Investigators seek motive behind Tennessee shooting rampage

Investigators seek motive behind Tennessee shooting rampage Fri, Jul 17 09:32 AM EDT image 1 of 16 By Rich McKay CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (Reuters) - Investigators on Friday sought to determine what led a 24-year-old gunman to open fire at two military offices in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing four Marines in an attack officials said could be an act of domestic terrorism. Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, identified as the shooter by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was shot to death in the rampage that also injured three people, including a sailor who was critically wounded. The attack comes at a time when U.S. military and law enforcement authorities are increasingly concerned about the threat "lone wolves" pose to domestic targets. The suspect, seen driving an open-top Ford Mustang, first went to a joint military recruiting center in a strip mall and sprayed it with gunfire, riddling the glass facade with bullet holes. "Everybody was at a standstill and as soon as he pulled away everyone scrambled, trying to make sure everyone was OK," said Erica Wright, who works two doors down from the center. The gunman then drove off to a Naval Reserve Center about 6 miles (10 km) away, fatally shooting the four Marines before being shot and killed in a firefight with police. Three others were wounded in the attacks, including a police officer reported to be in stable condition and a Marine. The shootings began around 10:45 a.m. (1445 GMT) and ended about 30 minutes later. NBC News reported that Abdulazeez was a naturalized American who was born in Kuwait. U.S. law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether he was inspired by Islamic State or a similar group. Islamic State had threatened to step up violence in the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ends on Friday evening. The extremist group, also known as ISIS and ISIL, claimed responsibility when a gunman in Tunisia opened fire at a popular tourist hotel and killed 37 people in June. On the same day, there was an attack in France and a suicide bombing in Kuwait. At a news conference late Thursday, Edward Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI's Knoxville, Tennessee, division, said investigators had found nothing that tied the suspect to an international terrorist organization. Nobody else had been taken into custody, he said. The SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist groups, said that Abdulazeez blogged on Monday that "life is short and bitter" and Muslims should not miss an opportunity to "submit to Allah." Reuters could not independently verify the blog postings. The New York Times, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, reported that his father had been under investigation several years ago, over possible ties to a foreign terrorist organization. His name was later removed from a terror watch list. According to a resume believed to have been posted online by Abdulazeez, he attended high school in a Chattanooga suburb and graduated from the University of Tennessee with an engineering degree. "I remember him being very creative. He was a very light-minded kind of individual. All his videos were always very unique and entertaining," said Greg Raymond, 28, who worked with Abdulazeez on a high school television program. "He was a really calm, smart and cool person who joked around. Like me, he wasn’t very popular so we always kind of got along. He seemed like a really normal guy," Raymond said. Mary Winter, president of the Colonial Shores Neighborhood Association, said she had known Abdulazeez and his family for more than 10 years and was stunned. "He never caused any trouble," she said. "We can't believe that this happened." "HEARTBREAKING CIRCUMSTANCE" President Barack Obama offered his condolences to the victims' families and said officials would be prompt and thorough in getting answers on the shootings. "It is a heartbreaking circumstance for these individuals who have served our country with great valor to be killed in this fashion," he said in a statement from the Oval Office. The Department of Homeland Security was stepping up security at certain federal facilities and supporting the FBI investigation, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. Media in Chattanooga, a city of about 173,000 people along the Tennessee River in the southeast of the state, said memorial services for the victims would be held in various churches. The Department of Defense will decide whether to release the names of the victims, federal officials said. An autopsy will determine how Abdulazeez died. The attack drew condemnation from Islamic groups. "We condemn this horrific attack in the strongest terms possible," said Nihad Awad, national director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. There have been other attacks on U.S. military personnel in the United States. In 2009, former U.S. Army major Nidal Hasan fatally shot 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas. He said he targeted unarmed soldiers preparing for deployment in retaliation for U.S. wars in the Muslim world. And in May, two gunmen opened fire with assault rifles at a heavily guarded Texas exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. Both men were shot to death by responding authorities. (Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Eric Johnson in Seattle, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, David Bailey in Minneapolis, Frank McGurty and Katie Reiley in New York, Emily Stephenson, Julia Edwards, Lindsay Dunsmuir, Doina Chiacu and David Alexander in Washington, Dan Whitcomb and Victoria Cavaliere in Los Angeles; Writing by Jon Herskovitz and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Clarence ================= Shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn.  4m USMC Commandant Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. via Twitter: 'Please keep our fallen Marines and their families in your thoughts. Our focus remains with supporting the families.' - @GenDunford See original on twitter.com  Shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn.  10m Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke on Twitter: 'Like all Chattanoogans, woke up with a heavy heart. Keep the wounded US Navy sailor and our own CPD officer in your thoughts and prayers today' - @AndyBerke See original on twitter.com Jul 17, 2015, 01:20 PM GMT 15m Upcoming: A press conference on the Chattanooga shooting that killed 4 Marines is expected today at 3 pm ET. Investigators are searching a computer belonging to suspected Chattanooga gunman Mohammad Abdulazeez, but have not yet found evidence suggesting he was directly inspired by the Islamic State militant group. A female US Navy sailor in serious condition and a police officer remain hospitalized following Thursday's shooting. End of note Alert my friends  Chattanooga, TN   crime & courts  editor items  Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant   Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez   Shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn.   United States Marine Corps   Chattanooga, TN  46m University of Tennessee-Chattanooga will hold a vigil at 9 am ET at its University Center for shooting victims - @UTChattanooga See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  53m Mohammad Abdulazeez, alleged gunman in Chattanooga attacks, was arrested for drunk driving in April in Hamilton County - @AP Read more on bigstory.ap.org  Chattanooga, TN  2h A Marine Corps recruiter injured during Chattanooga shooting was treated and released from the hospital, US Marines say - @cnnbrk Read more on www.cnn.com  Chattanooga, TN  2h Sgt. Dennis Pedigo, Jr. identified as Chattanooga officer shot in ankle; could be released from hospital as early as Saturday - @WRCB Read more on wrcbtv.com  Chattanooga, TN  2h FBI investigating a blog apparently posted by Mohammad Abdulazeez 3 days before shooting that said 'life is short and bitter' and Muslims should not let 'the opportunity to submit to Allah ... pass you by' - @NBCNews Read more on nbcnews.com  Chattanooga, TN  3h Photo: A makeshift memorial featuring several American flags placed outside strip mall in Chattanooga, Tenn. - @NC5_MTorres See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  3h Photo: Sgt. Thomas Sullivan was 40, two tours of duty in Iraq, and earned a Purple Heart - @masslivenews See original on masslive.com  Chattanooga, TN  4h Local media identify 1 of 4 Marines killed in Chattanooga shooting as USMC Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan - @OakLawnPatch Read more on patch.com  Chattanooga, TN  10h There is 'no indication' that anyone else was involved in fatal shooting of 4 marines in Chattanooga, Tenn., FBI official says - @AP, @Reuters Read more on dailymail.co.uk  Chattanooga, TN  10h FBI says women seen handcuffed at house searched following Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting were not arrested, it is common practice to handcuff residents during a search - @TimesFreePress See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  10h Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., on Chattanooga shooting: 'Our nation mourns the senseless loss of four of our nation's heroes. Another one lays in very serious condition' - @LetsJett See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  10h No safety concerns for the general public following Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting, official says - @LetsJett See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  11h Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA issues statement condemning 'senseless' Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting, adding they are 'proud of the many Muslim Americans who serve this country in the armed forces and dedicate their lives to protecting America. We pray for the speedy recovery of those wounded, and offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims' - @WRCB Read more on wrcbtv.com  Chattanooga, TN  12h Sailor injured in Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting in 'serious' condition, official says - @cnnbrk Read more on www.cnn.com  Chattanooga, TN  13h Photo: Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam speaks in Chattanooga, Tenn., following deadly shooting - @meganlbrantley See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  13h Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam says he's 'incredibly impressed' by cooperation of state, local and federal authorities in Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting End of alert  Chattanooga, TN  13h Editor's note: Law enforcement sources have told @nytimes that the father of the Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting suspect was at 1 point on a terrorist watch list but was eventually removed. The sources cautioned that the investigation into the father was old. - Jillian Read more on nytimes.com  Chattanooga, TN  13h Photo: People visit memorial set up at scene of Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting that left 4 people and gunman dead - @ASpiratoNC9 See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  13h Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga releases statement condemning shooting 'in strongest possible terms as one of cowardice and hate' - @katebelz See original on twitter.com  Chattanooga, TN  14h Federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority confirms Chattanooga, Tenn., shooting suspect Mohammad Youssuf Adbulazeez was student intern 5 years ago - @TimesFreePress See original on twitter.com

The inside story : The world is "Drowning In Oil."

