Everything to do with ISIS

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/zaidbenjamin

US official confirms to me that US has helped Syrian fighters land on a location between Iraq & Syria.

7:28 PM

 

The location believed to be al-Tanf Border Crossing between Anbar & Deir ez-Zor. At least 30 ISIL fighters killed
7:29 PM

 

US official says during the raid "we didn't have anyone on the ground" referring to US troops
7:31 PM

[visionary]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/17/inside-isis-torture-brigades.html?via=mobile&source=twitter

Inside ISIS’ Torture Brigades

 

ISTANBUL — “They have a cage in this square,” Abu Khaled said, describing the place where ISIS justice is meted out in al-Bab, the Syrian town in which, up until recently, he’d served with the state security apparatus of the so-called Islamic State. This is the same place where beheadings take place from time to time. But the cage is always there, and there’s almost always someone inside.

 

“They put people in it for three days. And they say why he is there,” the man we’ll call Abu Khaled told me at one of our meetings over three days in Istanbul last month. “One time, a man went to the court as a witness and he lied. They put him in the cage for three days. One guy was hanging out with girls; they weren’t his relatives and not married. He spent three days. For cigarettes, you spend like one day, two days, three days. It depends.”

 

Abu Khaled was describing a place I’d been. I was in al-Bab during Ramadan 2012, in the relatively early days of the revolt against the Assad regime, when the town was still controlled by local rebel forces, and I saw how that same square came alive at night when activists, rebels or local civilians transformed themselves into ad hoc cleanup crews—the Free Syrian Street Sweepers—picking up detritus and rubble left over from regime shelling, or manning field hospitals in the basement of the local mosque, because the actual hospital in al-Bab had been targeted and badly damaged by the Syrian military.

 

There was even an all-night café in those days where you could watch international news, drink smoothies, smoke shisha, and talk endlessly about everything and anything, without the fear that Assad’s mukhabarat would be listening in. All that is gone now, Abu Khaled assured me. The café is closed. No one comes out at night anymore because there’s an ISIS-enforced curfew. And the locals have to worry about everything they say, and to whom.

 

As with Bashar and Saddam, so with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISIS is absolutely paranoid about infiltration, and its wild dragnets for capturing fifth columnists and foreign agents seem premised on preemption rather than exposure. Fear must be maintained to keep people from so much as thinking of resistance. And in the frenzy, inevitably, ISIS devours some of its own. “One time they beheaded a Kuwaiti guy they said was working for MI6. They wrote on his body that he was a British spy—and he was the chief of the amniyat in al-Bab.”

 

Abu Khaled, deadpan, took a long drag on his Marlboro and sipped some tea in the Istanbul café where we were talking.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/18/us-syria-islamicstate-oil-idUSKCN0T70LC20151118?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews#51I691pMhKvAYwoW.97

Pentagon targeting trucks, rigs in assault on Islamic State oil funding

 

U.S.-led air strikes have hit at least 175 targets in the Islamic State's main oil-producing region over the past month, as Washington intensifies efforts to disrupt a key revenue source estimated to provide more than $1 million a day to the militant group.

 

Those strikes include 116 oil tanker trucks hit by coalition forces earlier this week as the United States targeted the vehicles for the first time in the wake of last Friday's suicide and shooting attacks in Paris claimed by Islamic State.

 

The stepped-up bombing campaign has also targeted oil rigs, pumps and storage tanks, according to a Reuters tally of air strikes provided by the Pentagon since Oct 22.

 

The campaign marks a more aggressive U.S. approach. Such targets had previously been considered off limits by the U.S.-led coalition as it sought to avoid civilian casualties and limit the damage to oil infrastructure that could be needed later by a new Syrian government.

 

The Pentagon said last Friday that its recent air strikes in Syria had inflicted "significant damage" to Islamic State's ability to fund itself. Dubbed "Tidal Wave II", the strikes have been concentrated on oil facilities near Dayr Az Zawr and Abu Kamal, which provide an estimated two-thirds of Islamic State's oil revenue.

 

It remains unclear how far along the Pentagon campaign on Islamic State oil infrastructure was toward achieving U.S. objectives and how much bigger the pool of potential targets might be. In the past, Islamic State has been able to repair oil facilities damaged in air strikes in as little as 24 hours.

 

The goal this time is to knock oil fields out of commission for a year or more without destroying them completely. That would deprive the extremist group of revenues but allow oil resources to be accessed by other forces if and when Islamic State is forced out of the territory it currently occupies.

 

"Nobody wants this to be another Baiji," one U.S. official said, referring to the disputed Iraqi oil refinery that has been rendered unusable by U.S.-led strikes and bombings.

