The US "Peace Plan" For Syria

Former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John R. Allen conspired with General David Petraeus to sabotage the Syria peace plan at the Geneva 1 Conference. President Barack Obama had him placed under surveillance and managed to prevent his appointment as head of NATO. However, he managed to stay in office despite the charges against him (while Petraeus was forced to resign from the leadership of the CIA). Become commander of the anti-Daesh Military Coalition, he supports the shenanigans that General Petraeus leads from the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Global Institute. He is director of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), the think tank of "liberal hawks".

When, in 2001, President George W. Bush decided to place Syria on his list of targets to destroy, he had three objectives: 

 Breaking the "Axis of Resistance" and encouraging Israeli expansion;
 Laying hands on the huge gas reserves;
 Reshaping the "Broader Middle East".

Several months ago, I explained that the Daesh project corresponds with the new US map of the division of the Middle East, published by Robin Wright in The New York Times in 2013 [1]. In continuation of the Sykes-Picot, the US plan aimed to further drastically reduce Syria. Also, when the US - after having waited for Daesh to complete the ethnic cleansing in Iraq for which they had been created - began bombing the jihadists, the question arose as to whether the liberated areas of Daesh would or would not be returned to Baghdad and to Damascus.

As the United States has refused to coordinate its military action against Daesh with Syria, and in view of the fact that Russia is preparing a peace conference, "liberal hawks" in Washington have set new goals.

The "peace" plan of the "liberal hawks" consists therefore in achieving the original goals by dividing Syria in two: an area governed by Damascus and another by "moderate rebels" (read: the Pentagon). The Republic is to have the capital and the Mediterranean coast; the Pentagon: the Syrian desert and gas reserves (that is to say the Daesh zone liberated by the bomber raids of General John Allen). According to their own records, "liberal hawks" would leave only 30% of the territory to the Syrian People!

Remodelling map according Robin Wright

The principle is simple: at present, the Republic controls all major cities except Rakka and a small part of Aleppo, but no one can claim to control a vast desert, neither the government nor the jihadists. So the Pentagon suggests that what is not clearly governed by Damascus rightfully belongs to its mercenaries!

By Thierry Meyssan

Addition Of Assad's Atrocities To The US Holocaust Museum

No gallery for the 500,000+ Iraqi babies who died due to Western sanctions? Or the 1 million+ Iraqi citizens who've died since 2003? 

No gallery for the Palestinians who've died or been dispossessed since 1947? 

Of course not because these are "our" crimes rather than those committed by people on the official enemies list. 

Posted by Gutenberg

The Persecution Of Iraq's Sunni Muslims

This is a video of a young Sunni Muslim from Iraq. The shia rafidah (rejectors) murdered him in cold blood, then dragged him by the neck with a rope, at the same time, other shia animals repeatedly kick him, some hurl rocks at his head until part of his head caves in. Finally, they douse  him gasoline and set him on fire.

The reason this Sunni teen was murdered, was because his name was "Omar," after the Sahabi (Companion) of the Prophet Muhammed, and the Second Caliph of the Muslim nation.

This is what the Sunni Muslims have been dealing with, since America Saddam and handed the country to the Iraqi shia and Iran.

تمت الجريمة في مدينة الشعلة ببغداد، والتي تعد معقلا ومنطلقًا للمليشيات الشيعية الطائفية التي نشطت مؤخرًا لتنفيذ اعتداءات طائفية ضد أهل السنة في بغداد.

ويُظهر الفيديو عددًا كبيرًا من شباب الشيعة وهم يتناوبون على جثمان الشاب "عمر المفرجي" بمختلف صنوف الضرب والركل والتنكيل، وقد ربطوه من عنقه بحبل وسحلوا جثمانه، حتى انتهى بهم الأمر إلى إضرام النار في جسده.

وكشف المقطع المصور أن الجريمة تمت بجميع تفاصيلها تحت أعين عناصر الشرطة، التي تغض الطرف بشكل واسع عن هذه الجرائم الطائفية، فضلاً عن تورطها نفسها في العديد من تلك الجرائم.


