In part from Conservative Review: Next Tuesday, June 28, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, will conduct a hearing investigating the willful blindness on the part of the relevant law enforcement agencies to domestic Islamic terror networks. The subject of the hearing is “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced at a press conference that the motives of the Orlando jihadist might never be known and that “our most effective response to terror…is unity and love.” This comes on the heels of the government’s attempt to redact any mention of Islamic rhetoric in the 911 call and DHS releasing another internal document scrubbing all references to Islamic terror. Just this week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a front group for Hamas, was allowed to sit in on FBI interviews with members of the Fort Pierce mosque. The FBI was supposed to cut ties with CAIR, and DOJ was supposed to prosecute them in 2009 following the Holy Land Foundation trial, in which CAIR was implicated as a co-conspirator, yet they are granted full access to FBI counter-terrorism investigations.
This hearing will likely focus on which figures within the federal government worked to squelch any research connecting the dots between local Muslim Brotherhood officials, these individual terrorists, and foreign terror networks. Senators on the committee now have an opportunity to expose the Muslim Brotherhood influence within DHS and the FBI, their invidious “Countering Violent Extremism” Agenda, and their hand in covering up counter-terrorism investigations. They can demonstrate how the federal government has hamstrung local law enforcement by refusing to cooperate and share information regarding jihadists living in their communities.
Most importantly, this is the first opportunity to finally change the narrative from the false discussion about guns, which has nothing to do with Islamic Jihad. Hopefully, this committee hearing will be the beginning of a concerted effort for the legislative branch to actually engage in some critical oversight of the perfidious actions within the top echelons of federal law enforcement. The fact that GOP leaders in the House and Senate are not pushing multiple hearings and legislation dealing with this issue is scandalous, but unfortunately, not unexpected. Full story and audio is found here from Conservative Review.
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“Based on open-source research conducted on a list provided by the Department of Justice, the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has determined that at least 380 of the 580 individuals convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offenses between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2014, were born abroad.” More here.
Further: In June 2016, CIA Director John Brennan testified that ISIS “is probably exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including in refugee flows, smuggling routes and legitimate methods of travel.”
· In March 2016, the top U.S. military commander in Europe—Air Force General Philip Breedlove—told a Senate Committee that ISIS is infiltrating the ranks of refugees entering Europe, and that terrorists, returning foreign fighters and criminals are now part of the “daily” refugee flow.
· In September 2015, when asked if ISIS could infiltrate the refugees, Obama’s former top envoy on the coalition to defeat ISIS, General John Allen told ABC News, “I think we should watch it. We should be conscious of the potential that Daesh (aka ISIS) may attempt to embed agents within that population.”
· In October 2015, FBI Director James Comey said during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing that the federal government does not have the ability to conduct thorough background checks on all of the 10,000 Syrian refugees that the Obama administration says will be allowed to come to the U.S.
In September 2015, the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper said “We don’t obviously put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees.”
· In September 2015, State Department Spokesman John Kirby admitted it’s “possible” for those with ISIS ties to sneak in the US through the refugee program.
· In February 2015, when asked by Rep. Michael McCaul if bringing in Syrian refugees could pose a risk to Americans, Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Nicholas Rasmussen said “It’s clearly a population of concern.”
· In February 2015 assistant director for the FBI, Michael Steinbeck said in a House Homeland Security hearing that he was “concerned” that bringing in Syrian refugees could pose a greater risk to Americans.
· In April 2015 House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul said, “The intelligence community has briefed me that [terrorists] want to exploit the refugees — [that] terrorists want to exploit the refugee program to infiltrate and get in.”
Category Archives: Insurgency
Brazil/Olympics Under Islamic State Threat
TRAC: South America has not historically been considered a high priority target for Islamic State for reasons ranging from practical to ideological. It has instead been used for remote finance and small-scale recruitment operations by Shia groups and IS’ predecessor, al-Qaeda. It would appear, however, that Islamic State has recognized that political and economic turmoil in countries like Brazil, Venezuela, and Mexico have presented opportunity in the Western Hemisphere.
A sample of recent activity documented by TRAC includes:
- A small, but effective, Islamic State financing ringin Brazil • A new Portuguese-language Nashir IS-news Telegram channel • A former Guantanamo detainee, Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab, believed now to be in Brazil
Image: A map of the particularly vulnerable border region referred to as the Triple Frontier.
