Iran Continues Its Hegemony In Iraq (Daniel 8:3)

 
Tehran Is Launching Attacks on Iranian Dissidents in Iraq

Raymond Tanter | July 10, 2016

On July 4, 2016 (8:35 pm Iraqi time), over 50 missiles were fired against Camp Liberty. Because of the proximity of Tehran’s militias in range of Camp Liberty, it appears as if they were launched by those affiliated with the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Damage assessment reveals that parts of the camp were completely destroyed. As many as 40 residents were injured, and astonishingly no one was killed during this massive attack.

Nevertheless, each time the oppressors of Liberty get away with attacking the camp it increases the likelihood of even more hostile assaults in the future.

Once several opponents of Iran left for safety in Iraq, Tehran sought to destroy them there. Several factors coincide to explain why Tehran is assaulting its dissidents in Iraq—members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), the main resistance group that rejects clerical rule, and espouses a secular, democratic, and nonnuclear Iran.

The regime is using the upcoming anniversary of the nuclear deal with Iran on July 14, 2016, as a time to crack down on its opponents. Washington has placed the deal with Tehran over the security of those aligned with the United States and have the capacity to place pressure on the regime on behalf of the Iranian people.

In 2014, Washington agreed to a four-month extension of ongoing nuclear talks until Nov. 24. This period was a time of peril for opponents of Iran because they were and are of great value in revealing intelligence about its nuclear cheating.

Contrary to Iran’s disingenuous offers to be transparent in nuclear talks of Jan. 17, 2005 and Mar. 23, 2005, MEK intelligence revealed in late 2005 that Iran may have been engaged in nuclear-related work at an underground site near the city of Qom.

Three Western allies disclosed on Sept. 25, 2009 intelligence about the Qom site during a G-8 economic summit in Pittsburgh, implicitly validating a resistance disclosure of the same site four years earlier. And by January 2012, Iran acknowledged it had begun enrichment at that heavily fortified site, now known as the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.

A case of retaliation as it relates to nuclear revelations came on September 1, 2013. The organization had in previous years uncovered a number of undeclared nuclear sites and announced them in a series of press conferences, e.g., in Washington during July.

Tehran retaliated to take advantage of ongoing secret nuclear talks with Washington, which let the regime off the hook by saying very little about the assault. Yet in October 2013, the resistance disclosed additional intelligence about suspect weaponization activities by Iran. Another missile attack was waged on Camp Liberty in December 2013, killing four and wounding dozens.
On top of the upcoming nuclear anniversary, there are the deteriorating political-military situation in Iraq and Tehran’s increasing problems with its discontented population. Iran uses such moments as times to crack down on its opponents at home and abroad.

In June of 2009, the regime put down country-wide demonstrations in which dissidents tied to the MEK participated. Iraqi forces acting on behalf of Tehran then attacked MEK members located at that time in Camp Ashraf, Iraq during July of that year. Iraqis killed 13, held 36 as hostages, and only released them in October under intense international pressure.

On April 8, 2011, a day after a major nuclear revelation in Washington by the dissidents, Camp Ashraf came under a major assault by the Iraqi Security Forces, leaving 36 dead, and hundreds wounded, in what was described as “Massacre” by then Senate Foreign Relations chair, John Kerry.
A year after moving to Camp Liberty, on Feb. 9, 2013, rocket and mortar shells fell on the dissidents, killing 9 and wounding over fifty. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called these attacks, “a despicable act of violence,” describing residents as asylum seekers entitled to international protection.


The Way Forward

Hark back to the nuclear deal with Iran agreed on July 14, 2015. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced legislation to extend the sanctions law for 10 years. Other members are exploring the possibility of introducing bills that focus on the Iranian regime’s financial infrastructure involved in terrorism, missile development, and human rights abuses.

Democrats and Republicans are unhappy with the lack of change in the behavior of the Iranian regime, are considering tougher measures. A Democratic senator who voted for the Iran deal said it is not America’s responsibility to promote foreign investment in Iran, despite efforts by Secretary of State Kerry to encourage investment there. Delaware Senator Chris Coons said on June 23, 2016, “I don’t think it’s our job to act as the chamber of commerce for Tehran.”

Nearly a year after the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Iranian dissidents in Iraq are more vulnerable than ever to Tehran-sponsored assaults by its militias in Iraq. To prevent them from intensifying attacks on Camp Liberty, Washington could use its diplomatic leverage with Baghdad to protect Iranian oppositionists and expedite their resettlement out of Iraq to Albania. On June 29, 2016, Senator John McCain introduced a bill (S.3114), which calls for the safety and security of Camp Liberty residents as well as their safe and the expeditious resettlement to Albania. Absent political pushback against Iranian militias from the executive branch, such congressional initiatives are a welcome path forward.