العربية ESP РУС DE FreevideoИНОТВRTДRUPTLY ApplicationsRSS LIVERT logo 08:29 GMT, Dec 13, 2014 News USA UK Russian politics Business Op-Edge In vision In motion Shows Bulletin board More Home / Business / Canada’s currency at 54mo low as oil prices collapse below $60 Published time: December 12, 2014 11:51 Get short URL An oil pump jack pumps oil in a field near Calgary, Alberta (Reuters/Todd Korol)An oil pump jack pumps oil in a field near Calgary, Alberta (Reuters/Todd Korol) 1.6K127 Tags Currencies, Economy, Oil The Canadian dollar is taking spill with falling oil prices, and traded at a new low of 86.58 cents against the US dollar Friday. Canada has the world’s third largest proven oil reserves, and relies on oil and gas exports for 30 percent of GDP. The ‘Loonie’, as the currency is called in Canada, hit a 5-year low in October, and continues to sink along with oil prices, which have lost more than 43 percent from their June peak. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was trading at $62.95 per barrel at 13:15 MSK. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures slipped to $59. The Canadian currency hit a high of $1.05 against the dollar in summer 2011, but has been stuck in a 5-year lull as investors sell off crude oil in the market. "Roughly speaking, if we start to think about oil prices below $50 a barrel for any significant period of time, you're talking in all likelihood of a US dollar getting up to the CAN$1.20 to CAN$1.25 range," Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities is quoted by Reuters as saying. As oil prices collapse, so are the currencies in high-cost oil producing nations, such as Canada, Norway, and Russia. Both Norway and Russia have complex oil drilling projects in frigid northern waters, which often necessitate ice breakers. READ MORE: OPEC decision will keep oil prices low & hit Russia, Iran, US – experts Canadian heavy crude has fallen to near $40 a barrel. The blend trades lower than WTI because production and shipping costs in Canada are more expensive. Canada specializes in oil sands, which needs to be extracted from the ground and refined and processed into lighter crude. About one-third of Canada’s proven reserves are oil sands. Like the US shale boom, Canada’s oil sands have been a big boost to the economy since the 2008-2009 recession. Canada is the largest source of energy imports into the United States, the world’s second biggest oil consumer. Canadian energy stocks have taken a beating as crude has plunged into a bear market, as many investors are losing confidence in the expensive oil extraction methods. This week, Canada’s benchmark share index, TSX, experienced the biggest single day drop in 18 months. The volatile downswings in oil prices began in June, after Libya restarted oil production and the US started upping oil exports. Oil prices plunged after OPEC, heavily influenced of Saudi Arabia, decided not keep the market over supplied in an attempt to drive out more high-cost producing nations, such as Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, US shale, and Canadian tar sands. READ MORE: OPEC ‘effectively dissolved’; oil will slide to $50 - Bank of America Producers could cut US Shale output if the price drops below $65-70, according to various analyses. Wells that are already open will remain profitable, but new projects may be derailed as companies lose profit and spending capacity. 1.6K127 Sponsored LinksMore From The Web How Australian People Can Buy An iPad For $29 ? Swoggi The Company Trying To Kill Microsoft PowerPoint Just Raised $57 Million Prezi Jimmy Kimmel Is the Most Dangerous Cyber Celebrity of 2014 Intel iQ by Taboola More from rt.com ​West behind falling ruble, oil prices - Russian spy chief China unveils anti-drone laser weapon able to shoot down 'small aircraft' within 5 seconds Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role by Taboola 113 comments Login LILLAN EVAT 0 Canadians must be as stupid and ignorant as Americans since they elected and re-elected their idiotic buffoon Zionist jew prime minister who thinks he is an Israeli godfather. 26 minutes agoReply LILLAN EVAT 0 And all they talk about is the Russian rubble. All their sanctions and economic shenanigans will turn around and bite the west in their collective arrse when their citizens revolt against poverty and unemployment and overthrow their oppressive police state governments. 32 minutes agoReply E 0 Poverty and unemployment? are we still talking about Russia? 3 minutes agoReply william SMITH 0 Maple syrup and jack boot exports to Kiev. That's the answer... 37 minutes agoReply Guzel +1 I live in Canada. Its funny as I was just driving from work 30 mins ago I listened local news station joyfully proclaiming weakening of Russion economy because of low oil price. Now I read this article. What an irony! Truly, don't rejoice on other people's troubles! Especially if those "troubles" are greatly exaggerated by western media. an hour agoReply william SMITH 0 And those troubles can easily become your own if you alienation potential trading partners like Russia and China by hiring a dipstick to run your country... 35 minutes agoReply E +1 Oil and gas actually accounts for about 8% of Canadian GDP. Manufacturing autos is the single largest contributor to Canadian GDP. Lower gas prices will increase demand for cars. This energy price crash have mixed effects in Canada, some good some bad. about 7 hours agoReply E 0 Recall, Dragan, that this article discusses specifically economic effects of falling oil prices, not environmental. BeachBum, lower royalties increases inflow of foreign capital, lower taxes is good for investment. Sovereign wealth funds are provincial, the only thing foreign about a Canadian built auto is the country it ends up in, and the Queen is a traditional figurehead so what? 6 minutes agoReply Dragan Radulovic +1 How this all will affect the environment? Recall you can't breathe dollars. 45 minutes agoReply ElNidoBeachBum +2 yeah .... digging/drilling for oil by offshore companies for 12% royalties (Norway gets 75%), no sovereign wealth fund, "manufacturing" foreign cars, a "Queen" as the head of state ... Canada, the sold out land, you are not very impressive, but at least you are a legend in your own mind. about 6 hours agoReply Next comments Where to watch Schedule Recommended ​West behind falling ruble, oil prices - Russian spy chief China unveils anti-drone laser weapon able to shoot down 'small aircraft' within 5 seconds Russia develops hybrid fusion-fission reactor, offers China role by Taboola NewsIn visionUSAIn motionUKShowsRussian politicsBulletin boardBusinessMoreOp-Edge Live Where to watch Schedule Legal disclaimer Privacy policy Feedback About us Contact info RT NEWS ENGLISH APPS Android iOS Windows phone Windows 8 العربية Español Русский Deutsch Freevideo ИНОТВ RTД RUPTLY ApplicationsRSS RT.com © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “TV-Novosti”, 2005–2014. All rights reserved. Oil plunges 3 percent to new five-year lows after bearish IEA outlook Fri, Dec 12 18:04 PM EST image By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crude oil markets fell 3 percent or more to plumb new five-year lows on Friday after the world's energy watchdog forecast even lower prices on weaker demand and larger supplies next year. Benchmark Brent oil settled at below $62 a barrel and U.S. crude slumped to under $58 to extend Thursday's landmark fall below $60. Surging crude inventories in the United States and top oil exporter Saudi Arabia's reiteration that it will not cut production had roiled prices over the last two days despite data pointing to strong U.S. economic recovery. On Friday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency which coordinates the energy policies of industrialised countries, cut its outlook for demand growth in 2015, triggering another collapse. The IEA slashed its outlook for global oil demand growth for 2015 by 230,000 barrels per day to 900,000 bpd on expectations of lower fuel consumption in Russia and other oil-exporting countries. It predicted that oil-producing nations outside of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will add to global supplies. It also expected prices to fall further. "That's just more bad news for the oil markets," said Andrew Lipow, president of Houston-based Lipow Oil Associates. Brent settled down $1.83, or nearly 3 percent, at $61.85 per barrel. It fell to $61.35 during the session, the lowest since July 2009. U.S. crude finished down $2.14, or 3.6 percent, at $57.81. It fell earlier to $57.34, its lowest since May 2009. On the week, Brent lost more than $7, or about 11 percent. U.S. crude tumbled over $8, or 12 percent. Both markets have lost about 46 percent of their value since their June highs, when Brent stood at above $115 and U.S. crude at around $107. The IEA outlook had a greater impact on Friday's market than data from U.S. oil services firm Baker Hughes showing the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States were down by 29 this week, the biggest weekly drop in two years. Voluminous crude from U.S. shale projects has been blamed for much of the global oil glut now, and energy traders have been watching rig data to see if prices that have almost halved since June will prompt a cutback in drilling. Regulators in North Dakota, one of the largest shale oil producing states in the United States, also said on Friday the state's crude production held steady in October despite strict new rules that aim to prevent wasteful burning of natural gas produced alongside oil. (Additional reporting by Simon Falush in London and Adam Rose in Beijing; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Gunna Dickson) ================ US Shale Oil Revolution A Platts.com News Feature Shale against prices December 10, 2014 -- By John Kingston in New York This time, it's different. It's an old phrase, one that can be dragged out in all sorts of situations. It's also wrong a lot. So the question as 2014 comes to a close is whether the recent precipitous decline in the price of oil and oil products is just a short-term decline, soon to be reversed as the world bounces back to a more solid $100/b future, or whether this is the end of a commodity super cycle that - with a few up and down aberrations - lifted the price of oil from an inflation-adjusted all-time low in early 1999 to that $100-plus level in the first half of this year, with an even bigger spike a few years ago. It was at a meeting of the US chapter of the International Association for Energy Economics in 1999, a few months after oil had started to climb, that I first heard the declarations: we are at the start of a "super cycle" in oil markets, and maybe broader commodity markets, and it may run for 15 years. Do the math: the 15 years is up. Break points So let's assume that cycle is over. If so, it's been a wild ride. In early 1999, the price of oil hit its lowest inflation-adjusted level ever and The Economist published a cover story in March that proclaimed the world was "Drowning In Oil." Little did the magazine know the bottom had already been reached a month earlier. It climbed steadily to its all-time high in July 2008, and plummeted on the back of the Great Recession. But by February 2009 the rise had resumed, peaking out earlier this year. Precisely when the cycle ended - if it did - is not necessarily easy to determine. In a speech given at Platts' Benposium conference in June, Peter Tertzakian of Arc Financial walked through his view of the way these cycles work. What are key are "break points," which he said come about only once every few generations. Tertzakian saw a break point in that July 2008 peak, because it accelerated a trend toward lower demand. That's not enough to reverse all the trends contributing to the busting of a 15-year cycle. There are other break points needed - or more specifically, what Tertzakian called "magic bullets" - and the biggest one is obvious: the boom in unconventional drilling. But it isn't enough to simply declare that it's all related to soaring US and Canadian production, and that's that. The type of trends that Tertzakian talks about - "the industry does not roll over, it innovates," Tertzakian said at Benposium - can be seen in the Baker Hughes rig count. According to Baker Hughes' worldwide rig count, rigs operating in the US in October 2011 stood at a little over 2,000. Three years later, it was a bit more than 1,900, and production of natural gas and all petroleum liquids - crude, LPG and condensate - had surged. The "break point" was not just the unconventional drilling methods, but the endless innovation that the industry kept bringing to the sector, getting more production out of a smaller number of rigs. It wasn't easy. As Tertzakian noted, "it took a five-fold increase in the price of oil to make this change." Actually, when we look back on the 1999-2014 oil super cycle, we see a lot bigger rise than that. Platts' Dated Brent assessment bottomed out at $9.62-$9.66 on February 9, 1999. When it hit its 2008 peak on July 3, 2008, it stood at $144.21-$144.23, and had risen by a factor of almost 15. Even if you throw out the craziness leading up to the July 2008 peak and its subsequent breathtaking fall, and instead look at a more sustained rise, Brent peaked out in May of this year at about $115, an increase of about 12 times the 1999 low. Next article: New commodity super cycle ================ More XOM #oil density: 100 pounds of gasoline can take a 5,000 pound car at 70 mph for 350 miles...in Texas Profit of OPEC and oil-producing countries Sugiya, in redistribution of wealth, it also affects the crude oil sale of the gap between the rich and the poor little contribution ISIS sources of funds to correction of between international Begin "dumping" curtain, impatient China bias of the LNG boom "LNG is too increased production volume. China, so to speak, something like impending suffocation in LNG" China's economy is stalling. Demand declined, from the fact that China's domestic gas prices also decline is expected, profitability of imports worsening World of LNG market to the "multi-year bear market" containing In addition to Australia of the project begins early next year, from the fact that exports from the United States of the plant begin by the end of next year, I showed the outlook of the supply of LNG is increased. According to the Berkeley Research, potential LNG production is more than 10% of demand in 2020 And the United States of crude oil inventories, which was announced earlier is contrary to expectations of decreased 3 million barrels, inventory increase of 1.5 million barrels, of crude oil according to still overproduction in effect that does not extend the influence and demand of increased production of shale oil Dabutsuki is prominent and crude oil prices further or Maji also $ 50 cars rush in decline $ 61.23. ================= Isis: the inside story One of the Islamic State’s senior commanders reveals exclusive details of the terror group’s origins inside an Iraqi prison – right under the noses of their American jailers. Report by Martin Chulov Camp Bucca Detainees in Camp