U.S. deploying new force to Iraq to boost fight against Islamic State

Tue Dec 1, 2015 | 8:06 PM EST 2:59 PM EST | 01:57 U.S. sending new force to Iraq to hit ISIS By Phil Stewart and Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it was deploying a new force of special operations troops to Iraq to conduct raids against Islamic State there and in neighboring Syria, a ratcheting up of Washington's campaign against the group that met a cool reaction in Iraq. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the deployment of the new "specialized expeditionary targeting force" was being carried out in coordination with Iraq's government and would aid Iraqi government security forces and Kurdish peshmerga forces. "These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture ISIL leaders," Carter told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, using an acronym for Islamic State. "This force will also be in a position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria." Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued a statement stressing that foreign ground combat troops were not needed in Iraq and that deployment of foreign forces could not happen without Iraqi approval. Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim armed groups pledged to fight any such deployment of U.S. forces to the country. Jafaar Hussaini, a spokesman for Kata'ib Hezbollah, one of the main Shi'ite militant groups, said that any such U.S. force would become a "primary target for our group." "We fought them before and we are ready to resume fighting," he said. An Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plan to deploy the special operations forces unit to Iraq was discussed and agreed with the government of Iraq before Carter's announcement. Officials noted that Carter, speaking to Congress, stressed that any U.S. operations by the unit in Iraq would be carried out at the invitation of the Iraqi government. Iraqi Shi'ite militias pledge to fight U.S. forces if deployed EXPANDING U.S. OPERATIONS While the force is expected to number only about 200, its creation marks the latest stepping up of U.S. military pressure on Islamic State while also exposing American forces to greater risk, something President Barack Obama has done only sparingly. The force is separate from a previously announced deployment of up to 50 U.S. special operations troops in Syria to coordinate on the ground with U.S.-backed rebels fighting in a civil war raging since 2011. Obama is under pressure to accelerate a U.S.-led coalition's efforts to combat Islamic State, in particular after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people. He has been reluctant to commit large numbers of U.S. ground troops, instead deploying limited numbers of advisors and elite forces. Fred Hof, formerly a top State Department advisor on Syria, said the planned deployment of special forces to Iraq to conduct raids and gather intelligence represented a shift by Obama. Hof, who is now at the Atlantic Council think-tank, said the U.S. special forces were filling a gap in capable ground forces to fight Islamic State, which won control of Iraq's Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi in May and also controls the northern of Mosul. Obama "is edging as closely as he can to try to fill this … gap without violating in a technical sense his own ‘boots on the ground’ dictum," Hof said, referring to Obama’s frequent pledges not to return to U.S. troops to a large-scale ground war. That pledge, he said, does not appear to apply to U.S. special operations forces. Obama in August 2014 authorized the first U.S. air strikes in Iraq since the 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal and has deployed more than 3,000 American military forces to train and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight Islamic State. His critics, including Republicans in Congress, accuse Obama of moving too slowly against Islamic State, which controls large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks. Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said on Tuesday the new force represented more "incrementalism" in the Obama administration's approach toward Islamic State.

Otto von Bismarck: US & its allies are planting the seeds of their own destruction in the end.

Otto von Bismarck From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Bismarck (disambiguation). Otto von Bismarck Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1990-023-06A, Otto von Bismarck.jpg 1st Chancellor of Germany In office 21 March 1871 – 20 March 1890 Monarch Wilhelm I Friedrich III Wilhelm II Deputy Otto zu Stolberg-Wernigerode Karl Heinrich von Boetticher Preceded by Post created Succeeded by Leo von Caprivi Minister President of Prussia In office 9 November 1873 – 20 March 1890 Monarch Wilhelm I Friedrich III Wilhelm II Preceded by Albrecht von Roon Succeeded by Leo von Caprivi In office 23 September 1862 – 1 January 1873 Monarch Wilhelm I Preceded by Adolf zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen Succeeded by Albrecht von Roon Chancellor of the North German Confederation In office 1 July 1867 – 21 March 1871 President Wilhelm I Preceded by Post created Succeeded by Post abolished Foreign Minister of Prussia In office 23 November 1862 – 20 March 1890 Prime Minister Himself Albrecht von Roon Preceded by Albrecht von Bernstorff Succeeded by Leo von Caprivi Personal details Born 1 April 1815 Schönhausen, Prussia (in modern Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) Died 30 July 1898 (aged 83) Friedrichsruh, Schleswig-Holstein, German Empire Political party Independent Spouse(s) Johanna von Puttkamer (1847–1894; her death) Children Marie Herbert Wilhelm Alma mater University of Göttingen University of Berlin University of Greifswald[1] Profession Lawyer Religion Lutheranism Signature Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states (excluding Austria) into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871 he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to preserve German hegemony in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace. For historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was Bismarck who "remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years after 1871, [and] devoted himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers."[2] In 1862, King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, a position he would hold until 1890 (except for a short break in 1873). He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in defeating his arch-enemy France. In 1871 he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia. His diplomacy of realpolitik and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor." German unification and its rapid economic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy. He disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion. Juggling a very complex interlocking series of conferences, negotiations and alliances, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain Germany's position and used the balance of power to keep Europe at peace in the 1870s and 1880s. He was the master of complex politics at home. He created the first welfare state in the modern world, with the goal of gaining working class support that might otherwise go to his Socialist enemies. In the 1870s he allied himself with the Liberals (who were low-tariff and anti-Catholic) and fought the Catholic Church in a culture war. He lost that battle as the Catholics responded by forming a powerful Centre party and using universal male suffrage to gain a bloc of seats. Bismarck then reversed himself, ended the culture war, broke with the Liberals, imposed tariffs, and formed a political alliance with the Centre Party to fight the Socialists. A devout Lutheran, he was loyal to his king, who in turn gave Bismarck his full support, against the advice of his wife and his heir. While Germany's parliament was elected by universal male suffrage, it did not have real control of the government. Bismarck distrusted democracy and ruled through a strong, well-trained bureaucracy with power in the hands of a traditional Junker elite that comprised the landed nobility of the east. Under Wilhelm I, Bismarck largely controlled domestic and foreign affairs, until he was removed by young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890. Bismarck, an aristocratic Junker himself, had an extremely aggressive and domineering personality. He displayed a violent temper and kept his power by threatening to resign time and again. He possessed not only a long-term national and international vision but also the short-term ability to juggle many complex developments simultaneously. As the leader of what historians call "revolutionary conservatism,"[3] Bismarck became a hero to German nationalists; they built hundreds of monuments glorifying the iconic symbol of powerful conservative leadership. Historians generally praise him as a statesman of moderation and balance who kept the peace in Europe, and was primarily responsible for the unification of Germany and building its world-renowned bureaucracy and army. =============================================== Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria October 27, 2014 eClinik Learning 4 Comments The ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, is said to establish a Caliphate which would include Israel as an autonomous region known as Greater Israel. We have seen how the US Air Force planes were deliberately air-dropping critical logistics into ISIL controlled territories. The world should be watching what would happen in Baghdad as the US troops formally turn control of the city over to the ISIL terror group of the CIA in a few days from now. Palestine should be returned to Palestinians. Syria should be allowed to determine which way they want to go. The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria. Oil Gas Pipeline War The Kerry-Abdullah Secret Deal By ​​​​F. William Engdahl Global Research, October 26, 2014 Boiling Frogs Post The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia. One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%. What has happened is that the long-time US ally inside OPEC, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC, with Iran following suit and panic selling short in oil futures markets. The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China where it is reportedly offering its crude for a mere $50 to $60 a barrel rather than the earlier price of around $100. [1] That Saudi financial discounting operation in turn is by all appearance being coordinated with a US Treasury financial warfare operation, via its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in cooperation with a handful of inside players on Wall Street who control oil derivatives trading. The result is a market panic that is gaining momentum daily. China is quite happy to buy the cheap oil, but her close allies, Russia and Iran, are being hit severely. The deal According to Rashid Abanmy, President of the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Oil Policies and Strategic Expectations Center, the dramatic price collapse is being deliberately caused by the Saudis, OPEC’s largest producer. The public reason claimed is to gain new markets in a global market of weakening oil demand. The real reason, according to Abanmy, is to put pressure on Iran on her nuclear program, and on Russia to end her support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria.[2] When combined with the financial losses of Russian state natural gas sales to Ukraine and prospects of a US-instigated cutoff of the transit of Russian gas to the huge EU market this winter as EU stockpiles become low, the pressure on oil prices hits Moscow doubly. More than 50% of Russian state revenue comes from its export sales of oil and gas. The US-Saudi oil price manipulation is aimed at destabilizing several strong opponents of US globalist policies. Targets include Iran and Syria, both allies of Russia in opposing a US sole Superpower. The principal target, however, is Putin’s Russia, the single greatest threat today to that Superpower hegemony. The strategy is similar to what the US did with Saudi Arabia in 1986 when they flooded the world with Saudi oil, collapsing the price to below $10 a barrel and destroying the economy of then-Soviet ally, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, ultimately, of the Soviet economy, paving the way for the fall of the Soviet Union. Today, the hope is that a collapse of Russian oil revenues, combined with select pin-prick sanctions designed by the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will dramatically weaken Putin’s enormous domestic support and create conditions for his ultimate overthrow. It is doomed to fail for many reasons, not the least, because Putin’s Russia has taken major strategic steps together with China and other nations to lessen its dependence on the West. In fact the oil weapon is accelerating recent Russian moves to focus its economic power on national interests and lessen dependence on the Dollar system. If the dollar ceases being the currency of world trade, especially oil trade, the US Treasury faces financial catastrophe. For this reason, I call the Kerry-Abdullah oil war a very stupid tactic. The Kerry-Abdullah secret deal On September 11, US Secretary of State Kerry met Saudi King Abdullah at his palace on the Red Sea. The King invited former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar to attend. There a deal was hammered out which saw Saudi support for the Syrian airstrikes against ISIS on condition Washington backed the Saudis in toppling Assad, a firm ally of Russia and de facto of Iran and an obstacle to Saudi and UAE plans to control the emerging EU natural gas market and destroy Russia’s lucrative EU trade. A report in the Wall Street Journal noted there had been “months of behind-the-scenes work by the US and Arab leaders, who agreed on the need to cooperate against Islamic State, but not how or when. The process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh US commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority.” [3] For the Saudis the war is between two competing age-old vectors of Islam. Saudi Arabia, home to the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, claims de facto supremacy in the Islamic world of Sunni Islam. The Saudi Sunni form is ultra-conservative Wahhabism, named for an 18th Century Bedouin Islamic fundamentalist or Salafist named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The Taliban derive from Wahhabism with the aid of Saudi-financed religious instruction. The Gulf Emirates and Kuwait also adhere to the Sunni Wahhabism of the Saudis, as does the Emir of Qatar. Iran on the other hand historically is the heart of the smaller branch of Islam, the Shi’ite. Iraq’s population is some 61% majority Shi’ite. Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad is a member of a satellite of the Shi’ite branch known as Alawite. Some 23% of Turkey is also Alawite Muslim. To complicate the picture more, across a bridge from Saudi Arabia sits the tiny island country, Bahrain where as many as 75% of the population is Shi’ite but the ruling Al-Khalifa family is Sunni and firmly tied to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the richest Saudi oil region is dominated by Shi’ite Muslims who work the oil installations of Ras Tanura. An oil and gas pipeline war These historic fault lines inside Islam which lay dormant, were brought into a state of open warfare with the launching of the US State Department and CIA’s Islamic Holy War, otherwise known as the Arab Spring. Washington neo-conservatives embedded inside the Obama Administration in a form of “Deep State” secret network, and their allied media such as the Washington Post, advocated US covert backing of a pet CIA project known as the Muslim Brotherhood. As I detail in my most recent book, Amerikas’ Heiliger Krieg, the CIA had cultivated ties to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood death cult since the early 1950’s. Now if we map the resources of known natural gas reserves in the entire Persian Gulf region, the motives of the Saudi-led Qatar and UAE in financing with billions of dollars the opposition to Assad, including the Sunni ISIS, becomes clearer. Natural gas has become the favored “clean energy” source for the 21st Century and the EU is the world’s largest growth market for gas, a major reason Washington wants to break the Gazprom-EU supply dependency to weaken Russia and keep control over the EU via loyal proxies like Qatar. The world’s largest known natural gas reservoir sits in the middle of the Persian Gulf straddling part in the territorial waters of Qatar and part in Iran. The Iranian part is called North Pars. In 2006 China’s state-owned CNOOC signed an agreement with Iran to develop North Pars and build LNG infrastructure to bring the gas to China.[4] The Qatar side of the Persian Gulf, called North Field, contains the world’s third largest known natural gas reserves behind Russia and Iran. In July 2011, the governments of Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an historic gas pipeline energy agreement which went largely unnoticed in the midst of the NATO-Saudi-Qatari war to remove Assad. The pipeline, envisioned to cost $10 billion and take three years to complete, would run from the Iranian Port Assalouyeh near the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, to Damascus in Syria via Iraq territory. The agreement would make Syria the center of assembly and production in conjunction with the reserves of Lebanon. This is a geopolitically strategic space that geographically opens for the first time, extending from Iran to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[5] As Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar put it, “The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline – if it’s ever built – would solidify a predominantly Shi’ite axis through an economic, steel umbilical cord.”[6] Shortly after signing with Iran and Iraq, on August 16, 2011, Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Ministry of Oil announced the discovery of a gas well in the Area of Qarah in the Central Region of Syria near Homs. Gazprom, with Assad in power, would be a major investor or operator of the new gas fields in Syria. [7] Iran ultimately plans to extend the pipeline from Damascus to Lebanon’s Mediterranean port where it would be delivered to the huge EU market. Syria would buy Iranian gas along with a current Iraqi agreement to buy Iranian gas from Iran’s part of South Pars field.[8] Qatar, today the world’s largest exporter of LNG, largely to Asia, wants the same EU market that Iran and Syria eye. For that, they would build pipelines to the Mediterranean. Here is where getting rid of the pro-Iran Assad is essential. In 2009 Qatar approached Bashar al-Assad to propose construction of a gas pipeline from Qatar’s north Field through Syria on to Turkey and to the EU. Assad refused, citing Syria’s long friendly relations with Russia and Gazprom. That refusal combined with the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline agreement in 2011 ignited the full-scale Saudi and Qatari assault on Assad’s power, financing al Qaeda terrorists, recruits of Jihadist fanatics willing to kill Alawite and Shi’ite “infidels” for $100 a month and a Kalishnikov. The Washington neo-conservative warhawks in and around the Obama White House, along with their allies in the right-wing Netanyahu government, were cheering from the bleachers as Syria went up in flames after spring 2011. Today the US-backed wars in Ukraine and in Syria are but two fronts in the same strategic war to cripple Russia and China and to rupture any Eurasian counter-pole to a US-controlled New World Order. In each, control of energy pipelines, this time primarily of natural gas pipelines—from Russia to the EU via Ukraine and from Iran and Syria to the EU via Syria—is the strategic goal. The true aim of the US and Israel backed ISIS is to give the pretext for bombing Assad’s vital grain silos and oil refineries to cripple the economy in preparation for a “Ghaddafi-”style elimination of Russia and China and Iran-ally Bashar al-Assad. In a narrow sense, as Washington neo-conservatives see it, who controls Syria could control the Middle East. And from Syria, gateway to Asia, he will hold the key to Russia House, as well as that of China via the Silk Road. Religious wars have historically been the most savage of all wars and this one is no exception, especially when trillions of dollars in oil and gas revenues are at stake. Why is the secret Kerry-Abdullah deal on Syria reached on September 11 stupid? Because the brilliant tacticians in Washington and Riyadh and Doha and to an extent in Ankara are unable to look at the interconnectedness of all the dis-order and destruction they foment, to look beyond their visions of control of the oil and gas flows as the basis of their illegitimate power. They are planting the seeds of their own destruction in the end. William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics in the New World Order. He is a contributing author at BFP and may be contacted through his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net where this article was originally published. Notes: [1] M. Rochan, Crude Oil Drops Amid Global Demand Concerns, IB Times, October 11, 2014 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/crude-oil-drops-amid-global-demand-concerns-1469524 [2] Nihan Cabbaroglu, Saudi Arabia to pressure Russia Iran with price of oil, 10 October 2014, Turkish Anadolu Agency, http://www.aa.com.tr/en/economy/402343–saudi-arabia-to-pressure-russia-iran-with-price-of-oil [3] Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, Deal With Saudis Paved Way for Syrian Airstrikes: Talks With Saudi Arabia Were Linchpin in U.S. Efforts to Get Arab States Into Fight Against Islamic State, Wall Street Journal, September. 24, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/articles/deal-with-saudis-paved-way-for-syrian-airstrikes-1411605329?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories [4] POGC, North Pars Gas Field, Pars Oil and Gas Company website, http://www.pogc.ir/NorthParsGasField/tabid/155/Default.aspx [5] Imad Fawzi Shueibi , War Over Gas–Struggle over the Middle East: Gas Ranks First, 17 April, 2012. http://www.voltairenet.org/article173718.html [6] Pepe Escobar, Why Qatar Wants to Invade Syria, Asia Times, September 27, 2012, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32576.htm [7] Ibid. [8] F. William Engdahl, Syria Turkey Israel and the Greater Middle East Energy War, Global Research, October 11, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-turkey-israel-and-the-greater-middle-east-energy-war/5307902 source » Would you like to like to have your own eClinik at home? You can easily defeat cancer, AIDS and help your body cure all known and unknown illnesses without using drugs, at the comfort of your own home. This is our experience. Find out more about it here. Every download of our eBook, Towards Healthcare Emancipation – Premium Edition, provides additional funding to our next project. If you haven’t done so, please like our FB page to encourage others to learn more about our work. Thank you very much for your valuable support. Mabuhay! ==========================================================