The Large Horn Continues To “Help” Itself To The Smaller Horn (Daniel 8:3)

Iran’s Plan to Destabilize Iraq

Iranian Hegemony

07/06/2016 10:23 am ET | Updated 7 hours ago

Amb. Marc Ginsberg Fmr. U.S. Ambassador to Morocco; White House Middle East Adviser

For those who hoped the Iran nuclear agreement would usher in a new era of Iranian moderation in the Middle East, as we say in Brooklyn: “fgetahboutit.” Actually, every move Iran has taken in the Middle East suggests otherwise.

As Henry Kissinger once said, Iran needs to decide whether it is “a nation or a cause.” The Ayatollah Khamenei stubbornly prefers Iran remain a “cause.”

The record of meddlesome, terror-laden interference throughout the Middle East by Tehran is growing longer by the day. The oppressive military dictatorship may be fronted by a so-called “moderate” President Rouhani, but Iran is undeniably under the control of the Revolutionary Guards and their political hacks within the Ayatollah Khamenei’s clerical politburo. As it stubbornly clings to the cause of belligerence and revolution the regime has been resuscitated and emboldened by a nuclear agreement that has imposed nary a speed bump on its road to fulfilling its regional ambitions.

Cases in point: the incendiary and venomous anti-Israel/anti-Semitic rhetoric emanating from the highest reaches of the regime have become more dangerous and more provocative than ever. The terror-funding money laundered cash flowing into Hezbollah and Hamas coffers has accelerated, fueled in part, from U.S. and European unfrozen asset transfers and sanctions relief. Elie Weisel’s passing was met with another Holocaust-denying tirade from several high level hardliners. The number of Iranians hanging from the gallows under President Rouhani has reached tallies higher than under his predecessor: the notorious Ahmadinejad. Oppression has escalated against average Iranians as the regime stomps hard on any effort to leverage assets relief for fear of breathing new life into Iran’s suppressed democratic movement.

In the Middle East, Iran is waging a proxy war in Yemen against the U.S. and Saudi-backed government. Its provocative and destabilizing ballistic missile tests — intended to directly threaten Israel and our Sunni Arab allies — are deemed by the UN to be in violation of existing Security Council resolutions. And let us not forget, the “atomic ayatollahs” have never ever given up on their ambition to build a bomb; the nuclear agreement merely postpones its capacity for doing so for ten years, and will have all arms sanctions lifted against it in about 7 years.

Ground zero on Iran’s revolutionary menu is Syria and Iraq. It is the Ayatollah’s “front line” against all of the real and imagined foes of the regime. The Revolutionary Guard is massively deployed inside Syria defending fellow Shiite Bashar al Assad, and Iranian-backed Shiite militias are deployed in ISIS battle zones in northern Iraq. If only those deployments were for the cause of peace and stability in the Middle East. They are not. On the contrary, those deployments are part and parcel of Iranian designs to prevent the emergence of a stable Iraq and to prevent a restoration of a durable UN-sponsored cease-fire in Syria.

The Iranian government’s propaganda arm is running at warp speed warning Iranians that should Assad’s regime fall ISIS will soon be on Tehran’s doorstep. The Farsi-language media is relentlessly pounding this nonsense into every crevice of Iranian society. Iran, in other words, is figuratively and literally getting away with murder in both Iraq and Syria “in defense of Iran.”

The regime’s apologists demand patience and excoriate those who question any effort to hold Iran accountable for these actions. Soon the regime, they argue, will inevitably bend to the winds of globalization and confront the exigencies required of a “proper” nation state. After all, Boeing just signed a major deal with Iran. More such deals will surely follow. Isn’t that evidence, they assert, that the Ayatollah’s iron grip will weaken under the weight of western investment.

Hope springs eternal.

A new, more moderate regime, the Iranian amen choir chant, will surely emerge. Just give it time. The great Iranian gamble is buttressed by U.S. assurances that it is doing everything possible to challenge Iran’s expansionism. Not true! What are we to make then of Secretary of State’s recent comments that Iran’s presence in Iraq to be “helpful” to American attempts to beat back the threat of ISIS, given their common enemy?

