Life in Raqqa, Syria After Islamic State is Defeated

Posted on October 24, 2017October 24, 2017 by Denise Simon

While the United States and coalition forces were providing military support in many forms to the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Democratic Forces to destroy Islamic State, Russia has officially declared the exclusive victory.

Further, against the countless pro-Assad factions including Iranian militia and Russian forces, Bashir al Assad will remain in power and adhere to all edits from Moscow and Tehran.

The history city of Aleppo fell to Islamic State but such was not going to be the case again for Raqqa, the declared home for the terror group. Christians, Alawites and Druze all lived in Raqqa.

Yet how do Syrians and children find life and normalcy upon their return to Raqqa?

What remains is a modern day Hitleresque condition of destruction.

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RAQQA, Syria—The municipal soccer stadium here was always called “The Black Stadium” because of its dark concrete construction, but that name took on a whole new meaning when it became an arena for horror under the rule of the so-called Islamic State.

Today, ISIS is gone and the bleachers are draped with the flags of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This was the final redoubt of a handful of ISIS fighters, and when it fell last Friday, victory over that terror organization in its de facto capital was declared complete. But much of the city is destroyed, and for the few people who’ve made it back, memories of what life here was like are hard to retrieve.

“Before, we would play football matches here, before it came under Daesh [ISIS] control,” Issa Xabur, a 42-year-old civilian who once lived in Raqqa, told The Daily Beast as we explored precincts where the spectacle of death replaced the spectacle of sport. “The stadium became known for beheading people,” said Xabur. “It was used as a prison. Eighty percent of the people that were imprisoned here were killed.”

In the locker rooms, showers, and gym beneath the stadium, ISIS created cells and torture chambers for its feared security arm, known as the Amni.

One can still find graffiti written by prisoners and fighters. Some of it is in Russian, some in Arabic, some in English.

On one shattered wall, we read that “Hussam Alkjwan was killed in 25/2/2016.” We don’t know why. Beneath it in broken English, perhaps written by a jailer, is a list of reasons why someone could be arrested:

If you are reading this there’s four main reasons why you are Here!

1-You did the crime and caught Red Handed!

2-Using Tweeder [Twitter] GPS Locations! Or having GPS Locations switched upon turned ‘ON’ the Mobile Phone

3-Uploading videos and photos from a Sensitive Wifi internet source, i.e. You need your Amirs permission

4-A suspect! Off the street! The Police have good reason to do this!

It didn’t matter what you did or did not do, the ISIS police had “good reason” to bring you in.

And it didn’t matter that you might be waiting in this hole to die. You were supposed to keep the faith:

Be Patience, Be Patience, Be Patience!

The Enemy of the Muslims, Sataan will do every Whispering while [unclear]

Trust in Allah and lots of remembering of Allah, Dua [prayers] to Allah! …

Issa Xabur himself was arrested several times by ISIS and spent five days in this Black Stadium prison. “I couldn’t talk to anyone,” he told The Daily Beast. “They were hitting people with tires, and hanging people from the roof. People from Tunisia were responsible for torturing,” he said.

In the prison beneath the stadium we see iron cables and plastic straps used to tie people down. Other reporters have come across primitive exercise machines turned into bloodied instruments of torture. And in these dark corridors, mingled with the smell of dust and concrete, there is still the smell of human death.

“People were arrested when they were accused of being unbelievers, or of dealing with the coalition or the regime,” Xabur said.

Then, suddenly it’s evident that journalists are not the only ones interested in visiting the liberated stadium.

“Who are you working for?” demands a local SDF commander who seems to come out of nowhere. I am told to switch off my camera, and three soldiers in U.S. uniforms come into the prison to check it out. A few hours later, another group of U.S. soldiers arrives at the Black Stadium with cameras and a video drone.

Zagros, a Kurdish fighter with the SDF, sees a certain irony in all this U.S. military tourism. “The U.S. soldiers did not fight in the city of Raqqa,” he tells me. They provided support from behind the lines. “Now they come to see the prison.”

The situation for civilians in the last days of the Raqqa campaign was very difficult.

“We went as a group to a Daesh leader, who told us if you leave, we will kill you,” said Walid, 45, as we talked in a mosque. “There was no water or food, and we drank water that was not suitable for drinking,” he added.

“Whenever ISIS left a house, they booby-trapped it. My wife and mother died, but I am still alive. We were not allowed to leave during the liberation campaign.”

