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ToI: A recently released video by the Islamic State presents the jihadist group’s version of the apocalypse, with its fighters preparing to conquer Rome.
As is now the norm with the group’s videos, the clip is slick and professionally produced. It shows jihadists making final preparations for battle alternating with shots of “Rome” – a symbolic representation of the powerhouse of Christianity — in images of St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and the ruins of the Roman Colosseum. Tanks supposed to be advancing to the Italian capital are seen flying IS flags as they leave tracks in the desert.
Curiously, the end of times-obsessed terror organization’s clip shows the apocalypse not as it is described in the writings of Islam, but rather more in keeping with western, Christian fantasies.
At one point, the video shows flags of some 60 countries with which Islamic State sees itself as being at war, among them Britain, France, Australia and the US. Other sections of the video depict fighters wearing suicide vests or marching toward Europe.
The video was released several weeks after the deadly Paris terror attacks in which 130 people were killed, and for which IS claimed responsibility. A more recent shooting in San Bernardino, California was carried out by a couple who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State but were not directly following a command from the group’s top echelon in Syria.
While viewing this video, what terrifying conditions do you see?
It appears this reported dated 2007, has not been updated, amended or reviewed by Congress which is in large part, the debate today given the San Bernardino massacre by a pair of militant Islamists.
The federal government maintains several databases of people suspected of links to terrorism, including a no-fly list barring certain individuals from boarding airplanes in the U.S.
Those databases, especially the no-fly list, long have been challenged by civil libertarians regarding the lack of transparency about how and why people are included. Most individuals in the databases have never been charged with a crime and are only suspected of being involved with terrorism.
The no-fly list itself is the smallest of all the government terrorism watchlists with about 16,000 names at last count, though it has attracted the most public criticism and legal challenges. A federal court this year declared the government’s system for dealing with appeals and challenges to inclusion on the no-fly list are unconstitutional.
Passengers on the no-fly list are denied the ability to board flights, but previously weren’t given an explanation why. In response to a lawsuit, the government said this year it would tell passengers if they were on the list and offer them an opportunity to provide additional information as part of an administrative appeals process to potentially be removed from the list.
In the wake of the California attack that killed 14 people and that investigators say may have been inspired by Islamic State, Democrats want people who are banned from air travel to also be prevented from buying weapons. Republicans say such a ban would be overly broad and may deprive some Americans of their constitutional right to bear arms.
The text of a Senate bill didn’t explicitly mention either the no-fly list or any other terrorism list, but Democratic sponsors said it would in practice ban those on the government lists from buying guns. The proposal, which would gave the attorney general the power to block gun sales, was defeated in the Senate last week.
Still, President Barack Obama continued to make the case for the proposal in a speech from the Oval Office Sunday night. “Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon?” he said.
Some Republicans and other gun rights supporters have pointed to the high error rates and false positives in the government’s terrorism databases. In one notable incident, the late Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Democratic Party icon, was singled out for special scrutiny at airports because his name matched an alias used by a terrorist suspect.
“These are everyday Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism, they wind up on the no-fly list, there’s no due process or any way to get your name removed from it in a timely fashion, and now they’re having their Second Amendment rights being impeded upon,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, told CNN this week.
Various government agencies maintain databases on suspected terrorists, each with a different function. Most of those lists were either created or vastly expanded after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks under President George W. Bush’s administration.
The National Counterterrorism Center runs a central repository of more than 1 million people called Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE. The TIDE database, which includes about 25,000 Americans as of 2013, is drawn from intelligence community sources and is classified.
An unclassified subset of the TIDE database is made available to law enforcement as part of the Terrorist Screening Database. That database contains biographical and biometric information about potential terrorists and can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement officials who don’t have security clearances. As of 2011, that database was said to contain about 420,000 names, according to the FBI.
The Transportation Security Administration receives an even smaller list of people subject to travel restrictions drawn from the Terrorist Screening Database. In addition to the 16,000 names on the no-fly list in 2011, another 16,000 were on the selectee list. The selectee list doesn’t prevent individuals from flying but subjects them to extra scrutiny.
Critics say that banning suspected terrorists from buying guns poses the same problems as banning them from traveling: namely, the lack of transparency around the process used and concern of depriving individuals of their rights over the mere suspicion of terrorism.
