Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Al-Qaeda Unleashed Against Syria And Iraq With Acceptance Of The Wes

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Al-Qaeda Unleashed Against Syria And Iraq With Acceptance Of The Wes

    AL-QAEDA UNLEASHED AGAINST SYRIA AND IRAQ WITH ACCEPTANCE OF THE WEST

    Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong,
    an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to
    websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.

    http://rt.com/op-edge/syria-islam-alqaeda-terrorism-585/ July 25, 2013
    14:13 AFP Photo / Daniel Leal-Olivas AFP Photo / Daniel Leal-Olivas

    The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - the official denomination
    of al-Qaeda in Iraq - does not even pretend to be not responsible for
    the relentless bombing, political assassination and mostly sectarian
    horror unleashed across Iraq during Ramadan.

    But this is exactly what they're doing, with relish; throwing arrays
    of crude bombs made with fertilizer enhanced with ball bearings,
    manipulating a small army of foreign suicide bombers. Most of these,
    by the way, crossed the desert from Syria.

    July has been a deadly month ; over 600 Iraqis killed up to July 25.

    May was even worse; at least 963 civilians killed and more than 2,000
    injured. And now comes the coup de grāce; the already notorious Abu
    Ghraib jailbreak.

    Abu Ghraib is charged with symbolism - indelibly linked with the
    American occupier. When the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted in 2004 I was
    on the road in the US. This is what I wrote at the time; in Texas
    especially, everybody saw the routine humiliation of Iraqi prisoners
    as the new normal.

    To the Syriamobile !

    Fast forward to 2013. The al-Maliki government insists anti-terrorist
    forces are on top of everything going on in Baghdad. Not really. My
    matchless source in Baghdad, Asseel Kamal, explains how the commander
    of the 17th Army Division, General Abdul Naser al-Ghanam, apparently
    did not resign; he fled, before advising al-Maliki that all hell would
    break loose. The government was stunned by the veritable horde that
    staged the double attack - on Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and Taji
    prison in the north of the city.

    The siege of Abu Ghraib started with nine bombs thrown at the entrance,
    and dozens of mortars, followed by a battle against the guards; a
    group of suicide bombers attacked the walls while another group of
    car bombers attacked the main entrance. And then the critical gambit,
    when a series of car bombs exploded all along the main road up to
    the bridge that links the prison to the highway leading to Baghdad,
    cutting all its connections with the capital.

    The numbers game is still a mess; everything from 500 to 1,000 and
    even 1,400 escapees. Same for the official numbers of dead prisoners
    (65), dead guards (28), injured prisoners (124) and injured guards
    (43). Kamal quotes prisoners' families saying prisoners who did not
    manage to escape were brutally "interrogated". And helicopters bombed
    them mercilessly.

    According to Hakim al Zamili, a member of Parliament who's part of
    the Committee for Defense and Security, this operation has been
    prepared for at least two weeks - and plenty of guards were onto
    it. Kamal reveals that at least 15 men dressed in military garb got
    inside and "released" - as in escorted to freedom - selected al-Qaeda
    princelings ; and left the rest to fend for themselves. Better yet :
    this selected group - which includes a bunch of Jihad International
    foreign fighters captured by the US military in 2006 and 2007 -
    has fled to, where else, Syria.

    It's the occupation, stupid Al-Maliki's government has closed Iraq's
    borders with Syria - to no avail; it's desert on both sides, it's
    powerful Sunni tribal Sheikhs on both sides, it's 'family' on both
    sides. This proves once again that the Islamic State of Iraq and the
    Levant - with its tactical alliance with jihadis of the Jabhat al-Nusra
    kind - is already establishing the embryo of a beyond-borders Islamic
    Emirate. They even have secured territory in northern Syria.

    Most of the best commanders on the ground in Syria are Iraqis -
    and have battleground experience of fighting the Americans. Their
    long-term wishful thinking strategy is that once Bashar al-Assad's
    government falls, the next will be al-Maliki's.

    These jihadis see that fighting a secular, apostate, "infidel"
    government in Syria - supported by Iran and Hezbollah - is the
    equivalent of fighting an "apostate" government in Iraq enjoying close
    relations with Iran. This - a ghastly sectarian war - was always the
    plan since the bombing of Samarra's golden shrine in 2006.

    As much as Syrian civilians are caught in the crossfire of the proxy
    war involving Western powers and Gulf petro-monarchies against the
    support of Iran (and Russia) to Damascus, Iraqi civilians are now
    caught in the resurgent civil war. Civilians in Baghdad do fear what
    these escapees might unleash.

    It's always crucial to go back to the basics. With the invasion
    and occupation of Iraq, the clueless Bush gang handed out a base to
    al-Qaeda on a plate.

    Yet when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in 2004, the prisoners were not
    al-Qaeda, but the Sunni resistance. When the Petraeus surge started
    in 2007, the plan was to buy the leaders of the Sunni resistance to
    fight al-Qaeda. The Sunni sheikhs took the money and decided to wait.

    Al-Qaeda dissolved and regrouped.

    Now, with Syria as the new magnet of global jihad - once again a
    direct consequence of a US power play, via Barack "Assad must go"
    Obama - al-Qaeda is resurgent on both fronts. Washington has already
    destroyed the social fabric of Iraq. Now it's helping to destroy
    Syria's. If Abu Ghraib was the new normal in 2004, the jailbreak
    cannot but be the new new normal of 2013.

    The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
    those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Working...
X