Tag Archives: Iraq

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

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

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“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…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“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

Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Iraq, Syria, Terrorism, Turkey, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy

Caliphate: Islamo-Baathism and Al Rishawi’s Wardrobe Malfunction……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

Caliphate of ISIS seems to be a coalition of at least two strange bedfellows:

One is an offshoot of Al Qaeda, the AQI that was once led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Mes’ab Al Zarqawi. Zarqawi plagued Iraq for a few years with acts that were gruesome even by the standards of Iraq’s bloody history. He hailed from Zarqa, another humorless town in Jordan, hence his Jihadi nom de guerre (they usually add the hometown or home country of the cutthroat as a last name). Al Zarqa in Jordan was proud of her native son, even as he terrorized Iraqi peasants and townsfolk, especially Shi’as whom he publicly called a snake (coincidentally the late Saudi King Abdullah had urged the U.S. to cut the head of the snake by attacking or invading Iran, according to Wikileaks documents).

Zarqawi was a celebrity in his hometown, and he was eulogized extensively in that grim town after the Americans delivered his just deserts in 2006. But hero-worshipping Zarqawi had suddenly started being frowned upon in Jordan after the Jihadis blew up several hotels and killed a bunch of people in Amman. One of the terrorists survived because she had a wardrobe malfunction, literally, and her explosives didn’t detonate (Sajida Al Rishawai who was executed in Jordan last week).

The other major component of this Caliphate, inside Iraq, consists of former Baathists. These are generals and colonels and lower military men who deserted Baghdad when the Americans attacked in 2003 and vanished for safety (long before Paul Bremer officially disbanded the old Iraqi army, that army had disbanded itself and deserted without fighting for Baghdad or any other town). These also include security men, experts at interrogation, terror, and torture. It is probably these Baathists who are the major link to the tribes of Al Anbar and to former rank and file men of the old armed forces. Iraqi Sunnis, even the tribal types of the border regions, traditionally are not of the Wahhabi Al-Qaeda type mindset, most of them are/were rather secular (by Muslim standards). Could it be a marriage of convenience? It could, but for how long? It certainly will not survive the loss/fall of Mosul, whenever that happens.

Then there are the foreigners and their women be they Arabs or Europeans. Their case is obvious: it takes dedicated Wahhabism or dedicated birdbrains or both to buy the stuff these people spread over the various media.

Then there are the outsiders, the enablers and financiers of the campaign of terror. These hail mainly from Arab states, especially the Gulf states, and the Islamist rulers of Turkey and its military, who have for years allowed all foreign Jihadis to cross the border into Syria. An apparent silent alliance of Turkish officials and the Caliphate. Even as some fools in the U.S. Senate and Congress agonize over whether Turkey will be willing to actively join a coalition against the Caliphate of terror. Not realizing that Turkey, like some Arabs, has been in this war for a few years. On the other side.
Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Syria

Iranian Boots Now Officially ‘On the Ground’ in Iraq and Syria……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“Iran’s Supreme Leader has permitted a limited group of Iranian youth to fight along with “Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese brothers,” according to Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammed Ali Jafari. Jafari, while addressing a ceremony in Tehran last Friday, mentioned discussions he had with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, saying that “despite the number of youth who are permitted to join the fighting (outside Iran), no one else should leave the country” for resistance abroad, the Iranian Mashregh news agency reported……………”

Everybody has known for some time that there are Iranian advisers, and maybe some combatants, serving in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State and other armed groups. We have all seen ‘leaked’ photos of the enigmatic Brig. Suleimani in Iraq. Everybody has also known that there are Arab, American, and European fighters and advisers on both sides in Iraq and Syria. Some of the latter are official with the regulation boots, others who are mainly on the Jihadi side are free-lancers. This new report about Ayatollah Khamenei makes things ‘official’ now. Especially in view of the potential casualties which are impossible to hide in a Muslim society where a death and its rites are a very public matter.

Officially the wars in Syria and Iraq are now part of a multi-layered wider war: a sectarian war within a regional war within a global war. Which they have been for some years now, but unofficially. Now which box should be opened first? Which layer should be peeled first to reach the heart of the matter and solve it?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Sectarian

Iraqi Alibi: One American Sectarian View of the ISIS Rampage……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“The Hezbollah-ization of Iraq’s military and security forces has been overseen by the IRGC-QF, another U.S.-designated terrorist entity, which is headed by Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, a man personally sanctioned by the Treasury Department for his role in propping up Bashar al Assad’s mass murderous regime in Syria. In Iraq and Syria the enemy of our enemy is not our friend, he is our enemy, too………. Another one of Suleimani’s major proxies, the Badr Corps, is headed by Hadi al-Amiri, who happens to be Iraq’s former minister of transport, in which capacity he was accused by the U.S. government of helping to fly Iranian weapons and personnel into Syria……………….”

The title of this article reads like a concocted alibi for expected failure against ISIS in Iraq. And we’ve all had the apparently mistaken belief that ISIS sprang from Al-Qaeda which sprang from Saudi money and Wahhabi ideology and volunteers! Now we have beens set straight: the Iranian mullahs are behind ISIS. Disguised as Wahhabi Jihadis.

Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t dabble much in Muslim sectarianism, otherwise I would have suspected him of being behind this article. The best of Saudi royal media couldn’t have written anything more sectarian than this piece. It almost reads as if written by a Hariri pro-Saudi (Lebanon’s March 14) journalist for NOW Lebanon, or by some American neoconservative hawk from one of their many well-funded think tanks. Making the case for yet another Western war in our region (hence the netanyahu angle)………..

This is not to deny some of the basic facts in the article. The Iraqi militias are nasty ombres. The Iranian are active and scheming in Iraq, as is almost everybody else that I can think of outside Monaco. I am not sure about the Hezbollah angle: this sounds like a “Lebanese” partisan insertion. Don’t they say that “all is fair in war and love“? Everybody seems to believe that, even if they profess not to.

But then the Iranians, and some others in the neighborhood, have been stung from Iraq in the past, invaded and attacked with WMD. The Western powers, some of whom supplied the WMD or its ingredients to the Baathists, did not seem to object to either at the time………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

[email protected]

Blockade of Iran, Caliphate, Iran, Weapons deals

Western Weapons Sanctions: Unintended Long-Term Consequences………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

“It is a tribute to Iranian ingenuity that Iran has been able to keep the planes flying, given US sanctions in place since 1979. The Iranians have done so by a combination of smuggling – using shadow companies to buy parts – and cannibalising parts from civil aircraft. They have also engaged in reverse engineering, though this seldom produces a perfect match, resulting in weaker parts. Justin Bronk, a research analyst in the military science programme at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said of the plane spotted over Iraq: “This is the equivalent of a late Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom D or E variants. We do not know which one.” Bronk, who specialises in combat air power, added: “It is extremely impressive that the Iranians have kept this airworthiness given the ban on spare parts. The Iranian aerospace industry is one of the best in the world in keeping old aircraft airworthy.”…………”

For some reason they can’t seem to get more modern warplanes from their Chinese and Russian allies. Or maybe the mullahs are just as attached to old American jets as the Shah was to new ones.

In any case, they have managed to improvise and build up their technical skills and weapons industries. Necessity is truly the mother of invention, and a fount of new research, technical skill, and knowledge. If and when the American-European blockade is lifted, they will probably find themselves with a robust domestic weapons and space industry that can only be rivaled by the Israelis.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

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

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

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

“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

[email protected]

 

Iran, Iraq, Syria

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

Thanksgiving4
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

[email protected]

Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Muslims, Syria

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

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

“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

[email protected]

Arab Politics, Caliphate, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria

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

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   KuwaitCox2

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

[email protected]