Category Archives: Middle East

JV Team, Baraq Wears the Zero Jersey Himself

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Do you really want this man Baraq Obama running a war? Do you want him making decisions on matters of national security anymore?

In January of 2014, Baraq Obama called ISIS/ISIL the JV team. Three weeks ago, he demanded that Susan Rice his Deputy National Security Advisor at the White House draft a letter to John Boehner, Speaker of the House to secure a repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force for Iraq. Boehner made a few calls to members of Congress telling them what he had received and how outrageous the request is.

Thousands of Kurds, Christians and Yazidis have died at the hands of Baraq Obama while he chooses golf rather than Commander in Chief leading a force for the good of Iraq and the Peshmerga. long time allies of the West.

Even Peshmerga has an exclusive women’s fighting division. Actually Peshmerga has a woman commander.

 

So, how bad is ISIS/ISIL?

ERBIL, Iraq — On Friday, Assad Haig received a call from his mother’s phone number. On the other end was a militant of the Islamic State. Haig’s family, the man said, were going to be executed.

Haig is 23 years old. He works in the Kurdish capital of Erbil. He comes from Sinjar, a town that was overrun by Islamic State militants on Aug. 3. Almost every relative he has ever known — 63 in total — was in Islamic State custody at the time he got the call. Most of them are, or were, women and small children.

Just a week before, Haig’s dozens of relatives in Sinjar were still free. “My mother called and said IS were coming into the city,” Haig recalled of that morning. He struggled to hold back tears as he clasped his hands together in an attempt to keep them from shaking. “I begged them to leave everything and just run, but it was hard with so many kids. My little sister Rama, she is just three, and Iyhab is only five.”

Haig tried to call his mother back repeatedly. When someone finally answered it was a male voice on the line.

“They will be executed tomorrow, the man told Haig.”

“We took them all. They belong to us now,” the man said before the line went dead.

All but Haig’s father, who escaped to the Sinjar Mountains, and his grandmother, who is 84 and can’t walk. IS left her alone in the family home but threatened to return and shoot her if she didn’t leave Sinjar. She has no way of leaving the home on her own.

Most residents of Sinjar, like Haig, are Yazidi, an Iraqi minority group estimated to number 600,000. The ancient Yazidi religion is shrouded in mystery, and a misunderstanding of Yazidi beliefs has led to many labeling them “devil worshipers,” resulting in centuries of mass persecution.

Details of the Islamic State takeover of Sinjar just over a week ago are still sketchy. Those who escaped said captives were given two options: convert to Islam, or die. Others reported mass executions of men, while women and children were taken prisoner.

On Sunday, Iraq’s human rights minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told Reuters he had evidence that at least 500 Yazidis had been executed by IS, among them women and children. Some had been buried alive.

IS media posted photos of some of the executions online. Several images showed around 20 men said to have been killed in Sinjar, with a quote from the Koran saying, “Slay them where you catch them.”

Kamil Amin, the spokesman for Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry, said that many Yazidi women under 35 had been captured and were being held in Mosul.

“We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them,” Amin told the Associated Press.

Many fear that IS militants are following ancient battle customs practiced by the Prophet Mohammed and his men.

In stories about conquering villages of people considered “infidels” or “apostates,” both the Koran and the Old Testament of the Bible speak of killing the men and taking the women and children for sale as slaves. The practice of having sex with female slaves is mentioned several times in the Koran.

“Blessed are the believers who restrain their carnal desires except with their wives and slave girls, for these are lawful to them,” reads one verse of the Koran.

“Prophet, we have made lawful to you the wives whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty.”

Accounts from witnesses so far suggest IS tactics against the Yazidi population are mimicking such practices, but the militant group hasn’t yet released official statements about their intentions.

Haig prepared documents listing every one of his missing relatives — their names, ages, and phone numbers — to submit to the Kurdish police and US authorities. His grandmother helped him complete the list by phone from Sinjar. As he read through the papers on Friday, he was overcome with grief when he reached the names of his mother and sisters.

“Some people say they have been raping the women, maybe 6 or 10 men with one woman,” he said, staring vacantly out the window, in tears. “Some say they have even forced FGM [female genital mutilation] on them.”


Assad Haig holds documents that list the names and ages of his missing relatives. (Tracey Shelton/GlobalPost)

On Friday, as Haig was en route to the US Consulate in Erbil to yet again beg for help, he received a call from a man claiming to be an IS member. The man informed him that his family had been collectively sentenced to death for refusing to convert to Islam.

