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ISIS Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on January 13, 2015 13 Comments
The Obama Administration's foreign policy has from the start been plagued by a near-fatal dose of mixed messaging regarding the actions of our enemies, our mission in the Middle East, and the place the American military should hold in the context of the global economy. Late last year, members of Congress lashed out against the Administration over the Executive's inability to define exactly what we were doing in the Middle East, and what we should be doing to prepare for future missions. Now, we may finally receive some answers. In a meeting with Congressional leadership today, President Obama indicated that he's ready to propose terms authorizing U.S. military force against Islamic State. He's been having this conversation with the leadership since November, but this is the first time he's even come close to showing his hand. From Bloomberg:
“A good starting place is for him to tell us what he wants,” McConnell of Kentucky told reporters after the meeting. A debate over efforts to defeat Islamic State would reopen tension over the president’s authority to conduct military operations and uneasiness among some lawmakers -- mostly Obama’s fellow Democrats -- about being drawn into open-ended conflicts and ground combat. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, told reporters after today’s meeting at the White House that the president’s statement came as “a little bit of a surprise.” “I think that’s helpful because we’ve been trying to get him to come up with the plan and show a little bit of what his strategy is going to be,” the senator said. Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said he believes Obama “is going to make some proposal” on an authorization for use of military force.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 13, 2015 32 Comments
Following the terror attacks in Paris by Islamic radicals, the Obama administration is preparing for a summit on "extremism" which is leaving many people wondering one thing. Who are they talking about? Byron Tau of the Wall Street Journal:
White House to Convene Summit on Violent Extremism The White House will convene a summit next month on ways the U.S. and other governments can counter violent extremism and domestic radicalization, the Obama administration said Sunday. The Feb. 18 event will highlight efforts at home and abroad aimed at stopping extremists from “radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring individuals,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a written statement.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf appeared on the Megyn Kelly show last night and was asked by guest host Martha MacCallum to name the extremists. Like everyone else in the White House, she had a hard time putting it into words.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 12, 2015 11 Comments
Hackers claiming a connection with the Islamic State have taken control of two social media accounts owned by the U.S. Central Command. Via the Washington Free Beacon:
“ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from CENTCOM’s account. The apparent hack came as President Obama addressed the nation regarding cyber security. He is expected to propose two pieces of cyber security legislation and to address the effort in his upcoming State of the Union address. The hackers subsequently tweeted images of spreadsheets containing the home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of dozens of current and former senior U.S. military officers. “AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING WATCH YOUR BACK,” one tweet stated.
The hackers have also posted to PasteBin sensitive and personal information they claim they obtained by breaking in to mobile devices. A search of the Google cache reveals the tweets posted to CENTCOM's now-suspended Twitter account: Twitter Centcom Hack We know everything

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 10, 2015 16 Comments
The terror attack on Charlie Hebdo this week was a stark reminder that Europe and the rest of western civilization has a serious problem. As people seek explanations for how this happened and what should be done about it, one voice speaks bravely and deserves attention. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the writer and activist who has drawn the ire of many in the Muslim community as well as American feminists for her defense of women, has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which she addressed the attack:
How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam. This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an “un-Islamic” attack by a bunch of thugs—the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked. The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised. If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe. There are numerous calls to violent jihad in the Quran. But the Quran is hardly alone. In too much of Islam, jihad is a thoroughly modern concept. The 20th-century jihad “bible,” and an animating work for many Islamist groups today, is “The Quranic Concept of War,” a book written in the mid-1970s by Pakistani Gen. S.K. Malik. He argues that because God, Allah, himself authored every word of the Quran, the rules of war contained in the Quran are of a higher caliber than the rules developed by mere mortals.
