DEBKAfile Special Report June 23, 2014, 10:44 PM (IDT)
The Jordanian air force hit ISIS contingents, Monday night, June 23, as they drove into into the kingdom through the Turaibil border crossing which they seized Saturday, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. The jets destroyed 4 Islamist State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) armored personnel carriers, which were already on the move. Also Monday, ISIS completed its capture of the strategic Tal Afar and its environs in northern Iraq, capping its conquest in the last two weeks of Nineveh Province and Mosul, all but one town (Ramadi) of the western Anbar Province, and Iraq’s key border posts in the north, west and southwest.
Jordan called up military reserves Sunday, after discovering that its capital Amman was to be the Islamist organization’s next prey.
Instead of making straight for Baghdad, ISIS turned west and south for what it saw as softer targets, deploying two forces for shooting into Jordan – one from Syria, for which they also captured Al Walid, through which to head into the kingdom from the north; and one pointing from Turaibil (which the Jordanians call Karame) and aiming for the eastern Jordanian towns of Zarqa, Irbid and Amman.
By seizing Turaibil, the Islamists were able to cut off the main Iraqi-Jordanian artery for trade and travel between the two countries. They may have been stopped for now by the Jordanian air strike, espcially if there is a follow-up.
Their capture of the key town of Rutba Saturday is seen by Western military sources tracking the Iraqi conflict as marking out the Islamists’ next target. That force split in two – one heading southwest toward the Saudi Arabia border and the other heading west to Jordan.
Sunday, June 22, the Islamists put on the world web a new site called “ISIS in Saudi Arabia.”
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that the US and Israel have laid on a battery of advanced intelligence-gathering measures in the last few hours, including military satellites, drones and reconnaissance planes for keeping track of the Islamist fighters’ rapid advance.
A 500-km broad expanse of desert separates the Iraqi border from Amman which would be no picnic for the ISIS to navigate without discovery. However, they were counting on al Qaeda cells planted in most Jordanian towns to help them make their way across.
It is important to remember that the US and Israel are both bound by military pacts to defend the throne of the Hashemite King Abdullah II.
As for Iraq’s southwestern neighbor, Saudi Arabia, our sources report that the main topic of conversation between King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi Saturday, June 21 at Cairo airport, was the Iraq crisis and the threat the Islamist extremists threat present to the two kingdoms.
The Saudi king made it his business to stop over briefly at Cairo airport on the way to his summer palace in Morocco, and invite the Egyptian president aboard his plane for that conversation. He wanted to hear El-Sisi promise to reward the oil kingdom and Gulf emirates for the generous financial aid they bestowed on him with a pledge of Egyptian military commando units to the rescue in the event of an al Qaeda invasion.
Interestingly, the Saudi monarch’s companion on the royal flight – he also took part in the conversation with El-Sisi – was Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who five months ago was relieved of his posts as Director of General Intelligence and senior strategist of the Saudi campaigns in Syria and Iraq, the first of which failed in its goal to unseat Bashar Assad.
It looked very much as though the king had a change of heart and decided to restore Bandar to his inner circle of advisers under the looming threat of ISIS and its lightening advances in Iraq.
That threat also drove US Secretary of State John Kerry to pay an unannounced visit to Baghdad Monday, June 23, after discussing the Iraqi crisis in Cairo with the Egyptian president.
His arrival was accompanied by further rapid ISIS territorial gains in Iraq and actions to consolidate its grip. After talking to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, Kerry said at the US embassy that US support will be “intense, sustained, and effective” – provided Iraq’s leaders came together to form a government representing the rival sects.
DEBKAfile adds: Kerry canvassed Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders for a consensual candidate to lead a government representing all of Iraq’s sects and communities. He had in mind a Shiite prime minister able to gain the endorsement of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
Secretary Kerry planned to visit Irbil Tuesday for talks on this and on Kurdish military aid against the ISIS offensive with the heads of the autonomous Kurdish region. However the Kurds wanted first to hear what they will get from Baghdad for sending their pershmerga militia to fight the Islamists in northern Iraq. Since Maliki is the object of Kerry’s maneuvers to replace him, he is not ready to offer the Kurds any concessions at this point. So Kerry’s Iraq mission has so far struck a high wall.
@ yamit82:
Actually, I was the bugler
— at damned-near every summer camp I ever attended (whether as camper OR as counselor). The only bad part was having to get up in the morning half-an-hour earlier than everybody else, to do my thing w/ the horn.
Of course, it also provided the occasion for a whole SLEW of practical jokes on my part. (Not always warmly appreciated by the camp administration. . . since they slept there too. . . .)
Never got to play the tuba in high school. I did learn to play the sousaphone, however, which wraps around the body.
Consequently a fat person COULDN’T have played it; couldn’t fit inside it (let alone, be able to get in & out of it easily). . . .
Also learned french horn & english horn.
But mostly, I played trumpet (started w/ that in grade school) — though I inclined more toward the sound quality of the cornet — which is essentially the same instrument, though constructed in such a way as to make its sound more mellow, less piercing.
Yes. (Where did you learn to SUCK?)
I REPEAT THE QUESTION:
What have you got against WOMEN — that you would use the imputation of female identity as an insult?
Pre-adolescent boys — twelve-year olds — do that sort of thing w/ each other in the process of discovering & defining their gender identities.
But it’s been a WHILE since you were twelve. . . . If you persist with it at THIS stage of your life, then simple observation says that you have a thing — an unresolved hatred — about women.
— Don’t have to be a shrink to see that.
Well, if I really thought you were listening, I’d suggest learning to withdraw from the clutter of your thought-stream
— because you’d start sleeping better, for one thing — and your need for (& inclination toward) chemical assistances would drop off promptly. (And that’s just for openers.)
But then, what would I know…
@ yamit82:
Already tested it.
The subject was HB’s ‘missing’ my calling her Twinkie after I’d given it a rest for a few days.
You just went off on a tangent seeking something to sneer over, and that was handy.
But then, staying on point has never been your forte; you’re too well-stocked with hatred & resentment for that kind of discipline to be possible for you.
@ yamit82:
Wrong answer (for PresentCompany).
Come off it, boychik; a down-the-line conformist like you wouldn’t know what the outside of the Box looks like.
What have you got against WOMEN? — that you would use the imputation of female identity as an insult?
yamit82 Said:
yamit82 Said:
yamit82 Said:
I don’t even have post you, you write it yourself.
dweller Said:
I keep my own schedule according t my needs and desires. I like to think and live out of the Box. Know what I mean ‘Babsie’? In your high school band were you the little fat guy with the big TUBA at the end of the line. Did they call you Tubby The Tuba?… Is that where you learned to BLOW,… Barbie? 😛
Like what? Any suggestions?
honeybee Said:
Thanks I’m fine. And You???
dweller Said:
Not sure it relates to you.
Why not test the axiom and get lost (KHOP a HIKE)for a couple of years or longer.
Nothing better than empirically testing of a theory.
@ yamit82:
Hope you’re feeling better today.
dweller Said:
That it do !!!!!!!!!!!!! Sweetie
@ yamit82:
Well, just for starters (and since you asked): any kid who ever played a trumpet or other brass instrument in his high school band.
— From that point onward, the numbers grow exponentially.
Ever hear the term, “willing suspension of disbelief”?
I repeat: There are exactly ZERO odds of any player — great OR geshtunkener — of getting sounds other than those which the tubing of a bugle permits.
The valves on a cornet or trumpet, OTOH, effectively alter the length of the tubing, allowing other notes not accessible to the unvalved bugle. The relative skill of the player is quite immaterial to that simple physical reality.
Why do you keep reverting to a subject which has nothing to do with the matter under discussion?
You’re obsessed — not rational, yamit.
What is it about the fact that I sold wine that keeps EATING at you, shmendrick? It was just a job. You think I cared PERSONALLY about the quality of the wine? Why would I? — for me, wine is just a beverage, like milk, water or o-j. As it happens, it was of superb quality; but that is nothing to me. It was a gig; I was just earning a living.
Now, how would you know whether “wine bullshit connoisseur cultural affectations” had anything whatsoever to DO with the manner of my work? What’s your problem???
“Not impressed” with what?
Were you supposed to be? — since when?
Where did you ever get the cockeyed idea that you were the object of such an aspiration? — and why?
Maybe WITHOUT meals, as well? — at 4:00 in the morning, when you were writing your post?
Get help, dude.
dweller Said:
Who gives a shit besides you??
Ever hear the term fiction??
Anyone who can believe in the yeshu fiction can also believe what he played was on was a bugle. The odds of a great player getting extraordinary sounds from a bugle is more probable that the historical fact of yeshu or the crap you peddled for wine was of good quality… Unless you want to argue on the subjectivity of taste??
I’d rather have a Nathans Hotdog than a good steak ( name your cut and preparation).
Personally I prefer a simple dry red table wine unlabeled with meals served in a tall glass carafe. The wine bullshit connoisseur cultural affectations is for those who are mostly pretentious AH like you.
Not impressed, dweller.
@ yamit82:
The film that rescued Sinatra’s career after he blew out his voice.
Incidentally, there’s no way that Clift ‘bugle piece’ could’ve been played on a bugle. The Reveille rif in the middle of it obviously could have — but not the rest (not by ANYBODY); would’ve had to be a valved instrument.
A trumpet or cornet could’ve played it; not a bugle.
@ honeybee:
Haven’t been a wine broker for 15 yrs. When I was, it was for corporate giving & staff appreciation programs. If the wine had been ‘diluted,’ it wouldn’t have been the recipient of so many awards & write-ups in Wine Spectator, etc.
@ honeybee:
Couple days not frequent enough? (Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.)
yamit82 Said:
Was that you.
@ honeybee:
Liked this scene from same movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvaXp2OM_F0
@ bernard ross:
Thank you for clip on Evan Drake, very insightful.
dweller Said:
His voice was like the wine you sell, somewhat diluted.
dweller Said:
Do you know long its has been since you called me Twinkie, Sweetie, I was beginning to despair.
yamit82 Said:
Ah the sea shore: http://youtu.be/1W6AGM-LxGY
yamit82 Said:
As I said, drop them on Bagdad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NLV24qTnlg