Very interesting. After Bengazi, the US had to get weapons from somewhere. Why not Iraq? No doubt, the abandonment of the weapons was arranged with Sunni Iraq soldiers under instructions form Saudi Arabia. Probably the money too. Better than the contra affair. Ted Belman
June 17, 2014 5:00 am
Syrian and Iraqi terrorist forces obtained significant numbers of tanks, trucks, and U.S.-origin Humvees in recent military operations in Iraq and those arms are being shipped to al Qaeda rebels in Syria, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. intelligence agencies reported this week that photos of the equipment transfers were posted online by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS, the ultra-violent terror group that broke away from al Qaeda but shares its goals and philosophy.
Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Bill Speaks confirmed the weapons transfers and expressed concerns about the captured arms.
“We’re aware of reports of some equipment—namely Humvees—and the pictures that have been posted online,” Speaks said in an email. “We are certainly concerned about these reports and are consulting with the Iraqi government to obtain solid confirmation on what assets may have fallen into ISIL’s hands.”
Speaks added that the loss of the equipment to the terrorist group is “really a matter for the Iraqi government to speak to publicly” because “it is their equipment.”
Exact numbers of captured arms and equipment are not known. The insurgents raided all the arms depots and vehicles belonging to Iraq’s Second Division, based in Mosul, which included a motorized brigade and several infantry brigades.
A defense official warned that ISIL claims that they have captured advanced weaponry, such as Blackhawk helicopters, are suspect.
“We do know that they made false claims last week, particularly with Blackhawk helicopters, which have never been sold to Iraq,” the official said.
The seized weapons are said to include Russian-made T-55 tanks and one report said U.S. M-1 Abrams tanks were taken. Numerous Humvees were shown on flatbed trucks being transported from the Nineveh province, in northwestern Iraq, to ISIL-controlled areas of Syria, including the Al Shadadi area and the town of Tall Hamis.
The ISIL notified people in the region where the tanks were seen to be alert for possible U.S. airstrikes, presumably against the captured weaponry.
One online posting by ISIL fighters showed a captured Iraqi T-55 tank reportedly in Deir ez-Zor, Syria.
Other online photos of captured Iraqi military equipment showed towed artillery, trucks, and troop transports being transferred to Syria from Iraq.
The weaponry is expected to provide ISIL with a major advantage over other rebel groups in Syria in their civil war with the forces of the Bashar al Assad regime in Damascus, as well as against other rival rebel groups, including the official al Qaeda affiliate, Al Nusra Front.
In a statement posted through its Twitter account, ISIL on June 12 provided a “field report” with photos of its capture of Iraqi weapons and conquests of Iraqi military outposts.
The weapons were taken from military bases on the border with Syria and moved to areas in Syria controlled by ISIL that the group is calling its “caliphate.”
One photo carried a caption in Arabic that read “Transferring the spoils to the Islamic State’s headquarters in Wilayah [territory under the Islamic caliphate] Al-Barakah” in the Al Hasakah province in northeastern Syria.
A U.S. official familiar with intelligence assessment of the ongoing conflict in Iraq said the ISIL has seized key cities, including Mosul and Tikrit, but is not expected to attempt a further drive to the capital of Baghdad, which is more heavily defended.
Iraqi military forces, many of them trained by the U.S. military prior to the pullout of forces in December 2011, suffered widespread desertions during the ISIL invasion. Iraqi special operations forces, however, are said to be engaged in fighting the terrorist group.
Fighting continued in northern Iraq as ISIL fighters, estimated to include around 10,000 insurgents, sought to take the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, a strategic location sought for the group’s effort to maintain control and open a supply corridor between Syria and the areas of central and western Iraq not controlled by ISIL.
Iraqi forces retook some areas but the ISIL now has control of several areas and has a land corridor leading to Syria.
Bill Cowan, a former Army Special Forces officer and former defense contractor in Iraq, said the ISIL operation succeeded in seizing arms and equipment.
“The ISIL has got lots of weapons now,” Cowan said in an interview.
The U.S. military during the war engaged in large-scale intelligence gathering in Iraq but now is hamstrung in spying on ISIL by the lack spying resources. “We pulled all that out,” Cowan said of the electronic and signals intelligence forces.
