Category Archives: Iraq

Caliphate, Iraq, Media, Syria, Terrorism

Seeking the Caliphate: Advice to Wayward Journalists and Concubines…….

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Kenji Goto of Japan was beheaded today, as seemed inevitable if the ISIS Caliphate did not receive the freed Sajida Al Rishawi. It is becoming gradually, and painfully, obvious that two types of travelers, fellow travelers, now head into harm’s way at their own risk. They should know the potential consequences by now. These two are:

  • Foreign journalists who seek information or a scoop or glory in harm’s way. They should know by now that these Wahhabi cutthroats go by identity and have no respect for non-combatants. A foreign journalist is the same to them as a foreign soldier. Just stop doing it, and if you do go in, be ready to bear the consequences. If I go there I fully expect to get beheaded, why shouldn’t these foreign journalists expect the same? Just don’t do it.
  • Foreign women who seek their glory in warming the beds of the cutthroats. They should by now know the consequences: if you get in, you are in for the long haul.
  • If you want to report on human tragedy there are many other places that need world attention more than Iraq and Syria. Go to North Africa, or the Sahel, or Yemen, or Pakistan: seek your resurrection and glory elsewhere. Just stay the hell out of Syria and Iraq. Ditto if you are a European woman who wants to shack up with Jihadists. 

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Cinema, Iraq, War

An American Sniper in the Mirror……….

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Saw the film American Sniper last Sunday. A powerful film, as many Clint Eastwood films tend to be. No matter what you think of the underlying politics, no matter what your stance on the Iraq war.

Most of the Arabs in the film were not really Arabs, they spoke with thick accents and certainly ignored the distinct Iraqi dialect. There were also some small mistakes in the location of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Baghdad. At one point they seemed to consider Sadr City as a possible hotbed for Al Qaeda, which is absurd given that its residents are overwhelmingly Shi’a, who are the main targets of AQI terrorists.

I had no problem with the portrayal of the AQI terrorists as bloodthirsty killers, including the gruesome “killing with a drill” part. They were and they are.

Oh, and like Exodus: Gods and Kings, it will not be seen in most Arab or Muslim countries, if in any.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Caliphate, Iraq, Lebanon, Marriage

From Iraq to Lebanon: the Caliph of Mosul Evades a Conjugal Shortage……….

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“A woman detained by Lebanese authorities was not the wife of the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but the sister of a man convicted of bombings in southern Iraq, Iraq’s interior ministry has said. “The one detained by Lebanese authorities was Saja Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, sister of Omar Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, who is detained by authorities and sentenced to death for his participation in … explosions,” a ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. “The wives of the terrorist Al-Baghdadi are Asmaa Fawzi Mohammed al-Dulaimi and Esraa Rajab Mahel al-Qaisi, and there is no wife in the name of Saja al-Dulaimi,” he said…………….”

The Salafis apparently like being able to switch partners without missing a ‘beat’. At least some people attach this characteristic to them. That explains the plethora of wives and concubines they prefer to have around. Some bought and paid for, others captured or just kidnapped and considered legitimate war booty. Hence the confusion over the number and identities of the wives of Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (a.k.a. Ibrahim Awwad Al Samarrai). The man from Looney Tunes.

All of which does not explains why anyone would think a wife or concubine of a Wahhabi Caliph would travel from Mosul to Beirut. Maybe just a shopping spree to recycle some of the oil money they get from exporting (through the Caliphate of Turkey)? A la the more-established and not-so-nouveau riche Persian Gulf potentates and oligarchs and their women?
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, U.S. Foreign Policy, US Foreign Policy

Across Iraqi Skies: Tactical Partners, Strategic Rivals……….

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“The official said he could only confirm reports of the bombing on the condition of anonymity. While previous reports have said that Iran has provided weapons and equipment to the Iraqi government, the official’s comments represent the first confirmation that Iran’s own air force is involved in the fight in Iraq against the Islamic State. The fact that the U.S. is not challenging this level of Iranian involvement is the strongest evidence yet that the Obama administration sees the Iranian government as a tactical partner………….”

Imagine that: tactical allies. Even if they are strategic rivals to the point where one is trying hard to choke the other with an economic blockade. It is enough to give some of the jingoistic senators and assorted gunboat warhawks, think tank chickenhawks, and others of their ilk acute and permanent cases of erectile dysfunction. And well-deserved, too.

How can they be challenged across Iraqi skies unless the Iraqi government agrees to it? Since, technically, all these foreign warplanes and whatever boots are on the ground are presumably guests invited by Iraq. Technically, at least…………

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Iran, Iraq, Syria

Iran in Iraq and Syria: an Unexpected Criticism………

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Happy gobblegobble, Charlie Brown……

Arab media are reporting an interesting development about Iranian relations with Iraq and Syria. They are reporting that a counselor in the Iranian foreign ministry has publicly (sort of publicly, allegedly to a minor media outlet) criticized former Iraqi PM Al Maliki and Syrian president Bashar Al Assad for the worsening mess in their countries. He reportedly blames Al Maliki for aiding the growth of ISIS (DAESH) and blames Al Assad for the worsening bloodshed. I am not sure if the media are quoting him correctly since I have not yet seen his original comments. Al Maliki is now a vice president of Iraq, and Al Assad is still the president of Syria (most of it, anyway).

This could hint at a significant Iranian policy shift or it could be just a personal comment that will then have to be refuted by other officials. But it is almost certainly credible. Time will tell, and soon.

He is also reported by Iranian sources as saying that ISIS (they call it by the Arabic acronym: DAESH) will weaken but will not vanish.

P.S.: (I have always believed and written that the original Syrian uprising went Jihadist as soon as the Islamists of the Gulf states started to send money, weapons, and Wahhabi volunteers. With the blessings of Turkish Caliph Erdogan the First. As for Iraq, deepening internal sectarianism, corrupt domestic politics, and foreign Arab meddling worsened a situation that had emerged after the first post-invasion elections.)
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Muslims, Syria

White Noise: ISIS Caliphate Beginning to Lose It? A Pivot to Elsewhere………..

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“After a week in which Islamic state (Isis) has suffered a wave of setbacks, it is determined to show that it plays a long game. On all of its active fronts, things have not been going well for the terror group. Iraq has been a particular problem: Isis appears to have lost control of one of its prized possessions, the Baiji oil refinery, following a push by Shia militias and the Iraqi military…………….”

I opined from the beginning of this Caliphate affair months ago that this Western media panic about ISIS taking Baghdad was just ‘white noise‘ (no pun intended). That they will be pushed back, eventually. But wars like this one in Iraq and Syria seesaw until a clear trend develops. Is this a sign of a clear trend? It is a trend, for now.

Other Arab media, mainly Lebanese, and a few Western outlets, have claimed that Iraqi forces and militias, reportedly advised by Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, have pushed ISIS out of several conquered towns (possibly with Western air support?). Western media prefer to say that the bombings from the air have helped turn the tide. I suspect it is a combination of both: Western bombs from the air and Iraqi (and Syrian) boots on the ground.

P.S: Is it too much to ask that this be the last Western military campaign over any Muslim (or Arab) country? That this habit of the past couple of decades of maintaining open-ended ‘open season’ on Muslim lands be broken? That maybe perhaps hopefully the liberators take a Muslim hiatus and seek other targets? Just for variety? Some other ‘new’ target outside the Middle East might ease the possible withdrawal symptoms. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a pivot to Burma or even Myanmar.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Politics, Caliphate, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria

The ISIS Plot? What about the ISIS Plot? ………..

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Speaking of ISIS and the blame for its resurgence last summer. Other Middle East media have claimed that the whole ISIS surge was engineered by the Americans in order to get their forces back into Iraq through the window, after being forced to leave through the door in 2011. This recent piece here is one example. All this was supposedly done with Saudi help among some Al Anbar tribes that sided with the terrorists. The alleged goal of the plot is to reduce Iranian (and Shi’a) influence in Baghdad and increase Saudi (and Wahhabi) influence in Iraq and Syria, to start with. Thus alter the strategic balance in the Eastern Mediterranean, something Israel and the Al Saud have failed to do after years of trying. Many more Arabs believe this theory than we hear or read about in the media.