 

"Everything that we’re doing carries a timeline attached to it," the official said.

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/world/middleeast/strikes-on-raqqa-in-syria-lead-to-more-questions-than-results.html?ref=middleeast&_r=0

Strikes on Raqqa in Syria Lead to More Questions Than Results

 

First France and then Russia answered Islamic State attacks on their citizens with a strategy of direct reprisal: intensified airstrike campaigns on Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital within Syria, meant to eliminate the group’s leadership and resources.

 

But on Tuesday in the early hours of those new campaigns, there seemed to be more questions than decisive results. Chief among them: Why, if there were confirmed Islamic State targets that could be hit without killing civilians, were they not hit more heavily long ago? And what, in fact, was being hit?

 

More broadly, the Raqqa airstrikes are renewing a debate about how effective such attacks can be in defeating or containing the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, without more commitment to measures like drying up its financial support, combating its ideology or — what outside forces on all sides so far appear to have ruled out — conducting a ground assault.

 

Several people in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey who have been able to make contact with relatives in Raqqa say the recent French airstrikes — a barrage of about 30 on Sunday night and seven more on Monday — did not kill any civilians. But neither did they inflict serious military damage, those people said, instead hitting empty areas or buildings, or parts of the territory of factory complexes or military bases used by the Islamic State.

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/259382ac991a491cb73708c5d424f2a9/militants-dig-anticipating-assault-syrias-raqqa

IS militants dig in, anticipating assault on Syria's Raqqa

But the extremists are digging in to make any potential assault as grueling as possible. The city, which they have held since early 2014, lies on the Euphrates River at an intersection of major routes from all directions, most through agricultural areas crisscrossed by canals and tributaries of the river. 

 

The closest forces from the U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab coalition called the Democratic Forces of Syria are 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the north in the town of Ein Issa.

 

The Raqqa activists say the militants have been stepping up defenses of the city since late October, after the Democratic Forces launched their campaign vowing to retake the city. Shortly afterward, IS banned people leaving the city and activists said it has stepped up enforcement of the ban in the past few days, leading to fears the group intends to use civilians as human shields in future fighting.

 

To avoid being hit in their bases, the fighters have moved into residential neighborhoods in empty homes abandoned by people who fled Raqqa earlier, said an activist from Raqqa. He spoke on condition he be identified only by the name he uses in his political activism, Khaled, for security reasons.

 

"There is major fear in the city, especially with Daesh preventing civilians from leaving the city," Khaled said, using the Arabic acronym for the group.

 

Khaled, who now lives in Turkey, is in touch with people back in Raqqa. Raqqa residents could not be reached because of an IS ban on private Internet access across the city.

 

Among new measures that have been put in place by IS, according to several of the activists, is an order that IS fighters move only in alleys and side streets to avoid detection from the air and not use vehicles at night.

 

Those measures have intensified after a series of successful hits by the coalition that killed a number of IS leaders, including the Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John" who appeared in several videos depicting the beheadings of U.S. and Western hostages.

 

On the roads leading into Raqqa, the extremists have dug extensive tunnels and trenches, said another activist from Raqqa, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of IS retaliation. More recently, the militants placed tires filled with fuel on empty barrels around the city, with plans to ignite them in case of an attack to cloud the skies with smoke.

 

https://twitter.com/GroupAnon

Anonymous has given the Free Syrian Army data with 200k lines of personal information of members of an underground Daesh forum. OpISIS
11:44 AM

[Zguy28]

ISIS Causing a Crisis of Faith for Muslims — A Discussion with My Muslim Family on Christmas Day

 

http://exmuslim.com/isis-faith/#.VkxwrkZi9yE

 

For a while now I have been involved with anti ISIS activities and groups. I visited Muslim refuges who ran away from ISIS controlled areas and I have observed the great decline of faith in Islam among those who ran away and received reports from inside ISIS controlled areas of the decline of the state of faith in Islam among those who have been left behind in ISIS areas.

 

Two days before Christmas 2014 I received one of these refugees as a sponsor. A young activist who made and his activist friends, the atrocities of ISIS known to the world and their reports are highly visible in the news media we receive about ISIS everyday.

 

On Christmas day, I had a family gathering that contained some members of my Iraqi Muslim family and my guest. A discussion about ISIS aroused and it took its natural end to discuss the religion of Islam itself. My Iraqi family tried to blame these atrocities done by ISIS on their “wrong” interpretation of Islam and not on Islam as such. I maneuvered in the discussion playing the “ISIS advocate” trying to recruit them to ISIS “extremist” ideology they believe to be wrong.

 

Rest at link.

 

[SkinsHokieFan]

ISIS Causing a Crisis of Faith for Muslims — A Discussion with My Muslim Family on Christmas Day

http://exmuslim.com/isis-faith/#.VkxwrkZi9yE

Rest at link.

