Another monstrous beheading by ISIS

DandyAndy

That cosy special relationship we have with USA playing its hand again.

tapzilla2k

ISIS are reportedly worth around $2 billion (best funded jihad group). The best way to hit them where it hurts is to target the money flow. There is no end game, it's just a fudge as usual. Though I guess you could say the US and Russia being at loggerheads over Syria allowed ISIS to get a foothold and then it fanned outwards.

It's a no win situation, we do nothing and ISIS continues to spread and gain influence vs we start bombing (and arming the kurds etc) to defeat ISIS on a military front but it also serves as a recruitment drive for ISIS. However if we do nothing, we would still have been targeted. By we I mean the West.

Anyway pro strikes protest from Kurds in Oxford -
Update: Protesters march through Oxford in support of military action against IS   video (From Oxford Mail)

The US can ill afford to let Putin gain traction in that region of Europe, and as for us ? We leave the EU ? We are pretty much much irrelevant to the US, as we tend to act as their voice in the EU. The only saving grace we will have with the US would be trident. Given it's an American system and evidently we'd only use it if the US says so if you are being extremely cynical about it.

The one thing people have to remember about Jihadists is that it matters not if we do or do not bomb Iraq/Syria. We are infidels and legitimate targets in their eyes. By merely following our own customs and lifestyles we are an affront to their warped ideology.

Anyway I expect there will be terrorist attacks of many kinds around the world, it's the logical thing for ISIS to instigate to take to the fight to the West etc And they don't really have to do anything spectacular like 9/11 or 7/7 to grab people's attention.

The worst case scenarios for spectacular attacks
1. A Mumbai style attack on a major Western City.
2. A Dirty Bomb - all you need is radioactive isotopes and
a conventional bomb to spread the radioactive materials over a large area leaving it uninhabitable for decades to hundreds of years. The thing about a dirty bomb is the fear it would induce and the Economic damage.  However it would take a lot of skill to pull off (there was a documentary about it on national geographic a few years ago, funny thing is, they've not shown it since).
3. Coordinated suicide bombings around the world on transport networks.

I'm sure the intelligence agencies around the world have probably come up with every possible scenario and probably are tracking plots.

robel

robel

Ebola virus in Syria? spread from foreign fighters......

pragmatic

American plot using biological warfare?

robel

I have no ideal although I think that's being fanciful. The possibility of it being spread by foreign fighters, is certainly more believable, if of course it turns out true...interesting though

tapzilla2k

I doubt that very much, given you have to have direct contact with the bodily fluids of a person infected with Ebola to become infected. Much more likely to have come from foreign fighters trained in Africa.
Ebola can survive in men's testicles for quite some time (not sure how long exactly). So you could postulate that Ebola could be spread through those survivors traveling to Syria to fight for ISIS, spreading Ebola through sperm via sex with women. Who then develop the disease and it spreads rapidly.

robel

And another one....

Isis video purportedly shows murder of British hostage Alan Henning | UK news | The Guardian

TranceFan

It has to be said the government advised all Uk citizens to get out of Syria years ago, so Henning went against FO advice. If the idiots in UK / US government and gulf state dictatorships hadn't backed the Syrian "rebels" (aka terrorists), Isis would have been crushed long ago in Syria at least. They bear responsibility for creating the conditions in which ISIS flourished.

The FSA like ISIS have been beheading people and other crimes for years, and they've been armed and funded by the West and Gulf States for their troubles. The limited bombing so far has led to Isis and Al Nusra combining forces, a few blown up pickup trucks and empty buildings and 7000 new recruits to Isis. I.e. achieved the exact opposite of what we wanted. We would probably achieve more bombing those funding these terror groups in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but that might lose us multi billion arms contracts.

The Saudis in particular are just laughing at us. They've sent seven jets out of their air force of 700, largely for PR, when they have been instrumental in arming ISIS and other terrorist groups for years.

In my view neither the morons in Westminster or Washington want to wipe out Isis, they are quite happy to let them destabilize Syria and weaken Assad their real goal is regime change. (The yanks even trained Isis fighters in Jordan not so long back). That's why there are no troops on the ground which is what would be necessary and very limited air strikes. Sending the bombers in might get a few votes from armchair generals before the elections next year but will achieve little as intended. They said it will go on for years - exactly what they want a permanently destabilised Syria.

Rip Alan Henning. An innocent caught up in a war zone, now used as a pretext to interfere yet again in the Middle East.

tapzilla2k

ISIS have been around for years - Iraq crisis Q & A: Who or what is ISIS? Is it part of al-Qaeda?  - Telegraph

Syria merely opened things up for Jihad to spread. The person who has the most blood on his hands for the conditions in Syria is not Assad or the leader of ISIS. It's Putin for putting Russian interests above all else. A geopolitical willy waving contest in other words between the US and Russia. As for those who went to Syria against FO advice ? That's their choice to make and not one I'd ever criticize as they are/were doing a lot to help Syrian's caught in the crossfire.

The arms trade is the root of all evil. It's hard to pin point targets on the ground when you don't have any boots on the ground, other than Special Forces doing rescue missions or hunting specific targets. I guess the reason why the FBI etc have not revealed the name of the ISIS twit doing the beheadings is that they don't want to give him more PR and it's also because he's probably on the Navy Seals hit list. Now ISIS are threatening to behead a former US Army Ranger, then I expect the Navy Seals will be swinging into action relatively soon.

The Saudi's have a history of stabbing people in the back when they are threatened. And by Saudi's I mean the Saudi Royal Family.

The sooner the Syrian Civil War is concluded the better, there is a risk that ISIS could kick off a sunni vs shia war across the region. Which will drag Israel into it and then the rest of us. We should be defeating ISIS and other Jihadi groups and also topple Assad then not repeat the mistakes of Iraq in setting up a new government. Too bad if Putin loses his precious naval bases in Syria.

It's not a pretext for anything. ISIS is a threat to us all, if you've not looked at how they operate and their motivations then you need to. They are taking Osama Bin Laden's dreams of a caliphate to it's logical conclusion. Bin Laden wanted a massive conflict in the middle east where he believed that the US and it's allies would be defeated in the same way that the Soviets were in Afghanistan. Which would then lead to an Islamic Caliphate which would turn it's attentions elsewhere.

Though I guess the big winners in all of this will be Iran, free to achieve it's goal of Nuclear Weapons probably. Being a cynic I think they already have everything in place to make a warhead, they just await the go ahead from the Clerics.