Tag Archives: ISIS

Al-Qaeda, Arabian Peninsula, Bible, Jihadis, Osama Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia

Prodigal Sons of the Arabian Peninsula: Jihadis Coming Home………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

““‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)

“In the 13-minute-long recording, the speaker said Islamic State had ordered its followers everywhere to “kill enemies of Islam, especially Shi’ites”, according to SITE. “What then if they live with their disbelief in the Peninsula of Mohammad,” SITE quoted the speaker as saying, referring to the Arabian Peninsula, birthplace of Islam and where Saudi Arabia is located. “They are disbelievers and apostates, and their blood is permissible to be shed, and their money is permissible to be taken. It is a duty upon us to kill them … and even to purify the land from their filth,” he said…………”

The nom de guerre (nom de terrorisme) of the suicide bomber was Abu ‘Amer Al Najdi, indicating he came from the Najd region of Central Arabia. Home and birthplace and power center of the Wahhabi sect and the House of Saud.

These are not the old Al Qaeda, another Saudi prodigal son, many of whose members were forgiven, re-educated, and bribed with jobs and wives. A clever method: presumably a wife would dull the violent edge of fundamentalism by reducing their sexual frustration in the grim Wahhabi society. But that was/is the old Al Qaeda (or AQAP). ISIS or DAESH is a whole new animal, a mutation of the old Jihadism that is uncompromising, which is really the true Wahhabism.

This new prodigal son is coming home in a different fashion. Not hungry and starved and contrite like the Biblical one. This son is resurgent, seeking to destroy the Saudi father and supplant him. Returning to its birthplace and its geographical and ideological roots. Leaner and meaner than the Bin Laden-ites who were careful of committing violence in the Arabian Peninsula, their original home base.

They are opening a new home front for the Al Saud who are now multitasking, engaged in the destruction of Yemen and allying themselves with the old Al Qaeda (Al Nusra) in Syria, while also actively engaged in the politics and wars of Lebanon and western Iraq and the Gulf.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Salafi, Sex, Slavery, Syria, Turkey

Love Song of ISIS: Salafi Meets Tunisian Chick, Invites her to Raqqa………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“The honeymoon was a brief moment for love, away from the front lines of Syria’s war. In the capital of Daesh’s self-proclaimed “caliphate,” Syrian fighter Abu Bilal Al Homsi was united with his Tunisian bride for the first time after months chatting online. They married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa’s restaurants, strolling along the Euphrates River and eating ice cream. It was all made possible by the marriage bonus he received from Daesh: $1,500 (Dh5,509) for him and his wife to get started on a new home, a family — and a honeymoon……………..”

How Salafi-romantic “they married, then passed the days dining on grilled meats in Raqqa“. How Wahhabi-chic, almost as good as the last week’s Paris second (or third) honeymoon of young Saudi Prince Whatishisface.

No doubt she made it across the Turkish border into Syria. That is Mr. Erdogan’s gift to the Wahhabi Jihadis and their Arab and European brides and their concubines. In effect he is the one who “gives the bride away”, no dowry required. It has been Erdogan’s gift to all those who seek to join the Jihad in Syria, probably including John McCain. At least this Salafi made her into an ‘honest’ woman, as they say. Others get sold on the slave market and are traded frequently. Either one: marital bliss or blissful concubinage with a North African or a European chick is no doubt one attraction of this new jihad for many starved and frustrated Wahhabi youth, especially those that don’t come out of the West.
Whatever happened to Hayat Boumedienne………..

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Genocide, Locust, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Locust Phenomenon Strikes Yemen: Kosher and Halal Desert Delicacy………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“As a result of the fuel shortage, women experiencing complications in childbirth had been turned away, she said, and incubators in the hospital had been turned off. In another case, staff tried to resuscitate a patient experiencing cardiac arrest but could not place him on a ventilator. The patient died. The hospital, like so many others, was also suffering from a lack of vital medical supplies including antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, and blood. The harsh and arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on importing vital supplies, including fuel, have slowed to a trickle the flow of life-saving assistance and basic goods needed for survival. The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has managed to ship some 300,000 liters of fuel and other supplies into the country during the humanitarian ceasefire. But this shipment is only a fraction of the amount needed……………..”

