The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[CountDeMoney]

Shi'ite militias, who battled U.S. troops during their occupation of Iraq, played a song in Amerli on Monday that taunted the extremist Islamic State with the line: "The Americans couldn't beat us and you think you can?"

HEY NOW

[Admiral Yi]

Time to shut down the air support. 

[mongers]

More bombing please.   

Apparently Pentagon has said 118 strikes since August 8th. 

[mongers]

And Germany is sending the Kurds some useful armaments:

Germany to supply arms to Kurds fighting IS in Iraq

Germany has decided to send weapons to equip 4,000 Kurdish fighters defending areas of northern Iraq against Islamist militants.

Rifles, machine guns, grenades, anti-tank systems and armoured vehicles would be sent, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said.

Correspondents says it is rare for Germany to export weapons into an active conflict zone.
....
The weapons will be flown to Irbil in Kurdish-run northern Iraq, via Baghdad.

.....

The government said Germany had a "humanitarian responsibility... to help those suffering and to stop IS [Islamic State militants]".

Germany has already sent humanitarian aid to the Kurdish region to help refugees displaced by IS, which is persecuting Shia Muslims, Christians, Yazidis and other minorities.

The arms will come from German army depots, and will include 30 Milan anti-tank rocket launchers with 500 rockets, ARD TV reports.

.....

Germany will also send 240 armour-piercing bazookas, 8,000 G3 rifles with two million rounds, and 8,000 of the newer G36 rifles, with four million rounds. Forty MG3 machine guns are also on the list, and 8,000 pistols.

More than 100 military vehicles will also be sent - mostly troop transporters.

Full item here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29012159

[Ed Anger]

Time to shut down the air support. 

Yep. If the shitites are so confident, they don't need the thunder god helping them.

[jimmy olsen]

Kurds get a gift from the Germans

[Berkut]

While I certainly applaud this, I am a bit surprised - I didn't think the Germans were generally very keen on sending arms much of anywhere.

Can we get them to send some stuff to the Ukraine as well?

[Syt]

http://www.thelocal.at/20140825/vienna-a-hub-for-european-jihadists

Vienna 'a hub for European jihadists'

Vienna has become a hub for European jihadists who plan to join extremists at war in Syria, because it is easy to travel to Syria through the Balkans, according to a report in Der Standard newspaper.

Nine suspected Chechen jihadists who were arrested in Austria on Wednesday had planned to use this route.

"The conflict in Syria is attracting foreign fighters from all over Europe to Austria. The route to Syria is simple and safe," a report from Austria's Federal Agency for State Protection and Counter Terrorism (BAT) said.

The report stated that Austria is used as a place for recruiting and organising European jihadists who plan to travel through the Western Balkans to Syria.

Around a quarter of people travelling from Austria to Syria are Austrian nationals, "who have family members in Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans."

As many as 130 people from Austria are believed to be fighting as jihadists abroad. More than half of Austrian-born jihadists come from the Caucasus region and have a valid residence permit in Austria. The rest are mainly Bosnian and Turkish-born.

Turkey plays a significant role in Islamist networks - as it is relatively easy to cross the border into Syria, and has links to the controversial Millî Görüş movement, which is also active in Austria.

The BAT report notes that jihadists who return to Austria represent a particular threat: "After returning from the war zone with battle experience, having had traumatic experiences and associated behavioural changes, and having deepened their radical beliefs present a significant security risk for Austria."

The worry is that they will set up centres for recruiting new jihadists.

Der Standard writes that Austria has not been very successful in introducing a strategy for de-radicalising returning jihadists. A telephone hotline for people wanting to leave a terrorist organisation has been repeatedly postponed, and there is no social programme for jihadist 'drop-outs'.

John R. Schindler, a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College, writes in a recent blog post that "for years, Vienna has served as the de facto base for Islamist extremists from Southeastern Europe, a place to recruit, raise and hide funds, and radicalize, thanks to Austria's permissive laws and weak enforcement mechanisms. It's an exceptional terrorist or Salafi radical in Bosnia who has not spent some time in Austria."

