The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[Caliga]

It's pretty obvious to me why Obama didn't start attacking Assad when all the hippies started yelling at him to do so.  He might be a bad person, but at least he doesn't want to destroy America like his opponents do.

I also recall suggesting that we should have backed Gadhafi, or at least remained neutral, in that conflict for the same reason.

[jimmy olsen]

Cal, he has plenty of opponents who don't want to destroy America, it's a three sided civil war between Assad, the Islamists and the secular FSA. The FSA nearly toppled Assad and if we had helped they would have. Instead we let things fester and this is the result, the strength of the FSA has waned and the Islamists have waxed.

Current events, click the link to read the map
http://syriadirect.org/rss/1520-syria-direct-news-update-8-27-2014

SYRIA DIRECT: NEWS UPDATE 8-27-2014
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Nusra attacks Christian town

Opposition forces led by Jabhat a-Nusra struck Mherda in northern Hama with rocket fire Wednesday in an attempt to storm the town, reported pro-opposition news agency Eldorar.

A-Nusra has already captured an eastern district of the city, and is positioning itself to take the remainder as well.

A Christian-majority city, Mherda is a training center for local shabiha (pro-regime militia) and a launching pad for regime attacks on the area.

Up to 1,500 Nusra fighters participated in the attack, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syrian air force pounds IS in Deir e-Zor

The Islamic State (IS) massed its forces Tuesday around the Deir e-Zor military airport—a principal regime base in the province—in preparation for an attack, while the Syrian regime carried out at least 12 air raids on the nearby city of Deir e-Zor.

"IS has begun to organize its ranks in order to launch an attack on the Deir e-Zor military airport," said an unnamed activist quoted by the London-based Saudi daily a-Sharq al-Awsat.

MAP

IS-affiliated social media accounts appeared to corroborate the news, warning of an upcoming attack just three days after the Islamic State captured Tabqa military airport in A-Raqqa province. "Deir e-Zor will soon be decorated with their heads," one Twitter handle said Wednesday, referring to Syrian army soldiers present in the airport.

Meanwhile, the Syrian air force bombed IS headquarters in Deir e-Zor city—which sits to the northwest of the airport—as well as a training camp on the outskirts of the town, in what the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described as the regime's "most concentrated" airstrikes since July.

Syrian official news agency SANA said that "army and armed forces units laid waste to a number of terrorists, both killed and wounded" in various Deir e-Zor neighborhoods.

Deir e-Zor city is split between IS and Syrian army control. Although IS controls the vast majority of the province—having expanded its control in mid July—the SA maintains a base in the military airport and a number of surrounding villages.

SNHR: IS kills nearly 3,500 in Syria since April

The Islamic State has killed 3,473 people in Syria since the organization was officially announced in April 2013, according to a report published Tuesday by the pro-opposition monitoring group Syrian Network for Human Rights.

The number does not reflect the total number of individuals the State has killed in Syria- for example it does not include Syrian army casualties-but rather the deaths that SNHR was able to verify using eyewitness reports, investigations, pictures and videos posted online by revolutionary activists and IS members themselves.

The SNHR reported that 99 percent of those killed were Syrian: 2,691 from the Free Syrian Army, and 782 civilians "who were massacred as they're considered apostates, infidels and Western agents."

IS employs both mass killings and individual murders to reach the documented number, adopting a strategy of "kidnapping, torture and assassinations of revolutionary activists of all stripes."

In a telling passage listed under "conclusions and recommendations," SNHR said that "the sectarian massacres that the regime and its shabiha [regime-affiliated gangs] committed clearly contributed to attracting a large number of people, from all over the world, to fight under IS's banner."

[jimmy olsen]

ISIS may have executed 200 of Assad's men after capturing Tabqa airbase

http://www.news.com.au/world/islamic-state-claims-to-have-executed-200-syrian-troops-shot-down-a-helicopter-in-iraq/story-fndir2ev-1227039544657

[KRonn]

It's pretty obvious to me why Obama didn't start attacking Assad when all the hippies started yelling at him to do so.  He might be a bad person, but at least he doesn't want to destroy America like his opponents do.

I also recall suggesting that we should have backed Gadhafi, or at least remained neutral, in that conflict for the same reason.

I think by the time Pres Obama wanted to bomb Syria it was too late to help the "moderates" as the radical types were already pretty strong. There was pretty heavy opposition by Congress and the people against getting involved in Syria through bombing and whatever else that may lead to. Good thing too in hindsight as the fall of Assad would have seen a continued war with the extremists likely winning out, as they're doing now in Libya.

As for Ghadafi, yeah, we shouldn't have gotten involved there either but people had this view of the Arab Spring as a quest for democracy, but toppling governments and leaving a vacuum was an invite to extremists to move into a failed state.

[PJL]

It's pretty obvious to me why Obama didn't start attacking Assad when all the hippies started yelling at him to do so.  He might be a bad person, but at least he doesn't want to destroy America like his opponents do.

I also recall suggesting that we should have backed Gadhafi, or at least remained neutral, in that conflict for the same reason.

