Pan-Islamic merged mega thread

[McG]

Looks like IS has added mustard gas to the list of chemical weapons it has employed.

IS suspected of chemical arms attack on Kurds in Iraq
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33922493

 

[cupper]

When is the rest of the Muslim World going to stand up and say this cannot be allowed to exist?

Leader of Islamic State used American hostage as sexual slave

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leader-of-islamic-state-raped-american-hostage/2015/08/14/266b6bf4-42c1-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html?hpid=z1

The leader of the Islamic State personally kept a 26-year-old American woman as a hostage and raped her repeatedly, according to U.S. officials and her family.

The family of Kayla Mueller said in an interview Friday that the FBI had informed them that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, had sexually abused their daughter, a humanitarian worker.

Mueller’s parents said the FBI first spoke to the family about the sexual assault in late June and provided more details two weeks ago. The bureau pieced together what happened to the American from interviews with other hostages and the captured wife of a senior Islamic State figure.

The FBI also told the Muellers that their daughter had been tortured.

“June was hard for me,” said Marsha Mueller, Kayla’s mother. “I was really upset with what I heard.”

The disclosure that Mueller was raped by Baghdadi adds to the grim evidence that the exploitation and abuse of women has been sanctioned at the highest levels of the Islamic State. The sexual enslavement of even teenage girls is seen as religiously endorsed by the group and regarded as a recruiting tool.

News of Baghdadi’s abuse of Mueller, who was from Prescott, Ariz., was first reported Friday by the Independent, a London newspaper.

“As painful as this is for our family, we just feel like the world needs to know the truth,” said Carl Mueller, Kayla’s father. The Muellers noted that Friday would have been their daughter’s 27th birthday.

The Islamic State claimed that Mueller was killed earlier this year after a Jordanian fighter plane dropped a bomb on the building where she was being held. The U.S. government confirmed the death but not the cause.

Mueller’s family had previously released a letter their daughter had written in which she talked about the conditions of her captivity. “Please know I am in a safe location, completely unharmed + healthy (put on weight in fact); I have been treated w/the utmost respect + kindness,” she wrote in the letter, which the family received in the spring of 2014.

Kayla’s mother said she had thought her daughter had been treated reasonably until she learned about the conditions of her captivity during a June meeting with FBI officials in Washington. The FBI said they learned about Mueller’s mistreatment from the wife of a senior Islamic State operative captured earlier this year, as well as young female members of the Yazidi religious sect who had spent two months in captivity with Mueller before at least one of them escaped last fall.

U.S. officials had previously said that Mueller was abused by her captors, but it was not known until now that she was kept as a sex slave of the leader of the Islamic State.

Baghdadi is a former Iraqi insurgent who was detained by U.S. forces early in the Iraq war. He was part of an al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq that was thought to have been largely destroyed before the civil war in Syria allowed it to regenerate.

Though little is known about his background, Baghdadi is regarded as an experienced fighter and a capable leader. His most prominent public appearance came last year when he surfaced at a mosque in Mosul to declare himself the leader of a restored caliphate.

Mueller was abducted in August 2013 after leaving a hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo. Three months after she died, the compound where she had been held was targeted in a raid by U.S. Special Operations forces.

The operation was aimed at capturing Abu Sayyaf, the nom de guerre of a high-ranking Tunisian member of the Islamic State, who was thought to be in charge of oil smuggling and other illicit enterprises that have funded the terrorist group.

Sayyaf was killed in what U.S. officials described as intense “close quarters combat.” But his wife, identified only as Umm Sayyaf, survived and was eventually brought back to Iraq aboard a bullet-riddled U.S. aircraft. She was then questioned by U.S. interrogators for months, providing information about Mueller as well as the Islamic State’s leadership, before recently being turned over to Iraqi custody.


Systematic abuse

Mueller’s mistreatment is the latest evidence of the Islamic State’s systematic abuse of women on a significant scale.

A report released in April by Human Rights Watch accused the Islamic State of war crimes for its brutal treatment of female Yazidis — many of them teenagers — who were captured in Iraq last August, taken to Syria and forced into sexual slavery by the Islamic State.

After surging into the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar last year, Islamic State fighters captured as many as 1,000 Yazidi women, many of whom were given a bleak choice of “marriage” to a fighter or imprisonment and potential death.

The Human Rights Watch report focused on 20 women who escaped the group and provided detailed accounts of their treatment.

One described attempting to kill herself by going into a bathroom, turning on water and grasping a wire “to electrocute myself but there was no electricity.”

