"Into the breach" Canadian camandos in Iraq, will Canada ministers prepare for Iraq update

Several dozen Canadian special forces troops have been on the ground with Iraqi and Kurdish forces in northern Iraq since September. When they were first deployed, Canadians were told the commandos would be working behind the scenes in an advisory and training role.

Asked by NDP leader Tom Mulcair on Sept. 30 whether the troops would escort Iraqi and Kurdish forces into battle against ISIL, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons: “Canadian soldiers are not accompanying the Iraqi forces into combat.”

On Oct. 19, Lawson said in a CTV interview that Canadian troops “would have nothing to do” with directing coalition bombing attacks against ISIL forces because that would be, in the words of the interviewer, “a semi-combat role.”

But military leaders have since revealed the commandos are spending 20 per cent of their time on the frontlines with Iraqi and Kurdish forces, calling in airstrikes and killing enemy forces with sniper fire when fired upon.

Lawson says the situation on the ground “evolved” after his interview, but Nicholson says the government “didn’t put limits on their ability to advise and assist the Iraqis,” from the beginning. “I am not sure we could train troops without accompanying them,” Nicholson added Monday.

When did the government decide to put Canadian soldiers on the frontline, and why? Opposition parties have accused the government of misleading Canadians about the mission from the beginning.

What the future holds

In addition to the commandos in northern Iraq, Canada has six fighter jets, two surveillance aircraft, a refuelling plane and 600 military personnel participating in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIL.

Both were initially approved for six months, ending in early April. But rather than being on the verge of destroying ISIL, 

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Mosul becomes an impoverished, broken city, with citizens daily living in fear of ISIS barbaric penalties even for use of cell phones

IS prosecutes anyone who tries to get network coverage on his mobile phone. “IS wants to fully isolate us from our surroundings,” he said. His weekly attempts to call his daughter may expose him to flogging or even the death penalty for violating IS’ rules.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/iraq-mosul-isolation-islamic-state.html#ixzz3QBWsnGmB

Mosul deteriorates under IS occupation

BAGHDAD — Basma’s phone is always in her pocket. She used to throw it around the house, but things have changed. She is waiting for a phone call from her father, who lives in Mosul and was not able to leave with his wife and children for a safer city.

Summary⎙ Print Mosul has become an impoverished, broken city whose residents face great risks when they try to contact their loved ones in other Iraqi cities, fearing their Islamic State occupiers' retaliation.

Author Omar al-JaffalPosted January 28, 2015

TranslatorPascale el-Khoury

She got married in Baghdad several years ago and has a close relationship with her father. She would visit him every month or he would come to the capital to see her. But the situation changed; the young employee who works at the Iraqi Ministry of Construction and Housing has not seen her father since June, i.e., since the dramatic fall of Mosul at the hands of the Islamic State (IS).

Mosul, a Sunni-majority city, has been completely isolated from its surroundings for more than a month now; IS cut the Internet and mobile phone networks and the city's residents became prisoners of the extremist organization that unreasonably imposes its brutal laws.

Basma’s father, 55, a physician, crosses about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) to the mountains near the province of Dahuk in the Kurdistan region to secure coverage for his mobile phone to call his daughter in Baghdad.

The physician told Al-Monitor over the phone that IS prosecutes anyone who tries to get network coverage on his mobile phone. “IS wants to fully isolate us from our surroundings,” he said. His weekly attempts to call his daughter may expose him to flogging or even the death penalty for violating IS’ rules.

“I am very cautious,” he said. “I hope I don’t get caught. All I can do is hope.”

It seems that IS has a strong intelligence apparatus: People in Mosul refused to reveal their names when talking to the media. This is why the physician, Basma’s father, did not disclose his name.

In light of IS’ powerful intelligence services, social networking activists were forced about a month ago to close down their sites for fear of being prosecuted in case IS members succeeded in locating their websites.

The physician said, “IS is similar to the Baath Party in this aspect. ... It knows every little detail.”

Witnesses from Mosul told Al-Monitor by phone that men in Mosul mostly fear compulsory recruitment by the extremist organization, given the shortage in the number of its members.

The physician said that many of the men from Mosul who joined IS when it first entered the city have changed their minds and left it. This cost many of them their lives when they were caught and executed on the roads and in public squares.