It appears that Mr. Kerry, whose inclination is to sugar-coat anything that may give rise to criticism of Iran, has turned a blind eye to what U.S. commanders in Iraq are reporting up their chains of command to the Pentagon. Moreover, Mr. Kerry’s limited interest in the future of Iraq’s independence and integrity reflect the Obama Administration’s own indifference to Iraq’s long term future.

Time will tell whether U.S. national security interests can sustain the gamble, but given Iran’s international and regional conduct in recent months, Mr. Kerry may need to adjust his assessment if Iraq’s future stability is of consequence to the U.S.

U.S. commanders stationed on the ground in both the battles to liberate Falluja and Ramadi from ISIS forces have expressed alarm that rogue Iranian-commanded Shiite militias (aka The Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs)) are moving into these towns after their liberation and committing sectarian abuses against Sunnis, thus making refugee and displaced persons more sympathetic to the remnants of ISIS operatives in the region. The New York Times reported a few weeks ago that a Shiite militia leader, in a widely circulated video, was seen rallying his men with a message of revenge against the imprisoned civilians of Falluja, whom they accuse of being sympathizers of ISIS: “Falluja is a terrorist stronghold,” said Iranian-backed militia leader Aws al-Khafaji, the head of the Abu Fadhil al-Abbas militia.

Make no mistake about it, the awful, painstaking battles being waged to liberate Iraqi territory from ISIS are intended eventually by Iran to gain more control north of Baghdad at the expense of Iraqi sectarian reconciliation and U.S. national security interest. Incorporating Iraq and Syria (as well as Lebanon) into a Shiite Crescent under the thumb of Tehran is so evident it’s as if the Ayatollah has hung out a neon light declaring it so. Is this Shiite Crescent an outcome which Mr. Kerry considers an acceptable consequence of U.S. retrenchment, inadequate strategy, and Iranian expansionism?

As Iraq reels from a grave escalation of ISIS-inspired terrorism across the country in recent days, Iran-backed Shiite militiamen (often with the connivance of the Iraqi leadership) have used the growing chaos inside Iraq to launch a series of attacks against Iranian adversaries in Iraq, including a heinous attack yesterday against innocent civilian Iranian dissidents imprisoned against their will at Camp Liberty, wounding more than 40 residents. There is no doubt that this attack, as previous ones on Camp Liberty, are the work of Iranian controlled forces operating virtually at will, both covertly and overtly in Iraq. All the while, Iran is doing everything possible to fallaciously present itself as the ultimate and only reliable savior of the truncated Iraqi state.

Iran’s meddling in Iraq is incessant, albeit with mixed results. Tehran’s goals are overt and evident: subjugate the central government to its whim while marginalizing the minority Sunni population without driving it back into the hands of whatever remnants of ISIS remains after it is driven from the all-important city of Mosul. A balancing act? Surely. But isn’t Iran really interested in having Iraq disintegrate – leaving it gobble up as much of Iraq’s territory as possible up to the very frontier of the Sunni heartland?

Iran is determined to resist a revitalized and reinvigorated American effort to politically, militarily, and financially stabilize a pro-secular, reform-minded Iraqi central government. Iran takes an extraordinarily dim view of national Iraqi reconciliation, and will apparently do everything possible to sabotage that goal – a goal 180 degrees opposite to U.S. policy.

Who wins in the end from Iran’s deviousness in Iraq? ISIS, or whatever remnants there are of ISIS. Tehran’s machinations, intended to force Baghdad and the south to fall directly under its sway, will doom any hope for national reconciliation among Iraq’s three major sects (Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites) – giving rise to ISIS 2.0 inside of Iraq. That is the hope of any future ISIS leadership…living to fight another day to restore the Caliphate in northern Iraq…and the cycle of terror will find yet another home from which to reconstitute itself.

The next president faces an extraordinary challenge again in Iraq, and it all goes back to Iran and its loathsome, meddling regional militant strategy to stir as much terrorism and instability as possible to thwart any semblance of normalcy and stability.

The people of Iran deserve a government that is democratic, transparent, and willing to be a nation, rather than a cause. Unfortunately, as we see in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, and in Palestine, the regime in Tehran is determined to break our will, and the will of the Iranian people in the bargain, to create its vaunted “Shiite Crescent” any cost, no matter the how many innocent lives perish in the bargain.

Had the Obama Administration incubated the Iran nuclear agreement with an effective national security strategy to deter Iran’s regional designs, our Middle East allies and the world would have been better off. But the White House preferred rolling the dice without such insurance.

