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Numlock posted:M4's and M4/AR15 clones are widely available in the middle east and judging from the videos of the Kurdish forces I've seen they are quite popular. Nothing else about that guys suggests American to me. I simply assumed that the American weapons we've seen brandished were pilfered from the desserting/retreating Iraqi troops.
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Jun 18, 2014 13:26
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ReV VAdAUL posted:With the main Iraqi oil refinery likely to be out of commission and the Kurds seeming like the most competent faction is there any chance their oil might start finding some buyers? Not as long as they're trying to sell to any nation that values its relations with the US.
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Jun 18, 2014 21:42
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Obsidius posted:I don't know if it's just me or if others in the UK are noticing this too but everyone around me is pretty much ignoring the whole Iraq situation. The only time I have heard someone talk about Iraq was when a colleague heard on the radio that Iraqi soldiers were getting captured and executed to which he said "about time those fucks got killed". He's an rear end in a top hat and dumb as a rock so not unexpected that would be his view but anyway, is the current situation a big deal here in the UK or are people just burying their heads in the sand? I have an iraqi friend who I've been discussing it with for the last week but beyond that no one seems to care. It's been all over the news as well which makes it kinda strange.
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Jun 20, 2014 11:02
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I mean, at least the Kurds getting cities is arguably a good thing. Yeah, until this all blows over and the Iraqis want their oil back. 
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Jun 26, 2014 10:46
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Sergg posted:How's Yugoslavia doing nowadays? Bosnia&Herzegovina is a corrupt shithole with skyrocketing unemployment amongst youth, they're also having a horrible year with the flooding and their national team instantly falling out of the world cup to the dismay of every Bosnian immigrant worldwide. Croatia is starting to become an European tourist hotspot but then welp flood, also got their asses kicked out of the VM. As for Serbia and Albania I don't know. On the plus side I don't think there's been any ethnic slaughters in a while now so I guess they're doing ok? 
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Jun 28, 2014 06:46
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28077425 BBC is late to the party, that's yesterdays news, apparently the Iraqi military went back in today and have been doing better. https://translate.google.se/transla...%2Far&sandbox=1
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Jun 29, 2014 14:05
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Sergg posted:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/isils-actions-expose-rifts-within-iraqs-sunni-rebellion/article19384874/ Does kinda agreeing with Sheik Ali Hatem al-Suleimani about what the future of Iraq should be make me an rear end in a top hat? Federalization is basically the only long term solution I see that won't result in 3 new nations fighting over who should control the oil.
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Jun 30, 2014 07:24
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Dolash posted:Is there a chance of some kind of symbolic attack or raid on Baghdad? They may not have the manpower to take or hold it, but serious violence in the capital might be another blow to the Iraqi government. Maybe, but right now they seem to be busy trying to defend the cities they've taken from being retaken by the Iraqi military.
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Jul 1, 2014 14:30
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MothraAttack posted:And here goes ISIS, systematically destroying Shia sites. Committing atrocities towards the current generation wasn't loving enough? 
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Jul 4, 2014 17:45
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nothing to seehere posted:Soooo... how long till the protests are gunned down by the milltary? Hard to mobilize protesters under Ramadan in the warmest month of summer.
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Jul 5, 2014 10:11
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Vernii posted:The average western citizen does not give the slightest bit of a gently caress about Iraq, and no one in the US is going to push open intervention in an election year. It is and will remain "that desert sinkhole people keep killing each other in". Yeah if the armies of the world wouldn't muster for Syria then they sure as hell won't do it for Iraq, again. If anyone is getting directly involved it'll be a regional power like Iran, Turkey, Israel or even Syria if Assad ever gets the country stabilized again.
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Jul 5, 2014 20:50
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Aurubin posted:Aren't heads on spikes the traditional "Don't break the law also welcome to the year 1066" method of doing things? Too expensive as well? "Setting heads on spikes? No that would be barbaric, we are civilized men who brutally kill them and tie them to crosses so that they can rot in the sun for everyone to see.  "
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Jul 5, 2014 21:25
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illrepute posted:I'm not up on the relationship between Syrian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan. Is there much that the Peshmerga can even do to aid them? They could but that would leave Kurdistan itself vulnerable to attack, something I don't think they want to risk with the Islamic State Death Gang right on their front door.
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Jul 7, 2014 08:02
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FADEtoBLACK posted:Does it look like ISIS is consolidating or are they ballsy enough to go into Baghdad and start a larger war? That's what the Iraqi military is afraid of as evidenced by their ghost hunting for sleeper agents. I heard rumors that the US moved additional troops to protect the passage from the US embassy to the airport so there must be some validity to it.
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Jul 7, 2014 11:11
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Brown Moses posted:I'm seeing reports here and there of members of the Islamic Front and Jabhat al-Nusra leaving to join IS, taking all sorts of heavy equipment with them. There's a real possibility this could cause the Syrian opposition to collapse in the north, resulting in the government retaking territory, and the Islamic Front becoming the dominate non-government force in the north of Syria. If that happens then Syria and Iraq will turn into a violent sectarian conflict zone, pretty much the worse case scenario for the region. Brown Moses, the harbinger of 
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Jul 8, 2014 11:40
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Pimpmust posted:Well, unless the mission is being run by one of the more aggressive, blood-thirsty, war-profiteering member nations I'm sorry, what? How have I never heard about this before now?
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Jul 8, 2014 20:00
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The Walking Dad posted:Newish Isis propaganda vid. Why are they executing civilians in the documentary they themselves made to convince people that they only go after soldiers? 
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Jul 9, 2014 12:39
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Torpor posted:Man, ISIS is actually pretty good at the video making business, the US could learn from them on the propaganda front. It's for recruitment purposes so it has to be. Their not painstakingly subbing every video they release with english for no reason.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:22
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silvergoose posted:The C&C group, or Squirrel Girl? Can't it be both?
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Jul 9, 2014 20:40
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Red Crown posted:I went to a great presentation at the New America Foundation where one of the speakers explained this: their main recruiting targets aren't necessarily ideologically motivated, they're people who enjoy killing. Not necessarily psychopaths, but certainly nihilists and others who can't get enough death. ISIS are hardened fighters on par with Iraq's special forces and seek to recruit disaffected hardened fighters. I mean, look at Omar al-Shishani, who was a Christian Georgian special forces soldier until he got shuffled out of the army due to TB. He was radicalized and went to go kill more people with ISIS. I'm not so sure that's actually true. When me and my friends were over in Irland last month we talked to a couple of muslims about ISIS. This was shortly after ISIS blitz trough Iraq started so the discussion easily came up. Two of the people we talked too actually voiced their support of ISIS. First was at a muslim information table in the center of Dublin where they were handing out all kinds of pamphlets about the faith and muslim traditions. The first we talked too was secular and highly progressive in his beliefs, "everyone can have their own interpretations of the faith" and the like. The guy standing next to him though thought was a different story. He thought that the actions of ISIS were fully justified and that they were bringing back "the true Islam". The second encounter we had was at a friend of a friends birthday party at a nightclub we had been invited too. One of the others invited was a nuclear physicist. He was a moderate Muslim and yet he said he thought that what ISIS was doing was right. He wasn't quite sure why but he was also drunk. My point is that the only thing both of these two had in common was that they had spent almost all their life sheltered in Irland and yet they had both somehow developed romantic notions for an organization that routinely crucifies people.  It's also easy to forget that a lot of religious youth have gone away to fight in Syria over the last years. In Sweden alone there have been a lot (of both genders) who had simply packed up their things without saying a thing to their parents and flown to neighboring countries to join the fighting. Some just went but most were recruited. In 2013 alone SÄPO (Swedish Secret Police) counted that at least 75 had been radicalized and convinced to fly over and join the fighting.
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Jul 10, 2014 06:25
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Since blood is once again being spilled in droves over in the land of gods chosen I thought it was appropriate to remind everyone of this old thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY
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Jul 10, 2014 20:16
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GuyinCognito posted:Wow it's like the terrorists have been using child soldiers all along. Did you come to this fact right now or where you ignoring it for 2 years? Just curious. No need to be a dick. The interesting thing about that video is that it shows that the ground level ISIS guys really believe what's been going on in Syria and Iraq isn't their 5 minutes of glory. They really believe they have chance to sweep across the world like the golden horde before them.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:59
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While we're on this topic, have ISIS actually been seen using child soldiers? I know they field older teenagers but I feel that doesn't really compare to the stereotypical situation in African conflicts where we have 10 year olds killing their parents with AK's. I've not seen any obvious children in the videos and images that have been released during the past months.
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Jul 10, 2014 22:07
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A Buttery Pastry posted:New strategy for democratizing the Middle East: Recognize the independence of any democratic group which has proven its ability to defend its own territory. Just keep chipping away slowly at the Extremist Militant Zone until it has been replaced by a patchwork of democratic states. Um, my memory might be failing me here but have we even had any such states beyond Kurdistan recently?
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Jul 13, 2014 11:54
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Count Roland posted:Is there any good evidence of Assad "empowering" ISIS? I'd heard many times that his forces didn't fight ISIS, with the implication that they were in cahoots somehow because of the damage ISIS was doing to other rebel groups. But I never saw anything more than speculation. It seems about as based in reality as Maliki's claims last week that the kurds support ISIS. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 22:47
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Volkerball posted:It's pretty funny because international news outlets portray them as battle-hardened warriors, but they are a running joke among all the fighting forces in the region not named the Iraqi army. People say they're just a bunch of naive European kids. The experienced ones only learned how to fight like they did in Iraq, which is how they fight in Syria: Retreat rather than take heavy losses, use car bombs, IED's, and ambushes, and outside of that, keep your head low. In direct military action, they'd get their heads kicked in. I'm sorry but is that supposed to mean something? They're an incredibly small force when compared to their enemies so of course they're using guerrilla tactics and infiltration. Did you expect them to form up into huge line infantry formations and march on Baghdad? They don't have the resources to field a significant force of tanks and planes, you're never going to see them willingly engage in open battle. What they do have going for them is their huge supplies of small arms, RPG's, explosive materials and troops with the know how (and morale) to use them effectively. VVVVVVV EDIT: I hadn't updated the page apparently. 
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Jul 15, 2014 08:08
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Gregor Samsa posted:The rest of the world doesn't give a poo poo. Rest of the world is asleep, the fallout will start tomorrow.
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Jul 17, 2014 21:25
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Guys, I was specifically referring to Europe. I'll be shocked if it isn't on the headline of every outlet who heard of it before going to print. It's been the main subject of foreign news for the last week. 
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Jul 17, 2014 22:22
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SorcerousHam posted:Russian backed seperatists in Ukraine shot down an airliner full of European citizens. If you think Palestinians will be on the front pages over that I dunno what to tell you. Goddammit, I knew I'd regret not following the Eastern Europe thread someday. First I've heard of this. I've been catching up trough the thread and gently caress. EDIT: For anyone else out of the loop it starts at page 317. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Jul 17, 2014 |
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Jul 17, 2014 23:52
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The Good Professor posted:What's going on in Afghanistan? I haven't seen anything related to it in the news in a long time. The horrors of Afghanistan are kinda horror-lite when in comparison to what ISIS has been up to for the last 2 months so they've fallen out of the spotlight.
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Jul 21, 2014 08:59
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Xandu posted:
Is that even worthy of calling news? I mean sure it's awful but female circumcision has been widespread among radical Islam and Christianity in Africa for decades. Had it just not gotten a foothold in the middle east before this or something?  EDIT: Some quick googling tells me that the practice has been declining in Iraq over the years, until now I guess.
MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 23:20
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Kilometers Davis posted:I'm still not convinced Saddam wouldn't have continued his push into Assadlike terror/torture/control attacks and empowered insurgents anyway. He was a terrible human being. That said sometimes it's better to have a vicious leader in actual "control" than a huge melting pot of insanely violent rebels running around free. It's a shame they all can't just kill each other off really but that's pointless hope and not something that often happens in reality. The only real benefit of Saddamn staying in power would be that the lands doctors, scientists and engineers wouldn't all have packed up their things and fled back in 2003. I think maybe 1/4 of the doctors at my local hospital are originally Iraqi. Nothing quite sets off brain drain like war.
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Jul 22, 2014 07:55
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goatse.cx posted:we should probably just put the ba'athists back in power. they did a ok job and its not like they can run the country further in the ground. Anything but Maliki would be better at this point.
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Jul 27, 2014 09:59
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McDowell posted:Edit: Whoa someone got me a new avatar, anyone get the reference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0aDLh6_pgY
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Jul 27, 2014 16:13
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Flaky posted:May as well be for how representative the lines on the map are of the reality on the ground. Heh, someone should introduce him to the laughable concept of a nationstate that is Somalia. Western nations and the UN sure do love to draw borders that don't really mean anything in reality.
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Jul 28, 2014 13:12
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Munin posted:Well, racist might not be the correct term since the people involved are all of the same "race". He is a sectarian bigot though. I don't think it's controversial to predict that ISIS coming out on top of Assad in the conflict would result in genocide.
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Jul 28, 2014 13:46
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karl fungus posted:How has Tunisia been doing post-revolution? I've heard nothing about them, which I can suppose may be a good thing if it means things calmed down. Refugees from all over Africa and the Middle East board rickety macgyver'd boats on Tunisian shores and either suffocate or drown on their way to Italy. It's pretty loving grim.
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Jul 28, 2014 15:16
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Volkerball posted:And no, the facts aren't on your side. You just take your obscure position and then pretend to speak on behalf of all Europe, or the whole not-US world like 90% of the people you claim to represent wouldn't think you're a dumbass. There's still daily peaceful protests in favor of democracy and inclusion of all sects in the next government, and in every negotiation, the starting point is to remove Assad, and then negotiate with the regime. There's fighting forces 5 times the size of ISIS that are moderate, that don't get anywhere near the same type of coverage because they aren't sexy reporting like beheadings and crucifixions are. You seem to be relying on the "facts" about the The other forces aren't getting reported on because they haven't been doing much over the last month. Last I heard they are consolidating the gains they've made and show no intent to move out. Meanwhile ISIS has rapidly been expanding their territory and winning battles across both Syria and Iraq. Hell they're standing on the loving doorstep of Baghdad while fielding a force 1/40 the size of the Iraqi army. It isn't just hype, their success is loving scary.
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Jul 28, 2014 17:41
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You sure that isn't really an Onion article because oh god.
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Jul 29, 2014 17:48
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God loving dammit, sometimes I hate being right.
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Jul 31, 2014 20:24
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