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mwrightc

ISIS is broke, and only accepting payments in US dollars | New York Post - 1 views

nypost.com/...y-electric-bills-in-us-dollars

ISIS dollars payments war

shared by mwrightc on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 17 Feb 16
     
    Faced with a cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, the Islamic State group has slashed salaries across the region, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person. After America blew up Isis's money hideout, they have hit a skid with the money not coming in and the war still raging on.
  • mwrightc on 18 Feb 16
     
    The US was able to commit such detrimental airstrikes to ISIS currency storage facilities that the "caliphate" is now cutting salaries. Millions of their finances have been drained since this attack.
mwrightc

ISIS has sent 400 fighters to attack Europe, officials say | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...-europe-in-wave-bloodshed.html

ISIS attacks terrorism europe

shared by mwrightc on 23 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mwrightc on 23 Mar 16
     
    ISIS is preparing to make a move on Europe with 400 fighters that they have trained for attacks. The caliphate has already shown its willingness to bomb Europe with its attack in Belgium.
jreyesc

Pakistani Taliban pledges support to ISIL - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...-isil-2014104162057352436.html

taliban ISIS ISIL politics Support pakistan

shared by jreyesc on 05 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • jreyesc on 05 Oct 14
     
    The Taliban states that they fully support ISIL and their attempt to set up a "caliphate" in the Middle East. They set up a statement saying how much they supported them.
nicolet1189

BBC News - Battle for Iraq and Syria in maps - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-27838034

Isis Syria Iraq air strikes

shared by nicolet1189 on 29 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • The US with Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched 14 strikes against IS in Syria, hitting a number of targets, including Raqqa, a stronghold in eastern Syria captured by the group in 2013.
  • al-Qaeda veterans named
  • These refineries are believed to be producing "between 300-500 barrels of refined petrolium per day", generating as much as $2 million (£1.2m) per day for the militants, a key source of revenue for IS.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Khorasan
  • killed 14 of the group's fighters and five civilians
  • more than 200 attacks on IS targets in Iraq since 8 August. F
  • concentrated on targets around the Mosul Dam -
  • a caliphate, or Islamic state, stretching from Aleppo in Syria to the province of Diyala in Iraq.
  • Mosul
  • Ramadi
  • Falluja
  • Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
  • beneath him are four advisory councils:
  • 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria -
  • 12,000 fighters from almost 80 countries
  • foreign recruits - the number of whom has surged since IS declared itself a caliphate in the summer, international investigators say.
  • majority are from nearby Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
  • 16 "wilayats", or provinces, that IS claims to control,
  • match areas where its predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq
  • three million people have fled abroad to escape the fighting in Syria.
  • nicolet1189 on 29 Sep 14
     
    This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.
  • nicolet1189 on 13 Oct 14
     
    This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.
wmulnea

The Isis economy: Meet the new boss - FT.com - 0 views

www.ft.com/...27-11e4-82c7-00144feabdc0.html

shared by wmulnea on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Iraq’s second city of Mosul looks like a model of success for its new rulers from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
  • But in the back alleys, litter fills the streets. The lights stay on, but only because locals rigged up generators themselves. And under the blare of café televisions, old men grumble about life under Isis’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
  • “We’ve endured international sanctions, poverty, injustice. But it was never worse than it is now.”
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Abu Ahmed at first welcomed the takeover by Isis,
  • Sunni Muslims in both countries have long felt discriminated against by regimes dominated by rival sects
  • without an economy that gives people a chance to make a living, many say Isis has little more to offer
  • “Compared to past rulers, Isis is a lot easier to deal with. Just don’t piss them off and they leave you alone,” says Mohammed, a trader from Mosul. “If they could only maintain services — then people would support them until the last second.”
  • “They’re operating like something between a mafia, an insurgency and a terror group. Maybe they thought six months ago they were going to function as a state. But they don’t have the personnel or manpower.”
  • the FT found its attempt at state-building has so far failed to win over locals.
  • volunteers handing out sacks of wheat stamped with their black and white seal. They even announced plans to issue a currency,
  • In some cases they say Isis takes credit for systems in place before it seized power. In others, locals say it is stealing the resources of the region it seeks to rule
  • Travellers must stock up on Iraqi dinars to use in Iraq, US dollars for the road and Syrian pounds once they arrive.
  • “I’m against Isis with all my heart,” Mahmoud says. “But I can’t help but admire their cleverness.”
  • Isis struggles to balance its books,
  • services continue to function because of the money Baghdad still pays to former civil servants in Mosul. Isis taxes those employees at up to 50 per cent of their salaries.
  • It is as if Isis is financing itself partly through a pyramid scheme, and this has begun to falter.”
  • Though many now question Isis’s economic management, its military prowess and organisational skills are clear.
  • Isis allows easy movement through its territories to facilitate trade. Trucks passing through are taxed about 10 per cent of the value of their cargo.
  • “I may be a Salafi, but I’m not an idiot,” he jokes.
jreyesc