Ali, 21, is in the Ain al Issa refugee camp. He left Raqqa months ago after being imprisoned more than 10 times by ISIS, he says.

“I saw them killing the people with my own eyes. They tortured people, cut their hands, and heads,” he said.

By some accounts, in the final days of battle, after many Syrian members of ISIS were allowed out of the city under a truce, the few dozen foreign fighters in the Black Stadium held hundreds, or even thousands, of people as human shields. Ali thinks that the captured foreign fighters that held civilians hostage should be executed.

“They should be killed, because if they return [to their home countries], they will create problems as they did here,” he said.

ISIS flyers scattered around the city already are covered with dust, but they are easy enough to read. They show the many punishments ISIS carried out for spying, homosexuality, and theft.

Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, the official spokesperson for the SDF Raqqa campaign, left Raqqa before it came under ISIS control. “But my family lived for two years under Daesh rule,” she says. “It was a nightmare for them and for the people. [They] could not breathe freely or live freely. The children could not play in the street, and they terrorized the people by cutting their heads and thus imposing themselves in the name of the caliphate.”

The Black Stadium was not the only venue for atrocity. There was also Naim Square in the heart of the city.

“I was from Raqqa,” said a woman SDF commander during a celebration of the city’s liberation by women fighters in Naim Square. In the old days, she said, “we were coming to Naim Square to eat ice cream and take a walk. But after Daesh came here and announced its ‘state’ in this place, they spread killing among the people and instilled terror among them. Moreover, they brought children to watch the killings to terrorize their hearts.”

Nearby wrought iron fences were used like the pikes of old, to hold severed heads.

ISIS also enslaved many Yazidi women when they captured the town of Sinjar in August 2014. The region was the heartland of the non-Muslim minority. A few dozen of them were liberated in Raqqa when the SDF came in.

“They [ISIS] brought Yazidi women to Raqqa, to sell them here, kill our people, and cut off their hands and hang them here,” said the woman commander.

Even some ISIS wives who are now being held in a refugee camp in Ain al Issa feel sorry for the Yazidi women.

Aisha Khadad, a Syrian English teacher, was married to an imprisoned French ISIS member and said she rarely saw a slave out in the open in Raqqa. “They were sold to the emirs,” she said, and the emirs live mostly in Iraq.

“I was so sad for them,” Khadad told The Daily Beast. “Suddenly a man comes to your house who wants to rape you and use you as a slave.” And under the ISIS regime he had every right to do that.

SDF spokesperson Jihan Sheikh Ahmed now promises that they will change the mentality of the people of Raqqa who lived through these horrors.

“We want to return the children to their childhood, and when we beat Daesh, the hope of life is beginning to grow in the people again, and we want the people to understand that Daesh will never return, and when life returns to Raqqa, many things will change,” she said.

However, she added that it could take time for civilians to return. “They [ISIS] planted a lot of mines here, so we will form a military zone for two months to remove the mines, and then we start rebuilding the city,” she concluded.

When leaving the city, I could still see the human bones of victims of ISIS that were executed near the clock tower in Raqqa, and an ISIS flag still was flying over a destroyed building near the clock tower. And it made me think, “Even time will not erase all the wounds here.”

McCain/Graham Knew About Niger

Posted on October 24, 2017October 24, 2017 by Denise Simon

McCain and Graham both stated they were unaware of the operations in Niger, much less the other countries located in West Africa. The United States has an estimated 7000 troops operating in about 50 countries in Africa. Militant Islam has no boundaries globally.

The mission of both Islamic State, al Qaeda and associated terror groups is to embed soldiers, sympathizers and moles in villages across various regions globally where they know the United States is operating with intelligence teams, hearts and minds missions and train and assist operations. The enemy knows these operations well due to previous tactics and operations in both Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

U.S. troops often pay village elders and chieftans for information or clues in efforts to locate specific terrorist soldiers or to validate intelligence.

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Such was the case in Niger. Predictions are such that Morocco and the Sinai are worse.

U.S. officials increasingly believe that the military unit ambushed by an Islamic State militant group (ISIS) affiliate in Niger was attacked as the result of being set up by people in a village sympathetic to local jihadis.

Details about the October 4 attack that left four U.S. soldiers—all Green Berets—dead are only now being revealed.

The militants were likely tipped off by at least one accomplice who may have lived within the local population, U.S. officials briefed on the case told NBC News. Almou Hassane, the mayor of the village in question, Tongo Tongo, told Voice of America that “the attackers, the bandits, the terrorists have never lacked accomplices among local populations.”

Nigerien authorities have detained the chief of the village, Mounkaila Alassane, adding to the suspicion that the dozens of ISIS-affiliated militants who attacked the unit had prior information about the soldiers’ movements.

A joint U.S. and Nigerien patrol spent the evening near the Malian border before the attack. Local reports indicate that the purpose of their mission may have been to locate an associate of Abu Adnan al-Sahraoui, a member of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISGS, the affiliate suspected of the ambush.

“They must have spent the night in the northwest of Tongo Tongo,” Hassane said.

The soldiers met with elders of the village, which they knew was likely sympathetic toward ISIS, and officials told NBC News that villagers made efforts to delay the Green Berets’ departure.

When the soldiers left the village in unarmored vehicles, dozens of jihadis launched a sneak attack with machine-gun fire and then mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The soldiers exited their vehicles and started to fire back, but were outnumbered and outgunned. They tried to retreat but were ambushed again a mile away.

On Monday, General Joseph Dunford, the U.S. military’s top officer, said he wanted to uncover what happened, for the public and for the relatives of those killed in the attack.

“We owe you more information; more importantly, we owe the families of the fallen more information,” Dunford said. “Did the mission change? It’s a fair question.”

He said the troops did not call for help from French special forces until an hour after coming into contact with the enemy in Niger. He said a U.S. drone responded in “minutes” but did not fire. He would not comment on whether it was armed or not.

“I make no judgment as to how long it took them to ask for support,” Dunford said. “I don’t know that they thought they needed support prior to that time. I don’t know how this attack unfolded. I don’t know what their initial assessment was of what they were confronted with.”

French jets arrived one hour after the call for assistance but did not strike because they did not have accurate intelligence about the combatants on the battlefield and were not liaising with the U.S. military. Dunford said at present there was no indication that the soldiers were acting outside their remit or orders from their superiors.

“I don’t have any indication right now to believe or to know that they did anything other than operate within the orders that they were given,” Dunford said. “That’s what the investigation’s all about. So I think anyone that speculates about what special operations forces did or didn’t do is doing exactly that—they’re speculating.”

The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara is a relatively new and local branch of ISIS that has conducted several small attacks in the region, particularly in Burkina Faso, which neighbors Niger. The jihadi affiliate gave its allegiance to ISIS and the group accepted its bayah, or pledge, in October 2016.

The ISIS affiliate in the area that stretches across six African countries from Senegal to Chad is overshadowed by more dominant radical Islamist groups, in this case Al-Qaeda’s affiliates—Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine and Al-Mourabitoun.

UN/Harvard Comprehensive WMD Programs in N Korea/ISIS

Posted on October 23, 2017October 23, 2017 by Denise Simon

Primer:

A North Korean mining firm, reputed to be a front for Pyongyang’s weapons development programs, attempted to ship materiel to Syrian officials tied to the country’s chemical weapons program, according to a confidential United Nations assessment of international sanctions against the North.

Details of the U.N. findings, first reported by Reuters, found officials from Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation {KOMID) had sent a pair of shipments of unknown contents to members of Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre or SSRC. The Syrian government organization has been responsible for developing chemical and biological weapons for regime in Damascus since the 1970’s.

The shipments never arrived in Syria after being intercepted by international authorities from U.N. partner nations, Reuters reports. “Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria,” the U.N. review states.

KOMID has repeatedly trafficked in materials associated with ballistic missile development and other conventional arms programs, and was blacklisted by the U.N. security council as a result of those activities, Reuters reports.

As a result, the U.N. “is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and [North Korea],” the report states. More here.

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Quoting the South Korean Defense Ministry, it said: ‘North Korea has 13 types of biological weapons agents which it can weaponize within ten days, and anthrax and smallpox are the likely agents it would deploy.’

***

Harvard produced a report with the summary in part that reads:

Amidst the growing threat of North Korea’s nuclear program, the assas-

sination of Kim Jong-Un’s half-brother via VX nerve agent in February

2017 brought renewed interest in North Korea’s other weapons of

mass destruction (WMD) programs—chemical and biological weap-

ons. If used on a large scale, these weapons can cause not only tens of

thousands of deaths, but also create panic and paralyze societies. Nev-

ertheless, the vividness of the nuclear threat has overshadowed other

weapons programs, limiting the attention and policy input that they

deserve. This paper focuses on North Korea’s biological weapons (BW).

Accurately assessing the threat from North Korea’s biological weapons

is challenging. Whereas North Korea has publicly declared its will to

become a nuclear power many times, it has been less overt about its

intention or capability for biological weapons. BW capabilities are

inherently hard to detect and measure. While nuclear programs can

be monitored by the number of nuclear tests and the success of missile

tests, weaponizing and cultivating pathogens can stay invisible behind

closed doors. Moreover, equipment used for BW production are often

dual-use for agriculture, making external monitoring and verification

virtually impossible. Limited information on North Korea’s BW pro-

gram leads to a low threat perception that may undermine preparation

and response efforts. The full 46 page report is here.

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A German newspaper reported last week that at least one European intelligence agency has already warned that the Islamic State is exploring the use of chemicals for attacks in Europe. Such an eventuality would be a radical departure from prior attacks by the Islamic State in the West. In the past, the militant group has shown a strong preference for low-tech means of dispensing violence, such as firearms, vehicles and knives. But it has utilized chemical substances in Iraq and Syria, and its technical experts have amassed significant knowledge about weaponized chemicals.

Last week, several European and American counter-terrorism experts participated in a bioterrorism preparedness exercise in Berlin. Codenamed WUNDERBAUM, the exercise was one of several anti-terrorism drills that have taken place in the German capital this year alone. But last week’s drill was the first with an exclusive focus on preparing for a bioterrorist attack. German authorities insisted that the drill was not sparked by concrete intelligence of a pending biological or chemical attack. But the Berlin-based national newspaper Die Welt claimed on Friday that it had information about at least one such warning by a European intelligence agency. The paper did not name the agency, but said that “a foreign intelligence agency” had warned European security authorities of a possible terrorist attack by the Islamic State using chemical weapons. According to Die Welt, the warning was “explicit” and cautioned that the Sunni militant group may be preparing to use improvised bombs utilizing chemicals, including toxic gasses. The warning was communicated to European intelligence agencies, including Germany’s said Die Welt.

How likely is such a scenario? Terrorist groups tend to be conservative in their use of lethal technologies. They typically opt for time-tested methods using explosives or firearms, because these have a higher of success in comparison to more sophisticated, hi-tech weapons. The latter are also more expensive to build and require scientific and technical capabilities that are not typically available to terrorist organizations. Militants are usually strapped for cash, and are not science-savvy, so exceptions to this general trend are rare. But the Islamic State is different. Ever since it made its eventful appearance in 2013, the group has experimented with a variety of chemicals, including nerve agents. It is known that it initiated a modest chemical weapons program, headed by Iraqi engineers who were trained under Iraq’s late ruler, Saddam Hussein. One of them, Abu Malik, was killed in an American airstrike in early 2015. Another, Sleiman Daoud al-Afari, who headed the Islamic State’s chemical weapons program, was captured by US Special Forces in northern Iraq in March of last year.

The Islamic State’s rapid loss of territory in the past year has delivered serious blows to the group’s military infrastructure. Its chemical weapons program, which was targeted early on by the US, Iran and other belligerents, is now almost certainly defunct. But many of its engineers and technical experts are still at large, as are those who were trained by them during the group’s heyday in Iraq and Syria. Despite its continuing retreat, the Islamic State is still capable of employing chemicals that are relatively easy to procure, such as chlorine, hydrogen sulfide, or even various fertilizers, to construct explosives or nerve agents. Last summer, members of a terrorist cell with connections to the Islamic State were arrested in Sydney, Australia. By the time they were arrested, they had already procured significant quantities of hydrogen sulfide and had even tested the chemical, in an apparent preparation for a large-scale attack.

The Australian case shows that the Islamic State is not averse to the tactical use of chemical weapons in terrorist attacks. As the militant group’s self-proclaimed caliphate is disintegrating, and its leaders feel like they have nothing left to lose, the deployment of unconventional terrorist technologies should not be excluded as a tactical option for the organization. Western counter-terrorism officials should actively and immediately prepare for such an eventuality.

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Under 9/11 Edit Air Force Can Recall 1K Retired Pilots

Posted on October 22, 2017October 22, 2017 by Denise Simon

President Bush signed the Executive Order under the emergency powers act to recall retired officers. Other presidents have done the same. President Trump amended GW Bush’s executive order removing the caps of 25.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force says it doesn’t plan on using new flexibility under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to address a pilot shortage by recalling retired pilots.

