Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions
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Serpentine
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Godspeed to Iraqi forces. I'm sure ISIS defeat in Mosul will be fast and decisive.
After Mosul, ISIS will be reduced to a low level terrorist inaurgency until obliterated eventually.
After Mosul, ISIS will be reduced to a low level terrorist inaurgency until obliterated eventually.
Vergennes
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@Malik Alashter @Alshawi1234 @f1000n
Good luck to the iraqi forces in their operation to re-capture Mosul.
-
French artillery keeps targeting ISIS positions to help iraqi forces in their advance.
Good luck to the iraqi forces in their operation to re-capture Mosul.
-
French artillery keeps targeting ISIS positions to help iraqi forces in their advance.
Mahmoud_EGY
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good luck iraq all of Egypt supports you
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http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/operation-to-retake-mosul-has-begun-iraq-pm-on-tv_1940706.html
Last Updated: Monday, October 17, 2016 - 06:41
Baghdad: Operations to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group have begun, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced early Monday on state television.
"The time of victory has come and operations to liberate Mosul have started," he said in an address broadcast by the Iraqiya channel.
"Today I declare the start of these victorious operations to free you from the violence and terrorism of Daesh (IS)," he said, addressing residents of the Mosul region.
Abadi, the commander-in-chief of Iraq`s armed forces, was surrounded by top federal officers as he read his statement.
Iraqi federal and allied forces have been tightening the noose on Mosul, the jihadist organisation`s main stronghold in the country, for months.
They recently retook key positions around Qayyarah, a town some 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul, setting the stage for a final push on IS` northern bastion.
Abadi did not provide details of the military operations launched overnight.
Mosul and its surroundings cover a vast area and the various -- sometimes rival -- forces involved have some distance to cover before they can enter the city proper.
The premier vowed that only government forces would enter Mosul, a Sunni-majority city that IS seized with relative ease in June 2014 partly because of deep local resentment towards Shiite-dominated security forces.
"The force leading liberation operations is the brave Iraqi army with the national police and they are the ones that will enter Mosul, not others," Abadi said.
The Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary organisation, which is dominated by Tehran-backed militia groups, has made clear it wants to take part in the Mosul operation.
Kurdish peshmerga forces have been moving in from the eastern side of the city while a US-led coalition is also providing support in the air and on the ground.
AFP
First Published: Monday, October 17, 2016 - 04:37
Last Updated: Monday, October 17, 2016 - 06:41
Baghdad: Operations to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group have begun, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced early Monday on state television.
"The time of victory has come and operations to liberate Mosul have started," he said in an address broadcast by the Iraqiya channel.
"Today I declare the start of these victorious operations to free you from the violence and terrorism of Daesh (IS)," he said, addressing residents of the Mosul region.
Abadi, the commander-in-chief of Iraq`s armed forces, was surrounded by top federal officers as he read his statement.
Iraqi federal and allied forces have been tightening the noose on Mosul, the jihadist organisation`s main stronghold in the country, for months.
They recently retook key positions around Qayyarah, a town some 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul, setting the stage for a final push on IS` northern bastion.
Abadi did not provide details of the military operations launched overnight.
Mosul and its surroundings cover a vast area and the various -- sometimes rival -- forces involved have some distance to cover before they can enter the city proper.
The premier vowed that only government forces would enter Mosul, a Sunni-majority city that IS seized with relative ease in June 2014 partly because of deep local resentment towards Shiite-dominated security forces.
"The force leading liberation operations is the brave Iraqi army with the national police and they are the ones that will enter Mosul, not others," Abadi said.
The Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary organisation, which is dominated by Tehran-backed militia groups, has made clear it wants to take part in the Mosul operation.
Kurdish peshmerga forces have been moving in from the eastern side of the city while a US-led coalition is also providing support in the air and on the ground.
AFP
First Published: Monday, October 17, 2016 - 04:37
Hindustani78
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Reuters / Sunday, October 16, 2016
Peshmerga forces gather on the east of Mosul during preparations to attack Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
Reuters / Monday, October 17, 2016
Peshmerga forces gather in the east of Mosul to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
Peshmerga forces gather on the east of Mosul during preparations to attack Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
Reuters / Monday, October 17, 2016
Peshmerga forces gather in the east of Mosul to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari
Banglar Bir
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Hindustani78
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Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces gather ahead of an operation to re-take the Islamic State-held City of Mosul, outside Irbil, Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of military operations to liberate the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants. (Source: AP Photo)
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Baghdad: Iraqi security forces on Monday recaptured nine villages from the Islamic State militant group as part of a major offensive aimed at liberating the city of Mosul, the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, security sources said.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces began their advance after midnight from their positions in Khazer area, some 40 km east of Mosul, toward Nineveh's provincial capital of Mosul, and managed to recapture the nine villages after the IS militants abandoned their positions, Xinhua quoted a a security source as saying.
