Tag: ISIS

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WHAT FUELS ISLAMIC STATE RECRUITMENT? JOHN KERRY VS. REALITY

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WHAT FUELS ISLAMIC STATE RECRUITMENT? JOHN KERRY VS. REALITY
October 29, 2014 Elan Journo

The Islamic State, the jihadist force rampaging in Iraq and Syria, has succeeded in recruiting fighters because — wait for it — there’s no peace between Israel and the Palestinians. So claims the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry. Now to be fair, he sees that as one cause, but nonetheless a factor significant enough to mention. Kerry’s talking point, which alludes to anger on the Arab streets, encapsulates an actual theory. It’s the idea that jihadists (many of whom deploy the tactic of terrorism) are moved by the desire to redress some bundle of grievances. What to make of that theory?

The scholar Michael Rubin offers a sarcastic tweak of a Clinton-era slogan: “It’s the Ideology, Stupid!” Rubin suggests that we ought instead to look at the ideas that jihadists embrace, and points out some of the facts that belie that alleged grievances-terrorism link that Kerry and others put forward.

the most oft-cited grievances — poverty and lack of education — have no statistical link to terror. Suicide bombers tend not to be those with the least opportunities; rather, they tend to be those from educated, middle-class backgrounds. In the Gaza Strip, Pakistan, Turkey, and elsewhere, recruitment occurs in the schools. Nor do we see a rash of terrorists and murders arising from the ten poorest countries on earth.

Read the whole thing.

I would add that the thirteen years since 9/11 are the story of America’s ongoing refusal to look seriously at the ideas motivating the jihadist cause.

There’s more to say on why scholars, diplomats, Arab leaders, and some jihadists (e.g. Hamas) view the Israel/Palestinian conflict as The Core Issue in the Middle East, from which all the woe of the region emanates. Let me just note: that view is false — the Syrian civil war is one of many countervailing data points — and that I intend to cover this topic in future writing.

 

https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2014/10/29/what-fuels-islamic-state-recruitment-john-kerry-vs-reality

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Obama White House did little to stop ‘The Rise of ISIS,’ says ‘Frontline’ documentary

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Obama White House did little to stop ‘The Rise of ISIS,’ says ‘Frontline’ documentary

Ex-administration officials sharply critical of Obama, failure to help Syrian rebels earlier

President Obama’s former ambassador to Iraq says in a new interview that his administration “did almost nothing” in response to intelligence warnings earlier this year that Islamic State radicals were gaining ground in Iraq and threatening the country’s stability.

“The administration not only was warned by everybody back in January, it actually announced that it was going to intensify support against ISIS with the Iraqi armed forces. And it did almost nothing,” says James Jeffrey, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq between 2010 and 2012, in “Frontline’s” “The Rise of ISIS,” which airs on PBS Tuesday night (check local listings) and is previewed here exclusively on Yahoo News.

Jeffrey is one of a number of ex-administration officials who appear in the film and sharply criticize the decisions of the president they once served. Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta both take issue with Obama’s refusal to arm moderate rebels in Syria who — it is now argued — could have acted as a counterweight to the Islamic State (also called ISIS or ISIL).

“I think we made the wrong decision in not providing assistance to the rebels,” Panetta bluntly says at one point.

The film, reported by correspondent Martin Smith, offers a richly detailed account of how the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki alienated the country’s disenfranchised Sunni population, making reckless accusations of terrorism against Sunni leaders — including the country’s Vice Prime Minister Tariq al-Hashimi. Those allegations — flatly denied by al-Hashimi on camera — were based on the testimony of bodyguards who, it is strongly suggested, were tortured.


https://news.yahoo.com/obama-white-house-did-little-to-stop–the-rise-of-isis—says-frontline-documentary-133053988.html

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War against Isis: US strategy in tatters as militants march on

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War against Isis: US strategy in tatters as militants march on

America’s plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group’s fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.

The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.

Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town’s remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-against-isis-us-strategy-in-tatters-as-militants-march-on-9789230.html

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Obama has had accurate intelligence about ISIS since BEFORE the 2012 election, says administration insider

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Obama has had accurate intelligence about ISIS since BEFORE the 2012 election, says administration insider

A national security staffer in the Obama administration said the president has been seeing ‘highly accurate predictions’ about the rise of the ISIS terror army since ‘before the 2012 election’
Obama insisted in his campaign speeches that year that America was safe and al-Qaeda was ‘on the run’
The president said during Sunday’s ’60 Minutes’ program that his Director of National Intelligence had conceded he underestimated ISIS
But the administration aide insisted that Obama’s advisers gave him actionable information that sat and gathered dust for more than a year
‘He knew what was at stake,’ the aide said of the president, and ‘he knew where all the moving pieces were’
Obama takes daily intelligence briefings in writing, he explained, because no one will be able to testify about warning the president in person about threats that the White House doesn’t act on

By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:22 EST, 29 September 2014 | UPDATED: 17:42 EST, 29 September 2014

President Barack Obama’s intelligence briefings have provided him with specific information since before he won re-election in 2012 about the growing threat of the terror group now known alternatively as ISIS and ISIL, an administration insider told MailOnline on Monday.

