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Al Qaeda on winning streaks in Yemen and Iraq, exploiting stalemate in proxy wars

April 17, 2015

Al Qaeda on winning streaks in Yemen and Iraq, exploiting stalemate in proxy wars, DEBKAfile, April 17, 2015

Thursday and Friday, April 16-17, two branches of Al Qaeda took the lead in violent conflicts, catapulting key areas of the Middle East into greater peril than ever. In Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and in Iraq, the Islamist State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), launched new offensives 3.050 kilometer apart.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that both branches of the Islamist terror movement used the absence of professional adversarial troops on the ground – American and Saudi – to push forward in the two arenas. Washington and Riyadh alike had decided to trust local forces to carry the battle – Iran-backed Shiite militias alongside Iraqi troops against ISIS in Iraq, and the Yemeni army against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

This gave Al Qaeda a free passage to carry on, especially when offered the further benefit of contradictions in the Obama administration’s attitude toward its foe, Tehran: On the one hand, Iran was offered lead role in the region for the sake of a nuclear deal; on the other, it faced US opposition for its support of rebel forces in Yemen.

The conflict in Yemen is no longer a straight sectarian proxy war between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran (that also stretches to Iraq and Syria.), as a result of what happened Thursday, April 16.

AQAP embarked on a broad offensive in southern Yemen’s Hadhramaut region on the shore of the Gulf of Aden and captured the important seaport of Mukalla as well as the coatal towns of Shibam and Ash-Shirh. The group also overran Yemen’s Ryan air base in the absence of real resistance from the Yemen army’s 27th Brigade and 190th Air Defense Brigade – both of which are loyal to the escaped president Mansour Hadi.

This winning AQAP offensive was instructive in four ways:

1. For the first time in two decades, Al Qaeda in Arabia is operating on professional military lines. Its sweep across Yemen’s southern coastland showed the Islamists to be plentifully armed with antiair missiles and other air defense systems.
2. AQAP’s smuggling rings run a large fleet of vessels which collaborate with Somali pirates. This fleet is now preparing to seize control of the strategic Socotra archipelago of four islands opposite Hadhramaut and only 80 kilometers from the Horn of Africa. Socotra sits in the bottleneck for shipping from the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden and on to the Suez Canal.

On one of the Socotra islands, the US set up an air base and deployed special forces in 2011, in readiness for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. AQAP does not have enough strength to capture this island, but is capable of holding it siege and under barrage from sea and land.

3. The Arabian branch of Al Qaeda has for the first time gained control of a large sweep of territory in Yemen, a feat analogous to its fellow branch’s advances in Iraq since last June.
4. Hadramauth is bounded to the north and the east by the Saudi Arabian Rub’ al Khali or Empty Quarter, which is the world’s second largest desert region. AQAP has therefore gained proximity to the oil kingdom through its desolate back door.

Our military sources note that Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirate air forces have controlled Yemeni air space since March 26, supported by US intelligence assistance. They might have been expected to bomb AQAP units and stall their advance through Hadhramaut.

But they refrained from doing so for a simple reason: Both Riyadh and its Gulf ally are unwilling to throw their own ground forces into the war against the Shiite Houthi rebels. Still in proxy mode, they expect Al Qaeda’s Arabian jihadis to save them the trouble of putting their troops on the ground to vanquish the Shiite rebels.

The same principle guides Washington in Iraq – albeit with different players. There, the Americans rely increasingly on the pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiite militias, under the command of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers, rather than the Iraq army, to cleanse the ground of ISIS conquests.

Two weeks after Western publications trumpeted the militias’ success in liberating the Iraqi town of Tikrit from its ISIS conquerors, it turns out that the fighting is still ongoing and the jihadis are still in control of some of the town’s districts.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, while on a visit to Washington this week, told reporters that, after the Tikrit “victory,” his army was to launch an offensive to recapture the western province of Anbar on the Syrian border from the grip of ISIS.

The situation on the ground is a lot less promising. As Abadi and President Barack Obama discussed future plans for the war to rid Iraq of the Islamists, ISIS launched fresh offensives for its next goals, Ramadi, a town of half a million inhabitants 130 kilometers west of Baghdad, and the oil refinery town of Baiji

The jihadis have already moved in on Ramadi’s outskirts after the Iraqi army defenders started falling back.

Categories: Al Qaeda, Foreign policy, Insurgents, Iran, Iran military, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Obama, Ramadi, Terrorism, Yemen
Tags: Al Qaeda, Foreign Policy, Insurgents, Iran, Iranian military, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Ramadi, Terrorism, Yemen

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ISIS attacks Ramadi: It’s way worse than we’re being told

April 17, 2015

ISIS attacks Ramadi: It’s way worse than we’re being told, Alanbwest.com, Allen West, April 17, 2015

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[T]ens of thousands are fleeing Ramadi, the largest city in Anbar province of some half a million — the city lies 100 miles from Baghdad. And ISIS has also launched an attack on the major oil refinery city of Baiji, just north of Tikrit. Could it be that ISIS conducted a very well planned and executed deception plan to make Iraqi Security Forces and their Iranian allies focus on Tikrit, while they focused their offensive operations elsewhere? If so, it’s a brilliant operational level ruse.