The "real Islam is violent Islam" and "the good Muslims who follow their faith join death cults" is such a tired canard that is easily dismissed. I am on the phone now and don't have time to pull up back up links on this, but it is a frequent islamaphobe argument that has become tiresome

[Zguy28]

The "real Islam is violent Islam" and "the good Muslims who follow their faith join death cults" is such a tired canard that is easily dismissed. I am on the phone now and don't have time to pull up back up links on this, but it is a frequent islamaphobe argument that has become tiresome

It is what it is, but it isn't Islamaphobia. I'm not afraid of Islam, I just believe its wrong, a false religion. I'm sure you feel the same for Christianity. That doesn't make you a Christaphobe. The point being made by the author is not that Muslims are bad, in fact, the contrary, they are normal folks like most everyone else in this world and should be loved, not demonized. He's saying they are ignorant of the teachings of Islam even though they follow it.

[tshile]

I don't think it is any more.  Simple ethnic issues don't historically spread like this.  Europeans of Algerian decent (which describes one of the Paris attackers that had left to go fight with ISIS and then came back to Europe for the attack) aren't leaving to go fight in Syria because of a Kurdish/Sunni Arab fight of land, borders, and control of the relevant countries.

 

There might be some of that and once upon a time that may have been a driving force.  But disputes between ethnic groups tend to be local in nature and a dispute amongst ethnic groups (as long as others in the world don't decide that one ethnic group is winning so badly that it counts as genocide).

 

I've been reading this:

Council on Foreign Relations - The Sunni-Shia Divide

 

I'm just past the Practicing Faith section.

 

But if the CFR is to be treated as (at least a decent) an authority figure on the issue, then that write-up says that the ethnic differences have a good part in the issue; along with political/cultural issues that have grown over the last 1400 years.

 

They (so far, through what I've read) paint a very worrying picture of a grander struggle between Saudi-Sunni's and Iranian-Shia over the entire middle east. And what they speak to in regards to certain religious leaders not only calling for their followers to engage in the war, but that said followers are actually following through without a second thought, is a narrative I've seen come from many different sources.

 

That said, it's hard for me to keep it all straight... lots of moving parts... (and at the end of the day, it's a relatively brief overview of a 1400 year history of a complex area....)

[PeterMP]

 

I've been reading this:

Council on Foreign Relations - The Sunni-Shia Divide

 

I'm just past the Practicing Faith section.

 

But if the CFR is to be treated as (at least a decent) an authority figure on the issue, then that write-up says that the ethnic differences have a good part in the issue; along with political/cultural issues that have grown over the last 1400 years.

 

They (so far, through what I've read) paint a very worrying picture of a grander struggle between Saudi-Sunni's and Iranian-Shia over the entire middle east. And what they speak to in regards to certain religious leaders not only calling for their followers to engage in the war, but that said followers are actually following through without a second thought, is a narrative I've seen come from many different sources.

 

That said, it's hard for me to keep it all straight... lots of moving parts... (and at the end of the day, it's a relatively brief overview of a 1400 year history of a complex area....)

 

Clearly, that was the starting point, and it still might be some of the issue, but realistically, Al Qeada wants to over throw the Saudi the government.

 

And ISIS has attacked within Saudi Arabia and would also like to over throw the Saudi government.

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Islamic-States-attacks-in-Saudi-Arabia-test-security-of-haj/articleshow/48901571.cms

 

In fact, ISIS has been more (violently) active in Sunni countries of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia than in Iran.

 

So, that ISIS (and Al Qeada before them) are being supported or used as a mean to counter Iran by Sunni governments (e.g. the house of Saud) just doesn't really seem to hold water.

 

A European of Algerian descent is not going to Syria to fight in an Arab (heavily Sunni)/Persian (heavily Shia) divide.

 

There are Sunni and Shia Muslims all over the world.  Treating Sunnis and Shias as an ethnic group would be similar to treating Baptist as an ethnic group (there's over 2 million Baptist in India).

 

And clearly if the Baptist were fighting with other groups treating them as an ethnic group and it as ethnic conflict would lead you to some bad conclusions

 

Part of the divide between Sunni and Shia is not just ethnic though.  It is also a religious divide.  I think there is a larger issue of who is going to dominate Islam going forward, and yes with that likely comes dominating the Middle East.

 

There is a Sunni Arab (Saud)/Shia Persian (Iranian) divide and that is an issue, and it is going to continue to be an issue, and certainly that's heavily responsible for getting this mess started.

 

But I don't think currently that's what is driving ISIS.

