Can you explain why? Both Abu bakr have the same aqeedah as yours i.e non sectarian salafi /sunni/ dont do shirk type . I understood you consider bohra dai to be Mushrik hence you dont need to discuss about that. And if you consider acceptability then both Abu bakrars DID NOT get full majority subscription and widespread apostacy was reported by both.anajmi wrote:What Hazrat Abu Bakr did was right. What the ISIS Abu Bakr is doing is wrong. When the prophet (saw) did baraat he was right. When the Dai does baraat he is wrong. Actually, the ISIS Abu Bakr is more like the Bohra Dai but the bohras are bigger cowards than other muslims and hence the Dai doesn't need guns and beheadings to enslave them!!
'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Hazrat Abu Bakr was a companion of the prophet (saw). He spent 23 years with the prophet (saw) gave everything for the sake of Islam. The ISIS Abu Bakr came last year, no one knows who he is and he started not by inviting people to Islam but by killing them. Every Muslim during the time of Hazrat Abu Bakr knew him and his relationship to the prophet (saw). Who knows the ISIS Abu Bakr? Either someone completely ignorant or an enemy of Islam like yourself, would suggest they are the same.
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
The irony is that one can use you as an example to identify the differences between the ISIS Abu Bakr and Hazrat Abu Bakr. You pretended to be a staunch ISIS supporter but you are actually an idol worshipper. It was only by chance that you got exposed. The ISIS Abu Bakr will similarly be exposed soon, to be a fraud.
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Why you cant answer simple questions without resorting to unnecessary mudslinging and throwing baseless allegations?
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
The simple questions have been answered. Read above.
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Thank you!zinger wrote:MF bhai, you are looking at this one post only here. you are looking at the trees but not the forest here. i can pull up numerous posts that are made explicitly with the intention of ismaili bashingMuslim First wrote: Br Zinger
ASAK
Just look at this thread. Out of 16 posts one is by Araz, one by me, 2 by SBM one by you and rest by 3 Ismaili enforcers. There is no Ismaili Bashi here. When they KA or Javed insists that you are Muslim just by Shahada and rest can be different as per their Imam's interpretation, SBM and myself just made point that Muslim is one who believes in 5 founding principal of Islam as per Quran and Prophetic Hadith.
Take a look at this thread
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10731
Poster wants to brag that judge is Ismaili and other enforcer is needling so called Agakhani bashers to show up.
He is not first Muslim judge in USA. There are more in other states.
My posts are monitored and I am not interested to bash them except just remind them that Islam is not just Shahada.
If you want to be a duck then you should walk like a duck and quake like a duck.
Despite differences in style Shia, Sunni and Bohra do look like ducks, may be different size and colors.
As far as straightening out our own mess, it is out of hands of ordinary Shia or Sunni Muslims. Western world is equally involved in it. We are here just posting stories and having so called useless debates, which always ends up in name calling.
You should take control of this web site and make it strictly Mustali (Bohra) Ismaili Muslim site.
Good luck
Wasalaam
i really am not interested in whether non-Ismalis consider Ismailis as Muslims or not.
Allah is still there. He has not died and put someone else in charge.
He will still be the final deciding authority on who is a Muslim and who is not. not you or some other tom dick or harry and certainly not me.
As for straightening the mess, you are wrong. it is entirely in our hands. if it wasnt, then the reform movement has no reason to exist. change begins with you, like it did for me. you will have to clean your own house, your neighbour or local politician or the western world will not!
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Yes, Bush helped create ISIS — and set up the Middle East for a generation of chaos
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8703059/bus ... iddle-east
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8703059/bus ... iddle-east
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Muslim First
- Posts: 6893
- Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2001 4:01 am
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Zinger wrote
You guys are still slaves. You still stand in front of your Devata with folded Hands.
Do you read above post by GM? Mess started when afghan mujahideen were employed by USA to defeat Soviets. It will take another generation to bring order in ME. In the meanwhile fire is ignited in Bharat where Muslims are increasingly harassed.
Well I do my best to keep my extended family away from getting too much radicalized.
Wasalaam
What changes you affected in dawoodi Bohra Samaj or culture or religion?As for straightening the mess, you are wrong. it is entirely in our hands. if it wasnt, then the reform movement has no reason to exist. change begins with you, like it did for me. you will have to clean your own house, your neighbour or local politician or the western world will not!
You guys are still slaves. You still stand in front of your Devata with folded Hands.
Do you read above post by GM? Mess started when afghan mujahideen were employed by USA to defeat Soviets. It will take another generation to bring order in ME. In the meanwhile fire is ignited in Bharat where Muslims are increasingly harassed.
Well I do my best to keep my extended family away from getting too much radicalized.
Wasalaam
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
What is acceptable radicalization in your opinion?
Standing with folded hands in front of someone you respect as a teacher and blessing from God does not take away anything from their belief and adulation of God.
Standing with folded hands in front of someone you respect as a teacher and blessing from God does not take away anything from their belief and adulation of God.
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Muslim First
- Posts: 6893
- Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2001 4:01 am
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
You probably have never seen 80+ years old grand fathers standing in front of 12 year old Grand child of Bohra God with folded hands and bent backs!!!! I am sure being from Godly family child is endowed with all religious knowledge. You probably are so ignorant that in Islam best teacher is Prophet and Muslims are suppose to follow his example.KA786110 wrote:What is acceptable radicalization in your opinion?
Standing with folded hands in front of someone you respect as a teacher and blessing from God does not take away anything from their belief and adulation of God.
Please continue doing what you are doing.
Wasalaam
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq
The sectarian terror group won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place
A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.
Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)”.
FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... are_btn_fb
The sectarian terror group won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place
A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.
Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)”.
FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... are_btn_fb
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Muslim First wrote:Zinger wroteWhat changes you affected in dawoodi Bohra Samaj or culture or religion?As for straightening the mess, you are wrong. it is entirely in our hands. if it wasnt, then the reform movement has no reason to exist. change begins with you, like it did for me. you will have to clean your own house, your neighbour or local politician or the western world will not!
You guys are still slaves. You still stand in front of your Devata with folded Hands.
Do you read above post by GM? Mess started when afghan mujahideen were employed by USA to defeat Soviets. It will take another generation to bring order in ME. In the meanwhile fire is ignited in Bharat where Muslims are increasingly harassed.
Well I do my best to keep my extended family away from getting too much radicalized.
Wasalaam
i dont have to prove anything to you. i know what i have done. thats enough for me!
as for standing with folded hands, again, that is something that has been discussed and debated at length. i have told you that it is an act of respect. period.
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Muslim First
- Posts: 6893
- Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2001 4:01 am
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Even by 80+ year father/grand father/great grand father standing in front of teenage Shehzada?zinger wrote:
i have told you that it is an act of respect. period.
Is that respect or servitude?
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Iraqi City of Mosul Transformed a Year After Islamic State Capture
BAGHDAD—In Islamic State’s stronghold of Mosul, the extremist group is working day and night to repair roads, manicure gardens and refurbish hotels. Iraq’s second-largest city has never looked so good thanks to strict laws enforced by the Sunni militants.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqi-city- ... 1433888626
BAGHDAD—In Islamic State’s stronghold of Mosul, the extremist group is working day and night to repair roads, manicure gardens and refurbish hotels. Iraq’s second-largest city has never looked so good thanks to strict laws enforced by the Sunni militants.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraqi-city- ... 1433888626
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
first they destroyed now they are repairing it?
and what about the lives which are lost by the hands of these terrorists? how will they bring those dead people back? calling them sunnis is abuse to sunni, these terrorists are wahabbi and clan of Al saud.
and what about the lives which are lost by the hands of these terrorists? how will they bring those dead people back? calling them sunnis is abuse to sunni, these terrorists are wahabbi and clan of Al saud.
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
ISIS is winning the social media war, US concludes
WASHINGTON: An internal state department assessment paints a dismal picture of the efforts by the Obama administration and its foreign allies to combat the Islamic State's message machine, portraying a fractured coalition that cannot get its own message straight.
The assessment comes months after the state department signaled that it was planning to energize its social media campaign against the militant group. It concludes, however, that the Islamic State's violent narrative - promulgated through thousands of messages each day - has effectively "trumped" the efforts of some of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations.
It also casts an unflattering light on internal discussions between American officials and some of their closest allies in the military campaign against the militants. A "messaging working group" of officials from the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, the memo says, "has not really come together."
"The UAE is reticent, the Brits are overeager, and the working group structure is confusing," the memo says. "When we convened meetings with our counterparts, I am certain we all heard about various initiatives for the first time."
The blunt assessment comes amid broader criticism that the military campaign against the Islamic State is flagging. The group's fighters recently took over the city of Ramadi in western Iraq and have occupied Fallujah and Mosul for more than a year.
State department officials have repeatedly said that "countermessaging" the Islamic State is one of the pillars of the strategy to defeat the group. But Obama administration officials have acknowledged in the past that the group is far more nimble in spreading its message than the United States is in blunting it.
The internal document - composed by Richard A Stengel, the State Department's undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs and a former managing editor of Time magazine - was written for secretary of state John Kerry after a conference of Western and Arab officials in Paris this month on countering the Islamic State.
A communique issued at the meeting took note of the Islamic State's gains and expressed the coalition's determination to remove the group from the territory it held in Iraq and Syria. The document was issued in the name of Kerry, foreign minister Laurent Fabius of France and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq. Kerry was in Boston recuperating from a broken leg, but he spoke to the meeting by phone.
Stengel noted that the message from the conference - that a disparate coalition of nations was resolute in destroying the Islamic State - fell flat, with news media reports highlighting how little of substance seemed to emerge from the meeting.
"From the outside, it mostly seemed exactly like business as usual," he wrote.
The memo, labeled "sensitive but unclassified," was given to The New York Times by an Obama administration official.
Stengel did not respond to a request for comment. John Kirby, the state department spokesman, said the memo "acknowledges what we've made clear in the past: We must do a better job at discrediting ISIS in the information space." (Kirby was using an acronym for an alternate name for the group.)
"The memo is an assessment not of the larger counter-ISIS messaging effort, but how the small group of coalition members communicates internally and externally," Kirby said, adding Kerry would "take into consideration" Stengel's ideas and recommendations.
This year, administration officials said they planned to expand the state department's Center for strategic Counterterrorism Communications, a tiny office created in 2011 to combat terrorist messages on the Internet in real time. The center employs specialists fluent in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi and Somali to counter terrorist propaganda and misinformation, offering a competing narrative that seeks to strike an emotional chord. The analysts also post messages on English-language websites that jihadis use to recruit, raise money and promote their cause.
Stengel has also sought to work with other coalition members, particularly Arab ones, to discredit the Islamic State in the hope of stemming the flow of foreign fighters to the group. Kerry has said that the effort to "start drying up this pool" of potential volunteers may be even more important than military efforts.
When Kerry traveled to the Middle East in September to start building a coalition against the Islamic State, Stengel went with him to meet with Arab officials and establish what he called "a communications coalition, a messaging coalition, to complement what's going on the ground."