After being discovered, she said she was badly beaten, handcuffed to a sink, stripped of her clothes and washed. “They took me out of the bathroom, brought in [a friend] and raped her in the room in front of me,” said the woman, who is referred to only as Leila. Later she, too, was raped.

Another victim, who was only 12 years old, said that after being abducted in Sinjar, the women in her family were separated from the men and sent to a house in Mosul. Islamic State fighters “would come and select us,” she said. One of the captors beat her, she said, and then “spent three days having sex with me.”

A recent issue of the English-language magazine published by the Islamic State described the taking of sex slaves as religiously justified. The article — titled “Slave girls or prostitutes?” — endorsed the practice, saying sex slaves are “lawful for the one who ends up possessing them even without pronouncement of divorce by their [non-Muslim] husbands.”

The article went on to cite accounts that the prophet Muhammad “took four slave-girls as concubines,” a purported religious basis for the practice.

 

[McG]

When is the rest of the Muslim World going to stand up and say this cannot be allowed to exist?

You do realize that a significant chunk of the Muslim World is currently engaged in the war with ISIS?

 

[cupper]

You do realize that a significant chunk of the Muslim World is currently engaged in the war with ISIS?

Yes, but there is also a significant chunk that is sitting on the sidelines.

And I'm not just talking about the various Middle Eastern countries that are providing support for the airstrikes.

But the communities in Europe that allow radicalized clerics to spout the perversion they do, encouraging the disaffected youth to go to carry on the fight.

The Turks who allowed virtually free movement of those fighters across their territory up until the violence it started to take place inside their own cities.

ISIS is a cancer that needs to be excised from the face of the Earth.

 

[Jed]

Yes, but there is also a significant chunk that is sitting on the sidelines.

And I'm not just talking about the various Middle Eastern countries that are providing support for the airstrikes.

But the communities in Europe that allow radicalized clerics to spout the perversion they do, encouraging the disaffected youth to go to carry on the fight.

The Turks who allowed virtually free movement of those fighters across their territory up until the violence it started to take place inside their own cities.

ISIS is a cancer that needs to be excised from the face of the Earth.

Too true. I fear we all will sit in the woods until the problem becomes so huge it will take enormous amounts of blood and treasure to do something about it.

 

[a_majoor]

An informal regional alliance seems to be forming up against the Iranians. This is going to be a difficult act to pull off given the various partners named in the article and the animosities between them. Of course given the greater threat Iran poses, various issues could be placed on the back burner to deal with the immediate threat:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/08/17/grand-bargain-afoot-between-turkey-israel-and-gulf-arabs/

Grand Bargain Afoot Between Turkey, Israel, and Gulf Arabs?

Relations between Turkey and Israel took a turn for the worse in 2010, when an IDF raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara left nine dead. The ship was trying to get past Israeli’s blockade of Gaza. But things may now be warming a bit between the two countries as Jerusalem contemplates a ceasefire with Hamas, a move which was reportedly in the works as of last Friday. The Times of Israel:


“The negotiations surrounding Marmara are proceeding gradually and are interlaced with Hamas’s negotiations on a ceasefire,” Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglo, told Hamas daily al-Resalah, which called the Gaza blockade “a Turkish matter.” […]

In the extensive al-Resalah interview, held on the heels of a visit by Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal to Ankara last week, Aktay said Turkey is discussing with the government of Greek Cyprus the establishment of a waystation sea port, meant to deliver goods to the Gaza Strip under international supervision. He predicted that an agreement would be reached early next year.[…]
He noted that Turkey has committed itself to building Gaza’s seaport and airport once Israel agrees to their construction.

Something’s afoot. Negotiations for a truce between Israel and Hamas appear to be gaining momentum, and now we have the prospect that the truce could lead to improved Israel-Turkish relations. The big losers here would be Iran and its Assad clients. With Saudis also warming to Hamas, the elements of a regional anti-Iran coalition are coming into focus.

This would be very tough to pull off—it would not be just herding cats, but herding cats and dogs together. How, for instance, would the putative grand coalition manage cooperation between the Egyptian and Turkish governments, who loathe each other? Much less, how would one square years of virulent anti-Israel propaganda among the populations of Turkey and the Arab nations with the sharp pivot to Israel. It’s a sign of how worried the region is that something so-far fetched is being considered.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Meanwhile, from the "Payback's a maternal seducer" file ....

Two Moroccan Women Infect 16 ISIL Terrorists with AIDS

As militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) continue to hold off an international air strike coalition and advances from local fighters in Syria and Iraq, the terror group is now facing a new threat that has already wiped off some of its members: sexually transmitted disease ....