Bucca, in southern Irag. Photograph: David Furst/AFP/Getty Images Martin Chulov Thursday 11 December 2014 17.00 AEST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Share on LinkedIn Share on Google+ Shares 5,424 Comments 304 In the summer of 2004, a young jihadist in shackles and chains was walked by his captors slowly into the Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq. He was nervous as two American soldiers led him through three brightly-lit buildings and then a maze of wire corridors, into an open yard, where men with middle-distance stares, wearing brightly-coloured prison uniforms, stood back warily, watching him. “I knew some of them straight away,” he told me last month. “I had feared Bucca all the way down on the plane. But when I got there, it was much better than I thought. In every way.” The jihadist, who uses the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed, entered Camp Bucca as a young man a decade ago, and is now a senior official within Islamic State (Isis) – having risen through its ranks with many of the men who served time alongside him in prison. Like him, the other detainees had been snatched by US soldiers from Iraq’s towns and cities and flown to a place that had already become infamous: a foreboding desert fortress that would shape the legacy of the US presence in Iraq. The other prisoners did not take long to warm to him, Abu Ahmed recalled. They had also been terrified of Bucca, but quickly realised that far from their worst fears, the US-run prison provided an extraordinary opportunity. “We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else,” he told me. “It would have been impossibly dangerous. Here, we were not only safe, but we were only a few hundred metres away from the entire al-Qaida leadership.” It was at Camp Bucca that Abu Ahmed first met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of Isis who is now frequently described as the world’s most dangerous terrorist leader. From the beginning, Abu Ahmed said, others in the camp seemed to defer to him. “Even then, he was Abu Bakr. But none of us knew he would ever end up as leader.” Abu Ahmed was an essential member of the earliest incarnation of the group. He had been galvanised into militancy as a young man by an American occupation that he and many like him believed was trying to impose a power shift in Iraq, favouring the country’s larger Shia population at the expense of the dominant Sunnis. His early role in what would become Isis led naturally to the senior position he now occupies within a revitalised insurgency that has spilled across the border into Syria. Most of his colleagues regard the crumbling order in the region as a fulfilment of their ambitions in Iraq – which had remained unfinished business, until the war in Syria gave them a new arena. Advertisement He agreed to speak publicly after more than two years of discussions, over the course of which he revealed his own past as one of Iraq’s most formidable and connected militants – and shared his deepening worry about Isis and its vision for the region. With Iraq and Syria ablaze, and the Middle East apparently condemned to another generation of upheaval and bloodshed at the hands of his fellow ideologues, Abu Ahmed is having second thoughts. The brutality of Isis is increasingly at odds with his own views, which have mellowed with age as he has come to believe that the teachings of the Koran can be interpreted and not read literally. His misgivings about what the Islamic State has become led him to speak to the Guardian in a series of expansive conversations, which offer unique insight into its enigmatic leader and the nascent days of the terror group – stretching from 2004, when he met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Camp Bucca, to 2011, when the Iraqi insurgency crossed the border into Syria. At the beginning, back in Bucca, the prisoner who would become the most wanted man in the world had already set himself apart from the other inmates, who saw him as aloof and opaque. But, Abu Ahmed recalled, the jailers had a very different impression of Baghdadi – they saw him as a conciliatory and calming influence in an environment short on certainty, and turned to him to help resolve conflicts among the inmates. “That was part of his act,” Abu Ahmed told me. “I got a feeling from him that he was hiding something inside, a darkness that he did not want to show other people. He was the opposite of other princes who were far easier to deal with. He was remote, far from us all.” * * * Baghdadi was born Ibrahim ibn Awwad al-Badri al-Samarrai in 1971, in the Iraqi city of Samarra. He was detained by US forces in Falluja, west of Baghdad, in February 2004, months after he had helped found a militant group, Jeish Ahl al-Sunnah al-Jamaah, which had taken root in the restive Sunni communities around his home city. “He was caught at his friend’s house,” said Dr Hisham al-Hashimi, an analyst who advises the Iraqi government on Isis. “His friend’s name was Nasif Jasim Nasif. Then he was moved to Bucca. The Americans never knew who they had.” Most of Baghdadi’s fellow prisoners – some 24,000 men, divided into 24 camps – seem to have been equally unaware. The prison was run along strictly hierarchical lines, down to a Teletubbies-like uniform colour scheme which allowed jailers and captives alike to recognise each detainee’s place in the pecking order. “The colour of the clothes we wore reflected our status,” said Abu Ahmed. “If I remember things correctly, red was for people who had done things wrong while in prison, white was a prison chief, green was for a long sentence and yellow and orange were normal.” When Baghdadi, aged 33, arrived at Bucca, the Sunni-led anti-US insurgency was gathering steam across central and western Iraq. An invasion that had been sold as a war of liberation had become a grinding occupation. Iraq’s Sunnis, disenfranchised by the overthrow of their patron, Saddam Hussein, were taking the fight to US forces – and starting to turn their guns towards the beneficiaries of Hussein’s overthrow, the country’s majority Shia population. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis. Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images The small militant group that Baghdadi headed was one of dozens that sprouted from a broad Sunni revolt – many of which would soon come together under the flag of al-Qaida in Iraq, and then the Islamic State of Iraq. These were the precursors to the juggernaut now known simply as the Islamic State, which has, under Bagdhadi’s command, overrun much of the west and centre of the country and eastern Syria, and drawn the US military back to a deeply destabilised region less than three years after it left vowing never to return. But at the time of his stay at Bucca, Baghdadi’s group was little-known, and he was a far less significant figure than the insurgency’s notional leader, the merciless Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who came to represent the sum of all fears for many in Iraq, Europe and the US. Baghdadi, however, had a unique way to distinguish himself from the other aspiring leaders inside Bucca and outside on Iraq’s savage streets: a pedigree that allowed him to claim direct lineage to the Prophet Muhammed. He had also obtained a PhD in Islamic studies from the Islamic University of Baghdad, and would draw on both to legitimise his unprecedented claim to anoint himself caliph of the Islamic world in July 2014, which realised a sense of destiny evident in the prison yard a decade earlier. “Baghdadi was a quiet person,” said Abu Ahmed. “He has a charisma. You could feel that he was someone important. But there were others who were more important. I honestly did not think he would get this far.” Baghdadi also seemed to have a way with his captors. According to Abu Ahmed, and two other men who were jailed at Bucca in 2004, the Americans saw him as a fixer who could solve fractious disputes between competing factions and keep the camp quiet. “But as time went on, every time there was a problem in the camp, he was at the centre of it,” Abu Ahmed recalled. “He wanted to be the head of the prison – and when I look back now, he was using a policy of conquer and divide to get what he wanted, which was status. And it worked.” By December 2004, Baghdadi was deemed by his jailers to pose no further risk and his release was authorised. “He was respected very much by the US army,” Abu Ahmed said. “If he wanted to visit people in another camp he could, but we couldn’t. And all the while, a new strategy, which he was leading, was rising under their noses, and that was to build the Islamic State. If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no IS now. Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.” As Isis has rampaged through the region, it has been led by men who spent time in US detention centres during the American occupation of Iraq – in addition to Bucca, the US also ran Camp Cropper, near Baghdad airport, and, for an ill-fated 18 months early in the war, Abu Ghraib prison on the capital’s western outskirts. Many of those released from these prisons – and indeed, several senior American officers who ran detention operations – have admitted that the prisons had an incendiary effect on the insurgency. “I went to plenty of meetings where guys would come through and tell us how well it was all going,” said Ali Khedery, a special aide to all US ambassadors who served in Iraq from 2003-11, and to three US military commanders. But eventually even top American officers came to believe they had “actually become radicalising elements. They were counterproductive in many ways. They were being used to plan and organise, to appoint leaders and launch operations.” We wrote each other’s details on the elastic of our boxer shorts. When we got out, we called each other Abu Ahmed agreed. “In prison, all of the princes were meeting regularly. We became very close to those we were jailed with. We knew their capabilities. We knew what they could and couldn’t do, how to use them for whatever reason. The most important people in Bucca were those who had been close to Zarqawi. He was recognised in 2004 as being the leader of the jihad. “We had so much time to sit and plan,” he continued. “It was the perfect environment. We all agreed to get together when we got out. The way to reconnect was easy. We wrote each other’s details on the elastic of our boxer shorts. When we got out, we called. Everyone who was important to me was written on white elastic. I had their phone numbers, their villages. By 2009, many of us were back doing what we did before we were caught. But this time we were doing it better.” According to Hisham al-Hashimi, the Baghdad-based analyst, the Iraqi government estimates that 17 of the 25 most important Islamic State leaders running the war in Iraq and Syria spent time in US prisons between 2004 and 2011. Some were transferred from American custody to Iraqi prisons, where a series of jailbreaks in the last several years allowed many senior leaders to escape and rejoin the insurgent ranks. Abu Ghraib was the scene of the biggest – and most damaging – breakout in 2013, with up to 500 inmates, many of them senior jihadists handed over by the departing US military, fleeing in July of that year after the prison was stormed by Islamic State forces, who launched a simultaneous, and equally successful, raid on nearby Taji prison. Iraq’s government closed Abu Ghraib in April 2014 and it now stands empty, 15 miles from Baghdad’s western outskirts, near the frontline between Isis and Iraq’s security forces, who seem perennially under-prepared as they stare into the heat haze shimmering over the highway that leads towards the badlands of Falluja and Ramadi. Parts of both cities have become a no-go zone for Iraq’s beleaguered troops, who have been battered and humiliated by Isis, a group of marauders unparalleled in Mesopotamia since the time of the Mongols. When I visited the abandoned prison late this summer, a group of disinterested Iraqi forces sat at a checkpoint on the main road to Baghdad, eating watermelon as the distant rumble of shellfire sounded in the distance. The imposing walls of Abu Ghraib were behind them, and their jihadist enemies were staked out further down the road. The revelation of abuses at Abu Ghraib had a radicalising effect on many Iraqis, who saw the purported civility of American occupation as little improvement on the tyranny of Saddam. While Bucca had few abuse complaints prior to its closure in 2009, it was seen by Iraqis as a potent symbol of an unjust policy, which swept up husbands, fathers, and sons – some of them non-combatants – in regular neighbourhood raids, and sent them away to prison for months or years. At the time, the US military countered that its detention operations were valid, and that similar practices had been deployed by other forces against insurgencies – such as the British in Northern Ireland, the Israelis in Gaza and the West Bank, and the Syrian and Egyptian regimes. An Islamic State fighter in Raqqa, Iraq. Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand An Islamic State militant in Raqqa, Iraq. Photograph: Reuters Even now, five years after the US closed down Bucca, the Pentagon defends the camp as an example of lawful policy for a turbulent time. “During operations in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, US Forces held thousands of Law of War detainees,” said Lt Col Myles B Caggins III, a US Department of Defense spokesman for detainee policy. “These type of detentions are common practice during armed conflict. Detaining potentially dangerous people is the legal and humane method of providing security and stability for civilian populations.” * * * Some time after Baghdadi was released from Bucca, Abu Ahmed was also freed. After being flown to Baghdad airport, he was picked up by men he had met in Bucca. They took him to a home in the west of the capital, where he immediately rejoined the jihad, which had transformed from a fight against an occupying army into a vicious and unrestrained war against Iraqi Shia. Death squads were by then roaming Baghdad and much of central Iraq, killing members of opposite sects with routine savagery and exiling residents from neighbourhoods they dominated. The capital had quickly become a very different place to the city Abu Ahmed had left a year earlier. But with the help of new arrivals at Bucca, those inside the prison had been able to monitor every new development in the unfolding sectarian war. Abu Ahmed knew the environment he was returning to. And his camp commanders had plans for him. The first thing he did when he was safe in west Baghdad was to undress, then carefully take a pair of scissors to his underwear. “I cut the fabric from my boxers and all the numbers were there. We reconnected. And we got to work.” Across Iraq, other ex-inmates were doing the same. “It really was that simple,” Abu Ahmed said, smiling for the first time in our conversation as he recalled how his captors had been outwitted. “Boxers helped us win the war.” Zarqawi wanted a 9/11 moment to escalate the conflict – something that would take the fight to the heart of the enemy, Abu Ahmed recalled. In Iraq, that meant one of two targets – a seat of Shia power or, even better, a defining religious symbol. In February 2006, and again two months later, Zarqawi’s bombers destroyed the Imam al-Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. The sectarian war was fully ignited and Zarqawi’s ambitions realised. Asked about the merits of this violent provocation, Abu Ahmed paused for the first time in our many conversations. “There was a reason for opening this war,” he said. “It was not because they are Shia, but because the Shia were pushing for it. The American army was facilitating the takeover of Iraq and giving the country to them. They were in cooperation with each other.” He then reflected on the man who gave the orders. “Zarqawi was very smart. He was the best strategist that the Islamic State has had. Abu Omar [al-Baghdadi] was ruthless,” Abu Ahmed said, referring to Zarqawi’s successor, who was killed in a US-led raid in April 2010. “And Abu Bakr is the most bloodthirsty of all. “After Zarqawi was killed, the people who liked killing even more than him became very important in the organisation. Their understanding of sharia and of humanity was very cheap. They don’t understand the Tawheed (the Koranic concept of God’s oneness) the way it was meant to be understood. The Tawheed should not have been forced by war.” Despite reservations that were already starting to stir, by 2006, Abu Ahmed had become part of a killing machine that would operate at full speed for much of the following two years. Millions of citizens were displaced, neighbourhoods were cleansed along sectarian lines, and an entire population numbed by unchecked brutality. That summer, the US finally caught up with Zarqawi, with the help of Jordanian intelligence, killing him in an airstrike north of Baghdad. From late 2006, the organisation was on the back foot – hampered by a tribal revolt that uprooted its leadership from Anbar and shrank its presence elsewhere in Iraq. But according to Abu Ahmed, the group used the opportunity to evolve, revealing a pragmatism in addition to its hardline ideology. For Isis, the relatively quiet years between 2008 and 2011 represented a lull, not a defeat. By this time, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had risen steadily through the group to become a trusted aide to its leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, and his deputy, the Egyptian jihadist Abu Ayub al-Masri. It was at this point, Abu Ahmed said, that Isis made an approach to the Ba’athist remnants of the old regime – ideological opponents who shared a common enemy in the US and the Shia-led government it backed. Earlier incarnations of Isis had dabbled with the Ba’athists, who lost everything when Saddam was ousted, under the same premise that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. But by early 2008, Abu Ahmed and other sources said, these meetings had become far more frequent – and many of them were taking place in Syria. Syria’s links to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq had been regularly raised by US officials in Baghdad and by the Iraqi government. Both were convinced that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, allowed jihadists to fly into Damascus airport, where military officials would escort them to the border with Iraq. “All the foreigners I knew got into Iraq that way,” Abu Ahmed told me. “It was no secret.” * * * From 2008, when the US began to negotiate the transition of its powers to Iraq’s feeble security institutions – and therefore pave the way to its own exit – the Americans increasingly turned to only a few trusted figures in the Iraqi government. One of them was Major General Hussein Ali Kamal, the director of intelligence in the country’s Interior Ministry. A secular Kurd who had the trust of the Shia establishment, one of Kamal’s many duties was to secure Baghdad against terror attacks. Like the Americans, General Kamal was convinced that Syria was destabilising Iraq, an assessment based on the interrogations of jihadists who had been captured by his troops. Throughout 2009, in a series of interviews, Kamal laid out his evidence, using maps that plotted the routes used by jihadists to cross the border into western Iraq, and confessions that linked their journeys to specific mid-ranking officers in Syrian military intelligence. Seventeen of the 25 most important Islamic State leaders now running the war in Iraq and Syria spent time in US prisons As Isis activity ebbed in Iraq, he had become increasingly obsessed with two meetings that had taken place in Syria early in 2009, which brought together Iraqi jihadists, Syrian officials and Ba’athists from both countries. (Kamal, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2012, died earlier this year, and authorised me to publish details of our conversations. “Just tell the truth,” he said during our last interview in June 2014.) When I first met him in 2009, he was poring over transcripts of recordings that had been made at two secret meetings in Zabadani, near Damascus, in the spring of that year. The attendees included senior Iraqi Ba’athists who had taken refuge in Damascus since their patron Saddam was ousted, Syrian military intelligence officers, and senior figures in what was then known as al-Qaida in Iraq. The Syrians had developed links to the jihadists since the earliest days of the anti-US insurgency and had used them to unsettle the Americans and their plans for Iraq. “By early in 2004/05, Islamic elements, jihadists and disenfranchised Ba’athists were starting to get together,” said Ali Khedery, the former adviser to American ambassadors and senior commanders in Bagdhad. “They were naturally disciplined, well organised people who knew the lay of the land. And over time, some folks who were Ba’athists became more and more Islamist and the insurgency raged. By 2007, General [David] Petraeus was saying there was crystal clear intelligence of cooperation between Syrian military intelligence and the jihadists. Though the motivations never really aligned 100%.” In our conversations, Abu Ahmed emphasised the Syrian connection to Iraq’s insurgency. “The mujahideen all came through Syria,” he said. “I worked with many of them. Those in Bucca had flown to Damascus. A very small number had made it from Turkey, or Iran. But most came to Iraq with the help of the Syrians.” The supply line was viewed by Iraqi officials as an existential threat to Iraq’s government and was the main source of the poisonous relationship between Nouri al-Maliki, then Iraq’s prime minister, and Bashar al-Assad. Maliki had become convinced early in the civil war that Assad was trying to undermine his regime as a way to embarrass the Americans, and the evidence he saw in 2009 from the meeting in Damascus took his loathing of the Syrian leader to a whole new level. “We had a source in the room wearing a wire,” at the meeting in Zabadani, General Kamal told me at the time. “He is the most sensitive source we have ever had. As far as we know, this is the first time there has been a strategic level meeting between all of these groups. It marks a new point in history.” The Ba’athists present led the meeting. Their aim, according to General Kamal’s source, was to launch a series of spectacular attacks in Baghdad and thereby undermine Maliki’s Shia-majority government, which had for the first time begun to assert some order in post-civil war Iraq. Until then, al-Qaida in Iraq and the Ba’athists had been fierce ideological enemies, but the rising power of the Shias – and their backers in Iran – brought them together to plan a major strike on the capital. By July 2009, the Interior Ministry had increased security at all checkpoints across the Tigris river into Baghdad, making a commute at any time of day even more insufferable than normal. And then General Kamal received a message from his source in Syria. The extra security at the bridges had been spotted by the attack plotters, he said. New targets were being chosen, but he didn’t know what they were, or when they would be hit. For the next two weeks, Kamal worked well into the evening in his fortified office in the southern suburb of Arasat, before being sped by armoured convoy across the July 14 Bridge – which had been a target only days earlier – to his home inside the Green Zone. For the rest of the month, General Kamal spent several hours each scorching night sweating it out on a treadmill, hoping that the exercise would clear his head and get him ahead of the attackers. “I may be losing weight, but I’m not finding the terrorists,” he told me during our last conversation before the attackers finally struck. “I know they’re planning something big.” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 when he was the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. Photograph: AP On the morning of 19 August, the first of three flat-bed trucks carrying three large 1000-litre water tanks, each filled with explosives, detonated on an overpass outside the Finance Ministry in south-eastern Baghdad. The blast sent a rumble across the Emerald City, raising desert soil that caked homes brown, and sending thousands of pigeons scattering through the sky. Three minutes later, a second enormous bomb blew up outside the Foreign Ministry on the northern edge of the Green Zone. Shortly after that, a third blast hit a police convoy near the Finance Ministry. More than 101 people were killed and nearly 600 wounded; it was one of the deadliest attacks in the six-year-old Iraqi insurgency. “I failed,” Kamal told me that day. “We all failed.” Within hours, he was summoned to meet Maliki and his security chiefs. The prime minister was livid. “He told me to present what I had to the Syrians,” Kamal later said. “We arranged with Turkey to act as a mediator and I flew to Ankara to meet with them. I took this file” – he tapped a thick white folder on his desk – “and they could not argue with what we showed them. The case was completely solid and the Syrians knew it. Ali Mamlouk [the head of Syrian general security] was there. All he did was look at me smiling and say ‘I will not recognise any official from a country that is under US occupation’. It was a waste of time.” Iraq recalled its ambassador to Damascus, and Syria ordered its envoy to Baghdad home in retaliation. Throughout the rest of the year, and into early 2010, relations between Maliki and Assad remained toxic. In March 2010, Iraqi forces, acting on a US tip, arrested an Islamic State leader named Munaf Abdul Rahim al-Rawi, who was revealed to be one of the group’s main commanders in Baghdad, and one of the very few people who had access to the group’s then leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Al-Rawi talked. And in a rare moment of collaboration, Iraq’s three main intelligence bodies, including General Kamal’s Intelligence Division, conspired to get a listening device and GPS location tracker in a flower box delivered to Abu Omar’s hideout. After it was confirmed that Abu Omar and his deputy, Abu Ayub al-Masri, were present at a house six miles south-west of Tikrit, it was attacked in a US-led raid. Both men detonated suicide vests to avoid being captured. Messages to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were found on a computer inside the house. Much like Bin Laden’s safe house in Pakistan, where he would be killed a little more than a year later, Abu Omar’s hideout had no internet connections or telephone lines – all important messages were carried in and out by only three men. One of them was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “Abu Bakr was a messenger for Abu Omar,” Abu Ahmed told me. “He became the closest aide to him. The messages that got to Osama bin Laden were sometimes drafted by him and their journey always started with him. When Abu Omar was killed, Abu Bakr was made leader. That time we all had in Bucca became very important again.” The deaths of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayub al-Masri were a serious blow to Isis, but the roles they had vacated were quickly filled by the alumni of Camp Bucca – whose upper echelons had begun preparing for this moment since their time behind the wire of their jail in southern Iraq. “For us it was an academy,” Abu Ahmed said, “but for them” – the senior leaders – “it was a management school. There wasn’t a void at all, because so many people had been mentored in prison. “When [the civil war in] Syria became serious,” he continued, “it wasn’t difficult to transfer all that expertise to a different battle zone. The Iraqis are the most important people on the military and Shura councils in Isis now, and that is because of all of those years preparing for such an event. I underestimated Baghdadi. And America underestimated the role it played in making him what he is.” * * * Abu Ahmed remains a member of Isis; he is active in the group’s operations in both Iraq and Syria. Throughout our discussions, he portrayed himself as a man reluctant to stay with the group, and yet unwilling to risk any attempt to leave. Life with Isis means power, money, wives and status – all attractive lures for young firebrands with a cause - but it also means killing and dominating for a worldview in which he no longer believes so fervently. He said hundreds of young men like him, who were drawn to a Sunni jihad after the US invasion, do not believe that the latest manifestation of the decade-long war remains true to its origins. Iraqi detainees sleeping outside their tents in Camp Bucca, Iraq Facebook Twitter Pinterest expand Iraqi detainees sleeping outside their tents in Camp Bucca, Iraq. Photograph: David Furst/AFP/Getty Images “The biggest mistake I made is to join them,” Abu Ahmed said, but added that leaving the group would mean that he and his family would certainly be killed. Staying and enforcing the group’s brutal vision, despite partially disavowing it, does not trouble Abu Ahmed, who sees himself as having few other options. “It’s not that I don’t believe in Jihad,” he said. “I do,” he continued, his voice trailing away. “But what options do I have? If I leave, I am dead.” The arc of his involvement with what is now the world’s most menacing terrorist group mirrors many others who now hold senior positions in the group: first a battle against an invading army, then a score to be settled with an ancient sectarian foe, and now, a war that could be acting out an end of days prophecy. In the world of the Bucca alumni, there is little room for revisionism, or reflection. Abu Ahmed seems to feel himself swept along by events that are now far bigger than him, or anyone else. “There are others who are not ideologues,” he said, referring to senior Isis members close to Baghdadi. “People who started out in Bucca, like me. And then it got bigger than any of us. This can’t be stopped now. This is out of the control of any man. Not Baghdadi, or anyone else in his circle.” Martin Chulov covers the Middle East for the Guardian. He has reported from the region since 2005. Additional reporting by Salaam Riazk Follow the Long Read on Twitter: @gdnlongread