A crucial part of the public diplomacy has involved encouraging Arab religious leaders, Muslim scholars and Arab news media organizations to denounce the Islamic State as a distortion of Islam. State department officials have praised the United Arab Emirates for establishing its own center to counter the Islamic State's prodigious propaganda.
But Stengel's assessment makes clear US officials believe that much more needs to be done.
In the memo, he proposes to Kerry that a "communications hub" be created somewhere in the Middle East - staffed by representatives from the various coalition members - that would perform "daily and weekly messaging around coalition activities" to fight the Islamic State, and that would have a spokesman in Baghdad.
But even this, he said, would face hurdles.
"This seems like an obvious and simple solution - but I am sure it is not as easy as it sounds for a hundred different reasons," he wrote.
Still, Stengel did have one piece of good news for Kerry from the Paris conference. An event at the Louvre intended to focus on the Islamic State's destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq, Stengel said, was a success and could be followed up with an entire conference on the issue.
The conference, he wrote, could bring together "dealers, auction houses, collectors, scholars" and others to highlight that trafficking in antiquities is a "war crime" and a "tool of terrorism," and is financing the Islamic State's "dark game."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 652581.cms
WASHINGTON: An internal state department assessment paints a dismal picture of the efforts by the Obama administration and its foreign allies to combat the Islamic State's message machine, portraying a fractured coalition that cannot get its own message straight.
The assessment comes months after the state department signaled that it was planning to energize its social media campaign against the militant group. It concludes, however, that the Islamic State's violent narrative - promulgated through thousands of messages each day - has effectively "trumped" the efforts of some of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations.
It also casts an unflattering light on internal discussions between American officials and some of their closest allies in the military campaign against the militants. A "messaging working group" of officials from the United States, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, the memo says, "has not really come together."
"The UAE is reticent, the Brits are overeager, and the working group structure is confusing," the memo says. "When we convened meetings with our counterparts, I am certain we all heard about various initiatives for the first time."
The blunt assessment comes amid broader criticism that the military campaign against the Islamic State is flagging. The group's fighters recently took over the city of Ramadi in western Iraq and have occupied Fallujah and Mosul for more than a year.
State department officials have repeatedly said that "countermessaging" the Islamic State is one of the pillars of the strategy to defeat the group. But Obama administration officials have acknowledged in the past that the group is far more nimble in spreading its message than the United States is in blunting it.
The internal document - composed by Richard A Stengel, the State Department's undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs and a former managing editor of Time magazine - was written for secretary of state John Kerry after a conference of Western and Arab officials in Paris this month on countering the Islamic State.
A communique issued at the meeting took note of the Islamic State's gains and expressed the coalition's determination to remove the group from the territory it held in Iraq and Syria. The document was issued in the name of Kerry, foreign minister Laurent Fabius of France and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq. Kerry was in Boston recuperating from a broken leg, but he spoke to the meeting by phone.
Stengel noted that the message from the conference - that a disparate coalition of nations was resolute in destroying the Islamic State - fell flat, with news media reports highlighting how little of substance seemed to emerge from the meeting.
"From the outside, it mostly seemed exactly like business as usual," he wrote.
The memo, labeled "sensitive but unclassified," was given to The New York Times by an Obama administration official.
Stengel did not respond to a request for comment. John Kirby, the state department spokesman, said the memo "acknowledges what we've made clear in the past: We must do a better job at discrediting ISIS in the information space." (Kirby was using an acronym for an alternate name for the group.)
"The memo is an assessment not of the larger counter-ISIS messaging effort, but how the small group of coalition members communicates internally and externally," Kirby said, adding Kerry would "take into consideration" Stengel's ideas and recommendations.
This year, administration officials said they planned to expand the state department's Center for strategic Counterterrorism Communications, a tiny office created in 2011 to combat terrorist messages on the Internet in real time. The center employs specialists fluent in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi and Somali to counter terrorist propaganda and misinformation, offering a competing narrative that seeks to strike an emotional chord. The analysts also post messages on English-language websites that jihadis use to recruit, raise money and promote their cause.
Stengel has also sought to work with other coalition members, particularly Arab ones, to discredit the Islamic State in the hope of stemming the flow of foreign fighters to the group. Kerry has said that the effort to "start drying up this pool" of potential volunteers may be even more important than military efforts.
When Kerry traveled to the Middle East in September to start building a coalition against the Islamic State, Stengel went with him to meet with Arab officials and establish what he called "a communications coalition, a messaging coalition, to complement what's going on the ground."
A crucial part of the public diplomacy has involved encouraging Arab religious leaders, Muslim scholars and Arab news media organizations to denounce the Islamic State as a distortion of Islam. State department officials have praised the United Arab Emirates for establishing its own center to counter the Islamic State's prodigious propaganda.
But Stengel's assessment makes clear US officials believe that much more needs to be done.
In the memo, he proposes to Kerry that a "communications hub" be created somewhere in the Middle East - staffed by representatives from the various coalition members - that would perform "daily and weekly messaging around coalition activities" to fight the Islamic State, and that would have a spokesman in Baghdad.
But even this, he said, would face hurdles.
"This seems like an obvious and simple solution - but I am sure it is not as easy as it sounds for a hundred different reasons," he wrote.
Still, Stengel did have one piece of good news for Kerry from the Paris conference. An event at the Louvre intended to focus on the Islamic State's destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq, Stengel said, was a success and could be followed up with an entire conference on the issue.