Islamist militants take hostages in Sydney cafe, display black jihadist flag

Sydney siege: Man Haron Monis’s wife Amirah Droudis has bail revoked, is taken into custody Amy Dale The Daily Telegraph December 22, 2014 8:28AM Amirah Droudis in jail after bail revoked •Bail revoked for Amirah Droudis •Judge: There were ‘unacceptable risks’ if she went free THE court has just revoked the bail for Amirah Droudis, with sheriffs taking her immediately into custody. But her solicitor Justin Lewis has said he believed Judge Graeme Henson was only going to determine whether he could hear the application today, and not make a decision on revoking bail. Judge Henson found there was “an unacceptable risk” Droudis may fail to appear in court as a way of trying to avoid a lengthy jail term if convicted of murder. “I’ve made my decision, I’m afraid,” Judge Henson told Mr Lewis. The court found the “unacceptable risk” Droudis posed could not be mitigated by tight conditions. She will appear in Penrith Court in February. Man Haron Monis and Amirah Droudis. Man Haron Monis and Amirah Droudis. Amirah Droudis is on bail charged with the murder of Man Haron Monis' ex-wife Amirah Droudis is on bail charged with the murder of Man Haron Monis' ex-wife. Picture: Ross Schultz Earlier in the day, Prosecutor John Pickering SC told the state’s Chief Magistrate, Judge Graeme Henson, that “irrespective of her compliance on bail” the magistrate who initially granted bail “may not have [had] a full appreciation of the risk.” Mr Pickering cited videos where Droudis has declared “support at the Bali bombing, or 9/11, or some of her views relating to sexual assault.” He said the videos, combined with the serious murder charge against her, warrant a review of bail. But her solicitor Justin Lewis declared the application “frivolous” and said in the videos could be interpreted as her “reading out, or being a spokesperson on behalf of Monis.” Judge Henson commented that it was clear Monis was “the driving force” in the relationship. The court heard the description of the killer of Noleen Hayson Pal “is extremely closely aligned with the physical appearance of Ms Droudis.” Earlier, he closed the court doors to media as he views a 90 minute video made by Amirah Droudis. As Droudis’ lawyer Justin Lewis described the DPP’s application to revoke bail as “frivolous,” the court made the decision the video could not be watched by media. AFGHANI MURDERERS BIKIE GANG EMERGING IN SYDNEY DAD ‘ATTACKED’ AMBOS TREATING SON’S SEVERED LEGS DPP counsel John Pickering SC told the court “the context of the video” goes to “her willingness to act on Monis’ behalf.” A police statement of facts relating to the murder of Noleen Hayson Pal has been tended to the court, along with the sentencing remarks for Droudis and Monis case involving the sending of letters to the families of killed Australian soldiers. A blind was placed over the clear part of the Downing Centre courtroom door while the footage is being played. Earlier, Droudis was granted a few hours to view tapes made by her, which the DPP are using as evidence her bail should be revoked. Amirah Droudis arrives at the Downing Centre. Picture: Britta Campion Amirah Droudis arrives at the Downing Centre. Picture: Britta Campion Pickering SC said the tape, which does not address last week’s siege, was the “mainly” the reason behind this morning’s bail review application. The court also heard the brief of evidence in her case for the murder of Monis’ ex wife was “nearly complete.” Her lawyer asked for the review to be adjourned to another date, saying they were only told of the application at 10:30pm on Friday, and that she wanted to brief a silk to appear for her. “It’s an impossible situation,” he said. But the state’s chief Magistrate Graeme Henson has instead given Droudis a few hours to look at the evidence. He said the court must not “be overborne by the tragedy of the moment,tragic though it is.” “Justice within the democracy...should be applied justly and fairly to all,” Judge Henson said. A decision was made earlier today by Judge Henson that he would hear the case. “He had more time and capacity to hear the case,” a statement from the Chief Magistrate’s office said. Earlier today Droudis arrived at court ahead of the bail review, lodged following her partner’s fatal siege of the Lindt cafe. Accompanied by an unidentified male, Droudis refused to answer any questions from a large media pack. Last week, Attorney General Brad Hazzard asked the DPP to lodge a review of her bail ahead of a trial for the murder of Noleen Hayson Pal, the ex wife of her partner Man Haron Monis. Mr Hazzard said he wanted to know “whether any aspect of her being on bail has been examined in all detail.” Monis, 50, had been on bail for accessory to Ms Pal’s murder when he took 17 people hostage inside the Lindt cafe last Monday. Cafe manager Tori Johnson and barrister Katrina Dawson were killed, with Monis shot dead after police stormed the cafe just after 2am on Tuesday. Amirah Droudis arrives at the Downing Centre.Picture: Britta Campion Amirah Droudis arrives at the Downing Centre.Picture: Britta Campion The 35 year old kept her head down as she walked into the Downing Centre local court about 9am. Chief Magistrate Judge Graeme Henson will hear this morning’s application. Earlier, Ms Droudis arrived at her Belmore home by taxi just after 8am and left a few minutes later to begin what could have been her last walk as a free woman. Wearing sunglasses and a dark hoodie, Ms Droudis was silent as she walked down the street with a male chaperone towards a silver Camry this morning. Amirah Droudis arrives at the Downing Centre. Picture: Britta Campion Amirah Droudis today. Amirah Droudis today. Picture: Ross Schultz ================ Iran warned Australia about Sydney attacker Man Haron Monis, the gunman behind the 16-hour hostage standoff in Sydney, Australia, resulting in the deaths of two individuals and himself, was well known to Iranian authorities. The self-styled "sheikh," who left Iran for Australia in 1996, had abused Australia’s political system to gain immunity from prosecution in Iran, where he was a wanted man. Summary⎙ Print Sydney hostage-taker Man Haron Monis had long been wanted by Iran for fraud. AuthorArash KaramiPosted December 16, 2014 According to Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham, “The psychological history and condition of this individual, who for more than two decades was a refugee in Australia, was repeatedly presented to Australian officials.” Afkham did not elaborate, but Haron Monis’ history while in Australia paints a clear picture of him as unstable and a charlatan posing as a religious man. Before changing his name, Haron Monis was Mohammad Hassan Manteghi. As early as 2008, the Australian Shiite community warned federal agents he was an imposter posing as a Shiite ayatollah (in fact, they said there were no ayatollahs in Australia at the time) and no one had ever heard of the two names he was using, "Ayatollah Borujerdi" and "Sheikh Haron." He was, however, in the news at the time for harassing family members of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan. Before his conversion to Sunnism to take up the cause of the Islamic State group, Haron Monis had faced a number of legal battles, including numerous charges of sexual assault — under the guise of religious "healer" — and accessory to the murder of his ex-wife in Australia. Fars News Agency reported that Iran had requested via Interpol that Haron Monis be extradited in 1996 for “heavy financial fraud,” but that the request was denied when Haron Monis claimed that he would be persecuted in Iran for his “liberal” views. He was eventually granted political asylum in Australia. A search of Interpol did not bring up anyone by the various names he used, but foreign-based Persian-language Manoto reported that Haron Monis was wanted in a $200,000 fraud case. Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) also claimed that Haron Monis had been wanted by Iran. Interestingly, while most Western media outlets published images of Haron Monis dressed in traditional Shiite clerical garb, IRNA's choice shows a man in sunglasses wearing a white jacket over a black shirt with white stripes and white pants. Australian media outlets had long bought into Haron Monis’ branding of himself as “liberal.” In January 2001, Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National program profiled Haron Monis, before his name change: “While in Sydney, we talk to Ayatollah Manteghi Borujerdi, an Iranian cleric espousing a liberal brand of Islam — dangerously liberal, as his views have led to his wife and two daughters being held hostage in Iran.” The Fars article, headlined, “The con artist who was not returned to Iran under the excuse of ‘political asylum,’” also criticized the Western media for emphasizing his Iranian nationality. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/iran-warned-australia-sydney-attacker-unstable-con-artist.html##ixzz3M8YlEWJm ======================= Police storm Sydney cafe to end hostage siege, three dead Mon, Dec 15 16:51 PM EST image 1 of 32 By Lincoln Feast and Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning and freed a number of hostages being held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which three people including the attacker were killed. Police have not publicly identified the gunman but a police source named him as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian refugee and self-styled sheikh known for sending hate mail to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and who was charged last year with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife. During the siege at the Lindt cafe in Sydney's central business district, hostages had been forced to display an Islamic flag, igniting fears of a jihadist attack. Heavy gunfire and blasts from stun grenades filled the air shortly after 2 a.m. local time (10.00 a.m. ET on Monday). Moments earlier, at least six people believed to have been held captive managed to flee after gunshots were heard coming from the cafe, and police said they made their move in response. "They made the call because they believed at that time if they didn't enter there would have been many more lives lost," said Andrew Scipione, police commissioner for the state of New South Wales. An investigation would determine whether hostages were killed by the gunman or died in cross-fire, Scipione told reporters just before dawn. Police said a 50-year-old man, believed to be the attacker, was killed. A man aged 34 and a 38-year-old woman were also dead, police said. Four other hostages were wounded. So far 17 hostages have been accounted for, including at least five others who were released or escaped on Monday. "To the people of Sydney, this was an isolated incident ... Do not let this sort of incident bring about any loss of confidence of working or visiting our city. It was the act of an individual," said Scipione. Leaders from around the world had expressed their concern over the siege, including Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, which suffered an attack on its parliament by a suspected jihadist sympathizer in October. Medics tried to resuscitate at least one person after the raid and took away several wounded people on stretchers, said a Reuters witness at the scene. Bomb squad members moved in to search for explosives, but none were found. Television pictures showed the attacker appeared to have been armed with a sawn-off shotgun. Monis was found guilty in 2012 of sending offensive and threatening letters to families of eight Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, as a protest against Australia's involvement in the conflict, according to local media reports. He was also facing more than 40 charges of sexual assault. A U.S. security official said the U.S. government was being advised by Australia that there was no sign at this stage that the gunman was connected to known terrorist organizations. Although the hostage taker was known to the authorities, security experts said preventing attacks by people acting alone could be difficult. ​The Sydney siege underscores the dangers of "lone wolf terrorism", said Cornell University law professor Jens David Ohlin, speaking in New York. "There are two areas of concern. The first is ISIS (Islamic State) fighters with foreign passports who return to their home countries to commit acts of terrorism," he said. "The second is ISIS sympathizers radicalised on the Internet who take it upon themselves to commit terrorist attacks to fulfill their radical ideology. We are entering a new phase of terrorism that is far more dangerous and more difficult to defeat than al Qaeda ever was." ON ALERT Australia, a staunch ally of the United States and its escalating action against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, has been on high alert for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East or their supporters. News footage showed hostages holding up a black and white flag displaying the Shahada, a testament to the faith of Muslims. The flag has been popular among Sunni Islamist militant groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda. The incident forced the evacuation of nearby buildings and sent shockwaves around a country where many people were turning their attention to the Christmas holiday after earlier security scares. In September, anti-terrorism police said they had thwarted an imminent threat to behead a random member of the public and days later, a teenager in the city of Melbourne was shot dead after attacking two anti-terrorism officers with a knife. The siege cafe is in Martin Place, a pedestrian strip popular with workers on a lunch break, which was revealed as a potential location for the thwarted beheading. In the biggest security operation in Sydney since a bombing at the Hilton Hotel killed two people in 1978, major banks closed their offices in the central business district and people were told to avoid the area. Muslim leaders urged calm. The Australian National Imams Council condemned "this criminal act unequivocally" in a joint statement with the Grand Mufti of Australia. (Additional reporting by Jane Wardell, Matt Siegel, Swati Pandey, Wayne Cole and Jason Reed in Sydney and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Mike Collett-White and Dean Yates; Editing by Mark Bendeich) ============================ Hostages held in Sydney cafe, Islamic flag seen in window: local TV Sun, Dec 14 19:25 PM EST SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hostages were being held inside a central Sydney cafe where a black flag with white Arabic writing could be seen in the window, local television showed on Monday, raising fears of an attack linked to Islamic militants. Australia, which is backing the United States and its escalating action against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, is on high alert for attacks by radicalized Muslims or by home-grown fighters returning from fighting in the Middle East. Part of Martin Place, home to the Reserve Bank of Australia, commercial banks and close to the New South Wales (NSW) state parliament, was closed off by armed police. Live television footage showed patrons inside a cafe standing with their hands pressed against the windows. A black and white flag similar to those used by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria was also visible. NSW Police tweeted: "A police operation is underway in Martin Place, Sydney's CBD. People are advised to avoid the area." Dozens of police including a SWAT team were setting up and a couple of hundred people were being held back by cordons. Trains and buses were stopped and roads were blocked in the area, with train operators saying there had been a bomb threat at Martin Place. (Reporting by Lincoln Feast and Matt Siegel; Editing by Paul Tait and Dean Yates) =============== Islamist militants take hostages in Sydney cafe, display black jihadist flag Published time: December 15, 2014 00:19 Edited time: December 15, 2014 01:15 Get short URL A screenshot from live feed by Channel 7 A screenshot from live feed by Channel 7 Australia, Iraq, Military, Police, Syria, Terrorism, Violence A police operation is underway at a café in the Australian city of Sydney, where hostages are being held by unknown attackers and a black jihadist flag can be seen. It comes amid Australia’s backing of the US-led operation against the Islamic State. At least 13 hostages are believed to be held inside the café. There was no immediate confirmation of the exact number of assailants. The gunmen’s attack, which took place in Sydney’s central business district, forced nearby buildings in Martin Place – including the Reserve Bank of Australia – to go on lockdown. “A police operation is underway in Martin Place, Sydney’s CBD. People are advised to avoid the area,” New South Wales (NSW) police tweeted. Meanwhile, live TV footage showed people standing inside a café with their hands pressed against the windows. At least one of the attackers was caught on camera wearing a traditional Islamic cap. The hostages were forced to hold a black flag with an Arabic inscription, prompting fears that ruthless Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants were behind the attack. Dozens of police, including a SWAT team, were dispatched to the scene, and a couple hundred people were held back by cordons amid the evacuation of nearby buildings. The flag – which appeared different from the one typically used by ISIS – was identified as the shahada, or the statement of Islamic faith. The shahada itself contains religious inscription “There is no god but the God, Muhammad is the messenger of the God.” However, it has been used by various jihadi groups over the years. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott called the situation “deeply concerning,” adding that everything is being done to respond to the incident. “This is obviously a deeply concerning incident but all Australians should be reassured that our law enforcement and security agencies are well trained and equipped and are responding in a thorough and professional manner,” Abbott said in a statement. He added that the National Security Committee of Cabinet is currently being briefed on the situation. The prime minister has spoken to NSW Premier Mike Baird, offering him all possible Commonwealth support and assistance. DETAILS TO FOLLOW =================

