Category: Terror War

Last year we mentioned Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, the commander of Tajikistan’s special forces who defected to ISIS. According to him, he was trained by US Special Forces to be a sniper before his defection. According to the Australian News, Khalimov has been named as the Minister of War for the Islamic State;

“The Tajik has been appointed as the successor to the dead terrorist Tarhan Batirashvili who (was) also known as Abu Omar al-Shishani (Omar the Chechen)”, the Iraqi News reported, citing an unnamed Iraqi security source.

“The Tajik Golmurud Khalimov was elected as the first military commander in ISIS. The organisation did not announce it officially because it fears that once mentioned, there might be a series of air strikes against them.”

According to the article, Khalimov was trained by the State Department;

In a chilling 10-minute address, Khalimov revealed the extent of his experience, which included participating in five counter-terrorism training courses in the US and Tajikstan between 2003 and 2014.

The courses were organised by the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program. Part of the training, according to the Tajik commander, was conducted by the private American military consultancy previously known as Blackwater.

Khalimov also revealed in the video that he had taken part in numerous secret training sessions in Russia during his reign as police chief.

Well, that was money well-spent.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and medical folks have told Associated Press reporters that Syrian government and Russian jets have dropped chlorine gas on civilians in Aleppo, Syria earlier this week. They say that ten people were killed and 70 have been treated for breathing difficulties.

Accusations involving the use of chlorine and other poisonous gases are not uncommon in Syria’s civil war. The report could not be independently verified and it was not clear how it was determined that chlorine gas was released.

It seems to me that, if these attacks were real, it crosses over some sort of “red line” or something.

[W]hen the administration suspected that the Assad regime was contemplating the use of chemical weapons, Obama had declared: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime…that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

That was three years ago and not an election year, though. But, hey, these reports are common, too common to check out every one – despite any goofy red line.

Former Guantanamo detainee, Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Diyab AKA Abu Wa’el Dhiab staged a hunger strike when he was in the detainee camp. Medical officials were concerned that he would die of starvation, so he was sent to Uruguay two years ago with a couple of other fellow detainees. He absconded from Uruguay earlier this year and before he was found in Venezuela this month, international police were worried he’d turn up at the Olympics with bomber’s vest.

The Venezuelans sent him back to Uruguay and since it worked the first time for him, he’s threatening another hunger strike if we don’t let him leave Uruguay, according to the Washington Post;

[Christian] Mirza has acted as the Uruguayan government’s liaison with Dhiab and five other former Guantanamo detainees who were resettled here and said Dhiab told him of his plans to launch a hunger strike.

[…]

The Uruguayan government has provided social services and financial support. But the men have struggled to adjust, and complained about not getting enough help from Uruguayan officials.

Dhiab, who suffers health problems related to his hunger strikes and forced feedings while in captivity, has been the most vocal about his unhappiness. Shortly after arriving in Uruguay, he called a press conference to complain that the government needed a better resettlement plan.

Yeah, well, we can always put him back in Guantanamo if he doesn’t like Uruguay. He claims that he wants to go home – his home is Syria where he’s been tried in absentia and sentenced to death, so I’m guessing that he’s referring to somewhere else besides his actual home. Somewhere else he can pick up being an international thug where he left off.

The Washington Times reports that Generals James “Mad Dog” Mattis and Anthony Zinni were asked by Time Magazine for their opinions on the President’s war against the Islamic State. They were characteristically blunt;

Mr. Mattis, who led U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013, told the publication that Mr. Obama’s efforts are “unguided by a sustained policy or sound strategy [and] replete with half-measures.”

Mr. Zinni, who held the position from 1997 to 2000, was even more blunt.

“It’s a bad strategy, it’s the wrong strategy, and maybe I would tell the president that he would be better served to find somebody who believes in it, whoever that idiot may be,” the former four-star general told the magazine.

The whole Time article is here. The article, also characteristically for Time Magazine, makes excuses for the president by blaming the Syrian Civil War, the Iraqis and anything else they can find to distract us from the fact that this administration, while admitting that our involvement in Iraq and Syria are inevitable, are avoiding to take a lead or make any real commitment to winning the war.

All this, rightly or wrongly, has tied U.S. hands. “There is no political will in the White House to even listen to serious recommendations from military commands,” says Derek Harvey, a retired Army military-intelligence colonel who spent much of his career in Iraq. “The original strategy explained by the President was barely adequate and even that was not resourced or executed well.”