[China]

ISIS Has Help Desk for Terrorists Staffed Around the Clock

 

ISIS is using a 24-hour Jihadi Help Desk to help spread its message, recruit followers and launch more attacks on foreign soil, NBC News reports.

 

The help desk manned by a half-dozen senior operatives was established to help would-be jihadists use encryption and other secure communications to avoid detection by law enforcement and other agencies, counterterrorism analysts affiliated with the U.S. Army tell NBC News.

Click on the link for the full article

[SkinsHokieFan]

. The point being made by the author is not that Muslims are bad, in fact, the contrary, they are normal folks like most everyone else in this world and should be loved, not demonized. He's saying they are ignorant of the teachings of Islam even though they follow it.

 

Which is my point as well.

 

It is a false red herring that constantly gets proven wrong, yet is only spoken of in Islamaphobic circles. These cases of "ex-Muslims" who say that the real followers of Islam are violent, and the others are simply ignorant of their religion, is, false. The implication in that blog post is Daesh is following "True Islam" and those who aren't blood thirsty apocalyptic cult members are "ignorant" of their religion. 

 

Again, I apologize that I do not have time today to source all of this, but I will here shortly. 

[S.T.real,lights,out]

 

ISIS Has Help Desk for Terrorists Staffed Around the Clock

 

ISIS is using a 24-hour Jihadi Help Desk to help spread its message, recruit followers and launch more attacks on foreign soil, NBC News reports.

 

The help desk manned by a half-dozen senior operatives was established to help would-be jihadists use encryption and other secure communications to avoid detection by law enforcement and other agencies, counterterrorism analysts affiliated with the U.S. Army tell NBC News.

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

And guess who has their number and is calling them non-stop?......The King of All Media Howard Stern....well should say Richard and Sal are. 

[visionary]

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/194799

IS Announces Killing of Chinese, Norwegian Hostages

 

The Islamic State jihadist group said Wednesday it has killed a Chinese and a Norwegian hostage, two months after it had demanded a ransom for the pair's release.

 

The group's English-language Dabiq magazine featured graphic photos of what appeared to be the bloodied bodies of Chinese hostage Fan Jinghui and Norwegian Ole-Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad.

The bodies were pictured adjacent to photos of the blindfolded captives apparently taken just before their execution-style killings.

 

A stamp-like caption overlaid on the full-page photo read, "Executed after being abandoned by the kafir (disbeliever) nations and organizations."

 

It was unclear how they were killed, but their heads were bloodied by apparent gunshot wounds.

 

The Norwegian prime minister's office said the photos "seem to show that the hostage Ole-Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstead was executed. We are still verifying it."

 

It was the 12th edition of IS' publication, one of many branches of the jihadist organization’s multilingual media machine.

 

http://www.politico.eu/article/cameron-backing-strike-isil-syria/

Cameron seeks backing to strike ISIL in Syria

 

Britain needs to combat a “direct and growing threat” from ISIL by joining the bombing campaign against the terror group in Syria, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.

Now he just has to convince the U.K.’s parliament to back him.

 

The prime minister reiterated the case for British airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, telling the House of Commons: “We cannot expect, we should not expect, others to carry the burdens and the risks of protecting our country.”

 

At present, Britain’s Royal Air Force has limited its action against ISIL targets to Iraq, leaving coalition allies to bomb the group’s main bases in Syria. In the wake of the Paris attacks, Cameron is reportedly pushing for a vote by the end of the year to authorize a broader mandate.

 

However, the prime minister is in a political bind: public opinion about striking ISIL in Syria is sharply divided, the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is opposed, and some of Cameron’s own Conservative MPs are prepared to cross the floor to vote against him. With a slim majority of only 12 seats, it’s uncertain whether he will be able to secure enough votes to win.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/paris-attacks-iran-likely-to-join-war-on-isis-after-francois-hollandes-plea-for-unity-a6738556.html

Paris attacks: Iran likely to join war on Isis following Francois Hollande's plea for unity

 

Iran is likely to emerge as a member of a coalition fighting Isis in the aftermath of the Paris massacre, according to senior diplomatic sources.

Tehran’s long-held wish to play a part in the conflict, and thus come in further from the diplomatic cold, may be fulfilled as a realignment begins to take shape between Russia and the West in the effort to defeat the extremist Islamist group.

 

François Hollande, who has declared that France was “at war” following the attacks that claimed 132 lives, is seeking a broad united front against Isis. This morning Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani telephoned his French counterpart to stress the “crucial importance to fighting against terrorism and Daesh [isis] with all our might”, as he expressed his condolences over the deaths.

