Category Archives: Lands

How ISIS rules

Sarah Birke writes: In late November, there were widespread reports that both the US-led coalition and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus have stepped up their bombing campaign against the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, in eastern Syria. The jihadist organization has long been secretive about where its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and other senior members are based — locals say they move around between Iraq and Syria — but Raqqa is often referred to as the “capital” of ISIS’s self-declared caliphate, and has become its most emblematic city.

To judge from images distributed by the group, Raqqa is an extremist hotbed whose inhabitants crave a radical version of Islam, enjoy public executions, and fervently support their ruthless black-clad overlords; the beheading of James Foley — and of several of the other hostages — was filmed on a hill in its outskirts. Yet there is little about this provincial center of some 500,000 people that might have suggested jihadist or even Islamist tendencies. In fact, Raqqa did not even enter the Syrian conflict until 2013.

Living in Damascus before the war, I had several occasions to visit Raqqa, and I was struck by how ordinary it was. A dusty place far from the country’s other major cities, it offered few amenities and most Syrians complained about it, if they chanced to visit. It was true that the local population, a mixture of tribes and settled Bedouins, were almost entirely Sunni Muslim, but unlike such eastern cities as Hama and Aleppo it didn’t have a tradition of Islamist activism. As a resident of al-Tabqa, a town near Raqqa with a Syrian air base that was captured by ISIS in August, put it: “The irony is we were famous for not praying!”

But Raqqa’s substantial size, location, and relative remove from the main areas of conflict have been critical to ISIS’s aim of creating a large and highly centralized state. The group holds territory that now extends from the outskirts of Aleppo in Syria’s west to Iraq’s Iranian border in the east, from the Syrian-Turkish border in the north down through Iraq’s Anbar province to six miles outside of Baghdad in the south. Although its forces have been pushed back, slowly, from Kobane, on the Syrian-Turkish border, they have also won land elsewhere, including at Heet and Ramadi in Iraq, despite US-led bombardment. [Continue reading…]

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Syria says Israeli drone downed in Quneitra

Reuters reports: Syria said on Sunday that an Israeli drone had been brought down in the province of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

State media said the drone was flying above the village of Hadar when it was downed. It was not immediately clear whether it had been shot down or had crashed.

Quneitra has seen heavy fighting between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels including al-Qaeda-linked fighters.[Continue reading…]

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For Israelis ‘a growing sense that Israel is becoming an isolated ghetto’

Roger Cohen writes: Uneasiness inhabits Israel, a shadow beneath the polished surface. In a violent Middle Eastern neighborhood of fracturing states, that is perhaps inevitable, but Israelis are questioning their nation and its future with a particular insistence. As the campaign for March elections begins, this disquiet looks like the precursor of political change. The status quo, with its bloody and inconclusive interludes, has become less bearable. More of the same has a name: Benjamin Netanyahu, now in his third term as prime minister. The alternative, although less clear, is no longer unthinkable.

“There is a growing uneasiness, social, political, economic,” Amos Oz, the novelist, told me in an interview. “There is a growing sense that Israel is becoming an isolated ghetto, which is exactly what the founding fathers and mothers hoped to leave behind them forever when they created the state of Israel.” The author, widely viewed as the conscience of a liberal and anti-Messianic Israel, continued, “Unless there are two states — Israel next door to Palestine — and soon, there will be one state. If there will be one state, it will be an Arab state. The other option is an Israeli dictatorship, probably a religious nationalist dictatorship, suppressing the Palestinians and suppressing its Jewish opponents.”

If that sounds stark, it is because choices are narrowing. Every day, it seems, another European government or parliament expresses support for recognition of a Palestinian state. A Palestinian-backed initiative at the United Nations, opposed in its current form by the United States, is aimed at pushing Israel to withdraw from the West Bank by 2017. The last Gaza eruption, with its heavy toll and messy outcome, changed nothing. Hamas, its annihilationist hatred newly stoked, is still there parading its weapons. Tension is high in Jerusalem after a spate of violent incidents. Life is expensive. Netanyahu’s credibility on both the domestic and international fronts has dwindled. [Continue reading…]

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Most of Netanyahu’s Likud campaign funding coming from Americans

Haaretz reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far raised nearly 539,000 shekels ($137,000) in his bid to retain his position at the head of Likud. The sum came from 15 donors, all of whom are from overseas. Fourteen are from the United States, while one is from Spain.