Wahhabism is an unforgiving sect and culture: unforgiving of those who openly criticize its values and palace clerics and those who oppose its princes. It has been this way since its beginning in some remote desert hellhole of Najd in Central Arabia. There are a few new places where the application of this hard Wahhabi tradition comes up again and again:
In Syria and Iraq the uber-Wahhabis of ISIS or DAESH and Nusra chop heads, massacre “others” and enslave women. That is regressive Wahhabi tradition taken to its doctrinal and practical extremes.
In Yemen, the ‘moderate’ Wahhabis and their paid and hired mercenaries from Jordan to Sudan to Morocco are bombing cities and infrastructure (as well as military targets). As if that is not enough: they are also denying the civilian people of Yemen food and medicine and energy. Almost total destruction, literally scorched earth. Sort of like their cousins of ISIS and DAESH are doing in Iraq and Syria.
This is what some people in my hometown on the Gulf (Persian Gulf, not Gulf of Mexico) once called the Locust Phenomenon. The locust (Jarad= جراد) is a voracious greedy critter, something that also used to be a seasonal delicacy food in the old days in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. I believe it is also mentioned in the Old Testament as food, so it is as kosher as it is halal. It is known to be a destructive extremist: it destroys all crops in its way. That is precisely what they are doing to Yemen with their expensive Western killing toys and with help from Western intelligence and logistics.

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Terrorism

Target Qatif: ISIS Comes to the Saudi Home to Roost……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

I posted yesterday on ISIS (DAESH), its genesis, its creators, and its enablers. I specifically opined that:
“I have often posted, as have others, that nobody is as responsible for the bloody mess in Syria as Mr. Erdogan of Turkey and his Arab Wahhabi allies (the Al Saud princes, Al Thani of Qatar, and other Persian Gulf Islamists). Together these anti-democratic forces, with some misguided Western cooperation, managed to turn what started as a legitimate demand for Syrian democracy into a nightmare. One more Arab uprising became a Wahhabi Salafi terrorist campaign out of control, fed by petro-money, petro-weapons, and petro-volunteers. The Saudis and Qataris count on being far away from any spillover in their on police states on the Gulf, with no common borders with the inferno that is Syria. Turkey does not: their miscalculation is next door………….”

I take some of that back. The Saudis are not that far away from the domain of ISIS after all. Today a second terrorist bombing against Shi’a Friday (Sabbath) prayers was committed in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. More than twenty one have died so far, tens of others wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility: it looks like ISIS is coming back to the Saudi home to roost.

The incessant Saudi propaganda message that the attack on Yemen is an attack on the Shi’a enemy is bearing fruit at home. Not only is this stalemated war popular among the Wahhabi faithful, it has inspired them. For now, but the Saudi body bags are mounting along the border, a warning against any illusion of what kind of Saudi defeat a ground war will entail.


ISIS is returning home, hitting the softest Saudi target, its Shi’a minority in their mosque. Just as terrorist Jihadis, all graduates of the Wahhabi school of thought, have been doing in Iraq for a decade. ISIS would not dare hit the Wahhabi mosques: that is their bread and butter. That is where much of their money and most of their volunteers come from. That is the original Wahhabi home of ISIS or DAESH, as it is of Al Qaeda and Al Nusra and all the other global and regional terrorist groups………..

More of the Jihadi chickens are coming back home to roost………..

