Tag: ISIS

ISIS-K?

I see the Pentagon has given the media who in turn have given the American people a new term…a new enemy…..ISIS-K.

Has anyone explained this situation adequately?

So far all I have seen and heard is the use of the acronym….

I shall attempt to help my reader understand……

The ghastly bombings at Kabul airport Thursday resulting in the deaths of 12 U.S. Marines and as of this writing, 60 civilians, are the latest in a series of especially savage terrorist attacks reportedly by the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP), the local affiliate of the Islamic State of the Middle East. The growth of ISKP faces the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan with both a threat and an opportunity.

The threat is that ISKP will attract enough Taliban defectors and foreign fighters to cause serious instability and ruin the hopes of pragmatic Taliban leaders for economic development. The opportunity lies in the fact that ISKP are feared by every government in Afghanistan’s region, as well as the United States and Europe. This gives the Afghan Taliban the chance to attract support from all of these states in their fight against ISKP.

ISKP appeared in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan in 2014-15. It was founded not by Arabs sent from the Middle East (though some moved to Afghanistan later after the defeat of IS in Iraq and Syria) but by local figures and groups who adopted the name of the Islamic State to garner some of its prestige and to reflect their own international jihadi allegiance (just as previously, local groups in north Africa and elsewhere took the name of al- Qaida).

Since then, ISKP have emerged as a distinctly more ferocious and radical force than the mainstream Taliban, carrying out savage attacks on targets that in recent years the Taliban leadership have made a deliberate political decision to spare: especially schools, clinics and markets serving the Shia minority. The Taliban leadership have strongly condemned these attacks, although some analysts accuse the Taliban of benefiting from plausible deniability. In alliance with Pakistani terrorist groups, they have also conducted several major terrorist attacks within Pakistan.

Who are the Islamic State in Afghanistan?

Familiarize yourself for you will be hearing lots about this group in the coming weeks and months.

We have a new foe in the War on Terror….that should keep the funds flowing for awhile….and that is the purpose of these reports.

Look for more civilian deaths and destruction…..

And the band played on……

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Closing Thought–23Dec20

Some troubling news for the holidays……

I know we have not heard much from those barbaric pricks of AQ and ISIS….but a report is starting circulate that these groups could be planning something big for the holiday season….

Aimen Dean, a former Al Qaeda bombmaker turned spy for the U.K.’s MI6 spy agency, is warning that the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group is preparing a wave of attacks in Britain, France, and Germany ahead of Christmas.

Dean said ISIS commander Abu Omar al-Shishani is planning to send attackers to Europe through Turkey and across the Mediterranean from North Africa, The Daily Mail reported. Speaking at the International Security Week conference, which ran from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, Dean said Shishani is primarily motivated to attack the countries over recent incidents in which depictions of the prophet Muhammad have been shared, in violation of some Islamic practices.

“The worry is that, according to people who know him, [Shishani] is planning to avenge the Prophet Mohammed cartoons in places like Germany, UK, France and all around Christmas time,” Dean said. “I’m afraid I’m not bearing good news but we need to be worried about the wave of terror that is coming from northern Syria and Libya for Christmas this year,” Dean said.

Dean derives his expertise from working as a bomb-maker for Al Qaeda and then informing on the group for eight years, the Daily Mail reported.

Dean raised a particular warning that European leaders trying to lift coronavirus related lockdowns around the Christmas holiday are only further enticing the terrorist plotters.

“This promise of no lockdown at Christmas has made it a more attractive time frame for targeting,” Dean said. “Already they have been thinking about it, already they have been looking at it and I feel this will be the next target.”

source:  American Military News

Not a surprise…but this info should be more readily available to the public…..

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ISIS–Wave Two

These days with the news fixated on the pandemic and then those protests it has all but forgotten about the danger of ISIS….and sadly there will be a second wave of their ascendance…….

ISIS has been beaten but not defeated….they still lurk in the shadows waiting……waiting for the next wave to begin.

Today, Islamic State barely exists in Iraq and Syria, its leader is dead and its recruits are scattered, languishing in jail or hunted throughout the Middle East and Europe.

But the threat of ISIS and of extremism has not gone away. Both on the battlefield of ideas and on the real battlefield, a second wave is certainly coming.

That wave will crash first across West Africa, where clashes between militant groups and national armies are taking place in every country of the Sahel region. The coalition has recognized this; only last month, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo singled out ISIS attacks in West Africa and said the United States was seeking a global fund of $700 million to continue the fight against ISIS in 2020.

A second ISIS wave is lurking in the dark

I posted last month on the possibility of ISIS scoring heavy in Africa…the Sahel region to be specific…..https://lobotero.com/2020/06/08/remember-isis/

Keep in mind….ISIS maybe be out of sight….but they are far from gone the way of the dodo……

It is only a matter of time before they return to the world stage.

Now the big question will be….Will we be ready for the return?

America’s intelligence agencies risk slipping back into dangerous pre-9/11 habits, a recently departed top counterterrorism official is warning in his first public remarks on the matter.

Russell Travers, former head of the U.S. government’s hub for analysis of counterterrorism intelligence, was so alarmed that he shared his concerns with the intelligence community’s top internal watchdog in his final weeks on the job.

“I think there are really important questions that need to be addressed, and I don’t think they have been thus far,” said Travers, who ran the National Counterterrorism Center until March of this year. “And that has me worried, because I do think we could very easily end up back where we were 20 years ago.”

Travers detailed his concerns, much of which remain highly classified, to the intelligence community’s inspector general. About a week later, he was summarily ousted, he says — and the Trump administration official who fired him didn’t explain why.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/09/travers-terrorism-warning-355734

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Those Terrorists Remain

Protests….Racism…..Pandemic…..all of the top stories from the MSM in the last couple of months…..even though they are out of mind of the media by no means they are gone….defeated….or any other term one would care to employ.

To illustrate this is the testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security…..

Thomas JoscelynJune 24, 2020Foundation for Defense of Democracies3www.fdd.org•Al-Qaeda has survived the post-9/11 wars and America’s counterterrorism campaign. The group’s base has spread from South Asia into multiple other countries. Several organizations, often described as al-Qaeda “affiliates,” serve as regional branches. These branches are each led by an emir who swears his allegiance to the head of al-Qaeda. Since Osama bin Laden’s death in May 2011, that leader has been Ayman al-Zawahiri. The official al-Qaeda branches are: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent,and al-Shabaab in Somalia. To thislist we can add the “Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims” (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM), a wing of AQIM.Hurras al-Din in Syria is also part of al-Qaeda’s network, as are other groups based in Idlib. But al-Qaeda’s chain-of-command in Syria has been upset by a number of internal rivalries, power struggles,and arguments over jihadist strategy.2In addition, al-Qaeda works through other groups that are not official al-Qaeda branches but are nonetheless part of its web. Such groups includethe Pakistani Taliban.Still other jihadist organizations are closely allied with al-Qaeda.•ISIS and al-Qaeda remain locked in a competition for the fealty of jihadists around the globe. Much of this competition will take place at the local level, but international terrorism could play a role in the rivalry, as these groupslook to outbid one another for the affection of would-be jihadists. While there may be some cooperation between individual commanders, the two mother organizations are at odds. ISIS has developed an institutional hatred for al-Qaeda. In some areas, such as Iraq, ISIS is definitively stronger. In other areas, such as Somalia and Yemen, al-Qaeda has the upper hand. In West Africa, the two are currently close in strength, though that can change. Any assessment of relative strength in Syria is difficult due to al-Qaeda’s management problems and other factors. And an assessment of their relative positions in Afghanistan is complicated by the fact that al-Qaeda and affiliated groups areembedded within the Taliban-led insurgency. Al-Qaeda has deliberately sought to mask the extent of its operations in Afghanistan.

Click to access Thomas-Joscelyn-ISIS-AQ-testimony.pdf

Now this is a report issued by the Dept. of State……

Click to access Country-Reports-on-Terrorism-2019-2.pdf

My point is that these groups are not so much in the news these days….but they by NO means have disappeared……

Both reports are worth the read if you think that terrorism is not so much a problem these days…..

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Just How Serious Is This Virus?

This is not me trying to downplay the seriousness of this rapid moving virus…..

I know you have been watching the news and reading the reports….and yes it is very very serious.

So damn serious that a group that orders is members to kill themselves have issued a warning not to travel to avoid contamination and death………..

After years of urging its terrorists to attack major European cities, ISIS is now telling them to steer clear due to the coronavirus.

Any sick jihadists already in Europe, however, should stay there — presumably to sicken infidels, according to a “sharia” directive printed in the group’s al-Naba newsletter, the Sunday Times of London reported.

The “healthy should not enter the land of the epidemic and the afflicted should not exit from it,” the newsletter advised.

The newsletter instructs jihadists that the “plague” is a “torment sent by God on whomsoever He wills.”

Iraq, where most of the surviving fragments of the group remain, had 110 reported coronavirus cases on Sunday morning, 10 of them fatal, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the contagion.

(nypost.com)

And that is just how serious this virus has become.

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ISIS In The Shadows

Our mash up with Iran seems to be dialing down….kinda like all other “crisis” in this era of Trump.

We are laser focused on Iran and its proxies in Iraq (BTW contrary to the idiots on the Right ISIS is not an ally of Iran)…..but problems could be brewing elsewhere…..

In an emergency session of Iraqi parliament, a bill was passed revoking Iraq’s request for US help in fighting ISIS, and calling for the government to expel US forces. The US troops may not be leaving, but they’d already suspended their operations.

Over the weekend, US officials reported that they suspended their training missions for Iraqi forces to scale up defense of their own base security. On Sunday they confirmed that the anti-ISIS mission is also suspended going forward.

While President Trump is threatening sanctions against Iraq for wanting the troops out, he seems comfortable with them not actually doing anything other than staying in Iraq for its own sake. The US command in Iraq says it is “committed” to the mission, though the mission isn’t entirely clear at this point, beyond staying and threatening Iraq with sanctions.

How many troops are required for this non-mission remains to be seen, but indications are that the US is going to keep adding troops to Iraq and Kuwait, and President Trump will react furiously to any indication that Iraq doesn’t want the occupation to continue.

(antiwar.com)

Do not take your eye off the real enemy…ISIS…..

The militants are now more skilled and more dangerous than al-Qaeda, according to Lahur Talabany, a top Kurdish counter-terrorism official.

“They have better techniques, better tactics and a lot more money at their disposal,” he said. “They are able to buy vehicles, weapons, food supplies and equipment. Technologically they’re more savvy. It’s more difficult to flush them out. So, they are like al-Qaeda on steroids.”

The veteran intelligence chief delivered his stark assessment in a London accent – the legacy of years in the UK after his family had to flee from the regime of Saddam Hussein.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50850325

Never a good idea to overlook the obvious…..but then I am not part of the Trump foreign policy team……

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Terrorists: Will They Go Or Will They Stay?

The evacuation of Kurds and US troops from Northern Syria left “many many” (a Trumpian term) ISIS prisoners in limbo…will they stay of will they go?

SecState has demanded that countries take their terrorist back,,,,,,

European and other members of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group must take back and prosecute their nationals detained in Iraq and Syria to help keep IS from regaining territory, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday. Pompeo told foreign ministers and senior officials from some 30 coalition members that it’s imperative that they hold thousands of detained foreign fighters accountable for atrocities committed while the Islamic State held swaths of territory in the two countries. Many of the detained foreign fighters are from Europe, the AP reports, but countries have been reluctant to take them back and officials acknowledged there are still differences of opinion among coalition partners about how best to deal with them.

The meeting came amid concerns about the US commitment to the fight against IS remnants. Those concerns have increased as President Trump has pressed to withdraw American troops from Syria. It was also the first meeting at such a senior level since IS was driven from the last of its major strongholds in March and the first since the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed himself during a US raid last month. Pompeo said bringing the foreign fighters to justice in their home countries is critical to preventing IS from resurrecting its caliphate and exporting its ideology. “That work begins with carrying out justice against those who deserve it,” he said. Recent court rulings in Europe have required the governments to repatriate their nationals, per the Washington Post. The governments “are fighting a losing battle,” one lawyer involved in the cases said.

I found a wrinkle in Pompeo’s demands/ultimatum…….it begins in Alabama……

A woman who moved from Alabama to Syria, pledged allegiance to ISIS, and burned her American passport will not be getting a new one. A federal judge ruled Thursday that 25-year-old Hoda Muthana, who is currently in a refugee camp in Syria with her 2-year-old son, is not an American citizen, the Wall Street Journal reports. Judge Reggie Walton of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in the support of the State Department’s decision that Muthana should never have been granted US citizenship, despite having been born in New Jersey, because her father was in the US as a Yemeni diplomat when she was born. Her passport was revoked by the Obama administration in 2016.

Muthana, who grew up in Alabama, was detained by Kurdish forces in Syria earlier this year. She says she was “brainwashed” by ISIS members she encountered online, reports the AFP. After she moved to Syria, she married three different foreign fighters, all of whom were killed in combat, and urged the group’s supporters worldwide to carry out terrorist acts against non-Muslims. Her lawyers say they plan to look at further options. Muthana says she regrets “every single thing” and is willing to face prosecution if she is allowed to return to the US with her son. “Anyone that believes in God believes that everyone deserves a second chance, no matter how harmful their sins were,” she told NBC in a recent interview.

Will the US let her return to her country of origin?  Will they disobey a edit issued by SecState Pompeo?

Just a thought?

More information on these people……https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern-mediterranean/syria/208-women-and-children-first-repatriating-westerners-affiliated-isis

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That ISIS Thing

We have not had much news about ISIS…as it should be because according to Trump he defeated them single handed….and yet they still exist….

Even before the recent raid that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the erstwhile head of the Islamic State, Donald Trump had spoken of how he had single-handedly defeated the caliphate.

“Now, when I came, the caliphate was all over the place,” the president said apropos of nothing during a news conference with the Australian prime minister on September 20. “I defeated the caliphate — ISIS.”

At a press conference on October 21, after pulling troops out of Syria, Trump put himself even closer to the battle with the Islamic State: “I’m the one that did the capturing. I’m the one who that knows more about it than you people or the fake pundits.”

The Islamic State and Trump’s Delusion

A look at this ISIS thing through the eyes of a Neocon think tank……

Almost as soon as it became clear that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was dead, the revisionism began about whether this was actually a good thing.

Some analysts predicted that al-Baghdadi’s death as a “martyr” would inspire others, becoming a “propaganda bonanza” for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

We should not be so gloomy. The death of such a sadistic killer and serial rapist is unambiguously good news.

It was also the last thing that ISIS needed. Caliphate relinquished, the group’s operations inevitably will be disrupted by the death of its emir, especially with Abu Hassan al-Muhajir—a potential successor—killed in a U.S. airstrike just hours later.

5 Things to Watch in Tracking the Future of ISIS

The group has been diminished but not gone……and they have a new tactic of terror….FIRE

A media outlet affiliated with ISIS has been instructing the group’s radical adherents to set forest fires in the United States and Europe to cause mass ecological disasters, according to posts on an internet forum dedicated to the terror group.

At least four propaganda posters that have appeared on the pro-ISIS Quraysh media outlet have urged followers to “ignite fires” as part of an ongoing jihad against America and its allies.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/isis-tells-followers-to-set-forest-fires-in-u-s-europe/

The caliphate is down but not out……

Just months after the Islamic State militant group lost the last of its territory in Syria, and days after its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a U.S.-led raid, the group has found safe haven in a remote, ungoverned space in Iraq, as foreign fighters move across the border from Syria, military officials tell NBC news.

“The fight against ISIS is continuous,” said U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. William Seely, commander of Task Force-Iraq. “We’re seeing ISIS fighters move from Syria across hundreds of miles of desert.”

Their goal, Seely says, is to re-establish their physical caliphate in the region.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/defeated-isis-has-found-safe-haven-ungoverned-part-iraq-n1076081

How many times must I say this….ISIS IS NOT DEFEATED!

It is only napping waiting for the day to return.

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Take Me To Your Leader

I can hear the Who in my head and think an episode of CSI is about to begin….but NO….I am wondering who will lead the leaderless ISIS now that Baghdadi is no longer among the living.

My intel files has several candidates to lead ISIS……

the most likely candidate to succeed Baghdadi is Abdullah Qardash, also known as Abu Omar Turkmani, a former Iraqi military officer under Saddam Hussein.

