Showing posts with label ISIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ISIS. Show all posts
ISIS's Campaign in Libya: January 4 - February 19, 2016
By Claire Coyne, Emily Estelle, and Harleen Gambhir
Key Takeaway: ISIS is executing a sophisticated, multi-front campaign against Libya’s oil facilities, demonstrating the organization’s growing capability abroad. President Obama reportedly ruled out significant military intervention against the group as of February 18. The administration opted to continue intermittent strikes against ISIS leaders in Libya instead, such as the strike on an ISIS leader in western Libya on February 19. This surgical approach is unlikely to defeat the group, which maintains more than 5,000 fighters and is reinforced by leadership sent from Iraq and Syria. Libyan ground forces are also unlikely to expel ISIS from its areas of control. ISIS’s safe haven in Libya will allow it to survive even if it is defeated in Iraq and Syria. ISIS will use its Libyan base to exacerbate regional disorder and likely to attack Europe.
ISIS has executed an aggressive campaign to take over territory in the midst of Libya’s post-revolution civil war. ISIS deployed a contingent of 300 Libyan ISIS militants from eastern Syria to spearhead the creation of a new ISIS affiliate in Libya in mid-2014 as part of a larger strategy to seize terrain and exacerbate disorder outside of Iraq and Syria. ISIS established this affiliate in Sirte, on the central Libyan coast, in early 2015 and has since advanced outward from the city, capturing population centers and establishing checkpoints to its east, west, and south. ISIS has exploited the seams between the participants in Libya’s civil war and established itself amidst the conflict’s frontlines, taking over territory when no local forces are positioned to defend it. This approach mirrors ISIS’s military expansion and development of safe havens in Syria and Yemen, demonstrating the threat posed by the regional adoption of ISIS’s way of war. ISIS now possesses a contiguous zone of control that includes a more than 200 km stretch of Libya’s coast, which ISIS confirmed as part of its Caliphate in August 2015. ISIS maintains between 5,000 and 6,500 fighters in Libya, according to the Pentagon’s latest count. The group is now both defending its stronghold in Sirte and pushing outward, imposing its rule on the population as it grows by establishing governance structures and enforcing shari’a law. U.S. leaders including Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter have acknowledged that ISIS’s Libya affiliate is chief among the organization’s increasingly dangerous “metastases” abroad.
ISIS’s leadership is dedicating significant resources to Libya, as evidenced by its complex, multi-front campaign on the country’s oil production facilities. ISIS’s central leadership has deployed leaders from Iraq and Syria to Libya to strengthen governance, consolidate control, and develop operational design and capabilities. The group is currently conducting a campaign against Libya’s oil resources and security that aims to both perpetuate instability in the country and set conditions for ISIS to capture Libya’s oil wealth. ISIS likely seeks to gain access to oil revenue in Libya, as it has done in Iraq and Syria where revenue from black market oil trade is a significant source of funding for the group’s military and governance efforts. ISIS launched a campaign in early January 2016 on the oil fields east of its stronghold in Sirte in pursuit of this objective. ISIS’s ground forces took complete control of a village to the east of Sirte, where it had previously maintained a light presence, and used it to stage sustained attacks on oil export terminals at Ras Lanuf and al Sidra, as well as on inland oil infrastructure. The group executed coordinated attacks across multiple populated areas during the oil fields campaign, including a suicide truck bomb at a police training camp in Zliten that killed at least 60 and wounded at least 200. This bombing, along with several attempted follow-on attacks, targeted territory held by the Misrata-based militias that previously fought against ISIS’s takeover of Sirte and were likely intended to prevent attacks on Sirte as ISIS executed the oil campaign. ISIS also attacked oil infrastructure near Zueitina, far to the east of the al Sidra frontline, signaling coordination between militants based in both central and eastern Libya. ISIS has yet to take control of operational oil infrastructure in Libya. However, its January 2016 campaign successfully exercised the Libyan affiliate’s capability to design and execute a complex campaign and established support zones for future attacks on oil fields, making it the group’s largest and most successful ground operation outside of Iraq and Syria to date. This preparation, combined with ISIS’s recruitment of engineers to Libya, signals that the group will launch more operations aimed at controlling Libya’s oil infrastructure.
No Libyan actors are poised to roll back ISIS’s territorial gains in Libya. Libya does not have a unified national army, and its highly factionalized armed groups remain locked in a multidimensional civil war. The transitional government that assumed power after the fall of longtime dictator Muammar al Qaddafi in 2011 failed to bridge the country’s political and tribal fault lines and ultimately broke down into two warring parliaments, each supported by loose coalitions of armed groups. The UN is struggling to bring the two parliaments together behind a unity government, but the ongoing stalemate and uncertain status of key powerbrokers in the future government are preventing majorities on both sides from agreeing, and thus the armed groups from uniting. ISIS’s rapid expansion in Libya has proved insufficient to force Libya’s political leaders to abandon their grievances. At the same time, no existing Libyan fighting force has demonstrated either the will or the capability to defeat ISIS in their country. The Libyan National Army (LNA), aligned with the House of Representatives based in the east, is embroiled in a stalemated fight against a plethora of Islamist groups in Benghazi, Derna, and Ajdabiya. The LNA has used its very limited air power to conduct sparse strikes on ISIS positions, but its forces are entrenched in their current fights and unable to launch a ground assault on ISIS in Sirte. Meanwhile, a coalition of Misratan militias from western Libya recently mobilized eastward toward Sirte, but these forces, combined with those already based closer to Sirte in Abugrein, likely number around half of the force that ISIS can muster to defend its stronghold. It is more likely that the Misratans, who have established checkpoints at key transport hubs and near ISIS positions west of Sirte, are attempting to contain ISIS’s westward expansion.
The U.S. and its allies lack both the partner and the will to carry out a campaign the scale needed to defeat ISIS in Libya. The absence of a unity government and a Libyan army hampers action against ISIS by denying the international community legitimate political and military partners for intervention. The U.S. has reportedly ruled out the possibility of intervening in Libya unilaterally, as U.S. defense officials claimed on February 18 that President Obama rejected a plan from U.S. Africa Command and Special Operations Command to launch airstrikes against ISIS’s resources in Libya and deploy Special Operations Forces to train a future Libyan national army. The U.S. reportedly will continue to strike ISIS’s high-level leadership in Libya instead. For example, the U.S. targeted a Tunisian ISIS operative in western Libya linked to major terror attacks in Tunisia on February 19. Such surgical, opportunistic targeting will not expel ISIS from populated areas or prevent the group from advancing further. Denying ISIS safe haven in Libya requires a ground partner capable and willing to clear and hold ISIS’s current areas of control. ISIS will continue to grow and strengthen in the absence of a determined response from both Libyans and the international community.
ISIS will use its enduring safe haven in Libya to endure and project disorder throughout North Africa and potentially into Europe. A Libyan stronghold allows ISIS to survive in the event of defeat in Iraq and Syria by providing two key capabilities: a physical safe haven that can serve as a refuge for central leadership, and a safeguard for ISIS’s ideological legitimacy, which depends on the governance of a territorial Islamic state. ISIS has already used Libya as a support zone for devastating attacks on tourist sites in neighboring Tunisia, and its recent uptick in North Africa-focused propaganda indicates that the group is still focused on generating recruitment and attacks in the region. ISIS’s secure hold on terrain in Libya allows it to more easily develop networks and project attacks into neighboring Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt, as well as recruit throughout the Maghreb and Sahel regions. ISIS may ultimately use its safe haven within Libya to plan and launch attacks on nearby Europe, as it has already done with its safe havens in Iraq and Syria.
Using Explosives ISIS Destroys Jonah's Tomb In Mosul, Iraq
Officials: ISIS Blows Up Jonah's Tomb In Iraq -- CNN
(CNN) -- If you blink during the video, you might miss the moment Jonah's tomb in Mosul, Iraq, explodes.
The first few frames show the revered shrine towering over its landscape. There's a sudden burst of dust, fire and smoke.
Then, nothing.
CNN could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the video, which was posted to YouTube.
The holy site is thought to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale or fish in both the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions.
Militants belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, planted explosives around the tomb and detonated the explosion remotely Thursday, civil defense officials there told CNN.
The tomb was inside a Sunni mosque called the Mosque of the Prophet Younis.
Read more ....
More News On ISIS Destroying Jonah's Tomb In Mosul
ISIL terrorists blow up burial site of Jonah, vow more of same -- Washington Times
After leveling Iraq’s Tomb of Jonah, the Islamic State could destroy ‘anything in the Bible’ -- Washington Post
Isis militants blow up Jonah's tomb -- The Guardian
Iraq jihadists blow up 'Jonah's tomb' in Mosul: official -- AFP
Islamist Militants Raze Ancient Shrine in Mosul -- Time
Video shows ‘Jonah’s tomb’ in Mosul being blown up -- Al Arabiya
Islamic State destroys Jonah’s Tomb in Mosul -- Times of Israel
ISIS Blows Up Muslim Shrine With Biblical Prophet Jonah's Tomb 'to Dust' Because it Had Become a Place of Apostasy -- Christina Post
My Comment: Any reference in the Bible to a historical site is no longer safe from these fanatics. Welcome to the new Middle East.
U.S. Intelligence Knew 3 Days Before Mosul Fell That ISIS Was Preparing For A Major Attack
Reuters
Officials: U.S. Knew 3 Days Before Mosul Fell That Islamic State Was Moving Forces -- Sacramento Bee/McClatchy News
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration knew an attack was in the works three days in advance of the Islamic State’s offensive in northern Iraq, but U.S. efforts to mount a response were hampered by the Iraqi government’s insistence that it could handle the threat, two top U.S. architects of Iraq policy said Wednesday.
The officials faced bipartisan criticism from the House Foreign Affairs Committee as members accused the Obama administration of taking insufficient steps to counter the expansionist goals of the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, an al Qaida spinoff that now operates freely throughout most of eastern Syria and across the vast swaths of northwestern Iraq that it seized last month.
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My Comment: Three days or three months .... it would not have made any difference. The Iraqi army was not up to the task, and even if given a few weeks warning .... they were not willing or capable of withstanding the ISIS onslaught.
ISIS Is Proving To The World That It Can Govern Effectively
To those entering Raqqa Province, home to about a million people, ISIS makes clear, immediately, who is in charge. Credit Reuters
Life In A Jihadist Capital: Order With A Darker Side -- New York Times
In a Syrian City, ISIS Puts Its Vision Into Practice.
RAQQA, Syria — When his factory was bombed in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, the businessman considered two bleak options: remain at home and risk dying in the next airstrike, or flee like hundreds of thousands of others to a refugee camp in Turkey.
Instead, he took his remaining cash east and moved to a neighboring city, Raqqa, the de facto capital of the world’s fastest growing jihadist force. There he found a degree of order and security absent in other parts of Syria.
“The fighting in Syria will continue, so we have to live our lives,” said the businessman, who gave only a first name, Qadri, as he oversaw a dozen workers in his new children’s clothing factory in Raqqa.
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My Comment: Another worrisome development from ISIS is the following .... ISIL Is Now a ‘Full Blown Army’ in Iraq -- Ben Watson, Defense One
ISIS Is Making 'Tens Of Millions' From Oil Sales To Fund It's Caliphate And War Machine
Militant Islamist fighters parade on military vehicles along the streets of northern Raqqa province. Reuters
Isis Smuggling $50m of Oil Monthly to fund Medieval Caliphate in Iraq and Syria -- IBTimes
The Islamic State, which reportedly generates $50m (£25m) a month in oil operations in neighbouring Syria, has expanded its oil business in Iraq to fund its recently declared 'caliphate.'
Having seized vast swathes of territory across Iraq, the jihadist group has begun selling crude oil and gasoline on black markets to fund its cross-border caliphate.
Militants from the Islamic State (formerly known as Isis) grabbed four small oilfields as they advanced through northern and central Iraq in June. The ultra-violent militants now control the Najma and Qayara oilfields near the northern city of Mosul, as well as the Himreen and Ajil oilfields close to the central city of Tikrit.
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More News On ISIS Making 'Tens Of Millions' From Oil Sales To Fund It's Caliphate And War Machine
ISS ‘making millions’ out of stolen oil revenues in Iraq -- RT
Islamic State Selling Iraqi Oil To Finance 'Caliphate' -- Reuters
NGO: Jihadists sell Syrian oil to Iraqi businessmen -- Al Arabiya/AFP
ISIS Generates Millions From Seized Oil Fields: Iraqi Officials -- NBC
Islamic State Selling Oil And Gas to Iraq From Conquered Land -- Breitbart
One Of The World's Dangerous Terror Groups Is Now In The Oil Business
ISIL Has Added A Lucrative New Business Line In Iraq: Oil Smuggling -- Steve LeVine, Quartz
ISIL, the business-minded Islamic army threatening Baghdad, has established a new flow of revenue since seizing a large swath of Iraq—an estimated $1 million-a-day oil smuggling business.
According to an investigation by Iraq Oil Report (paywall), ISIL rapidly captured one and possibly two oilfields south of Kirkuk soon after storming Iraq a month ago. The fields, in the Hamrin mountains, produce relatively small volumes—just 16,000-20,000 barrels a day. But that earns a tidy income even at the knock-down local black market rate of about $55 a barrel, according to the report.
The description of ISIL’s smuggling route into Kurdistan continues the narrative of a ruthlessly managed, financially savvy rebel group that has emerged over the last year first in Syria and now Iraq. That includes control over Syria’s oilfields—on July 3, ISIL captured al-Omar, the country’s largest oilfield—plus some $420 million in Iraqi dinars snatched up in the June capture of Mosul. In all, ISIL may have a cache of some $1.3 billion.
Read more ....
Update: ISIL Is Taking Iraq’s Black Gold to the Black Market -- Defense One
My Comment: This development makes ISIS the world's most dangerous terror group by far .... a terror group that is now sitting on literally billions of dollars of oil.
ISIS's Next Targets Are Baghdad International Airport And Neighboring Jordan
Islamic Militants Aim To Take Baghdad Airport -- Washington Times
Jordan also at top of Islamic State’s hit list
The al Qaeda-inspired terrorist army in Iraq ultimately wants to capture Baghdad International Airport and begin a campaign to destabilize neighboring Jordan, an important U.S. ally, analysts say.
The Islamic State organization — formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — is attempting to move within striking distance as Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Wednesday reported discovering the bodies of 50 men in a possible sectarian massacre.
Seizing Baghdad’s commercial transportation hub would be a giant step toward isolating the Shiite majority government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It also would advance its goal of taking the capital itself, thereby endangering thousands of Americans who might need a quick evacuation.
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My Comment: ISIS is only 5 miles away from Baghdad airport .... so attacking it is not in the realm of the impossible. As for Jordan .... an ISIS assault has been on their radar since June .... the only question that everyone is asking is ..... will this be the red line that will force the U.S./Israel/Saudi Arabia/etc. to act with military force against ISIS.
Iraq Has Notified The U.N That The Terror Group ISIS Now Has The Materials To Construct A 'Dirty Bomb'
Exclusive: Iraq Tells U.N. That 'Terrorist Groups' Seized Nuclear Materials -- Reuters
(Reuters) - Insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country's north, Iraq told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad."
Nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the July 8 letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
"Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state," Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction."
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My Comment: The nightmare scenario is now becoming a reality.
The Islamic State 'Cabinet' Is Revealed
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Revealed: The Islamic State 'Cabinet', From Finance Minister To Suicide Bomb Deployer -- The Telegraph
New Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has assigned deputies to manage everything from bank accounts to bomb attacks
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, one of the world's most wanted jihadists, is aided by a "cabinet" of deputies, who manage both the Islamic State's military operations and its new, self declared, caliphate.
Documents seized from the house of a member of the Islamic State in a raid by the Iraqi military have revealed, for the first time and in remarkable detail, the leadership structure of this secretive organisation.
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My Comment: The International Criminal Court in The Hague now knows who to focus their attention on when it comes to who they must charge for war crimes.
Can ISIS Rule The 'Islamic State'?
'Jihadistan': Can Isis Militants Rule Seized Territory? -- Frank Gardner, BBC
Can Isis - the small but fanatical jihadist army now controlling large tracts of Syria and Iraq - rule the lands it has conquered?
Since the beginning of June, Isis - which has recently rebranded itself as "Islamic State" - has burst out of its stronghold in eastern Syria to seize Mosul, Iraq's second city, then advance down the length of the Euphrates Valley to threaten the edge of Baghdad itself.
Wherever it has taken over, its black-clad and balaclava'd fighters have imposed a draconian version of Sharia, or Islamic law, prompting thousands to flee as refugees.
Analysts point out that seizing territory is one thing, governing it is quite another.
But given the internal problems and weaknesses besetting both the Syrian and Iraqi states, there is no sign that Isis is about to be dislodged soon. So, are they actually in a position to rule?
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My Comment: History is full of examples where small extremist groups come to power and are able through luck and ruthlessness consolidate their authority and form a somewhat functional government. The Taliban in Afghanistan. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The hard core Communists and Marxists in the Russian revolution. ISIS is just one of many.