Pan-Islamic merged mega thread

[McG]

I wouldn't shed a tear for the Saudis becoming beggars.

Ecept that they are the regional counter-balance to Iran, and keep the Turks on the sidelines

Where they are all in competition for the same pieces of pie, what is the risk that they come to direct blows over the current conflict?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

I think I may have said it before - this is the Game of Empires - Persian, Arabian, and Ottoman.  They are going to sort out the geo-strategic tectonic plates one way or another.  The American and Russian Empires get involved at their peril, albeit for reasons that resonate with their respective internal logic.

So far, only the Chinese Empire has managed to resist the temptation to stick their hands on the hot stove.

 

[GAP]

So far, only the Chinese Empire has managed to resist the temptation to stick their hands on the hot stove.

I think they have peripherally but only to protect their own game plan regarding their vested interests in surrounding countries. Even then it has all been very low key, we seldom hear much more than the end result.

 

[Good2Golf]

...So far, only the Chinese Empire has managed to resist the temptation to stick their hands on the hot stove.

At least one nation reads Sun Tzu and actually follows his advice...  :nod:

 

[cavalryman]

At least one nation reads Sun Tzu and actually follows his advice...  :nod:

Cultural bias no doubt.  ;D

 

[a_majoor]

Good question. What if this is the Islamic reformation?

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/217973

ANDREW KLAVAN: IS THIS BLOODSHED ISLAM’S REFORMATION?

The current chaos in the Levant did not just happen. It has its internal causes but no small amount of the horror can be laid at the door of Barack Obama too. From his re-establishment of relations with the tyrant Bashar Hafez al-Assad to his surrender of George W. Bush’s victory in Iraq, to his standing by with his thumb up his brain while peaceful protestors took to the Syrian streets and the country then descended into civil war, to his weak sauce bombing campaign, Putin stealing his lunch at the UN and Obama’s puny U.S. response — through it all, President Right-Side-of-History has been on the wrong side of every decision. And so yes, now, the current mess looks remarkably like the Thirty Years War with its religious underpinnings, warring states and over-involved mega powers. And so it does indeed raise the question of whether it will be the turning point in Islam’s reformation, leading to an enlightened Westphalia-style peace.

One can hope. But the tenets of Westphalia grew out of Christian thinking and Christian religion. Christians were appalled by the bloodletting of the the Thirty Years War precisely because it violated the central preachings of the Prince of Peace: Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you. The outline for modern statehood and separation of church and state were written into the Gospels: Judge not lest ye be judged; render under Caesar that which is Caesar and unto God that which is God’s, and so on.

Does the same hope lie in the tenets of Islam?

Well, it would be nice if it ultimately turned out that way, but if so, I suspect things may take quite a while – and I’m not sure if the west can wait as long as Zhou Enlai’s apocryphal quip regarding the French Revolution to determine the outcome. In the meantime, as Mark Steyn asked in 2007, “What if we’ve already had the reformation of Islam and jihadism is it?”

and the article here: http://pjmedia.com/andrewklavan/2015/11/02/is-this-bloodshed-islams-reformation/

 

[jollyjacktar]

Fingers crossed.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/isis-jihadi-john-drone-strike-1.3317183

 

[The Bread Guy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2936231/The-Kill-List-Half-ISIS-commanders-believed-dead-executioner-chief-Jihadi-John-free-commit-barbaric-slaughter.html

The Kill List: Half of ISIS top commanders believed to be dead... but executioner-in-chief Jihadi John is still free to commit barbaric slaughter ....

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe not anymore (usual "initial reports" caveats apply) ....

The Pentagon said late Thursday that it had targeted Mohammed Emwazi, a member of the Islamic State often referred to as Jihadi John, in an airstrike near Raqqa, Syria.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement that the military was “assessing the results” of the strike to determine if Mr. Emwazi had been killed.

Mr. Emwazi, considered the most prominent British member of the militant group, was shown in videos in late 2014 and early 2015 killing several American and other Western hostages ....

Another account:

As the U.S. government is working today to confirm the death of "Jihadi John", a U.S. official appeared confident the notorious ISIS executioner was taken out in what he called a "flawless" American airstrike.

"He walked out of a building and got in the car. We struck it right after with zero collateral damage," a counter-terrorism official told ABC News late Thursday. "The vehicle was on fire. It was a 100 percent flawless, direct hit."

"Jihadi John" essentially "evaporated" in the explosion, the official said ....

More here via Google News if you're interested.

Play with the bull ....

 

[jollyjacktar]

and here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3316497/Has-Jihadi-John-killed-drone-strike-Officials-claim-British-ISIS-fanatic-targeted-Raqqa.html

 

[McG]

USAF gets another IS leader, this time in Libya.