In other Iraq developments:
- ISIL published gruesome photos showing mass executions of Iraqi soldiers captured during the incursion from Syria that began June 9. Beheadings and crucifixions of Iraqis by ISIL also were reported. The Twitter account that posted links to the photos was later removed.
- Iraqi authorities blocked all social media services in an effort to thwart ISIL communications and propaganda. The blockage covered Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and applications including WhatsApp, Viber, and Tango.
- In Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, ISIL ordered the demolition of all churches, as part of its scorched earth Islamist policy of imposing Sharia law.
- The leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps paramilitary unit known as the Quds Forces, Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, is now assisting Iraq’s commanders in operations against ISIL, the Sunday Times reported, quoted an Iraqi official.
- The State Department announced that it is withdrawing some staff at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. “U.S. citizens in Iraq remain at high risk for kidnapping and terrorist violence,” the department said in a travel warning.
- The Turkish and Iranian government are conducting military operations against militants in the mountain regions bordering Iraq, including troop deployments and artillery shelling.
- The Pentagon announced the amphibious ship USS Mesa Verde is now deployed in the Persian Gulf for possible “quick reaction and crisis response operations.” The ship, with Marine Corps MV-22 tilt rotor aircraft, joins the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the gulf.
A report in the Arabic-language newspaper Al Hayah quoted Mosul residents who described the takeover of the city by ISIL.
Abu Ahmad, a former colonel in the Iraqi Army, described the initial stages of the ISIL attack as launched by “hundreds” of local militants wearing jeans and Arabic headscarves who struck on the night of June 9 and morning of June 10.
The first engagements were carried out with tanker truck bombs and other explosive devices set off at the entrances to military bases.
“At around 2200 [11:00 pm], I left my home on the [western] side, and found that the police were abandoning police stations, often without a fight, and before the arrival of the gunmen, and they announced to the public that they would prefer to sit at home than get into an armed confrontation with any party,” Ahmad told the newspaper.
“The groups that entered the city wanted to release prisoners from the temporary detention centers of the police, and then crept northward toward the Badush central prison, and before midnight they captured the governor’s office without firing a single bullet.”
The initial group that took over Mosul included between 3,000 and 4,000 militants led by former senior officers of the Iraqi military.
A police officer in Mosul told the newspaper that forces of the Iraqi Army’s Second Division abandoned the weapons and equipment, and withdrew from military camps around 11:00 pm.
Mosul International Airport also was seized without fighting. Three Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters used by Iraqi special operations forces were believed seized at the airport.
ISIL also attacked the prison in Mosul and freed numerous jihadists imprisoned at a transfer prison there. Guards at the prison reportedly abandoned the facility during the ISIL attack. Other area prisons also were opened as part of the ISIL.
An estimated 2,500 prisoners, many held on terrorism charges, were freed.
@ yamit82:
Eat your heart out, Boy !!!!!!!!!
@ yamit82:
The Perry can really two-step !!!!!!!!
@ the phoenix:
I listened to yamit82’s post, can I join you in the woods? I’ll bring a picnic basket !!!
Ted Belman Said:
looks like formatting problem. colors, bold and thin letters,. the delineations are easier to see.
@ the phoenix:
as part of the “grand plan” Turkey, the enemy of the Kurds just signed a 50 year oil deal with iraqui kurdistan.
the kurds have now linked the kirkuk fields to their own pipelines. Iraqi kurdistan is a done deal and I predicted back then that the turks would support the kurds in Iraq and syria in exchange for oil and non internal problems.
the phoenix Said:
gosh, I forgot to go back and pat around the little mouse with my paw before the final blow. wonder if he is still there whining?
honeybee Said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9G0-4TWwew
@ honeybee:
Her is a clip of your guy in Tx.
Gov Perry Dancing with Orthodox Jews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzHcvuU_Co0
@ yamit82:The change wasw not intended. Don’t know what happened. Trying to find someone to fix it.
@ bernard ross:
You had some epic exchanges…. 🙂
And nur’kaleh too…
Unfortunately, we ‘lost’ dionissis mitropoulos due to an encounter with a ‘marketing expert’… Not unlike the one which is STILL ongoing on another thread….
(With this new configuration… I don’t know anymore which thread is which and who commented where….. 🙁 )
…Ted????
yamit82 Said:
I believe that Israel was asked to enter into the peace talks in order to take the pal issue out of world headlines so that the GCC could recruit their terrorists to fight the shias. If there were problems between Israel and the pals the recruitment to fight those other than Israel may have been more difficult. I think that there was also an Iran component in that in exchange for stalling hitting Iran and for entering peace talks Israel was offered the weakening of Assad and hezbullah, I mentioned this a year ago. BB and liberman have already intimated that relations with the gulf state are ongoing under the table. If as I believe the GCC dont relay care about the pals, but about their hegemony and routes to the med, the deals may have been made to prepare for future relations with cooperation under the table now. I always felt that the gaza war was connected to that relationship and that perhaps Israel targeted Iran links to gaza for itself AND the GCC to sever Iran ties. Hamas may not have been able to politically kill the Iran gaza links. I feel the same with the Sinai that the sinai terrorists are Iran connected and that is why egypt, for the GCC, is wiping them out. I think Morsi and his bunch were taken out for a double cross on the saudis and americans by maintaining Iran links and operating independently. They were originally sending MB jihadis to syria also. It is said that morsi may have been involved in the bengazi attack.
yamit82 Said:
I have found aaron klein to be a reliable source. In fact most of my prime info was based on his stating this same info over a year ago. do you remember when Max was here and I said that If the jihadis assembling in syria attacked Hezbullah in lebanon, before hezbullah went into syria, that it would indicate a grand plan. I also stated at that time that I expected them to wesken Irans proxies of assad and hezbullah and then move on into Iraq and then destabilizing Iran internally as a softening up and prelude to attacking Iran.
yamit82 Said:
the exposure at benghazi caught Obama violating the law and arming and training AQ for syria, then Iraq then iran. I keep posting that Obama had to distance himself from terror connections in syria which explained his backing off. He cannot afford to alienate his constituency. I said the same regarding Sisi who too over in a coup which automatically cuts off funding but he set it up with Saudi to fund Sisi. If you see that nothing has changed but that the appearance of conflicts and quarrels has aided all the players including Sisi to be elected. the time period of backing off jihadi terror publicly by Obama and saudi reinforcies the idea that knowing that todays events were preplanned it was important to get as far away as possible from jihadi connections so as not to be implicated with ISIS when it came down. You have got to stop looking at the surface and the smoke and mirrors. ISIS is doing exactly what they wanted to do but none of them could be implicated with ISIS. therefore it is brilliantly arranged that ISIS captures the weapons and funds in Iraq which enables everyone to appear to be disconnected.
Obama has maintained the image of the peace president who avoids war, he maintains the image of the lawful president who does not support coups…now everyone is clamoring for him to go to war rather than to leave a war. Everything is back on track with ISIS. the question remains as to whether deals will be negotiated prior to attacks on Iran based on the weakening that Iran has undergone to her proxies and influence.
yamit82 Said:
I think that the policy is both to weaken Iran and to redraw Iraq and syria with all the players on the side of the west getting their piece in return for cooperation. I think oil is a major issue, if you look at a pipeline map of iraq the 2 major pipelines go now through ISIS territory on their way to syria and turkey. Perhaps the gulf state want into those pipelines or another one without sharing with the shias.
“Isis” Blitz Run by CIA-France-Saudis-Turkey to Save Syrian Rebels, Topple Maliki, Isolate Iran; Obama Must Work with Assad, Rouhani, Putin to Roll Back Terrorist Threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMK_fkvz6HQ
@ yamit82:
As I have said before: if your a smuggling job done correctly, hire a Mexican cartel. They would not have made such a mess of the job and the would have defended themselves forcefully. In fact they would have cut the Libyan’s hearts out and had them for breakfast.
Blowback! U.S. trained ISIS at secret Jordan base
Described as covert aid to insurgents targeting al-Assad
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/officials-u-s-trained-isis-at-secret-base-in-jordan/#cslb0CdbOvOabPVP.99
Obama-Supported Palestinian Gov’t Kidnapped American Citizen
@ bernard ross:
Reports of American Arms transfers from Libya to the Assad opposition has been reported on a myriad of blogs and other sources even before the murder of Amb Stevens and the others yet the CIA had some 300 under contract in and around the attacked Annex and they were told to stand down and not intervene. This has already been reported. It is also known that America never left Iraq but outsourced American presence to Contractors like “Blackwell” and others.