“There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns and the no-fly list could serve as a tool for it—but only with major reform,” said Hina Shamsi, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
Ms. Shamsi litigated the ACLU’s ongoing challenge to the no-fly list in federal court, winning a victory for several of her clients who were denied the right to travel. Several plaintiffs in the lawsuit were removed from the no-fly list and the government has made some modifications
“These lists are compiled on the basis of mere suspicions,” said Bruce Ackerman, a constitutional law scholar and professor at Yale University. “What we need is a system in which defense lawyers who have received security clearances can effectively challenge the government’s evidence.”
Per the U.S. State Department, there are several other lists.
Red Flags and Watch Lists
Red Flags
These links, and subsequent links found on these web pages, describe the efforts of the U.S. federal government in the area of export control through Project Shield America. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office takes a proactive stance on the prevention of illegal export of sensitive U.S. munitions and strategic technology. Through the inspection of outbound shipments at high-threat ports and border crossings, educational outreach to industry leaders, and international cooperation with foreign governments, Project Shield America endeavors to protect American technological accomplishment from adversaries. These links also inform the public about the effective role that it can play in deterring illegal export activity. “Red Flag Indicators,” from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, encourage citizens to play an active role in the fight against proliferation and highlights specific activity indicative of potential export violations.
The following links provide information on countries, companies, and individuals that the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Treasury have determined constitute a potential threat to domestic export control initiatives. Additionally, summary information about embargoes and sanctions imposed by the United States, United Kingdom, and the United Nations can be found below.
AECA Debarred List – Entities and individuals prohibited from participating directly or indirectly in the export of defense articles, including technical data and defense services. Pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), the AECA Debarred List includes persons convicted in court of violating or conspiring to violate the AECA and subject to “statutory debarment” or persons established to have violated the AECA in an administrative proceeding and subject to “administrative debarment.”
U.S. Denied Persons List – Individuals and entities that have been denied export privileges. Any dealings with a party on this list that would violate the terms of its denial order are prohibited.
U.S. Unverified List – The Unverified List includes names and countries of foreign persons who in the past were parties to a transaction with respect to which the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) could not conduct a pre-license check (PLC) or a post-shipment verification (PSV) for reasons outside of the U.S. Government’s control. Any transaction to which a listed person is a party will be deemed by BIS to raise a Red Flag.
U.S. Specially Designated Nationals Lists – OFAC publishes a list of individuals and companies owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries. It also lists individuals, groups, and entities, such as terrorists and narcotics traffickers designated under programs that are not country-specific. Collectively, such individuals and companies are called “Specially Designated Nationals” or “SDNs.” Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.
Entity List– Parties whose presence in a transaction can trigger a license requirement supplemental to those elsewhere in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The list specifies the license requirements and policy that apply to each listed party.
U.S. Embargo Reference Chart – Foreign countries against which the United States federal government has imposed controls for the export of defense articles and services.
Consolidated Screening List– Link to a downloadable file that consolidates export screening lists of the Departments of Commerce, State and the Treasury into one spreadsheet as an aide to industry in conducting electronic screens of potential parties to regulated transactions. UK Embargoes – A reference point for lists of UN, EU, OSCE, and UK sanctions.
“Yes, there is a strategy,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said in his December 5th address at the Brookings Institution. The US strategy, he explained, has three components: “Mobilising a coalition to defeat Daesh” — the Islamic State; to “work diplomatically” with Iran, among other countries, “to bring an end to the war in Syria”; and “ensure that the instability created by the war in Syria does not spread”.
But are Washington and Tehran pursuing the same goals in Syria?
At first glance, there are reasons to suggest they are: the emergence of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, his promise of engaging in bilateral talks with the United States, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 and the menacing rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) have led some in the West to hope for a new alignment of strategic interests between Washington and Tehran.
Rohani, however, commands little influence over the Islamic Republic’s regional policies. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) owns this portfolio.
The public statements of IRGC commanders and the activities of the corps in Syria make it clear that, beyond a fleeting tactical convergence of interests, Tehran is pursuing goals that are the exact opposite of those of the Obama administration.
IRGC commander Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Major- General Qassem Soleimani, head of the expeditionary Quds Force, have repeatedly expressed their support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime, with Soleimani promising to stick with Assad “to the very end”.
Brigadier-General Hossein Hamadani, the field commander of the Iranian forces in Syria who was killed October 7th in the suburbs of Aleppo, not only praised Assad as “more obedient to the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, than some of our statesmen”, he also recalled the supreme leader stressing the importance of the “strategic depth” Syria provides for Iran.