The conference, he wrote, could bring together "dealers, auction houses, collectors, scholars" and others to highlight that trafficking in antiquities is a "war crime" and a "tool of terrorism," and is financing the Islamic State's "dark game."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 652581.cms
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Scholar to launch counterterrorism curriculum in UK
MUMBAI: Five years after he grabbed headlines globally with his acclaimed 2010 book " Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings", noted Islamic scholar Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has come out what he calls "first" Islamic counter-terrorism curriculum. Targeted at school and university students, imams and clerics initially across the UK and Pakistan and to be launched in London on Tuesday, Dr Qadri said the curriculum is part of the campaign to dissuade vulnerable teenagers from travelling to Iraq and Syria to join the jihadist outfit ISIS.
"It took me five years to prepare this curriculum which takes the dangerous and un-Islamic ideology of ISS head. The books draw heavily upon Quranic verses and traditions of the Prophet to expose ISIS and other militant groups who have absolutely no authority or legitimacy for setting up an "Islamic State. ISIS is an enemy of humanity," said Dr Qadri whose initiative Minhaj-ul-Quran International is engaged in working against terrorism and for peace across the world.
Ever since four Kalyan youths joined ISS, a need has been felt here too to de-radicalise the potential recruits of ISS in India. "Yes, after the London launch of the curriculum we will launch it in Islamabad in July. I am very much interested to take this project to India as well and am interested to collaborate with a like-minded organisation," said Dr Qadri.
When asked if British schools and universities will adopt his curriculum, Dr Qadri said he had invited decision makers from different walks of life, including academics, senior intelligence and police officers, senior government officers, to the launch to understand its importance. He has also trained 50 young British Muslims in the curriculum who counter the jihadist ideology of ISIS online.
Several clerics and imams have already endorsed the curriculum and will soon start teaching it at many schools and madrassas in the UK and Pakistan. "Military experts suggest carpet bombings of militant camps to end terrorism. Now through this curriculum the dangerous mindset will be countered ideologically which is better and durable solution than bombs and guns," said Mumbai-based Rafeeq Ahmed Khan, president, Minhaj-ul-Quran International (India chapter).
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... s?from=mdr
MUMBAI: Five years after he grabbed headlines globally with his acclaimed 2010 book " Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings", noted Islamic scholar Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has come out what he calls "first" Islamic counter-terrorism curriculum. Targeted at school and university students, imams and clerics initially across the UK and Pakistan and to be launched in London on Tuesday, Dr Qadri said the curriculum is part of the campaign to dissuade vulnerable teenagers from travelling to Iraq and Syria to join the jihadist outfit ISIS.
"It took me five years to prepare this curriculum which takes the dangerous and un-Islamic ideology of ISS head. The books draw heavily upon Quranic verses and traditions of the Prophet to expose ISIS and other militant groups who have absolutely no authority or legitimacy for setting up an "Islamic State. ISIS is an enemy of humanity," said Dr Qadri whose initiative Minhaj-ul-Quran International is engaged in working against terrorism and for peace across the world.
Ever since four Kalyan youths joined ISS, a need has been felt here too to de-radicalise the potential recruits of ISS in India. "Yes, after the London launch of the curriculum we will launch it in Islamabad in July. I am very much interested to take this project to India as well and am interested to collaborate with a like-minded organisation," said Dr Qadri.
When asked if British schools and universities will adopt his curriculum, Dr Qadri said he had invited decision makers from different walks of life, including academics, senior intelligence and police officers, senior government officers, to the launch to understand its importance. He has also trained 50 young British Muslims in the curriculum who counter the jihadist ideology of ISIS online.
Several clerics and imams have already endorsed the curriculum and will soon start teaching it at many schools and madrassas in the UK and Pakistan. "Military experts suggest carpet bombings of militant camps to end terrorism. Now through this curriculum the dangerous mindset will be countered ideologically which is better and durable solution than bombs and guns," said Mumbai-based Rafeeq Ahmed Khan, president, Minhaj-ul-Quran International (India chapter).
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... s?from=mdr
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
Questions you aren’t supposed to ask about ISIS: #1 – those Toyota trucks
ISIS. Murky, masked, terrifying Bad Guys. Islamic hardliners, doing unspeakably ghastly things in faraway sandy places. A horde poised to be unleashed on the innocent everywhere. They merge in the Jungian western mind with race memories of the Saracen, that other convenient boogey man from a previous and ultimately ill-fated bid to make strategic conquest into a moral Crusade. Fear is the message. And it works.
As with most official narratives, the ISIS trope is left largely unexamined by mainstream media, while at the same time being used as a major motivation for continued and increasing war in the Middle East. Given the growing chaos in the region, now spreading to Yemen, and the increasingly blurry role ISIS would appear to be playing, as media fear-porn, war-provocateur and enemy of western enemies, we’ve decided to do a short series asking some of the largely un-addressed questions about these people, and who may be offering them direct or indirect support.
How did ISIS acquire those matching Toyota trucks?
The official story is ISIS stole them from the “Good Terrorists”, (Al Nusra), who were originally given their cool wheels by the US government. Which would seem to beg a couple of enquiries. Not least of which is – why are the US giving any terrorists matching fleets of luxury SUVs? And for that matter, how many fleets are we talking about?
The bronze one?
The white-ish one without logos?
The white one with logos?
Or the silver and black one?
We note ISIS seems reluctant to mix and match its various models. Though occasionally a rogue makes it through…
So, exactly how many trucks did the US supply? Where are ISIS currently garaging this impressive collection? And why do they all have to be Toyotas? Is it a terrorist thing, or simply a US Govt preference? Do Toyota mind the brand-association? Or the fact that so many of the ISIS drive-by photo-ops look like perverted car ads?