Why the Islamic State Is Losing

Car bombs kill 24 across Baghdad as violence rages Fri, Oct 17 16:22 PM EDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A string of car bombs killed at least 24 people across Baghdad on Friday night, medical and police officials said, amid a surge of violence in the capital. No one immediately said they were responsible for the blasts, but other attacks in recent weeks have been claimed by Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State, which is battling the Shi'ite Muslim-led government and has seized large parts of neighboring Syria. A parked car blew up near a coffee shop in the Shi'ite area of Baladiyat, killing nine people and wounding 28, the officials said. Another blast killed nine and wounded 28 in the Sunni neighborhood of Slaikh, while a third car bomb blew up by a row of liquor stores in the affluent Karrada neighborhood, killing six and wounding 14 others, the officials added. The attack came the day after bombs killed 36 in Baghdad and areas bordering the capital. (Reporting By Ned Parker) ================================ Why the Islamic State Is Losing The pundits have it wrong—the terrorists’ move toward Baghdad is a sign of desperation. By MICHAEL KNIGHTS October 14, 2014 Many in the world media seem to be concluding, with alarm, that the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is at the gates of Baghdad. ISIL has made dramatic gains in Anbar province, Iraq’s perennially troubled “wild west,” and Anbar is next to Baghdad. Ergo, Baghdad must be next to fall. It was probably no accident that, on Tuesday, President Obama convened an urgent conference of defense officials from 21 countries at Andrews Air Force Base to coordinate strategies and tactics. Everyone should calm down. The reality is that ISIL and its forerunners have always been in Baghdad. The Iraqi capital and its rural exurbs – the “Baghdad belts” — have been a desperate battleground since 2003. True, ISIL has been posing much more of a direct threat to Baghdad since the beginning of 2014, when the movement took control of Fallujah, a city of 300,000 that is located just 25 miles west of Baghdad International Airport. But Baghdad won’t fall to cascading panic the way that Mosul did in June 2014, no matter how many towns and cities ISIL overruns in the Euphrates River Valley to the northwest of the capital. Here’s why. Mosul was a predominately Sunni city of one million people where the Shia-led security forces were despised and where the bulk of Iraq’s security forces were hundreds of miles away. Baghdad is a predominately Shia city of more than seven million and the hub of a gargantuan popular mobilization of Shia militias and regular security forces. Mao Zedong said that the guerrilla “must swim among the people as the fish swims in the sea,” but ISIL would be swimming with piranhas if it tried to recreate Mosul in Baghdad. In truth, the threat posed to Baghdad this autumn is emerging less because ISIL is winning the war in Iraq and more because it might be slowly but steadily losing it. All across north-central Iraq, ISIL is being challenged by joint forces comprised of Sunni tribes, Shia militias, Iraqi soldiers, Iranian advisors and U.S. airpower. ISIL is struggling to maintain its grip on this battlefield of strange bedfellows, and it could be moving on Baghdad now out of a desperate need for a big victory more than anything else. Even as ISIL appears to be making progress in marginal places like Kobane, the Syrian Kurdish border town, inside Iraq the group has been faltering and needs a new front to rejuvenate its campaign. Among the less-noted victories against ISIL recently: In early October, Kurdish peshmerga forces and local Sunni tribesmen of the Shammar confederation – usually bitter rivals – cooperated in a three-day blitzkrieg that recaptured the vital Rabiya border crossing that links the ISIL territories in Iraq and Syria. In Dhuluiya, 45 miles north of Baghdad, Sunni tribesmen of the Jabouri confederation are pushing ISIL back from their lands in collaboration with both Iraqi Army forces and, stunningly, Iranian-backed Shia militiamen from the Kataib Hezbollah movement. Near Kirkuk, the Obeidi confederation, another conglomeration of Sunni tribes, is starting to cooperate with Shia Turkmen tribes and Kurdish security forces against ISIL. For the first time since June, the Iraqi government is able to drive tanks and supply columns all the way from Baghdad to Kirkuk, allowing the security forces to open a new front on ISIL’s eastern flank.

Reidar Visser says: It makes sense to start with the choice of ministers for interior and defence. These important posts were a stumbling block for Maliki’s two cabinets. In 2006, they took a month extra to decide, whereas in 2010 they weren’t decided by parliament at all, as Maliki continued to control them himself or through acting protegées. This time, the candidate for minister of interior, in particular, had caused controversy. For a long time the frontrunner was Hadi al-Ameri, a militia figure from the Badr organization with particularly close ties to the Iranians, whose candidacy caused uproar among many Sunni MPs who remain critical of his conduct during the previous sectarian crisis period of 2005-2007. Today, Ameri gave way to Muhammad Salim al-Ghabban, who shares his Badr background but possibly is seen as less toxic to non-Shiite MPs simply because he is younger and has less baggage than Ameri. For his part, Khaled al-Obeidi who is the new defence minister, had been a candidate back in 2010 as well, when he was nominated by Iraqiyya but quickly was criticized for having moved too close to Maliki. Maybe that sort of person – a Sunni with ties in both sectarian camps – is the best Iraq could hope for in a time when urgent work needs to be done to reorganize the Iraqi army and make it more resilient against the Islamic State terror organization. Both ministers achieved more than acceptable levels of backing by MPs, with Yes votes from the 261 MPs present reported at 173 (Obeidi) and 197 (Ghabban), which is considerably more than what many other ministers got back in September. Rosch Shaways thereby continues to serve as deputy prime minister, and foreign minister Hosyar Zebari becomes minister of finance.

Iraqi parliament approves defense, interior ministers: state TV Sat, Oct 18 10:42 AM EDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi parliament on Saturday approved a Sunni Muslim to become defense minister and a Shi'ite to be interior minister, state television said, as part of a more inclusive government to help tackle Islamist insurgents. Six Kurdish members of the cabinet were also sworn in after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had held out for a larger share of ministries than the three offered when Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi unveiled his government on Sept.8. The moves provide a stronger political foundation for Abadi to try to counter Islamic State's grip on most Sunni areas of the country to the north and west. They also help to repair relations with the country's Kurds strained by quarrels over budget allocations and disputes over oil rights and land in the north. For the defense portfolio, parliament voted in favor of Khaled al-Obeidi, a Sunni from the northern city of Mosul that is now under Islamic State control. Mohammed al-Ghabban of the powerful Shi'ite political party, the Badr Organization, which has a militia wing, is to take over the interior ministry. Obeidi belongs to the party of Vice President Usama al-Nujaifi and is a confidant of his brother Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh province that was overrun by Sunni Islamic State forces. Ghabban was seen as a compromise for interior minister after Badr chief Hadi al-Amri drew the objections of Sunni parties. MORE POSTS FOR KURDS The Kurds, who originally had been offered the ministry of finance, a post of deputy prime minister and minister of culture, were also given the posts of a minister without portfolio, minister of women's affairs and the ministry of displacement and migration. "The new government will be inclusive and address core issues of reconciliation, establishing security and stability in the country... and resolving the outstanding KRG issues of oil and the disputed territories," new Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, told Reuters. The United States, which has sent US military advisers to Iraq and has conducted air strikes against Islamic State, applauded the announcement. “We had a very positive step forward in Iraq today with the selection of the minister of interior and the minister of defense,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Boston, where was meeting China’s most senior diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi for talks on Islamic State and other issues. “These were critical positions to be filled in order to assist with the organizing effort with respect to ISIL (Islamic State)." Obeidi, a general in Iraq's army before 2003, was in Mosul in the final hours before the city fell to Islamic State in June. He said his own house in Mosul had been occupied by Islamic State militants. His appointment has symbolic value for the Iraqi government, as it looks to persuade Mosul residents to rise up. Obeidi has been deeply critical of the military under Abadi's predecessor Nuri al-Maliki and has called for major reforms in the security institution. The naming of the security ministers had largely been slowed by the internal debate among the Shi'ites on whether they could name Amri, who is close to both Maliki and Iran, as interior minister. The Badr Organization's armed wing is blamed by Sunnis for carrying out sectarian killings in the early years after Saddam Hussein fell in 2003. Badr members deny the allegations. The choice of Ghabban was seen as less controversial than Amri. (Reporting By Ned Parker and Ahmed al-Rasheed, David Brunnstrom; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Stephen Powell)

This is not to say that ISIL is just rolling over. The Islamic State certainly landed some good punches in early October, overrunning a handful of small garrisons in Anbar, capturing parts of the 100,000-strong city of Hit and driving security forces out of much of Ramadi city, the Anbar’s provincial capital. But overall, ISIL’s reaction to Sunni tribal uprisings – suicide bombings and assassinations against the tribes – will only reinforce tribal resolve. ISIL still needs to relieve pressure on its northern Iraqi territories and open a new front. Which is where Baghdad comes in. Regardless of what happens in Anbar, ISIL needs to punch back somewhere vital, somewhere sensitive, if it is to regain the initiative in Iraq. Iraq-watchers have been waiting for an ISIL thrust against Baghdad for many months, and many are scratching their heads as to why it has not landed yet. It is not for lack of opportunity. ISIL was well-established in the inner suburbs of Baghdad even before June 2014: With great fanfare, Islamic State militants held a 75-vehicle parade in Abu Ghraib, just 15 miles from the U.S. Embassy, in May. Terrifyingly, there’s little to prevent missile attacks closing down Baghdad’s sole international airport. So what is ISIL waiting for? They cannot capture the Shia metropolis of Baghdad outright and have been putting their effort into consolidating control of Sunni areas in northern and western Iraq. As counterterrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross adroitly notes, they also seem to have become fixated on Kobane, perhaps at the expense of higher-priority missions in Iraq and Syria. One option could be an uprising in the Sunni neighbourhoods of west Baghdad, areas that are open to the ISIL-dominated Jazeera desert to the northwest of Baghdad. The uprising need not succeed or get much backing from Baghdad’s Sunnis: ISIL’s gambit would rely upon sparking sectarian cleansing by Shia militias, thus dragging all Sunni men in Baghdad into the fight. ISIL could also try a spectacular terrorist attack like its July 22, 2013, assault on the heavily defended Abu Ghraib prison, when 800 inmates were freed. Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) nestled in vulnerable west Baghdad and adjacent to insurgent-infested farmlands, would be a prime target. On Oct. 12, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told ABC’s “This Week” that Apache gunships flew strike missions from the airport in early October because ISIL had come “within 20 or 25 kilometers of BIAP” and had “a straight shot to the airport.” But most likely, ISIL is simply readying for its annual killing spree against Shia pilgrims during the Ashura and Arbaeen religious festivals. In the week before Ashura begins on Nov. 3, Baghdad will swell with millions of pilgrims making their way to Karbala, just southwest of the capital. Many of these pilgrims make the 50-mile walk from Baghdad to Karbala, which passes within seven miles of Jurf as-Sakr, a heavily-contested ISIL stronghold to the south of Baghdad. We can expect mortar attacks, car bombings and suicide-vest detonations inside the crowds. This is the real meaning of ISIL being at the gates of Baghdad – that the movement is poised perilously close to key religious and transportation hubs, and may be intent on mounting sectarian outrages at the most sensitive moment of the year for the Shia. The Iraqi security forces view Ashura and Arbaeen as an annual trial – and in recent years they have achieved significant success in limiting the mayhem caused by ISIL and its forerunners. This year the Iraqi military and allied Shia militias have been fighting hard, with U.S. air support, to clear ISIL back from the pilgrim routes between Baghdad and Karbala – and with some success. Protecting the pilgrims and blunting ISIL’s gambits in Baghdad will be the next great test for Iraq’s recovering security forces – because the enemy is truly at the gates of the Shia world. Michael Knights, fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, regularly travels to Iraq and has worked in all of the country’s 18 provinces. Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/why-islamic-state-is-losing-111872.html#ixzz3GYOc6rTw