 

Relations between Paris and Tehran had been fraught in the past but Mr Rouhani chose France, along with Italy, as his destinations for the planned first visit by an Iranian president to the European Union in a decade. The trip, which was expected to yield major business deals between the two countries, was cancelled because of the attacks. But a French official said it will be rescheduled as soon as possible.

 

Following the successful conclusion of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, Western officials have spoken about sharing common ground regarding Isis; Britian’s Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has stressed that London and Tehran saw “eye to eye” on the need to counter the jihadist threat.

 

The US Secretary of State John Kerry used to insist that it would be “inappropriate” for Iran to be part of an alliance against Isis. But since then Tehran has taken part in the Vienna talks on Syria, something previously opposed by Washington, and at the same time there has been increasing evidence of an indirect liaison between the Americans and Iranians in the campaign against Isis in Iraq.

While including Iran is an admirable goal, we have to be aware of the consequences and side effects from such a proposition, whether we (and others) decide to go through with such an idea or not, and to what extent if so.

 

Besides the fact that it plays into ISIS propaganda of an anti-Sunni alliance with between Iran and the West, and the obvious concern of Iranian sectarian militias likely committing some revenge killings and atrocities in captured Sunni villages and towns, there are two other issues that have recently crept up.

 

1. Iranian formed and backed Shia jihadist militias (including some with exploited refugees from Afghanistan and other places) are fighting non-ISIS rebels in Syria.  They fight alongside Iraqi Shia militias that are supposed to be fighting ISIS in Iraq, but have been transferred to Syria and are using some US military vehicles.

 

2. Iranian Shia militias in Iraq have recently engaged in increasingly frequent infighting with Kurdish forces, including kidnapping and taking hostage Kurdish fighters.

 

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/18/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-strikes-idUSKCN0T72D720151118?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Russia says conducted 'mass strike' on Islamic State targets in Syria
 

The Russian air force on Wednesday conducted a 'mass strike' against Islamic State targets across Syria using long-range bombers and cruise missiles, Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

 

He said targets in Syria's Raqqa, Idlib, and Deir al-Zor provinces had been struck.

There's no ISIS in Idlib, one report earlier said Russia hit a hospital in Deir al-zour (in Bukamal along the border with Iraq), other reports indicate they're going after ISIS oil trucks too.

 

 

http://www.france24.com/en/20151118-franco-russian-rapprochement-signals-paris-lack-consistency?dlvrit=65413

Russia shifts position on Syria to forge French alliance

 

Russian warships are to cooperate with the French aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle in the Mediterranean Sea, a decision that demonstrates a clear rapprochement between Paris and Moscow, who until now have been at odds over the Syrian conflict.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his Mediterranean warships on Tuesday to make “direct contact” with the French aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle, which left the port of Toulon, southern France, on Wednesday.

 

During a meeting devoted to military operations in Syria, President Putin told the head of the Russian Army that it was “imperative” to work with the French navy “as allies”.

 

According to the Kremlin, the simultaneous raids and the contact between French and Russian warships signal that France and Russia are now entering a “closer collaboration” in the wake of Friday’s Paris attacks.

 

The French Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced Tuesday that Russia had “shifted” its position regarding Syria by bombing known Islamic State (IS) group locations. “Just today Russian cruise missiles have hit Raqqa,” the IS stronghold in eastern Syria, declared the French television network TF1.

 

 

https://twitter.com/Raqqa_SL

1-ISIS Close all the internet cafes in Raqqa and they want to make Security check for every one if u pass it u will have net Cafe license
8:39 AM

 

2-ISIS close the Internet and even take the Satellite Devices cuz they are looking for Activities who report about Raqqa & the AirstrikeS
8:41 AM

 

1-Raqqa i saw a lot of newspapers say why if this HQ for IS not bombed if Its not killed Civilian , FYI this Building got hit more than 1
9:05 AM

 

2-Raqqa but this buildings is big some of them ISIS use them even after the bombing IS change & move their HQ a lot
9:07 AM

 

https://twitter.com/Raqqa_SL

Raqqa one of the places got hit by French Warplanes and its a big ISIS HQ (1) 
9:25 AM

 

Raqqa one of the places got hit by French Warplanes yesterday and its a training Base for ISIS 
9:31 AM

 

Raqqa one of the places got hit by French Warplanes yesterday and its a Security HQ for ISIS  
9:35 AM

 

Raqqa one of the places got hit by French Warplanes yesterday and its a Weapons cache for ISIS 
9:39 AM

 

 

https://twitter.com/Raqqa_SL

BREAKING 5 explosion in Raqqa 30 min ago
10:24 AM

 

Raqqa this Airstrikes targeted a fuel trucks for people 7 people got killed 8 injured 

1:23 PM

 

7 civilians got killed today by Airstrikes targeted Bader Farm north Raqqa near 17 Division and 8 injured
1:26 PM