Which brings us to a truck-related question:
Who takes the photos?
Specifically – who takes those PR style pics of the matching fleets sailing by, replete with gun-toting, flag-waving terrorists leaning out of every window? Are they just being caught in transit by various opportunist photographers? Or are they pre-planned drive-buys for the purpose of publicity?
If the former, then do ISIS travel everywhere like that – with guys leaning out the windows holding massive ISIS flags? Wouldn’t that slow them down and also make them really easy to identify and take out?
If the latter – who is handling their publicity?
Did they make this video?
Is it by any chance the same people who keep giving them free cars?
http://off-guardian.org/2015/03/31/ques ... ta-trucks/
ISIS. Murky, masked, terrifying Bad Guys. Islamic hardliners, doing unspeakably ghastly things in faraway sandy places. A horde poised to be unleashed on the innocent everywhere. They merge in the Jungian western mind with race memories of the Saracen, that other convenient boogey man from a previous and ultimately ill-fated bid to make strategic conquest into a moral Crusade. Fear is the message. And it works.
As with most official narratives, the ISIS trope is left largely unexamined by mainstream media, while at the same time being used as a major motivation for continued and increasing war in the Middle East. Given the growing chaos in the region, now spreading to Yemen, and the increasingly blurry role ISIS would appear to be playing, as media fear-porn, war-provocateur and enemy of western enemies, we’ve decided to do a short series asking some of the largely un-addressed questions about these people, and who may be offering them direct or indirect support.
How did ISIS acquire those matching Toyota trucks?
The official story is ISIS stole them from the “Good Terrorists”, (Al Nusra), who were originally given their cool wheels by the US government. Which would seem to beg a couple of enquiries. Not least of which is – why are the US giving any terrorists matching fleets of luxury SUVs? And for that matter, how many fleets are we talking about?
The bronze one?
The white-ish one without logos?
The white one with logos?
Or the silver and black one?
We note ISIS seems reluctant to mix and match its various models. Though occasionally a rogue makes it through…
So, exactly how many trucks did the US supply? Where are ISIS currently garaging this impressive collection? And why do they all have to be Toyotas? Is it a terrorist thing, or simply a US Govt preference? Do Toyota mind the brand-association? Or the fact that so many of the ISIS drive-by photo-ops look like perverted car ads?
Which brings us to a truck-related question:
Who takes the photos?
Specifically – who takes those PR style pics of the matching fleets sailing by, replete with gun-toting, flag-waving terrorists leaning out of every window? Are they just being caught in transit by various opportunist photographers? Or are they pre-planned drive-buys for the purpose of publicity?
If the former, then do ISIS travel everywhere like that – with guys leaning out the windows holding massive ISIS flags? Wouldn’t that slow them down and also make them really easy to identify and take out?
If the latter – who is handling their publicity?
Did they make this video?
Is it by any chance the same people who keep giving them free cars?
http://off-guardian.org/2015/03/31/ques ... ta-trucks/
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: 'Islamic State' calls for a Shiite-free Arabian Peninsula
ANOTHER VERY GOOD EXPOSE ! AN INTERESTING READ....
Does ISIS really smuggle “$3M worth of oil” into Turkey EVERY DAY?
Last summer, quoting either David Cohen, the “US Treasury department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence” or a statement from Iraq Energy, a “non-profit policy Institute”, ISIS was suddenly revealed by media storm to be bootlegging crude across the Turkish border, and to be getting shockingly rich as a result. The media reaction was intense and – as ever – unified. Claims were rarely examined, sources rarely verified, amounts were often vague, but by God the message was clear.
“ISIS raking in cash: Extremists earn more than $1 million a day…”
– National Post October 23
“…the ISIS–controlled oil market in Iraq…is believed to be raising at least $2 million a day…”
– CNN August 22
“…ISIS Makes Up To $3 Million a Day Selling Oil…”
– ABC News August 2
“…How ISIS makes up to $6M A DAY…”
– Newsweek Nov 6
“ISIS raises $1 million a day selling crude oil
– Daily Mail July 12
So incredibly successful were these terrorists at harvesting, packing and exporting crude (not to mention a bit of their own refining) that in no time it seemed they were worth “$2 billion dollars” and climbing fast. The media outrage at all this of course increased pressure on Washington to “do something”. That something being, to no one’s great surprise, more air strikes, this time aimed at the newfangled ISIS oil empire.
It’s timely to remember at this juncture that ISIS was allegedly selling their crude at around $20 – $40 a barrel, one third of the going rate at the time. At this price they would need to be shipping around 100,000 barrels of crude every day to be raking in the most extreme of these astronomical sums. Even the most conservative figure of $1m per day at the highest estimated rate of $40 a barrel would require shipping 20,000+ barrels. This is a very large quantity to be processing. How were/are they doing it?
Detailed explanations are not easy to come by but a broad narrative is offered. On Nov 14 the Guardian told its readers:
“[ISIS] were quickly able to make [the captured oil fields] operational and then tapped into established trading networks across northern Iraq, where smuggling has been a fact of life for years. From early July until late October, most of this oil went to Iraqi Kurdistan. The self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate sold oil to Kurdish traders at a major discount. From Kurdistan, the oil was resold to Turkish and Iranian traders.
And what form of transport are they using to move this cargo? Tanker trucks apparently. And not just a few of them. Chatham House tells us:
“some queues of tanker trucks have been reported to extend 2 kilometres.”
