Retrato do EI

jornalista alemão que obteve acesso raro ao território comandado pelo grupo autodenominado Estado Islâmico (EI) no Iraque disse em entrevista à BBC que o grupo é mais forte, mais violento e mais difícil de enfrentar do que se imagina.

Jüergen Todenhöefer passou seis dias na cidade de Mosul, a segunda maior cidade iraquiana, hoje comandada pelo EI. Ele conseguiu chegar à cidade através de Raqqa, na Síria.

Segundo Todenhöefer os seguidores do EI estão extremamente motivados e dão todo apoio à brutalidade do grupo. Ainda segundo o autor, o fato de os militantes estarem espalhados pela cidade dificulta que eles sejam atingidos pelos ataques aéreos ocidentais.

O alemão testemunhou o grupo impor sua versão radical do islamismo sunita: cartazes dão instruções de como os homens devem se posicionar durante as orações e dizem às mulheres como elas devem se cobrir.

As pessoas são instruídas, por exemplo, a não usar roupas que "lembrem as usadas por mulheres ou homens infiéis".

Imagens em painéis publicitários foram pintadas de preto e as livrarias exibem panfletos e livros sobre regras religiosas, incluindo instruções para o tratamento de escravos.

O autor viu também crianças combatentes que carregavam armas para o chamado "califado" e encontrou recrutas do mundo todo, incluindo países como a Grã-Bretanha, Estados Unidos, Suécia e Trinidade e Tobago.

Governar pelo medo

Ex-político na Alemanha, Todenhöefer é o único estrangeiro que conseguiu viajar e sair do território comandando pelo grupo.

Na conversa que teve com a BBC em sua casa, em Munique, ele afirmou que ficou chocado com o entusiasmo pela violência e a ambição do grupo em levar a cabo o que chama de "limpeza religiosa" em paralelo à expansão do seu território.

"Existe um entusiasmo que eu nunca vi antes em uma zona de guerra", afirmou.

"Eles estão tão confiantes, têm tanta segurança. No começo deste ano, poucas pessoas conheciam o EI. Mas agora eles conquistaram uma área do tamanho da Grã-Bretanha. Isto é um movimento de 1% (de pessoas) com o poder de uma bomba nuclear ou de um tsunami."

Filmado pelo filho, com um documento que garantia a segurança de ambos, o material colhido por Todenhöefer dá a impressão de que o EI está mais preocupado em consolidar uma burocracia e permanece relativamente imune aos efeitos dos ataques aéreos da coalizão.

"Tive a impressão de que eles querem mostrar que o Estado Islâmico está funcionando", disse Todenhöefer.

O autor afirmou ainda que, na superfície, a vida parece mais normal do que ele esperava. Mas todos os cristãos e xiitas já fugiram de Mosul depois que os militantes do EI assumiram o poder.

O grupo agora tem seu próprio sistema judiciário, com bandeiras do EI penduradas nos tribunais. E também a própria polícia aplicando a severa lei islâmica.

O chefe da polícia local disse ao jornalista que não precisa mais administrar punições violentas na cidade: o medo, segundo Todenhöefer, parece funcionar como uma espécie de prevenção da violência.

Pessimista

Mas o que deixou o jornalista mais assustado foram as conversas que teve com militantes, ele conta. O autor disse que lembrava aos combatentes que a maioria dos capítulos do Corão começava com as palavras "Alá... o mais misericordioso".

"Eu perguntei: onde está a misericórdia? Nunca consegui uma resposta."

Todenhöefer estima que a cidade de Mosul agora está sendo mantida por alguns milhares de combatentes.

O autor acredita que o EI é mais forte no Iraque que na Síria. Na cidade síria de Raqqa, por exemplo, o quartel-general do grupo, ele afirma que o presidente sírio Bashar al-Assad ainda paga os salários dos funcionários do governo.

"Eles são os inimigos mais violentos e perigosos que já vi em minha vida. Não vejo ninguém com chances reais de pará-los. Apenas os árabes podem parar o EI. Voltei muito pessimista."

Todenhöefer disse que teve sorte em conseguir voltar para casa, levando em conta o número de ocidentais que foram decapitados pelo grupo.

Ele negociou o acesso ao território com um jihadista alemão durante meses e levou consigo, durante a viagem, uma permissão escrita emitida pelo "gabinete do Califado" que o protegeu em várias ocasiões.

"Algumas vezes, temi que eles pudessem mudar de ideia", disse.

Foi esse temor que, no fim, o fez decidir fugir com o filho pela fronteira com a Turquia. "Tive que correr por mil metros, com nossas malas e todas as nossas coisas", contou.

"Quando chegamos, senti uma felicidade incrível. Percebi então que estava carregando toneladas nos ombros. Liguei para minha família e, naquele momento, percebi que o que eu tinha feito não tinha sido fácil."

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar este link]

Existe não apenas esse acordo de pagamento de funcionários, mas a energia elétrica em boa parte de Damasco vem de territórios da EI;  além de parte da renda que vem dos campos de Deir-Zor que é vendida em Tartus.  

Quem tá ferrado nesse acordo é gente como Nawras Mushaweh que acaba de morrer nas prisões do Bashir, parece ser o alvo preferencial dos dois "inimigos cordiais".

Putz.

cara! tem que ter muita coragem ou ser maluco pra @#$%% para dar um role pela cidade como essa! o cara andou num fio entre a vida e a morte.
é preocupante algo do gênero, é como ja disse.
se convidarmos as pessoas para irem fazer algo de bom ninguém vai, se convidarmos as pessoas para praticarem os atos mais medonhos contra outro ser vivo todo mundo topa!
o ser humano ta mais pra filho do diabo do que pra fio di dio.

Louco vai ser, se um dia eles se ficharem com a Al Qaeda.....

talvez role um casamento. mas acho dificil (não impossível) ja que fanáticos cada um tem seu mimimi!