The Iraqi army, Peshmerga forces and allied paramilitary Sunni and Shia Hashd Shaabi units have been advancing gradually from four directions after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the launch of the long-awaited offensive to free Mosul from the IS, the source said.
The joint forces, backed by the international and Iraqi air cover, continued their advance during the day to free many areas around Mosul, including the towns of Bashiqa and Himdaniyah, the source said.
Nawfal Hammadi al-Sultan, Governor of Nineveh province, appealed to the people of Mosul to stay inside their homes and cooperate with the security forces.
Sultan demanded that the residents stay away from the IS headquarters and their positions to avoid civilian casualties.
In the early hours of the day, al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced the beginning of a major offensive to retake the country's second largest city from the extremist group.
"I declare the launch of the operation of liberating Nineveh province. The time of victory has come, and the moment of the great victory is approaching," Abadi said.Abadi said.
Abadi pledged to rebuild Mosul and other towns in Nineveh after they were destroyed by the IS, and vowed to bring stability.
"Very soon, we will be with you to raise the flag of Iraq in the middle of Mosul, and in towns and villages as well," Abadi said, calling on the people of Mosul to cooperate with security forces to defeat the IS.
Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling the IS militants to take control of parts of the country's northern and western regions.
IANS
Kurdish Peshmerga forces began their advance after midnight from their positions in Khazer area, some 40 km east of Mosul, toward Nineveh's provincial capital of Mosul, and managed to recapture the nine villages after the IS militants abandoned their positions, Xinhua quoted a a security source as saying.
The Iraqi army, Peshmerga forces and allied paramilitary Sunni and Shia Hashd Shaabi units have been advancing gradually from four directions after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the launch of the long-awaited offensive to free Mosul from the IS, the source said.
The joint forces, backed by the international and Iraqi air cover, continued their advance during the day to free many areas around Mosul, including the towns of Bashiqa and Himdaniyah, the source said.
Nawfal Hammadi al-Sultan, Governor of Nineveh province, appealed to the people of Mosul to stay inside their homes and cooperate with the security forces.
Sultan demanded that the residents stay away from the IS headquarters and their positions to avoid civilian casualties.
In the early hours of the day, al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, announced the beginning of a major offensive to retake the country's second largest city from the extremist group.
"I declare the launch of the operation of liberating Nineveh province. The time of victory has come, and the moment of the great victory is approaching," Abadi said.Abadi said.
Abadi pledged to rebuild Mosul and other towns in Nineveh after they were destroyed by the IS, and vowed to bring stability.
"Very soon, we will be with you to raise the flag of Iraq in the middle of Mosul, and in towns and villages as well," Abadi said, calling on the people of Mosul to cooperate with security forces to defeat the IS.
Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when Iraqi government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling the IS militants to take control of parts of the country's northern and western regions.
IANS
Banglar Bir
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Media Blacks Out Pentagon Report Exposing U.S. Role In ISIS Creation
The report proved that the growth and expansion of ISIS was a direct result of arms being sent by the U.S. to anti-Assad Islamists, with the strategic U.S. intention of toppling the Assad regime in Syria.
By Jay Syrmopoulos | The Free Thought Project
In a story reverberating across the world, last week award winning journalist and scholar Dr. Nafeez Ahmed exposed startling information about U.S. complicity in the creation and rise of ISIS, as contained in a recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report.
Pentagon report says West, Gulf states and Turkey foresaw emergence of ‘IS’
# Islamic State
A US intelligence report reveals that Western support for Syria’s rebels aided and abetted the rise of the ‘Islamic State’ - and the Pentagon won’t deny it
A newly declassified Pentagon report provides startling high-level confirmation that the US-led strategy in Syria contributed directly to the rise of the Islamic State (IS).
The secret US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document, obtained by Washington DC law firm Judicial Watch, reveals that the emergence of an “Islamic State” across Iraq and Syria was foreseen by the Pentagon, as early as three years ago.
According to the internal report, which was distributed throughout the US intelligence community, this was seen as a likely consequence of the West’s efforts to destabilise Bashir al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
Despite that, Western governments continued to coordinate financial, military and logistical support to largely Islamist militant rebel groups in Syria, through allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Turkey, among others.
A sectarian insurgency
Dated August 2012, the report states that the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” comprise “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq].”
Immediately after, the document states that these forces are being supported by a Western-led coalition: “The West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition.”
