#ISR: Chemical weapons had been used by ISIL (#daesh) fighters

#ISR: Chemical weapons had been used by ISIL (#daesh) fighters

    Monday, February 15, 2016   No comments

Islamic State militants attacked Kurdish forces in Iraq with mustard gas last year, the first known use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a diplomat said, based on tests by the global chemical weapons watchdog.

A source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for the sulfur mustard, after around 35 Kurdish troops were sickened on the battlefield last August.

The OPCW will not identify who used the chemical agent. But the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been released, said the result confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by Islamic State fighters.

The samples were taken after the soldiers became ill during fighting against Islamic State militants southwest of Erbil, capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

The OPCW already concluded in October that mustard gas was used last year in neighboring Syria. Islamic State has declared a "caliphate" in territory it controls in both Iraq and Syria and does not recognize the frontier.

Experts believe that the sulfur mustard either originated from an undeclared Syrian chemical stockpile, or that militants have gained the basic know how to develop and conduct a crude chemical attack with rockets or mortars. source

#ISR , #HumanRights; Department of Defense released 198 photos relating to prisoner abuse by U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan

#ISR , #HumanRights; Department of Defense released 198 photos relating to prisoner abuse by U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan

    Sunday, February 07, 2016   No comments

The photos were released in response to an ACLU lawsuit that we have been litigating for almost 12 years. You can see a few of them in the slideshow to the right. The photos mostly show close-ups of body parts, including arms, legs, and heads, many with injuries. There are also wider shots of prisoners, most of them bound or blindfolded. But what they don’t show is a much bigger story, and the government’s selective release of these photos could mislead the public about the true scope of what happened.

Six months before media organizations published the notorious Abu Ghraib photos, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records, including photos, relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners in U.S. detention centers overseas. Since we sued to enforce our request in 2004, the legal battle has focused in part on a set of some 2,000 pictures relating to detainee maltreatment. The photos released today are part of that set, and they are the first photos the government has released to us in all these years of litigation. (The court hearing our lawsuit ordered the government to release the Abu Ghraib photos in 2004, but the photos were leaked, and posted online by Salon, while the government was appealing the decision.)

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Iraqi lawmakers accused the new Saudi ambassador of meddling in domestic affairs

Iraqi lawmakers accused the new Saudi ambassador of meddling in domestic affairs

    Sunday, January 24, 2016   No comments

Saudi Arabia is quick to accuse Iran of "blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of  Arab countries." A week after re-opening its embassy in Iraq, Saudi Arabia was accused by Iraq of interfering in the internal affairs of that country. In Sunday, Iraqi lawmakers accused the new Saudi ambassador of meddling in domestic affairs and demanded that he sent declared persona non grata.

Saudi Arabia's double standard is the reason its rulers cannot find a reliable ally to support its aggressive policies in Syria, Iraq, and

Yemen. Human rights organizations have accused the kingdom of committing war crimes in Yemen. 

Seymour Hersh report on Syria: White House knew US was arming Islamic State

Seymour Hersh report on Syria: White House knew US was arming Islamic State

    Monday, December 28, 2015   No comments

 Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports that the administration of President Barack Obama, in particular the CIA, has knowingly armed militant Islamists in Syria, including the Islamic State.

"Barack Obama's repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office -- and that there are 'moderate' rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him -- has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon's Joint Staff," Hersh writes in the London Review of Books. "Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration's fixation on Assad's primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn't adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington's anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped."

Hersh writes that a highly classified 2013 Defense Intelligence Agency/Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Syria forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to "chaos" and possibly to Islamist extremists taking over Syria.

Hersh reports that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, told him that his agency sent a "constant stream" of warnings to the "civilian leadership" about the dire consequences of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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Returnee Says IS Recruiting for Terror Attacks in Germany

Returnee Says IS Recruiting for Terror Attacks in Germany

    Tuesday, December 22, 2015   No comments

By Hubert Gude and Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt

Islamist extremist Harry S. wasn't in Syria for long. But during his stay there, he claims, Islamic State leaders repeatedly tried to recruit him to commit terror attacks in Germany. Security officials believe he could be telling the truth.