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism

Osama Bin Laden in Love: the Devil We Knew and the Slavery of ISIS……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“My precious wife. ………… I know you are facing a psychological crisis, and I have been thinking of a way out so that we can be together sooner or later. My beloved wife: you should know that you fill my heart with love and beautiful memories and I remember your patience with the hardships for my sake, especially during the prison period. I shall never forget your favor and patience and loyalty to me. My eyes tear up whenever I think of you and our separation. You should know that I will never marry another wife for I can never find a woman like you. I shall remain in the land of Jihad until we meet again………. You have been the best wife in this world and I ask Allah to make you my wife in the other world………… And you, the apple of my eye and most precious of what I have: if you wish to remarry after I am gone I have no objection but I strongly want you to be my wife in Paradise and a woman ho has had tow husbands is allowed to choose one of them on judgment day……….”
(FYI: this is my own abridged partial translation from Arabic. He also pines for his sons and daughters but I left that part out).

Remember when we thought terrorism could not get any worse? So some Westerners now know that Osama Bin Laden was human: he had his weaknesses. I am not comparing him with Dick Cheney here, but he clearly had his human side. If you can forget the thousands who died in the United States, Britain, Bali, Spain, East Africa, and Iraq. Which demands a brief and perhaps superfluous comparison with one Ebharim Awwad (Al Samarrai) also known as the silly Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

Remember when we thought terrorism could not get any worse? It is like a generational shift. Bin Laden was a devout Wahhabi, wtf that means nowadays. He had a college degree and a resume of activity that spanned good Jihad (in Afghanistan although I beg to differ) and bad Jihad (after 1990). He had the usual family life from a Wahhabi perspective: three or four wives, children that he loved at least as much as anyone in the West loves his children. He was also the mastermind of terrorism across the world. His charisma and connections and  money carried the old Al Qaeda to success. His death has hurt the terrorist group: the Egyptian who succeeded him, Al Zawahri, is probably even less charismatic than the silly Caliph of Riqqa and Mosul.

Remember when we thought terrorism could not get any worse? In Iraq, Al Qaeda experienced its first metamorphosis. With the murderous genocidal Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, it became a new uber-sectarian animal. That was how he plunged Iraq into a violent sectarian war, with help from some of the violent Shi’a militias.

Osama was also apparently a man in love, or whatever passed for love during his years of separation from his wives, especially his favorite wife. Could have been the lengthy period of forced celibacy after 2001. The former jailbird who is now the silly Caliph of ISIS (DAESH) would not pine for a wife: he would just walk to the nearest slave market and buy himself a couple of concubine.
That last sentence tells us how much things have changed since 2001. It is a new animal that has almost no limits to what it would do. Al Qaeda of 2001 was the devil we knew, this new one is a devil we should never have had to know. Obviously something went very wrong after 2001. The next step will be pinning the blame on the donkey……….    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

Caliphate of Erdogan: How Turkey and her Wahhabi Arab Allies Screwed up Syria…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“To make sense of this unlikely alliance between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, let’s travel back in time to 2011. Amidst the turmoil of the Arab Uprisings, Erdoğan was counting on the overthrow of the dictatorships of al-Assad, Qaddafi, Mubarak and others, fondly imagining that Muslim Brotherhood parties would then come to power across the Middle East. This was the “Islamic order” of which Erdoğan and his colleagues dreamed, an order which was to be led by Turkey. In an apparent homage to the Ottoman sultans’ tradition of performing their prayers in a newly-conquered capital, Erdoğan declared that he would soon be praying in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. However, Erdoğan has been unable to make good on this promise. Erdoğan’s Syrian venture — the most ambitious such undertaking in the entire 90-year history of the Turkish Republic — has also proved to be the undoing of Turkey’s foreign policy. Intent on overthrowing al-Assad from the very beginning, Erdoğan is one of those responsible for the devastation in Syria today, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States. A March 24, 2013 report in the New York Times stated that 120 cargo flights from Qatar and Saudi Arabia had carried military supplies to Turkey destined for the rebels in Syria. This weaponry was then delivered to the rebels in trucks alleged to belong to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).………..”

I have often posted, as have others, that nobody is as responsible for the bloody mess in Syria as Mr. Erdogan of Turkey and his Arab Wahhabi allies (the Al Saud princes, Al Thani of Qatar, and other Persian Gulf Islamists). Together these anti-democratic forces, with some misguided Western cooperation, managed to turn what started as a legitimate demand for Syrian democracy into a nightmare. One more Arab uprising became a Wahhabi Salafi terrorist campaign out of control, fed by petro-money, petro-weapons, and petro-volunteers. The Saudis and Qataris count on being far away from any spillover in their on police states on the Gulf, with no common borders with the inferno that is Syria. Turkey does not: their miscalculation is next door.
Just as the Pakistani ISI helped create the Afghan Taliban and now have to put up with terrorism in Pakistan, the Turks now will face spillover terrorism across their borders. They have the aspiring Kurds and they have millions of Alevis who strongly oppose Erdogan’s Syria adventure. The latter no doubt felt more secure under a secular regime in Ankara than under the Caliphate of Erdogan, ensconced in his new billion dollar royal palace.
    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Caliphate, Hezbollah, Jihadis, Libya

Libya Massacre: Hezbollah Blasts ISIS and Others…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Hezbollah denounced the new crime that was committed by the terrorist group of ISIL in Libya and that claimed dozens of innocent Ethiopian citizens, offering condolences to the families of the victims and those who experienced the agonies of that horrible massacre. In a statement, Hezbollah considered that the crime complements the series of tarnishing the image of Islam and the Muslims and persists on seeking the religious and the sectarian wars in order to serve the malicious plots of the intelligence services in a number of Arab and Western countries………….”

This is a common and now-increasing allegation among various Arab groups that Western powers are behind the growth of ISIS/ISIL. Many Arab opinionators, from a rainbow of ideologies, easily claim that ISIS was a creation of Western powers, or Israel, or even Iran. Some paranoid types on the Persian Gulf even claim the group was created by all of the above.
They overlook the simple fact that this murderous Caliphate emerged and was nurtured by Wahhabi ideology, Wahhabi volunteers, and Wahhabi oil money. And we all know where those three factors meet.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Caliphate, Culture, GCC, Jihadis, Persian Gulf, Wahhabi

Islamic State Goes Institutional and Cultural and Global…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

The Islamic State (of Syria and Iraq for now) of Caliph Abu Bakr Al Samarrai reportedly has been forming the skeleton of a state. At least they were before the bombing campaign started. With reported coinage and taxes and schools and other trappings of a state. Yet they need to do more to look like a real state. Something other statelets, sorry, other ‘states’ (statelets or half-states is what Generalissimo Al Sisi called the sisterly states on the famous tapes). Here are a few more steps that might be taken: 

  • Solicit and permit local branches of elite or semi-elite Western universities and colleges. Perhaps a branch of the Sorbonne in Raqqa, an NYU in Mosul (while Mosul lasts). Sort of like they have in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and other Persian Gulf venues. These campuses would be for men only, of course. Modified Sorbonne or NYU, just like they have modified watered-down versions in other parts of the Gulf. They can add some new local curricula: the Teachings of Ibn Taimiyyah, the Teachings of Mohammad Ibn AbdulWahhab, (but of course not the music of Mohammed Abdelwahhab of Egypt).
  • Open up local branches of elite Western think tanks. That ought to make you look more serious than you really are. Brookings, Cato, Rand, etc. Just as they do in the UAE and Qatar: provided these branches do not criticize local politics (or lack thereof) and local culture (or lack thereof).
  • Take a bold leap and allow opening ersatz branches of famous world museums. They need it after the Caliphate has destroyed every local monument they could get their hands on in Iraq and Syria. Museums and galleries like the Louvre, Guggenheim, and Tate might be happy to expand into a new ‘market’. Just as some have done in the UAE and Qatar.
  • Start a new campaign, insisting that the Persian Gulf be renamed ‘Gulf of the Caliphate’, or Salafi Gulf. Spend a lot of oil money doctoring ancient historic maps of the region to show that should be the new name of the Gulf. Just as they do in the UAE and Qatar, for example.
  • Start seriously thinking of membership requirements for world bureaucracies: the Arab League, United Nations, IMF, World Bank, WTO, WTF, etc……….