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar esta imagem]

Levantado o primeiro cerco a Kobane hoje pelas tropas do YPG e Peshmerga, EI fugindo para deserto.  Enquanto os curdos lutavam contra os daesh, nos últimos dias os alawitas atacaram no outro cantão deles a cidade de al-Hasakah com bombas de fragmentação, hoje parece que o YPG cansou e lançou ofensiva para se livrar de outro lixo.

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar esta imagem]

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar este link]

quadro bem completo sobre a ofensiva de Mosul.

Abu Obeida al-Masri, o Emir que cuidava dos fundos levantados pelo tributo para "caridade" fugiu para Turquia com mais de um milhão de dólares.

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar este link]

Só um milhão?

Ou a arrecadação estava baixa ou ele tem muito a aprender com os políticos ocidentais.

Victor Pax escreveu:Só um milhão?

Ou a arrecadação estava baixa ou ele tem muito a aprender com os políticos ocidentais.

Arrecadação deve ser baixa, a pobreza extrema foi estimada em 54% da população da Síria em 2014 devido a guerra civil.

Exército do EI puxou para Mosul, deixou a frente norte da Síria aberta, YPG (curdos) e FSA (sunitas) desde ontem fazendo um grande "push" libertando territórios em Aleppo, Jarablus, Manbij, Tel Abyad, Al Bab, e Ain Issa.

Dá até medo pensar o que pode acontecer a partir desse lance.

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar esta imagem]

em verde claro a área disputada que era cidade de Kobane a 15 dias atrás.

Buster Keaton escreveu:Dá até medo pensar o que pode acontecer a partir desse lance.

Relativamente seira se perderem Jarablus (fronteira aberta entre turquia/síria), tiverem que se entrincheirar em  Manbij, eles perdem o norte de Aleppo, por isso do recuo de algumas forças e abandono de aldeias próximas a maior cidade da Sìria.

Manbij é o "primeiro lar" dos estrangeiros europeus no território da EI, já li algo que chamam da pequena londres então seria perda estratégica e psicológica.

Perder Tel Abyad seria perder o segundo posto aberto entre turquia e Síria, afeta aos contrabandistas, estrangeiros etc.

Mais um mapa:

[Tens de ter uma conta e sessão iniciada para poderes visualizar este link]

Outra coisa importante foi a campanha do Anonymous fazendo uma razia na internet atacando sites de apoio aos daesh, intensificou nos últimos dias.

Caliphatalism?
RASHA AL AQEEDI
An Iraqi exile eavesdrops on life in her old hometown of Mosul.

The phone rang around seven on a chilly Tuesday evening in Mosul in early March 2007, displaying an unrecognizable number. I had failed to transfer all the contacts to my new phone, so I assumed I knew the caller. “Hello?” “Assalmu Alaikum”, said the caller in a rusty, apparently rural accent. “Alaikum Assalam”, I replied, convinced, or hoping, he had the wrong number. “[We] are from the Islamic State.”

His demands were clear-cut: Leave your post at the Governor’s office or face the consequences. “We decided to warn you since you are a hurma.1 We kill the men without warning. You have two days to quit or we will behead you. We know where you live and we know your family.” He ended with some emotion, yelling in his rusty, rural accent: “By Allah shame on you for working with these heretics! You have no shame! We are protecting your honor!”

The authorities shrugged off my complaint, of course. Their reactions varied from the over-zealous—“be brave and do not let these cowards determine your life!”—to the white-flag approach: “Just do what they say and keep a low profile.” I was one of many Iraqi public workers on the receiving end of a death threat from the early incarnation of what is today known as the Islamic State, and am fortunate enough to have survived it. Others did not, even before its sudden overt military surge sent ISIS into international headlines this past June. ISIS was waiting, planning, and growing quietly, in my hometown of Mosul, in Raqqa, and elsewhere. And its members were not just threatening people; they were killing them, too. Between life or a job, I chose life.Between life or a job, I chose life.

As it happened, this incident some seven and a half years ago triggered a series of events that played out to my benefit. They placed me where I am today, in Dubai, as free a woman as one can expect to be in the Arab world of the present century. Those who remain inside the Caliphate are generally not so lucky.

A caliphate, in the heart of ancient Nineveh, seems too hard for many to fathom—not just for Westerners but for Arabs, too. Experts have long warned of this ominous aspiration, written into almost every Islamist text from Al-Mawardi’s early 11th-century teachings to Al-Nabhani’s 1953 Hizb ut-Tahrir doctrines. The methodology and approach may have differed, but the dream of resurrecting a religiously anchored empire that romanticizes puritanical Islam remains the ultimate goal of all the movements of political Islam, even the ones that reject violence and revolution as a means to the end. One may wonder, however, whether ISIS is really the manifestation of devout Muslims’ long-awaited Caliphate, for an unprecedented rejection of civil and modern life now governs Mosul, once the heart of Iraqi culture. Certainly the political and social extremes to which ISIS has resorted, not to speak of the endemic violence of its ways, are a far cry from even the most fiery speeches Hasan Al-Banna ever gave in the wake of the Ottoman renunciation of the Caliphate in 1923, and his Muslim Brotherhood followers are themselves no strangers to extremism and violence.

The Western media has not been good at reminding readers that already in 2006 Mosul fell, briefly, to the first incarnation of the Islamic State. Security forces regained control of the city within days, but the main actors remained on the loose. “We could not capture everyone”, said N. S., a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the local police force. “Keep in mind their faces were mostly covered. Once they felt threatened they dropped their arms and melted into the city. It became impossible to distinguish them from average young men.” He added, “We relied on information ‘tips’ to identify the militants; unfortunately, most of the time, the tips were not accurate”—which is another way of saying that family or private vendettas often get tossed into volatile situations, and sorting them out is no simple task since family connections also tie together Islamic State supporters and militants.