News circulated that IS imposed compulsory recruitment in the district of Hit, in Anbar province, to fight in the front rows of IS against government forces. News reports also indicated that whoever refused to join IS ranks faced the death penalty.

A young man from Mosul told Al-Monitor over the phone, “We currently dread recruitment the most, as we see the number of IS members decreasing on the streets, which may lead IS to resort to recruitment.”

According to the young man, “Most young men are confined within their homes since IS has made everything forbidden and haram. It even intervenes in the way we dress and prohibits us from watching soccer games. Its members search our phones to find out our political and social orientations.”

The economic situation is also deteriorating in Mosul. Vegetables were brought in by IS from Syria after agricultural lands were destroyed. Households’ funds have been exhausted.

Basma’s father, who works in a government hospital, said he has not received his salary for two months.

Talib Abdul Karim, an MP for Ninevah province, communicates with Mosul’s residents via mobile phones as well. “The only way to communicate is to walk to the borders of the provinces of the Kurdistan region to get network coverage” he said. “Mosul is now at its worst. All sectors are paralyzed."

Abdul Karim told Al-Monitor, “All services are suspended. Garbage is filling the city, the health sector sustained great damage and medical staff fled.”

“The city’s residents are refusing IS’ [occupation], given its oppression against them. Armed groups are being spontaneously formed to carry out operations against this terrorist organization,” he said.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/iraq-mosul-isolation-islamic-state.html#ixzz3QBXx3PXZ

U.S. to begin training more rebels in Syria But does the math add up?

And so the dance continues. Obama continues to court Militant Rebel groups is Syria. There was over 40 rebel groups in Aleppo in 2013. There is a lot less now, approx. 20. The rebel groups range from neighborhood gang like groups with a few hundred fighting men, to groups like al Nusra with approx 5-7k fighters. However these groups also put locals on the payroll. Jobs like lobbing grenades at regime forces, to selling a child to be used as a suicide bomber (families are often forced or coerced/threatened and the children are as young as 8 or 9, many of the children are orphans), also paying some citizens for intel on who may not be loyal to the terrorist,s who have taken control of their town, and payment for the military needs to eat and drink, and so on.  This can make a force 2 - 3 times its core grouping. ISIS numbers are 30k + depending on way you look at who is a militant, or on the payroll, just trying to buy bread.

Assad/Regime Forces are 200-400k regularly military. The Assad Regime has popular support in regime held areas, and areas taken back from the rebels. 80-90% popularity/support in areas that have seen very little conflict, to 70-80% in areas taken back from rebels. 

Military service age and obligation (this data from CIA factbook):
18 years of age for compulsory and voluntary military service; conscript service obligation is 18 months; women are not conscripted but may volunteer to serve; re-enlistment obligation 5 years, with retirement after 15 years or age 40 (enlisted) or 20 years or age 45 (NCOs) (2012)

Looks like a kinda sweet deal retirement at age 40-45 after only 15 - 20 years of service in the military. Now if you have been in the Military for even 5 years, if the Assad Regime fails you lose pensions, and job and may become a political prisoner. Hell I would fight for that alone.

But we know the real reason Syrians are fighting is they want to remain a Secular Society and Nation. Every rebel group is Sunni Arab (many Wahhabi) in their top military/fighting ranks). It does not take a genius to see why a total of 50-60k rebels (including all groups ISIS, al nusra, FSA, etc.) yet no central organized control or leadership between those 20 rebel groups....... .......will not likely win against a Regime force of 400k and another 200k + Civilian Guards (Men and Women) that have local backing. As well as Pro-Regime militias like Shabiha and  Jaysh al-Sha'bi maybe another 5-20k. This is why I hope The Syrian Kurds sign pacts with the Regime, before the groups like ISIS get crushed into only hundreds of militants on the hide or run. - Ian Bach

"CNN)The U.S. military will deploy 400 trainers and hundreds more troops in a train-and-equip mission for Syrian rebel forces, the Pentagon said Friday.

The American troops will be deployed starting in early spring on six- to eight-week missions in three countries -- Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia -- as part of the Obama administration's plan to expand training for moderate Syrian rebels."

Cheers to #twitterkurds, and all those who fight for the rule of secular law.

Lets fight the real enemies of Syria which include #daesh, #daash, #IS, #ISIS, and influential donors and backers of the War on Syria from Turkey, Qatar, al Jazzera, the Wahhabis, Saudi arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere.