Quoted paper Der Standard is left-wing. And John R. Schindler is indeed the same who recently resigned from the Naval college due to his penis pictures.



His full blog post is here:

http://20committee.com/2014/08/22/vienna-calling-how-austria-became-a-hub-of-global-jihad/#ixzz3BDJ4jVcV

Vienna Calling: How Austria Became a Hub of Global Jihad
August 22, 2014

The brutal murder this week of American journalist James Foley by the Islamic State (IS) has focused Western minds, at long last, on the serious nature of the jihadist threat emanating from the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Syria. No longer are top officials mincing words. Yesterday U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel dispensed with euphemism, describing IS as "whole new dynamic ... as sophisticated and well-funded as any organization we've seen." When asked if IS represents a "9/11-level threat" to America, Hagel explained that this group "is beyond anything we've seen."

Westerners seem particularly concerned that the butcher of James Foley is a Briton named "John" who is part of a group of jihadists from the United Kingdom who are fighting for the IS, where they are termed "The Beatles" by fellow fighters. In truth, the British capital has been known as Londonistan for nearly twenty years among counterterrorism professionals, due to its notorious status as a major hub of the global jihad, thanks to lax British laws that have long permitted extremists to find sanctuary there. If the tragic murder of James Foley causes the Western public to finally wake up to the extent of the threat they face at home, which is growing acute thanks to the unprecedented numbers of Westerners who have gone to Syria and Iraq to wage jihad, his death may not have been in vain.

However, it is good to keep in mind that this problem is hardly confined to the United Kingdom. France and Germany in particular have serious troubles with extremists. While London deserves its reputation as a jihadist's playground, Vienna is running in second place, and has been for some time, though this is seldom realized outside Central and Eastern Europe. For years, as I've written about extensively, Vienna has served as the de facto base for Islamist extremists from Southeastern Europe, a place to recruit, raise and hide funds, and radicalize, thanks to Austria's permissive laws and weak enforcement mechanisms. It's an exceptional terrorist or Salafi radical in Bosnia who has not spent some time in Austria. It says something that the most notorious Salafi mosque in Vienna is located directly across the street from a major military base.

Yet a series of arrests this week is causing a new look at this serious problem, which is long overdue. Two days ago, Austria police arrested nine Chechens, ranging in age from 17 to 32; eight men and one woman, all were in the country legally as refugees and asylum seekers. They were planning to wage jihad with IS in Syria but, as is rarely the case, were stopped by authorities before they left. Four suspects were arrested in Vienna, while the other five were picked up in Klagenfurt, the capital of the Alpine state of Carinthia. Yesterday the Vienna group was placed in pre-trial detention, due to flight risk, and proceedings were instituted to withdraw their asylum status; a similar decision is expected from a Klagenfurt court today.

As I reported last month, Austrian officials have been warning the public about the extent of the problem, with the country's domestic intelligence agency, the mouthful Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung - BVT for short), has grown unusually blunt by the standards of tight-lipped Viennese functionaries in its choice of words:

Religiously motivated extremism and terrorism – above all of Islamic character – as well as Salafi-jihadi groups continue to present a great potential threat...The number of young radicalized followers of violent Salafism continues to rise. In this context, the conflict in Syria is of urgent relevance for Austria, since systematic efforts are being made within [Austria] to radicalize and recruit people for the war in Syria...The conflict in Syria has become very popular among violent extremist Salafis. The spectrum of recruits to the conflict in Syria is broadly ethnically diverse. The motivation, however, seems to be uniformly jihadi.

The BVT's latest unclassifed terrorism assessment explicitly noted that people from the Western Balkans — especially Bosnia but also Kosovo, from families who came as refugees during the war-torn 1990s —  constitute a high percentage of Austria's would-be jihadists. According to the BVT, about a quarter of the foreign fighters traveling from Austria to Syria hold Austrian citizenship: "their families come from Southeast Europe and the Western Balkans." The BVT assesses that more than one hundred Muslims left Austria last year to go to Syria; about sixty of them are believed to be in the war zone now. The rough figure for Germany for the same period is estimated at 320 (which, given that Germany has ten times Austria's population, indicates the gravity of the domestic extremism problem facing Vienna).