Well yes, they’d need to. According to Ask.com the carrying capacity of tanker trucks ranges from 50-300 barrels of crude. So, even if we assume they are using the largest capacity trucks available, ISIS would need to be running between 100 and 400 tankers every day to make the kind of sums being claimed. If the trucks are smaller we have to double or even quadruple that number. So, even if we don’t balk at the idea of a beleaguered terrorist network, warring on several fronts, being able to pull off something this sophisticated and manpower-heavy, we’d have to admit traffic jams would be inevitable, especially along those rugged, mountainous “established trading routes.”
What’s even worse and more difficult to understand though is that all our efforts to stop them, via airstrikes, political intervention and border-policing have been almost completely futile. The Guardian told us in the same article quoted above:
“Coalition air strikes against tankers and refineries controlled by Isis have merely dented – rather than halted – these exports….
And Patrick Cockburn in the Independent went even further:
“The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.
This may be connected with the fact the US was bombing the wrong stuff, according to Reuters:
“These so-called refineries are not a real target and they do not weaken Islamic State as they do not have any financial value for them,”
Oops. A major goof. Or maybe not? According to Global Research the US is using questionable claims of ISIS oil-bootlegging in Syria as an excuse to destroy Syrian infrastructure.
“although there have been widespread airstrikes against oil production in Syria, there have however been exactly zero strikes against oil production facilities inside of Iraq; the US is keeping in-tact energy facilities inside of the state that it has control over, whilst destroying the infrastructure of Syrian state which it seeks to degrade and destroy. This two-faced approach is a further attack upon the Syrian government, eliminating any chance they have of recapturing their nation’s oil refineries intact”
Is such duplicity on the part of the World’s Greatest Democracy even possible? Yes, according to Denis Kucinich in the Huffington Post, who calls the current bombing campaign an “attack on Syria, under the guise of striking ISIS.” Regime change in Syria is indeed an acknowledged goal of the US government, and it has been straining at the leash to begin bombing missions over Assad’s oil assets since autumn 2013, when Putin’s intervention “stopped Obama’s drive for military action…in its tracks.”
Being able to do exactly what they planned back then while pretending they are just hunting down unstoppably evil terrorists would be a tempting proposition for the more insane Washington hawks. And of course we must all remember the previous blockbusters of similar genre, like Osama Bin Laden’s Cave of Evil.
Maybe the feverish US claims of mile-long multi-million-dollar ISIS smuggling convoys that can barely be “dented” by the most powerful military machine on the planet sound ridiculous because in large part they are ridiculous? Maybe the mainstream media should use their resources to examine these claims rather than simply repeat them?
What, for example, about the “160 computer flash sticks” allegedly “hoovered up” (not literally) by Iraqi forces after a raid on the “head of the ISIS military Council” near Mosul? This “treasure trove” being feverishly analysed by the CIA, we are told…
“included names and noms de guerre of all foreign fighters, senior leaders and their code words, initials of sources inside ministries and full accounts of the group’s finances.
These finances were not only – of course – massive, they were also meticulously catalogued on those “flash sticks” allowing the CIA to know every detail of their income and investment portfolio. But let’s hear the Guardian in a longer quote on this:
“The strategic acumen of Isis was impressive – so too its attention to detail. “They had itemised everything,” the source said. “Down to the smallest detail.”
Over the past year, foreign intelligence officials had learned that Isis secured massive cashflows from the oilfields of eastern Syria, which it had commandeered in late 2012, and some of which it had sold back to the Syrian regime. It was also known to have reaped windfalls from smuggling all manner of raw materials pillaged from the crumbling state, as well as priceless antiquities from archaeological digs.
But here before them in extraordinary detail were accounts that would have breezed past forensic accountants, giving a full reckoning of a war effort. It soon became clear that in less than three years, Isis had grown from a ragtag band of extremists to perhaps the most cash-rich and capable terror group in the world.
“They had taken $36m from al-Nabuk alone [an area in the Qalamoun mountains west of Damascus]. The antiquities there are up to 8,000 years old,” the intelligence official said. “
The Graun of course is suitably uncritical and open-mouthed at the Indiana Jones awesomeness of it all, but some might think there are a few points in here that require a little more development. The alleged oil-smuggling is old news, but now we have alleged antiquity-bootlegging too. And on a similarly epic scale, requiring more logistics, more trucks (unless they just pile the antiquities in with the oil?), more manpower. And presumably also a few people able to identify a priceless artefact when they see one.
And given the fact that black market traders in illegal antiquities barely make 1-2% of the commercial value for the artefacts they sell, for ISIS to have raked in “$36 MILLION from “Al Nabuk alone”, the antiquities they stole would have to carry a commercial value of at least $1.8 BILLION, equal in value to the entire contents of many museums and art collections.
I suggest this is unlikely to be the case. And that either the unnamed intelligence officer was mistaken, making the whole thing up, or ISIS are getting help selling their loot from some very well-connected people who know how to strike good deals.
And come to that – where does ISIS have its $2 billion or whatever figure we are now using? The Guardian story about analysing the “meticulous” accounts of their income on the “flash sticks” implies they have bank accounts, details of which were on those sticks. If so, where are these accounts? Why can’t we find them and disable them, seize the contents? If their wealth isn’t in a bank, where is it? Are they carrying $2billion in cash? Have they put it in their ISIS bank along with their ISIS currency? (Remember that? it seems to have faded, as being maybe just a step too far into lunacy). Why are ISIS as financially invulnerable as they are militarily?
Are we really sure, given all this, that ISIS are these super-rich demonic bad guys as portrayed and not just an ad hoc collection of zealots, opportunists and lunatics, tooling round the desert in matching cars, filming themselves doing vile things, and being protected by Uncle Sam for reasons of its own?