Why all the mechanization’s. Obama is on record of seeking Assad’s overthrow and support for all the rebels which America trained and armed well before Benghazi? Qatar and the Saudis are not lacking in resources to purchase weapons on the open and even clandestine arms market in the world. They could even supply from their own surplus stocks. Never understood why the need for the pretend fictions and narratives they are trying to project. It’s an open secret that America has used Al-Qaeda in Libya and Syria while fighting them in Yemen and Afghanistan Means that they are the useful idiots of the CIA and French and British Intel.
If the object of Western policy is to stop Iran from going nuclear, the sanctions were well on their way to possibly achieving it, yet at the critical moment Obama reversed course and destroyed the very policy that seemed to hold out best hope in achieving his policies objectives.
I could be that Iraqi oil is still the objective of the Americans and the West and for that regime change in Iraq is the objective and the insertion of a more pliable American puppet who is not a stooge and proxy of Iran. That said, why let up on the pressure over Iran? Unless it’s because American oil companies want in on Iranian gas and oil as well as Iraq.
Russians may keep their foothold with Assad, get to keep Crimea and part of Ukraine: A Modern version of Yalta. powers dividing the world according to spheres of influence and finite energy resources etc. China seems to be the big loser in this geopolitical division.
While Israel is mentioned in some of the more right wing conspiracy blogs, I tend to doubt our active participation and inclusion as part of the American and Western effort to create new realities in the ME and the world. I see no Israel interest or benefit in doing so. We are not on the same page as the Europeans or the Americans.
Looks like a Zbigniew Brzezinski MO.
@ yamit82:
I agree old format is better
Ted -put the old comments format back it’s impossible to follow and respond to comments in the present format, unless your objective is to kill comments and interplay.
jlevyellow Said:
I bleive that the benghazi arms was a buy back of the LIbyan arms which were primarily sent through Turkey. I beleive these latest arms are those leftover from the americans with the Iraqui army. It was a stroke of genius to transfer the arms to the GCC proxy without any connection. the difference between the benghazi transfer and this one is that no one appears to be involved except the Sunni jihadis, whom everyone claims to be against, but who is achieving the victories desired by the GCC/western alliance and fighting as if guided by military strategists.
Although interesting, from a tactical and strategic point of view, this article does not foresee the opening of a third front inside Iran from Baluchis(sunnis), Azeris(25% of Iran pop.)and Iranian Kurds.
After posting this comment I realized that this was already posted on this forum.
@ bernard ross:
You’re right . It was a typo. Meant “sunni Iraq soldiers”.
I wonder if the American arms, including Stinger missiles, are those that Chris Stevens was trying to transfer to al Qaeda affiliates in Syria when he was killed. Kindly clarify!
So, what’s the goal, here. Use strengthened ISIL to depose Assad, end the Shi’a crescent from Iraq through Syria to Lebanon? Let ISIL and Sunnis destroy Hezbollah next? Where does Israel stand in all of this, and would it be worse off?
.
the former officers were baathists not islamists.
I expect that the talked up “cooperation” with Iran is a nice way for Iran to save face. allowing Iran an alternative to war and humiliation, carrot and stick.. GCC+Turkey+Jordan+NATO+EU+US
the goals of this allied group have not changed, only appearances changed in order to obfuscate.
except for “sunni iran soldiers” I agree. was that a typo? a stroke of genius, no operation necessary, better than benghazi as a “look no hands” operation, totally under the table with no exposure. Trained by CIA sunni soldiers in Iraq army were likely instructed by CIA to abandon posts. all the recent posturing to disengage from terror groups lead up to ISIS. ISIS is the GCC creation that everyone disowns. Why? Because “terror” works and no state can be seen to be facilitating terror. In my view, the recent turkish hostage capture by ISIS is a false flag created to distance Turkey as most of ISIS oil goes through Turkey. The same with the threats on Jordans abdullah. Further, I beleive the Kurd taking of Kirkuk was coordinated with ISIS under the table.
We cannot be sure about the extent of “terror” as much can be fabricated and bought into the media. The “terror” media helps clear the areas of civilians prior to ISIS capture.
As for all the smoke and mirrors re Iran US cooperation? I’ll let the smoke clear first, the marines sent are sent to protect the 5000 employees at the baghdad embassy and evacuate americans. Lots of rhetoric going on but lets look at facts and who is benefitted.