It was an early summer morning in the Syrian desert, with not a cloud in the sky, when Mohamed Mahmoud asked those gathered around him: "Here are some prisoners. Which of you wants to waste them?"

Not long before, Islamic State (IS) had taken the city of Palmyra, and now jihadists from Germany and Austria were to participate in the executions of some of the prisoners taken in the operation. They drove to the site of the executions in Toyota pick-ups, bringing along an IS camera team in order to document the atrocity in the city of antique ruins. Even then, Mohamed Mahmoud was known to German security officials for his repeated propaganda-video calls to join the jihad. On that early summer day in Palmyra, though, he didn't just incite others. He grabbed a Kalashnikov himself and began firing. That day, Mahmoud and his group of executioners are thought to have killed six or seven prisoners.

The story comes from someone who was in Palmyra on that day: Harry S., a 27-year-old from Bremen. "I saw it all," he says.

Harry S. returned to Germany from Syria and is now in investigative custody. He has told security officials everything about the brief time he spent with Islamic State and has also demonstrated his readiness to deliver extensive testimony to German public prosecutors. He stands accused of membership in a terrorist group. His lawyer Udo Würtz declined to offer a detailed response when contacted, but said of his client: "He wants to come clean."

German investigators are extremely interested in the testimony of the apparently repentant returnee, even as they are likely unsettled by what he has to say.

A Vital Witness

Harry S., after all, is more than just a witness to firing squads and decapitations. He also says that on several occasions, IS members tried to recruit volunteers for terrorist attacks in Germany. In the spring, just after he first arrived in Syria, he says that he and another Islamist from Bremen were asked if they could imagine perpetrating attacks in Germany. Later, when he was staying not far from Raqqa, the self-proclaimed Islamic State capital city, masked men drove up in a jeep. They too asked him if he was interested in bringing the jihad to his homeland. Harry S. says he told them that he wasn't prepared to do so.

Harry S. was only in IS controlled territory for three months. Yet he might nevertheless become a vital witness for German security officials. Since the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, fear of terrorism has risen across Europe, including in Germany, and security has been stepped up in train stations and airports. And the testimony from the Bremen returnee would seem to indicate that the fear is justified. Harry S. says that, during his time in the Syrian warzone, he frequently heard people talking about attacks in the West and says that pretty much every European jihadist was approached with the same questions he had been asked. "They want something that happens everywhere at the same time," Harry S. says.

Harry S.'s path from the Bremen quarter of Osterholz-Tenever to the jihadists of Islamic State was not particularly remarkable. His radicalization was similar to many other young, directionless men from European suburbs, from the Molenbeek district of Brussels to Lohberg in Dinslaken. In Tenever, some of the residential towers are up to 20 stories tall.

The son of parents from Ghana, Harry S. grew up in "difficult conditions," according to a court file. His father left the family just as he was entering puberty. Even though Harry S. initially only managed to graduate from a lower tier high school in Germany, he dreamed of returning to his parents' homeland and working as a construction engineer.

There was even a brief moment when it looked as though he was going to get control over his life. But then, in early 2010, he and some friends robbed a supermarket, getting away with €23,500, and flew to the island of Gran Canaria for a vacation. It wasn't long before the authorities were on to them and Harry S. was sentenced to two years behind bars for aggravated theft.

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London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, says allies should join Assad and Russia against Isis

London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, says allies should join Assad and Russia against Isis

    Monday, December 07, 2015   No comments

London’s mayor says doubts about there being 70,000 ‘moderate’ fighters means allies cannot be picky if they want to defeat jihadis

Britain and its allies should accept that Bashar al-Assad’s forces are best placed to lead a ground assault against Islamic State in Syria because David Cameron’s claims about 70,000 moderate opposition forces are “exaggerated,” Boris Johnson has said.

On Wednesday MPs will vote on whether to extend the UK’s air campaign against Isis to Syria. Here are the issues that should inform their decision
Read more

In remarks that may be seized on by Labour opponents of the airstrikes in Syria, Johnson says that “Assad and his army” may be the allies’ best chance of removing Isis because the 70,000 figure includes groups that are ideologically little different from al-Qaida.