After that brief efflorescence in 2006, the “soldiers” of the Islamic State continued to carry out their missions in Mosul: death threats to public workers (like me); “royalty” demands from shop owners, doctors, pharmacists, and anyone with a revenue stream, known as protection-racket payments in the United States; assassinations of political activists; planting IEDs on the roads to target Iraqi and Coalition forces; and incessant threats to religious and ethnic minorities. Government checkpoints, present in almost every street, corner, office, and school, failed to stop the execution of such threats. The same scene repeated frequently: The attackers manage to penetrate a checkpoint, do their deed (assassinate, kidnap, suicide bomb, and so on), and disappear (in all cases). Security forces then randomly shower the skies with ammunition, innocent people are injured; security forces randomly circle any young man within a three-kilometer radius of the incident, and some are never seen again. The people soon forget the now-invisible terrorists and express more anger toward the flesh-and-blood security forces who injured bystanders, took innocent people into custody, and again failed to protect them. The militants win. Let 72 hours pass, and repeat.

While the East District of Mosul had languished in civil disorder for years, the city as a whole still functioned before this past June. Despite the checkpoints, the non-existent security, the extortions, the high unemployment rates, and the lack of services, life in Mosul nevertheless went on. The residents became more sympathetic to what Beirutis had to put up with during the Lebanese Civil War. As Sana, a 27-year-old dentist, put it:

The past year was especially hard after some army soldiers began harassing us. They became very sectarian and abusive. They would hit and humiliate people for no reason at checkpoints. Many of them would arrest people and demand money for their release. Things became very intense, and Atheel [Mosul’s Governor Atheel Al-Nujaifi] didn’t seem at least bothered. We would hear about him traveling to Turkey or Europe, or see pictures of him with his horses. He didn’t care that the city was on a downhill, but still no one expected what was about to happen.

While the Iraqi Armed Forces and the local government are not our concern here, the entire world witnessed their “efficiency” on June 10, 2014, the day that changed what still remained of Iraq forever.

Nearly 500,000 residents of Mosul fled the city to nearby Kurdistan after learning of the army’s retreat and the ISIS takeover. However, the 24 hours following did not go as anticipated: ISIS’s shock troops were not that scary after all. “We saw masked men lifting the concrete from the roads. They asked us not to call them ‘ISIS’ but call them ‘rebels’—and the ones I saw were all Iraqis. They didn’t close any shisha cafes or hurt anyone. We thought this was a Sunni rebellion, an Iraqi Sunni rebellion against Nouri Al-Maliki and his sectarian brutal army. Yes, we were happy!”, said 24-year-old Khalid.

The initial feeling of relief and hope for a national Sunni revolt lasted for about two weeks. An official statement issued by “The Islamic State of Iraq and Sham”, printed out and distributed everywhere in the city, demanded the full practice of Sharia, as ISIS understood it. Christians, Yezidis, Shi‘a, and any non-salafist Sunni were all deemed heretics or infidels. One week later virtually all of the city’s major historic sites and religious shrines were destroyed as examples of shirk: idolatry. Khalid, a college graduate who had been wrongfully arrested, and tortured, by the Iraqi Army a year earlier, stated a widely held view: “When they issued that decree we knew we had been lied to by those claiming to be rebels. This was the same ISIS that beheads people in Syria.” But the initial soft approach worked; there was no resistance from the population to the ISIS takeover.

The rest of Iraq was not ready to forgive the gulled population of the city. Social media and news outlets exploded with an organized defamation campaign against Mosul’s residents. “We were called traitors for allowing ISIS into the city. No one cares that we had been prohibited to leave our homes under the curfew imposed by the Army a week earlier, only for the Army to abandon us. Who left the posts they were supposed to defend?” argued Dhafar, Khalid’s older sister. “Some Iraqis want us, the people, to fight ISIS. We are taunted for not doing so. How do we fight ISIS without weapons?”

The war of words that played out on both traditional and social media only deepened the already existing—and now freshly salted—wounds of Iraq. The discourse instantly turned sectarian, and the “us against them” tone, previously believed to be exhausted from massive overuse, seemed to find a second (or third, or fourth) wind. It is good to know that some things do not change.

Eight months of ISIS so far, as I sit to write, have taken their toll on every aspect of the city. Electricity and running water are available for two to four hours a week, but no one knows which hours in any given week. Umm Saja, an employee at a city office, said that she is not surprised by the lack of services: “Providing clean water and energy to people is not child’s play. It takes regular, trained employees and experts. How are a bunch of brainwashed young people who have not finished grade school going to maintain such functions?” People approach the militants to complain only to be answered, “You Moslawis are too spoiled. Think about the early days of Islam. Did the Prophet own an air-conditioner?”

In these complaints one hears not only the voiced Islamist cant, but also the rural accents beneath it that identify most ISIS cadres as poorer, less well-educated Iraqis who have resented Mosul urbanites all their lives. This is a central sociological dimension to what has been going on that the Western press has missed almost entirely, as far as I can tell. More on this theme anon.

The extreme shortage of gasoline and other fuel has made cooking, cleaning, heating, and other basic functions primitive. “During rainy days we place buckets outside to collect water. We then run the water through cloth to trap dirt and other residue several times until the water is partially clear. This water is used for cleaning and personal hygiene”, said Naila, a university professor:

We still thank God. There are people much worse off. Think of all the hopeless refugees in tents in this harsh winter. This is why many did not leave the city. We knew we could not trust our government to help us if we did. Humanitarian organizations can only do so much. Access to Kurdistan requires money and the right contacts. Staying in Mosul was the only option for many, not because we are happy with Da’esh.

For cooking and heating, people resort to methods so innovatively basic, they do not have names: burning wood, for example, in an aluminum tank and using whatever heat results from the flames. The Central Bank of Mosul, since seized by ISIS, has allowed citizens to withdraw only minimal amounts of cash. The Iraqi government still pays its public workers partially despite the fact that the majority of employees have not returned to their offices. “We thank the government for that. At least we have enough to buy bread and water”, said Naila.

The process of collecting the salaries is a drama in itself. With no option of communicating with ISIS in this regard, the main accountants of the public bureaucracies must travel to Kirkuk, or Dohuk, to receive the money. These unfortunate folks are subjected to humiliation from ISIS for “begging money from a heretic government”, and also from the Iraqi forces, mostly Kurdish Peshmerga, for “not fighting ISIS and wanting money.” They absorb the insults, which are physical at times, and return to distribute what they can to whom they can.

