Kurdistan’s new secret weapon against ISIS jihadists – Humiliation

January 6, 2015January 6, 2015 Jon Current Events, Iraq, News News

The Kurdish military is employing a new weapon in their fight against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq. The Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga, those who allied with the Americans during the War in Iraq in the hopes of finally receiving a homeland to call their own, have been fighting tooth and nail to ensure that their home stays their own. They have been literally on the front line of this war since Islamists poured over the border last summer and have since, constantly dueled for control of Northern Iraq and Syria. Their villages and cities face regular raids and bombings and the ISIS lines have even pushed to within an hour of the capital city of Kurdistan. They have more to fear from ISIS than any of us.

The Kurds, however, haven’t just taken this abuse idly. They have been the force most responsible for the direct losses against ISIS Insurgents in Iraq and Syria, filling the voids created by US and Allied bombs. In recent months, the Kurds have mounted a heroic comeback from a bleak outlook in the early fall. The Peshmerga successfully pushed back insurmountable odds in the Syrian city of Kobane, and are repelling a horde of Islamic warriors with aid from coalition bombings in Iraq. They’ve even managed to achieve this all on shoestring budgets that don’t even equal the transportation budget of many US states. Now, they are unleashing a new weapon, which, for this type of war, might be the most powerful yet.

Humiliation.

In perhaps the best display of propaganda since “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, Kurdish television networks have put out a video openly mocking fanatical jihadists. It’s worth a watch. The video made me, a political blogger and military writer, with time served in the contested regions of Iraq with the United States Marine Corps in 2005 and 2007, start thinking.

That the Kurds have become so strong in the endeavor to combat a massive force of fanatics, who themselves have the backing of ex-Saddam military officers, funding from wealthy oil barons of the Saudi Arabian peninsula, and a recruiting pool of virtually every hardened Islamic fundamentalist from the 1.2 billion people of the Islamic world, is a story unto itself. This is especially true, given that only a month ago, few would have imagined Kobane being a successful battle against ISIS. It was, however, and the Islamists know it. There is legitimacy to the Kurds mocking the terrorist regime because, deep down, the Islamic State knows that they have lost that battlefield, along with many others. They also know that every day that they fight there, they send more and more people to their doom.

More so than the fact that Kurds are able to broadcast this piece (free from ISIS or Allah having any ability to stop them) the humiliation campaign marks a quintessential attack on the jihadist’s theory. The message itself, mocks not just the individuals who participate in ISIS, but also attacks the very core beliefs around why many of the Islamic State fighters set off to join the Jihad in the first place. Why is a video like this, with its catchy melody, whimsical lyrics, and low budget possibly the single greatest strategy that the Kurds could be using right now? Answer this question honestly and see if you can figure it out:

“How could someone fight for a religious ideal around a God who would allow them to be humiliated so greatly? Why would God will for his warriors to lose this bad?”

The Kurds are showing us how to fight wars against a determined jihadist enemy. Humiliate and demoralize them completely. Shatter their belief in the legitimacy of their cause. The recent military losses and, as much, the complete fearlessness of the Kurds’ belittlement of the Islamic State forces sends an international message of their impotence. Reports are coming in of ISIS troops surrendering on all fronts. Many, such as a group from England, wishing to flee back home and abandon their jihad ideal in Syria, are being executed for it. The constant stream of bombings from the US and European allies is withering them and stretching their lines thin. When followed by Kurdish Peshmerga assaults, their backs are broken for good. Finally, when all of this happens, with absolutely no divine intervention to stop it, and to face the additional slap in the face that is the Kurdish secret propaganda weapon, we see the ISIS worldview collapse. When that happens, their most valuable assets are diminished. First, the inflow of millions of dollars sponsored by Jihadist international backers wanting results is suddenly questioned. Second, thousands of zealous fanatics are no willing to join their ranks once they see the “glory” that awaits them in Iraq and Syria. Quite honestly, this may be the most important film no one is talking about.

I can’t say for sure when the threat of fanatical Jihadists like those operating in Iraq today will disappear forever, but what I can say is that this new weapon will be a vital part to bringing it down. When your enemy depends on their own sense of self-righteous, unquestionable perfection, poisoning the well may well be more powerful an assault than to die immediate to American bombs, but suffer the utterly demoralizing truth of realizing, “What if God really isn’t on our side?”

Jon Davis is a US Marine Corps veteran writer, focusing on the topics of US veterans and international defense. His work has been featured in Newsweek, Forbes, Gizmodo and elsewhere. He is also a writer of military science fiction with his first book, The Next War, due out early this year. You can follow Jon Davis via his personal blog Jon’s Deep Thoughts, and can support his writing via the web donation service, Patreon.

To what extent is Al-Qaeda a creation of the CIA?

December 6, 2014 Jon Essay, History, Middle East Affairs Al-Qaeda, CIA, United States

There was a conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States which spanned the globe and affected the lives of billions of people. For the Soviets, this conflict reached its low point in Afghanistan in the late 70’s and throughout the 80’s.

Mujahideen, Islamist warriors, were discovered who were willing to fight the Soviets. They were poor peasants and local warlords ruling small rural regions in Afghanistan. They had the advantage of terrain and local support, but little else.

The CIA made efforts to support the Mujahideen against the Soviets in a proxy war in which it could not be proven that the Americans were involved. The way that the CIA did this was by aiding those who wanted to see the Mujahideen succeed against the Soviets. This included wealthy Saudi individuals which had the ability to channel millions, and eventually billions through charity organizations. It also included intelligence resources from the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, since the Americans had almost no one with links and intelligence resources in the country.

