Iraq costs top $7.5 million a day
The Pentagon says operations in Iraq are now costing the U.S. more than $7.5 million a day as the military steps up airstrikes and advisory operations against ISIS. Rear Admiral John Kirby:
So as you might imagine, it didn’t start out at $7.5 million per day. It’s been—as our [operational tempo] and as our activities have intensified, so too has the cost.
He says the Pentagon continues to believe it will be able to fund the operations through the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 using its existing resources.
Shipment to Lebanese army
The U.S. delivers an emergency shipment of weapons to the Lebanese military after ISIS kills and kidnaps soldiers and police in the border town of Arsal. Ambassador David Hale says the U.S. has delivered 480 anti-tank guided missiles, over 1,500 M16-A4 rifles, and mortars.
This is just the latest in a series of deliveries that have arrived in the last 36 hours … More mortars, grenade launchers, machine guns, and anti-tank weapons will be arriving
#ISISmovies hashtag
Twitter users satirize ISIS using the hashtag #ISISmovies. Libyan-American writer Hend Amry:
Sometimes, you have to mock, to belittle. Because sometimes, belittlement is your enemy’s greatest fear
Girls just want to have fundamentalism #ISISmovies
— Amro Ali (@_amroali) August 16, 2014
New York Times op-ed
McCain and Graham criticize Barack Obama’s approach to the conflict:
The president clearly wants to move deliberately and consult with allies and Congress as he considers what to do about ISIS. No one disputes that goal. But the threat ISIS poses only grows over time. It cannot be contained. It must be confronted. This requires a comprehensive strategy, presidential leadership and a far greater sense of urgency.
A comprehensive approach would include military actions in Syria:
But ultimately, ISIS is a military force, and it must be confronted militarily. Mr. Obama has begun to take military actions against ISIS in Iraq, but they have been tactical and reactive half-measures. Continuing to confront ISIS in Iraq, but not in Syria, would be fighting with one hand tied behind our back. We need a military plan to defeat ISIS, wherever it is.
The U.S. must support Kurdish peshmerga, Sunni tribes, moderate forces in Syria and effective units of the Iraqi security forces with arms, intelligence and military assistance, but avoid supporting Iranian troops. Supplying more assets, troops, resources and time could involve revising the Authorization for Use of Military Force, and employing an Afghanistan-like approach. They say other presidents successfully changed their tactics in response to the Soviet Union, Balkans and Iraq:
ISIS presents Mr. Obama with a similar challenge, and it has already forced him to begin changing course, albeit grudgingly. He should accept the necessity of further change and adopt a strategy to defeat this threat. If he does, he deserves bipartisan support. If he does not, ISIS will continue to grow into an even graver danger to our allies and to us.
ISIS eyeing Mex-US border
According to a bulletin titled, ISIS Interest on the US Southwest Border, released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, social media chatter shows ISIS is looking at using the Mexico-US border as an entry point into the US.
A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending August 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US, for terror attack. Social media account holders believed to be ISIS militants and propagandists have called for unspecified border operations, or they have sought to raise awareness that illegal entry through Mexico is a viable option. The identities of persons operating these accounts cannot be independently verified; however the accounts were selected for monitoring based on several indications that they have been used by actual ISIS militants for propaganda purposes and collectively reach tens of thousands of followers. One account was verified as belonging to an individual located in Mosul, Iraq…This Twitter account holder, who is the administrator of an ISIS propaganda trading group, stated that the time was right for such an action because ‘the US-Mexican border is now open large numbers of people crossing.
‘Bubonic plague weapon’
Plans to create a weaponized form of bubonic plague from infected animals are found on a laptop discovered in former ISIS hideout:
The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge
A fatwa on the justification for the weapon:
If Muslims cannot defeat the kafir [unbelievers] in a different way, it is permissible to use weapons of mass destruction
The laptop is believed to belong to a Tunisian national identified as Muhammad S., who joined ISIS after studying chemistry and physics at two universities in Tunisia’s northeast. A suggestion for weaponisation:
Use small grenades with the virus, and throw them in closed areas like metros, soccer stadiums, or entertainment centers. Best to do it next to the air-conditioning. It also can be used during suicide operations.
Experts say that the document is no indication that ISIS are already in possession of such weapons, but say that the longer the group remains active, the more likely it is to develop weapons capable of mass destruction.
Bomb threat
A man flying an ISIS flag from his car is arrested after threatening police with a bomb during a traffic stop in Southwest Chicago. Emad Karakrah, 49, has been charged with felony counts of disorderly conduct and aggravated fleeing and a misdemeanor count of driving on a never-issued license, and also issued with three traffic citations after a motorist called police after spotting the ISIS flag flying from his silver Pontiac southbound in the 7700 block of South Kedzie at 9:18 a.m. During his arrest, he tells police that there is a bomb in the car and he will detonate it if they search the vehicle, however when a bomb squad, the FBI and Homeland Security search the car, no bomb is found. He is held on a $55,000 bond and is next scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 3.
‘Oilfields earn millions a day’
Luay al-Khateeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar, estimates ISIS is earning $2 million a day in oil revenues in Iraq and much more in Syria. The Iraqi fields are only producing half of the 80,000 barrels a day they are rated at, black-market crude is selling at $25-$60 a barrel:
From Syria they could be making double or even triple that.
Estimating the Syrian revenues is difficult since most of the oil is sold to the Bashar al-Assad government, which doesn’t disclose oil use figures, but the regime’s struggle means consumption is likely very high:
It’s a war of survival for the Syrian regime and they have no choice but to buy the oil — even though they know the money is going into ISIS hands.