Ann Stefanek, the chief of Air Force media operations, said Sunday the added power provided by Trump is appreciated but the Air Force does not “currently intend to recall retired pilots.”

*** There still is a major issue with the number of flight ready aircraft and the shortage of Predator drones including drone controllers.

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The Trump administration is giving the Air Force the option to return through voluntary programs as many as 1,000 retired pilots to active-duty service, the Pentagon announced.

Through an executive order signed Friday, the measure gives the service more leverage as it attempts to combat the growing pilot shortage in its ranks.

“The Air Force is grateful for additional authority as it works to address its pilot shortage,” Air Force spokeswoman Erika Yepsen said in a statement.

“We can’t provide specific details about how we will implement this new authority until we receive guidance from the secretary of defense [Jim Mattis],” Yepsen said.

“However, as the Air Force pursues a variety of initiatives to counter the shortage, it will take care to balance new accessions with voluntary programs for retired and senior pilots to ensure the service maintains a balance of experienced aviators throughout the coming years,” she said.

Officials stress that returning to active duty is strictly voluntary, and the service does not intend to implement a stop-loss measure.

“This is an amendment to an existing authority we already had,” an Air Force official told Military.com on background Friday.

“We have authorities for a whole bunch of things — doesn’t mean we use them,” the official said during a telephone call.

And the measure may not be as advantageous as it may seem.

“To recall pilots to active duty, we have a zero sum game … the training pipeline is finite,” the official said.

“A [pilot] training seat is a training seat. I don’t think this will do us some good unless you can bring people on for staff jobs [too],” the official said.

That’s because — even with the latest measure — the service doesn’t intend to put older pilots back in the cockpit.

“We can’t get 20-plus years out of an old guy the way you could with a new guy,” the official said.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein have said the service was 1,555 pilots short by fiscal 2016, including 1,211 total force fighter pilots.

As a result, the Air Force laid out plans earlier this month to welcome back retired pilots into active-duty staff positions.

The service, through the Voluntary Retired Return to Active Duty Program, or VRRAD, encourages pilots who had held a job in the 11X career field to apply before Dec. 31, 2018.

In an effort to address the increasing pilot shortage, Wilson in July signed off on the program, which aims to fill flight staff positions with those who have prior pilot experience and expertise, thus allowing active-duty pilots to focus on training and missions.

Pilots under the age of 60 who retired within the last five years in the rank of captain, major or lieutenant colonel can apply for VRRAD. The Air Force wants to fill 25 positions for an active-duty tour of one year.

Other initiatives the service is — and has repeatedly been — trying: bonuses.

The Air Force this summer announced it is increasing its flight incentive pay and aviation bonus programs — with bonuses of up to $455,000 over 13 years for some fighter pilots.

The bulk of initiatives come at a time when the Air Force is losing many pilots to the commercial aviation industry.

Veterans Sue U.S. Firms’ Bribes Funded Iraq Militia

Posted on October 18, 2017October 18, 2017 by Denise Simon

Suit: U.S. Firms’ Bribes Funded Iraq Militia Attacks on Americans

WASHINGTON — A group of American veterans filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against U.S. and European drug companies and medical device makers, accusing them of supporting an Iran-backed Iraqi militia that killed and wounded hundreds of Americans.

The suit is filed under a law that allows Americans injured by terrorism overseas to seek civil damages. The more than 100 plaintiffs include injured U.S. Iraq war veterans and their families. The defendants are either parent companies or subsidiaries of AstraZeneca plc (AZN); Johnson & Johnson (JNJ); Pfizer Inc. (PFE); Roche Holding AG (RHHBY); and the General Electric Company (GE).

The 203-page lawsuit accuses the companies of paying bribes to officials of Iraq’s health ministry that benefited the Mahdi Army, an Iranian-backed militia that the suit says worked closely with Hezbollah, a Lebanese group that has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Iraqi Shiites of the Mahdi Army militia loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr vow to fight ISIS in a show of strength in a military parade on June 21, 2014 in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, Iraq.Scott Peterson / Getty Images file

The companies sold Iraq’s government-run healthcare system millions of dollars worth of drugs and medical devices, and paid the bribes, the suit alleges, as a cost of doing business.