 

Raqqa the Airstrikes today Targeted Kasra area and Brick factory area and Fuel Track near Bader Farm near 17 Division
1:30 PM

 

BREAKING Airstrikes on Raqqa now and Major Explosion
1:35 PM

 

BREAKING Rockets fall on Raqqa and 5 Major Explosion
3:32 PM

Seem to be Russian air strikes and missiles.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/19/us-mideast-crisis-un-idUSKCN0T801320151119?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter#bXQxISByOg2dIIie.97

Russia, France set for showdown at U.N. over Islamic State fight
 

Russia revived on Wednesday a push for United Nations approval of international military campaigns combating Islamic State, setting up a showdown with France over its rival bid for a U.N. Security Council resolution on the issue.

 

Russia circulated to the 15-member council an updated version of a draft resolution it first proposed on Sept. 30, diplomats said. Veto power Britain had dismissed the initial Russian draft and few negotiations were held on that text.

 

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told the council the text had been updated to focus more on combating Islamic State in reaction to recent attacks by the militant group, according to diplomats at the closed-door meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Diplomats said there had been no major changes and that Russia had scheduled negotiations for Thursday.

 

Russia revived its draft after France said it would push for a resolution on terrorism following the deadly attacks in Paris on Friday for which the militant group has claimed credit. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said it would be "short, strong and focused on the fight against our common enemy."

 

"In this respect we consider the Russian proposal is a contribution that we will carefully study," Delattre told reporters, signaling that France was not prepared to team up with Russia on a joint resolution.

 

He said the French draft would have one clear goal "to make sure that the international community is united in the fight against Daesh (Islamic State)."

 

Diplomats said the updated Russian draft still called on states involved in military efforts against the Islamic State group and other militants to coordinate with the countries where they were operating. In the case of Syria, this would mean coordinating military activities with President Bashar al-Assad's government.

 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/18/kurds-cant-be-syrias-saviors/?utm_content=bufferc68cb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Kurds Can’t Be Syria’s Saviors

Turkey and the United States therefore reached an understanding, accepted by the Syrian Kurdish leadership, that the YPG will not attempt to expand west into Ankara’s envisioned “ISIS-free zone.” The SDF — which attempts to incorporate both Kurdish and Arab forces fighting the Islamic State in the area, with U.S. assistance — was a consummation of this new understanding.

 

The Kurdish-led alliance was expected to now focus much of its attention on the northern region of Raqqa, which includes Arab-majority towns and villages that Arab fighters would hold if the Islamic State were expelled. The Kurds, however, prefer to expand their presence in predominantly Kurdish areas rather than fight in areas that would be controlled by Arab fighters. So instead of fighting in Raqqa, as reports first claimed, the new alliance’s attention has turned further east, toward the region of Hasakah.

 

Military gains in this region — from Shaddadi to Hawl to Malikiyah — will help secure the Kurds’ strongholds along the Iraqi border. Southern Hasakah could potentially provide the Kurds with lucrative resources, including oil fields currently controlled by the Islamic State. Meanwhile, the SDF’s Arab component could also resolve a key dilemma for the Kurds, by providing it with a friendly force to run Arab-majority areas in the area. That would allow the YPG to use its limited resources to attack the Islamic State in the region or deploy fighters elsewhere in the country.

 

But there is a very real risk that this strategy will not go as planned. If the SDF hopes to break the stalemate in northeastern Syria, it must address a key shortcoming in the alliance: the Arab tribal fighters’ relative weakness compared to their Kurdish allies.

There are three reasons the subordinate role for Arab tribal fighters undercuts the alliance’s potential. First, the imbalance will undermine the military capabilities of the coalition to push against the Islamic State in Arab-dominated areas.

 

Second, the tribal fighters’ status as junior partners in the alliance will increasingly reduce their morale — as happened previously, when many U.S.-trained rebels abandoned the battlefield because they felt the program was aimless and disproportionally focused on counterterrorism. Tribal fighters say that U.S.

support for the Kurds indicates it is less committed to tribes in the long term. They fear that nobody would come to their aid if the Islamic State returned to areas from which it had previously been expelled, as happened in Iraq over the years or in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor last year, when repeated appeals for help went unnoticed by the international community.

 

“Had it not been for the [international] coalition, ISIS would have reached Qamishli,” said a fighter from the Shammar tribe, which leads the Kurdish-Arab alliance’s al-Sanadid forces. “And the fact is that when ISIS wants, it could reach anywhere.”

