Category Archives: Jihadis

Jihadis, Smuggling, Syria, Terrorism, Uncategorized

El Wahhabi Cash in Terrorist Mule’s Knickers: Chopping Heads and Other Neat Things……

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“A woman who allegedly tried to smuggle €20,000 in her underwear to Syrian rebels hid the cash there because she wanted to keep it somewhere safe, the Old Bailey heard on Thursday. Nawal Msaad, 27, was caught with the large denomination notes rolled up and hidden in a condom as she prepared to board a British Airways flight in January to Istanbul from Heathrow. She was said to be acting as a courier for her friend, Amal el-Wahabi, who was allegedly trying to send money to her partner, Aine Davis, who was fighting with anti-government forces in Syria…………….”

I am not sure if the money this young lady was carrying in her knickers (a.k.a. panties) was for ISIS or FSA or Al Nusra or Al Farouq or Jaish Al WhatIsHisName or Ansar Al WhatIsHisArse or the Central Committee of the Arab Baath Socialist Party. One of them.
That is why one should never ever agree to carry on airplanes a package or a large amount of cash that are not his or hers. Never accept to carry any such thing for someone else, not even in your knickers or bloomers jockstraps or other attire be they boxer or brief or some weird hybrid thing.

One thing puzzles me about this British “partner” of the girl in question. If he is an Islamist Jihadi, how can he accept to live in sin as a partner to this woman? Unless she was a concubine (jariah). That might be it: he might have got one of his Salafi cleric pals to issue a fatwa declaring this woman a concubine, one of the Jawari conjugal partners the Jihadis are so fond of after a long day at the office blowing up civilians and chopping head and doing other neat things.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al Aqeda, Jihadis, Terrorism, U.S. Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

ISIS and Her Sisters: New Wahhabi Attractions Coming to a Shopping Mall Near You……

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““There are clear signs that what they are doing now is to test Baghdad’s defenses and to gauge the reactions from Shia militias and the Iraqi army,” says a senior U.S. intelligence official based in the region. The information the jihadists glean from these operations can help them formulate specific attack plans. What impresses the official, and other analysts in the region, isn’t just how expert and disciplined the jihadists are being in their approach to Baghdad, but they are doing this at the same time they are consolidating their hold on towns they have seized elsewhere—and they have launched a major offensive against the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. Last week, the caliphate seized another major oilfield in Syria. On Thursday the group’s fighters targeted Syrian army bases outside Raqqa and in Hasaka and Deir el Zour. IS celebrated the assaults by posting online photos of headless ………………..”

This is not the main course, what the Wahhabi terrorist group is doing in Iraq and Syria. This is just the appetizer for what will come whether ISIS succeeds in keeping its foothold in the ‘Levant’ or not. Appetizers don’t last long. The domain or Caliphate of IS itself will not go beyond certain regions of Iraq and Syria; in the end it will control much less territory than it has now, if any.

It is not even IS itself, but the terrorist groups and activities it will soon spawn (is now spawning) across Europe and North America. The longer IS remains ascendant, the more groups it will spawn around the world, and the more affiliated and unaffiliated copy-cat terror groups will emerge inside and outside the Middle East, including in the West.

Al Qaeda may now be just another fish in the pond, the Mediterranean or the Atlantic pond, the gateways to the West. IS itself will be eclipsed, even if it survives in some form. There will be others competing for the honor of being the bloodiest Wahhabi mass killers in the West.

The title of this post: New Wahhabi Attractions Coming to a Shopping Mall Near You……… may not seem so far-fetched in a few months or years.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Islam, Jihadis, Sectarian

Liberated Mosul Going Christian-Frei and Shi’a-Rein……..

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“Christians were fleeing Iraq’s jihadist-held city of Mosul en masse Friday after mosques relayed an ultimatum giving them a few hours to leave, the country’s Chaldean patriarch and witnesses said. “Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil,” in the neighbouring autonomous region of Kurdistan, Patriarch Louis Sako told AFP. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.” Witnesses said messages telling Christians to leave the city by Saturday were blared through loudspeakers from the city’s mosques Friday……….The patriarch, who is one of the most senior Christian clerics in Iraq, and residents contacted by AFP said Islamic State militants had in recent days been tagging Christian houses with the letter N for “Nassarah”, the term by which the Koran refers to Christians………”

Arab supporters of the terrorist marauders in Iraq, including Salafis and Wahhabi liberals are claiming that Mosul and other towns were liberated by ‘revolutionary’ Iraqis seeking justice. Yet the same ‘liberators’ of Mosul and other Al-Anbar towns have issued Nazi-like warnings for ‘others’, especially Christians, to convert or leave town, forfeiting their property, or die. The Shi’as who did not leave were massacred and ended up in mass graves, as we saw in photos and films distributed by the Terrorists.