Well the mainstream media are pretty convinced. I’m not sure I am though.
But at least the astronomical and un-interrogated millions found so handily on those “flash-sticks” allowed for some easy one-stop explanations of a few things. To quote Anonymous Intelligence Source again:
"Before this, the western officials had been asking us where they had gotten some of their money from, $50,000 here, or $20,000 there. It was peanuts. Now they know and we know. They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don’t need one.
Phew, well there you are then. Another little mystery solved. It’s just ISIS, the multi-billionaire terrorist network and oil empire, branching out into another area of profitable trading. Nothing more to see here.
Maybe it was the growing implausibility of the narrative of ISIS as COBRA that led to it being quietly pushed on the back burner for the moment, and maybe it was in an attempt to reset the paradigm that the Wall Street Journal in a paywalled article from September 16 decided to take the story in a low-tech, low-key, bare bones direction
“The Islamic State is funding its rapid push into Syria and Iraq with a labyrinthine oil-smuggling operation that starts at seized Syrian oil fields, goes through makeshift refineries and can end up in jerrycans carried by mules into the hilly borderland of Turkey
Yes, you did read correctly. That word is “mules.” The Wall Street Journal is telling us ISIS is making its $1 million (or two or three or six million) a day by smuggling crude oil in jerrycans. Carried by mules.
Assuming two barrels per mule, that’s anything from 10,000 – 100,000 mules a day.
I think we should just leave it there.
http://off-guardian.org/2015/04/10/does ... every-day/
Does ISIS really smuggle “$3M worth of oil” into Turkey EVERY DAY?
Last summer, quoting either David Cohen, the “US Treasury department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence” or a statement from Iraq Energy, a “non-profit policy Institute”, ISIS was suddenly revealed by media storm to be bootlegging crude across the Turkish border, and to be getting shockingly rich as a result. The media reaction was intense and – as ever – unified. Claims were rarely examined, sources rarely verified, amounts were often vague, but by God the message was clear.
“ISIS raking in cash: Extremists earn more than $1 million a day…”
– National Post October 23
“…the ISIS–controlled oil market in Iraq…is believed to be raising at least $2 million a day…”
– CNN August 22
“…ISIS Makes Up To $3 Million a Day Selling Oil…”
– ABC News August 2
“…How ISIS makes up to $6M A DAY…”
– Newsweek Nov 6
“ISIS raises $1 million a day selling crude oil
– Daily Mail July 12
So incredibly successful were these terrorists at harvesting, packing and exporting crude (not to mention a bit of their own refining) that in no time it seemed they were worth “$2 billion dollars” and climbing fast. The media outrage at all this of course increased pressure on Washington to “do something”. That something being, to no one’s great surprise, more air strikes, this time aimed at the newfangled ISIS oil empire.
It’s timely to remember at this juncture that ISIS was allegedly selling their crude at around $20 – $40 a barrel, one third of the going rate at the time. At this price they would need to be shipping around 100,000 barrels of crude every day to be raking in the most extreme of these astronomical sums. Even the most conservative figure of $1m per day at the highest estimated rate of $40 a barrel would require shipping 20,000+ barrels. This is a very large quantity to be processing. How were/are they doing it?
Detailed explanations are not easy to come by but a broad narrative is offered. On Nov 14 the Guardian told its readers:
“[ISIS] were quickly able to make [the captured oil fields] operational and then tapped into established trading networks across northern Iraq, where smuggling has been a fact of life for years. From early July until late October, most of this oil went to Iraqi Kurdistan. The self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate sold oil to Kurdish traders at a major discount. From Kurdistan, the oil was resold to Turkish and Iranian traders.
And what form of transport are they using to move this cargo? Tanker trucks apparently. And not just a few of them. Chatham House tells us:
“some queues of tanker trucks have been reported to extend 2 kilometres.”
Well yes, they’d need to. According to Ask.com the carrying capacity of tanker trucks ranges from 50-300 barrels of crude. So, even if we assume they are using the largest capacity trucks available, ISIS would need to be running between 100 and 400 tankers every day to make the kind of sums being claimed. If the trucks are smaller we have to double or even quadruple that number. So, even if we don’t balk at the idea of a beleaguered terrorist network, warring on several fronts, being able to pull off something this sophisticated and manpower-heavy, we’d have to admit traffic jams would be inevitable, especially along those rugged, mountainous “established trading routes.”
What’s even worse and more difficult to understand though is that all our efforts to stop them, via airstrikes, political intervention and border-policing have been almost completely futile. The Guardian told us in the same article quoted above:
“Coalition air strikes against tankers and refineries controlled by Isis have merely dented – rather than halted – these exports….
And Patrick Cockburn in the Independent went even further:
“The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.
This may be connected with the fact the US was bombing the wrong stuff, according to Reuters:
“These so-called refineries are not a real target and they do not weaken Islamic State as they do not have any financial value for them,”
Oops. A major goof. Or maybe not? According to Global Research the US is using questionable claims of ISIS oil-bootlegging in Syria as an excuse to destroy Syrian infrastructure.