Once brought together to the same table, these very different groups were able to come together to give rise to a movement which channelled a great deal of resources in the form of men, money, and weapons, against the Soviets.

The conflict was unique in that thousands, tens of thousands of Islamic fighters flooded into the various fighting factions of Afghanistan from around the world. Many came from as far away as Libya, Somalia, and even the Philippines. Never before had such an organization been created and few could have even realized that it was even happening, besides the Mujaheed themselves. A military organization unlike any other, truly international and joined by a single purpose began to form, that purpose being ridding the Islamic world of outside influences. These were new Mujahideen of Afghanistan fighting what we now understand to be Jihadists.

The Saudis in particular were influential. Their money brought them great power and sway within the new military alliance. Along with their money they brought with them Wahhabi religious zealotry. These fundamentalists practiced an orthodox interpretation of Sunni Islam, calling themselves Salafis, which sought to abolish “newer” practices of other sects of the faith. They branded those didn’t practice Islam in their way as apostates (takfir), thus paving the way for their conversion to a more feudal form of the religion or even their execution. While not obvious, especially to the CIA, this had the effect of gathering thousands of warriors of divergent branches of Sunni Islam and unifying them, through forced uniformity to a central philosophical model and belief system, repressing and reforming all others. This was necessary for such an international contingent and had the effect of bringing together all of these different warriors into one single, highly motivated, highly unified, and highly organized fighting force, even if their organizational structure was nothing like any force seen up to that point in history.

I’m sure that at this point, many were trained directly by American as well as other nations’ military forces in the fighting of unconventional warfare. It would just be logical given what the Americans understood at the time and considering that, by our understanding, the militant Islamists wanted to get rid of the Soviets from Afghanistan, not all Western influences from the Islamic World. Our abilities and understanding of unconventional warfare through years in Vietnam and other conflicts meant that it was probably considered logical to aid the Mujaheedin in their fight against our existential enemy for more than thirty years. So it wouldn’t surprise me and it shouldn’t surprise you that it could be proved, though no one likes to admit or accept it, that American forces likely directly trained those who would one day fight against us in the War on Terror. If not directly, this knowledge found its way to the front lines via Pakistani intelligence agents who had established training camps all along the Northern Pakistani border with Afghanistan.

The combination of Afghanistani and international militants, Saudi funding, Wahhabi philosophy, and Pakistani intelligence, in many ways brought to the same table by American intervention against the Soviet Union were a force that reached critical mass over the 80’s and eventually brought about the humiliating defeat of the Soviets and was part of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

This is when American involvement ended. It was no longer a concern for the Americans what happened in Afghanistan. Their enemy, after all, were the Soviets. The war was won, what left was there to do? Those who the war’s end affected the most were the Mujahideen that remained after the dust settled. They were the Islamic warriors who had fought the Soviets, brought from across the Islamic world and with the goal of rebuilding Afghanistan in their ideal Islamic image. Once the war was over, all those who were involved seemingly abandoned them. Many of these people had no avenue to return home. They were now stranded in Afghanistan, a devastated nation with little hope. Many came together to form alliances around their strongest leaders, those who still maintained their funding sources and intelligence networks abroad. These leaders included influencers such as the Saudi elite Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden and others like him, veteran officers of the Mujahideen forces were idealists, invigorated by the belief that a pure Islamic state could one day be built from the ashes of Afghanistan, one which reflected their Wahhabi interpretations of the religion. They would rebuild Afghanistan to serve as the example of the perfect Islamic state, a beacon to other Islamic nations across the world. The organization they created was built from extremely die hard adherents to their movement, vetted through tight bonds of tribal relationships and personal battlefield shared hardship going back years. This organization would serve as the base of the future Islamic state. “The Base” as it is translated in Arabic, is “Al Qaeda.”

Al Qaeda became a powerful organization very quickly. They reorganized the channel of funds from their Saudi religious leaders and family members, as well as rebuilt atrophied information sharing networks with the Pakistani ISI. They spread their beliefs, influence, and knowledge through veterans and comrades who returned as conquering heroes across the Islamic world. These heroes led in revivals of “traditional” Islamic philosophy that saw the repression of the now branded apostates and fed the movement further. They installed a new government in Afghanistan which was made up of allied students of acceptable Islamic teachings. “The Students” or Taliban, puppets of the reclusive leadership of al Qaeda, became the ruling regime in Afghanistan.

The Americans’ great folly in the matter of al Qaeda was the belief that once something is created it merely goes away. The Mujahideen were a fanatical group which served our purposes temporarily, but which had motivations and capabilities far exceeding our wildest expectations, or even their own. We may have brought together the means for their rise, but I honestly think it is wrong to imagine that anyone could have rationally predicted what would arise from it or that anyone, save for Osama bin Laden and his followers could have knowingly designed it. That said, yes the CIA and the Americans at large, had a role to play in the creation of Al Qaeda, as small and unforeseeable as that role may have been. In our time of fear against the greater enemy that was the Soviet Union, we brought all the necessary pieces that were needed to create such an organization to one table. Our failure, was that we underestimated the strength of Islamic fanaticism. We failed in that we assumed that once we, the only world’s lone superpower left the table, that all the others would as well. We failed again to oversee what took place at the table once we were no longer there. We did not create Al Qaeda, but we did create the situation in which it would be built.

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“Be wary around your enemy once, and your friend a thousand times.”

