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Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate
It is stunning, that not only has John Kerry declared that upon the completed talks and agreement(s) with Iran, Iran would normalized and be a peaceful accepted actor on the global stage, but it is easy to conclude that during the hostilities with Islamic State in Iraq, the West has essentially given Iraq over to Iran. The Baghdad government is owned by Tehran. Mentioning the billions of dollars, much of it U.S. taxpayer dollars to Iran is almost anti-climatic at this point, when the notion of Iran operating globally with terror is a rightful prediction in the coming months and years. The United States has financially aided Iraq with billions of dollars and with more than 100,000 Iranian Shiite fighters in Iraq, how do we keep our money meant for Iraq out of the hands of Iran? We don’t.
There is much talk that Saudi Arabia was behind the attacks of 9/11, while there are key Saudi operators that do deserve a guilty outcome, Iran has an much if not more history and responsibility when it comes to al Qaeda.
Could this another reasons be the basis for the decision not to publically release all the bin Ladin documents found at his compound in Abbottabad?
U.S. blacklists three al Qaeda members living in Iran
Reuters: The United States on Wednesday blacklisted three members of al Qaeda living in Iran, saying they had helped the Islamist militant group on the battlefield, with finance and logistics, and in mediating with Iranian authorities.
Iran has held several al Qaeda high-ranking members and lower-level militants since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, though U.S. officials say the precise conditions of their confinement are unclear.
Faisal Jassim Mohammed al-Amri al-Khalidi, a 31-year-old Saudi national, led an al Qaeda brigade and was serving as the group’s military commission chief in May 2015, Treasury said, describing him as “part of a new generation” of al Qaeda operatives. As of 2011, Khalidi liaised between al Qaeda associates, central council members, and leaders within the Pakistani Taliban.
Yisra Muhammad Ibrahim Bayumi, 48 and an Egyptian national, mediated with Iranian authorities as of early 2015, Treasury said, and helped al Qaeda members living in Iran.
Abu Bakr Muhammad Muhammad Ghumayn, 35, had control of the group’s financing and organization inside Iran as of 2015, Treasury said. Ghumayn, an Algerian, was previously based in Pakistan.
Al Qaeda and Iran’s government have a complex and sometimes tense relationship, according to documents seized from Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan and made public. At times Iranian authorities promised to release and may have actually released al Qaeda figures, but one of bin Laden’s sons who had been held in Iran, Saad, reportedly was killed in 2009.
Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim rulers deny cooperating with al Qaeda, a Sunni group. Iranian officials call al Qaeda a terrorist group, and Iranian security forces periodically report the arrest of al Qaeda members.
An analysis by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point published in 2012 concluded that while it was obvious the al Qaeda-Iran relationship was antagonistic, the rationale behind Iran’s detention of al Qaeda militants for years “without due process” was unclear.
Treasury’s statement did not make clear what conditions the men were living under in Iran. Bayumi has been in Iran since 2014, Treasury said, but it did not say how long the other two men had lived there. Bayumi had been able to secure funds from Syria for al Qaeda members and facilitate al Qaeda funds transfers in 2015, Treasury said, suggesting he had some freedom to operate since moving to Iran.
Wednesday’s measure freezes any property of the three men in the United States, and bars U.S. citizens from dealing with them.
Iran Released Top Members of Al Qaeda in a Trade
NYT: The government of Iran released five senior members of Al Qaeda earlier this year, including the man who stepped in to serve as the terrorist group’s interim leader immediately after Osama bin Laden’s death, and who is the subject of a $5 million bounty, according to an American official who had been briefed on the matter.
The Iranian government, in a statement on Thursday after the release was reported by Sky News earlier this week, denied that the five men had been freed. The American official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the matter, confirmed the release of Saif al-Adl, a senior member of Al Qaeda’s ruling body, known as the Shura Council, who oversaw the organization immediately after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in Pakistan in 2011.
Analysts tracking Al Qaeda described the release as alarming, given the seniority of the five men. It comes at a time when much of the organization’s leadership has been lost in back-to-back airstrikes, including the death earlier this summer of Nasser al-Wuhayshi, considered to be the organization’s general manager. At the same time, the organization had been hemorrhaging members to the more brutal and media-savvy Islamic State.
The release of the men could re-energize the militant group, providing an influx of vetted leaders at a crucial time, terrorism experts say.