U.S. to begin training more rebels in Syria But does the math add up?

And so the dance continues. Obama continues to court Militant Rebel groups is Syria. There was over 40 rebel groups in Aleppo in 2013. There is a lot less now, approx. 20. The rebel groups range from neighborhood gang like groups with a few hundred fighting men, to groups like al Nusra with approx 5-7k fighters. However these groups also put locals on the payroll. Jobs like lobbing grenades at regime forces, to selling a child to be used as a suicide bomber (families are often forced or coerced/threatened and the children are as young as 8 or 9, many of the children are orphans), also paying some citizens for intel on who may not be loyal to the terrorist,s who have taken control of their town, and payment for the military needs to eat and drink, and so on.  This can make a force 2 - 3 times its core grouping. ISIS numbers are 30k + depending on way you look at who is a militant, or on the payroll, just trying to buy bread.

Assad/Regime Forces are 200-400k regularly military. The Assad Regime has popular support in regime held areas, and areas taken back from the rebels. 80-90% popularity/support in areas that have seen very little conflict, to 70-80% in areas taken back from rebels. 

Military service age and obligation (this data from CIA factbook):
18 years of age for compulsory and voluntary military service; conscript service obligation is 18 months; women are not conscripted but may volunteer to serve; re-enlistment obligation 5 years, with retirement after 15 years or age 40 (enlisted) or 20 years or age 45 (NCOs) (2012)

Looks like a kinda sweet deal retirement at age 40-45 after only 15 - 20 years of service in the military. Now if you have been in the Military for even 5 years, if the Assad Regime fails you lose pensions, and job and may become a political prisoner. Hell I would fight for that alone.

But we know the real reason Syrians are fighting is they want to remain a Secular Society and Nation. Every rebel group is Sunni Arab (many Wahhabi) in their top military/fighting ranks). It does not take a genius to see why a total of 50-60k rebels (including all groups ISIS, al nusra, FSA, etc.) yet no central organized control or leadership between those 20 rebel groups....... .......will not likely win against a Regime force of 400k and another 200k + Civilian Guards (Men and Women) that have local backing. As well as Pro-Regime militias like Shabiha and  Jaysh al-Sha'bi maybe another 5-20k. This is why I hope The Syrian Kurds sign pacts with the Regime, before the groups like ISIS get crushed into only hundreds of militants on the hide or run. - Ian Bach

"CNN)The U.S. military will deploy 400 trainers and hundreds more troops in a train-and-equip mission for Syrian rebel forces, the Pentagon said Friday.

The American troops will be deployed starting in early spring on six- to eight-week missions in three countries -- Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia -- as part of the Obama administration's plan to expand training for moderate Syrian rebels."

Cheers to #twitterkurds, and all those who fight for the rule of secular law.

Lets fight the real enemies of Syria which include #daesh, #daash, #IS, #ISIS, and influential donors and backers of the War on Syria from Turkey, Qatar, al Jazzera, the Wahhabis, Saudi arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere.

THE MONEY – WHERE THE MONEY IS COMING FROM TO WAGE WAR ON SYRIA

This is nothing new. Go back a while to early 2006, and you have the state department announcing a new “funding opportunity” called the “Syria Democracy Program“. On offer, grants worth “$5m in Federal Fiscal Year 2006″. The aim of the grants? “To accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”

These days, the cash is flowing in faster than ever. At the beginning of June 2012, the Syrian Business Forum was launched in Doha by opposition leaders including Wael Merza (SNC secretary general). “This fund has been established to support all components of the revolution in Syria,” said Merza. The size of the fund? Some $300m. It’s by no means clear where the money has come from, although Merza “hinted at strong financial support from Gulf Arab states for the new fund” (Al Jazeera). At the launch, Merza said that about $150m had already been spent, in part on the Free Syrian Army.

Merza’s group of Syrian businessmen made an appearance at a World Economic Forum conference titled the “Platform for International Co-operation” held in Istanbul in November 2011. All part of the process whereby the SNC has grown in reputation, to become, in the words of William Hague, “a legitimate representative of the Syrian people” – and able, openly, to handle this much funding.

Building legitimacy – of opposition, of representation, of intervention – is the essential propaganda battle.