You can read the whole thing here. Ms. Ali appeared on Megyn Kelly's show this week after the attacks.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 09, 2015 33 Comments
Increased Muslim immigration to Europe has created small areas which are essentially countries within countries which European law enforcement officials have dubbed "No-Go Zones." Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times recently described what's happening in France:
Muslims segregated from French society in growing Islamist mini-states A backdrop to the massacre in Paris on Wednesday by self-professed al Qaeda terrorists is that city officials have increasingly ceded control of heavily Muslim neighborhoods to Islamists, block by block. France has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, some of whom talk openly of ruling the country one day and casting aside Western legal systems for harsh, Islam-based Shariah law. “The situation is out of control, and it is not reversible,” said Soeren Kern, an analyst at the Gatestone Institute and author of annual reports on the “Islamization of France.” “Islam is a permanent part of France now. It is not going away,” Mr. Kern said. “I think the future looks very bleak. The problem is a lot of these younger-generation Muslims are not integrating into French society. Although they are French citizens, they don’t really have a future in French society. They feel very alienated from France. This is why radical Islam is so attractive because it gives them a sense of meaning in their life.”

Posted by Amy Miller on January 08, 2015 8 Comments
Thousands of French police officers are going door-to-door in search of two suspects wanted for the terrorist killings at Charlie Hebdo. Said Kouachi, 34, and Chérif Kouachi, 32, are still at large, and the manhunt has spread past the outskirts of Paris and into surrounding areas. From USA Today:
Prime Minister Manuel Valls put the Picardy region, which stretches to the English Channel, on the highest alert level, on par with the alert in effect for the entire Ile-de-France region that includes Paris. France's Interior Ministry said 88,000 people have been deployed in the massive manhunt for Said Kouachi, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32, who are suspected of killing 12 people in the assault on the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. ... "There are lots of policemen. I can see a huge police car," he tells Sky News. "They are asking people 'have you seen anybody?' They have big guns with them. The forest is bigger than Paris — it is very big and very wide."
ABC News is maintaining a live blog of down-to-the-minute updates from the investigation and manhunt. Things in the village of Longpont have heated up in the past hour:
Some residents in the village of Longpont have heard that police believe that the gunmen have abandoned the car they stole in Paris and are on foot, potentially in the forest next to Longpont, which is the area of focus this evening. Residents in the village were not evacuated but word got around pretty quickly that they should batten down the hatches. The local mayor's brother put the word out to the local publican and he shut up shop.
Earlier, pundits speculated about how effective a ramped-up police presence is when there are so many potential targets for terrorists to hit. It's still early in the game, but there are already calls for more intelligence and preparedness.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 08, 2015 37 Comments
When Islamic radicals opened fire at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo yesterday, a small group of French police officers rushed to the scene and then immediately fled---because they weren't armed. Awr Hawkins of Breitbart reported:
Unarmed Paris Police Officers Forced to Flee as Armed Terrorists Attack During the January 7 terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters, several Paris police officers fled, unable to disarm the threat, because they themselves were unarmed and outgunned. Breitbart News previously reported that “black-hooded-men” with Kalashnikovs entered the Charlie Hedbo headquarters and opened fire, killing 12 people–including those who were killed outside the building as the gunmen headed back to their car. CBS News relayed reports from Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that the first two officers to arrive “were apparently unarmed” and “fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher.”
This isn't meant to be a jab at French police officers. They were simply operating within the confines of France's law enforcement policies. In fact, two of them lost their lives in the attack. Noah Rothman of Hot Air notes:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 08, 2015 11 Comments
Working in the political sphere has provided a sort of quasi-emotional inoculation. For the most part, I'm able to read and write about all kind of stories, tragedies, atrocities, and hypocrisies without having much more reaction than, "Seriously? You've got to be kidding me!" before moving on the next le sigh-worthy moment. I imagine doctors have a similar arrangement. It's not that they don't care, but as a matter of practicality they cannot become emotionally entangled with every single patient without risking professional burnout. But then there are stories, tragedies, atrocities, and hypocrisies too powerful for the inoculation. The destruction of Charlie Hebdo is one of those. I'm not yet able to comprehend that a group of Muslim terrorists exterminated an entire newspaper. In the most literal sense, the terrorists won. The goal was to destroy Charlie Hebdo for printing "offensive" images of Muhammad; and that's exactly what they did. Mission accomplished.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 07, 2015 42 Comments
The wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo is littered with a confusing mix of blame, counter blame, politically correct waffling, and outrage from every possible race and creed. Financial Times columnist Tony Barber went down the familiar road of blaming freedom of expression by way of a call for "common sense":
Charlie Hebdo is a bastion of the French tradition of hard-hitting satire. It has a long record of mocking, baiting and needling Muslims. Two years ago the magazine published a 65-page strip cartoon book portraying the Prophet’s life. And this week it gave special coverage to Soumission (“Submission”), a new novel by Michel Houellebecq, the idiosyncratic author, which depicts France in the grip of an Islamic regime led by a Muslim president. This is not in the slightest to condone the murderers, who must be caught and punished, or to suggest that freedom of expression should not extend to satirical portrayals of religion. It is merely to say that some common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, and Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten, which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims.