“They will be executed tomorrow,” the man told Haig.

Haig’s father was the only one who escaped IS capture. He fled to the Sinjar Mountains above the city where he remains trapped with thousands of others. An estimated 50,000 people were stranded there for the past week, with no supplies, no food, and no shelter, slowly dying from starvation and thirst. Reports on Sunday said that about 20,000 had managed to escape the mountains after US bombings of IS targets helped cleared the way.

In a report released on Aug. 8, UNICEF said at least 25,000 children were among those trapped in the mountains, and 40 were already confirmed dead from starvation or dehydration. The real number of dead is assumed to be much higher, the report said.

The US has been conducting humanitarian drops of food and water and launching targeted strikes against militants near Sinjar and Erbil since late last week. Iraq and Turkey were also reportly making aid drops beginning Wednesday. But on Friday, Haig said nothing had yet reached the desperate, besieged families he’s in contact with. The mountain range spans 60 miles, and air drops of large containers can only be so precise.

“Every time I see on the television they have air dropped supplies I call my father and he says, no. There are no helicopters, no food, no soldiers,” Haig said. Haig’s father turns on his phone every day to check in, then off to conserve the battery.

Some reports said the first US drops of food and water exploded on impact, but Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday that 80 percent of US air drops had reached their targets.

Relief supplies continued to be delivered by air throughout the weekend, with the US reporting a total delivery of 36,224 ready–to-eat meals and 6,822 gallons of water. At time of writing, British aircraft were also en route to deliver supplies.

For Haig, the wait and the uncertainty are unbearable. He’s filed reports with both the Kurdish military and the US seeking help to find his family. On Thursday he attempted to drive to Sinjar himself, but was turned back by Kurdish forces.

“It’s all lies! No one is fighting the IS. No one is helping to get my family back,” he said. “Give me a weapon and I will go to fight. Give the weapons to all the Yazidi men. Just give us a chance to fight for our families or die trying. That’s all I ask.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iraq/140810/man-lost-63-relatives-the-islamic-state

WASHINGTON—Days before the takeover of the Iraqi city of Mosul by the militant group calling itself the Islamic State, U.S. intelligence analysts were sharply divided over whether the group would seize the city, according to people familiar with the debate.

View Graphics

 

U.S. officials saw initial indications the group might seek to take Mosul and urged Iraqi action, to no avail. But on the day of the June 10 takeover, U.S. officials played down its significance. “Obviously, this has got our attention in Mosul, but it doesn’t change the calculus,” said Rear. Adm. John Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman.

Although U.S. spy agencies have monitored and warned about the Islamic State over the past year, they often have underestimated the group’s ability to make rapid operational gains, U.S. officials said. That was the case a week ago when militants launched a dramatic and successful offensive in Iraq’s Kurdish region.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2014 – The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses a threat to the civilized world, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in Sydney today.

Click photo for screen-resolution image
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Australian Defense Minister David Johnston hold a news conference in Sydney, Aug. 11, 2014. DoD photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean Hurt  
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

At a joint news conference, Hagel and Australian Defense Minister David Johnston spoke about what their respective countries are doing in Iraq.

The United States will continue to support the Iraqi security forces “in every way that we can,” Hagel said. “We will, again, build partnerships, as we are now, recognizing the threat not just to the United States, but to the civilized world.”

The United States has launched airstrikes against ISIL targets in recent days, and has airdropped relief supplies to tens of thousands of Yezidis who have fled to Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq to seek refuge. American teams in Iraq will continue to assess the ISIL threat and what will best help the Iraqi security forces, Hagel said.

Australia is participating alongside the United States in airdropping supplies to the Yezidis — members of a religious sect in the region.

—–

Exactly what universe is Baraq Obama from or where is he headed? Surely by now he has his sights exclusively on playing Pebble Beach, the PGA West and perhaps Spanish Bay….FORE America, this will not go well in the coming months.

 

 

ISIL Against the World, America Next?

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The leftist argument for quite some time is that the United States never should have gone into Iraq. It is a popular ethos but way off base if one would bother with the real history and reasons. So, Barack Obama pulled America troops out in 2011 ending the war, telling the world that Iraq is now stable.