But there is an even more important question — how did ISIS do this without any detection? How did they reposition their force — in open desert — and no one saw it? This is a direct reflection of the intelligence failure of the so-called Obama coalition.

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One of the best lessons I learned in my years of service in the military is a quote often share with y’all: “the enemy has a vote.”

You can try and sell the American people — and others — a politicized line such as “al-Qaida has been decimated and destroyed” or “we have reached the framework of a deal with Iran” or “ISIS is not Islamic,” but the bad guys are not affected by empty rhetoric.

And here we go again with the Obama administration and the conflagration against Islamic terrorism. We’ve been told that ISIS has stalled. Their recruiting is low and they’re demoralized – by the way, what is up with the Ohio man just arrested after returning from Syria and training with ISIS?

The Daily Beast, not exactly a conservative outlet, reports, “ISIS is reportedly marching on the key Iraqi city of Ramadi—upending the momentum the U.S.-led military coalition seemed to have just days ago, and threatening to shatter an already delicate recent power shift that both the U.S. and Iraq hoped to exploit.

“Until Wednesday’s reports about Ramadi both U.S. and Iraqi officials were examining what effects ISIS’s recent losses could have in future battles. The officials were even talking about where they would take down ISIS next. During his visit to Washington, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi suggested in an interview Wednesday with reporters that his troops could move on both Anbar Province—where Ramadi in the local capital—and the oil-rich city of Baiji.

But that was before, according to residents, three cities near Ramadi fell into ISIS hands. Hours later, area security forces reportedly asked for more support from the central government to retain control of the city. Pentagon officials stopped short of saying the city was on the brink of falling. But they didn’t sound confident it would hold, either.

“The situation in Ramadi remains fluid and, as with earlier assessments, the security situation in the city is contested. The ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] continue to conduct clearing operations against ISIL-held areas in the city and in the surrounding areas of Al Anbar province,” U.S. Central Command spokesman Army Major Curt Kellogg said in a statement, using the government’s preferred acronym for ISIS. The coalition continues to coordinate with ISF forces and provide operational support as requested.”

The truth is, tens of thousands are fleeing Ramadi, the largest city in Anbar province of some half a million — the city lies 100 miles from Baghdad. And ISIS has also launched an attack on the major oil refinery city of Baiji, just north of Tikrit. Could it be that ISIS conducted a very well planned and executed deception plan to make Iraqi Security Forces and their Iranian allies focus on Tikrit, while they focused their offensive operations elsewhere? If so, it’s a brilliant operational level ruse.

But there is an even more important question — how did ISIS do this without any detection? How did they reposition their force — in open desert — and no one saw it? This is a direct reflection of the intelligence failure of the so-called Obama coalition.

However, let me digress for a moment and consider the effect this is having on those brave and courageous men and women who just a decade ago bled, sacrificed, lost limbs, and died in order to drive the enemy out of Ramadi.

Can you imagine what it is doing to them to hear this news — of course it appears that President Obama cares little. His campaign promise was more important than acknowledging the enemy has a vote. His defiance would not allow him to admit that he was wrong and that our men and women who DID serve with honor and distinction defeated the enemy, al-Qaida in Iraq. The emotional scars run deep, and sadly the person inflicting the damage and reopening wounds resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

During a Senate Armed Services hearing Chairman John McCain, a former combat fighter pilot, asked an astonishing question — which those of us in the know, knew. How many total sorties have been flown since last August when we announced the air campaign against ISIS? The answer is approximately 12,000. How many of these sorties have dropped weapons (munitions)? The answer was 3,000. When queried, the new Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, explained that the problem is that we don’t have G-FACs (Ground- Forward Air Controllers) on the ground. As well, it appears we don’t have intelligence gathering capability. ISIS is not being pushed back. They are on the offense, and how can that be happening?

Not only in Iraq, but in Yemen, where President Obama stated last September that this was a shining example of success. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken over a vital airfield, port, and oil facility. And if you haven’t been paying attention, Americans are fleeing the country by whatever means they can find. Right now they are escaping on boats to Dijbouti. For those of you who aren’t aware, the U.S. Marine Corps always has a regional force afloat called a Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) — MEU(SOC). One of their mission sets is called NEO – Non Combatant Evacuation Order — which is where they coordinate with the local embassy to extricate Americans from a hostile country. Remember, ARG/MEU (Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit) was sitting off the coast of Yemen, but the Obama administration ordered our embassy evacuated as the Marines destroyed their weapons and flew out on Oman Air.

I know, you’re saying, why should I care? You think I’m just complaining and running my mouth. I believe the same was said of one Winston Churchill whilst the people of England were embracing Neville Chamberlain. The point is that the enemy is being emboldened and domestic prosperity means nothing when planes fly into buildings. The redistribution of wealth will mean little when someone shouts “Allahu Akhbar” and guns down American troops in America. Income inequality will not be a pressing issue if another woman is beheaded at her workplace by an Islamist — and it’s just dismissed.

