Category Archives: Jihadists

Arab Revolutions, Assad, ISIS, Jihadists, Middle East, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Confusing Rex Tillerson: Iraqi Militias Must Leave Iraq, Assad Must Leave Syria, No Pasaran in Arabic…….

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Almost everybody has been after Bashar Al Assad to leave Syria since well before 2011. But the open calls for his departure came soon after the early uprising of the spring of 2011. That Syrian uprising was quickly bought and hijacked by the Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood of the Arab World, mainly the Wahhabi money bags of a couple of the Persian Gulf states. Jihadis poured into Syria from Arab states and Europe, seeking plunder, free women, and Shi’as/Christians/Others to abuse and kill. Eventually the Jihadist international brigades of ISIS and Al Qaeda inherited most of what was left of the active Syrian opposition. Here are some of the calls:


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2009-2011): “Assad Must Go. His days are numbered“.
Secretary of State John Kerry (2012…): “Assad Must Go“.
Various Arab absolute Kings & their Ministers and their media: “Assad Must Go. Assad will go soon, Inshallah“.

Saudi Foreign Minister Al Jubeir, who made a career out of it, even regularly specified in an odd weekly rant: “Assad will go soon, if not peacefully then by force” (For a while I was almost convinced he knew something I did’t).
Barack Obama: “Look, fact is that: Assad Must Go“.
Francois Hollande: “Assad Doit Partir. He Must Go (2011-2016). ”
David Cameron: “Assad Must Go”
Turkey’s strongman Erdogan (once a major enabler of Jihadists in Syria until about 2016): “Assad Yok! Assad Must Go (2011-2015)“

Many others, opinion-ators, pundits, journalists, American hawks, and European cafe men-about-town: “Assad has a few weeks left in Damascus. His top officers are defecting to the joys of Salafism and Wahhabism“.


Donald Trump: “Maybe Assad can Stay. Or maybe not. We must defeat ISIS“.
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley: “Assad Must Go“.

Finally, this covering-all-bases doozy from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: “Assad Must Go. Also as a bonus: Iraqi Militias that saved Baghdad from DAESH in 2014 and fought ISIS must leave Iraq. (But he didn’t specify go where? Definitely he doesn’t want them in Yemen)”

“Assad must go” became the battle cry of the West and many Arab despots and leaders. Sort of like “No Pasaran” during the Spanish civil war. Except that it now looks like it was the Assad side that made sure the refrain of “No Pasaran” applied to the other side.

And the rest of the Middle East is all run by popular elected democratic men and clans and families and oligarchs and kleptocrats of the people.
And that is where it stands, but Assad is still with us, for now. Eventually he will go, but then so does everyone else, even Arab leaders, eventually……..

Inshallah….. God Willing…….

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Jihadis, Jihadists, Salafi, Syria

Post-Aleppo Reset: Syria’s Jihadis to Undergo Yet Another Desperate Iteration…….

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There are now some reports of yet another “RESET” for the Jihadi groups in Syria, post-Aleppo. There are reports on social media of consolidation and reorganization and, more likely, renaming.
These guys keep trying to find a formula that works, so far nothing seems to work for them:

  • Renaming Al Qaeda to Al Nusra did not work.
  • Renaming Al Nusra to Jaish Al Fath (Army of Islamic Conquest) has not worked.
  • A Saudi-sponsored Jaish Al Islam (with reliance on some Western support and training) failed miserably.
  • Earlier the Free Syrian Army (who I saw correctly as the Free Syrian Salafi Army) had several iterations, before it faded somewhere into Turkey.
  • The Syrian National Council, dominated by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists and some Tribal types changed its name a few time, to no avail. Eventually it petered out.

No matter how hard some Gulf (Saudi and Qatari) media and the gullible Western media tried to paint these groups as representing the will of the Syrian people, it did not work. Even though the Jihadis and their Arab and Western media allies won the war of disinformation, they have lost the battle on the ground. Because that foreign view did not reflect the reality in Syria. Even in foreign exile, most Syrians oddly voted for Assad a couple of years ago. Not necessarily because they liked Assad and his regime. But most likely because they knew first-hand what the rebel Jihadis represented, what kid of Wahhabi future they had in mind for Syria.

