Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 19-118-Caliphate-vs-Regular Armies-9

By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence.

The Battle reliability of standing and moderate forces opposing irregulars

March 1, Iraq launches offensive to take back Tikrit from ISIL, and than Mosul the critical part next in the Mission: but Who Will Evict ISIL?

a "new strategy" was needed and that while Assad`s overthrow was still the final aim, it was not necessary for the start of a process to end Syria`s conflict. "We insist on the goal of toppling Assad and the security services... It is not necessary to have these conditions at the beginning of the process, but it is... necessary to end the process with a new regime and a new free Syria," --- . Opposition National Coalition chief Khaled Khoja said.

The top U.S. general has expressed confidence that the combined force of Iranian-back Shi’ite militias and Iraqi government troops will prevail in a battle against Islamic State (IS) militants who control the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit. Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on March 7 that 23,000 Iranian-based Shi’ite militiamen, Sunnit tribal fighters, and Iraqi soldiers are involved in the offensive, compared to only "hundreds" of IS fighters. But Dempsey cautioned that victory will mean little unless followed by a show of humanitarian and other support for mostly Sunni Tikrit by the Shiite-led Baghdad government. Dempsey said he wants to see if Iraq's leaders remain committed to political inclusiveness and national unity between Shi’a Muslims, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds.

Battle for Tikrit highlights challenges of war on IS Author: Mushreq AbbasPosted March 6, 2015 While the Iraqi army has made some progress on the ground in its battle to liberate Tikrit from Islamic State (IS) forces, the war against IS will not be fully resolved until all concerned parties come together with a unified strategic plan.

The military operation to liberate Tikrit, which Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially started March 1 during his visit to Samarra, has achieved some progress on the ground. Nevertheless, the absence of US support was clear, as the attacking forces lacked air cover. This delayed operations to gain control of the two most important targets of the operation — the towns of al-Alam (north of Tikrit) and al-Dour (southwest of Tirkit) — besides the city of Tikrit itself. During a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on March 3, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that Baghdad did not ask for US support for the battle of Tikrit. Yet on March 4, four days after the operation began, US Vice President Joe Biden spoke by phone with Abadi to discuss the operation. Amid the US military absence, there was a notable and declared Iranian presence via the commander of the Quds Force, Gen. Qasem Soleimani. On March 2, Iranian media outlets announced that he was present in Tikrit.A week after its start, it has become clear in Iraq that the operation to liberate Tikrit will not be quick. Estimates for when it will end are still open, especially in light of the absence of air cover. Iraqi forces announced on March 4 that they had liberated 97 villages surrounding Tikrit, which contributed to making progress toward the city on various levels. It seems that the military plan is increasingly focusing on an attempt to encircle Tikrit through gaining control of the towns of al-Alam and al-Dour, in addition to cutting the supply route that remains open and links Tikrit to the town of Huwaija, located to the north in Kirkuk province. Yet, the supply route that passes through the town of al-Alam to Tikrit remained open to the Islamic State (IS) as of this article’s writing. On March 4, IS websites published photos of

supplies that had reached Tikrit and al-Alam. The information accompanying the photos, which Iraqi military sources confirmed to Al-Monitor was accurate, said that the supplies had arrived via the aforementioned Tikrit-Huwaija route. Local sources in Tikrit told Al-Monitor on March 6 that IS was not prepared to fight a major battle in Tikrit as of that day. The sources added that IS forces inside the city comprised no more than 500 fighters, yet this number later doubled with the arrival of large reinforcements to some areas around Tikrit. IS tried to delay the progress of the Iraqi army and al-Hashid al-Shaibi — volunteer forces supporting the army — until the arrival of military supplies, through carrying out a series of suicide attacks in Samarra one day before the operation to liberate Tikrit began. The organization also set fire to the Ajeel oil field, for the same purpose.According to a colonel in the Iraqi army who participated in the operations through an axis in the eastern region of Salahuddin province — where the town of Tuz Khormato is located — the operation achieved good results, but is yet inconclusive at the strategic level. The colonel, who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, said: “The plan we expected for the battle involved coordination with the Kurdish peshmerga forces in Kirkuk. The latter were capable of attacking the town of Huwaija in conjunction with the international coalition cutting military supply lines to IS.” In an article published Feb. 25, Al-Monitor noted that a problem impeding significant progress in the war on IS is the inability of the Iraqis to wage a united war. IS is taking advantage of this by opening up its opponents’ front. The battle of Tikrit only strengthens this conviction. It seems that while the Iranians’ open participation in the war — amid the absence of the international coalition and the Kurdish peshmerga — had granted the attacking forces strength in some military aspects on the ground, it has also revealed several weaknesses in the efforts to fight IS. The latter has yet to face an all-out war on multiple fronts. Iraq’s ability to triumph over IS is not linked to gaining control of Tikrit, rather it lies in weakening the organization’s military options and neutralizing its ability to transport fighters and reinforcements across different fronts and cities. This requires that the leadership for the war be unified, have consistent goals, prepare strategic plans and take advantage of the available capabilities to defeat IS on more than one front. Iraqis should have dealt with the war as a technical matter — not an emotional one — and sought to bring together all parties interested in helping, including Iran, but without disrupting the capabilities of the international coalition.ISIS has announced that Lebanon will be the next state to fall under the sway of its “caliphate.” According to Beirut's Daily Star newspaper, the only reason ISIS hasn't attacked yet in force is because they haven't decided on the mission's commander. The Lebanese army is one of the least effective in the Middle East—and that's saying something in a region where the far more capable Syrian and Iraqi armies are utterly failing to safeguard what should be their own sovereign territory. So France is going to send a three billion dollar package of weapons to Lebanon and the Saudis are going to pay for it. It won't solve the problem any more than a full-body cast will cure cancer, but it beats standing around and not even trying. It may seem surprising at first that Riyadh is willing to fund a Lebanese Maginot Line. Saudi Arabia is the most culturally conservative Arab country and Lebanon is the most liberal, partly because of its one-third Christian minority, but also because Lebanon's Sunni Muslims are, for the most part, Mediterranean merchants rather than isolated desert-dwellers. They've been exposed to cosmopolitan ideas and culture for centuries while most Saudis outside the Hejaz region on the Red Sea have been hermetically sealed off from the wider world and its ways for millennia. A serious invasion of Lebanon by ISIS could unleash a bloodbath that makes the civil war in Syria look like a bar fight with pool sticks and beer mugs. It would be tantamount to a Nazi invasion. Every family in Lebanon is armed to the gills thanks to the state being too weak and divided to provide basic security, but people anywhere in the world facing psychopathic mass-murderers will fight with kitchen knives and even their fingernails

and teeth if they have to. The only good thing that might emerge from an attempted ISIS invasion is that the eternally fractious Lebanese might finally realize they have enough in common with each other to band together for survival and kindle something that resembles a national identity for the first time in their history. Foreign armies don't do well in Lebanon over the long term.

To Topple the Throne: Islamic State Sets Its Sights on Saudi ArabiaPublication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 13 Issue: 5March 6, 2015 By: Chris Zambelis

King Salman and Saudi Arabia have moved up on the Islamic State's list of targets (Source: DoD Flickr).The meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has since styled itself the Islamic State in an affirmation of its broader aspirations of dominion over a self-declared caliphate beyond the territories where it exercises control, has aggravated the Middle East’s already treacherous geopolitical landscape. Having emerged out of conflict and instability in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has arguably matched or otherwise exceeded the capabilities of fellow extremist groups such as al-Qaeda, its regional affiliates and other violent Islamist organizations. Despite its recent setbacks—notably in Syria’s Kurdish-majority town of Kobane (a.k.a. Ayn al-Arab), located in the northern Aleppo province—the Islamic State has demonstrated an impressive ability to capture, control and consolidate its hold on territory and sustain its insurgent and support cadres. It also operates a sophisticated information and propaganda wing that exploits social media as a force multiplier alongside its scorched earth campaign. It has also drawn support from independent sympathizers and ideological allies throughout the broader Middle East and around globe—including among locally focused extremist factions in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen. These attributes are reminiscent of al-Qaeda’s at the pinnacle of its influence. However, they also reflect the simmering competition between the Islamic State and its al-Qaeda precursor as well as the latter’s regional affiliates such as Jabhat al-Nusra (Terrorism Monitor, February 20). The Islamic State’s increasingly strident discourse and threats also illustrate its rising ambitions; in addition to confronting the incumbent regimes in Iraq and Syria and rival militants and insurgents, the Islamic State has ambitious set of goals that include challenging Saudi Arabia. The Islamic State today represents the latest and potentially most complex set of challenges to Saudi Arabia, which had previously drawn the ire of al-Qaeda and its regional affiliate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Due to the recent death of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and the succession of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the Islamic State’s rise also comes amid a period of heightened domestic and regional uncertainty. This article will examine the Islamic State’s escalating threats toward Saudi

Arabia, which suggest, alongside other recent trends, that the Islamic State is employing a steadily more aggressive threat posture toward Saudi Arabia that is likely to foreshadow future attacks and intensifying pressures.

Mapping the Threat The Islamic State’s leader (and self-style caliph) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi singled out Saudi Arabia in an audio statement titled “Even if the Disbelievers Despise Such,” released by the group’s al-Furqan Media Foundation on November 13, 2014. In his statement, al-Baghdadi extolled what he describes as the purported expansion of the Islamic State to the “lands of al-Haramein” (two holy places) in addition to Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Algeria, through its acceptance of oaths of allegiance sworn by local militants to the self-styled caliphate. Al-Baghdadi’s mention of al-Haramein is notable in that it reflects the radical Islamist proclivity for avoiding any reference to Saudi Arabia by name and, by implication, any indirect recognition of the legitimacy of the Saudi royal family, instead highlighting Islam’s two holiest sites at Mecca and Medina. Al-Baghdadi also proclaimed the appointment of regional governors to represent the Islamic State and called on followers in Saudi Arabia and beyond to recognize and follow their leadership. Al-Baghdadi issued a categorical call to arms: He referred to the Saudi royal family as “the serpent’s head” and the “stronghold of the disease,” and implored his Saudi subjects to attack the “al-Saloul” and “their soldiers.” The reference to al-Saloul represents a derogatory distortion of the al-Saud family name; in Islamic tradition, the al-Saloul family guarded the then-pagan holy site of the Kaaba at Mecca during the pre-Islamic period. He also implored his followers to attack polytheists and rafidah (rejectionists), an inflammatory label often assigned to Shi’a Muslims by extreme Salafists and other hardline Sunni Islamists, in an apparent reference to the kingdom’s substantial Shi’a minority population. Al-Baghdadi then issued an appeal for “patience” and reassured his followers in the kingdom that the “vanguards of the Islamic State are on their way” (al-Furqan Media Foundation, November 13, 2014). The subsequent release of the fifth edition of Dabiq, the Islamic State’s official magazine, in November 2014 by its affiliated al-Hayat Media Center, followed up al-Baghdadi’s earlier de facto declaration of war against the House of Saud. The cover of the magazine is emblazoned with a photograph of the Kaaba at Mecca, while the foreword proclaims that the Islamic State’s flag will “fly over Mecca and Medina.” It is also emphasized that Saudi militants should take up arms at home and avoid traveling to battlefields abroad. A section devoted to Saudi Arabia exalts the efforts of earlier generations of militants who resisted and attacked the monarchy, including al-Qaeda and its regional affiliate AQAP, while at the same time lamenting their failure to achieve their objectives. Equally important, the Islamic State declares its opposition to Saudi’s fellow Persian Gulf monarchies in an apparent declaration of war against Saudi Arabia’s allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). A section of the magazine dedicated to the group’s activities in Yemen emphasizes the proximity between Saudi- and Yemen-based Islamic State loyalists and their potential to cooperate in launching attacks in the Arabian Peninsula (Dabiq, November 2014). An incursion by militants who had infiltrated Saudi Arabia’s northeastern town of Arar, located in the Northern Borders province that sits adjacent to Iraq’s southern border, on January 5 underlines the potential threat the Islamic State poses to the kingdom (al-Jazeera, January 5). While details surrounding the incident remain murky, a band of Iraq-based insurgents reportedly associated with the Islamic State is said to have penetrated Saudi territory and engaged a Saudi border police post. The attackers are reported to have employed small unit ambush tactics and a suicide bomber, who detonated his explosives-laden vest while offering to surrender to a senior Saudi security officer, killing himself and the officer. The ensuing incident left three border officers and four militants dead (Saudi Press Agency,

January 5). The Northern Borders province is located alongside Iraq’s Anbar province, a key locus of support for the Islamic State that is hotly contested between the Islamic State and Iraqi security forces (Reuters, February 12). The Saudi authorities have also linked the November 2014 murder of a Danish national in the capital Riyadh following the release of a video purportedly recorded by the perpetrators who claimed responsibility for the attack (The National [Abu Dhabi], December 2, 2014). An attack that targeted Shi’a worshippers, who had gathered to commemorate Ashura, in al-Hasa in the kingdom’s Eastern province has also been attributed to the Islamic State (al-Jazeera, November 25, 2014). Saudi authorities are also reported to have disrupted numerous militant cells linked to the Islamic State (al-Arabiya [Dubai], August 28, 2014).

Geopolitics of the Palace A consideration of Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical significance is critical to appreciate the nature of the threats the Islamic State poses to the kingdom. In many respects, the factors that have compelled the Islamic State to confront Saudi Arabia echo those that had originally induced al-Qaeda to take on the monarchy. Much like other entrenched authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that have drawn al-Qaeda’s fury over the years, Saudi Arabia is despised by the Islamic State for what it sees as its pervasive corruption, strategic relationship with the United States and illegitimate position as the custodian of Mecca and Medina. In this regard, the Islamic State, much like al-Qaeda, views the Saudi royal family as an agent of U.S. imperialism that is bent on the domination and subjugation of the Arab and Islamic world. Its status as the world’s largest exporter of oil, and second-largest oil producer, adds another layer of complexity that is surely not lost on the Islamic State. In this regard, al-Qaeda’s earlier targeting of strategic energy infrastructure, including its February 2006 operation against the Abqaiq oil refinery—one of the world’s largest—may provide valuable insights into the Islamic State’s tactical calculus with respect to prospective

targets inside the kingdom (al-Jazeera, February 27, 2006). The circumstances surrounding the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by militants, led by Juhayman al-Otaibi, who were violently opposed to the Saudi monarchy, may also offer a glimpse into the Islamic State’s plans for the kingdom (al-Majalla [London], November 2009). For al-Qaeda, the prospect of toppling or otherwise destabilizing the throne represented the apex of achievement in its broader struggle. The often-overlooked fact that a number of al-Qaeda notables, including its late founder and leader Osama bin Laden, arose out of the domestic political opposition in Saudi Arabia, serves as a testament to the hatred the Saudi royal family has incurred within

extreme Islamist circles. It is reasonable to assume that Saudi Arabia also figures prominently in the Islamic State’s vision for the wider region even as it is preoccupied with its multiple front insurgent campaign in Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State’s ongoing rivalry with al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates has also likely elevated the Kingdom’s importance as the Islamic State may sense an opportunity to succeed where its al-Qaeda predecessor previously failed. Saudi Arabia’s declared opposition to the Islamic State, its support for rival Syrian insurgent factions such as the Islamic Front and others and its participation in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State have likewise elevated its stature as a target (al-Akhbar [Beirut], February 4, 2014; al-Safir [Beirut], January 7, 2014; AP, February 18).