A former senior leader of al-Qaeda, Turkmani was detained in Camp Bucca along with other IS leaders, the paper said.

According to Iraqi sources quoted by the paper, “Qardash is characterised by cruelty, authoritarianism and militancy, and he was among the first people to welcome al-Baghdadi in Mosul in 2014.”

The second nominee for the group’s leadership is Haji Nasser, or Abd al-Nasser, who has been on the US terrorism list since the end of 2018. Haji Abd al-Nasser is known for belonging to the most radical trend within IS.

The third nominee is Mu’taz al-Jaburi, better known as Hajji Taysir. A senior IS leader, Washington has set a $3m reward for whoever gives information leading to him.

Sami al-Jaburi, the fourth candidate, is the former IS financial affairs director and was in charge of the group’s oil and gas sales, according to the paper.

The fifth candidate, according to Arabi21, is Abul Hassan al-Muhajir, IS’s official spokesman since the end of 2016 – but he was reported killed at the weekend in another US-led raid.

Muhajir is out…….so that leaves 4 candidates….who are you….who….who?

And now we have a winner!

Abdullah Qardash

ISIS already has a new leader — a feared former officer for Saddam Hussein known as “the Destroyer,” according to reports.

Abdullah Qardash was reportedly already running day-to-day operations and kill campaigns for the terror group and formally took over its leadership after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death on Saturday.

“Baghdadi was a figurehead. He was not involved in operations or day-to-day,” a regional intelligence official told Newsweek in confirming the successor. “All Baghdadi did was say yes or no — no planning.”

Qardash had been loyal to Baghdadi after they were held together at the Camp Bucca detention center in Basra after being jailed by US forces over their links to al Qaeda in 2003, the Times of London has said.

(NY Post)

You have your answer now let the hunt begin…..tic toc……

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Please Take Your Bows

Breaking News:  The top spokesperson for ISIS has been killed…..

Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, the successor to lead the Islamic State was killed in what is believed to be a U.S. airstrike in northern Syria, just one day after U.S. special operations forces raided a compound and took out the terrorist organization’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Muhajir, a spokesman for the ISIS terror group and the likely successor to Baghdadi, was being smuggled across northern Syria in the back of an oil tanker truck when the truck was hit by what appeared to be a U.S. airstrike, New York Times reported Sunday.

Now for the news of the day yesterday about the raid and the aftermath……

I listened to Trump and his 40 minute diatribe on why he is the best and smartest person on the planet when he should have been discussing the death of Baghdadi…..and now in his own words….

You have listened and now the rest of the world wants to take a bow for the death of the ISIS leader…..

First Iraq says they gave the info to the US…..

Iraq said on Sunday that its National Intelligence Service found Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s location and provided it to the United States, which carried out a raid that killed him.

“After constant monitoring and the formation of a specialised task force over an entire year, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service acting on accurate information was able to locate the den in which the head of Daesh terrorists Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and those with him were hiding in the Syrian province of Idlib,” the Iraqi military said in a statement.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-baghdadi-iraq-statemen/iraq-says-it-provided-u-s-with-baghdadis-location-statement-idUKKBN1X60HG

Turkey wants to claim they gave the info to the US on Baghdadi’s whereabouts…..

Turkey on Sunday said there was “coordination” between Ankara and Washington before the operation which US media reports said targeted and killed Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“Prior to the US Operation in Idlib Province of Syria last night, information exchange and coordination between the military authorities of both countries took place,” the Turkish defence ministry said in a tweet.

It did not give details.

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/10/27/turkey-syrian-kurds-claim-credit-in-baghdadi-death-operation

So many taking credit and so little time to actually care…..as long as the SOB is still DEAD.

But finally what does the death of Baghdadi’s death really matter?

The complex heliborne raid occurring yesterday killed the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The long sought after terror leader’s death marks a milestone for the U.S. campaign to defeat the Islamic State, particularly at a time when the U.S. has precipitously drawn down its forces in Syria. What should we make of al-Baghdadi’s death?

How much does Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death matter?

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/10/28/how_much_does_abu_bakr_al-baghdadis_death_matter_114816.html

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