Wave of attacks in Shi'ite parts of Baghdad kill 35

14 dead as holdout Iraq tribe repels jihadists . AFP 31 minutes ago An Iraqi policeman makes his way on the rubble of a building targeted earlier this month by a jihadist attack in the town of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad, on September 17, 2014 An Iraqi policeman makes his way on the rubble of a building targeted earlier this month by a jihadist attack in the town of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad, on September 17, 2014 (AFP Photo/Ahmad Al-Rubaye) Baghdad (AFP) - A jihadist attack on an Iraqi tribe that has held out for weeks against Islamic State militants has left at least seven dead on either side, police and medics said Wednesday. The IS group has been unable to conquer the neighbourhood of Jubur, named after the tribe that resides there, in the Sunni Arab town of Dhuluiyah 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Baghdad. "They attacked Jubur from three directions last night and the clashes lasted until morning," said a senior police officer in Dhuluiyah. "Their attack was unsuccessful but there were casualties," he said, seven in each camp, including a jihadist fighter who detonated a suicide vest. The police officer added that 30 people were wounded in the pro-government camp, including some civilians. Residents contacted by AFP gave the same casualty toll. A medic in the nearby town of Balad confirmed that the hospital there had received the bodies of seven fighters killed by the jihadists overnight. Jubur, which played a prominent role in the formation of US-backed Sunni tribal forces to combat IS's previous incarnation in 2005-2007, has received support from the Iraqi army and allied militias. Its leaders say the neighbourhood needs more assistance, including air strikes from the US-led international coalition bombing jihadist targets in other parts of Iraq. ========== Wave of attacks in Shi'ite parts of Baghdad kill 35 Tue, Sep 30 16:30 PM EDT image BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 35 people were killed in a wave of car bomb and mortar attacks in mainly Shi'ite Muslim districts of Baghdad on Tuesday, Iraqi police and medical sources said. It was one of the most violent days the capital has witnessed since U.S.-led forces began bombing Islamic State insurgents in Iraq last month. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks but Islamic State, ultra-radical Sunni Muslim militants who seized swathes of northern Iraq in June, claimed several suicide bombings in the capital earlier this year. Two car bombs exploded in busy streets in the al-Horreyya district, killing 20 people and wounding 35, according to the police and medical sources. There was also a mortar attack in the Sab al-Bour neighbourhood of northern Baghdad that killed five people and wounded 15. Later on Tuesday, at least seven people were killed and 18 wounded when a car bomb exploded in the mainly Shi'ite Zaa'faraniya district of southeast Baghdad, police said. Three mortars also landed in the Shi'ite al-Shula district in the capital's northwest, killing three people and wounding 12, police said. Baghdad has witnessed relatively few attacks compared to the violence in other areas hit by Islamic State's offensive though bombs still struck the capital on a fairly regular basis. Mortar rounds have a short range compared to rockets, indicating the assailants fired from near the districts. Security sources say Islamic fighters have tried to use farmland northwest of Baghdad to approach Shi'ite districts. There were also several small-scale attacks in predominantly Shi'ite areas across the country. In the southern oil hub of Basra, a parked car bomb exploded in a parking lot, setting ablaze five cars but causing no casualties, police said. In the town of Kifil, near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, at least one person was killed and three wounded by a car bomb. And in Kerbala, a car bomb blast on a busy street wounded at least seven people and torched a police car, police said. In the Kurdish-controlled town of Khanaqin, 140 km (100 miles) northeast of Baghdad, at least four Kurdish security members were killed and 12 wounded in a bomb attack on their patrol, police and medics said. U.S.-led forces started bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq in August and Washington expanded the campaign to Syria last week in an effort to defeat the well-armed insurgents who have swept through Sunni areas of both Iraq and Syria. Washington hopes the air strikes, conducted with help from European allies in Iraq and Arab air forces in Syria, will allow government and Kurdish forces in Iraq, and moderate Sunnis in Syria, to recapture territory. (Reporting by Kareem Raheem and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Dominic Evans) ================================= Special Report: Wheat warfare - Islamic State uses grain to tighten grip in Iraq Tue, Sep 30 07:18 AM EDT image 1 of 4 By Maggie Fick SHEKHAN Iraq (Reuters) - For Salah Paulis, it came down to a choice between his faith and his crop. A wheat farmer from outside Mosul, Paulis and his family fled the militant group Islamic State early last month. The group overran the family farm as part of its offensive that captured vast swathes of territory in northern Iraq. Two weeks later, Paulis, who is a Christian, received a phone call from a man who said he was an Islamic State fighter. “We are in your warehouse. Why are you not here working and taking care of your business?” the man asked in formal Arabic. “Come back and we will guarantee your safety. But you must convert and pay $500.” When Paulis refused, the man spelled out the penalty. “We are taking your wheat,” he said. “Just to let you know we are not stealing it because we gave you a choice.” Other fleeing farmers recount similar stories, and point to a little-discussed element of the threat Islamic State poses to Iraq and the region. The group now controls a large chunk of Iraq’s wheat supplies. The United Nations estimates land under IS control accounts for as much as 40 percent of Iraq’s annual production of wheat, one of the country’s most important food staples alongside barley and rice. The militants seem intent not just on grabbing more land but also on managing resources and governing in their self-proclaimed caliphate. Wheat is one tool at their disposal. The group has begun using the grain to fill its pockets, to deprive opponents – especially members of the Christian and Yazidi minorities – of vital food supplies, and to win over fellow Sunni Muslims as it tightens its grip on captured territory. In Iraq’s northern breadbasket, much as it did in neighboring Syria, IS has kept state employees and wheat silo operators in place to help run its empire. Such tactics are one reason IS poses a more complex threat than al Qaeda, the Islamist group from which it grew. For most of its existence, al Qaeda has focused on hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings. But Islamic State sees itself as both army and government. “Wheat is a strategic good. They are doing as much as they can with it,” said Ali Bind Dian, head of a farmers’ union in Makhmur, a town near IS-held territory between Arbil and Mosul. “Definitely they want to show off and pretend they are a government.” The Sunni militants and their allies now occupy more than a third of Iraq and a similar chunk of neighboring Syria. The group generates income not just from wheat but also from “taxes” on business owners, looting, ransoming kidnapped Westerners and, most especially, the sale of oil to local traders. Oil brings in millions of dollars every month, according to estimates by Luay Al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. That helps finance IS military operations – and is why IS-held oilfields in Syria are targets in U.S.-led airstrikes. “Islamic State presents itself as exactly that, a state, and in order to be able to sustain that image and that presentation, which is critical for continued recruitment and legitimacy, it depends on a sustainable source of income," said Charles Lister, another visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. SEIZING CROPS AND LIVESTOCK In early August, Kurdish farmer Saeed Mustafa Hussein watched through binoculars as armed IS militants shovelled wheat onto four trucks, then drove off in the direction of Arab villages. Hussein said he does not know what became of his wheat. But he knows that IS runs flour mills in areas it controls and he believes that his wheat was likely milled and sold. He had 54 tonnes of wheat on his farm in the village of Pungina, northeast of Arbil, wheat he had been unable to sell to a government silo or private traders because of fighting in the area. The militants also took 200 chickens and 36 prized pigeons. "What made it worse was that I was helpless to prevent this, I couldn’t do anything. They took two generators from the village that we had recently received from the Kurdish government after a very long process," said Hussein. Residents are too scared to return even though Kurdish fighters are now in control. "We think the Islamic State laid mines to keep us from going back," said neighbor Abdullah Namiq Mahmoud. There are scores of similar stories at displacement camps across Kurdistan. "We escaped with our money and gold but left our wheat and furniture and everything else," said farmer and primary school teacher Younis Saidullah, 62, a member of the tiny Kakaiya minority. "Everything we built for 20 years using my salary and our farming: It's all gone. We are back to zero," he said, sitting on the floor of a tent at a United Nations-run camp on the outskirts of Arbil. MILITARY AND ECONOMIC POWER After Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait triggered Western sanctions, the then-Iraqi dictator built a comprehensive subsidised food distribution system in Iraq. That was expanded under the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program. Joy Gordon, a political philosophy professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut and author of the 2010 book “Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions,” estimates that two-thirds of Iraqis “were dependent primarily or entirely” on food subsidies between 1990 and 2003. The system survived the U.S. invasion and years of violence. Now fully run by the Iraqi government, it has been plagued in recent years by “irregular (food) distributions” that have cut dependency, according to a June report by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. A former U.S. Department of Agriculture economist estimates that about quarter of Iraqis living in rural areas were dependent on subsidised food before the latest violence, while another quarter used it to top up food they bought. IS is demonstrating that controlling wheat brings power. As its fighters swept through Iraq’s north in June, they seized control of silos and grain stockpiles. The offensive coincided with the wheat and barley harvests and, crucially, the delivery of crops to government silos and private traders. IS now controls all nine silos in Nineveh Province, which spans the Tigris river, along with seven other silos in other provinces. In the three months since overrunning Nineveh’s provincial capital Mosul, IS fighters have forced out hundreds of thousands of ethnic and religious minorities and seized hundreds of thousands of tonnes of wheat from abandoned fields. A SILO UNDER ATTACK One target was the wheat silo in Makhmur, a town between the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. The silo has a capacity of 250,000 tonnes, or approximately 8 percent of Iraq’s domestic annual production in 2013. IS attacked Makhmur on August 7. But even in the weeks before that, the group had found a way into the silo and the Iraqi state procurement system. Abdel Rizza Qadr Ahmed, head of the silo, believes that IS forced local farmers to mix wheat produced in other, IS-controlled areas into their own harvest. The farmers then sold it to Makhmur as if it all had been grown locally. In the weeks before the attack, the silo purchased almost 14,000 more tonnes than it had in 2013. That extra wheat is worth approximately $9.5 million at the artificially high price Baghdad pays farmers. Ahmed believes IS was looking to make money from the wheat and ensure there was bread available for Sunnis in the areas it controlled. Ahmed said it was not his job to investigate the source of the grain, just to buy it. “We just take the wheat from the farmers and we don't ask 'Where did you get this from?'" he said. Huner Baba, local director general of agriculture, said he too believed that traders and farmers had sold wheat from outside the region. But Baghdad usually pays its wheat farmers around two months after they deposit their produce and so wheat farmers around Makhmur – and therefore IS – had not yet been paid by the time IS militants entered the town on June 7 and, according to Baba, headed for the silo. The militants were met by Iraqi Kurdish fighters, known as Peshmerga, and fighters from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). After IS took the silo, Baba said, they installed snipers there. He speculates that the militants believed U.S. warplanes would not strike the facility, which is in the center of town. “They want to get people on their side especially the Arabs. Maybe that’s why they didn’t do anything to the wheat, not to anger people,” he said. IS held Makhmur for three days before the Kurdish fighters and U.S. air strikes on IS positions – though not on the silo – drove them out. U.S.-led air strikes did hit grain silos in the northern Syrian town of Manbij on Sept 28. A group monitoring the war said the aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain silos for an Islamic State base. There was no immediate comment from Washington. SMOOTH TRANSITION In many ways, IS is replicating in Iraq strategies it developed in Syria. In the year it has controlled the town of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, for instance, IS militants say they have allowed former employees from Assad’s regime to continue to run its mills. The group has set up a wheat "diwan," or bureau, in charge of the supply chain, from harvesting the crop to distributing flour. The same push to keep things running smoothly can be seen in Iraq. IS fighters have regularly avoided destroying government installations they have captured. When IS took over Iraq's largest dam it kept employees in place and even brought in engineers from Mosul to make repairs. Baghdad, too, has tried to minimise upheaval. Hassan Ibrahim, head of Iraq's Grain Board, the Trade Ministry body responsible for procuring Iraq’s wheat internationally and from local farmers, said that government employees in IS-held areas keep in regular touch with head office. Some staff in IS areas even come to Baghdad every couple of weeks, he said. In the past few weeks, he said, IS fighters had disappeared from some areas in Mosul and Kirkuk because of the U.S.-led air strikes. “The situation is stable,” he said, with IS fighters mostly happy to allow state employees to continue to run the silos. “I give instructions to my people to try to be quiet and smooth with those people because they are very violent people. It is not good to be violent with violent people because they will come to kill you. Our aim is to keep the wheat.” After IS’s June offensive, Ibrahim was ordered to suspend salaries for workers in IS areas. “But this troubled me," he said. "I cannot have the mills stopping. I need people to stay there like guards to convince the Islamic State that wheat is important for everybody.” Ibrahim says he convinced his bosses to keep paying salaries. A Trade Ministry spokesman confirmed that all government employees in Mosul had been paid their salaries “through state banks in Kirkuk, as it’s safer and under government control.” Ibrahim is now worried about farmers who have not been paid for the wheat they delivered in the weeks before the grain was seized by IS. He said the Grain Board and the Trade Ministry were trying to pay farmers either living in IS-held areas or recently displaced from them. "We would like to help the farmers, but not IS," he said. WINNING HEARTS AND STOMACHS In some places, the IS stranglehold on wheat appears to be winning support among Sunnis. Ahsan Moheree, chairman of the government-affiliated Arab Farmers Union in Hawija, says IS has gained in popularity since its fighters took over. Baghdad’s dismissive attitude towards the country’s Sunni Arabs had forced people towards IS, he said. But IS’s ability to provide food had also helped. “They distribute flour to the Arabs in the area. They get the wheat from the Hawija silo ... And they run the mill and they distribute to people in a very organised way,” he said. Even those who have fled IS see wheat as one reason for the group’s strength. “Nowadays a kilo of wheat is 4,000 or 5,000 dinars ($3.45 - $4.30). It used to be 10,000 to 11,000 dinars,” said Joumana Zewar, 54, a farmer who now lives in Baharka camp outside Arbil. IS and Sunni Arabs are selling the wheat they stole “for very cheap. It’s cheap because they stole it.” Zewar called a friend in Mosul to check on the latest prices. “The price of foods and bread is very cheap,” the friend said. Islamic State had taken control, and as in Syria, was dictating prices. “They are the government here now. They are going to the bakeries and saying, ‘Sell at this price.’” THE YEAR AHEAD The big worry now is next season’s crop. In Nineveh province, home to the capital of the group’s self-declared caliphate, 750,000 hectares (1.8 million acres) should soon be sown with wheat and 835,000 hectares with barley, an Iraqi agriculture ministry official said. The official said that the province normally has 100,000 farmers. But thousands have fled. Iraqi farmers normally get next season’s seeds from their current harvest, keeping back some of the wheat for that purpose. IS controls enough wheat so finding seeds should not be a problem. It also controls Ministry of Agriculture offices in Mosul and Tikrit which should have fertilizer supplies. But getting the seeds and fertilizer into the right hands will be a problem. Mohamed Diab, director of the World Food Program's Regional Bureau for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, said that it is "highly unlikely" that displaced farmers would return. "The picture is bleak regarding agriculture production next year," he said. "The place where displacement has happened is the main granary of the country." That’s especially true for non-Sunni Arab farmers. Those who have remained on their land just outside IS-held territory fear the militants will soon take their villages, and their harvested but unsold crops. Even if that does not happen, they say, they will not plant after the first rain, which typically comes at the end of September or in early October. Farmers in the town of Shekhan, nestled among sun-bleached wheat fields, say they have no hope of getting the seeds, fertilizer and fuel needed to plant because the provincial government in Mosul is under IS control. "The real problem is how to get seeds to those inside Mosul and surrounding areas,” said Nineveh Governor Atheel Nujaifi, who believes production will drop next season. Bashar Jamo, head of a local farmers' cooperative, is also worried.

