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BY KATIE LAPOTIN (1 DAY AGO) | HEADLINES, WORLD Afghan intelligence agency NDS reported Friday that Hafiz Saeed (Khan), the leader of the Islamic State, or ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was recently killed via drone strike. The agency said, per CNN: “As a result of efforts made by the NDS, the location of ISIS fighters’ gathering was found and the information was shared with the coalition forces who then carried out an airstrike on them.” Saeed is believed to have perished along with about 30 other ISIS members in the strike on Achin in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. His death has yet to be independently confirmed. The Islamic State has yet to respond to the reports of Saeed’s death nor has the Afghan government confirmed the strike, per the BBC. He was previously rumored to have died while planting a bomb in April. He is not the same Hafiz Saeed, who has a $10 million bounty on his head for orchestrating the 2008 terror attacks on the city of Mumbai, India. Friday’s strike was carried out by American-led coalition forces in coordination with intelligence provided by the spy agency. A senior U.S. military official toldNBC News: “Were there some leaders among those killed? Probably, but we have no confirmation,” adding that there was no confirmation that Saeed was among the deceased. A similar strike conducted Tuesday reportedly killed Shahidullah Shahid, a former member of the Taliban who later defected to ISIS. Shahid’s death has also not been independently confirmed. Although the branch of ISIS in Afghanistan isn’t as big or successful as its Syrian or Iraqi counterparts, it has been tied to violence in recent months. A suicide bomber in April killed 33 people and injured more than 100 others in front of the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad.

Anbar announces the liberalization of 70% of Saqlawiyah area north of Fallujah By Abdelhak Mamoun - Jul 9, 2015 (IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Political adviser to the governor of Anbar Hikmat Sleiman announced on Thursday the liberalization of 70% of Saqlawiyah area north of Fallujah, indicating that the security forces and al-Hashed al-Sha’bi militia took control of several government institutions of the city center. Suleiman said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “The security forces launched a military operation participated by the forces of the Iraqi army, al-Hashed al-Sha’bi militia and Saqlawiyah tribal fighters backed by army aviation,” explaining that, “these forces managed to liberate 70% of Saqlawiyah area north of Fallujah.” Suleiman added, “The troops were able to liberate the local council building, the police station, the health center and Saqlawiyah mosque,” noting that “they took control of all of those departments.”

Security forces kill ISIS most prominent explosives expert in tactical operation east of Ramadi By Amre Sarhan - Jul 9, 2015 (IraqiNews.com) Diyali – On Wednesday, an official within al-Hashed al-Sha’bi militia in Diyali province announced the killing of one of the most prominent explosives expert in the ranks of the ISIS during a tactical operation in east of Ramadi. Jabbar Mamouri, an official of al-Hashed al-Sha’bi, stated for IraqiNews.com, “A special security force backed by al-Hashed al-Sha’bi militia conducted a tactical operation in the western part of the area of al-Karm, located 53 km east of Ramadi,” pointing out that, “The force succeeded in killing the so-called Abu Obeida al-Qairawani, a Tunisian national, along with three of his companions, in addition to destroying a workshop for manufacturing explosives and mines.” “Qairawani is considered as one of the most prominent explosives experts in ISIS,” he added.

ISIS executes 6 Iraqi former officers by firing squad in Mosul By Abdelhak Mamoun - Jul 8, 2015 (IraqiNews.com) According to a local source in Nineveh province, the so-called Islamic state in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) executed six officers of the former Iraqi army after detaining them in the city of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad). The source said in an interview for IraqiNews.com: “ISIS has executed at noon today six former officers of the Second Division of the Iraqi army, after a year of their arrest in the city of Mosul,” indicating that, “the execution process took place in a public square by firing squad to the head and chest.” The source, who asked to remain anonymous, added: “The officers had been arrested from their homes in the city of Mosul in July of last year, and had remained in detention until today.” TAGSBAGHDADMOSULNINEVEHSYRIA

Iraqi forces kill 36 militants, repel ISIS attack on al-Fatha in northern Tikrit By Amre Sarhan - Jul 8, 2015 (IraqiNews.com) Salahuddin – The War Media Cell belonging to the Joint Operations Command announced on Tuesday the killing of 36 ISIS militants as well as the destruction of three vehicles and a boat during an ISIS attack on al-Fatha area in northern Tikrit. The cell said in a press statement obtained by IraqiNew.com, “A force from the federal police repelled an attack by ISIS on the defensive line in the area of al-Fatha, located in northern Tikrit,” noting that, “The clashes between the two sides resulted in killing 20 terrorists and the destruction of three vehicles and a boat that was carrying 16 ISIS militants with their weapons.” “Our sacrifices amounted to one martyr and 9 injured,” the statement added.