Throughout, the document does not suggest a distinction between "moderate" Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels and Islamist militant groups, nor between the insurgency and the opposition.
Rather, the document shows that opposition forces engaged in fighting the Assad regime consisted of a combination of overlapping Islamist forces. Singling out al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the document says the terror group “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning” due to its belief that Assad was “targeting Sunnis”.
The report further describes the insurgency as a “sectarian uprising,” whose increasingly sectarian character attracts “volunteers” from across the region to “support the Sunnis in Syria”.
In the same month the DIA report was written, the BBC, Associated Press and other news outlets reported increasing incidents of sectarian atrocities against Shia civilians by FSA rebels, demonstrating the FSA’s growing penetration by sectarian Islamist groups.
In his recent blog post, however, Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole denies that the document says the US “created” sectarian groups in Syria. This is beside the point – the document affirms that despite awareness of the increasingly “sectarian direction” of an insurgency driven significantly by al-Qaeda, the US and its allies still supported it.
Western backing for al-Qaeda
Earlier the same year, CIA officials were in southern Turkey overseeing the supply of Turkish, Saudi and Qatari-financed weapons to purportedly "moderate" rebels. The CIA was “helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters” would receive arms.
By the following year, defence consultancy IHS Jane concluded based on Western intelligence estimates that nearly half of all Syrian rebels were Islamist jihadists, who shared al-Qaeda’s outlook except for being focused on the Syrian conflict.
Cole scoffs at the idea that the US would “support al-Qaeda linked groups” – and that the DIA document might internally acknowledge the same.
Yet that is exactly what the West’s allies – the Gulf states and Turkey – were doing, under the close supervision of the CIA and MI6.
In 2014, a senior Qatari official revealed that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had for years provided economic and military assistance primarily to al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra, and to the IS precursor, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Prosecutor and witness testimony in court documents showed that in the same period, Turkey’s state intelligence agency (MIT) was supplying weapons by truck to al-Qaeda and ISIS-controlled rebel areas in Syria.
Such Saudi, Qatari and Turkish support for al-Qaeda and ISIS was not news to US intelligence. Back in late 2012, classified US intelligence assessments made available to President Obama and senior policymakers showed that most Saudi and Qatari arms went to “hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups”.
And despite official declarations of being able to certify support to "moderates" as opposed to extremists, last year the State Department was unable to identify a single "moderate" rebel group in receipt of Western support.
The failure of secular rebel groups “to secure regular arms supplies,” reported the New York Times “has allowed Islamists to fill the void and win supporters”. Consequently, rebel-held areas across Syria were “dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics,” who want to “infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government”.
The strategy allowed Islamist militants to hijack the grassroots Syrian revolution and crushed all prospects of an inclusive, democratically elected government.
Who wanted a ‘Salafist Principality’?
By early 2013, al-Qaeda had taken control of Syrian government oil fields in Hasaka and Deir Ezzor, today the de facto IS capital.
The August 2012 DIA document reveals that the Pentagon anticipated this outcome, and spurred it forward. Noting that “the opposition forces are trying to control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Deir Ezzor),” the document observed how “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey is supporting these efforts”.
The report warned explicitly that a rebel conquest of Hasaka and Deir Ezzor would likely spawn a militant Islamist political entity in eastern Syria:
“If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasak and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”
This extraordinary passage confirms that at least three years ago, the Pentagon anticipated the rise of a “Salafist Principality” as a direct consequence of its Syria strategy – and that the “supporting powers” behind the rebels “wanted” this outcome “to isolate the Syrian regime,” and weaken Shiite influence via Iraq and Iran.
Who were the “supporting powers?” According to Juan Cole, this refers to “those powers (e.g. Turkey and the Gulf monarchies) supporting the opposition.” He adds: “It doesn’t say the US or ‘the West’ wanted to see such a thing.”
This is a selective, and false, reading. Cole ignores that the sentences of the report mentioning Turkey and the Gulf States as “supporting powers,” all begin with “the West”:
“The West, the Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition.”
And three paragraphs before the mention of a “Salafist Principality”: “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts.”
The clear import of this precise language in the DIA report is that the “West, the Gulf countries, and Turkey” were not acting in isolation, but as a single coalition under Western leadership.
Similarly, Robert Barsocchini speculates that “supporting powers” might refer to al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, the US intelligence community does not classify AQI or any other non-state terrorist network as a “power”.
The use of the plural, “supporting powers,” clarifies that the reference is to a group of powers supporting the rebels, not just one entity like AQI.
Barsocchini, like Cole, also suggests that Western governments would not admit to wanting a "Salafist Principality," even privately. This is incorrect. Declassified files since World War II prove that Western governments frequently and privately admit to cultivating Islamist extremism for geopolitical reasons.