Islamic State leader Baghdadi reportedly resurfaces | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...amic-state-audio-tape-baghdadi

ISISLeader Abu Bakr Baghdadi IslamicState

shared by jreyesc on 13 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • calling for attacks in Saudi Arabia and for “volcanoes of jihad” across the world.
  • “America and its allies are terrified, weak, and powerless,”
  • repeatedly attacking “the Jews” and “apostate” and “treacherous” Muslim (Arab) leaders who feared the return of the Muslim faithful to the ways of the caliphate.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • “commander of the faithful”
  • “Caliph of the Muslims”
  • classical Arabic shot through with expressions of Muslim piety in the extremist takfiri tradition
  • “lying media” in claiming that the coalition, which includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain,
  • “Be assured, O Muslims, for your state is good and in the best condition,” Baghdadi declared. “Its march will not stop and it will continue to expand, by Allah’s permission. The march of the mujahidin [Muslim holy warriors] will continue until they reach Rome. And soon, the Jews and Crusaders will be forced to come down to the ground and send their ground forces to their deaths and destruction.”
  • jreyesc on 13 Nov 14
     
    Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is one of the main leaders for the Islamic State. Earlier this year there were rumors that he had been injured or killed by an air strike. But now there are rumors that he might still be alive.
kristaf

ISIS, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood and Western delusions - The Commentator - 0 views

www.thecommentator.com/...therhood_and_western_delusions

#ISIS #Hamas #MuslimBrotherhood

shared by kristaf on 11 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • kristaf on 11 Nov 14
     
    The article states that ISIS, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood are all "terrorist organizations"  that are being ignored and should be recognized as a threat. The article does not state what the intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood are, but does state the objectives "ISIS to create a caliphate empire, and Hamas to eliminate the State of Israel."  The article also mentions the images that have been given to portray the situations in Gaza. 
mwrightc

What ISIS Really Wants - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...384980

ISIS islam terrorism religion

shared by mwrightc on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 17 Feb 16
     
    The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. With this new threat in the middle east there must be something or someone to combat it.
  • mwrightc on 09 Mar 16
     
    The issue with America fighting ISIS is that the United States and the rest of the world do not understand what we are dealing with in the battle against ISIS. This caliphate is more than just a bunch of radicals who want to run the world, it is a group of religious people fighting for what they believe is a pure Islam.
atownen

Cyber Terrorism: How Dangerous is the ISIS Cyber Caliphate Threat? - 0 views

www.govtech.com/...IS-Cyber-Caliphate-Threat.html

cyber terrorism isis

shared by atownen on 12 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • atownen on 12 Mar 16
     
    I found this article from 2015 to still be very relevant considering President Obama's speech and a recent push by university/techs to communicate regarding the exact threat of ISIS' cyberterrorism capabilities. The NSA reported that this means of war is parallel to that of the Cold War; leaving countries on edge since traditional human espionage is slowly becoming intertwined with "technical operations."
mwrightc

ISIS reportedly planning attack targeting Jewish children in Turkey | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...jewish-children-in-turkey.html

ISIS attack children turkey

shared by mwrightc on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mwrightc on 29 Mar 16
     
    ISIS has now threatened the lives of children in Turkey. The caliphate took the lives of Christian children in Pakistan and now it threatens to kill Jewish children in Turkey. They will be targeting kindergartens, schools and youth centres.
fcastro2

U.N. concerned by Islamic State's ability to unite Afghan insurgents - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...state-un-idUSKBN0MC20920150316

