88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
what a waste of resources
Saw some interviews the past week from journalists invited by Hizbullah and it seems like they'll have a difficult job of just holding the border.
Kinda wondering if they've got a plan b.
what a waste of resources
Saw some interviews the past week from journalists invited by Hizbullah and it seems like they'll have a difficult job of just holding the border.
Kinda wondering if they've got a plan b.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Thu, 05/28/2015 - 03:23
Moqtada al-Sadr and Pentagon concur: It’s the wrong name at the wrong time
You know you’re in trouble when firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr thinks your operation codename is…well, a bit too firebrand Shiite for his taste.
Yes, it’s true. Scary Sadr, from the scary old Mahdi Army days, has weighed in on the latest debate over the codename given to a military operation to take back ISIS-controlled, Sunni areas of western Iraq.
On Tuesday, the Hashd al-Shaabi -- an umbrella for mostly Shiite militias sometimes called the Popular/People’s Mobilization Forces --launched an operation to liberate ISIS-held parts of Iraq’s Sunni heartlands. The codename for the liberating mission, Hashd al-Shaabi spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi told reporters in Iraq, was “Operation Labaik ya Hussein”.
Ya Hussein, what sort of operation name is that for a Shiite force “liberating” their Sunni brothers?
“Labaik ya Hussein” has been translated by many news organizations as “We are at your service, Hussein” although Juan Cole’s version, “Here I am, O Husayn” is probably more accurate.
Hussein (also spelt Husayn or Hussain), one of Shiite Islam’s most revered imams, was the son of Imam Ali and Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatimah Zahra. Hussein’s death during the 7th century Battle of Karbala marked the birth of Islam’s bitter Sunni-Shia divide and it’s an anniversary commemorated across the Shiite world with massive processions featuring paroxysms of grief and self-flagellation accompanied by chants, of which, “Labaik ya Hussein” is a central, rallying cry.
Over the centuries, tomes of theological discourse have been devoted to parsing and interpreting that cry of supplication. In a 2009 speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah kicked off a fiery discourse on the signature Shiite chant proclaiming, “The Americans don’t understand what ‘Labaik ya Hussein’ means. They pass over the meaning without knowing the significance of it,” he roared.
But this time, for once, the stupid Americans actually got it. In what is perhaps the biggest understatement of the current anti-ISIS campaign, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren expressed disappointment at the operation’s codename, calling it “unhelpful”.
Unhelpful? You bet.
A red rag for a wounded bull
Let’s be clear: Sunnis at large are not anti-Hussein. He is, after all, the grandson of the Prophet. They just don’t revere him as much as the Shiites. In the gentler, more tolerant old days -- before Saudi-funded Wahabism spread its austere, uncompromising tentacles across the Muslim world -- this codename would have been okay.
But today, it’s not -- and certainly not in today’s Iraq.
Naming an operation by saber-rattling Shiite militias into the disgruntled Iraqi Sunni heartlands “Labaik ya Hussein” is like waving a red rag at a bull. And this bull, I fear, could charge straight into ISIS’s arms.
ISIS –- or IS or ISIL or Daesh -– of course styles itself as the savior of marginalized Sunnis against the Iran-backed Shiite (and therefore apostate) powers in Baghdad and Damascus. That’s the prime ISIS recruitment card, especially in Iraq. For months now, US military officials having been desperately trying to win back the support of the Sahwa (Awakening) Sunni sheikhs who helped expel al Qaeda before the US pullout from Iraq.
Well, good luck to that effort. Convincing Iraq’s Sunni sheikhs to join “Operation Labaik ya Hussein” is like convincing the IRA to join an Orange march through Northern Ireland.
From great Arab armies to great Arab militias
When he replaced the disastrous Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister last year, Haider al-Abadi represented the hope that his predecessor’s sectarian way of doing business would end and that the new chief would be able to draw his disgruntled Sunni citizenry into the national fold.
But poor Abadi is looking more like the Viceroy of Baghdad than the prime minister of Iraq these days. Of course he would have preferred to rely solely on the Iraqi security forces. But let’s not waste time on that so called, once-great Arab army. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter was dead right in his assessment of the Iraqi security forces showing no will to battle ISIS, White House damage control notwithstanding. I haven’t seen a great Arab army winning any wars in my lifetime. But I hear, from history books, that they once roamed this earth.
These days, we have great Arab militias, which become even more powerful and even more destabilizing with time and battlefield victories.
And that, for Abadi -- a suave civilian politician raised in Baghdad’s affluent Karada district by his mother of Lebanese origin before moving to Britain to start an engineering business -- is a ticking bomb. The militias could present a threat to Abadi’s authority and if they do, all bets are off on how he will manage or weather that storm.
If Operation Labaik ya Hussein does succeed in liberating Ramadi and other ISIS-held regions, the Hashd al-Shaabi groups could well get even more cocky and triumphant. And we only have to look to Libya to see what happens when cocky, triumphant armed men believe they are national saviors and refuse to go gently into the night.
Maliki, the spoiler of Baghdad
Abadi’s position is further enfeebled by the presence of his predecessor playing spoiler in political and influential Shiite circles.
As journalist Borzou Daragahi noted in the Financial Times, “Abadi may be prime minister of Iraq, but he still does not live in the palace designated for him in the capital’s fortified Green Zone. That is because his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki, has refused to move out.”
A “high-ranking member of Abdadi’s cabinet” told Daragahi that, “Maliki is opposed to every step the government makes…Deep down he [Maliki] feels he is being betrayed and he has been treated unfairly by everybody.”
This has alarming shades of the power play in another embattled Arab capital being ripped by the increasingly dangerous Sunni-Shia divide.
In the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, ousted autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh has gone to bed with his old enemy, the Shiite Houthis, in a bid to undermine an already undermined Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is currently cooling his heels in exile in Saudi Arabia.
The longstanding political myth in the Arab world has been that it takes a strongman to govern and hold together these nations. When he was president, Saleh famously defined his job description as “dancing on the heads of snakes”. Hadi has proved to be a lumbering dancer. If Abadi is not able to rein in the Shiite militias and comes off as a well-meaning, urbane nice guy incapable of dancing on snakes or riding the Shiite militia tiger, this does not bode well for the security of Iraq as we once knew it.
As for Hezbollah’s ‘Labaik ya Zainab’
Meanwhile, in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah militants helping President Bashar al-Assad cling to power regularly chant, “Labaik ya Zainab” at the funerals of fellow fighters killed in Syria.
Zainab was Hussein’s sister, who was captured during the Battle of Karbala and taken to Damascus, then seat of Umayyad power and currently home to a magnificent shrine dedicated to the Prophet’s granddaughter. The defense of this Damascene shrine is an important propaganda chip in Hezbollah’s efforts to paint their support for Assad as a pan-Shiite resistance against the Sunnis.
Slogans like “Labaik ya Zainab” and Labaik ya Hussein” are redolent with textual and sub-textual meaning in the Muslim world -- as clerics like Hassan Nasrallah and Moqtada al-Sadr know all too well.
So, when Sadr issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging that the latest operation codename “is going to be misunderstood, there is no doubt,” someone should have listened to him.
Sadr even offered alternate mission names such as "Labaik ya Salaheddin" or "Labaik ya Anbar".
As I said, when the likes of Sadr represent the voices of moderation and inclusion, you know you’re in trouble. Especially since Sadr’s own paramilitary force, Saraya al-Salam, is involved in the Shiite militia fight against ISIS. This in turn underscores the precarious nature of the Hashed al-Shaabi alliance of Shiite militias. Right now, there are signs of some competition between the groups, but for the most, they are holding together in the joint fight against ISIS. But if that cohesion starts to crumble, and Iraqi Sunni disaffection only mounts, ya Hussein, we’re in for a very bloody period indeed.
http://leelajacinto.blogs.france24....nd-pentagon-concur-it-s-wrong-name-wrong-time
Moqtada al-Sadr and Pentagon concur: It’s the wrong name at the wrong time
You know you’re in trouble when firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr thinks your operation codename is…well, a bit too firebrand Shiite for his taste.
Yes, it’s true. Scary Sadr, from the scary old Mahdi Army days, has weighed in on the latest debate over the codename given to a military operation to take back ISIS-controlled, Sunni areas of western Iraq.
On Tuesday, the Hashd al-Shaabi -- an umbrella for mostly Shiite militias sometimes called the Popular/People’s Mobilization Forces --launched an operation to liberate ISIS-held parts of Iraq’s Sunni heartlands. The codename for the liberating mission, Hashd al-Shaabi spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi told reporters in Iraq, was “Operation Labaik ya Hussein”.
Ya Hussein, what sort of operation name is that for a Shiite force “liberating” their Sunni brothers?
“Labaik ya Hussein” has been translated by many news organizations as “We are at your service, Hussein” although Juan Cole’s version, “Here I am, O Husayn” is probably more accurate.
Hussein (also spelt Husayn or Hussain), one of Shiite Islam’s most revered imams, was the son of Imam Ali and Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatimah Zahra. Hussein’s death during the 7th century Battle of Karbala marked the birth of Islam’s bitter Sunni-Shia divide and it’s an anniversary commemorated across the Shiite world with massive processions featuring paroxysms of grief and self-flagellation accompanied by chants, of which, “Labaik ya Hussein” is a central, rallying cry.
Over the centuries, tomes of theological discourse have been devoted to parsing and interpreting that cry of supplication. In a 2009 speech, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah kicked off a fiery discourse on the signature Shiite chant proclaiming, “The Americans don’t understand what ‘Labaik ya Hussein’ means. They pass over the meaning without knowing the significance of it,” he roared.
But this time, for once, the stupid Americans actually got it. In what is perhaps the biggest understatement of the current anti-ISIS campaign, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren expressed disappointment at the operation’s codename, calling it “unhelpful”.
Unhelpful? You bet.
A red rag for a wounded bull
Let’s be clear: Sunnis at large are not anti-Hussein. He is, after all, the grandson of the Prophet. They just don’t revere him as much as the Shiites. In the gentler, more tolerant old days -- before Saudi-funded Wahabism spread its austere, uncompromising tentacles across the Muslim world -- this codename would have been okay.
But today, it’s not -- and certainly not in today’s Iraq.
Naming an operation by saber-rattling Shiite militias into the disgruntled Iraqi Sunni heartlands “Labaik ya Hussein” is like waving a red rag at a bull. And this bull, I fear, could charge straight into ISIS’s arms.
ISIS –- or IS or ISIL or Daesh -– of course styles itself as the savior of marginalized Sunnis against the Iran-backed Shiite (and therefore apostate) powers in Baghdad and Damascus. That’s the prime ISIS recruitment card, especially in Iraq. For months now, US military officials having been desperately trying to win back the support of the Sahwa (Awakening) Sunni sheikhs who helped expel al Qaeda before the US pullout from Iraq.
Well, good luck to that effort. Convincing Iraq’s Sunni sheikhs to join “Operation Labaik ya Hussein” is like convincing the IRA to join an Orange march through Northern Ireland.
From great Arab armies to great Arab militias
When he replaced the disastrous Nuri al-Maliki as prime minister last year, Haider al-Abadi represented the hope that his predecessor’s sectarian way of doing business would end and that the new chief would be able to draw his disgruntled Sunni citizenry into the national fold.
But poor Abadi is looking more like the Viceroy of Baghdad than the prime minister of Iraq these days. Of course he would have preferred to rely solely on the Iraqi security forces. But let’s not waste time on that so called, once-great Arab army. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter was dead right in his assessment of the Iraqi security forces showing no will to battle ISIS, White House damage control notwithstanding. I haven’t seen a great Arab army winning any wars in my lifetime. But I hear, from history books, that they once roamed this earth.
These days, we have great Arab militias, which become even more powerful and even more destabilizing with time and battlefield victories.
And that, for Abadi -- a suave civilian politician raised in Baghdad’s affluent Karada district by his mother of Lebanese origin before moving to Britain to start an engineering business -- is a ticking bomb. The militias could present a threat to Abadi’s authority and if they do, all bets are off on how he will manage or weather that storm.
If Operation Labaik ya Hussein does succeed in liberating Ramadi and other ISIS-held regions, the Hashd al-Shaabi groups could well get even more cocky and triumphant. And we only have to look to Libya to see what happens when cocky, triumphant armed men believe they are national saviors and refuse to go gently into the night.
Maliki, the spoiler of Baghdad
Abadi’s position is further enfeebled by the presence of his predecessor playing spoiler in political and influential Shiite circles.
As journalist Borzou Daragahi noted in the Financial Times, “Abadi may be prime minister of Iraq, but he still does not live in the palace designated for him in the capital’s fortified Green Zone. That is because his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki, has refused to move out.”
A “high-ranking member of Abdadi’s cabinet” told Daragahi that, “Maliki is opposed to every step the government makes…Deep down he [Maliki] feels he is being betrayed and he has been treated unfairly by everybody.”
This has alarming shades of the power play in another embattled Arab capital being ripped by the increasingly dangerous Sunni-Shia divide.
In the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, ousted autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh has gone to bed with his old enemy, the Shiite Houthis, in a bid to undermine an already undermined Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is currently cooling his heels in exile in Saudi Arabia.
The longstanding political myth in the Arab world has been that it takes a strongman to govern and hold together these nations. When he was president, Saleh famously defined his job description as “dancing on the heads of snakes”. Hadi has proved to be a lumbering dancer. If Abadi is not able to rein in the Shiite militias and comes off as a well-meaning, urbane nice guy incapable of dancing on snakes or riding the Shiite militia tiger, this does not bode well for the security of Iraq as we once knew it.
As for Hezbollah’s ‘Labaik ya Zainab’
Meanwhile, in neighboring Syria, Hezbollah militants helping President Bashar al-Assad cling to power regularly chant, “Labaik ya Zainab” at the funerals of fellow fighters killed in Syria.
Zainab was Hussein’s sister, who was captured during the Battle of Karbala and taken to Damascus, then seat of Umayyad power and currently home to a magnificent shrine dedicated to the Prophet’s granddaughter. The defense of this Damascene shrine is an important propaganda chip in Hezbollah’s efforts to paint their support for Assad as a pan-Shiite resistance against the Sunnis.
Slogans like “Labaik ya Zainab” and Labaik ya Hussein” are redolent with textual and sub-textual meaning in the Muslim world -- as clerics like Hassan Nasrallah and Moqtada al-Sadr know all too well.
So, when Sadr issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging that the latest operation codename “is going to be misunderstood, there is no doubt,” someone should have listened to him.
Sadr even offered alternate mission names such as "Labaik ya Salaheddin" or "Labaik ya Anbar".
As I said, when the likes of Sadr represent the voices of moderation and inclusion, you know you’re in trouble. Especially since Sadr’s own paramilitary force, Saraya al-Salam, is involved in the Shiite militia fight against ISIS. This in turn underscores the precarious nature of the Hashed al-Shaabi alliance of Shiite militias. Right now, there are signs of some competition between the groups, but for the most, they are holding together in the joint fight against ISIS. But if that cohesion starts to crumble, and Iraqi Sunni disaffection only mounts, ya Hussein, we’re in for a very bloody period indeed.
http://leelajacinto.blogs.france24....nd-pentagon-concur-it-s-wrong-name-wrong-time
The Shia in Iraq have proven again and again that they can not rule the country. Now it makes sense why Iraq has almost exclusively ruled by Sunnis for so long. 
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
How Turkey tomb-raided its way out of confronting ISIL
One hundred days after Operation Shah Euphrates, Turkey is still dithering over the threat across the border.
01 Jun 2015 12:21 GMT | War & Conflict, Politics, Middle East, Turkey, Turkey-Syria border
always founds this fascinating
One hundred days after Operation Shah Euphrates, Turkey is still dithering over the threat across the border.
01 Jun 2015 12:21 GMT | War & Conflict, Politics, Middle East, Turkey, Turkey-Syria border
-
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luke Coffey
Luke Coffey is a research fellow specialising in transatlantic and Eurasian security at a Washington DC based think tank. He previously served as a special adviser to the British defence secretary and was a commissioned officer in the United States army.
@lukedcoffey
On February 22, the world woke up to the news that 600 soldiers, 57 armoured vehicles, and 39 tanks of the Turkish military rolled through a still-smouldering Kobane in order to evacuate and relocate the 700-year-old tomb of Suleyman Shah.