Live by the "sword" .... >

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Ahhhh! The wrath of God in action... :nod:

 

[George Wallace]

Meanwhile, from the "Payback's a maternal seducer" file ....Live by the "sword" .... >

I guess they will have their revenge before they are stoned to death for their indiscretions.

 

[cupper]

Earlier this year, an Indonesian IS fighter who infected a Yazidi sex slave with AIDS in the Hasakah province was executed. The same fighter also donated blood at an IS-run hospital before it was discovered that he had AIDS. The Saudi doctor who revealed the information about the AIDS spread from the Indonesian fighter was also executed by IS leaders.

I guess they believe in shooting the messenger.

It's interesting how significant a part that sex plays in the life of the radicalized muslim jihadist.

I recall an interview on NPR's Fresh Air earlier this year with Maajid Nawaz, a former extremist who was a recruiter in the global Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Nawaz is the author of the memoir Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism. He was the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate in the 2015 UK General Election.

At one point in the interview they discuss the hypocrisy of radical Islamists and their views on sex and their own actions.

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/15/377442344/how-orwells-animal-farm-led-a-radical-muslim-to-moderation

GROSS: Let me ask you this. As a young man - and you were 16 when you became an Islamist - that's the age when, I mean, so many teenagers have sex on their mind a good deal of the time. When you're an Islamist, you're not supposed to be thinking about sex all the time. You're certainly not supposed to be having sex outside of marriage. If this isn't too personal, what did you do with that impulse?

NAWAZ: (Laughter) That's a good question.

GROSS: And I ask that, in part, because we read that, like, some of the 9/11 attackers were at strip clubs, you know, before the attack. I read that Amedy Coulibaly - police raided his home in 2010 and found, in addition to all the religious texts on his computer, they had - he had photos of, quote, "pedo-pornographic character," unquote.

NAWAZ: Yeah. Yeah. You know, for all their holier-than-thou attitude, Islamists are the most - of the most sexualized beings living among us. And I know I was one. And, you know, likewise, I was very sexualized. And, you know, that's really that, deep down, when you say that a woman's face arouses me and therefore she should cover it and that's what God wants - or her hair or any other part of her body. And some of them insist that women must wear gloves. What it's really saying is that they can't take the fact that these things arouse them.

And so I joined at 16. Before that, you know, I had a liberal upbringing, and I had very, you know, many (laughter) - I say many girlfriends, you know. I had my fair share of relationships. And when I joined at 16, all of that had to stop. And that's actually one of the reasons I married young. I married my ex-wife at roughly 21. And, you know, we had a kid a year later. And that's probably why I did that because I found it extremely difficult, especially as somebody who was in my early teens, late teens and then in my early 20s to resist that impulse, as you said. And those who don't have the opportunity that I did to get married they - I, you know, I genuinely believe having - remembering what it was like, you know.

So I, as an 18-year-old, wasn't having sex, knowing what it was like because, prior to 16, I was sexually active. So I knew what I was missing. And so I can say this with a level of certainty, that those who don't immediately get married in the way that I did, early, which has its own challenges - those that don't, do often end up developing very, very severe sexual perversions. It's no surprise to me that they find pornography on the hard drives of - and not just any - I'm not arguing here that pornography is perverted, because that's a different discussion - but the very perverted type of pornography that you referred to that involves children and what have you. And also because those who take scripture vacuously go back to medieval interpretations of religion, and they find that, in Muslim medieval times, we didn't have this understanding that women were too young at 16 or too young at 15 or too young at 13 to consent to sex. And so they take that and literally apply it today.

And as we see with ISIL, you know, it's an abomination in itself that they're enslaving woman. But then, beyond that, they've issued guidance to their followers that their slaves don't have an age limit. They can, you know, they can rape a 21-year-old slave, a 50-year-old slave, and they could rape, God forbid, a 12-year-old slave. And that's the issue here, that when you can go back to medieval interpretations of religion where the standards we've become accustomed to for good, moral reasons didn't apply. And then, on top of that, you're highly sexually frustrated. You will rail against the West for their sexual promiscuity, for the way in which women are treated like meat because they're wearing miniskirts and the pornographic industry and what not have you. At yet, at the same time, you're enslaving women or you're justifying the enslavement of women, or you're justifying, likewise, treating women like meat by insisting they must cover up. And you don't see the irony there. You really don't see that you are actually a product of everything you're complaining about.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Interesting commentary in today's Halifax Chronicle Herald, shared under the fair dealings provisions of the copyright act.