Of special concern is the release of Mr. Adl, a former colonel in the Egyptian military believed to be in his 50s, who is listed on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, and who was indicted in the 1998 United States Embassy bombings in East Africa. Qaeda operatives have described him as the organization’s operational boss.
A passport photo of Saif al-Adl.Credit via Kronos Advisory LLC
Cynthia Storer, who was the Central Intelligence Agency’s first full-time analyst dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, called him a “founding father.” She added, “If the organization is having internal issues, he is someone that could bring it together.”
A Qaeda analyst, Michael S. Smith II of Kronos Advisory, who has tracked Mr. Adl’s rise, describes him as “the biggest fish of the big fish” and argued that Al Qaeda’s future would rest on the shoulders of Saif al-Adl.
It remains unclear when exactly the swap occurred, with some saying it happened almost six months ago. The release of Mr. Adl will act like “a shot of energy” in the leadership arm of Al Qaeda, said Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who retired last year after heading the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“The collusion between Al Qaeda and Iran is something we have seen before and this trade, if known by the U.S., should have been included as part of the Iran deal negotiations,” General Flynn said.
According to the official briefed on the details of the transfer, the other four men released by Iran were Abdul Khayr al-Misri, an Egyptian who formerly headed Al Qaeda’s foreign relations council; Abul Qassam, a Jordanian who was a deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the organization that later became the Islamic State; Sari Shibab, a Jordanian operative; and Abu Mohamed al-Misri, an Egyptian who helped orchestrate Al Qaeda’s major attacks before Sept. 11, 2001.
After those attacks, Mr. Smith, said, Al Qaeda decided to move several high-level leaders to Iran, believing that this would be one of the only places beyond America’s military reach.
Mr. Adl, for example, was dispatched alongside one of bin Laden’s wives and her children, and entrusted to organize their safe passage, he said.
It remains unclear when the men were detained by Iranian officials. They were held under house arrest, Mr. Smith said, and continued to communicate with Al Qaeda, according to intercepts and letters that were later recovered.
US says it destroyed Islamic State chemical threat in Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP)– American warplanes eliminated a “significant chemical threat” to Iraqi civilians by bombing a complex of buildings near the northern city of Mosul that Islamic State militants had converted from pharmaceutical manufacturing to chemical weapons production, the three-star general in charge of U.S. air operations in the Middle East said Tuesday.
Photo: DailyMail
Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian told reporters at the Pentagon that the target was an Islamic State headquarters also used to produce lethal chemicals, possibly including chlorine and mustard gas. He provided no details on the chemical production.
Harrigian described the airstrike as a large, well-planned operation, which destroyed more than 50 targets at the site with a variety of U.S. warplanes, including Air Force B-52 bombers and Marine Corps F-18D attack planes. Other U.S. officials said later that a total of 12 U.S. planes were used.
Harrigian said the mission was part of a broader effort to cut off the Islamic State’s main sources of revenue, kill their leaders and create “organizational dysfunction” in ways that will eliminate the group as a military threat in Iraq and Syria.
Meanwhile:
Hezbollah “secretly” deploying in Quneitra: report
A pro-rebel outlet claims that Hezbollah fighters have taken up positions in the province along the Israeli border under the guise of being local militiamen.
BEIRUT – Hezbollah has allegedly started to “secretly” deploy its members to Quneitra to replace regime troops stationed in the province near the Golan demarcation line with Israel, according to a pro-opposition outlet.
Al-Etihad press reported Thursday that pro-regime troops in Madinat al-Baath and Khan Arnabeh—both government strongholds northeast of the rebel-held Quneitra border crossing—were being “withdrawn in batches” for redeployment near the western Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.
The outlet’s report mirrored that of local correspondent Omar al-Joulani, who reported on Tuesday that pro-regime forces as well as Hezbollah withdrew a number of their combatants and tanks from the two Quneitra province towns.
However, Al-Etihad press cited local sources as saying that Hezbollah members “came out with the regime forces in public,” but returned in secret to positions under the guise of being local militiamen.
“Hezbollah fighters… returned under the name of the Golan Regiment,” the sources claimed, in reference to the predominantly Druze force that fights under the banner of the regime’s auxiliary National Defense Force.
On Monday, Iran’s Fars News reported that Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces are readying a major offensive against rebels along the Golan demarcation line with Israel.
Syrian military sources said that Hezbollah deployed fighters “in the vicinity of the Quneitra border crossing.”