Maybe, nay very likely, it was a preference among repressions: they preferred Assad’s secular political repression to the Islamists all-encompassing theocratic political-social-religious-sectarian repression. Very likely that is why.

 Some Earlier posts:

Free Syrian Army, National Syrian Army, Syrian MilitaryCouncil, WTF Army……

Final Iteration of the Free Syrian Army: End of a Wahhabi Shill in Syria………

Free Syrian Salafi Army: Under New Management Again?……

The Sectarian Free Syrian Salafi Army….
Cheers

 

M Haider Ghuloum

 

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iraq, Jihad, Jihadists, Syria, Terrorism

Raqqa as Berlin: Is the Myth of Islamic Caliphate about to Crash Down?…..

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Al Raqqa in Syria is not exactly Berlin circa 1945. That was when the Soviet (Russian) armies were about to enter Berlin, while Dwight Eisenhower’s forces were speeding to join them. It was almost like a race, which the Russians won.

Al Raqqa is the chosen temporary capital of ISIS (DAESH), pending the capture of Damascus or Baghdad. But Al Raqqa faces a similar situation that Berlin faced in early 1945. At least two armies are racing towards it. The most substantial one is the alliance that supports the Syrian regime (Syrian Army, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, etc). Then there is an alliance that is armed and supported by the United States, dominated by Syrian Kurds in the north.

Then there are the Iraqi military and their Iranian and local militia allies moving steadily if slowly towards Mosul. If Mosul falls, the Iraqis could find themselves tempted to join the race towards Al Raqqa as well.

The Saudis and their putative Turkish allies have been reduced to repeated futile threats by Adel al Jubeir, the Saudi Foreign Minister, that Al Assad must go. Al Jubeir adds: by peaceful or by military means. He must be waiting for Hillary Clinton to save his bosses nuts from the Syria fire.

This is how it stands now. Mosul and Al Raqqa might well fall this year. At the latest they will fall no later than 2017.


My Fatwa (humble but almost certainly accurate) on the violent gruesome brief reign of the Wahhabis of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( or the Levant).


Cheers
M Haider Ghuloum

Caliphate, Jihadists, New York

The Caliphate and the Imbeciles of the Faith………

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“The FBI on Wednesday arrested three men from Brooklyn who they allege planned to launch terrorist attacks in the United States if they were not able to join ISIS in Syria. Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 24, an Uzbekistan citizen; Akhror Saidakhmetov, 19, a Kazakhstan citizen; and Abror Habibov, 30, an Uzbekistan citizen were all arrested and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. According to law enforcement officials, the men also planned to return to New York to commit an act of domestic terrorism if they failed in their effort to join ISIS. One of the suspect’s mothers supposedly took his passport because she was afraid he may join ISIS………….”

That is apparently the secret of the recent rapid quantitative spread of ISIS. An unlimited supply of marginal foot soldiers, lost expendable imbeciles who actually believe they have secrecy, privacy, and anonymity on the Internet and off the Internet, including at the mosque. The ignorance and/or blindness are breathtaking. Don’t they know? Can’t they read or watch the news?…

There is nothing in Islam, in either the Quran or Hadith, that requires the faithful to be stupid. Maybe the Salafi Jihadis have their own interpretation of the faith. Apparently stupidity and treachery are required parts of their core beliefs, otherwise who would join?
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Art, Caliphate, Culture, Jihadists, U.S. Congress

ISIS: New Song of the Caliphate, Unshudat al-Khilafa………

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My very own personal Jihadist source reports something new and unusual today. Nothing to do with beheading or burning alive or kidnapping Christians or Vegans.
ISIS (DAESH) is adopting a new anthem, song. They call it Unshudat al-Khilafa (انشودة الخلافة), hymn of the Caliphate. It goes something like this. Imagine that……

FYI 1: ISIS are not Chinese, but they still don’t believe in intellectual property either (or anything to do with intellect for that matter).
FYI 2: rumors the U.S Congress may be also considering adopting it, opening its sessions with the same song.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Jihadists, Syria

Strategic Science Fiction: Unified Arab Force, Unified Arab Farce…….

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“As threats in the Middle East grow, there’s a pressing need in the region, Egypt’s President said Sunday. “The need for a unified Arab force is growing and becoming more pressing every day,” President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in a televised address, noting that Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have offered to send troops as Egypt steps up its efforts to battle ISIS in neighboring Libya………”

Also sprach Field Marshal Al Sisi, elected president of Egypt by almost 98% of the vote last year.
They are now talking about a unified Arab force to fight the murderous jihadis of ISIS from Libya to Syria and Iraq. And possibly fight ‘others’ after that. From Arab politicians to Western media pundits and retired generals and even former CIA agents. Everybody is suddenly a strategist: a Napoleon and a Caesar.

There has never been an effective unified Arab force in modern times. There is a joint Gulf GCC force called the Peninsula Shield that was supposed to be a joint “defense” force against external threats. It failed its only chance to defend when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, by not showing up. The only ‘operation’ on its resume has been to intervene in Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy uprising there during the Arab Spring of 2011. This is typical of Arab armed forces: their priority is protection of the ruling order against internal unrest. We have seen this across the board, from Libya to Egypt to Syria and Bahrain and Yemen.

A joint Arab force to fight the Caliphate of IS? With actual casualties and body bags? Unlikely that the Arab countries can sustain the needed human costs. Besides the hesitation to enter, say, Syria and become sitting ducks between the two sides, the Jihadis and the Syrian army and its allies. Just imagine humorless Jordanian and United Arab Emirates troops facing two formidable opponents in a two-front war: skilled experienced and suicidal Wahhabi Jihadists and Syrian army veterans plus Hezbollah. The UAE, with barely 1 million citizens, reportedly has an imported foreign mercenary force for its own internal security. Just imagining the Emirates in such a battle merits a resounding WTF plus an LOL (and possibly an Oscar for science fiction).

The first battle might be the last one, a Waterloo. Besides, a unified Arab military force would be the worst thing to happen to the Arab peoples now. It will only lead to unified repression: one force with one strategy and one deadly force to keep the repression and the oppression going. Exactly what happened in Bahrain.

I suspect the push is more from the West, mainly from some hawks in the US. It makes sense to have an Arab force in order to “legitimize” action and make it politically acceptable at home, or so they think. The real action would be by NATO powers, a la Libya 2011. Some of the Arab princes and potentates are no doubt thinking of a post-ISIS phase, when they can ‘clean house’ in Syria and maybe in Lebanon. They have allies over here as well for that endeavor.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadists, Kurds, Terrorism

Divided They Stand: North to Kirkuk, North to Mosul……..

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“And hostilities with Shia Arabs are growing increasingly dangerous. Even though ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, is practically on the city’s doorstep, Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, has opposed arming the city’s Arab and Turkmen population since Kurdish forces took control of the region from the Iraqi government last summer. The Kurdish advance came after ISIS took the city of Tikrit, which lies to the south between Kirkuk and Baghdad. In a recent interview with the London-based Arabic daily newspaper Al Hayat, Barzani said that “We will not allow any forces to enter Kirkuk,” in a message clearly directed at Iranian-backed Shia militias…………..”

The media makes it sound like a choice between Iranian-backed Shi’a militias and Wahhabi-backed Jihadists.
They always ignore the opportunistic former Baathists who have gone religious and are now part of this silly murderous Caliphate. The Baathist officers who would not defend Baghdad in 2003, changed into civilian attire and vanished as American forces closed in on Baghdad, long before Paul Bremer arrived in the city. Not a single shot fired to defend their capital. But they have Mosul, historically their most favorable city in Iraq, for now. That is where Uday and Qusay Saddam Hussein made their last stand in 2003. That is where the last of the Iraqi Baathists will probably make their stand.