October 16, 2014October 16, 2014 Jon Middle East Affairs, Military, News, US Politics Iraq, Middle East, warfare

Support takes on many forms. If one were to ask if Turkey is providing assistance to the Islamic State in the form of weapons, training, and financing, I’ve seen no evidence to validate that. There is, however, much more to the point that seems to imply that yes, Turkey is supporting ISIL through inaction and as a roadblock, preventing anti-ISIL Kurdish forces in taking part in the fighting of North central Syria. Even more dangerous, there may be a few very good reasons why the Turks would want to see ISIL forces succeed, in as far as it reaches their own borders.

Ian Traynor with The Guardian recently posted an article on the growing dissent brewing in Turkey as government officials remain aloof towards towards the siege “a stones throw from their borders”.

To understand the conflict you’re going to need to understand the strategic importance of Kobane, a significant location to Kurds throughout the region. Kobane is an important point on the map because it represents the northernmost town in central Syria, literally on the border between Syria and Turkey.

Recently, the city has represented a vital choke point for fleeing refugees to Turkey. In late September, a key bridge from the Euphrates was taken which allowed ISIL forces to encircle the region. Within days, at least 50 villages were taken which sent tens of thousands of fleeing villagers on a mass exodus to Turkey. The brunt of these flowed through Kobane.

Second, as the map shows, it is a valuable Kurdish town in that it is the centermost Syrian Kurdish city. It would be, and has been an effective staging point for People’s Protection Units (Kurdish militia) forces to attack from to assault ISIL near a central region. Without it, central Syria is effectively lost to the People’s Protection Units and ISIL forces would have free reign. This also isolates the far Western cities of Efrin and Cindires for the Kurdish militias in the East far more than they were so before. Along with this, losing Kobane means that many of the logistical networks holding up Kurdish fighters in the major Syrian city of Aleppo would be lost. If Kobane falls, Kurds will have no logistical supply location between East and West Syria except when they travel through Turkey. They must go deep through Turkish lands to be able to supply and help protect their other cities, which now are surrounded by ISIL forces.

Lastly, shoring up resistance in Kobane will free up ISIL fighters as their central region will be much more solidified with one less town to fight against. You can see this illustrated clearly in the map below. The purple region in the north central part of Syria just went from, “ISIL is attacking this” to “This is no longer a problem for ISIL”. This means they have a relatively secured path from Aleppo to Mosul all the way to Fallujah in the central part of Iraq. This Sunni Triangle will now be a massive and much more secured region for the insurgency forces, if Kobane is lost. By some reports, there have been as many as 9,000 jihadist forces involved of the siege. Once these forces are no longer involved in the fighting of Kobane, they will be free to augment forces and carry out operations elsewhere.

Now the city is embattled on the edge of Syrian Turkish border. The battle has been declining for Kurdish and FSA against ISIL militants Outnumbered, by most estimates 6:1 the Kurdish defense forces are in a losing battle for the future of Kobane, even with coalition air raids. The tide only seems to be turning a major corner after weeks of desperate and heroic fighting by the defenders and countless American and coalition air strikes. This being the case, many are asking, why the Turks are literally sitting sidelined for this fight, only a mile outside the battlezone of Kobane, where they have the potential to prevent a possible massacre as well as deliver a major defeat against the ISIL insurgency.

Traynor’s Guardian article displays some disturbing truths about the precarious stance of the Turkish government.

What’s important to know is that, while Kurdish forces are gaining great notoriety for their ability to maintain Northern Iraq and Syria, they have not been well liked throughout the region and primarily in Turkey.

If you look at the region many would consider Kurdistan, the region populated mostly by those of Kurdish ancestry, you’ll see that a massive block of Turkey is actually populated predominantly by Kurds. Kurds also comprise between 10% and 25% of the population and have been subjected to official repression for decades. Over the past three decades, Kurdish nationals in Turkey have been fighting for independence and equality with the rest of their fellow Turkish citizens. One group above all others, has been leading the fight toward independence in the form of an actual insurrection against the Turkish government.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, commonly referred to by its Kurdish acronym, PKK, is a Kurdish militant organization which from 1984 to 2013 fought an armed struggle against the Turkish state for cultural and political rights and self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey. The PKK’s ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism and Kurdish nationalism, seeking the foundation of an independent, Marxist–Leninist state in the region known as Kurdistan. The name ‘PKK’ is usually used interchangeably for the name of its armed wing, the People’s Defence Force (HPG), which was formerly called the Kurdistan National Liberty Army (ARGK). The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by several states and organizations, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the United States, and the European Union.

For that reason, Turkish views of many Kurdish fighters are less than admirable. This is personified most by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan when he equated the Kurds of Kobani and their defenders with the islamic jihadist insurgents.

“It is wrong to view them differently, we need to deal with them jointly.”

Yet more concerning is that the ISIL Crisis is uncovering what appears to be signs that the fanatical jihadists aren’t being viewed with such vehement scorn as they are viewed from the West.

“A significant part of the Turkish public believes the Sunnis of Syria and the Middle East are fellow victims of injustice and that Isis represents a legitimate Sunni grievance,” the International Crisis Group said this week in a report from Ankara.

Expert on Islam, Sam Harris, recently explained why this may happen by describing some very troubling patterns that modern liberal tolerances haven’t yet come to deal with about the religion. He stated that when we try to truly study and understand muslims, we see the fundamentalist leanings are much larger a percentage of the total population than at first we wanted to believe. His view is that, while most muslims by a wide margin are not fanatical terrorists, the number of those sympathetic to the jihadist’s call may be higher than many believed. It’s important to remember that not all muslims are like those we experience in the West, those who are well educated and well socialized to American and Western values. The values that much of conservative Islam hold are not congruent with life in much of the rest of the world. For that reason, many of us have come to the belief that muslims across the world are like the muslims we know in our cities and that we know as friends. When you change locations however, you see a culture which is much different, and where values we hold are viewed as intolerable. He describes running throughout much of the Middle East a deep inner circle of Islam, one which “wakes up every day wanting to kill apostates and hoping to die if they don’t” as the jihadists. Outside of this group are the islamists. They as convinced of the idea of martyrdom, but aren’t willing to to kill themselves to see others brought down. They are willing to fight and want to see an end to democracy and the instillment of an Islamic theocracy. They’re just not going to blow up a bus to do it. Harris fears that between these two groups, you have a section that represents as much as 20% of the Islamic population. Outside of this population you will see the conservative branch of Islam. These groups completely don’t agree with the acts and atrocities of groups like ISIL, but in much larger numbers than we have led ourselves to believe, still have extremely intolerant views “towards women’s rights, toward homosexuals that are deeply troubling… and they keep women and homosexuals immiserated.”

An International Crisis Group added that private polling within Erdoğan’s religion-based Sunni Muslim AK party revealed sympathy for Isis. With his constituency seeing the Islamic State as anything other than a murderous jihadist horde, “This makes it hard for a Turkish government to directly attack Isis.” reported the International Crisis Group.

The New York Times also recently reported that as many as 1,000 Turks have joined ISIS, according to Turkish news media reports and government officials there. Recruits cite the group’s ideological appeal to disaffected youths as well as the money it pays fighters from its flush coffers. Turkish fighters recruited by ISIS say they identify more with the extreme form of Islamic governance practiced by ISIS than with the rule of the Turkish governing party, which has its roots in a more moderate form of Islam.

In response to numerous factors, Turkey has gone to great lengths to secure their Southern border. This, only after, thousands of Turkish recruits made their way through, along with perhaps thousands more international travelers. Regardless, now military forces are no longer allowing passage into Syria. This has the effect, however, of essentially blockading Kobane from the rest of their Kurdish allies.

Looking back at the map of the Middle East which focuses on levels of high Kurdish population, you’ll see that Kobane indeed rest on a very narrow “peninsula” of Kurdish population stretching from their main population center in Turkey to Syria. Also present in Syria is a very strong region of Syrian Kurds protected by the People’s Protection Units, and further to the East, the Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraqi Kurds who have a long history of support against fanatical islamists. These two groups, along with the PPK in Turkey all wish to take part in aiding the stranded fighters in Kobane. To do this, however, they must either go through the extremely occupied region of central Syria or through Turkey. The Turkish blockade of northern Syria, however, is in effect, a second siege preventing potentially thousands of willing supporters for the Kobane defense effort.

While I can see the Turkish stance as being, perhaps, logical from their point of view, the facts of the matter are that it has outraged many thousands of Kurds living in Turkey presently. Over the past few weeks, thousands have gone into the streets across to protest Kurdish inaction and what they view as preferential treatment for the fanatical islamist regime. In actions across Turkey, at least 30 people were killed and hundreds more injured as protests turned to riots.

The last week has meant much for the future of the Middle East. A small town on the Syrian border has made present yet another ethnic divide ripping the region apart. Instability has spread to showcase a future for Turkey where militant collapse in their Eastern half, the same type of collapse which saw ISIL go from a backwater terrorist faction, to the modern State of Terror. In a report by the AP, the situation has just gone from isolated protesting in the streets to an all out conflict, reminiscent of beginnings of civil wars from Libya, and now most notably, Syria.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — In a sign of further turbulence for the U.S. led-coalition against the Islamic State group, Turkish warplanes have struck suspected Kurdish rebel positions in southeastern Turkey, media reports said Tuesday.

It was the first major airstrikes against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, since peace talks began two years ago to end a 30-year insurgency in Turkey. It added to tensions between the key U.S. coalition partner and PKK, a militant group listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. that is also among the fiercest opponents of the Islamic State group.

The return to violence between the two parties suggests that Turkey’s focus may not be on the Islamic State group, even as it negotiates its role with the U.S. and NATO allies fighting the extremists. Turkey has provoked frustration among allies, by saying it won’t join the fight against the Islamic State militants unless the U.S.-led coalition also targets Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

The article mentions Turkey negotiating its role with the U.S. and NATO over how it will be engaged in the war against ISIL. The Turkish government agreed on Monday to let US and coalition forces use its bases, including a key installation within 100 miles of the Syrian border, for operations against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. Apparently, there was even a promise by Ankara to train several thousand Syrian moderate rebels in the fight, as well. Many hailed this as good news, seeing another major regional player now joining the battle against ISIL. I have to wonder.

Given the apathy and resentment shown by Turkish officials to the plight of foreign Kurdish fighters, even to the point of allowing jihadi fundamentalists to occupy a key region a stone’s throw away from their own border, along with their complete inability to take direct action against the terrorist organizations, along with signs that a major segment of their population may be sympathetic to the goals of the islamists, I have to wonder what motivations are behind any actions to allow American or any other Western intervention in the conflict.

To pose my own pessimistic view, one which I hope others will consider given the information I have shared, I think it is because Turkey may want an American security blanket against it’s own insurgency which looms around the corner. The rise of Kurdish prestige and victories over the last year has galvanized their spirit and the renewed call for Kurdish nationalism. As I have said before in this post, the nation with the largest single stake in the future of the Kurds is Turkey. Kurdish autonomy has spread throughout the region, giving rise to the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq and another like it in North Eastern Syria. This zeal is going to invite more Kurds to carry on the torch of autonomy and independence which has no one to hurt than Turkey. In the political environment that is the Middle East, one of ever growing chaos, reorganization and upheaval, I have to wonder if Turks true focus is ISIL at all. I truly wonder if really, the recent allowance to allow coalition forces to use Turkish military bases and train Syrian defense forces was really only an effort to ensure their assistance in the event of a future Kurdish uprising. Turkey has long been a friend of the United States amidst much less moderate neighbors. Now, however, it seems that conservative Islamic factions within Turkey have grown tired of their Western friendly policies and are now acting in accord with ISIL forces, even if indirectly. This won’t sit well with the Kurds of the region who, until only yesterday, enjoyed a brief two year lull in a 30 year feud with the nation. Now, it seems, they are hedging on the possibility of Kurdish uprising with the presence of US and NATO allies to keep Turkish lands within the sovereign control of Ankara.

The Enemy of My Enemy

There is a Arabic saying that translates “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has unanimously gained no friends across the world. No nations and no allies have come out to show support for the fanatical regime, even among fellow Islamic terrorist organizations. In the case of Turkey, however, there hasn’t really been much done to show that they actually do view them as enemies. Instead, they seem to be looking at others as potential risks within their own borders. They’ve seen a problem which has existed for decades, namely the Kurdish population within Turkey and seen its sudden rise to popularity in the world’s stage, as well as its rise to power in military and political efficacy. This can only mean bad things for the future of Turkey. For all these reasons, one has to wonder if the Turks really see ISIL as their enemy or merely as the enemy of their longstanding enemy, the Kurds. If we view it in that light, we can see how it shouldn’t surprise anyone how much help Turkey has provided, if by nothing else than timely inaction, to the Sunni jihadists. Perhaps it is simpler than this. Perhaps, in light of President Erdoğan’s statement that, “It is wrong to view them differently, we need to deal with them jointly,” exactly that is being done; allow the two enemies of Turkey to fight each other to their mutual oblivion.

To be clear, Turkey has never aided ISIL through troop support, nor is there any evidence that they have provided weapons, financing or aid of any kind, but their policy of preventing the success of Kurdish forces, primarily in the battle for Kobane, as well as their inability to prevent the same sort of assistance being given to Islamic State fighter, they have given more indirect assistance than one could have imagined possible in keeping these terrorist’s alive. For those of us watching this conflict in the future, I am reminded of yet another Arabic saying, oddly fitting this time:

“Be wary around your enemy once, and your friend a thousand times.”

Sources:

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Hacktivists and ISIL – What they’re doing. What they should do.

October 8, 2014October 8, 2014 Jon Article, Asked to Answer, Iraq Anonymous, Iraq, ISIL

Why won’t internet vigilante groups like Anonymous target terrorist organizations like ISIS?

There actually are plans which are being laid out. Jasper Hamill, with Forbes, recently uncovered a plan by Anonymous cells to target what it considers to be nations funding or arming the terrorist organization ISIL.

The hacktivist group Anonymous is planning to launch a series of digital attacks against nations it accuses of funding or arming the radical Islamic terror group ISIS.

Sources within Anonymous told me the campaign will be called Operation NO2ISIS and will target three states suspected of offering support to the [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]. Government websites will be blasted with DDoS attacks with Anonymous planning to “unleash the entire legion” upon its enemies.

One of the targets will be Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim nation that has long been suspected of supporting ISIS and other hardline terror groups. However, the Saudi government has dismissed Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s claims that it arms and funds ISIS, describing the “false allegations” as a “malicious falsehood”. The Saudis are thought to be terrified of blowback from the wars in Iraq and Syria, so have taken steps to ban private individuals from donating cash to ISIS militants.

The first thing to understand about Anonymous is that they are not really the type of group to “plan” things. They are opportunists who move when a vulnerability is found in a target of interest. They move in cells that are not truly organized where there is any sort of true “membership” in the group. There are just communities of individuals who sometimes align together when any one of them arrives at a plan and convinces enough to help. There is no group consensus on matters like this, no voting, no true leadership, no responsible parties. They come to quick verdicts based on limited information and then take action based on that. They simply share information on what they could do and individuals will carry out an attack of their own free will. When enough do so, with some coordination involved, it can have the impact of a large scale attack. Once an operation is completed, the group disintegrates, never to be seen from again. In that case, you will have groups which can, at will, determine a party’s guilt or innocence based as much the narrative surrounding an issue and popular opinion, rather than anything we would call due process.

Secondly, if they can’t find a route to the actual perpetrators of a particular crime or social injustice, they are have shown a willingness to conduct actions against others who have a relation to the guilty. In the case of ISIL, the direct perpetrators can’t be targeted more than hacking twitter accounts, nor can the individuals who fund them. In this situation, Anonymous has made threats that it will, instead, carry out attacks against the nation of Saudi Arabia, and others, as a means to attack ISIL indirectly.

Taking that into consideration, if the group planning on coordinating an attack against the nation of Saudi Arabia, and others, are successful, they will be doing so against the wrong group. Those funding ISIL are surely, in part, from Saudi Arabia. There are many wealthy individuals there who channel funds to the terrorists through underground, illegal, and backwater channels. They are individuals, citizens of Saudi Arabia, but not state actors. That said, they are not the state of Saudi Arabia. If it could be proven that the king of Saudi Arabia himself were taking part in these funding operations, then that would be a different matter. So far, though, we have no evidence that that is the case. Furthermore, there is little Saudi Arabia can do to prevent its citizens from funding operations. Like the United States, there is little more that could be done beyond banning, and policing what little actionable evidence arises.