“[Hezbollah] aims to put an end to the presence of armed men in the area close to the border,” the sources told the Iranian outlet.
The Fars News report comes after the leader of Iran’s paramilitary Basij force, General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, toured Syria’s border with Israel near Quneitra in July, the first such visit of a top-ranking official from Tehran to be publicized in Iranian media.
Cross-border incidents
In past weeks, pro-regime forces have bombarded rebel positions in Al-Hamidiyah and other rebel-held villages along the Golan border near the Quneitra crossing, with a number of mortar rounds hitting Israel, prompting Tel Aviv to launch retaliatory strikes on at least five occasions.
On July 4, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hit two Syrian army targets in the Golan after stray fire damaged the technical fence stretching across the demarcation line between the two countries in the mountainous region.
Two weeks later, an unmanned aerial vehicle crossed over the border into Israeli territory in the central Golan, prompting Israel to fire two Patriot missiles in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down the drone.
An air-to-air missile fired by an Israeli jet also failed to bring down the drone, which Tel Aviv suspects is Russian-manufactured.
In the latest incident, Israel once again responded to a stray cross-border mortar strike on September 8, hitting a Syrian army target east of the Druze-populated town of Hader in Quneitra, as per Tel Aviv’s standard practice of retaliation to errant fire.
A local pro-Assad fighting force also claimed that Israel conducted a missile strike on one of its convoys in the Quneitra province, although Tel Aviv has made no official comment on the accusation while Syrian state media has also stayed mum.
The Golan Regiment announced on July 28 that two Israeli Nimrod missiles hit one of its positions, but did not name the specific location of the strike.
“The commander of the Golan Regiment’s Fist Battalion, Majid Himoud, escaped the Zionist [strike],” the group, which is part of the Syrian regime’s auxiliary National Defense Force, announced on its official Facebook page.
The militia, which is predominantly Druze, added that Israel fired the missiles from its side of the divided Golan Heights, but did not specify whether the Nimrods were launched from an aircraft or the ground.
It was thought that declassifying and releasing those 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission report would produce the smoking gun that Saudi Arabia was exclusively behind the attacks. While there were some interesting facts and connections, the real proof was not there. In the first order of business since the return from summer break, the House voted along with the Senate approving legislation where victims’ families could sue Saudi Arabia. This puts, Barack Obama in a precarious position with regard to his veto pen. Does he stand with the families or with Saudi Arabia?
We have the answer according to Josh Earnest, the White House spokesperson:
“That is still the plan. The president does plan to veto this legislation,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “I do anticipate the president will veto the legislation when it is presented to him. It hasn’t been presented to him yet.”
The Press Secretary reiterated the White House’s concerns with passing the bill saying, “It’s not hard to imagine other countries using this law as an excuse to haul U.S. diplomats or U.S. service members or even U.S. companies into courts all around the world.”
“The president believes that it’s important to look out for our country, to look out for our service members, to look out for these diplomats and allowing this bill to come into law would increase the risk that it would face,” he continued. More here.
It was al Qaeda that struck America 15 years ago for sure, but Iran and Saudi Arabia had is some measure a hand in training, financial support and harboring key al Qaeda operatives. Meanwhile, the al Qaeda operation is still quite functional and not to be dismissed or under-estimated.
In part from the LWJ: Some US officials argue that al Qaeda has been “decimated” because of the drone campaign and counterterrorism raids. They narrowly focus on the leadership layer of al Qaeda, while ignoring the bigger picture. But even their analysis of al Qaeda’s managers is misleading.
Al Qaeda has lost dozens of key men, but there is no telling how many veterans remain active to this day. Experienced operatives continue to serve in key positions, often returning to the fight after being detained or only revealing their hidden hand when it becomes necessary. Moreover, al Qaeda knew it was going to lose personnel and took steps to groom a new generation of jihadists capable of filling in.
From left to right: Saif al Adel, Abu Mohammed al Masri and Abu Khayr al Masri. These photos, first published by the FBI and US intelligence officials, show the al Qaeda leaders when they were younger.
Last year, several veterans were reportedly released from Iran, where they were held under murky circumstances. One of them was Abu Khayr al Masri, who paved the way for Al Nusrah’s rebranding in July. Another is Saif al Adel, who has long been wanted for his role in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. At least two others freed by Iran, Abu Mohammed al Masri and Khalid al Aruri, returned to al Qaeda as well.
Masri, Al Adel, and Aruri may all be based inside Syria, or move back and forth to the country from Turkey, where other senior members are based. Mohammed Islambouli is an important leader within al Qaeda. After leaving Iran several years ago, Islambouli returned to Egypt and eventually made his way to Turkey, where he lives today.
Sitting to Julani’s right during his much ballyhooed announcement was one of Islambouli’s longtime compatriots, Ahmed Salama Mabrouk. The diminutive Mabrouk is another Zawahiri subordinate. He was freed from an Egyptian prison in the wake of the 2011 uprisings.
Al Qaeda moved some of its senior leadership to Syria and several others from this cadre are easy to identify. But al Qaeda has also relied on personnel in Yemen to guide its global network. One of Zawahiri’s lieutenants, Hossam Abdul Raouf, confirmed this in an audio message last October. Raouf explained that the “weight” of al Qaeda has been shifted to Syria and Yemen, because that is where its efforts are most needed.
The American drone campaign took out several key AQAP leaders in 2015, but they were quickly replaced. Qasim al Raymi, who was trained by al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1990s, succeeded Nasir al Wuhayshi as AQAP’s emir last summer. Raymi quickly renewed his allegiance to Zawahiri, whom Raymi described as the “the eminent sheikh” and “the beloved father.” Another al Qaeda lifer, Ibrahim Abu Salih, emerged from the shadows last year. Salih was not a public figure beforehand, but he has been working towards al Qaeda’s goals in Yemen since the early 1990s. Ibrahim al Qosi (an ex-Guantanamo detainee) and Khalid al Batarfi have stepped forward to lead AQAP and are probably also part of al Qaeda’s management team.
This old school talent has helped buttress al Qaeda’s leadership cadre. They’ve been joined by men who signed up for al Qaeda’s cause after the 9/11 attacks as well. In July, the US Treasury Department designated three jihadists who are based in Iran. One of them, known as Abu Hamza al Khalidi, was listed in bin Laden’s files as part of a “new generation” of al Qaeda leaders. Today, he plays a crucial role as the head of al Qaeda’s military commission, meaning he is the equivalent of al Qaeda’s defense minister. Treasury has repeatedly identified other al Qaeda members based in Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Some members of the “new generation” are more famous than others. Such is the case with Osama’s son, Hamzah bin Laden, who is now regularly featured in propaganda.
This brief survey of al Qaeda is not intended to be exhaustive, yet it is still sufficient to demonstrate that the organization’s bench is far from empty. Moreover, many of the men who lead al Qaeda today are probably unknown to the public.
The threat to the West
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned that al Qaeda “nodes in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey” are “dedicating resources to planning attacks.” His statement underscored how the threats have become more geographically dispersed over time. With great success, the US worked for years to limit al Qaeda’s ability to strike the West from northern Pakistan. But today, al Qaeda’s “external operations” work is carried out across several countries.
During the past fifteen years, Al Qaeda has failed to execute another mass casualty attack in the US on the scale of the 9/11 hijackings. Its most recent attack in Europe came in January 2015, when a pair of brothers backed by AQAP conducted a military-style assault on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris. AQAP made it clear that the Charlie Hebdo massacre was carried out according to Zawahiri’s orders.
Thanks to vigilance and luck, al Qaeda hasn’t been able to replicate a 9/11-style assault inside the US. Part of the reason is that America’s defenses, as well as those of its partner nations, have improved. Operations such as the 9/11 hijackings are also difficult to carry out in the first place. Even the 9/11 plan experienced interruptions despite a relatively lax security environment. (Most famously, for example, the would-be 20th hijacker was denied entry into the US at an Orlando airport in the summer of 2001.)
But there is another aspect to evaluating the al Qaeda threat that is seldom appreciated. It is widely assumed that al Qaeda is only interested in attacking the West. This is flat false. Most of the organization’s resources are devoted to waging insurgencies in Muslim majority countries.
The story in Syria has been telling. Although al Qaeda may have more resources in Syria than anywhere else, Zawahiri did not order his men to carry out a strike in the West. Al Qaeda’s so-called “Khorasan Group” laid the groundwork for such operations, but Zawahiri did not give this cadre the green light to actually carry them out. Zawahiri’s stand down order is well known. In an interview that aired in May 2015, for instance, Julani explained that the “directives that come to us from Dr. Ayman [al Zawahiri], may Allah protect him, are that Al Nusrah Front’s mission in Syria is to topple [Bashar al Assad’s] regime” and defeat its allies. “We have received guidance to not use Syria as a base for attacks against the West or Europe so that the real battle is not confused,” Julani said. However, he conceded that “maybe” the mother al Qaeda organization is plotting against the West, just “not from Syria.” Julani emphasized that this “directive” came from Zawahiri himself.