“The most important thing to us is agriculture, not security. Maybe (IS) will have a state, maybe an army, but all we need is to be able to farm.”

(Additional reporting by Ned Parker and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Maha El Dahan in Abu Dhabi and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Editing by Michael Georgy and Simon Robinson) =====================

Iraqi PM says Islamic State plans subway attacks in U.S. and Paris

Islamic State committing 'staggering' crimes in Iraq: U.N. report Thu, Oct 02 13:24 PM EDT image By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Islamic State insurgents in Iraq have carried out mass executions, abducted women and girls as sex slaves, and used child soldiers in what may amount to systematic war crimes that demand prosecution, the United Nations said on Thursday. In a report based on 500 interviews with witnesses, also said Iraqi government air strikes on the Sunni Muslim militants had caused "significant civilian deaths" by hitting villages, a school and hospitals in violation of international law. At least 9,347 civilians had been killed and 17,386 wounded so far this year through September, well over half of them since the Islamist insurgents also known as ISIL and ISIS began seizing large parts of northern Iraq in early June, the report said. "The array of violations and abuses perpetrated by ISIL and associated armed groups is staggering, and many of their acts may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity," said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein. In a statement, he called again for the Baghdad government to join the International Criminal Court, saying the Hague court was set up to prosecute such massive abuses and direct targeting of civilians on the basis of their religious or ethnic group. Islamist forces have committed gross human rights violations and violence of an "increasing sectarian nature" against groups including Christians, Yazidis and Shi'ite Muslims in a widening conflict that has forced 1.8 million Iraqis to flee their homes, according to the 29-page report by the U.N. Human Rights Office and the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). "These include attacks directly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, executions and other targeted killings of civilians, abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence perpetrated against women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction or desecration of places of religious or cultural significance, wanton destruction and looting of property, and denial of fundamental freedoms." FEMALE "SEX SLAVES" In a single massacre on June 12, the report said, about 1,500 Iraqi soldiers and security officers from the former U.S. Camp Speicher military base in Salahuddin province were captured and killed by Islamic State fighters. However, the bodies have not been exhumed and the precise toll is not known. No one disputes that Iraqi military recruits were led off the base near Tikrit unarmed and then machinegunned in their hundreds into mass graves by Islamic State, whose fighters boasted of the killings on the Internet. Women have been treated particularly harshly, the report said: "ISIL (has) attacked and killed female doctors, lawyers, among other professionals." In August, it said, ISIL took 450-500 women and girls to the Tal Afar citadel in Iraq's Nineveh region where "150 unmarried girls and women, predominantly from the Yazidi and Christian communities, were reportedly transported to Syria, either to be given to ISIL fighters as a reward or to be sold as sex slaves". Islamic State pushed on with its assault on a Syrian border town on Thursday despite coalition air strikes meant to weaken them, sending thousands more Kurdish refugees into Turkey and dragging Ankara deeper into the conflict. Islamic State and allied groups have attacked and destroyed places of religious and cultural significance in Iraq that do not conform to its "takfiri" doctrine, the U.N. report said, referring to the beliefs of Sunni militants who justify their violence by branding others as apostates. But the report also voiced deep concern at violations committed by the Baghdad government and allied fighters, including air strikes and shelling that may not have distinguished between military targets and civilian areas. (additional reporting by Ned Parker in Baghdad; Editing by Louise Ireland) ============== Air strikes said to hit Islamic State oil refineries in Syria Sun, Sep 28 17:23 PM EDT image 1 of 3 By Mariam Karouny and Ayla Jean Yackley BEIRUT/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Air raids believed to have been carried out by U.S.-led forces hit three makeshift oil refineries in northern Syria on Sunday as part of a campaign against Islamic State, a human rights group said. The United States has been carrying out strikes in Iraq since Aug. 8 and in Syria, with the help of Arab allies, since Tuesday, with the aim of "degrading and destroying" the militants who have captured large areas of both countries. U.S. President Barack Obama has been seeking to build a wide coalition to weaken Islamic State, which has killed thousands and beheaded at least three Westerners. In a potential boost for the United States, a jihadist Twitter account said the leader of an al Qaeda-linked group had been killed in a U.S. air strike in Syria, the SITE service said. A U.S. official said on Sept. 24 that the United States believed Mohsin al-Fadhli, leader of the Khorasan group, had been killed in a strike a day earlier, but the Pentagon said later it was still investigating. But in a tweet on Sept. 27, a jihadist offered condolences for the death of Fadhli, SITE, a U.S.-based organization that monitors militant groups online, said on Sunday. In Washington, Tony Blinken, deputy White House national security adviser, said on Sunday that officials could not yet confirm the death. U.S. officials have described Khorasan as a network of al Qaeda fighters with battlefield experience mostly in Pakistan and Afghanistan that is now working with al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front. The head of the Nusra Front said the air strikes would not eliminate Islamists in Syria and warned that the group's supporters could attack inside Western countries. In an audio message posted on jihadi forums, Abu Mohamad al-Golani urged European and U.S. citizens to denounce the strikes, which he said could trigger retaliation from Muslims. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the latest air strikes in northern Syria occurred shortly after midnight in Raqqa province. Rami Abdelrahman of the Observatory said that destroying the makeshift refineries has led to a sharp increase in the price of diesel, adding that in Syria's northern Aleppo province the price has more than doubled. "The price went up from 9,000 Syrian pounds to 21,000 in Aleppo. Hitting these refineries has affected ordinary people, now they have to pay higher prices," he told Reuters. A medium-sized makeshift refinery, mounted on trucks, can refine up to 200 barrels of crude a day into fuel and other products. RIVAL GROUPS But the impact of the strikes on Islamic State (IS) was not immediately clear. IS has gained support among Islamists following the attacks, including from rival groups. Scores of fighters have left al Qaeda's Nusra Front and other Islamist groups in Syria to join IS since the strikes started. The air strikes have failed so far to stop the advance of Islamic State fighters on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani near the border with Turkey which the group has sieged from three sides, triggering an exodus of more than 150,000 refugees. In Washington, U.S. lawmakers stepped up calls for congressional authorization of Obama's war against Islamic State, amid signs the United States and its allies face a long fight. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner told ABC's "This Week" that he believed Obama had the legal authority for strikes against Islamic State, but would call lawmakers back from their districts if Obama sought a resolution backing the action. "I think he does have the authority to do it. But ... this is a proposal the Congress ought to consider," Boehner said. Obama and other U.S. officials have said they believe no further vote to authorize force is needed. But Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that Congress should debate the issue because of uncertainty about how long the U.S. military would remain engaged in Syria. Obama meanwhile said U.S. intelligence agencies had underestimated Islamic State activity in Syria, which has become "ground zero" for jihadists worldwide. He said in a CBS television interview that Islamic militants went underground when U.S. Marines quashed al Qaeda in Iraq with help from Iraq's tribes. "But over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swathes of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos," Obama said. "And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world." (Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Susan Fenton) ==================================== Iraqi PM says Islamic State plans subway attacks in U.S. and Paris Thu, Sep 25 18:52 PM EDT image By Arshad Mohammed NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iraq has "credible" intelligence that Islamic State militants plan to attack subway systems in Paris and the United States, the prime minister said on Thursday, but U.S. and French officials said they had no evidence to back up his claims. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's comments were met with surprise by security, intelligence and transit officials in both countries. New York's leaders scrambled to ride the subway to reassure the public that the nation's largest city was safe. Abadi said he received the information Thursday morning from militants captured in Iraq and concluded it was credible after requesting further details. The attacks, he said, were plotted from inside Iraq by "networks" of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. "They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the U.S.," Abadi told a small group of U.S. reporters while in New York for the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. "I asked for more credible information. I asked for names. I asked for details, for cities, you know, dates. And from the details I have received, yes, it looks credible." Some Iraqi officials in Baghdad questioned Abadi's comments. One high-level Iraqi government official told Reuters it appeared to be based on "ancient intelligence". Another called it "an old story." Both spoke on condition of anonymity. Abadi did not provide further details. A senior Iraqi official traveling with him later said Iraqi intelligence had uncovered "serious threats" and had shared this information with its allies' intelligence agencies. "A full assessment of the veracity of the intelligence and how far the plans have gone into implementation is ongoing," the official said. Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, said the United States had "not confirmed any specific threat." "What we've consistently said to the Iraqis is if they have information that is relevant to terrorist activity or terrorist plotting, that they can and should share that through our intelligence and law enforcement challenges," Rhodes told reporters traveling with Obama on Air Force One from New York. "We would certainly take seriously any information they are learning," he said. French security services also said they had no information confirming Abadi's statement, a French government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. STRONGER TRANSIT SECURITY New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other local officials suggested they were unfazed, updating their public schedules on Thursday to add trips on the city's subway system to reassure millions of daily commuters. "We are convinced New Yorkers are safe," de Blasio said at a press conference at a lower Manhattan subway station as he stood alongside Bill Bratton, the police commissioner. Bratton, however, said in response to Abadi's comments that he sent more police to patrol subways and streets in the city which was already on high alert because of the U.N. meeting. Police will also increase security in and around Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, where baseball star Derek Jeter is due to play his last home game on Thursday before retiring at the end of the season. Officials in Chicago and Washington D.C. said they knew of no threats to their transit systems. The United States and France have both launched air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq as part of a U.S.-led campaign to "degrade and destroy" the radical Sunni militant group, which has seized a third of both Iraq and Syria. Abadi disclosed the intelligence while making a case for Western and Arab countries to join that campaign. "We want to increase the number of willing countries who would support this," he said. "This is not military. This is intelligence. This is security. The terrorists have a massive international campaign. Don’t underestimate it." In the past, the United States had received threats that various militant groups were targeting transportation systems but there is no recent information about an imminent plan by Islamic State, one U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Abadi also said that Iraq did not want to see foreign "boots on the ground," but stressed the value of providing air cover, saying Iraq's air force did not have sufficient capability. He said Australia was "very interested" in participating, though he did not provide details. He also voiced optimism about a planned British parliament vote on Friday on the matter, saying "they reckon it will be successful." Earlier on Thursday, France said it would increase security on transport and in public places after a French tourist was killed in Algeria, and said it was ready to support all states that requested its help to fight terror. (Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball and Ian Simpson in Washington, Frank McGurty, Jonathan Allen and Steve Holland in New York, Nicolas Bertin in Paris and Ned Parker in Baghdad; Editing by Jason Szep, Tom Brown and David Gregorio)