Libya IS head 'killed in US air strike'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34823466

 

[a_majoor]

Sometimes war is the answer: we certainly need to ramp up if we are really serious about defeating ISIS and other radicals:

http://www.everyjoe.com/2015/11/17/politics/war-is-the-answer/

War Is The Answer

“War is not the answer!” the bumper sticker proudly proclaims. It’s a ridiculous assertion. Sometimes war is the answer. It depends on the question.

If the question is “do you need to impose your will on an enemy who will otherwise not stop hurting you?” then war is the only answer.

Don’t let the limited wars that America has fought in recent memory fool you.

War, real war, total war, the sort of war that the West created and mastered, is decisive. It shatters nations. It destroys cultures. It obliterates the will to fight and leaves a civilization reduced to pacifism…or rubble.

Until 1945, Imperial Japan was defended by a fighting force that had a worldwide reputation for brutality and fanaticism. The Rape of Nanking is the most notorious of the Imperial Japanese Army’s many war crimes. The soldiers themselves believed in gyokusai (“glorious death”), preferring to make suicidal attacks rather than surrender to the enemy. Only 921 out of 31,000 soldiers surrendered in the Battle of Saipan. The suicidal fanaticism of the Japanese culminated in the kamikaze, pilots flying planes filled with explosives who deliberately crashed their aircraft into enemy warships. In all, 3,860 kamikaze pilots died to destroy between 30 and 50 warships and kill around 4,000 sailors. The fighting spirit of the Japanese was so terrifying that our war planners expected that the Japanese would kill one million Americans if we invaded.

Today, we primarily know the Japanese for their fuel-efficient cars and game consoles. There are no Japanese suicide bombers. American visitors to Tokyo need not fear being blown up by an adherent of gyokusai seeking to avenge the Divine Emperor.

Until 1945, Germany was considered among the most militaristic nations on earth. Germany was built on Prussia, and Prussia was built on war – “Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country,” to use von Schrotter’s adage. Militarism reached its height under the National Socialist regime of Hitler, which created the most efficient fighting force in the world. Germany conquered Paris in five weeks; it took six months for the Allies to re-conquer it. German forces blitzkrieged from Poland to Moscow in five months; it took the Soviet Union four years to cross back. In between Germany engaged in deeds of villainy which even today scar the psyche to study them – the Holocaust foremost among them.

Today, Germany is among the most peaceful nations in the world – a country so devoted to pacifism that even the New York Times has urged it to consider taking a stronger stance on military action.

The ideology of the Islamic State is as fanatical and militaristic as anything that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had to offer. They will not stop their expansion, their aggression, and their terror. So we must stop it, or surrender to it. To defeat ISIS we must break its will to fight.

The militarist cultures of Japan and Germany were not ended with candlelit vigils, Twitter hashtags, and peace signs. They were ended with bombs and tanks. Germany’s war dead are estimated at 7.4 million out of a population of 70 million – more than 10%. Japan lost an estimated 4.5 million out of 71 million. It would have lost more, but the Emperor surrendered when a pair of atomic bombs convinced him that we were willing to do whatever it took to win.

Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that a similar defeat could not be inflicted on the Islamic State, on Iran, and any other nation that treats the West as an enemy. War, real war, is decisive.

It is we who are not decisive. We, the West, presently lack the will to wage real war. And the enemy knows this. In the aftermath of World War I, another total war was unthinkable to America, Britain, and France. It had been “The War to End All War.” Even the risk of war was enough to unsettle the Neville Chamberlains of Europe. Hitler knew this, and exploited it; and the result was total war on his terms, after he had grown strong, when Churchill was proven right, and the West regained its martial spirit.

History repeats itself. ISIS grows stronger daily, and our Churchill is not yet in sight. War is not the answer? No, it is the answer, the only answer we can give, save one: “Allah Akbar”.

Read more: http://www.everyjoe.com/2015/11/17/politics/war-is-the-answer/#ixzz3roFsRRSm

 

[a_majoor]

Interesting bit in Instapundit, showing how ISIS is a very sophisticated operation and quite capable of operating in a 4GW environment. The bit about how some hapless jihadis are now working the night shift on the IT help desk is a bit humorous, I suspect that they are going to have some manning and motivation issues as well. Go to article to access multiple links:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/219247

IN THE ’80s, WE WERE TOLD THAT 21st CENTURY CYBER WARFARE WOULD RESEMBLE SKYNET, OR W.O.P.R. FROM WARGAMES. Instead, here’s what’s going on in the backrooms of 21st century warfare:

Shot:

NBC News also revealed that ISIS has a 24-hour help desk:

Counterterrorism analysts affiliated with the U.S. Army tell NBC News that the ISIS help desk, manned by a half-dozen senior operatives around the clock, was established with the express purpose of helping would-be jihadists use encryption and other secure communications in order to evade detection by law enforcement and intelligence authorities.

