Tag Archives: Syria

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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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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Arab Revolutions, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, Uncategorized

Valley of Christians, Valley of ISIS……….

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Allentown by Billy Joel

“For them, Allentown is Assadville, USA. Support for an authoritarian regime headed by a ruthless dictator may seem like strange position for a community so steeped in the culture of American democracy. But with Assad’s army standing as the only buffer between their ancient culture and its annihilation by ISIS—the majority of Allentown’s Syrian Christians are more than willing to overlook the contradiction………… Most Allentown residents of Syrian heritage are Orthodox Christians from the Wadi-al-Nasara region in western Homs province………..”

This Hollywood-style Caliphate and its fans do not cotton up to anyone of a different faith or a different sect. That is the main reason why many, possibly most, Syrians who are not Wahhabi-inclined stand with the Al Assad regime. Even many Sunnis, contrary to what we read and hear in the media.
That name of that place of origin of these people in Syria is telling. Wadi-al-Nasara translates from Arabic exactly to: Valley of Christians.

(P.S. As a teenager, I attended and lived in a preparatory high school in a small town not far from Allentown, PA. I never met any Syrians there, but I still had a blast as well as an education. Great people over there).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, Jihadis, Syria, US Foreign Policy

David Drugeon of Khorasan Group: a Mission Accomplished?……..

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These days we hear of some “top” terror groups and their experts only after they are bombed, possibly killed, in the field.
A few weeks ago the media reported, based on official leaks, that a leader of the Khorasan Group (they are terrorists, not a contracting or industrial company) was killed in a precision bombing in Syria. I tweeted that if he were killed, it will become acknowledged quickly. We Muslims usually don’t deny death: there are certain rites and services that will be observed publicly. As it turned out, there was no acknowledgement of his death back home, which means that he was most likely not killed at that time. So we were told that maybe another leader was hit.

Now there are reports that another leading Khorasan member, converted Frenchman David Drugeon, has been bombed to death in Idlib, Syria. This one is more difficult to ascertain: his family are French, presumably Catholic.

Was he a ‘key bombmaker’ as the officials now claim? Was it leaked so soon in the spirit of the current American popular need for “instant gratification” and the need for a “mission accomplished“? Time will tell, not anonymous ‘officials’.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iraq, Islamic History, Russia, Syria

Commanders of ISIS: European Masters of Caliph Al-Baghdadi?………

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On an unusual surreal day early last summer a man I had never heard of before climbed a podium in Mosul, Iraq. He was dressed in presumably 7th century Arab attire, accurate enough to make Hollywood proud. In hindsight, he may have been playing a role selected for him. He declared the recreation of the Islamic Caliphate (meaning the state run by the heirs and followers of the Prophet Mohammed). He declared himself the new Caliph; to wit, public ruler and religious leader of Muslims- non-Wahhabis need not apply.

Then this character Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (reportedly né Ibrahim Awwad Al Samarrai) disappeared from view. No more public pronouncements, no appearances. Gradually we have been getting reports, photos, and videos of others, of less swarthy men with red and blond beards dominating the Wahhabis in Syria and Iraq. Chechens (Shishan, or Shishani in Arabic), from Russian Chechnya, have been reported to be in Syria and Iraq for a couple of years. Now they seem to have been flooding the place, if some media reports are accurate. The most famous media face is that of Omar Al-Shishani: his real name is reported to be Batirashvili, which means he originally hails from Georgia (I think any name ending in –Shvili is Georgian, just like one Dzhugashvili who became known as Stalin). They are alleged to be the mainstay of the street fighting, the sharpshooters of city and town warfare. They also presumably have women there, as sharpshooters and as, er, companions and entertainers of the Jihadis when they are not blowing up Iraqi civilians or taking Syrians as hostages and slaves.

That probably explains the extreme bloodiness of their treatment of the captives. That is a typically European practice as we know from the history of the past two centuries. From Germany to Russia (including Chechnya) to the Balkans. The Chechnya rebellion was typically praised in the West, until the inevitable happened, just as it has happened in Syria. The inevitable is that the Wahhabi outsiders with a lot of money and a hateful message, both imported, took over the Chechen rebellion, just as they did the initial Syrian uprising. The Chechens took up chopping heads and hands and stoning quickly in their Caucasus homeland, with the zeal of the converted. Now they are in our region, likely the new European masters of the Caliphate.

One should not exaggerate: there are no doubt Arab commanders as well. We know some of the names, noms de guerre, many others are not known. This reliance on foreign military prowess has normally happened in Islamic history in the declining years of previous Caliphates and Sultanates. It was a practice from Baghdad to Cairo to Istanbul. Often the imported ‘help’, usually imported former slaves, ended up in effective command.

But there are also other ‘Europeans’ involved. This new brief Caliphate, like other Islamic Caliphates before it has fallen to reliance on the imported help. Reliance on the particular Europeans with the bloodiest recent memories and lessons of massacres and mass killings and genocide.

Is this just a repeat blast from past Islamic history? Is this Al Baghdadi (al Samarrai) a hapless figurehead for the real strongmen of the Islamic State?………….

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Jihadis, Syria, Turkey

No Turkish Delight in Syria: the Dilemma Beyond Kobani……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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The Song of Istanbul, or——–> Turkish Delight

“Just a few kilometers away from the Turkish border, the war is raging. In the Kurdish city of Kobani, US jets bomb Islamic State positions while the town’s last defenders, equipped with more grit than guns, fight the jihadists on the ground. As the Turkish army impassively watches the deadly battle from its side of the boundary with Syria, it has opened its own mini-front on the outskirts of Suruç, a Turkish border city…………. The scene is prosaic and absurd…… Now that the city is being threatened with destruction by Islamic State Ankara is doing nothing to prevent it, and thus putting the future of Turkish-Kurdish reconciliation in danger — and domestic peace along with it……………”

In our native region we are obsessed with history, especially older history that spans the old Islamic Empire and goes beyond that to the Persian and Egyptian and other civilizations. Maybe it is so because the present is so dismal when compared to the distant past. Thus many Arabs have joked in recent years about a return of another not-too-distant era, a new Ottoman-less Empire with Caliph Erdogan as its leader.
Turkey probably did as much as anybody else to enable the ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups, to help them rise and thrive. Turkish help was essential for them to take hold of the Syrian uprising of 2011. It is true that the basic elements, the money, the weapons, and much of the volunteers came from among foreign Wahhabis, from the Persian Gulf to North Africa to Europe. But all these elements could not be of any use unless they reached Syria (and Iraq). Even Senator John McCain could not have snuck into Syria illegally without Turkish cooperation. Thus the role of Turkey in the past three years.

The Erdogan government believed some of the Gulf Arab and Western propaganda about an imminent early fall of the Al Assad regime in 2011. It gambled on that outcome and lost, and it has dug in deeper since. Now it seems that when the dust settles it may lose more than its expansionist Islamist face.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria

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

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“For most of the three years of the Syrian conflict, the U.S. ground game hinged on rebel militias that are loosely affiliated under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, or FSA. Their problems were no secret: a lack of cohesion, uneven fighting skills and frequent battlefield coordination with the al Qaida loyalists of the Nusra Front. This time, Allen said, the United States and its allies will work to strengthen the political opposition and make sure it’s tied to “a credible field force” that will have undergone an intense vetting process. “It’s not going to happen immediately,” Allen said……………..”

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was from the beginning mainly a creation of foreign Arabs. Almost like the various iterations of the Syrian National Coalition (or Council) that hung around the luxury hotels of Istanbul and Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Keeping close to the sources of money, close to the royal forces of absolute counter-revolution and intolerance in the Arab world.

I called it in 2011 the Free Syrian Salafi Army, knowing were the support and the money and eventually the flow of men was coming from. As the Syrian conflict continued, it became clearer what the FSA was, in spite of royal Arab media on the Persian Gulf raising it to the level o a “liberation” army. They celebrated every colonel and sergeant and corporal who “defected” and hung around the Turkish border.

Yet the FSA became a shill for the true goal of the Wahhabis, and that became clearer with every passing month. It was the others that dominated the field with the FSA doing the cheerleading and excusing. The Jabhat Al-Nusra (I called them from the very beginning Jabhat Al-Qaeda) and the Ahrar Al-Sham, and all the Abu Al-WTF, and Jaish Al-Salafi and Ansar Al McCain, among others. FSA was ineffectual in the field. It became more like a Public Relations arm of the Salafis, defending acts of beheading and desecration and kidnappings of civilians.

Of course, the frustrated Saudis tried a ‘reset’ in Syria in 2013, when they attempted  to create their very own Army of Islam in Syria, along the (humorless) Jordanian border. Probably something like the old Ikhwan Wahhabi militias of their father Sultan King Andulaziz Ibn Saud. But it is hard to imagine any Islamist ‘zealots’ anywhere fighting for the glory of the Al Saud princes and princelings, even if they were well-paid. Predictably it did not get anywhere, so they reportedly focused again on a Jordanian (hence also by necessity also humorless) option.

This is apparently the last and final iteration of the FSA. I am doubtful that this new American ‘reset’ can be as effective as needed against ISIS, especially if the Saudis and Emiratis and Qataris are part of the game, the ‘ground’ game. It is like resorting to “a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you” but much less reliable. They will screw it up again, as only they know how to do, speaking militarily.

Logically, strategically, but probably not politically, the best allies to encircle and defeat the Caliphate of ISIS are the Iraqis and the Syrians. I mean the official armed forces. Do I here a collective gasp from Washington to Riyadh?

Imagine, General Whatishisname, formerly of West Point and Army War College, calling up former enemy Brigadier Qassem Suleimani of Al Quds Brigade and discussing campaign strategy in Iraq and Syria! Suleimani, assuming his pious masters are amenable, will also do as his American counterparts will do. He will grimace and take the call.

Enough to give any potentate in Riyadh or Abu Dhabi a royal tribal kleptocratic infarct. Enough to give many in the newly-to-be-elected U.S Congress some lobbyist-financed and inspired palpitations.

It is unlikely to happen, but the sheer amusement of thinking about it……………

Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Syria

3. Neighbors of ISIS: Turks, Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, Others……

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Ref. my last posts on American and Arab stances on Syria, Iraq, and the Caliphate. Some comments on what other regional countries might think:

  • The Iranian hardliners. I use a favorite Western classification/cliche since there are Iranians who are a match for the hardliners who run the U.S. Congress. Especially Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many parliamentarians who often blame America. Occasionally they also throw in Britain and Israel as deal sweeteners, just to cover all the bases, so to speak. (Dr. Rouhani and Mr. Zarif are doing their best to remain less belligerent, for now).
  • The Turks also blame Obama and their NATO allies for not entering the fray in Syria early on. The Turks of course refuse to enter the fray themselves preferring to allow/enable others be they Jihadists or Western powers to fight it out.
  • Others rightly blame the Turks for opening their borders for the past three years to all and any foreign Wahhabi Jihadis who sought to enter Syria (and Iraq). The Turks allowed not only Jihadi terrorists but also their weapons and money and the pious women groupies who service them to cross their borders into Syria.
  • The Syrians and Iranians and others also blame the Arab Salafis and some Arab regimes for the mayhem in Syria and Iraq. They point out that terrorist attacks have been going on in Iraq for ten years. That almost all the money, most of the weapons, and many of the Jihadi terrorists were sent over by these Arab worthies.
  • The Lebanese, as usual, blame each other. Hezbollah blames the right-wing pro-Saudi March 14 bloc for quickly taking sides in Syria and facilitating the flow of men and weapons in 2011. The other side blames Hezbollah for entering the Syrian war on the side of the regime in 2013. They are probably both right, as only the Lebanese can be. You figure that one out.
  • The North Africans are not so officially involved in either country. But their Islamists do send Jihadi volunteers and women to, er, help the Wahhabi terrorists of Al-Nusra and ISIS and Ahrar Al Sham and assorted other cutthroats who seek to liberate Syria and Iraq for Wahhabi ideology. Mainly Libyan men and Tunisian women, which seems like about the right mix. I am sure the Jihadis would not want it the other way around.

Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Iraq, Syria

2. ISIS Blame Game: Arabs and Israelis……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Reference my last post on the American blame game for the Caliphate of ISIS (it almost does not sound so ridiculous saying it now: Caliphate of ISIS). Arabs diverge somewhat about the blame for Iraq and Syria. The blame for the Caliphate of ISIS is put squarely on everyone else:

  • The Arabs outside Iraq, even those on the Gulf, still blame the American invasion of Iraq. Some of them even blame the Desert Storm campaign of 1990-91. Most of these same Arabs tend to forget that the invasion of 2003 and the earlier campaign were launched from their own territory, not from San Diego or Tehran. That they were all active participants, from Abu Dhabi to Cairo.
  • The oil princes and potentates who meddle the most in Iraqi affairs quietly blame America. Loudly, from Riyadh to Abu Dhabi to Doha, they blame Iraqis and other outsiders like Iran. Cheekily, they also blame the sectarianism that they themselves have unleashed inside Iraq and across the region.
  • Mr. Netanyahu has largely stayed out of this conflict in Iraq and Syria. Why muddy the waters when your enemies are at each other’s throats? Largely out, but not completely out, no doubt. But he probably blames Iran for it all, prescribing a permanent blockade of that country as the best way to solve all world problems, from Iraq and ISIS to Ebola to global warming.
  • Many Arab princes and potentates agree with Netanyahu, but most other Arab who are not princes and potentates violently disagree with him.
  • The Qataris still blame Hezbollah and Iran and maybe Russia, but they are also angry at fellow Arabs who side with opposing Islamist factions. They seem to have lost the overt battle over which Jihadist group will dominate the armed Syrian opposition.
  • The Emiratis (of UAE) feel like they have spent tens of billions (possibly hundreds) on Western weapons, and that they should at least go on record as having used them. So, they sent one woman and probably a couple of mercenaries to bomb some silos in Syria. The woman pilot’s family and tribe typically disowned her once they got the glad news.
  • The Saudis blame everybody else except their own policies, their ideology, and their money and Jihadi volunteers. They also sent a couple of pilot princes to bomb some silos in Syria as a well-publicized contribution to the war against their ISIS progeny. No report yet if any woman was involved for media PR coverage.
  • One funny Manama source reported to me that Bahrain offered to volunteer to send its foreign minister. She believes he was so relieved that the offer was rejected.
  • Stay tuned……….

Cheers
MHG

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Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics

1. Blame Game Saga from the Caliphate to the U.S. Congress………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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The Middle East Iraq-Syria blame game has gotten frantic in the past few months, since the fall of Mosul. Yet almost nobody in the region between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean is innocent of blame. First, the American stance:

  • American politicians have shifted the blame for the Iraqi mess to Iraqis themselves, which is fair enough but up to a point. Keep in mind that almost everybody else in the region is meddling in Iraqi affairs and should get some of the blame.
  • Over the past few months, American blame has focused on former prime minister Al Maliki. If only Al Maliki would/could do certain things, then everything would be fine in Iraq. Now he is out of his old office.
  • Americans also blame other Americans, a favorite political pastime. President Obama is handed the biggest share of the blame. Mainly for failing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2011, which is the date agreed to between Al Maliki and George W Bush.
  • Republicans especially prefer to blame Obama for the mess in Iraq, but in fairness they also blame him for everything else under the sun. Including possibly the Ebola epidemic as well as Benghazi, Benghazi. On the up side, they don’t blame him for global warming, because they don’t believe in it.
  • Democrats prefer to blame Al Assad, Al Maliki, and the Republican House of representatives.
  • Speaking of Benghazi, Hillary Clinton is edging toward blaming Obama as she weighs her options for 2016. She would rather not travel anywhere near the Middle East these days, not for another two years.
  • Jingoists like John McCain and his allies blame it all on the reluctance of the Obama administration to join the Syrian civil war. It is this ‘wussiness’, they assert, that has led to the emergence of the Wahhabi-Baathist Caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian border.
  • Fox News blames the whole mess on the elections of 2008.
  • It looks like America is edging back into Iraq, kicking and screaming. Nobody wants to be seen between now and 2016 as punting on ISIS.
  • FYI: the U.S. Congress is punting on Iraq, since they refuse to vote on it before the 2014 elections. Before elections: Democrats are scared of voting for war, Republicans are terrified of being seen to vote ‘yes’ for anything that Obama supports. No Profiles of Courage there. Courage, courage, as Dan Rather used to shout inexplicably on TV .

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]