US Warns Of Rising Threat From al-Qaida In Iraq, Demands That Iraq Stop Arms Going Into Syria
Source: Associated Press
By DEB RIECHMANN | ASSOCIATED PRESS | 20 minutes ago in Politics
Top U.S. and Iraqi diplomats warned Thursday of a rising threat in Iraq from al-Qaida, which is carrying out suicide and car bombings with greater frequency nearly two years after U.S. troops withdrew from the country.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari also discussed how to stop Iraqi airspace from being used to ferry weapons and illicit cargo from Iran to the embattled Syrian government and how to stem the flow of weapons and extremist fighters into Iraq from neighboring Syria.
"It's a two-way street. It's a dangerous street," Kerry said.
The two met on the same day that a wave of car bombs hit the Iraqi capital, killing 33 people and wounding dozens. More than 3,000 people have been killed during the past few months, including 69 who died last weekend in a series of car bombings targeting those celebrating the end of Ramadan.
"Iraq sits at the intersection of regional currents of increasingly turbulent, violent and unpredictable actions," Kerry said. "Sunni and Shia extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide throughout the region have an ability to be able to threaten Iraq's stability if they're not checked.
Read more: http://www.newser.com/article/da86l2k82/us-warns-of-rising-threat-from-al-qaida-in-iraq-demands-that-iraq-stop-arms-going-into-syria.html
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newfie11
(8,159 posts)Crow73
(257 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)newfie11
(8,159 posts)
no_hypocrisy
(46,081 posts)If the U.S. truly didn't want Al Quaeda in Iraq, they should have left Saddam in power.
Perhaps a political dilemma, but a better choice.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Wouldn't that be the ticket to the old squeeze play on Iraq. AQ in Syria is getting most of their weapons and money from the Saudis and Qatar, anyway.
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)Iraq is a conduit between Iran and Assad in Syria.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)The CIA was pretty quick to flip its use of assets between operations, I'd say.
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)Sometimes people do just do things on their own hook, which happen to redound to the benefit of someone else, after all. Iraq is back in the state of civil war which, absent a strong rule in Baghdad, seems to be its natural state ever since the English cobbled it together. Al Queda in Iraq is really little more than the Sunni west of the country in arms against the Shia east and south, and they have plenty of local, long-standing reasons to be so. It is true, of course, that in the latter stages of our occupation of the place, that we paid many of these people to keep the peace, in exchange not just for money but also for arms and training. Doubtless contacts, even ties of friendship, remain....
leveymg
(36,418 posts)and Guatemalan Death Squads that proliferated while a US Ambassador named John Negroponte, who was a chum of one Oliver North at the NSC and G.H.W. Bush, was resident in Honduras. Come to think of it, wasn't he made Dubya's first DNI after being Proconsul in Iraq? Yes, he was. All those things.
Some people do more than others in Awakening movements, it seems.
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)And were a feature of the Shia parties in Iraq as well.
People are quite capable of cruelty and malice, and of organizing same, without the slightest prompting from outside influences....
leveymg
(36,418 posts)money. Same thing goes for arms and ammunition - they all require the universal lubricant, money, particularly to fight regional meatgrinder wars of attrition. AQ, al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and similar Sunni groups are fighting across most of Northern Africa and the Mideast, now. That takes a huge amount of money, and it can only be coming from one place. So, one might ask, who are we really fighting when we say we're battling al-Qaeda?
Consider this recent report from NPR, for instance: http://www.npr.org/2013/03/13/174156172/with-official-wink-and-nod-young-saudis-join-syrias-rebels
With the tacit approval from the House of Saud and financial support from wealthy Saudi elites, the young men take up arms in what Saudi clerics have called a "jihad," or "holy war," against the Assad regime.
Based on a month of reporting in the region and in Washington, more than a dozen sources have confirmed that wealthy Saudis, as well as the government, are arming some Syrian rebel groups. Saudi and Syrian sources confirm that hundreds of Saudis are joining the rebels, but the government denies any sponsoring role.
Foreign Fighters
The Saudis are part of an inflow of Sunni fighters from Libya, Tunisia and Jordan, according to Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"Most of the foreigners are fighting with al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham," both extremist groups, Zelin said.
Now, consider another side to this, while keeping both balls in the air:
The Al Nusrah Front is under the command Abu Du'a (a.k.a. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Qurshi), the emir of al Qaeda in Iraq, according to the US State Department, which which designated Al Nusrah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in December 2012. The group has claimed credit for 48 of the 58 suicide attacks that have taken place in Syria since December 2011. Several of those attacks were complex suicide assaults on heavily defended targets.