Personally, I’m not sure there’s a worse fate than quitting your comfortable job to run off and join the caliphate, all psyched to defeat the infidels, only to be told you’re being stuck on the graveyard shift at the IT desk, and you start tomorrow, oh, and if you don’t like it they’ll put you in a cage.

—Stephen L. Miller, “A Day in the Life of the ISIS 24-Hour Help Desk.”

Chaser:

Anonymous has taken credit for eliminating some 3,800 pro-ISIS social-media accounts, and it has suggested that, as in its campaign against the rather less significant Ku Klux Klan, it will gather a great deal of real-world information on Islamic State sympathizers and confederates and make it public. In the case of the Klan, that would mean mainly exposure to social opprobrium; in the case of Islamic State groupies and co-conspirators, that could mean a great deal more.

Anonymous is a famously fractious coalition of individuals and factions with internal rivalries and disagreements — a collective front rather than a united front, as Jamie Condliffe put it in Gizmodo — but it is generally regarded as being reasonably good at what it does. Terrorist groups are critically dependent upon electronic communication for everything from recruitment and motivation to actual operations, and there is some reason to suspect that groups such as Anonymous will prove more adept at disrupting that communication than our conventional intelligence and law-enforcement forces have. The Islamic State isn’t really a state, yet; like al-Qaeda, it is a non-state actor, and it is likely that other non-state actors will be enormously important in countering it.

—Kevin D. Williamson, “Anonymous at War,” who adds the line that made the rounds on Twitter earlier this week — these are not the 72 virgins that ISIS was expecting when it launched its jihad…

 

[CougarKing]

The impact of the oil glut being felt by ISIS as well:

Yahoo News

Flow of ISIL oil revenue slowing, reports say
By Sherry Noik | Insight – Tue, 17 Nov, 2015 3:52 PM EST

The falling oil prices that are devastating Canada’s economy are also hurting ISIL, but it’s unclear if the commodity’s decline will spell an end to the murderous terrorist group that’s behind the Paris attacks.

“Operating in large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and western and northern Iraq allows ISIL to control numerous oilfields from which it continues to extract oil for its own use, its own refining and for onward sale or swap to local and regional markets,” according to the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF), of which Canada is a member.

In a February report, the FATF estimated that ISIL was selling crude at source for a deeply discounted $25-$30 per barrel to middlemen, who then marked it up to $60-$100 per barrel (bbl).

“We note that during the preparation of this report, there has been a substantial decline in global crude oil prices (from approximately $80USD/bbl to $50USD/bbl), and so the price at which ISIL sells crude oil (and the revenue generated from the sale of crude oil) has likely declined as well,” the report said.
(...SNIPPED)

 

[McG]

Some background for those unfamiliar:

The Sunni-Shia split at the heart of regional conflict in the middle east explained
The National Post
Adrian Humpheries
18 Nov 15

It was in another time — more than 1,300 years ago — in a land known as the Islamic State that, after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, a succession crisis divided Muslims; and the widening schism continues to play out today as ISIL carves its bloody notion of a new Islamic State on the same soil these feuds were first fought, lashing out at targets both within the Muslim world and in the West.

Succession can be a tough adjustment for any group, but is especially emotional when a departing leader of a nascent religion is particularly strong, effective or loved.

A dispute over how to replace Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim world after his death in 632 — and increasingly after the deaths of subsequent leaders — led to competing iterations of the Islamic faith, diverting followers into two major branches — the Sunni and the Shia.

While doctrinal distinctions created the schism, evolving geopolitical notions make it an important matter for world attention.

The split began in the early history of Islam.

Those pushing for selecting successors as caliph of the Islamic State and as the religious authority only from among the family of Muhammad became known as the Shia, from the Arabic for “the followers of Ali,” a reference to Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Those pushing for a selective process based on seeking the most qualified from the wider tribal context became known as the Sunni, from the Arabic for “people of the tradition.”

“This was really a political dispute, but that political dispute early on over who should lead turned into — over centuries — the beginnings of a theological sectarian split,” said Anver Emon, professor of law and Canada Research Chair in religion, pluralism and the rule of law at the University of Toronto

“It is a secession crisis between the two groups, in political terms. But following that, of course, it has had a lot of legacy in terms of religious and legal and ritualistic kinds of distinctions,” said Khalid Mustafa Medani, an associate professor of political science and Islamic studies at Montreal’s McGill University.