Countermeasures Saudi Arabia has taken numerous steps to mitigate the threat posed by the Islamic State. In the realm of ideas, it has attempted to rein in members of its religious establishment, including over the solicitation of funds for aid and relief in Syria and

prohibiting outright any attempts by Saudis to join the conflict in Syria or engage in other un-sanctioned activities abroad (al-Akhbar, June 7, 2012). In doing so, the Kingdom leveraged the Council of Senior Scholars, the country’s highest religious body. While these efforts predate the rise of the Islamic State, they demonstrate mounting concerns in the palace over events in Syria and their impact on the Saudi population. These efforts have yielded mixed results, as some prominent clergy have deviated from the official line on how to approach the situation in Syria. More importantly, Saudi volunteers also continue to stream into Syria and other battlefields in large numbers to take up arms alongside various insurgent factions (al-Safir, December 8, 2013; al-Safir, January 20, 2012). There is a great deal of sympathy among Saudis for the plight of Syrians and a deep antipathy toward a secular Baathist regime that is viewed by many as heretical and apostate. An additional challenge is that the ultraconservative forms of Wahhabist and Salafist ideologies propagated by Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment— in many respects, Saudi Arabia is the wellspring of these ideas—are hard to distinguish from the worldviews being espoused by the Islamic State. The Islamic State’s dramatic expansion has nevertheless provoked the Kingdom to engage with its population in the ideological arena. Most recently, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz al-Ashaykh, has spearheaded a campaign that aims to enlist media and educational institutions in combating the Islamic State’s appeal (Arab News, February 22). Meanwhile, in the realm of physical security, the kingdom has embarked on an ambitious project to construct an approximately 600-mile-long security wall on sections of its northern border with Iraq. The wall is designed to prevent militants from infiltrating Saudi territory (al-Jazeera, September 6, 2014). The kingdom has resorted to a similar strategy in an attempt to insulate itself from the expanding violence and instability that has overtaken its southern neighbor Yemen, building a an approximately 1,000-mile-long wall along its border with Yemen (Reuters, January 22; al-Arabiya, April 10, 2013). Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s security forces have also continued to make mass arrests of suspected militants in an apparent effort to disrupt suspected domestic extremist activities associated with the Islamic State and potentially other violent Islamist organizations (The National, December 7, 2014).

Conclusion In contrast to the chaos of Iraq and Syria and other conflict-ridden zones in the broader Middle East where the Islamic State has gained a foothold, Saudi Arabia, upon first glance, represents an impermissible environment for staging and launching militant activities. The Islamic State’s particular brand of brutality has also galvanized opposition to its expansion and influence, including among rival militants wary of its tactics and other actions in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. This is best illustrated by the losses it has incurred in recent months and the growing divide between its community of supporters and those of rival organizations (Daily Star [Beirut], March 3; al-Safir, March 31, 2014). At the same time, there are no indications to suggest that these setbacks will impact its ambitions to follow in the footsteps of its al-Qaeda precursor and lead a campaign to topple the Saudi monarchy. Files:

TerrorismMonitorVol13Issue5_03.pdf

Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt Unify to Battle ISIS—Is Iran Next?By Micah Halpern | 03/06/15 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not the only Middle East leader to take a road trip this past week. And despite all of the hoopla about “the speech,” his was probably not the most important message being delivered. More important, although much less sensational and therefore much less covered by the press, was the visit of King Abdullah of Jordan to his newly crowned counterpart in Riyadh. And then there was the visit, several days later, of Abdel Fatah al Sisi, the president of Egypt who also met with Salman,

the new king of Saudi Arabia. After the formalities were dispensed with, the real business at hand began. And in each of those meetings, like Netanyahu in Washington, one important topic was under discussion: Iran. Then came ISIS. It is hugely important for the United States to understand that when it comes to these sensitive subjects, Israel does not stand alone. Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are all also the sworn enemies of both ISIS and Iran. These meetings—by Middle East leaders, rulers to be more specific, held in the region itself, were extremely important. Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are all part of the coalition against ISIS. And yes, all three have strong relations with the United States. But more than anything else, both these two monarchs, as well as the Egyptian president, are all in the cross hairs of ISIS.

They all know that ISIS wants to take over their countries. And they are keenly aware that there are already individual people and organized groups inside each of their countries who are affiliated with ISIS and with al Qaeda. The violence is growing and it is reaching critical mass.