At this point, Netanyahu’s only challenger is Danny Danon, who has raised a total of 261,000 shekels from 11 donors – 10 of whom reside in the United States.

Before dropping out of the leadership race, Moshe Feiglin had raised 220,000 shekels from 217 donations.

The Likud primary will be held on December 31, with the winner leading the party into the Knesset election, which will be held on March 17. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS ‘executes 100 deserters’ in Syria’s Raqqa

Al Arabiya reports: Militants belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have executed 100 members for trying to flee their base in the northern Syrian city of Raqaa, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

An activist, who was identified by the newspaper as opposed to the Syrian regime and ISIS, confirmed to the FT the execution of the 100 foreign fighters attempting to flee Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital.

After being on the run for months, “frustration” began sweeping among the Islamist militants, the daily said.

Fighters sense a halt to ISIS’ military progress and are witnessing mounting casualties among their ranks, the report added.

“Morale isn’t falling – it’s hit the ground,” an opposition activist from ISIS-controlled areas of in Deir al-Zor told the newspaper.

Morale among the fighters was affected by the group’s shift toward governing areas it controls and because of U.S.-led air strikes halting their advances in Syria and Iraq.

“Local fighters are frustrated – they feel they’re doing most of the work and the dying … foreign fighters who thought they were on an adventure are now exhausted,” the opposition activist told the daily. [Continue reading…]

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Yazidis cheer Kurds on Iraqi mountain for breaking ISIS siege

Reuters reports: Iraqi Kurdish fighters flashed victory signs as they swept across the northern side of Sinjar mountain on Saturday, two days after breaking through to free hundreds of Yazidis trapped there for months by Islamic State fighters.

A Reuters correspondent, who arrived on the mountain late Saturday, witnessed Kurdish and Yazidi fighters celebrating their gains after launching their offensive on Wednesday with heavy U.S. air support.

The Iraqi Kurdish flag fluttered, with its yellow sun, and celebratory gunfire rang out. Little children cheered “Barzani’s party”, in reference to the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani.

“We have been surrounded the last three months. We were living off of raw wheat and barley,” said Yazidi fighter Haso Mishko Haso. [Continue reading…]

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Spain jails four accused of recruiting women for ISIS

Vice News reports: Three women and a man, accused of recruiting young women for the Islamic State through social media and WhatsApp forums, were sent to prison by a Spanish judge on Thursday. They were allegedly part of a jihadist network that has managed to send 12 women to join the terrorist group in Syria and Iraq.

Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz “ordered unconditional detention for membership in a terrorist organisation,” according to a judicial source.

Police arrested seven suspects this week — four people in Melilla and Ceuta, Spanish territories in northern Africa, a Chilean woman in Barcelona, and two men in the Moroccan town of Castillejos. Two women arrested in Barcelona and Ceuta were apparently about to travel to the Middle East. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian opposition leader: UN ‘freeze’ must be tied to broad peace process

The Wall Street Journal reports: Syria’s opposition chief, who was in Brussels this week to meet with European Union foreign ministers, is warning Western leaders against embracing a possible United Nations “freeze” on Syrian fighting unless it’s tied to a broader peace process.

Hadi al-Bahra, president of the Syrian National Coalition, said a plan being floated by UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura could be a breakthrough. But if it’s not part of a political resolution, Mr. Bahra said, it will simply give the regime of President Bashar al-Assad time to regroup.

“I’m seeing some fatigue with a few countries who feel a need just to support any proposal submitted, whether it’s part of a political solution or not, just for the sole reason that there is nothing available except this,” Mr. Bahra said in an interview.

Mr. de Mistura has been discussing a plan to freeze the fighting around the embattled city of Aleppo, meaning both sides would stay where they are and ratchet down the violence to zero. The goal would then be to spread the freeze to other areas.