What to outsiders may seem an arcane distinction, within Islam can mean everything.

Members of the two branches have lived together peacefully and intermarried, but for some, especially the highly politicized, the divide becomes “very heated” and can even lead to calls for excommunication from the Islamic faith, said Medani.

In the current context of the self-declared Islamic State, that can mean death.

A study in 2009 by the Pew Research Center says there were more than 1.57 billion Muslims around the world, about 23% of the world’s population. Of those, 10 to 13 percent were Shia and 87-90 percent were Sunni.

It is largely where those Shia live that has become important. The majority of Shias (between 68 to 80 percent) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq. In many other countries in the Persian Gulf, Shia remain a minority within Sunni dominated states.

That makes theology increasingly political.

The schism first fully registered in the West in 1979 with the Iranian revolution.

The shah, a secular monarch of Iran, was ousted and replaced by an Islamic republic. The revolutionaries seized the American embassy and held its staff hostage.

That movement was Shia.

The Iranians funded and trained Hezbollah in the 1980s that embarked on a deadly campaign against Israel with suicide bombings, kidnappings and assassinations.

The vast majority of followers of both branches lead peaceful lives — and neither has a monopoly on militancy or moderation. The Iranian revolution and Hezbollah, however, set a popular notion in the West of Shia being the dangerous iteration.

It was a view embraced by many Sunni elites.

“It served the Gulf countries, like Bahrain, like Saudi Arabia, like Kuwait, to strongly associate Shiaism with revolution and thereby raise concerns about their own domestic Shia population,” said Emon. Casting Shiites as heretics aided that domestic need.

Some Sunni leaders also exported their own, competing, brand of the narrative.

It makes the Shia-Sunni split terribly important when the major backers of each branch are dominating influences in the same, sensitive region: Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“To understand the geopolitical rivalries of a country like Iran versus Saudi Arabia is an important way to understand why people are so mobilized,” said Medani, “It is very important to really centre this increasing animosity between Shia and Sunni based on the role of these leaders and the states.”

The Western notion of Shia being the dangerous iteration shifted through fundamentalist Sunni groups such as the Taliban, al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also referred to as ISIS).

For a while, exploiting the Sunni-Shia split served the interests of nations controlled by either branch.

But instability rarely helps heal divides.

In Iraq, for instance, a Sunni minority under Saddam Hussein ruled over a Shia majority. The overthrow of Hussein left people looking to reclaim a lost position and neighbours anxiously eyeing the change.

“For a country like Saudi Arabia, through its exportation of its own Islamist ideology,” said Emon, “they’re responsible for the underlying ideology that informs al Qaeda and ISIS.”

But then ISIL changed the rules.

In 2014, after taking control of territory in the Sunni heartland of Iraq, ISIL proclaimed itself a caliphate, calling other states illegitimate and placing itself as the exclusive authority over the Islamic world, as if the world was the same as it was 1,300 years ago.

ISIL targets Shia Muslims as well as the West as it imposes its strict interpretations within territory it controls.

“ISIS is simply coming home to roost,” said Emon.

The benefactor of viewing ISIL’s brutal campaign as part of the ancient legacy of Islam, however, is ISIL itself.

ISIL wants to convince everyone the struggle is one epic clash of civilizations between the West and the Islamic World — with themselves as the representative of the world’s Muslims and as their religious authority — their caliph, the scholars said.

“That is the greatest lie that can lead to the greatest conflict,” said Medani.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/the-sunni-shia-split-at-the-heart-of-regional-conflict-in-the-middle-east-explained

 

[Edward Campbell]

This could go in damned nearly half the threads on the first page of this topic:

         

          It's a short letter to the editor from a someone named K.N. Al-Sabah that appeared in the Financial Times on 22 Aug 2013. 

 

[Rifleman62]

It seems that oil production facilities were not actually targets as their distruction would endanger the environment/pollute etc. Same with destroying the truck oil tankers, plus it could kill a civilian. Many reports on FOX by retired Generals re ROE' that no civilians, none, none must be injured.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/11/20/signs-pentagon-moving-to-loosen-rules-isis-war.html

Signs Pentagon moving to loosen 'rules' of ISIS war

By Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin Published November 20, 2015

of ISIS war

By Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin Published November 20, 2015 FoxNews.com
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The Defense Department may be moving to loosen the rules of engagement in the war against the Islamic State, following criticism that the military’s strict policies are undermining the 14-month air campaign over Iraq and Syria.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened the door to the changes in an interview on Thursday, even as President Obama defends the current military strategy in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

“We're prepared to change the rules of engagement. We've changed tactics, as we just did in the case of the fuel trucks,” Carter said on MSNBC.