‘Unless someone very senior has been shredding the president’s daily briefings and telling him that the dog ate them, highly accurate predictions about ISIL have been showing up in the Oval Office since before the 2012 election,’ said a national security staffer in the Obama administration who is familiar with the content of intelligence briefings. 

The staffer declined to share anything specific about the content of those briefings, citing his need to maintain a security clearance.

But ‘it’s true,’ he said, ‘that the [intelligence] community was sending pretty specific intel up to us.’

‘We were seeing specific threat assessments and many of them have panned out exactly as we were told they would.’

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774122/Obama-accurate-intelligence-ISIS-BEFORE-2012-election-says-administration-insider.html#ixzz3EkXlWxBI 

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Christians in Middle East face growing threat, top cleric says

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Christians in Middle East face growing threat, top cleric says

SEPTEMBER 27, 2014    LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2014, 12:35 AM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

The patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, a cleric who formerly lived in Teaneck, recalled his visit recently to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where thousands of Christians have fled for their lives. A young boy in a crowded church threw up his arms and said to the patriarch: “We have no place. We have no space.”

He meant a real, physical place for Christians like him and his family, who were expelled from ancient Christian towns in Syria and Iraq. But Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II said he also understood his words to mean a place in the culture, religion and life of the Middle East.

“Their existence is threatened,” Aphrem said during an interview last week at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Teaneck, where he served for 18 years until his election as Antiochan patriarch last spring. “This has been their home for 2,000 years, and thousands of years before that they were indigenous to the area. There’s a real threat that they’ll be driven out of the Middle East and there won’t be Christians anymore in the area where Christ was born.”

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/christians-in-middle-east-face-growing-threat-top-cleric-says-1.1097413#sthash.yMn19AcU.dpuf

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How Will the U.S. Decide Which Syrian Rebels to Arm?

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How Will the U.S. Decide Which Syrian Rebels to Arm?

Identifying “moderate” groups to train and equip will be exceedingly difficult.
BY RACHEL ROUBEIN

September 15, 2014 Congress is expected to vote this week on giving the Obama administration the authority to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria by providing arms and training—to someone. But whom?

Even assuming President Obama gets the authority he wants, experts say deciding who exactly should get American aid is an exceedingly difficult task. There are vast differences among Syrian rebel fighters—a conglomerate of varying ideologies, social backgrounds, and loyalties. And the questions of who exactly is a Syrian moderate, and whether these weapons will fall into the wrong hands, loom large on Capitol Hill.

“As you know, in the Middle East, it’s very difficult to predict what’s going to happen,” Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia said after emerging from a closed-door House GOP conference meeting Thursday. “And that’s why everybody wants to be very careful about this because we do have concerns about that.”

https://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/how-will-the-u-s-decide-which-syrian-rebels-to-arm-20140915

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U.S. General to Seek Combat Troops if Airstrikes Can’t Stop ISIS

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U.S. General to Seek Combat Troops if Airstrikes Can’t Stop ISIS

By JEREMY W. PETERSSEPT. 16, 2014

WASHINGTON — Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States combat forces against Islamic extremists in specific operations if the current strategy of airstrikes was not successful, raising the possibility of the kind of escalation that President Obama has flatly ruled out.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said that while he was confident in the ability of the coalition of American, European and Middle Eastern governments to stop the Islamic State, he could not completely close the door to eventually asking Mr. Obama to commit ground troops to fight the group, known as ISIS or ISIL.

“My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true,” he said. “But if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the United States, then I of course would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground forces.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/world/middleeast/isis-airstrikes-united-states-coalition.html

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Vast Majority Do Not Believe US Will Defeat ISIS

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Vast Majority Do Not Believe US Will Defeat ISIS

Posted by: : Paul EbelingPosted on: September 14, 2014

Vast Majority Do Not Believe US Will Defeat ISISNearly 70% of Americans surveyed do not believe the United States will succeed in wiping out Islamic State (ISIS) militants, according to a new NBC News/WS-J/Annenberg poll.

According to the poll, 68% have “very little” or “just some” confidence in US President Barack Hussein Obama’s goal of eliminating the threat of ISIS. Just 28% had “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in Mr. Obama’s goals.