I think by the time Pres Obama wanted to bomb Syria it was too late to help the "moderates" as the radical types were already pretty strong. There was pretty heavy opposition by Congress and the people against getting involved in Syria through bombing and whatever else that may lead to. Good thing too in hindsight as the fall of Assad would have seen a continued war with the extremists likely winning out, as they're doing now in Libya.

As for Ghadafi, yeah, we shouldn't have gotten involved there either but people had this view of the Arab Spring as a quest for democracy, but toppling governments and leaving a vacuum was an invite to extremists to move into a failed state.

Well, the initial support for the rebels was fine. What has really disappointed me though is the way the new Libyan government  seemed to have been left in the lurch by the West afterwards. Surely nation building here would have been much easier to do than with Iraq or Afghanistan given the compliant population and government. I wasn't expecting conventional forces on the ground, but at least advisors and special forces to help them build a conventional army and restore order.  Not to mention economic & structural aid to help them govern and possibly military hardware as well.

To be honest, I would now advise against any form of intervention in internal affairs in a country under any circumstances unless external forces were trying to destabilise the country or it had spilled into neighbouring countries. in fact, I would stress the virtues of law and order above anything else now. Supporting peaceful protests are fine, but if it became an insurgency against the government then no.

[KRonn]

Maybe some stronger long term support would have enabled Libya to get on better direction, good point. I wonder how much support, or lack thereof, was given Libya by the nations that helped remove Gaddafi. But then, given the track record of intervention in Muslim nations lately I would tend to think that the radicals might just have taken longer to gain strength.

[citizen k]

[mongers]

More bombing pretty please.

[derspiess]

I also recall suggesting that we should have backed Gadhafi, or at least remained neutral, in that conflict for the same reason.

I'll let you sign my thank you letter to Samantha Power for getting us into that mess.

[Ed Anger]

More bombing pretty please.

Birmingham might get a pasting.

[mongers]

More bombing pretty please.

Birmingham might get a pasting.

I think you'd be hard put to tell the difference, before and after.   


Besides, the city doesn't seem to have that much of a history of radicalization, Brummies tend to be rather down to earth and level headed. 

[Viking]

More bombing pretty please.

Birmingham might get a pasting.

I think you'd be hard put to tell the difference, before and after.   


Besides, the city doesn't seem to have that much of a history of radicalization, Brummies tend to be rather down to earth and level headed. 

no, you could tell the difference, a vast improvement....

[CountDeMoney]

SSDS
Same shit, different Sunnis.

[Sheilbh]

One thing retrospective Assad lovers should remember is that the vast majority of anti-ISIS fighting in Syria has been by other rebels.

Assad doesn't really seen to care. He's hunkering down in the West.

[Tonitrus]

Some good ol' feminist/marxist revolutionary action. 

http://www.stripes.com/news/female-fighters-of-the-pkk-may-be-the-islamic-state-s-worst-nightmare-1.300259

Female fighters of the PKK may be the Islamic State's worst nightmare

Zekia Karhan, 26, front-left, and Felice Budak, 24, back-middle, speak with a journalist in Makhmur, Iraq, Aug. 23, 2014. Karhan and Budak are guerrillas in the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Joshua L. DeMotts/Stars and Stripes



JOSHUA L. DEMOTTS/STARS AND STRIPES
By Seth Robson
Stars and Stripes
Published: August 27, 2014
     

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Kurdish peshmerga gather at the front lines in Kalak, west of the Iraqi capital Irbil, facing militants from the Islamic State just a little over a mile away on Aug. 7, 2014. Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy Washington Bureau/MCT
Pentagon: Arms flow to Kurds increases; 7 nations join effort

MAKHMUR, Iraq — It's an Islamic State fighter's worst fear: to be killed by a woman.

In northern Iraq, where Kurdish forces are rapidly regaining territory held by the Islamic State,  that's becoming real risk for the extremists.

There are plenty of female Kurdish soldiers on the front lines. They're smaller than their male comrades, but they talk just as tough as they prowl the battlefield clutching automatic rifles and vowing vengeance for those victimized by the Islamic State.

"We are equal with the men," said Zekia Karhan, 26, a female guerrilla from Turkey who is with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK. "Every responsibility for a man is the same for a woman. We are treated equally, and that is why we are fighting."

The female PKK troops accessorize their olive drab uniforms with colorful scarfs,  but they're as thirsty for battle as anyone.

"I fired on this position from the mountain," said Felice Budak, 24, another PKK fighter from Turkey, as she stood next to a window pierced by several bullet holes in Makhmur, a town that the PKK helped recapture from the Islamic State this month.

Budak said she wasn't scared during the battle.

Islamic State fighters "are very scared of death because they are only here to kill people," she said. "I don't mind doing it over and over again. I've already fought in Turkey, Iran and Syria."

The leftist PKK has been fighting the Turkish government for decades and is classed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. But its fighters have been going into battle alongside Kurdish peshmerga in recent weeks and are credited by some locals with turning the tide of battle in Iraq.