The Islamic state

[bluescreen]

ISTR a WaPo article making a similar point. As I said, out by a factor of ten - at least. What is the DM on?

 

[butchersapron]

This is the AL Monitor report the mail took their story from - they are a serious site and it's a serious report (i'm saying report rather than article because this is the term the mail used to make it sound authoritative). The mail took one section from and inflated hysterically - and it is based on another report linked to in the AL Monitor piece that plainly states that:

IS is the “best-funded terrorist organization we have confronted,” Cohen said. He said the group earns at least $1-2 million a day from selling oil and at least $20 million a year in ransoms for kidnap victims. It also amasses money, he said, from selling women into sexual slavery, looting antiquities, stealing agricultural products and other forms of extortion inflicted on the millions of Iraqis and Syrians under its control.

Sloppy (militarised?) hackery at it worst.

 

[bluescreen]

I saw that, but didn't realise they were reliable.

 

[Geri]

Daesh supporter claiming on Twitter that IS don't want to lose soldiers for a few Yezidis so they "let the Murtadin take it".

32 trucks of water and food are on their way from Erbil to Shingal. Also hundreds of YPG reinforcements have arrived.

 

[kebabking]

Daesh supporter claiming on Twitter that IS don't want to lose soldiers for a few Yezidis so they "let the Murtadin take it"....

i don't doubt they're saying it, but its about as convincing as a Girafe in dark glasses trying to get into a Polar Bears only nightclub.

the Sinjar mountains lie about 5km north of the main road from Mosul and Tal Afar to Raqqua, Daesh's centre of political and military gravity. to allow someone hostile to them to hold the mountains, and be able to cut the road, brass up every Daesh convoy that drove along it, or even just sit there with a pair of binoculars and the USAF on speedial - would be madness in the extreme.

 

[Geri]

Yeah, he's trying to save face that's all.

 

[Anudder Oik]

Some footage of the Peshmerga advance on the ground, including the Iraqi gold battalion moving from the other direction.

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/midd...-secure-iraq-sinjar-20141220182026125800.html

 

[Patteran]

German journalist has spent 10 days in IS controlled territory, with their blessing/protection - piece in the Independent today, more coming next week, with a book eventually. 'If you want to defeat an opponent, you must know him' says Todenhöfer, which is all well & good, but there's a difference between gathering intelligence & publishing pieces that quiver slightly at the enemy's potency & spread their bellicose philosophy. Is there not a strong case for 'no platforming' shits like IS?

 

[Geri]

Spoiler: ISIS Bucket Challenge, NSFW.

WARNING - graphic picture inside.

 

[Crispy]

Ugh. Don't reveal that spoiler wihtout steeling yourself

 

[butchersapron]

German journalist has spent 10 days in IS controlled territory, with their blessing/protection - piece in the Independent today, more coming next week, with a book eventually. 'If you want to defeat an opponent, you must know him' says Todenhöfer, which is all well & good, but there's a difference between gathering intelligence & publishing pieces that quiver slightly at the enemy's potency & spread their bellicose philosophy. Is there not a strong case for 'no platforming' shits like IS?

I wish i could do german and research this goon's past work. I think we can guess where the book is going.

 

[Geri]

Ugh. Don't reveal that spoiler wihtout steeling yourself

Yesterday I saw a photo of a man who had been beheaded and his cock chopped off (allegedly by the Peshmerga) for raping Yazidi girls. There's no warning in the group I'm in, they just post them up!

 

[hot air baboon]

...too quick for those filthy murdering nonces....hope those scumbags in the pics tread on some anti-personnel mines and get their legs & nonce-tackle blown to Paradise so those virgins can put them to good use on their own account....

from todays Times article

 

[likesfish]

Paybacks a bitch if you signed up to fight for is their should be no mercy shown to you.
Cant see the excuse I was naive really working.

 

[seventh bullet]

Here's to lots of payback.

 

[DotCommunist]

tiny violins

 

[butchersapron]

Couple of interesting things that appeared recently - note i'm not endorsing the author of the 2nd piece, just putting it up as a an example of a theme i've noticed over the last week or two:

ISIS arrests 'extremists' accused of plot against group

ISIS has claimed the arrests of four jihadis it classified as "extremists" accused of plotting against the organization in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control.

In a video purportedly posted by ISIS on jihadi websites, a male voice claims to have "captured an extremist religious cell planning to take up arms against the Caliphate," referring to the regions it controls in both countries.

Sounds like they were planning to bomb the mosque.

Untold Events Surrounding ISIS Internal Conflict

The story circulating in the news media for the past day of ISIS’s killing 100 of it’s soldiers is confirmed. I avoided mentioning this story until I myself could confirm it. However this is only a portion of the story of events these days inside Ar Raqqa which is ISIS main stronghold inside the Syrian territories. As the story reports, there was a large group of fighters who wanted to leave ISIS. For this they were imprisoned and ultimately executed for the crime of “apostatizing” from the religion.

What the article doesn’t tell you is that ISIS is currently in the midst of an internal crisis.

 

[coley]

Couple of interesting things that appeared recently - note i'm not endorsing the author of the 2nd piece, just putting it up as a an example of a theme i've noticed over the last week or two:

ISIS arrests 'extremists' accused of plot against group



Sounds like they were planning to bomb the mosque.

Untold Events Surrounding ISIS Internal Conflict

This bits interesting,
1. Many members were upset that all the fighting they are asked to do in Syria is against other

rebel groups and not Bashar Assad’s forces. This has sown the seeds of doubt regarding ISIS direction and leadership. According to a report on NBCnews.com IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center’s(JTIC) database showed just 13 percent of ISIS attacks during the past year up to Nov. 21 targeted Syrian security forces.
Reinforces the belief that IS has some kind of agreement with Assad?

 

[coley]

Yesterday I saw a photo of a man who had been beheaded and his cock chopped off (allegedly by the Peshmerga) for raping Yazidi girls. There's no warning in the group I'm in, they just post them up!

Which was chopped off first?

 

[bluescreen]

Which was chopped off first?

Blimey, coley. Let's try and grade the horrors, shall we?

 

[bluescreen]

But yeah, I agree one is even worse than the other. These guys seem so desensitised that anything's possible.

 

[coley]

Blimey, coley. Let's try and grade the horrors, shall we?

Given what they have done? I have no problem with the revenge extracted.

 

[bluescreen]

Given what they have done? I have no problem with the revenge extracted.

I dunno. It's completely understandable and I expect I'd feel the same in their position. It's not appropriate for anyone who isn't in their position to pontificate. And yet I hope there is a way out of the cycle of revenge. I am not a christian, but can see something in the idea of reconciliation. Otherwise people will go on killing each other for ever. Oh, maybe they will.

 

[teqniq]

...I am not a christian, but can see something in the idea of reconciliation...

Nor am I a christian. Reconciliation though, is something that they will have to do at some point otherwise they are beyond help. Whether it will happen in my lifetime is not something I would like to place a bet on.

 

[coley]

Can't see reconciliation happening here, given the idealogical justifications IS has put forward.

 

[likesfish]

There is a military solution to this kill every last one of the fuckers

 

[kebabking]

Can't see reconciliation happening here, given the idealogical justifications IS has put forward.

infact i'd say its worse than that - IS is, for most, a movement you actively join, not a government/state/army/country you get swept along in. there will undoubtedly be people in IS who don't want to be there, and there will be people in IS who didn't start out as fundie loons but who affiliated to IS because they had the resources to fight Assad (even if they don't), but the vast, vast majority will be in IS because it is the epitomy of exactly what they believe - it is going to be very difficult to do the whole 'blinded by propaganda', 'a few bad apples', only obeying orders' bollocks that is the bedrock of public reconciliation.

 

[coley]

infact i'd say its worse than that - IS is, for most, a movement you actively join, not a government/state/army/country you get swept along in. there will undoubtedly be people in IS who don't want to be there, and there will be people in IS who didn't start out as fundie loons but who affiliated to IS because they had the resources to fight Assad (even if they don't), but the vast, vast majority will be in IS because it is the epitomy of exactly what they believe - it is going to be very difficult to do the whole 'blinded by propaganda', 'a few bad apples', only obeying orders' bollocks that is the bedrock of public reconciliation.

Totally agree, however some good chances were lost to seriously hurt them when they were doing their 'all conquering sweep across the desert'
Now they are seen to be less than 'all powerful' ( and recognition to the defenders of Kobani for demonstrating that) they will fall back to the usual insurgency default position of operating under cover of the local population.
There is also the upcoming problem of which parts of IS to concentrate on as it fragments and then we have the 'enemy within' as demonstrated in France with two attacks just using vehicles, how can you defend against that?
Aye, the tide seems to be slowly turning in the ME, but there is a huge danger from would be jihadists seeing their medieval dream evaporate and deciding to seek revenge at home.

 

[coley]

I dunno. It's completely understandable and I expect I'd feel the same in their position. It's not appropriate for anyone who isn't in their position to pontificate. And yet I hope there is a way out of the cycle of revenge. I am not a christian, but can see something in the idea of reconciliation. Otherwise people will go on killing each other for ever. Oh, maybe they will.

I think that those on the video bragging about "infidel women" and what to do with them,will be shitting bricks, and while I wouldn't want to watch a video showing them being castrated and made to swallow their tackle before being beheaded, I won't lose any sleep should such a thing happen.

 

[bluescreen]

But women aren't property. Seems an obvious point but the assumption that they are is one of the drivers of both abuse and revenge.