 إن عملية قتل هذا الشاب والتنكيل بجثته جرت على خلفية كون اسمه (عمر)؛ ما يشير إلى أن طائفية الجريمة وأن عملية القتل تمت على الهوية كونه سنيًّا يحمل اسم أمير المؤمنين (عمر بن الخطاب) الذي فتح بلاد فارس وأطفأ نيران مجوسيتهم؛ الأمر الذي جعل الشيعة يحملون حقدًا وبغضًا لكل من يحمل اسمه رضوان الله عليه. وقد شهد العراق العديد من الجرائم الطائفية التي تمت فيها عمليات القتل على الهوية، ولمجرد أن الضحية يحمل اسم (عمر) أو (عائشة).

All The Ayatollah's Men

Iraq's Shiite Militias Are Becoming As Great A Danger As The Islamic State.

Armed men posing with severed heads, massacres of mosque-goers during Friday prayers, massive reliance on transnational jihadists -- these are crimes that are usually associated with the Islamic State (IS). However, they're also the actions of some of Iraq's growing Shiite militia organizations, which are playing an increasingly prominent role in fighting the Sunni jihadists. These groups, many of which have deep ideological and organizational links to Iran, are sweeping away what is left of any notion of the Baghdad government's authority -- and represent a massive challenge to President Barack Obama's stated goal of working with an inclusive Iraqi government to push back IS.

Over 50 Shiite militias are now recruiting and fighting in Iraq. These groups are actively recruiting -- drawing potential soldiers away from the Iraqi army and police and bringing fighters into highly ideological, anti-American, and rabidly sectarian organizations. Many of these trainees are not simply being used to push back Sunni jihadists, but in many cases form a rear guard used to control districts that are supposedly under Baghdad's control. 

Shiite militias have embedded themselves within the structures of the Iraqi government, which has become far too reliant on their power to contemplate cracking down on them. Together, they have committed horrifying human rights abuses: In early June, Shiite militias, along with Iraqi security forces, reportedly executed around 255 prisoners, including children. An Amnesty International report from June detailed how Shiite militias regularly carried out extrajudicial summary executions, and reported that dozens of Sunni prisoners were killed in government buildings.

The militias also played a leading role in the liberation of the besieged Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli. Kataib Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group and direct Iranian proxy, even used Iraqi government helicopters to deliver arms and other supplies during the battle. Just as IS has captured and used U.S.-supplied vehicles, U.S.-made M1A1 Abrams tanks provided to the Iraqi governmenthave flown sectarian Shiite banners and supported Kataib Hezbollah operations. Those tanks are not alone: U.S.-made armored Humvees, which Kataib Hezbollah once targeted during the Iraq War with rocket-propelled grenades (when driven by Americans), have also been taken by the militia and used in operations.

Iran has led the way in developing Iraq's Shiite militias. Since May 2013, Tehran has bolstered its network of new and old Iraqi proxy groups to provide a steady flow of fighters to Syria. Some of these Iraqi forces, who had been fighting on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, redeployed back to Iraq and form the nucleus of newer militia groups which are currently fighting the Baghdad government's Sunni enemies.

Due to Iran's Syria-focused recruitment efforts, Tehran's proxies also had a leg up on pulling in new fighters for the Iraq front. In April, Iran-backed groups such as Kataib Hezbollah, Badr, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq called for fresh recruits to fight in Iraq. Eventually, these calls morphed into Iraqi Shiite militias spinning off popular committee-based militias under their command. While the creation of so many groups may seem unnecessarily complicated, it actually helps create the image of wide-ranging popular support for militias promoting Iran's policies and ideology. Furthermore, it allows established groups to more easily separate new, less-experienced volunteers from career militiamen.

For example, Kataib Hezbollah -- a militia formed with the help of Lebanon's Hezbollah in 2007 -- recently announced the creation of the Popular Defense Companies. The new group was crafted to take Iraqi Shiite volunteers under Kataib Hezbollah's management, and today it boasts large deployments south of the cities of Baghdad, Diyala, and Amerli.

The Badr Organization, an armed group in the thousands and one of Iran's primary clients in Iraq, is another pillar of Tehran's efforts to develop Shiite militias. During the Iraq War, through its domination of government offices, the group ran a number of sectarian death squads. Badr has also been involved in the fighting in Syria, creatingthe Martyr Baqir al-Sadr Force for that purpose. 