In recent week some Arab media had been minimizing the role of ISIS a (ISIL) in the war in Iraq and stressing the role of ‘angry’ Sunni tribes. Part of the regional strategy of the petroleum princes. Some went so far as to suggest that the ISIS Wahhabis are leaving Mosul to be run by the Iraqi Sunnis. I was skeptic of that claim, nay I was sure it was not true. It was not true.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Cinema, Culture, GCC, Jihadis, Jihadists, Uncategorized

Cinematic Political History of the Middle East………

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Some film titles and what they might mean in the Middle East:

American Dream: peace in the Middle East

The King and I: Al Sisi after his visit to the  Saudi king on his plane.

The Hustler: Netanyahu visits with Obama.

The Count of Monte Cristo: Morsi dreaming of escape from his military prison at Chateau d’If.

Slumdog Millionaire: the nightly dream of every South Asian laborer working on Qatar’s World Cup projects.

Dangerous Liaisons: arming the Syrian opposition militias.

Return of the Mummy: Hosni Mubarak visits Al Sisi at Qubba Palace.

The 300: Iranian embassy in Baghdad.

The 3000: Iranian embassy in Damascus.

The 30,000: political prisoners in Egypt.

Lonely are the Brave: Iranian embassy in Riyadh

Lonely are the Brave: Saudi embassy in Tehran.

Ali Baba and the Forty-plus Thieves: a history of Bahrain (or some other Gulf country).

King Lear: Prince Bandar wandering between projects destabilizing Syria and Iraq and Lebanon.

The Sheik: anyone who has any influence in the UAE.

The Wild Bunch: ISIS, ISIL, Al Nusra,  Al WTF

All That Money Can Buy: Saudi foreign policy

The Prince and the Paupers: Saudi Prince (any prince) walking down certain Riyadh streets he usually avoids, runs into people he usually does not see.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: take your pick……..

The Idiot: no comment.


Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Iran, Iraq, Jihadis

First Blood? Iranians in the Battle for Iraq……..

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“Iran is pursuing a delicate strategy of supporting fellow Shiite Muslims and preserving its influence in neighboring Iraq—where the government is under siege by radical Sunni militants—without pushing the confrontation into outright sectarian warfare. For the second straight week, influential clerics, who are appointed by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used their Friday sermons to denounce the militant groups and support Iraq’s government. But their speeches steered clear of explicitly encouraging individual Shiites to act against the Sunni insurgents……… The country has openly sent top military advisers to help the Iraqi government, and blamed a collection of foreign enemies from Saudi Arabia to Israel and the U.S. for the violence. It deployed at least three battalions of elite Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials—an action Iran’s foreign ministry denied…………….Yet it has stopped short of sending in large numbers of its own troops and discouraged ordinary Iranians from crossing the border to fight or defend holy sites in Iraq.………..”

So which one is it, pray tell? Did they send three battalions of the IRGC as those usual “unnamed security officials” have claimed or is it untrue as the foreign ministry says? Is Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani of Quds Force in Baghdad as Western and Arab media have claimed for three weeks, or is he in Syria, or maybe in Lebanon, or could it be that he has snuck into Yemen? Can he be lurking somewhere in the Gulf trying to reinvigorate the mythical Wahhabi-created ‘Gulf Hezbollah’ smack in the middle of the royal police states?

Or maybe he is making some deal with the new Saudi ambassador-at-large Prince Bandar over a cold glass or two of Leban (in Gulf Arabic) or Dough (in Gulf Persian).

On the other hand the Iranian news agency IRNA reported that an Iranian citizen has died fighting in Iraq. It claimed he died protecting the Shi’a shrines; maybe, but that can cover a lot of territory in Iraq. It did not specify his military service or rank. Which means that there are now some Iranians on the front lines inside Iraq, and some of them will die. More problematic is that these Iranians will also be killing Iraqis, not a very good prospect for either Iraqis or Iranians. They will not be able to keep it private, anymore than it was possible for Lebanese Hezbollah to keep its casualties in Syria private.  A death and its aftermath are very public affairs for us Muslims, whether we are Sunni, Shi’a, Wahhabi, Sofi, Khawarij, or Episcopalian.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Iraq, Jihadis, OPEC, Petroleum, Syria

The IS Caliphate and Kurdistan, Jihadist Enclave Facing Two Fronts………

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“Russia is asking the U.N. Security Council to condemn the illegal sale of Syrian oil by terrorist groups and encourage all countries to take “necessary measures” to prevent it. A draft presidential statement circulated to council members and obtained Monday by The Associated Press expresses “grave concern” at the seizure of oilfields in Syria by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra and stresses that any export or import of crude oil without authorization of a sovereign state is illegal………….”