UN ISIS Afghanistan

shared by fcastro2 on 16 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The United Nations is concerned by the presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan but says the militant group's power to unite insurgents is more significant than its capabilities in the war-torn country
  • forces
  • attempts are under way to broker an end to 13 years of conflict between the Taliban, who were ousted in a U.S.-led war in 2001, and Afghan and foreign
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Afghan forces killed 10 fighters who claimed to be part of Islamic State on Sunday
  • growing numbers of disgruntled Taliban fighters have joined the militant group that has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq
  • significance is not so much a function of its intrinsic capacities in the area but of its potential to offer an alternative flagpole to which otherwise isolated insurgent splinter groups can rall
  • U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report to the Security Council on Afghanistan said a handful of Taliban commanders had declared allegiance to Islamic State and that an increasing number were seeking funding or cooperation with Islamic State.
  • The radical Islamist group has declared a caliphate in the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. A U.S.-led alliance has been targeting Islamic State with air strikes in Iraq and Syria for some six month
  • Militants loyal to Islamic State have also been exploiting chaos in Libya, while Boko Haram, which is seeking to carve an Islamist emirate out of northeastern Nigeria, has pledged its allegiance to Islamic State
  • "an alignment of circumstances that could be conducive to fostering peace talks" between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Officials said last month the Afghan Taliban has signaled it is willing to open peace talks.
  • continues a frank dialogue with the Taliban on humanitarian access and on human right
  • fcastro2 on 16 Mar 15
     
    The UN is concerned by the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan but says the militant group's power to "unite insurgents is more significant than its capabilities in the war-torn country."
jreyesc

This Is How ISIS Smuggles Oil - 0 views

www.buzzfeed.com/...this-is-how-isis-smuggles-oil

money Oil Smugglers ISIS ISIL Syria

shared by jreyesc on 13 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Turkish-Syrian border
  • The militants can make more than $1 million a day selling oil from fields captured in eastern Syria.
  • In recent months, the government has vowed to crack down on illicit oil, and police have targeted smuggling routes, seizing oil drums and digging up pipelines.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • helped make ISIS the world’s richest extremists.
  • Rebel groups targeted oil resources from the regime in battles often overshadowed by higher-profile fronts in the war — namely in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, where there were refineries and oil fields.
  • Strapped for cash, the rebels smuggled some of the oil to buyers in Turkey, whose government was one of the Syrian opposition’s main backers, having already opened its borders to activists, fighters, and refugees.
  • Omar would receive a call from a commander in the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the U.S.-backed rebel coalition, telling him to head to the Syrian side of the border.
  • If he took in $1,500 in a night, he would give $500 to the FSA commander and another $500 to the Turkish border guards. “You can’t really say that we are smuggling oil, because we take permission from the Turkish side and the Syrian side,” Omar said. “But since it’s under the table, we call it smuggling.”
  • it controlled Raqqa, and soon after it was battling for control of the rebel-held parts of Deir Ezzor.
  • As ISIS gained new oil fields, Omar kept smuggling. He may have worked along an FSA-run border, but he knew he was buying the oil from middlemen who had taken it from ISIS’s hands.
  • For ISIS, the profits were startup funds as it built up its self-styled caliphate, buying weapons and paying salaries.
  • U.S. airstrikes now targeting its oil infrastructure, ISIS can make over $1 million a day from the trade
  • ISIS controls 60% of the oil-producing resources in eastern Syria, he said, plus a handful of marginal oil fields in Iraq.
  • The group sells most of it within its own territory in Iraq and in Syria — which covers more than 12,000 miles, a size comparable to Belgium, and includes some 8 million people, a population approaching Switzerland’s. Desperate residents need the fuel to run their cars, generators, and bakeries.
  • It was the worst example of a wartime pillage that has stripped Syria of everything of value, from scrap metal to precious artifacts. “I just want to show the world what they are doing to my country,” he said.
  • jreyesc on 13 Nov 14
     
    ISIS has become very rich extremist group because of the oil smuggling business they are involved in.
allieggg

Libya has become the latest Isil conquest - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...-the-latest-Isil-conquest.html

ISIL militias armed groups syria Iraq Jihad Benghazi

shared by allieggg on 17 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • If the conditions remain unchallenged and, hence, unchanged, it will turn into another Syria or Iraq.
  • Nowhere is this threat more profound than with the rise of radical Islam in Libya
  • The ongoing low-level insurgency in Benghazi is driven by two factors. The first is the radical Islamist ideology of certain groups that refuse to recognise the modern state and its institutions. For example, according to the leader of AS’s Benghazi branch, Mohammed al-Zahawi, his group will not disarm and demobilise until its version of sharia is imposed. The realisation of such an Islamic state constitutes the group’s main aim. In other words, it is the nature of their Jihad.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The second reason is the Islamists’ history with the state security forces. During the 1990s, Muammar Gaddafi unleashed a crackdown on all expressions of Islamism, which saw thousands of youths arrested and jailed as political prisoners. Many were incarcerated in the notorious Abu-Saleem prison. Today’s rejection of state institutions has its roots in that brutality.
  • However, Benghazi is not the only Islamist stronghold in Libya: the city of Derna, which has historically been a strong recruiting ground for Jihadi fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently Syria, is of serious concern
  • Derna’s Shura Council of Islamic Youth and Ansar al-Sharia have decided to declare Derna an “Islamic emirate” and publicly announce their allegiance to ISIL and its leader and so called “Caliphate” of Abu Baker al-Baghdadi. This means that ISIL now has its terrorist tentacles in Libya.
  • If the international community continues to overlook the current Libyan crisis, the country is likely to become an incubator of militant Islamist groups.
  • In addition to a military response, however, we need a holistic and proactive approach that focuses on achieving reconciliation and stability. This involves forcing all rival political parties to the negotiation table to agree that a newly elected parliament is the sole representative body in the country.
  • allieggg on 17 Nov 14
     
    This article basically accentuates the driving factors to the ongoing insurgency of ISIL in Libya and how the threat is even more extreme than that of Iraq and Syria. One is the Islamist ideology in itself, rejecting any form of a modern state and the institutions that accompany its success. For example in Libya the leader of the AS branch declares that his militants will not disarm or demobilize until sharia law is imposed. Second, during Gaddafi's rule he unleashed a crackdown on all Islamic expression. The brutality shown towards Islamic groups during this time has fueled their resentment towards sectarian rule and has urged them to push for the rejection of state institutions even more so. The article explains how Islamic groups have claimed power in both Benghazi and Derna, the latter being the historic recruiting ground for Jihad fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The author makes it clear that both military and diplomatic force from the international community is crucial for the reconciliation of security.
allieggg

Benghazi declared 'Islamic emirate' by militants - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...Islamic-state-in-Benghazi.html

ISIL militias armed groups syria Iraq Jihad Benghazi

shared by allieggg on 18 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Libya’s Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia has said that it seized complete control of Benghazi late on Wednesday, declaring the city an “Islamic emirate,”
  • Ansar al-Sharia is blacklisted by the United States over its alleged role in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, eastern Libya.
  • Khalifa Haftar, a retired, renegade former army general who earlier this year launched a self-declared campaign to clear the city of Islamist militants, denied the group’s claims.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “The national Libyan army is in control of Benghazi and only withdrew from certain positions for tactical reasons,” Haftar told Al Arabiya News Channel.
  • Ansar al-Sharia’s declaration comes a month after jihadist militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) announced an “Islamic caliphate” over their territory.
  • The extent of recent hostilities has increased Western worries that Libya is sliding toward becoming a failed state and may once again go to war.
  • allieggg on 18 Nov 14
     
    This article conveys that AS has claimed Benghazi as an Islamic Emirate. While Haftar argues that only certain positions are under Islamic occupation, but the fact that they control the whole city is something he denies. 
malbasr

Sinai Jihadi Group Reportedly Pledges Allegiance to Islamic State - 0 views

www.breitbart.com/...tedly-Pledges-To-Islamic-State

egypt ISIS syria iraq

shared by malbasr on 08 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • malbasr on 08 Nov 14
     
    A statement released by ABM read, "After entrusting Allah we decided to swear allegiance to the emir of the faithful Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, caliph of the Muslims in Syria and Iraq and in other countries," according to a Reuters report.
allieggg

Mapping Libya's armed groups - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...lained-201452293619773132.html

libya armed groups middle east Revolution recontruction war militias

shared by allieggg on 12 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Haftar accuses Congress of allowing "terrorists" to flourish in Libya and has vowed to "wipe them out", gaining support from much of the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. Other militias have lined up to oppose him, insisting his attacks amount to a "coup".
  • 1. National Army
  • 2. Regular forces
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • re-formed to help fight in the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011.
  • composed of non-Islamist fighters and former soldiers
  • Haftar used it to launch Operation Libyan Dignity on May 16, saying his mission was to dissolve the General National Congress, which he labelled Islamist, and to destroy "terrorists" he said Congress had allowed to establish bases in Libya.
  • National Army is a nationalist armed group controlled by Khalifa Haftar, rather than Libya’s national army.
  • small army and air force have mostly defected to Haftar. Libya’s armed forces fought on both Gaddafi and the rebel side in the 2011 uprising. Since then, the army has been rebuilding, with most of its units in training.
  • fighting a tit-for-tat battle against Islamist militias for more than a year.
  • 3. Zintan
  • Zintan's militias are the second most powerful armed force in Libya, after Misrata, and based in the Nafusa mountains 144km southwest of Tripoli.
  • regard themselves as opponents of both Congress and Islamists.
  • Zintan formed one of the three fronts in the uprising and by the end of that uprising, Zintan brigades surged into Tripoli, with several maintaining bases in the city and holding the international airport.
  • 2. Ansar al-Sharia
  • 1. LROR 
  • Libyan Revolutionary Operations Room was formed in 2013 as the headquarters of the Libya Shield, an alliance of pro-Congress militias.
  • accused by opponents of being Islamist,
  • LROR led a powerful Shield force to Tripoli last year to defend Congress.
  • 3. Misrata
  • With strong affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, LROR will have much to lose if Haftar takes power.
  • dedicated to establishing a caliphate in Libya
  • The US blamed Ansar al-Sharia for the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi that saw the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012.
  • On May 18, two days after Hiftar’s forces attacked Benghazi, two Zintan militias stormed the national congress building in Tripoli.
  • Misrata’s 235 militia brigades are collectively the most powerful single force in Libya, fighting through a six-month siege during the uprising.
  • They are equipped with heavy weapons, tanks and truck-launched rockets and have the power to be a decisive force in any struggle between Haftar and Islamist forces.
  • Many Misratan leaders back the Islamists in Congress, and Misratan brigades once formed a key part of the Libya Shield force in Tripoli.
  • allieggg on 12 Nov 14
     
    After the ousting of the Gaddafi regime the country pivoted into civil chaos. Because of the deficiency of structure and state autonomy, armed militias have become the dominant force in determining Libya's future governmental system. While the UN has internationally recognized the NTC as the interim government to ultimately turn the country into a democratic one, militias have taken things into their own hands tipping the country towards the brink of civil war. General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign accusing congress of allowing terrorists flourish in Libya and vowed to wipe them out, gaining much support from the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. The opposition to Haftar insist that his attacks are aiming for a military coup. This article was helpful in highlighting the armed groups and dividing them by Pro-Haftar and Pro-Congress sections. 
fcastro2

Islamic State executes three of its Chinese militants: China paper | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...is-china-idUSKBN0L90T620150205

china syria extremist ISIS war

shared by fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15 - No Cached
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      China is concerned with rise of Islamic State. May pose threat to its farthest region. 
  • ign of wa
  • But Beijing has also shown no sign of wanting to take part in the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to use military force against the militant group
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      China does not want to join efforts to stop ISIS
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Around 300 Chinese extremists were fighting with the Islamic State after traveling to Turkey
  • Chinese man was "arrested, tried and shot dead" in Syria in late September by the Islamic State after he became disillusioned with jihad and attempted to return to Turkey to attend university
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      1st Chinese extremist shot dead for attempting to flee.
  • "Another two Chinese militants were beheaded in late December in Iraq, along with 11 others from six countries. The Islamic State charged them with treason and accused them of trying to escape
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      Many others who were fighting with ISIS killed for "treason"
  • Islamic State, which has seized parts of northern and eastern Syria
  • killed hundreds off the battlefield since the end of June, when it declared a caliphate.
  • Chinese officials blame separatists from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for carrying out attacks in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people. But they are vague about how many people from China are fighting in the Middle Eas
  • China was opposed to "all forms of terrorism"
  • "China is willing to work with the international community to combat terrorist forces, including ETIM, and safeguard global peace, security and stability," Hong said.
  • Human rights advocates say economic marginalization of Uighurs and curbs on their culture and religion are the main causes of ethnic violence in Xinjiang and around China that has killed hundreds of people in recent years. China denies these assertions.
  • hina has criticized the Turkish government for offering shelter to Uighur refugees who have fled through southeast Asia, saying it creates a global security risk.
  • The Islamic State has killed three Chinese militants who joined its ranks in Syria and Iraq and later attempted to flee
  • China has expressed concern about the rise of the Islamic State, nervous about the effect it could have on its Xinjiang region, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
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