2015: The Year Islamic State Goes Truly International

[MaddAdam]

Reports today that IS fighters attacked a KSA police officer and seriously wounded him in Saudi.

Various Libyan, Yemeni and other groups have sworn bay'ah to Khalifa Al-Baghdadi.

2015 will be the yeah that the Islamic State goes truly international (just operating in Syria and Iraq isn't "international" as they only crossed made up Sykes-Picot lines but actually stayed within traditional Sunni areas there until the recent expansions)

Key questions -

1) Can they get more traction in Saudi than Al-Qaeda did? AQ had some success but were then ruthlessly and effectively squashed by the Saudis.

2) Can they take Libya? Possible but unlikely. Very likely is the descent of Libya into 1990s Afghanistan style utterly ungoverned warlordist failed state with accompanying mass refugee flows.

3) Will Assad follow the logical end of his gameplan and offer amnesty to anyone fighting him who is not IS in "national unity" move (with the promise of elections that are held when IS are defeated, which they won't be, his plan all along), especially post the Jabhat-IS kiss and make up merger? This then cements Assad permanently.

4) If the Kurds can hold off IS, as they currently are, and hold Kirkuk, and become the "reliable" US ally in the region, then Kurdistan is de facto established, if not de jure, across two of the three countries they need.

5) What does Turkey do? IS say they will march on Rome. The road to Rome lies through Constantinople. Turkey is caught between the US wanting to use the Kurds as their cat's paw and their own hatred of the Kurds. Tough gig, especially for Erdogan.

How Saudi and Turkey react to IS developments will define 2015 and the region for many years to come.

 

[rdhopkins2]

IS would more likely have success in Egypt and Libya rather than Turkey. Turkey will smash them. The Saudi's have too much economy to lose. ISIS is a warped mentality and not a true reflection of Islam.

 

[MaddAdam]

IS would more likely have success in Egypt and Libya rather than Turkey. Turkey will smash them. The Saudi's have too much economy to lose. ISIS is a warped mentality and not a true reflection of Islam.

Saudis are hugely vulnerable to IS I think. Turkey is also massively vulnerable to them, not that they'll take Ankara, but that Erdogan has is an Islamist and his core Sunni rural constituency is very sympathetic to IS now their strategy of gaining wider legitimisation by luring the Yanks to bomb them has worked. Turkey could easily split.

Today's grotesque in killing the US aid worked and 18 Syrian officer POWs obviously a ploy to goad Obama into deploying the ground forces he recently authorised.

If IS can get American boots truly on the ground, then they are in a good place.

 

[clogged]

When does Smiling Buddha get back from his holiday with Fredrick Toben? I want to hear his opinion on this.

 

[haden1999]

Saudis are hugely vulnerable to IS I think. Turkey is also massively vulnerable to them, not that they'll take Ankara, but that Erdogan has is an Islamist and his core Sunni rural constituency is very sympathetic to IS now their strategy of gaining wider legitimisation by luring the Yanks to bomb them has worked. Turkey could easily split.

Today's grotesque in killing the US aid worked and 18 Syrian officer POWs obviously a ploy to goad Obama into deploying the ground forces he recently authorised.

f IS can get American boots truly on the ground, then they are in a good placeI.

why?

 

[The Coup]

1) Can they get more traction in Saudi than Al-Qaeda did? AQ had some success but were then ruthlessly and effectively squashed by the Saudis.

No. The reason Saudi support Islamic Terrorism so openly (apart from the fact they can get away with it) is because they don't want to risk the jihad kicking off at home.

AQ do not have the top level leadership of a figurehead like Bin Laden or a strategist like Al Zarkawi (spelling is off no doubt).

Taking this long to take Kobane is against the script massively, their PR shine is coming off with every dead "jihadi" (who likely can't fire an AK, just pose with decapitated heads) at the hands of the Kurds.

2) Can they take Libya? Possible but unlikely. Very likely is the descent of Libya into 1990s Afghanistan style utterly ungoverned warlordist failed state with accompanying mass refugee flows.

Yep richest country in Africa now consigned to American freedom. Very horrible stuff and the American soldiers who blew the whistle on the fact the yanks were effectively helping AQ in Libya deserve bonus medals.

Do they want Libya? Does anyone really control Libya now?

3) Will Assad follow the logical end of his gameplan and offer amnesty to anyone fighting him who is not IS in "national unity" move (with the promise of elections that are held when IS are defeated, which they won't be, his plan all along), especially post the Jabhat-IS kiss and make up merger? This then cements Assad permanently.

Yes and the SAA death squads will put a hurting on the Sunni like nothing else.

4) If the Kurds can hold off IS, as they currently are, and hold Kirkuk, and become the "reliable" US ally in the region, then Kurdistan is de facto established, if not de jure, across two of the three countries they need.

They will have to ditch their communist ideology. America has a proven track record of preferring religious extremists over democratic socialists.

5) What does Turkey do? IS say they will march on Rome. The road to Rome lies through Constantinople. Turkey is caught between the US wanting to use the Kurds as their cat's paw and their own hatred of the Kurds. Tough gig, especially for Erdogan.

IS are openly bragging that turkey is an ally. Turkey will keep their eye on the PKK and leave it at that for now. They're in a good position, the Arab world loves them and nobody except the Kurds really *s with them.
How Saudi and Turkey react to IS developments will define 2015 and the region for many years to come.

 

[MaddAdam]

Kurds know how to play the game. They can smell statehood.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-of-200000-claims-kurdish-leader-9863418.html

 

[MaddAdam]

why?

Because then it gives them legitimacy in the eyes of many in the Islamic world as the true defenders of Islam. And because the Americans already tried once in Iraq and it didn't go that well.

 

[The Coup]

Today's grotesque in killing the US aid worked and 18 Syrian officer POWs obviously a ploy to goad Obama into deploying the ground forces he recently authorised.

why?

MaddAdam can answer for himself obviously, but my take is its good bordering on spectacular from a PR standpoint.

Think about it this way, say you're a young, disenfranchised idiot (male naturally) living in Bankstown. Which of these destinations sounds good and which sounds bad:

1. YEAH WE ARE GOIN TO JIHAD SO HARD OVER SYRIA AND s**t, CHECK OUT OUR TWITTER FEEDS AND YOUTUBES WE ARE FAMOUS!!!! WOOOO!!!! WOMEN SUCK MEN RULE. ISLAM RULES AMERICA SUCKS. * THE SHIA. * THE KURDS. WE DRESS LIKE NINJAS LOOK AT OUR FLAG RAWR!!!

One month after beginning your brilliant new Jihad and all the Yazidi sex slaves you could ever ask for, you're still bogged down in Kurdistan getting murdered by a bunch of communist feminist women using AK-47's manufactured in the 80's. And there's no media rpesence. You aren't famous, you're just a little note in a news article nobody will read. In spite of your shiny new toys, the sudden realisation that some people are literally born fighting, whereas you were raised listening to bullshit war stories from your coward uncles who FLED FOR AUSTRALIA IN THE FIRST PLACE. Time to bail and hope like hell you didn't end up on a watch list. But don't tell your new friends cause they won't be too happy.


VS.

2. YEAH WE ARE GOIN TO JIHAD SO HARD OVER SYRIA AND s**t, CHECK OUT OUR TWITTER FEEDS AND YOUTUBES WE ARE FAMOUS!!!! WOOOO!!!! WOMEN SUCK MEN RULE. ISLAM RULES AMERICA SUCKS. * THE SHIA. * THE KURDS. WE DRESS LIKE NINJAS LOOK AT OUR FLAG RAWR!!!

And the actual great Satan comes along to the fight. You can actually shoot at the Americans, this is what you've fantasised about. This is why IS is famous. This is why those fat Saudi and Qatari princes pay your astronomical (for the region) mercenary salary.

Nobody cares about the YPJ, they don't own newspapers or internet sites or news stations. But America does. And what is news in Rome, sorry, America is news everywhere. You are going to get REALLY famous now. Especially so if you can get yourself on TV butchering some kids or if by some fluke you capture an American soldier and the Jihadis need a nice educated English speaker to deliver some death threats. FAME!!!!

EDIT: Also, Americans stay in their bases. Kurds stay in their homes. There's never a safe time to invade a Kurdish town. There are plenty of safe hours to get out and threaten people even with an American military base right next door. They don't do occupation well. But Inshallah they make fantastic IED targets cruising around in those Hummers. In a straight up fight IS have proven themselves pretty weak - if they can't handle the Kurds they are going to get stomped in any Shia city (including Baghdad, which ethnically cleansed the Sunnis over the past decade to everyone's surprise, particularly the Sunnis). Americans don't present the same threat in the same way. Its easier to hide from America as a jihadi, than it is to hide from a Kurdish or Iranian militia.

 

[The Coup]

Kurds know how to play the game. They can smell statehood.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-of-200000-claims-kurdish-leader-9863418.html

I hope so. There was a good brecher article a few years back where he claimed their biggest problem is some powerful factional Kurdish leader invariably knifes another. Like the ALP but with guns and no nation. Whether its PKK knifing YPG or not (vice versa would be my bet) we'll have to wait and see.

 

[MaddAdam]

Kobane is proving a massive problem for IS because they have forgotten the old law that it is hugely difficult for a guerilla force to transition to a conventional force.

They are basically now the Americans in Fallujah or Russians in Grozny. They are the out of towners driving through confusing streets in tanks.

It isn't their MO.

 

[The Coup]

Kobane is proving a massive problem for IS because they have forgotten the old law that it is hugely difficult for a guerilla force to transition to a conventional force.

They are basically now the Americans in Fallujah or Russians in Grozny. They are the out of towners driving through confusing streets in tanks.

It isn't their MO.

WN called it too. Said that while the Sadr Boys and their ilk make terrible soldiers, they are arguably the number one street to street fighting force on the planet.

If they were able to crush America AND the Baathists AND AQ and the Sunni militias in Baghdad after being nothing more than a huge ghetto prior to the war - how much did Iran learn about how to kill Americans in the past ten years btw? - then how can IS expect to EVER retake baghdad with anything less than an air force and about ten times as many soldiers as they currently have? And they'd need to be actual fighters too, not rejects from Sydney.

 

[MaddAdam]

EDIT: Also, Americans stay in their bases. Kurds stay in their homes. There's never a safe time to invade a Kurdish town. There are plenty of safe hours to get out and threaten people even with an American military base right next door. They don't do occupation well. But Inshallah they make fantastic IED targets cruising around in those Hummers. In a straight up fight IS have proven themselves pretty weak - if they can't handle the Kurds they are going to get stomped in any Shia city (including Baghdad, which ethnically cleansed the Sunnis over the past decade to everyone's surprise, particularly the Sunnis). Americans don't present the same threat in the same way. Its easier to hide from America as a jihadi, than it is to hide from a Kurdish or Iranian militia.

Especially now Suleimaini has organised the Shia militia effectively.

They've even brought back the bloke who introduced the power drill method of execution during the 2005/06 cleansing of Baghdad's Sunni.

 

[MaddAdam]

WN called it too. Said that while the Sadr Boys and their ilk make terrible soldiers, they are arguably the number one street to street fighting force on the planet.

If they were able to crush America AND the Baathists AND AQ and the Sunni militias in Baghdad after being nothing more than a huge ghetto prior to the war - how much did Iran learn about how to kill Americans in the past ten years btw? - then how can IS expect to EVER retake baghdad with anything less than an air force and about ten times as many soldiers as they currently have? And they'd need to be actual fighters too, not rejects from Sydney.

Oh IS have actual fighters, of that there's no doubt.

They are just smart enough to not advertise on Twitter.

 

[The Coup]

Especially now Suleimaini has organised the Shia militia effectively.

They've even brought back the bloke who introduced the power drill method of execution during the 2005/06 cleansing of Baghdad's Sunni.

People in that region genuinely play for keeps when it comes to violence huh. Drills. Yuck.

The effects of colonialism at work.

 

[The Coup]

Oh IS have actual fighters, of that there's no doubt.

They are just smart enough to not advertise on Twitter.

Definitely, I mean some of them must have been at it for years now. No doubt they have some smart people involved.

But they don't have the capability to be a legit army yet. And I can't see how that could happen.

Or if a legit army would even work for their purposes.

America has a pretty legit army and the Sadr Boys stomped the s**t out of them.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

I hope so. There was a good brecher article a few years back where he claimed their biggest problem is some powerful factional Kurdish leader invariably knifes another. Like the ALP but with guns and no nation. Whether its PKK knifing YPG or not (vice versa would be my bet) we'll have to wait and see.

I would hope the PKK sleep with one eye open when dealing with a snake like Iraqi Kurdistan's President Massoud Barzani seems to be;

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/barzani.htm

All the INC (Iraqi National Congress, the then-US-funded Iraqi underground opposition to Saddam Hussein's rule) delegates were aware that the Barzani name had come to stand for struggle against the dictatorship in Baghdad, and the suffering under it.

And so it seemed right that he would lead the transition to a dramatically new Iraqi nation.

That he was not an Arab would be a central reason for nominating him. What better way to symbolize the goal of a new post-Saddam Iraq, a non-nationalist state, one that would provide guarantees protecting the rights of its most oppressed minorities?

On Friday, August 30, 1996, the same Massoud Barzani invited Saddam Hussein back into Erbil, the seat of the Kurdish parliament since 1992. His men turned their guns against their own former comrades in the Iraqi opposition. They hit from the north while Saddam stormed into Erbil from the south with 450 tanks and some 40,000 Republican Guard troops.

The KDP worked closely with the Iraqi mukhabarat, the secret police, who used the information the KDP provided to conduct house-to-house searches in Erbil. The mukhabarat penetrated deep into Iraqi Kurdistan, blowing up the TV, radio, and military installations of the Iraqi opposition and arresting every Arab they could get their hands on who had taken refuge in the previously protected northern region. (Many of them were not working for the opposition.)

As I write, several hundred members of the INC are surrounded by KDP guerrillas in Salahaldin while Barzani, whom American administration officials hold responsible for their safety, decides what to do with his former comrades. His forces, augmented by Iraqi soldiers dressed as Kurds and plainclothes police, took Koysinjaq on September 8, followed by Sulaymaniyya, the last major bastion of the Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq, while the Kurdish opposition forces have fled to bases in the mountains on the Iranian border and thousands of Kurds are seeking refuge in Iran.

During the KDP's occupation of Erbil, the building that once housed the Kurdish parliament has become the headquarters of the Ba'athi secret police.

A five-year experiment in autonomy and self-rule has thus come tumbling down. A historic opportunity for the people of Iraqi Kurdistan and for all Iraqis has been wasted. Those who hoped to change the regime in Baghdad and to do so on liberal-democratic principles have suffered a devastating blow.

That is the meaning of what has been going on in northern Iraq since early September...

And this, from some website that seems friendly to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan;

http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/2568/kurd_puk.html

Zele, Iraqi Kurdistan (8 October 1996) -- Saddam Hussein continues to consolidate and advance his control over Iraqi Kurdistan:

In recent days, the Iraqi government has introduced further armor, artillery and auxiliary units and security services into Iraqi Kurdistan to consolidate its grip over the region. The armor and artillery units are manned by Iraqi government personnel mostly dressed in Kurdish costumes working in coordination with Barzani's militia.

Armored vehicles and tanks have been observed taking position at strategic locations of the Dookan and Darbandi-Khan Dams and on the outskirts of Sulaimanya. Iraqi armor continues to be deployed at the junctions of Qusthtapa and Bestana, south of Irbil.

Iraqi intelligence and security services have enhanced their presence in the cities of Sulaimanya, Irbil and Dehouk. Various Iraqi security units have been established in the rural districts such as Qala-Diza, Ranya, Chwar-Qourna and Kifri and Kalar. Iraqi Ba'ath Organization offices are reported to have been reopened at Kifri and Kalar.

Commanders of Iraqi auxiliary units, such as Ali Lut Masi, Sheikh Aziz Kachal, Shareef Korawari and Fu'ad Hamawandi to name a few, have returned back to the region and are working, under direct command of Iraqi military and security agencies, to reestablish security networks throughout the region. The chief of Iraq's "Kurdish Legislative Council", sheik Ja'far Barzanji, visited Sulaimanya and met with KDP officials in the city.

Further, Barzani and Iraqi military commands are coordinating closely to escalate their military campaign to eliminate PUK and other opposition forces which have regrouped and continue operate in various locations throughout the region.

In Sulaimanya and Irbil, joint commissions have been established between Iraqi security agencies and PARASTIN, KDP's intelligence organization, to coordinate their activities aimed at uprooting political dissent against the regime and Barzani's militia.

The campaign of terror targeting suspected political dissidents is escalating. In Sulaimanya, more than 100 PUK Sympathizers have been arrested during the last week by KDP's PARASTIN. Their fate in not known.

Despite Barzani's "amnesty" offer, on 23 September, four PUK members were executed by Barzani's militia at the district of Tanjaro, southeast of Sulaimanya. The families of the victims were forced to watch the public execution by firing squad...

 

[MaddAdam]

Barzania is shifty as a shithouse rat.

 

[The Coup]

Sounds like we have suspect number one for any implosion of the Kurds.

 

[blackcat]

Saudis are hugely vulnerable to IS I think. Turkey is also massively vulnerable to them, not that they'll take Ankara, but that Erdogan has is an Islamist and his core Sunni rural constituency is very sympathetic to IS now their strategy of gaining wider legitimisation by luring the Yanks to bomb them has worked. Turkey could easily split.

Today's grotesque in killing the US aid worked and 18 Syrian officer POWs obviously a ploy to goad Obama into deploying the ground forces he recently authorised.

If IS can get American boots truly on the ground, then they are in a good place.

what are the Saudi army like? My intuition tells me, the population is Saudi Arabia live a half decent material non-ascetic existence, a little like the comfortable emirati in the other states. So would it be less likely for them to turn on their regime? And could they, what are the special police and internal police with the armed forces like. Can they clamp down on the double?

So, they have funders of AQ and ISIS in Saud and other emirati, by wealthy oil sheik who wanna hit the west in the mouche, but if it came to disturbing their own lifestyle like that of Bandar Bush, they no longer get the benjamin donation

 

[blackcat]

MaddAdam can answer for himself obviously, but my take is its good bordering on spectacular from a PR standpoint.

Think about it this way, say you're a young, disenfranchised idiot (male naturally) living in Bankstown. Which of these destinations sounds good and which sounds bad:

1. YEAH WE ARE GOIN TO JIHAD SO HARD OVER SYRIA AND s**t, CHECK OUT OUR TWITTER FEEDS AND YOUTUBES WE ARE FAMOUS!!!! WOOOO!!!! WOMEN SUCK MEN RULE. ISLAM RULES AMERICA SUCKS. **** THE SHIA. **** THE KURDS. WE DRESS LIKE NINJAS LOOK AT OUR FLAG RAWR!!!

One month after beginning your brilliant new Jihad and all the Yazidi sex slaves you could ever ask for, you're still bogged down in Kurdistan getting murdered by a bunch of communist feminist women using AK-47's manufactured in the 80's. And there's no media rpesence. You aren't famous, you're just a little note in a news article nobody will read. In spite of your shiny new toys, the sudden realisation that some people are literally born fighting, whereas you were raised listening to bullshit war stories from your coward uncles who FLED FOR AUSTRALIA IN THE FIRST PLACE. Time to bail and hope like hell you didn't end up on a watch list. But don't tell your new friends cause they won't be too happy.


VS.

2. YEAH WE ARE GOIN TO JIHAD SO HARD OVER SYRIA AND s**t, CHECK OUT OUR TWITTER FEEDS AND YOUTUBES WE ARE FAMOUS!!!! WOOOO!!!! WOMEN SUCK MEN RULE. ISLAM RULES AMERICA SUCKS. **** THE SHIA. **** THE KURDS. WE DRESS LIKE NINJAS LOOK AT OUR FLAG RAWR!!!

And the actual great Satan comes along to the fight. You can actually shoot at the Americans, this is what you've fantasised about. This is why IS is famous. This is why those fat Saudi and Qatari princes pay your astronomical (for the region) mercenary salary.

Nobody cares about the YPJ, they don't own newspapers or internet sites or news stations. But America does. And what is news in Rome, sorry, America is news everywhere. You are going to get REALLY famous now. Especially so if you can get yourself on TV butchering some kids or if by some fluke you capture an American soldier and the Jihadis need a nice educated English speaker to deliver some death threats. FAME!!!!

EDIT: Also, Americans stay in their bases. Kurds stay in their homes. There's never a safe time to invade a Kurdish town. There are plenty of safe hours to get out and threaten people even with an American military base right next door. They don't do occupation well. But Inshallah they make fantastic IED targets cruising around in those Hummers. In a straight up fight IS have proven themselves pretty weak - if they can't handle the Kurds they are going to get stomped in any Shia city (including Baghdad, which ethnically cleansed the Sunnis over the past decade to everyone's surprise, particularly the Sunnis). Americans don't present the same threat in the same way. Its easier to hide from America as a jihadi, than it is to hide from a Kurdish or Iranian militia.

they will get droned before they can pop up on youtube.

just as those cats who are speaking are born actors, this suits the Western gov'ts too. Its a perfect symbiosis. good evil immemorial. great face time to rag on the ragheads by david cameron. we really need to get bojo talking latin and troy buswell sniffing crabbs seat

 

[evo]

Bourgeois white boys getting all breathless at the prospect of Islamic lunatics about to wreak havoc.

We should employ Luce Ingaray to do one of her Neo Marxist phsychoanalytic dekonstructions on this thread.

 

[The Coup]

Bourgeois white boys getting all breathless at the prospect of Islamic lunatics about to wreak havoc.

We should employ Luce Ingaray to do one of her Neo Marxist phsychoanalytic dekonstructions on this thread.

If you can figure out any other way to look at this stuff without becoming severely depressed then I salute you.

I'm too sensitive to care about the results openly or barrack for a particular side unfortunately. But I'm too curious to ignore it. If I look at it like a video game or army men or something I find its easier to analyse.

The YPJ have made a mess of my disconnection though, its hard not to love what they're doing.

And ultimately I'm a product of my environment, I'm a Howard era human, I glorify war and violence because that's how I was raised and its probably the key part of my native culture.

 

[MaddAdam]

Bourgeois white boys getting all breathless at the prospect of Islamic lunatics about to wreak havoc.

We should employ Luce Ingaray to do one of her Neo Marxist phsychoanalytic dekonstructions on this thread.

Snitty equally bourgeois white boy snipes at people wanting to have discussion about key international events of current time.

 

[blackcat]

Bourgeois white boys getting all breathless at the prospect of Islamic lunatics about to wreak havoc.

We should employ Luce Ingaray to do one of her Neo Marxist phsychoanalytic dekonstructions on this thread.

like for invocation of of bourgeois