The next president will have to reconstruct that very missing regional strategy, but at a severe disadvantage given how much the Obama Administration intentionally dropped the ball – brushing aside all the warnings to avoid empowering Iran to at the expense of core American national security interests in the Middle East.

Follow Amb. Marc Ginsberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@ambmcg

Iranian Hegemony In Iraq (Daniel 8:4)

The Iranian Fingerprints on Iraq’s Fallujah Plan

Disunity from abroad, tensions at home allowed Tehran to pressure Baghdad into a dramatic departure from the American war strategy.

By Paul D. Shinkman | Senior National Security Writer
June 2, 2016, at 5:00 a.m.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s decision to engage the Islamic State group in Fallujah is about more than defeating the terrorist network. It’s about more than establishing safety in Baghdad, and it’s even about more than securing his own political future.
His abrupt departure from America’s script for the war against the Islamic State group, which prioritizes above all else the liberation of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, shows the strength of the other major international influence in Iraq, and its sway on Baghdad.
Iran has reportedly been pressuring Abadi for weeks, if not months, to prioritize Fallujah. But now domestic tensions in Baghdad and disunity among the world powers that have involved themselves in the conflict have cleared the way for the Islamic republic to have more potency than the U.S., Russia, Turkey or any other world power involved in the conflict.
“Tehran has more influence on Abadi’s focus, whether on Fallujah or anywhere else, than Moscow, Washington and Ankara combined,” says a former U.S. combat commander with extensive experience working with Iraq’s senior leaders. “The political disarray in Baghdad, the strangely wandering American political strategy, and the opaque rationale for what American forces we will commit to what tasks in the worst form of gradual escalation, combine to leave decisions open to a host of inputs from military and civilian policy makers from Baghdad to Tehran, before even considering the enemy’s vote.”
The U.S. has spent the week since Abadi announced his new battlefield priorities downplaying the sudden shift, despite reports that the Iraqis provided only scant notice of the campaign to their American military counterparts. Reports have also emerged that U.S. officials privately don’t agree and are concerned about what opening a new front might mean for the overall success of the war if Iraqi forces get bogged down in a protracted battle.
It became immediately clear this week the fight would not mirror previous liberations of some Iraqi towns where disenfranchised Islamic State group presence almost immediately fled. As Pentagon officials point out, Fallujah serves as the extremist network’s last haven in Iraq’s massive Anbar province, and they won’t withdraw easily.
Iraqi forces began capturing villages on the outskirts of Fallujah soon after the fighting began on Monday but have since been met with fierce resistance from the extremist group’s fighters.
“They intend to put up a fight for it, and we definitely have seen intense fighting for those two days,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said Tuesday.
After acknowledging before the effort began that Fallujah offers no tactical benefit in recapturing Mosul, U.S. officials have since publicly backed the new campaign and minimized inconsistencies with the larger strategy. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said last week “we are obviously supportive of this operation” and that the U.S. was very much aware of Iraq’s intentions to shift toward Fallujah, despite claims to the contrary from defense officials who spoke to U.S. News.
Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted the Iraqi military could continue preparing for the Mosul operation and simultaneously pursue a detour in Fallujah. Army Col. Steve Warren, speaking from the coalition’s headquarters in Baghdad’s Green Zone on Friday, confirmed that the need to retake Fallujah is driven by “political calculus for the civilian leadership of Iraq” and said success there would ease political pressure on Baghdad before refocusing on Mosul.
That pressure, however, is intense. Shiite protesters loyal to powerful cleric and militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr have stormed the central Green Zone where the Iraqi government and most foreign embassies are based. Outraged by a lack of reform, protesters in April capped months of popular street demonstrations by occupying and ultimately ransacking the parliament building amid fears the government could collapse.
“We often tend to underestimate the degree of threats to Abadi, particularly from other Shiites,” says Stephen Biddle, formerly an adviser to Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus who is now with the Council on Foreign Relations. “For most governments like Iraq, internal threats loom larger than external threats, and you can’t just ignore them and treat them as electoral noise. Because that’s how you get killed in a coup d’etat.”
Underscoring concerns that the political instability could hamper the fight against the extremists, the Islamic State group in recent weeks has staged a series of car bombs and suicide attacks in Shiite neighborhoods that marked the group’s return to the terror tactics of its roots, as al-Qaida in Iraq, and exacerbated sectarian tensions.
The long-stalled Mosul operation optimistically appears months away, so targeting Fallujah provides a temporary quick-fix for Abadi politically, using the urgency of the campaign to prove to Iraqis he’s acting to keep them safe. Successfully liberating Fallujah, which is predominantly Sunni, could also earn Abadi some good faith among that constituency nationwide.