ISIS arrests 40 of its elements who fled from Mataibija area By Abdelhak Mamoun - Jul 9, 2015 (IraqiNews.com) Diyala – The president of the security committee in Diyala provincial council, Sadiq al-Husseini, announced on Thursday, that ISIS arrested more than 40 of its elements, who fled from Mataibija area, noting that ISIS had transferred them to an area in the outskirts of Hawija district in Kirkuk. Husseini said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “ISIS organization, which is based in Hawija south of Kirkuk, arrested more than 40 of its elements, including field leaders, who fled from their positions in the Mataibija area on the border between the provinces of Diyala and Salahuddin into pathways in Hamrin Mountains.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-21/isis-controlling-more-half-syria-us-alliances-prepares-pounce With ISIS Controlling "More Than Half Of Syria", The US Prepares To Pounce 05/21/2015 14:53 -0400 inShare2 Just hours after ISIS scored a significant victory in Iraq when it captured the town of Ramadi over the weekend, the first Iraqi town that had been actively defended by the US as opposed to just Iraqi troops, overnight ISIS also captured the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, which the mainstream media promptly concludes was proof that the Islamic State's momentum was growing. Around a third of the 200,000 people living in Palmyra may have fled in the past few days during fighting between government forces and Islamic State militants, the U.N. human rights office said on Thursday. The capture of Palmyra according to the known UK propaganda outlet and distributor of fabricated "chemical attack" tapes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is really just one guy, Abdul Rahman of Coventry, means that ISIS "now controls more than half of Syrian territory." That's not all: according to Reuters, "extending its reach in the region, fighters loyal to the Sunni Muslim group have also consolidated their grip on the Libyan city of Sirte, hometown of former leader Muammar Gaddafi. "ISIL has reportedly been carrying out door-to-door searches in the city, looking for people affiliated with the government. At least 14 civilians are reported to have been executed by ISIL in Palmyra this week," Shamdasani said in emailed comments. Not really, no. But the facts are irrelevant when one needs soundbites. So what is really going on? Simple: all these latest developments and the unexpected and successful ISIS "offensive" is merely another attempt to justify a US land incursion into Iraq (and of course Syria), this time "appealing" to the populace not using fake chemical attack YouTube clips as "evidence", but with a noble crusade to save an ancient cultural artifact. Alas the battle is only just beginning because as Reuters also noted, "the twin successes pile pressure not just on Damascus and Baghdad, but also throw doubt on U.S. strategy to rely almost exclusively on air strikes to defeat Islamic State." The U.N. cultural agency UNESCO describes the site as a historical crossroads between the Roman Empire, India, China and ancient Persia and a testament to the world's diverse heritage. "We may have different beliefs... different views, but we have to protect such incredible vestiges of human history," UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova told Reuters Television. The Observatory's founder Rami Abdulrahman said Islamic State fighters had entered the historical sites by early on Thursday but there were no immediate reports of destruction. "This is the fall of a civilization," Syria's antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim told Reuters. "Human, civilized society has lost the battle against barbarism." Bloomberg adds: Enter a casual strawman: After weeks of fighting, Ramadi’s fall on Sunday delivered the jihadist group control over a strategic highway linking Iraq and Syria, and a haul of weapons abandoned by Iraqi forces. Three days later, the al-Qaeda breakaway group overran Syrian government troops to seize Palmyra, home to the ruins of a 2,000-year-old city that was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world. With the first anniversary of the declaration of its caliphate a month away, the victories put the militants on the front foot at a time when their leaders are seeking to dispel any sense of weakness after recent defeats. In Syria, it now controls half of the country’s territory and most of its oil and gas fields, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based group that monitors the conflict. “The fact Islamic State is still on the offensive is important, and the timing is important,” said Charlie Winter, a researcher at the counter-radicalization group Quilliam Foundation in London. Pushed into retreat, “it loses power and all the things that drive people to join it.” And like that the stage is again set for the following scenario: unwilling to lose any more territory, and face, the Nobel peace-prize winning US president will sit down with his security council in the next few days and decide that, as much as he hates to do it, he will dispatch [X],000 US troops to support the Iraq government in their losing fight with the resurgent ISIS. Troops which will promptly enter Syria and then make sure Assad is quietly eliminated. The group’s supporters are already touting its latest feats, Winter said, posing the question on social media: “Last year it was Mosul, this year it’s Ramadi, and where will it be next year?” Which brings us to a different point: see on the map above how ISIS in Syria is clustered by the border of NATO-member Turkey? There's a reason for that. As Reuters also reports in an exclusive piece, Turkey's state intelligence agency helped deliver arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control during late 2013 and early 2014, according to a prosecutor and court testimony from gendarmerie officers seen by Reuters. As Reuters observes, the witness testimony contradicts Turkey's denials that it sent arms to Syrian rebels and, by extension, contributed to the rise of Islamic State, now a major concern for the NATO member. In other words, a NATO member and a nation very close to the US, has been instrument in the rise of ISIS. Worse, unlike running speculation that ISIS was created by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, there is now documented evidence that ISIS is indeed a "western" creation. More from Reuters: Syria and some of Turkey's Western allies say Turkey, in its haste to see President Bashar al-Assad toppled, let fighters and arms over the border, some of whom went on to join the Islamic State militant group which has carved a self-declared caliphate out of parts of Syria and Iraq. Ankara has denied arming Syria's rebels or assisting hardline Islamists. Diplomats and Turkish officials say it has in recent months imposed tighter controls on its borders. Testimony from gendarmerie officers in court documents reviewed by Reuters allege that rocket parts, ammunition and semi-finished mortar shells were carried in trucks accompanied by state intelligence agency (MIT) officials more than a year ago to parts of Syria under Islamist control. Which in turn explains the news from two weeks ago that "Turkey, Saudis Form Alliance To Topple Syria's Assad As US Starts Training Syrian Rebels." And just to make sure Obama's upcoming offensive against Assad, pardon ISIS' al-Baghdadi is successful, Reuters finally reports that contrary to previous reports, not 1000, but 2000 anti-tank weapons are being sent to Iraq. Wait, ISIS has tanks? Well no, that would be Syria, but when fabricating a narrative suicide bombers are as durable as tanks. Also from Reuters: The Pentagon said on Thursday the United States would deliver 2,000 AT-4 anti-tank rockets to Iraq as early as next week, 1,000 more than announced on Wednesday, to help Baghdad combat suicide car bombings by Islamic State. Spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said the delivery would help Iraq defend against approaching suicide bombers driving vehicles packed with explosives, attacks used by Islamic State militants last weekend to help them seize Ramadi from Iraqi forces. "This is a good counter to that (type of bombing)," Warren said. Warren said the anti-tank weapons would allow the Iraqi forces to destroy approaching suicide car bombers at a distance. Relying on small arms requires disabling the engine or killing the driver, which can be difficult, he said. It's an even better counter when staging an offensive operation, aka an invasion, against the Syrian army and not just from one side but two sides: the east, via Iraq, and north, via Turkey, with the occasional bombing run by Saudi Arabia (with Jordan just waiting to enter from the South and "liberate" Damascus). So gun to our head, this is what happens next: a couple of the good ole' "chemical attack" false flag YouTube clips once again emerge just around the time Obama announces it is time to send a tactical, contained group of troops in Syria to retake the "cultural heritage" that is Palmyra, at which point the war against ISIS morphs into what it has been from day one: the western attempt to crush and topple the Assad government, and to hand over control of Syria to Turkey and Iraq, just so the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar can control what happens behind the scenes, by which we mean finally allow that long overdue Qatari gas pipeline to traverse the nation and sideline Russian gas deliveries to Europe. (Why does already wealthy beyond compare Qatar need to kill thousands of innocent people just so it can sell its natgas to Europe? Just so its former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani can buy many more $179 million Picasso paintings, and many more NYC and London apartments). We expect this scenario to start unfolding within the month as the US economy desperately needs an official war to avoid sliding into a recession.