Each leader came with the same plan in mind. In the course of their meetings, the two kings and the president agreed to increase their cooperation against ISIS even outside the coalition. They have no choice. They agreed to step up and strike ISIS and al Qaeda, to support one another and to share information. We know all of this because they chose to leak it to their domestic Arabic press. They understand that, for them, fighting ISIS is a battle of survival. Abdullah and Salman know very well that in order for their reigns to survive they must defeat ISIS. We also know from official sources that the Egyptian/Saudi conversation was very straight forward. Egypt wanted to make certain that the new king, like the Abdullah, the previous king of Saudi Arabia, continues to support him both politically and monetarily. And both countries needed to make certain that they share intel on terror and Islamic extremists. From information and leaks, we know that they decided to create a joint force to confront the new challenge from ISIS in Iraq and in Syria and to control the tension emerging from Libya and Yemen.

C: No strategy at all: Rebranding!?

Rebranding: US May Look to al-Qaeda Faction as New ‘Moderate’ Allies in Syria Qatar Aims to Get Nusra to Publicly Distance Itself From Parent al-Qaedaby Jason Ditz, March 04, 2015. The dissolution of the Hazm Movement, one of the last US-armed “moderate” rebel factions in northern Syria, has created a paucity of factions for the US to throw weapons at, at a time when the Pentagon is talking up the creation of a huge moderate force. Enter al-Qaeda? It’s hard to imagine, but Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper is insisting now that moderates are “anyone who is not affiliated with ISIS,” and that the only obstacle to arming such groups are the international rules of law. There are ways around that too though. Al-Qaeda’s Syria faction, Jabhat al-Nusra, is being courted by Qatar to publicly distance itself from al-Qaeda’s parent leadership as a way to get around international bans on funding al-Qaeda. Ideologically, Nusra is a preposterously non-moderate faction, but the US has managed to keep from publicly going after the group, claiming airstrikes which were on Nusra members were really aimed at a faction called Khorasan, a term the US invented themselves. This set Nusra against US-aligned rebel factions, wiping many of them out. This may come full circle, with Nusra having killed so many “moderates” that the US decides it’s just simpler to arm them directly, and so long as Nusra can keep a nominal distance from al-Qaeda’s parent leadership, the whole “arming al-Qaeda” thing can be downplayed, at least a bit.

We now have a move to unify Arabs against the ISIS threat. That’s big news.

6 March, Beirut: Heavy fighting shook the Syrian city of Aleppo as the exiled opposition chief said for the first time that President Bashar al-Assad`s ouster need not be a pre-condition for peace talks.US Secretary of State John Kerry said meanwhile that "military pressure" may be needed to oust Assad, as Moscow announced it would host a fresh round of peace talks next month.An attack Thursday targeting leaders of the jihadist Al-Nusra Front killed several leaders of the Al-Qaeda affiliate in the northwestern province of Idlib, a monitoring group said.Al-Nusra fighters were involved in a spectacular assault Wednesday on an air force intelligence headquarters in Aleppo, Syria`s second city where regime forces and rebels were engaged in fierce clashes. The attack, which began with a powerful explosives blast in a tunnel dug near the building, left at least 20 members of regime security forces and 14 rebels dead. A Syrian military source told AFP the army had on Thursday launched an attack "against (rebel) gunmen positions" in the area, "killing and wounding many of them".Regime forces also struck rebel-held territory in the east of the city, killing at least 22 civilians, including three children, in a single barrel bomb attack, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group. Aleppo has been hit by significant violence this week after the opposition rejected a UN plan for a temporary ceasefire in the divided and devastated city, once Syria`s main commercial hub.A UN delegation was in the city to push a plan for a temporary "freeze" of fighting in Aleppo which was rejected by the opposition on Sunday -- part of a range of efforts to resolve a conflict that has left more than 220,000 dead since March 2011. The UN Security Council is set to vote on Friday on a US-drafted resolution that threatens measures against the Syrian regime over its alleged use of chlorine bombs in attacks on villages between April and August last year. The United States drafted the resolution, which "condemns in the strongest terms any use of any toxic chemical, such as chlorine, as a weapon in the Syrian Arab Republic". Speaking to AFP in Paris, opposition National Coalition chief Khaled Khoja said a "new strategy" was needed and that while Assad`s overthrow was still the final aim, it was not necessary for the start of a process to end Syria`s conflict. "We insist on the goal of toppling Assad and the security services... It is not necessary to have these conditions at the beginning of the process, but it is... necessary to end the process with a new regime and a new free Syria," he said.Khoja also softened the coalition`s previous refusal to work with Damascus-tolerated opposition groups, saying he wants "a common ground" with other dissidents and to "establish a new framework for the Syrian opposition." The country`s main domestic opposition group, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCCDC), said Khoja`s comments marked a welcome change. "Any statement calling for the unification of the opposition is certainly positive, but concrete actions and effective positions are more important," NCCDC spokesman Monzer Khaddam said.He also praised the coalition for being prepared to drop its pre-condition for Assad to step down, saying the issue had been raised in joint opposition talks in Paris two weeks ago."We tried in Paris to convince them that all pre-conditions in no way help in finding a political solution in Syria," Khaddam said. Moscow meanwhile said it would host talks between representatives of Assad`s regime and opposition figures in April, three months after a meeting between the parties ended without any concrete results.In Saudi Arabia to meet with Gulf allies, Kerry upped pressure on Assad to negotiate, saying he had "lost any semblance of legitimacy" and raising the possibility of military pressure. "Ultimately a combination of diplomacy and pressure will be needed to bring about a political transition. Military pressure particularly may be necessary given President Assad`s reluctance to negotiate seriously," Kerry said in Riyadh.