WONG: ISIS attraction no surprise

JAN WONG
Published August 24, 2015 - 9:54pm

Young women join for adventure while ignorant of real world. 

Are you shocked that young women in Canada, Britain and the United States are joining ISIS? I’m not.

ISIS, as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is known, believes Muslim girls should marry at nine and end their education at 15. For infidel females, ISIS enshrines a theology of mass rape. Most recently, it has abducted women and girls of the Yazidi religious minority in Iraq, enslaving them as all-you-can-rape recruiting bait.

Yet young women are heading to ISIS from Montreal, London and even small U.S. cities like Starkville, Miss. (pop. 24,775). Once upon a time, I did something similar, but instead of the lure of Islam, it was Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Teens are hard-wired to run off in search of adventure. They just need a little alienation, a middling desire to search for one’s roots and a breathtaking ignorance of the real world.

The young women who slipped away to join ISIS apparently felt marginalized in the West. They were attracted by a fanatic version of their religion, the inclusivity of sisterhood and a naive ideal of marriage.

Growing up in Montreal in the 1960s, I was a visible minority before the term existed. I was Canadian born, but people around me assumed I wasn’t. I wondered if there was any place I truly belonged.

Naturally, I majored in Asian studies. That’s what young ethnics do when searching for their identities. They study themselves, or try to.

In this fog of confusion, a single evangelist can trigger an inordinate response. In my case, a left-wing history professor at McGill University described communist China in glowing terms. It was a utopia, he said, where everyone is equal.

I was hooked.

After classes ended that spring, I went alone to the People’s Republic on my summer vacation. It was 1972 and I was 19. I knew only a few hundred words of Mandarin, laboriously learned in a language lab.

At the end of the summer, I didn’t come home. Instead, I wired my parents that I was staying. I was going to learn Chinese at Peking University, the first Canadian to study there since the start of the Cultural Revolution.

My Canadian-born parents were alarmed, especially when I wrote propagandistic letters home about the wonders of communism. I embraced food rationing and thought control. Each Saturday afternoon, I gaily joined other students in hard labour.

As a budding feminist, I was entranced by a society without pantyhose or wedding rings. I’m not surprised these westernized teens — the one in Mississippi was a cheerleader — would embrace the veil. In Beijing, I chopped off my long hair and donned baggy Mao suits.

By the end of my year in China, I was so brainwashed that I ratted out a Chinese student to the authorities. Yin’s only crime: she wanted to go to the U.S.

Eventually I saw the light. I came home, finished my studies and got a job. Now I’m so bourgeois I have two dishwashers in my kitchen (not including my husband.)

In 2006, I tried to track down Yin to apologize. I eventually found her, a quest described in my book, Beijing Confidential. Yin had suffered for what I did, but she forgave me. By the time we reunited, she was rich and owned a house and two condominiums. She had even fulfilled her dream of visiting the U.S.

At least nobody died.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the young women joining ISIS. Once the scales fall from their eyes, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for them to quit being teenage brides — or widows.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1307048-wong-isis-attraction-no-surprise

 

[McG]

More chemical attacks by IS in Syria. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-34056543

 

[CougarKing]

Good riddens:

Reuters

British hacker for Islamic State killed in U.S. drone strike in Syria: sources
Wed Aug 26, 2015 10:12pm
By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A British hacker who U.S. and European officials said became a top cyber expert for Islamic State in Syria has been killed in a U.S. drone strike, a U.S. source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

It was the second reported killing of a senior Islamic State figure in the last eight days after the group's second-in-command was killed in a U.S. air strike in Iraq on Aug. 18.

The source indicated that the U.S. Defense Department was likely involved in the drone strike that killed British hacker Junaid Hussain, a former Birmingham, England, resident.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

Meanwhile, back in Yemen, Saudi/Gulf-state coalition forces continue their air-ground campaign against the Houthis:

Reuters

Coalition poised to retake capital, but Yemen risks grow
By Mohammed Ghobari and Angus McDowall

SANAA/RIYADH (Reuters) - Weeks after seizing Yemen's southern port, Aden, members of a Saudi-led military coalition and the local fighters it supports say they are poised to oust Iranian-allied Houthi forces from the capital Sanaa.

But al Qaeda militants appear to be using the coalition's gains against the Houthis in the south to entrench their position, as fractures start to show between local groups of fighters with the departure of their common enemy.