In summary, the Pentagon report is absolutely clear that the West, the Gulf states and Turkey were supporting the Syrian opposition to attain a common goal: the emergence of a “Salafist” political entity in eastern Syria that would help “isolate” Assad.
Anticipating ISIS
The Pentagon document cautioned that if such an Islamist entity did appear in eastern Syria, it could have “dire consequences” for Iraq, providing “the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi,” and a “renewed momentum” for a unified jihad “among Sunni Iraq and Syria”.
Most strikingly, the report warned:
“ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”
So in 2012, the US intelligence community knew that an al-Qaeda victory over Hasaka and Deir al-Zour would likely facilitate the installation of an Islamist-Salafist entity, that its own allies - at least - wanted exactly that outcome, and that this outcome would create “the ideal atmosphere” for “AQI” and “ISI” to expand and even “declare an Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria, that could fracture Iraq.
Subsidising ISIS
So what did the Pentagon do in response to this information?
It escalated the strategy.
Even assuming the validity of Cole’s unilateral redaction of “the West” from the “supporting powers” behind the rebels, the implication is unchanged: in 2012, the Pentagon knew that its own allies, who were supplying arms to the rebels with CIA approval, wanted to see the emergence of an Islamist-Salafist political structure in eastern Syria.
Despite this, and despite ongoing intelligence updates proving that their allies were not funding "moderates" – instead supporting their favoured Islamist terrorists – US and European intelligence advisers on the ground simply continued on the same course.
No sooner had al-Qaeda and ISIS rebels conquered the eastern Syrian oil fields in Hasaka and Deir Ezzor in April 2013, they received direct Western financial support: the European Union voted to ease an embargo on Syria to allow the oil to be sold on international markets to European companies, with transactions approved by the FSA’s political overseers, the Syrian National Coalition.
“The logical conclusion from this craziness is that Europe will be funding al-Qaeda,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
Unsurprisingly, these al-Qaeda and ISIS inspired rebels supported by the Western-led coalition had an authoritarian theocratic agenda, distinct from the “many civilian activists, protesters and aid workers who had hoped the uprising would create a civil, democratic Syria.”
By September 2014, the EU’s ambassador to Iraq, Jana Hybaskova, complained to the Foreign Affairs Committee that “several EU member states have bought oil from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organisation that has been brutally conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria”.
So from early 2013 to late 2014, the West was bankrolling the jihadist-run "Salafist Principality" in eastern Syria through oil imports, fully cognizant that this entity posed a “grave danger” of galvanizing the rise of an Islamic State across Iraq and Syria.
The Pentagon cannot pretend it didn’t know the consequence of its strategy. Indeed, it doesn’t.
When asked repeatedly by journalist and ex-US marine Brad Hoff to dispel claims that the West aligned itself with IS or ISIS at some point in Syria, the DIA’s official response was telling: “No comment.”
- Nafeez Ahmed PhD is an investigative journalist, international security scholar and bestselling author who tracks what he calls the 'crisis of civilization.' He is a winner of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian reporting on the intersection of global ecological, energy and economic crises with regional geopolitics and conflicts. He has also written for The Independent, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, New Internationalist. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
The report proved that the growth and expansion of ISIS was a direct result of arms being sent by the U.S. to anti-Assad Islamists, with the strategic U.S. intention of toppling the Assad regime in Syria.
By Jay Syrmopoulos | The Free Thought Project
In a story reverberating across the world, last week award winning journalist and scholar Dr. Nafeez Ahmed exposed startling information about U.S. complicity in the creation and rise of ISIS, as contained in a recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report.
Pentagon report says West, Gulf states and Turkey foresaw emergence of ‘IS’
# Islamic State
A US intelligence report reveals that Western support for Syria’s rebels aided and abetted the rise of the ‘Islamic State’ - and the Pentagon won’t deny it
A newly declassified Pentagon report provides startling high-level confirmation that the US-led strategy in Syria contributed directly to the rise of the Islamic State (IS).
The secret US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document, obtained by Washington DC law firm Judicial Watch, reveals that the emergence of an “Islamic State” across Iraq and Syria was foreseen by the Pentagon, as early as three years ago.
According to the internal report, which was distributed throughout the US intelligence community, this was seen as a likely consequence of the West’s efforts to destabilise Bashir al-Assad’s regime in Syria.
Despite that, Western governments continued to coordinate financial, military and logistical support to largely Islamist militant rebel groups in Syria, through allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and Turkey, among others.
A sectarian insurgency
Dated August 2012, the report states that the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” comprise “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq].”