The prime minister faced intense pressure in the House of Commons last week after claiming that 70,000 “moderate” fighters in Syria are prepared to join the UK and its allies in attacking Islamic State. Jeremy Corbyn questioned the figure as he spoke of a lack of “credible ground forces”.

Johnson waded into the row by saying that Britain and its allies, which cannot overthrow Isis without ground forces, cannot be picky about their allies in light of doubts over the 70,000 figure.

London’s mayor wrote in the Daily Telegraph: “We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaida. Who else is there? The answer is obvious. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress.” source

Turkey shot down Russian jet for allegedly violating its sovereignty for 17 seconds, violates Iraq's sovereignty by sending its troops to establish a permanent base

Turkey shot down Russian jet for allegedly violating its sovereignty for 17 seconds, violates Iraq's sovereignty by sending its troops to establish a permanent base

    Saturday, December 05, 2015   No comments

Several hundred Turkish soldiers have been deployed to provide training for Iraqi troops in an area near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which is under Islamic State control, a Turkish security source told Reuters on Friday.

Islamic State militants overran Mosul, a city of more than one million people, in June 2014, but a much anticipated counter-offensive by Iraqi forces has been repeatedly postponed because they are involved in fighting elsewhere.

"Turkish soldiers have reached the Mosul Bashiqa region. They are there as part of routine training exercises. One battalion has crossed into the region," the source said, declining to say exactly how many soldiers had been deployed.
He said troops had already been in Iraqi Kurdistan and had moved to Mosul accompanied by armored vehicles, in a move which coalition countries targeting Islamic State were aware of.

Video released on the website of Turkey's pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper showed flatbed trucks carrying armored vehicles along a road at night, describing them as a convoy accompanying the Turkish troops to Bashiqa.
source

Turkey's changing explanation for shooting down Russian jet harming its standing, exposing its double standard, and strengthening Syrian government

Turkey's changing explanation for shooting down Russian jet harming its standing, exposing its double standard, and strengthening Syrian government

    Sunday, November 29, 2015   No comments

...
Iraqi Vice President Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday accused Erdoğan of pushing the world to the brink of a global conflict after it downed the Russian warplane, according to a report by French news agency the AFP. "Erdoğan claims the Russian aircraft entered Turkey's airspace for a few seconds, forgetting that its own planes violate Iraqi and Syrian airspace every day," he said in a statement. Turkish fighter jets have, in recent months, carried out a series of deadly strikes against rebels of the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) in their bases in the north of Iraq. "Erdoğan's double standards and aggressive policies are threatening a new world war," said the vice president.

Putin on Thursday dismissed as "rubbish" Turkey's claim that it did not know the jets were Russian. "They [our planes] have insignias and these are well visible," Putin said. "Instead of [...] ensuring this never happens again, we are hearing unintelligible explanations and statements that there is nothing to apologize about."
...
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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the invasion of Iraq helped the rise of ISIS

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that the invasion of Iraq helped the rise of ISIS

    Monday, October 26, 2015   No comments

Speaking to CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired on Sunday, Blair said, "Of course you can't say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation [in Iraq] in 2015."

"There are elements of truth" in the fact that the invasion is responsible for the rise in ISIS, he said.

Asked whether the invasion was wrong, Blair failed to give a direct apology, saying that he could "apologize for some of the mistakes in planning and certainly our mistakes in our understanding of what would happen when you remove the regime. But I find it hard to apologize for removing Saddam. I think, even from today in 2015, it is better that he's not there than that he is there."

"I can say that I apologize for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong because, even though he had used chemical weapons extensively against his own people, against others, the program in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the way that we thought," he said.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded by tweeting that Blair's comments were part of a "spin operation" ahead of the release of the long-awaited Chilcot Inquiry, which looks at the UK's role in the Iraq war. 

