Iraq and ISIS Discussion

Watching events from next door, so to speak, I agree with those who think the hammer will come out later when their hold on power is secure.
 
Uncle Samir Needs YOU!

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, also known as ISIL or ISIS, feeds updates from the front lines through several platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts.

Jihad experts say ISIL has one of the most sophisticated social media strategies of any extremist group and that the recent surge in social media posts, in a variety of languages including English, is not simply an organic groundswell of support.

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A tweet by an ISIL supporter in Iraq. Photo: Twitter

The group has had to play a cat and mouse game as it attempts to develop their online following, evade censorship and keep information flowing out.

This means constantly creating and swapping “official” accounts and the use of third parties to disseminate live updates and images.

There's an app for that

The campaign’s core was an Android app called The Dawn of Glad Tidings. It was launched in April and was available on the Google Play store for months. It is understood that Google has recently removed the app.

After signing up, a stream of tweets selected by ISIL's social media operatives would be posted to the user's account, staggered in order to evade detection by Twitter's anti-spam algorithms.

Earlier this month the group was live tweeting updates and images of its capture of the strategic town of Mosul in northern Iraq. The insurgents, under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, have launched a campaign to conquer much of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and unite the region into a caliphate, a kingdom under Sharia law.

Queensland University senior international relations lecturer Dr Andrew Phillips told Fairfax Media that jihadists have been using social media for years and that al-Qaeda and now ISIL have been particularly effective early adopters.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/cats-an...sil-social-media-strategy-20140625-zsk50.html
 
ScribblerSix said:
Explain if you could?
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Overt Islamist insurgency/conventional war evolved from a covert movement, an objective to reestablish the caliphate, massacres of kuffar soliders/civilians along the way. GIA is now AQIM IIRC too so you'd think they'd learn a lesson from a sister organisation.
 
CQB said:
From the information I'm seeing they are keeping infrastructure in place, medical, garbage disposal, re-education, pledges of support by tribesmen, burning of cigarettes, women in Burkhas & paying the tax by Christians. But I am rather suspicious of their future moves.
My suspicions are based on dealing with and speaking with ME minorities, Kurds, Mandayans, Copts, Catholics, Maronites & Assyrians. They all tell the same story and the story is one of antagonism towards them. I add that this was about five or so years ago before ISIS existed. Let's see if their claim of wanting to belong to a unitary government holds any water.
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They 're using the heart and mind campaign that Hamas is so good at. When Fatah was in charge everybody want to get paid but nobody actually showed up for work or got anything. Hamas takes over and trash gets picked up people show up for work they provide medical clinics etc. Israel goes on a bombing campaign in Lebanon and it's Hezbollah who pops up after the bombing is done and provides housing and money to all the people caught up in it. Now ISIS is playing the hearts and mind game and all these organization are generally kicking are ass at it in the process.
 
Didn't see this posted here. Looks like more guys will get the chance to kick some ISIS butt...

300 Special Forces Troops Head to Iraq with Immunity Assurances

The Iraq government has provided sufficient assurances on immunity from local law for Special Forces to undertake their advisory mission with the reeling Iraqi army, Pentagon officials said Monday.

The Defense Department has not yet received in writing immunity agreements for the troops, but "Iraq has provided acceptable assurances" for the 300 Special Forces troops to begin moving into Baghdad, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement.

Kirby said Iraq "has committed itself to providing protections for our personnel equivalent to those provided to personnel who were in country before the crisis," when troops were subject to the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice and not Iraqi law.

A formal agreement on the legal protections was being worked out between the State Department and the government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Pentagon officials said.

Last week, President Obama announced that up to 300 Special Forces will deploy to Iraq to advise the Iraqi national security forces on combating the advancing militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.
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Read more here....
 
An interesting development, for sure.

According to a report in the Iraqi news network Al Sumaria, the insurgent leader was injured during a raid led by Iraq's Shiite-led security forces in the west of Anbar.

"The Iraqi security forces carried out an operation in the city of Qaim on the border with Syria based on accurate intelligence and with the help of the Air Force where the leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was seriously injured," said Haidar al-Shara, a representative of the international parliament in Iraq.
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According to the report, it hasn't been independently verified yet. I hope it's true. This guy needs to go ahead and die.
 
So the leader of ISIS is injured? Great...is this an organization which needs "a" leader or "the" leader? If this guy croaks, will the organiztion splinter or is it like AQ and persists without central leadership?
 
Freefalling said:
So the leader of ISIS is injured? Great...is this an organization which needs "a" leader or "the" leader? If this guy croaks, will the organiztion splinter or is it like AQ and persists without central leadership?
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This guy has taken to calling himself the caliph, and demands his fighters' loyalty in that capacity. If he does die, I would be safe in expecting some kind of infighting to see who will be the next caliph. He may have hand picked a successor by now, in case he does cash in on his 72 virgin swine, but that won't mean much if a more ambitious jihadi wants the position bad enough.

I could be wrong, but having a central leader looks to be a big part of this organization. If he dies, there's no guarantee that they won't stop fighting, but they won't be as organized in their conquest until someone else assumes the title of caliph and keeps the fight moving in that direction.
 

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