Spy Agencies Say al-Qaeda-Associated Combatants Defecting to ISIS as American Launch Strikes in Iraq

[bigtree]

Greg Miller ?@gregpmiller 6m
US intel sees defections from AQ affiliates as fighters flock to ISIS. Q whether strikes will "increase the spigot" …


Fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates to join Islamic State, U.S. officials say

U.S. spy agencies have begun to see groups of fighters abandoning al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Africa to join the rival Islamist organization that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria and been targeted in American airstrikes, U.S. officials said.

The movements are seen by U.S. counterterrorism analysts as a worrisome indication of the expanding appeal of a group known as the Islamic State that has overwhelmed military forces in the region and may now see itself in direct conflict with the United States.

. . . The launching of U.S. airstrikes has raised new questions, including whether the bombings will hurt the Islamic State’s ability to draw recruits or elevate its status among jihadists. “Does that increase the spigot or close it?” said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity and noted that U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere have crippled al-Qaeda but also served as rallying cries against the United States.

Longer-term, U.S. officials expressed concern that the Islamic State, which so far has been focused predominantly on its goal of reestablishing an Islamic caliphate, may now place greater emphasis on carrying out attacks against the United States and its allies.


read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fighters-abandoning-al-qaeda-affiliates-to-join-islamic-state-us-officials-say/2014/08/09/c5321d10-1f08-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html?tid=HP_lede

Airstrikes said by officials to be "narrowly aimed at the protection of American diplomats and officials . . ."

WaPo August 8 - In Washington, the Pentagon announced three separate strikes by multiple aircraft against militant positions it said were firing on Kurdish forces protecting Irbil, saying that they had “successfully eliminated” artillery, a mortar position and a convoy of extremist fighters. Kurdish media and officials, who said the attacks had had a “devastating” impact on militant positions, claimed other, unconfirmed attacks that were farther afield.

U.S. officials also stressed that the American intervention was narrowly aimed at the protection of American diplomats and officials living in Irbil, where the large U.S. consulate has swelled with evacuees from the embassy in Baghdad and where the U.S. military runs a joint operations center alongside Kurdish forces . . .


. . . in effect, defending against the self-actualizing, self-perpetuating destabilization of our own deployments.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Who could have predicted this?

[bigtree]

2. who, indeed?

Bush's 2006 National Intelligence Estimate: U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq fueling terrorism

[bigtree]

3. this is being widely shared today, talked about

. . . sad whatever is limiting all of the progressive thinkers here from considering it and discussing it.

I believe that it's a shallow political defense of the President limiting our advocacy . . . stunting our opposition to what we know, deep down, is wrong.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Nobody is preventing you from discussing it here.

In fact, you just posted about it. You've made it quite clear that you oppose these recent air strikes.

I think you need to take yourself down from that cross.

Nobody is crucifying you.