But that's just one columnist's opinion, right? (To be fair, the Financial Times editorial board went in a completely different direction.) In an op-ed from today's New York Times one Nick Kristof is ready to string up the attackers, but doesn't want to put a label on what motivated them:
One of things I’ve learned in journalism is to beware of perceiving the world through simple narratives, because then new information is mindlessly plugged into those story lines. In my travels from Mauritania to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan to Indonesia, extremist Muslims have shared with me their own deeply held false narratives of America as an oppressive state controlled by Zionists and determined to crush Islam. That’s an absurd caricature, and we should be wary ourselves of caricaturing a religion as diverse as Islam. So let’s avoid religious profiling. The average Christian had nothing to apologize for when Christian fanatics in the former Yugoslavia engaged in genocide against Muslims. Critics of Islam are not to blame because an anti-Muslim fanatic murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011. ... The great divide is not between faiths. Rather it is between terrorists and moderates, between those who are tolerant and those who “otherize.”
Who's really responsible? Maybe the Jews. Or the West. Or people who assume "freedom of expression" means freedom to insult Muhammad without getting blown away. At least that's what's swirling around on Twitter right now:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 07, 2015 37 Comments
There was an attack on a French satirical publication, Charlie Hebdo, using automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade, killing 12. The killers are at large as of this writing. The NY Times reports:
Masked gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire in the offices of a French satirical newspaper on Wednesday in Paris, the police said, killing 12 people and then escaping in a car. President François Hollande said the attack on the weekly, Charlie Hebdo, was “without a doubt” an act of terrorism and raised the nationwide terror alert to its highest status. He said that several terrorist attacks had been thwarted in recent weeks.... A senior French prosecutor said the victims included two police officers, including one assigned to guard the newspaper’s offices and its top editor. The second officer was shot and killed as he lay on the ground, the police said.... [A] United States official noted that, according to social media reports, the attackers did refer to the Prophet Muhammad, saying he was “avenged.”
(More video and Twitter updates later in post)

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 04, 2015 13 Comments
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi started 2015 with a bang. In a speech connected to the birthday celebrations for the Prophet Muhammad, Sisi said, "... we are in need of a religious revolution." Via Roger Simon of PJ Media is this clip from writer Raymond Ibrahim's translation of a New Year's Day speech:
I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible! That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world! Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible! I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now. All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective. I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.
Ibrahim adds this important caveat: "It is unclear if in the last instance of umma Sisi is referring to Egypt (“the nation”) or if he is using it in the pan-Islamic sense as he did initially to refer to the entire Islamic world."

Posted by Amy Miller on January 02, 2015 3 Comments
U.S. troops' boots may not "be on the ground" in the sense of the popular wartime narrative, but Islamic State insurgents are getting awfully close to where those boots are stationed. From the Washington Post:
In Iraq’s western Anbar province, more than 300 U.S. troops are posted at a base in the thick of a pitched battle between Iraqi forces, backed by tribal fighters, and well-armed Islamic State militants. The militants, positioned at a nearby town, have repeatedly hit the base with artillery and rocket fire in recent weeks. Since the middle of December, the U.S.-led military coalition has launched 13 airstrikes around the facility. U.S. troops have suffered no casualties in the attacks. But the violence has underlined the risks to American personnel as they fan out across Iraq as part of the expanding U.S. mission against the Islamic State, even as President Obama has pledged that U.S. operations “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.” In a sign of the risks, military officials said American soldiers have been transported to the Ayn al-Asad base under the cover of night by helicopter — partly to maintain a low profile for the renewed U.S. operation in Iraq but also to protect U.S. personnel amid fierce fighting west of the capital, Baghdad.