We are suffering from the sickness of soundbite mentality and as the Taliban says, “you may have watches but we have the time.”

We have an administration that is lying to us and refuses to confront a very threatening enemy. The last time such a maniacal threat was disregarded — well, millions lost their lives. I pray that a catastrophic event does not have to occur to wake us up — but it seems we are on that road. This is not about bravado, it is about making a stand to defeat Islamo-fascism and its spawn, terrorism and jihadism. And let us not forget that meanwhile Vladimir Putin lurks in the dark places and China slowly extends its regional hegemony.

Remember, peace through strength.

Categories: Baiji, Caliphate, Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Iraq, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Middle East, Obama, Ramadi
Tags: Baiji, Caliphate, Department of Defense, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Islamic Jihad, Islamic State, Middle East, Ramadi

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Two More Iraqi Cities At Risk Of Falling Into ISIS Control – John McCain – America’s Newsroom

April 17, 2015

Two More Iraqi Cities At Risk Of Falling Into ISIS Control – John McCain – America’s Newsroom, via You Tube, April 17, 2015

Categories: Baiji, Department of Defense, Foreign policy, Iraq, Islamic State, McCain, Middle East, Obama, Ramadi
Tags: Baiji, Department of Defense, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Islamic State, McCain, Middle East, Ramadi

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King Abdullah II: We’re War With “Outlaws Of Islam” – Special Report

April 14, 2015

King Abdullah II: We’re War With “Outlaws Of Islam” – Special Report via You Tube, April 13, 2015

(He seems quite diplomatic, but what does he actually think? — DM)

Categories: Arab nations, Assad, Coalition, Diplomacy, Economy, Egypt, Foreign policy, Houthi, International Community, Iran, Iran in Yemen, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Jordan, Jordanian pilot, King Abdullah, Middle East, Moderate rebels, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Reform Islam, Saudi Arabia, Secularism, Syria, Terrorism
Tags: Arab nations, Assad, Coalition, Economy, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Houthi, International Community, Iran, Iran in Yemen, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Jordan, Jordanian pilot, King Abdullah, Middle East, Moderate rebels, Nukes, Reform Islam, Saudi Arabia, Secularism, Syria, Terrorism

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After terrorists claim 13 lives in Sinai, El-Sisi reshuffles top army, navy, intelligence and Suez Canal chiefs

April 13, 2015

After terrorists claim 13 lives in Sinai, El-Sisi reshuffles top army, navy, intelligence and Suez Canal chiefs, DEBKAfile, April 13,2015

police_station_in_the_city_of_al-Arish12.4.15

Devastated Egyptian police station in El Arish

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that northern Sinai, due to the increasing frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, is beginning to resemble Baghdad, which on that same Sunday was struck by four ISIS car bombs and other devices, which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.

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President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi was spurred Sunday, April 12, to make a clean sweep of his top military intelligence, navy and Second Field Army command (responsible for Sinai and the Suez Canal) by another two deadly attacks in northern Sinai by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the lslamic State’s local branch. They claimed 13 deaths, seven of them Egyptian troops, including two officers, and injured more than 50.

The Sinai terrorists have played havoc with Sinai security since pledging loyalty to and gained support from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Egyptian military, even after being substantially reinforced and imposing a state of emergency, has been unable to stem the deadly spiral and paid for it with a heavy toll of casualties.

In the first attack Sunday, six soldiers, including two officers, were killed when a roadside bomb struck their armored vehicle traveling south of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai. Twelve hours later, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance of a large police station in el-Arish, killing seven people, including five policemen, and injuring at least 40, many of them civilians.

In a third smaller attack, militants clashed with soldiers at a mobile checkpoint in Rafah, south of el-Arish, wounding one police officer and two soldiers.

Saturday, April 11, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdas, using the methods of its new parent, released a video clip depicting an Egyptian soldier being shot dead and the decapitation of an Egyptian civilian. Both victims were snatched during an attack on April 2, which left 15 soldiers dead, on an Egyptian army position in the El Arish vicinity.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that northern Sinai, due to the increasing frequency and scale of terrorist attacks, is beginning to resemble Baghdad, which on that same Sunday was struck by four ISIS car bombs and other devices, which killed at least 12 people and injured dozens.

Before the thunder of the blasts died down in Sinai, the Egyptian president announced a major reshuffle of his military, security and intelligence ranks.

The most senior officer to be sacked was military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Salah El-Badry. He was replaced by Gen. Mohamed al-Shahat, a former commander of the Second Field Army, which is the current backbone of the army force fighting the Islamists terrorists in northern Sinai.

Gen. Nasser al-Assi is the new commander of the Second Army. Our military sources report that al-Assi spent some months in northern Sinai on a personal assignment on behalf of the president and returned to Cairo with new recommendations for combating the terrorists.

