cm_kruger

The Daily Beast has published two interviews with a defector from ISIS.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/15/confessions-of-an-isis-spy.html

 

Abu Khaled felt compelled to sign up because he believed America was an accomplice to global conspiracy, led by Iran and Russia, to keep the tyrant Bashar al-Assad in power. How else could it be explained that the U.S. was waging war only against Sunnis, and leaving an Alawite-run regime guilty of mass murder by almost every means and its Iranian Shia armies untouched?

 

Also, Abu Khaled was curious. “I went there practically as an adventure,” he said. “I wanted to see what kind of people were there. Honestly, I don’t regret it. I wanted to know them. Now they are my enemy—and I know them very well.”

 

Before the fight for the Kurdish town of Kobani last year, the caliphate had an aura of invincibility, and people from around the world were rushing to envelop themselves in the black flag of messianic victory. But in that battle, which lasted for months, Kurdish paramilitaries backed by U.S. airpower fought well, while ISIS—at least as far as Abu Khaled characterizes it—needlessly sent thousands to their slaughter, without any tactical, much less strategic, forethought. The jihadist army had lost between 4,000 and 5,000 fighters, most of them non-Syrians.

 

“Double this number are wounded and can’t fight anymore,” Abu Khaled told me. “They lost a leg or a hand.” Immigrants, then, are requisitioned as cannon fodder? He nodded. In September of last year, at the apogee of ISIS’s foreign recruitment surge, he says the influx of foreigners amazed even those welcoming them in. “We had like 3,000 foreign fighters who arrived every day to join ISIS. I mean, every day. And now we don’t have even like 50 or 60.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/16/how-isis-picks-its-suicide-bombers.html

 

ISIS’s heralded end of the artificial borders imposed by European imperial powers has led to the unintended consequence of jihadist imperialism. The ISIS leadership, after all, is mainly Iraqi, and if there is a political, as opposed to religious, objective underlying all its activity, it is the restoration of Sunni power in Baghdad. Indeed, the franchise in Mesopotamia can be considered more “nationalist” in orientation than the one in the Levant, where muhajireen drunk on the “end of Sykes-Picot” seem not to realize they’re being exploited by the former henchmen of Saddam Hussein.

 

The entire apparatus was honeycombed with semi-autonomous fiefs, often tasked with keeping track of what the others were up to. “A general intelligence department reported to the ‘security emir’ for a region who was in charge of deputy emirs for individual districts. A head of secret spy cells and an ‘intelligence service and information manager’ for the district reported to each of these deputy emirs. The spy cells at the local level reported to the district emir’s deputy. The goal was to have everyone keeping an eye on everyone else.”

 

This naturally puts one in mind of the KGB or Stasi—hardly a coincidence given that many of the top-ranking ISIS officials are former members of Saddam Hussein’s mukhabarat and therefore past pupils of Warsaw Pact security organs. In fact, the man who constructed the ISIS franchise in Syria, the now-deceased Haji Bakr, had once been a colonel in Saddam’s Air Defense Intelligence Service.

 

Abu Khaled told me that the ministry of fear Haji Bakr built has only thrived since.

 

“A week before I defected, I was sitting with the chief of Amn al-Kharji, Abu Abd Rahman al-Tunisi. They know the weak point of the FSA. Al-Tunisi told me: ‘We are going to train guys we know, recruiters, Syrians… Take them, train them, and send them back to where they came from. We’ll give them $200,000 to $300,000. And because they have money, the FSA will put them in top positions.’”

 

“This is how ISIS took over Syria,” said Abu Khaled. “It has plants in the villages and areas run by the FSA, and its people are in the FSA.”

Bernard Fall in 1965:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/navy/art5-w98.htm

 

The next point is that this concept of revolutionary war can be applied by anyone anywhere. One doesn't have to be white to be defeated. One doesn't have to be European or American. Colonel [Gamal Abdel] Nasser's [president of Egypt, 1956-1970] recent experience in Yemen is instructive. He fought with 40,000 troops, Russian tanks, and Russian jets in Yemen against a few thousand barefoot Yemenite guerrillas. The tanks lost. After three years of inconclusive fighting the Egyptian-backed Yemen regime barely holds the major cities, and Nasser is reported to be on the lookout for a face-saving withdrawal.

Iran is gonna hit the Saudis hard economically once they bring their plants back on line. IIRC they've been indicating they're planning to hit pre-sanction production levels by 2017 or something to that effect.

ISIS is apparently using ponchos lined with aluminum foil to try and hide from the electric eyes.

https://twitter.com/kovandire/status/666323990303137792

Well that's what I get for drinking before dinner.

But I'd say that it's pretty untruthful/dumb to say that air superiority has no direct benefit to infantry when the army hasn't operated under contested skies since WWII, to the point of reducing medium/close range air defenses to Stinger missiles and hoping that the Air Force and Patriot batteries do their job.

I am officially hijacking this thread. It is now about posting the absolute dumbest A-10-related shit you can find.

Skip to 7 minutes for a army guy saying that air superiority has no tangible benefit.

That turret is so ugly. Looks like it had add-on armor, although not much. So, is there any noticeable need in this vehicle anyway?

As I see it, the "need" for light tanks is largely political, the 82nd and 101st (and CAV to some extent) want their own tanks that aren't controlled by the guys in real tanks, rather than any actual need for a light tank. I mean look at it realistically, "airmobile armor" for the US is deploying M1 Abrams units to a neighboring state via C-5 Galaxy. The idea that we're going to be dropping tanks out of C-130s is about as likely to happen as the Marines conducting a opposed amphibious landing.

Otherwise (IMO) light tanks don't really offer anything over a IFV with the standard auto-cannon and missile combo. There are exceptions obviously, lower cost, terrain, and potential threats only having older/lighter equipment.

I seem to vaguely recall that the "Thunderbolt" version with a 120mm gun was the one they were testing with the hybrid-electric drive and the improved electronics.

Pierre Sprey logic:

I made some music that was used in a Kanye West song.

I am responsible for Kanye West's success.

   If you read almasdar news article, they always name organisations which were in combat.

 

   Don't try to push this idiocy about "moderates" here.

 

   FSA, Nusra and ISIS periodicly coordinate their actions against Syria army, as recent attempt to cut of Aleppo SAA units showed (simultaneous attacks from both sides of highway area). 

 

   Russian medias also many times (i posted TV reports here many times) refer to Nusra, Akrar Ash-Sham and several others.

Push it? You were the one who was posting the stuff first.

Al-Masdar is interesting. Very pro-regime, almost no information on who runs/funds it or where they're operating from. Near as I can find it's run by the son of a Syrian blogger from Michigan who has called for attacks against US military ships deployed to the Mediterranean.

Go spout that fucking Moderate Islamist bullshit somewhere else

 

the only moderate people in syria are those who have left, are willing to wait this whole thing out, or have signed up with the SAA

 

You dont like assad- fine, vote him out of office

Nothing says moderate like picking up a gun and destroying one of the last respites of secuarlism in the middle east

 

But im sure this is all Russian propaganda

 

Just like those rebels in libya were moderates

 

And the ones in Iraq who were figthing sadam

 

and the ones in Afghanastan fighting the Soviets

 

what ever happened to all those moderates?

Yes I'm sure you'll be able to vote out a regime lead by the guy who's father came to power via coups that installed a political party created by Arab nationalists cribbing from Germany in the 30s and 40s. I'm sure it'll be just like when the Kurds voted on independence in the 80s and 90s and totally weren't gassed by Saddam.

Afghanistan? One seems to recall that Soviet involvement started when the "moderate communists" overthrew the secular government, killed anybody who didn't support them, and murdered the US ambassador. (Or the ambassador was murdered by the Soviet "advisers" commanding the rescue, if you're inclined to conspiracy theories.)

For Libya, unless you're pushing the bizarre Trotskyist/neo-liberal story about about poor, innocent Gadaffi being a victim of western imperialism, you'd know the current civil war started last year after the western backed government tried to coup the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the moderates in Syria? Most of them have been shot by Assad and ISIS by now. Congrats on that.

Mass graves have been found near Sinjar.

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-sinjar-graves-20151115-story.html

 

Local media outlet Rudaw reported Sunday that witnesses had pointed out one of the graves to officials the day before. The witnesses told them the grave, near the Sinjar Technical Institute, contained the remains of 78 women between the ages of 40 and 80 years old.

 

The gruesome discovery was followed by the finding of another grave Sunday 10 miles west of Sinjar believed to contain the bodies of about 50 men. Both graves have yet to be excavated.

 

A reporter with Rudaw said Iraqi Kurdish fighters told him there potentially were six more graves in the area.

Apparently there's also a lot of arson going on, though it's unclear if they're collaborators getting dealt with, or if the Kurds are just burning houses to clear them of IEDs.

Interesting.  Are we certain that's not airsoft?

The photo appears to be from sometime in 2012. According to this article from 2011 a blackmarket FAMAS was only $3,700 in Lebanon.

One needs to always take the "moderate islamists" stuff with a spoon of salt, as Assad needs to destroy any opposition so that the world is forced to pick between him and ISIS. Note how pro-regime and Russian media almost never refers to specific organizations, instead preferring "terrorists" or "Islamists". Or how the Syrian military has collaborated with ISIS against the rebels/Kurds.

Armored Commander is a roguelike based on the 1987 solo boardgame "Patton's Best" by Avalon Hill, where you played the crew of a M4 Sherman during the breakout from Normandy.

http://www.armouredcommander.com/

Mohammed Emwazi aka Jihadi John (the guy from the beheading videos), was likely killed yesterday by a US drone strike in Syria.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/13/us-air-strike-targets-mohammed-emwazi-uk-terrorist-known-as-jihadi-john

Kurdish forces launched a big push on Sinjar today. So far they've apparently severed the highway from Syria to Mosul and have liberated half the city.

ICBM basing options (1980)