U.S. military chief says battle with IS starting to turn: To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers

Ambassadors of Gulf Arab states to return to Qatar By ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI Nov. 16, 2014 7:46 PM EST Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani FILE - In this Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011, file photo, Qatar's crown prince, Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al... Read RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain said Monday they will reinstate their ambassadors to Qatar after withdrawing them in an unprecedented move eight months ago. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which also includes Kuwait and Oman, had been rattled by the rift in relations that was widely seen as a result of Qatar's support for Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. The UAE and Saudi Arabia perceive the Brotherhood as a threat to their political systems. Both have branded the 86 year-old organization as a "terrorist group". After several rounds of high-level talks and months of pressure, Qatar recently forced top Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood figures to leave and seek refuge elsewhere. Additionally, pro-Brotherhood cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi has not appeared on the pulpit in Qatar since ambassadors were withdrawn. State media and government-linked commentators across the Gulf had been calling for an end to the diplomatic spat in the face of emerging threats from the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, are playing a role in the U.S.-led military coalition conducting airstrikes against the extremist group. The decision to reinstate ambassadors came after rulers of the GCC member-states met in an emergency session in Saudi Arabia late Sunday. Among those present were Saudi King Abdullah and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The GCC leadership said the meeting was called to "consolidate the spirit of sincere cooperation, to confirm the mutual destiny and aspirations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the unity of its people and close rapprochement." The statement, released after midnight Monday, heralded the "opening of a new page" in relations with the reinstatement of ambassadors. The move paves the way for the GCC's annual summit to be held in Doha, Qatar next month. A regional security agreement drawn up late last year had called on Qatar to stop supporting organizations that threaten the Gulf's stability and to stop interfering in other nations' politics. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain said in March that withdrawing their ambassadors was a move to protect their security. The oil-rich Gulf neighbors are strong supporters of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who was elected this year after leading a crushing military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. ===================== U.S. hostage Peter Kassig is killed by Islamic State Sun, Nov 16 20:27 PM EST image 1 of 6 By Mariam Karouny BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State militants have beheaded another American hostage, Peter Kassig, issuing a video claiming the killing on Sunday and warning the United States they would kill other U.S. citizens "on your streets." U.S. President Barack Obama confirmed the death of the aid worker in what he called "an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity." The announcement of Kassig's death, the fifth such killing of a Western captive by the group, formed part of a 15-minute video posted online in which Islamic State showed the beheadings of at least 14 men it said were pilots and officers loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Kassig, 26, from Indiana, was also known as Abdul-Rahman, a name he took after converting to Islam in captivity. His family has said he was taken captive on his way to the Syrian city of Deir al-Zor on Oct. 1, 2013. “We are heartbroken to learn that our son, Abdul-Rahman Peter Kassig, has lost his life as a result of his love for the Syrian people and his desire to ease their suffering," Ed and Paula Kassig said in a statement. "Our heart also goes out to the families of the Syrians who lost their lives, along with our son." The video did not show the beheading of Kassig, who previously served in the U.S. Army, but showed a masked man standing with a decapitated head covered in blood at his feet. Speaking in English in a British accent, the man says: "This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen." The video appeared on a jihadist website and on Twitter feeds used by Islamic State. In a statement to reporters on Air Force One on his way home from a G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Obama praised Kassig's humanitarian work and offered condolences to his family. BRITISH ACCENT The man in the video spoke with the same southern British accent as the killer of previous hostages, dubbed "Jihadi John" by British media. He was believed to have been wounded in an air attack on an IS leaders' meeting in Iraq near the Syrian border earlier this month, some media reports have said. French daily Le Figaro said on its website that the French Interior Ministry was studying the possibility of the presence of a French national among the Islamic State militants involved in the beheadings shown in the video. In the video, a masked militant says: "To Obama, the dog of Rome, today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers," in a prediction that Washington would send more troops to the region to fight Islamic State. "And with Allah's permission ... the Islamic State will soon ... begin to slaughter your people in your streets." The format of the video was different from previous such announcements, showing other beheadings in graphic detail, and also showing most of the killers unmasked. The purported location also was disclosed as the northern Syrian town of Dabeq. An Islamic State supporter in Syria contacted by Reuters said: "The message is very clear. This is what the West understands. They think they can scare us with their planes and their bombs. No, not us. We are out to impose the religion of God and, by his will, we will." Kassig was doing humanitarian work through Special Emergency Response and Assistance, an organization he founded in 2012 to help Syrian refugees, the family has said. Obama said Kassig's life stood in stark contrast to the values represented by Islamic State, adding he was a "humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict." Islamic State's "actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own," Obama added. Islamic State previously killed U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning. The masked militant, who appeared to be the leader of a beheading squad, said Kassig was buried in Dabeq, near the Turkish border. "Here we are burying the first American crusader in Dabeq. Eagerly waiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive," he says. Western leaders and officials condemned the killing. British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was horrified by the "cold-blooded murder." The beheadings of the Syrian personnel were filmed in death squad style, with militants standing behind a kneeling man in a dark blue overall. In slow motion shots, each of the militants is shown drawing a knife from a box on the side of the road. (Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Lin Noueihed, Kylie MacLellan, Karey Van Hall, Geert De Clercq, Jane Wardell and Viktor Szary, Mark Hosenball, Alina Selyukh and Bill Trott; Editing by William Maclean, Janet Lawrence, Giles Elgood, Eric Walsh and Frances Kerry) ============================= U.S. military chief says battle with IS starting to turn Sat, Nov 15 16:41 PM EST image 1 of 4 By Phil Stewart BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States' top military officer told American troops on a surprise visit to Baghdad on Saturday that the momentum in the battle with Islamic State was "starting to turn", but predicted a drawn-out campaign lasting several years. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visiting Iraq for the first time since President Barack Obama responded to Islamic State advances this summer by ordering troops back into a country they left in 2011. Hours earlier, an Iraqi army colonel said security forces appeared close to retaking the country's biggest refinery at Baiji, which has been under siege for months by Islamic State militants. Obama last week authorized roughly doubling the number of American ground forces as the military expands the reach of its advisers after slowing the militants' advances with U.S. airstrikes. Dempsey told the troops the U.S. military had helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces "pull Iraq back from the precipice". ((1. An overhanging or extremely steep mass of rock, such as a crag or the face of a cliff. 2. The brink of a dangerous or disastrous situation: on the precipice of defeat.)) "And now, I think it's starting to turn. So well done," Dempsey told a group of Marines at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Reuters accompanied him on the trip. Islamic State has captured swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria, where the United States is also conducting air strikes with its allies in pursuit of Obama's declared objective to "degrade and destroy" the militants. CHALLENGES REMAIN Dempsey said it had been crucial to show Islamic State was not an unstoppable, 10-foot-tall force and instead "a bunch of midgets running around with a really radical ideology". He was hardly triumphant, however. Earlier, he visited a Joint Operations Center and watched a live video feed of a location showing Islamic State's black flag waving. Thirty-six people were kidnapped by Islamic State in western Iraq on Saturday, security sources said, members of the same tribe massacred in the hundreds by the group recently. Mortar attacks on oil and gas facilities wounded two people near the northern city of Kirkuk, oil officials said. Dempsey repeatedly made the point that military force could not root out Islamic State unless Iraq's government manages to work across the Sunni-Shi'ite divide. Building trust would take time. So would the U.S. mission, he said. "How long? Several years," said Dempsey. Dempsey, who also met top Iraqi officials, told Reuters he wanted to find out whether the Iraqis believed they could win recruits for a program the United States hopes to get under way next year to re-train Iraqi units. "I want to get a sense from them on whether they believe our timeline is feasible," Dempsey said. About 1,400 U.S. troops are now in Iraq. Obama's new authorization allows for deployment of up to 3,100. After meeting senior Iraqi officials in Baghdad including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Dempsey traveled to Arbil, capital of the Kurdistan semi-autonomous region in the north. U.S. troops will also train Kurdish forces. (Editing by Michael Georgy, Sonya Hepinstall and Mark Trevelyan)