In another key change, Rear Admiral Osama El-Gendy was replaced as commander of the Egyptian Navy by Rear Admiral Osama Mounir.

The navy’s role is increasingly prominent since Egyptian warships were deployed in the last two weeks off the coast of Yemen to secure the strategically vital Bab el-Mandab Strait — the gateway to the Suez Canal – against Iranian-backed Houthi rebel control. Their guns have been trained on the Yemeni port of Aden in a running barrage to prevent the rebels and their allies, the mutinous Yemeni army’s 212nd Brigade, from overrunning the town.

The Navy’s role in the Yemen war makes a change of commanders in mid-combat highly unusual. However, it had become just as urgent at this stage to shift Rear Adm El-Gendy from the Navy to the top post in the Suez Canal Authority, to take charge of one of the most important seaways in the world, which had became a highway from the rampant smuggling of the arms and fighters nourishing ISIS terrorist outposts in Sinai.

DEBKAfile reports that ships from Libya and Jordan carry the contraband by sea and unload it at secret dropping-off points on the Sinai Peninsula’s western Mediterranean and the eastern Gulf of Aqaba coasts. Some of the goods are conveyed from Libya via the Suez Canal via the towns of Suez, Ismailia and Port Said, whence smuggling rings based on the banks of the waterway collect them by boat.

Tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Sinai are also an important smuggling route for supplying terrorist groups. The Egyptian military reshuffle was accompanied by an amendment to the penal code by presidential decree which raised the penalty for building or using cross-border tunnels to life in jail. The penalty also applies to people with knowledge of tunnels who fail to report them to the authorities. The Egyptian government was authorized to seize buildings at the top of tunnels and equipment for digging them.

Categories: Egypt, Hamas, Islamic State, Israel, Siani, Sisi
Tags: Egypt, Hamas, Islamic State, Israel, Siani, Sisi, Suez Canal

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Assad looses ISIS against Palestinians trapped in Yarmouk camp – a sinister new partnership

April 8, 2015

Assad looses ISIS against Palestinians trapped in Yarmouk camp – a sinister new partnership, DEBKAfile, April 8, 2015

Yarmouk_Palestinian_camp__Damascus_5.4.15

The Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus in April 2015

Obama’s rapprochement with Iran and its Middle East allies has produced an incredibly sinister new twist in the Syrian war as it enters its fifth year. The atrocity-ridden conflict finds 16,000 Palestinians trapped in horrible conditions in the Yarmouk refugee camp of Damascus and beset by two enemies: the Islamic State and the President Bashar Assad’s army.

The world has been shown three players in the vicious Yarmouk contest: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, whose jihadis are slashing through the refugee camp and massacring its Palestinian inmaes, the second player, and the Syrian army, the third, which appears to be fighting to keep the Islamists from reaching central Damascus. The camp lies 8.5 km from Assad’s presidential palace.

The Islamists are usually presented as fighting to settle a score with the camp’s inmates, because the Hamas majority is aligned with Iran and Hizballah, ISIS’s deadliest foes.

But even this evil scenario is not crazy enough to cover the new patchwork of alliances revealed here by DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources.

Syrian troops were actually directed by Assad to open the roads to Damascus and give the Islamists a free path to their Palestinian victims. This saved ISIS the need to detach substantial strength from other fronts for its Yarmouk operation.

ISIS is winning its cheapest victory yet as a result of a secret understanding reached by the Syrian president with the Islamists’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, which evolved from their covert partnership in the oil and gas fields of eastern Syria.

When Al Baghdadi captured 90 percent of those fields last year, Assad was short of military strength to dislodge the invaders without diluting the forces fighting on more important strategic fronts, such as Damascus, the capital, Deraa in the South and Aleppo in the north. So the Syrian ruler cold-bloodedly negotiated an understanding with the ISIS caliph on four points:

1. The Syrian army and air force would abstain from attacking ISIS positions and also refrain from any effort to recapture the fields.

2. ISIS would pump out the oil and gas and transfer these products to Damascus, which would then use its distribution facilities to sell the fuel on the black market after retaining a portion for domestic consumption.

3. Damascus and the Islamists would share out the revenue between them. Last year, ISIS was earning $2-4 million a day, an income which went far toward bankrolling the terrorist group’s war operations.

4. Syrian power stations would keep Islamist bases supplied with electricity.

The Syrian ruler then decided, our sources report, to build on this alliance as an opportunity for another move: The outsourcing of some of his war challenges. The plan was for Assad to control from afar the action conducted by the jihadis without having to put Syrian boots on the ground.

The Yarmouk operation was the first tryout of Assad’s battlefield ties with the Islamists.

The Syrian ruler had three goals in mind when he targeted the Palestinians:

(a) To show his closest allies Iran and Hizballah that he was not totally reliant on them for war support, but retained a free hand to fight on without them.

(b) To punish the Palestinian Hamas, which rules the Yarmouk camp, for withholding its support from his regime during the entire civil war.