62% say they support the used of air power against ISIS in Syria as laid out by the president in last Wednesday’s prime time address to the nation, 22% oppose the plan.

“The bottom line: The president has made his case to the American public, and like other presidents who faced war and peace issues, support usually follows,” Democratic pollster Peter Hart said of the survey he helped conduct. “The difference in this military encounter is that, right out of the box, Americans are skeptical if this will work.”

The poll showed that just 38% of Americans think Mr. Obama is doing an effective job on foreign policy.

A poll from last week showed that 65% think action against ISIS is in America’s interest. That number rose to 68% after some of those polled were re-contacted after Mr. Obama’s speech.

https://www.livetradingnews.com/vast-majority-believe-us-will-defeat-isis-71220.htm#.VBappC5dVpc

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U.S. intelligence agencies remain uncertain about danger posed by Islamic State

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U.S. intelligence agencies remain uncertain about danger posed by Islamic State
By Greg Miller and Juliet Eilperin September 13 at 9:57 PM

Hours before President Obama announced a new U.S. military offensiveagainst the Islamic State, one of his top counter­terrorism officials testified to Congress that the al-Qaeda offshoot had an estimated 10,000 fighters.

The next day a new assessment arrived from the CIA: The terrorist organization’s ranks had more than doubled in recent months, surging to somewhere between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria.

The enormous discrepancy reflects, in part, significant uncertainty among U.S. intelligence agencies over the dimensions of and danger posed by America’s latest Islamist adversary.

But the trajectory of those numbers — and the anxiety that they have induced among U.S. counter­terrorism and military officials — also helps to explain Obama’s decision to go to war against an Islamist group that has yet to be linked to any plot against the United States.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intelligence-agencies-remain-uncertain-about-danger-posed-by-islamic-state/2014/09/13/23245e84-3aa6-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

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A President Whose Assurances Have Come Back to Haunt Him

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A President Whose Assurances Have Come Back to Haunt Him

By PETER BAKERSEPT. 8, 2014

WASHINGTON — When President Obama addresses the nation on Wednesday to explain his plan to defeat Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, it is a fair bet he will not call them the “JV team.”

Nor does he seem likely to describe Iraq as “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” with a “representative government.” And presumably he will not assert after more than a decade of conflict that “the tide of war is receding.”

As he seeks to rally Americans behind a new military campaign in the Middle East, Mr. Obama finds his own past statements coming back to haunt him. Time and again, he has expressed assessments of the world that in the harsh glare of hindsight look out of kilter with the changed reality he now confronts.

In making his speech, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of reconciling those views with the new mission he is presenting to the American public to recommit the armed forces of the United States to the region he tried to leave. Rather than a junior varsity nuisance, he will try to convince Americans that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria represents a clear threat to national security in a state that is hardly stable. And he will seek to win patience for more war from a public that wishes it really was receding.

To Mr. Obama’s critics, the disparity between the president’s previous statements and today’s reality reflects not simply poorly chosen words but a fundamentally misguided view of the world. Rather than clearly see the persistent dangers as the United States approaches the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they said, Mr. Obama perpetually imagines a world as he wishes it were.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/us/politics/a-president-whose-assurances-have-come-back-to-haunt-him.html?_r=0

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Islamic State Beheads a Second American Journalist, Warns of More Executions

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Islamic State Beheads a Second American Journalist, Warns of More Executions

Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / September 02, 2014

The Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, claims to have beheaded a second American journalist, Steven Joel Sotloff.

A video of the execution was made public by jihadist monitoring organization SITE Intel Group. ISIS also threatened the execution of

British hostage David Cawthorne Haines, sending a tweet today that read:

James Carafano, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, called the Sotloff beheading “despicable and beyond the pale.”

He told The Daily Signal:

ISIS has committed countless atrocities since the invasion of Iraq began. Every one of them, including this act, is despicable and beyond the pale.Carafano added, “The president was wrong to characterize this as a humanitarian mission — this is a war against a regime every bit as brutal as any that has ever appeared on the face of the earth.”

Sotloff, a freelance journalist who worked for Time magazine and other publications and also spoke fluent Arabic, was abducted a year ago in Syria. Last week, his mother sent a message to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, asking him to “please release my child.”

The video released by the Islamic State, titled “A Second Message to America,” closely resembles the footage of American photojournalist James Foley’s beheading last month.

Sotloff is seen in an orange jumpsuit while his executioner threatens President Obama with future attacks: “…just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.”

The executioner adds:

We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone.

Carafano said this will not be the last atrocity committed by ISIS against America and its allies. He told The Daily Signal:

In this part of the world honor is power, and ISIS will do everything possible to show it can strike back even as it loses ground. There already has been an uptick of terrorist attacks in Baghdad and other key cities.

