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Re: The "Small Horn" Of Bible Prophecy Emerges!!!

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 12:57 pm
by Abaddon (Ex. 23:21)
ISIS leader Baghdadi poisoned as Iraqi troops prepare attack on Mosul
POSTED AT 1:21 PM ON OCTOBER 4, 2016 BY JOHN SEXTON
Article From "HotAir.com"

Source of Article

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According to a report published yesterday by FARS news agency, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, was recently poisoned along with three of his top aides:

Iraq’s Sumeriya News cited a local source in the Northwestern Nineveh Province as saying that “accurate information” showed Baghdadi’s food had been poisoned by unknown individuals and the food was given to him in the Be’aaj district, Northwest of the Iraqi province of Nineveh near the Syrian border.

So FARS is relying on a local news source in Nineveh. How reliable is this source? The story, which was covered yesterday by the Daily Mail among others also says there is an effort to arrest people and try to find out who is responsible for the poisoning. But this isn’t happening in a vacuum. As CNN points out, there is a looming siege on Mosul by the Iraq army:

Iraqi troops were last in this part of northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, when they were fleeing the rampant advance of ISIS fighters.

Now, as part of an agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government and the United States, they are preparing to reverse that humiliating loss…

When asked when the attack will begin, Iraqi and Peshmerga officers have the same one-word answer: “Soon.” It’s widely thought that the multi-pronged offensive will begin in the second half of this month. In the meantime, there’s been an uptick in coalition airstrikes — mainly by US, French and British aircraft — in and around Mosul.

So ISIS is about to face a moment of truth as it tries to hold on to Mosul, a city it has held for two years. This is likely to be a deadly battle that could kill a lot of ISIS fighters. Already there are reports that resistance fighters are killing ISIS commanders in the city in anticipation of the siege. With that in mind, here’s the line in the FARS story that made me wonder if there might be more than one possible explanation for this poisoning story:

The report on poisoning al-Baghdadi surfaced after media revealed on Sunday that ISIL’s top commanders, including al-Baghdadi, have started fleeing Mosul for Syria.

“The ISIL commanders, including al-Baghdadi, are escaping Mosul to Syria,” Iraqi Kurdistan Democrat Party’s media director Saeed Mamouziti said.

So ISIS is under pressure and some of its commanders are now strategically retreating to Syria. What is a the leader of a PR savvy terror group to do? Well, if what you really want to do is get out of town before you get killed by a U.S. airstrike it would help to have a good excuse.

This is purely speculation on my part, but telling your soldiers to stay behind and fight to the death as you head for the hills doesn’t look very good. But if you’ve been poisoned, no one can question your decision to disappear before the big battle or your commitment to die for the cause.

On the other hand, it’s possible Baghdadi really was poisoned. He certainly has made enough enemies. Either way, whether this is an accurate report or disinformation to explain Baghdadi’s retreat, it seems like bad news for ISIS.

Re: The "Small Horn" Of Bible Prophecy Emerges!!!

Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2016 12:35 pm
by Abaddon (Ex. 23:21)
Al-Baghdadi Aide Among Dozens Executed By ISIS For Rebellion Plot
by Reuters

October 14, 2016

Source of Article

Modal Trigger Al-Baghdadi aide among dozens executed by ISIS for rebellion plot

BAGHDAD – Islamic State has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group’s commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate’s Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said.

Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week.

Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in the city that have phone service, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

Among them was a local aide of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the plotters, according to matching accounts given by five residents, by Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on IS affairs that advises the government in Baghdad and by colonel Ahmed al-Taie, from Mosul’s Nineveh province Operation Command’s military intelligence.

Reuters is not publishing the name of the plot leader to avoid increasing the safety risk for his family, nor the identities of those inside the city who spoke about the plot.

The aim of the plotters was to undermine Islamic State’s defense of Mosul in the upcoming fight, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Mosul is the last major stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. With a pre-war population of around 2 million, it is at least five times the size of any other city Islamic State has controlled. Iraqi officials say a massive ground assault could begin this month, backed by U.S. air power, Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite and Sunni irregular units.