Twitter provides one of the few forums in which Saudis can discuss what they really feel - and it says they blame the clergy for Isis

At least 20 killed in suicide bombing in Yemeni capital - Reuters witness Thu, Oct 09 02:33 AM EDT SANAA (Reuters) - At least 20 people were killed on Thursday in a suicide attack in the center of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a Reuters witness said. The witness counted at least 20 bodies after the attack in Tahrir Square in central Sanaa. Many other people were wounded in the attack, other witnesses said. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Louise Ireland) ============================= Baghdad (AFP) - A car bomb blast on a busy street of Baghdad's largest Shiite neighbourhood killed at least 12 people, Iraqi police and medical sources said on Thursday. The bomb, which exploded near a cafe in Sadr City late Wednesday, also left at least 33 people wounded, the sources said. The sprawling northeastern district is hit by suicide, roadside and other bombs almost every week. According to the United Nations, more than 1,110 people were killed in acts of violence across Iraq last month. While the bloodshed has been mainly on the frontlines where federal, Kurdish and allied forces battle the Islamic State jihadist group, blasts and executions in Baghdad continue to take a heavy toll. ================= Patrick Cockburn Sunday 5 October 2014 Twitter provides one of the few forums in which Saudis can discuss what they really feel - and it says they blame the clergy for Isis World View: The social network's free discussion contrasts with Riyadh's official line on the rise of radicals What is the connection between Saudi Arabia and the rise of the Islamic State (Isis) militants? Did the Saudi state and the Gulf monarchies foster the growth of Isis and other jihadi movements in Syria only to find they had created a Frankenstein monster that today threatens the political status quo? Is the House of Saud itself in danger? Such questions are increasingly asked around the world, not least in Saudi Arabia, as the government appears to reverse course by joining the US-run bombing campaign against Isis in Syria. How do people in Saudi Arabia, outside the ruling elite, view Isis and its demand for their allegiance? Ordinary Saudis are best placed to judge the extent to which Wahhabi ideology, the Wahhabi clergy and the Saudi education system have contributed to the creation and growth of Isis. Hitherto, the rigorous control of media and information in Saudi Arabia has meant that popular views, dissident or approving, are seldom heard. Control over opinion is tight, but it is not total. Twitter provides one of the few forums in which Saudis can discuss what they really feel, which may explain why use of Twitter is more common in the Kingdom than in the US or China, taking into account the different levels of population. A fascinating analysis of attitudes to Isis in Saudi Arabia, as revealed by tweets, has just been carried out by Dr Fouad J Kadhem, a researcher at the Centre of Academic Shia Studies in London, in a draft paper to be published soon. Many, though by no means all Saudis, applauded during the summer as Isis swept through northern Iraq and eastern Syria. Mani'a bin Nasir al-Mani tweeted approvingly: "The great land of Allah belongs neither to kings nor to nations. Those who deserve the caliphate are those who implement the Sharia of Allah on the earth and on people. Apostates and traitors deserve nothing but the sword." Later, al-Mani himself goes to Syria to join the forces of Islamic State. Those commenting on events in the months since Isis took Mosul on 10 June are conscious that Saudi Arabia will not remain immune from the crisis. One hashtag is titled: "what do you do if Isis enters Saudi Arabia". It should be explained that tweets refer to Isis as "Daesh", after the Arab acronym of its name, or simply to "Islamic State". Supporters of Isis often express antagonism towards the Saudi government and suggest that Isis has many sympathisers within the Kingdom. Abdul Hakim al-Falih writes that "by the will of Allah, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi [the leader of Isis and self-declared caliph] accompanied by the soldiers of the Islamic caliphate, to teach the [Saudi] police a proper Eid [religious festival]." If there are Isis supporters in Saudi Arabia, how numerous are they? A person calling himself Azf Minfarad declares "no need [for Isis] to enter …Our country is full of them". A similar point is made by