Local grocery shops, stores, and some restaurants are still open. Food trade is still abundant between Mosul and Kurdistan, where most resources come from, despite heavy new ISIS restrictions and “taxes.” The market for manual workers has taken a massive hit; very little industry is continuing. I contacted Ayad (an alias), a 32-year-old carpenter I know, about how he is managing. “It’s very tough”, he said, adding a few curses here and there. “Families are worried about the food, not the table. Naturally, not many people are buying new furniture. I have only sold one piece in the past six months; a chair for $20. My father is supporting us with the few dinars he has from his retirement salary.”

To make matters worse, since December 31, 2014, internet and phone services have been completely cut off in the city. People residing outside of Mosul, like myself, have no way of knowing whether family members and friends are alive or not. All appeals to the Kurdistan government—which ordered blocking the services that operate from its soil—have gone in vain.

In an act that repelled the vast majority of Mosul’s population, ISIS issued a four-option warning to the city’s Christians: convert to Islam and be safe; pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on non-Muslims); leave the city with nothing but your clothes; or die. Indeed, most left with nothing but their clothes. At checkpoints on the way to Kurdistan—and everyone calls it that, knowing that it will never again be a subjugated part of an Arab-dominated Iraq—where most Christians took refuge, several eyewitnesses reported ISIS members snatching gold rings off women’s fingers. The empty homes of Sunnis who had escaped ISIS were confiscated, their owners declared “heretics.” Shi‘a and Yezidis faced a harsher destiny: convert or die. Not given the option to leave, many faced the latter fate. Their belongings, needless to say, were also confiscated. Like European Jews who were dispossessed en masse by their fascist enemies during World War II, the residents of Mosul are dispossessed by fascists of a different kind in our own day.

With an abundance of empty but furnished homes, cash, gold, and other assets, ISIS members found themselves richer with every tragedy. The Sunni homes, in particular, belonged to the wealthier citizens who had enough money to secure a comfortable place in Kurdistan, or in some other country they could reach. These homes were modern and recognizably “posh.” I spoke to “R”, who has been married a little more than a year. The young bride, who hails from a family of medical doctors, married into a well-situated family, as well. She told me over Skype:

Our neighbors informed us that ISIS took everything. My new bedroom, my kitchen, all our furniture was taken. Even my silverware and whatever clothes I didn’t take with me to Turkey. Then they brought in a few chairs and beds. Some ISIS fighters are now living in my home.

The more stylish furniture, according to a few narratives, is either shipped to the ISIS leadership in Syria or to the largest homes the Iraqi ISIS leadership has decided to claim. “This is what is driving scores of volunteers to ISIS from the underprivileged class. Part of it is revenge of the underdog, and part is war spoils. They want to own what the rich had. This a far cry from the asceticism we often hear associated with any type of jihad”, said Professor A. K. of Mosul University. “They are closer to Dark Age barbarians we see in the movies than they are to any religious movement, at least when it comes to booty.”

Before my departure to Dubai almost 18 months ago, my neighbor Manar (another alias) seemed fascinated by the fact that I would be able to walk by an authentic Chanel or Louis Vuitton shop. A 21-year-old medical student, Manar loves the television show The Doctors, reads philosophy, orientalism, and psychology, listens to the rock band Arctic Monkeys, and keeps up with the Kardashians. She was always capable of supporting a stylish and unique look, despite the “hijab” socially imposed in Mosul even before this past June, with adorable accessories and handbags. Anyone who thinks that obligatory Muslim dress for women obscures all efforts at style knows nothing of how to make small differences speak loudly.

Alas, after the fall of the city, Manar, like every other female, has been forced to wear a full burqa. This outfit really does cramp one’s style. “Were we nude before? What was wrong with our clothes? What was wrong with our clothes?” exclaims Manar, as her voice register shoots upward. “Nothing of our skin was exposed. Must we look like portable garbage bags for Allah to be content with us? How will I practice medicine? So that’s it? Everything I worked hard for and planned is gone?” She absolutely breaks my heart. This young, brilliant, and dedicated woman once so passionate about life is asking questions no one appears able to answer.

With Al-Husba (religious police) stationed at local markets to monitor women’s attire, the majority have submitted to the burqa, but some women have resisted and challenged ISIS militants with reason based on Islamic texts that the burqa is not mandatory. Dumbfounded and shocked, because they are to a man uneducated in genuine Islam, knowing only what their leaders have told them, several militants gave up the debate and left. The more hardcore ones refused any discussion. Whether they reject questioning the legitimacy of their religious laws or simply the idea of a woman standing up to them is hard to tell.

A new discourse has surfaced during the past six months in the conservative city of Mosul, one that should lead Islamists everywhere to some recalculation. In brief, it is this: Allah is not doing anything. A phrase considered to be the ultimate heresy in Islam is spreading widely in private discussions. ISIS religious fanatics are creating agnostics and atheists at an alarming rate.

Hasan (alias) is a thirty-something shop owner from Mosul’s East District. His plaint is becoming more typical:

I used to pray voluntarily without a gun pointed to my head. My prayers were sincere and heartfelt. Now, I wrap up my prayers as quick as possible, sometimes not even recalling what I recite. I’m occupied with my shop, which had already been looted once during a mass prayer. Instead of conforming to this ritual [of dropping everything and praying together], I could have performed my prayers in the shop. Any customer would see me, wait till I finished and perhaps buy something. Times are hard without wasting opportunities and as the call for prayer approaches I feel burdened by many grievances that are distancing me from Allah.

Scores of Mosul residents have abandoned going to mosques altogether and choose to pray at home to avoid ISIS. Hasan added: “There is a young man who lives around this area; an absolutely immoral perverted person so that I do not have enough bad words to describe with. He has joined ISIS and grown a long beard. Now he roams the market place fully armed. I see him and think, ‘if this lowlife represents Islam, then I no longer need this religion’—and then I quickly ask Allah for forgiveness.”