But some say that, tactically, his attention is likely misplaced. Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, is indeed an Islamic State group haven and source of much of its bomb-making capabilities. However, most of the recent attacks on Baghdad have originated from the north, not the west as would be the case if they came from Fallujah, according to the Institute for the Study of War, which regularly analyzes battle rhythms in Iraq.
Other forces are also at play behind the decision, including influences from Tehran that would like the Shiite majority in Iraq’s government to protect Baghdad from what it sees as the threat posed by the proximity of Sunni extremists, like the Islamic State group, while also solidifying its hold on power.
“Iran does not see a government of Iraq that has a Sunni presence in it,” says Scott Mann, who retired as a lieutenant colonel after 18 years as a U.S. Army Special Forces officer with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. “This is a way to further divide those ethnicities, between Persians and Arabs, and between Sunni and Shiite, and create a more polarized environment around that conflict.
“They know it, and they’re going to seize any opportunity they can to do that. And ISIS is going to do exactly the opposite. They’re going to create those situations, because they know how Iran is going to play it.”
The overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah has long been associated with combat in Iraq. It served as a headquarters for al-Qaida in Iraq during the last war and witnessed some of the most gruesome fighting, as U.S. forces in two separate campaigns in 2004 engaged in bloody, door-to-door combat to clear the town of the extremist presence.
Complicating the campaign, the Iraqi government has had to rely on overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim militia forces, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, in part due to the the U.S.-led coalition’s limitations on providing ground forces, which leaves Baghdad with few other options for the sheer numbers of fighters it needs. These forces are supposed to remain outside the city, where they help prevent extremists’ lines of escape or reinforcement.
Pictures emerged last week of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Qassem Soleimani’s meeting with leaders from the local Shiite militias, one of the first times he had appeared in public media since his visit to Aleppo, Syria – another central focus of Iran’s fight against enemy forces in the region. That the shadowy Quds Force commander would publicize his whereabouts further emphasizes the degree to which Iran now prioritizes Fallujah.
Iranian proxy forces, like some of the militias, are a critical component to any chance of success in defeating the Islamic State group. They have contributed to most of the fighting to secure the area around Fallujah, particularly to the north, clearing the way for Baghdad’s announcement late Monday that its U.S.-trained counterterrorism commandos had begun the arduous work of actually entering the city to clear it of the Islamic State group presence. This use of various kinds of military forces has produced a winning combination in the past, like for the liberation of Ramadi. But now it faces its most serious challenge as the few hundred Islamic State group fighters in Fallujah dig in and and use the estimated 50,000 local residents held there as human shields.
The U.S. military argues none of the conventional forces used for the Fallujah campaign would be needed in Mosul. Most experts agree, but that doesn’t mean the sudden detour won’t affect America’s fundamental plans for the battlespace.
“Operations like this chew through resources,” says Patrick Martin, research analyst for Iraq with the Institute for the Study of War. “It’s just going to delay everything.”
He cites reports that the U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service – considered the most effective Iraqi fighting force on the ground – has grown exhausted by the continuous demand for troops to lead the way in clearing Islamic State group positions.
And fundamental questions about the future of Fallujah remain, Martin says, particularly following widespread concerns that the Shiite militias wish to exact revenge on Sunni populations for their perceived complicity toward the Islamic State group – a key reason why the U.S. refuses to provide air support to ground operations involving the militias. Shiite militias also have reportedly prevented Sunnis from returning to homes they helped liberate.
“We shouldn’t kid ourselves,” Martin says. “This is what pushes the Mosul operation into delaying it indefinitely, because there are still other questions that haven’t been answered yet.”
All sides agree that liberating Fallujah is simply a matter of time. The effect, though, of an Iranian sponsored victory may only further complicate the total war against the Islamic State group.
The heavy presence of Shiite militia encircling Fallujah provide prime fodder for the extremist network to convince their fellow Sunni Muslims that the Iraqi government is beholden to Iran and has no intention of including them among the ruling classes.
“All they have to say is, ‘Look who’s coming. This is your government that is allowing this to happen, backed by the American Air Force. Only we can help you.’ And they do this brilliantly,” says Mann, the former special forces lieutenant colonel.
“In the short term, will it be effective? Probably. It will force ISIS to go to ground. It may kill some and displace some of them,” Mann says. “In my assessment, this is nothing more than mowing the grass.”
At this point, it isn’t clear how much say the U.S. will have in that.