Hamas needed to understand that the group’s reconciliation with Tehran and Hizballah did not count as absolution in Damascus. Assad had a separate accounting of his own with the Palestinian extremists.

(c) Assad gained a new lease of life from Washington’s turnabout toward recognizing the legitimacy of his presidency (signaled by US Secretary of State John Kerry’s acceptance of Bashar Assad as part of any peace moves for Syria). He also exploited US acceptance of Iran’s expansionist designs in the region as a point in his favor.

The Syrian ruler decided he felt confident enough to make the Palestinians his high card in his games with Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Assad wanted them all to understand that he was riding high enough to control the fate of the Palestinians: It was up to him to decide whether to save them or throw them to the wolves – which he did by letting ISIS loose against them.

Categories: Assad, Foreign policy, Human rights, Islamic State, Obama, Palestinians, Yarmouk refugee camp
Tags: Assad, Foreign Policy, human rights, Islamic State, Palestinians, Yarmouk refugee camp

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Victory Against ISIS in Tikrit Will Embolden Iran

April 2, 2015

Victory Against ISIS in Tikrit Will Embolden Iran, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, April 2, 2015

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The downside to playing on the same team as the Iranian regime, even in just this one military campaign against ISIS, is that we are helping to enable a far more dangerous power than ISIS to extend its hegemonic dominance throughout the entire region.

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Iraq’s defense minister Khalid al-Obeidi is claiming victory over ISIS forces in the city of Tikrit, which ISIS had captured last summer as its forces advanced across large swaths of territory in northern and western Iraq. “We have the pleasure, with all our pride, to announce the good news of a magnificent victory,” Obeidi said. The Pentagon and a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition were a bit more cautious, noting some residual ISIS resistance. However, they too reported that significant progress had been made in wresting control of Saddam Hussein’s birthplace from ISIS’s grip.

The next strategic military objective in pushing ISIS back from the territories it controls in Iraq is to re-take Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul.

Iran supplied significant military support to the Shiite militia forces, who were a major part of the Iraqi counter-offensive on the ground. At the same time, U.S. air strikes seemed to have helped in supporting the Iraqi ground forces’ advance into Tikrit. The precise extent of any behind-the-scenes direct or indirect coordination between the U.S. and Iran is unknown at the present time. However, according to DebkaFile {March 26, 2015), “In the last two weeks of the Tikrit operation, liaison between the US and Iranian military in Iraq was routed through the office of the Iraqi Prime Minister in Baghdad.”

There is little question that without the Iranian-backed Shiite militia and substantial military support on the ground from Iran, ISIS would most likely still be in control of Tikrit today. U.S. airstrikes may have been necessary to soften ISIS’s resistance, but only ground troops with Iran’s support could dislodge them.

The downside to playing on the same team as the Iranian regime, even in just this one military campaign against ISIS, is that we are helping to enable a far more dangerous power than ISIS to extend its hegemonic dominance throughout the entire region.

As General David Petraeus, who certainly knows something about Iraq, told the Washington Post recently:

In fact, I would argue that the foremost threat to Iraq’s long-term stability and the broader regional equilibrium is not the Islamic State; rather, it is Shiite militias, many backed by — and some guided by — Iran… Longer term, Iranian-backed Shia militia could emerge as the preeminent power in the country, one that is outside the control of the government and instead answerable to Tehran.

Without downplaying ISIS’s horrific acts, its rapid-fire successes in Syria and Iraq (even with the setback in Tikrit), and its growing allegiances in Libya, Nigeria and areas further away from its home base including Afghanistan, the fact is that ISIS’s ambitions far exceed its current means for achieving them. ISIS is proficient in using social media for recruitment, propaganda and intimidation purposes, but that can only take ISIS so far.

Iran, by contrast, has built up its military capabilities to the point that it can back up its aggressive threats in the region. And that’s even without the nuclear arms capability that President Obama seems to be willing to risk allowing Iran to achieve in order to secure his legacy with a deal.

As a result, America’s traditional Sunni allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states are doubting whether they can continue to count on the United States for support. And they are taking matters into their own hands, including a decision to form a multinational Arab military force to respond to Iranian aggression and other perceived threats.

As explained by Gamal Abdel Gawad Soltan, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo and quoted by the New York Times: “The U.S. is much less trusted as an ally, as an insurance policy towards the security threats facing the governments in the region, and so those governments decide to act on their own.”

These governments know their neighborhood well and see Iran as a much graver threat to regional peace and security than ISIS. Iran’s military and financial support of the Shiite Houthi rebels in taking control of major parts of Yemen was the last straw. Saudi Arabia on its own initiative decided to launch an air campaign against Houthi positions in Yemen and has not ruled out a ground attack along with the military forces of other Arab countries.

In response to the air and sea blockade of Yemen that Saudi Arabia is imposing on Yemen, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei decided to dispatch “two naval task forces to sail to the Red Sea,” according to DebkaFile (March 31, 2015). “The naval task forces are being sent to draw a sea shield around the Houthi forces to defend them against Saudi-Egyptian assaults. This maneuver was orchestrated by the Al Qods Brigades chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani,” DebkaFile reported.

Soleimani certainly gets around. Earlier this month he popped up in Iraq to lead the Shiite militias in their fight against ISIS. Now the man who fought on the same side as us against ISIS in Iraq is apparently coordinating Iran’s fight to hold onto the Houthis’ gains in Yemen where they forced the American and Saudi Arabian-backed president to flee.

Soleimani is “the puppet master controlling numerous Iranian surrogates in various countries,” said Jim Phillips, Middle East analyst for the Heritage Foundation. “His organization is drenched in American blood,” Phillips added. “It’s infused with an anti-American philosophy and a cooperation with him or his followers would not be on a sustainable basis. The U.S. would regret it.”

The Obama administration is now scrambling to catch up with Iran’s multi-pronged offensives, some of which are under Soleimani’s coordination. Thus, President Obama decided to support the Sunni Gulf coalition and Egypt against Iranian-backed action by the Shiite Houthi rebels to take control of Yemen.

However, the Obama administration’s reactive tactics in dealing with the crisis in Yemen are too little too late. Saudi Arabia is reportedly looking to Pakistan for help in acquiring its own nuclear arms to counter the Saudis’ well-founded suspicions that any deal negotiated by the Obama administration with Iran will not prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear armed power. And while Obama finally lifted the arms freeze he imposed against Egypt two years ago, clearing the way for the delivery of F-16 aircraft, Harpoon missiles and tanks, he also decided to end Egypt’s ability to finance purchases of American arms by drawing credits in advance based on future aid Egypt expects to receive starting in the 2018 fiscal year. Obama also wants to reduce Egypt’s flexibility in what it can purchase with the future military aid. Thus, the Egyptian government can be expected to continue on its course to find other sources for military aid and weapons including Russia, because of doubts that the U.S. will remain a reliable supplier.

The Obama administration has been willing to sacrifice the confidence of its Arab allies, not to mention the United States’ historically close alliance with Israel, in a vain effort to lure the Iranian regime into acting as a responsible party in the Middle East that can help stabilize this volatile region. Instead, Obama should listen to the expert on Iraq, General Petraeus, whose surge victory Obama undermined completely with his precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011:

The current Iranian regime is not our ally in the Middle East. It is ultimately part of the problem, not the solution. The more the Iranians are seen to be dominating the region, the more it is going to inflame Sunni radicalism and fuel the rise of groups like the Islamic State…Iranian power in the Middle East is thus a double problem. It is foremost problematic because it is deeply hostile to us and our friends. But it is also dangerous because, the more it is felt, the more it sets off reactions that are also harmful to our interests — Sunni radicalism and, if we aren’t careful, the prospect of nuclear proliferation as well.

We can rejoice in the pushback of ISIS out of Tikrit. Perhaps it is a sign of more victories over ISIS to come. However, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we have more in common with the Iranian regime in combatting ISIS in Iraq or Syria than the Iranian regime ultimately has in common with ISIS. They may be bitter enemies in the struggle over which set of fanatical jihadists should get to rule the global Islamic ummah or caliphate they both fantasize about. However, both fervently believe in the fundamental ideological goal of universal Islamic supremacy. And both are willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of people to reach that goal, no matter how long it takes them. The difference is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be much more capable of carrying out its jihadists’ apocalyptic vision than ISIS and in a much shorter period of time.

Categories: Caliphate, Foreign policy, Gulf states, Iran, Iran military, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iraq, Islamic State, Islamism, Middle East, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Peace process, Saudi Arabia, Shiite, Sunni, Syria, Tikrit, Yemen
Tags: Caliphate, Foreign Policy, Gulf states, Iran, Iran military, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Iraq, Islamic State, Islamism, Middle East, Nukes, Peace Process, Saudi Arabia, Shiite, Sunni, Syria, Tikrit, Yemen

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Islamic State seizes most of camp in south Damascus

April 1, 2015

Islamic State seizes most of camp in south Damascus

via Islamic State seizes most of camp in south Damascus – Breaking News – Jerusalem Post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus

BEIRUT – Islamic State took control of large parts of Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk in southern Damascus on Wednesday, witnesses and a monitoring group said.

“They pushed from the Hajar Aswad area,” one witness said, adding that the violence was ongoing. Yarmouk has been caught between government forces and Syrian insurgent groups including al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Islamic State controlled some of the main streets in the camp and that clashes continued.

Syria says Jordan shuts main border crossing
BEIRUT – Syria’s state news agency said Jordanian authorities had closed the main border crossing between the two countries on Wednesday, citing a source in the Syrian foreign ministry.

The source said Syria held Jordan responsible for the social and economic impact of the closure of Nasib crossing, which had blocked traffic.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported earlier on Wednesday heavy clashes between insurgents and Syrian forces near Nasib after the insurgents encircled the crossing area.

