[News] Reviving ISIS: A US weapon against the Resistance Axis

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Reviving ISIS: A US weapon against the Resistance Axis

Is it a coincidence that the world's foremost terror organization is being
revived just as the US struggles under a multi-front assault on its
hegemony in West Asia? More curiously, both ISIS and Washington's targets
are exactly the same.

The Cradle's Iraq Correspondent
<https://new.thecradle.co/authors/the-cradles-iraq-correspondent-48>

JAN 16, 2024 -
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/reviving-isis-a-us-weapon-against-the-resistance-axis
Photo Credit: The Cradle

Iraqi security sources are warning of an ISIS revival in the country, which
coincides all too neatly with the spike in Iraqi resistance operations
against US bases in Iraq and Syria, and with widening regional instability
caused by Israel's military assault on Gaza.

More than six years after declaring victory over the terrorist
organization, Iraqi intelligence reports now indicate that thousands of
ISIS fighters are emerging unscathed, under the protection of US forces in
two regions of western Iraq.

*The missing piece of the puzzle*

According to intelligence reports reviewed by *The Cradle*, at its height,
ISIS consisted of more than 35,000 fighters in Iraq – 25,000 of these were
killed, while more than 10,000 simply “disappeared.”

As an officer of one Iraqi intelligence agency recounts to *The Cradle:*

"Hundreds of ISIS fighters fled to Turkey and Syria at the end of 2017.
After the appointment of Abdullah Qardash as the leader of ISIS in 2019,
following the death of Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new Caliph began to
restructure the organization, and ordered his followers to return to Iraq.
The organization exploited the long border with Syria, the security
disturbances, and the diversity of forces on both sides of the border to
infiltrate the Iraqi territory again."

Imprisoned ISIS officials admit that infiltrating that border is not an
easy task, because of the strict control imposed by the Iraqi Border Guards
and the use of modern technologies, such as thermal cameras.

It therefore became necessary for the terror group to identify
intermediaries capable of breaking through or bypassing these
fortifications to transport its fighters across borders.

An Iraqi security source, insisting on anonymity, tells *The Cradle* that
the US plays a vital role in enabling these border violations:

"[There are] several incidents that confirm the American assistance in
securing the crossing route for ISIS members - mainly, by shelling Iraqi
units on the border, especially the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), to
create gaps that allow ISIS fighters to cross the border."

The Iraqi security source adds that there are confirmed reports of US
Chinook helicopters transporting fighters from eastern Syria to the Anbar
desert in western Iraq and Jebel Hamreen, in the country's east.

Munir Adib, a researcher specializing in Islamist movements, extremist
organizations, and international terrorism, confirms the possibility of the
return of ISIS after the organization's “dozens of attacks in Syria and
Iraq in the past few weeks,” which led to the death of tens of civilians
and soldiers.

According to Adib, “the international community's preoccupation with the
Gaza and Russia-Ukraine wars gave ISIS an opportunity to reorganize its
ranks, while continuing to receive internal and external logistical support
.”

*Manufacturing and harboring terrorism*

Houran Valley is the largest of its kind in Iraq, extending 369 kilometers
from the Iraqi-Saudi border to the Euphrates River near the city of Haditha
in Anbar Governorate. Its topography is marked by soaring cliffs ranging in
height between 150 to 200 meters, and includes the hills surrounding the
valley and the sub-valleys that extend into its surroundings.

The valley was and still is one of the most dangerous security environments
in the state. Terrorist groups use it as a safe haven because of its desert
terrain, and distance from congested urban areas. The valley and its
environs have witnessed numerous security incidents, most notably in
December 2013, when ISIS killed the commander of the Iraqi army's Seventh
Division, his assistant, the director of intelligence in Anbar Governorate,
eight officers, and thirteen soldiers.

Iraqi MP Hassan Salem has called for launching a military operation to
clear Houran Valley of terrorist fighters. He confirmed to *The Cradle*
that “there are thousands of ISIS members in the valley receiving training
in private camps, under American protection,” noting that US forces have
“transferred to this area hundreds of ISIS members of different
nationalities.”

US foreign policy, of course, is rife with historical evidence of the
creation of proxy armed militias in West Asia and Latin America, often
utilizing these organizations to overthrow governments in target countries.
We know Washington has no aversion to allying with Islamist extremists
largely because of its direct involvement with arming and financing the
Afghan Mujahideen, from which the Taliban and Al Qaeda emerged.