I am not normally a conspiracy theory advocate, but I did dabble in the topic. I did speculate along these lines somewhere last summer. Either in a post or on Twitter, I forget. I noted the timing during a period of government change in Iraq. It sounds plausible although farfetched, given the polluted poisoned Washington air. Possible if not necessarily probable, but it is too simplistic: it assumes the other side will not counteract.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria, Terrorism

Volcanoes of Jihad: Disappointed ISIS Caliph Misses Some Hot Dates in Paradise………

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Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (a k a Ibrahim Awwad) has just called for “volcanoes of jihad” in an audio message. That was after the Caliph himself reportedly missed a close American volcano last week. It was clear within hours of the reported air raid that the Caliph had survived: they would have announced it quickly and condolences exchanged. We never hide death which is a repayment on a debt that must be repaid. Even the cutthroats among us don’t do that.
He had an appointment with an American bomb that would have transported him to the arms of many comely Houris of renewable virginity (no, not surgical renewal). He would have gone to sipping Mai Tai and Chateau Paradise with dinner by the riverside. A martyr’s life, afterlife.
As it was, he was denied. He was never beamed up to the place he expects to end up in. Which is as well, since many more expect him to end up in the other warmer place where the trident would poke his posterior, herding him southward.
Better luck next time, Abu. Not that it really matters to those Chechens and others you would leave behind………..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis

The Economist Tackles Caliph Al-Baghdadi’s Mammary Fixation……….

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““IF I were a cow, I would be wearing a bra,” goes a lyric in a popular song about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State (IS). This reference to bovine lingerie—a poke at Mr Baghdadi’s supposed umbrage at the sight of naked udders—gets cheers from the audience in Metro al-Madina, a theatre in Beirut. The tune about Mr Baghdadi leading Islam into the abyss has proven such a hit that the Lebanese band performing it, The Great Departed, has extended its show…………”

Don’t know: people have their fixations ad complexes. They usually evolve, and in some cases maybe mature, over the years. Maybe baby Ibrahim Al Samarrai (a k a Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi) was nursed by a cold bottle and plastic nipple, care of an Al-Anbar version of Mothercare; never got to taste or see the real thing. They say it has some psychological as well as physical effects. Or it could be just one of the many quirks and obsessions, related to mammary and other glands, that the Jihadis tend to have. Like many other more normal people. This requires deeper analysis by qualified experts, not amateurs of this vital topic which most of us are.

Still, I suspect that it could have been worse for the Hollywood Caliph. Or maybe it was; time will tell.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, US Foreign Policy

The Return of Qassem Suleimani: about Petraeus…………

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“When Islamic State militants retreated from the embattled town of Jurf al-Sakher last week, the Iraqi military was quick to flaunt a rare victory against the extremist group, with state television showing tanks and Humvees parading through the town and soldiers touring government buildings that had been occupied by the militants since August. However, photos soon emerged on independent Iraqi news websites revealing a more discreet presence — the powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleymani, whose name has become synonymous with the handful of victories attributed to Iraqi ground forces. Local commanders said Lebanon’s powerful Shiite Hezbollah group was also on the front lines. Shiite militias have played a key role in driving the Islamic State out of the so-called Baghdad Belt of Sunni villages ringing the capital…………..”

Qassem Suleimani has become like a mysterious military celebrity of the current Middle East wars. According to foreign media reports. He is hard to pin down, except for an occasional sneaked photograph and many rumors in Arab and Western media.

He treads in places where David Petraeus and his various men used to tread, some of them still do. Petraeus was more ‘official’ in his task and in his travels. Suleimani is not: he has been reported in various Middle East cities, from Baghdad to Damascus to Cairo and Beirut. If all that is true, then no doubt he has also been to a few other cities as well, (possibly incognito?). Excluding Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and maybe Riyadh, of course.

Petraeus was the man of the last decade. Suleimani seems like the man of both the last and current decades. Petraeus had to fly thousands of miles in order to be able to tread on those unstable sands. He had to fly all the miles back to DC and Langley to get away from the field (which he did not really). Suleimani and his mullahs live in the neighborhood: he can, and probably does, walk across borders to retrace the footsteps of Petraeus. Much shorter and easier than a march from Hanoi to Saigon.
Does that tell us something? I sure hope so, now more than ever, given the U.S. election results. More on that later………..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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