Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda

This is pretty much a collapse of the US strategy in Syria. Depending on how many people in Washington are waiting to stab the Obama administration in the back, the outcome may be no strategy at all for a while

# The Telegraph 
Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda () {

By = Ruth Sherlock, Gaziantep
Date = 02 Nov 2014

"As a movement, the SRF is effectively finished," said Aymen al-Tammimi, a Syria analyst. "Nusra has driven them out of their strongholds of Idlib and Hama."

It was not immediately clear if American TOW missiles were among the stockpile surrendered to Jabhat al-Nusra on Saturday. However several Jabhat al-Nusra members on Twitter announced triumphantly that they were.

(...)

In Idlib, Harakat Hazm gave up their positions to Jabhat al-Nusra "without firing a shot", according to some reports, and some of the men even defected to the jihadists.

In Aleppo, where Harakat Hazm also has a presence, the group has survived, but only by signing a ceasefire agreement with Jabhat al-Nusra, and giving up some of their checkpoints to the group.

Mr Tammimi said: "One of the conditions for giving Harakat Hazm weapons was that they did not work with Jabhat al-Nusra. The Western bolstering of these groups posed a threat to them."

(,,,)

Mr Tammimi said of the US-led efforts in Syria: "This attempt to cultivate groups includes such a thorough vetting process that it slows down the operation. Maybe it would have worked in the Syrian war 2012. Now it really is too little, too late."

Source = http://fw.to/O9FWWqQ  }

Iraq Next Time Bomb

The article parsed below was published by Rudaw on October 1. That is, exactly one month ago.

Yesterday, Rudaw reported another clash between Kurdish peshmerga and the Shia Badr militia. This time the Shia militias took some peshmerga fighters prisoner

The dysfunctional Iraqi army apart, Peshmerga and Shia militias are pretty much all the US got to rely on for ground forces in Iraq.

# Rudaw
Sunni Arabs seek Peshmerga protection from Shia militias in Kirkuk () {

By = Hiwa Hussamaddin
Date = 1/10/2014

(...)

Sherwan Hamid, a Kurdish Peshmerga officer near Kirkuk, told Rudaw, “The policy and behavior of Shiite militants have changed completely. In the beginning their only goal was to retake Shiite areas, but now they have started seeking revenge.”

Hamid added, “Following the liberation of Amerli, Suleiman Beg and some other villages, the Shiite militants entered the village of Yenginje and destroyed all the houses, stores and shops that belonged to Sunni Arabs.”

“When they find an IS militant corpse, they behead it and drag the body from the car in the streets,” he maintained.

(...)

Pola Ahmed, director of Daquq security station south of Kirkuk, said, “IS still controls several areas within Kirkuk’s borders. The security authorities, with the help of the Iraqi army, have a plan to retake those areas and the Shiite militants are expected to participate in the operation. This has raised grave concerns among the Sunnis.

Ahmed added, “We have been approached by Sunni Arabs in those areas via tribal leaders. They have informed us that they would like to have the Peshmerga forces attack their areas and that they are ready to surrender themselves and their arms to Peshmerga forces on the condition that Shiite militants can’t attack their areas,” Ahmed added.

(...)

The director of security in the town of Tuz Khurmatu in Salahaddin province south of Kirkuk, said the Peshmerga worked well with the Shiite militias on anti-IS missions but their relationship has deteriorated over the past few weeks.

They “attacked our checkpoint at Khurmatu gate, but we repelled the attack,” he said. “The Shiite militants, on a daily basis, make problems for Kurds inside the town of Khurmatu.”

Source = http://t.co/7voEU3sxxn 

}

Iraq Victory in Jurf al-Sakhar

WaPo reporter in Jurf al-Sakhar finds a destroyed town, signs of Iranian presence and no local population. It's not clear how many more such victories America's Sunni allies in the region can stomach

Iraq’s victory over militants in Sunni town () {

By = Loveday Morris
Date = October 29

A visit to the Sunni settlement Tuesday laid bare the huge cost of the victory. The town is now emptied of its 80,000 residents, and building after building has been destroyed — by airstrikes, bombings and artillery fire.

On Tuesday, hundreds of militiamen trundled out of Jurf al-Sakhar in trucks and buses, handing over control of the town and outlying villages and farms to Iraqi security forces... The Shiite forces could not remain in the area, militia commanders said. Their presence would only spark controversy and accusations of sectarian killings, they said. There already have been reports of revenge attacks in the aftermath of the Jurf al-Sakhar victory.

It was not hard to see why such reports were circulating. A convoy of trucks blaring religious music from loudspeakers drove out on a dusty road just north of the town. The men in the truck were jovial and flashed peace signs, but the decaying body of an alleged insurgent was being dragged behind the vehicle...

(...)

A local police officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said Iranian fighters were present on the battlefield, while a Washington Post employee heard Farsi being spoken at a military base.

(...)

The future of the town is unclear. None of its Sunni residents remain or are likely to return anytime soon. Those who had stayed in the town until last week were considered combatants, said Hassan Shakir Oda, a member of the provincial council and the Badr Brigade.

“We considered every family that stayed al-Qaeda or Daesh,” he said, referring to the Islamic State by its Arabic acronym. “If anyone against Daesh had stayed, Daesh would have killed them.”

“For now, it’s impossible that they come back,” he said.

Source = http://wapo.st/1tJGUze }

Our weekly column on sports and culture in the Middle East

Dragging bodies around tied to cars seems to be a big hit in Iraq right now. Before it was the hanging of bodies from electricity poles

Image: Presumably, Shia militias with the body of a dead ISIS fighter

The more caliphates, the better

I would notice as interesting the fact that historically it was accepted that there could be more than one caliphate. Given the split and ensuing rivalry between ISIS and Al Qaeda and Al Nusra's latest fallout with other rebel groups in Idlib, it makes you wonder... Of course the chances that, by creating its cross border empire, ISIS is about to start a race of caliphates across the region are not very high. But it's an interesting possibility to consider nonetheless

# BBC
What's the appeal of a caliphate? () {

By  = Edward Stourton 
Date = 25 October 2014 

(...)

"Seventy years after the Prophet's death, this Muslim world stretched from Spain and Morocco right the way to Central Asia and to the southern bits of Pakistan, so a huge empire that was all… under the control of a single Muslim leader," says historian Prof Hugh Kennedy. "And it's this Muslim unity, the extent of Muslim sovereignty, that people above all look back to."

Yet these dynasties extended their rule so far, and so fast, that it became increasingly difficult for any one lineage to control all Muslim lands. As power fragmented, it was not just a political dilemma for any particular dynasty, but also a theological challenge to the very idea of the caliphate. The power of unity was closely linked to the idea of a caliph - yet it only took just over a century of the Muslim faith for the world to see parallel - and even competing - caliphates emerge.

The Sunni theologian Sheikh Ruzwan Mohammed argues: "While you do have two caliphs on earth proclaiming that they're the representatives of the Muslim community at this point, and more deeply that they are the shadow of God on earth, Muslims at that point were very pragmatic, and they acknowledged the fact that there could be more than one caliph representing the benefits and the concerns of the Muslim community - and that was also understood and accepted by Muslim theologians."

(...)

Source = http://t.co/q8RjGDnnFi  }