Yes, they’re reeling from those American airstrikes. And as for the crucifixions, it’s in the Qur’an: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth to cause corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment” (Qur’an 5:33).
“Islamic State seizes more territory in Syria: monitor,” Reuters, August 13, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):
(Reuters) – Islamic State insurgents have seized several towns and villages from rival Islamist groups in the Syrian province of Aleppo, opening the way for further westward advances, an organization monitoring the war in Syria said on Wednesday.
Already in control of large areas of northern and eastern Syria, Islamic State’s latest gains include the towns of Turkmen Bareh and Akhtarin, 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain, reported.
It said at least 40 fighters were killed during the fighting.
Islamic State’s advance in Syria has accelerated since the group seized control of the Iraqi city of Mosul in June, declaring a caliphate in areas under its control in a bid to redraw the borders of the Middle East.
Diplomats and rebels said the Syrian government, which is fighting rebels across the country, launched attacks on towns run by the group only after its militants advanced into neighboring Iraq and seized a third of its territory.
Islamic State is tightening its grip over areas of Syria under its control, including the city of Raqqa on the Euphrates river. Raqqa has become Islamic State’s Syrian power base.
The Observatory, which uses a network of monitors, reported battles between Islamic State fighters and Syrian government forces near a Raqqa military airport, the government’s last remaining position in the area.
The Observatory also reported two more crucifixions by Islamic State in Deir al-Zor overnight, bringing to 27 the number of people executed by the group in recent days as it tightens it grip over the eastern province….
John C. Barile says
We can see that the tide is far from turning against the Islamic State’s fortunes.
Jay Boo says
Who are we going to blame?
There are the usual MSM suspects who fall under the heading of ABM (anyone but Muslims)
Such as corrupt governments, Islamophobic films, not enough foreign aid, right wing evangelicals, or even the fall back head in sand approach of no one at all — as in let’s try to bury the story and hope that no one notices so as not to offend Muslims by talking about real Islam.
When Islam’s disgrace can no longer be hidden, it becomes three-card-Monty time and CAIR where gives Obama the permission to go after the ‘radicals’ not because of their deeds but because even the MSM can no longer cover up the foul stench revealing Islam.
Angemon says
Jay Boo posted:
“Who are we going to blame?”
Probably Bush or Palin, as always…
Marken says
Though Reuters used a file photo, I’m curious if any military JWs recognize the armored vehicle?
Beagle says
Old Russian, possibly Soviet BMP.
Beagle says
Yeah, BMP-1. I image searched it.
Beagle says
In Syria is Islamic State still Obama’s ally while he tries to halt it up by Kurdistan and use it as a political wedge down near Baghdad? This is so confusing, not having any coherent plan or alliance system.
umbra says
obama does not know what he is doing. The middle east is not some utopian peace loving place – like chicago – where people hug, sing kumbaya and make up. It is an ethnic islamic-sectarian divide sprinkled with clan/tribe loyalties. Problems there are ultimately resolve with violence with the winning side taking all the spoils. This is the reality under islam and always will be while islam remains.
The conflict is syria will not be fully concluded until one side prevails. This usually means massacre, subjugation or a combination of both of the defeated – be it assad or opposition/terrorist forces. This is also true for iraq. Either the shia majority pacifies the sunni minority or vise versa (as under saddam).
isis is going for everything. Complete annihilation of all others, even other sects of islam. It isn’t just trying to maintain the saudi arabian directive of keep the land free of all other religion, but to keep the land only for sunni islam. This of course is the ultimate aim of islam for the whole world come the islamic end time.
Beagle says
Everything made sense except saying Chicago is not like the Middle East with its tribal, sectarian (In Chicago street gang) warfare.
umbra says
No doubt Chicago is as heavy as parts of LA and NY, but the name itself was intended to imply obama’s own dreamland. Where he sprouted from, politically.
squeezethejuice says
I like it how ISIS goes out of its way to always conquer Muslim territories that are the furthest away from Israel as possible. They push north towards the border with Turkey and east towards the Kurds. We already know they have American weapons and have been supported by both the US and Israel in the past, when they were about to overthrow Assad.
It’s almost as if the only goal of ISIS is the slaughter of as many Muslims as possible on technicalities of faith that only they themselves subscribe to, while making the religion of Islam look really bad in the eyes of the world.
Beagle says
Must be the Jewish Sunni Salafists, the ones who slaughter the Jewish Shia, and presumably the Jewish Kurds and Zionist Yazidis. Muslims should all lay down their arms and make aliyah per your worldview.