 

Finally, there are widespread fears that as more areas are seized by the Kurdish-led alliance, incidents of ethnic cleansing will increase. Last month, Amnesty International released a report accusing the YPG of committing war crimes, including the forced displacement of Arab civilians and demolition of their houses. “Whenever the YPG enters an area, they displace its Arab residents,” the Shammari fighter said, referring to Arab towns in southern Hasakah. “Fifteen villages were leveled to the ground in Tal Hamees, Tel Brak, and Jazaa.”

 

Meanwhile, when it comes to the local Arab communities they seek to control, the Arab and tribal factions are widely viewed as lackeys to the YPG. This view was reinforced after the capture of Tal Abyad, when Free Syrian Army factions were marginalized despite initial promises they would help run the city, in addition to the reported incidents of mass displacement detailed by Amnesty. Tal Abyad was a missed opportunity to change the perception about these forces and enable them to mobilize locals and win their support.

 

At the same time, there are other U.S.-backed groups in eastern Syria — and there’s at least one alternative that skirts the SDF’s inherent ethnic rivalries. The New Syrian Army, a new U.S.-backed militia dedicated to the fight against the Islamic State in the eastern region of Deir Ezzor, consists of fighters who were previously expelled from the area by the Islamic State.

The Kurdish-Arab alliance at the heart of the SDF still has huge potential to reverse the gains made by the Islamic State, whose hold over Syrian territory is much more tenuous than in Iraq. But the YPG should not steer its operations to suit its narrow agenda. Establishing a true balance among the forces that constitute the coalition will boost its military potential and help it better secure both Arab and Kurdish areas held by the Islamic State.

[@DCGoldPants]

Hackers are claiming to have shut down 6k ISIS twitter accounts already. If that's true, I imagine the ones they had access to are being tracked back to see what can be attacked next.

[MattFancy]

Did you guys watch the Frontline story about ISIS on Tuesday night? Just watched it last night. Holy crap.

[TheGoodBits]

Did you guys watch the Frontline story about ISIS on Tuesday night? Just watched it last night. Holy crap.

Yes. Found it upsetting since I realized that my grandchildren are still going to be fighting this war.

[HogNose]

John Cantile, the British hostage has finally surfaced again. He was last seen publicly giving a 'tour' of Aleppo back in January and in the ISIS print material in May. 

 

 

 

 

 

British Hostage John Cantlie Appears in ISIS Magazine

 

British hostage John Cantlie appeared Wednesday in an issue of Dabiq, a propaganda magazine put out by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). 

Cantlie, a journalist who was kidnapped by ISIS in November 2012, has not been seen in the group's propaganda material since May 15, when an article under his byline appeared in the magazine. In the May article, Cantlie refers to events that happened in March, says Rita Katz, director of SITE Intelligence Group, a jihadi watchdog organization, implying a delay between the print date and when Cantlie allegedly wrote the piece.  

"Cantlie became extremely popular among ISIS supporters, and even non-ISIS-supporting jihadis for that matter. This made Cantlie a very valuable but very complex asset for ISIS—much more so than other prisoners whom IS fighters and supporters would cheer to see killed," Katz tells Newsweek. "That stated, there would be a lot for ISIS to lose in killing Cantlie. However, ISIS is extremely unpredictable and is not adverse to making barbaric and horrifying decisions."

 

continued at link 

 

http://www.newsweek.com/british-hostage-john-cantlie-appears-isis-magazine-395930

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Did you guys watch the Frontline story about ISIS on Tuesday night? Just watched it last night. Holy crap.

 

What was the gist?

[MattFancy]

What was the gist?

 

That they're a sick and crazy bunch that will stop at nothing. They showed a bunch of clips of little kids, learning how to shoot and stuff. Apparently they start teaching them at the age of 3. Really disturbing.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

That they're a sick and crazy bunch that will stop at nothing. They showed a bunch of clips of little kids, learning how to shoot and stuff. Apparently they start teaching them at the age of 3. Really disturbing.

 

Ugh, maybe I shouldn't have asked. Thanks for answering though. 

[visionary]

http://www.vox.com/2015/11/18/9755478/isis-islam

How ISIS uses and abuses Islam

 

Of the many questions that people tend to ask about ISIS, before the attacks in Paris and now after, one of the most common is about the degree to which the group's bloodthirsty ideology is influenced by Islam. You hear this especially in much of the rhetoric against allowing Syrian refugees, or any non-Christian Syrian refugees, into the United States and Europe.

 

The question of whether the Islamic State really is "Islamic" is a complex one. But it's imperative to understand, so that people can make decisions based on facts rather than feelings, because this question is at the foundation of some of the most critical debates taking place right now — including how to defeat ISIS, whether or not to accept Syrian refugees, and how Muslims fit into the broader fabric of Western societies.