The very moment coalition troops exited Iraq the vacuum was filling up again. Barack Obama blames Iraqi leadership for the failed ‘status of forces’ agreement, when that was yet another lie on behalf of the White House. Yet, if Barack Obama wanted to actually keep Iraq stable after the American exodus, then why did Barack Obama refuse all later requests for military support by Maliki which were requests of urgency that began in 2012?

After this past week of the Pershmerga and Yizidis being trapped on top of a mountain by ISIS, Barack Obama told us that America could not turn a blind eye to the innocent desperations on that mountain. The Pentagon with Obama’s nod authorized only a handful of air-strikes but they were not offensive at all versus ISIS, they were only gestures of defense to protect American personnel in Irbil and Baghdad. While Barack Obama was on the golf course this weekend at Martha’s Vineyard, the United State was evacuating our personnel from Irbil and Baghdad, leaving behind only very essential personnel. (Cant have another Benghazi).

Now, as hostilities were building, al Maliki is under pressure to step down and he refuses so he has surrounded his palace with military forces and dispatched additional forces throughout the ‘green zone’ fending off a coup.

Meanwhile, ISIS continues to be bold issuing public threats to Jordan, Turkey, and the West. Some in America are taking notice by voicing concern that the United States is in the crosshairs of ISIS. Sure the threat is there but we have our government to protect our homeland right?

Must watch video: The World at War

ISIS recruits globally and does so effectively and as a result of seizing banks and military hardware, the terror group is worth an estimated $1.8 billion and that buys a lot of terror and fighters.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-11/suspected-american-isis-supporter-arrested-new-yorks-jfk-airport

Having demanded “American blood,” the news that a suspected American militant who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group in chilling Twitter rants is being held without bail after his arrest at New York’s Kennedy Airport is somewhat concerning. Donald Ray Morgan, 44, who has a previous conviction for firing a gun, had allegedly been brokering deals for military-grade weapons and ammo in his home state of North Carolina and was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to The Daily News. The presiding judge noted, his actions “clearly implied to me that he is trying to go to Syria or Iraq as the next step and trying to be actively engaged.”

 

As The Daily News reports,

FBI agents nabbed Donald Ray Morgan, a 44-year-old ex-convict from North Carolina, on Aug. 2 when he returned to the U.S. after an eight-month stay in Lebanon, where his wife lives.

 

Morgan, who has a previous conviction for firing a gun, had allegedly been brokering deals for military-grade weapons and ammo in his home state and was indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

 

But what caught counter-terrorism agents’ attention were his chilling Twitter rants from the Middle East under the alias “Abu Omar al Amreeki.”

 

“It’s possible that he traffics in guns to people in this organization (ISIS),” Moore said in Brooklyn Federal Court.

 

Besides pledging allegiance to chief ISIS thug Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his tweets strongly suggested he may have been preparing for jihad in Syria, Iraq or possibly the states, law enforcement officials feared.

 

He also referred to himself as a mujahedeen, or jihad fighter.

——

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-isis-more-dangerous-now-than-al-qaeda-was-pre-911/

As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — or simply “The Islamic State” as the group now says it should be called — continues to sweep through northern Iraq, U.S. lawmakers are sounding the alarm that it could be just as dangerous as al Qaeda in the days before it launched the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.

“Every day that goes by, ISIS builds up its caliphate and it becomes a direct threat to the United States of America. They are more powerful now than al Qaeda was on 9/11,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

Experts say the Islamic jihadist group has indeed been able to accomplish an enormous amount in a short period of time. And in global reach, fundraising capabilities and pure operational ability, they are certainly outpacing Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

 

“Al Qaeda in the pre-Sept. 11 phase was capable of engaging in strikes and bombings,” Tom Sanderson, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBS News. But what ISIS has now, he said, “is more significant and more varied than what al Qaeda had in terms of its actual combat capabilities where they are fielding artillery. They are holding much greater territory than al Qaeda had, they are governing people, they have a more diverse funding base… they have a greater localized funding base than al Qaeda.”

The group is in fact a rival faction to modern-day al Qaeda, whose general command cut ISIS off from its network in February because it disobeyed orders from leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

The Internet has afforded ISIS the ability to recruit all over the world. The group gained power and experience fighting in Syria, where an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 foreigners have traveled to join the fight, including 1,500 and 2,500 Sunni extremists from Europe and 100 to 200 Americans who hold Western passports and have far easier access to the U.S. if their terror activities go undetected by authorities.