No wonder troops feel like they're getting mixed messages on what their mission in Iraq actually is.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 24, 2014 4 Comments
ISIS has gained another hostage. The Jordanian military has confirmed that one of its pilots, 26 year-old First Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh, was shot down over Raqqa, Syria, and has been taken hostage. Al-Kasasbeh was flying missions in the region as part of the US-led coalition force against ISIS. After he was taken prisoner, ISIS militants posted his name and picture on Twitter, along with shots of his military ID and a description of his survival pack, which was found near the crash site. From The Guardian:
The F-16 was the first warplane lost since the US-led coalition began air strikes against Isis in Syria three months ago. The group said it had shot down the fighter jet with a heat-seeking missile. It was not immediately clear whether it had indeed been shot down or suffered a technical failure. Another image on social media showing the plane’s intact cockpit canopy suggested that the pilot might have ejected. The Jordanian military issued a statement confirming the capture by Isis and saying it “holds the group and its supporters responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life”. It did not name him. “During a mission on Wednesday morning conducted by several Jordanian air force planes against hideouts of the IS terrorist organisation in the Raqqa region, one of the planes went down and the pilot was taken hostage,”, the Petra news agency quoted a source from the military’s general staff as saying. The Jordanian government went into emergency session to discuss its response.
This development is both horrific and problematic for the tiny country of Jordan, which shares borders with both Iraq and Syria and has been heavily criticized for its enthusiastic participation in the coalition force. Fortunately, King Abdullah recognizes the dangers of Islamic extremism, and is willing to get his military involved, even if he can't publicize it.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 5 Comments
The saga of Stanley Cohen took an unexpected twist recently. For background, see our Stanley Cohen Tag. Short version: Cohen is a virulently anti-Israel, pro-Hamas lawyer who has defended many high-profile terrorists in court. Cohen pleaded guilty to obstructing the IRS and failing to file income tax returns for several years. He admitted in open court that the government could prove its allegations of multi-year effort by Cohen to conceal cash transactions and to fail to report income. Cohen was sentenced to 18 months in prison on November 21, 2014, and must report to prison on January 6, 2015. There were multiple delays in his plea appearance, which struck me as odd at the time, particularly since the court record reflected that he was traveling abroad in the Middle East Gulf states. Not exactly the place you would expect to allow a person to go on the eve of a guilty plea. Cohen did return, however; he appeared in court, and then came the explanation about his trip to the Gulf states: Cohen apparently was engaged in an ultimately futile effort to obtain the release of ISIS hostage Peter Kassig, who later would be beheaded. The Guardian has the story, The race to save Peter Kassig:

Posted by Amy Miller on November 16, 2014 7 Comments
Multiple outlets have already reported on ISIS' latest (and as yet unverified) video claiming to show the severed head of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig. The new video does not show Kassig alive, or his alleged murder; instead it shows a masked militant standing next to what he claims to be Kassig's head, blaming both Barack Obama and Kassig's own service as an Army Ranger for the brutality inflicted upon western hostages. From the Associated Press:
"We say to you, Obama: ... You claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago," the militant said. "Here you are: You have not withdrawn. Rather, you hid some of your forces behind your proxies." A U.S.-led coalition is targeting the Islamic State group in airstrikes, supporting Western-backed Syrian rebels, Kurdish fighters and the Iraqi military. The militant's voice is distorted in the video. Previous videos featured a militant with a British accent that the FBI says it has identified, though it hasn't named him publicly. Later, the militant claims Kassig, 26, was killed because he "fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier." Kassig, from Indianapolis, Indiana, served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations unit, and deployed to Iraq in 2007.