Greetings, I have been on this Roller Coaster trip for nearly 7 years and now am Wondering where's it going? Can there still be an RV with Mosul, Iraqs second largest city belonging to ISIS? Sadly, I doubt it and President Bambam certainly isn't going to Help the Arab Nations that are now Scared enough to try and actually fight ISIS. What's Your Opinion?

Indian IS recruit 'goes home after having to clean toilets' An Indian student who travelled to Iraq to join the Islamic State group has returned home disillusioned after jihadists made him clean toilets and do other menial jobs, according to media reports. Areeb Majeed, 23, left for Iraq with three friends in late May amid fears by authorities that IS militants were attempting to recruit from India's large pool of young Muslim men. The engineering student flew home Friday to Mumbai where he was arrested and charged by India's elite National Investigation Agency (NIA) with terror-related offences. Majeed told NIA officers he was sidelined by the jihadists for whom he fetched water and performed other lowly tasks such as cleaning toilets, instead of taking part in the deadly offensive like he wanted, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. He phoned his family to say he wanted to come home after suffering an unexplained bullet wound for which he did not get proper medical attention, the agency said late Sunday. "Only after I begged them, I was taken to a hospital," he was quoted as saying by NIA officers. "There was neither a holy war nor any of the preachings in the holy book were followed." India's moderate population of 150 million Muslims have traditionally not been drawn into sectarian conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, but the case of the four raised concerns about online recruitment. Al-Qaeda announced in September a new chapter of its extremist movement charged with waging jihad in South Asia, prompting several Indian states to be placed on high alert. Tanvir Sheikh, the father of one of Majeed's friends who was still missing in Iraq, said he felt betrayed by his son. Sheikh said his son Fahad was offered a job in Kuwait but instead decided to travel to Iraq to join the extremists. "He had got a job offer from Kuwait with a salary of three lakh rupees ($4,800) but he ignored that and instead took up arms. Now what happens to his future?" Sheikh told the Indian Express newspaper on Monday. "I feel let down by my son. He had a bright career ahead of him but he took advantage of our love and betrayed us." Radicalised foreigners have been drawn to the IS group, which has conducted a series of mass executions and other atrocities since launching its offensive in Iraq and Syria in June. http://news.yahoo.com/indian-recruit-goes-home-having-clean-toilets-100625262.html

Excellent discussion just released and produced by Frontline of PBS, of the blunders and mis steps leading to the growth of ISIS, with lots of great footage of Maliki, his trip to the US, his upset with Hashemi (however you spell the Vice Presidents name), the Iraqi Government post US withdrawal (2011) and many of the things that went on during that time... and we'd read about in poor translations that threw words like "watermelon" in the middle of the sentence so we had no idea what the heck was going on.... This is embedded in the Frontline site and I don't know how to bring in the actual video and so am posting the link.... If you want a really good overview of what went on.... don't miss this one.... (and maybe a Mod Wizard can get the actual video to post in here). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/rise-of-isis/?elq=13d80f9c71374c65a421aa1ae7614898&elqCampaignId=1073 PS there's lots of former Iraqi officials, Panetta, etc gov people and the narrator even pronounces names like Iraq, Qatar and Maliki correctly for a very refreshing change....

Islamic War Erupts in Hamburg, Germany By Soeren Kern Gatestone Institute Posted 2014-10-16 04:26 GMT German police in riot gear, accompanied by armored vehicles and water cannons, charge into a street battle between Kurds and radical Islamists in Hamburg, Oct. 8, 2014. (Image source: N24 video screenshot). Parts of downtown Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, resembled a war zone after hundreds of supporters of the jihadist group Islamic State [iS] engaged in bloody street clashes with ethnic Kurds. The violence--which police say was as ferocious as anything seen in Germany in recent memory--is fuelling a sense of foreboding about the spillover effects of the fighting in Syria and Iraq. Some analysts believe that rival Muslim groups in Germany are deliberately exploiting the ethnic and religious tensions in the Middle East to stir up trouble on the streets of Europe. The unrest began on the evening of October 7, when around 400 Kurds gathered outside the Al-Nour mosque near the central train station in Hamburg's St. George district to protest against IS attacks on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani. According to police, the initially peaceful protest turned violent when the Kurds were confronted by a rival group of around 400 Salafists armed with baseball bats, brass knuckles, knives, machetes and metal rods used to hold meat in kebab restaurants. In the melee that followed, more than a dozen people were injured, including one person who nearly had his leg chopped off by someone wielding a machete, and another person who was stabbed in the stomach with a kebab rod. Some 1,300 police officers, brandishing batons and accompanied by water cannons, were deployed to halt the clashes, which lasted into the early morning hours of October 8. In the final tally, hundreds of weapons were seized and 22 people were arrested. "I had the feeling that we are living in Hamburgistan," the imam of the Al-Nour mosque, Daniel Abdin, told the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. "The atmosphere was very, very explosive." Police said they were shocked by what they described as an unprecedented level of violence. In an interview with the newspaper Passau Neue Presse, the chairman of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, reported that police in Hamburg "experienced life-threatening brute force" by perpetrators who were armed "to the teeth." Wendt warned that the IS-Kurdish conflict is "threatening to unleash a proxy war on German soil." A police official in Hamburg, Gerhard Kirsch, said the level of the violence points to a new "dangerous dimension" that "we have so far not seen at other demonstrations." The chairman of the German Police Union in Hamburg, Joachim Lenders, described the viciousness as unprecedented. "The violence in the early hours of Wednesday was of a ruthless and inhuman brutality as I have rarely experienced," he said, adding that without the timely deployment of the police there would almost certainly have been fatalities. Lenders added: "If in the middle of Hamburg 800 hostile people are fighting each other with machetes, knives and iron rods, there must be consequences for the perpetrators. Politically motivated extremists and religious fanatics have brought a conflict to Hamburg that cannot be solved here." On the same day of the unrest in Hamburg, dozens of mostly Chechen Muslim immigrants clashed with Kurdish Yazidis--a non-Arab and non-Muslim minority that has been persecuted by IS--in Celle, a town in Lower Saxony that is home to more than 7,000 Yazidis. Police said the violence, in which nine people were injured, was fuelled via social media after radical Muslim preachers sent out a call to Islamists to confront the Yazidis. The conflict in Celle was reminiscent of--but far more violent than--the Muslim-Yazidi clashes that occurred in the eastern Westphalian town of Herford in August. "Solidarity with Kobani" demonstrations have also taken place in Munich--where protestors waving large Kurdish flags occupied the offices of the Christian Social Union [CSU], the Bavaria-based sister party to Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union party [CDU]--as well as in the western German cities of Berlin, Bremen, Göttingen, Hamm, Hannover, Kiel, Oldenburg and Stuttgart. Germany is home to an estimated 4.3 million Muslims, one million Kurds and 60,000 Yazidis. According to the 2013 annual