Category: Terror War

While we all anxiously await the President’s strategy for his war against ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State he’ll announce later today, aircraft in Iraq has been pounding targets. Of course, by pounding, I mean it in the manner of this administration, not in the manner of the last administration. From AFP;

American fighter jets, attack and drone aircraft conducted five bombing raids on Monday and Tuesday near the massive Haditha Dam in Anbar province, said the US Central Command, which oversees forces in the region.

The US military said the strikes were in “support of Iraqi Security Forces and Sunni tribes protecting the Haditha Dam” against militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS).

The bombing “destroyed or damaged” eight IS armed vehicles, including two that were “transporting anti-aircraft artillery,” five other vehicles and one transport vehicle, Central Command said.

Meanwhile, south of that scene, in Somalia, the insurgents there have threatened to repay the US for killing their leader with an airstrike, according to Reuters;

Al Shabaab made the threats late on Monday, hours after launching twin attacks inside Somalia against African peacekeepers and a government convoy. The death toll from those bombings rose to at least 18 on Tuesday, police said.

“Let our mujahideen (fighters) wait for good news. And let Obama wait for shocking news,” senior al Shabaab official, Fuad Mohamed Khalaf Shongole, said in a recorded message, promising to avenge the death of Ahmed Godane in a U.S. raid on Sept. 1.

They sound a little like Wickre and Wittgenfeld, don’t they? However the large number of Somali residents inside the US already should give us pause, especially since the government is doing little to keep them out when they return from their jihadist training.

The war in the middle east is complicated by the various groups and their confusing alliances. A group of al-Qaeda jihadists who have been fighting against the Islamic State report that their leader was killed along with 27 other leaders by a bomb, ostensibly placed by Islamic State crackpots, according to Reuters;

Ahrar al-Sham is a hardline Islamist group and part of the Islamic Front alliance that has been in armed conflict with the Islamic State group which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. It was at one point considered the strongest insurgent group in the Syrian civil war.

A statement posted on Ahrar al-Sham’s official Twitter feed said the blast had hit a meeting in Idlib province in northwest Syria and confirmed Hassan Aboud, the group’s leader, among at least 12 dead.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some 50 of the group’s leaders had been gathered at a house when the blast went off. Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said the blast had occurred inside the meeting.

So who are we supposed to cheer for in that incident. Personally, I’m on the bombs’ side.

But the President’s spokesmen say that he doesn’t intend to put any boots on the ground in Iraq, you know, even though there are indeed boots on the ground there, now.

Now the president doesn’t need approval from Congress to take action against ISIS, but he says that he’s going to wait for Congress to give him the “go-ahead”. I guess that’s how he’s going to vote “present” on this.

The folks at Vocativ send us a link to their latest article in which they claim that ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State has issued a death threat against folks who work for Twitter;

Twitter has been engaged in a prolonged game of whack-a-mole with ISIS, closing its accounts and those of similar organizations as they come to prominence, in an attempt to stifle their extremist propaganda and exhortations to violence. ISIS and other groups have consistently thwarted these efforts, now they’re going one step further, urging “lone wolf” actors to target Twitter employees.

So, I guess no one is safe from these animals. Just doing the world a favor gets you put on their hit list. The Tweets and the translations are at the link above.

Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washington Post which reports that the State Department is fighting fire with fire in the propaganda war.

“Welcome to ISIL-Land” generated news stories and negative comments on Twitter about its extremely violent content and mocking tone. YouTube requires viewers to be 21 to watch it.

[…]

The video that became prominent last week is one of several on a new State Department YouTube channel in English aimed at disaffected young Western Muslims who may be wowed by the Islamic State’s battlefield momentum. The countermessage is simple: These guys are lying to you, and if you go to Syria to fight Western oppression you’ll just end up killing innocent Muslims.

The 50-employee Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications is the State Department office behind the video. The organization was launched in 2011 to analyze and answer militant activity on social media and does most of its work in languages other than English.

The English-language YouTube channel was created in a rush in July as part of an expanded online message campaign following the fall of the strategic Iraqi city of Mosul to Islamic State militants, the senior State Department official said.

The same video was first posted in Arabic in July, and that version has more than 42,000 views on YouTube. The English-language version was also posted in July. It is part of a campaign called “Think Again, Turn Away,” that also tweets with the motto “some truths about terrorism.”

I guess the State Department hasn’t been paying attention; the brutality of ISIS/ISIL/The Islamic State is the big draw for young jihadists. They’re tired of the al Qaeda way of fighting wars and they want some new unbridled blood-drenched experience which IS offers. The fact that al Qaeda disowned IS should have been a hint.