Attracts recruits with Shariah
0 CommentsISIS’s ability to establish itself as a de facto Islamic caliphate, as well as its reputation for brutality, make it more attractive to potential recruits, officials say. The group’s ability to impose strict Islamic law in areas under its control gives it a an advantage over factions like Al Qaeda. They say the number of U.S. fighters joining ISIS and other groups in Syria has almost doubled since January, to more than 100. A senior official:
ISIS is able to hold itself up as the true jihad. They’re saying: ‘Look at what we are doing, what we’re accomplishing. We’re the new face. We’re not just talking about it. We’re doing it.’
Child soldier ‘witnessed atrocities’
A former ISIS child soldier now located in Turkey tells CNN he attended children’s training camps from the age of 13:
My friends and I were studying at the mosque, and they taught us that we should enrol in jihad with the [Islamic State] … I wanted to go, but my father did not allow me to.
He is allowed to go after the group threaten to behead his father for preventing him:
For 30 days we woke up and jogged, had breakfast, then learned the Quran and the Hadith of the Prophet. Then we took courses on weapons, Kalashnikovs and other light military stuff.
The children are forced to witness atrocities:
They used to bring young [kids] to the camp to lash them,” Mohammed says. “When we go to the mosque, they order us to come the next day at a specific time and place to [watch] heads cut off, lashings or stonings.” “We saw a young man who did not fast for Ramadan, so they crucified him for three days, and we saw a woman being stoned [to death] because she committed adultery.
Second slain American fighter identified
Minneapolis native and father of nine Abdirahmaan Muhumed, 29, a Somali-American, has been confirmed as the second American citizen to die while fighting for ISIS. Two sources say the group has sent a picture of Muhumed’s body to his family. The State Department has yet to confirm his death. He is believed to have died a week earlier in the same battle as Douglas McArthur McCain, the first American citizen confirmed killed fighting for ISIS, who is reported to have also grown up near Minneapolis. Facebook messages with a journalist before leaving for Syria earlier in the year:
Family is not gonna save me frm [sic] hell fire because muslims are getting kill[ed] and if I just sit here i will be ask in the [hereafter].
A Jan. 2 Facebook posting:
I give up this worldy life for Allah.
Vatican: Pope threat ‘nothing serious’
The Vatican downplays the possibility of ISIS posing a threat to the Pope, following a report by Il Tempo newspaper that the pontiff is being targeted by the militant group as the world’s most prominent Christian leader. A spokesman:
There is nothing serious to this. There is no particular concern in the Vatican.
Executes Syrian soldiers
A video posted on YouTube, and reported confirmed as genuine by an ISIS fighter, shows the group apparently executing many Syrian soldiers after marching them through the desert. A video caption states that 250 executions have been carried out, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in the war, says the death toll is more than 120. The killings reportedly occurred as ISIS seized Taqba airbase in the province of Raqqa over the weekend. An ISIS militant:
Yes, we have executed them all.
Texan pleads guilty to terror support
Texas native Michael Todd Wolfe, also known as Faruq, pleads guilty to ‘attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.’ Wolfe was caught in an FBI sting as he sought a contact to help him enter Syria and join ISIS. A court complaint describes how he and his wife watched a video of ISIS activities with an FBI agent posing as a contact:
While watching the video, Wolfe occasionally stopped the video to explain the current allegiances of the various groups fighting in Syria. They include ISIS, al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, the Free Syria Army, and Dawla
Second American ISIS fighter may be dead
U.S. authorities are investigating a claim by a coalition of Syrian opposition groups that they have killed an American national during fighting with kharijites, or extremists. The statement is an apparent reference to fighting several days earlier between ISIS and the coalition, which is made up of fighters from the Free Syrian Army, Syrian Al Qaeda branch al-Nusra Front, as well as smaller militant factions. If true, the unnamed militant would be the second American ISIS fighter confirmed killed in battle, after the U.S. government said that Florida native Douglas MacArthur McCain also died in the fighting over the weekend.
American ISIS fighter killed
American national Douglas McArthur McCain is killed fighting for ISIS against the al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. He is believed to be the first U.S. citizen killed while fighting for the group, also known as Islamic State.
Controls eight oilfields
0 CommentsISIS is reported to control eight oil and gas fields in the Syrian provinces of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor that produce 30,000-70,000 barrels a day. Syrian, Iraqi and Lebanese sources involved in the trade say it sells heavy oil at an average of $26-$35 a barrel to local merchants and merchants across the border in Iraq, or to upstart refineries financed by Turkish, Lebanese and Iraqi businessmen. Light crude sells at up to $60 a barrel. Beyond Syria and Iraq, Kurdish merchants transport oil into Iraqi Kurdistan and sell it to Turkish or Iranian traders, who smuggle it into their countries to be sold at a discount, or sell it back to the Syrian government.
Oil piracy, extortion
0 CommentsWestern and Arab officials say ISIS runs a self-sustaining economy across territory it controls in Syria and Iraq, pirating oil and extorting tribute from a population of at least eight million. The group was previously thought to depend on donations from Gulf states and the Muslim world. A farmer in Syria who has since fled the country after being forced by ISIS to pay tribute:
They demanded to be paid in gold, silver or any other precious material for the annual crop we were about to plant
Military options focus on Iraq
Obama says that while he has asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey for ‘a range of options’ for confronting ISIS, military plans are currently limited to protecting U.S. personnel in Iraq and do not extend to action in Syria. To reporters:
Our core priority right now is just to make sure our folks are safe
‘Iraqis responsible for their own security’
Obama says that any security gains made by the U.S. against groups like ISIS will be temporary, and that lasting improvements to the situation will need to be domestic:
The idea that the United States or any outside power would perpetually defeat Isis, I think, is unrealistic. We can rout Isis on the ground and keep a lid on things temporarily, but then as soon as we leave, the same problems come back again. We’ve got to make sure Iraqis understand that in the end they are responsible for their own security.