed in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain, who grew up outside Minneapolis in the town of New Hope and most recently lived in San Diego.

The State Department said Thursday it could not confirm Muhumed’s death and efforts to reach his family were unsuccessful.

In the undated letter, Hasan — who fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009 in what the Defense Department called “workplace violence”– tells ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that he wants to join the caliphate.

“I formally and humbly request to be made a citizen of the Islamic State,”Hasan says in the handwritten document addressed to “Ameer, Mujahid Dr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.”

“It would be an honor for any believer to be an obedient citizen soldier to a people and its leader who don’t compromise the religion of All-Mighty Allah to get along with the disbelievers.”

The two-page letter includes Hasan’s signature and the abbreviation SoA for Soldier of Allah.

Hasan’s attorney, John Galligan, said the letter “underscores how much of his life, actions and mental thought process are driven by religious zeal. And it also reinforces my belief that the military judge committed reversible error by prohibiting Major Hasan from both testifying and arguing…how his religious beliefs” motivated his actions during the shooting.

In the last year, the Department of Justice has brought at least five prosecutions against Americans — in Florida, California, Virginia and North Carolina – for trying to help terrorists in Iraq and Syria.

Omar Jamal, who is well known in Minneapolis’ Somali community, said at least 10 young men from there have been recruited to travel to Syria for ISIS.

“Douglas McCain wasn’t the first one and unfortunately he won’t be the last,”Jamal told KMSP-TV.

The former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee that investigated radicalization in a series of congressional hearings said there is a pattern.

“It was clear and convincing evidence then, that there was a pipeline from Minneapolis to Islamic jihad overseas,” said Peter King, R-N.Y. “And that people in the community knew about it and that people in the community were covering it up.”