Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[JWing]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...n-Baghdad.html

Interview conducted in Erbil---and who controls Erbil?

From a source that's close to the insurgency the Islamic Army has been dead on the ground and only alive on the internet for the last two years while this guy has been sitting around collecting checks from wealthy Gulf donors.

[OUTLAW 09]

From a source that's close to the insurgency the Islamic Army has been dead on the ground and only alive on the internet for the last two years while this guy has been sitting around collecting checks from wealthy Gulf donors.

JWing---that is what I would have said although the net has little to nothing from them outside of older meaning up to 2011 with the main one being the 65 minute victory video--- even al Duri's group went quiet. Mentioned was the working with the Sunni demos in the last of 2013 up to the Iraqi Army attack on their protest camps which would mean even if 50% correct the Sunni insurgents minus ISIS had been working the tribal card far earlier than is being reported.

Again if the reporting from an recent interview with one of the really leading Sunni tribes which was pro US is correct--he voiced literally the same message as Dabash-independent of each other and where thy interviews were given-which indicates to me there has been an ongoing discussion.

Secondly---we got Dabash who we thought was AQI (but then we was released as was al Baghdadi by the Iaqi's) but not the rest of the inner circle of IAI and if one looks closely at reports coming out of Mosul--- tanks and helicopters were flown and or driven---not many of the current ISIS fighters are tank or copter qualified which points to former Iraqi military members.

Then if the figure is correct of 1000 fighters with several hundred peeling off and heading towards Baghdad then where are the rest coming from that is holding on and fighting against the Iraqi army/Shia militia in areas initially taken. ISIS doe not have that high of a foreign fighter flow in order to support multiple fighting fronts.

Then in the interview is something that only those in the inner planning circle fully understand and which the US Army never got in Iraq---when one area is under pressure then open up a new offensive in another totally different direction and then move the offensive around the battle space---we chased our tails like this forever from 2005 thru to 2007.

If one takes the interview as correct then in fact Mosul was a relief offensive to assist those in Anbar.

Appears to me someone does not like Dabash living well in Erbil---again the question if he was such a former AQI/IAI member then why is he being tolerated by the Kurds who might be a tad mad about the past due to AQI attacks on the Kurds/Peshmerger in Muqdadiyah and the surrounding areas in Diyala.

Just my opinion.

[OUTLAW 09]

From a source that's close to the insurgency the Islamic Army has been dead on the ground and only alive on the internet for the last two years while this guy has been sitting around collecting checks from wealthy Gulf donors.

JWing---this is the current problem when we speak or others speak about the Sunni insurgency and or ISIS. This individual who is "close" to the insurgency is not nor was evidently close enough to Dabash and the IAI inner circle to understand that he was the main money funneler to both IAI and al Tahwid starting in 2002 with monies flowing from Qatar and Bahrain which is still flowing through him which makes him quasi still the go to guy in this business.

He picked right back up when he came out of prison so I am not sure why someone is jealous of his collecting checks when those checks make him important and he funnels them onwards instead of pocketing them as does Malaki on the other side. Evidently Qatar and Bahrain seem to still trust him after 12 years and US prison in between.

[OUTLAW 09]

If the reporting is correct that the ISIS and the Sunni insurgency is moving in a mobile fashion ---meaning taking towns and then forcing the Iraqi Army to respond then disappearing and then coming back---this is similar to Ghanis Khan style swarming attacks on horse while the ISIS and it's allies are using utilities and American 114s.

If then as reported this morning in Berlin the US is set to unleash a bombing campaign then in fact it will be openly perceived by the Iraqi Sunni's and Sunni tribes as aimed at them thus undermining any voice the US will use in the coming weeks to get them to moderate and pull back. I am not so sure we can tell from a Reaper and or F18/F16 from 4K feet the difference between a 114 driven by angry Sunni insurgents or from the angry Sunni tribes who have been brutalized/systematically killed by Malaki's security forces since 2012 from ISIS driven vehicles especially if they are not flying the black battle flags.

If I remember correctly US foreign policy basically has been since the Sunni killing spree by Malaki's security forces started in 2012-and the protest camps were destroyed in 2013--silence was heard out of Washington---abject silence.

It has be now decided by the Sunni tribes to include those that helped the US that the US speaks with a "forked tongue" something US Indian tribes said a long while ago. When any thing we say is totally false in the end.

If one remembers it was only when the US received assistance from the Sunni tribes (it was not through US military power alone that reigned them in) that AQI was reigned in so how is now the US going to convince the Sunni tribes to change sides and with what promises (what again promises of an inclusive governance?) especially since it was announced today the US is going ahead with the bombing campaign because the Iraqi government cannot institute the necessary governance changes in time.

So again the US foreign policy simply does not get it.

Seems the DoS is screaming the Iraqi Army is in full rout and bombing must start soon.

Again Malaki is playing the US as he will never give up his power position---we have fallen repeatedly for this line of argument from him since 2005, again in 2010 and now--- and when we have the single thing he wants most to save his power position ie airpower then it can and should have been used to achieve political compromises on the ground immediately--was that not what Obama talked about at West Point as the heart of his new FP---meaning there must be something in it for the US to act outside of it's interests?

Remember what retired General P stated recently---"we are not the Shia Air Force"', and that will be the actual perception by Sunnis if we start bombing regardless if we never hit a single Sunni civilian which is virtually impossible to prevent.

It does not bode well for the Iraq entire population as a whole, nor future US foreign policy as it makes us look like we absolutely do not understand the game of foreign policy and besides "who" would "trust" us again on the things we "promise or say"?---the was the same message recently repeated by the Polish FM in a secret recorded conversation.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-special-for...045033796.html

[OUTLAW 09]

A provocative question---is there in fact now in both the Sunni triangle and in the Kurdish region a truly new reality on the ground and Iraq has been effectively divided into three regions nullifying the borders drawn by Sykes -Picot?


http://news.yahoo.com/kurdish-leader...-politics.html

[OUTLAW 09]

Here is the answer to the demands in the US to drop bombs on something and or somebody---Iran transferred 88 former Iraqi fighter bombers back to Iraq equipped and ready to drop bombs---question is who will be flying them Iranian pilots and or Iraqi pilots?

If Iranian will the Sunni tribes together with ISIS view this as an Iranian invasion and strike when and where possible against Iranian targets?

http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/ir...r-planes-iraq/

[TheCurmudgeon]

CNN interview with President Barzani - "Iraq is falling apart anyway ..."

Kerry met with Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani shortly after his arrival.

"We are facing a new reality and a new Iraq," Barzani said as the two men sat down.

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Barzani said "Iraq is obviously falling apart."

"And it's obvious that the federal or central government has lost control over everything," Barzani said Monday. "Everything is collapsing -- the army, the troops, the police."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/24/world/meast/iraq-crisis/

[OUTLAW 09]

This bombing was blamed on the AQI and AQI claimed it but was it really AQI--- and it led to the massive follow on ethnic cleansing attacks by Shia militia on Sunni's and vice versa.

So was Casey correct---he was the MNF-I Commander then so maybe he might have had other intel reporting---cannot track down the original source of the reporting on the Casey comments though so maybe just RUMINT.

http://www.iraqinews.com/baghdad-pol...f-imam-askari/

[JMA]

Do yank kids learn this? :



Iraq ia broken. It can only be fixed - if by fixed means maintaining a unitary state - by the three parties: Shia, Sunni and Kurd. If they want it (or need it) they will find a way to do it.

ISIS is the problem for the West - especially the foreigh fighters - and the potential use of Sunni dominated areas of Iraq being used as a springboard for international terrorism.

CNN interview with President Barzani - "Iraq is falling apart anyway ..."



http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/24/world/meast/iraq-crisis/

[OUTLAW 09]

Do yank kids learn this? :



Iraq ia broken. It can only be fixed - if by fixed means maintaining a unitary state - by the three parties: Shia, Sunni and Kurd. If they want it (or need it) they will find a way to do it.

ISIS is the problem for the West - especially the foreigh fighters - and the potential use of Sunni dominated areas of Iraq being used as a springboard for international terrorism.

JMA--here are the Kurdish demands on the Malaki government in order for them to participate which the Sunni's mirror to a degree. 1)implement the Constitution changes giving the Kurds everything they view as Kurdish which is also portions of the current Sunni triangle, 2) oil revenue sharing and a 3) power sharing scheme.

Do not see Malaki giving in to them as he then loses then his Shia constituents especially on the revenue sharing side/granting more Iraqi territory to the Kurds, and I do not think the Shia militias are going to be prone to power share as well.

This is headed to a long term fight and a short term split up.

[TheCurmudgeon]

A different take on why one fighter joined ISIS.

The story of K. resembles that of many Syrians who have taken up arms, even with the most radical groups, only to be disillusioned and disappointed. But not all have had the same ending. Indeed, for many Islamist fighters, Sharia means much more than law and order. M. is also 28 and joined another unit I accompanied for some time in early 2014. Before the uprising, he explains, he was a handyman at a five-star hotel.

"On May 8 [when the Carlton Hotel was bombed] I was celebrating. For all my life, I've been a servant to scum who earned lots of money just through kinship, friendship, bribes. That was Syria. My mother died from a cancer that we couldn't afford to treat. … And those guys were living in luxury without ever working," he says. His war is different from K.'s. "Assad is only a fragment of the problem. That's why I joined ISIS. We want a different society. A society where you don't waste on wine and whores the resources you need to treat the sick."

In the areas under its rule, ISIS has been denounced by Syrians as a new regime that shows no tolerance and no mercy for dissidents and minorities. Its strict interpretation of Islam revives corporal punishment. Its violence is so brutal that even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri disowned the group. But M. rejects these accusations.

"You look only at the executions. But every war has its executions, its traitors, its spies. We set up soup kitchens, we rebuilt schools, hospitals, we restored water and electricity, we paid for food and fuel. While the UN wasn't even able to deliver humanitarian aid, we were vaccinating children against polio. It's just that some actions are more visible than others. For every thief we punish, you punish a hundred children with your indifference."

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/orig...f7187-93069393

One wonders, if these stories are accurate and not just propaganda, how much effort it would take to convert these fighters to a less radical ideology.

On the other hand, there is this (from the same article):

Unlike K., M. is still a fighter. When ISIS withdrew eastward, he withdrew, too, speaking to Al-Monitor via Skype from Al Bab. Aleppo's countryside is scattered with ISIS gunmen.

I asked M. if his movement was bent on redrawing the map of the Middle East, to which he replied, "There is no map. … Where you see borders, we see only your interests."

M., embodying the ISIS ideology, railed against the aspirations for democracy in the Arab world.

"Look at Egypt. Look at the way it ended for Muslims who cast their vote for [deposed President] Mohammed Morsi and believed in your democracy, in your lies. Democracy doesn't exist. Do you think you are free? The West is ruled by banks, not by parliaments, and you know that. You know that you're just a pawn, except you have no courage. You think of yourself, your job, your house … because you know you have no power. But fortunately, the jihad has started. Islam will get to you and bring you freedom."

[JWing]

My latest article "Iraq’s Central Front Attacks Upon Baghdad Continue While ISIS Fights In Rest Of Country". ISIS attacks in Baghdad had shown no decline since offensive in north. Avg. number of attacks per day same as last few months and casualties some of the highest in 2014. Shows that ISIS is not overstretched and its networks in Baghdad belts & capital province itself still going strong. Next up street fighting in Baghdad probably sooner rather than later.

[OUTLAW 09]

My latest article "Iraq’s Central Front Attacks Upon Baghdad Continue While ISIS Fights In Rest Of Country". ISIS attacks in Baghdad had shown no decline since offensive in north. Avg. number of attacks per day same as last few months and casualties some of the highest in 2014. Shows that ISIS is not overstretched and its networks in Baghdad belts & capital province itself still going strong. Next up street fighting in Baghdad probably sooner rather than later.

JWings---a really good article---even on the US side I am not sure the national level IC even understands the ISIS/Sunni moves and has no idea of their combined strength.

Watch the fighting in Diyala ----it is designed to suck the Iranian Quds and Shia militias into a protracted fight as it is a perfect area to go full guerrilla sucking in large numbers of conventional forces while small numbers of guerrilla keep the fight going. We had one BCT in FOB Warhorse just to cover Diyala and it was not enough. When the IAI/AQI stood up and fought in the Diyala River Basin during the Thunder Runs---it was brutal and the IAI/AQI fought well against US armor--so a Quds Force and Shia militia do not scare ISIS---especially since they have built over the last years NVA style fighting camps and bunker complexes in the palm grooves.

The Iraqi will automatically defend Diyala as it is a perceived hop skip and a jump to Baghdad thus they will assume that is where the attacks on Baghdad will be coming from.

They are in fact trying to come in via the southern route---their cells have been since 2002/2003 emplaced in Baghdad and we never rooted all of them out.

Besides a number of Shia running around Baghdad are actually converted Sunni's who have worked for years with IAI and AQI and float between the fronts.

[JWing]

My new article today "Precarious Relationship Between The Islamic State of Iraq And The Baathist Naqshibandi". The Baathist Naqshibandi and ISIS have been cooperating for years but it's a rough relationship. ISIS wants JRTN units pledge allegiance to it, which has been resisted and resulted in several gunfights both before and during the current offensive. As ISIS attempts to assert administrative control over regions of Iraq these clashes will likely increase.

[JWing]

Outlaw agree insurgents if they get into Baghdad are going to come through the south. Northern Babil area of Jurf al-Sakhr is under ISIS control. Repeated offensives there have failed and ISIS destroyed tons of police stations and checkpoints in the area with cranes and bulldozers in plain sight with no response by the ISF.

[OUTLAW 09]

Ongoing events

1.In Europe reports are coming out concerning Iranian military movements and buildup on Iraqi border near Manadli next to Diyala province.
2. It appears that now ISIS has closed the ring around Baghdad with their troop movements being mobile forcing the ISF to not fully understand the battle space and making it harder to react to --basically it seems the ISF is just setting up checkpoints after checkpoints actually in effect creating new targets as the IAI/ISIS have 8 years of target practice against any form of checkpoint there is.
3. It now appears that the Syrian Air Force is actually bombing inside Iraq and the Iraqi's initially claimed it was US drones in order to cover up the Syrian involvement.

http://news.yahoo.com/syria-sends-wa...134145404.html

4. And this is extremely important if true to any degree---some European news reporters in the KSA are indicating a very quiet KSA military alert for selected armored and AF units and some movement of units towards the Iraqi border.
5. Turkey is claiming they have stopped a total of 5300 recruits attempting to flow into the ISIS in Syria over the last six months.

Things are getting now out of control and a momentum is building that if it continues will expand into a Holy War as the three regional hegemones are getting involved-Syria, Iran and the KSA.

[OUTLAW 09]

1. The ISIS has now taken the roving battle space tactic into Lebanon---this was a tactical concept of multiple engagements and if one has pressure applied to it then withdraw and reengage in another location as it forces the defending counter insurgent to constantly be on the move.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...n-lebanon.html

2. ISIS probing is now occurring in and around Balad AF base and has been the last week or so-- ISIS is after the hundreds of gun trucks stored there as well as the 114s-if I recall they were used by JSOC---if Balad goes so goes strategically the entire Iraqi Army.

And we somehow believe ISIS and Sunni insurgents a minority do not have a strategy on how to defeat a majority?

Watch now for a flare up of fighting inside Syria that would make a total of four fronts effectively keeping the ISF on the move and the Iranians stuck in Diyala and the Hezbollah and Syria off guard.

[JWing]

Outlaw Iraqi press reports that IRGC are in Diyala, Kirkuk, Baghdad already. Probably in Samarra area as well.

[OUTLAW 09]

Outlaw Iraqi press reports that IRGC are in Diyala, Kirkuk, Baghdad already. Probably in Samarra area as well.

Noticed the ISIS and coalition are momentarily quiet---believe they are collecting intel to see exactly where the Quds are maneuvering to and or from.
And you are correct the car bombings are still continuing as a background drumbeat---it is their long range artillery.

Normally after a massive push they tended to go into an intel collection phase to check/detect security holes.

What is surprising me is the lack of ISIS and coalition to use their truck based 12.7s and heavier MG as a AAA against air attacks---they might in fact be using them but do not see the reporting of their use. They also have to have MANPADs as a few have been used in Syria.

Noticed as well first indications of Iranian drones being flown over Iraq.

KSA and the Sunni Gulf States have been unusually quiet---in fact too quiet for my taste--outside of a few public statements by Jordan --Jordan is too quiet as well.

Noticed as well the Iraqi government "played" down the amount taken from the Mosul Central Bank---they are "pitching" a lot of misinformation towards their own Shia population--probably to keep panic from breaking out in Baghdad and cover up the fact that the Iranians are the ones fighting on the ground against ISIS.

It appears some of the ongoing ethnic cleansing killings going on in Baghdad are being covered up by claiming their are ISIS---old habits never seem to die with the ISF.

[JMA]

Outlaw Iraqi press reports that IRGC are in Diyala, Kirkuk, Baghdad already. Probably in Samarra area as well.

Is this unexpected or a bad thing?