Ruaa, 35, told me she misses her “Christian neighbors as Christmas approaches. We used to visit them during their holidays. They were family and we were not able to offer them any help. I am ashamed of myself and my religion. I do not blame them if they hate Islam.” The most extreme statement came from Saad, a 29-year-old physician: “Our problem is with Allah. Every murderer, rapist, and thief speaks in His name and He does nothing. Do not tell me Allah exists. If He does, then He is content with what is happening. Either way I want nothing to do with Him.”

While atheism exists everywhere, what is rising in Mosul, and probably in Raqqa too, is a trend worth noting. When young people, once devoted Muslims, decide to stray from the Creator in anger, the future will bear the consequences. A young doctor told me he has become a heavy smoker and laughs about the extreme lengths he goes to just to get his hands on smoke after ISIS added cigarettes to its extended “taboo list.” He wrapped his amusing story with blasphemy: “If not only ISIS, but if Allah Himself comes down here to Mosul and tells me stop, I will still find a way to smoke.” This is a far cry from the man I used to know, who backed the Islamic Party in all national and local elections. ISIS is driving him crazy.

Professor A. K. said it’s either “now or never”:

We need serious reforms. We need to educate people about the context and reasons for the Quranic verses that appear extreme. We need the masses to know that Sharia is only a small part of Islamic civilization as it has developed, something set up over 1,400 years ago to impose order on a primitive society. People need to know that if Mohammed were living in these times, he would have seen and acted differently.

Audiences supporting such a hypothetical discourse—which is of course impossible so long as ISIS is in town—seem to have increased over the past six months. But ISIS or no ISIS, it remains unclear whether Mosul, or Muslims in general, are ready for this discourse.

During a brief meeting I attended with Thomas Friedman a few months back in Dubai, he pointed out that, unprecedentedly, there are no American reporters in any of the ISIS-controlled areas. This is true, and, as Hadeel Al-Sayegh from Abu Dhabi’s The National asserts, “Mosul has been a difficult city to cover in the aftermath of its takeover by the ISIS due to its multifaceted dynamics. Without being on the ground, a journalist suffers the risk of not being able to judge people’s biases in telling the story.” Difficult, but not impossible.

Mosul is a city known for following the motto, “I am above it all, and I shall not be moved.” Since this past June, this attitude has morphed into a kind of caliphatalism. Most people know there is little they can do on their own to rid the city of ISIS, so they deploy egoism as a last defense against despair. But not everyone forced to sit and wait has given in to caliphatalism. One such who sits and waits, an anonymous character who goes by the name “Maouris Milton”, has started a spark. Milton posts weekly updates about the situation in the city on a Facebook page titled “Mosul Eye.” A quick look at his posts reveals the considerable support he receives worldwide. Al-Sayegh notes:

In the time since the takeover of Mosul, the social media group Mosul Eye has acquired a strong and credible following by the media industry. The entries are in proficient English, which makes it accessible for Western journalists to get a decent perspective of what’s happening on the ground. The insight on the gradual control by IS is unprecedented in the sense that it is objective and there are no biases, whether good or bad, toward the actions of the jihadist group. However, its nationalist take offers hope for Mosul and Iraq.

Several other young men and women are reporting daily updates from Mosul on social media, and are also doing so anonymously for obvious reasons. “A dam has been broken in Mosul. People, especially young people, are fed up with being voiceless. They have begun relating the catastrophe of ISIS with years of remaining silent over what we knew was wrong”, Maouris told me a few weeks ago over Facebook. That was before he deactivated his personal profile following news of anti-ISIS social media outlets being hacked by the terrorist group. “I am not calling on young people to take arms and fight”, he told me.

But I want them to acknowledge that we are all faulted in this one way or another, thus, we need to each take responsibility and play our part in freeing our city. The world must know that the majority of Mosul residents just want to raise their families in safe and secure conditions. This [ISIS] level of extremism does not have a fan base in our city, but also the disconnection to political and religious authority has marginalized us and time has come for that to change. This is why I’m doing what I do.

I asked Milton if he risks his life to obtain the information he posts. He answered: “Yes. Every minute of every day I put myself and my family in danger. But we are living in fear regardless. The moment fear succeeds in breaking our spirit is the moment they win. Fear has been triumphant in Mosul for years now but a handful of us remain strong.” He reminds me, of all people, of the pioneering American female journalist Dorothy Thompson, who once wrote, back in the 1930s, that “it is only when we stop being afraid that we really start to live.”

As news of an impending military operation to free Mosul makes waves in the grieving city, the population find itself stuck between two contrasts: The joy of ridding Mosul of ISIS and the fear of retribution and revenge by the Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga, or the Shi‘a militias that have infiltrated the volunteer fighters. “I wish the U.S. Army would free us instead”, said Abu Ahmed, a retired accountant. “They would shoot at whoever carries arms but they would not raid homes and burn them down. Look at what is happening now in Diyala.” He added: “We are on death row simply awaiting the day of execution”, referring to what many expect will be the wholesale death and destruction that will accompany any attempt to re-take the city from ISIS.

Maouris Milton, however, has another opinion: “This too shall pass. Mosul has survived worse. The city will rise from its ashes. I have faith.” So of course, in his own way, did Jonah—Yunis in Arabic—who preached against Nineveh and, lo and behold, Nineveh repented. The city of Mosul needs another miracle right about now. Let us pray that it receives one.

1Hurma is a derogatory rural denotation for a woman. It is roughly equivalent to the English word “wench.”

Rasha Al Aqeedi is a native of Mosul currently working as an editor and assistant researcher at Al Mesbar Studies and Research Center in Dubai.

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ISIS anunciando a nova província chamada de Al-Jazeera, ela inclui Sinjar, Zumar* e Tal Afar.


* Zumar é totalmente controlada pelo Peshmerga.