To date, al Qaeda has not lashed out at the West from inside Syria, even though it is certainly capable of doing so. Al Qaeda’s calculation has been that such an attack would be too costly for its strategic interests. It might get in the way of al Qaeda’s top priority in Syria, which is toppling the Assad regime. This calculation could easily change overnight and al Qaeda could use Syria as a launching pad against the West soon. But they haven’t thus far. It helps explain why there hasn’t been another 9/11-style plot by al Qaeda against the US in recent years. It also partially explains why al Qaeda hasn’t launched another large-scale operation in Europe for some time. Al Qaeda has more resources at its disposal today than ever, so the group doesn’t lack the capability. If Zawahiri and his advisors decided to make anti-Western attack planning more of a priority, then the probability of another 9/11-style event would go up. Even in that scenario, al Qaeda would have to successfully evade the West’s defenses. But the point is that al Qaeda hasn’t been attempting to hit the West nearly as much as some in the West assume.
In the meantime, it is easy to see how the al Qaeda threat has become more diverse, just as Clapper testified. AQAP has launched several thwarted plots aimed at the US, including the failed Christmas Day 2009 bombing. In 2009, al Qaeda also plotted to strike trains in the New York City area. In 2010, a Mumbai-style assault in Europe was unraveled by security services. It is not hard to imagine al Qaeda trying something along those lines once again. Other organizations tied to al Qaeda, such as the Pakistani Taliban, have plotted against the US as well.
Fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda lives. Fortunately, Zawahiri’s men have not replicated the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. But the al Qaeda threat looms. It would be a mistake to assume that al Qaeda won’t try a large-scale operation again. Comprehensive story here.
Iran, a known and proven state sponsor of terror has a history of stealing worldwide peace.
Below is the Congressional hearing of the money transfer transaction(s) to Iran, and the testimony reveals there are more coming and others not previously known.
There is an extensive al-Qaeda network feeding global branches based in the Islamic Republic.
Fifteen years on from the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the US, al-Qaeda is better-positioned than ever before. Its leadership held, and it has rebuilt a presence in Afghanistan. More importantly, al-Qaeda has built powerful regional branches in India, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Syria.
Rebranding itself away from the savagery of Iraq, al-Qaeda has sought to embed itself in local populations by gaining popular legitimacy to shield itself from retribution if, or when, it launches terrorist strikes in the West. This is proceeding apace, above all because of a failure to assist the mainstream opposition in Syria, sections of which were forced into interdependency with al-Qaeda to resist the strategy of massacre and expulsion conducted by the Assad regime.
The 9/11 massacre had not come from nowhere. In February 1998, Osama bin Laden, then-leader of al-Qaeda, plus Ayman al-Zawahiri and three others signed a document that said “kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim”.
Al-Qaeda attempted to blow up US troops in Yemen in December 1992. Three months later, al-Qaeda attacked New York’s World Trade Center, murdering six people. In November 1995, a car bomb in Riyadh targeted the American training mission for the Saudi National Guard, killing six people. In June 1996, Iran blew up the US military living quarters at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, murdering 19 people.
Al-Qaeda played “some role, as yet unknown” in the attack, according to the 9/11 Commission. The US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were levelled in August 1998, slaughtering 224 people and wounding 5,000, mostly Africans. And in October 2000, a skiff containing two suicide bombers struck an American Naval vessel, the USS Cole, in the port of Aden, killing seventeen sailors.
The conspiracy theories about 9/11 are now a feature of life today. Often proponents will hide behind the façade of “asking questions”. Instead of queries about jet fuel melting steel beams and nano-thermite, however, this inquisitiveness would be much better directed at the actual unanswered questions surrounding 9/11, which centre on the role of Iran.
In 1992, in Sudan, al-Qaeda and Iran came to an agreement to collaborate against the West “even if only training”, the 9/11 Commission records. Al-Qaeda members went to the Bekaa valley to be trained by Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy. Hezbollah’s military leader at that time, Imad Mughniyeh, personally met Bin Laden in Sudan to work out the details of this arrangement.