Immediately after, the document states that these forces are being supported by a Western-led coalition: “The West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition.”
Throughout, the document does not suggest a distinction between "moderate" Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels and Islamist militant groups, nor between the insurgency and the opposition.
Rather, the document shows that opposition forces engaged in fighting the Assad regime consisted of a combination of overlapping Islamist forces. Singling out al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the document says the terror group “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning” due to its belief that Assad was “targeting Sunnis”.
The report further describes the insurgency as a “sectarian uprising,” whose increasingly sectarian character attracts “volunteers” from across the region to “support the Sunnis in Syria”.
In the same month the DIA report was written, the BBC, Associated Press and other news outlets reported increasing incidents of sectarian atrocities against Shia civilians by FSA rebels, demonstrating the FSA’s growing penetration by sectarian Islamist groups.
In his recent blog post, however, Middle East expert Professor Juan Cole denies that the document says the US “created” sectarian groups in Syria. This is beside the point – the document affirms that despite awareness of the increasingly “sectarian direction” of an insurgency driven significantly by al-Qaeda, the US and its allies still supported it.
Western backing for al-Qaeda
Earlier the same year, CIA officials were in southern Turkey overseeing the supply of Turkish, Saudi and Qatari-financed weapons to purportedly "moderate" rebels. The CIA was “helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters” would receive arms.
By the following year, defence consultancy IHS Jane concluded based on Western intelligence estimates that nearly half of all Syrian rebels were Islamist jihadists, who shared al-Qaeda’s outlook except for being focused on the Syrian conflict.
Cole scoffs at the idea that the US would “support al-Qaeda linked groups” – and that the DIA document might internally acknowledge the same.
Yet that is exactly what the West’s allies – the Gulf states and Turkey – were doing, under the close supervision of the CIA and MI6.
In 2014, a senior Qatari official revealed that Qatar and Saudi Arabia had for years provided economic and military assistance primarily to al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra, and to the IS precursor, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Prosecutor and witness testimony in court documents showed that in the same period, Turkey’s state intelligence agency (MIT) was supplying weapons by truck to al-Qaeda and ISIS-controlled rebel areas in Syria.
Such Saudi, Qatari and Turkish support for al-Qaeda and ISIS was not news to US intelligence. Back in late 2012, classified US intelligence assessments made available to President Obama and senior policymakers showed that most Saudi and Qatari arms went to “hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups”.
And despite official declarations of being able to certify support to "moderates" as opposed to extremists, last year the State Department was unable to identify a single "moderate" rebel group in receipt of Western support.
The failure of secular rebel groups “to secure regular arms supplies,” reported the New York Times “has allowed Islamists to fill the void and win supporters”. Consequently, rebel-held areas across Syria were “dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics,” who want to “infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government”.
The strategy allowed Islamist militants to hijack the grassroots Syrian revolution and crushed all prospects of an inclusive, democratically elected government.
Who wanted a ‘Salafist Principality’?
By early 2013, al-Qaeda had taken control of Syrian government oil fields in Hasaka and Deir Ezzor, today the de facto IS capital.
The August 2012 DIA document reveals that the Pentagon anticipated this outcome, and spurred it forward. Noting that “the opposition forces are trying to control the eastern areas (Hasaka and Deir Ezzor),” the document observed how “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey is supporting these efforts”.
The report warned explicitly that a rebel conquest of Hasaka and Deir Ezzor would likely spawn a militant Islamist political entity in eastern Syria:
“If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasak and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”
This extraordinary passage confirms that at least three years ago, the Pentagon anticipated the rise of a “Salafist Principality” as a direct consequence of its Syria strategy – and that the “supporting powers” behind the rebels “wanted” this outcome “to isolate the Syrian regime,” and weaken Shiite influence via Iraq and Iran.
Who were the “supporting powers?” According to Juan Cole, this refers to “those powers (e.g. Turkey and the Gulf monarchies) supporting the opposition.” He adds: “It doesn’t say the US or ‘the West’ wanted to see such a thing.”
This is a selective, and false, reading. Cole ignores that the sentences of the report mentioning Turkey and the Gulf States as “supporting powers,” all begin with “the West”:
“The West, the Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition.”
And three paragraphs before the mention of a “Salafist Principality”: “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey are supporting these efforts.”
The clear import of this precise language in the DIA report is that the “West, the Gulf countries, and Turkey” were not acting in isolation, but as a single coalition under Western leadership.
Similarly, Robert Barsocchini speculates that “supporting powers” might refer to al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, the US intelligence community does not classify AQI or any other non-state terrorist network as a “power”.
The use of the plural, “supporting powers,” clarifies that the reference is to a group of powers supporting the rebels, not just one entity like AQI.
Barsocchini, like Cole, also suggests that Western governments would not admit to wanting a "Salafist Principality," even privately. This is incorrect. Declassified files since World War II prove that Western governments frequently and privately admit to cultivating Islamist extremism for geopolitical reasons.
In summary, the Pentagon report is absolutely clear that the West, the Gulf states and Turkey were supporting the Syrian opposition to attain a common goal: the emergence of a “Salafist” political entity in eastern Syria that would help “isolate” Assad.
Anticipating ISIS
The Pentagon document cautioned that if such an Islamist entity did appear in eastern Syria, it could have “dire consequences” for Iraq, providing “the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi,” and a “renewed momentum” for a unified jihad “among Sunni Iraq and Syria”.
Most strikingly, the report warned:
“ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”
So in 2012, the US intelligence community knew that an al-Qaeda victory over Hasaka and Deir al-Zour would likely facilitate the installation of an Islamist-Salafist entity, that its own allies - at least - wanted exactly that outcome, and that this outcome would create “the ideal atmosphere” for “AQI” and “ISI” to expand and even “declare an Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria, that could fracture Iraq.
Subsidising ISIS
So what did the Pentagon do in response to this information?
It escalated the strategy.
Even assuming the validity of Cole’s unilateral redaction of “the West” from the “supporting powers” behind the rebels, the implication is unchanged: in 2012, the Pentagon knew that its own allies, who were supplying arms to the rebels with CIA approval, wanted to see the emergence of an Islamist-Salafist political structure in eastern Syria.
Despite this, and despite ongoing intelligence updates proving that their allies were not funding "moderates" – instead supporting their favoured Islamist terrorists – US and European intelligence advisers on the ground simply continued on the same course.
No sooner had al-Qaeda and ISIS rebels conquered the eastern Syrian oil fields in Hasaka and Deir Ezzor in April 2013, they received direct Western financial support: the European Union voted to ease an embargo on Syria to allow the oil to be sold on international markets to European companies, with transactions approved by the FSA’s political overseers, the Syrian National Coalition.
“The logical conclusion from this craziness is that Europe will be funding al-Qaeda,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma.
Unsurprisingly, these al-Qaeda and ISIS inspired rebels supported by the Western-led coalition had an authoritarian theocratic agenda, distinct from the “many civilian activists, protesters and aid workers who had hoped the uprising would create a civil, democratic Syria.”
By September 2014, the EU’s ambassador to Iraq, Jana Hybaskova, complained to the Foreign Affairs Committee that “several EU member states have bought oil from the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorist organisation that has been brutally conquering large portions of Iraq and Syria”.
So from early 2013 to late 2014, the West was bankrolling the jihadist-run "Salafist Principality" in eastern Syria through oil imports, fully cognizant that this entity posed a “grave danger” of galvanizing the rise of an Islamic State across Iraq and Syria.
The Pentagon cannot pretend it didn’t know the consequence of its strategy. Indeed, it doesn’t.
When asked repeatedly by journalist and ex-US marine Brad Hoff to dispel claims that the West aligned itself with IS or ISIS at some point in Syria, the DIA’s official response was telling: “No comment.”
- Nafeez Ahmed PhD is an investigative journalist, international security scholar and bestselling author who tracks what he calls the 'crisis of civilization.' He is a winner of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian reporting on the intersection of global ecological, energy and economic crises with regional geopolitics and conflicts. He has also written for The Independent, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, New Internationalist. His work on the root causes and covert operations linked to international terrorism officially contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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A peshmerga convoy drives towards a frontline in Khazer, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Mosul, Iraq.
Peshmerga forces advance in the east of Mosul to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq on Monday
Mosul has been under IS rule for more than two years and is still home to more than a million civilians according to U.N. estimates.
Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition air and ground support, launched coordinated military operations early on Monday as the long-awaited fight to wrest the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters got underway.
Convoys of Iraqi, Kurdish and U.S. forces could be seen moving east of Mosul into the early hours of the day. Along the front line, U.S.-led coalition airstrikes sent plumes of smokes into the air and heavy artillery rounds could be heard.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operations on state television, launching the country on its toughest battle since American troops left nearly five years ago.
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has been under IS rule for more than two years and is still home to more than a million civilians according to U.N. estimates.
“These forces that are liberating you today, they have one goal in Mosul which is to get rid of Daesh and to secure your dignity. They are there for your sake,” al-Abadi said, addressing the city’s residents and using the Arabic language acronym for the Islamic State group.
“God willing, we shall win,” he added, dressed in the uniform of the elite counterterrorism forces and flanked by military commanders.
The push to retake Mosul will be the biggest military operation in Iraq since American troops left in 2011 and, if successful, the strongest blow yet to the Islamic State. A statement on Al—Abadi’s website pledged the fight for the city would lead to the liberation of all Iraqi territory from the militants this year.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the launch of the operation to liberate Mosul “a decisive moment in the campaign” to deliver a lasting defeat to IS. He said the U.S. and other members of the international coalition stand ready to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
Iraqi forces have been massing around the city in recent days, including elite special forces that are expected to lead the charge into the city, as well as Kurdish forces, Sunni tribal fighters, federal police and Shiite militia forces.
South of Mosul, Iraqi military units are based at the sprawling Qayara air base, but to the city’s east, men are camped out in abandoned homes as the tens of thousands of troops massed around the city have overwhelmed the few military bases in the area.
Kurdish forces are stationed to the north and east of Mosul, a mostly Sunni city that has long been a center of insurgent activity and anti-central government sentiment after the U.S.—led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraqi officials have warned that the Mosul operation has been rushed before a political agreement has been set for how the city will be governed after IS.
Lt. Col. Amozhgar Taher with Iraq’s Kurdish forces, also known as the peshmerga, said his men would only move to retake a cluster of mostly Christian and Shabak villages east of Mosul and would not enter the city itself due to their concern for “sectarian sensitivities.”
“To eliminate the threat we must eliminate (IS) from Mosul,” Taher said at a makeshift base in an abandoned house along the frontline some 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Mosul.
The city fell to IS fighters during the militants’ June 2014 blitz that left nearly a third of Iraq in the extremists’ hands and plunged the country into its most severe crisis since the U.S-led invasion. After seizing Mosul, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi visited the city to declare an Islamic caliphate that at one point covered nearly a third of Iraq and Syria.
But since late last year, the militants have suffered battlefield losses in Iraq and their power in the country has largely shrunk to Mosul and small towns in the country’s north and west. Mosul is about 360 kilometers northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
The operation to retake Mosul is expected to be the most complex yet for Iraq’s military, which has been rebuilding from its humiliating 2014 defeat.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement that the operation to regain control of Mosul could take “weeks, possibly longer.”
Earlier, Iraqi Brig. Gen Haider Fadhil told The Associated Press in an interview that more than 25,000 troops, including paramilitary forces made up of Sunni tribal fighters and Shiite militias, will take part in the offensive that will be launched from five directions around the city.
The role of the Shiite militias has been particularly sensitive, as Nineveh, where Mosul is located, is a majority Sunni province and Shiite militia forces have been accused of carrying out abuses against civilians in other operations in majority Sunni parts of Iraq.
Fadhil voiced concern about potential action from Turkish troops based in the region of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul. Turkey sent troops to the area late last year to train anti—IS fighters there. But Baghdad has seen the Turkish presence as a “blatant violation” of Iraqi sovereignty and has demanded the Turkish troops withdraw, a call Ankara has ignored.
Military operations are also predicted to displace 200,000 to a million people, according to the United Nations. Just a few kilometers from the eastern front line, rows of empty camps for displaced civilians line the road, but aid groups say they only have enough space for some 100,000 people.
“It is the future of Iraq at stake,” said Aleksandar Milutinovic, the Iraq country director for the International Rescue Committee. He stressed that the population of Mosul is not all supporters of IS, “they’re just people who had no other opportunity or a place to go” and urged Iraqi forces to “show will and a very serious commitment to protecting civilians and ensuring their wellbeing.”
In the midst of a deep financial crisis, the Iraqi government says it lacks the funds to adequately prepare for the humanitarian fallout of the Mosul fight. In some cases commanders say they are encouraging civilians to stay in their homes rather than flee.
“While we may be celebrating a military victory (after the Mosul operation is complete),” said Falah Mustafa, the foreign minister for Iraq’s Kurdish region, “we don’t want to have also created a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Iraqi forces are deployed during an offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants outside Mosul. (Photo: AP)
A U.S army soldier stands with his weapon at a military base in the Makhmour area near Mosul during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, October 18, 2016. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
Peshmerga forces advance in the east of Mosul to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq on Monday
Mosul has been under IS rule for more than two years and is still home to more than a million civilians according to U.N. estimates.
Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition air and ground support, launched coordinated military operations early on Monday as the long-awaited fight to wrest the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters got underway.
Convoys of Iraqi, Kurdish and U.S. forces could be seen moving east of Mosul into the early hours of the day. Along the front line, U.S.-led coalition airstrikes sent plumes of smokes into the air and heavy artillery rounds could be heard.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operations on state television, launching the country on its toughest battle since American troops left nearly five years ago.
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has been under IS rule for more than two years and is still home to more than a million civilians according to U.N. estimates.
“These forces that are liberating you today, they have one goal in Mosul which is to get rid of Daesh and to secure your dignity. They are there for your sake,” al-Abadi said, addressing the city’s residents and using the Arabic language acronym for the Islamic State group.
“God willing, we shall win,” he added, dressed in the uniform of the elite counterterrorism forces and flanked by military commanders.
The push to retake Mosul will be the biggest military operation in Iraq since American troops left in 2011 and, if successful, the strongest blow yet to the Islamic State. A statement on Al—Abadi’s website pledged the fight for the city would lead to the liberation of all Iraqi territory from the militants this year.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the launch of the operation to liberate Mosul “a decisive moment in the campaign” to deliver a lasting defeat to IS. He said the U.S. and other members of the international coalition stand ready to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
Iraqi forces have been massing around the city in recent days, including elite special forces that are expected to lead the charge into the city, as well as Kurdish forces, Sunni tribal fighters, federal police and Shiite militia forces.
South of Mosul, Iraqi military units are based at the sprawling Qayara air base, but to the city’s east, men are camped out in abandoned homes as the tens of thousands of troops massed around the city have overwhelmed the few military bases in the area.
Kurdish forces are stationed to the north and east of Mosul, a mostly Sunni city that has long been a center of insurgent activity and anti-central government sentiment after the U.S.—led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraqi officials have warned that the Mosul operation has been rushed before a political agreement has been set for how the city will be governed after IS.
Lt. Col. Amozhgar Taher with Iraq’s Kurdish forces, also known as the peshmerga, said his men would only move to retake a cluster of mostly Christian and Shabak villages east of Mosul and would not enter the city itself due to their concern for “sectarian sensitivities.”
“To eliminate the threat we must eliminate (IS) from Mosul,” Taher said at a makeshift base in an abandoned house along the frontline some 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Mosul.
The city fell to IS fighters during the militants’ June 2014 blitz that left nearly a third of Iraq in the extremists’ hands and plunged the country into its most severe crisis since the U.S-led invasion. After seizing Mosul, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi visited the city to declare an Islamic caliphate that at one point covered nearly a third of Iraq and Syria.
But since late last year, the militants have suffered battlefield losses in Iraq and their power in the country has largely shrunk to Mosul and small towns in the country’s north and west. Mosul is about 360 kilometers northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
The operation to retake Mosul is expected to be the most complex yet for Iraq’s military, which has been rebuilding from its humiliating 2014 defeat.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement that the operation to regain control of Mosul could take “weeks, possibly longer.”
Earlier, Iraqi Brig. Gen Haider Fadhil told The Associated Press in an interview that more than 25,000 troops, including paramilitary forces made up of Sunni tribal fighters and Shiite militias, will take part in the offensive that will be launched from five directions around the city.
The role of the Shiite militias has been particularly sensitive, as Nineveh, where Mosul is located, is a majority Sunni province and Shiite militia forces have been accused of carrying out abuses against civilians in other operations in majority Sunni parts of Iraq.
Fadhil voiced concern about potential action from Turkish troops based in the region of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul. Turkey sent troops to the area late last year to train anti—IS fighters there. But Baghdad has seen the Turkish presence as a “blatant violation” of Iraqi sovereignty and has demanded the Turkish troops withdraw, a call Ankara has ignored.
Military operations are also predicted to displace 200,000 to a million people, according to the United Nations. Just a few kilometers from the eastern front line, rows of empty camps for displaced civilians line the road, but aid groups say they only have enough space for some 100,000 people.
“It is the future of Iraq at stake,” said Aleksandar Milutinovic, the Iraq country director for the International Rescue Committee. He stressed that the population of Mosul is not all supporters of IS, “they’re just people who had no other opportunity or a place to go” and urged Iraqi forces to “show will and a very serious commitment to protecting civilians and ensuring their wellbeing.”
In the midst of a deep financial crisis, the Iraqi government says it lacks the funds to adequately prepare for the humanitarian fallout of the Mosul fight. In some cases commanders say they are encouraging civilians to stay in their homes rather than flee.
“While we may be celebrating a military victory (after the Mosul operation is complete),” said Falah Mustafa, the foreign minister for Iraq’s Kurdish region, “we don’t want to have also created a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Iraqi forces are deployed during an offensive to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants outside Mosul. (Photo: AP)
A U.S army soldier stands with his weapon at a military base in the Makhmour area near Mosul during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, October 18, 2016. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
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