Casting aspersions over the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Russia’s seasoned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed
[1] while speaking to Rossiya 24 broadcaster that the Islamic State and
its slain “caliph” were the spawns of the United States. Being a
skilled diplomat having intimate knowledge of happenings on the ground
in Syria, his statement merits serious consideration.
It’s important
to note in the news coverage about the killing of al-Baghdadi that
although the mainstream media had been trumpeting for the last several
years that the Islamic State’s fugitive chief had been hiding somewhere
on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found hiding in the
northwestern Idlib governorate, under the control of Turkey’s militant
proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed while trying to flee to
Turkey in Barisha village five kilometers from the border.
The reason why
the mainstream media scrupulously avoided mentioning Idlib as
al-Baghdadi’s most likely hideout in Syria was to cover up the collusion
between the militant proxies of Turkey and the jihadists of al-Nusra
Front and the Islamic State.
In fact, the
corporate media takes the issue of Islamic jihadists “commingling” with
Turkey-backed “moderate rebels” in Idlib so seriously – which could give
the Syrian government the pretext to mount an offensive in northwest
Syria – that the New York Times cooked up an exclusive report
[2] a couple of days after the Special Ops night raid, on October 30,
that the Islamic State paid money to al-Nusra Front for hosting
al-Baghdadi in Idlib.
The morning after the night raid, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported
[3] on Sunday, October 27, that a squadron of eight helicopters
accompanied by warplanes belonging to the international coalition had
attacked positions of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, in
Idlib province where the Islamic State chief was believed to be hiding.
Despite
detailing the operational minutiae of the Special Ops raid, the
mainstream news coverage of the raid deliberately elided over the
crucial piece of information that the compound in Barisha village five
kilometers from Turkish border where al-Baghdadi was killed belonged to
Hurras al-Din, an elusive terrorist outfit which had previously been
targeted several times in the US airstrikes.
Although Hurras
al-Din is generally assumed to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, it is in fact
the regrouping of the Islamic State’s jihadists under a different name
in northwestern Idlib governorate after the latter terrorist
organization was routed from Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and Raqqa and Deir
al-Zor in Syria and was hard pressed by the US-led coalition’s
airstrikes in eastern Syria.
Here, let me
try to dispel a myth peddled by the corporate media and foreign policy
think tanks that the Islamic State originated from al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Many biased political commentators of the mainstream media deliberately
try to muddle the reality in order to link the emergence of the Islamic
State to the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the Republican
Bush administration.
Their motive
behind this chicanery is to absolve the Obama administration’s policy of
nurturing the Syrian opposition against the Syrian government since the
beginning of Syria’s proxy war in 2011 until June 2014, when the
Islamic State overran Mosul in Iraq and the Obama administration made a
volte-face on its previous “regime change” policy of providing
indiscriminate support to Syrian militants and declared a war against a
faction of Syrian rebel groups, the Islamic State.
After linking
the creation of the Islamic State to the Iraq invasion in 2003,
interventionist hawks deviously draw the risible conclusion that the
Obama administration’s premature evacuation of American troops from Iraq
in December 2011 gave birth to the Islamic State.
Moreover, such
duplicitous spin-doctors misleadingly try to find the roots of the
Islamic State in al-Qaeda in Iraq; however, the Anbar insurgency in Iraq
was fully subdued after “The Iraq Surge” in 2007. Al-Qaeda in Iraq
became a defunct organization after the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi in
June 2006 and the subsequent surge of troops in Iraq.
The re-eruption
of insurgency in Iraq was the spillover effect of nurturing militants
in Syria since 2011-onward, when the Islamic State overran Fallujah and
parts of Ramadi in January 2014 and subsequently reached the zenith of
its power after capturing Mosul in June 2014.
The borders
between Syria and Iraq are highly porous and it’s impossible to contain
the flow of militants and arms between the two countries. The Obama
administration’s policy of providing funds, weapons and training to
Syrian militants in training camps located at the border regions of
Turkey and Jordan bordering Syria was bound to backfire sooner or later.
Notwithstanding,
during the eight-year proxy war in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the
chief of al-Nusra Front which currently goes by the name of Hayat Tahrir
al-Sham (HTS), emerged as one of the most influential militant leaders,
second only to the Islamic State’s slain “caliph” al-Baghdadi. In fact,
since the beginning of Syria’s proxy war in early 2011 to April 2013,
the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front used to be a single organization
that followed Saudi Arabia’s Salafi ideology and chose the banner
al-Nusra Front.
Although the current al-Nusra Front has been led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, he was appointed[4]
as the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of
Islamic State, in January 2012. Thus, al-Jolani’s Nusra Front is only a
splinter group of the Islamic State, which split from its parent
organization in April 2013 over a leadership dispute between the two
organizations.
In early 2011,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was based in Iraq, began sending Syrian and
Iraqi jihadists experienced in guerrilla warfare across the border into
Syria to establish an organization inside the country. Led by a Syrian
known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the group began to recruit fighters and
establish cells throughout the country. On 23 January 2012, the group
announced its formation as al-Nusra Front.
In April 2013,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio statement in which he announced
that al-Nusra Front had been established, financed and supported by the
Islamic State. Al-Baghdadi declared that the two groups were merging
under the name the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The leader of
al-Nusra Front, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, issued a statement denying the
merger and complaining that neither he nor anyone else in al-Nusra’s
Syria-based leadership had been consulted.
Al-Qaeda
Central’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, tried to mediate the dispute
between al-Baghdadi and al-Jolani but eventually, in October 2013, he
endorsed al-Nusra Front as the official franchise of al-Qaeda Central in
Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, however, defied the nominal authority of
al-Qaeda Central and declared himself the caliph of the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria.
Keeping this
background in mind, it becomes abundantly clear that a single militant
organization operated in Syria and Iraq under the leadership of
al-Baghdadi until April 2013, which chose the banner of al-Nusra Front,
and that the current emir of the subsequent breakaway faction of
al-Nusra Front, al-Jolani, was actually al-Baghdadi’s deputy in Syria.
Thus, the
Islamic State operated in Syria since early 2011 under the designation
of al-Nusra Front and it subsequently changed its name to the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in April 2013, after which it overran
Raqqa and parts of Deir al-Zor in the summer of 2013. And in January
2014, it overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq and reached the
zenith of its power when it captured Mosul in June 2014.
In conclusion,
it would be misleading to fall for the ruse of finding the roots of the
Islamic State in al-Qaeda in Iraq. Although the remnants of al-Qaeda in
Iraq might have joined the ranks of Syria-bound militants in Iraq in
2011, the principal cause of the creation of the Islamic State, al-Nusra
Front and myriads of other militant outfits in Syria and Iraq was the
“regime change” policy pursued by the Obama administration from 2011 to
2014 to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
During the course of Syria’s proxy war, billions of dollars
[5] worth weapons and ammunition, including American-made antitank
missiles, were provided to militants in training camps located in border
regions of Turkey and Jordan, and possibly in Iraq too, by the Western
powers and the Gulf states. It also bears mentioning that for the
initial several months of Syria’s proxy war, American troops were still
deployed next door in Iraq, as the war in Syria began in early 2011
whereas the US forces evacuated from Iraq in December 2011.
*
Note to readers: please click the share
buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists.
Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Nauman Sadiq is an
Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on
the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and
petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
Featured image is from Flickr
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Nauman Sadiq, Global Research, 2019
Comment on Global Research Articles on our Facebook page
Become a Member of Global Research
No comments:
Post a Comment