“Militants, who declared an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East, now claimed to have seized Syria’s largest oilfield. Fighters of the Islamic State, previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), said they took over the al-Omar oil field in the eastern Deir al-Zour province from rival rebel groups. Video footage uploaded online showed armed Islamic State jihadist standing in front of the entrance of the field as the group’s flag flew over a sign reading “Euphrates Oil Company – al-Omar field…………….”

The Wahhabi Jihadists are nowhere near Iraq’s major oil fields, but they have grabbed some Syrian oil fields. Apparently there is worry that they will soon start shipping Syrian oil to buyers. There is a precedent for this: already foreign buyers are eager to buy oil controlled by Kurdish separatists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Turks and among those mentioned in reports. Already Benyamin Netanyahu, sensing a future opportunity, has blessed the Kurdish ‘enterprise’ when he opined (without being asked) that they should be able to go independent. Netanyahu, who is not known to observe international legal niceties anymore than his neighbors, would not accept the same independent ‘fate’ for Palestinians.

Would an Islamic State be in the future of OPEC? Fortunately not: the Jihadists may harass the vast border region between Syria and Iraq for a few more years, but they may have reached their peak during the last week of June 2014. From now on, it may be the period of pushback in both Iraq and Syria. The hairy ones are likely to get squeezed on two fronts now, with their ‘realm’ getting smaller. If the tribes turn against them, they may be fighting on three fronts. That would be an untenable situation if their suppliers and enablers in Turkey and some Arab states tighten the squeeze on the flow of supplies and fighters. Even the mighty Wehrmacht could not withstand a multi-front war for long.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Al Aqeda, Iraq, Jihadis, Salafi, Syria, Theocracy, Wahhabi

The Islamic State: ISIS Morphs into a Caliphate, World Cup Goes On……

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Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (another tale mentions Islamic State of Sham or Levant instead of little Syria) is no more. A new state called The Islamic State was born. A nutjob of a Wahhabi cutthroat who calls himself Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi just interrupted the World Cup games to announce that he has become the new Muslim Caliph (Khalifa) of the new state. Thus he preempted the three other potential claimants who aspired to the job: Turkey’s Recip Erdogan, the King of Morocco, the King of Saudi Arabia. Most of the world did not pay immediate attention as they were in a state of shock at the garbage-time penalty the Mexico-Netherlands referee awarded the latter and the Costa Ricans completely frustrated and defeated the Greeks in Brazil.

A leader of the rival Wahhabi gang, Al Nusra Front, a guy named Abu Maria Al Qahtani, pooh-poohed this declaration by the interloper and pretender of ISIS (or ISIL). Apparently he was angling to declare himself the new Caliph, even with the handicap of a name like Abu Maria.

What should we make  of all this? To start with it is a clever move, not specifying fixed borders for the state. This Abu Bakr (or even Abu Maria) could be holed up in a cave and it would still be The Islamic State to his fans. He could be in jail awaiting execution and he would still be in The Islamic State.

Some tribal Wahhabi Salafis on the Persian Gulf, the usual suspects who funded and preached for the Syrian Jihadists, have already started a support group for this new Wahhabi state. They call it the “Popular Drive for the Nusra of the Iraqi People”.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Jihadis, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

John Kerry of Arabia: Levantine Illusions of a Good Man………


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“The top US diplomat, who landed in the Red Sea city of Jeddah in the afternoon, also met Saudi King Abdullah a day after hosting urgent talks in Paris with the Saudi, Jordanian and UAE foreign ministers on the widening crisis in Iraq and Syria. King Abdullah has consistently called for greater US military support for the Syrian rebels, whom the Sunni Gulf kingdom has long backed. Following several signals in recent weeks by US President Barack Obama’s administration, the White House said Thursday it intends to “ramp up US support to the moderate Syrian opposition”……….. Ahmad Jarba, leader of the Syrian National Coalition, welcomed the huge US boost to his forces, battling to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “The situation is very grave and there are sectarian leaders ruling the country so we have to have greater efforts on the part of the US and regional powers to address the situation in Iraq,” Jarba said. Kerry said “the moderate opposition in Syria… has the ability to be a very important player in pushing back against (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) ISIL’s presence… not just in Syria, but also in Iraq“………….”

Secretary Kerry’s statement about the role of the Syrian opposition in solving the Iraq crisis makes little sense here. It is like the advice about taking “a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you“. He is bent on going the old route he was warned off for the past year or two. He seems to have just bought some more of the Saudi snake oil about arming and further empowering the Syrian opposition militias.

The Wahhabi opposition in Syria got their start, their money and their ‘seed weapons’, from the same countries Mr. Kerry has been visiting this past week. The sources were on the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. Much of the weapons that got the Jihadists their “booty” in land and property and hostages and death is American and European. Weapons supplied by these same governments to the “Syrian opposition” seeking to “liberate” Syria: in one case for the tender mercies of the Wahhabi doctrine, in the other case for the dubious rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. Arming and funding the Syrian militias will not increase the chances of peace in either Syria or Iraq. It is an invitation, nay a recipe, to keep the Syrian civil war going and to increase the sectarian unrest inside Iraq.