European Union foreign ministers, meeting here Monday, largely embraced the idea as a rare glimmer of hope in a conflict that has killed some 200,000 people. “There is a good chance … that he can succeed in going step-by-step to impose a freeze in Aleppo,” Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told reporters. “That would be perhaps the beginning of a more positive evolution… In any case, we don’t have a lot of options.”

But Mr. Bahra’s concerns were echoed privately by some countries, including Britain and France. Any plan must ensure that Mr. Assad doesn’t redeploy his troops and attack elsewhere, he said, and it must guarantee serious consequences if either side violates the deal. [Continue reading…]

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Chinese general anticipates North Korea’s ‘collapse’

The New York Times reports: When a retired Chinese general with impeccable Communist Party credentials recently wrote a scathing account of North Korea as a recalcitrant ally headed for collapse and unworthy of support, he exposed a roiling debate in China about how to deal with the country’s young leader, Kim Jong-un.

For decades China has stood by North Korea, and though at times the relationship has soured, it has rarely reached such a low point, Chinese analysts say. The fact that the commentary by Lt. Gen. Wang Hongguang, a former deputy commander of an important military region, was published in a state-run newspaper this month and then posted on an official People’s Liberation Army website attested to how much the relationship had deteriorated, the analysts say.

“China has cleaned up the D.P.R.K.’s mess too many times,” General Wang wrote in The Global Times, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “But it doesn’t have to do that in the future.”

Of the government in North Korea, he said: “If an administration isn’t supported by the people, ‘collapse’ is just a matter of time.” Moreover, North Korea had violated the spirit of the mutual defense treaty with China, he said, by failing to consult China on its nuclear weapons program, which has created instability in Northeast Asia. [Continue reading…]

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Why there’s still reason to doubt North Korea was behind the Sony attack

Why would the FBI say it has “enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” if that’s not really true?

Firstly, the FBI and the U.S. government as a whole is always reluctant to present itself as ignorant. Presenting itself as having privileged access to secret information is something every government does in order to bolster its image of power. The FBI can’t tell us exactly how it knows what it claims to know because “the need to protect sensitive sources and methods precludes us from sharing all of this information” — trust us; we know; we’re the FBI.

Secondly, the only way that North Korea can convincingly refute the accusation is to identify the real culprits — and they have no means of doing that.

Given the appalling reputation of the leaders of the hermit kingdom, there is a prevailing assumption of guilt even in the absence of compelling evidence, which makes the FBI’s accusation an easy sell.

Sean Gallagher recently wrote: “Based on the amount of data stolen, and the nature of the malware itself, it’s likely the attackers had physical access to the network and that the attack may have been ongoing for months…”

Are we to imagine that North Korea not only instigated the attack but was also able to recruit inside collaboration?

I can see this as central to the plot that numerous Hollywood screenwriters must currently be working on for a blockbuster thriller about how an evil dictator tries to destroy Hollywood, but I can’t really see it in real life.

Michael Hiltzik writes:

The North Korea/”Interview” narrative is comforting in several ways. It feeds into the tendency to attribute almost God-like capabilities to an adversary, especially a secretive one; that’s very much a scenario favored by Hollywood. (Think of the all-time definitive James Bond movie line, from “Dr. No”: “World domination–same old dream.”) And it helps Sony executives deflect blame — how could anyone expect them to defend against an attack by such a sinister, all-powerful enemy? You can expect to see more coverage, like this piece from CNN, about North Korea’s shadowy “Bureau 121,” purportedly its Cyberattack Central.

There are great dangers in mistaken attribution — it shifts attention from the real perpetrators, for one thing. A counterattack against North Korea could needlessly provoke the regime, wrecking the few diplomatic initiatives taking place.

Here’s a rundown of the counter-narrative.

–“Whitehat” hacker and security expert Marc W. Rogers argues that the pattern of the attack implies that the attackers “had extensive knowledge of Sony’s internal architecture and access to key passwords. While it’s plausible that an attacker could have built up this knowledge over time … Occam’s razor suggests the simpler explanation of an insider,” perhaps one out for workplace revenge. (N.B. “Occam’s razor” is the principle that the simplest explanation for something is often the best.)

