ISIS ‘Caliph’ descendant of the prophet now officially On U.S. Kill List.

ISIS ‘Caliph’ descendant of the prophet now officially On U.S. Kill List. HT: FreeBeacon.

President Barack Obama has authorized targeted killings of the leaders of the al Qaeda offshoot led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi using drone strikes or special operations, as the Iraqi terrorist on Tuesday urged jihadists to conduct worldwide attacks.

A U.S. official familiar with internal Obama administration discussions on Iraq said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) leader and several other commanders are now on the kill list of those targeted as U.S. national security threats. The list was approved by the president and allows U.S. intelligence agencies and the military to conduct strikes against the targeted terrorists after they have been located and their identities confirmed.

CIA and White House National Security Council spokesmen declined to comment on the kill list designations.

However, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed last week that attacking IS leaders is under consideration.

Meanwhile, Baghdadi, who was declared the prophetic leader, or caliph, of all Muslims on Sunday by his group the Islamic State, issued his first public statement since January on Tuesday. He called on Muslims to extend jihad, or holy war, around the world.

Baghdadi concluded the message by urging jihadists to continue fighting and said, “If you hold to it, you will conquer Rome and own the world.”

The listing of Baghdadi and IS leaders, including military commander Abu-Umar al-Shishani and the group’s spokesman Abu-Muhammad al-Adnani, comes as the U.S. military began flying armed drone missions over Iraq.

The Predator drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, are used as “force protection” for U.S. military troops that were dispatched recently to Baghdad to bolster Iraq’s military.

However, officials said the deployment of armed drones also was done in anticipation that future intelligence operations by special operations commandos in Iraq will be used to identify and locate IS leaders and commanders for drone strikes.

The plans to attack the terror leaders were given added urgency by the early June military-style incursion into Iraq. The IS, backed by former Saddam Hussein military leaders and troops, seized Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul and other towns linking IS rebels in a swath of territory stretching from Aleppo in Syria through central Iraq and southward to areas west of Baghdad.

Analysts say IS will likely be rejected by the vast majority of Muslims who do not want a brutal terrorist as their spiritual leader. However, the danger of a new wave of international terrorist attacks by jihadists associated with Baghdadi is viewed as a major threat.

“While Baghdadi’s concerns may appear localized, his long-term objectives are most certainly not,” said Charlie Cooper, a counterterrorism analyst with the British think tank Quilliam Foundation. “Now that he has claimed the caliphate, he has effectively positioned himself as the standard-bearer of jihadism the world over.”

Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate and himself as caliph has been met with disdain by some analysts.

Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution specialist on the Middle East, said Baghdadi now claims to be a descendant of Islam’s founder Mohammad.

“With the announcement of a caliphate by ISIS we now have an alleged ‘true’ name for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi,”

Riedel said. “He is ‘really’ Ibrahim ibn Awwad ibn Ibrahim Ali ibn Muhammad al Badri al Hashimi al Husayni al Qurashi. That means he is a descendant of the prophet, which is of course critical to being a caliph, and he comes from the same tribe, Qurashi, and the same family, Hashemites. This also makes him a blood relative of King Abdullah II of Jordan.”

An earlier claimant of the same title, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, was known as “Abu Omar al Hashimi al Qurashi al Baghdadi.” However, Riedel said “a drone did him in.”

“So now a man whose real name we don’t know claims to be the leader of all Muslims,” Riedel said, noting that the sole photograph of Baghdadi was provided by Iraqi intelligence, “So I doubt it really is a picture of him.”

Bill Roggio, a terrorism analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also said Baghdadi remains shrouded in mystery.

“Much like the Taliban’s Mullah Omar, Baghdadi isn’t one to release a lot of speeches,” Roggio said. “However, ISIS/the Islamic State has released numerous statements under its official media outlets.”
Roggio said Baghdadi’s latest statement also includes a call for Muslims to travel to the Islamic State.

Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, a former Delta Force commando and undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration, said the rise of Baghdadi, who was held in a U.S. military prison for four years before being released, highlights the danger posed by the administration’s release of five Taliban commanders from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Baghdadi is a difficult target who has avoided Western intelligence for years and can be expected to limit his use of electronic communications to avoid detection, Boykin said.

Noting that Secretary of State John Kerry last month dismissed concerns about the recent release of the five Taliban leaders in exchange for captured Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Boykin said Kerry also suggested that if the commanders returned to battle in Afghanistan they would be killed by drones.

“Oh really, Mr. Kerry?” Boykin asked. “Here we have a really bad actor [Baghdadi] who was in U.S. custody for four years and we can’t find him nor take him out.”

“So tell me why I should not be concerned about the five Gitmo thugs again,” he said. “Baghdadi is very aware of the threat to him personally from a U.S. drone strike and he is smart enough to command through limited use of electronic comms.”

Patrick Poole, a counterterrorism analyst, said Baghdadi and IS leaders are hiding from possible drone strikes but also must be on alert for attacks from rival al Qaeda groups.

“They have threats coming from at least two different directions,” Poole said. “The actuarial tables on the life of jihadist leaders really weighs against these guys, and most rise up through these jihadist groups through the typically violent death of the predecessors.”

Al Jazeera reported Saturday that armed drone strikes were recently carried out against IS terrorists in Mosul. The report could not be confirmed.

In his statement, Baghdadi said the world has been divided between two camps: Islam and “the camp of disbelief and hypocrisy.” Jihadists must battle “the camp of the Jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of disbelief, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews,” he said.

He defended the use of what in the West is called terrorism. “Terrorism is to refuse humiliation, subjugation, and subordination [to infidels],” he said. “Terrorism is for the Muslim to live as a Muslim, honorably with might and freedom. Terrorism is to insist upon your rights and not give them up.”

However, the use of terrorism against other Muslims is not permitted, he stated.

Jihadists ‘selling oil to Assad’, says French Foreign Minister.

Jihadists ‘selling oil to Assad’, says French Foreign Minister. (Taz).

The Islamist movement that took the Middle East by storm two weeks ago, capturing large swaths of Syria and Iraq, is reportedly selling oil to the Syrian government, the very people they are fighting to overthrow, according to the French foreign minister.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday that the sale was evidence of the "confusing" nature of the escalating conflict in the Middle East in which Syrian President Bashar Assad and the jihadists are in theory on opposing sides.

"We have proofs that when ISIL has taken over oil it has sold oil to the (Assad) regime," Fabius told a news conference in New Delhi. He did not offer any more details.

Referring to how the rebels in Syria and the Assad regime use each other to derive legitimacy, Fabius said: "Officially they are combating each other but in fact they are very often helping each other."

The situation in Iraq is "very, very, very worrying," he added.

"Why? Because it is probably the first time that a terrorist group -- and a ferocious terrorist group -- is in a position, if there is no reaction, to take over the whole country, and a rich country, with enormous consequences for the region and the world," he said.

The solution is for Iraq to unite behind the government and the army to drive out the jihadists, he said.

An estimated amount of $3.2 billion is reported to have been taken from banks in Mosul, along with vast amounts of weapons and munitions abandoned by the Iraqi army in their hasty retreat from Mosul and other cities in the north.

While this group represents a very real and present danger for the security of the entire region and beyond, there is particular fear for the oil and gas producing regions of Syria and Iraq, areas now under the control of ISIL.

The continual flow of oil and gas will give the group a steady income of hard cash.

However, some experts believe that ISIL may have in fact over extended itself and now in fact face the same problem that the U.S. forces faced when they tried to pacify Iraq: capturing and holding the cities, towns and regions captured.

ISIL has managed to capture certain cities, including Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, but holding them requires large numbers One estimate places the number of fighters currently available to ISIL to be around 10,000. 

That is hardly enough to capture and hold cities. Additionally, the fighters that stormed Mosul are not all with ISIL. There are a number of rival groups, including former Baath Party cadres who are in no fashion at all Islamist, but rather see here a marriage of convenience in fighting the government of Nuri al-Malaki.

There are very good chances that the various rivalries between the different Islamists (and the secularists like the Baathists) will eventually clash as ISIL will try to impose itself as the sole authority.

Al-Baghdadi has already potent enemies such as Osama bin-Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new al-Qaida chief, who's orders al-Baghdadi ignored and proceeded with plans to create a caliphate.

Despite the usage of Islamic names and religious terms implied by the ISIL, there is in fact little, if any, real legitimate religious authority found in this group.

A caliphate is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader - a caliph, or successor to the Prophet Mohammad. By decreeing himself caliph and demanding that all Muslims swear allegiance to him, al- Baghdadi is directly challenging the authority of the kings of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco who respectively carry the titles of "Sherif of Mecca," Custodian of the two holy mosques," and "Commander of the faithful."

Following ISIL's Monday declaration dictating that the areas under their control are to be henceforth called the "Islamic State" and that all Muslims pledge allegiance to the new caliph and to the 'Islamic State,' strangely enough we have not heard any substantial language dealing with any theological differences that exists between the warring parties.

Yet "Caliph Ibrahim," as he now wants to be called, has no theological training. This would be the equivalent of naming an altar boy as Bishop of Rome.

An indication that there is more to this conflict than is generally explained in over-simplified terms as a conflict of opposing Sunni and Shiites, is the position adopted by Iraq's Kurds. The Kurds, who have practically established their own state in the northern part of the country, are overwhelmingly Sunni. Yet they are siding with the Shiites against fellow Sunnis. Why?

Could it be because the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant hides behind a badge of religion?

Syria - Islamic terrorists hail declaration of Islamic 'caliphate'.

Syria - fighters Islamic terrorists hail declaration of Islamic 'caliphate'. (Taz).

Militant Islamist fighters held a parade in Syria's northern Raqqa province to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighboring Iraq, a monitoring service said.

The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), posted pictures online on Sunday of people waving black flags from cars and holding guns in the air, the SITE monitoring service said.

The Islamic State says it wants to erase national boundaries from the Mediterranean to the Gulf and return the region to a medieval-style caliphate, Reuters reported.

Some analysts say the group is a credible threat to frontiers and is stirring regional violence while others say it exaggerates its reach and support through sophisticated media campaigns.

The group renamed itself and proclaimed its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "Caliph" - the head of the state - on Sunday.

It also called on factions worldwide to pledge their allegiance, in a direct challenge to regional leaders and to the central leadership of al Qaeda, which has disowned it.

Pictures were posted on Twitter on Sunday and appeared to have been taken following the Islamic State's announcement. Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the pictures independently.

The hardline Sunni Muslim group has been trying to build strong tribal support in its Raqqa bastion, the only provincial capital in Syria under rebel control.

Islamic State also controls other areas in northern and eastern Syria and across the frontier into Iraq, where it has advanced towards Baghdad from the northern city of Mosul, which it captured on June 10.

Islamic State also released a video called "Breaking of the Borders", promoting its destruction of a frontier crossing between the northern province of al-Hasakah in Syria and Nineveh province in Iraq, said SITE, which tracks militant websites.

Mosul, the country's largest northern city, is the capital of Nineveh. The video showed fighters from Islamic State killing Iraqi border guards.

"I say to the Islamic Ummah [community]: Now we are in Iraq. Allah, glorified and exalted ... smashed these borders, the borders of Sykes-Picot, and now the Muslim can enter Iraq without a passport," the video said, according to a transcript.

"Sykes-Picot" refers to the division of the Ottoman Empire territories in 1916 by Britain and France.

The Sunni group follows al Qaeda's hard-line ideology but place more emphasis on anti-Shi'ite sectarianism, saying Shi'ite Muslims and other rivals are heretics deserving death.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group which tracks the violence, said Islamic State fighters crucified men in the town square of Deir Hafer in the Aleppo province on Saturday for being rival rebels.
Such infighting has killed around 7,000 people in Syria this year and complicated the three-year uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Why ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is not a true Caliph according to Islamic tradition.

Why ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is not a true Caliph according to Islamic tradition. HT: Hudson.Org.

Who Selects the Caliph?

Since the death of Mohammed, the succession of power and authority in Islam has remained a source of great dispute and division among Muslims. In keeping with medieval Sunni treatises on the subject of succession, ad-Dumaiji argues that the procedures for selecting an imam or caliph for the umma (Muslim Nation) must replicate the precedents set by the Four Righteous Caliphs who succeeded Mohammed. But it is sufficient, he adds, to adhere only to the example set by the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar.6 In narrowing his focus to the precedents of the first two caliphs, ad-Dumaiji may have been motivated by a desire to minimize controversy in the selection process. But if that was his intention, he miscalculated. Even the examples of the first two caliphs are fraught with controversy: Abu Bakr’s appointment as caliph is disputed to this day, and Umar’s reign—like that of the two caliphs that followed him—was cut short by assassination. Thus the first two caliphs can hardly be cited as optimal precedents for the selection process.

Nonetheless, in treating Abu Bakr as the preferred precedent, ad-Dumaiji understands the process of caliph selection as one in which a group of the umma’s most influential leaders—a group called the “ahl ul hel wel aqd“ (literally, “those who loose and bind”)—are empowered as representatives to either appoint or to sack the caliph. Based on his understanding of Abu Bakr’s model, and after considering numerous arguments about how many influential delegates are required to actually appoint a single candidate, ad-Dumaiji concludes that a simple majority of the ahl ul hel wel aqd is adequate for a caliph’s selection to stand.7 Ad-Dumaiji additionally recommends, citing al-Mawardi’s eleventh-century treatise on the caliphate, that the ahl ul hel wel aqd should be careful to select the caliph best qualified to address the challenges of the times. The bravest candidate, for instance, should be chosen during a time of war, and the most erudite candidate during a time of doctrinal dissonance.8

Moreover, the situation discussed by the medieval scholars, whereby a ruler seizes the caliphate by force, is rejected by ad-Dumaiji as involving a usurpation of the title that does not reflect the authentic traditions of selection.9

Hence such a ruler is not a “true imam” or a “true caliph.” 

Ad-Dumaiji’s dismissive tone—he even likens this process to modern day military coups—shows his departure from earlier jurists, who made allowances for Muslim rulers who came after the Righteous Caliphs (i.e., for those who had seized power over Muslims and awarded themselves the hallowed titles of Islam despite not having followed acceptable precedent).Full post here.