Mr. Jarba is reported to be heading to the door: apparently he will soon be out of the Syrian National Coalition, according to media reports. Either he saw the futility of his position or he is being booted by the Saudi princes who will now have to appoint another man of their choosing to lead the “liberation” of Syria for the Wahhabi cause. Moreover, there are Arab reports that the “general” who heads the allegedly Free Syrian Salafi Army, the man appointed and anointed as the Napoleon of the Syrian-Turkish border, will be officially sacked.

Cheers

mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Jihadis, Sectarian, Syria, US Foreign Policy

No Pasaran! Political Holding Pattern over Iraq and Syria……

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Events are moving fast in this new combined war for Iraq and Syria. The Syrian theater has cooled down somewhat, relatively speaking, with the regime and its allies regaining the momentum. Now the Iraqi theater of this Wahhabi-inspired sectarian civil war is heating up. The Jihadists of ISIS, and now probably al-Nusra Front as well, have moved the front deep into Iraq, in alliance with the remnant Iraqi Baathists who never reconciled to the new electoral system. Things are moving fast now, as this summary shows:

  • Earlier there was a Wahhabi split in Syria: ISIS Split from AL Qaeda after giving Al Zawahri the middle finger. But that may not last (logically it should not).
  • Al Nusra Front was declared months ago the sole ‘legal’ and authorized halal and kosher al-Qaeda franchise in Syria. Remember only a year or two ago when the ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition and Persian Gulf Wahhabis swore al-Nusra was a moderate democratic liberal movement?
  • ISIS sweeps the Syria-Iraq border, creating facts on the ground, for now.
  • ISIS along with Wahhabi and Baathist allies sweep northern Iraq, creating new fronts with Iraq’s Shi’a heartland and with the Kurdish region.
  • American warplanes reported flying over Iraq again, apparently in a political holding pattern as Mr. Kerry sniffs up and around the Gulf princes and potentates. The Saudi princes no doubt will make a pitch for their own allies inside Iraq.
  • Just to further complicate things, and lest they be forgotten by the world, the Israelis decide to bomb inside Syria again. They seem to have some kind of UN mandate to bomb inside any Arab borders with impunity, and why not since everybody else in the world seems to reserve the right to bomb inside any Arab border.
  • Syrian warplanes are reported to be bombing inside Iraq now. And who would have thunk it only a few months ago when Mr. Assad was on his way to foreign exile as prognosticated by Saudi and hence American media and leaders.
  • Wahhabi terrorists seek to spread the sectarian war by speeding up their activities inside the cities of Lebanon, with several bombings this past week.
  • There are reports that the Wahhabi split may have been fixed by events on the Syrian-Iraqi border, that ISIS and al-Nusra may be re-uniting again.
  • Regardless, I can fatwa now that this ISIS business will not last. As the Spaniards facing the Fascist onslaught said seven decades ago: No Pasaran! And this time it will be true, they shall not pass, unlike the case of the unfortunate Spaniards who were betrayed by the European democracies.

Stay tuned for more…………

Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Iran, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Middle East Focus: From Red Herrings and Axis of Evil to an Axis of Convenience………..


“There’s only one strategy with a decent chance of winning: forge a military and political coalition with the power to stifle the jihadis in both Iraq and Syria. This means partnering with Iran, Russia, and President Assad of Syria. This would be a very tricky arrangement among unfriendly and non-trusting partners, but the overriding point is that they all have common interests. All regard the jihadis as the overwhelming threat, and all would be willing to take tough joint action. And with this fighting arrangement in place, the “partners” could start seriously fixing the underlying political snake pits in Damascus and Baghdad. Now, don’t start firing rockets at me just yet. Hear me out. First, every state, even the United States, works with bad guys, adversaries and enemies whenever the need is great, whenever it suits reality. Don’t forget, Iran helped us protect the western border of Afghanistan for almost the first two years of America’s war effort there. Tehran didn’t like the Taliban and neither did we. The cooperation stopped when President George W. Bush threatened to overthrow the Ayatollah’s regime with his “axis of evil” speech………….”

That foolish “axis of evil” speech is already marked as one of the stupidest creations of the White House in the modern era. A soundbite that the media dutifully propagated. And it came just months after Wahhabi terrorists, all citizens of Arab countries allied with the Bush Administration, committed the worst act of terrorism in the United States history on September 11, 2001. It was as if the Neocons were using Iran and Iraq as a ‘red herring’ to distract from other ‘facts’ leading up to 9/11, facts that now stare us in the face from Syria through Iraq.

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Cheers

mhg

[email protected]