A successful offensive would effectively destroy the Iraqi half of the caliphate that the group declared when it swept through northern Iraq in 2014. But the United Nations says it could also create the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, in a worst case scenario uprooting 1 million people.

Islamic State fighters are dug in to defend the city, and have a history of using civilians as human shields when defending territory.

According to Hashimi, the dissidents were arrested after one of them was caught with a message on his phone mentioning a transfer of weapons. He confessed during interrogation that weapons were being hidden in three locations, to be used in a rebellion to support the Iraqi army when it closes in on Mosul.

IS raided the three houses used to hide the weapons on Oct. 4, Hashimi said.

“Those were Daesh members who turned against the group in Mosul,” said Iraqi Counter-terrorism Service spokesman Sabah al-Numani in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “This is a clear sign that the terrorist organization has started to lose support not only from the population, but even from its own members.”

A spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition which conducts air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq was unable to confirm or deny the accounts of the thwarted plot.

Signs of cracks inside the “caliphate” appeared this year as the ultra-hardline Sunni group was forced out of half the territory it overran two years ago in northern and western Iraq.

Some people in Mosul have been expressing their refusal of IS’s harsh rules by spray-painting the letter M, for the Arabic word that means resistance, on city walls, or “wanted” on houses of its militants. Such activity is punished by death.

Numani said his service has succeeded in the past two months in opening contact channels with “operatives” who began communicating intelligence that helped conduct air strikes on the insurgents’ command centers and locations in Mosul.

A list with the names of the 58 executed plotters was given to a hospital to inform their families but their bodies were not returned, the residents said.

“Some of the executed relatives sent old women to ask about the bodies. Daesh rebuked them and told them no bodies, no graves, those traitors are apostates and it is forbidden to bury them in Muslim cemeteries,” said one resident whose relative was among those executed.

“After the failed coup, Daesh withdrew the special identity cards it issued for its local commanders, to prevent them from fleeing Mosul with their families,” Colonel al-Taie said.

A Mosul resident said Islamic State had appointed a new official, Muhsin Abdul Kareem Oghlu, a leader of a sniper unit with a reputation as a die-hard, to assist its governor of Mosul, Ahmed Khalaf Agab al-Jabouri, in keeping control.

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of the offensive.

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Re: The "Small Horn" Of Bible Prophecy Emerges!!!

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 1:27 pm
by Mary
Al-Baghdadi's Reported Death Gives Syrian Army
'Unique Chance' in War on Daesh
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Sputnik News International
Article Source
17:06 17.06.2017(updated 20:47 17.06.2017)


On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that a Russian airstrike may have killed Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Raqqa in late May. Al-Baghdadi was reportedly among the 330 Islamist militants killed in the airstrike, along with other leaders of the extremist group.

"As a result of the Su-35 and Su-34 airstrikes, high-ranking commanders from the terrorist groups which were part of the so-called IS [Daesh] military council, as well as about 30 mid-level field commanders and up to 300 militants from their respective personal security details, have been killed," the Ministry announced.
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How Reported Death of al-Baghdadi Could Affect Daesh
In addition to al-Baghdadi, the liquidated Daesh commanders included the "emir of Raqqa" Abu al-Hadji al-Mysri, the emir Ibrahim An-Naef al-Hajj, who controlled the area from Raqqa to Es-Suhne, and the head of the "Daesh security service" Suleiman Al-Shawah, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The death of al-Baghdadi as the result of a Russian airstrike was first reported on June 10 by Syrian state television and was later translated by some British outlets. However, the news did not make global headlines.
There have already been several times when al-Baghdadi was reported dead. His death was reported in June and December 2016, April 2015 and November 2014. In April 2015, he was reported dead after an injury, and in October 2016, reports emerged that al-Baghdadi had been poisoned. In January 2017, media reported that al-Baghdadi suffered heavy injuries in an airstrike.
The Russian Defense Ministry first verified the information regarding militant deaths resulting from the airstrike on July 16, when it issued an official statement.
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Putin Briefed on Russian MoD's Report on Possible Daesh Leader Baghdadi Elimination - Kremlin
Some Western media outlets have declared the reported death of the Daesh leader as a milestone achievement in the fight against global terrorism. At the same time, Western media remains focused on al-Baghdadi, ignoring the fact that almost all of the Daesh highest commanders and nearly 300 militants may have been liquidated in the airstrike.