With the aim of securing the survival of the Assad regime, the IRGC is deploying troops and non-Iranian Shia militias in Syria. According to open source data, 210 Iranians, 179 Afghans and 33 Pakistanis — all Shias, with the exception of two Iranian Sunnis — were killed in combat in Syria between January 2012 and December 5, 2015.
While there is no reliable information about the scale of Iraqi Shia combat fatalities in Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah is believed to have lost 1,000-1,500 fighters in Syria in the same period.
As surviving militiamen return to their home countries, there is a very real risk of the spread or rekindling of sectarian conflicts in those nations, which is the opposite of Kerry’s expressed aim of preventing further spread of the war.
Sharing ISIS as an enemy is not likely to bring Washington and Tehran closer to each other. As a means of keeping Assad in power, Tehran is concentrating its military resources against Syrian rebel forces threatening the Damascus regime, including the secular opposition, which might offer an acceptable alternative to Assad.
In the meantime, Tehran makes little military effort against ISIS, which the Islamic Republic considers an alternative worse than Assad. In this regard, too, Kerry looks in vain for support from Tehran.
Not even Kerry’s desire to bring an end to the war in Syria is likely to resonate with the IRGC leadership because continued war in Syria, the Middle East refugee crisis and the increased threat of terrorism from Beirut to Paris only increase Tehran’s leverage.
Once the Assad regime’s survival is secure, the IRGC benefits from a permanent low-intensity crisis in Syria, which not only legitimises its military presence there but also makes Tehran a desirable negotiating partner for the United States and European powers desperate to end the slaughter in Syria.
In his Brookings address, Kerry emphasised the difficulties of achieving US goals in Syria but, by looking to Tehran for support, he may end up making those aims even less achievable.
MALA QARA, Iraq (Reuters) – Mohannad is a spy for Islamic State. He eavesdrops on chatter in the street markets of Mosul and reports back to his handlers when someone breaks the militant group’s rules. One man he informed on this year – a street trader defying a ban on selling cigarettes – was fined and tortured by Islamic State fighters, according to a friend of Mohannad’s family. If the trader did not stop, his torturers told the man, they would kill him.
Mohannad is paid $20 for every offender he helps to catch.
He is 14.
The teenager is one cog in the intelligence network Islamic State has put in place since it seized vast stretches of Iraq and neighboring Syria. Informers range from children to battle-hardened fighters. Overseeing the network are former army and intelligence officers, many of whom helped keep former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party in power for years.
Saddam-era officers have been a powerful factor in the rise of Islamic State, in particular in the Sunni militant group’s victories in Iraq last year. Islamic State then out-muscled the Sunni-dominated Baath Party and absorbed thousands of its followers. The new recruits joined Saddam-era officers who already held key posts in Islamic State.
The Baathists have strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and are instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate, according to interviews with dozens of people, including Baath leaders, former intelligence and military officers, Western diplomats and 35 Iraqis who recently fled Islamic State territory for Kurdistan.
Of Islamic State’s 23 portfolios – equivalent to ministries – former Saddam regime officers run three of the most crucial: security, military and finance, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi analyst who has worked with the Iraqi government.
Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd who spent years opposing Saddam’s regime, said the ex-Baathists working with Islamic State provide the group with highly effective guidance on explosives, strategy and planning. “They know who is who, family by family, name by name,” he said.
“The fingerprints of the old Iraqi state are clear on their work. You can feel it,” one former senior security official in the Baath Party said.
In many ways, it is a union of convenience. Most former Baathist officers have little in common with Islamic State. Saddam promoted Arab nationalism and secularism for most of his rule.
But many of the ex-Baathists working with Islamic State are driven by self preservation and a shared hatred of the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad. Others are true believers who became radicalized in the early years after Saddam’s ouster, converted on the battlefield or in U.S. military and Iraqi prisons.
One former intelligence commander who served in Iraq’s national intelligence service from 2003 to 2009 said some ex-Baathists pushed out of state agencies by Iraq’s government were only too happy to find new masters. “ISIS pays them,” he said.
A few Sunni lawmakers hope that former Saddam-era officers might be persuaded to abandon their Islamic State allies. But a senior official close to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said dealing with them was difficult because the Baathists are so deeply split, with some supporting Islamic State and some opposed. “Who are they?” he asked. “Some wave olive branches. Others still wave a gun.”