Moreover, a new report in the Viennese daily Der Standard clarifies why Austria is having such a difficult time getting a handle on this worrisome issue. In particular, the BVT faces tight legal restrictions on intelligence collection. The agency is not permitted to search profiles in social networks for clues, despite the fact that Facebook and Twitter are the most important source of information about what foreign fighters are doing: it may only do so based on a direct suspicion and with a court order. If the BVT finds nothing that would require further investigation, everything must be deleted after six months. "When someone blows himself up, then we are the ones to be blamed: we should have known," rues an anonymous Austrian security official.

Determining what possible foreign fighters are doing is difficult and Turkey is easy to get to from Vienna, a short flight away. A holiday and a jihad mission to southeastern Turkey look similar in many cases. As Der Standard notes, "Occasionally, someone boasts on his Facebook profile, sometimes clues come from foreign intelligence services — but in many cases no one knows before." Austrian laws define terrorism and the support of it very narrowly. In a typical case, a Turkish citizen who is said to have been the middleman for the arrested Chechens, a jihad facilitator who was helping them get to Turkey, has been reported to the police, but is still free.

There is a large Chechen community in Austria and more than half of the foreign fighters with an Austrian connection in Syria come from the Caucasus region, usually possessing legal residence in Austria; the rest of the jihadists are of Bosnian or Turkish origin.

Vienna's biggest concern now is the challenge of returnees from Syria and Iraq. In the words of the BVT: "When fighters return from the crisis zone, their practical combat skills, traumatic experience, and behavioral changes plus, potentially, radicalization brought to perfection represent a considerable security risk for Austria" Although historically only five to ten percent of jihad returnees get directly involved in terrorism once they return home, many of them serve as proselytizers and founders of new radical centers. "Even a small number of fiercely determined former Syria fighters pose a risk," says Gilles de Kechove, the EU's Counterterrorism Coordinator. "Lone wolves" are a perennial concern, based on recent terrorist incidents in Europe, while the ominous threat of organized groups of experienced jihadists perpetrating terrorism worries the BVT and every security service in Western and Central Europe.

The report ends on a downbeat note, reflecting the reality that Austria remains far from entirely serious in its attitudes towards the rising radicalism in its midst:

Deradicalization strategies in Austria are anything but fully developed. A telephone hotline for dropouts and their relatives has long since been announced — and shelved. Apart from the prospects of success of such an idea — Islamism experts in Germany are critical of a similar project there — there are not enough civilian organizations that are able to carry out such an opt-out program together with the ministry.  Now, hopes are that the go-ahead will be given in the fall.

For decades, Austria has taken a laissez-faire attitude towards spying and worse conducted on its soil. Not for nothing has Vienna been regarded as the world capital of espionage, a status it retains with literally thousands of spies working in the city on the Danube. As long as such espionage is directed at third countries, i.e. not Austria, the BVT and other Austrian security agencies have tended to look the other way. Even Islamists have long had a surprisingly free hand in Austria, as long as their nefarious activities were directed elsewhere.

Now there are thousands of radicals in Austria, some of them extreme enough to wage jihad abroad, and possibly worse. What they will do when they return home is something that should cause deep concern in Vienna. The option of looking the other way and avoiding the issue, which has been the customary Austrian approach, is defunct. It would be wise of Austrian politicians to recognize this, as continuing to avoid it will only worsen this serious problem.

[Viking]

Coalition of the Strange bedfellows

"If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

[DGuller]

Kurds get a gift from the Germans

Panzerfaust?  I hope ISIS rides on T-34s and Shermans.

[Ed Anger]

Panzerfaust 3, you dork.

[Ed Anger]

Right now, DG is taking a picture of that web page and getting ready to set up a drop for his GRU handlers.

[DGuller]

 

[Viking]

Panzerfaust 3, you dork.

I'm not sure this is because "the design is a classic they got right first time round" or if somebody in germany is nostalgic. Germans nostalgic for 1944 make me nervous.

[Syt]

You want WW2 nostalgia? This was the MG we used when I was in the service in the 90s: