The Islamic state

[Patteran]

Meanwhile in actual ISIS news, there is direct fighting on the Lebanon border, interestingly, it seems this may bring hezbollah and Lebanon's Christians together to fight their common foe.


http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/2/5/isil-inches-war-closer-to-lebanons-border.html

I hope Lebanon can resist the almost inevitable drag into the mire. Tripoli was a flashpoint in October, dozens killed in a few days of street fighting between rival militias, with the names of IS & JAN appearing in the margin. There's a terrific piece about the city here in Jadaliyya magazine, focusing on economic (rather than theological) causes.

the severe poverty in Tripoli has freed young people from caring about “society’s” opinion, pushing them to the most radical of expressions just as money has freed rich politicians’ children from knowledge of anything that takes place outside their bourgeois bubbles. The poor Sunni youth have found an outlet away from traditional Lebanese “feudal” politics of manipulation. They now celebrate Jabhat al-Nusra and IS. To them, it now seems as if the “moderate” days of Hariri’s politics are a bygone era.

 

[mango5]

As ever, almost entirely unreported. I'm not going to wade through multiple threads and piece together a long-running campaign and nor is any other mod. Yes I am asking for flurries of reports even though they are 'probably the worst system except for all the others' as the saying goes. And it can help us to get a more general sense of different bunfights/whatevers when non-protagonists report their concerns too. This is general advice btw not just for this thread/beef.

eta - reply to butchersapron above

 

[butchersapron]

I hope Lebanon can resist the almost inevitable drag into the mire. Tripoli was a flashpoint in October, dozens killed in a few days of street fighting between rival militias, with the names of IS & JAN appearing in the margin. There's a terrific piece about the city here in Jadaliyya magazine, focusing on economic (rather than theological) causes.

Looks like those up on the hill better watch their backs - or more likely, their comrades will try drown the lowlands in blood first.

 

[kebabking]

I dont believe that for a moment. Not after they claimed the pilot was alive for a month

they've also claimed she was killed in a Jordanian air strike - though how they could tell the difference between a grey Jordanian F-16 at 10,000ft and a grey US, Morrocan etc.. F-16 at 10,000ft is perhaps something of a mystery...

in truth, its not unlikely that she was killed in an airstrike - one of the most effective methods of gathering intelligence is signals intelligence: ploting where radios/mobile phones make calls and receive calls, and which locations/people call which locations/people, the length of those conversations and, if the people on the ground are dumb, what is being said. the people/locations who make lots of calls, and to a wide variety of other people/locations are likely to be important within IS's structure, and a female US hostage is not going to have been entrusted to some random simpleton who joined IS last week and was pulled off toilet cleaning duties to act as her jailer.

 

[butchersapron]

Those raqqa anti-ISIS activists in raqqa i mentioned a few days back.

 

[frogwoman]

I think that's bollocks. It's too convenient and I reckon that they weren't sure about killing a woman on camera. I think they may have thought it would play badly with the idealistic saps who believe all that shit about ISIS protecting women and children. Whereas now they get to say the big bad west did it.

Alternately she may still be alive. Remember the care that the US government claims they are taking over her safety.

 

[frogwoman]

Those raqqa anti-ISIS activists in raqqa i mentioned a few days back.

Yep brave people www.raqqa-sl.com

 

[frogwoman]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/06/isis-took-her-hostage-now-they-say-she-s-dead.html

The claim, which was also reported by the private intelligence group SITE on Friday, remains unconfirmed, and U.S. officials weren’t able to immediately verify it. But ISIS did release the name of the hostage, Kayla Mueller, as well as what it claimed were personal details about her, including her phone number. The group showed a destroyed building where it claimed Mueller was held, but it released no photos of her.

 

[frogwoman]

A Jordanian official denied ISIS’s claims that Mueller was killed in one of the country’s airstrikes. “This is just another PR stunt,” the official told The Daily Beast. “This is just part of their whole media-spinning strategy. They’re trying to throw a wedge in the coalition” to combat ISIS. The official noted that ISIS has manipulatedthe public before when it comes to the status of hostages, most recently by seeming to claim that the Jordanian pilot was alive when he’d really been killed weeks ago.

“We are obviously deeply concerned by these reports. We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s claim,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told The Daily Beast.


I don't believe anything they say.

 

[butchersapron]

In terms of stuff it don't matter, no one buying anything from them evermore now - but i tell you what, if that was my kid, i'd be glad she was killed by anti-ISIS airstrikes, than crucified for real or something. Regardless of the wider airstrike results.

 

[agricola]

In terms of stuff it don't matter, no one buying anything from them evermore now - but i tell you what, if that was my kid, i'd be glad she was killed by anti-ISIS airstrikes, than crucified for real or something. Regardless of the wider airstrike results.

Well exactly.

 

[frogwoman]

Defections and assassinations among ISIS ranks
Posted by: Abu Mohammed in press, Raqqa news 05/02/2015 2 Comments 5,186 Views


Exclusive – Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently

Great tension prevailed in Raqqa city, where ISIS group suffered by many reflections in the past few days, but the defectors number is not the same importance to the group in comparison with the competence of those members, a source from within ISIS group has confirmed that most of defections are from suicide bombers, where these defections are considered a painful punch to the group.

The news about defections has quickly spread, so ISIS has erected barriers and checkpoints throughout the city, because the defectors have freed some detainees from Jabhat al Nusra group, most of the defectors have fled to Turkey after paying large amounts of money, while the rest went to the areas controlled by Jabhat al Nusra group, and this is what happened with two Saudis members in the media office of ISIS group, where they joined the ranks of al Nusra group in the countryside of Latakia, and they leaked the execution clip of Japanese hostage.
These defections have confused the group papers, especially on the ground, while ISIS was attaining a major victory in several battles in the beginning, it witnessed a notable fallback in the onset of this year, especially in the battle of Ain Arab “Kobanî” and in the military airbase of Deir Ezzor, the same source assured us that the incidence of fear is spreading in the ranks of the group from a surprise attack from Jabhat al Nusra group on the city of Raqqa, opening a new battlefront were not taken into ISIS account at all.

In a related development, Kurdish parties and some factions of FSA are celebrating with the liberation of Ain Arab “Kobanî” from ISIS group, Mohammed Adnan, a member in FSA who involved in the last battle in Ain Arab “Kobanî”, in an exclusive interview with “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently”, spoke about finding nearly 200 bodies of ISIS members near the city during the combing operations in the area surrounding the city, where a large number of Ansar (Syrian fighters) tried to split from the group and escape to Turkey, but the Iraqi fighters have killed them.

In a separate context, a new assassination cases are taking place in Raqqa city, carried out by unknown assailants, where they assassinated four members of ISIS group in al-Rumaila neighborhood, as well as the assassination of two Tunisian families in Eddekhar neighborhood in the city of Raqqa.

Raqqa city, the capital of the Islamic caliphate state as the group claims, has experienced internal unrest, the group couldn’t remedy that before it becomes more worse, where it formed a painful punch to the group, this unrest may develops with the passage of days, and may cause cleavages lead to the full collapse within the group, hope is returning and taking shape in the hearts of the rest of the people in Raqqa, who are waiting for the freedom sunrise again all over the captive city.

 

[Pickman's model]

A Jordanian official denied ISIS’s claims that Mueller was killed in one of the country’s airstrikes. “This is just another PR stunt,” the official told The Daily Beast. “This is just part of their whole media-spinning strategy. They’re trying to throw a wedge in the coalition” to combat ISIS. The official noted that ISIS has manipulatedthe public before when it comes to the status of hostages, most recently by seeming to claim that the Jordanian pilot was alive when he’d really been killed weeks ago.

“We are obviously deeply concerned by these reports. We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates ISIL’s claim,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, told The Daily Beast.


I don't believe anything they say.

i'd trust them more if i saw them drunk and i saw them sober. but i'm led to believe that's not on the cards.

 

[Diamond]

See, this is the basic misunderstanding that prevents Westerners from understanding ISIS or how to deal with them.

They do not mind being sent to the front to die. That isn't something they would shirk or seek to avoid. That's what they want. Until we can grasp that mentality, we'll continue to think that they can be defeated by military force. They cannot.

That may be what they advertise as their general creed and perhaps, on balance, it is statistically true.

But I'd wager that Jihadi John and his media team are content to sit behind the lines, steal the "limelight" and avoid direct personal risk.

 

[Pickman's model]

That may be what they advertise as their general creed and perhaps, on balance, it is statistically true.

But I'd wager that Jihadi John and his media team are content to sit behind the lines, steal the "limelight" and avoid direct personal risk.

you didn't read mango5's post, that if dwyer darkens this thread's door again he'll be banned, did you? even though you are right that he's wrong.

there's no way isis would let their little media star executioner near the front line, after all he'll take a load of the heat off other people when this is over and the people who appeared in front of the camera appear in front of a judge - or, more likely, a drumhead court martial.

 

[Theisticle]

Crapabble receives photos from inside Mosul but rather than publish them, she of course sketches them:

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/02/inside-isis-controlled-mosul

 

[J Ed]

Crapabble receives photos from inside Mosul but rather than publish them, she of course sketches them

She is monetising

 

[Diamond]

you didn't read mango5's post, that if dwyer darkens this thread's door again he'll be banned, did you? even though you are right that he's wrong.

there's no way isis would let their little media star executioner near the front line, after all he'll take a load of the heat off other people when this is over and the people who appeared in front of the camera appear in front of a judge - or, more likely, a drumhead court martial.

I've got fairly serious issues with threatening people; issues that are only amplified when the threats are contingent upon what such folk are saying.

 

[J Ed]

I've got fairly serious issues with threatening people; issues that are only amplified when the threats are contingent upon what such folk are saying.

Cool story

 

[butchersapron]

I've got fairly serious issues with threatening people; issues that are only amplified when the threats are contingent upon what such folk are saying.

The first part of this is true.

 

[agricola]

there's no way isis would let their little media star executioner near the front line, after all he'll take a load of the heat off other people when this is over and the people who appeared in front of the camera appear in front of a judge - or, more likely, a drumhead court martial.

Perhaps, though one of the oddest things about the IS claim was that they said no militants had been killed - she cannot have been in that building by herself, unguarded.

 

[Pickman's model]

Perhaps, though one of the oddest things about the IS claim was that they said no militants had been killed - she cannot have been in that building by herself, unguarded.

'just going down the shops for a pint of milk, love, i'll be back in a jiffy'

 

[Diamond]

The first part of this is true.

Typically gnomic.

So, it's OK to threaten people on the basis of what they say....?

 

[Flavour]

Are english imperial measurements not "haram"? Perhaps they have some Islamic system of measurements in place, as surely the french metric system is also a bit too Western and corrupt. Genuinely interesting question.

 

[Diamond]

On the current claim by ISIS - it's ludicrous.

 

[butchersapron]

Typically gnomic.

So, it's OK to threaten people on the basis of what they say....?

No, you've got fairly serious issues - fuck off and deal with them batman.

 

[butchersapron]

I've got fairly serious issues with threatening people; issues that are only amplified when the threats are contingent upon what such folk are saying.

Hey anarchy man! It's all about me and the amp/not amp of my issues. We've just got rid of one thread-death dealer, up pops another.

 

[Diamond]

O.K. pal, this isn't your sovereign territory.

You understand that, right?

 

[likesfish]

Tbf if I was in the hands of is I'd welcome an airstrike might take some of the bastards with me not like there's any other way out

 

[J Ed]

Tbf if I was in the hands of is I'd welcome an airstrike might take some of the bastards with me not like there's any other way out

I was thinking that myself, and frankly I wonder if whoever ordered the attack thought it as well.