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atualizando o mapa...muito mais vilas caindo, hoje a briga é na fábrica de Lafarge Cement que é uma grande planta a sudoeste de Kobane.

outro mapa

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camp Yarmouk era um dos maiores campos de refugiados no mundo...

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A foto é do "emir" Mohammed Al-Hassal dos daesh, o buraco abaixo é onde ele deixa as moças Yazidis para estuprar...a foto deve ser nos tempos de sadam quando ele era funcionário do regime e ganhou a casa roubada de uma família Yazidi

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Espero ver o nome entre os mortos em breve.

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Tall Hamis parece que caiu, mais problemas para os daeshs manterem rotas de logística entre Mosul e Raqua, como é outro cantão na antiga Síria, as forças foram YPG, tribo Shammar (árabe sunita).

Do outro lado da "fronteira" traçada pelos franceses, Yazidis e Peshmergas lançaram ataques para prender os daesh em Shingal.

Por outra notícia, o infame ex-chefe de inteligencia sírio no Líbano Rustom Ghazaleh foi ferido na Síria em Gharfah. ele foi um dos responsáveis por vários atentados a bomba contra libaneses que eram contra a presença de tropas sírias no Cedro, entre eles o mais famoso o do primeiro ministro Rafiq Hariri.

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mapa da batalha

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Comandante Qasem Soleimani  = Comandante da Quds Force,

Finalizando os preparativos para maior batalha até agora no Iraque, de um lado EI  e partido Ba'ath com ?? de outro exército iraquiano + milicias xiitas + sunitas totalizando 27.000 homens, plano do Comandante Soleimani     e as tropas terrestres terão apoio aéreo americano e iraniano

Pelos números envolvidos deve ser a maior batalha dessa década até aqui.

ùltimos mapas: Cantão Kobane.

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CIZIRE CANTON

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aqui 8 km de  al-Hawl .

edit: de 03 a 05 de março

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Tikrit, mapa dia 10, com as conquistas...

O mapa, Tikirit caiu, Cantão de Hasakah e Kobane hoje o YPG expandiu sua área,


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mas os daesh tomaram Palmira hoje e como diz as informações deles:
There are 27 aeroportos civis e militares na Siria:
Assad controla 19
IS controla 5
FSA controla 2
JN controla 1

Além disso,  DeirEzzor, Kuwayris, T4 & Suwayda sobre Assad estão sob ataque...A área deles só cresce...

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Early last month, Iraqi troops, Shia militias and a Sunni tribal force recaptured Tikrit, returning Saddam Hussein’s birthplace to government control for the first time since January last year. Kurdish forces stabilised their front west of Irbil, and positional warfare — patrolling, trench raids, artillery duels and occasional assaults across static battle lines — developed in the country’s north.

Coalition and Iraqi leaders spoke of an offensive in the late northern summer or autumn to recapture Mosul, the strategic anchor of northern Iraq, home to two million and under Islamic State occupation since last June.

Several Islamic State leaders allegedly were killed or wounded about the same time. A Shia militia in the Hamrin Mountains of northeastern Iraq claimed to have killed Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam’s former vice-president and leader of a Baathist force loosely allied with Islamic State. There were rumours that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of Islamic State, had been killed or wounded in an airstrike, and his deputy Abu Alaa al-Afri also was dead.

In an upbeat press briefing on May 15, US military spokesmen, using the Pentagon’s acronym for Islamic State, claimed “the strategy to defeat ISIL is working”.

This turned out to be a spectacularly ill-timed announcement. The same day, Islamic State captured the government complex in Ramadi — capital of Anbar, Iraq’s largest province, and the third provincial capital (after Mosul, and Raqqa in Syria) to be seized by the group.

Iraqi forces suffered another humiliating collapse, abandoning their equipment and positions ahead of the advancing Islamic State. In a repeat of the fall of Mosul almost a year ago, Islamic State troops seized weapons, ammunition, fuel and vehicles. They overran the Anbar Operations Command (a corps-level headquarters), forced Iraq’s so-called Golden Division to withdraw in disarray, and besieged the 8th Brigade base outside the town. By the end of the weekend they were in full control of Ramadi.

The spin doctors are already playing down the fall of Ramadi. But on the ground — where things are harder to fake — it’s correctly seen as a huge defeat.
About the same time, al-Douri resurfaced in an audio message that referred to current events, disproving claims of his demise, while Baghdadi issued a statement indicating he remained in command and calling on all Muslims to join the conflict.

The spin doctors are already playing down the fall of Ramadi. But on the ground — where things are harder to fake — it’s correctly seen as a huge defeat.

Al-Asad air base (80km to the northwest of Ramadi and home to several thousand US trainers and advisers) is now isolated by road from the rest of Anbar, though not under siege. Iraqi forces are in disarray along the whole Fallujah-Ramadi corridor, and Haditha is the only significant city in government hands along the length of the Euphrates River west of Baghdad.

Towns such as Taji, where more than 300 Australians and 140 New Zealanders are based, are looking precarious. Assurances that trainers will remain “behind the wire” — safely ensconced in defended bases — sound less soothing now that Islamic State has seized an entire city, overrunning several such bases, less than 100km away.

The group has already consolidated its hold on Ramadi and is assaulting eastward to forestall counterattacks from a collection of Iranian-backed Shia sectarian militias, the Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilisation, now mass­ing in their thousands east of the city. The militias’ chances of taking Ramadi back anytime soon are pretty slim, given it was only coalition air power that allowed Iraqi forces to capture Tikrit, and even that took several weeks of hard urban fighting after months of preparation.

Elsewhere in Iraq, Islamic State holds about 80 per cent of the Baiji oil refinery complex, a critical infrastructure hub it has been attacking for weeks; the group already controls the surrounding town. If Baiji falls, the entire campaign to roll back Islamic State will have to be put on hold. Already, some field commanders (Iraqi and coalition) are suggesting late this year or early next year as the earliest date for an assault on Mosul.

In Syria, meanwhile, the town of Palmyra in Homs province — with its spectacular Roman ruins, but also home to several Syrian government facilities and a sizeable population — fell to Islamic State this week.

