The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[Valmy]

They were also moving to Sweden

[DGuller]

Bad time for everyone there, whether Syrian or Asyrian.

[Viking]

I thought the Assyrians were all moving the Sweden.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyriska_F%C3%B6reningen

Assyriska is often viewed as a substitute national team by the Assyrian people.[1][2]

They are in Södertälje near Stockholm

Demographics[edit]
About 39 percent of the inhabitants have foreign backgrounds, and this proportion currently increases by 1.5 percent per year. Among groups of immigrants in Södertälje the Arameans/Assyrians are the one with the largest membership.

In the city, Arameans/Assyrians have five churches, two bishops, two soccer teams (Assyriska FF and Syrianska FC), many shops, association and the headquarters of TV Channels of Suroyo TV and Suryoyo Sat that is shown worldwide.[2]

Following the war in Iraq many Iraqi refugees came to Södertälje, almost all of them are Christian Syriacs. The city has taken more Iraqi refugees than the United States and Canada combined.[2] 1,500 Mandaeans live in Södertälje.[3]

Other immigrants are mainly from Finland, former Yugoslavia and many more.

The most spoken languages in Södertälje besides Swedish, which is the national language, are Syriac-Aramaic and Arabic. To a lesser extent, Finnish and Serbian are also relatively common second languages.

The community has attracted immigrants from the Baltic states, the Caucasus, Iraq, North Africa mostly from Morocco, Asia like Pakistan, the Philippines and Koreans, and South America for some time.

[crazy canuck]

They were also moving to Sweden

Now we know why they had difficulty moving it.

[The Brain]

Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.

[Viking]

Won't usually quote the Manchester Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/40000-iraqis-stranded-mountain-isis-death-threat

Tens of thousands of members of one of Iraq's oldest minorities have been stranded on a mountain in the country's north-west, facing slaughter at the hands of jihadists surrounding them below if they flee or death by dehydration if they stay.

UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy mile-high ridge identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah's ark.

At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Irbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.

Sinjar itself has been all but emptied of its 300,000 residents since jihadists stormed the city late on Saturday, but an estimated 25,000 people remain. "We are being told to convert or to lose our heads," said Khuldoon Atyas, who has stayed behind to guard his family's crops. "There is no one coming to help."

Another man, who is hiding in the mountains and identified himself as Nafi'ee, said: "Food is low, ammunition is low and so is water. We have one piece of bread to share between 10 people. We have to walk 2km to get water. There were some air strikes yesterday [against the jihadists], but they have made no difference."

At least 500 Yazidis, including 40 children, have been killed in the past week, local officials say. Many more have received direct threats, either from the advancing militants or members of nearby Sunni communities allied with them. "They were our neighbours and now they are our killers," said Atyas.

"It's not like this is a one-off incident," said the Unicef spokeswoman Juliette Touma. "We are almost back to square zero in terms of the preparedness and the supplies. Enormous numbers of people have been crossing the border since June.

"The stresses are enormous; dehydration, fatigue, people sometimes having to walk for days. The impact on kids is very physical, let alone the psychological impact."

The Kurdish minority Yazidis have long been regarded as devil worshippers by Sunni jihadists who have targeted them since the US invasion. As the extremists' latest and most potent incarnation, the Islamic State (Isis), has steadily conquered Iraq's north, the small, self-contained community has been especially vulnerable.

Isis forces advanced across north-western Iraq almost unchecked since a small band of hardliners stormed Iraq's second city Mosul on 10 June, sending the Iraqi army fleeing and crumbling the central government's control.

Flush with weapons looted from Iraqi arsenals, Isis sacked Tikrit and advanced on Kirkuk. With new recruits lured or pressganged along the way, it has captured five oilfields and three cities, an 800-mile stretch of border with Syria. It has menaced Baghdad and is now within striking distance of Iraq's two largest dams.

"The situation is slowly tipping in their favour," said Dr Hisham al-Hashimi, Iraq's leading expert on Isis. "They won't take the dam near Mosul, but Haditha [at the centre of Iraq's water and energy supply grid] will be very hard to defend.

"They are very close to Baghdad airport. If they breached the perimeter, even with a symbolic attack, it would be enormous propaganda value for them."

Iraq's beleaguered military has been unable to muster a meaningful push-back against the jihadists and is under intense pressure to support the Yazidis with air strikes and food drops. A series of spectacular defeats has seriously eroded its credibility. Baghdad claimed on Wednesday that its military had carried out an air strike on a Mosul prison which killed scores of jihadists and freed an unknown number of prisoners. The area was impossible to access and the numbers of fatalities could not be verified. However, witnesses reported damage to the prison and relatives rushed to the gates in the hope of rescuing detained family members.