 

 

Al Qaeda “simply did not have the technology that ISIS has now, the social networking that enables them to reach a much greater audience,” Sanderson said.

Still, big does not always mean organized.

Juan Zarate, CBS News’ Senior National Security Analyst, said that ISIS is probably less well-organized than pre-9/11 al Qaeda, which spent years meticulously training and plotting to attack the United States. And Sanderson said the surprise element of its attack on the United States was part of what made the group so lethal.

But ISIS could also be benefiting from the years of groundwork laid by its predecessor-turned-rival.

“ISIS, especially with the announcement of the Islamic State, is piggybacking off of the global networks and inspiration that al Qaeda fomented post-9/11 and give them, in some ways, a global infrastructure on which to build. It’s not as if they’re starting from scratch,” said Zarate.

One of the group’s biggest advantages over al Qaeda is the fact that it has seized a vast swath of territory and virtually erased the border between Iraq and Syria. Unlike al Qaeda, “in some ways…rented from the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Zarate said, ISIS has gained strength from the territory it occupies.

“In the 21st century any operating room for a terrorist group is a prescription for disaster because they have the ability not just to build up their local strength but to allow themselves global reach,” he added.

ISIS has a local fundraising base from Iraq and Syria, where it brings in revenue from the granaries, oil wells and power plants it has captured. Last week, it seized Iraq’s largest dam, gaining control of enormous power and water resources as well as access to the river that runs through Baghdad. Trafficking, extortion and kidnap-for-ransom operations bring in millions of dollars.

“There’s no daddy for ISIS when it comes to funding,” Sanderson said. By contrast, al Qaeda was dependent on bin Laden’s personal fortune, which was not limitless, and donors from the Gulf states that could impose a certain amount of pressure and control over the group.

 

Plus, ISIS has captured millions of dollars of American weaponry abandoned by Iraqi troops that fled the fight early on in the jihadist group’s takeover. David Rohde, a columnist for Reuters and The Atlantic said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday called that a “disaster.”

“What’s so astonishing about the Islamic State is that they’re able to maneuver, use this weaponry. They can move 1,000 guys very quickly and that they defeated the Peshmerga [Kurdish forces] so quickly I think surprised many people,” Rohde said.

There is one glaring similarity between the two groups, Zarate said, and that is the extent to which the U.S. does not entirely know what ISIS will do next.

“There were massive blind spots as to what al Qaeda was doing or planning and I think you’ve started to hear the same threads or chords of insecurity on the part of U.S. counterterrorism officials about blind spots with respect to ISIS,” he said.

“I think we had certainly not done enough through the ’90s and into 2001 to disrupt al Qaeda’s infrastructure, training, plotting and in some ways we’ve allowed ISIS to gain a foothold by being fairly inactive in Syria to date so in some ways you can say we’re rather equivalent in terms of our passive posture.”

Experts and lawmakers have debated whether ISIS will carry out the next 9/11-style terror attack. With the group’s full capability somewhat of a mystery, it is hard to predict when they might turn their attention to the U.S.

But earlier this summer, former acting CIA Director and CBS News Analyst on Intelligence Michael Morell said that an increasing U.S. presence in Iraq could speed up that process.

 

“That’s one of the downsides of U.S. involvement,” he told CBS News. “The more we visibly get involved in helping the [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] government fight these guys, the more we become a target.”

And with President Obama’s decision to launch airstrikes in Iraq as a means to provide humanitarian aid and safety for thousands of Iraqi religious minorities being targeted by ISIS, that day could come sooner.

 

 

Putin vs. NATO and tomatoes

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Have you ever read an Executive Order signed by Vladimir Putin? Here is your chance. With the sanction war going on against Russia initiated by Barack Obama, Europe has feebly joined the cadence of the United States and Putin is fighting back. Russia is stopping all agricultural imports for at least a year.

When it comes to NATO, Putin is drawing out the weakness of member nations. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is getting advise from U.S. General Breedlove as to how to address Putin’s aggression that is building in Ukraine.

 

Putin has indeed isolated the weakness of NATO by launching irregular warfare.

‘A linchpin of Russian strategy is what the committee calls “ambiguous warfare.” As one Russian defense theorist puts it, ambiguous warfare involves using irregular forces, cyberattacks and information warfare to “neutralize adversary actions without resorting to weapons (through indirect actions), by exercising information superiority.”