report (published in June 2014) of the German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz [bfV], Germany is also home to 30 active Islamist groups and 43,000 Islamists, including 950 members of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, 1,300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and 5,500 Salafists. Salafism is a radically anti-Western ideology that openly seeks to replace democracy in Germany (and in other parts of the West) with an Islamic government based on Sharia law. Although Salafists make up only a fraction of the Muslims in Germany, authorities are increasingly concerned that many of those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who are susceptible to perpetrating terrorist acts in the name of Islam. German authorities have faced criticism for being overly complacent concerning the rise of Salafism in the country. On October 2, for example, the German public broadcaster ARD revealed that German officials have for many years pursued a secret policy of encouraging German Islamists to travel abroad rather than to invest in counter-radicalization efforts. According to ARD, the general idea was that if German jihadists were intent on committing terrorist acts, it would be better that they do so somewhere else than inside Germany. The overall aim was to "protect our population" by exporting the problem, the head of counter-terrorism for Bavarian Police, Ludwig Schierghofer, told ARD. The reasoning was "to bring those persons who pose a risk that they will commit terrorist attacks outside of the country," he said. "If someone had become radicalized and wanted to leave, then the policy was to allow them to leave or even accelerate their departure by various means." An estimated 450 German Muslims have traveled to Syria and Iraq, and at least 100 are now believed to have returned to Germany. Meanwhile, a growing number of German politicians are receiving death threats from German Salafists. One such politician, Tobias Huch of the (classical liberal) Free Democratic Party [FDP], has been repeatedly threatened with beheading as the price to pay for leading a fundraising campaign to provide food and water for Kurds in northern Iraq. "I am not afraid, but I have become more careful," says Huch, who now receives police protection. He says he has altered his daily comings and goings in order to be less predictable. Among other lifestyle changes, he has cut out regular visits to restaurants, pubs and other public venues. Another politician, Ismail Tipi of the ruling CDU, is paying the price for criticizing the rise of Salafism in Germany. "I receive threats almost every day," Tipi says. "The death threats against me have no limits. The Salafists want to behead me, shoot me, stone me, execute me and they have many other death wishes for me." According to CDU official Wolfgang Bosbach, politicians who receive death threats should not allow themselves to be intimidated. "Under no circumstances should they give in and change their stance, otherwise the extremists will have achieved their objectives." The head of the FDP, Christian Lindner agrees. "It is unacceptable for Liberals to allow religious extremists to take an ax to the central values of our constitution. We will not give in to threats and intimidation, rather we will demand the determined reaction of the rule of law." By contrast, the Vice President of the German Parliament, Claudia Roth of the Green Party, believes the growing radicalization of Muslims in Germany points to problems in German society. In an interview with the newspaper Die Welt, Roth said: "The violent clashes between Kurdish and Islamist groups in German cities and on German streets refer more to internal German problems than the situation in northern Syria and northern Iraq. "As a society we must ask ourselves: how can it be that people who live in Germany and in large part are born and raised here, are supporters of a brutal, inhuman and fundamentalist terror group such as the IS and attack peaceful protestors with knives, sticks and machetes. Here in Germany, the IS threatens to become a refuge for frustrated young people who lack future prospects." While politicians debate causes and solutions to the problem of radical Islam, police throughout Germany remain on alert for more violence.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-24/us-propaganda-enters-insane-irrational-overdrive-attempt-sell-war-syria US Propaganda Enters Into Insane, Irrational Overdrive In Attempt to "Sell" War In Syria Thanks to a dizzying barrage of lies, mainstream media fear-mongering and a couple of beheadings, the Obama Administration finally achieved its long sought after war in Syria. The tactic that proved most effective in mobilizing the American public back into a shivering, post-9/11 fetal position, was the same tactic used by elites in the UK to convince Scotland against voting for independence. That tactic, as I detailed in a recent post, is fear. However, fear in itself is not enough. It must be coupled with endless slogans and misdirection by the mainstream media and politicians. It must lead the public to subconsciously embrace a thought process that is completely irrational. Such tactics can be labeled propaganda, and it results in a public suddenly supporting a war it strongly opposed only a year ago. All it takes is a little repackaging. Propaganda allows those who profit from war to push the American public into a tizzy of trepidation based on a couple of beheadings from ISIS, while not batting an eye over the daily beheadings that were simultaneously occurring in Saudi Arabia. So the power structure and its impotent puppet, Barack Obama, intentionally pushed the American public into a frenzy of fear and finally got their little war. Nevertheless, serious people immediately began to call into question two very significant issues with respect to the aggression. First, it appeared clear to almost everyone without a biased penchant for overseas death and destruction, that the war is completely unconstitutional and illegal no matter how you slice it. As I highlighted in the post, Obama’s ISIS War is Not Only Illegal, it Makes George W. Bush Look Like a Constitutional Scholar: But the 2001 authorization for the use of military force does not apply here. That resolution — scaled back from what Mr. Bush initially wanted — extended only to nations and organizations that “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the 9/11 attacks. Not only was ISIS created long after 2001, but Al Qaeda publicly disavowed it earlier this year. It is Al Qaeda’s competitor, not its affiliate. Mr. Obama may rightly be frustrated by gridlock in Washington, but his assault on the rule of law is a devastating setback for our constitutional order. His refusal even to ask the Justice Department to provide a formal legal pretext for the war on ISIS is astonishing. Senators and representatives aren’t eager to step up to the plate in October when, however they decide, their votes will alienate some constituents in November’s midterm elections. They would prefer to let the president plunge ahead and blame him later if things go wrong. But this is precisely why the War Powers Resolution sets up its 60-day deadline: It rightly insists that unless Congress is willing to stand up and be counted, the war is not worth fighting in the name of the American people. So that’s glaring problem number one. The second problem, which I highlighted in the post, The American Public: A Tough Soldier or a Chicken Hawk Cowering in a Cubicle? Some Thoughts on ISIS Intervention, is that: Did you know that the US government’s counterterrorism chief Matthew Olson said last week that there’s no “there’s no credible information” that the Islamic State (Isis) is planning an attack on America and that there’s “no indication at this point of a cell of foreign fighters operating in the United States”? Or that, as the Associated Press reported, “The FBI and Homeland Security Department say there are no specific or credible terror threats to the US homeland from the Islamic State militant group”? So as quickly as it began, Obama’s little war had some serious PR issues. So what did the chicken-hawks do? They repackaged and resold the entire thing. Enter Khorosan. Yep, just as quickly as ISIS spontaneously generated like maggots on meat from the sands of Mesopotamia to open the door to another Middle East quagmire, another existential threat nobody had ever heard of suddenly emerged. Not only that, but this group supposedly posed an imminent threat to America. How incredibly convenient. Here’s ABC News compliantly pushing the latest propaganda to its lobotomized readership in the article, US Averts ‘Active Plotting Against Homeland’ By Hitting Al Qaeda Cell Khorasan in Syria: American airstrikes in Syria have taken out members of a shadowy al Qaeda unit known as the Khorasan Group who were planning “imminent” attacks against targets including the U.S., the Pentagon said today. Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby declined to go into specifics, but told ABC News’ George Stephanopolous, “We had very good indications that this group, which is a very dangerous group, was plotting and planning imminent attacks against Western targets to include the U.S. homeland and it was on that basis that we struck targets, Khorasan targets inside Syria.” The Khorasan Group — consisting of about 50 or so hardened fighters of mixed past and current jihadi affiliations — has been holed up in Aleppo, Syria under the protection of al Qaeda’s official wing in the country, Jabhat al-Nusra, developing cutting edge weapons of terror with the help of al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to strike Western civilian aviation targets, according to a half-dozen officials with knowledge of the group who spoke to ABC News. So all of a sudden the Pentagon identifies and targets a group of 50 fighters in Syria, which happens to be conveniently tied to al-Qaeda (thus justifying strikes under the 2001 AUMF), planning an imminent attack on the “homeland.” There are two reasons I distrust this meme. First of all, the U.S. government employs an extremely bizarre definition when using the word imminent. As Trevor Timm noted earlier today in the Guardian: Take, for example, this definition from a Justice Department white paper, which was leaked last year, intended to justify the killing of Americans overseas: An “imminent” threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons will take place in the immediate future. To translate: “imminent” can mean a lot of things … including “not imminent”. Fascinating, and all this time I thought “imminent” meant “imminent.” Someone should let Merriam-Webster know they’ve got it all wrong. The employment of this new definition of imminent was further solidified in my mind after reading an article from the New York Times titled: In Airstrikes, U.S. Targets Militant Cell Said to Plot an Attack Against the West. In it, we learn that: American military and intelligence analysts were still studying damage reports from the initial air assault, but senior Obama administration officials expressed hope that they had killed Muhsin al-Fadhli, the leader of Khorasan and a onetime confidant of Osama bin Laden. The officials said they had been contemplating military action against Khorasan in recent months, but President Obama’s decision to hit the Islamic State’s forces inside Syria provided a chance to neutralize the other perceived threat. You’ve got to wonder what other unrelated opportunities the ISIS campaign might allow. But I digress. The air campaign against Khorasan and the Islamic State got underway even as Mr. Obama flew to New York to meet with world leaders gathering at the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Obama did not seek United Nations permission for the military campaign, but he presented the strikes as the collaboration of a multinational coalition that included five Arab nations: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain. Yeah, well he didn’t seek approval from Congress either. Now here’s the money shot. Most officials speaking publicly on Tuesday characterized the Khorasan threat as imminent. Lt. Gen. William C. Mayville Jr., who is in charge of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, said the terrorist group was nearing “the execution phase of an attack either in Europe or the homeland.” But one senior counterterrorism official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the group might not have chosen the target, method or even the timing for a strike. An intelligence official said separately that the group was “reaching a stage where they might be able to do something.” Wait, come again? An attack is imminent, yet you don’t know which gigantic continent with hundreds of millions of inhabitants straddling opposing sides of the Atlantic ocean they were going to hit? Furthermore, they “might not have chosen the target, method or even the timing for a strike,” and they are “reaching a stage where they might be able to do something.” Sure sounds imminent to me. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. So with Americans back to shivering in corners filled with nightmares of Islamists under their beds, the military-industrial complex is set to do what it does best. Get paid. For some details on who will be raking in the big bucks, I turn to Tim Shorrock’s piece earlier today in Salon: A massive, $7.2 billion Army intelligence contract signed just 10 days ago underscores the central role to be played by the National Security Agency and its army of private contractors in the unfolding air war being carried out by the United States and its Gulf States allies against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Under its terms, 21 companies, led by Booz Allen Hamilton, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, will compete over the next five years to provide “fully integrated intelligence, security and information operations” in Afghanistan and “future contingency operations” around the world. INSCOM announced the global intelligence contract two days after President Obama, in a speech to the nation, essentially declared war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria and outlined a campaign of airstrikes and combat actions to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the terrorist group. The top contractors on the INSCOM contract are already involved in the war. Lockheed Martin, for example, makes the Hellfire missiles that are used extensively in U.S. drone strikes (in 2013, it also won a three-year contract to train INSCOM’S “Army intelligence soldiers” in “analytical and operational disciplines”). Northrop Grumman makes the Global Hawk surveillance drone, one of the most formidable weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Both companies have large intelligence units. The role of contractors at the command is spelled out by BAE Systems, which has its own INSCOM website. “We enhance the U.S. Army’s ability to detect, decide, and act on vital intelligence in real-time,” BAE says. “From Intelligence Analysis to Persistent Surveillance, BAE Systems is proud to provide essential and sustainable end-to-end solutions and support to the warfighter.” As I first reported in Salon in 2007 and later chronicled in my book “Spies for Hire,” 70 percent of the U.S. intelligence budget is spent on private contractors. Much of this spending – estimated at around $70 billion a year – winds up at the NSA, where SIGINT operations, particularly for collection and analysis, were heavily outsourced at the turn of the century. “Hayden started the privatization, but it was really Alexander who built it,” said Drake. Alexander’s ties with INSCOM are extensive. One of the winning bidders on the new INSCOM contract is Sotera Defense Solutions. Russell Richardson, its former CEO and a former INSCOM commander, is now one of Alexander’s partners at IronNet and, under Alexander’s command of INSCOM, was its “chief architect.” Before that, Richardson was a vice president of NSA contractor SAIC, where he ran INSCOM’s so-called Information Dominance Center. INSCOM’s ties with Booz Allen, the company that employed Edward Snowden at its top secret site in Hawaii, are equally close. Robert Noonan, who directs the company’s “military intelligence account,” served for 35 years in the military, including a stint as INSCOM’s commanding general and the US Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence. Roberto Andujar, the INSCOM contract leader at Invertix Corp., another contract winner, once served as the command’s chief information officer (CIO). The revolving door between INSCOM and its contractors bothers Shaffer. “It’s a cash-and-carry program,” he said. “You go in there and get the knowledge, then you carry it out and get cash.” The Pentagon press office referred all calls on the contract to INSCOM. The command did not comment by press time. Wake up America. You will continue to be raped, pillaged and economically strip-mined until you stand up for yourselves, but for now, it appears the fetal position suits you just fine.