An early US-ISIS connection exists quite clearly: the terrorist group's
founding and second rank leaders were among the inmates of *Camp Bucca*
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/04/how-an-american-prison-helped-ignite-the-islamic-state/>
prison in southern Iraq, an internment facility run by the US military. The
roster of high-value terrorists captured, then set free by the Americans is
quite extraordinary: ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, his successor Abu
Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, Abu Muslim
al-Turkmani, Haji Bakr, Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, Abu Ayman al-Iraqi,
among others.

Camp Bucca, known for abuses against its detainees, brought together
extremist elements, slow-boiled this combustive formula for six years
(2003-2009), then let the now well-networked extremists go free.

The religious officials of ISIS even say they used their time at the prison
to obtain vows from prisoners to join the terrorist group after their
release.

US intelligence also protected the terrorist organization indirectly, by
allowing ISIS convoys to move between the cities that were under its
control. Other forms of protection, according to Iraqi security experts,
include refusing to implement death sentences issued by Iraqi courts
against detained ISIS members, and establishing safe havens for the
organization’s members in western and eastern Iraq.

*ISIS: US foot soldiers in the regional war*

In a speech on 5 January, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah
warned that the US was supporting an ISIS revival in the region.

*The Cradle* obtained security information monitoring the new activity of
extremists in Lebanon, communications between these elements and their
counterparts in Iraq and Syria, and suspicious money transfer activities
among them.

Lebanese Army Intelligence also recently arrested a group of Lebanese and
Syrians who were preparing to carry out security operations.

Importantly, this surge in terror activities comes at a time when the
Lebanese resistance is engaged in a security and military battle with
Israel, which may expand at any moment into open war. It is also notable
that renewed ISIS activity is concentrated in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and
Iran; that is, in the countries that support the Palestinian resistance
politically, militarily, and logistically.

On 4 January, ISIS officially claimed responsibility for two bombings
<https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/17714> in the Iranian city of Kerman
that targeted memorial processions on the anniversary of the assassination
of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani by US forces. The dual explosions
killed around 90 people and injured dozens, in an unprecedented attack
targeting the biggest US-Israeli adversary in West Asia – just one day
after Tel Aviv killed top Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut.

Before that, on 5 October 2023, ISIS drone-attacked an officers graduation
ceremony at the Military College in the Syrian city of Homs, killing about
100 people. These attacks, and others in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Africa, indicate that fresh blood, money, and weapons are
being pumped into the ISIS organization’s arteries again.

A high-ranking PMU officer, who asked to remain unnamed, tells *The Cradle*
that US forces are preventing Iraqi forces from approaching Houran Valley
by attacking any security forces approaching the area. “This happened when
American aircraft targeted units of the PMU that were attacking ISIS in the
region,” he reveals, citing intelligence reports confirming the presence of
dozens of ISIS members and other extremist organizations in the valley,
where they receive training and equipment from US forces.

Security sources in the Anbar Operations Command confirm this information:

“Noticeable activity by the organization had been recorded a few weeks ago
in the west of the country. Near the Rutba desert, ISIS fighters were
spotted digging underground hideouts. Information indicates that the
organization is in the process of carrying out terrorist operations in many
locations,” they tell The Cradle.

Concurrently, ISIS is expanding its operations in the east of Iraq, within
the geographical triangle that includes eastern Salah al-Din Governorate,
north-eastern Diyala, and southern Kirkuk, particularly in the
geographically challenging Makhoul, Hamrin, Ghurra, Wadi al-Shay, and
Zaghitoun areas.

It should be noted that US forces are deployed in Iraq under the umbrella
of the International Coalition to Combat ISIS. Last week, four years after
the Iraqi parliament first voted to expel foreign forces, Iraqi Prime
Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani weighed in on the “destabilizing” impact
of US troops and demanded
<https://new.thecradle.co/articles/iraq-wants-orderly-withdrawal-of-destabilizing-us-troops-pm>
a “quick and orderly” exit of those combat units.

Washington not only countered
<https://new.thecradle.co/articles/washington-has-no-plans-to-withdraw-from-iraq>
by saying it has “no plans” to withdraw from Iraq, but announced on 14
January that it would be sending an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq and
Syria illegally, and without the consent of either nation.

One irony here is that ISIS appears to regain momentum each and every time
Baghdad raises the issue of US military withdrawal from Iraq.

It can also no longer be seen as a coincidence that the terror group is now
re-assembling its forces to target Washington and Tel Aviv's most capable
regional foes – the Axis of Resistance – just when the US and Israel are
struggling to handle a region-wide, multi-front assault from the Axis.

The extraordinary synergies between the Americans and the world's foremost
terror group can no longer be ignored: their targets are one and the same,
and ISIS is only now entering the fray, just as Washington begins to lose
its hold on West Asia.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20240116/efa54f6b/attachment-0001.htm>