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Five leads pointing to ISIL as prime suspect of Ankara bombings

Five leads pointing to ISIL as prime suspect of Ankara bombings

    Monday, October 12, 2015   No comments

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is considered a prime suspect in the double suicide bombings that killed at least 97 in Ankara. Here are the five leads that point to ISIL’s involvement in the attacks

1.The bombs

In the bombings, 10-kg cluster bombs were detonated. Authorities believe a hand grenade could have been used rather than a remote-controlled detonator.

An official speaking to Reuters pointed out the similarities between the Ankara blasts and the July 20 Suruç bombing that killed 33.

“This attack is very similar to Suruç, indeed, all signs show this is its replica,” the source reportedly said.

2.‘Two suicide bombers’

Some eyewitnesses recall having spotted a suicide bomber with a backpack and a carry-on.

According to reports by some dailies, three unidentified bodies were recovered, two of which could belong to the suicide bombers. The vaccination marks on both bodies are seen as indicators that the bombers are Turkish.

ISIL often conducts terror attacks using suicide bombers.
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US lawmakers: "The Syria Train and Equip Program is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat"; Obama Administration Ends Pentagon Program

US lawmakers: "The Syria Train and Equip Program is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat"; Obama Administration Ends Pentagon Program

    Thursday, October 08, 2015   No comments

After 1 year of US air strikes, ISIL's map did not change

...

In a letter to the State Department, Pentagon and C.I.A. last week, four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — criticized the program. “The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote. “As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat.”

The senators — Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut; Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia; Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico; and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah — were referring to the latest debacle to plague the program.

Some of the American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their United States-provided equipment to the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, the United States Central Command acknowledged in late September.

In a statement correcting earlier assertions that reports of the turnover were a “lie” and a militant propaganda ploy, the Central Command said it had subsequently been notified that the Syrian rebels had “surrendered” some of its equipment — including six pickup trucks and a portion of its ammunition — to the Nusra Front.

More broadly, the program has suffered from a shortage of recruits willing to fight the Islamic State instead of the army of President Bashar al-Assad, a problem Mr. Obama noted at a news conference last Friday.

Source

Report: US-trained rebels give equipment to al-Qaeda affiliate

Report: US-trained rebels give equipment to al-Qaeda affiliate

    Saturday, September 26, 2015   No comments

ISR comment: How the U.S., directly and indirectly, ended up arming al-Qaeda and its derivatives? These groups were armed directly by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as part of the training and equipping of the so-called "Free Syrian Army", they also took U.S. hardware when they overran northern Iraq, and continue to receive arms through groups still trained and equipped by U.S. and its Gulf States allies.

A group of US-trained Syrian rebels has handed over their vehicles and ammunition to fighters linked to al-Qaeda, the US military has admitted.

It said one rebel unit had surrendered six pick-up trucks and ammunition to the al-Nusra Front this week - apparently to gain safe passage.

Congress has approved $500m (£323m) to train and equip about 5,000 rebels to fight against Islamic State militants.

But the first 54 graduates were routed by al-Nusra Front, the military said.

Gen Lloyd Austin told US lawmakers last week that only "four or five" US-trained rebels were still fighting.

'Programme violation'

"Unfortunately, we learned late today that the NSF (New Syrian Forces) unit now says it did in fact provide six pick-up trucks and a portion of their ammunition to a suspected al-Nusra Front (group)," Pentagon spokesman Cpt Jeff Davis said on Friday.

Meanwhile, Col Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for US Central Command (Centcom), said this happened on 21-22 September.

Source

Competing narratives of armed conflicts: Turkey corrects the BBC, "members of PKK are not militants, they are terrorists"

Competing narratives of armed conflicts: Turkey corrects the BBC, "members of PKK are not militants, they are terrorists"

    Friday, August 21, 2015   No comments

Turkey has accused the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) of “openly supporting terrorism” by making “written and visual propaganda” of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) during a broadcast on Aug. 20.

“Such broadcasting about an organization which is listed as a terrorist [organization] by many countries, particularly EU countries, is open support for terrorism,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Aug. 21.

The broadcast, which portrayed the PKK as “an innocent organization struggling against another terrorist organization and encouraged [people] to join the PKK, is not acceptable in any way,” the ministry said in a written official statement.