The trouble ambiguous warfare poses to NATO is that the Alliance’s collective-defense obligations, and the strategic doctrines pinned to them, call for responding to “armed” assaults. But Russian aggression against, say, Lithuania may not look like an outright assault. The Kremlin is more likely to use Russian-language media to agitate the country’s ethnic-Russian population while debilitating basic state functions through cyberattacks and the deployment of irregular commandos.’

 

Russia now has about 20,000 troops stationed “in an area along the entire border with eastern Ukraine.” The buildup nearly doubled the troop deployment in the last week by adding 8,000 more forces to 12,000 already there, the official said.

It comes a week after the United States and the European Union increased economic sanctions on Russia for supporting pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukraine government forces in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, along the border with Russia.

‘This will no longer be Special War, but a real war — one which may not be possible to limit to Ukraine.

Nevertheless, Russia has a long habit of invading places in August — East Prussia and Galicia (1914), Poland (1920), Manchuria (1945), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Georgia (2008) — so all bets may be off. It’s clear that Putin is reluctant to back down in the face of Western economic pressure, scoldings, and admonitions, not least because consistently doubling-down has worked well for him many times in the past. I have no crystal ball, but if we learn in a few days, perhaps this weekend, that Russian “peacekeepers” are moving by the battalion into Southeastern Ukraine, you won’t count me among the surprised.’

 

The Cold War part two is brewing and Putin is so far tactically successful at his mission to rebuild the ‘Soviet Union’. General Dempsey admitted the Pentagon has pulled out and dusted off war game options from the Cold War, which should have been done in 2012 at least. Bring out the spies again and re-train them to the tactics some of which are listed here. Moscow has their rules, the question is what rules will America have and who will join her?

“Although no one had written them down, they were the precepts we all understood for conducting our operations in the most difficult of operating environments: the Soviet capital.” – Antonio Mendez, retired CIA Technical Operations Officer specializing in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations.

The Rules

1. Assume nothing.
2. Technology will always let you down.
3. Murphy is right.
4. Never go against your gut.
5. Always listen to your gut; it is your operational antennae.
6. Everyone is potentially under opposition control.
7. Don’t look back; you are never completely alone. Use your gut.
8. Go with the flow; use the terrain.
9. Take the natural break of traffic.
10. Maintain a natural pace.
11. Establish a distinctive and dynamic profile and pattern.
12. Stay consistent over time.
13. Vary your pattern and stay within your profile.
14. Be non threatening: keep them relaxed; mesmerize!

Israel delivers Gaza humanitarian Aid

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Sure we have seen for several weeks the hostilities between Israel and Gaza. When one does the research, Israel never starts these wars with Gaza yet Israel continues to offer humanitarian aid to Gaza while the world tells Israel don’t fight so hard to protect yourselves and don’t be so aggressive in killing those that are trying to kill you.

The West and in fact all those around the globe participating in the ‘Free-Gaza’ rallies and the pro-Palestinian demonstrations don’t even understand the history, the current facts on the ground or much less what has been at the core of issue that Hamas wants Israel dead…period.  In Europe friends of Hamas and Gaza yell death to Jews.

 

From IRNA:

GPO tour to Kerem Shalom humanitarian aid crossing http://youtu.be/lpNUVrIzqbU

The Government Press Office (GPO), today (Monday, 4 August 2014), held a foreign press tour, for two dozen media crews, of Kerem Shalom Crossing, where hundreds of trucks laden with food, medicines and fuel enter the Gaza Strip as humanitarian aid.

In the last 24 hours, many such trucks have entered the Gaza Strip. The Israel Electric Corp. has joined the effort and today delivered ten generators to UNRWA.

The deputy head of security at the crossing, Yair Ben Or, briefed the journalists and explained the daily routine at the crossing: “The crossing has operated continuously throughout Operation Protective Edge. Our employees have worked under daily mortar fire in order to provide necessary equipment to the Gaza Strip. Most of the supplies are medicines, bedding, clothing, agricultural produce and medical equipment.”

The journalists met with Kerem Shalom Crossing Director Ami Shaked who reviewed the main points of the crossing’s work. He said: “We deliver equipment and produce, most of which has been donated by UN organizations and agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian aid organizations. Despite the difficult situation and the daily attacks on the crossing, we have endeavored to work here around the clock in order to assure the proper entry of the products and the equipment.”