But I think I am getting ahead of myself here…….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum     Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Caliphate, Iraq, North Africa, Sectarian, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

The War for MENA: Militias, Bombers, Cargo Cultists, and International Brigades……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15
KuwaitCox2

“Unthinkable just a decade ago, the main government forces leading the battle are Shiite fighters—the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) that are under the control of militia leaders. These forces’ main partners are Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has called the situation “the most overt conduct of Iranian support” since the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) began…………… The White House seems to view growing Iranian involvement in the war as a reality that cannot be wished away, which is probably true, but also as a step forward in U.S.-Iranian relations, which is arguably naive. Events on the ground in eastern Iraq suggest a different way of looking at the issue. If anything, the battle for Tikrit has shown that there is a whole side of the war from which the international community has been deliberately excluded. Iran and its Iraqi proxies have been carving out a zone of influence in eastern Iraq…………”

His title asks: “What to Do With Iraq’s Shia Popular Mobilization Units?”
Everyone, people of every faith and every sect are involved in this war: Wahhabi, Sunni, Shi’a, Christian, Jewish, possibly even Buddhist and Zoroastrian and Cargo Cultist. There are the Sunni and Wahhabi and Shi’a warplanes, which bomb targets in Syria and Iraq. There are also Christian, Jewish, and no doubt a few atheist bombers as well among them. I am not sure what the Caliph’s true faith is.

Those warplanes from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and possibly others? They are not flown by Shi’as: these are excluded from flying warplanes or doing sensitive military and security jobs. Not to mention that everybody on the other side, on the dark side, is Wahhabi, from the ISIS terrorists to their financiers to their female slaves and concubines.

This is not a sectarian war for the Levant anymore. It is now a sectarian world war that has gone beyond the Levant. It is a Middle East and North Africa war. A MENA War that goes beyond what the West usually calls a Sunni-Shi’a war: it is Wahhabi terrorists against everyone else, be they Sunnis or Shi’as. It now stretches from Iraq and Syria through Egypt and Libya, all the way deeper into North Africa. With the possibility of other outlying fronts in remote areas of Asia and Africa. It has attracted the misguided faithful from all over the world. So, both sides, nay all sides, in ‘this war’, have their powerful “International Brigades“.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Africa, Caliphate, Finance, Terrorism

Season of the Caliphate: ISIS Goes Global, IPO Expected Next Year……

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Teaming up with Boko Haram was just the start. ISIS is extending its reach around the planet. Here’s how they’re doing it. Boko Haram isn’t about to become a mere extension of ISIS, despite a purported pledge allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State this weekend. Instead, ISIS is likely to offer resources, training, and its brand so the Nigerian terror group can create a distinct province within an Islamic caliphate, experts and U.S. officials told The Daily Beast. It’s a model that ISIS is increasingly adopting as it attempts to spread its reach around the planet………….”

It is the ISIS or DAESH bandwagon these days. Every statement by support or allegiance from any outhouse (American not English outhouse) in any corner of the planet is headlined and echoed. We’ve been told the momentum is with the cutthroats, that the Middle East is quaking. From princes and potentates in their palaces to the political prisoners they throw in dungeons.
ISIS is more of a celebrity now than Hillary Clinton and Oprah and Bibi Netanyahu (in Washington and Las Vegas) combined.

Wait, there is more now. Apparently they are learning about the joy of globalization. From Iraq and Syria to Libya, Sinai, African Sahel, and Pakistan. Oh, and cities of Europe. The Hollywood-esque Caliphate of ISIS is going global. It is only a matter of time before they go public, schedule an initial public offering, an IPO, be listed on either NYSE or NASDAQ. The Caliph Ibrahim Al Samarrai could make a killing (no pun, honestly) from his share of the stock. If it can last this year or next, which now seems doubtful. They are finding out that globalism can also be not-so-joyful. They will learn more about that once financial sanctions are imposed on them……….

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]