This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have targeted U.K. media outlets’ reporting on the PKK, which is listed as terrorist organization by a large portion of the international community including the European Union and the United States, in addition to Turkey.

In 2005, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan harshly criticized the BBC and Reuters for describing PKK members as militants and guerillas instead of terrorists.

Watch a report on 60 Minutes:

read more >>

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape

    Friday, August 14, 2015   No comments

Claiming the Quran’s support, the Islamic State codifies sex slavery
QADIYA, Iraq — In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.

When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion.

“I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.

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Did Sergey Lavrov call Saudi diplomats, including Adel al-Jubeir, F**** morons?

Did Sergey Lavrov call Saudi diplomats, including Adel al-Jubeir, F**** morons?

    Thursday, August 13, 2015   No comments

The rulers of Saudi Arabia are blinded by wealth to see their real place in global political scale. The images and sounds emerging out the recent visit by the Kingdom's foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, drew a stunning picture of a regime unable to see the contradictions of its logic and actions.

al-Jubair, with a very short resume when it comes to the complex business of diplomacy, insisted that Syria's war will continue unless Bashar Assad is out of power. He argued

that Assad lost legitimacy because of the violence he allegedly unleashed on his people and that Assad, not Saudi brand of Islam, produced ISIL. In other words, Saudi Arabia will not support the war on ISIL unless Russia supports its war on Assad. The rulers of Saudi Arabia, who are not elected, who are waging a savage war against another sovereign country--Yemen--killing thousands of civilians, and who produced the ideology espoused by ISIL is lecturing the world about legitimacy and war.

The Saudi rulers know that before the Syrian crisis, ISIL, and its precursor, al-Qaeda, was already bombing markets, mosques, and public squares and beheading people. To link the existence of these genocidal fighters to Assad is indeed an insult to his Russian host and his host's country, which had a its share of terror attacks carried out by followers of the brand of Islam incubated and nurtured in the kingdom.

Perhaps Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declarative statement, f****** morons, is not directed at al-Jubair, but perhaps it should be. Given their meddling in other countries, their irrational fears, and their role in producing ISIL and ISIL's brand of Islam, such a comment seems highly appropriate.

Turkey's AKP run government may push for HDP’s closure to win in possible early elections

Turkey's AKP run government may push for HDP’s closure to win in possible early elections

    Monday, July 27, 2015   No comments

HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş speaks with reporters

Military operations recently launched against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as well as remarks by a leading ruling party figure implying that a pro-Kurdish party often accused of being affiliated with the PKK could be closed down may well be part of a government plan to carry the acting ruling party to power in a possible early election.

After criticizing the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) for failing to condemn the recent PKK violence, Mustafa Şentop, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), said on Sunday political parties can be closed down only for one reason in Turkey, namely being linked to a terrorist organization.

The AK party lost a significant number of voters to the HDP in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast in the June 7 election. This was a large blow to the AK Party as it failed, for the first time since coming to power in 2002, to win enough seats in Parliament to form a single-party government.

“I feel this is part of a strategy to come to power as a single party,” Seyfettin Gürsel, the director of Bahçeşehir University's Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM), told Today's Zaman.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was accused by the opposition of trying to block efforts to forge a coalition government after the election, is also widely claimed to be seeking an early election.

Taking the military operations and the targeting of the HDP by the government as a sure sign of an early election, Gürsel added, “The AK Party could trying to close down the HDP if it feels it will not be able to push [voter support for] the HDP below the election threshold.”

The government may also be hoping that the bombing against the PKK, which started after the PKK murdered several security officials, would help the AK Party win back some of the nationalist votes that drifted to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the latest election.

Until recently, the government has been adopting a “tolerant” attitude towards PKK activity in Turkey, which led some nationalist voters to turn their backs to the AK Party.

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Western and Gulf States fuelled the rise of ISIL to weaken regimes they don't like

Western and Gulf States fuelled the rise of ISIL to weaken regimes they don't like

    Sunday, June 07, 2015   No comments

 Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq

by Seumas Milne

The sectarian terror group, ISIL, won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place.

The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting.

The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead with the trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition.