Shaked added that yesterday, 186 trucks entered carrying mainly medical equipment and medicines. The shipment was the largest since Operation Protective Edge began and included – inter alia – 3,000 units of blood, water tanks and generators to supply electricity to local hospitals. Thousands of liters of gasoline and diesel fuel were also delivered, as well as 87 tons of natural gas.

Since the start of Operation Protective Edge, 1,752 trucks with humanitarian aid have entered the Gaza Strip.  The journalists ended the tour with a visit to the fuel and gas terminal and spoke with the Palestinian truck drivers and the Israeli workers who load the goods.

Click below for the full photo album.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.871335446228697.1073741877.194200557275526&type=1

While Israel has been on a ground operation to eliminate the tunnels, what has been found in tunnels includes motorcycles for suicide bombers, RPG’s, IED’s, small arms, food and more. Now is the time that Israel will use to determine their next course of action certainly based on the manuals they discovered in the tunnels as well.

Captured Hamas Combat Manual Explains Benefits of Human Shields

IDF forces in the Gaza Strip found a Hamas manual on “Urban Warfare,” which belonged to the Shuja’iya Brigade of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The manual explains how the civilian population can be used against IDF forces and reveals that Hamas knows the IDF is committed to minimizing harm to civilians.

Throughout Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has continuously used the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. The discovery of a Hamas “urban warfare” manual by IDF forces reveals that Hamas’ callous use of the Gazan population was intentional and preplanned.

This Hamas urban warfare manual exposes two truths: (1) The terror group knows full well that the IDF will do what it can to limit civilian casualties. (2) The terror group exploits these efforts by using civilians as human shields against advancing IDF forces.

The Manual

manual_shai'ya_textmanua_shaji'yal

In a portion entitled “Limiting the Use of Weapons,” the manual explains that:

“The soldiers and commanders (of the IDF) must limit their use of weapons and tactics that lead to the harm and unnecessary loss of people and [destruction of] civilian facilities. It is difficult for them to get the most use out of their firearms, especially of supporting fire [e.g. artillery].”

Clearly Hamas knows the IDF will limit its use of weapons in order to avoid harming civilians, including refraining from using larger firepower to support for infantry.

The manual goes on to explain that the “presence of civilians are pockets of resistance” that cause three major problems for advancing troops:

“(1) Problems with opening fire
(2) Problems in controlling the civilian population during operations and afterward
(3) Assurance of supplying medical care to civilians who need it”

Lastly, the manual discusses the benefits for Hamas when civilian homes are destroyed:

“The destruction of civilian homes: This increases the hatred of the citizens towards the attackers [the IDF] and increases their gathering [support] around the city defenders (resistance forces[i.e. Hamas]).”

It is clear that Hamas actually desires the destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, knowing it will increase hatred for the IDF and support their fighters.

Why Shuja’iya is Important

It is also of no small importance that this manual belongs to the Shuja’iya Brigade. The IDF fought a major battle in the neighborhood of Shuja’iya, which had been turned into a terrorist stronghold. The discovery of this manual suggests that the destruction to the civilian population of Shuja’iya was a part of Hamas’ plan.

shaja'iya

Nothing is More Gratifying than the Truth

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We often have to wait for the real truth to surface as early reports are often assumptions while subsequent reports have spin added to them. Sadly it is all about propaganda and twisting the ground facts is all too common.

So, while we watch in horror the hostilities at the border of Israel and Gaza where rockets launched by Hamas has exceeded 1500, Israel knew full well going into this operation what they needed to do given the past several conflicts with Hamas.

Strategy and technology is key for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and the execution of the mission has to date been almost perfect. But we must look at what is not being said, published and what is covered-up, which is the most difficult task. As the tunnels are being destroyed and the al Aqsa as well as the al Qassam fighters and other smaller unit terror cells in Gaza are still lobbing rockets as the IDF pulls back their tanks to a staging area.

The IDF is currently performing intense investigations of what was found in all tunnels, buildings and pinpointing still the locations of where Hamas rockets and weapons are stored. This will likely add a dimension to what the next moves are for the IDF.

To date, I personally want to congratulate Israel for assertively taking on a terror organization, alone and with pin-point accuracy as well as patience and caution. Israel is realizing success but the cost of future attitudes and repercussions by the United Nations and other country leaderships may prove to be a major hurdle for Israel to overcome.

