[Centraal] Irak en IS #128 Qasem Soleimani is een baas

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Turkish soldiers supply two ISIS with ammunition

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Op vrijdag 20 maart 2015 16:17 schreef PizzaMizza het volgende:
HSG reageert met 4 onnozele reacties op het vorige topic, zodat hij dit topic zou kunnen openen. Vervolgens opent reza1 'm sneller

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Baghdad is sending a payment of $412 million to Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, a sign that a budget deal between the two sides is still on track, the finance minister said Thursday.
"A decision has been taken by the government and the finance ministry to send a payment worth... 490 billion Iraqi dinars ($412 million/389 million euros) to the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) to cover actual expenses for February," Hoshyar Zebari told AFP.
The payment includes funding for the Kurdish peshmerga security forces, who are battling the Islamic State group that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad last year, Zebari said.
Another payment will follow at the end of March.
Baghdad and Kurdistan had reached a deal under which the three-province region would export 250,000 barrels of oil per day and 300,000 bpd from disputed Kirkuk province, while the federal government would release the region's share of national revenue.
Kurdistan has exported less oil than expected by the budget this year but has worked to ramp that up, while Baghdad has not yet paid the full amount to the region, Zebari said.
"Both sides literally showed a commitment to the deal, although neither side fulfilled its full commitment," he said.
But "it's an indication that both Baghdad and the KRG are committed to the oil and budget deal that was reached before the end of 2014."
Baghdad and Kurdistan have long been at odds over revenue sharing and natural resources, differences that kept a federal budget from being passed last year.
Following the agreement between the two sides, parliament approved the 2015 budget at the end of January.

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Op vrijdag 20 maart 2015 16:22 schreef PizzaMizza het volgende:

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Moet zijn Iraq en Barzanistan

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Op vrijdag 20 maart 2015 16:43 schreef PizzaMizza het volgende:
Hij is pas een baas . Zo moeten mensen ook zijn tegen Assad Chemicali

Apoplectic Anti-President Morsi OUTRAGE!!!!

Jubilation in Egyptian TV Studios following Morsi's Ouster

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Op vrijdag 20 maart 2015 17:03 schreef IPA35 het volgende:
Lol Morsi en zijn aanhangers

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Apen in de dierentuin.

Pro-Morsi Demonstrators Threaten Al-Sisi with Suicide Squads and Burning of Christians

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ahmusawi twitterde op vrijdag 20-03-2015 om 20:07:32 More historical revisionism: @LizSly on CNN says sectarian militias were behind rise of ISIS reageer retweet

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New_Babylonia twitterde op vrijdag 20-03-2015 om 21:50:35 Sunni Arab tribe of Ubayd part of Popular Mobilization Forces in Kirkuk. #Iraq http://t.co/gy3a65czKb reageer retweet

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Anti-Shiism may not be a concept that the general public is familiar with, but its roots have been ingrained in the Muslim world for centuries and in the Western world after the late 1970's. With the overthrowing of the American and British established Iranian Shah and creation of the Islamic Republic, anti-Shiite rhetoric began to take centre stage in Western press. While negative attitudes towards institutions such as the Iranian government or groups such as Hezbollah may certainly have their justifications, this carelessness has been extended to all Shiites, and has created a general indifference to Shiite suffering.

“Western institutions and even Western government and foreign policy is dominated by anti-Shiism”
Anti-Shiite sentiment and news is propagated by multiple groups, all of which have surprisingly independent motives, but all of whom united by their anti-Shiite positions. This translates into anti-Shiite rhetoric being established as the prevalent narrative in media across the world. Whether it is coming from conservative think-tanks or anti-Shiite governments, the outcome is that elements such as Western press, Western institutions and even Western government and foreign policy is dominated by anti-Shiism.

This sort of anti-Shiism is so blatant among these institutions — and given that there is no powerful independent group to challenge them — that the institutions with an anti-Shiite bias no longer care to even hide it. Perhaps one of the most significant examples is when Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993, tweeted in July of 2014 that the so-called Islamic State “tried not to alienate [the] local population, unlike [the Prime Minister of Iraq] and his violent, sectarian repression.” Of course, the Islamic State had already began acts that amount to genocide, as well as the slavery of thousands of Yezidi women and girls, wanton murder of thousands of civilians, the implementation of a harsh Sharia law which has LGBTQ people thrown off multi-story buildings, accusations of theft resulting in limb amputation, and special taxes for non-Muslims (which were then followed with ethnic cleansing of the Assyrian and Chaldean communities). No Washington Post article was created to condemn Ken Roth’s tweet. It didn't make a FOX News segment, heck, it didn't even make it to The Daily Mail.

Although Twitter posts are almost always public, certain journalists, analysts and personalities — as well as those who want to be one of the aforementioned — begin to take off their mask. Just like Kenneth Roth, although on an even more extreme scale, we begin to see the faces of the people who publish our media. Names such as Robert Caruso — a writer for the Daily Beast, The Hill, Boston Globe and others — who write articles on foreign policy, participate in think-tanks and provide information as experts, begin to rear an ugly side.

While Caruso discusses and debates the United State’s policies towards Syria on MSNBC, Caruso — with his mask lifted — posts horrific tweets of he will “enjoy” seeing a Syrian woman’s “beloved Syria torn apart with violence.” Going back to 2013, Caruso’s tweets mentioned things such as how he does not care for the plight of the Syrian people, and how he believes the United States “should let them suffer.” Caruso’s tweets even included suggesting he is “at peace” with a situation where the people in someone’s hometown would be raped and the town pillaged. In one instance against me specifically, he called me a “rejectionist” — an English translation of the Arabic anti-Shiite slur of rafidha used by groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to demean and justify attacking Shiites — somewhat akin in usage to the word “apostate.” Reider Visser, a Norwegian historian and fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, mentioned that Caruso’s anti-Shiite language is alarming and emphasized that there is no other plausible English interpretation for Caruso’s remark of “rejectionist” other than rafida.

This form of anti-Shiite bullying even extended to telling me that Shiites are haram — or “sinful” — using the same nomenclature used by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda to justify their car bombs targeting civilians, detonating Mosques (with people in them), forced displacement, deportation and acts of murder on such a mass scale that they border — if not fulfill — the United Nations requirements for the classification of “genocide.” Caruso then continued on to detail how the United States is at war with Shiites — not just with countries such as Iran or groups like Hezbollah, but with all Shiites. This is the person discussing and debating foreign policy on American media, and acting as an expert for TV stations on American foreign policy.

“Referencing the old adage of “birds of a feather,” it seems that most of these anti-Shiites tend to group themselves — and defend themselves — as a single unit”
Caruso is but a single name in a sea of anti-Shiite journalists, analysts and personalities who slowly reveal themselves on Twitter. Surprisingly, referencing the old adage of “birds of a feather,” it seems that most of these anti-Shiites tend to group themselves — and defend themselves — as a single unit. Another of these names is Michael Weiss, a writer for Foreign Policy, the Daily beast, NOW Lebanon and the editor and founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Interpreter. Reading through Michael Weiss’ Twitter feed you cannot help but get an anti-Shiite sentiment — mostly because almost all of his Tweets revolve around how anything to do with Shiites is a problem. A close associate of Caruso and often supporting and sharing Caruso’s articles, in the same Tweet mentioned above where Caruso called Shiites “haram,” Weiss, rather than criticize his colleague for such a vile statement, began to attack users who felt that Caruso’s tweet was inappropriate. In one such incident, Weiss captured a screenshot of a user commenting on Caruso’s dehumanizing statement and began to attack that person’s character, completely ignoring that his colleague had just used language used by takfiris such as Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

In one instance, Weiss attacked Michael Knights, an analyst for the Washington Institute with almost 20 years of experience in Iraqi political analysis, for retweeting me being patriotic. After being attacked by the likes of Caruso and co for so long, I tweeted that “I have nothing to hide. I’m a passionate supporter of the [full-time] Iraqi armed forces [and volunteer soldiers]. No hidden agenda. They’re my people and I love them.” Innocent enough to most, however, Weiss captured a screenshot of Knights sharing my tweet and commented that it is “sad and alarming” that he shared the Tweet of a “champion” of “terrorist organizations.” Feeding into Caruso’s anti-Shiite remarks, after I expressed that I loved our soldiers that are dying everyday to liberate our lands, Weiss suggests that I am actually a supporter of terrorism. Interestingly enough, on that same tweet, a Twitter user questioned Weiss for his retweeting of Caruso and received no response.

