The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant Megathread

[Malthus]

Nebuchadnezzar knew how to handle Israel.

He also knew how to eat grass. Or at least, so the legend goes. 

[Martinus]

Italians. 

[Admiral Yi]

Wolfman says "US attack helicopters are now engaging ISIS forces."

[mongers]

Wolfman says "US attack helicopters are now engaging ISIS forces."

This is in defence of the massive airbase?

[citizen k]

Wolfman says "US attack helicopters are now engaging ISIS forces."

This is in defence of the massive airbase?

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/many-25-isis-fighters-killed-assault-iraqi-base-officials-say-n305721

[mongers]

Wolfman says "US attack helicopters are now engaging ISIS forces."

This is in defence of the massive airbase?

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/many-25-isis-fighters-killed-assault-iraqi-base-officials-say-n305721

Thanks for that, for some reason the bbc is a bit slow on the story; maybe I should look on Al-Jazeera.

[jimmy olsen]

Wow, things look really bad all of a sudden.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/14/middleeast/isis-iraq-syria/

(CNN)An Iraqi tribal leader said Saturday that ISIS militants are gaining ground in Anbar province, predicting a "collapse within hours" of Iraqi army forces there if tribal forces withdraw.

Sheikh Naim al-Gaoud, a Sunni Muslim leader of the Albu Nimr tribe, called for more U.S. intervention -- including ground troops, arming tribes directly or at least pressuring the Iraqi government to give the tribes more firepower.

While U.S. officials have said that ISIS, which calls itself the Islamic State, is on the defensive in Iraq and Syria, al-Gaoud says that's definitely not the case where he is.

"In Anbar, we are losing ground, not gaining," he said.

Thousands of families had been under siege in the Anbar town of Jubbat al-Shamiya until getting help Friday from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and Iraqi forces, according to al-Gaoud.

But he said Iraqi troops had pulled out of Jubbat al-Shamiya on Saturday, at which time ISIS was shelling the town.

If the Islamist extremist group's fighters go in, al-Gaoud predicted a massacre.

Key base attacked

Anbar province is just west of Baghdad, meaning a decisive ISIS victory would put ISIS on the footsteps of the Iraqi capital. It's also home to the strategic Ayn al-Assad Air Base, which came under attack Friday.

Talking about that battle, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said 20 to 25 people -- most, if not all, of whom were wearing Iraqi military uniforms and were led by suicide bombers -- attacked the huge, nearly 25-square-mile base.

"It looks like (ISIS militants) at least got to the outer base limits," Kirby said.

At least 13 Iraqi soldiers died in the assault, according to al-Gaoud, which ended with Iraqi ground forces killing all the attackers.

U.S. troops were on the base at the time, but "several kilometers" from where the fighting happened, Kirby said. The U.S. military did deploy Apache attack helicopters in that ISIS assault, but the Apaches returning safely without firing a shot, military sources said.

American helicopter gunships were also involved in a fight supporting Iraqi ground forces about 15 kilometers (9 miles) north in the Anbar town of al-Baghdadi, according to sources.

Al-Gaoud, the Albu Mimr tribal leader, said militants killed at least 25 Iraqi police officers during their assault on that town Thursday and Friday.

ISIS took over al-Baghdadi on Friday.

Anbar province key in multiple ways

Anbar is important not just for its location, for the al-Assad base or for the Haditha dam, Iraq's second largest. It's also significant for its sectarian breakdown -- as a mostly Sunni province in a Shiite-led country.

Sectarian divisions have hurt Iraq before, with ISIS' rampage through much of Iraq (as well as neighboring Syria) blamed in part to the country's lack of unity. It's one reason for then-Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's exit last year, replaced by current leader Haider al-Abadi.

The U.S. government has gotten involved to address such tensions as part of its anti-terrorism fight, like President Barack Obama's warning last June -- a few months before al-Maliki stepped down -- that "there won't be a military solution" unless Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds all play significant parts in Iraq's command structure.

Years before, in the mid-2000s, the United States recruited and paid Sunnis like members of al-Gaoud's Albu Mimr tribe to join its fight against al Qaeda. Those efforts helped turn the tide in the war.

But now, al-Gaoud says, ISIS -- which consists of Sunni extremists -- is making his tribe pay the price.

"There are people who will be killed in cold blood, and there will be more massacres," al-Gaoud told CNN in November. "We are getting killed because of our friendship with the Americans. Does a friend abandon his friend like this?"

[OttoVonBismarck]

What I was getting at is that everyone is cheering for the Kurdish fighters in Kobane against ISIS, and citizen k is posting propaganda videos from the YPG, which is affiliated with the PKK which has a communist ideology and is considered by the US and EU to be a terrorist organization.

The Iraqi Kurds are better than ISIS by a country mile, they were better than Saddam too. They've been U.S. allies for 20 years and for good reason. It's a dumb mans game to not be for guys like that, especially considering we're much closer with many nations that are far more flawed than the Kurds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfPMXG9L7eA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning_of_Du%27a_Khalil_Aswad

Yeah, they're light years ahead of those ISIS neanderthals.

I think you're confusing geopolitical strategic enemies with "people who are barbaric." If we only want to associate with non-Barbaric countries we could only associate with the OECD, but that's unrealistic. Bad shit happens in India and China all the time, both promoted by government and sometimes when their peasant classes fall into medieval style behavior. Should we say they're no different than ISIS? ISIS represents a geopolitical threat to our interests in the Middle East, the Kurds are allies. I'm confused how you don't see this.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Oh yeah, the Kurds are the lesser of two evils. But they are still flawed, and we shouldn't forget that (which was the point I was trying to get at).

FWIW, the Turks are probably the most reasonable in the neighborhood. People freak out about Erdogan, but we judge him by european standards. The PKK pulls stunts like threatening any non Kurdish parties running in Kurdish areas in order to ensure the Kurds express their "kurdishness" when the votes are counted. Certainly better than ISIS, probably better than Saddam, probably better than Saudi Arabia, but still fucked up.

Yeah, I feel little sympathy for the PKK and am an anti-Nationalist at heart. I don't believe that just because you're an ethnic group you should be allowed to have your own country. This belief largely fueled the fires of the two World Wars and lots of terrible things in addition to those. I mostly did not have a problem with Erdogan until he started to take Turkey down what I call the "Putin path", in which he's essentially making it a faux-democracy where he's really King-for-Life and in which he makes his closest allies rich through corruption. Much like Russia of course Turkey doesn't have a great democratic tradition what with the military frequently meddling in their political affairs, so it's not super surprising. But it is unfortunate, Turkey had largely been a proper functioning and stable democracy since the 80s and I doubt we will be saying that ten years from now.

And yeah, Kurds got problems but I mean to me it's all relative. Saudi Arabia and China got problems and we're pretty close with both countries these days.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think what we're seeing is ISIS retrenching from areas where it's finding it unprofitable to fight. Kobane and Kurdish Iraq have largely been too hard a nut to crack with increased U.S. support because they are facing a vehement ground force. Expending resources in those areas has weakened their flanks in other areas--for example Assad has been able to recapture some territory from ISIS in Syria. I think they're doubling down in these places in Iraq which were long hotbeds of Sunni militarism, with tribes that were heavily intermixed with the Baathists and that were also heavily supportive of the various anti-America insurgency forces during the Iraq War. In those territories they have lots of genuine support, trying to hold down some of the Kurdish areas or areas with heavy Shia populations in Iraq and Syria are largely going to require a more powerful, traditional military force (which ISIS isn't.) The Kurds get significant U.S. support, and the Shia areas are largely supplemented with militias supplied by Iran (and some actual members of the Revolutionary Guard, too.) Sunni areas in Iraq are where ISIS is going to get its victories now, I suspect they are firming up things there and trying to get really settled in. Their leaders include a lot of guys who have been fighting wars in this area since the 90s, former officers in Saddam's army and et cetera, I think they're showing that while they got a little too exuberant after their initial push was so successful they know how to position themselves long term.

I think this will see them morph into a Taliban like force, no longer truly expansionist, but stuck in their area like ticks and very entrenched in the territory they do control, and very difficult to get out.

[PJL]

If that's the case, and if they mellow a bit, then perhaps we should start talks with them about redrawing the regional borders. After all, they're probably no different to how Saudi Arabia was during the turn of the 20th century, and we've managed to live with them for a century.

[mongers]

If that's the case, and if they mellow a bit, then perhaps we should start talks with them about redrawing the regional borders. After all, they're probably no different to how Saudi Arabia was during the turn of the 20th century, and we've managed to live with them for a century.

[garbon]

If that's the case, and if they mellow a bit, then perhaps we should start talks with them about redrawing the regional borders. After all, they're probably no different to how Saudi Arabia was during the turn of the 20th century, and we've managed to live with them for a century.

[CountDeMoney]

Cheap oil is cheap oil.  Nobody said anything about free oil.

[DGuller]

Yeah, I feel little sympathy for the PKK and am an anti-Nationalist at heart. I don't believe that just because you're an ethnic group you should be allowed to have your own country. This belief largely fueled the fires of the two World Wars and lots of terrible things in addition to those.

I think the latest events in the Middle East show that nationalism is a force to respect, whether we approve of it or not.  Countries are not just artificial abstracts, they must have a reason for existing.  Otherwise what you get is a clusterfuck of a country like Iraq, where the best military equipment in the world isn't going to help defend in, because it sits abandoned by the people feeling no loyalty or dedication to a fake construct.