Ergo, when Anonymous, or any other group of individuals targets a nation like Saudi Arabia, they are doing so as non-state actors in a direct attack to a sovereign state. That is, by definition, an act of terrorism, obviously to much more minor degree than what we are seeing in Iraq or on 9/11, but still classified as an act of terrorism by the facts. The fact that there is no due process involved, investigation can be extremely biased, and targets are often not the actual cause of the crime, but simply the nearest person who can be reached, I wish that groups like Anonymous would not involve themselves in acts like this. Trolling the Scientologists or prank calling racist radio talk-show hosts is humorous and serves a good and decent function to the world. A direct attack, even a “harmless” denial of service attack, on a sovereign nation, however, paints a very hypocritical picture and will, in the end, invigorate even more hate and hostility against American and other allied forces’ (including Saudi Arabia Proper) efforts to broker a deal to take down the fanatical terrorist threat.

Instead, I wish they would move themselves toward uncovering more about the clandestine operations of ISIL. Once case in point used Google Maps to determine the location of ISIL training facilities in Mosul.

Operations like this are tailor made for groups like Anonymous. Social intelligence forces could easily be made to take advantage of ISIL’s use of social media. They’ve put a lot of information about themselves out there. If only enough smart people with enough time on their hands were to direct their efforts towards uncovering it, it could help forces out there taking action against them such as the Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi Army, Free Syrian Army, or even coalition military airstrike. Forces like the Kurdish defense forces are in desperate of advanced technological analysis and utilizing social capabilities could augment their offensive capabilities greatly. I’d personally like to see news reports of weapons caches, logistical networks, key individuals and other key information being surfaced by the larger community and being acted upon by State actors rather than by non-state actors. They’ve acted in this way before, namely in taking credit for the “hacktivism” which helped solve the notorious Steubenville rape case. One provides a constructive direction in which Anonymous helps the greater cause of the rest of the world, the other does only minor damage to ISIL while severely damaging international relations everywhere else.

Anonymous Hacktivists Prepare For Strike Against ISIS ‘Supporters’ – Jasper Hamill, Forbes – 6/14/2014
‘Anonymous’ Hacker Group Goes After ISIS, But the Implications Could Be Costly – Victoria Taft, Independent Journal Review – 9/14/2014
Page on bellingcat.com – 8/22/2014

Should US infantry be sent back to Iraq to fight ISIL?

October 6, 2014October 10, 2014 Jon Article, Iraq, Military Iraq, ISIL, Military

Bringing in US ground forces to pacify the population and control the insurgent spread is probably not the best choice for Iraq.

There does need to be ground troops present to fill the political vacuum in the region. Aerial strikes aren’t enough to solve the problem of Islamist saturation. In a recent report by the Guardian, Syrian Kurdish fighters are saying that the air strikes are not currently effective enough. The article states that the strikes being implemented by the US, UK, France, and Arab allies aren’t able to interrupt ISIL operations enough to prevent them from taking over the town of Kobani, a city bordering Syria and Turkey.

“Air strikes alone are really not enough to defeat Isis in Kobani,” said Idris Nassan, a senior spokesman for the Kurdish fighters desperately trying to defend the important strategic redoubt from the advancing militants. “They are besieging the city on three sides, and fighter jets simply cannot hit each and every Isis fighter on the ground.”

What the Kurdish Peshmerga have said, is that the ISIL forces are simply too numerous and spread out too much for the aerial strikes to have a meaningful effect. Nassan continues by describing how ISIL insurgents are evolving their techniques to react to incoming air attacks.

“Each time a jet approaches, they leave their open positions, they scatter and hide.”

Continuing on, Nassan makes the clear point that, in the absence of ground forces, aerial attacks are only a deterrent or a distraction.

“What we really need is ground support. We need heavy weapons and ammunition in order to fend them off and defeat them.”

Militarily speaking, fortified ISIL locations are being destroyed and they are losing men and materiel. More importantly, key strategic points in the ISIL logistics network are being taken down, weakening all other offensive capabilities. The problem is that there is not adequate ground forces covering the advance. If, in all other locations around the city ISIL is able to continue their advance, even creeping at a house an hour, those destroyed defensive locations are not going to mean much, as they would eventually move well behind the effective lines of battle. Without a follow-on force to retake the ground that ISIL temporarily lost, they will be able to return. The situation for the Syrian Kurds in Kobani is now getting desperate. Some reports have shown that a Kurdish fighting woman suicide bombed near a group of ISIL fighters. Use of such tactics shows the extent of the desperation, that Kobani defense fighters have accepted a certain degree numerical casualties, but that they are willing to make the sacrifice if they believe they can guarantee a certain level of Islamist fatalities. While grim, this tactic also doesn’t solve the problem of not enough men to occupy the town. While suicide bombing does provide a high level of killing power, it also robs the defenders of one more person capable of retaking the city later. Saturation of infantry forces is key to retake, occupy, and defend the city currently under siege and ensure a prolonged counter-insurgency victory.

There are, however, troops in the region which can already provide that level of support. Not that anyone wants to really accept this part, but the Syrians are there, too, namely, Assad’s forces along with the Free Syrian Army. The problem here is that, while there is actually a surplus of fighters in Syria, the intricate web of alliances and enemies makes it advantageous for most involved to let each handle ISIL in their own territory. Quite honestly, they are behooved to see ISIL gains in other territories as it will mean a weakened enemy for them later. For that reason, good fighters, such as the Syrian Peshmerga don’t have adequate support from numerically larger forces, such as the Free Syrian Army, or Assad’s government, nor do troops in the FSA benefit from Kurdish training, experience, and international resources. Together, their combined infantry would not suffer ISIL resistance long, the poltical make up of the groups, however, almost guarantee this to be an impossibility.

