Saturday, November 15, 2014

Seeking Allah's Permission

"By Allah's permission, they will be defeated and indeed the Muslims will be victorious. And the march of the mujahedin will continue until they reach Rome."
"We see America and its allies stumbling between fear, weakness, inability and failure."
"America, Europe, Australia, Canada, their apostate tails and slaves from amongst the rulers of the Muslims' lands were terrified by the Islamic State."
"Light the Earth with fire. [Waging jihad is] obligatory [for true believers, representing] the peak of Islam. [Any who fail to join this cause will face] painful torment [from God]."
Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader, Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham

"I can tell you that we are seeing definite signs that coalition air operations are having the desired effect."
"They are much more cautious in how they manoeuvre within Iraq and are forced to operate in a defensive manner."
Col. Dan Constable, Commander of Joint Task Force-Iraq
isis tank syriaReuters   Militant Islamist fighters take part in a military parade along a street in northern Raqqa province on June 30, 2014

The "freedom of movement" that ISIS had formerly enjoyed, refers to its formidable reputation for malevolently atrocious blood-letting marching before its militias as they committed themselves to conquest in the name of Islam and the formation of their new caliphate, elevating their leader to occupy the throne of caliph and stirring the hearts of Muslims worldwide to awaken their unconscious inner Muslim soul to the duty that awaits them.

The airstrikes that targeted a high-level convoy proceeding to a meeting between the leaders of Islamic State and their caliph appear not to have succeeded in sending Abu Bakr back to his maker, after all. Iraqi intelligence, much like the Iraqi military obviously flawed in advancing their cause by the accuracy of their intelligence gathering, matching that of their national defence though the forces were trained and equipped by the most effectively efficient trainers in the world.

The man leading the most virulently psychopathic militias currently filling mass graves, tethering frightened women and girls to their captors as sex slaves, and furnishing the world's desperate refugees with additional humanitarian needs to be fulfilled has survived the attack meant to leave his followers in search of a replacement. The release of 17 minutes of sneering defiance of Western interference in the Islamist march to destroy any remaining vestiges of civil life in the Middle East mimicked those released by the late unlamented Osama bin Laden.

Iraqi officials in all likelihood were not entirely ill informed. Caliph Al-Baghdadi was probably injured, in the partially successful Qaim airstrike on Saturday last, but has survived to complete his god-sent mission of butchery and enslavement. He cannot have been too pleased with the success realized, however, in another air strike, on Fallujha which did realize the elimination of one of his senior aides, Abu Hathaifa Al-Yamani.

That's the good-news-bad-news part of the story for the Islamic State and their adversaries flying missions to enable counter-forces to gain the eventual upper hand in controlling an advance that seemed unstoppable by the Islamist terrorists initially fuelled by hatred of the Shiite governments in Iraq and Syria both of which have destroyed their relationships with their sectarian rivals.

nusra flag burnedGeorge Ourfalian/Reuters   Forces of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad burn a flag of al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front on October 6, 2014

Several sources, among them a commander of a Free Syrian Army brigade known as Abu Musafer speaks of a meeting between Al Nusra and Islamic State leaders where two agreements were reached; to halt infighting between al-Qaeda-linked Nusra and Islamic State, and for the two groups which have opposed one another each claiming to represent the real voice of Islamist jihad, each jockeying for superior position, to set aside their differences in a common union against their adversaries.

Together the groups are to open up fronts against Kurdish fighters in a few areas of northern Syria. The Islamic State entered the Syria war from its origins in Iraq, earning a reputation for extreme brutality as it imposed itself as the leading faction in the righteous rebellion against Bashar al-Assad's murderous regime, presenting themselves as the group that all pious Muslims should join in a united front, shoving aside the Nusra Front which had preceded it and earned its own reputation as a tough faction.

 A war within a war erupted with the two battling one another, and turning their arms against the Free Syrian Army as well whose original role as the Syrian-representative Sunni militias striving to oust President al-Bashar had been upstaged by the Nusra Front with which it had initially made common cause only to have the jihadists turn against them and murder FSA commanders. When the Islamic State group succeeded in acquiring power, weapons and funding, Al Nusra found forgiveness for their transgressions.

Confirmation that the two jihadi Islamist groups have joined forces on the battlefield has eluded Western intelligence as yet. But according to an American analyst tracking terror groups for the website Long War Journal, "that would seem to fit in with that being what they were driving at. There has been a big push on the al-Qaeda side to get this alliance through", explained Tom Joscelyn. "If there is less blood being spilled against each other and they don't have to worry about that, that's going to make it easier for the jihadis to go after Assad or any western-backed forces."





A situation, should it evolve, that will certainly give pause for thought to the U.S.-led coalition as it attempts to grapple with the growing menace from Islamic State, and the allure it holds in the consciousness of young Muslims in their own countries of the West.

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posted by Pieface @ Saturday, November 15, 2014

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