American media are also reporting now that “certain Arab allies” have raised objections to possible details of the expected counter-attack to free Mosul from the ISIS Wahhabis now controlling it. These “certain Arab allies“, no doubt Saudi Arabia or its other sidekick on the Persian Gulf, have expressed concern that most the forces on the good side in the expected battle will be Shi’as (either Iraqi soldiers or militias). Odd, given that there is no practical way around Iraqi participation. Maybe the Saudis are willing to lend some of their own valiant forces for the battle? Or they could hire the usual Asian mercenaries.

Other ‘allies’ are also apparently doing their best to hamper any campaign to roll back the Jihadists, be that in Iraq or Syria. The Turks, whose government has an open door policy that allows Jihadists, their female groupies, and weapons to flow freely across the border into the war zone. The Turks are worried that not only the Kurds in Syria are being empowered but that the Assad regime is already gaining back territory as ISIS focuses on consolidating and holding its gains in the northern and border regions.
Such is the backdrop to the haggling going on before the expected battle for Mosul. As for Kirkuk, it is the one issue all other Iraqis (Shi’a, Sunni, Wahhabi, etc) and other Arabs agree on. But the Kurds have it now and I doubt they will give it up again. So, the battle for Kirkuk is over before it ever started……
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadists

Caliphate Salafi Justice: Between the Fire and the Sword…….

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“Islamic State (ISIL) militants have burned 45 people to death in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, local police chief said Tuesday. According to Col. Qasim Obeidi, quoted by the BBC, some of those killed were security forces members……..”

The pattern seems to be emerging: Western hostages, Christians, Yazidis, and Shi’as are beheaded. Foreign or ‘enemy’ soldiers (like the Jordanian pilot and Iraqi security and soldiers) are burned alive. So the cutthroats of ISIS have most likely burned alive some 45 Iraqis recently.
The 45 Iraqis who were burned alive have not received much media coverage, yet, but that is probably because the king of Jordan did not done his “Mission Accomplished” uniform and hit the skies.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

France, Hezbollah, Jihadists

Hassan Nasrallah: Je Suis Charlie Hebdo?………

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“The leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah group says Islamic extremists have insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad more than those who published satirical cartoons mocking the religion. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah did not directly mention the Paris attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead, but he said Islamic extremists who behead and slaughter people – a reference to the IS group’s rampages in Iraq and Syria – have done more harm to Islam than anyone else in history…………..”

Translation? Je suis Charlie Nasrallah Hebdo…………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

[email protected]

Al Aqeda, Arab Revolutions, Islamic History, Jihadists

Ancient Black Flag Revolutionaries: Abu Muslim of Khorasan and Marwan the Jackass………

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A bit of high school history here:
Why is no leader of this Wahhabi “Khorasan” group called Abu Muslim Al Khorasani? Given their penchant for noms de guerre starting with Abu and their use of Khorasan (a province in northeastern Persia/Iran)?
Abu Muslim Al Khorasani (also reportedly a nom de guerre) was the original man behind the original ‘black flag’. A Persian, he led the forces of the Abbasid, the original black flag revolution that overthrew the Umayyad dynasty which ruled from Damascus, in the eighth century (A.D.). The last Umayyad Caliph was named Marwan, he was nicknamed by some Al Homar (the Jackass) for obvious reasons.

After the Abbasids took power and started their dynasty, they started to eliminate their former allies and potential future rivals. They started by beheading the man who made their revolution possible, Abu Muslim Al Khorasani.


The Abbasids ruled for five centuries, often through Persian and Turkish surrogates and top ministers. The Abbasids were more cosmopolitan than their predecessors: they intermarried extensively with other ‘subjected’ peoples. They also shared administrative duties, unlike the extremely tribal Umayyads who kept power and influence within their own tribal kin.

The Abbasid rule was ended by the Mongols who sacked Baghdad and trampled the last Caliph, al-Must’asim, to death under their horses hoofs (reportedly after rolling him inside a nice Persian carpet).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]