 

I called up William McCants, director of the Project on US Relations With the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, a fellow in Brookings's Center for Middle East Policy, and one of the foremost experts on militant Islamist ideology, whose recent book The ISIS Apocalypse looks at these very questions.

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/the-ground-war-against-isis-outside-raqqa-gets-a-fresh-sense?utm_term=.gomj22W5P#.vt7wkkZBj

The Ground War Against ISIS In Syria Gets A Fresh Sense Of Urgency After Paris Attacks

 

The 20-year-old soldier at a military post on the road to Raqqa felt he had the world’s gaze at his back.

 

He stood near a camouflaged pickup truck in the closest town U.S.-backed fighters control outside ISIS’s de facto capital Raqqa, some 30 miles down the road. In the wake of the Paris attacks, new attention has been focused on the idea of an assault on Raqqa, the nexus of ISIS’s terror network and its symbolic heart. Some of the local fighters who would carry out such a push on the ground said that after Paris, their war had a fresh sense of urgency. “Everyone is now trying to understand how it’s possible to push ISIS back,” said the soldier, Rubar Afrin.

 

The fighters holding down the town of Ayn Issa, which sits on the highway to Raqqa, are also manning the front lines of the escalating international war against the jihadis. In the days since the terror attacks in Paris, French and U.S. airstrikes have pounded the city — the place where the militants first began to carve out their self-styled caliphate — with barrages of airstrikes. Fighters in the town noted the intensity of the strikes, along with a spike in civilians fleeing.

 

“I don’t think they’ll be able to resist in Raqqa after all this pressure,” said Nadin Ali, 30, standing guard at Ayn Issa’s entrance.

 

Ethnic Kurdish forces supported by Arab militias took Ayn Issa from ISIS in July shortly after their strategic coup in winning the town of Tel Abyad, a key crossing on the border with Turkey. It has largely remained static since; between the town and the ISIS-held villages just outside Raqqa lies a long swathe of highway and desert. The town was eerily quiet as the sun set on Thursday, interrupted by the blast from a mortar falling nearby that had been fired by the jihadis dug into a village just beyond some hills. Soldiers tried to scare away a feral dog digging up bodies of ISIS fighters from a nearby grave.

 

Some of the soldiers there had been too busy with their war — they said ISIS still sent harassing forces to the town regularly — to give much thought to events in Paris. Two were unaware that the massacre had even taken place. But others were tuned into the news and expecting their push toward Raqqa to pick up steam. “For sure after the Paris attacks things will change,” said a 22-year-old fighter who gave only his first name, Rami.

“The recent attacks in Paris will likely put a spotlight on the YPG and Syria Democratic Forces and what they can actually do in putting pressure on ISIS. Some are even hailing them as a force that can take Raqqa at some point,” said the Washington Institute’s Andrew Tabler, an expert on Syria’s war. “That’s a long way off though.”

 

The YPG has been wary of pushing into Arab territory like Raqqa; the Arab militias that will be counted on to fill in the gaps remain weak. Experts say that instead of a quick March on Raqqa the military efforts against ISIS on the ground in Syria will focus on the kind of incremental progress the YPG and its allies have been making in places like al-Hasakah, in southern countryside of Syria. And the Obama administration has shown no sign that it will deviate from its hesitant and piecemeal approach to the war against the militants. U.S. officials and analysts said a major offensive in Raqqa remained in the distance.

 

The soldiers in Ayn Issa vowed to press on with their fight regardless of international plans. “As long as there is ISIS, we can’t sleep comfortably,” said a 26-year-old Kurdish fighter there.

 

The troops in Ayn Issa said ISIS militants still attacked them with small teams of fighters and suicide bombers there, making them more anxious as night fell. The long drive back to a YPG base closer to the Turkish border underlined their precarious hold on the war-battered villages between. Checkpoints were makeshift and sparsely manned; one, run by an Arab militia, was overseen by a skinny boy of 13 who sat in an easy chair along the roadside holding a Kalashnikov. “If we don’t go to Raqqa,” said a young YPG fighter, as his car rolled along the bumpy route, “who will?”

 

 

https://twitter.com/Raqqa_SL

Raqqa a car bomb for ISIS Exploded on the entrance of Slouk town near a Checkpoint for YPG
1:46 PM

 

https://twitter.com/markito0171

Aleppo Coalition airstrike hit IS hold village Asanbel east of rebel hold Mare town

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=de&lat=36.481967&lon=37.236271&z=14&m=b
3:30 PM

[Zguy28]

I have no way to verify this is true at the moment. But if it is...wow.

 

http://truthinmedia.com/reality-check-proof-u-s-government-wanted-isis-to-emerge-in-syria/

[skinfan2k]

the US was supporting the opposition but they were supporting the rebels not isis 

[@DCGoldPants]