But it is in Baghdad where the Badr Organization's influence is strongest.

The group's sway extends deep into Iraq's Internal Security Forces, where it is said to directly manage many police and special operations-type groups. Badr also has great influence in the political sphere: It has secured key positions within the Iraqi government, and is part of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's State of Law alliance -- Abadi even wants to appoint its leader, Hadi al-Amiri, as the country's interior minister. 

Badr's militiamen have spread far and wide among the constellation of Iraq's Iranian proxies. Its alumni include Kataib Hezbollah leaderJamal al-Ibrahimi; Ali al-Yasiri, the leader of a Shiite militia fighting in Syria called the Khurasani Unit; and Wathiq al-Battat, leader of the Mukhtar Army, a hyper-sectarian group that once launched a rocket attack against Iranian dissidents at Camp Liberty.  

Former Badr militiamen are also deeply embedded within Iraq's political leadership. Sheikh Adnan al-Shahmani, an Iraqi parliamentarian and member of the Iraqi parliament's National and Defense Committee, is himself a former Badr fighter and leader of the Tayyar al-Rasuli political party, which also has a militia. As early as September 2013, he had called for sectarian militias to protect Shiites living in Sunni areas. The parent parties of Khurasani Unit and Tayyar al-Rasuli are both members of the State of Law coalition -- portions of a nebula of allied organizations created to impose Iran's will within Iraq.

Iran's most powerful proxies in Iraq have worked closely together to prop up the Assad regime in Damascus. Kataib Hezbollah and Badrformed the Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada ("The Master of the Martyrs Brigade," or KSS) in early 2013 to fight in Syria. KSS is led in part by Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, a commander affiliated with both Badr and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. The group's secretary-general, Mustafa al-Khazali, deployed to Syria andwas wounded in the suburbs of Damascus.

Now, the commanders who cut their teeth in Syria are returning home to play a political and military role in the struggle for Iraq. Khazali went on to win a seat in parliament during Iraq's parliamentary election in April, when his group took on the role of political party and ran in the city of Basra on then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law electoral list. KSS commanders are also engaged in fighting against their domestic enemies: Abu Mujahid al-Maliki, a KSS veteran from Syria and Khazali's campaign manager,was killed fighting in Iraq in August.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq ("The League of the Righteous," or AAH) has been another major Iranian proxy in Iraq. The group began during the Iraq War as an Iranian-backed splinter from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and quickly grew into a formidable fighting group. During the war, it gained a degree of infamy for itskidnappings and executions of British contractors and American soldiers. The group has sent many fighters to Syria, and in early 2014started to deploy in Iraq's restive Anbar province to combat the government's Sunni enemies.

The growth of these pro-Iranian Shiite militias, and many more like them, helps demonstrate Iran's goals for the domination of Shiite Iraq. These groups not only benefit from Iran's patronage and organizational capabilities -- they also all march to Tehran's ideological tune. They are loyal to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Iran's ideology of absolute wilayat-e faqih, which grants the supreme leader ultimate political and religious authority. They also follow the model of Iran's Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, and are intent on executing Iran's will in the region and furthering Iran's "Islamic Revolution."

Just as IS's stated aim is to erase the borders that were drawn in the Middle East following the end of World War I, Iranian-backed Shiite militias are also taking part in this process. The cross-pollination between Syrian and Iraqi Shiite militias has eroded national boundaries as surely as the Sunni jihadist campaign: From the beginning of their involvement in both conflicts, Shiite militias have adopted a narrative that they will "defend shrines" or "defend Shiites," no matter their geographic location.

Damascus's oldest and most prominent Shiite foreign fighter militia, the Abu Fadl al-Abbas Brigade (LAFA), has played a key role in promoting this grander notion of sectarian war. In August, the pro-Iranian organization announced its own Iraq-based organization, which claims to be deployed south of Baghdad and possibly near Amerli. Abu Ali al-Darraji, one of its former commanders from Damascus, also started his own LAFA affiliate with fighters who had previously been engaged in Syria. Often, these LAFA offshoots have been hazy regarding their own ideology, but their links to Iran's networks certainly suggest that Tehran exerts a strong pull on them.

While Iran has extensive links to most, if not all, of Iraq's Shiite militias, other powerful

Iraqi Shiite elements that do not share Iran's absolutist ideology have also invested in their own groups.

Moqtada al-Sadr's Saraya al-Salam ("The Peace Brigade") was established this June, at around the same time Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for a jihad against the Islamic State. Sistani's fatwa, however, was clarified to say that Iraqis should join the Iraqi army, whereas the fighters in Sadr's new brigade have no loyalty to Sistani. Nevertheless, with the ability to draw on tens of thousands of Sadrist supporters, Saraya al-Salam certainly will not lack for fighters.

Despite reported cooperation on some levels with Iranian proxies, Sadr's forces have had years of conflict with AAH, Badr, and other groups. Additionally, his political party is currently in an alliance with a political bloc that opposes the State of Law coalition.

When Saraya al-Salam was initially formed, Sadr called for it to engage mainly in defensive actions. In the past month, however, the group has been more heavily invested in offensive actions. Today, its deployments have occurred across Iraq, from the shrine city ofSamarra, to the recently liberated Amerli, to the city of Jurf al-Sakhr, to Diyala in the east. Saraya al-Salaam's large numbers, increasing activity in the conflict, and Mahdi Army background suggest the group could re-engage in sectarian mass killings.

Following Sistani's fatwa, Ammar al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) established the Ashura Brigades. The group has engaged in recruitment efforts using ISCI's media and political apparatus, and its forces have deployed to Baghdad and Samarra. In July, the group's recruits from the southeastern province of Maysan suffered heavy casualties during fighting in Anbar Province.*

As political and clerical leaders have established their own militias throughout Iraq, fringe groups have at times come in conflict with the government. One of the more unusual cases was that of the marginal Shiite cleric Mahmoud al-Sarkhi. His supporters engaged in firefights with members of Iraq's internal security forces in southern Iraq, resulting in seven deaths. While the example of Sarkhi is unique, the risk of intra-Shiite conflicts rearing their head is very real.

Iraqi Shiite militias are also on a collision course with the Kurdish community, a major U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State.Harakat Hizballah al-Nujaba, another Iranian proxy group spun off of AAH, and Kataib Hezbollah both accused Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani of coordinating with IS and Baathist groups, and issued stern warnings against any Kurdish moves in Kirkuk. Harakat Hizballah al-Nujaba's spokesman went so far as to say, "the rockets of the Islamic Resistance will strike at Erbil" if Barzani continued to "coordinate" with the jihadists.

The growing power of these militias is a sign that, despite Maliki's removal as prime minister, the Iraqi government remains beholden to deeply sectarian forces. These militias have generally retained their operational independence from Baghdad, even as they exploit the country's nascent democratic system to gain support through their domination of official bodies. They are not simply addendums to the state -- they are the state, and do not answer to any authority in Baghdad, but only to their own clerical leaders or Tehran.

While ostensibly focused on defeating the Islamic State, these armed factions also promise to be hugely influential in shaping the future of Iraq's Shiite community. Their radical ideology and organizational ties suggest that they will allow Iran a greater influence in Iraq than ever before. If Washington does not take steps now to check their growth, it may discover too late that it has effectively ceded Baghdad to Tehran -- and that there is no going back.

By Phillip Smyth

Stay Out Of Our Civil War: Iraq VP To U.S.

The world may be focused on the terrorist group ISIS, but inside Iraq the group is only one part of a larger revolt that has been years in the making.

ISIS is only one small part of a larger Sunni revolt in Iraq that sectarian groups have been preparing for years, according to Iraq’s exiled Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi. And defeating ISIS won’t stop the greater battle.

“We shouldn’t look at this development of ISIS as apart from the uprising of the Arab Sunni provinces over two years,” Hashimi told The Daily Beast in an interview from Turkey, where he has been living since the government of Nouri al-Maliki purged him in 2012 by indicting him on murder charges, then convicting him in abstentia.

“The provinces have done a peaceful Sunni revolt against the oppression, the injustice, the inhuman conditions the Arab Sunnis have been suffering for years,” he said.

Hashimi referenced Iraqi army and police crackdowns in cities including Fallujah and Madain over the past year, part of the escalating Sunni-Shia tit-for-tat violent incidents that have plagued Iraq for over a year. In one April 2013 incident he mentioned, dozens of Sunnis were killed by Iraq security forces in the town of Hawijah during a peaceful protest.

“There is anger against Nouri al-Maliki and the behavior of the government over almost eight years so there was no other option other than to go into Sunni revolt.”

“The U.S. is in the process of committing itself into another set of grave mistakes. Definitely we consider all this military support to Nouri al-Maliki an alliance with Iran against the Arab Sunnis.”

The sudden rise of ISIS in Iraq, especially their part in the takeover of Mosul last month, was a surprise to everyone, Hashimi said. But although there is some coordination between ISIS and the other Sunni groups fighting in northern Iraq, ISIS is not a core part of Sunni revolt, he said.

“I can assure you a widespread spectrum of groups participated in what happened in Mosul. The media is focusing on ISIS,” he said. “They are influential and empowered on the ground and they are participating in this armed revolution. But we shouldn’t be blamed for that.”

The Maliki government reneged on its promises to build an inclusive government with the Sunnis as soon as the American troops left Iraq, Hashimi said, and went after Sunni moderate leaders even though those leaders had led the Sunni awakening in 2008 that resulted in extremist groups leaving Iraq in the first place.

“We managed to clean up our territories, especially Anbar, and we put an end for a time to he extremists. But Nouri al-Maliki, instead of involving the Sunni moderates, he attacked them, starting with me,” said Hashimi. “There are two sides, the extremists and moderates. If you target the moderates, you intentionally create a vacuum that could be filled by the extremists and that’s exactly what happened.”

Hashimi said that the Obama administration was repeating that mistake again by sending U.S. advisers and equipment to shore up the Iraqi military and considering U.S. military force against Sunnis inside Iraq. He urged the U.S. to stay out of the conflict.

“It’s a really annoying development. The U.S. is in the process of committing itself into another set of grave mistakes. Definitely we consider all this military support to Nouri al-Maliki an alliance with Iran against the Arab Sunnis,” he said. “Try to avoid any use of military means, try to be fair, try to diffuse the bomb by asking Nouri al-Maliki to immediately to establish a caretaker government. Try to be neutral at least.”

And don’t expect another Anbar awakening this time around, Hashimi warned. The Sunni tribes still remember what happened last time and they are not going to make the same mistake of expelling the extremists and thereby leaving themselves vulnerable to Shiite forces.

“Nobody from the Arab Sunnis are ready to repeat the same experience of 2008, no way. But if we establish a real state in Baghdad, extremism will be over, I assure you.”

The U.S. had better also be concerned about the rise of Shia extremism in Iraq, Hashimi said, pointing to the growing ranks of the Shia militias supported by the Baghdad government inside Iraq.

By Josh Rogin

1,200 Years Of Iraqi History In Five Maps

Sunni Arab insurgents, have gained control of vast tracts of land along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq, and are pushing south toward Baghdad.

Over the centuries, the region once known as the cradle of civilization has seen significant changes.

Early Caliphates

The idea of a Sunni-dominated Islamic caliphate harkens back centuries to two empires: the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. A caliphate is an Islamic state led by a religious and political leader known as a caliph. Sunnis believe their leaders should be elected from among the political successors of the Prophet Muhammad, the nonhereditary elite known as caliphs. The Shiites, however, believe their leaders should come from the direct family line of Muhammad. That schism remains to this day and is a defining element of the sectarian violence in Iraq.

The Ottoman Empire

At the height of its expansion in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire—whose leadership was Sunni and based in what is now Turkey—covered vast tracts of land in southern Europe, Asia, and North Africa. The empire allowed for multiple languages and religions and divided the area that is now Iraq into three provinces. The Kurds settled in Mosul, the Shiites in Basra, and the Sunnis in Baghdad. 

World War I Aftermath

World War I saw the end of several imperial powers, including the Ottoman Empire. The newly formed League of Nations, tasked with maintaining world peace, carved up the former Ottoman Empire and unified the three provinces under British rule, essentially demarcating the modern boundaries of Iraq. Displeased with this plan, the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds united for the first time to revolt against British colonial occupation, but they were unsuccessful in gaining full independence until 1932. In the decades that followed, Sunnis held political prominence through the monarchy and political leadership positions, including Saddam Hussein’s presidency beginning in 1979.

Toppling Of Saddam Hussein

In 2003 the United States invaded Iraq and toppled the decades-long regime of Saddam Hussein. The violent insurgency that followed resulted in more than 4,000 U.S. deaths and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. By 2006 the insurgency appeared to have devolved into a civil war between Sunni and Shiite factions. That same year, the election of a new prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who is Shiite, led to an unusual period of Shiite political dominance in Iraq and to claims of disenfranchisement by Sunnis, one key factor in the violent opposition to his leadership today.

The Rise Of ISIS

Earlier this year, an al Qaeda splinter group based in Syria swept into Iraq with the aim of establishing an Islamic state in both countries, which—if successful—would effectively erase the borders imposed by the West in the wake of WWI. In recent weeks, this Sunni Arab militia, called ISIS, has seized significant resources and conducted mass executions in its dramatic push toward Baghdad. While they have faced little opposition in the Sunni-dominated northwest, the encroachment of ISIS into Shiite-dominated southern territories is expected to result in significant bloodshed.

جيش المالكي الرافضي

جيش المالكي الرافضي يتلذذ بقطع رؤوس أهل السنة في العراق ويمثلون بها أخي المسلم انشر وافضحهم

Nouri Al-Malki Shia army delights in its beheading of Sunni Muslims and pose with their trophy.

Kindly reshare an expose their barbarism.

Iraq: The Killing Of A Nation

IRAQ - The Killing of a Nation, is a short documentary that was aired in the House of Commons on the 10th of June 2014 during the "11years after the occupation of Iraq" conference organised by the Arab Lawyers Association UK & Rasam Strategic Studies Institute Turkey. The Conference is part of a series of events designed to extend the reach of Iraqis to the world community.

Iraq’s Iranian Ruler: General Qasem Soleimani

"He is the most powerful man in Iraq without question, Nothing gets done without him."

[Iraq's former national security minister, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told the newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat]

Soleimani is in charge of Iran's foreign policy in the following nations: Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. He is the commander of the "Quds Force" which are part of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps.

He has deployed 3 battalions of Quds Force to Iraq. Each battalion is 500 men and above.

Soleimani always resorts to the military option, instead of a peaceful political resolution to solve any problem.

Which ever nation he is interferes in, destabilization, death, destruction and terror follows. 

This Why There Is A Sunni Uprising In Iraq

This is just one of the many violent acts that the Shia are doing to the Sunni's of Iraq on a daily basis.

The Reward For Killing 100 Sunni's In Iraq

في كارثة جديدة تضاف لجرائم “شيعة” العراق، ذكر أحد القادة الشيعيين ويدعى ” السيد واثق البطاط” في تدوينة له على موقع التواصل الاجتماعي” تويتر”، أنه منح أحد جنود قوات المالكي رتبة” لبيك يا حسين”، وهى رتبة شيعية تمنح لمن يقتل 100 سني. 

وكتب البطاط على حسابة قائلا” تفضلت اليوم فأنعمت على أحد مجاهدي جيشي الباسل بترقيته لرتبة ” لبيك يا حسين” وهي رتبة تمنح لمن يقتل أكثر من 100 سنى ناصبي”.

Iran Deploys Quds Force To Save Iraq's Shia-Led Regime

This video shows a Sunni tribal fighter explaining how the capture of 2 Iranians attempting to infiltrate into Fallujah.

The threat of Sunnis eclipsing the power of its Shiite-dominated Arab ally presents Iran with the biggest security and strategic challenge it has faced since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Iran deployed Revolutionary Guards units to Iraq, according to Iranian security officials.

Iran has invested considerable financial, political and military resources over the past decade to ensure Iraq emerged from U.S. war as a strong Shiite-led state. The so-called Shiite crescent—stretching from Iran to Iraq, Lebanon and Syria—was forged largely as a result of this effort.

Two Guards' units, dispatched from Iran's western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, these security sources said.

Syria's conflict has turned Iraq into an important operational base for Iran to aid another ally, the Assad regime, which is dominated by an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Shiite militia trained by Iran, weapons and cash have flowed from Iran to Syria via Iraq.

"Iraq is viewed as a vital priority in Iran's foreign policy in the region and they go to any length to protect this interest," said Roozbeh Miribrahimi, an independent Iran expert based in New York.

Iran has also positioned troops on full alert along its border with Iraq and has given clearance to its air force to bomb rebel forces, according to an Iranian army general.

The two IRGC battalions that moved to Iraq on Wednesday were shifted from the Iranian border provinces of Urumieh and Lorestan, the Iranian security officials said.

Revolutionary Guards units that serve in Iran's border provinces are the most experienced fighters in guerrilla warfare because of separatist ethnic uprisings in those regions. IRGC commanders dispatched to Syria also often come from those provinces as well.

Iran was also considering the transfer to Iraq of Shiite volunteer troops in Syria, if the initial deployments fail to turn the tide of battle in favor of Mr. Maliki's government, the Iranian security officials said.

Maliki's Crimes Against Iraq's Sunni's

This is what Maliki and his Shia-led military are doing to the Sunni's or Iraq.

The Shia-led military was routed by the Sunni Tribal Fighters on the battlefield, and they retaliate for their humiliating defeats by targeting the Sunni civilian population with mortar fire, barrel-bombs, helicopter gunships and fighter jets.

Many of the innocent people who were butchered in this video were children.

MAISH

This is the response to the Shia-led Iraqi government’s accusation that the current insurgency is conducted or at least lead by "DAISH" which is the Arabic acronym for "ISIS" (The Islamic State Of Iraq and Sham).

In all actuality, the current insurgency is made of the Sunni Tribal Fighters, ex-Saddam military personnel and a few other Islamic movements. 

ISIS holds only a very small percentage of the total armed Sunni personnel.

The only way that this insurgency could have accomplished this through Blitzkrieg, over a wide geographic front, conquer and hold major cities and terrain, could only be attributed to sophisticated and conventional military planning by ex-Iraqi Army Officers.

ISIS doesn’t have the numbers nor the conventional expertise to conduct such operations. They were soundly routed by Al-Nusra Front and it’s allies in Syria.

I addition, ISIS in Iraq were defeated in the last round they fought with the Iraqi Tribal Fighters and SAHWA Forces - before the American Occupation Troops Withdrew - and the general Sunni population have become standoffish with them.

If this operation is to succeed in Liberating the Sunni’s from Maliki’s tyranny and his Shia militias and death squads, the majority Sunni civilian population + ex-Saddam military personnel + the Tribal Fighters had to unite and coordinate their operations.

This is why it has been so fast and successful and not because ISIS played a major role or led the insurgency.

MAISH: "Iran’s Militias In Iraq and Sham/Syria"

Why Mosul's Fall Is A Signature Moment In Iraq

The City's Takeover By Sunni Insurgents Is A Devastating Military Setback For The Maliki Regime – and A Measure Of The Political Failure Of Post-Saddam Iraq.

The Iraqi government has lost control of its third-largest city to Al Qaeda-inspired insurgents, a crushing defeat for not only Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's security policies but for Iraqi politics as a whole.

The scale of the catastrophe, as troops loyal to Mr. Maliki flood north and troops controlled by the Kurdish Regional Government rush west and south, can't be overstated. Chicago is the United States' third-largest city. Munich is Germany's. Osaka is Japan's.

And unlike the Anbar towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, almost exclusively Sunni Arab and in the heart of what has long been one of Iraq's most restive provinces, Mosul is an ethnically and religiously mixed town of Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, Christians and Muslims. US forces won, lost, and won control again of Fallujah in fierce battles during the early years of the America-led war in Iraq. But a city like Mosul is something else again.

It's well known that Mosul has been a target for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The city is the capital of northern Nineveh Province, the western side of which has a roughly 300-mile-long frontier with Syria. During the height of the US war in Iraq, insurgent rat-lines riddled the border, and in the past few years, with what was once Al Qaeda in Iraq merging with Sunni Arab insurgents fighting in the Syrian civil war to become ISIS, the cross-border flow of men and weapons has ramped up again.

Much of Nineveh, like Anbar, is sparsely inhabited desert where the central government's writ is nominal. Smaller cities in the area's east, like Tal Afar, have repeatedly fallen to insurgents over the past decade. But Mosul is a crown jewel, a center of transportation and commerce. Holding it was a government priority. Losing control, if only briefly, is a powerful indication of government failure and something that is likely to spur insurgent recruitment. What must have looked like a hopeless cause to many passive Sunni Arab supporters of the insurgency just started looking a lot more hopeful.

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Osman Nujaifi said virtually all government installations in the city have fallen into ISIS hands. "When the battle got tough in the city of Mosul, the troops dropped their weapons and abandoned their posts, making it an easy prey.... ," 

Today, according to people in the city, organized ISIS fighters dismantled the city's security barricades and roadblocks. While there were reports that the portion of the city east of the Tigris River, closer to the Kurdish heartland, had not fallen, western Mosul is the heart of the town.

The ISIS Victory Is A Signature Moment – evidence that ISIS can't be dismissed as merely a ragtag group of insurgents who may be able to hold their own in Syria, but would be unlikely to take and hold ground from Iraqi forces. The US spent more than $14 billion on training and equipping Iraqi security forces. When US forces left Iraq at the end of 2011  (because Maliki refused to sign an agreement extending US military involvement), US politicians and military leaders spoke of how the Iraqis were ready to stand on their own, how the seeds of political reconciliation had been sown by a war that cost more than $2 trillion, 4,486 American lives, and more than 100,000 Iraqi ones.

... thanks to Maliki and his Shiite allies' decision to turn on the Iraqi tribes that made up the Sunni "Awakening." It's looking like an illusion also for much of the rest of the country, where politics remain defined along sectarian and ethnic lines, and where the toll of fighting on civilians and government forces alike have returned to the levels of 2007-2008.

This is Mosul today, through the eyes of Agence France-Presse reporters in the city.

An AFP journalist, himself fleeing the city with his family, said shops were closed, a police station had been set ablaze and that numerous security force vehicles had been burned or abandoned. Hundreds of families were seen fleeing. Some were on foot, carrying what they could, others in vehicles with their belongings piled on the roofs.

Another AFP journalist said thousands of Mosul residents had fled for the safety of the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. Dozens of cars and trucks stretched out from one checkpoint on the boundary of the region, as people with plastic bags, suitcases and a pram waited to enter, some with young children in tow.

"The army forces threw away their weapons and changed their clothes and left their vehicles and left the city," said Mahmud Nuri, a displaced Mosul resident. "We didn't see anyone fire a shot."

Events in the city today are a stark reminder of how ephemeral US efforts in Iraq have proven to be. In early 2004, Gen. David Petraeus was commander of the 101st Airborne Division in the province, and his efforts there, focusing on hearts and minds, were marketed as the "Mosul model." Early in the war, Mosul was Iraq's most peaceful large city, new businesses were opening, and fuel shortages that bedeviled most of the country then weren't apparent.

At the time, the Bush administration, the military, and the US people were still expecting a quick war. That January, Petraeus's 18,000 troops in the region were being replaced by a force of about 5,000.

Petraeus said then:

"They will have the benefit of a substantially larger Iraqi security presence coming on line,'' says General Petraeus, whose unit has trained more than 10,000 Iraqi soldiers, border guards, and police. "This is an occasion where we'll see how the new Iraqi security forces are going to do. I think they'll be fine."

Petraeus has been slowly pulling his forces back since September, seeking to hand over more and more authority to a local governor and council selected shortly after the 101st arrived in the Mosul area last April. "We're only six months away from June and handing control of the country back over to Iraqis," he says.

"The number of joint patrols we run on the border with Syria, for instance, has been steadily decreasing as the capabilities of local forces have increased,'' says Maj. Mike Getchell, who serves in the 101st's Third Brigade under Col. Mike Linnington, outside the city of Talafar.

Ten years on, Iraq does not control its border with Syria and it does not control Mosul. If ISIS manages to hang on to the city, even if only for a short while, it will be able to threaten towns farther south and closer to Baghdad... Maliki's call for arming civilians ... means he intends to use Shiite militias in an effort to regain control.

(Dan Murphy)