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Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is rumoured to have been injured in an airstrike.
The group has seized the initiative and is dictating the terms of the conflict on both sides of an increasingly irrelevant border.

In a broader sense, the fall of Ramadi shows Islamic State has adapted successfully to the coalition air campaign, which began last August. Before then, its commanders ran a conventional war of manoeuvre, operating openly, moving by day in columns of several hundred troops, flanked by technicals (pick-up trucks carrying heavy weapons and infantry) and supported by artillery, tanks and rockets. Once the air campaign began, they dropped back into guerilla mode — small teams, civilian clothes, light weapons, moving by night, blending with the population to avoid being targeted from the air. They decentralised command and control, delegating significant autonomy to junior commanders and dispersing headquarters and installations.

This adaptation worked, allowing Islamic State to survive, rebuild and create the mid-weight force that captured Ramadi. Today, it operates in medium-sized, relatively autonomous combat teams of 20 to 40 fighters, mounted in groups of three to five armoured vehicles, with technicals reconnoitring ahead and mortars or towed artillery pieces in support. Snipers, anti-tank teams and improvised explosive device specialists are attached to each group.

These teams apply what soldiers call “combined arms” manoeuvres, operating in mutually supporting formations, with units covering one another and each weapons system compensating for the others’ vulnerabilities.

When defending, Islamic State combat teams run a mobile defence, constantly manoeuvring, counterattacking, denying areas rather than holding ground, and laying thousands of IEDs in deep obstacle belts, designed to hamper attackers and channel them into the killing area of snipers and rocket-propelled grenade ambushes. On the offensive, they move dispersed but concentrate to support each other if threatened, and can mass for major attacks such as the Ramadi offensive.

Some of these attacks have been highly sophisticated. In January, on the Kurdish front, Islamic State threw 11 teams into crossing the Zab River, using small boats, near Gwer. The attackers exploited the cover of darkness and bad weather, landed on the Kurdish-held side, seized a major bridge and massacred a security unit before withdrawing.

About the same time Islamic State launched at least 14 armour-plated fuel tankers, each carrying an enormous explosive charge, in a massed suicide counterattack against advancing Kurdish forces near Aski Mosul. Coalition aircraft and Kurdish anti-tank weapons destroyed the bomb-trucks before they could reach their targets, but the Kurds’ advance was halted — and remains stalled.

Then, after losing Tikrit last month, Islamic State applied its new approach to a major counteroffensive. As Ramadi and Palmyra demonstrate, after 10 months of coalition airstrikes the group remains more than capable of aggressive manoeuvres in both Syria and Iraq, launching co-ordinated attacks in the Baghdad belts, stepping up its assault on Baiji, conducting car bombings in Baghdad and attacking towns west and north of Baghdad. Reports of Islamic State’s demise, in short, turn out to be grossly premature.

In military terms this suggests a stalemate at best, unless Iraqi and coalition forces change their ­approach. More bluntly, the “light-footprint” formula — trainers behind the wire, supported by limited numbers of airstrikes on Islamic State battlefield targets — clearly isn’t working. Coalition airstrikes failed to save Ramadi when Iraqi forces proved unable to hold positions against a determined assault.

Iraqi leaders blame the coalition for the loss of Ramadi and are determined to recover the city by any means.
On the Kurdish front, though anti-Islamic State forces are holding the line, they cannot recapture ground without air support, and wherever Shia militias with Iranian advisers and weaponry have been committed, they have failed to change the equation.

Beyond these military concerns, the fall of Ramadi is a huge political crisis. As Islamic State cranked up pressure on Ramadi during the past few weeks, Iraqi politicians wanted to send Shia militias to defend the city, but coalition leaders urged them not to — in the hope that the Iraqi army and a local Sunni force from the Albu Fahd tribe would suffice to defend the city, and thus avoid the political problems associated with bringing large numbers of Iranian advisers and Shia sectarian fighters into the Sunni heartland of Anbar province.

This plan failed, and now Iraqi leaders blame the coalition for the loss of Ramadi and are determined to recover the city by any means, even at the risk of heightened sectarian conflict and alienation of Iraqi Sunnis. The conflict is thus becoming increasingly sectarian.

Since assuming power last September, Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has made genuine efforts to act in a more inclusive manner and win back Sunni support for Baghdad. The fall of Ramadi weakens him with his own Shia sectarian base and strengthens former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been active in the Popular Mobilisation, pushing an openly sectarian, anti-Sunni line and supporting greater Iranian involvement in the conflict.

Recent events will reinforce Maliki’s disruptive role on the sidelines (and the implied threat to Abadi’s leadership), undermining the Baghdad government’s credibility and leverage in negotiations with Kurds and Sunni leaders. At the same time, Sunni communities and tribal leaders that had previously backed Baghdad, albeit tentatively, see less reason to do so.

Iraq, indeed, looks increasingly like Humpty Dumpty. Efforts to put the country back together as a unified political entity are fading, leaders on the ground are speaking of a soft partition into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions, and some on the edge of the political debate are arguing for what amounts to ethnic cleansing — driving Sunni communities out of major cities, repopulating them with Shia settlers and permanently restructuring Iraq.

A look at what Shia militias have done in places they have captured — such as Jurf as-Sakhr, outside Baghdad, or Tikrit, both now depopulated areas under Shia military occupation — shows this is more than mere rhetoric.

For their part, Iraqi Kurds, behind their stable frontline, are being treated like an independent state in terms of weapons supplies and international trainers, and are stockpiling weapons and equipment. The purpose of this build-up, in theory, is to help liberate Mosul, but it’s easy to see how Kurdish leaders would be reluctant to waste their new capabilities, or lose Kurdish lives, in recapturing an Arab city for politicians in Baghdad for whom they have little love and less respect.