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/02/al_qaeda_in_iraq_sui.php#ixzz2c5jK5IeE
Who are really at war with, and who are the real terrorists?
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)Sunni v. Shia has broken out again. Iraq is one theater of it, Syria another. It is waged in Pakistan as well. The Saudis are the money power of Sunni, and are definitely participants, with a particular ire for Iran, and a great fear of unrest in its own Shia minority, which oddly enough is situated above much of Arabia's oil. The Saudis do not want a stable Shia regime in Iraq, and are happy to pay to secure their desire. We, because of our hostile relation with Iran, are willy-nilly on the side of Sunni in this regional conflict, whether we much like it or not. On the whole, not a very pretty spectacle from any angle.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)on the part of a powerful segment of the Washington Establishment as to who it is that funds al-Qaeda. It is not Iran, and frankly, I cannot understand how Iran has maintained self-discipline in the face of constant threats from us and the Israelis, while keeping its grip on the collar of those Shi'ia who would also do us great harm. I'm wondering how much longer that feat of control can be maintained. We appear to have comprehensively made enemies of both sides.
One may also conclude that the growing conflict in the Mideast is not merely a spasm of a long-festering religious war, but is as well part of a carefully calculated effort to draw in the United States and at the same time to provoke the Persians into an act that would serve as casus belli for the next major war for the United States.
In the last analysis, it appears that oil money has bought more than influence in the United States, it has also so fatally corrupted leading figures in both parties that they nakedly can no longer be counted upon to defend the lives and interests of the American people. We are perhaps one or two short steps from reaching that point where these same figures will again be presented with choices, and found wanting as national leaders. That will prove to be the end of us as a democracy and great power.
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)The stupidest act of a U.S. government since Wilson entered the Great War.
Hussein was the capstone of an arch, which held a structure stable. Destroying it was an act of wanton vandalism.
By pressing a program of nuclear development, the Iranian leadership is providing potential casus belli all on its own.
I agree there is a sort of willed blindness among many in our political class and punditry about the real source of funds to the radical Sunni fighters. It is also true that in a number of instances, the actions of these people align with U.S. interests, at least as the present administration construes them, and past administrations have construed them. A great deal of life proceeds on the wink and nod....
leveymg
(36,418 posts)who it was who arranged the financing for that and provided security for the deal - GHW Bush and Prince Adham through a little bank they set up in Pakistan called BCCI that also financed the arming of both sides in the ruinous Iraq-Iran War.
Google my screen name and "Safari Club." See what comes up.
This joint operation with the Saudis to wreck both countries, and reduce their exports onto the world market, has been going on for thirty years.
The Magistrate
(95,244 posts)The Saudis have indeed been hostile to the Iranian Islamic Republic, certainly since Khomeini fostered an attempt to seize the shrines at Mecca.
HumansAndResources
(229 posts)The "Jihad" movement was not a naturally occurring event - nor were the Iraqi, Yugoslavian, or Afghan civil wars.
As part of this plan, Brzezenski pursuaded then-president Jimmy Carter to drop NNPT efforts with Pakistan, and begin aiding the Wahabbi Terrorists in Afghanistan. Six months later, the Soviets invaded to stop the terrorists. This was denied at the time as "Soviet Propaganda" (as the Olympics were hypocritically boycotted by Reagan), only to be revealed as true, decades later, by war-criminal Brzezenski himself. Meanwhile, Pakistan developed nukes, and worked with North Korea to help them build theirs in exchange for missile technology.
The PTB knew the Soviets were falling apart, and they needed "new enemies" to justify their continued enrichment at the war-trough - and there was a Transnational-Corporate-Kleptocratic-Offensive via NATO into Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia on the horizon. (they almost got Russia's resources too, if not for that darned-Putin fellow)
Jihad-Terrorists who can be used as death-squad-fighters and terrorist-boogie-men at the same time? Nuke-armed North Koreans? - Perfect.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)by the Bush wing of the CIA as its response to efforts by Democrats in Congress following Watergate and the Church Committee hearings to reign in the worst abuses of the Agency, which was a series of coups, assassinations of foreign leaders, domestic spying and meddling in politics by the intelligence agencies, and mass murder in secret wars abroad. All that is back today, with a vengence.
The Safari Club was an agreement by the most militant, Right-wing elements of western intelligence services and the Saudis to create a proxy that could operate more freely with its own funding. The covert war in Afghanistan was where that force, which became AQ, was hardened. UBL never lost the patronage of Prince Turki, and Washington has never dared to call that wing of the Saudi Royal family to account. It would be very difficult to determine where the actions of U.S. intelligence ends and Saudi intelligence begins, and vis-a-versa, with regard to al-Qaeda and other global terrorist groups. We would have also had to purge the CIA after 9/11 for there to be a real accounting, something which for obvious reasons the Bush Administration wasn't about to do except to retire a few CTC managers who went to work at Blackwater at ten times their old salaries. The Obama Administration has steadfastly refused to pry the lid off of that Pandora's Box, and there has been no housecleaning.
