The Meaning of al-Qaeda’s Alarming Baghdad Jailbreak

[Purveyor]

Why Iraq could become Obama's next big foreign policy crisis

By Michael Crowley @CrowleyTIMEJuly 23, 2013

The Middle East has presented Barack Obama with many nasty surprises. But Iraq has not been among them. Since the last U.S. combat troops left 19 months ago, the site of America’s long Bush-era nightmare has held together relatively — repeat: relatively — well. It may not be Disneyland, but Iraq has so far avoided descending back into the savage state of anarchy many people predicted.

Alas, it may be that Iraq is living on borrowed time. One reason why was illustrated on Monday, when al-Qaeda fighters staged a brazen attack on two Iraq prisons, using car bombs, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades to free hundreds of inmates — including many of their brothers in arms.

“The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qaeda and had received death sentences,” Hakim al-Zamili, a member of the Iraqi parliament, told Reuters.

The attacks — one of which targeted Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison — illustrate the growing threat to Iraq’s stability posed by al-Qaeda in Iraq, known to U.S. officials as AQI. The group’s fighters, which may number between 2,000 and 3,000, aim to stoke the Sunni-Shi‘ite rivalry that tore Iraq apart in the mid-2000s and has been inflamed by the sectarian civil war in neighboring Syria.

(MORE: Iraq’s Sectarian Violence: Bombings Plunge Country Into Deadly Spiral)

“They’ve got the wind at their backs from the Syrian rebellion,” where Sunni rebels are fighting an Alawite Shi‘ite regime, says Kenneth Katzman, a Congressional Research Service analyst who recently completed a detailed report on Iraq. “Their goal is to destabilize and bring down the Maliki government, and they think igniting sectarian conflict might accomplish that.”

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/07/23/the-meaning-of-al-qaedas-alarming-jailbreak-in-iraq/#ixzz2ZsVlHK94

[leveymg]

1. And, we're going to arm them, too?

Why?

[madrchsod]

2. the cia funded and trained them in the 80`s

now we are reaping the whirlwind.

i guess the middle east will turn into that biblical hell hole the end of timer`s are praying for.

[matthews]

3. If our wars should happen to all wind down,

the producers of armaments have to have a new customer base. Who cares if they're the same ones we're fighting in the (in)famous War on Terror™?

We've been in a state of war in one place or another since the day I was born. It's been almost a constant condition since WWII. We do love our wars.

[John2]

4. Kenneth Katzman

works for Congress. I would like to know why he considers the Assad Regime only led by Alawite Shites as reported by the Western media?

I think that is a legitimate question deserving of an answer, when the prime Minister of Syria is Wael Nader Al-Halgi? His biography states that he is a Sunni Muslim who replaced Rigal Farid Hijab. According to a German magazine called Der Spiegel, Hijab was bribed by Qatar and the French Secret service to defect.

So his replacement was another Sunni from the Governate of Daraa. As soon as he was appointed, it was reported the rebels failed to kill him on an assasination attempt. So this guy is the Top minister in Assad's cabinet.

The second Top minister is the Deputy Prime Minister and he is also the Minister of Defense. Assad's chief military advisor. His name is Fahd-Jassem al Friez and he is a Sunni Muslim. He is from Homs and was trained at the Hom's military academy. According to his bio, he replaced Dawoud Abdillah Raziha, who was a Greek Orthodox Christian and was assassinated by the rebels. Al Friez has been labeled a War criminal by the U.S. goverment. Nevertheless, he is a Sunni.

The minister of religious endowments is Mohammed Abdul Sutan whose religion is Sunni Islam. He is from Tartus Syria

The Minister of Interior is Mohammal al Shaar from Haffa. He is listed as a Sunni and also sanctioned by the EU. This guy use to be the Chief of Police in Lakatia. He was sanctioned for cracking down on protestors. He is not from the Alawite community though.

Even though the majority of his cabinet members are Alawite, about half of them are from other sects in Syria. His Top three most important cabinet members are Sunnis. The Chief of the Syrian Army who was a Christian and assasinated, was replaced by a Sunni as the top military commander in the Syrian army. This guy has a long distinguished career also. He fought in the War against Israel. I just wonder if these people are telling the real truth? There are other sources not connected to the Western media, that they are not telling the truth about Syria. The claims are the Western media is acting as the agents of the Government.

[leveymg]

5. The reason the regime will keep fighting is because it's predominantly Alawite, not entirely so.

You are correct that the Ba'ath regime is a nationalist organization that is open to non-Alawites at all levels.

But, there is most definitely an ethnic and religious dimension to the civil war that predates the rise to power of the Ba'ath in a 1965 coup. The non-Sunni in Syria, particularly the Shi'ia, have a well-founded fear of severe persecution in the event the Ba'ath Party and Syrian Army fall. Sunni-Shi'ia animosity in the area goes back to the Ottoman era, and probably predates that. One need only look at Libya to see that the western powers will do little or nothing to prevent genocidal outcomes of slaughter of those associated with the regime and a wider ethnic cleansing.

Indeed, the object of US and European powers appears to be to carve up Syria and to force most of the surviving Alawite en mass out of Damascus, away from other cities into a smaller ethnic enclave along the northwestern coast.

The US is, increasingly openly, complicit in a genocidal campaign of Jihad and ethnic cleansing sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirate states. Ironically, it is Israel that stands to gain the most strategically from the destruction of the Syrian state and military and displacing the remnants of the regime away from Damascus, which is essentially right next door to Beirut. Israel would like to expand its influence into central Lebanon, and the removal of Hezbollah's main ally would remove a major impediment to that goal.

As for Mr. Katzman, his assessment of sanctions on Iran do not read like those of a committed neocon, so I'm not sure that he is intentionally distorting the picture of Syria. Here are his conclusion about Iran sanctions for the Congressional Research Service (CRS):

Increasingly strict sanctions on Iran—which target primarily Iran’s key energy sector as well as
its ability to access the international financial system—have harmed Iran’s economy, but not to
the point where key Iran leaders have been compelled to reach a compromise with the
international community on Iran’s nuclear program. And, the strategic effects of sanctions might
be abating as Iran adjusts to them economically and advertises the adverse humanitarian effects.