“although there have been widespread airstrikes against oil production in Syria, there have however been exactly zero strikes against oil production facilities inside of Iraq; the US is keeping in-tact energy facilities inside of the state that it has control over, whilst destroying the infrastructure of Syrian state which it seeks to degrade and destroy. This two-faced approach is a further attack upon the Syrian government, eliminating any chance they have of recapturing their nation’s oil refineries intact”
Is such duplicity on the part of the World’s Greatest Democracy even possible? Yes, according to Denis Kucinich in the Huffington Post, who calls the current bombing campaign an “attack on Syria, under the guise of striking ISIS.” Regime change in Syria is indeed an acknowledged goal of the US government, and it has been straining at the leash to begin bombing missions over Assad’s oil assets since autumn 2013, when Putin’s intervention “stopped Obama’s drive for military action…in its tracks.”
Being able to do exactly what they planned back then while pretending they are just hunting down unstoppably evil terrorists would be a tempting proposition for the more insane Washington hawks. And of course we must all remember the previous blockbusters of similar genre, like Osama Bin Laden’s Cave of Evil.
Maybe the feverish US claims of mile-long multi-million-dollar ISIS smuggling convoys that can barely be “dented” by the most powerful military machine on the planet sound ridiculous because in large part they are ridiculous? Maybe the mainstream media should use their resources to examine these claims rather than simply repeat them?
What, for example, about the “160 computer flash sticks” allegedly “hoovered up” (not literally) by Iraqi forces after a raid on the “head of the ISIS military Council” near Mosul? This “treasure trove” being feverishly analysed by the CIA, we are told…
“included names and noms de guerre of all foreign fighters, senior leaders and their code words, initials of sources inside ministries and full accounts of the group’s finances.
These finances were not only – of course – massive, they were also meticulously catalogued on those “flash sticks” allowing the CIA to know every detail of their income and investment portfolio. But let’s hear the Guardian in a longer quote on this:
“The strategic acumen of Isis was impressive – so too its attention to detail. “They had itemised everything,” the source said. “Down to the smallest detail.”
Over the past year, foreign intelligence officials had learned that Isis secured massive cashflows from the oilfields of eastern Syria, which it had commandeered in late 2012, and some of which it had sold back to the Syrian regime. It was also known to have reaped windfalls from smuggling all manner of raw materials pillaged from the crumbling state, as well as priceless antiquities from archaeological digs.
But here before them in extraordinary detail were accounts that would have breezed past forensic accountants, giving a full reckoning of a war effort. It soon became clear that in less than three years, Isis had grown from a ragtag band of extremists to perhaps the most cash-rich and capable terror group in the world.
“They had taken $36m from al-Nabuk alone [an area in the Qalamoun mountains west of Damascus]. The antiquities there are up to 8,000 years old,” the intelligence official said. “
The Graun of course is suitably uncritical and open-mouthed at the Indiana Jones awesomeness of it all, but some might think there are a few points in here that require a little more development. The alleged oil-smuggling is old news, but now we have alleged antiquity-bootlegging too. And on a similarly epic scale, requiring more logistics, more trucks (unless they just pile the antiquities in with the oil?), more manpower. And presumably also a few people able to identify a priceless artefact when they see one.
And given the fact that black market traders in illegal antiquities barely make 1-2% of the commercial value for the artefacts they sell, for ISIS to have raked in “$36 MILLION from “Al Nabuk alone”, the antiquities they stole would have to carry a commercial value of at least $1.8 BILLION, equal in value to the entire contents of many museums and art collections.
I suggest this is unlikely to be the case. And that either the unnamed intelligence officer was mistaken, making the whole thing up, or ISIS are getting help selling their loot from some very well-connected people who know how to strike good deals.
And come to that – where does ISIS have its $2 billion or whatever figure we are now using? The Guardian story about analysing the “meticulous” accounts of their income on the “flash sticks” implies they have bank accounts, details of which were on those sticks. If so, where are these accounts? Why can’t we find them and disable them, seize the contents? If their wealth isn’t in a bank, where is it? Are they carrying $2billion in cash? Have they put it in their ISIS bank along with their ISIS currency? (Remember that? it seems to have faded, as being maybe just a step too far into lunacy). Why are ISIS as financially invulnerable as they are militarily?
Are we really sure, given all this, that ISIS are these super-rich demonic bad guys as portrayed and not just an ad hoc collection of zealots, opportunists and lunatics, tooling round the desert in matching cars, filming themselves doing vile things, and being protected by Uncle Sam for reasons of its own?
Well the mainstream media are pretty convinced. I’m not sure I am though.
But at least the astronomical and un-interrogated millions found so handily on those “flash-sticks” allowed for some easy one-stop explanations of a few things. To quote Anonymous Intelligence Source again:
"Before this, the western officials had been asking us where they had gotten some of their money from, $50,000 here, or $20,000 there. It was peanuts. Now they know and we know. They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don’t need one.
Phew, well there you are then. Another little mystery solved. It’s just ISIS, the multi-billionaire terrorist network and oil empire, branching out into another area of profitable trading. Nothing more to see here.
Maybe it was the growing implausibility of the narrative of ISIS as COBRA that led to it being quietly pushed on the back burner for the moment, and maybe it was in an attempt to reset the paradigm that the Wall Street Journal in a paywalled article from September 16 decided to take the story in a low-tech, low-key, bare bones direction
“The Islamic State is funding its rapid push into Syria and Iraq with a labyrinthine oil-smuggling operation that starts at seized Syrian oil fields, goes through makeshift refineries and can end up in jerrycans carried by mules into the hilly borderland of Turkey
Yes, you did read correctly. That word is “mules.” The Wall Street Journal is telling us ISIS is making its $1 million (or two or three or six million) a day by smuggling crude oil in jerrycans. Carried by mules.
Assuming two barrels per mule, that’s anything from 10,000 – 100,000 mules a day.
I think we should just leave it there.
http://off-guardian.org/2015/04/10/does ... every-day/