Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

Turkey's intelligence agency, MIT, has definitely been smuggling arms via that route. They have been caught doing so, rather embarrassingly, by the Turkish police - which didn't go down well with Davutoğlu .

Whether the weapons came from the CIA or went to the Turkmen, which had been hinted at but not proven, remains open to question though.

Fascinating NYT story about the anarchist/feminist/environmentalist/personality-cult/militarist Kurdish enclave in Northern Syria:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/a-dream-of-utopia-in-hell.html

"Xwinda" is an awesome real name

ocalan is pretty interesting + has a lot to say about ziggurats

NY Times also with coverage on ISIS movement to Libya

“A great exodus of the Islamic State leadership in Syria and Iraq is now establishing itself in Libya,” said Omar Adam, 34, the commander of a prominent militia based in Misurata.

The group in Surt has also begun imposing the parent organization’s harsh version of Islamic law on the city, enforcing veils for all women, banning music and cigarettes, and closing shops during prayers, residents and recent visitors said. The group carried out at least four crucifixions in August.

...But this summer the Iraqi government stopped paying salaries in Mosul and Anbar Province, and shifts on the battlefield have prevented public employees in Islamic State territory from reaching banks on the outside to cash their paychecks.

“ISIS is still strong,” said the manager of an electronics store who lives in Raqqa. “But it has lost popularity among ordinary, uneducated people because it has lost its brilliant victories.”

Perhaps hoping to sustain its image of invincibility, the Islamic State’s propaganda has increasingly promoted the operations of its foreign affiliates. Western intelligence agencies say it is devoting more resources to them as well.

Most remain largely autonomous. The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State, deemed second after Libya’s in the scale of its threat, had a long record as a domestic insurgency before pledging its allegiance. The branch appears to have acted on its own initiative to carry out the bombing of the Russian charter jet on Oct. 31, say Western officials familiar with the intelligence reports. But the objective, those officials say, was to impress the group’s central leadership in order to win financial support
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/world/middleeast/isis-grip-on-libyan-city-gives-it-a-fallback-option.html?mabReward=CTM&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine

More possible casussen belli (though the source is questionable): Turkey blockading Russia from Dardanelles

amazing photobomb at the paris talks

http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?id=319793&h=530&w=758

Kurdish fighters say US special forces have been fighting Isis for months

Good essay:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n23/adam-shatz/magical-thinking-about-isis

And for IS, an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq, the distinction between near and far enemies is porous: all apostates are enemies. Although it has conquered a significant piece of territory – something bin Laden and Zawahiri never dared attempt – its power is only partly rooted in the caliphate. It is as keen to conquer virtual as actual territory. It draws on a growing pool of recruits who discovered not only IS but Islam itself online, in chatrooms and through messaging services where distance vanishes at the tap of a keyboard. Indeed, the genius of IS has been to overcome the distance between two very different crises of citizenship, and weave them into a single narrative of Sunni Muslim disempowerment: the exclusion of young Muslims in Europe, and the exclusion of Sunnis in Syria and Iraq.

Soon after launching a brutal air and ground assault in Yemen, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began devoting significant resources to a sophisticated public relations blitz in Washington, D.C.

The PR campaign is designed to maintain close ties with the U.S. even as the Saudi-led military incursion into the poorest Arab nation in the Middle East has killed nearly 6,000 people, almost half of them civilians.

Elements of the charm offensive include the launch of a pro-Saudi Arabia media portal operated by high-profile Republican campaign consultants; a special English-language website devoted to putting a positive spin on the latest developments in the Yemen war; glitzy dinners with American political and business elites; and a non-stop push to sway reporters and policymakers.

https://theintercept.com/2015/12/01/inside-saudi-charm-campaign/

these guys can't catch a break:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/01/syria-msf-hospital-homs-barrel-bombing

so is russia no longer violating turkish airspace or is turkey no longer shooting down russian planes?

If Russia were violating Turkish airspace, while not getting shot down for their incursions, it is reasonable to assume that the Turkish government would be vociferously complaining about the violations. Based only on this conjecture, I'd favor the idea that Russia has not been violating Turkish airspace in recent days.

putin is claiming that turkey shot down the plane for disrupting their illegal ISIS oil trade

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ seems plausible to me tbh

So, is Putin saying that Russian planes were strafing or bombing in Turkish territory? If so, then it's no surprise if they were shot down. No love lost between those two countries.