Focusing again on Iraq specifically, they are the Iraqi military and the Kurdish Peshmerga. These troops need to be trained up, armed, and more importantly, in the case of the Iraqi Special Forces, freed up politically to fight. There are pockets of great fighters in Iraq, namely those Iraqi Special Forces, which were originally pulled from the greatest and most experienced troops in the Iraqi military specifically trained for the role of countering insurgency. These forces have been made the private security for Iraqi political elite and kept away from the roles they were designed to do. If you want to understand the failures of the Iraqi military, look at how the ISF has been used for the last three years. Beyond just the ISF, the Iraqi military still outnumbers anything that ISIL might be able to field by at least 20:1 within Iraq. Point in that situation is that there is not a deficit of capable troops. What is lacking is political will and direction to use them.

For that reason, there really isn’t a reason for a massive deployment of American combat troops in Iraq. There is just a need for some sort of direction and capability in leadership for the offensives to take place between the troops of Iraq. Secondly, the American military presence will only do more harm down the road. After ISIL is taken care of, if ever, then it will turn into another occupation where Iraq’s people will go right back to hating us for all the evils we brought down upon them. Next, it will only continue the practice of allowing Iraq to continue on perpetually neutered. The country needs to stand on its own. It needs to feel independent. It will never do that if some foreign force continues to dictate their day to day life as has been the case for centuries. They need to believe in themselves, as a nation, and be the crucial leader in solving this problem… their problem. Lastly, the Americans shouldn’t have a direct ground presence because to do so will only bring back those old whispers of “American Imperialism.” So that I am clear, we didn’t leave Iraq on our own terms. We were asked to leave by the same Iraqi democracy we set out to build. One gets what one asks for, but the point is that when asked to leave, the Americans did leave. We never took Iraq from the Iraqi, but when we could have kept it, we left it alone and in the care of those same Iraqi. In that moment when the last truck rolled over the border into Kuwait it said to the world that we are not the imperialistic dictators that others have made us out to be, especially those living in Iraq. To send troops back in, especially on a permanent basis, would damage that message throughout the world.

That isn’t to say the US should do nothing. Strategic bombing is doing a good job of collapsing vital points in the ISIL military framework. They are being pushed back and recent acts of violence are proving their desperation. More so than that, there is a major land force being deployed to the region. The US Marine Corps has already began deployments in the creation of a new rapid defense force which was invited to be stationed in Kuwait, not Iraq or Syria.

The US Marine Corps is preparing to deploy about 2,100 grunts to be based out of Kuwait in a new unit configuration designed to respond to crises in the region, according to Corps officials.

Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) Central Command will be equipped to perform noncombat evacuation, humanitarian assistance, infrastructure support, tactical aircraft recovery, fixed-site security and theater sustainment missions, said Brig. Gen. John Love, assistant deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations.

The report obtained by The Associated Press in advance of [June 19, 2012] release provided precise numbers on U.S. forces in Kuwait, a presence that Pentagon officials have only acknowledged on condition of anonymity. Currently, there are about 15,000 U.S. forces in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring, giving the United States staging hubs, training ranges and locations to provide logistical support. The report said the number of troops is likely to drop to 13,500.

Along with this, another 1,500 Marines are being sent into Iraq to join others present there already to protect strategic assets owned by the United States, such as American owned industry assets and embassy locations, as well as to train the Iraqi and Peshmerga forces.

Given these initiatives, I feel that the American presence is good thing. It is toned back from the last decade, but lighter and faster to be more prepared to handle future situations far more easily than was the capabilities over the last six months. Situations like what is happening in Iraq right now, can be handled in much earlier stages, without the need for massive deployments, A political breakdown in the nation won’t leave Americans without aid, such as in Benghazi, and new threats can be challenged as they arise throughout the region. Given all that, they won’t be able to fully occupy anything. The task force simply isn’t that large. It will be able to project force and react quickly, but it will take the local nations to take charge of their own futures.

Keeping the American ground forces in the background of the current Iraq conflict is, in my opinion, a good thing. Having them as a final wall against the encroachment of ISIL threats forces the impetus of action on the local national forces. Building a strong and independent Iraq should have been achieved before we were asked to leave. The blame there goes both on our own governmental failings as much as it falls on the Iraqi. Allowing themselves to become so structurally weak and impotent, while being also so arrogant as to dismiss coalition forces in the first place had a very major role in the circumstances that we have arrived at today. Bringing in several regiments of American military infantry support to clean up the mess won’t, however, do anything to solve the long term problems of this new war. For that, the local infantry capable forces are going to need to band together and prepare an offensive and coordinated strategy to end this threat.

Sources:

How do we destroy ISIS?

September 29, 2014 Jon Article, Essay, Iraq, Military Iraq, ISIL, Military

Wait.

This may seem like an utterly barbaric thing to say, but ISIL is progressing itself down a course which it cannot survive. If this course is allowed to progress, I believe, it will force actions in others to a point that the Islamic State’s true source of power will be broken and take with it the seeds of fanaticism in much of the Middle East, as well. If, however, this course is interrupted by too much outside interference, it will only feed the mentalities that birthed ISIL and exacerbate the turmoil for perhaps another generation entirely along with spreading fundamentalism further.

Here are the reasons I believe this.