–The assertion that the attack was uniquely sophisticated, which is an element of the accusation against North Korea, is both untrue and incompatible with the North Korea narrative. It presupposes that a nation-state without a native computer infrastructure could launch an unprecedented assault. More to the point, very similar hacking technology has been used in earlier hacks in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The consulting firm Risk Based Security has a discussion of these and other aspects of the Sony affair.

It’s worth noting that Risk Based Security’s team isn’t entirely convinced by the FBI statement. In an update to their commentary Friday, they observed that the agency has “not released any evidence to back these claims.” They add: “While the FBI certainly has many skilled investigators, they are not infallible. Remember, this agency represents the same government that firmly stated that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, leading the U.S. into a more than ten year conflict, which was later disproven.

Finally, Caroline Baylon from Chatham House, in an interview with ITN, laid out the reasons why the North Korean government was probably not behind the hack:

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Feds release new details about malware targeting Sony

Ars Technica reports: The highly destructive malware believed to have hit the networks of Sony Pictures Entertainment contained a cocktail of malicious components designed to wreak havoc on infected networks, according to new technical details released by federal officials who work with private sector security professionals.

An advisory published Friday by the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team said the central malware component was a worm that propagated through the Server Message Block protocol running on Microsoft Windows networks. The worm contained brute-force cracking capabilities designed to infect password-protected storage systems. It acted as a “dropper” that then unleashed five components. The advisory, which also provided “indicators of compromise” that can help other companies detect similar attacks, didn’t mention Sony by name. Instead, it said only that the potent malware cocktail had targeted a “major entertainment company.” The FBI and White House have pinned the attack directly on North Korea, but so far have provided little proof. [Continue reading…]

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Peshawar massacre: Pakistan’s enemy within

Pervez Hoodbhoy writes: The gut-wrenching massacre in Peshawar’s Army Public School has left Pakistan aghast and sickened. All political leaders have called for unity against terrorism. But this is no watershed event that can bridge the deep divides within. In another few days this episode of 134 dead children will become one like any other.

All tragedies provoke emotional exhortations. But nothing changed after Lakki Marwat when 105 spectators of a volleyball match were killed by a suicide bomber in a pickup truck. Or, when 96 Hazaras in a snooker club died in a double suicide attack. The 127 dead in the All Saints Church bombing in Peshawar, or the 90 Ahmadis killed while in prayer, are now dry statistics. In 2012, men in military uniforms stopped four buses bound from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, demanding that all 117 persons alight and show their national identification cards. Those with typical Shia names, like Abbas and Jafri, were separated. Minutes later corpses lay on the ground.

If Pakistan had a collective conscience, just one single fact could have woken it up: the murder of nearly 60 polio workers — women and men who work to save children from a crippling disease — at the hands of the fanatics.

Hence the horrible inevitability: from time to time, Pakistan shall continue to witness more such catastrophes. No security measures can ever prevent attacks on soft targets. The only possible solution is to change mindsets. For this we must grapple with three hard facts.

First, let’s openly admit that the killers are not outsiders or infidels. Instead, they are fighting a war for the reason Boko Haram fights in Nigeria, IS in Iraq and Syria, Al Shabab in Kenya, etc. The men who slaughtered our children are fighting for a dream — to destroy Pakistan as a Muslim state and recreate it as an Islamic state. This is why they also attack airports and shoot at PIA planes. They see these as necessary steps towards their utopia. [Continue reading…]

Make of it what you will, but a statement attributed to the newly formed al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), strongly condemns the massacre.

In Peshawar army school attack, more than 130 children have died. “And to him we belong and to him we return”. On this tragic incident, our hearts are deeply saddened. There is no doubt about the oppression of pakistan army and that its crimes have exceeded all limits. Truth is that, Pakistan army has exceeded all limits in its subservience to Americans and the massacre of Muslims. Its also true that, America is totally dependent on Pakistan’s army to silence any voice for Shariah.

But these crimes of Pakistan army and its horrific oppression CANNOT justify that its revenge be taken from innocent Muslims.

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ISIS targets Afghanistan just as the U.S. quits

The Daily Beast reports: Few sayings of the Prophet Mohammed have a stronger hold on the imagination of the world’s jihadists than his prophecy about the flags: “If you see the black banners coming from Khorasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice,” he is supposed to have admonished the faithful. “No power will be able to stop them and they will finally reach Baitul Maqdisi”—Jerusalem— “where they will erect flags.”

And where was this magical land of Khorasan, whence the conquerors would come? Think Afghanistan and pieces of all the countries that surround it, including and especially Iran.

For the great ideologues of modern jihadist terror, Ayman al Zawahiri of al Qaeda and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi of the so-called Islamic State, the strategic and symbolic importance of Khorasan is huge, and there are already signs that they are competing for control there. Some factions of both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and some members of al Qaeda in the area have pledged allegiance to Baghdadi’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Zawahiri’s most elite group of operatives, meanwhile, has become known as the Khorasan Group.

As terrorists compete for prestige and authority, they are under attack by the governments of the region. To make their mark on the minds of potential followers, they carry out ever more desperate and horrifying acts, like the slaughter of children at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, earlier this week.

A central figure in these dangerous wider developments is a soft-spoken scholar, journalist and poet, Sheikh Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, who spent more than three years as a prisoner of the Americans at Guantanamo, then found himself imprisoned again by the Pakistanis. News reports in the region recently named his as the Islamic State-appointed governor or wali of Khorasan. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS now regulates rape and slavery

Zvi Bar’el reports: The rape and trafficking of women now has rules, according to a short explanatory pamphlet released recently by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL).

According to this publication, which appears in Q&A format, a man may take a woman as a slave and have sexual intercourse with her if she has reached puberty. However, if a man is only part-owner of a woman, he must purchase her fully from his co-owners before he can have intercourse with her. If the slave becomes pregnant, she may not be sold. However, if her owner dies, she goes free.

A man may not have intercourse with his wife’s slave, because the latter is another’s property. One may sexually enjoy a slave without having full intercourse with her if she has not reached puberty. A slave should be treated as property, as long as that property is not damaged. A woman must not be separated from her child when she is bought or sold, except if her children have reached adulthood.

These rules are presented together with quotes from the words of the prophet Mohammed and verses of wisdom from Islamic luminaries. Not only is the abduction of women and selling them as sex slaves an inseparable part of the strategy of terror imposed by ISIS in areas under its control in Iraq and Syria, the butchering of women is also an accepted act. [Continue reading…]

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Several ISIS leaders have been killed in Iraq, U.S. says

The Wall Street Journal reports: U.S. airstrikes have killed three military leaders of the extremist group Islamic State in Iraq in recent weeks, the Pentagon’s top uniformed officer said Thursday.

The action came as U.S. and Iraqi forces step up operations in Iraq, officials said, part of an expanding coalition effort ahead of an expected offensive next year to try to retake key cities seized by the militant group.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the strikes that killed the military leaders were designed to hamper Islamic State’s ability to conduct attacks, supply fighters and finance operations. [Continue reading…]

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Boko Haram now appears intent on governing

The Wall Street Journal reports: After seizing another village in Nigeria’s northeast last month, Boko Haram militants took a step in their transition from terror group to governing authority. They rounded up the men and ordered them to wear pants as the prophet Mohammed did, several inches above the ankle.

Otherwise, a Boko Haram commander told a crowd of men, they would be killed. “So we folded our trousers,” said Birgamus Kadams, a 26-year-old who was among the group of several hundred residents of Garkidi village the militant addressed.

Like 1.5 million other Nigerians, Mr. Kadams fled his home, in his case to the government-held town of Yola. But the world he left behind is changing.

After years of sowing chaos—bombing mosques, gunning up markets, kidnapping children, and leaving thousands dead, Boko Haram now appears intent on establishing order in towns it holds.

Fighters are imposing rigorous Islamic law in a bid to carve out a corner of a strategic, oil-rich country—just as its fellow jihadists in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are doing. [Continue reading…]

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