All of this activity, combined with the backdrop of border insecurity at the Triple Frontier, IS recruitment in Mexico, and an active cell in São Paulo present terrorists with copious soft targets in South America, highlighted by the 2016 Olympics.
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Threat Assessment
Based on the information currently available, the threat of an IS-directed attack on the Olympics remains low, though the possibility of an IS-inspired small scale assault always looms. Preventing such an attack will rely on security arrangements at the venue, hotels, and transportation facilities where crime has already been listed as a high risk concern.
Never a High Priority Target
South America has not historically been considered a high priority target for Islamic State or other Sunni jihadist groups for many reasons, ranging from the practical to the ideological. Unlike many European nations, some of whom have a long history of interests in in the Middle East, South American countries are not typically viewed by Sunni militants as potent allies of the US. Instead, Brazil (among others) has served as a place to base remote finance and small-scale recruitment operations.
Outside Historical Caliphate Lands
Central and South America are not part of the lands claimed by historic Islamic conquest and thus fall outside the scope of Islamic State’s ideological priority of extending the Caliphate to the lands that at one time or another were considered belonging to the Umma. (Even the world maps created for Islamic State propaganda don’t bother to identify South America.)
New Focus on Portuguese & Spanish Speakers
This de-emphasis of targets south of the US may be coming to an end, however, on the part of Islamic State. ISIS has recognized the importance of shifting focus from its loses and struggles to new frontiers and opening linguistic doors to recruitment candidates. Following the 11/13 Paris Attacks a tweet attributed to Maxime Hauchard named Brazil as “our next target,” although TRAC has not been able to find a primary source record of this threat. In Spring 2016, Dabiq announced ISIS’ desire to proselytize Mayas with an “anti-colonial” message. Additionally, the approaching 2016 Olympics present an opportunity for Islamic State focus its narrative in a South American nation where it has already seen some support: Brazil.
- TRAC has documented a small, but effective, Islamic State financing ring out of Brazil
- New all Portuguese Speaking Nashir Channel
- Former Guantanamo detainee Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab
Images: Jihadi Jean Luc identified as Steve Duarte. A Luxemburger of Portuguese descent, Duarte was featured in major Islamic State video release as a French-Speaking executioner. In the video he refers to Andalusia and its Muslim cities, threatening Spain. For More on (Video) Islamic State : Filtering Apostates – Five Simultaneous Executions Featuring French Speaking Executioner Wilayat Nineveh
Political Context
- In the final week of February 2016, Brazil’s legislature approved a controversial anti-terrorism law after months of debate.
- President Rousseff signed to enact the law in the final week of March 2016.
- Allows for sentences of 12-30 years.
- Opponents consider it a tool for restraining and silencing Brazil’s political dissident movements.
- With Brazil’s corruption rankings plummeting and successful Olympics on the line, there is reason to believe some in power seek to silence opposition groups.
- The law’s advocates, however, seek not only to avoid sanction but to have additional tools ready to combat global jihad.
- Specific wording: “the practice by one or more individuals of acts for the reason of xenophobia, discrimination or prejudice of race, color, ethnic group or religion with the aim to generate social or generalized terror, endangering people, assets, the public peace or safety.”
- Israeli officials heralded the law citing years of exploitation of Brazil by Iran and Iranian proxy Hezbollah
Recruitment of Portuguese Speakers
Islamic State Messaging
On 03 June 2016 Telegram IS affiliated channel “Online Dawah Operations” shared a general post in English calling for Spanish and Portuguese speakers:
Reads: “Dear brothers and sisters, we are in need of brothers and sisters who can speak either Portuguese or Spanish to help us on our project in’shaa Allah. If you speak one of those languages and you are willing to join our translation team please Wickr me: ismailbrazili.”
Islamic State Nashir channel in Portuguese appeared on Telegram 29 May 2016:
Five days before Islamic State member Ismail Brazili called for Portuguese speakers on a general Telegram channel, a Nashir Portuguese channel appeared on Telegram. It was created 29 May 2016 but did not make its first post until 02 June 2016. Though the posts are merely reprints of the main Nashir Arabic Channel, its important to recognize the out-reach to get news from IS controlled areas and IS Wilayats to Portuguese speakers.