That didn’t only include the “non-lethal assistance” boasted of by the government (including body armour and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of “arms on a massive scale”. Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime.

Clearly, the absurdity of sending someone to prison for doing what ministers and their security officials were up to themselves became too much. But it’s only the latest of a string of such cases. Less fortunate was a London cab driver Anis Sardar, who was given a life sentence a fortnight earlier for taking part in 2007 in resistance to the occupation of Iraq by US and British forces. Armed opposition to illegal invasion and occupation clearly doesn’t constitute terrorism or murder on most definitions, including the Geneva convention.

But terrorism is now squarely in the eye of the beholder. And nowhere is that more so than in the Middle East, where today’s terrorists are tomorrow’s fighters against tyranny – and allies are enemies – often at the bewildering whim of a western policymaker’s conference call.

For the past year, US, British and other western forces have been back in Iraq, supposedly in the cause of destroying the hyper-sectarian terror group Islamic State (formerly known as al-Qaida in Iraq). This was after Isis overran huge chunks of Iraqi and Syrian territory and proclaimed a self-styled Islamic caliphate.

The campaign isn’t going well. Last month, Isis rolled into the Iraqi city of Ramadi, while on the other side of the now nonexistent border its forces conquered the Syrian town of Palmyra. Al-Qaida’s official franchise, the Nusra Front, has also been making gains in Syria.

Some Iraqis complain that the US sat on its hands while all this was going on. The Americans insist they are trying to avoid civilian casualties, and claim significant successes. Privately, officials say they don’t want to be seen hammering Sunni strongholds in a sectarian war and risk upsetting their Sunni allies in the Gulf.

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Testimonies of arrested prosecutors show Turkey's giovernment had links with ISIL

Testimonies of arrested prosecutors show Turkey's giovernment had links with ISIL

    Monday, May 11, 2015   No comments

The testimonies of four public prosecutors, who were jailed last week for their role in the search of trucks allegedly carrying weapons to opposition groups in Syria, have revealed that some state officials had links with the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and similar organizations operating in Syria, media reports said on Sunday.

Former Adana Chief Public Prosecutor Süleyman Bağrıyanık, former Adana Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Ahmet Karaca, Adana prosecutors Aziz Takçı and Özcan Şişman and former Adana provincial gendarmerie commander Col. Özkan Çokay were arrested on Thursday on charges of “attempting to topple or incapacitate the Turkish government through the use of force or coercion and exposing information regarding the security and political activities of the state.”

The trucks, which were found to belong to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), were stopped by gendarmes in two separate incidents in the southern provinces of Hatay and Adana in January 2014 after prosecutors received tip-offs that they were carrying arms to Syria.

Although the government has claimed that the trucks were transporting humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in Syria, opposition voices have continued to question why, if the operation was within the law, the minister and local authorities stepped in to prevent the trucks from being searched.

In his testimony, Şişman, who stopped the MİT trucks in Hatay, said investigations that were being carried out either by himself and the deputy chief prosecutor's office at that time coincidentally revealed that some state officials did not differentiate between a state duty, collecting intelligence and being involved in terrorism, and that they had unlawful relations with ISIL and similar organizations operating in Syria.

In his testimony, Şişman added that if the trucks were really carrying weapons to Syria, this cannot be described as a state secret. “A criminal action cannot be described as a state secret,” he said.

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The role of Iraqi Baathist officers in ISIL's takeover of northern Syria and northern Iraq

The role of Iraqi Baathist officers in ISIL's takeover of northern Syria and northern Iraq

    Sunday, April 19, 2015   No comments

 The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State

Aloof. Polite. Cajoling. Extremely attentive. Restrained. Dishonest. Inscrutable. Malicious. The rebels from northern Syria, remembering encounters with him months later, recall completely different facets of the man. But they agree on one thing: "We never knew exactly who we were sitting across from."

In fact, not even those who shot and killed him after a brief firefight in the town of Tal Rifaat on a January morning in 2014 knew the true identity of the tall man in his late fifties. They were unaware that they had killed the strategic head of the group calling itself "Islamic State" (IS). The fact that this could have happened at all was the result of a rare but fatal miscalculation by the brilliant planner. The local rebels placed the body into a refrigerator, in which they intended to bury him. Only later, when they realized how important the man was, did they lift his body out again.

Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi was the real name of the Iraqi, whose bony features were softened by a white beard. But no one knew him by that name. Even his best-known pseudonym, Haji Bakr, wasn't widely known. But that was precisely part of the plan. The former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein's air defense force had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years. Former members of the group had repeatedly mentioned him as one of its leading figures. Still, it was never clear what exactly his role was.

But when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated. SPIEGEL has gained exclusive access to the 31 pages, some consisting of several pages pasted together. They reveal a multilayered composition and directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised for the anarchical situation in Syria's rebel-held territories. In a sense, the documents are the source code of the most successful terrorist army in recent history.

Until now, much of the information about IS has come from fighters who had defected and data sets from the IS internal administration seized in Baghdad. But none of this offered an explanation for the group's meteoric rise to prominence, before air strikes in the late summer of 2014 put a stop to its triumphal march.

For the first time, the Haji Bakr documents now make it possible to reach conclusions on how the IS leadership is organized and what role former officials in the government of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein play in it. Above all, however, they show how the takeover in northern Syria was planned, making the group's later advances into Iraq possible in the first place. In addition, months of research undertaken by SPIEGEL in Syria, as well as other newly discovered records, exclusive to SPIEGEL, show that Haji Bakr's instructions were carried out meticulously.

Bakr's documents were long hidden in a tiny addition to a house in embattled northern Syria. Reports of their existence were first made by an eyewitness who had seen them in Haji Bakr's house shortly after his death. In April 2014, a single page from the file was smuggled to Turkey, where SPIEGEL was able to examine it for the first time. It only became possible to reach Tal Rifaat to evaluate the entire set of handwritten papers in November 2014.

"Our greatest concern was that these plans could fall into the wrong hands and would never have become known," said the man who has been storing Haji Bakr's notes after pulling them out from under a tall stack of boxes and blankets. The man, fearing the IS death squads, wishes to remain anonymous.

The Master Plan

The story of this collection of documents begins at a time when few had yet heard of the "Islamic State." When Iraqi national Haji Bakr traveled to Syria as part of a tiny advance party in late 2012, he had a seemingly absurd plan: IS would capture as much territory as possible in Syria. Then, using Syria as a beachhead, it would invade Iraq.

Bakr took up residence in an inconspicuous house in Tal Rifaat, north of Aleppo. The town was a good choice. In the 1980s, many of its residents had gone to work in the Gulf nations, especially Saudi Arabia. When they returned, some brought along radical convictions and contacts. In 2013, Tal Rifaat would become IS' stronghold in Aleppo Province, with hundreds of fighters stationed there.

It was there that the "Lord of the Shadows," as some called him, sketched out the structure of the Islamic State, all the way down to the local level, compiled lists relating to the gradual infiltration of villages and determined who would oversee whom. Using a ballpoint pen, he drew the chains of command in the security apparatus on stationery. Though presumably a coincidence, the stationery was from the Syrian Defense Ministry and bore the letterhead of the department in charge of accommodations and furniture.

What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover. It was not a manifesto of faith, but a technically precise plan for an "Islamic Intelligence State" -- a caliphate run by an organization that resembled East Germany's notorious Stasi domestic intelligence agency.

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Iraqi Kurds say Islamic State used chemical weapons against them

Iraqi Kurds say Islamic State used chemical weapons against them

    Sunday, March 15, 2015   No comments

Iraqi Kurdish authorities said on Saturday they had evidence that Islamic State had used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon against their peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq in January.

The Security Council of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region said in a statement to Reuters that the peshmerga had taken soil and clothing samples after an Islamic State car bombing attempt on Jan. 23.

It said laboratory analysis showed "the samples contained levels of chlorine that suggested the substance was used in weaponized form." The Kurdish allegation could not be independently confirmed.

Chlorine is a choking agent whose use as a chemical weapon dates back to World War One. It is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits all use of toxic agents on the battlefield.
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