There is no doubt that training provided by Iran made the 1998 East African Embassy bombings possible, and after the bombing numerous al-Qaeda operatives fled unhindered through Iran to Afghanistan. The 9/11 Commission documented that over-half of the death pilots “travelled into or out of Iran” and many were tracked into Lebanon.
Iran and Hezbollah wished to conceal any past evidence of cooperation with Sunni terrorists associated with al-Qaeda
Senior Hezbollah operatives were certainly tracking some of the hijackers, in at least one case travelling on the same plane. The operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, lived in Iran for long stretches of the 1990s. To this day there is an extensive al-Qaeda network that feeds the global branches based in Iran, sheltered from US counter-terrorism efforts.
“Iran and Hezbollah wished to conceal any past evidence of cooperation with Sunni terrorists associated with al-Qaeda,” the 9/11 Commission noted. But the connections were there, and “this topic requires further investigation”. Sadly, such investigation has never occurred. Instead, the Islamic Republic has been brought into the fold, with billions of dollars released to it through the nuclear deal and a curious belief that Tehran can, or will, help stabilise the Middle East has taken hold.
Bin Laden had intended to drive the US out of the region with the 9/11 attack. “Hit them and they will run,” he told his followers. This was a theme of his 1996 fatwa first declaring war on America. In this, he miscalculated.
The Taliban regime had sheltered Jihadi-Salafists from all over the Arab world. Some left over from the fight against the Soviet occupation; others on the run from the security services of their native lands or just wanting to live in a land of “pure Islam”. Though the training and planning for global terrorism occurred in Afghanistan, most of al-Qaeda’s resources were directed more locally, toward irregular wars, notably in Algeria, Bosnia, and Chechnya. Al-Qaeda trained up to 20,000 jihadist insurgents before 9/11. This sanctuary was lost in the aftermath of 9/11, something lamented by jihadi strategist Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (Abu Musab al-Suri).
Bin Laden had worked with Ahmad al-Khalayleh (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi), the Jordanian founder of what we now know as the Islamic State (Isis), to carve out a jihadi statelet in northern Iraq in the late 1990s led by a group called Ansar al-Islam.
Rice is thrown as Hezbollah members carry the coffin of top their commander Mustafa Badreddine on 13 May 2016Reuters/Aziz Taher
After the Taliban’s fall, al-Khalayleh moved into this area and into Baghdad in early 2002. After making preparations through Syria for the influx of foreign fighters, al-Khalayleh moved to the Ansar-held territory and waited for the US.led Coalition.
IS’s predecessor planned – with al-Qaeda’s blessing – to expel the Coalition forces and set up an Islamic state in Iraq that could then spread across the region, restoring the caliphate. But IS’s methods brought it into frequent conflict with al-Qaeda, and by 2008 IS had been strategically defeated after provoking a backlash among Sunnis in Iraq. The distinctions between IS and al-Qaeda hardened thereafter until their formal split in February 2014.
IS, post-2008, changed some tactical aspects so as to bring the tribes back on-board but remained remarkably consistent in its approach, including the celebration of violence, premised on the idea of building an Islamic state as quickly as possible, which would force the population into collaboration with it and ultimately acceptance over time. In contrast, al-Qaeda placed ever-more emphasis on building popular support that would culminate in a caliphate when it had a critical mass.
The discrediting of IS’s predecessor, operating under al-Qaeda’s banner, damaged al-Qaeda so much that Bin Laden considered changing the organization’s name. Events since then, above all allowing the Syria war to protract, allowed al-Qaeda to rebrand as “pragmatic”, using IS as a foil, and recover.
Al-Qaeda, vanguard-style, took on the local concerns, worked to solve them, and in turn claimed the protection of the local population. Al-Qaeda has tangled itself so deeply into local dynamics, in Yemen and Syria most notably, that it would require a substantial local effort to root them out.
Unfortunately, the Western approach is making the problem worse. A good example came on Thursday night (8 September 2016) when the US launched air strikes against some leaders of al-Qaeda in Syria, now calling itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), which ostensibly disaffiliated from al-Qaeda in July in order to further this process of entanglement.
JFS claims it has no external ambitions and is working to break the siege of 300,000 people in the rebel-held areas of Aleppo city, yet it is attacked. Meanwhile, the US has done nothing about the thousands of Iranian-controlled Shia jihadists, tied into Iran’s global terrorist network, who are the leading element in imposing the siege, and conducted these strikes likely in furtherance of a deal with Russia, which also helped impose the siege. JFS thus claimed that it is serving the Syrian people, while the US opposes the revolution and supports the pro-regime coalition.