Weiss’ anti-Shiism and attempts to control the predominant narrative was not born out of the blue; Weiss was the Executive Director of an organization called Just Journalism — a lobby focused “on how Israel and Middle East issues are reported in the UK media.” Just as you would expect, the lobby was created in the pursuit of furthering a pro-Israeli agenda in U.K media, and that’s more or less all it did. It has received scathing criticism in the past — and rightfully so — for its overt Neocon slant. Possibly nobody was better able to comment on Just Journalism other than Adel Darwish, a former director of the lobby group. One quote from his statement about resigning from Just Journalism stands out above the others:

In fact neutrality was very much at the heart of the dispute between myself and the chairwoman of the board (the lady who founded the organisation) as I insisted on neutrality from the start. I wanted the organisation to develop to deal with news coverage of the Middle East in general, and become a source of information and a think tank for the media dealing with the Middle East.
Therefore when the lady holding the purse of the organisation and I had different agenda and different aims, I resigned as from 31 December 2008.
Also for the same reason respected columnist Nick Cohen whom I persuaded to join the Advisory Board has also resigned along with Dr Tarek Heggy, a very prominent Egyptian born international thinker.
Weiss wasn't just affiliated with one Israeli-focused lobby and think-tank, however, as you’ll quickly find that his resume is actually filled with such groups. One group in particular is the Henry Jackson Society, where Weiss served as the Communications Director. One does not need to dig very deep to see this group’s disgustingly anti-Iranian and anti-Shiite (as well as generally Islamaphobic) background, a rap sheet that even includes establishing front groups to create panic and irrational emotional responses to what literally amounts to falsified Islamaphobic propaganda. Not without irony, Weiss published a paper ‘analyzing’ the tactics of Russian disinformation, commenting on how Russian disinformation tactics seek to “sow confusion via conspiracy theories and proliferate falsehoods.” The irony is, of course, that that is exactly what Weiss has been doing — professionally — for over a decade. Who better to analyze it then him? I guess that is one area where he actually has earned the title of “expert.” And his attacks on myself and others sing to his experience.

This is the person who is writing your media, and the one who has assembled a group of like-minded individuals to drive his anti-Shiite narrative. When asked to make a wish before blowing out his birthday candles, Michael Weiss probably wished to have been the pen Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu used to show the world where Iran was up to on his cartoon bomb diagram. This is the person who you’re supposed to take seriously for at least a somewhat impartial analysis of the Middle East, let alone Iran or Shiites in general.

Shiite groups in Iraq are somewhat under-appreciated by Western journalists and analysts, however. While they may get some attention after some of these groups expressed support or shared leadership with that of the Lebanese Hezbollah — a group that receives a lot more eyes — the amount of analysts out there is far and few inbetween and, thanks to the blatant anti-Shiite stance of the media indicated above, there is a very large market for such an analyst to enter and continue the status quo. One such analyst, a friend of the aforementioned people, is Phillip Smyth — a researcher at the University of Maryland focused on Shiite militias. Phillip Smyth is the go-to ‘expert’ for multiple news outlets, news stations, publications and participant of various panels. One of the most “echo chamber” Middle East analysts on Twitter — that is, those who block anyone and everyone who does not agree with what they say verbatim — Smyth is perhaps the most interesting. Walking the fine line between Bibi-style fear mongering and some sort of Bay Area-style hipsterism, Smyth has been promoting the idea that Iran’s foreign policy involves some sort of anti-American, anti-Israeli Islamic caliphate spanning from Iran to Lebanon and beyond.

One such slide that Smyth presented earlier this year in a talk of his (shown above) branded every Shiite militia as submissive to Iran and acting as the arm of Iran’s alleged imperialistic goals. The slide suggested that Shiites have fabricated the idea that they are experiencing an existential threat in Iraq and Syria — that it was all a manufactured plot, and also suggests that Shiite militias accuse all moderate Sunni rebels of being takfiris (those who accuse others of disbelief, used interchangeably with words like Salafist, Wahhabi or extremist) in a way to undermine their credibility. Never mind that almost all alledgly-moderate anti-government Sunni militia leadership in Syria have almost completely been absorbed into larger extremist groups like Islamic State, and even before being absorbed they worked with, endorsed, defended and even praised extremist groups including both Jabhat al Nusra (al-Qaeda’s official wing in Syria) and the Islamic State. This even includes the leader of Liwa al-Islam, or the Brigade of Islam, who also acts as the defacto leader of the allegedly ‘moderate’ rebel union called Liwa al-Sham, or Brigade of the Levant, calling for foreign fighters to travel to Syria to join Liwa al-Islam, so they can “fight in the ranks of the Sunni [branch of Islam against the apostates and non-Muslims],” or, more specifically, against the Shiites. But there is no existential threat, and the so-called moderates are not out to attack Shiites. This is what Smyth wants to convince the world.

“In their ‘purely strategic’ assault on Nubl and Zahraa, the ‘moderates’ ended up losing control of the last supply line to Aleppo”
Another member of the anti-Shiite analyst circle embedded with those above also attempts to push the ‘moderate’ Syrian rebel narrative, however, with significantly less success. Kyle W. Orton is a “blogger” who has somewhat less shame than Smyth: while Smyth recognizes that the Shiite militias he talks about are not actually composed of Iranians, Orton skips that and considers them to be — literally — Iranian forces. But his apologism for groups like Jabhat al-Nusra is what really sets him apart from some of the others: in a Tweet earlier this year discussing the an assault on the Syrian Shiite villages of Nubl and Zahraa in Aleppo, Orton candidly mentions how it’s actually being performed by Jabhat al-Nusra as an act of “pure strategy, not sectarianism.” The fact that Nubl and Zahraa are predominantly Shiite towns that have been under siege by Jabhat al-Nusra and co. for two years doesn't seem to phase him, nor do the calls by Jabhat al-Nusra that they want to “stomp [Shiites] with their shoes” and offering “no mercy.”

Perhaps the most interesting element of Orton’s comment, however, is that in their ‘purely strategic’ assault on Nubl and Zahraa, the ‘moderates’ of Aleppo ended up losing control of the contested last insurgent supply line to Aleppo. If this was strategy, then it was literally the worst strategy in the Syrian conflict so far. Or it was sectarianism. I guess we’ll never really know, right? But then again, what should be expected from the ‘analyst’ who considers it “a slur” to “suggest that Israel would even consider indiscriminate attacks on civilians.” It’s a bit of a shame that that is, alongside the wanton destruction of infrastructure, literally what the Dahiya doctrine is about, and what Bibi has more or less admitted to on camera. It’s no surprise that he has a blatant anti-Shiite slant, and it comes from his obsessive support for Israel. Further, his neoconservative Israeli slant follows the same path as Weiss’.

Weiss, along with Smyth, Orton and various others unmentioned, however, have decided to go the extra step. In an attempt to attack my credibility, they seem to have recruited a friend of theirs — UPS driver asssitant John Bundock — to begin his pseudo-analyst career by slandering me and various others on the Lebanese right-wing publication, NOW Media, which Weiss edits. In a somewhat ironic move of accusing the Shiite militias of being Iranian proxies that further alleged Iranian ideology, the anti-Shiite band have formed and created their own proxy to further their own alarmist anti-Shiite ideology.

Bundock dedicated an entire paragraph to me — as well as a plethora of links to various Twitter posts of mine — showing how I am apparently an IRGC propagandist, that I “harass genuine experts on militant groups” by commenting on Smyth’s conspiracy theory of Shiites literally infiltrating Western media, that I am sectarian, and that I apparently created a fake Twitter account to mislead people about alleged war crimes by Shiite militias. The account in question is @SunniTribes, and it seems to focus on Sunni tribal militias, their movements, their statements, and similar. This conspiracy theory was formed by a Kurdish ultra-nationalist — someone who cheers for Islamic State victories against Iraqi forces. Using a screenshot of the @SunniTribes Twitter account and screenshots of my response to him and his allegation that Shiite militias were responsible for what was portrayed in the photographs, he used Twitter time stamps on his screenshots to try to somehow weave a conspiracy theory that I was behind the @SunniTribes Twitter account, had reposted the photographs with amended descriptions, and then used that to disprove his claim that Shiite militias were behind what was depicted.

“It seems that if anybody — even award winning journalists — do not conform to blatantly anti-Shiite rhetoric, then they are slandered.”
That’s it. Apparently, because I referenced that Tweet, it was enough proof for Weiss, Smyth and co. to encourage Bundock to write an article about it on NOW Media. Others attacked in the article were Hala Jaber, an award winning journalist for The Sunday Times, calling her a “stenographer-propagandist for the Assad regime and Hezbollah.” It seems that if anybody — even award winning journalists — do not conform to blatantly anti-Shiite rhetoric, then they are slandered by this circle of anti-Shiite “experts.” Because I have been retweeted by the U.S State Department’s Think Again, Turn Away Twitter account on completely unrelated matters, it apparently has shaken the aforementioned people enough to try to slam the U.S State Department for doing so. But if it’s a matter of guilt by association, then we haven’t even reached the apex of this anti-Shiite group.

One surprising element that seems to have united most anti-Shiite Twitter users — including all of the aforementioned — was their overt support for the Twitter-Jihadist “Shami Witness” — perhaps the most well-known and highest-followed Islamic State supporter on social media — who was eventually unmasked by Channel 4 as an Indian man named Mehdi Masroor Biswas and arrested by the Indian police force for waging war, inciting terrorism, and providing support to terrorists.

Most of the members of the anti-Shiite Twitter circle — including Weiss, Smyth, Orton, and Bundock — played a large role in Biswas’ notoriety, encouraging their followers to follow him and recommending his content. Smyth’s affiliation with Biswas was probably the most interesting, given that Smyth was depending on Biswas to provide him with anti-Shiite content and being visibly upset when Biswas would not forget to include Smyth in his postings. This blatant tunnel vision taken on by the anti-Shiites — where they live in a feedback loop of accepting and depending on any anti-Shiite source regardless of their motives , having a confirmation bias in their analysis, and attacking people’s character when they can’t attack their content — is largely the bane of what they do.

“They were actually defending, recommending and disseminating was Biswas’ anti-Shiite, pro-Islamist rhetoric.”
A typical defense by these names regarding the incident with Biswas has been along the lines of ‘we defended, recommended and worked with Biswas before he came out as an overt Islamic State supporter, and then ceased our support afterwards’ — is fair, except for the fact that what they were actually defending, recommending and disseminating was Biswas’ anti-Shiite, pro-Islamist rhetoric that didn't change after he declared his support for the Islamic State. If we were to mirror this situation with antisemitic publication, the argument would come across as ‘we recommended, disseminated and depended on him for antisemitic content before we knew he was a Nazi’ — it doesn't really change anything, but given that they were depending on such a person (and the fact that they appear to share the same perspective as such a person) is telling. Personally, I find it extremely uncomfortable if I ever see myself sharing opinions with extremists of any sort.

But that is if we accepted the excuse as being fair. If we rejected it and considered it unfair, then the argument is that Biswas was openly supporting, defending and disseminating the Islamic State and Islamic State propaganda in 2013 while names like Smyth were still endorsing him. Since Twitter time stamps were used in ‘exposing’ me, here are some time stamps that Smyth and co. might enjoy.

13th November, 2013: General Twitter users have started to pay attention to Biswas’ Islamic State leanings, and Biswas tries to defend himself by saying he is not a “blind supporter.” At this stage, there is no doubt of who Biswas is and what he supports.

15th November, 2013: Smyth thanks Biswas for the shout out, and encourages his followers to follow Biswas.

15th November, 2013: Biswas links to a video of Jabhat al-Nusra exectuing a Shiite fighter, and Smyth is upset at him for not mentioning him in the post.

When I began posting tweets, it had much less to do with providing information to a large audience and I was much more concerned with informing my friends and family with what was happening in Iraq. After spending — literally — hundreds of hours researching what was happening in Iraq, I managed to identify reliable sources on Twitter and other social media, internet forums, and Iraqi media, and began to disseminate that to my followers on Twitter — saving them the hassle of doing it themselves. Being someone who does not support Muslim extremism of any sort, who does not support sectarianism, and believes that there are democratic avenues to resolve most issues, I am unable to relate to most Syrian rebel groups or the Iraqi insurgency in Iraq, which until August 2014 was being reported on as an “Iraqi revolution.” Even names mentioned above, such as Weiss, tried to suggest that Shiites were responsible for their own massacre — attempting to incriminate Iran as being the mastermind behind the Islamic State. Oh, and it includes a reference to Smyth’s work too, feeding back into the anti-Shiite feedback loop.

I am a Shiite. I am an Iraqi. There is no single group on this planet who has as much to lose from the Islamic State as myself. Christian men are asked to pay jizya or leave, Yezidi men are given the opportunity to “repent” and convert, but Shiite men are actively hunted out, tortured, and executed with no other option on the table. What makes it worse, however, is that the rest of the world seems to go on a victim blaming tangent of how Shiites should be held responsible for their own oppression. Throughout this conflict, I have maintained my position: I am not anti-Sunni, I am anti-sectarianism, I am anti-exploitation, anti-oppression and anti-destruction.

Expecting me to support blatant lies said about my people and the people who are defending us from the worst of the worst is at best an insult, and at worst a disgusting act of covert support for the Islamic State. 20-something year old Shiites in Iraq — no different than me, no different than you, each with their own goals, dreams, friends, hobbies and interests — from Southern Iraq have been called to Central and Western Iraq for their help. They don’t make it home, instead returning in body bags. Nobody cares for them: some call them Jihadists, some call them sectarian and genocidal, and some even refuse to accept that they are Iraqis and just call them Iranians instead. But they go anyway, and they give up their lives to make other people’s lives better. Iranian influence in Iraq is not because of an Iraqi desire, it is because of a lack of any other friends. It seems that in 2015, the Iranians are the only ones who are not reducing the people fighting for Iraq to mere gangsters and thugs, motivated by nothing other than blood lust and religious imperialism. Expecting me and tens of millions of other Iraqis — including Sunnis — to be upset at Iran when they were the only country who came to our aid when we needed it is delusional.

But I digress.

In the timeless words of Steven Nabil, an Assyrian Iraqi American that has embedded himself with Iraqi forces and works with Iraqi IDPs: ننتصر او ننتصر — “We will prevail or we will prevail.” There is no other option for the Iraqi people. And neoconservative think-tanks, anti-Shiite analysts, or Islamic State fighters will not be able to break us or our spirits.

I’ll leave this on a quote from Bundock himself, when he was trying to defend the so-called moderates in Syria from criticism about them working with Al Qaeda:

“we better stop having sketchy allies while protecting our families; some whitey will be pissed”. -Said no one.

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Op zondag 22 maart 2015 18:50 schreef Intellectueel het volgende:
Abu Azrael.

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SumerRising twitterde op zondag 22-03-2015 om 19:21:09 #Iraq; Kata'ib Babylon is a Iraqi Christian paramilitary group which was trained and armed by Kata'ib Imam Ali, a Shia paramilitary group. reageer retweet

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Op woensdag 25 maart 2015 12:57 schreef Montana_ir het volgende:
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Iraqi army forces, backed by volunteers, are preparing to carry out the final stage of operations aimed at liberating the city of Tikrit in northern Salahuddin Province from ISIL militants, Press TV reports.

According to Karim al-Nuri, a leader of Iraqi volunteer forces, the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is expected to be fully liberated in four days.

Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi has also said that the battle for Tikrit will change in the coming days.

The city is currently under a complete siege, which has left the ISIL militants paralyzed and trapped inside Tikrit.

“Now the Iraqi forces, volunteers, and tribes are ready to enter Tikrit. What was standing in the way of attacking the city was explosives set in the city … We will witness the liberation of Tikrit in the coming few days. Now the forces are paving the way towards the ground operations through bombing ISIL hideouts,” Journalist Moustafa Daraji said.
Iraqi forces are currently working on dismantling some 6,000 improvised explosive devices planted by militants in the city's liberated areas and houses.

Analysts say the final attack to free Tikrit should be studied carefully in order to avoid civilian deaths as it is expected that ISIL terrorists will use residents as human shields.

Meanwhile reports say ISIL terrorists have withdrawn from the northern city of Mosul, but armed women, thought to be foreigners, remain active in the city.

Located some 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, Tikrit was overrun by the ISIL terrorists in summer 2014 along with Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul and other areas in the Arab country’s Sunni heartland. Tikrit has a strategic position as it sits on the road to Mosul.

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Op woensdag 25 maart 2015 21:46 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Ze geven nooit toe dat de VS hen weer uit de brand helpt natuurlijk.

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Op woensdag 25 maart 2015 22:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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De VS heeft de Irakezen gered van een tiran, dat ze er vervolgens voor kiezen om elkaar te lijf te gaan in plaats van samen te werken daar kan de VS niets aan doen.

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Op donderdag 26 maart 2015 08:12 schreef lDDQD het volgende:

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De Sjieten doen hetzelfde als wat Saddam met Kirkuk deed maar dan op basis van geloofsstroming.

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Op donderdag 26 maart 2015 08:19 schreef lDDQD het volgende:

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Demografie van Baghdad, nieuwsberichten van 2003-2015 en een beetje gezond verstand.

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Op donderdag 26 maart 2015 08:35 schreef lDDQD het volgende:

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Huh wat.

Baghdad is nu langzamerhand vooral Shia. Die vergelijking kan je maken met Kirkuk waar de koerden nu 45% vormen (en voor Saddam meer).

twitter:

reidarvisser twitterde op dinsdag 24-03-2015 om 14:53:26 #Iraq foreign min in Damascus says "will stand by #Syria in fight against terrorism", vows to break Syria's isolation http://t.co/oYNs6a4grb reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 26 maart 2015 15:33 schreef ChanceThePepper het volgende:

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De millities van nu zijn niet te vergelijken met die van tijdens de burgeroorlog. Ik zou me ook echt niet veilig voelen als soenniet in Baghdad wetende dat een deel van de stad vol zit met een extremistische mahdi-leger die doet denken aan bruinhemden.

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Op donderdag 26 maart 2015 18:42 schreef ChanceThePepper het volgende:

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Is er bij de sjiieten iemand sektarischer dan Sadr en zijn milities?
En ik heb veel familie gehad in Baghdad hoor, de geboortestad van mijn moeder. Vroeger hadden heeel veel koerden een huis/appartement in Baghdad. Tegenwoordig 95% van hen niet meer

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Since ISIS exploded onto the world stage last year, a common meme to have gained traction is that had Iraq's Sunni Arabs been given a bit more power, there would’ve been no ISIS. This is a dangerous fallacy that ignores some uncomfortable realities.

I can completely see how that makes sense. If only, for example, the Minister of Transportation in Iraq had been a Sunni Arab then the following would’ve happened:

ISIS would’ve realized their dreams of a global caliphate were misguided and would’ve disbanded.

Anjem Choudary, the notorious UK hate preacher, would have stopped his incendiary statements about ‘Sharia law for the UK’.

Boko Haram would’ve handed back all the land they’ve seized in Northern Nigeria to the army.

Al-Qaeda in the Peninsula wouldn’t have launched the attack against Charlie Hebdo for publishing their blasphemous cartoons.

Jamaat-e-Islami wouldn’t have perpetrated the Bali bombings.

The Pakistani Taliban would stop massacring Shia Muslims, Ahmadis and Christians for sport.

Al Shabaab would’ve disbanded in Somalia.

The list could go on and on and on. I am, of course, being somewhat facetious and of course the government in Baghdad has been an equal opportunity offender, with the towns and cities of the Shia south among some of the most deprived areas of the country. There are many groups who have been marginalized by corruption and incompetence in central government, including the majority Shia.

Thus ‘Sunni marginalization’ doesn’t wash as a narrative to explain what lies behind ISIS, not when one considers they have also targeted Kurds, Christians, Yezidis and even non-compliant Sunnis they claim to be protecting.

The actual connection behind all the groups mentioned above, what truly links them together is the philosophy underpinning their vision. That is a growing inclination within Sunni Islam towards the Salafi (also referred to as Wahhabi) ideology which has its financial and historical roots in Saudi Arabia and the wider Arabian Peninsula. In the case of the terrorist groups massacring Muslims, Christians and anyone else in their way, a particular reading of this philosophy is Salafi Jihadism, which sees as its end goal the establishment of the aforementioned global caliphate. Still the ‘marginalization’ canard persists to justify the barbarous rampage of ISIS which includes indiscriminate massacres against Shia Muslims, who they regard as heretics. It is interesting to note that in any other country, such equivocation would be shut down in a heartbeat as ‘justifying terrorism’. You can’t point to the massive inequality targeting French, mainly North African Muslims to try to explain Charlie Hebdo, but you can say the Shia deserve to be slaughtered like sheep at Camp Speicher because, you know, jobs and stuff.

There are, of course, several agendas behind this. The first is a quite shameless attempt by some who supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq to wash their hands of any responsibility for it. What better way than to blame the locals for the electoral system you imposed which has hamstrung repeated Iraqi administrations over the past decade, with the over-emphasis on sect and ethnicity, and the power-sharing structure which leads to inherently weak and corrupt governments.

The Shia Arabs form 60 percent of the Iraqi population but have shared power with all of Iraq’s other minority groups in order to keep the peace. These groups have played the role of spoilers in order to achieve their own respective interests. The mainly Sunni Kurds have consistently threatened to secede should Baghdad stop paying the Kurdish Region its $1 billion welfare check, while the Sunni Arabs have drifted between boycotts of the political process and terrorism in order to pressure the central government for more concessions. But as far as US leaders are concerned, when the US withdrew from its brutal occupation the message to the Iraqis was “it’s your baby now, you deal with it.”

As Shireen T Hunter, a Professor at Georgetown University, states in her seminal piece; “the exclusion of Iraq’s Sunnis from leadership posts in Baghdad has been blown out of proportion. Western and especially US dislike of Iran has been a major cause for the disregarding of mass killings and assassination of Shias.”

This brings us to the next agenda. The Iraqi government has built close ties to its Persian neighbor to the east. The Islamic Republic has supported successive Iraqi administrations, invested billions of dollars into the Iraqi economy, helped develop the holy shrine cities of Najaf, Karbala and Samarra and, particularly since last June, helped Iraq in its war with the so-called ‘Islamic State’. In fact numerous Iraqi officials have stated that if it wasn’t for Iran, and not the US, ISIS would’ve been fighting in Baghdad itself and not currently on the defensive against the Alliance of Iraqi armed forces, Shia militias and local anti-ISIS Sunni tribes.

This alliance which forms part of the broader resistance axis has presented a huge problem for the regional foes of Iran and by extension, their Shia allies, both in Iraq and the wider region. The first and foremost foe is the Israeli regime. The Israeli obsession with Iran has led to an alliance with the Syrian rebels and in particular the al-Qaeda branch in Syria, Jabhat Al Nusra, to which even the UN has borne witness. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the US congress at the invite of the Republican Party earlier this month and used his speech to excoriate a proposed US-Iran deal over Iran’s peaceful civilian nuclear program. His message was that Iran is the major threat to world peace and not ISIS.

He is joined in this assessment by the Sunni monarchies just across the Gulf from Iran. The Saudi’s are also terrified, and claim to be under siege as the Islamic Republic, which now wields serious influence in Syria to the north, Yemen to the south and Iraq to the East. Of course, the Saudi sponsorship of radical Sunni groups both within Iran’s borders and without doesn’t seem to be a problem or considered ‘meddling’ by biased and increasingly sectarian Western policy makers & analysts. Saudi money has gone a long way towards building this alternative reality, in coordination with their allies in Tel Aviv. Human Rights Watch, who have solicited funds from within Saudi Arabia and are funded by billionaire regime-changer George Soros, have also disproportionately focused their indignation against the Shia volunteer groups and Sunni tribes uniting to fight ISIS, while their chief Ken Roth extolled the virtues of ISIS’s outreach attempts with the local population.

As the volunteers and their allies have made gains with Iranian assistance against ISIS in Tikrit, the criticism has reached a crescendo with people having the audacity to draw equivalence between ISIS on one side and those fighting for their very survival on the other. While Christians and Yezidis are given a chance to “repent” or pay the Jizya protection tax to ISIS, Shias are afforded no such luxury. They are killed on sight, offered no chance of redemption, while ISIS has vowed to attack them in their holy cities in the heartlands of the South.

This narrative of victim-blaming draws on the most putrid sectarian & racist biases and plays into the hands of ISIS and its supporters. It helps them to justify their unjustifiable acts. But more importantly, it falls into the context of an attempt by two of the world’s most horrific regimes in Israel and Saudi Arabia to spread an irrational fear of Iranian influence in the region. It is a narrative that seeks to derail the nuclear talks as well, with all the devastating consequences that could entail.

quote:

Op donderdag 26 maart 2015 20:20 schreef PizzaMizza het volgende:
Hoe zit het nou met het Tikritoffensief, jongens? Hoe gaat men Mosul willen bevrijden met zo'n slappe houding? Ik weet nog dat Montana_ir zei dat Tikrit binnen 1 week bevrijd zou worden. Het is inmiddels al een maand geleden...

30 000 troepen
Iraanse militaire adviseurs
Qassem Soleimani
Artillerie

Als je met zo'n geschut Tikrit niet eens kunt bevrijden, wil je dan met 100 000 man Mosul binnen vallen?

twitter:

EjmAlrai twitterde op donderdag 26-03-2015 om 20:02:32 #BreakingNews:6 killed and 13 wounded of Kataeb Hezbollah #Iraq & the federal Police by the #USA led coalition south of #Tikrit (c.damage) reageer retweet

twitter:

EjmAlrai twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 11:05:29 #Iraq Hashd al-Sha'bi #Tikrit Brigade seems hit by an air strike today.Many casualties. Confidence between #USA and Hashd is lower than ever reageer retweet

twitter:

ArabSecularist twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 20:08:46 #Nasrallah: Let's go to Iraq, you complain about an "Iranian occupation" there, you funded Saddam's war against Iran, killed thousands. reageer retweet

twitter:

ArabSecularist twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 20:09:55 #Nasrallah: Well! Then you supported Bush's war on Iraq which also killed thousands! reageer retweet

twitter:

ArabSecularist twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 20:11:02 #Nasrallah: Let's hear the truth, no? Who funded the suicide bombs in Iraq? That killed Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, etc..? Saudi intelligence. reageer retweet

twitter:

ArabSecularist twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 20:11:40 #Nasrallah: Then we have ISIS and al-Qaeda -- you wanted to take down the Syrian regime using them, how did that work? reageer retweet

twitter:

ArabSecularist twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 20:12:40 #Nasrallah: What do you expect from the Iraqi people? You funded Saddam, then supported the US, then supported ISIS.. reageer retweet

twitter:

ArabSecularist twitterde op vrijdag 27-03-2015 om 20:13:47 #Nasrallah: Who first helped the Iraqi people when ISIS was about to occupy all of Iraq? Shias, Kurds etc... is it not Iran? reageer retweet

twitter:

HamudiMD twitterde op donderdag 26-03-2015 om 03:42:27 10 Sunni countries gang up against Zaydi Houthis in Yemen = "Not sectarian"Iraqi Hash'd + Army + Sunni fighters against ISIS = "sectarian" reageer retweet