The Crumbling ISIS Caliphate

[Peter1469]

The Crumbling ISIS Caliphate

I called it the same day they declared their statelet. Will the Ummah ever unite?

The Islamic State's headquarters in this city at the western gateway to Raqqah has been crushed like a sand castle by American bombs. At a dam complex on the Euphrates River where ISIS was torturing prisoners and hurling alleged homosexuals from a giant concrete tower, all that's left of the extremists are militant slogans scrawled on the wall and a pile of trash.

It's far too soon to say that life is returning to normal here after liberation, but much of the horror is over. Mines and improvised explosive devices were cleared here last week. Young children flash "V" for victory signs. Islamic beards have nearly disappeared. The most visible people sporting full beards on Thursday were American special operations soldiers who accompanied visiting U.S. special envoy Brett McGurk.

Read more at the link.

[waltky]

ISIS lookin' to keep it's virtual caliphate viable...

IS May Sustain Virtual Caliphate After Battlefield Losses, Experts Say
November 15, 2017 - With the Islamic State group almost defeated on the ground in Iraq and Syria and its territorial hold dramatically reduced, the terror group and its sympathizers continue to demonstrate their ability to weaponize the internet in an effort to radicalize, recruit and inspire acts of terrorism in the region and around the world.

Experts charge that the terror group's ability to produce and distribute new propaganda has been significantly diminished, particularly after it recently lost the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, its self-proclaimed capital and media headquarters. But they warn that the circulation of its old media content and easy access to it on social media platforms indicates that the virtual caliphate will live on in cyberspace for some time, even as IS's physical control ends. "Right now we have such a huge problem on the surface web — and [it's] really easy to access literally tens of thousands of videos that are fed to you, one after the other, [and] that are leading to radicalization," Hany Farid, a computer science professor at Dartmouth College and adviser for the group Counter Extremism Project (CEP) in Washington, said Monday.

A still image taken from a video posted to a social media website by the Islamic State-affiliated Amaq News Agency on June 12, 2017, shows a black flag perched on a building in Marawi City, Philippines.

Little headway

Speaking at a panel discussion about the rights and responsibilities of social media platforms in an age of global extremism at the Washington-based Newseum, Farid said the social media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter have tried to get radical Islamist content off the internet, but significant, game-changing results have yet to be seen. Farid said social media companies are facing increasing pressure from governments and counterterrorism advocates to remove content that fuels extremism. Earlier this year, Facebook announced it had developed new artificial intelligence programs to identify extremist posts and had hired thousands of people to monitor content that could be suspected of inciting violence. Twitter also reported that it had suspended nearly 300,000 terrorism-related accounts in the first half of the year.

[center]
An image made available by propaganda Islamist media outlet Welayat Tarablos on Feb. 18, 2015, allegedly shows members of the Islamic State militant group parading in a street in Libya's coastal city of Sirte, which is 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli.[/img]

YouTube on Monday said Alphabet's Google in recent months had expanded its crackdown on extremism-related content. The new policy, Reuters reported, will affect videos that feature people and groups that have been designated as terrorists by the U.S. or British governments. The New York Times reported that the new policy has led YouTube to remove hundreds of videos of the slain jihadist Anwar al-Awlaki lecturing on the history of Islam, recorded long before he joined al-Qaida and encouraged violence against the U.S. The World Economic Forum's human rights council issued a report last month, warning tech companies that they might risk tougher regulations by governments to limit freedom of speech if they do not stem the publishing of violent content by Islamic State and the spread of misinformation. IS digital propaganda has reportedly motivated more than 30,000 people to journey thousands of miles to join IS, according to a report published by Wired, a magazine published in print and online editions that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy and politics.

An ongoing struggle

Experts say measures to restrict cyberspace for terrorist activities could prove helpful, but they warn it cannot completely prevent terror groups from spreading their propaganda online and that it will be a struggle for some time. According to Fran Townsend, the former U.S. homeland security adviser, terrorist groups are constantly evolving on the internet as the new security measures force them onto platforms that are harder to track, such as encrypted services like WhatsApp and Telegram and file-sharing platforms like Google Drive. She said last month's New York City attacker, Sayfullo Saipov, used Telegram to evade U.S counterterrorism authorities. "This guy was on Telegram in ISIS chat rooms. He went looking for them, he was able to find them, and he was able to communicate on an encrypted app that evaded law enforcement," Townsend said during Monday's panel on extremism at the Newseum.