A spokesman for Abadi, Saad al-Hadithi, said the Iraqi government opposes negotiations with the Baath Party. “There is no space for them in the political process,” he said. “They are banned under the constitution.”
TURNING POINT IN TIKRIT
Baathists began collaborating with al Qaeda in Iraq – the early incarnation of what would become Islamic State – soon after Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003. Saddam had run a brutal police state. The U.S. occupation dissolved the Baath Party and barred senior and even middling party officials from joining the new security services. Some left the country, others joined the anti-American insurgency.
But then the Baathists and jihadists disagreed over who should be in charge. Many ex-Baathists struck an alliance with the U.S. military and turned on the jihadists.
By 2014, the Baathists and the jihadists were back to being allies. As Islamic State fighters swept through central Iraq, they were joined by the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, a group of Baathist fighters.
The Naqshbandi and smaller groups of Saddam-era officers made up the majority of fighters in the initial stages of last year’s military onslaught, according to Sunni tribal leaders, Baathists and an Iraqi security commander. It was the Naqshbandi who rallied locals in Mosul to rise up against Baghdad, and who planned and commanded many of last year’s military advances, according to Iraqi officials and Abdul al-Samad al-Ghrairy, a senior official in what’s left of the Baath Party.
Within days, though, Islamic State “took the revolution from us,” said Ghrairy. “We couldn’t sustain the battle.”
In Tikrit, Islamic State fighters opened a jail and released up to 200 followers. More Islamic State fighters poured into the city, many of them with heavy machine guns. These men “took all the army’s weapons and didn’t give the Naqshabandi any. They kicked them aside,” a senior security official in Salahuddin said.
Soon after the fall of Tikrit in June 2014, leaders from the main factions of the Sunni rebellion met in the house of a Baath Party member. According to the senior security official, Tikrit tribal leaders and Baath officials, Islamic State told Baathists they had a choice: Join us or stand down. Some Baathists abandoned the revolt. Others stayed, swelling the ranks of Islamic State with mid-level security veterans.
That has boosted Islamic State’s firepower and tactical prowess. “This is not the al Qaeda we fought before,” said a prominent Sunni from Mosul who battled Islamic State’s forerunners. “Their tactics are different. These are men educated in military staff college. They are ex-army leaders. They are not simple minds, but men with real experience.”
Both Ghrairy and Khudair Murshidy, the Baath Party’s official spokesman, told Reuters that the party’s armed wing is frozen in the aftermath of its defeat. Islamic State, they added, had killed some 600 Baath supporters and Naqshbandi fighters. “Their policy is to kill everyone, destroy everyone,” Murshidy said. “They create fear and death everywhere and control areas. Many people have joined them now. At first they were a few hundred, now they are maybe more than 50,000.”
“THE WALLS HAVE EARS”
Emma Sky, a former adviser to the U.S. military, believes Islamic State has effectively subsumed the Baathists. “The mustached officers have grown religious beards. I think many have genuinely become religious,” she said.
Among the most high profile Baathists to join Islamic State are Ayman Sabawi, the son of Saddam Hussein’s half brother, and Raad Hassan, Saddam’s cousin, said the senior Salahuddin security official and several tribal leaders. Both were children during Saddam’s time, but the family connection is powerfully symbolic.
More senior officers now in Islamic State include Walid Jasim (aka Abu Ahmed al-Alwani) who was a captain of intelligence in Saddam’s time, and Fadhil al-Hiyala (aka Abu Muslim al-Turkmani) whom some believe was a deputy to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until he was killed in an airstrike earlier this year.
A boy walks past a picture of Iraq’s former president Saddam Hussein on a street in Tikrit, Iraq …
The group’s multi-layered security and intelligence agencies in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, are overseen by an agency called Amniya – literally ‘Security’. The agency has six branches, each responsible for maintaining a different aspect of security.
The overall head of Amniya in Iraq and Syria is a former Saddam-era intelligence officer from Fallujah called Ayad Hamid al-Jumaili, who joined the Sunni insurgency after the U.S.-led invasion and now answers directly to Baghdadi, according to Hashimi, the analyst.
A vice squad known as Hisba enforces order on the streets. Hisba officers punish everyone from cigarette traders to women not fully covered. They also run a network of informants, placing children such as 14-year-old Mohannad in mosques and markets, and women at funerals and family gatherings, according to residents of Mosul.
“The work of these children is rewarded with gifts or small cash prizes,” said the former intelligence officer. “Women, on the other hand, are recruited mostly from (Islamic State) families and they gather information for no reward.” The repression has become so intense in Mosul, residents said, people have revived a phrase used in Saddam’s era: “The walls have ears.”
Interviews with 35 men who recently escaped from Islamic State-held villages around Mosul offer rare details of what is happening inside Islamic State territory. Reuters sat in on debriefings of the men by Staff Lieutenant Colonel Surood Abdel Salal, a Kurdish intelligence official at a base behind the frontline south of Erbil. Most of those questioned were former members of the Iraqi security forces defeated by Islamic State in Mosul.
The 35 men described a life of increasing deprivation under Islamic State and a climate of paranoia in which they could trust no-one, even their own relatives.
One man in Mosul told Reuters his brother had been executed in early October after he cursed Islamic State and the Caliphate while arguing with his son, who wanted to join the group. “My brother’s shouting was heard by the neighbors. During that time there was a group of children who were playing in front of the house,” said the man. “Not a week had passed and my brother was arrested on charges of cursing God and the Islamic State.”
Islamic State execution squads often arrive in a large bus with tinted windows, another resident said. Police seal off streets surrounding the place where a killing is to be carried out. Men dressed in black with balaclavas either shoot people, or behead them with swords.
The bodies of those deemed to have committed the worst offences – cursing God or the group – are thrown in an area called al-Khafsa, a deep natural crater in the desert just south of Mosul, residents in the city said. Those killed for lesser crimes are returned to their families wrapped in a blanket.
A WEB OF INFORMANTS
In September, according to several of the men who fled, Islamic State’s Amniya agency rounded up around 400 former members of Iraq’s security forces and executed them. Families of those dumped in al-Khafsa were then sent a kind of receipt to notify them of the execution. Among those who described the massacre was a 21-year-old from a village east of Mosul whose cousin’s corpse was returned on the second day of the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice. “They brought it wrapped in a blanket with three bullet wounds,” he said.
Some of the 35 escapees said people are banned from leaving Islamic State territory; those caught leaving are routinely killed. Two escapees recounted the fate of a group of men who tried to leave recently. Islamic State caught them and executioners dropped a concrete blast wall on top of them. The killing was filmed and replayed on large screens the militants have erected in public spaces.
According to the fugitives’ testimony, Islamic State has embedded itself in almost every village, converting the homes of former Iraqi military officers into bases and creating a web of informants. Mobile phones are banned as is access to the Internet.
“They had an informant in each area who said so-and-so didn’t go to prayers,” said Fathi, a 30-year-old former policeman from a village east of Mosul. Many of the escapees had been on the run for months, carefully avoiding Islamic State checkpoints, especially those equipped with laptops the militants use to look up names on a database. Some hid in woodland along the Tigris River.
Ahmed, 32, said he was wanted by Islamic State for belonging to a tribal militia that fought the insurgents before the fall of Mosul. He said he had not been home for months because he feared one of his young daughters would betray his presence. “Maybe someone will come and ask my children (where I am) and they don’t know any better,” he said.
Local Islamic State leaders send their own children out as scouts, some of the escapees said. One man said the militants paid cigarette sellers to inform on their customers. So pervasive is Islamic State’s surveillance network that even at home people cannot let their guard down, according to 31-year-old policeman Saad Khalaf Ali. He was arrested and accused of speaking against the militants. He denied it, but the militants produced footage of him in his own home saying he wished for government forces to retake the area. The video had been secretly filmed by a boy from the village, the policeman said. “They take advantage of small children most of all because people don’t suspect them.”
Ali begged the militants for forgiveness and was released. But they detained him again several months later on charges of informing Kurdish and Iraqi forces about Islamic State positions. This time, he said, his own nephew and a cousin informed on him. He would have been executed but for a joint raid by American and Kurdish Special Forces in October which rescued him and 68 others.
UNDER PRESSURE?
It will be difficult for Baghdad to lure away ex-Baathists and Saddam-era officers working with Islamic State. The Iraqi government itself is bogged down by internal divisions, while the parts of the Baath party that have not joined Islamic State cannot agree on whether they want talks, or even who should represent them.
Meantime the war drags on.
In October, Baghdad created a special office to share intelligence between Iraq, Iran, Russia and the Syrian government. That office is providing Iraq’s airforce with information on Islamic State positions. Baghdad has also stepped up efforts to squeeze Islamic State financially by attacking oil facilities, pressuring businessmen who have helped the militants, and stopping salaries to government employees in areas under Islamic State rule.
Iraqi Finance Minister Zebari said Islamic State in Mosul had responded by “extorting more money from the public. They are going more towards criminal actions and kidnapping.” The group’s surveillance network is testament to its resourcefulness and ability to survive.
After his release from prison, Ahmed al-Tai’i, the cigarette salesman reported by 14-year-old Mohannad, confronted the boy’s father. The father admitted that Islamic State militants had paid Mohannad and other youngsters to help them, according to a friend of Tai’i.
The cigarette salesman says his arrest and imprisonment have left him paranoid. “Since I left prison a constant fear has lived with me. If I want to say or do something that contravenes the orders and instructions of Islamic State I look around to check there is nobody, even my friends, and especially small children,” he said. “I have lost trust in everyone around me.”
(Coles reported from Mala Qara and Parker from Erbil; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Stephen Kalin and Michael Georgy in Baghdad and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Michael Georgy and Simon Robinson)
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“Any targets threatening our (military) group or land infrastructure must be immediately destroyed,” Putin said, speaking at a Defence Ministry event.
The stakes appear to have been raised in Russia’s Syria gamble, as President Vladimir Putin casually let it drop that Russia will “hopefully” not have to use nuclear weapons against Islamic State (Isis). The key word here, however, is “appear”.
It’s important to remember that military involvement in Syria, and the harsh statements that regularly accompany it, serve a dual purpose for the Russian government.
On the international front, Russia is busy expanding its comparatively limited sphere of influence and seizing whatever opportunity it can to one up the West. Prolonged confusion over how best to deal with Isis specifically and the Syrian civil war in general gave the Russian government a golden opportunity to seem proactive and decisive next to the likes of Barack Obama and David Cameron.
Sure, Russia threw its lot in with dictator Bashar al-Assad, but to Russian officials, those are merely details. What’s important is that Russia is acting as though it knows what it’s doing, while the West, all the way until the horrific, Isis-orchestrated Paris attacks, has demonstrated much more self-doubt.
Syria is Russia’s chance to be treated like a superpower again. Dropping the word “nukes” into a conversation about the Syrian conflict is just one more way of trying on that fancy old Soviet mantle, from the days when the US and the USSR seemed to divide the world between them.
This rhetoric doesn’t make Russia’s real path in Syria any less uncertain going forward, but it does up perceived prestige points, especially if we consider the rise of the right in Europe and the popularity of someone like Donald Trump in the US.
At a time when demagogues with extreme positions are dominating the headlines, Russia laying the nuclear option on the table can actually appeal to a certain demographic far beyond Russian borders. Trump is saying “ban all Muslims”, while Putin is slyly suggesting to basically nuke parts of Syria. But next to Trump, Putin appears to be more clever and refined (and always allowing himself a way to save face, by merely hinting at the nuclear option).
And in an environment of increased fear, decisive-seeming statements and decisions hold particular power. Already, Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and another 2016 US presidential hopeful, has praised Putin’s decision to get involved in Syria.
Of course, Putin’s words were meant primarily for his domestic audience, which must be placated with constant reminders of Russia’s might and greatness. The Russian ruble has devalued, pensions are in jeopardy, grocery prices have shot up, as has the poverty rate, and scattered economic protests have already begun. A great, if short-term strategy for dealing with that is simply redirecting everyone’s attention to enemies abroad.
Putin is essentially saying: “Sure, my fellow citizens, things might be tough right now, but just look at all of the butt we are kicking in Syria! Real patriots won’t mind tightening their belts for a little while longer, as Russia blazes a trail to glory!” This may seem simplistic, but one should never underestimate the average Russian’s desire to feel proud of their country. That desire was overlooked in the 1990s, paving the way for a politician like Putin to assume power.
It’s also important to remember that Russia has never nuked another country before. There is no difficult legacy there — and hence no room for self-reflection. This is why both Russian politicians and journalists can afford to be flippant about nuclear weapons.
It helps, of course, that Isis is the perfect, irredeemable villain here. And that Russia is no stranger to terror, and on a human level, images of beheadings in Syria and massacres in Paris resonate profoundly in this country.
Many remember images of Russian soldiers beheaded in Chechnya. All were outraged when a plane full of Russian holidaymakers was recently downed over the Sinai, with Isis claiming responsibility. Feelings of international isolation in Russia have been, however briefly, replaced by the need to reach out to foreign powers, to stand together against the extremist threat.
Once again, the fact that the Russian government is choosing to do so via supporting Assad is not a concern for most Russian citizens. And anyway, plenty of Russians will argue that there are doubts in the West as to Assad’s role going forward too.
None of this means that the Kremlin has foolproof plans for the future. Everything from the row over Nato member Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet to the growing Islamist threat in Russia’s own North Caucasus region shows the current state of things at home and abroad is actually unpredictable.
In such an environment, talking up one’s own nukes — ie weapons of last resort no matter how awesome and manly Russian television makes them out to be — is actually a tacit admission of doubt and uncertainty.
Keep an eye on Libya, it too may require a repeated effort.
Without any formal announcements, the military has been testing missile systems both in an offensive and defensive measure. The Pentagon is charged with keeping ahead of forecasted conditions and they are successful and do make robust recommendations to the White House. Under sequestration, some needed measures are not possible yet proving the need given recent global terror events some requests are approved while others are delayed.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An early morning missile test in New Mexico left a white contrail that quickly turned into a corkscrew that was visible for hundreds of miles Thursday.
The unarmed Juno target missile was launched at 6:55 a.m. MST from an old military depot in northwestern New Mexico.
It was aimed at White Sands Missile Range, some 215 miles away, but a White Sands spokesman says it was successfully intercepted over the range by a Patriot missile and disintegrated midair.
Range spokesman Luciano Vera says a second Patriot fired from White Sands self-destructed after the first Patriot hit the target.
The corkscrew-shaped contrail was visible in Phoenix, 245 miles southwest of the launch site.
Moving forward, the Pentagon is also diligently working to gain a robust intelligence advantage as well as expanding a Middle East war footing.
WASHINGTON — As American intelligence agencies grapple with the expansion of the Islamic State beyond its headquarters in Syria, the Pentagon has proposed a new plan to the White House to build up a string of military bases in Africa, Southwest Asia and the Middle East.
The bases could be used for collecting intelligence and carrying out strikes against the terrorist group’s far-flung affiliates.
The growth of the Islamic State’s franchises — at least eight militant groups have pledged loyalty to the network’s leaders so far — has forced a debate within the Obama administration about how to distinguish between the affiliates that pose the most immediate threat to the United States and Europe and others that are more regionally focused. The regional groups, some officials say, may have opportunistically adopted the Islamic State’s brand to bolster their local clout and global stature.
In the midst of that debate, senior military officials have told the White House that the network of bases would serve as hubs for Special Operations troops and intelligence operatives who would conduct counterterrorism missions for the foreseeable future. The plan would all but ensure what Pentagon officials call an “enduring” American military presence in some of the world’s most volatile regions.
While it is in vogue to side with Putin and his mission to stop Islamic State in Syria, it is pure propaganda. Russia has assumed a full defensive posture aiding Bashir al Assad and is only targeting anti-Assad forces in Syria, many of which are supported by the West and the Middle East Gulf States. Russia in fact is expanding their bases in Syria stealing away some objectives even from Iran. Further, Russia is using the conflict in Syria to test the skill levels of ground troops and newly created weapons systems.
Then while the globe is focused on tracking terrorists around the world and connecting them to Islamic State or al Qaida, there is yet another matter of grave concern pointing to North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country has developed a hydrogen bomb, state media reported Thursday.
Information related to the highly secretive nation of North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, is extremely difficult to independently confirm.
A report by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the country is now a “powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate a self-reliant A-bomb (atomic bomb) and H-bomb (hydrogen bomb) to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation,” Yonhap reported. *** This is not a new condition, as the United States has advanced technology to test the air quality to determine what it reveals, which is in fact part of the signals intelligence used by the geo-spatial systems. Going back a few years, conditions were prove what North Korea was doing when it comes to the creation of a hydrogen bomb. There was and is a surge in radiation going back to 2010.
We cannot overlook the matter of the continued aggression by China in the South China Sea where the United States has deployed the USS Larson, which is a guided missile destroyer tasked with surveillance and intelligence gathering.
While there is still the matter of Iran testing missile systems in violation of all resolutions, there is very little if anything being considered to stop Iran.
It appears all of these global events are in fact part of the briefings provided to the White House, yet the Commander in Chief has proven he would rather remain focused on social justice issues and defer national security matters to the next President. You be the judge as to what the worldwide global security conditions will be by then.
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