The violence this week in Aleppo has dampened hopes of a ceasefire in the city, where UN envoy to the Syrian conflict Staffan de Mistura has been seeking a halt to fighting as a first step towards humanitarian aid deliveries in the area and a broader political deal. Samir Nashar, a member of the National Coalition who is in contact with groups who attacked the regime building, said Wednesday`s assault "sends a clear message to the regime and to De Mistura" that the rebels reject his initiative."De Mistura is at an impasse and is facing a dead end," Nashar told AFP. "De Mistura`s initiative does not address even the minimum of rebel demands." The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "a number of Al-Nusra Front leaders were killed" in an attack as they gathered for a meeting in the northwestern province of Idlib, but was unable to say if its chief, Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, was among them. Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP it was "not clear if the attack was carried out by the coalition or the regime". Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said he could not confirm the reports, but added: "Neither the US or the coalition have conducted air strikes near that location in recent days." AFP

ISIS: Managers of Savagery; the quality of being fierce or cruel

The sectarian brutality of ISIS has allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to disingenuously play the victim: the arsonist masquerading as a firefighter.BY Muhammad Idrees Ahmad 1. For the Assad regime, the IS has proved a godsend. Since the beginning, the regime has tried to paint the uprising as an extremist revolt against a secular government. The IS confirms this stereotype. Cruelty is central to its operational logic. Two parallel developments have contributed to the rise of the Islamic State (IS): the U.S. invasion of Iraq and consequent marginalization of its Sunni minority, and the abandonment of the people’s uprising in Syria by the international community. Prior to the invasion, the Jordanian militant Abu Mus’ab al Zarqawi was a marginal figure. The war gave him a foothold: He stepped into the security vacuum and launched Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Zarqawi’s project was aided by the ham-fistedness of the occupying authorities. Viceroy Paul Bremer’s disbanding of the Iraqi national army and purging of Baathists from state bureaucracies created a large pool of disaffected Sunnis. With little to lose, many of them put their arms and military training in the service of the insurgency. The alienation was complete when, in its attempt to divide the nationalist uprising, the U.S. empowered sectarian death squads and deployed Shia and Kurdish forces to the restive Sunni stronghold of Fallujah. After the new Iraqi government launched an assault on the Sunni town of Tal Afar in September 2005, Zarqawi declared war on Iraq’s Shia Muslim population, and AQI became a home for Sunnis fearful of Shia domination. But the majority of Iraq’s Sunnis remained wary of its motives: The scope of AQI’s ambitions—establishing a pan-Islamic Sunni caliphate—transcended Iraq’s borders, and, with its legions of foreign fighters, it remained an alien presence.

Conscious that the welcome might not last, Zarqawi decided to give his operation an Iraqi veneer. In January 2006, he formed the Mujahideen Shura Council (MSC), bringing together six mostly local Salafi (puritan Sunni) groups with an Iraqi as its nominal head. Three months later, Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike and MSC folded shortly thereafter. It was superseded in October 2006 by the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). But Sunnis resented interlopers like Zarqawi turning their political marginalization into an excuse for sectarian strife. They wanted a stake in Iraq’s future, not the endless insecurity that ISI guaranteed. Neither did they care for ISI’s provocations—the bombing of Shia shrines, the slaughter of civilians—which turned them into unwitting targets of Shia retribution. (Even al-

1 http://inthesetimes.com/article/17714/isis-managers-of-savagery

Qaeda’s central leadership was leery of its brand being associated with a narrowly sectarian agenda.)

An uprising of Iraqi Sunni tribes, with encouragement and support from the U.S., eventually drove ISI out of Iraq’s cities and towns, and in April 2010, its two leaders were killed in a raid by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

It was the uprising in Syria, which began in March 2011, and Bashar al Assad’s brutal response to it that revived ISI’s fortunes. It started as a peaceful, non-sectarian and popular movement for democratic rights and dignity. But under the regime’s relentless assault, some regime opponents were forced to pick up arms. The jihadis did not enter the fray until a year later, though even then they remained a marginal force: By August 2012, the CIA could count no more than 200 in the opposition’s ranks. Nationalists seeking the regime’s overthrow dominated the insurgency. But starved of international support, the mainstream rebellion withered.August 2013 proved a turning point. The Assad regime had called America’s bluff and launched a sarin attack on the neighborhoods of Eastern Ghouta, deliberately crossing the “red line” that President Barack Obama had promised would trigger an intervention. Obama failed to match tough words with action, and an emboldened regime escalated the war. Mainstream rebels aligned with the West were discredited. The jihadis’ star rose. Under its new leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, ISI had expanded its operations into

Syria. In April 2013, it officially rebranded itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (al-Shaam)—ISIS. Its operational coherence was bolstered by the many former Iraqi soldiers in its ranks; its numbers were swelled by jihadis released from Assad’s prisons in 2011. Many of these men had in the past been infiltrated into Iraq by the Assad regime to keep the U.S. in check. But, as the occupation wound down, the jihadis found themselves arrested on return.Careful to avoid direct confrontation with the regime where it could, ISIS expanded its presence mainly by seizing territory from Syrian rebel groups. It used this territory to impose its medieval rule and continue its war of attrition against the anti-Assad rebellion. ISIS assassinated its leaders and harassed its fighters; it also intimidated or disappeared civil society activists. With ISIS’s presence growing increasingly intolerable, the Syrian resistance struck back. Beginning on New Year’s Day 2014, rebel groups including the Free Syria Army (FSA), the Islamic Front (IF), Ahrar al-Sham (AS) and even the official al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN) united to drive ISIS out of Idlib, Deir Ezzor, much of Aleppo and the environs of Damascus.

But by 2013, the dynamics in Iraq had shifted. Following the U.S. withdrawal, the remaining checks on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian rule had been lifted. Inspired by the Arab Spring, the disaffected and vulnerable Sunni population protested. But like Assad, Maliki responded with repression and barrel bombs; his forces acted like occupiers. Sunni anger grew. In summer 2014, ISIS and the former Iraqi general Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri’s Naqshbandi Army finally rode the wave of mounting resentments for a lightning advance across northern Iraq. Caught by surprise, the numerically superior Iraqi army disintegrated. It abandoned its American-supplied arms to the ISIS spearhead. Mosul fell, Sunnis celebrated. And, with its enhanced firepower, ISIS returned to Syria in triumph.Asserting its broader aspirations, ISIS dropped the geographical reference from its name. The Islamic State (IS), as it is now called, declared a global “caliphate” and, through a series of gruesome atrocities, successfully baited the U.S. into intervening militarily. Its victims were journalists and aid workers, all well-wishers of the Syrian people. Its bloodlust even made Al Qaeda recoil.

Al Qaeda had always had an uneasy relationship with its Zarqawiite offshoot. But the mutual antipathy finally burst into the open when Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri ordered ISIS disbanded, and Baghdadi refused. In February 2014, Al Qaeda officially repudiated ISIS.

These developments are recounted in painstaking detail in Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan’s indispensable ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. Beyond history, the book presents a granular analysis of the IS’s organization, ideology, funding and recruitment. The book explains the strategic logic of the group’s spectacular cruelty while giving readers a glimpse of the IS mindset through a series of interviews with its cadre. It also describes the common experiences that set its leaders on the path of jihad (Zarqawi was radicalized in a Jordanian prison; Baghdadi at the American Camp Bucca). It also shows how the IS secured the loyalty of tribes under its rule by buying or bludgeoning them, using coercion or cooptation.

By contrast, Patrick Cockburn’s The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution is a high-altitude polemic that blames the IS’s rise on U.S. and Saudi support for the anti-Assad rebellion. It has little or nothing to say about IS ideology or composition. Acting more as an advocate than an observer, Cockburn argues for rapprochement with the Assad regime.But to make his case, Cockburn dispenses with proportion and distinction. Though in successive reports the U.N., Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have indicted the Assad regime as by far the leading perpetrator of violence in the conflict, Cockburn’s account is devoted almost entirely to opposition atrocities. (He reports exclusively from regime-held areas.) Regime repression does receive cursory mention, but Nazi analogies are reserved for the opposition.Cockburn makes no mention of the divergent interests and active rivalries between IS and Syria’s nationalist opposition. For him, to assist the opposition is to assist the IS.To support this claim, he quotes “an intelligence officer from a Middle Eastern country neighboring Syria” who told him “ISIS members ‘say they are always pleased when sophisticated weapons are sent to anti-Assad groups of any kind because they can always get the arms off them by threats of force or cash payments.’” (Cockburn quotes many anonymous intelligence officials in the book but on no other occasion does he grant the country anonymity. Might it be because the “country neighboring Syria” is Iraq, a key Assad ally?)Yet this bias is the least of the problems in Cockburn's reporting—he also embellishes. On page 76 of his book, he writes about Adra: “I witnessed JAN forces storm a housing complex by advancing through a drainage pipe which came out behind government lines, where they proceeded to kill Alawites and Christians.” This would be the first independent verification of a story that had briefly surfaced before disappearing in a swirl of contradictory claims. The Russian broadcaster RT had even used fake pictures in its report on the incident.Yet Cockburn was nowhere near Adra. This is confirmed by an unimpeachable source: Patrick Cockburn. He first reported on the incident in his January 28, 2014 column for The Independent. But instead of being personally present, the story about rebels advancing through a drainage pipe is attributed to “a Syrian soldier, who gave his name as Abu Ali.” Cockburn appears to have pulled a Brian Williams.Pace Cockburn’s insistence that the Assad regime and the Kurds are the only forces capable of defeating the IS, Weiss and Hassan adduce evidence showing that the regime has deliberately avoided confrontation with the IS. The authors cite a study from the Carter Center that confirms that the regime has spared the IS in 90 percent of its attacks. An IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center (JTIC) study is even more damning. It reveals that in 2014, only 13 percent of the IS attacks were directed at the regime; in turn, the regime targeted the IS in only 6% of its attacks. The brunt of both groups’ furies has been directed at the Syrian people.

None of this is acknowledged in Cockburn’s analysis. Earlier in February, as the regime launched a particularly savage series of bombings against the Syrian town of Douma, killing up to 250 civilians, Cockburn reprised his criticism of the West for “trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad whose army is the main military opponent of ISIS.” The IS can be defeated, Cockburn argued, if western powers united with the regime. But if the critical factor is western power, he doesn’t say why it shouldn't back Syrian rebels, who actually have a record of fighting and defeating the IS.Cockburn’s prescriptions notwithstanding, this is what the U.S. appears to be doing for now. In its assault on the IS, it has acted in coordination with the Assad regime—functioning, in effect, as its air force—and, like the regime, made no distinction between various rebel groups, targeting the IS as well as its Islamist adversaries in JAN and AS.

For the Assad regime, the IS has proved a godsend.Since the beginning, the regime has tried to paint the uprising as an extremist revolt against a secular government. The IS confirms this stereotype. Cruelty is central to its operational logic. The IS practices a doctrine expounded in a text called Management of Savagery by a jihadi ideologue with the nom de guerre Abu Bakr Naji. It prescribes a form of warfare to which “violence, crudeness, terrorism, [deterrence] and massacring” are central.The IS has elevated sectarian revanchism into a political project. And this has allowed Assad—who deliberately used a sectarian strategy to divide a cross-denominational revolt—to disingenuously play the victim: the arsonist masquerading as a firefighter.Cockburn echoes and amplifies this line. This inversion of cause and effect has led to a situation where western powers are now inflaming the very factors that led to the rise of the IS. In Iraq, the US is arming Iranian-backed Shia militias whose excesses engendered the IS backlash; in Syria the U.S. is coordinating airstrikes with the still-rampaging regime, even relying on its intelligence. (The only exception was Kobane, where airpower helped the Kurds and the FSA repel an IS offensive.)But on any given day one has to do no more than survey the previous week’s events for perspective. On February 19, the BBC reported that the Kurdish YPG and three Syrian rebel groups—the groups that Cockburn insists don’t exist– advanced into the IS stronghold of Raqqa to capture 19 villages.The “main military opponent of ISIS” was meanwhile busy elsewhere. On February 17, during their brief occupation of the town of Retian in Aleppo, regime forces executed at least 21 civilians, according to the Violations Documentation Centre. (The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights places the figure at 49.) Four days later, on the first anniversary of the U.N. Resolution 2139, which demanded an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, Syrian Civil Defence workers recorded 15 barrel bombs dropped on Aleppo. None of this registers in Cockburn’s inverted ideological portrait.The virtue of Weiss and Hassan’s book is that it places the people of Syria front and center; Cockburn, on the other hand, views everything through the prism of state rivalries. Deductive ideological reasoning allows him to treat Assad’s slaughter of his own people as an act of resistance to imperialism. Cockburn’s prescriptions are aimed at remedying symptoms without addressing the cause; they guarantee perpetual war. Heeding Weiss and Hassan would put the U.S. on the side of Syria’s majority and potentially bring stability to Iraq.

Regards Cees. More to the West: Chad and Niger launch offensive against Boko Haram ; "Ground and air" operation in northeastern Nigeria begins a day after the armed group pledged allegiance to ISIL. 08 Mar 2015. "An offensive is under way against Boko Haram," the source told AFP news agency. "Very early [on Sunday] morning, the troops from Niger and

Chad began an offensive against Boko Haram... in the area of Bosso and near to Diram." A resident of Diffa, located in Niger near the Nigerian border, told AFP he saw troops headed toward the frontier early Sunday followed by the sounds of heavy arms fire. "After some time, the detonations grew further away, an apparent sign that the troops were moving inside Nigeria," he said. The offensive comes after the African Union on Friday endorsed the creation of a regional force of up to 10,000 men to join the fight against the group which on Saturday pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The force, the idea for which was adopted at an AU summit in January, will be based in Chad's capital N'Djamena, the pan-African bloc's Peace and Security Council said. It will be mandated "to prevent the spread of Boko Haram activities and other terrorist groups" and "eradicate their presence", the body agreed in a meeting earlier week. Diplomats said Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Benin had committed to providing troops, who would "operate freely" in a still-undefined region.