Middle East Conflict Megathread (Syria, Iraq, Yemen, etc)

[Aillyria]

Pop the champagne!

No, unless if it's unalcoholic

Only a few thousand square kilometers were decimated, and [u]only a few Muslim artifacts and symbols destroyed.

What does the underlined mean?

I'm alcoholic

[Topoliani]

ISIS getting BTFO is always good news, and this is no exception

In other words, drinks are on me.

[Kubumba Tribe]

No, unless if it's unalcoholic

What does the underlined mean?

I'm alcoholic

Then this might be a good way to get off!
Get the same great taste without all the craziness!

[Aillyria]

I'm alcoholic

Then this might be a good way to get off!
Get the same great taste without all the craziness!

Omg...too funny!

[Valrifell]

Not gonna lie, it took me a (few) minute(s) to grasp the title, but props to you, OP.

And good news all around, though I doubt this will stop attacks in the future.

[Shofercia]

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/17/16669650/iraq-isis-syria-rawa
ISIS just lost its last town in Iraq

In 2014, ISIS controlled around 34,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria. As of Friday, ISIS lost its last stronghold in Iraq.

That’s because on Friday morning Iraqi troops and US-led coalition forces retook Rawa — a small town in northwestern Iraq — after about five hours of fighting. ISIS has now effectively lost all of its territory in Iraq, even though some of the group’s militants still operate in the country’s western rural areas near the border with Syria.

Now that Iraq’s flag hangs over Rawa once more, Brett McGurk, President Donald Trump’s diplomatic envoy for the US-led coalition, congratulated the Iraqi fighters on Twitter and announced that the “days of [ISIS’s] phony ‘caliphate’ are coming to an end.” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi also praised his forces, noting how quickly they retook the town.

The Pentagon says the US has around 5,300 troops tasked with helping the Iraqi military fight ISIS, usually by training its troops, gathering intelligence, and conducting airstrikes.

It’s a big moment for Iraq, as retaking Rawa has essentially ended ISIS governance in its country after three long and brutal years of fighting. But that doesn’t mean that anyone can relax just yet. If anything, the ISIS threat is morphing.

ISIS isn’t defeated yet
It’s more than likely that ISIS will continue to plague Iraq, Syria, and much of the world, even as it loses land.

Just a day ago, when asked about ISIS, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said that “anyone who thinks they're down is premature.”

Hassan Hassan, a Middle East security expert at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, wrote in the National on November 15 that ISIS is already beginning to redefine itself. The group is shifting from governing territory to quickly striking Iraqi towns and cities. The strategy, Hassan notes, is to begin “a war of attrition to deplete its enemy through a ceaseless and incessant campaign of terror and hit-and-run attacks.”

ISIS may carry this strategy forward into Syria, too. The group lost the capital of its so-called caliphate, Raqqa, in October, but it still controls parts of urban areas in eastern Syria. As the US-led coalition tries to remove ISIS from that territory, it could use terror tactics to try to ward off the US-led coalition.

As my colleague Yochi Dreazen notes, ISIS may turn into more of an idea as it loses more territory. That idea may continue to inspire ISIS followers in various countries to stage attacks — especially in Europe and the United States. The attack in New York City this month, which killed eight people and injured 11, was believed to have been inspired by ISIS. It only underlined how hard it will be to prevent similar attacks by an individual encouraged by ISIS propaganda.

So while it’s worth celebrating the military defeat of ISIS in Iraq, it doesn’t mean the fight against the group is over.

To me, this is great news. The terror of Daesh is finally gone from any significant population centre within Iraq and Iraqis of all sects and religions should celebrate this fact. While I applaude the fighters who have fought this scum, it's also worth to mention why ISIS got so strongly entrenched anyway. Sunnis in 2014 were in a precarious situation where the Shiite government under Maliki was increasingly getting more sectarian and pushing around with the Sunnis. When ISIS arrived, many Sunnis now had to choose between a violent and bloodthirsty but nonetheless Sunni organization or a sectarian Shiite despotic regime targetting them for their sect.

With the rise of Abadi things changed for the better as Abadi was appealing more towards the Sunnis (he has higher approval ratings among Sunni regions than Shiite) and promised diversification in the government. That's also when ISIS' influence and might began to wane. Less Sunnis where now supporting the group.

Another problem is the sectarian nature of PMS/Hashd ash-Sha'abi. Marching into Sunni towns with Shiite banners and flags will not get you applause there and there have been reports of Sunnis being targeted and accused of being ISIS soldiers.

To me, while Abadi might be promoting a unified, un-sectarian Iraq, the existence of PMS kind of violates that. But we will see what the future has to offer. But one thing is for sure; ISIS will not end, it will only continue underground.

I have to:



Sorry, it was just too tempting not to do that for me

[Pilarcraft]

It's funny, since even Saddam Hussein used to have a propaganda campaign calling Iraq "the nation of Ali" during the Iran-Iraq War as a way to pretend he was tooootally not anti-Shia

How can he be anti-Shia if most of the nation is Shia? It would be very damaging.

How can he be anti-black if most of the nation is black? it would be very damaging!
Saddam was not exactly a rational person, at the best of the times.

[Pilarcraft]

How can he be anti-black if most of the nation is black? it would be very damaging!
Saddam was not exactly a rational person, at the best of the times.

So you're telling me his propaganda was so good that it covered his hateful beliefs? Makes sense to be honest.
I must say, modern politicians should take notes.

