Life under Isis: The everyday reality of living in the Islamic 'Caliphate' with its 7th Century laws

[Jefferson23]

Last edited Mon Mar 16, 2015, 03:29 PM - Edit history (1)

Full title::Life under Isis: The everyday reality of living in the Islamic 'Caliphate' with its 7th Century laws, very modern methods and merciless violence

Inside the 'Islamic State' - part one: Patrick Cockburn today begins a groundbreaking week-long series of dispatches which will explore the creation of this so-called Islamic State, what it’s like to live under the jihadis’ rule, and what if anything the West can do about it. Today, he talks to people living in the ‘caliphate’ to find out how they regard Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s merciless but powerful new state and how it treats them

Patrick Cockburn

Sunday 15 March 2015

It is one of the strangest states ever created. The Islamic State wants to force all humanity to believe in its vision of a religious and social utopia existing in the first days of Islam. Women are to be treated as chattels, forbidden to leave the house unless they are accompanied by a male relative. People deemed to be pagans, like the Yazidis, can be bought and sold as slaves. Punishments such as beheadings, amputations and flogging become the norm. All those not pledging allegiance to the caliphate declared by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on 29 June last year are considered enemies.

The rest of the world has watched with fascinated horror over the past eight months as Isis, which calls itself Islamic State, imposed its rule over a vast area in northern Iraq and eastern Syria inhabited by six million people. Highly publicised atrocities or acts of destruction, such as burning to death a Jordanian pilot, decapitating prisoners and destroying the remains of ancient cities, are deliberately staged as demonstrations of strength and acts of defiance. For a movement whose tenets are supposedly drawn from the religious norms of the 7th century CE, Isis has a very modern and manipulative approach to dominating the news agenda by means of attention-grabbing PR stunts in which merciless violence plays a central role.

These are not the acts of a weird but beleaguered cult, but of a powerful state and war machine. In swift succession last year, its fighters inflicted defeats on the Iraqi army, the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga, the Syrian army and Syrian rebels. They staged a 134-day siege of the Syrian-Kurdish city of Kobani and withstood 700 US air strikes targeting the small urban area where they were concentrated before finally being forced to pull back. The caliphate’s opponents deny it is a real state, but it is surprisingly well organised, capable of raising taxes, imposing conscription and even controlling rents.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/life-under-isis-the-everyday-reality-of-living-in-the-islamic-caliphate-with-its-7th-century-laws-very-modern-methods-and-merciless-violence-10109655.html

[Jefferson23]

1. Refugees from Isis tell of fears of forced marriages

Omar Abu Ali told of how he had briefly worked for the armed jihadist group himself to prevent his sons being conscripted as fighters

Patrick Cockburn

Sunday 15 March 2015

Fear that their sons will be conscripted and their daughters forced to marry Isis fighters are the main reasons for Iraqi families to flee the self-declared Islamic State, according to interviews by The Independent with recent arrivals in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Omar Abu Ali, a farmer from al-Karmah near Fallujah, where Isis took control last year, told of how he had briefly worked for the armed jihadist group himself to prevent his sons, aged 14 and 16, being conscripted as fighters.

“They started forcing each family to send at least one young man – and sometimes even the breadwinner – to join them,” he said. Families faced substantial fines if they failed to comply. When the law was changed early this year to compel all young men to join, he fled.

Isis’s need to raise troops to defend its long borders against steadily fiercer onslaughts by its enemies means fighters now regularly raid schools looking for recruits among older pupils, said Ahmad, a shopkeeper from Mosul.

remainder: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/refugees-from-isis-tell-of-fears-of-forced-marriages-10109823.html

[quadrature]

2. decision needed: total war, or 22 more months of this ...nt

[clarice]

3. And yet so many people defend them.."It's all America's fault" blah blah blah. nt

[Jefferson23]

4. We played a significant role, anyone denying that has no sense of recent history.

I am not aware of anyone defending them.

[Jefferson23]

5. Life under Isis: Why I deserted the 'Islamic State' rather than take part in executions, beheadings

3/16/2015

Hamza is a 33-year-old from Fallujah, a city ruled by Islamic State 40 miles west of Baghdad, who became an Isis fighter last year after being attracted by its appeal to his religious feelings. Two months ago, however, he defected, after being asked to help execute people he knew – and being appalled by invitations to join in what amounted to rape of captured Yazidi women.

In an interview with The Independent, given in the safety of another country, he gives a vivid account of why he joined Isis, what it was like to be a member of the jihadist group, and why he left. He reveals extraordinary details about how the army of Isis operates, the elaborate training that its fighters receive in Iraq and Syria and the way in which taking part in executions is an initiation rite, proof of the commitment and loyalty of fighters.

An intelligent, idealistic, well-educated, and religious man, Hamza defected from Isis after six months as a trainee and a fighter because he was deeply upset by the executions, some of them of people he knew in Fallujah. He became conscious that if he stayed in Isis he would soon have to carry out an execution himself. “I don’t like Shia but when it comes to killing them I was shocked,” he says.

He refused to execute some Sunni accused of working with Iraq’s mostly Shia government “or what they [Isis] call ‘the pagan government’,” he said. Surprisingly, he was not punished for this, but was told by his commander that he would be asked to carry out an execution later and, in the meantime, foreign jihadis would do the job.

Hamza gives a fascinating insight into the lives led by Isis fighters. “I was paid 400,000 Iraqi dinars (£231) a month in addition to many privileges, including food, fuel, and more recently, access to the internet,” he says.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/life-under-isis-why-i-deserted-the-islamic-state-rather-than-take-part-in-executions-beheadings-and-rape--the-story-of-a-former-jihadi-10111877.html

[Jefferson23]

6. Part 3 An explosion at the gates, sleeper cells attacking from within, how militants overthrew the

city of Hit in less than 24 hours

March 17, 2015


It was on 4 October last year that Isis captured the small city of Hit, seizing complete control in the space of just a few hours. For the city’s 100,000 mostly Sunni residents the takeover by the self-proclaimed Islamic State has brought changes that some support, but others deeply resent.

Among those living in Hit when Isis rolled in was Faisal, a 35-year-old government employee who is married with two children, and a keen observer of all that has befallen the agricultural centre and former transport hub over the past five months.

He recently fled to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, where he described to The Independent the rule of Isis and its impact on Hit, starting with the day the city was captured.

“First let me tell you how Isis entered the city,” he says. “At 4am we heard an explosion; Isis had exploded a bomb at the main checkpoint. Then they started fighting inside and outside the city. This was because some of their fighters were attacking from outside but others were locals, who belonged to sleeper cells and attacked the Iraqi security forces from behind. They captured all the police stations, aside from two that resisted until 5pm, after which Isis had total control.”

Faisal, not his real name, says he had no problems with Isis checkpoints even during the first days after the jihadist group captured Hit, because they were often manned by his neighbours who knew who he was. They had lists of wanted people and they sometimes checked ID cards.

in full: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/life-under-isis-how-the-jihadis-poke-their-noses-into-everything-and-govern-all-aspects-of-life-in-the-territory-they-have-taken-10114646.html