In a USA Today op-ed written in February this year, Ambassador Dennis Ross declared: “It is time to raise the status of the Syrian National Council”. What he wanted, urgently, is “to create an aura of inevitability about the SNC as the alternative to Assad.” The aura of inevitability. Winning the battle in advance.

A key combatant in this battle for hearts and minds is the American journalist and Daily Telegraph blogger, Michael Weiss.

Michael Weiss

One of the most widely quoted western experts on Syria – and an enthusiast for western intervention – Michael Weiss echoes Ambassador Ross when he says: “Military intervention in Syria isn’t so much a matter of preference as an inevitability.”

Some of Weiss’s interventionist writings can be found on a Beirut-based, Washington-friendly website called “NOW Lebanon” – whose “NOW Syria” section is an important source of Syrian updates. NOW Lebanon was set up in 2007 by Saatchi & Saatchi executive Eli Khoury. Khoury has been described by the advertising industry as a “strategic communications specialist, specialising in corporate and government image and brand development”.

Weiss told NOW Lebanon, back in May, that thanks to the influx of weapons to Syrian rebels “we’ve already begun to see some results.” He showed a similar approval of military developments a few months earlier, in a piece for the New Republic: “In the past several weeks, the Free Syrian Army and other independent rebel brigades have made great strides” – whereupon, as any blogger might, he laid out his “Blueprint for a Military Intervention in Syria”.

But Weiss is not only a blogger. He’s also the director of communications and public relations at the Henry Jackson Society, an ultra-ultra-hawkish foreign policy thinktank.

The Henry Jackson Society’s international patrons include: James “ex-CIA boss” Woolsey, Michael “homeland security” Chertoff, William “PNAC” Kristol, Robert “PNAC” Kagan’, Joshua “Bomb Iran” Muravchick, and Richard “Prince of Darkness” Perle. The Society is run by Alan Mendoza, chief adviser to the all-party parliamentary group on transatlantic and international security.

The Henry Jackson Society is uncompromising in its “forward strategy” towards democracy. And Weiss is in charge of the message. The Henry Jackson Society is proud of its PR chief’s far-reaching influence: “He is the author of the influential report “Intervention in Syria? An Assessment of Legality, Logistics and Hazards”, which was repurposed and endorsed by the Syrian National Council.”

Weiss’s original report was re-named “Safe Area for Syria” – and ended up on the official syriancouncil.org website, as part of their military bureau’s strategic literature. The repurposing of the HJS report was undertaken by the founder and executive director of the Strategic Research and Communication Centre (SRCC) – one Ausama Monajed.

So, the founder of Barada TV, Ausama Monajed, edited Weiss’s report, published it through his own organisation (the SRCC) and passed it on to the Syrian National Council, with the support of the Henry Jackson Society.

The relationship couldn’t be closer. Monajed even ends up handling inquiries for “press interviews with Michael Weiss“. Weiss is not the only strategist to have sketched out the roadmap to this war (many think tanks have thought it out, many hawks have talked it up), but some of the sharpest detailing is his.

https://ianbachusa.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/the-money-where-the-money-is-comming-from-to-wage-war-on-syria/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking

KURDISH UNITS REPEL ISIS FROM GWER NEAR ERBIL – (VIDEO)

Kurdish forces sweep forward in northern Iraq in the wake of air strikes by US fighter jets and drones. The Telegraph’s Richard Spencer reports from Gwer

Kurdish forces swept forward in the wake of attacks by US fighter jets on Islamic State positions south of Erbil.

Bodies of Islamic State jihadists, mangled and broken, lay near their burned out, machine-gun mounted pickup trucks as The Telegraph followed Kurdish Peshmerga forces into the IS-held town of Gwer on Sunday afternoon.

The attack on Gwer by the Peshmerga followed direct co-ordination with the Americans, Kurdish ground troops said. They had been told to prepare for an attack at 5am. Some skirmishes followed – the tactics were not clear, but may have been an attempt to draw the jihadists into the open.

Then, between 9 and 10am, the fighter jets struck. “I was standing on the bridge over there when they came in,” said Shedzah Kakarosh, a Peshmerga fighter. Next to him smoked the shell of a truck, the mount of its heavy machine-gun smoking on its base behind him, which he said he saw being hit by a jet-fired missile.

President Barack Obama authorised strikes after the Islamic State seized Christian and Yazidi towns villages in the north of the country last week, killing or driving out their inhabitants, and then took up positions within 30 miles of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
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