Wellington says
Ah, let’s see here. We have with your post a possible conspiracy theory plus the worry of Islam looking bad in the eyes of the world. Huh-uh. You did live in a little world of your own creation, now don’t you? Oh yeah.
Champ says
squeeze wrote:
“…while making the religion of Islam look really bad in the eyes of the world.”
Well your choice of a moniker, “squeezethejuice” aka “sqeeze the jews”, along with your history of nasty comments, are *just* as bad …
islam is wholly evil, so all muslims contribute to “making the religion of islam look really bad”, in one form, or another.
Get out a mirror, slave.
Mirren10 says
The repulsive ‘squeeze the juice’ says:
”It’s almost as if the only goal of ISIS is the slaughter of as many Muslims as possible on technicalities of faith that only they themselves subscribe to”
In reality, what the IS is doing, is mandated and sanctified by numerous koranic verses. I wonder why ‘squeeze the juice’ doesn’t tell us exactly what it is they’re getting wrong, and provide some koranic verses that will reduce IS’s activities to what he describes as ‘technicalities of faith that only they subscribe to’ ?
” … while making the religion of Islam look really bad in the eyes of the world.”
Well, this of course is what is actually annoying ‘squeeze the juice’; not that his fellow mohammedans are committing atrocities, (I’m sure he’s quite OK with that) but that what they are doing is showing the whole world, what islam actually **is**. ‘squeeze the juice’ prefers the stealth jihad, with the kuffars happily somnambulistic, until mohammedans are in a position to ‘squeeze the jizya’, in the West.
Wetwork56 says
As history has proved–there were no substantial quantities of WMD’s in Iraq. I felt at the time that Saddam Hussein made some sort of deal with Syria’s hand me down ruler Bashar Al-Assad to take possession of what in fact he did have.
Then after our feckless commander-in-chief (in name only) issued his now infamous red line ultimatum, Al-Assad reluctantly handed over what he told the world he had. As we all know, Al-Assad is a man of his word.
My greatest fear in this debacle is that ISIL gains power over Syria, then find these caches. They only need to use them once in a large demonstration to bring the West and the U N running to the bargaining table to legitimize their territory.
Michael says
Wetwork56, your nightmare has come true, though the cache found by ISIS was in Iraq, not Syria. It’s explained in the linked article, the second half of it:
http://www.steynonline.com/6468/the-holes-we-dig
obiwan says
As someone who lived in Israel and stays on top of her politics, the idea that Israel supported any of the Syrian rebels is absurd (re: Squeeze Juice) . The only thing that binds Assad, the rebels and ISIS rebels is their desire to kill Jews and destroy Israel. Beagle LOL. Wetworks, we have to realize that WMDs -using for example, chemical powders – could have been stored in a simple shed. We didn’t have to find ICBMs, and I agree that went into Syria.
Now, my previous comment that our Trojan Horse president was merely SIGNALLING to ISIS to move their heavy equipment – that was not being sent to the Syrian border – into the cover of civilian areas was taken by ISIS, as nothing remotely resembling serious targets appear to remain.
Why is this too much to grasp? I held-my-nose and went to CNN, ABC, NBC and Huff Post. NOT A SINGLE MENTION of ISIS advancing using US weapons or their crucifying the “unbelievers.”
Beagle says
For all the talk of US weapons, I’ve actually seen up-armored HUMVEEs, maybe one MRAP, and some rifles. But I’ve seen Russian/Soviet T-55s and 72s, BMPs, heavy machine guns, small arms, anti-aircraft guns, and even a SCUD missile. Could be a photographic sampling error.
Marken says
OK, being this is Syria, it would make sense that most of the weapons/vehicles are Russian, captured from Syrian army.
Beagle says
Iraq as well acquired far more weapons from the Soviets and Russians than they ever did the US. But that does not make a good talking point for our partisan Left in the US.
Used to be some germ samples improperly sent to Iraqi labs from US labs were ‘bioweapons Reagan gave Saddam’ and similar extravagant embellishments about other Iraqi equipment.
OTOH, I would wager the IS probably has some 105 or 155mm US howitzers acquired recently in Mosul I haven’t seen. Maybe some anti-tank missiles or AT-4s, technically Swedish iirc, things like that.
Beagle says
FTR, there is no real Iraq-Syria border any more, just IS.
Also, the germ samples I mentioned have even been termed chemical weapons by people who should know better. In reality, nearly all of Saddam’s chemical infrastructure was European, mainly German.
umbra says
Any heavy equipment isis has would have been looted from syrian or iraqi armouries. Most of these would be Russian in origin. isis may also have captured some US arms supplied to iraqi forces and/or other syrian rebel/terrorist forces. These may include ATGMs and man portable SAMs.