Iran Horn Continues To Influence Iraq (Daniel 8:3)

 
Iraqi Shiite militia promotes training camp named after Qods Force general

BY BILL ROGGIO AND CALEB WEISS | September 19, 2015 | bill.roggio@longwarjournal.org |
Saraya al Khorasani, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia that operates alongside the Iraqi military, released a short video advertising one of its training camps. The location of the facility is unknown, however, the beginning of the video includes an aerial shot in Iraq’s western province of Anbar.
The training camp is called the “Sheikh Hajj Hamid Taqavi training center.” It is named after Hamid Taqavi, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force general who was killed by an Islamic State sniper late last year. Taqavi served as a military adviser to Saraya al Khorasani when he was killed.

Taqavi was lauded by the Shiite militia after his death. Ali al Yasiri, the group’s leader, described Taqavi as “an expert at guerrilla war” and said that “People looked at him as magical,” Reuters reported. The militia also put up billboards praising Taqavi throughout Baghdad and published videos online to commemorate the Iranian general.

The latest video released by the group also includes appearancea by al Yasiri, as well as Hamid al Jaza’iri, who has been identified as the “deputy secretary general” of Saraya al Khorasani and the commander of its “18th Brigade.” In one shot, Yasiri and Jaza’iri are shown walking with an unidentified figure. The producers of the video attempt to distort his face to prevent him from being identified, however he can be seen for a split-second.

Saraya al Khorasani was one of several Iranian-backed Shiite militias that were involved in the operation that captured the central Iraqi city of Tikrit from the Islamic State earlier this year.
The Iraqi government has relied on Iranian-supported militias to oppose the Islamic State. In addition to Tikrit, these militias, many of which are led by US-listed Specially Designated Global Terrorists, have helped eject the Islamic State from Amerli, Jurf al Sakhar, and smaller towns and villages in Diyala and Salahaddin province. The Shiite militias are currently involved in the fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province, and Baiji in Salahaddin.

The Shiite militias fall under the command of the Popular Mobilization Committee, or Popular Mobilization Forces, which was created after the Islamic State took control of vast areas of northern and central Iraq in June 2014. The Popular Mobilization Committee is directed by Muhandis, who is closely tied to Iran and Soleimani. Many of the largest and most powerful Shiite militias in the Popular Mobilization Committee, such as Hezbollah Brigades, Asaib al Haq (the League of the Righteous), Saraya al Salam (Muqtada al Sadr’s Peace Brigades), Harakat Nujaba, and the Imam Ali Brigades remain actively hostile to the US to this day.

Qods Force has been instrumental in supporting Shiite militias inside Iran, and has done so since the US invaded Iraq in 2003. Qods Force, with the help of Hezbollah, helped establish militias such as the Mahdi Army, Asaib al Haq, and Hezbollah Brigades between 2003 and 2006. These militias, which the US military previously described as the “Special Groups,” are responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers between 2004 and 2011. [See LWJ report, Iran’s Ramazan Corps and the ratlines into Iraq.]

The First Horn Supplies Hamas In Gaza (Daniel 8:3)

Iranian officials say they have armed Hamas for fight with Israel

Los Angeles Times

Iran Training Hamas

Two senior Iranian officials told an Arabic-language television channel Monday that Tehran has supplied missile technology to Hamas for its fight against Israel.

Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari warned in an interview with the Arabic channel of Iran’s state Al-Alam television that Palestinian resistance to Israeli aggression is “endless and growing.”

 

West Bank Palestinians in Nablus protest Monday in support of Gazans under fire in the four-week-old fight with Israel. (Alaa Badarneh / European Pressphoto Agency)

Iran is prepared to support the Palestinian resistance with weapons and technology transfers, Jafari said, and makes no distinction between Shiite and Sunni factions of the embattled populations under Israeli blockade.

“The Zionist regime [of Israel] will collapse soon as a result of the unity among Shia and Sunni Muslims and we are ready for that day,” Jafari said.

Mohsen Rezaei, another former guard commander who is now a senior advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Tehran had already provided Hamas with missile-building technology being used in fighting against Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip.

“Palestinian resistance missiles are the blessings of Iran’s transfer of technology,” Rezaei was quoted as telling the broadcaster.

More than 3,000 rockets have been launched by Hamas in recent weeks from the blockaded seaside Palestinian enclave, spurring an Israeli air offensive July 8 and a ground operation nine days later aimed at ridding Gaza of its tunnels and missile-firing sites.

 

Palestinian resistance missiles are the blessings of Iran’s transfer of technology. - Mohsen Rezaei, advisor to Iran’s supreme religious leader Rezaei said he had asked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to provide air defense systems to Gaza to protect Palestinians from Israeli war planes, which have carried out more than 4,600 air strikes on the tiny coastal strip since the latest Hamas-Israel battle began four weeks ago.

“The Americans in recent days approved about $300 million to strengthen (Israel’s) Iron Dome,” Rezaei said he pointed out to the president.

Al-Alam said 1,822 Palestinians, mostly civilians, had been killed in the four weeks of fighting. Israel has reported that more than 60 of its soldiers have been killed in the fierce clashes, as well as three civilians.

Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani last week called the disproportionate force being targeted on Palestinian residential areas “a war crime.” He said Tehran had no hesitation in its coming to the aid of Hamas and other militant groups fighting Israel.

The comments by Jafari and Rezaei followed an appeal last week by Khamenei for Muslims worldwide to help Palestinians defend themselves from the Israeli attacks.

Iran doesn’t recognize Israel as a state and openly supports the militias, including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fighting to drive Israelis from territory the Palestinians claim for the state they have declared in the West Bank and Gaza.

Antichrist Training Terrorists Against Bahrain (Revelation 13:16)

Terror funds plot man jailed for life

Mahdi Army

By NOOR ZAHRA ,  Posted on » Wednesday, July 23, 2014

A BAHRAINI who funded a terror cell in Bahrain to support an invasion by foreign fighters has been jailed for life.Murtadha Majeed Alawi recruited young men and sent them to Iraq to receive militia training from Shi’ite strongman Moqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

The 31-year-old salesman helped three of his co-defendants travel to a military camp in Karbala where they received firearms training along with 11 other unknown men in 2012 and 2013.

Training

The defendants told prosecutors the training was conducted for a “zero hour” when the Mahdi Army would enter Bahrain to carry out terrorist attacks.

They said a militia general named Ra’ad trained them and told them the army was awaiting orders from Moqtada Al Sadr to enter Bahrain and that they would be needed “in future” to help stage a coup.

The High Criminal Court yesterday sentenced Mr Alawi to 25 years behind bars for establishing and funding an illicit group that aimed to cripple Bahrain’s economy and establishments, carry out terrorist attacks in the country and topple the Bahraini regime.

Judges also convicted Abdulla Isa Al Banna for helping Mr Alawi establish the group and recruit members and jailed him for 15 years.

Two others, Basil Ali and Mahmood Yousif, were found guilty of receiving weapons training in Iraq and were sentenced to 15 years behind bars, while a fifth man was jailed for five years for participating in an illegal gathering and possessing Molotov cocktails.

However, they were all cleared of conspiring with a foreign country.

All five men, who are in police custody, refused to appear in court yesterday for the ruling.

“Three of the defendants travelled to Iraq to receive training in weapons and explosives to carry out terrorist attacks in Bahrain,” according to court verdict documents.

“The two masterminds who established the terrorist cell helped recruit the rest of the group members and helped them travel to Iraq to receive training from Moqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

“Three of the defendants confessed to meeting a soldier from Moqtada Al Sadr’s army named Ra’ad, who helped train them on firearms and explosives.

“They said they received training in how to fire weapons when crouching, kneeling and other positions.

Evidence

“The defendants were found guilty of the charges according to evidence given by prosecution witnesses and the defendants’ confessions.

“However, we found them not guilty of conspiring with a foreign country due to the lack of evidence – the prosecution testimony is not sufficient to find them guilty of that charge.” Lawyers representing the defendants said they will lodge appeals against the convictions at the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court. noorz@gdn.com.bh

Ninevah Comes Back To Life (Jonah 3)

Islamic State touts training camp in northern Iraq
By Bill RoggioJuly 22, 2014

Ninevah Training Camp

The Islamic State released several photographs of what it said are its training camps in Iraq’s Ninewa province. The images are the latest in a propaganda effort by various terror groups in both Iraq and Syria to promote their training camp infrastructure.

The 22 photographs of what the SITE Intelligence Group described as “scenes from its training camps ” were published on the Ninewa Division’s Twitter feed [view all 22 photographs here]. The Islamic State did not name the camps.

One of the photographs showed what appears to be eight squads of Islamic State fighters consisting of 11 to 13 men each sitting in formation on the floor while receiving instructions.

Other photographs showed fighters receiving martial arts instructions, marching through the streets in formation both in daylight and at night, and training on a machine gun. Young boys are shown training with the men in several of the photographs.

The Islamic State, an offshoot of al Qaeda, took control of Ninewa province as well as much of Salahaddin and Diyala provinces after launching an offensive along with its allies that began on June 10. Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, is firmly under the control of the Islamic State.

Most of Anbar as well as northern Babil province is also under the Islamic State’s control. Fallujah and other cities and towns fell after the Islamic State went on the offensive in Anbar at the beginning of January.

Jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria are promoting training camps

Jihadist groups in both Iraq and Syria have promoted the existence of at least five training camps this year.

In mid-March, the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria and a rival of the Islamic State, announced that it is running two training camps in Syria. Its Ayman al Zawahiri Camp is located in the city of Deir al Zour and is named after al Qaeda’s current emir. The other camp, whose location was not disclosed, is called the Abu Ghadiya Camp and is named after the leader of the al Qaeda in Iraq facilitation network that was based in eastern Syria. Abu Ghadiya was killed in a US special operations raid in eastern Syria in the fall of 2008.
In the beginning of April, the Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar (Army of Emigrants and Supporters, or Muhajireen Army), a group of foreign fighters led by commanders from the Caucasus, released video of its training camp in Aleppo province. The video included footage of a bomb-making class.
In early May, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham announced the existence of the Zarqawi Camp, which is named after the slain founder of al Qaeda in Iraq, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
And in June, an Uzbek jihadist group known as the Imam Bukhari Jamaat released a video of its training camp in Syria. The camp is thought to be located in Aleppo province.
The videos from ISIS, Al Nusrah Front, Muhajireen Army, and Imam Bukhari Jamaat training camps are reminiscent of others released by al Qaeda from the network of camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s. Al Qaeda used camps such as Khalden and Al Farouq to churn out thousands of foreign fighters who fought alongside the Taliban in the 55th Arab Brigade. But al Qaeda also selected graduates of the camps to conduct attacks in the West, including the Sept. 11, 2001 operation against the US.

Antichrist Training International Terrorists (Revelation 13)

Terror suspects ‘trained in Iraq’
By NOOR ZAHRA ,  Posted on » Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Moqtada al Sadr’s Men

FOUR Bahrainis received militia training in Iraq to prepare them to support an invasion by foreign fighters, a court has heard.They reportedly travelled to Iraq in December, 2012 to receive weapons training from Shi’ite strongman Moqtada Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army, according to case files.A fugitive cleric in Iraq related to one of the defendants, 23, allegedly invited the four suspects to a military camp in Karbala where they received firearms training along with 11 other unknown men.However, three of them were later arrested in Bahrain while the fourth, who is being tried in absentia, and the cleric are still at large.The defendants in custody told prosecutors the training was conducted for a “zero hour” when the Mahdi Army would enter Bahrain to carry out terrorist attacks, according to court documents.They said a militia soldier named Ra’ad trained the defendants and told them the Mahdi Army was awaiting orders from Moqtada Al Sadr to enter Bahrain – and that the suspects would be needed “in future” to help stage a coup.

All four have been charged with conspiring with a foreign country, joining the Al Sadr movement, recruiting others and being part of a terrorist cell.

They have also been charged with receiving weapons and explosives training, but the three in custody have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The High Criminal Court yesterday adjourned the trial until May 29 to summon prosecution witnesses.

“My relative is a famous religious cleric in Iraq and he is wanted in connection with security cases,” the 23-year-old defendant told prosecutors.

“My friends told me that they were going to Iraq and I paid BD2,000 to travel with them.

“I called him (the religious cleric) and told him we were coming to Iraq. He said that was great news because he could train us in weapons.

“We then met a soldier from the Iraqi army named Ra’ad in a coffee shop.

“We met him again the following day at a checkpoint in Karbala before he took us to the military camp, which had flags of Bahrain, Iraq and Moqtada Al Sadr’s army.

“He told us that he was a soldier in Moqtada Al Sadr’s army.

“We then received training in how to fire weapons when crouching, kneeling and other positions.

“He (the soldier) then told us that he loved Bahrain and that ‘we will use you in the future’.

“He said he wanted to help the Bahraini revolution and was waiting for orders from Moqtada Al Sadr for the army to enter Bahrain.

“He meant that when outsiders entered Bahrain, we would use weapons at that time to help overthrow the government.

“We then went shopping and to religious processions before we travelled back to Bahrain. “I was then arrested in Bahrain City Centre mall.” noorz@gdn.com.bh