Tag Archives: al-Qaeda

Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Iran, Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Politics, United Nations, United States

The Iranian foe has suddenly become a crucial ally…

IRAN

Not since the Shah was replaced by Ayatollah Khomeini’s hardline Islamic theocracy in 1979 has a British prime minister met with an Iranian leader.

Truly, this week was an historic encounter as David Cameron made entreaties to the enemy and met Hassan Rouhani at the UN General Assembly in New York.

This, it should be remembered, is a country that has sponsored terrorism against the West on myriad occasions, has frequently declared that Israel should be wiped from the map , and was infamously labelled – along with Iraq under Saddam Hussein and North Korea – a member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ by George W Bush. Its nuclear ambitions so terrify Western leaders that they have imposed sanctions that have devastated Iran’s oil exports and revenues.

But times change, and now the West needs Iran, regarding it as a potential ally in the fight against Islamic State (IS).

Iran has reached out, too. Ever since Rouhani replaced his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in August 2013, he has been trying to bring Iran back in from the cold.

Ahmadinejad’s bellicose anti-Western rhetoric during the eight years of his rule ensured the country’s deepening isolation on the international stage.

And while Rouhani may be a plausible figure, the regime’s religious hardliners are still uniformly grim, imposing their moral puritanism on a young, vibrant and educated population which, behind the scenes, enjoys partying, illicit drinking and casual sex.

Last year Iran executed 624 people for various offences, some of them publicly strangled as they were hoisted aloft by large mechanical cranes. Torture is commonplace and stoning seen as just punishment.

Yet Cameron was clearly in the mood for conciliation and his diplomatic offensive throws up a number of questions. Why would Iran want to help the West in its fight against IS? And what kind of concessions would the Iranians demand in return for discreetly siding with the coalition of Western and Arab countries now launching air strikes on IS’s headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa?

There is no doubt that Iran wants to see the back of IS. Its Shia-led regime considers Iraq and Syria as allies – both are also governed by Shia Muslims. The brutal butchers of IS are all extreme Sunni Muslims, deadly rivals of the Shia, and Iran rightly believes them to be a dangerously destabilising force in the Middle East.

Officially Iran is not part of the efforts to degrade and destroy IS – America is still seen as the great evil by its hardliners and theocrats who will not countenance US troops back in Iraq.

Covertly, however, the country’s head of ‘subversive warfare’ – the 56-year-old General Qassem Suleimani, supremo of the elite Iranian Quds force – is already working alongside his US counterpart General Michael Bednarek in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are also hidden among the sizeable Shia militias defending the holiest Shia shrines in Iraq such as Karbala and Najaf, while Iran has warned IS to stay away from its borders.

To consider whether Iran can help defeat IS, we have to examine the force they would be taking on.

Obama has made an analogy between IS and an insufferable disease that is spreading like a plaque. By 2010, Western and Iraqi special forces had eliminated all but 10 per cent of Al-Qaeda in Iraq as a result of capturing or assassinating their operatives.

But that 10 per cent metastasised into IS under their ruthless leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who decided to exploit the civil war in Syria as a source of recruitment, funding and territory. Two thirds of its 30,000-strong army now lurks there.

Intelligence agencies have largely failed to detect how this army organised from its Syria base a systematic assassination campaign of Iraqi army and police chiefs, or a series of spectacular prison breaks, including one at the notorious Abu Ghraib jail where Iraqi prisoners were tortured by their Western captors.

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Few noticed how in January IS fought off an Iraqi army force of several divisions trying to recapture the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Long before they captured Mosul last month, IS was raking in some £5million a month through nightly extortion in this huge city.

The IS leadership consists of hardened Al-Qaeda veterans, but the tactical sophistication derives from a group of former generals who served under Saddam Hussein.

They have used Iraq’s modern road network to bring to bear their core spearhead of about 3,000 men, who soften up targets with vehicle-borne suicide bombers wiping out command and control centres. Social media bring fear and terror to a Shia-dominated Iraqi national army, whose corrupt officers have stolen their soldiers’ pay.

Soldiers then become demoralised that simply flee or desert, or are murdered. IS are also formidable in defence. They blow up bridges and unleash controlled floods to hamper counter-attacking forces, while using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to defend approaches in the way regular armies would use mines.

Worse still, IS anticipates their enemies. They knew Obama’s air-strikes on Raqqa were coming, and will have moved their command and control centres to outlying regions and villages. They thwart the West’s recruitment of moderate Sunni rebels. IS’s online multilingual magazine Dabiq (The Ark) suggests neutralising any attempts to turn the local Sunni tribes against them by co-opting them into their own administration – and it’s a tactic that has worked effectively.

Syria’s President Assad – with his sponsor Iran’s tacit approval – was notified in advance of the air strikes, and warned that his entire air defence system would be obliterated if he objected. But why should Assad object anyway, if his most deadly opponents are being eliminated?