http://topconservativenews.com/2014/07/operation-hornets-nest-alleged-snowden-document-says-usukisrael-are-behind-isis/ Operation Hornets Nest: Alleged Snowden document says US/UK/Israel are behind ISIS The former employee at US National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, has revealed that the British and American intelligence and the Mossad worked together to create the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Snowden said intelligence services of three countries created a terrorist organisation that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”. NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet’s nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans. According to documents released by Snowden, “The only solution for the protection of the Jewish state “is to create an enemy near its borders”. Leaks revealed that ISIS leader and cleric Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi took intensive military training for a whole year in the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech.. Facts: 1) ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi was once a super-high level prisoner of the US government. Despite the fact that the US had offered a ten million dollar reward for him, the Obama regime ordered his release in 2009. 2) The Obama regime, with major support from Senate neo-cons John McCain and Lindsey Graham, gave hundreds of millions in military aid to Sunni Jihadists in Syria. Thousands of individuals receiving US aid are now members of ISIS. In fact, ISIS has even posted pictures of ISIS fighters with US Senator John McCain on the internet. 3) Israel has directly aided Sunni Jihadists in Syria by bombing Syrian military assets during Jihadist attacks. 4) The Israeli Prime Minister has reacted to the ISIS spearheaded Sunni/Shia Civil War in Iraq with borderline glee. The president of Israel has also suggested that a Sunni/Shia war is beneficial to the future of Israel. 5) The US and Britiain provided Sunni Jihadists with Toyota trucks in Syria. When, an army of ISIS fighters rolled over the Syria/Iraq border it looked like a commercial for Toyota. http://inquiringminds.cc/uk-911-truth-according-to-document-released-by-nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-leader-of-isis-is-a-mossad-intelligence-asset-alex-james [uK-911-Truth] According to document released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, is a MOSSAD intelligence asset – Alex James Posted on July 23, 2014 by Admin From: Subject: According to document released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, is a MOSSAD intelligence asset Editor’s note: The validity of the document mentioned below cannot be verified due to the exclusivity of the Snowden cache. Cryptome sent a letter to various sources in possession of the documents, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Barton Gellman, Laura Poitrias, Glenn Greenwald, ACLU, EFF and others demanding an accounting. The allegation about ISIS and al-Baghdadi, however, pairs up with other information demonstrating ISIS is an intelligence asset. According a document recently released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, now the Islamic State, is an intelligence asset. The NSA document reveals the United States, Israel, and Britain are responsible for the creation of ISIS. Earlier this month Nabil Na’eem, the founder of the Islamic Democratic Jihad Party and former top al-Qaeda commander, told the Beirut-based pan-Arab TV station al-Maydeen all current al-Qaeda affiliates, including ISIS, work for the CIA. [just like Qari Zainuddin revealed that TTP Mehsud is CIA and like Siebel Edmons revealed Bin Lade was CIA until 9/11] ISIS is a well-armed and trained terrorist group now in control of large areas of Iraq and Syria. The NSA document states the group was established by U.S., British and Israeli intelligence as part of a strategy dubbed “the hornet’s nest” to draw Islamic militants from around the world to Syria. The former employee at US National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, has revealed that the British and American intelligence and the Mossad worked together to create the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Snowden said intelligence services of three countries created a terrorist organisation that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”. NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet’s nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans. According to documents released by Snowden, “The only solution for the protection of the Jewish state “is to create an enemy near its borders”. Leaks revealed that ISIS leader and cleric Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi took intensive military training for a whole year in the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech. Prior Evidence of al-Baghdadi Link to Intelligence and Military Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “took intensive military training for a whole year in the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech,” the documents explain, according to Gulf Daily News, a Bahrainian source. In June a Jordanian official told Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily ISIS members were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan. In 2012 it was reported the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi. VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FVywIgR0Ns There are only two known photographs of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who now controls the most extreme Islamist army on earth. When the American military closed its Camp Bucca prison in Iraq, Baghdadi was handed over to Iraqi security forces, who let him go. Elizabeth Palmer reports. Corporate media has added weight to myth of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, repeatedly exposed as an intelligence asset. Al-Baghdadi was reportedly a “civilian internee” at Camp Bucca, a U.S. military detention facility near Umm Qasr, Iraq. James Skylar Gerrond, a former U.S. Air Force security forces officer and a compound commander at Camp Bucca in 2006 and 2007, said earlier this month the camp “created a pressure cooker for extremism.” “Circumstantial evidence suggests that al-Baghdadi may have been mind-controlled while held prisoner by the US military in Iraq,” writes Dr. Kevin Barrett. Creating a Fake Terror Threat The hornet’s nest strategy was designed to create the perception that Israel is threatened by an enemy near its borders. According to the personal diary of former Israeli prime minister Moshe Sharett, however, Israel never took seriously an Arab or Muslim threat to its national security. “Sharett’s diary reveals in explicit language that the Israeli political and military leadership never believed in any Arab danger to Israel,” writes Ralph Schoenman. “They sought to maneuver and force the Arab states into military confrontations which the Zionist leadership were certain of winning so Israel could carry out the destabilization of Arab regimes and the planned occupation of additional territory.” In 1982 Oded Yinon, an Israeli journalist with links to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, wrote The Zionist Plan for the Middle East. The white paper proposed “that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units” and the “dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run.” The destruction of the Arab and Muslim states, Yinon suggested, would be accomplished from within by exploiting their internal religious and ethnic tensions. For more background see our ISIS and the Plan to Balkanize the Middle East.