The fuel trucks Carter mentioned were targeted in an airstrike by U.S. Air Force A-10 and AC-130 gunships Monday. The strike destroyed 116 ISIS fuel trucks, part of the U.S.-led coalition’s new effort to destroy a key revenue source for the terror network.

Prior to that strike, U.S. military jets were not allowed to hit ISIS fuel trucks because killing the drivers was seen as killing civilians. For the past year, ISIS has earned $1 million a day from black-market oil sales, according to the Pentagon.

As Carter mentioned, the Monday strike showed the Defense Department already is adjusting its tactics to a degree, in a bid to address factors that ISIS is exploiting.

"ISIS uses our rules of engagement against us," one U.S. military official told Fox News.

ISIS has used civilians from the beginning of the air war as shields against U.S. airstrikes. ISIS leadership also is known to hide in plain view above a prison in the de-facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, not far from where “Jihadi John” was killed recently by a U.S. drone.

Even before the Paris terror attacks, the U.S. launched Operation Tidal Wave II last month to destroy oil infrastructure in eastern Syria used by ISIS to generate two-thirds of its revenue – sites the airstrikes previously had avoided.

Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the new U.S. Army general leading the coalition against ISIS, has made destroying ISIS oil infrastructure a priority, according to defense officials. He named the current operation after a U.S. operation of the same name in World War II that targeted Nazi oil infrastructure in Romania.

Loosening the rules of engagement is something critics have been demanding for months.

Retired Air Force Gen. David Deptula, in charge of the Afghanistan air war against the Taliban in 2001 and responsible for the “no-fly zone” over Iraq during the 1990s, said restrictive rules of engagement for U.S. pilots since the start of the anti-ISIS air campaign have enabled the enemy to inflict massive civilian casualties – even though the rules are meant to avoid civilian casualties.

“There is a lot of frustration because of the onerous restrictions that are being placed on individuals who are prosecuting air operations,” Deptula said. “The ‘mother may I?’ request chain to be able to engage is inducing delay in actually being effective. You have obvious Islamic State targets you would like to engage but you have to wait to get approval that takes hours.”

He asked: “What is the logic of a policy that restricts the application of air power to prevent the potential of collateral damage, while assuring the certainty of the Islamic State's crimes against humanity?”

Russia does not appear to be under the same constraints as the United States when it comes to civilian casualties.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition said Russia was using “dumb” bombs to carry out the majority of its strikes against ISIS.

“Their history has been both reckless and irresponsible,” Col. Steve Warren said.  “Those are antiquated tactics. We don't even use those type of tactics anymore. … Those are the type of tactics needed only if you don't possess the technology, the skills and the capabilities to conduct the type of precision strikes that our coalition conducts.”

While the Pentagon weighs its approach, pressure may be building from both sides of the aisle. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, speaking in New York Thursday, also indicated a desire to expand the air campaign against ISIS and loosen the rules of engagement.

“It is time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate and deny ISIS control of territory in Iraq and Syria. That starts with a more effective coalition air campaign, with more allied planes, more strikes, and a broader target set,” she said at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews

Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel . She joined FNC in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent.

- mod edit to make link work -

 

[CougarKing]

The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) one of Al-Qaeda's former franchises in Southeast Asia, might in turn become quite the tool for ISIS ever since the ASG pledged allegiance to them:

Diplomat

Has a Philippine Militant Group Gone Regional Amid Islamic State Fears?

The Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf may be spreading its unwanted tentacles.
luke_hunt_q
By Luke Hunt
November 25, 2015

As the rest of the world grapples with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), their latest attacks on Paris, and what some commentators are calling the Global Jihad Insurgency, Philippines-based Islamic militant group the Abu Sayyaf may be spreading its own unwanted tentacles.

That message was clear following a leaked memo from within the Malaysian police published by the news portal Malaysiakini detailing how the Abu Sayyaf has established cell networks in East and West Malaysia, which were prepared to carry out terrorist-styled attacks.

Local police in Kota Kinabalu – where tourist dollars hold pride of place on the local political agenda – denied the reports circulating on social media that eight suicide bombers had been planted in the state of Sabah and another 10 in Kuala Lumpur.


(...SNIPPED)

 

[Tuan]

haha

 

[Altair]

haha

assad

Russia

Turkey

Kurds

Iraq (trying desperately to off itself )

Turkey

Saudis

Hezbollah

Israel

Moderate rebels?

Missing anyone?

 

[jollyjacktar]

The Sunny Ways team...