The green light for the Pakistani nuclear program and the "Islamic atomic bomb," a proxy nuclear capability for Saudi Arabia, was part of the Safari Club deal. That made up for the long-range artillery the Brits refused to give the Saudi King in World War One.
Bush really gave the whole thing to them, in exchange for the Saudis help in subverting U.S. politics through the US affiliates of the banks and corporations they own. That's where Murdoch and Fox News, as well as the conduit of post-BCCI oil money funneled to key GOP Congressmen from the "al-Yamamah" (Google it) Saudi slush funds, came from. The same deal was made in Britain, where the Yamamah scandal was better reported, but the investigation by the Serious Frauds unit was actually shut down in 2005 after the Saudis threatened to take their arms purchases elsewhere. The US Justice Department investigation was also made to quietly disappear in 2010 after a light fine was imposed on BAE, the British-owned defense contractor that was the public front for the scheme.
A number of political leaders in both parties, in both countries, are deeply compromised.
John2
(2,730 posts)in Washington, including John Kerry think all Americans are dumb and don't have an education besides people in Washington running our Goverment? Iraq is not going to stop aiding Iran much less Syria. Especially the Shiites. I got news for Mr Kerry. Hezbullah is also in Iraq, not just Al Qaeda. They are training to fight you and your Allies, because they are certain you are stupid enough to invade Iran by the end of the year. They are not going to comply on the U.S. and Israel's demands on nuclear energy. They are not that scared, they are preparing to defend themselves period.
They are training and suppling those militias in Iraq, the same as Hezbullah. That is the stupidity of Kerry's statement. They already were armed. He is trying to put all the focus on Hezbullah and Iran, but none on Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel. none on himself and the CIA. He wants Americans to believe they aren't arming the Rebels, (AKA, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, Taliban,etc,etc.). Don't fall for it just like Benghazi. They are churning the Winds of War by the end of the year, which will be the biggest mistake of the Obama Presidency. Only the President can stop it. He needs to ditch the neocons and fire a few advisors or becomes the man who started World War III. Clint Eastwood gave him good advice. People might thought the empty chair was dumb, but I think Clint had a point after seeing the last few months.
HumansAndResources
(229 posts)I had not read about that tangent.
BlueManFan
(256 posts)the last one went so swell!!!!
wtmusic
(39,166 posts)
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
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They spent over a billion dollars for that "embassy" (fort)
and quickly hid the fact of the underground bunkers in Baghdad
Take a guess what the USA did, is doing with them bunkers . . .
Think missile silos.
There is an underground road, wide enough for two lanes going from Baghdad/Saddam airport right to the Castles in Baghdad on the Euphrates River.
I saw pictures shortly after the invasion of these, but for some strange reason, they all disappeared off the web rather quickly.
Iraq is now just another USA military base IMO - USA loves the unrest, detracts attention away from their military activities.
Would not surprise me one bit to discover the USA now has nukes in silos in Iraq.
I do not blame Obama for this, I believe he has not very much knowledge,
nor control over what the MIC is up to.
(sigh)
CC
jzodda
(2,124 posts)Our influence over Iraq is minimal at this point. The rulers of Iraq are Shia, backed by Iran and supportive of Bashir.
The Western border is Sunni and Kurd territory and they support the rebels and/or Al Queda in Levant.
Its a mess and nobody will be able to sort it out. Iraq is facing a coming civil war and so is Lebanon. This is just the beginning I think.
John2
(2,730 posts)They are going to side with Iran. They still have open relations with Assad also. Iraq is one of the three Arab countries ignored Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Arab League. I don't know where Kerry get off.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)
tofuandbeer
(1,314 posts)brisas2k
(76 posts)March 3, 1999: New Pearl Harbor Needed to Change US Military Policies, Says Expert
Edit event
Andrew Krepinevich, Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities: “There appears to be general agreement concerning the need to transform the US military into a significantly different kind of force from that which emerged victorious from the Cold and Gulf Wars. Yet this verbal support has not been translated into a defense program supporting transformation… the ‘critical mass’ needed to effect it has not yet been achieved. One may conclude that, in the absence of a strong external shock to the United States—a latter-day ‘Pearl Harbor’ of sorts—surmounting the barriers to transformation will likely prove a long, arduous process.” [US Congress, 3/5/1999] This is very similar to what strategists at PNAC have said (see June 3, 1997).