"Fata al-Arab": "Islamic State is on the Saudi borders and its supporters inside Saudi Arabia are more than its organised members and armed fighters."

With regard to the ideology of Isis, several people comment that this has long been present in Saudi Arabia. "Luma" says: "It's normal: all our life we have lived with Isis and its thoughts, its schools and its curriculum."

Evidence of the similarity between Wahhabism and Isis is that in the third of Syria seized by Isis, it is plagiarising Saudi textbooks for use in schools. A few Saudis think there is poetic justice in the threat facing their country, one person calling himself

"Aqil Hur" (Free Mind) saying simply "magic rebounds on the magician" or, in other words, the tables have turned.

Education and religious policy – and the Wahhabi clergy – are widely blamed for spreading extremism.

Souad al-Shimmary replies to his own question "Where did Daesh come from?" saying "it's our product returned to us". Rajah al-Jihni puts the blame squarely on the education system in Saudi. He says, "your schools are the ones that produce Daesh … what are you waiting for when you seek this educational policy?"

There are interesting critical comments about the case of Faisal Shaman al-Anizy, a Saudi doctor who joined Isis in Iraq. Many condemn him for taking part in fighting against innocent people and blame Wahhabi preachers for turning him into a suicide bomber. Abdullah al-Kwalit tweets "you [the Saudi government] should punish these snakes [preachers] … Allah dam[n] them". And Halimah asks what was it that turned "a doctor who treats patients into a killer who bombed the bodies of innocent people". The Wahhabi clergy are not given to self-criticism, but

Adil al-Kalbani, a Wahhabi shaikh, who has for many years led prayers as an Imam of the Holy Shrine in Mecca, says that "Isis is a Salafi [fundamentalist] offshoot … a reality we should confront with transparency". Commenting on this admission, Abu Hamza al-Masa'ary says that IS is the fruit of "the tree of Wah[h]abi preaching".