Yet, as previous recent conflicts have shown, air strikes alone will not be enough. Ground troops will have to be involved. Which is why Obama, who can at least rely on the help of Kurdish Pesmerga forces and durable elements of the Iraqi army, is now pumping £300million into a new force of ‘moderate’ secular-minded Syrian tribes, 5,000 of whom will be rapidly trained in Saudi Arabia?

This throws up its own problems. The moderates have been fighting against IS alongside another extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra – which was itself targeted by US airstrikes this week because of fears they were accessories to planned terrorist attacks.

Throw in the Iranians, and the confusion over loyalties becomes even greater. Many of the Sunni moderates Obama is trying to woo consider Iran’s Shia regime a greater enemy than IS. This means it would be impossible for Iranian troops to engage overtly in Iraq or Syria – it would incite fury among the Sunni in those countries.

Cameron’s talks with Rouhani have been tantamount to a negotiator’s minefield. Cameron will want him to stop backing Assad but Rouhani will never concede to giving up on such a long-standing Shia ally.

Rouhani will want to persuade the West to relax sanctions in return for help against IS. Any movement, though, to accommodate Iran’s nuclear programme could infuriate Israel. And Israel, if provoked, could destroy the West/Arab coalition.

But despite the enormous geopolitical difficulties and complexities, Cameron is right to engage with Rouhani.

We cannot be in any doubt. IS presents an existential threat to the entire region and must be tackled and beaten. And Iran is such a major player that it is far better to try to enlist its help and keep its president onside than to continue to treat it as a pariah.

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Supplementary

MD Twitter timeline – entries made 25 Sept 2014:

. For the first time the U.S. has used its precision based F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter.

. The F-22 contains over 30 radar receivers which are able to warn of threats from 250 miles away.

. The armaments of the F-22 are stored internally. This provides its stealth capability, and helps greatly with its aerodynamics.

. The F-22 is armed with JDAM (The Joint Direct Attack Munition). This is a GPS guidance system with a range of up to *___ * miles.

. The F-22’s radar changes frequency more than 1,000 times per second. This confuses enemy tracking systems.

. Khorasan, a little-known Al-Qaeda affiliate, have become a prime target for U.S. air strikes in northern Syria.

. Other U.S. aircraft used in attacking ISIL positions include its B-1 bombers, F-15E attack warplanes, F-16 fighters, F/A-18 Super Hornets and two types of drone aircraft.

. The U.S. has also fired Tomahawk cruise missiles from destroyers in the Red Sea and the northern Persian Gulf. The ships involved are the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Philippine.

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Afghanistan, Britain, Government, Iraq, Military, National Security, United States

The scandal of the Afghanistan war that no one is to blame…

BRITISH INVOLVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN

Intro: The futility and waste of British lives in Afghanistan far exceeds that in Iraq. The end of our involvement there is greeted with a mixture of silence and boredom. But these heroic sacrifices require an official inquiry, not least to the memory of the soldiers that died

There is a widespread and justified consensus that we were finagled into a war in Iraq by Tony Blair which has cost Britain dear. On Iraq, there have been several official inquiries, of which the last, chaired by former mandarin Sir John Chilcot, has yet to report. Sir John has been held back in his reporting because the Chilcot inquiry wishes to release information into the public domain not yet seen and whose release is being opposed by the British Government. Of all the inquiries that have been held not one was ever given the terms of reference to examine openly the political machinery used in making the decision that took Britain to war with Iraq.

The war in Afghanistan was, by most measures, an even bigger enterprise. According to the Government, it has cost us £20 billion, though some observers believe it may be as high as £40 billion.

Britain’s engagement in Afghanistan cost the lives of 448 servicemen and women. That’s two and half times the number of fatalities in the Iraq War (179), and getting on for twice the number killed during the Falklands War (258).

Yet, the most extraordinary thing about our involvement in Afghanistan is that neither the political class nor the general public are noticeably worked up about it. Afghanistan has stirred far less debate and controversy than Iraq, and the end of our involvement has been greeted with a mixture of silence and boredom.

Unbelievably, too, there are few, if any, calls for an inquiry into a war which began in early 2006 with the hope expressed by the then Defence Secretary, John Reid, that our troops might soon return ‘without a shot being fired’.

Whilst we may have been duped into the Iraq War by Tony Blair, there were at least dossiers that argued for the case for war, albeit misleadingly, and debates were had in Parliament. In the case of Afghanistan, we shuffled blindfolded into hostilities with no clear plan, no exit strategy, and with virtually no discussion.

Instead of the silence or indifference, there remains an overwhelming case for the most robust analysis of how we drifted into what many analysts believe has been a futile war that has achieved very little.

Our involvement in Afghanistan began after the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. The decision to topple the Taliban regime by President George W Bush – which he believed harboured Al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the outrages committed against America – was supported by Mr Blair, who said: ‘The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux, soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us.’

It was not until the spring of 2006 that British troops were despatched in any numbers to bring order to Helmand. Here, the Taliban were strong and resurgent, but the magnitude of the task was massively underestimated by Mr Blair’s government.

The justification was, and remained, that British streets would be safer as a result of our direct intervention. This was always a very doubtful proposition. For one thing, Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have since strengthened enormously in other countries such as Yemen and Somalia. There have also been numerous planned attacks thwarted by our security and intelligence services, none of which have revealed any links to Afghanistan.

An inquiry on Afghanistan is needed so that Blair and Reid, and indeed David Cameron, who endlessly repeats the mantra that our servicemen have been dying to keep us safe, answer the clarion call as to where the evidence is to support this assertion?

These politicians should also be questioned about their failure to bring opium cultivation under control, which back in 2006 was offered by Tony Blair as a major reason for sending troops to Afghanistan. Production of the drug has soared, and hundreds of millions of pounds of aid has been wasted in uselessly attempting to curb it.

Members of Blair’s government, along with senior civil servants at the Ministry of Defence, should also be asked to explain why they sent young men and women to Afghanistan in Land Rovers that offered poor protection against hidden roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices. Dozens of troops have died in these vehicles which might otherwise have been saved if the politicians had bothered to give any prior thought to what they were doing. These are serious matters which should not be brushed aside.

Servicemen join up believing, even hoping, that someday they will be asked to fight. They have a right, though, to assume that their lives will be risked in a reasonable cause with an expectation of success, and that they will be given adequate weaponry and protection.

It seems incredible that there has been no proper official inquiry, although there have been parliamentary investigations which have lacked the clout or scope to be taken seriously.

The purpose of an inquiry is partly to try to make sure that mistakes are not repeated – that we do not go to war again on an agenda of shifting objectives, none of which is ever realised. And it’s partly to restore people’s faith in our political system as people have become inured to the idea of a government’s ineptitude and deviousness.

The British Government will declare a job well done in Helmand, yet people will look at rising opium production and know that the job was far from complete. Much of Helmand province, where our soldiers risked and gave their lives, is as lawless as it was eight years ago.

On Sunday, the Afghan presidential elections will be held. None of the candidates seems at all alluring. One is a Uzbek warlord once described by his running mate as a ‘known killer’.

Many doubt that the victor will be an improvement on the outgoing president, Hamid Karzai, who has presided over the world’s most corrupt government.

It was Karzai who recently suggested with mind-boggling ingratitude that the presence of British and other Western troops in his country had made things worse.

An official inquiry is the very least that should be offered to the memory of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives, and to their grieving families. Much blood and treasure has been squandered in an enterprise far more deluded than events which transpired in Iraq.

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Afghanistan, Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, NATO, Politics, United States

Afghanistan must not be allowed to slip back into its old ways…

AFGHANISTAN

Intro: As British troops prepare to exit Afghanistan after more than 12 years of bitter fighting, a bilateral agreement between Afghanistan and the West will be needed to prevent the Taliban becoming a major political force again. That would ensure our sacrifices have not been made in vain

Task Force Helmand, the military campaign to bring stability to the south of Afghanistan, ended this week with US Marines assuming responsibility for the province. Whilst it may be argued that the British mission has not been an overwhelming success, some of what has been done has led to tangible improvements in the lives of ordinary Afghans – particularly in education, health care and security. Some 350,000 Afghans have been trained by western forces in a policy designed to allow them to take full control of their own security.

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The conflict in Afghanistan has lasted more than 12 years – a bitter war that has resulted in the loss of 448 British lives, with thousands more that have suffered serious injury. It will be with a collective sigh of relief that Britain’s military engagement in southern Afghanistan is now finally drawing to a close. Following a two minutes silence for the fallen this week, it was fitting that the presiding padre overseeing the religious ceremony paid tribute to our ‘bravest and best’ that had ‘borne the cost of freedom for others.’

Despite areas of progress that have been made much of the country is still threatened by the Taliban-led insurgency. With this is mind, there will be many who will question just how much has actually been achieved in Helmand province and elsewhere. The amount of treasure plundered, in terms of human sacrifice and the enormous amounts of money expended, has been a high price to pay. The words used in 2006 by John Reid, the then defence secretary, that British troops would be able to complete their mission ‘without a single shot being fired’ have turned out to be complete balderdash when compared now to the actuality of events on the ground over the past 12 years. However, the intensity and ferocity of the fighting, often with ill-equipped and under-manned British troops in a desperate battle for survival, has led the British commander of UK forces, Brigadier James Woodham, to conclude that we ‘have given the Afghans a chance.’

That, no-doubt is the case, but Afghanistan still has a long way to go before it reaches anything approaching long-term stability. This weekend, the country will hold its third presidential elections since western forces overthrew the Taliban led government in 2001. Hamid Karzai, the country’s unpredictable and impulsive president, is ineligible to run, but the outcome of the election could provide an opportunity for Western governments to agree terms with Kabul in maintaining their support for Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces, once all NATO combat operations conclude at the end of this year. Mr Karzai has refused to sign a bilateral security agreement with Washington – the objective of which would be for the US and its allies to remain in a supporting role beyond 2014, as well as providing financial assistance – which, undoubtedly, will be needed if Afghanistan is not to slip back into its old ways. If the Taliban were to re-establish itself as a major political force the country could quickly become a safe haven again for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.

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