My example did not fall right, I see.
Think, it's something like Apartheid South Africa. The majority are Black. the White Minority have practically all the power.
In Iraq, the Military Clique that was ran by Saddam was powerful enough to keep the racial minorities and the Shia silent for the most part.

[Alsheb]

So you're telling me his propaganda was so good that it covered his hateful beliefs? Makes sense to be honest.
I must say, modern politicians should take notes.

My example did not fall right, I see.
Think, it's something like Apartheid South Africa. The majority are Black. the White Minority have practically all the power.
In Iraq, the Military Clique that was ran by Saddam was powerful enough to keep the racial minorities and the Shia silent for the most part.

Quite efficiently so, it seems. Even when Iranian troops were basically annihilating Saddam's forces during the second phase of the Iran-Ireq War, most of the Shia population was too scared to take the chance to rebel, leaving only the Kurds to grab the opportunity.

[Alsheb]

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/is ... come-mars/

Get this. The Deputy Defence Minister of Israel actually does not believe Palestinians lived in the Jordan Valley before this year. He even answers to a mocking question from a member of the Knesset who asked "Do they come from Mars then?" with "Perhaps."

...

[Pilarcraft]

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/israel-vs-martians-israeli-deputy-palestinians-may-come-mars/

Get this. The Deputy Defence Minister of Israel actually does not believe Palestinians lived in the Jordan Valley before this year. He even answers to a mocking question from a member of the Knesset who asked "Do they come from Mars then?" with "Perhaps."

...

the Zionis leadership of Israel is dumb and bigoted.
in other news, Water is wet.

[Kennlind]

Update on the Iraq and Syria conflict map

Good to see Daesh rats are almost wiped off the map. After that it will be the salafi Saudi/Turkey backed foreign terrorists the "Free Syrian Army" and then Syria will be united and free.

[Pilarcraft]

Update on the Iraq and Syria conflict map

Good to see Daesh rats are almost wiped off the map. After that it will be the salafi Saudi/Turkey backed foreign terrorists the "Free Syrian Army" and then Syria will be united and free.

>united under assad
>free
pick one.
Besides, I doubt the SDF can be taken down, at least not by Assad.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Good news: ISIS' de facto caliphate is fucked.

Bad news: It'll continue underground, and we'll probably get more terrorist attacks due to returning fighters.

[Naifon]

Good news: ISIS' de facto caliphate is fucked.

Bad news: It'll continue underground, and we'll probably get more terrorist attacks due to returning fighters.

I’d argue that ISIS fighters will move their attention towards Europe in the States, where the Muslimization levels simply need to be higher.

[Thermodolia]

Already got a thread for this

Ya but this one has a cool title.

[Kubumba Tribe]

Good news: ISIS' de facto caliphate is fucked.

Bad news: It'll continue underground, and we'll probably get more terrorist attacks due to returning fighters.

I’d argue that ISIS fighters will move their attention towards Europe in the States, where the Muslimization levels simply need to be higher.

'Muslimization'? It's called 'Islamization' bruv, and parts of Europe were already Islamized. So your post should say "ISIS wants to re-'Islamize' Europe"

[Anarchitaria]

Already got a thread for this

Ya but this one has a cool title.

An unoriginal title, mind you.

[Thermodolia]

Ya but this one has a cool title.

An unoriginal title, mind you.

Still a cool title

[Anarchitaria]

An unoriginal title, mind you.

Still a cool title

A happy tiding-emitting title, I suppose.

[The Batavia]

This is great news! Fuck ISIS, they give islam a bad name.

[The Alma Mater]

So.. what to do with all those poor, innocent muslim youths who "only went to the caliphate to help the sick and needy, honest" and now wish to come back home to their European countries of birth ?

[Washington Resistance Army]

This is one of the best thread titles I've seen on NSG, thank you OP

[Garden at 6th Mile Road]

Isis is an Egyptian Goddess. I won't let these terrorist scums defile a name; they need to vanish into abyss of history.

On a serious note, I'm glad that they are becoming weaker. They are just straight-up killing everyone, regardless of race or religion.

On a side note, as I have read, bombing their cities is not exactly a good thing, for most parts.

http://www.cracked.com/feature/isis-tri ... u-to-know/

As on #3, there are hostages everywhere - kids, women, elderly, all there. If an airstrike happens, chances are that they will die too.

Extracted from the article:

If you carpet bomb "the shit" out of the Islamic State, you kill the people they're holding hostage too. ISIS isn't a uniformed army occupying an island fortress. They've taken over towns full of regular folks -- some of whom cooperate and join, some of whom fight, some of whom simply try to hunker down and wait it out. If you say "Fuck it" and drop the bombs anyway, you quickly find out that all of this horror didn't pop into being because some douchebag designed a sweet black flag and declared a caliphate. The bitter cultural divisions which made the Yazidi genocide possible won't go away once we've killed enough Bad Guys. Those tensions are baked into the region, and we'd just be adding to them.

Imagine, for instance, being a displaced Yazidi and hearing that American bombers came along and turned the whole region into the surface of the moon (or, as Ted Cruz suggested, dropped nuclear bombs to turn it into a radioactive wasteland). Sure, the members of ISIS in the region are dead ... as are the female members of your family whom they kidnapped into slavery.

Definitely give the series a read. The journalists (Robert Evans is one of them) from a comedy website (Cracked) went to a war-zone to write a serious article. Unusual, but it's really good.

[Thermodolia]

So.. what to do with all those poor, innocent muslim youths who "only went to the caliphate to help the sick and needy, honest" and now wish to come back home to their European countries of birth ?

Let them rot in Iraqi prisons