The Islamic State has begun showing its charitable side to the public during Ramadan, while implementing a string of brutal rules and punishments to those the group deems as offenders of Islamic law. “Victory or martyrdom”, the fighters, wearing blue bandanas, scream in a circle around their commander, pledging their allegiance to God and vowing never to retreat.
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In November, revolutionaries posing as cooks infiltrated one of the terrorists’ camps and slipped a deadly substance into their lunch, trying to kill as numerous fighters as possible. We see the way that ISIS has obliterated the border between Syria and Iraq.
In his report, he wrote that “until the Arab world charts a path forward and starts addressing its rampant political decay, religious hubris, and economic mismanagement, regional security will remain scarce, and challenges such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [IS], Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the region and the growth of violent extremism – to just name a few – will continue to present themselves and possibly worsen with time”. They are the trained, battle-tested remnants of Iraq’s old Ba’athist Army, which the USA disbanded and scattered for reasons passing understanding once they reached Baghdad more than a decade ago.
Those strategies are being carried over into new fronts, appearing in Egypt in last week’s dramatic attack by an IS-linked militant group against the military in the Sinai Peninsula. Andreas Krieg, a professor at King’s College London who embedd…
Counterbalancing the forces that seem to be destabilizing and reorienting the Middle East demands a comprehensive strategy that bolsters institutions of education and social security, which can improve the economic inequality and lack of upward mobility in much of the region. That’s a sharp contrast to the rigid hierarchies of the Iraqi and Syrian militaries, where officers often fear acting without direct approval. “In that vacuum those rebels that are linked to terrorist groups, like ISIS, al-Qaida, have really grown really fast”. “This is compounded ISIS” ruthless treatment of the soldiers it captures. Sen.
Early in Ramadan, the group released a graphic seven-minute video purporting to show militants killing 15 Iraqi men for espionage. Veteran jihadis with combat experience in Afghanistan, Chechnya or Somalia have brought valuable experience. But this past weekend many Americans in major cities spent the holiday with one eye over their shoulders as the nation went on heightened alert for potential terror attacks by supporters of Islamic State.
“It is possible that [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi] is concerned about undermining his own leadership by giving an order that may not be obeyed by emirs and fighters in Syria”, the CTC newsletter added. Obama cited alleged successes of over 5,000 US led coalition airstrikes over the last year, but the facts on the ground indicate that ISIS and quasi-governmental militias have only increased their violence and reach in key cities such as Ramadi and Palmyra.
“At the risk of sounding flippant, maybe we should call them “CRISIS” which is standing for mad Radicalised Individuals Selling Islam Short because in reality these people have created a crisis worldwide and I think that we are all scratching our heads in how to deal with this problem”, he said.
He would not say whether it is because Canadian pilots have no spotters on the ground in Syria to help guide bombs or provide intelligence on targeting.
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While Syrian government forces control a small strip of territory around the city of Hasaka, Kurdish groups mostly control the area of northern Syria running from Kobani to the Syria-Iraq border. Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen retook areas to the south and northeast of Baghdad, the oil refinery city of Beiji and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit north of the capital. But the real battle remains on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