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Syria-says-Jordan-shuts-main-border-crossing-395827

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Anti Semitism, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Jihad, Jordan, Middle East, Syria, Terrorism

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Iran is Smuggling Precision Missiles to Hezbollah

April 1, 2015

Iran is Smuggling Precision Missiles to Hezbollah

Top colonel in missile defense system says Iran upgrading warheads to give Hezbollah pinpoint accuracy in striking Israel.

By Ari Yashar

First Publish: 4/1/2015, 2:26 PM

Smuggled Iranian missiles (illustration)

Smuggled Iranian missiles (illustration)

Yehuda Ben Itach/Flash 90

A senior Israeli security source revealed on Tuesday that Iran is smuggling rockets souped-up with advanced guided warheads to its terror proxy of Hezbollah in Lebanon, posing a direct threat to the Jewish state of Israel from right over its northern border.

Col. Aviram Hasson, a leader in the IDF’s top-level missile defenses, brought up the threat at the Israel Air and Missile Defense Conference held in Herzliya, an event hosted by the iHLS (Israel’s homeland security) defense website and the Israel Missile Defense Association.

The colonel said Iran is taking unguided Zilzal rockets and upgrading them into guided M-600 missiles by swapping out their warheads with more advanced components.

The Islamic regime is a “train engine that is not stopping for a moment. It is manufacturing new and advanced ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. It is turning unguided rockets that had an accuracy range of kilometers into weapons that are accurate to within meters,” he revealed.

Hasson stated that Hezbollah “is getting a lot of accurate weapons from Iran. It is in a very different place compared to the Second Lebanon War in 2006.”

The statements come the same day reports revealed the IDF had updated its worst case scenarios for a war against Lebanon for the first time since 2007. The assessment posited that Hezbollah would hit Israel with 1,000-1,500 rockets every day, and the number of Israelis killed daily will be in double or even triple digits.

As far as what Israel can do against the major threat, Hasson said the “ultimate defense is a combination of counter-attack, active defenses, and passive defense,” with the later consisting of civilians following orders to stay secure.

American backing?

Also addressing the missile threat at the conference was Riki Ellison, founder and chairman of the US Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

Ellison remarked that the US has a policy of always leaving a warship with an Aegis naval missile defense system in the Mediterranean to provide Israel with defense from Iranian long-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state from Iran.

He described how the warship “can stand off the coast and shoot long-shots coming in from Iran.”

However, Ellison noted how the US wants Israel to complete developing its missile defenses for all ranges of missiles, through such systems as Arrow 3 and David’s Sling, which would free up the Aegis ships.

If needed the US could take its defense of Israel a step further, revealed Elisson, noting that Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries could be deployed to secure the Jewish state.

Even as nuclear talks reached a deadline on Tuesday that was extended by the US, Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, said “wiping Israel off the map is not up for negotiation,” illustrating the dangers posed by the state’s nuclear program coupled with its missile capabilities.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Hezbollah, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian nukes, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Jihad, Terrorism, UN, USA

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Why Allying With Iran Helps ISIS

March 31, 2015

Why Allying With Iran Helps ISIS, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 31, 2015

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The Jihad is a machine for generating atrocities.

A new horror is deployed. Then it becomes routine. The horror of one decade, such as suicide bombing, has to be made dirtier and uglier by using women and children, by targeting houses of worship and families, and then finally superseded by the horror of another decade, mass beheadings.

Terrorism is a shock tactic. It only works if you’re horrified by it. If you get bored of ISIS beheading its victims, it will bring out child beheaders. It will set men on fire. Then it will have children set men on fire.

Like an acrobat juggling at a telethon, it’s always looking for ways to top its last trick.

In a crowded market, each Jihadist group has to be ambitious about its atrocities. No matter what horrifying thing an Islamic group did last year or last decade, another group will find a way to top it.

The old group will become the lesser evil. The new group will become the greater evil.

“If Hitler invaded Hell,” Churchill said of the Nazi invasion of the USSR, “I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

There are a lot of favorable references to the Jihadist devil in Foggy Bottom where the terrible terror groups of yesteryear turn out to be misunderstood moderates who can help us fight this year’s devil. Obama’s Countering Violent Extremism program is tweeting Al Qaeda criticisms of ISIS. Iran and its Hezbollah terrorists no longer show up on the list of terror threats. Instead they’re our new allies.

When Western governments embrace the “lesser evil” doctrine, they ally with terrorists who are not fundamentally any different than the terrorists they are fighting. When ISIS broke through into the media, multiple stories emphasized that it was more extreme than Al Qaeda (despite having once identified as Al Qaeda.) But is a terrorist group that flies planes full of civilians into buildings full of civilians more moderate than a sister group that chops off heads on television? Is ISIS’s sex slavery more extreme than Iran’s practice of raping girls sentenced to death so that they don’t die as virgins?

The distinction between one evil and another is insignificant compared to their overall evil. The search for the lesser evil is really a search for ways to exonerate evil.