(...SNIPPED)

 

[cupper]

British hacker for Islamic State killed in U.S. drone strike in Syria: sources

Should'a stayed in his parent's basement searching for porn like all the other millennial hackers.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Friggin barbarians... :rage:

2,000 years of history wiped off the face of the Earth: Satellite images prove ISIS extremists have flattened ancient Syrian temple in Palmyra amid fears the rest of the city will follow

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3215148/Satellite-images-confirm-ISIS-extremists-destroyed-2-000-year-old-Syrian-temple-Baal-Shamin-amid-fears-raze-Palmyra-s-treasures-ground.html#ixzz3kDY97E10
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[jollyjacktar]

Twitter account, "ISIS Karaoke", makes these idiots look more ridiculous than they already are.  Love some of them, photos at story link below.  Shared under the fair dealings provisions of the copyright act.

'Killing me softly with his song': Twitter account mocks ISIS jihadists by imagining enraged militants are singing karaoke classics in series of hilarious tweets
•New Twitter account shows how militants would look singing pop songs
•ISIS Karaoke captions images of the extremists with Western music lyrics
•The hilarious satire has amassed 35,000 followers in just a few weeks
•It depicts jihadis singing Destiny's Child, Katy Perry and the Beastie Boys

ByCorey Charlton for MailOnline

Published: 19:58 GMT, 31 August 2015 | Updated: 23:56 GMT, 31 August 2015
.
Islamic State jihadis are being lampooned by a new Twitter account which shows the extremists as they would appear singing karaoke pop songs.

The bio of the new Twitter account claims to depict extremists 'dropping songs not bombs' in a hilarious new satire of the terrorist group.

Among the photographs to be posted are shots depicting ISIS militants and extremists with microphones in their hands singing Madonna, Kelis, Katy Perry and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

ISIS isn't exactly renowned for its comedy value, or its sense of humour - but the account has proved popular and has gained more than 35,000 followers within a few weeks.

The posts usually depict extremists and fighters in a position which offers some semblance to the chosen song lyrics

One shows a group of militants on a stage before a crowd. One jihadi is holding his hands in the air alongside a microphone.

Below him, the photo is captioned with the lyrics from Katy Perry's song roar, which declares he has 'the eye of a tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire'.

Another shows a man holding a piece of paper and microphone aloft before a cheering crowd.

The song lyrics below, taken from a cringeworthy Carly Rae Jepsen song, declare: 'Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number, so call me crazy.'

While the account is the first to create a Twitter feed showing fighters as they would look while performing, it isn't the first time the bloodthirsty group has been lampooned on social media.

Last year thousands of social media users mocked the group under the hashtag #AskIslamicState.

A wave of tongue-in-cheek virals ridiculing the terrorist organisation began sweeping the internet, in the form of an 'ask me anything', in which everyday users posed questions to the group.

This included queries about Big Brother - 'I'm thinking of visiting, but hate the idea of missing Celebrity Big Brother. Do you show it?' to 'did you cry when Patrick Swazye died in GHOST?'

And under the hashtag #ISISmovies, users re-wrote famous film titles, but with an Islamic State undertone.

One of those included 'To Kill a Mocking Kurd' - a take on the book, play and film To Kill a Mocking Bird.

'Return of the Jihadi', based on the Star Wars movie and 'Stoned', the 2005 film about the Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, were also tweeted by several users.

Such treatment gives ISIS a taste of its own medicine - the group has previously hijacked social media hashtags in an attempt to spread its propaganda.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3217436/Killing-softly-song-Twitter-mocks-ISIS-imagining-militants-look-struggling-sing-karaoke.html#ixzz3kVCoF9s5
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[Tuan]

Ex-Osama aide urges Muslims not to join IS

A former aide of Osama bin Laden has appealed to British Muslims not to join Islamic State for the so-called jihad in Syria as he denounced the group’s beheadings and mass rape as “completely against Islam.”

Abdullah Anas is the most senior former jihadist and one of the architects of the Afghan jihad against the Russians.

In a rare interview, Anas told The Sunday Times that ISIS was exploiting conflict to advance its own agenda, rather than helping oppressed Syrians. “This jihad is not legitimate,” Anas said.

He denounced the group’s beheadings and mass rape as “completely against Islam.”

 

[The Bread Guy]

He denounced the group’s beheadings and mass rape as “completely against Islam.”

As opposed to flying planes into office buildings, right?

 

[Tuan]

As opposed to flying planes into office buildings, right?

Right, hypocrisy at its best!

I was discussing this with my friends in India and according to them, it is the Pakistani Army and its think tank ISI, its proxies al Qaeda and LeT are the real existing problem. For them ISIS is nowhere close to Pakistani Army - an ISIS clone in itself.