 

 

Blessings to you Israel, there are many in the West that feel great sadness for each loss of live while we also stand proud of the diligence and calculations you have taken in this war. All we want along with you Israel is some future peace for your tiny nation and for the truth to resonate across Europe and the Middle East that will with some hope alter the course of your future in gaining more security and calm.

This conflict has forced many things to the surface for all to see, and these things include the complicity of Qatar, Turkey and Iran. We have come to know new names, new NGO’s and most of all hidden and perhaps even secret policy objectives. All of these revelations are huge components to future debates and global awareness and positions. That is in large measure a significant silver lining.

The truth is surfacing and thank you Israel.

Gaza’s Civilian Casualties: The Truth Is Very Different

by Richard Kemp
August 3, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4570/gaza-civilian-casualties

With few exceptions, reporters, commentators, and analysts unquestioningly accept the casualty statistics given by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled medical authorities, who ascribe all deaths to the IDF. We have never seen so much as a glimpse of killed or wounded fighters.

Analysis of casualty details released by Qatar-based Al Jazeera indicate that so far most of those killed in Gaza have been young men of fighting age, not women, children or old people.

All Palestinian civilian casualties in this conflict result ultimately from Gaza terrorists’ aggression against Israel, and Hamas’s use of human shields — the most important plank of Hamas’s war-fighting policy.

“So are you going after innocent civilians or is it incompetence Colonel Lerner?” asks the interviewer, her face contorted with a contempt apparently reserved only for Israelis. Such shrill disrespect hurled at an American or British officer would alienate viewers, and, at an Arab commander, provoke accusations of racism.

This line of questioning – repeated across the networks on a daily basis – betrays a naïve and uncomprehending willingness to believe, and encourages viewers to believe, the absurd notion that the Israel Defence Force [IDF] is commanded and manned from top to bottom by psychopathic baby-killing thugs.

To suggest that military incompetence is the only explanation for civilian deaths other than deliberate mass murder reveals a breathtaking but unsurprising ignorance of the realities of combat.

Although rarely allowed to complete so much as a single sentence, Israeli attempts to explain IDF targeting policies are inevitably dismissed as laughable fabrication.

The truth is very different. The IDF has developed the most comprehensive and sophisticated measures to minimize civilian casualties during attacks against legitimate military targets.

Mandatory, multi-sensor intelligence and surveillance systems to confirm the presence or absence of civilians precede attacks on every target from the air. Text messages, phone calls and radio messages in Arabic warn occupants to leave. Air-dropped leaflets include maps showing safe areas. When warnings go unheeded, aircraft drop non-lethal explosives to warn that an attack is imminent.

Only when pilots and air controllers are sure that civilians are clear of the target will authorization be given to attack. When pilots use laser-guided munitions they must have pre-designated safe areas to which to divert the missiles in flight should civilians suddenly appear.

In the last few days IDF pilots have aborted many missions because civilians remained in the target area.

Ground forces have equivalent engagement procedures, although the nature of ground combat means that these are blunter and less sophisticated. Discussions with IDF infantrymen fresh from the fight on the Gaza border confirm, however, that avoiding civilian casualties is uppermost in their minds even when under fire themselves.

Meanwhile back in the safety of the studio, the interviewer’s visible fury at the IDF Spokesman has got the better of any professional objectivity: “You go on endlessly about all the warnings you give but the fact is you have killed one-and-a-half thousand people, the overwhelming majority of them civilians!”

But of course the colonel is not permitted to give a proper answer that might help viewers understand the reality of the situation.

With few exceptions, reporters, commentators and analysts unquestioningly accept the casualty statistics given by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled medical authorities, who ascribe all deaths to the IDF. Is anyone in Gaza dying of natural causes? Mass executions of “collaborators,” and civilians killed by malfunctioning Hamas rockets, are all attributed to IDF fire.

Are the “overwhelming majority” of the dead really civilians? It would seem so. We see a great deal of grotesque and heart-rending footage of dead and bleeding women and children but never so much as a glimpse of killed or wounded fighters. Nor do reporters question or comment on the complete absence of Gazan military casualties, an extraordinary phenomenon unique to this conflict. The reality of course is that Hamas make great efforts to segregate their military casualties to preserve the fiction that Israel is killing civilians only. There are also increasing indications that Hamas, through direct force or threat, are preventing journalists from filming their fighters, whether dead or alive.