Iraq's top cleric sends subtle message to Maliki: step aside

مؤسسة الفرقان | الإصدار الرائع | على منهاج النبوة‬‎ Islamic State video wages psychological war on Iraqi soldiers Tue, Jul 29 09:22 AM EDT image By Michael Georgy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State, the al Qaeda spin-off that seized wide swathes of Iraq almost unopposed last month, has released a video warning Iraqi soldiers who may still have some fight in them that they risk being rounded up en masse and executed. Iraq's army unraveled when the Sunni insurgents staged a lightning advance through northern towns and cities, building on territory their comrades captured earlier in the west of the country, a major OPEC oil producer. Thousands of soldiers fled, prompting Iraq's top cleric to call on compatriots to take up arms against the radical faction that has declared a mediaeval-style caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria and aims to march on the capital Baghdad. The 30-minute video clip, circulated during the holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, sheds light on what tactics the Islamic State is likely to employ as it presses ahead with its campaign. After sweeping through a town with quick-hit raids, the militants are filmed standing over dozens of terrified, handcuffed Iraqi soldiers. One fighter mocks a soldier for wearing civilian clothes over his uniform out of fear of being identified and killed. He pleads for mercy, to no avail. Then dozens of soldiers are led to a sandy desert pit. They are executed one by one - bullets from AK-47 assault rifles pumped into their heads. Not satisfied that all are dead, an Islamic State fighter makes one last round, opening fire again, one by one. Others are led to the edge of a river. Each one is shot in the head with a pistol and then shoved in, the executioner standing in a large pool of blood. #USA allows #Iraq 5000 more AGM-114 Hellfire. Already 780+ delivered in 2014 including 466+ in July. Iraq remains low on launch platforms PROMISES OF PARADISE The mission begins with an Islamic State commander firing up militants with promises that paradise in heaven awaits them if they take the city of Samarra, which is 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad and would be their next target in a southward push. He tells them that God "made us proud when he permitted us to go to jihad". It was not clear where or when the video was filmed. The footage features night-vision sequences, then shows fighters moving into a city in flat-bed trucks, and U.S-made Humvees seized during their surge through the north last month. The Islamic State convoys filmed include small tanks and heavy machine guns transported on trailers. Some fighters are on foot, darting towards government buildings on sandy roads. As the Islamic State gains ground small units in trucks pull up beside vehicles during daytime and open fire on passengers who lose control of their vehicles. Several militants walk up to a van and empty their AK-47s through the windows, to make sure the job is done. Then the camera focuses on Iraqi security forces in watchtowers. One by one they are picked off by Islamic State snipers, who seem to avoid heavy clashes and rely instead on quick, small operations combined with psychological warfare. An insurgent can be heard weeping in joy as he declares that Samarra now belongs to the group. Residents and security sources say Baghdad Shi'ite Muslim-led government remains in control of Samarra so this footage may have come from another city or town seized by the Islamic State. Nevertheless, it illustrates the thinking of the Islamic State, which aims to redraw the Middle East map although it appears to have paused its territorial thrust for now in favour of consolidating recent gains north of Samarra. On Tuesday, Islamic State militants blew up a strategic bridge connecting Samarra to the town of Tikrit to the north, severing the main route and a tunnel beneath it that was used by Iraqi military forces, a senior local police official said. Iraqi government troops have tried but failed to recapture Tikrit from the insurgents. Islamic State's sudden rise has worsened Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian tensions in Iraq, raising fears that the country will relapse into the dark days of civil war that peaked in 2006-2007. Shi'ite militias now rival the government army in their ability to confront the Sunni insurgents. After the soldiers are executed, the Islamic State video shows fighters blowing up Shi'ite shrines or bulldozing mosques, as well as residents of the town welcoming fighters. (Editing by Mark Heinrich) ========== A nation in peril - Iraq's struggle to hold together Sun, Jul 27 08:43 AM EDT image 1 of 5 By Dominic Evans BAGHDAD (Reuters) -

Salman Khaled has already lived through Baghdad's sectarian disintegration; with Iraq now splintering into Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish regions, he says this time the survival of the country is at stake. "Things are really tense and it could get worse," said the 23-year-old Sunni Muslim student. "If the politicians continue as they are doing now, we are on the path to separation." When Khaled's father was shot dead by Shi'ite gunmen at the height of Baghdad's religious bloodshed seven years ago, his family took shelter in a Sunni neighborhood of the capital. They made their flight as violence forced apart communities that once mingled in the city. Today the family lives in the Adhamiya district, close to the Abu Hanifa mosque where one of Sunni Islam's most influential theologians is buried. At his home on an unpaved street, Khaled says he still feels secure in Adhamiya but he rarely goes to the rest of Baghdad where blast walls and security checkpoints hint at the fate of a fractured Iraq.

Iraq's latest - and gravest - crisis erupted when mostly Sunni fighters swept through the north last month. Now the jihadist black flag flies over of most of the country's Sunni Arab territory. Kurdish forces, exploiting the chance to take another step towards independence, seized the city of Kirkuk and nearby oilfields, leaving the Shi'ite-led government controlling only the capital region and the mainly Shi'ite south. The government is trying to reverse this de facto, three-way split of the country, but its reliance on Shi'ite militia and volunteers rather than the ineffectual national army has deepened sectarian mistrust without pushing the rebels back.

Across Baghdad a Sunni living in the Shi'ite area of Maalef, cut off from the rest of the city by a checkpoint where non-residents are turned back, said life there had become unbearable for those who do not belong to the majority Shi'ite community. "The Sunnis all want separation now," said the 37-year-old electrician, who asked not to be named for his security. "Facts on the ground tell you this will be the final result. On both sides now you have extremists who don't want to get along".

DIVIDED INTO THREE STATES Kurdish politician Hoshiyar Zebari, who still staunchly advocates Iraqi unity, described the new geography. "The country is divided literally into three states: the Kurdish state; the black state (under Sunni insurgents) and Baghdad," he said. Iraq’s political elite and world powers have concentrated on the formation of a new government as the best way to save the country, but such a push may come too late.

"It's probably the most serious crisis that Iraq has faced since its inception as a country," said Ali Allawi, a minister in two governments after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. "It's the first time that the territorial integrity of the state as a whole is in question." Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs have little to unite them, Allawi said, while for most Kurds, non-Arabs who were persecuted under Saddam, the idea of an Iraqi nation is even more fanciful.

This could further destabilize an already tumultuous region. Neighboring Syria also faces disintegration, with most of its eastern areas under Islamist rebels for more than a year. Iraq's heritage stretches back to early civilization on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but the modern state is a colonial fusion of the Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul that followed the empire's disintegration after World War One.

"Iraq is a failed state," said Masrour Barzani head of the Kurdish region's National Security Council. "It is a fabricated state. It has never been a state by choice by the people or the components of this country. They were forced to live together". Barzani blamed Baghdad for failing to keep Iraq united, and defended Kurdish aspirations for independence. "I don't think any rational person in the world would expect the Kurds to live and accept being partners in a country with a terrorist organization," he said, referring to Islamic State militants.

BATTLE LINES ENTRENCHED The long delay in forming a government after parliamentary elections in April and the eclipse of army units last month by better disciplined and motivated Shi'ite militias have revealed the fragility of national institutions. In Samarra, 110 km (70 miles) from Baghdad and one of the most northerly cities under government control, a Reuters photographer saw Shi'ite militiamen on patrol rather than army troops. "We are better than the army because we are fighting for our beliefs," said lawmaker Hakim Zamili, who supervised deployment of the Mahdi Army's "Peace Brigades" militia around Samarra. The government's inability throughout the first half of 2014 to recapture the Sunni city of Falluja, just 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, from the Islamic State underlines how ill equipped it is to reverse far greater militant gains since then which have displaced more than a million people. If it is to have any chance of turning the tide, the government must lure minority Sunnis away from the radicals now threatening to encircle Baghdad. The Islamic State, a relatively small vanguard, has exploited Sunni disgruntlement with Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to assert itself in the predominantly Sunni regions. Eight years ago when the U.S. army faced a similar challenge from the Islamic State in Iraq - an al Qaeda group from which the Islamic State emerged - it persuaded Sunni tribal leaders to switch sides, offering millions of dollars as incentive. This time, that's not an option. Maliki, who distrusted the Sunni paramilitary forces, halted their payments years ago, leaving them embittered and unlikely to fight a second time for the central government. "Unless Maliki makes some very significant concessions to the Sunni Arabs it will be very difficult to peel them away from the Islamic State," said Robert Ford, a former senior U.S. diplomat and resident scholar at the Washington Institute. Ford, who served in Baghdad between 2004 and 2006, said the Islamic State's absolutist dogma would lead it eventually into confrontation with its Sunni allies. However, for the time being Sunni factions were united in their opposition to Maliki. Critics accuse Maliki of marginalizing Sunni and Kurdish factions during his eight years in power. Even some fellow Shi'ite politicians oppose granting him a third term although his State of Law emerged as the largest parliamentary list in the April election. WARRING STATELETS OR CONFEDERATION? A U.S. military official who served in Iraq predicted four "warring statelets" could emerge, based around Shi'ite power south of Samarra, Kurdish control in the northeast, and separate Sunni power centers on the Tigris and Euphrates. Many parts of central Iraq are mixed Sunni and Shi'ite regions, and any such partition would probably leave a million Sunnis in those areas stranded under Shi'ite control. "Iraq doesn’t fall apart easily. There is no such thing as soft partition, because these borders are not clearly defined," said Emma Sky, a British political adviser to the commander of the U.S.-led international forces in Iraq between 2007 and 2010. Maliki has urged Iraqis to resist moves towards separation, which he said would mark the disintegration of the nation, but many of his critics say he himself is a divisive force.

Partition of any type requires a horrible level of killing and ethnic cleansing. "This crisis is not about ancient hatreds, it is a massive failure of leadership. And it has been obviously a failure of Western, U.S. policies," Sky said by phone from northern Iraq. "With leadership they can pull this situation round."

Sunni politicians have offered few solutions to the crisis, partly because their own influence is so limited in Sunni regions compared with the Islamic State and tribal fighters'.

