Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[OUTLAW 09]

This is one of the first breakouts I have seen on social media about the numbers of foreign fighters broken down by the country they come from.

Notice who leads in provided foreign fighters into Syria---Russia by far.

https://twitter.com/Ukrainian_State/...184769/photo/1

[davidbfpo]

This is one of the first breakouts I have seen on social media about the numbers of foreign fighters broken down by the country they come from.

Notice who leads in provided foreign fighters into Syria---Russia by far.

https://twitter.com/Ukrainian_State/...184769/photo/1

Outlaw09,

I'd say every fortnight a chart appears on SM. Most depend on the figures collected by ISW, ICSR and a few others. Recently I saw one that emphasised the numbers from Arab nations, I don't recall Russia figuring very high.

[OUTLAW 09]

Outlaw09,

I'd say every fortnight a chart appears on SM. Most depend on the figures collected by ISW, ICSR and a few others. Recently I saw one that emphasised the numbers from Arab nations, I don't recall Russia figuring very high.

David---would normally tend to agree but there have been slowly emerging reporting about the flow of Russian Islamists into the ME and then drifting back into Russia.

If one watches on a daily basis Interfax releases you will see an average of one report every other day on "suppressing terrorists" somewhere in the RF Islamic regions.

Then today there was a video/picture released via twitter indicating a fight breaking out between Moscow police and Muslims near local city buses.

Clashes between police and Moscow's muslims
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjaguxKwkyo …

pic.twitter.com/JFYukK6UFt

Tensions are slowly rising between the Muslim portions of the RF and the security forces.

Secondly one of the best tacticians training IS before he was "allegedly" killed came from Russia as well as a large number of fighters together with him since the beginning in Syria.

[OUTLAW 09]

#Iraq New batch of russian MI-35s combat helicopters delivered to Iraqi Army (some sources say 10 Mi35s !)

http://mod.mil.iq/news/2014/9/27/254.html …

[OUTLAW 09]

It seems Russia is being agitated again by the US as they attempt to maintain Assad as an client state for their naval porting rights in the Med.

Noticed the Russians did not back up their threats against the US as a blatant act of aggression for bombing Syria without "asking Russia and Syria". After all their hype of the word "aggression" in the global media not even a whimper out of Russia..

Now with a no fly zone being talked about against the SAF in the north--not so sure Assad is "winning" with US support.

BREAKING: US informs #Syria it will strike #ISIS for 3 years – Syrian FM http://on.rt.com/m2cn0k
pic.twitter.com/ywj9rml6YV

[Dayuhan]

Interesting look at the threats and opportunities ISIS presents for the Kurds...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...29/fight-lives

Key paragraph:

Obama has spoken carefully in public, but it is plain that the Administration wants the Kurds to do two potentially incompatible things. The first is to serve as a crucial ally in the campaign to destroy ISIS, with all the military funding and equipment that such a role entails. The second is to resist seceding from the Iraqi state. Around Washington, the understanding is clear: if the long-sought country of Kurdistan becomes real, America’s twelve-year project of nation building in Iraq will be sundered. Kurdish leaders acknowledge that the emergence of ISIS and the implosion of Syria are changing the region in unpredictable ways. But the Kurds’ history with the state of Iraq is one of persistent enmity and bloodshed, and they see little benefit in joining up with their old antagonists. “Iraq exists only in the minds of people in the White House,” Masrour Barzani, the Kurdish intelligence chief and Masoud’s son, told me. “We need our own laws, our own rules, our own country, and we are going to get them.”

[OUTLAW 09]

Merging of various Shia militant groupings:

There's now a greater merger&mutualisation of resources am/ Iraqi groups. #Katiba_Hezbollah, #Imam_Ali
pic.twitter.com/4h89BWnin2

#Iraq #Sarya_al_Khorasani 107mm #IRAM factory near Baghdad - most Iraqi groups name it #Ashtar
NOTE: definitely improved versions of what they fired at US troops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o6NPgTyhgA …

Reports emerging of another [big] FSA-YPG agreement being signed to combat ISIS across all Kurdish regions of northern #Syria.