We will not get to the truth until the battle is over. But we know now that Hamas have ordered their people to report all deaths as innocent civilians. We know too that Hamas has a track record of lying about casualties. After Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-09 fighting in Gaza, the IDF estimated that of 1,166 Palestinian deaths, 709 were fighters. Hamas – backed by several NGOs – claimed that only 49 of its fighters had been killed, the rest were innocent civilians. Much later they were forced to admit that the IDF had been right all along and between 600 and 700 of the casualties had in fact been fighters. But the short-memoried media are incapable of factoring this in before broadcasting their ill-founded and inflammatory assertions.

Analysis of casualty details released by Qatar-based Al Jazeera indicate that so far in the conflict most of those killed in Gaza have been young men of fighting age, not women, children or old people. According to one analyst, despite comprising around 50% of the population, the proportion of women among the dead is 21%.

Preliminary analysis by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in Israel suggests that 71, or 46.7%, of the first 152 Palestinians killed were fighters and 81, or 53.3%, non-involved civilians.

None of this analysis is definitive. But it does cast doubt upon the accusations of indiscriminate attack against the population by the IDF and upon the UN estimates – widely trumpeted as fact by the media and the not-exactly unbiased United Nations – that between 70 and 80% of Palestinian casualties have been civilians.

Nevertheless, many innocent civilians have tragically been killed. How has this happened, given the IDF’s measures aimed at minimizing such deaths?

IDF commanders say they never intentionally fire at targets where uninvolved civilians are present, a policy that goes much further than the Geneva Conventions demand. This policy has been confirmed to me by foot soldiers on the ground and F16 pilots carrying out strikes into Gaza.

But mistakes happen. Surveillance and intelligence can never be foolproof. There have been reports of Hamas forcing civilians back in once buildings have been evacuated. There is sometimes unexpected fallout from attacks, for example when an adjacent building containing civilians collapses, often caused by secondary explosions resulting from Hamas’s own munitions.

Errors can be made in interpretation of imagery, passage of information and inputting of target data. We don’t yet know what happened to the four boys tragically killed on a Gaza beach; it is not credible that they were identified as children and then deliberately killed.

Weapons guidance systems sometimes malfunction and bombs, bullets or missiles can land where they are not supposed to. Even the most hi-tech communications systems can fail at the critical moment.

Nowhere are these errors more frequent and catastrophic than in ground combat, where commanders and soldiers experience chaos, noise, smoke, fear, exhaustion, danger, shock, maiming, death and destruction that are beyond the comprehension of our interviewer in her air conditioned TV studio.

These mistakes and malfunctions happen in all fighting armies and in all conflicts. And in all conflicts, mistakes include the deaths of soldiers by friendly fire. Do those who condemn the killing of Palestinian civilians as deliberate acts by the IDF suggest that the friendly fire incidents in Gaza are also intentional?

The Israeli policy of not attacking targets where civilians are present is likely however to be deliberately waived in one specific situation. If troops are under lethal fire from an enemy position, the IDF are entitled to attack the target even with the certainty that civilians will be killed, subject to the usual rules of proportionality.

By definition Israeli soldiers’ lives are placed at greater risk by restrictive rules of engagement intended to minimize civilian casualties. But commanders in the field must balance their concern for civilians with the preservation of their own men’s lives and fighting effectiveness.

These realities aside, all Palestinian civilian casualties in this conflict result ultimately from Gaza terrorists’ aggression against Israel, and Hamas’s use of human shields – the most important plank of Hamas’s war-fighting policy.

Storing and firing weapons within densely populated areas, compelling civilians to stay put when warned to leave, luring Israeli forces to attack and kill their own people, the Palestinian body count is vital to Hamas’s propaganda war that aims to bring international pressure on Israel and incite anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hatred around the world.

This sickening exploitation of their own people’s suffering, and media’s complicity in it, is nowhere more cynically demonstrated than in the operating theaters of the Gaza Strip. Without the slightest regard for life-saving hygiene, or for the care, privacy or dignity of the wounded, Palestinian officials enthusiastically hustle camera crews in to the emergency room as desperate surgeons battle for a bleeding and broken child’s life.

Colonel Richard Kemp spent most his 30-year career in the British Army commanding front-line troops in fighting terrorism and insurgency in hotspots including Iraq, the Balkans, South Asia and Northern Ireland. He was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003. From 2002 – 2006 he heading the international terrorism team at the Joint Intelligence Committee of the British Prime Minister’s Office.