1) ISIL isn’t well accepted by the broader population muslims. One might be surprised to find out that almost all other Islamic bodies have completely disavowed the Islamic State. Be it an Islamic nation or even, other groups which have been labeled as terrorist organizations, the Islamic State has no noteworthy allies. They are an extremists branch. Yes, they do have many adherents, but within the entirety of Islam, they are still a minority.

2) Their main source of recruiting is among the young, undirected, and not very theologically grounded youth of world wide muslims. This means that they have a young culture, prone to fits of irrationality and capable of extreme violence with less regard for life than militant groups with an older average age. This means that as more young people join in with ISIL, we should expect to see these young people committing more and more violent acts as mob mentality takes over the loose military structure of the Islamic State’s army.

3) Point two is illustrated by their recruiting methods, hyper violent shows of force and subjugation of individuals who do not adhere to a particular brand of Islam. This type of sensationalist recruiting is directed at exactly the type of individual pointed out in point two and further leads the culture of barbarity by potently pulling out those fanatics within the broader population of point one from international sources.

4) They have grown in regional influence much faster than they have gained the logistical support and structure to adequately govern it. This means that they are spread thin, less so since so many have joined in more recently, but there is very little experience available to govern a logistical area of operations about the size of the state of Pennsylvania or the nation of Portugal. With such a small and randomly assorted officer corps, leadership in ISIL will be lacking and strategic weaknesses are going to form, if they haven’t already.

Considering these points a few things will probably happen. The IS will continue to get worse, as time goes on. This will force some sort of reaction by the world community. A coalition of 10 different Islamic States in the region has already been formed to help combat ISIL. What this coalition will look like and what actual counter-offensive they pose is yet to be determined, but some of the faces now sitting at the same table would have floored many a political expert even just one year ago. With hopes, they will at least increase security to prevent new recruits from joining with ISIL, closing up holes for their funding, and perhaps even coordinating attacks and direct action. If nothing else, they have already made a token effort and sent a message to more than 300,000,000 muslims that this brand of Islamic fundamentalism is not acceptable. Further actions will only make the the Islamic State more desperate as they no longer will be able to take advantage of many of the tactics which have served them over the last few years.

Once they become desperate, we should expect to see a few things. They will be ugly, probably worse than what we have seen, so far. Something important to remember, though, is that ISIL insurgents are outnumbered by the local population in the regions they control by, in some places, 10,000 to 1. Many of these people are absolutely not happy about Sunni Arab fundamentalist rule by force. Many currently only remain subjugated by fear. Under these conditions, and with a few key losses to remind the oppressed of ISIS’s very real vulnerabilities, I can’t reasonably see the populations like the Kurds, Yazidi, and citizenry of Mosul not rising up. There has already been articles of Yazidi militia forces forming, getting trained, organized and armed, to combat alongside Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Frankly, ISIL’s extremely barbaric methods, along with their overzealous sudden expansions have left them with many enemies and spread incredibly thin. If anything, their barbarity has acted as a recruiting device and rallying cry for the enemies they wish to conquer.

(This image is actually a parade of Shia militia, raised from Iraqi citizens to fight ISIL, marching in Baghdad.)

Add to this recent losses on three fronts. In Syria, their actual base of operations, Assad, the dictator Western media outlets were busy painting as the worst thing in the Middle East eight months ago, has made several concessions including the promise that he is willing to make further compromises in the hopes to receive help from abroad against the Islamic State threat. What that means, we can’t be certain. The Iraqi army has had a few important victories in regions of significant importance to ISIL in Iraq, namely near Falluja, a very potent center of Iraqi fundamentalism going back to 2004. The Kurdish Peshmerga has also done marvelously in the North by taking control of several strategic assets in coordination with American bombing. While, in reality, these events alone don’t win a war, the broader picture is that it does do something very important. If ISIL’s main source of growth is through the promotion of a nation for Allah, how could Allah possibly allow them to lose? I’m not making a personal religious statement, but echoing a point I have heard said by others. It is a logical fallacy that must be overcome by anyone who seeks to join, and many, are now simply unable to.

That said, it is my belief that, with even minimal support by the Americans, ISIL’s days are numbered. What’s more, at the end of this process, we would have an Islamic ran cultural restoration to promote, project and protect a much less fanatical and barbaric form of the religion. Perhaps most importantly, the Middle East will, together show that they don’t want fundamentalism to rule, which will be a cultural message with much deeper lasting effects. If you want fundamentalism to die out, you have to have it hated by the community.

What we shouldn’t do, and this is just my opinion, is go in full steam and guns blazing as the American victory over terrorism. It isn’t that I don’t think we have skin in this. I was an American Marine deployed to the region currently owned by ISIL in 2005 and 2007. Trust me that I know what our responsibilities to the region are, the sacrifices we’ve made, and the risks that we face if the Islamic State isn’t destroyed. Simply put, though, seeing our failures first hand has made me very reluctant to believe in another American led coalition to solve all of the problems of the Middle East. I don’t really think that the Americans micromanaging this one is going to get very much done. It didn’t ten years ago. I feel that, if anything, it will do more to send the message that maybe ISIL is right, at least to those who are vulnerable to their propaganda. “Maybe the Westerners really are trying to take over the Islamic world.” The last thing we should do is make over a billion people sympathetic to the terrorists by our continued over involvement in their affairs. What we need to do is, from a distance, bide our time and provide support, not a grandstanding leadership role, to the Islamic nations so that they along with the oppressed minorities in Iraq and Syria can come together and break the back of fundamentalism. Only then when the source of this fanaticism truly be cut off by a profound cultural change rather than outside interference.

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The Enemy of My Enemy

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Why won’t internet vigilante groups like Anonymous target terrorist organizations like ISIS?

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