Kurdish Peshmurga troops, long regarded as a more formidable fighting force, had been defending Sinjar, but they too were forced to withdraw as Isis advanced. Kurdish officials say their forces were seriously outgunned by the jihadists, who were using heavy weapons looted from Iraqi bases.

The same weapons are being used to consolidate Isis's hold on much of western Iraq. The group has significantly boosted its numbers by tapping into Iraq's estranged Sunni population, which has been marginalised by the Shia majority government since the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein more than 11 years ago.

"I would say there are now between 30,000 and 50,000 of them," Hashimi said. "Of those, I would say 30% are ideologues. The others have joined out of fear or coercion."

The once dominant US military and powerful embassy now play next to no role in Iraq, with Iraqi militias reporting to Iranian generals increasingly taking the lead in the fight against the jihadists.

"Iraq is spiralling out of control," said Ali Khedery, the former longest-serving US official in Baghdad. "The centrifugal forces are spinning so quickly. They are on one timeline and Washington is on another. I am beyond concerned."

Khedery, who reported to five US ambassadors and three US central command generals and is now chairman of the Dubai-based consultancy Dragoman Partners, said: "Everybody is retreating to their corners. And there is no credible international actor that I can see that is trying to bring it together again.

"It definitely is an existential threat to the Iraqi government and I think it represents yet another manifestation of the disintegration of Iraq as we know it.

"Iranian overreach, the genocide in Syria, [Nouri] al-Maliki's consolidation of power in a very sectarian way have all led to the disillusionment, the disenfranchisement of the Sunni Arabs who have fatally, but perhaps understandably, chosen to consummate a deal with the devil. Now we are locked in a race to the bottom."

I'm baffled by evil. I can't really conceive of anybody being this evil on purpose. The only way I can imagine a person thinks that doing this is good is if they think God told them to do so.

Meanwhile the western press spends all it's time castigating Israel for the invented crime of winning a war against another example of evil that uses human shields.

[Valmy]

The West does not actually care about the Palestinians.  If ISIS was marching through Gaza murdering thousands they wouldn't care.  That is all about Israel.  If the West actually did care about the Palestinians and actually wanted to help them they would have done so back in 2006 and not let Hamas take over.

[CountDeMoney]

Iraq and the region sure does have a lot of weird little religion sects.

They've been in the organized religion business for over 5000 years.  Sadly, most of the Assyrians have taken off - one of the last living remnants of Nestorians.  I would say more but CDM might get all freaky again.

"Gnosticism?  Damned near killed him."

[derspiess]

My sister in law and her husband are Gnostic converts.  I read a little bit about the religion/sect/movement/whatever and only became more confused as to what the hell it is.

[Valmy]

They believe the God of the old testament and the God of the new testament are different gods right?  I can never keep all those ancient sects straight.

[The Minsky Moment]

My sister in law and her husband are Gnostic converts.  I read a little bit about the religion/sect/movement/whatever and only became more confused as to what the hell it is.

Hmm ... gnosticism is really a taxonomic way of grouping together ancient sects and groups with certain beliefs and characteristics.  It's not really a standalone religion you would convert to (?)

[mongers]

My sister in law and her husband are Gnostic converts.  I read a little bit about the religion/sect/movement/whatever and only became more confused as to what the hell it is.

Hmm ... gnosticism is really a taxonomic way of grouping together ancient sects and groups with certain beliefs and characteristics.  It's not really a standalone religion you would convert to (?)

Clearly you've not interacted with enough of the flaky crowd; it's almost as if you've had better things to do. 

[Caliga]

I thought the Assyrians were all moving the Sweden.

Some of them have moved here.  A former co-worker of mine is married to an Iraqi Assyrian chick.

[CountDeMoney]

Clearly you've not interacted with enough of the flaky crowd; it's almost as if you've had better things to do. 

No, Judas Isuealot is correct, gnosticism is more of a category for a variety of early sects and belief systems of various sizes, as opposed to one with a home office somewhere.  Read your Chadwick.

[LaCroix]

Anyway agreed I look forward to all those 'not anti-Semites but humanitarians' marching against ISIS across Europe.

i think it has to do with heightened standard. no one cares when two ghetto thugs kill each other. people care more when an attorney or doctor commits murder