Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State
In fact, not even those who shot and killed him after a brief firefight in the town of Tal Rifaat on a January morning in 2014 knew the true identity of the tall man in his late fifties. They were unaware that they had killed the strategic head of the group calling itself "Islamic State" (IS). The fact that this could have happened at all was the result of a rare but fatal miscalculation by the brilliant planner. The local rebels placed the body into a refrigerator, in which they intended to bury him. Only later, when they realized how important the man was, did they lift his body out again.
Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi was the real name of the Iraqi, whose bony features were softened by a white beard. But no one knew him by that name. Even his best-known pseudonym, Haji Bakr, wasn't widely known. But that was precisely part of the plan. The former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein's air defense force had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years. Former members of the group had repeatedly mentioned him as one of its leading figures. Still, it was never clear what exactly his role was.
But when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated. SPIEGEL has gained exclusive access to the 31 pages, some consisting of several pages pasted together. They reveal a multilayered composition and directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised for the anarchical situation in Syria's rebel-held territories. In a sense, the documents are the source code of the most successful terrorist army in recent history.
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more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html
more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-files-show-structure-of-islamist-terror-group-a-1029274.html
leveymg
(36,418 posts)ISIS is an outgrowth of the most fanatical Wahhabi and Salafist elements that were pulled together from al Nusra and various other opposition militia groups in Syria. Another group formed in Iraq out of al Qaeda in Iraq, and has merged with the other.
Most ISIS leaders are experienced foreign fighters, many from Libya and Iraq, who were armed and trained by Qatar with the cooperation of the CIA and French intelligence in Syria. Some, like Bakr came out of the farm league system of US military prisons in Iraq, and were attracted to the war Syria by the enticement of Qatari, UAE and Saudi money and the prospect of an unlimited access to weapons provided by Arab Sunni states and the west.
Bakr is just one of a number of career mercenaries and jihadists who work under the liege to the House of Saud and the more aggressive emirs on the Gulf Cooperation Council. In other words, the US had a role in creating ISIS while the Sunni sheiks continue to run and finance ISIS as their own increasingly global special forces.
Midnight Writer
(21,823 posts)ISIS is another cut-out fostered by Saudi Arabia and it's Sunni allies. Western oil companies and US neo-cons support the Saudis and by extension the terror groups we are fighting against.
Let's see:
We boycott oil from Venezuela and Iran and Russia
Our conservative politicians fight the development of "alternative" energies in the US
Iraq, Syria and Libya are so destabilized by war that their oil production is nil
Saudi Arabia strategically cuts their own oil prices to undercut domestic production in US, Canada and other western nations
In the end, Saudi Arabia is the worlds dominant oil power, and the Saudi royals and the western oil companies that partner with them are in the catbird's seat
leveymg
(36,418 posts)1) Sequere pecunia (follow the money);
2) Qui bono? (To whose benefit?);
3) Lex parsimoniae (Occam's razor, or, the simplest explanation is often correct).
If the corporate media followed the same route, the world would be different.