Carafano warned that “time is not on our side” in the war against the Islamic State and said the best way to bring justice, peace and security to the region is to help the Iraqi people take back their country as quickly as possible.

“That has to be job No. 1,” he said.

U.S officials have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the video. Sotloff’s family has been made aware of the situation and is requesting time to grieve.

https://dailysignal.com/2014/09/02/islamic-state-beheads-second-american-journalist-warns-executions/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

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Senator Inhofe warns of potential terrorist attacks on U.S. soil

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Senator Inhofe warns of potential terrorist attacks on U.S. soil

Posted: Aug 20, 2014 7:52 PM EDTUpdated: Aug 20, 2014 7:57 PM EDTBy: Phil Cross, Investigative Reporter

OKLAHOMA CITY -It is a serious warning coming from Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe as he warns of the potential of another attack on American soil. The senator sat down with Fox 25 to talk about a variety of topics, but as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the top issue was national security.“We’re in the most dangerous position we’ve ever been in as a nation,” Senator Inhofe told Fox 25’s Phil Cross.

“ISIS, they are really bad terrorists, they’re so bad even Al Qaida is afraid of them,” Inhofe said reflecting on the recent beheading of American journalist James Foley. Beyond the beheading, Inhofe said the current terror organizations are not going to stay contained to the Middle East. “They’re crazy out there and they’re rapidly developing a method of blowing up a major U.S. city and people just can’t believe that’s happening.”

Inhofe blames policy decisions from the Obama administration and cuts in defense spending for putting the country in what he calls a dangerous situation.

https://www.okcfox.com/story/26331734/senator-inhofe-warns-of-potential-terrorist-attacks-on-us-soil

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US Journalist beheaded by ISIS

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US Journalist beheaded by ISIS

Executioner ‘with a British accent’ beheads US journalist in the name of ISIS: Mother of slaughtered American calls on Islamist group to cease killing and pays tribute to her ‘extraordinary son’

Photojournalist James Wright Foley has been beheaded by ISIS forces
He went missing in Syria in 2012 while working for GlobalPost news agency
ISIS posted extremely graphic video ‘A Message to America’ to social media
Foley speaks to camera before his death and labels the U.S. his killers
Apparently coerced by his captors into speaking against his country
Masked and robed executioner speaks English in apparent London accent
Video also shows man identified as missing journalist Steven Joel Sotloff
Militant warns he will be killed next if U.S airstrikes in Iraq do not cease
British Foreign Secretary today said ‘appalling’ video appeared to be genuine

By JOHN HALL FOR MAILONLINE and JAMES NYE and ASHLEY COLLMAN

PUBLISHED: 16:15 EST, 19 August 2014 | UPDATED: 05:19 EST, 20 August 2014

A shocking video has emerged showing an ISIS militant who speaks with a British accent brutally executing an American photojournalist who was kidnapped in Syria two years ago.

Graphic footage of the execution appeared in an video titled: ‘A Message to the U.S.’, in which an apparently coerced James Wright Foley, 40, describes America as his true killers for using airstrikes to assist Kurdish forces in recapturing the Mosul Dam from ISIS militants.

Foley – who went missing in 2012 while working for the Global Post news agency in Syria – is then beheaded with a small knife over a period of seven minutes by a masked man dressed all in black.

The executioner, who speaks directly to the camera in what appears to be a London accent, then warns that a second captured American journalist will be killed if the U.S. doesn’t halt the airstrikes.

Speaking after the video emerged, Foley’s mother Diane issued a statement saying that she and her husband John have ‘never been prouder’ of their son, who they say gave his life to expose the suffering of the Syrian people.

Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2729287/ISIS-beheads-journalist-James-Wright-Foley-warning-US.html#ixzz3AvWlhDvV

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War on Women : ISIS orders female genital mutilation in Iraq

A family fleeing the violence in Mosul waits at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Arbil

U.N.: ISIS orders female genital mutilation in Iraq

Staff Writer, Al Arabiya News
Thursday, 24 July 2014

The al-Qaeda-Inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has ordered all girls and women between the ages of 11 and 46 in and around Iraq’s northern city of Mosul to undergo female genital mutilation, the United Nations said on Thursday.

“It is a fatwa (or religious edict) of ISIS, we learnt this this morning,” said Jacqueline Badcock, the number two U.N. official in Iraq.

Read the latest on this story: Iraq NGO: ISIS likely to implement FGM fatwa

The “fatwa” would potentially affect 4 million women and girls, Badcock told reporters in Geneva by videolink from Arbil.

“This is something very new for Iraq, particularly in this area, and is of grave concern and does need to be addressed,” she said, according to Reuters.

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/07/24/-ISIS-order-female-genital-mutilation-in-Iraq.html