The mainly Sunni Arab provinces in the west and north may be eyeing the same autonomy enjoyed by the three Kurdish provinces of the northeast, but even to start negotiations towards such a deal, which Baghdad would almost certainly block, requires "a new political mix" in the capital, Haddad said. It would also need the defeat of the Islamic State. "We've been hearing about Iraq breaking up and Iraq unraveling since 2003," he said. "But I never thought that Arab Iraq was breaking up. Today I think the prospects for a united Iraq, even if it's just Arab Iraq, are fading quickly." "One possibility is that these territories remain outside government control for a long period of time. That would lead to a sort of de facto partition," said Fanar Haddad, an academic and author on Iraq.

(Additional reporting by Maggie Fick, Isra' al-Rubei'i and Ned Parker in Baghdad and Isabel Coles in Arbil; Editing by Ned Parker and David Stamp) ======= Iraq's top cleric sends subtle message to Maliki: step aside Fri, Jul 25 16:16 PM EDT image By Raheem Salman and Isra' al-Rubei'i BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric urged political leaders on Friday to refrain from clinging to their posts - an apparent reference to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has defied demands that he step aside. Speaking through an aide who delivered a sermon after Friday prayers in the holy city of Kerbala, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said leaders should show flexibility so that political deadlocks could be broken and Iraq could confront an insurgency. Maliki has come under mounting pressure since Sunni militants led by the hardline Islamic State swept across northern Iraq last month and seized vast swathes of territory, posing the biggest challenge to Maliki's Shi'ite-led government since U.S. forces withdrew in 2011. Critics say Maliki is a divisive figure whose alienation of Sunnis has fueled sectarian hatred and played into the hands of the insurgents, who have reached to within 70 km (45 miles) of the capital Baghdad. Sistani said it is time for politicians to think of Iraq's interests, not their own. "The sensitivity of this phase necessitates that all the parties concerned should have a spirit of national responsibility that requires the practice of the principle of sacrifice and self-denial and not to cling to positions and posts." Maliki, a Shi'ite, has ruled since an election in April in a caretaker capacity, dismissing demands from the Sunnis and Kurds that he step aside for a less polarizing figure. Even some Shi'ites oppose his bid for a third term. Despite pressure from the United States, the United Nations, Iran and Iraq's own Shi'ite clergy, politicians have been unable to quickly come up with an inclusive government to hold the fragmenting country together. Iraq's parliament took a step toward forming a new government on Thursday, when lawmakers elected senior Kurdish lawmaker Fouad Masoum as president. The next step, choosing a prime minister, may prove far more difficult as Maliki has shown no sign he will give up his post. Sistani's call for flexibility could hasten his departure. He is seen as a voice of reason in the deeply divided country, and has almost mythological stature to millions of followers, members of Iraq's Shi'ite majority. The 83-year-old cleric who hardly ever appears in public last month seized his most active role in politics in decades by calling on Iraqis to take up arms against the Sunni insurgency. The insurgents, who hold territory in Iraq and Syria and have declared a 'caliphate', aim to redraw the map of the Middle East and have put Iraq's survival as a unified state in jeopardy. The army virtually collapsed in the face of their lightning advance. Shi'ite militias and Kurdish peshmerga fighters have become a critical line of defense against Islamic State as the militants set their sights on the capital. U.S. military and Iraqi security officials estimate the Islamic State has at least 3,000 fighters in Iraq, rising towards 20,000 when new recruits since last month's advance are included. ISLAMIC STATE RULES Aside from military campaigns, Islamic State has also been purging the plains of northern Iraq of religious and ethnic minorities that have co-existed there for hundreds of years. Insurgents have also been stamping out any influences they deem non-Islamic in Mosul, a once diverse city of two million that fell to the militants on June 10. Eyewitnesses said Islamic State gunmen destroyed the tombs of two prophets on Friday. The destruction of the Jirjees and Sheet shrines came a day after militants blew up the Nabi Younes shrine, one of the city's most well-known and thought to be the burial site of a prophet referred to in the Koran as Younes and in the Bible as Jonah. Also on Friday, the group warned women in Mosul to wear full-face veils or risk severe punishment. "The conditions imposed on her clothes and grooming were only to end the pretext of debauchery resulting from grooming and overdressing," Islamic State said in a statement. "This is not a restriction on her freedom but to prevent her from falling into humiliation and vulgarity or to be a theater for the eyes of those who are looking." A cleric in Mosul told Reuters that Islamic State gunmen had shown up at his mosque and ordered him to read their warning on loudspeakers when worshippers gather. "Anyone who is not committed to this duty and is motivated by glamour will be subject to accountability and severe punishment to protect society from harm and to maintain the necessities of religion and protect it from debauchery," Islamic State said. (Additional reporting by Maggie Fick; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Susan Fenton) ========== Ya akhi be realistic , Saddam also had kurds , shias , turkmans in his government , but did they have any real power ? I'm not saying makliki is saddam , but he is certainly following his foot steps . How is abo ghraib any different from saddam's time ? How is the economy any different ? The political structure seems different , but the action of those who hold real power is no different than the one in saddam's time . The constitution is a joke and used only to antagonize the rest of minorities (sunna and kurds ) in iraq , but other than that it does not exist . There is ZERO accountability in Iraq with Hamoodi and his circle practically taking ownership of everything in Iraq while people live you know how . Every mulla and marjaiya Gets their few boxes of dollars every months and they go around telling people that Kurds harboring terrorists and stealing iraq's oil and sunnis are spreading terrorism and they are behind their the shias misery and people actually believe it . يا أخي والله خبصتونة بداعش ، هو جان اكو بداعش خلال 8 سنوات السابقة With peshmergas from the North and the iraqi army from the south along with sunni tribes in the middle , the so called Daash would not last more than few days . You see here , a true leadership quality plays a big rule , so what is our esteemed maliki is doing to make that happen ? 1-He is chasing kurdish tanker oils 2-imprisoning more sunnis 3-Killing prisoners 4-cutting kurdistan's budget 5-cutting salaries of government employees in sunni and kurdish areas 6-Using iranian planes to bomb sunnis cities and with every single bomb Daash and the insurgency gets stronger and they get more volunteers . 7-refusing to allow cargo planes to land in kurdistan ....and the list goes on . 8-In the mean time he has a perfect and valid excuse to keep shia region in the dark ages and point finger at sunna , kurds , KSA , Qatar , Jorden .........and the theft goes on . Ok , lets say we defeated daash tomorrow , then what ? Were we in a good place before daash ? are we going to be in a better place when daash is defeated ? didn't we defeat them in the past and drove them out and look where we are now . ============= UAE and Qatar compete as Saudi Arabia looks on The Gulf states have become the most stable and influential force in the Arab world, with the decline of the Egyptian role, the spread of turmoil and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Algeria's retreat on itself after the "black decade" of the 1990s. Because of political stability and increasing oil revenues, the Gulf states have accumulated financial wealth that has strengthened their political, economic and media influence in the region. Summary⎙ Print The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are pursuing opposing foreign policies in the Middle East that are fueling tension between the two Gulf states, as Saudi Arabia keeps its distance. Author Abdulmajeed al-BuluwiPosted July 28, 2014 Translator(s)Tyler Huffman In light of the protection offered by the United States, the Gulf states have not been overly interested in a unified security policy — with the exception of Saudi Arabia. This contributed to Gulf states rushing to use their financial surpluses to produce foreign policies independent of their "sisters" in the Gulf. Doha has emerged to play regional roles in support of movements for change in the Arab world, particularly concerning political Islamic movements. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi has emerged as a key player in the Middle East, but in the opposing role of confrontation with movements of political Islam. Financial surpluses and political stability — along with the reassurance of US support — were not only reasons for this variation in foreign policy among Gulf states, but they also sparked competition among them for influence in the Arab world. This is especially true since Washington, the guarantor of security in the Gulf, has many options in dealing with the phenomenon of political Islam. These options range from the war on terror — as is the case in the United States' dealings with al-Qaeda where Abu Dhabi has been a strong partner to building bridges of understanding — to the Turkish Justice and Development Party. In the case of the latter, Doha has been a strategic partner for the United States. Gulf-Gulf competition has become one of the main policy features in the Middle East. This competition is mainly between Abu Dhabi and Doha, which stand at opposite ends of the foreign policy spectrum. While Doha supports the Syrian revolution, Abu Dhabi expresses its reservations regarding support that it thinks strengthens the Islamists. And while Doha supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, Abu Dhabi stands in the opposing camp. The announcement of the establishment of the Muslim Council of Elders (MCE) in Abu Dhabi on July 19 is linked to this competition between the two capitals. Doha is home to the headquarters of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, headed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, while Abu Dhabi is now home to the headquarters of the MCE, headed by Abdullah Bin Bayyah and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb. Qaradawi had been a member of the Al-Azhar governing body, but he resigned from this position after the July 3 coup against President Mohammed Morsi, in protest of Al-Azhar's positions cooperating with the coup. Meanwhile, Bin Bayyah had been a member in the International Union of Muslim Scholars, but he resigned in September 2013. In his resignation speech, Bin Bayyah hinted that a reason for his departure involved his disagreement with the union's positions. It is no secret that positions on the Arab uprisings and their fluctuations had an impact on these mutual resignations. Given that religion is a key factor in struggles for influence in the region, religion has become an arena for the "soft conflict" that is going on between the two capitals. While Qatar has stood in support of Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood religious currents, Abu Dhabi choose to support the traditional Sunni Islam current, historically represented by Al-Azhar. This latter current calls for religious scholars to not directly engage in politics. In the context of this Emirati support, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed announced on April 28, 2013, at a meeting with the grand imam of Al-Azhar, his commitment to supporting Al-Azhar, so that it could once again play its role of spreading a rhetoric of moderation and countering extremism and fanaticism. In recent decades, Al-Azhar's role has declined with the rise of Salafist currents. It is likely that the United Arab Emirate's support to the institution of Al-Azhar and the current it represents will place Abu Dhabi in a soft confrontation with the Saudi Salafist religious establishment. The latter has benefited from the absence of Al-Azhar's role and its weakness, and spread its influence even inside Egypt. Early features of this soft confrontation have appeared in the lack of a scholar from the Saudi Salafist religious establishment in the MCE. The announcement of the establishment of the MCE was met with sharp criticism from two sides. First, it was criticized by those affiliated with the Salafist establishment, because the MCE was removed from them and marginalized them. Second, it was criticized by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, who viewed it as the "religious wing" of the military coup plot against Morsi. While the International Union of Muslim Scholars has enthusiastically supported the Arab revolutions and democratic procedures — including elections — the MCE seems more cautious toward them. The MCE warned against an adherence to democratic procedures in an environment that is not yet mature, saying this could lead to civil wars. This soft conflict between Doha and Abu Dhabi over the religious space in the Middle East is fueled by the decline in the central role played by Saudi Arabia in leading this space. This decline was due to several factors, including the communications revolution that redistributed religious power in the Islamic world, allowing for the emergence of multiple centers of influence. Furthermore, the conditions of the war on terror played a role in the decline of influence of the Saudi religious establishment and diminished its impact. The impact of these two factors was reinforced by the declining opportunities to reform this religious establishment to be more competitive. Doha and Abu Dhabi have come to represent two opposing poles in the Middle East, and their struggle for influence has moved from the field of politics to the field of religion, with Riyadh standing between them. Saudi Arabia is at times with Doha, while at other times with Abu Dhabi. Doha shares Saudi Arabia's affiliation with Salafism and the Wahhabi sect as well as its positions on Syria and Iraq, while Abu Dhabi shares Riyadh's position on Egypt and political Islam groups. The competition between Doha and Abu Dhabi continues to underpin the current rift in the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia keeping a distance. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/saudi-caught-between-uae-qatar-feud.html#ixzz3912JWjax =========================