The tomb, and the small patch of land surrounding, is Turkish territory inside Syria based on the 1921 Treaty of Ankara, which ended the brief Franco-Turkish war. It had been besieged for months before it was moved with much fanfare to a new location in the Syrian village of Eshme, a mere 180m from the Turkish border.
Many commentators were interpreting Turkey's decision to relocate the tomb as the beginning of a new and robust policy dealing with ISIL. Others thought it was an electoral ploy.
Turkish troops pass smouldering Kobane to save shrine
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's political opponents pointed out that the tomb's removal was the first time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire that Turkey had surrendered sovereign territory without a shot being fired in its defence.
No major change
One hundred days after the operation there has not been a significant change in Turkish policy. Instead, the operation marked a continuation of Turkey's policy of fence-sitting and reluctance when it comes to dealing with the threat ISIL poses to Ankara and the region.
What little Turkey has been willing to contribute to the international coalition to confront ISIL has been petty when compared to what it is capable of doing.
Yes, Turkey has agreed to host a mission to train 15,000 Syrian opposition fighters, but in the eyes of Ankara, the main goal of this force will be to take on Assad's regime - not to confront ISIL.
Yes, Ankara has agreed to allow American UAVs to fly from bases in Turkey, but this was agreed to months before the operation to relocate the tomb took place.
All of this allows the Turkish government to do the bare minimum required to give the impression that it is doing something, when it reality, it is doing next to nothing.
Yes, Turkey has agreed to host a mission to train 15,000 Syrian opposition fighters, but in the eyes of Ankara, the main goal of this force will be to take on Assad's regime - not to confront ISIL.
Different view of the threat
In a way that is almost completely inconceivable to policymakers in the West, the Turkish government still does not see ISIL as serious threat, or at least not as its number one threat.
While many in the West saw Kurdish "heroic fighters" defending Kobane, many in Turkey saw Kurdish "terrorists" that have been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 Turkish citizens over the past two decades.
After a brief honeymoon period in their relationship (do not forget theAssads and Erdogans use to holiday together) Erdogan sees his secular and embattled counterpart in Damascus as a bigger threat to regional stability.
Consequently, Turkey does not share the same sense of urgency to confront ISIL as many of its NATO partners do.
Don't forget the politics
Another factor explaining Turkey's reluctance to confront ISIL is the upcoming elections on June 7. Erdogan's legacy is riding on this election, the outcome of which is far from certain.
If the Kurdish dominated Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) passes the 10 percent electoral threshold - and some polls are indicting it will - then it is likely that Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) will not be able to form a government without first building a coalition. This would seriously dampen Erdogan's plans to consolidate even more power.
Every decision taken by his government in the past year has been decided through the lens of this election. Erdogan knows that if he confronts ISIL and fails, there could be electoral consequences. If ISIL would have attacked and occupied the tomb, Erdogan would have had no other choice but to respond militarily. By removing the tomb of Suleyman Shah, Erdogan removed the main catalyst that could force Turkey into a military confrontation with ISIL.
Turkish prime minister visits tomb of Suleyman Shah [Reuters]
Turkey has the most to lose
It is clear that Turkey is no more willing to confront ISIL now than it was before the tomb was relocated. In fact, there is growing evidence that Turkey continues to turn a blind eye to the cross border traffic that is helping ISIL.
Even if Erdogan does not see it, Turkey has more to lose than the US or any other NATO member if ISIL is successful. Erdogan is sitting on the fence, but someday ISIL will jump over that fence.
ISIL's English language magazine, Dabiq, recently stated that it believes the area in northern Syria "will play a historical role in the battles leading up to the conquests of Constantinople, then Rome".
Turkey is already in ISIL's crosshairs whether Erdogan believes this or not. As Winston Churchill once said, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
Luke Coffey is a research fellow specialising in transatlantic and Eurasian security at a Washington DC based think-tank. He previously served as a special adviser to the British defence secretary and was a commissioned officer in the United States army.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
always founds this fascinating
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Dozens of Iraqi police killed in IS group suicide attack
© AFP file picture | An Iraqi policeman stands guard
Text by FRANCE 24
Latest update : 2015-06-01
Islamic State (IS) group militants on Monday drove an armoured tank laden with explosives into a police base northwest of Baghdad, killing at least 37 officers in the blast, officials said.
Another 46 people were wounded in the attack on the Muthanna facility, which lies in an area where security forces and Shiite paramilitaries have been fighting to drive out the insurgents.
Security forces seized the complex from the militants several days ago and were using it as a foothold for an offensive aimed at cutting IS group supply lines from Samarra to the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
IS group fighters have seized a formidable arsenal of military vehicles, weapons and ammunition from retreating Iraqi forces over the past year.
"The attack was carried out with a tank and left more than 70 killed and wounded," a senior police officer said.
Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, was overrun by the insurgents two weeks ago in the most significant setback for Iraqi forces since a US-led coalition began bombing the militants last summer.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to launch a quick counter-offensive to retake the city, but the Shiite paramilitary groups that have taken charge of the offensive say remaining militant strongholds in Salahuddin province must be cleared first.
Iraqi security forces have successfully repelled several other suicide attacks involving explosives-laden vehicles in recent days.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
http://www.france24.com/en/20150601..._ref=partage_aef&aef_campaign_date=2015-06-01
© AFP file picture | An Iraqi policeman stands guard
Text by FRANCE 24
Latest update : 2015-06-01
Islamic State (IS) group militants on Monday drove an armoured tank laden with explosives into a police base northwest of Baghdad, killing at least 37 officers in the blast, officials said.
Another 46 people were wounded in the attack on the Muthanna facility, which lies in an area where security forces and Shiite paramilitaries have been fighting to drive out the insurgents.
Security forces seized the complex from the militants several days ago and were using it as a foothold for an offensive aimed at cutting IS group supply lines from Samarra to the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
IS group fighters have seized a formidable arsenal of military vehicles, weapons and ammunition from retreating Iraqi forces over the past year.
"The attack was carried out with a tank and left more than 70 killed and wounded," a senior police officer said.
Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, was overrun by the insurgents two weeks ago in the most significant setback for Iraqi forces since a US-led coalition began bombing the militants last summer.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to launch a quick counter-offensive to retake the city, but the Shiite paramilitary groups that have taken charge of the offensive say remaining militant strongholds in Salahuddin province must be cleared first.
Iraqi security forces have successfully repelled several other suicide attacks involving explosives-laden vehicles in recent days.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)
http://www.france24.com/en/20150601..._ref=partage_aef&aef_campaign_date=2015-06-01
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
ISLAMIC STATE
Islamic State Photos Show Notorious Syrian Regime Prison Being Blown to Smithereens
By Gillian Mohney
May 30, 2015 | 4:50 pm
The Islamic State has released photos that purportedly show militants laying explosives and blowing up Syria's notorious Tadmor prison in the recently captured city of Palmyra.
The images appear to show the prison, used by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late father Hafez to house political prisoners, being reduced to rubble by a massive explosion. Fighters are also shown walking past giant painted pictures of Assad inside the apparently abandoned prison before the blast.
Syrian poet Faraj Bayrakdar famously called Tadmor a "kingdom of death and madness," according to the Washington Post. Bayrakdar, who was held at the prison for four years, also called it "a disgrace for the history of Syria and for all humanity."
Related: Beheaded Corpses Said to be Lining Streets of Ancient Syrian City
The prison was "designed to inflict the maximum suffering, humiliation and fear on prisoners," according to a 2001 Amnesty International report cited by Reuters.
The pictures released by the Islamic State appear to show a completely empty complex with no signs of prisoners or guards. It is unclear when the prison was evacuated or emptied of inmates and staff.
Since the militant group seized the ancient oasis city of Palmyra last week and the adjacent UNESCO World Heritage site, United Nations officials and other international figures have expressed concern that its priceless antiquities, shrines, tombs, and elaborate stone structures — some dating back 2,000 years — could be destroyed. IS posted photos this week, however, that appear to show the site still in good condition.
Related: Islamic State Said to Control 50 Percent of Syria With Capture of Palmyra
Residents of the city have not fared as well. Local reports emerged this week claiming that hundreds of people have been killed and their bodies left in the streets.
Aid for at least 11,000 who have fled the city is being prepared by UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency. The displaced residents sought shelter at nearby towns about 70 kilometers from the center of Palmyra, according to UNHCR.
The seizure of Palmyra and destruction of the Tadmor prison came as a new report by INTERPOL suggested that more extremist groups from around the world — including in Africa and Southeast Asia — are pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, according to theAssociated Press. The report also said the number of fighters flowing into Syria and Iraq from abroad has now risen to 25,000 from more than 100 nations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
https://news.vice.com/article/islam...ng-blown-to-smithereens?utm_source=vicenewsfb
whknorth
WHK North Jesus
Infidel!! off with your head.
takbir. God Is Great.
Man shut up bytch
whknorth
WHK North Jesus
Twas a joke fool.Man shut up bytch
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Air Force: We Blew Up a Building Based on a Single Selfie
By Joshua Keating
A Kurdish man celebrates after an airstrike near the Turkey-Syria border on Oct. 25, 2014.
Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
Since the beginning of the U.S.-led air campaign against ISIS, there have been concerns that a lack of intelligence on the group’s positions on the ground in Syria would hinder the effort. But the head of the U.S. Air Combat Command says that’s no problem—there’s plenty of valuable intel on social media.
JOSHUA KEATING
Joshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairs.
At the same breakfast meeting where heclaimed to have “taken 13,000 fighters off the battlefield,” Gen. Hawk Carlisle described an incident in which he says the Air Force destroyed an ISIS headquarters building based on a single post on social media.
The website DefenseTech quotes Carlisle:
“The guys that were working down out of Hurlburt, [an Air Force base in Florida] they’re combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum, bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL. And these guys go: ‘We got an in.’ So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building out.”
“It was a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours,” Carlisle said. The general didn’t specify what type of social media post it was, though it sounds like he’s describing what counterinsurgency experts refer to as a “selfie.”
This certainly isn’t the first example of intelligence officials gaining information from the prolific social media output of ISIS members and supporters. The group is even believed to have responded to the problem by publishing guidelines for fighters on how to remove potentially compromising information and metadata from their online posts. Senior leaders of ISIS generally keep a much lower public profile to avoid just the kind of scenario Carlisle describes. If the selfie-to-bombing-in-24-hours scenario was really as straightforward as what the general described, someone really slipped up.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...001&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
By Joshua Keating
A Kurdish man celebrates after an airstrike near the Turkey-Syria border on Oct. 25, 2014.
Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
Since the beginning of the U.S.-led air campaign against ISIS, there have been concerns that a lack of intelligence on the group’s positions on the ground in Syria would hinder the effort. But the head of the U.S. Air Combat Command says that’s no problem—there’s plenty of valuable intel on social media.
JOSHUA KEATINGJoshua Keating is a staff writer at Slate focusing on international affairs.
At the same breakfast meeting where heclaimed to have “taken 13,000 fighters off the battlefield,” Gen. Hawk Carlisle described an incident in which he says the Air Force destroyed an ISIS headquarters building based on a single post on social media.
The website DefenseTech quotes Carlisle:
“The guys that were working down out of Hurlburt, [an Air Force base in Florida] they’re combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum, bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL. And these guys go: ‘We got an in.’ So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building out.”
“It was a post on social media to bombs on target in less than 24 hours,” Carlisle said. The general didn’t specify what type of social media post it was, though it sounds like he’s describing what counterinsurgency experts refer to as a “selfie.”
This certainly isn’t the first example of intelligence officials gaining information from the prolific social media output of ISIS members and supporters. The group is even believed to have responded to the problem by publishing guidelines for fighters on how to remove potentially compromising information and metadata from their online posts. Senior leaders of ISIS generally keep a much lower public profile to avoid just the kind of scenario Carlisle describes. If the selfie-to-bombing-in-24-hours scenario was really as straightforward as what the general described, someone really slipped up.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...001&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
the middle east been on that graffiti mural steez!
Abdi
All Star
another sadistic madness
video..Warning,very graphic!
video..Warning,very graphic!
Trajan
Veteran
They just want to make the news. We should ignore their bs.
Coming up with all these creative ways to murder ppl like some movie villains.