While the information of al-Baghdadi’s death still awaits confirmation, there are two reasonable questions regadrding the matter. First, how could several Daesh commanders and three hundred additional militants gather in one place and for what purpose?
For example, while reporting to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Friday that "over 100 terrorists, including members of the Daesh leadership," were killed.
Second, does the threat posed by a terrorist or militant organization like Daesh seriously depend on the personalities of its leadership? There are two polar views on subject, and the question remains open.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri), also known as Abu Dua, was born in 1971 in the city of Samarra in Iraq.
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Why Defeat of Daesh ‘May Not be the End of the Terror Organization’

According to media reports, al-Baghdadi was brought up in a religious family. He received a PhD in Islamic Law from the University of Baghdad. During his time at the university, he became a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
After the Western coalition invaded Iraq in 2003, al-Baghdadi joined the Iraqi insurgents. In 2004, he went to jail and spent around a year in the Bucca Camp, a US prison in Iraq. After his release, he participated in the activities of various terrorist groups comprised of Islamist militants.

Al-Baghdadi claimed he was of Quraysh origin, in other words a direct descendant of Prophet Mohammed. Leadership of the Muslim community traditionally passed to a member of the Quraysh. Despite the fact that al-Baghdadi’s belonging to the Quraysh was never confirmed, his claim legitimized him as the spiritual leader.

The military structure of Daesh was built by former members of the Iraqi military and the Ba’ath Party. However, they needed a spiritual leader because radicalism turned out to be a better platform for Daesh than the pan-Arabism adopted by the Ba’ath Party.

On June 29, 2014, al-Baghdadi was proclaimed the caliph of Daesh, a "caliphate" created on the territories Daesh managed to seize in Syria and Iraq.

On July 5, he delivered his first public speech at Mosul’s Great Mosque, declaring jihad.
"However, in his three years of being the caliph, al-Baghdadi could not become the spiritual leader of the Muslim community, even despite his attempts to copy the behavior of charismatic Palestinian and Lebanese Shia imams, his de facto ideological rivals," an article in the Russian online newspaper Vzglyad read.
According to the article, while the initial leadership of Daesh was formed under the US occupation, including in the ranks of the Iraqi military, recently a trend has emerged to recruit more young Islamists to the terrorist group.
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Russian MoD Releases Photo of Airstrike That May Have Killed Daesh Leader Baghdadi
Possibly, after the liquidation of the majority of Daesh’s initial leaders, the terrorist organization will see a crisis in its command. The question is how long this crisis will last. Currently, Raqqa is surrounded and it is nearly impossible to find a new charismatic leader among young supporters of Daesh.
"The Syrian Army should not miss this chance because the leadership collapse is likely to affect combat planning within Daesh. Nevertheless, the Russian airstrike in Raqqa creates a unique chance to consolidate the achievements the Syrian Army has gained in the last 18 months," the article concluded.


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Re: The "Small Horn" Of Bible Prophecy Emerges!!!

Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2017 2:31 pm
by Mary
WHAT HAPPENS WITHOUT AN ISIS LEADER?
IF RUSSIA KILLED BAGHDADI, ISLAMIC STATE COULD COLLAPSE
Newsweek
Article Source
BY TOM O'CONNOR ON 6/16/17 AT 1:52 PM
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A man purported to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), makes what would be his first public appearance at a mosque in the center of Iraq's second city, Mosul, according to a video recording posted on the internet on July 5, 2014. While Baghdadi is believed to have passed on much of the group's "command and control" to regional ISIS leaders around the globe, his death could signify a fatal blow to the group's image and exacerbate a series of territorial losses in Syria and Iraq.
Russia has released unverified reports that its military has killed Islamic State militant group (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria, raising questions as to the future of the jihadist organization that has already witnessed a series of major defeats.

Russia's defense ministry said Friday it was looking into reports that a May 28 airstrike that targeted a meeting of ISIS leadership in a southern suburb of Raqqa, the group's de facto capital in Syria, killed Baghdadi along with hundreds of other militants. The upper echelons of ISIS's command had reportedly met to discuss the group's exit from Raqqa, which is currently being assaulted by both U.S. and Russian-led forces in Syria.

While Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday that he has "no one-hundred-percent confirmation of the information that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed," according to the state-run TASS Russian News Agency, experts have begun to weigh in on what the implications of decapitating the elusive head of ISIS would be for the jihadists.

"Taking out the Islamic State leader would be a major counterterrorism coup," Max Abrahms, an expert in security and international relations analysis, told Newsweek. "Removal of the top leader wouldn't alter the command and control, but it would be a major PR victory."

Abrahms said that in many cases, the leadership of extremist groups actually restrains the lower ranks from committing massive, indiscriminate acts of violence, so targeting the head often results in a surge of uncoordinated attacks. ISIS was "atypical," however, because Baghdadi and his top officials, including spokesperson Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, have regularly encouraged followers to engage in random acts of violence against both military and civilian targets. While Abrahms said his research indicated Baghdadi has already delegated most of the group's tactical leadership to local commanders around the world, losing the iconic head may signify an irrecoverable, symbolic loss for ISIS by convincing "wannabe jihadists that the caliphate project totally failed" and by threatening the network of foreign support that has perhaps been Baghdadi's greatest achievement as ISIS leader.

While little is known about Baghdadi's early life, it is believed he became involved with ultraconservative Sunni Muslim circles after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and toppling of President Saddam Hussein. Baghdadi was detained by U.S. forces in 2004 and, after being released, ascended to the head of what was then called the Islamic State of Iraq in 2010. He later expanded the group into Syria, rebranding the group as ISIS in 2013 and splitting ties with old allies in fellow jihadist group Al-Qaeda. By 2014, his group had taken major cities in Iraq and Syria, and the cleric made his first and only known public appearance at the Grand Mosque al-Nuri in ISIS's Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. During the speech, which was widely publicized among jihadists around the world, Baghdadi declared ISIS a worldwide network and invited Muslims to join an organization that at the time claimed nearly half of Syria and Iraq.

In the years since, ISIS has suffered extensive territorial losses on multiple fronts. The group's remnants in Mosul have been completely surrounded by an alliance comprised of the Iraqi military, Kurdish forces, majority-Shiite Muslim militias supported by Iran and a U.S.-led coalition.
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Raqqa, the effective headquarters of ISIS's self-proclaimed caliphate, is also the target of a massive international effort to dislodge the jihadists. As U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a majority-Kurd coalition of Arabs and ethnic minorities, storm Raqqa city, the Syrian army and its allies have pierced Raqqa's western countryside with heavy air support from Russian airstrikes. A report released in April by the U.K.-based IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre found that Russia and pro-Syrian government forces were the most actively engaged faction against ISIS, and their efforts may have paid off in a big way.

To be sure, many Western observers, including the Middle East Institute's Charles Lister, remain deeply skeptical of recent reports of Baghdadi's death. Frequent rumors of the leader's death have turned out to be false on numerous prior occasions. Sometime during the Iraq-led offensive on Mosul, which was announced in October, Baghdadi was believed to have fled into neighboring Syria, where the group still maintains stretches of territory, including the eastern city of Deir al-Zour and the northern city of Raqqa.

But even if the Russians are right and Baghdadi really is dead this time, don't expect his fighters to go quietly into the night. With their future uncertain, the jihadists may seek to join other Syrian insurgent movements supportive of ISIS's hard-line Salafist branch of Sunni Islam, and opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, to carry on their mission, Abrahms said.

"As ISIS continues to implode, many of those fighters will not lay down their arms but latch on to other Salafist groups, including new ones," Abrahms said.


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