We need to start treating Islamic State as what it is — more than just a terrorist group or an extremist death cult.
At the same time, the influx of weapons and training is changing the balance of power among competing groups such as the Kurdish Democratic Party, its longstanding rival the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the newly influential People’s Protection Units (YPG), a militia linked to the anti-Turkish Kurdistan People’s Party (PKK). It’s possible the ultimate outcome will be a better armed, less united, less peaceful, but fully independent Kurdish state, with territorial ambitions in Syria and elsewhere.

What needs to happen, then, to salvage the campaign? As I argue in a recently published Quarterly Essay, it’s not actually clear that it can be salvaged. But what is clear is that we need to start treating Islamic State as what it is — more than just a terrorist group or an extremist death cult but, rather, something that looks increasingly like what it claims to be: a state.


Islamic State controls territory and population, governs cities, levies taxes, disposes of substantial economic and military resources, and is in the process of redrawing the map of the entire Middle East through aggressive (largely conventional) military conquest.

It does have an international terrorist network as well, and its reach on social media — along with its ability to radicalise people in the West and draw recruits from across the world — is dangerous.

But its most threatening aspect of its state-like nature, which has turned a longstanding Sunni-Shia cold war into a hot conflict that is dragging in regional and global powers such as Iran, Turkey, Israel, the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Russia and, of course, the US and allies including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain, along with several European countries. At least five of these states are present or threshold nuclear powers, so that — in a worst-case scenario — the escalating regional conflagration centred on Iraq and Syria even carries the ultimate risk of a nuclear exchange.

Even without that, the conflict already has generated an unprecedented number of refugees and asylum-seekers across Africa and Europe.

Hence the strategic imperative now is to stop further escalation of that conflict, and, like it or not, only the Western allies — operating in accordance with international norms and with the backing of the international community — have the capacity to do that. This would make sense even if it turns out to be impossible to reunify Iraq, because the alternative of an escalating conflict would be so much worse.

Such an approach — we could call it “active containment” — would include both military and diplomatic elements.

On the military side, there’s a clear need to set aside the light-footprint approach (at least for now) and take wholehearted action to destroy those aspects of Islamic State that make it a state-like entity and that are provoking other powers to join the conflict.

This doesn’t imply invading Iraq, putting thousands of Western troops on the ground or engaging in a military occupation or stabilisation effort.

Rather, it involves a radically enhanced air campaign — on about the scale of Kosovo in 1999 or Libya in 2011 — with coalition observers and ­targeting teams on the ground, coordinating a significantly increased number of airstrikes.

This would change the air campaign in quantitative and qualitative terms. It would involve an increase from the 10 or so strikes a day that have been mounted since last August to something approaching the 45 a day of the Libyan air campaign or the 250 a day of Kosovo. This would imply better targeting, as the present low strike rate results from lack of targets, not lack of bombs or aircraft.

Qualitatively, it would see a shift of emphasis from attacking individual weapons systems, fighting positions or leaders, towards destroying the things that allow Islamic State to exercise its governance function.

The Taliban in 2001 were structured in a very similar way to Islamic State now, fielded a similar-sized force and used similar tactics.
One example may help illustrate this. Since seizing Mosul last year, Islamic State has used forced labour to construct a berm (essentially a sand wall and moat-like ditch) around the city. There are only a few openings, each guarded by a checkpoint. Anyone wishing to leave Mosul has to pass through these checkpoints and give the names of three friends or relatives, who become hostages to be executed if the person doesn’t return within five days. Thus a small number of operatives can hold hostage a city of two million.

A revised targeting approach could knock out the checkpoints, create multiple breaches in the berm to allow the population to leave, destroy the Islamic State governance complex in the centre of Mosul and target its headquarters at the northern end of Mosul airport. Ground forces would create a humanitarian corridor to allow the population to flee, while air power held off attempts at retaliation.

The goal would be to break the Islamic state’s ability to function as a state. This is a hypothetical, of course, but it illustrates how a shift in approach, plus increased effort, could translate into significant changes on the ground.

There’s no way this approach can work, however, unless the restrictive rules of engagement are changed to allow Western trainers and advisers to accompany partnered Kurdish and Iraqi units into battle, and engage Islamic State offensively, not just in self-defence.

Air power alone, without properly trained and advised ground units, will be just as ineffective as ground forces operating without air support have been. We need to apply the same “combined arms manoeuvre” Islamic State has been using, putting the enemy on the horns of a dilemma where massing to face ground forces makes its fighters vulnerable to airstrikes, but dispersing to avoid airstrikes means they can be dealt with piecemeal by ground forces.

This is not a hypothetical — it’s exactly how we defeated the Taliban in 2001, through a combination of massed air power (83 strikes a day on average), advisers and observer teams moving closely with supported units, and a 50,000-strong Afghan ground force. The Taliban in 2001 were structured in a very similar way to Islamic State now, fielded a similar-sized force and used similar tactics (albeit with fewer heavy weapons), so the analogy, while imperfect, is useful.

Ultimately, though, as in all warfare, the key problems here are political, not military. In Iraq the challenge is to reconstruct a functional relationship between Kurds, Shi’ites and Sunnis, and among multiple parties with divergent interests. In Syria, it’s to convince combatants on all sides that they can’t achieve their goals by continued violence and that a negotiated peace is the best alternative.

The role of military operations in both Iraq and Syria is to create the conditions that make it pos­sible to solve these political problems or, if they prove impossible to solve, at least contain the conflict and stop it escalating into a wider war. Unfortunately, as last week’s setbacks show, those conditions are further away than ever.

David Kilcullen’s analysis of Islamic State.

David Kilcullen is a former Australian Army officer and guerilla warfare specialist who served in Iraq in 2005-07 as senior adviser to US general David Petraeus, was special adviser for counter-insurgency to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in 2007-09, and is an adviser to governments and NGOs in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Africa and Latin America. His Quarterly Essay, Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State, is out this week.

Sobre Baijim tropas iranianas estão operando a artilharia para retormar o território, no chão além do exército iraquiano, a Milícia Hashd al Shaabi (xiita), uma das mais bem equipadas vem fazendo um "push" que já quebrou o cerco.