But it is the Saudi education system that critics return to again and again. Wael al-Qaim says "they did not teach me that one day what we are learning will be implanted by Daesh and its offshoots". Somebody else suggests the Saudi state borrow a curriculum from neighbouring Oman which teaches "tolerance and religious pluralism" in order to eliminate Isis ideology. A more radical commentator, "Arabic Batman", says changing the education curriculum is not enough and instead calls for "kicking the al-Saud out of the country". Tweeters from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority say that they feel excluded and discriminated against. One recent issue is a Saudi Ministry of Education order to withdraw a book designed for elementary schools that accidentally showed a Shia religious man on the front cover. Naji al-Zayed says that "the good thing about this incident is that it revealed the hypocrisy of [the claim there is] equality among [Saudi] citizens and the reality of sectarian discrimination". To this, Nidhal Mom writes, "as a Shia … they were fair to me, as they taught me that I am an infidel, libertine and it's their obligation to fight me". There are signs that in the past few months the Saudi state has become even more rigorous in enforcing Islamic law – sharia – and clamping down on non-Muslim religious practice, possibly to show that it is no less committed to sharia than Isis. In August some 22 people were beheaded, including one man who was accused of "sorcery" and another who had been diagnosed as mentally ill, compared with 79 last year. On 5 September, Saudi police raided a house in Khafji, near Kuwait, charging 27 Asian Christians with holding a church service. Many Saudi tweeters were outraged by this, Shadyah Kazandar asking "will we tolerate raids on our mosques, which are located in every corner of the globe". Dr Khadem says the significance of the Twitter discussion is that "the extremist trend within Saudi society" is still very active. But liberal and moderate Saudis are increasingly confident enough to make their voices heard.

The Arab War on Terror

US bombs IS jihadists in Syria: Pentagon Friendly Capitals using World's and Arab's to justify launching another War on Syria. Enough to know #FriendsOfSyria, #EnemyCapitals Washington (AFP) - The United States and "partners" have launched bombing raids against Islamic State extremists in Syria, the Pentagon said. "I can confirm that US military and partner nation forces are undertaking military action against ISIL (Islamic State group) terrorists in Syria using a mix of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles," spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement. The decision to conduct the air strikes was undertaken earlier on Monday by the head of US Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, "under authorization granted him by the commander in chief," Kirby said. "We will provide more details later as operationally appropriate." The bombing raids, including Tomahawk missiles fired from naval warships at sea, came after President Barack Obama warned in a speech on September 10 that the United States was prepared to attack IS militants in Syria. Washington began air strikes against IS targets in Iraq on August 8. ======= Obama's Middle East allies are signing up for the fight against the Islamic State. But it's not for the reason you think. BY James Traub SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 Arab states have a new defining cause: the war on terror. Almost four years ago, popular uprisings across the region upended an old order and created a new set of aspirations and a new collective meaning. That was the Arab Spring; save in Tunisia, where the spirit survives, it lasted for two years at the most before giving way to chaos and violence, backlash and regret. What was the new meaning and direction of the Arab world? At the time, no one could be sure. Now, however, it's become clear. The imperative -- the felt imperative, that is -- to fight terrorism has relegated the demands for personal dignity and political rights to the quaint preoccupation of youthful malcontents. I've just returned from a long visit to Alexandria (of which I'll have much to say in a subsequent piece) and it's clear that the one thing all parties in Egypt agree on, save for the malcontents, is the need to stand united against the terrorist menace. This is not, however, exactly the same menace that Americans worry about. When Egyptians say, "We're in a terrorist phase now," they are referring not to the Islamic State (IS) but to Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has been killing policemen and soldiers in the Sinai; to the Muslim Brotherhood, which they see as the political face of jihadi violence; and to the civil war next door in Libya. Sameh Shoukry, Egypt's foreign minister, recently denied that Cairo has agreed even to join the U.S.-organized military campaign against IS. "The mission of the Egyptian army is to protect the Egyptian people and the country's borders," he said tartly. Let's take a tour of the region: Lebanon is now scared stiff about the Islamic State, which has beheaded two captive Lebanese soldiers, but it's just as worried about other Islamist groups which have crossed the border from Syria, including al-Nusra Front. The Emiratis fear IS, and are eager to join the American coalition, but they're so worried about the Islamists in Libya, fighting under the name Libyan Dawn, that, along with Egypt, they have reportedly bombed rebel forces there (to no discernible effect). The Turks fear IS, but not much more than they fear the Kurdish separatists who might take advantage of an anti-jihadist coalition to press their own campaign for independence. The Saudis may have agreed to host training bases for moderate Syrian rebels, but they fear Iran more than anyone. It's no wonder that Secretary of State John Kerry got such an equivocal response when he toured the Middle East looking for expressions of support. I recently raised this issue with a senior diplomat from a Gulf country, who said, "Our fears for the region obviously go beyond IS." He's not sure his American friends share those fears. "Is this a one-off?" he asks, "Or are we going to see a true partnership to go after terrorism?" It's a fair question: Why should Arab states lend their support to America's bête noire if the United States won't reciprocate? bête noire One that is particularly disliked or that is to be avoided: The problem, however, is the way regional states define the swamp which they would like the United States to help them drain. The chief swamp-dweller is the Muslim Brotherhood. Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have banned the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The UAE convicted 69 Brotherhood members of plotting to overthrow the state. In Egypt, it is an article of faith shared by secularists and Salafists alike that the Brotherhood is responsible, directly or indirectly, for terrorist violence and sabotage -- despite the lack of evidence tying the organization to Ansar Beit's murderous campaign. The great organizing principle of the current Egyptian regime is simply this: Crush the Brotherhood. The Gulf diplomat I spoke to was quite explicit on this score. The Brotherhood and al Qaeda, he said, "are shades of the same thing." The Brotherhood is "a gateway to further extremism." When he asks whether the United States sees Libya as "another domino," as those in the region do, he is asking in part whether Washington understands that the Brotherhood is seeking to knock over regional dominoes, as American policymakers once said about international communism. The answer is no. Barack Obama offered American support to Mohammed Morsi of the Brotherhood when the Egyptian people elected him president. It seemed, at the time, like an important endorsement of the right of Egyptians to decide for themselves who should lead the country. Administration officials quickly concluded that Morsi was a complete incompetent, but he was obviously no terrorist. In fact, Morsi proved to be a useful and effective interlocutor with Hamas. Since then, neither he nor the other Brotherhood leaders who have been jailed and now face the death penalty based on absurdly trumped-up charges have called on their followers to take up arms against the state. Despite decades of repression, the Brotherhood has never deviated from a policy of nonviolent change. The organization has been singled out in part because of its own secrecy and parochialism, as well as its endorsement of violence when practiced by allies like Hamas. It is also the object of a paranoia Americans will quickly recognize as a new form of the Red Menace. The terrorism label increasingly looks like a flimsy rationale for authoritarian control. After the European Union used a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council to call for a "thorough, independent and transparent investigation" of the killing of several thousand protestors by Egyptian security forces since the overthrow of the Brotherhood government in July 2013, Egyptian officials accused the Europeans of adopting a hypocritical "double standard" that called on Cairo to join the fight against terrorism while undermining its efforts to do so. Foreign Minister Shoukry summoned EU ambassadors to personally object to the "negative message" they had conveyed. Americans are probably in no position to criticize Arab states for overreacting to the terrorist threat by adopting harsh domestic legislation. If the United States whipped through the Patriot Act and gave itself leave to waterboard suspected terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11, how surprised can we be that nations with no tradition of democracy criminalize dissent and prohibit demonstrations, as Egypt is in the process of doing? Nevertheless, it's deeply disheartening to see the dark mass of the national security state so utterly eclipse the beautiful celebration of freedom that adorned the public spaces of the Arab world only a few years ago. What's more, the brutal reaction to dissent is surely self-defeating in the long run. Killing unarmed Islamist protestors has proved to be surprisingly popular among Egyptians, but doing so is far likelier to foster terrorism than to deter it. And it undermines the new war on terror by conflating domestic political rivals with a genuine transnational threat. The Arab world really does face a growing threat of terrorist violence; it really does need to forge a partnership with the West to confront the Islamic State as well as more localized forces. But the West is not about to join a campaign to crush political opponents on the pretext of fighting terrorism. Egypt and its new friends in the Gulf will have to do that on their own. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP