Tag Archive for: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

U.S. humanitarian aid going to the Islamic State

Does Obama not know this? Or does he just not care? Certainly the latter would be in line with his foreign policy, which has been consistent since the day he took office.

“U.S. Humanitarian Aid Going to ISIS,” by Jamie Dettmer, The Daily Beast, October 19, 2014:

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — While U.S. warplanes strike at the militants of the so-called Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, truckloads of U.S. and Western aid has been flowing into territory controlled by the jihadists, assisting them to build their terror-inspiring “Caliphate.”

The aid—mainly food and medical equipment—is meant for Syrians displaced from their hometowns, and for hungry civilians. It is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, European donors, and the United Nations. Whether it continues is now the subject of anguished debate among officials in Washington and European. The fear is that stopping aid would hurt innocent civilians and would be used for propaganda purposes by the militants, who would likely blame the West for added hardship.

The Bible says if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him something to drink—doing so will “heap burning coals” of shame on his head. But there is no evidence that the militants of the Islamic State, widely known as ISIS or ISIL, feel any sense of disgrace or indignity (and certainly not gratitude) receiving charity from their foes.

Quite the reverse, the aid convoys have to pay off ISIS emirs (leaders) for the convoys to enter the eastern Syrian extremist strongholds of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, providing yet another income stream for ISIS militants, who are funding themselves from oil smuggling, extortion and the sale of whatever they can loot, including rare antiquities from museums and archaeological sites.

“The convoys have to be approved by ISIS and you have to pay them: the bribes are disguised and itemized as transportation costs,” says an aid coordinator who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition he not be identified in this article. The kickbacks are either paid by foreign or local non-governmental organizations tasked with distributing the aid, or by the Turkish or Syrian transportation companies contracted to deliver it.

And there are fears the aid itself isn’t carefully monitored enough, with some sold off on the black market or used by ISIS to win hearts and minds by feeding its fighters and its subjects. At a minimum the aid means ISIS doesn’t have to divert cash from its war budget to help feed the local population or the displaced persons, allowing it to focus its resources exclusively on fighters and war making, say critics of the aid….

EDITORS NOTE: The below CNN report on  the Islamic State (IS) shows excerpts from an IS propaganda video. If you look closely at the IS video you will see printed on the tents “U.S”. Video courtesy of CNN.

U.S. rushes 75 Hellfire missiles to Shi’ite regime in Iraq

Has the Maliki regime noticed yet that Obama is arming the Sunni jihadists in Syria and arming their foes in Iraq? This incoherence should be the lead story on every nightly news program and the lead story in every major news outlet. Instead, of course, they continue to cover for this disastrous Administration.

“US Rushes Hellfires to Iraq, Trying to Rebuild Arsenal,” by Hamish MacDonald, ABC News, June 29, 2014:

The U.S. has rushed 75 Hellfire missiles to the Iraqi government, but that small arsenal will last the regime only about three days as they battle to take back the city of Tikrit.

The government of President Nouri al-Maliki ran out of the missiles shortly after the al-Qaeda offshoot ISIS chased his troops out of northern Iraq by taking Mosul, Tikrit and the border posts with Syria.

This weekend, the government made its first concerted effort to take back territory and is battling ISIS and its Sunni Muslim allies in Tikrit, the one-time hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi army is receiving information used in its offensive from U.S. advisers who have been using intelligence gathered by U.S. drones that have been flying over Iraq.

Other highlights in the murky fog of war that has enveloped Iraq are expectations that it will likely be at least six months before Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, can be recaptured by government forces.

Before moving on Mosul, the government will need to recruit forces from the region and rebuild the 2nd Division of the Iraqi army, which totally collapsed and fled in the face of the ISIS attack.

Three U.S. teams of miltary advisers are now operating in Iraq, some of them north of Baghdad. Three more teams are expected to arrive. President Obama has authorized as many as 300 miltary advisers to return to Iraq.

The advisers, along with the intel from the drones, will help direct the Iraqi offensive and give Obama targets to hit if he decides to become more aggressive in Iraq.

There is some skepticism that two Russian Sukhoi fighter jets that are being prepared by technicians can be made ready in three days as promised.

The introduction of help from Russian now means that three of the U.S.’s rivals — Russia, Iran and Syria — are helping Iraq’s Shia-dominated government.

Iraq needs some help in the air, however. Sixty of its helicopters have been damaged since January and six have been shot down.

Despite the huge swath of territory through northern Syria and northern Iraq that ISIS — the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq — has conquered, the radical Sunni militants are believed to have vulnerabilities….

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