http://rt.com/op-edge/168064-isis-terrorism-usa-cia-war/ ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. Get short URL Published time: June 24, 2014 10:22 Iraqi Kurdish forces take position near Taza Khormato as they fight jihadist militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positioned five kilometers away in Bashir, 20 kms south of Kirkuk (AFP Photo / Karim Sahib) 9.7K83175 Tags Intelligence, Iraq, Syria, Terrorism, USA For days now, since their dramatic June 10 taking of Mosul, Western mainstream media have been filled with horror stories of the military conquests in Iraq of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with the curious acronym ISIS. ISIS, as in the ancient Egyptian cult of the goddess of fertility and magic. The media picture being presented adds up less and less. Details leaking out suggest that ISIS and the major military ‘surge’ in Iraq - and less so in neighboring Syria - is being shaped and controlled out of Langley, Virginia, and other CIA and Pentagon outposts as the next stage in spreading chaos in the world’s second-largest oil state, Iraq, as well as weakening the recent Syrian stabilization efforts. Strange factsThe very details of the ISIS military success in the key Iraqi oil center, Mosul, are suspect. According to well-informed Iraqi journalists, ISIS overran the strategic Mosul region, site of some of the world’s most prolific oilfields, with barely a shot fired in resistance. According to one report, residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of “soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.” We are told that ISIS masked psychopaths captured “arms and ammunition from the fleeing security forces” - arms and ammunition supplied by the American government. The offensive coincides with a successful campaign by ISIS in eastern Syria. According to Iraqi journalists, Sunni tribal chiefs in the region had been convinced to side with ISIS against the Shiite Al-Maliki government in Baghdad. They were promised a better deal under ISIS Sunni Sharia than with Baghdad anti-Sunni rule. According to the New York Times, the mastermind behind the ISIS military success is former Baath Party head and Saddam Hussein successor, General Ibrahim al-Douri. Douri is reportedly the head of the Iraqi rebel group Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order as well as the Supreme Command for Jihad and Liberation based on his longstanding positions of leadership in the Naqshbandi sect in Iraq. In 2009, US ‘Iraqi surge’ General David Petraeus, at the time heading the US Central Command, claimed to reporters that Douri was in Syria. Iraqi parliamentarians claimed he was in Qatar. The curious fact is that despite being on the US most wanted list since 2003, Douri has miraculously managed to avoid capture and now to return with a vengeance to retake huge parts of Sunni Iraq. Luck or well-placed friends in Washington? The financial backing for ISIS jihadists reportedly also comes from three of the closest US allies in the Sunni world—Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. US passports?Key members of ISIS it now emerges were trained by US CIA and Special Forces command at a secret camp in Jordan in 2012, according to informed Jordanian officials. The US, Turkish and Jordanian intelligence were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region, conveniently near the borders to both Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the two Gulf monarchies most involved in funding the war against Syria’s Assad, financed the Jordan ISIS training. Advertised publicly as training of ‘non-extremist’ Muslim jihadists to wage war against the Syrian Bashar Assad regime, the secret US training camps in Jordan and elsewhere have trained perhaps several thousand Muslim fighters in techniques of irregular warfare, sabotage and general terror. The claims by Washington that they took special care not to train ‘Salafist’ or jihadist extremists, is a joke. How do you test if a recruit is not a jihadist? Is there a special jihad DNA that the CIA doctors have discovered? Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) parading with an Iraqi army vehicle in the northern city of Baiji in the in Salaheddin province. (AFP Photo / HO / Youtube) Jordanian government officials are revealing the details, in fear that the same ISIS terrorists that today are slashing heads of ‘infidels’ alongside the roadways of Mosul by the dozens, or hundreds if we believe their own propaganda, might turn their swords towards Jordan’s King Abdullah soon, to extend their budding Caliphate empire. Former US State Department official Andrew Doran wrote in the conservative National Review magazine that some ISIS warriors also hold US passports. Now, of course that doesn’t demonstrate and support by the Obama Administration. Hmm... Iranian journalist Sabah Zanganeh notes, "ISIS did not have the power to occupy and conquer Mosul by itself. What has happened is the result of security-intelligence collaborations of some regional countries with some extremist groups inside the Iraqi government." Iraq’s Chechen commanderThe next bizarre part of the ISIS puzzle involves the Jihadist credited with being the ‘military mastermind’ of the recent ISIS victories, Tarkhan Batirashvili. If his name doesn’t sound very Arabic, it’s because it’s not. Tarkhan Batrashvili is a Russian - actually an ethnic Chechen from near the Chechen border to Georgia. But to give himself a more Arabic flair, he also goes by the name Emir (what else?) Umar al Shishani. The problem is he doesn’t look at all Arabic. No dark swarthy black beard: rather a long red beard, a kind of Chechen Barbarossa. According to a November, 2013 report in The Wall Street Journal, Emir Umar or Batrashvili as you prefer, has made the wars in Syria and Iraq “into a geopolitical struggle between the US and Russia.” That has been the objective of leading neo-conservatives in the CIA, Pentagon and State Department all along. The CIA transported hundreds of Mujahideen Saudis and other foreign veterans of the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviets in Afghanistan into Chechnya to disrupt the struggling Russia in the early 1990s, particularly to sabotage the Russian oil pipeline running directly