MORE

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Afghan Officials: Islamic State Fighters Finding Sanctuary in Afghanistan
November 18, 2017 — Battered and beaten in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State terror group is surging fighters into Afghanistan, rebuilding its presence and perhaps setting up a new base for attacks on both the West and Russia.

Afghan officials tell Voice of America that Islamic State may now have as many as 3,000 foreign fighters in the country, many of them coming from Pakistan and Uzbekistan. They also fear those numbers are only likely to increase as IS fighters from Iraq and Syria leave those countries as part of an effort to regroup. “A large number of Daesh fighters are foreign fighters,” said Afghan Ambassador Hamdullah Mohib, using an Arabic acronym for the terror group. Those numbers have been further bolstered by “a small number of Afghans within,” Mohib said in Washington this week. “The Taliban, some of the factions — some of the irreconcilable elements that are much more extreme — are also joining Daesh.” The latest Afghan assessment on Islamic State in Afghanistan, also known as IS-Khorasan province, runs counter to much of what U.S. and coalition officials have long been saying. Those officials, while careful not to minimize concerns, have depicted a terror group in retreat.

Afghan Special Forces inspect inside a cave that was used by suspected Islamic State militants at the site where a MOAB struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan

Targeting IS in Afghanistan

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis himself characterized the fight against IS in Afghanistan as going “in the right direction” this past July, following an airstrike in Kunar province that killed then-IS-Khorasan leader Abu Sayed. “Every time you kill a leader of one of these groups, it sets them back,” Mattis said at the time. The July strike followed an operation in April that led to the death of the previous emir, Abdul Hasib, following what U.S. officials described as a brutal, three-hour firefight in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. And just two weeks before that, on April 13, the U.S. targeted an extensive IS tunnel-and-cave complex in Nangarhar with the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, a GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb.

Afghanistan Pakistan China Russia

As a result of the sustained efforts, U.S. officials estimated the terror group’s ranks in Afghanistan had been cut from a peak of about 3,000 fighters to about 600, believing most of them to be disgruntled former Taliban fighters. But if the new estimates from Afghan officials are to be believed, IS has not only rebuilt its presence in the country in a span of about four months, but they have replaced them with new fighters, not worn down after losing the group’s strongholds in Iraq and Syria. It would also seem to indicate that the terror group is capable of doing more than just leveraging local insurgencies to keep its brand alive.

IS in Afghanistan’s north

[waltky]

1 Million Yemenis at Risk of Cholera Outbreak...

Red Cross: 1 Million Yemenis at Risk of Cholera Outbreak
November 17, 2017 — One million people across three Yemeni cities are at risk of a renewed cholera outbreak and other water-borne diseases following the closing of airports and sea ports by a Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Shiite rebels, an international aid group said on Friday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that the cities of Hodeida, Saada and Taiz were not able to provide clean water in recent days due to a lack of fuel. "Close to one million people are now deprived of clean water and sanitation in crowded urban environments in a country slowly emerging from the worst cholera outbreak in modern times," said Alexander Faite, head of the Red Cross delegation in the war-ravaged nation. The Red Cross said other major urban cities, including the capital Sanaa, will find themselves in the same situation in less than two weeks unless imports of essential goods resume immediately.

The U.S.-backed coalition imposed a land, sea and air blockade on November 6th after a missile attack by rebels targeted the Saudi capital Riyadh. Saudi Arabia said Monday the coalition would lift the blockade after widespread international criticism. On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote to Saudi Arabia's U.N. ambassador saying the Gulf kingdom's failure to reopen key Yemen airports and sea ports is reversing humanitarian efforts to tackle the crisis in the impoverished country. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres welcomed the reopening of the port in the city of Aden, however he said this "will not meet the needs of 28 million Yemenis."

People inspect the rubble of houses destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen

Suspected airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition killed at least 21 people on Friday in the country's west and northwest, said Yemeni security officials and witnesses. One airstrike hit a bus in el-Zaher district in the western province of Hodeida, killing six civilians, they said. At least 15 people were killed in another airstrike on a market in Yemen's northwestern Hajja province, controlled by the Shiite rebels, the officials and witnesses added. The officials and witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters or for fear of reprisals. There was no immediate comment from the coalition.