If the Russian planes were strafing or bombing inside Syrian territory, then why would Putin now stop his forces from continuing to disrupt that oil trade, assuming that was a valued target just a few days ago? No doubt there would be radar or other evidence that could verify the Turkish aggression against those legitimate attacks.

ppl pretty much believe that the planes were definitely in turkish airspace tho probably v briefly iirc? and shot down over syria?

it's complicated either way obv; this article takes the loooong view https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2015-11-29/clash-empires

like even if russia did invade turkish airspace they'd need to be pretty upset about that fact to shoot down one of their planes. acc to israel russia flies over their airspace all the time - so i feel like more the question is was turkey upset bc russia is disrupting ISIS trade or bc they're bombing ethnic turkmen which feels like a more reasonable objection to me?

Russia still pushing this claim:

"Turkey is the main destination for the oil stolen from its legitimate owners, which are Syria and Iraq," Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov told journalists in Moscow. "Turkey resells this oil. The appalling part about it is that the country's top political leadership is involved in the illegal business — President Erdogan and his family."

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/russia-accuses-turkeys-erdogan-involvement-isis-oil-trade-n472596

The PR campaign is designed to maintain close ties with the U.S. even as the Saudi-led military incursion into the poorest Arab nation in the Middle East has killed nearly 6,000 people, almost half of them civilians.

so this is why Im hearing all these stories about Saudis letting their wimmin folk finally vote for the schoolboard or whatever shitty concession theyre getting.

Errrrrrrrrrr

Putin is an excellent troll.

maybe this is a good opportunity to share this wild meme that's been going around. apparently the vilna gaon said in the 18th century:

Rabbi Lazer Brody – “Rav Shternbuch received a closely guarded secret that came to him from Rabbi Yitzchak Chever zatza”l, who received it from Rabbi Chaim of Volozhyn zatza”l, who received it from the Gaon of Vilna himself, who revealed it shortly before his death:

“When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard. And when you hear that the Russians have reached the city of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), you should put on your Shabbat clothes and don’t take them off, because it means that the Messiah is about to come any minute.”

Russia, Turkey, France, UK and Crimea... hmmmmmmmmmm

lol how many times have Russians occupied the Crimea

well obv that would be why it would it would be on the the lithuanian rabbi's radar. i mean at various times in history the idea of russia occupying turkey hasn't seemed so implausible either - more plausible than today what w/ NATO + shit i'd think.

yeah I mean hasn't Russian desire for the Bosporus been a considerable driver of its foreign policy for a long time?

"And if they just shoot down a plane -- not that I know what that is - well, don't get too excited but maybe at least take a shower just in case, you never know"

not sure they knew what showers were either :p

Trump is going to Israel to meet with Netanyahu. How exciting...

lol hurting

well this is not a good development if true

It doesn't sound like this ISIS-affiliated group in Sinai is all that substantial though.

Was he not shot dead in 2014?

I know these dudes are like Michael Myers but this is ridiculous.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27533169

Apparently not!

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/tribal-coalition-egypts-sinai-puts-bounty-head-militant-leader-1244577872

this is hardly a revelation but I'm always struck by how young and stupid these guys look.

or old + psychotic

i think this is the dynamic of all extremists groups

yeah like middle aged shmoes w kids aren't gonna be so into this - you either gotta be young and stupid or totally decrepit and cynical

US military spin...

The United States has been eliminating a mid- to high-level Islamic State figure every two days, on average, contributing to President Obama’s decision to send a new Special Operations force to Iraq to intensify efforts to locate and kill militant leaders there and in Syria, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The official described the mission of the force as self-
expanding — more raids on Islamic State sites will garner more intelligence leading to more sites. “The more intelligence we get, the closer we’ll get to these guys,” said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity set by the White House.

In testimony earlier this week, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said that key militant figures “removed from the battlefield” in recent months included the Islamic State’s second in command in Iraq, Haji Mutazz; and British-born militants Junaid Hussain and the executioner known as Jihadi John, both reportedly killed in airstrikes in Syria.

The template for the new ground operations, officials have said, was the raid inside Syria in May in which Abu Sayyaf, a key Islamic State commander, was killed and voluminous intelligence was seized on the militant group’s economic structure.

The briefing was part of an administration effort to project coherence and a sense of momentum on a strategy that is often criticized as lacking both.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-eliminates-a-mid--to-high-level-isis-figure-every-2-days-official-says/2015/12/03/6b43ae3c-99ea-11e5-b499-76cbec161973_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202

http://pmo.iq/pme/press2015en/5-12-20151en.htm

Dec 3 2015

It has been confirmed to us that Turkish troops numbering around one regiment armoured with tanks and artillery entered the Iraqi territory, and specifically the province of Nineveh claim that they are training Iraqi groups without the request or authorization from the Iraqi federal authorities and this is considered a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty and does not conform with the good neighbourly relations between Iraq and Turkey.

The Iraqi authorities call on Turkey to respect good neighbourly relations and to withdraw immediately from the Iraqi territory.
Prime Minister's Media Office

5 December 2015

1200 Turkish soldiers there either to train the Peshmerga or to provide extra security to Barzani, depending on who you read.

interesting note in otherwise unexceptional piece from Krisoff:

So what should I tell this 16-year-old boy who risked his life to flee extremism? That many Americans are now afraid of him? That the San Bernardino murders may only add to the suspicion of Syrian refugees? That in an election year, politicians pander and magnify voter fears?

Here in Lesbos, the fears seem way overdrawn. Some of the first aid workers Syrian refugees meet when they land on the beach are Israeli doctors, working for an Israeli medical organization called IsraAID. The refugees say they are surprised, but also kind of delighted.

“We were happy to see them,” said Tamara, a 20-year-old Syrian woman in jeans with makeup and uncovered hair. The presence of Jews, Muslims and Christians side by side fit with the tolerance and moderation that she craved.

Iris Adler, an Israeli doctor volunteering with IsraAID, said the refugees were often excited to receive assistance from Israelis. “We are still in close touch with many of them,” she said, including a mother whose baby she delivered on the beach after landing. Hostility to Israeli aid workers, she said, came not from refugees but, rather, from some European volunteers.

What “local forces” is Obama talking about? If he means Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria, yes, they’ve performed admirably. In Kurdish areas. They don’t want to clear and hold the Sunni heartland of the Islamic State, nor should they. If Obama is talking about the Shiite-led Iraqi military, their performance is still just barely adequate, even backed by American air power, and they’re disdained and mistrusted by the Sunnis of Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul. If he’s talking about the Islamist brigades in Syria armed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, it’s still not entirely clear whether they’re friend or foe.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-big-hole-in-obamas-islamic-state-strategy/2015/12/07/04ce2d16-9d01-11e5-bce4-708fe33e3288_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

NY Times re the same thing--

Last month, the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar, which had been under the brutal rule of the Islamic State for more than 15 months, fell to Kurdish forces in less than 48 hours, after a sustained assault by American A-10 attack jets. As Kurdish forces advanced, the Islamic State fighters, having booby-trapped roads and houses, chose to run rather than fight for the city, burning hundreds of tires so the smoke would obscure their departure.

Yet a month since then, the Kurdish forces have advanced little beyond the city of Sinjar, and their commanders have been clear about why: The rest of the area is predominantly Sunni Arab rather than Kurdish.

The same pattern has been repeated in neighboring Syria, where the Syrian Kurdish forces reached the village of Ein Eissa earlier this year — just 30 miles north of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the terrorist group’s self-declared state. But they have stayed put.

“It would not be appropriate for us to go further south,” Redur Xelil, the main Syrian Kurdish force’s spokesman, said in an interview this summer, summing up the unease that many of his soldiers expressed at the thought of Kurdish rebels invading and trying to hold an Arab area.

To date, the United States and its partners have failed to find a Sunni Arab partner force. In October, the Obama administration acknowledged that a $500 million program to train thousands of local troops — many of them Sunni Arab — had failed. And a new United States-backed entity intended to claw back Arab land from the Islamic State seems to exist in name only.

Proponents of a ground assault argue that an even bigger recruiting drive than the militants’ end-of-times prophecy is their promise of an Islamic state.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/world/middleeast/us-strategy-seeks-to-avoid-isis-prophecy.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_daily202&_r=0

TBH I had kind of felt like all this talk of a "moderate sunni force to fight ISIS" smacked of a peculiarly American fantasy that we can just conjure up an army of the reasonable in whatever place we're interested in at the moment. This fantasy gets repeated again and again by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

... and UK Prime Ministers when they are trying to persuade to support the bombing of Syria.

In Iraq, the US once had to do this...

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/us-government-paying-former-insurgents/

https://www.emptywheel.net/2014/01/02/after-petraeus-paid-them-for-peace-are-sunnis-of-anbar-now-paid-by-bandar-for-killing/

Controversially, he even started putting some Sunni groups – including some that had previously fought the U.S. – on the American payroll. The “Anbar Awakening” of Sunni groups willing to cooperate with the Americans had begun in 2005, but at a smaller scale. Petraeus recognized that the groups had real community influence and ability to bring security, whether he liked them or not, and brought them on board. At the program’s peak in 2008, the U.S. had “contracted” 103,000 fighters who were now ostensibly paid to assist an American-dominated peace rather than the disrupt it. That same year, according to Ricks, the U.S. signed ceasefire deals with 779 separate Iraqi militias.

This, of course, was responsible for the success of the "surge".

The same Sunni Iraqis, now off the U.S. payroll are at least complicit with ISIS so long as they place pressure on the Kurds and Baghdad.