from Baku on the Caspian Sea into Russia. James Baker III and his friends in Anglo-American Big Oil had other plans. It was called the BTC pipeline, owned by a BP-US oil consortium and running through Tbilisi into NATO-member Turkey, free of Russian territory. Batrashvili is not renowned for taking care. Last year he was forced to apologize when he ordered his men to behead a wounded ‘enemy’ soldier who turned out to be an allied rebel commander. More than 8,000 foreign Jihadist mercenaries are reportedly in ISIS including at least 1,000 Chechens as well as Jihadists Saudi, Kuwait, Egypt and reportedly Chinese Uyghur from Xinjiang Province. Jeffrey Silverman, Georgia Bureau Chief for the US-based Veterans Today (VT) website, told me that Batrashvili “is a product of a joint program of the US through a front NGO called Jvari, which was set up by US Intelligence and the Georgian National Security Council, dating back to the early days of the Pankisi Gorge.” Jvari is the name as well of a famous Georgian Orthodox monastery of the 6th century. According to Silverman, David J. Smith—head of something in Tbilisi called the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, as well as the Potomac Institute in Washington where he is listed as Director of the Potomac Institute Cyber Centerr—played a role in setting up the Jvari NGO. Silverman maintains that Jvari in Rustavi, near the capital, Tbilisi, gathered together Afghan Mujahideen war veterans, Chechens, Georgians and sundry Arab Jihadists. They were sent to the infamous Pankisi Gorge region, a kind-of no-man’s lawless area, for later deployment, including Iraq and Syria. Batrashvili and other Georgian and Chechen Russian-speaking Jihadists, Silverman notes, are typically smuggled, with the assistance of Georgia’s Counterintelligence Department and the approval of the US embassy, across the Georgia border to Turkey at the Vale crossing point, near Georgia’s Akhaltsikhe and the Turkish village of Türkgözü on the Turkish side of the Georgian border. From there it’s very little problem getting them through Turkey to either Mosul in Iraq or northeast Syria. Silverman believes that events in Northern Iraq relate to “wanting to have a Kurdish Republic separate from the Central government and this is all part of the New Great Game. It will serve US interests in both Turkey and Iraq, not to mention Syria.” Very revealing is the fact that almost two weeks after the dramatic fall of Mosul and the ‘capture’ by ISIS forces of the huge weapons and military vehicle resources provided by the US to the Iraqi army. Washington has done virtually nothing but make a few silly speeches about their ‘concern’ and dispatch 275 US special forces to allegedly protect US personnel in Iraq. Whatever the final details that emerge, what is clear in the days since the fall of Mosul is that some of the world’s largest oilfields in Iraq are suddenly held by Jihadists and no longer by an Iraqi government determined to increase the oil export significantly. More on this aspect in an upcoming article. More links: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html http://www.crescent-online.net/2014/06/us-saudi-funded-isis-spreads-terror-in-iraq-crescent-onlinenet-4513-articles.html

Has ISIS Killed Its Golden Goose? By Mark DeWeaver. While it has long been assumed that ISIS gets most of its money from donors in the Gulf, recently declassified documents suggest otherwise. Researchers at the RAND Corporation found that donations actually accounted for less than 5% of the group’s funding during the period from 2005 to 2010. (See this article.) The city of Mosul, rather than Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, turns out to have been, as one researcher put it, “the area that was keeping the group afloat”—through extortion rackets, kidnapping, and robbery. Following the fall of the city on June 10, it’s hard to see how this can continue to be the case. Out of a population of 1.8 million, the BBC has reported that 500,000 have fled. Presumably the wealthiest residents will not be returning any time soon. It is also unclear how Mosul’s remaining state employees are going to be paid. Obviously it won’t be possible to extort money from businesses without customers or collect ransoms from people who can’t afford to leave town. You can’t get blood from a stone after all. It’s not even clear that ISIS could have stolen as much US$ 420 million from the Mosul branch of the Central Bank of Iraq (or, in some accounts, from a combination of the CBI and private banks). While this figure has been widely reported in the media, some analysts have dismissed it as wildly exaggerated. In any case, looting can be only a short-term source of funds. Once the city’s homes and businesses have been stripped of cash and salable assets, this bonanza will come to an end as well. ISIS apparently had a pretty good thing going in Mosul, where it could help itself to a share of the economy of one of Iraq’s largest cities with all but complete impunity. Once this golden goose has stopped laying, I wonder if they won’t end up concluding that they should have left well enough alone.

https://news.yahoo.com/al-qaida-breakaway-formally-declares-islamic-state-184155646.html BAGHDAD (AP) — The al-Qaida breakaway group that has seized much of northern Syria and huge tracks of neighboring Iraq formally declared the creation of an Islamic state on Sunday in the territory under its control. The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, made the announcement in an audio statement posted online. Islamic extremists have long dreamed of recreating the Islamic state, or caliphate, that ruled over the Middle East for hundreds of years. Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is the new leader, or caliph, of the Islamic state. He called on those living in the areas under the organization's control to swear allegiance to al-Baghdadi and support him. "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas," al-Adnani said. He said that with the creation of the caliphate, the group was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant. It was unclear what immediate practical impact the declaration would have on the ground in Syria and Iraq, or among the wider global jihadi community.