Over the past two years, more than 10,000 people have been killed and 3 million displaced in the coalition's air campaign. With the country in a stalemate war, cholera began to rear its ugly head in October 2016, but the epidemic escalated rapidly in April. The fighting has damaged infrastructure and caused shortages of medicine and pushed the Arab world's poorest country to the brink of famine.

https://www.voanews.com/a/red-cross-...k/4120346.html

See also:

Save the Children Says 130 Children Die Every Day in Yemen
November 16, 2017 — An international aid group says an estimated 130 children or more die every day in war-torn Yemen from extreme hunger and disease.

Save the Children said late on Wednesday a continuing blockade by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Shiite rebels is likely to further increase the death rate. It says over 50,000 children are believed to have died in 2017. Saudi Arabia blocked Yemen's ports after a rebel missile attack near Riyadh earlier in November. It said Monday the coalition would lift the blockade after widespread international criticism. On Thursday, the leaders of the World Health Organization, the U.N. children's agency and the World Food Program issued a joint appeal for the easing of the blockade. "While the Saudi-led military coalition has partially lifted the recent blockade of Yemen, closure of much of the country's air, sea and land ports is making an already catastrophic situation far worse," they said. "The space and access we need to deliver humanitarian assistance is being choked off, threatening the lives of millions of vulnerable children and families."

A girl is being treated at a malnutrition treatment center in Sanaa, Yemen

The Saudi-led coalition went to war against the rebels, known as Houthis, in March 2015 on behalf of Yemen's internationally recognized government. But the coalition has made little progress, and the rebels still control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. The war has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 3 million. Yemen was the Arab world's poorest country even before the conflict began. The U.N. officials said more than 20 million people, including 11 million children, are in need of urgent assistance, with 7 million totally dependent on food assistance. The U.N. has called it the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world." "Even with a partial lifting of the blockade, the World Food Program estimates that an additional 3.2 million people will be pushed into hunger. If left untreated, 150,000 malnourished children could die within the coming months," the officials said.

Later Thursday, the U.N. spokesman said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has written to Saudi Arabia's U.N. ambassador, saying the kingdom's failure to reopen key airports and sea ports in Yemen is already reversing humanitarian efforts to tackle the crisis in the impoverished country. Stephane Dujarric said Guterres welcomes the reopening of the port in the city of Aden but that this "will not meet the needs of 28 million Yemenis." Dujarric said the United Nations is urging the Saudi-led coalition to resume U.N. humanitarian flights to Aden and Sanaa, and to reopen the ports of Hodeida and Salif for food and medical deliveries. Like the capital, Sanaa, Hodeida and Salif are in rebel-held territory.

https://www.voanews.com/a/save-child...n/4119022.html'

[Peter1469]

Of course they will. They have done a lot with the Internet. They will continue to do so.

They will also move into more terrorism. Suicide attacks likely. Unlike al Qaeda (of the past) there is little indication that they have talented terrorists educated in terrorist trade-craft-- outside of a few talented bomb-makers. And we spent a decade eliminating the talent inside al Qaeda.

Don't expect these guys to pull off a 9-11.

ISIS lookin' to keep it's virtual caliphate viable...

IS May Sustain Virtual Caliphate After Battlefield Losses, Experts Say
November 15, 2017 - With the Islamic State group almost defeated on the ground in Iraq and Syria and its territorial hold dramatically reduced, the terror group and its sympathizers continue to demonstrate their ability to weaponize the internet in an effort to radicalize, recruit and inspire acts of terrorism in the region and around the world.


See also:

Afghan Officials: Islamic State Fighters Finding Sanctuary in Afghanistan
November 18, 2017 — Battered and beaten in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State terror group is surging fighters into Afghanistan, rebuilding its presence and perhaps setting up a new base for attacks on both the West and Russia.

[Ransom]

The Crumbling ISIS Caliphate

I called it the same day they declared their statelet. Will the Ummah ever unite?



Read more at the link.

Can you give us the reasons you called it? Why was the Caliphate destined to fail in your opinion?

[Ransom]

@Peter1469

Peter, I found some posts on your reasoning from 2014-2015 on why ISIS would be short lived if you need assistance with my post #5 question. I'll wait until you explain to me your thoughts, then I'll post these threads, ok. Your floor.

[Peter1469]

@Peter1469

Peter, I found some posts on your reasoning from 2014-2015 on why ISIS would be short lived if you need assistance with my post #5 question. I'll wait until you explain to me your thoughts, then I'll post these threads, ok. Your floor.

If you are going to answer your question for me why should I bother?

I remember that I said that the Islamic State would be short lived. Turns out I was correct.