The problem of heavy equipment is that they require maintenance (hence technical expertise) and spare parts. isis appears not appear to have sufficient infrastructure or capability to keep these heavy equipment operational for any prolonged period of time with its own personnel and resources. It will need to source support personnel (technicians, mechanics, etc) and parts from elsewhere. In addition, it only a finite supply of munitions for its tanks, artilleries and IFV/APC. Somehow, somewhere isis will have to acquire these and it would not be coming through iranian, iraqi nor lebanese borders. This leaves only the turkish border.
Beagle says
Don’t forget our ‘friends and allies’ the quite interesting wildcard Saudis.
Marken says
Understand, so that might partially explain the push by ISIL (mentioned by a previous poster), toward the Turkish border.
umbra says
@Beagle
as it stands, those within wealthy gulf states (evidently saudi being the primary) are funding isis. Therefore, one could not consider them a wildcard, but truly in the mix. The real wildcard is the kurdish nation. This conflict may provide kurds with the opportunity to pry themselves free from turks, iraqi, syrian and iranian.
@Marken
yes. The only real stable supply route for isis is through turkey. This however may change if the turks decide that isis has become a liability of if it has outlived its usefulness. Bearing in mind that isis is used as a wedge by sunni states against shia states of syria, iraq and iran. If and when assad’s forces collapse, then isis supply route from turkey may be cut overnight. However, when that happens, isis will turn its attention towards turkey. Hard to find anything better than betrayal to focus their attention.
These sunni states (gulf plus turkey) are fighting a proxy war. When it blows up on them, they call in their support, the US … to clean up their mess. The gulf states in particular are notorious for messing things up and expecting/paying others to clean up after them. GF1 and GF2 are examples. In truth, GF1 and GF2 would never have been without saudi approval. Coalition forces would not have a realistic launching point against iraq without access to the saudi border. Nor would coalition have launched a short and effective air campaign without access to saudi airbases. No airbases, no ground bases in saudi arabia equates to no invasion of iraq.
Sunni gulf states used iraq to fight iran by funding saddam’s army. When saddam turned against one of them (kuwait), the rest panicked and called in the cavalry … the coalition forces with US leading. GF1 did not topple saddam as these gulf states wanted (a monster they created by feeding his army), so GF2 was fashioned. Despite the WMD claims and counter claims, the real political objective is to rid iraq of saddam. However, these gulf states again did not planned ahead too well. Instead of a stable sunni controlled friendly dictatorship which they probably envisioned, the US installed a shia government which subsequently went to work straight away in removing sunni influence from important areas of government. There is a suspicion that al-maliki wanted to remove all traces of sunni influence from the military, the economy and political life of iraq.
This leads to the present predicament. How to wrestle iraq and/or syria back from shia control and restore balance (balance from their perspective, but realistically there is no balance in something that is inherently unbalanced)? Well, start another proxy war or rather two proxy wars that have since become one. They let loose terrorists in syria and created isis. Now it appears that they are losing control of isis, especially on the propaganda front with images of mass executing, crucifixions, decapitations that not even their beloved progressive western media could completely ignore (thanks to social media – rendering mainstream media somewhat lame in reporting this type of news).
So what to do now? Buy themselves some leverage and time by calling in air support … from none other than the US. It is not as if saudi arabia, qatar, UAE or kuwait lack any sophisticated western military equipment to pound isis. They do not wish to be seen as siding against isis (or supporting shia iraq and iran) publicly. It is also probable that their armed forces are rather incompetent.
Regarding isis, the main driving force behind (the competent ones doing the real fighting and running the show) is likely to be remnants of saddam’s military – republican guards or similar sort. It is most probable thatthe ali baba caliph is just a public figurehead for the organisation. isis forces fighting the iraqi military knows the iraqi military – formation, deployment, composition and tactics. They are also familiar with local terrains (mostly local fighters rather than foreigners) and evidently versed in operating at least some of the heavy weaponry they have captured. If the present shia government is successfully toppled through the present iraqi civil war and if the shia faction is sufficiently weaken (militarily), one could very well see a former saddam general striking a peace deal and perhaps even leading the government. Of course, such a general would have to be friendly towards the gulf states.
FJB says
If someone is interested; here is a link to a French website where some info is provided on the modus operandi of ISIS (which reportedly have 2 billion dollars and growing): http://www.leparisien.fr/international/etat-islamique-un-tresor-de-guerre-au-service-du-jihad-13-08-2014-4062181.php
Jerry says
In the meantime, Obama is starving Israel of necessary munitions,
in support of his Muslim Brothers.