Important Hashtags
Islamic State relies on hashtags to spread news on both Telegram and Twitter. In almost all the Portuguese Telegram posts the following hashtags are used to spread the propaganda:
#ReportagemFotográfica
#EstadoIslâmico
#CalifadoPT
Plus the hashtag of the specific Wilayat that is being propagated.
Examples of Portuguese claims of credit
Posted 19 June 2016
Posted 20 June 2016
Posed 08 June 2016
The red over blue claims of credit (as well as light blue over darker blue) are very typical of traditional Islamic State claims, however the Portuguese are slightly different: the Wilayat appears to the left (opposed to the right) and each are marked “Urgente” which the Islamic State does not print on the claims of credit in Arabic or other languages.
Former GITMO detainee latest Lebanese immigrant to raise alarm in Brazil
The announcement that former Guantanamo detainee Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab may have legally traveled to Brazil has recently recast Brazil into the spotlight for concerns of jihadist activity. After being transferred to Uruguay in December 2014, Dhiab — whose mother is Argentine –reportedly attempted to travel legally to Brazil, but was denied entrance, according to the statement of an official in Uruguay. Contrary to these reports, another official responsible for working with the Uruguay resettlement, Christian Mirza, said Dhiab traveled legally first to Argentina (in 2015) and then to Brazil, but that his whereabouts are unknown. Dhiab also apparently walks with crutches as a result of poor health, making an undocumented, illegal border crossing more difficult, but not impossible with assistance. On the other hand, Uruguay did not agree to the US request to retain for two years the six resettled detainees.
Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab.
Dhiab is not the fist Lebanese Sunni to make headlines in Brazil. A suspected ISIS-finance cell associated with an Egyptian jihadist in São Paulo has been profiled by TRAC and is available here:
Islamic State Brazil : São Paulo Cell — (Islamic State / ISIS) — CELL PROFILE
In an operation called Menzad, 18 search warrants were issued to halt the Alameddine family’s fraudulent activity in money transfers suspected of supporting ISIS. It included the arrest of Egyptian Hesham Eltrabily, accused by Egypt of involvement in the 1997 Luxor Massacre.
Khaled Hussein Ali is yet another Lebanese transplant to Brazil of great concern in light of Islamic State’s growing influence. Although his affiliation with Al Qaeda reaches high into the organization, it is likely that his role in spreading propaganda and operating internet cafes in Vila Matilde has created fallow ground for Islamic State’s message in São Paulo and beyond.
Border Security and Soft Targets Concern
Border security has long been problematic for Brazil and its neighbors dealing with drug trafficking and militias. Additionally, the Rio Olympics present copious soft target opportunities for jihadist and other groups. Below are a map of the particularly vulnerable border region referred to as the Triple Frontier:
This area is relatively under-policed and concerns are that exploitation by Sunni jihadists would create fall-out with the Shia community, whose large mosques dot the Brazilian border facing Paraguay.
Doctors Being Slaughtered in Syria
Not only are good Syrian doctors hiding wounded patients, they are reaching out to other doctors globally for help. So, really, where are all the global human rights activists, where is their outrage?
In the past five years, the Syrian government has assassinated, bombed, and tortured to death almost seven hundred medical personnel, according to Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that documents attacks on medical care in war zones. (Non-state actors, including ISIS, have killed twenty-seven.) Recent headlines announced the death of the last pediatrician in Aleppo, the last cardiologist in Hama. A United Nations commission concluded that “government forces deliberately target medical personnel to gain military advantage,” denying treatment to wounded fighters and civilians “as a matter of policy.”
In response, some doctors established secret medical units to treat people injured in the crackdown. One surgeon at Aleppo University Hospital adopted the code name Dr. White. Along with three colleagues, he identified and stocked safe houses where emergency operations could be performed. Dr. White also lectured at the university’s faculty of medicine; he suspected that seven of his most promising students shared his sympathies toward the nascent uprising. Another doctor, named Noor, recruited them to join the mission. In Arabic, noor means “light,” so the group called itself Light of Life.
At night, Noor and Dr. White gave the medical students lessons via Skype, concealing their faces and voices. The goal was to teach them the principles of emergency first aid, with an emphasis on halting the bleeding from gunshot wounds. During demonstrations, the students waited in cars and vans to shuttle injured protesters to the safe houses, then disappeared. “They had to leave the house before my arrival,” Dr. White told me during a recent Skype call from Aleppo. “They could not know who this man is.”