“It is a highly unfortunate reality that many Syrians living in opposition areas of Syria perceive JFS as a more determined and effective protector of their lives and interests than the United States and its Western allies,” wrote Charles Lister. The West has been unwilling to do anything to complicate the ability of the Bashar al-Assad regime to commit mass-murder for fear of antagonizing the Iranians and collapsing a “legacy-setting nuclear accord“. While that remains the case, al-Qaeda will continue to gain power and acceptance as a necessary-evil in Syria, and the ramifications of Syria are generational and global.
It is true that there is far too much optimism in current assessments of IS’s impending doom. The group will outlast the loss of its cities, and the misguided way the Coalition has conducted the war will provide conditions for a potential revival. Still, it is al-Qaeda that has the long-term advantage.
IS claimed sole legitimacy to rule, gained visibility and therefore followers. But as strategists like Setmariam understood, this made them visible to their enemies too, a toll that is beginning to tell, especially abroad. In Syria, formal al-Qaeda branches were never the organisation’s only lever and al-Qaeda was much more interested in shaping the environment than ruling it. In essence, al-Qaeda will give up the name and the public credit for the sake of the thing – whether that’s the popular understanding of the religion or the foundations of an Islamic emirate.
“IS wants the world to believe that it is everywhere, and … al-Qaeda wants the world to believe that it is nowhere.” That quip from Daveed Gartenstein-Ross neatly summarizes the trajectory of the two organisations. What can’t be seen is harder to stop – al-Qaeda’s counting on it.
Kyle W. Orton is associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and a Middle East analyst and commentator.
If you think you understand the civil war in Syria and the plight of the refugees, you don’t. Not even world leaders understand it all either and furthermore Syria does affect America and the West. Is there a solution? No.
Stripes/AP: GENEVA — American officials played down hopes Friday of an imminent cease-fire agreement for Syria as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held a fourth set of negotiations with his Russian counterpart in the past two weeks. Officials had suggested Kerry wouldn’t travel to Geneva unless a deal was clearly at hand.
The talks between Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov aim to produce a nationwide cease-fire in Syria after more than five years of warfare and as many as 500,000 deaths.
A deal hinges on an unlikely U.S.-Russian military partnership that would come into force if Moscow can pressure its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, to halt offensive operations. Washington would have to persuade the anti-Assad rebels it supports to end any coordination with al-Qaida and other extremist groups.
Neither side has succeeded in doing its part despite months of diplomacy. And the task may be getting even more difficult as fighting rages around the divided city of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous and the new focus of the conflict.
Assad’s government appeared to tighten its siege of the former Syrian commercial hub on Thursday, following several gains over the weekend. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed nearly 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group. Volunteer first-responders said they pulled the bodies of nine people, including four children, from the rubble following air raids on a rebel-held area, after reports of helicopters dropping crude barrel bombs over the area on Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meet in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, to discuss the crisis in Syria. American officials played down hopes Friday of an imminent cease-fire agreement for Syria.
Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photos via AP
The U.S. officials accompanying Kerry to Geneva said they couldn’t guarantee an agreement Friday and more talks may be needed. Aleppo will be a large part of the day’s discussions, they said, along with the technical details of a cease-fire, defining everything from how far back from demilitarized areas combatants would have to stay to the types of weapons they would need to withdraw from front lines. The officials, who briefed reporters traveling on Kerry’s plane, were not authorized to discuss the developments publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Kerry and Lavrov held several sessions of talks Friday in Geneva. It was unclear how long the talks would go on. A State Department official said late in the day that the two sides were advancing proposals toward a cease-fire and unimpeded humanitarian access for Syrians most in need.
Since Aug. 26, Kerry and Lavrov have now met twice each in Geneva and in China on the sidelines of a global economic summit. They’ve held a flurry of phone calls in recent days. Both governments had said they were close to a package that would go beyond several previous truces between the Syrian government and armed opposition — all of which failed to hold. For Kerry, securing a sustainable peace in Syria has become his biggest objective as America’s top diplomat since last summer’s Iran nuclear deal.
In addition to those killed, Syria’s conflict has chased millions of people from their homes, contributing to Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. Amid the chaos of fighting between Syria’s government and rebels, the Islamic State group has emerged as a global terror threat.