The Jihad creates endless greater evils. Today’s greater evil is tomorrow’s lesser evil. If another Jihadist group rises out of Syria that commits worse atrocities than ISIS, will we start thinking of the Islamic State’s rapists and headchoppers as moderates? The behavior of our diplomats suggests that we will.

Experts used the rise of ISIS to urge us to build ties with everyone from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Taliban to head off ISIS in their territories. The new president of Afghanistan is proposing apologies to the Taliban while defining ISIS as beyond the pale. Obama has chosen to turn over Iraq and Syria to Iran and its terrorist groups to fight ISIS.

If the process continues, then the United States will end up allying with terrorist groups to fight ISIS. And all this will accomplish is to make ISIS stronger while morally corrupting and discrediting our own fight against Islamic terrorism.

And if ISIS loses, there will always be a Super-ISIS that will be even worse.

We had few options in WW2, but ISIS is not the Wermacht. We don’t need to frantically scramble to ally with anyone against it; especially when the distinctions between it and our newfound allies are vague.

The Syrian opposition, that we armed and almost fought a war for, consists of Jihadists, many of them allied with Al Qaeda. But the Syrian government which we are now allied with, turned the Iraq War into a nightmare by funneling the suicide bombers across the border that ISIS used to kill American soldiers.

ISIS may be officially at war with the Syrian government, but it’s also selling oil to it, and there have been accusations that there is a secret understanding between Assad and ISIS.

How unlikely is that? Almost as unlikely as a Hitler-Stalin pact.

The Communists and the Nazis were tactically intertwined, despite their official ideological enmities, because they shared many of the same enemies (moderate governments, the rest of Europe) and many of the same goals (seizing territory, radicalizing populations, shattering the European order).

Iran and Sunni terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, cooperate based on similar premises. That was why Al Qaeda could pick up terror tips from Iranian terror groups to prep for September 11. Both Sunni and Shiite Islamic revolutionaries want to topple governments, conquer territory and radicalize populations. Despite their mutual enmity, they share bigger enemies, like America, and bigger goals, destroying the current map of the Middle East and remaking it along completely different lines.

The collapse of the Iraqi military that led to ISIS marching on Baghdad was caused by its Shiite officer corps inserted into place by a sectarian Shiite government. That government was not interested in maintaining the American fantasy of a multicultural democratic Iraq. It wanted to crush the Sunnis and Kurds through a partnership with Iran. The collapse of the Iraqi military endangered its survival, but fulfilled its overall goal of driving recruitment to Shiite militias in Iraq trained and commanded by Iran.

Obama’s avoidance of Iraqi entanglements and panic at the ISIS juggernaut led him to a deal with Iran. The deal effectively gives control of Iraq to its Shiite proxies. The sheiks of the Sunni Awakening were ignored when they came to Washington. The Kurds have trouble getting weapons. Instead they’re going to the Shiite militias. By using ISIS to create a crisis, Iraq’s Shiite leaders forced a US deal with Iran.

ISIS has killed a lot of Shiites, but for Iran taking over Iraq is a small price to pay for losing the pesky ‘not really Shiite’ Alawites of Syria. And it hasn’t actually lost them yet.

Iran’s ideal situation would be an ISIS Caliphate spread across parts of Syria and Iraq that would destabilize the Sunni sphere. Like the Hitler-Stalin pact, such an arrangement could end with the ISIS Hitler stabbing the Iranian Stalin in the back, but ISIS does not actually need to defeat Assad. It is not a nationalist group and doesn’t believe in nations. Its focus is on ruling Sunni territories.

Sunni nations have far more to worry about from ISIS than Iran does. Its advance challenges the bonds that hold their nations together. Its goal is the destruction of the Sunni countries and kingdoms.

That is also Iran’s goal.

Both the USSR and Nazi Germany described Poland as an illegitimate child of Versailles. Iran and the Sunni Islamists likewise view the countries of the Middle East as illegitimate children of Sykes-Picot with Israel standing in for Poland as the infuriating “foreign-created” entity ruled by a “subject” people.

ISIS and Iran want to tear down those old borders and replace them with different allegiances. The USSR and the Nazis elevated ideology and race over the nation state. Iran and ISIS elevate the Islamic religion over the nation state. It’s an appeal that can destroy the Sunni nations that block Iran’s path to power.

The trouble with the “lesser evil” doctrine is that the lesser evil is often allied with the greater evil. Hitler used Stalin to cut off any hope of support for Eastern Europe. Stalin then used Hitler to conquer Eastern Europe. While huge numbers of Russians died, Stalin got what he wanted. And that’s all he cared about.

Shiites are dying, but Iran is getting what it wants from ISIS.

Before we start saying favorable things about the devil, we might want to think about the hell we’re getting into.

Categories: Foreign policy, Funding terrorism, Human rights, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Obama, Peace process, Shiite, Sunni, Terrorism
Tags: Al Qaeda, Foreign Policy, Funding terrorism, human rights, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamism, Peace Process, Shiite, Sunni, Terrorism

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