More than 700 doctors killed in Syria war: UN
Attacks on hospitals since Syria’s war broke out five years ago have left more than 700 doctors and medical workers dead, many of them in air strikes, UN investigators said Tuesday.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria also condemned horrific violations by jihadists and voiced concern that Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants may have recruited hundreds of children into their ranks.
Commission chief Paulo Pinheiro told the UN Human Rights Council that widespread, targeted aerial attacks on hospitals and clinics across Syria “have resulted in scores of civilian deaths, including much-needed medical workers.”
“More than 700 doctors and medical personnel have been killed in attacks on hospitals since the beginning of the conflict,” he said.
Pinheiro, who was presenting the commission’s latest report to the council, said attacks on medical facilities and the deaths of so many medical professionals had made access to health care in the violence-wracked country extremely difficult — and in some areas completely impossible.
– ‘Terrorised survivors’ –
“As civilian casualties mount, the number of medical facilities and staff decreases, limiting even further access to medical care,” he said.
Pinheiro also denounced frequent attacks on other infrastructure essential to civilian life, such as markets, schools and bakeries.
“With each attack, terrorised survivors are left more vulnerable,” he said, adding that “schools, hospitals, mosques, water stations … are all being turned into rubble.”
Since March 2011, Syria’s brutal conflict has left more than 280,000 people dead and forced half the population to flee their homes.
War broke out after President Bashar al-Assad’s regime unleashed a brutal crackdown against protesters demanding political change in Arab Spring-inspired protests.
It has since become a multi-front war between regime forces, jihadists and other groups with the civilian population caught in the crossfire.
Pinheiro said the commission was investigating allegations that the Al-Nusra Front “and other Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have recruited hundreds of children under 15 in Idlib” in northwestern Syria.
The brutality of Syria’s conflict is preventing millions of children from attending school, and activists have warned this is helping fuel jihadist recruitment drives.
Pinheiro also condemned violations committed by the Islamic State group.
In a report published last week, the commission warned that IS jihadists were continuing to commit genocide against the Yazidi minority in Iraq and Syria.
In 2014, IS jihadists massacred members of the Kurdish-speaking minority mainly based around Sinjar mountain in northern Iraq, forcing tens of thousands to flee, and captured thousands of girls and women.
– ‘Stop the genocide’ –
“As we speak, Yazidi women and girls are still sexually enslaved, subjected to brutal rapes and beatings. They are bought and sold in markets, passed from fighter to fighter like chattel, their dignity being ripped from them with each passing day,” Pinheiro said Tuesday.
“Boys are taken from their mother’s care and forced into ISIS training camps once they reach the age of seven,” he said, using another acronym for IS as he called on the international community to act “to stop the genocide.”
Vian Dakhil, a Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament, also appealed for action.
“We need the (UN) Security Council to bring this … to the International Criminal Court” in the Hague, she told reporters on the sidelines of the Human Rights Council.
Dakhil said 3,200 Yazidi women and girls are still being held by IS, while around 1,000 boys under the age of 10 are being brainwashed and prepared for battle by the jihadists.
“This is still happening,” she said. “We need help.”
Around 400,000 Yazidis are still living in camps in northern Iraq, Dakhil said, adding that they still feared returning to Sinjar to rebuild their communities, since some of their Sunni Muslim neighbours had helped IS in its attacks.
“We need to rebuild peace … and trust,” she said. More from DailyMail.
What the DoJ Wont Tell you About Mateen’s Father
IPTNews: by Abha Shankar
The father of Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen has longstanding connections to prominent Islamist groups in the U.S., a document discovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism shows. Seddique Matin is listed as president of a then-new American Muslim Alliance (AMA) chapter in Fort Pierce in a July 1997 announcement archived by the IPT.
The AMA sponsored several radical conferences in the U.S. and its leader, Agha Saeed, has spoken in defense of convicted terrorists, including Aafia Siddiqui (a.k.a “Lady al-Qaida”), Palestinian Islamic Jihad board member Sami Al-Arian, and Pakistani intelligence lobbyist Ghulam Nabi Fai.
The Fort Pierce chapter is among 10 new AMA chapters opened, the announcement in an AMA bulletin says.
AMA was incorporated as a nonprofit organization in California in 1994 “to educate the Muslim community and others on the history and laws of the United States and on affirmative participation in civic activities on a non-partisan basis.” AMA’s political activist wing, the American Muslim Political Coordinating Council (AMPCC), includes leading Islamist organizations in the U.S. including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the American Muslim Council (AMC).
AMA no longer exists as a registered nonprofit and it last filed tax returns in 2010. But the organization continues to maintain an active Facebook account. In its posts, the AMA refuses to consider any Islamist motivation for the attack and lays the blame for Omar Mateen’s massacre which killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub solely on the country’s lax gun laws.
The organization has a history of working with radical Islamist groups and has issued statements in support of several terrorists later convicted in the U.S. The FBI cut off outreach communication with CAIR, for example, after uncovering evidence placing the organization and its leaders in a U.S.-based Hamas-support network.
In October 2000, AMA co-sponsored a rally in Washington’s Lafayette Park where AMC’s then-executive director Abdurahman Alamoudi announced his support for Hamas and Hizballah.
In 2004, Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in prison for illegal financial dealings with Libya. He also confessed to taking part in a Libyan plot to assassinate then-crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
In 2003, Saeed testified on Al-Arian’s behalf, describing the man who ran “the active arm” of Palestinian Islamic Jihad as “my friend and during the last ten years we have worked together to mainstream American politics. We have worked together to replace the culture of despair with culture of hope and the culture of bullet with the culture of ballot.” AMA’s website also featured a section entitled “Valiant Civil Rights Struggle of Dr. Sami Al Arian.”
Saeed also penned an op-ed along with CAIR’s then-national board chairman Parvez Ahmed that called for Al-Arian’s release from prison during a subsequent contempt case. The op-ed criticized U.S. counterterrorism efforts claiming “the saga of Dr. Sami Al-Arian is a repeat of past incidents in American history in which our government targeted individuals using unconstitutional and un-American tactics.”
Saeed advocated “armed resistance” at a 1999 Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in Chicago: “United Nations has a resolution…which says… people in Palestine have the right to resist their oppression by using all means including armed resistance….” Saeed was featured as a guest speaker at Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) conventions. Evidence unearthed in a Hamas-financing trial in Dallas, showed IAP served as a propaganda machine for the terrorist group in the U.S.
At AMA’s 7th Annual National Convention in October 2002, Agha Saeed indirectly blamed the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks. Osama bin Laden was contemptible, he said. “But I would like to say very respectfully, who brought Osama bin Laden from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan? Who gave him million[s] of dollars? Who trained him in [the] science of war, death and destruction, deception and deceit? Who gave protection to his cause and diplomatic coverage to his enterprise? Was it not President Reagan, when he had to see mujahideen at the White House, he said, ‘When I meet you I feel as if I am in the company of the founding fathers of this country?'”
Years after working with AMA and its Islamist allies, the senior Mateen, who hosts the Durand Jirga Show from California on the YouTube channel Payam-e-Afghan, has been reported to be an ideological supporter of the Taliban. He can be seen in one video declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. In another video, Mateen can be seen praising the Afghan Taliban and referring to the terrorist group as “our warrior brothers,” the Washington Post reports.
While little information is known about Seddique Mateen’s work with the AMA, the 1997 newsletter shows the Orlando shooter’s father has worked for years with some of the most visible and radical Islamists in the United States.
Real Refugee Numbers, UN Report, Solution
Global forced displacement hits record high
UNHCR Global Trends report finds 65.3 million people, or one person in 113, were displaced from their homes by conflict and persecution in 2015.
GENEVA, June 20 (UNHCR) – Wars and persecution have driven more people from their homes than at any time since UNHCR records began, according to a new report released today by the UN Refugee Agency.
The report, entitled Global Trends, noted that on average 24 people were forced to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people fled every 60 seconds.
The detailed study, which tracks forced displacement worldwide based on data from governments, partner agencies and UNHCR’s own reporting, found a total 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just 12 months earlier.
“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying each year. On land, people fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders.”
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi
It is the first time in the organization’s history that the threshold of 60 million has been crossed.
“More people are being displaced by war and persecution and that’s worrying in itself, but the factors that endanger refugees are multiplying too,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying each year; on land, people fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders. Closing borders does not solve the problem.”
Forced displacement has been on the rise since at least the mid-1990s in most regions, but over the past five years the rate has increased.
The reasons are threefold:
- conflicts that cause large refugee outflows, like Somalia and Afghanistan – now in their third and fourth decade respectively – are lasting longer;
- dramatic new or reignited conflicts and situations of insecurity are occurring more frequently. While today’s largest is Syria, wars have broken out in the past five years in South Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Ukraine and Central African Republic, while thousands more people have fled raging gang and other violence in Central America;
- the rate at which solutions are being found for refugees and internally displaced people has been on a falling trend since the end of the Cold War, leaving a growing number in limbo.
“We’re stuck here. We can’t go on and we can’t go back,” said Hikmat, a Syrian farmer driven from his land by war, now living in tent outside a shopping centre in Lebanon with his wife and young children. “My children need to go to school, they need a future,” he added.
The study found that three countries produce half the world’s refugees. Syria at 4.9 million, Afghanistan at 2.7 million and Somalia at 1.1 million together accounted for more than half the refugees under UNHCR’s mandate worldwide. Colombia at 6.9 million, Syria at 6.6 million and Iraq at 4.4 million had the largest numbers of internally displaced people. Read the full report here.
**** Related reading: Record 65.3 million people displaced, often face barriers: UNHCR
Related reading: More than 80,000 civilians have escaped Fallujah in anti-ISIS fight, UN reports
Part of a solution is offered and viable.
The United States and its closest partner in Syria, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), have worked closely together to take territory from the Islamic State. The PYD’s militia—the People’s Protection Units (YPG)—is the most dominant group in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This partnership relies on a small number of American special operations forces (SOF) to embed with the SDF to leverage the benefits of airpower to take territory. This approach is based on the United States’ recent experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, where a small number of ground forces allowed for local militias to rapidly take territory.
As the anti-ISIL coalition and its Kurdish majority partner begins the campaign to force ISIL from Raqqa, its capital, concurrent efforts to defeat the group in the Manbij pocket – the stretch of Islamic State controlled territory between the cities of Marea and Manbij near the Turkish-Syrian border – will gain in importance. The taking of Raqqa city will ultimately require four interlinked efforts. First, the continued SDF-led efforts to take territory in northern Raqqa province, beginning with a southward push from strongholds near Ain Issa and just north of Raqqa city. Second, the American and Jordanian supported “New Syrian Army” continue its move north towards the town of Al Bukamal, an ISIL controlled town in the Euphrates River Valley on the Iraqi-Syrian border. The SDF continues to push south from Markadah, outside of Ash Shaddadi. Finally, a force will also have to close the Manbij pocket to deny ISIL freedom of movement from strongholds on the western flank to reinforce positions in and around its capital city.
The strategy to clear the Manbij pocket, however, remains hampered by Turkish concerns about the YPG and the United States’ decision not to embed special operators with the Arab and Turkmen groups active in the area. ISIL has taken advantage of this disagreement, attacking villages between Azaz and Marea, cutting the last remaining Arab majority opposition territory in two. To increase the effectiveness of operations in the Manbij pocket, the United States should consider restarting a train-and-equip program, designed to fit a narrow mission set: relaying coordinates to the coalition for more effective targeting in the area to take Raqqa. This program would have to first focus on defeating ISIL positions near Azaz and Marea, before beginning to push the group further east.
Revising a Failed Train-and-Equip Program
The first iteration of the train-and-equip program sought to create an entirely new rebel brigade, Division 30, trained in Turkey to fight the Islamic State exclusively. Washington insistence that this force refrain from fighting the Assad regime was incongruent with the military goals of the opposition. At the same time, Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, was present in the area and viewed the introduction of U.S. trained fighters as a threat to its power. While the program was cancelled following al-Nusra’s seizure of Division 30 equipment, in an overlooked success, Division 30 was able to call in U.S. airstrikes when it came under attack from al-Nusra. An updated program should build upon this limited success.
Since the failure of the program, the YPG has remained the closest U.S. partner in Syria’s civil war. This relationship, however, is complicated by the YPG’s direct links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terrorist group that has waged an insurgency against the Turkish government for close to three decades, first with the aim of carving out an independent Kurdistan and now to achieve so-called democratic autonomy. The YPG-PKK linkage ultimately poses longer-term problems for the American relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally since 1952, as they fight a renewed bloody counterinsurgency campaign in their southeastern provinces. Read more here from WotR.