The fact that Kassig does not appear alive in the video has many wondering whether or not he refused to deliver ISIS' message to the west firsthand. (In previous videos released by the militant group, hostages were forced to recite a prepared statement before their executions.) According to Fox, this video is longer than those previously released, and shows multiple hostages being executed. U.S. officials are working to verify the authenticity of the video. ISIS released this video just as President Obama left for the G-20 summit in Brisbane, which means they're hoping that their actions will derail discussions on climate change, the conflict in Ukraine, and other issues. I don't believe that ISIS is terribly concerned with whether or not the world condones their violent takeover of territory in Iraq and Syria, but I do believe that part of their strategy in the timing of this release could relate to their need to maintain a steady stream of funding from the west.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 15, 2014 4 Comments
Reports have surfaced that "Jihadi John," the masked Brit responsible for the beheadings of four western hostages, was injured last Saturday's airstrikes near the Iraqi-Syrian border. Via the Daily Mail:
‘We are aware of reports that this individual [Jihadi John] has been injured, and we are looking into them,’ a Foreign Office spokesman told The Mail on Sunday. This newspaper has received an independent account of how Jihadi John was injured and rushed to hospital after a devastating air strike in Al Qaim, in Anbar Province, Western Iraq. The Foreign Office spokesman added: ‘We have a number of sources of information coming in. ‘The incident occurred last weekend, and so we have received the reports in the last few days. We don’t have any representation inside Syria, and so it is difficult to confirm these reports.’ The Foreign Office also issued an official statement saying: ‘We are aware of reports. We cannot confirm these reports.’ A spokesman for US Central Command said they were unable to confirm the details for security reasons. The joint US-Iraqi mission left at least ten IS commanders dead, and around 40 injured. Those reportedly hurt included IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
The Mail provides a great infographic detailing the fractured timeline as we have it so far: 1416081735658_wps_43_BANNER_jpg

Posted by Amy Miller on November 08, 2014 7 Comments
Congress is gearing up for the next big budget battle, and the Administration's latest funding request could stir tensions between the midterm election's winners and losers. This week President Obama approved deployment of an additional 1,500 U.S. soldiers to help train Iraqi and Kurdish forces in their battle against ISIS. The additional forces and support activities will tack on an additional $5.6 billion to the budget, but defense officials argue that continuing success in the region means putting more resources to the task:
Lately, with the aid of the U.S. strikes, the Islamic State has suffered a number of losses in Iraq, where it is fighting government forces, peshmerga and Shiite militias aided by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group. Last week, Iraqi forces recaptured the town of Jurf al-Sakher. ISIS also lost Rabia, Mahmoudiyah and Zumar, a string of towns near the Syrian border, last month. Besieged Iraqi troops have also managed to maintain control of Iraq's largest oil refinery outside the town of Beiji north of Baghdad, despite numerous attempts by the Islamic State group to capture it. At the same time, some have warned the U.S. operation is insufficient. In particular, there have been calls to send troops to the western Anbar province, where extremists have been slaughtering men, women and children. A senior military official said one of the operations centers being set up by the U.S. will be in Anbar Province, and that it is likely that the bulk of the additional troops will be in Iraq by the end of the year. ... The money will also go toward “replenishing or replacing munitions expended while conducting air strikes against ISIL, including from Air force and Navy platforms” as well as “financing operations and maintenance costs for air, ground and naval operations, including: flying hours; ship steaming days; and fuel, supplies and repair parts,” according to the White House.
The elephant in the room, of course, is this past week's elections, which many believe served as a mandate against President Obama's policies at home and abroad. The media has already begun to hint at trouble brewing for this new mission and its funding.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 24, 2014 7 Comments
We've discussed previously the vast sources of funding that ISIS controls. Whether those funds come from their control (and smuggling) the region's oil supply, or from the home governments and families of hostages, the steady stream of cash flowing into ISIS coffers enables its members to step out of the shadows and fight not only for territory, but for the hearts and minds of the people they threaten to savage. From Yahoo News:
“With the important exception of some state-sponsored terrorist organizations, ISIL is probably the best-funded terrorist organization we have confronted,” Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said on Thursday in a speech to a Washington,D.C., think tank. At a subsequent briefing at the White House, Cohen declined to provide an estimate of the group’s net worth today. From mid-June until President Barack Obama unleashed airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against it, the Islamist organization scored $1 million per day from smuggled oil, Cohen said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He declined to say how much the airstrikes, which began on Sept. 23, have sliced into the group’s oil revenue.
Their sources of funding go beyond what we've seen highlighted in the news. In addition to oil smuggling and kidnapping, ISIS enjoys healthy profits from local extortion schemes, the plundering of antiquities, and sex trafficking. A report from the American Foreign Press details how ISIS makes these schemes work: through use of legitimate, existing economic structures. For example, their oil smuggling scheme is so intricate that at one point, Syria was buying its own oil; the oil had been harvested on Syrian territory controlled by ISIS.
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