And 42,000 viewers? Seriously? On a planet with 1.6 billion Muslims, they’ve reached 42 thousand? TAH gets more than 42 viewers in a slow week.

The United States understands that the lure of the Islamic State’s jihadist message is strong, and fueled by grievance and history that no quick online American answer can fully address, the senior State Department official said.

“So we poke holes in their narrative, try to turn the tables,” the official continued. “You’re not going to get a knockout blow.”

Poking holes in their narrative isn’t going to work either. See how I poked holes in the State Department’s narrative, but they won’t stop their counterproductive behavior, will they?

Carol Brown at American Thinker concurs.

The President told “Meet the Press” yesterday that he won’t put US boots on the ground and that the respective nations will have to do that portion, because it’s inevitable, according to the Washington Times;

America has to rely on local forces to not put too much strain on the U.S. military he said.

“We’ve got to have a more sustainable strategy, which mean the boots on the ground have to be Iraqi, and in Syria the boots on the ground have to be Syrian,” he said.

I’m sure the Syrians will get right on that. Especially since, a few months ago, the President was planning on bombing the Syrian government troops, now he’s telling them to do stuff to save his political ass. Besides, what does he think the Syrians have been doing these last few years? Somehow, he can anoint the Syrian government forces and they’ll fight harder or something?

Let be me clear, in no way do I want to advocate for US troops or contractors in Iraq. However, there comes a point of no return when that is the only answer. All of us saw this return to Iraq in our future from the time that our sole strategy in Iraq became withdrawal, when it was clear that this administration wanted to abandon Iraq so the end of our participation in the war could be a bumper sticker slogan for reelection. It was made more clear last January when ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State forces took Fallujah with barely a shot fired.

This administration promised support for the Iraqi government to help them defeat the Islamic State. No one was more surprised than me that the promised aid had not even left for Iraq when the Islamic State cut a wide swath across northern Iraq pointed at Baghdad in June. And, so here we are, three months after that eye-opener and the Obama Administration is still dithering.

The Obama White House talks out of both sides of their collective mouth – one official will tell us that IS is the most dangerous threat to the US since September 11th, 2001, across the Potomac River, another will tell us that it is no threat to Americans.

Today the President told the few viewers remaining on “Meet the Press” that he will have a major policy speech on IS come Wednesday, according to Yahoo News;

“Our goal should not be to think that we can occupy every country where there’s a terrorist organization,” Obama continued. “Our goal has to be to partner more effectively with governments that are committed to pushing back against the kind of extremism that [IS] represents.”

Obama said he is planning to outline the U.S. strategy on IS — also known as ISIS and ISIL — in an address to the nation on Wednesday, a day before the 13th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

“This is not going to be an announcement about U.S. ground troops,” Obama said. “What I’m going to be asking the American people to understand is, number one, this is a serious threat. Number two, we have the capacity to deal with it.”

The President says that his plan won’t include US forces on the ground in Iraq, but, the longer this dithering goes on, the less likely it is that US troops won’t be needed.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accused Obama of not “taking ISIS seriously,” saying the United States should strongly consider military action against the Islamic extremists.

“What we ought to have is a directed, concerted, overwhelming campaign to take them out,” Cruz said. “The focus should be Iraq, but the real focus should be taking out ISIS. Within Syria, it should not be our objective to try and resolve the civil war.”

There comes a point when we can’t back off from the use of US troops and if we haven’t crossed that point yet, it’s not too far into our future.

But, as with everything else in the last few years, I expect more dithering after this policy speech. It seems that by just tacking together pretty words into a microphone, well, this White House considers that the extent of their involvement in foreign affairs. I don’t think that the aircraft and ammunition which was promised to Iraq last February has even arrived yet. Even Iran thinks we’re not serious about fighting IS.

Stars & Stripes reports that the Obama Administration is contemplating using contractors as a way to get around putting US military in Iraq;

The U.S. Army Contracting Command posted a notice last month seeking contractors willing to work on an initial 12-month contract, who should be “cognizant of the goals of reducing tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and Sunni and Shias.”

They would focus on administration, force development, procurement and acquisition, contracting, training management, public affairs, logistics, personnel management, professional development, communications, planning and operations, infrastructure management, intelligence and executive development, the notice stated.

While it’s a better idea to put people over there who actually want to be there, I’m pretty sure that no one wants mercenaries representing our political interests around the world. It’s funny how all of the things that earned the last president derision from that sector is now being considered as policy. Given that Iraqis weren’t happy with some of the actions of contractors the last time, I’m sure it will be a tough sell to them, too.