IS apparently emerged from nothing and suddenly had an army that caused Iraq's own to evaporate like water in the desert. The war the US and the Gulf states have started against IS, seems to lack both tactics and strategy – at least if the intention is to fight the organization.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State (IS) have apparently emerged from nothing. At that moment, they did not exist. In the next moment, they not only existed, but also controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria, areas where about four million people live. The group is so extreme that it even disgusts al-Qaeda. It has demonstrated that it is capable of committing any cruelty, from decapitation and cannibalism to crucifixion, mass slaughter and amputations.
At the same time, IS is so effective that it took control of an area the size of the United Kingdom in a very short period of time – and a few months later the group is in control of a much larger area of Libya. IS mastered modern communication, marketing and social media with the same self-professed professionalism that they use advanced weapons. This means that there is every reason to wonder how the group may have emerged in their present form, and who has helped them succeed so far.
War veteran Gordon Duff was in Damascus at the end of 2014. During the Vietnam War, Duff served for the US Marine, and he has worked for the war veterans for a lifetime. He is also the editor of Veterans Today and writes for New Eastern Outlook. When he was in Damascus last year, he spoke with several Syrian militia leaders who had photographed fallen IS soldiers and their ID papers. In a group of 74 killed from the fighting at Kobani, there were 15 Ukrainians and 8 Chechens. The others were from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and North Africa. Some of them had distinct European features. Gordon Duff writes that the military leaders did not overhear their fallen opponents, but treated them with respect, sorrow and earnestness.
After talks with the Syrian authorities, Duff writes that – based on an analysis of the tactical capabilities of IS – it is clear that IS has access to secure communications that it would have been easy for the United States to jam [destroy the opponent's radio reception, editor's note. ] if they wanted it. "To put it simply: not everyone can operate the complicated American artillery they have acquired, or the armored vehicles. "IS does not seem to have any problems getting Stinger rockets or using them to shoot down planes," Duff writes. It was claimed that IS has missiles originating from Libya, and that they have been smuggled through Sinai. But how they should have magically skipped Israel, no one has an answer. It is clear that IS does not have much trouble crossing the well-guarded border of the NATO country Turkey. Across that border, swarms of locomotive trucks, engineers and technicians are flocking to join IS – while refugees wait for days to pass.
IS masters modern communication, marketing and social media with the same obvious professionalism as they use advanced weapons.
Italian Loretta Napoleoni, author of the books Terror incorporated: Tracing the dollars behind the terror networks og Maonomics: Why Chinese Communists Make Better Capitalists Than We Do, writes in AlterNet that the US torture program helped to create the Islamic State. "The report that was recently published on the CIA's extensive use of torture in the dark years after 9/11, admits that no valuable intelligence came out of the cruel interrogation techniques. But it's worse than that: In fact, the CIA helped lead the US government astray in very important security questions when they used inaccurate information they had received through the interrogations. "One of the jihadists who was tortured, the Saudi Arabian Abu Zubaydah, gave false information that probably helped to construct the myth of Abu Mussad al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq," she wrote. According to Napoleoni, this led step by step to al-Zarqawi being built up to be a super-terrorist, all based on false information. The same has happened with the myth of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, she believes. “In a world full of information, mysteries play an important role in stimulating the collective imagination. The more that is hidden, the greater the desire for disclosure – and the less one knows, the more one can imagine. Give people some video clips and they'll fill in the photo themselves with the photos they prefer. Modern marketing has created an industry worth a trillion dollars built on such simple ideas. Now it is the IS propaganda machine that is using these to create the myth of al-Baghdadi and the new caliphate. Islam is built on the mystery of the Prophet's return. Therefore, at the same time as IS terrorizing the West with shocking and barbaric killings, it helps their Muslim followers believe that the Prophet has returned in al-Baghdadi's clothing, ”Napoleoni claims.
IS and Israel. As long as IS does not threaten Israel, the country has obvious interests in the organization destroying Syria as much as possible. The war on IS primarily harms two of Israel's arch-enemies, namely Iraq and Syria. IS has also not come up with any political outcomes against Israel. Therefore, it is not surprising when the Israeli newspaper Haaretz can report that several cases of contact between the IDF, the Israeli army and IS have been observed on the border at the Golan Heights. The newspaper quotes a report to the UN Security Council from UN observers. According to the report, for example, a wounded IS soldier was transferred to a civilian ambulance on the Israeli side which was escorted by the IDF.
Michael Oren, Israel's former ambassador to the United States, said in a lecture at the Aspen Institute that Israel would prefer a victory even for the Islamic State, rather than a continuation of Assad's pro-Iranian regime in Syria. "From Israel's perspective, if evil is to prevail, it is better that it is a Sunni evil," he expressed.
Air bridge with weapons. A very well-informed article in The New York Times on March 24, 2013 shows how weapons and equipment were flown in from Saudi Arabia and Qatar via Turkey, Jordan and Croatia. This was a massive operation that included at least 160 flights with large transport aircraft. And the newspaper leaves no doubt about the CIA's role in this project:
From offices in a secret location, U.S. intelligence officials have helped Arab governments buy weapons, including a large order from Croatia, and selected the rebel commanders and groups that would receive the weapons on arrival, according to U.S. officials, who said they would receive be anonymous.
"A conservative estimate of the cargo carried by these flights is around 3500 tonnes of military equipment," said Hugh Griffiths of the Swedish Peace Institute SIPRI, adding: "The scope and frequency involved show that it is a well-planned and coordinated secret logistics operation. "
The arms transport was so enormous that a former US official referred to it as a waterfall of weapons. According to the New York Times, former CIA chief David H. Petraeus was central to getting this network in place, and he was also in contact with several countries to get them to work together. Then it does not help that "comic Kerry" claims that the United States has no responsibility for what is happening in Libya and Iraq.
It is clear that IS does not have major problems crossing the NATO country Turkey's well-guarded border.
Arab oil money. If the CIA has been the chief conductor of this huge operation to arm the Islamist opposition in Syria, then the money has come from the Arab oil dictatorships. Günter Meyer, director of the Center for Research into the Arabic World at the University of Mainz, tells Deutsche Welle that he has no doubts about how IS will be funded:
"Until today, the most important source of funding for IS has been support from the Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia, but also Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The Gulf states' motivation to fund groups like IS is to support their fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. ”
Recently, the Iraqi news agency Sama reported that Iraqi forces have arrested military advisers from the United States and Israel while they were helping the Islamic State in Iraq. The arrest was made during Iraq's anti-terrorist campaign "Scorpio's Sting". If this had been unique news, one could easily have questioned it, but it fits into a pattern in which the United States and the oil dictatorships are clearly riding more horses than they are officially willing to admit. One of the United States and NATO's foremost allies during the bombing war against Libya, Abdelhakim Belhadj, now stands as one of the leaders of the Islamic State of Libya.
There is a lot that is unclear about IS, but it is not the first time in history that a great power creates a monster that it later gets serious trouble with.
