November 17, 2014 IS Promotes Its Bloody Multinationality - Obama Says Assad Stays With a well planned media campaign in three acts the Islamic State announced its growth into a multinational entity and into more countries. Meanwhile the U.S president finally accepted that president Assad of Syria will, at least for the time of a "transition", continue in his position. A week ago Jihadist groups in five Arab countries published videos in which they pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State and its Caliph. The groups are in Algeria, Egypt (Sinai), Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The videos seemed to have been edited by the same professionals that edit all Islamic State official videos but they included local footage from each country. Last Thursday act two happened when a new audio tape with a speech from the Caliph was published: Baghdadi’s speech was divided into two main parts. The first one took around two-thirds of the time of the recording and lasted 17 minutes. Baghdadi tackled the failure of the international alliance’s operations, which he called “Crusade campaign,” and he mocked the Arab participation in them. In the second part, which was the most dangerous, he announced that IS is expanding and new provinces are rising in several Arab countries. Both parts were under Baghdadi’s main headline, which stated that jihad would persist and would target all people and lands at all times. As a third step a well produced video was published, some 16+ minutes long, which showed a row of 18 Islamic State fighters each beheading a captured Syrian officer or pilot. This is a picture from the video:

bigger In the scene before this picture there is a bucket with all new bowie knifes and each beheader takes one. Notice that all have the same new uniform which are not standard Western military but with a shirt length as is usual in Afghan cloth. (the digital cameo pattern is probably from the UAE). Each has a uniform backpacks and cap. The captives have all the same overalls. The only beheader not in uniform and the only one with his face covered is from Britain (nicknamed "Jihadi John") and was seen in earlier beheading video. He plays a special role at the end of the clip. All the beheaders are from different nationalities and they represent the internationalization of the Islamic State. There is one French, one Saudi, one Yemeni, one Pakistani, one Afghan and so on. The actual beheadings are shown in full length, in detail and partially in slow motion. They happen slowly and without any hesitations. When the heads are off they are placed on top of the decapitated bodies. There is no screaming and no fighting. Judging from their eyes and calmness both, the beheaders as well as the beheaded, seem to have been at least slightly drugged. The video has an imprint that says it was taken in Dabiq in Syria which has a lot of symbolic meanings. Dabiq is a valley in northern Aleppo, where Ottoman Sultan Salim I had defeated the Egyptian Mamluks in the 16th century. Dabiq is also the place where, according to some Islamic texts, the battle of Armageddon as the final historical confrontation between good (muslim) and evil (christians) will be fought. The beheading of the Syrian officers takes some 12+ minutes and only after that is another beheading shown that likely took place earlier. The beheaded is Abdul-Rahman Kassig, a "former" U.S. Ranger special force soldier who had fought in Iraq and turned up as "aid worker" in Syria on the opposition side. He had been captured by the Islamic State in 2013. The actual beheading is not shown but the severed body and head are. The beheader is "Jihadi John" and he is threatening the U.S. and the UK: "We will slaughter your people in your streets". That is likely no joke but a serious announcement of already planned operations. The video and the staging are of very good quality. It was certainly edited by someone who knows "western" style drama and production very well. The symbolic values of the video is not so much in the act of beheading though the goring details may be intended to recruit a certain type of psychos. The symbolic points are in the special place that Dabiq represents and in the very multinational group of beheaders who are now all uniform soldiers of the Islamic State. This last point is what makes the video the third part of a well planned media campaign to announce and demonstrate the multinational character of the Islamic State. While there have been several piece being written over the last weeks of the demise of the Islamic State and its losses in a few unimportant small battles in Iraq the media campaign IS launched points to the opposite. The Islamic State is growing into a multinational, geographically distributed entity. That makes it harder and more difficult to fight it. But it also means that the Islamic State will need more financial resources which will be difficult to obtain. It also means more communication between its entities which are probably detectable and interruptible. The video discussed above also includes a passage where it is explains that the Islamic State and it's foundation in "Tawheed and Jihad" is a DIRECT consequence of the "crusader" hostilities and occupation of Iraq. This should finally stop "experts" from blaming Assad or Maliki for the IS menace. I had assumed earlier that to fight the Islamic state president Obama will refrain from removing president Assad. The Turkish prime minister Davutoğlu claimed Friday that he received strong signals that the U.S. would change its Syria policy and dispose of president Assad. Obama refuted that directly in a press conference at the G-20 in Brisbane: PRESIDENT OBAMA: [...] Now, we are looking for a political solution eventually within Syria that is inclusive of all the groups who live there -- the Alawite, the Sunni, Christians.And at some point, the people of Syria and the various players involved, as well as the regional players -- Turkey, Iran, Assad’s patrons like Russia -- are going to have to engage in a political conversation. And it’s the nature of diplomacy in any time, certainly in this situation, where you end up having diplomatic conversations potentially with people that you don’t like and regimes that you don’t like.But we’re not even close to being at that stage yet. Q But just to put a fine point on it -- are you actively discussing ways to remove him [Assad] as a part of that political transition? PRESIDENT OBAMA: No. So far the U.S. had always said that president Assad could not be part of the transition, something that Russia and Iran insisted on. This the is a change in U.S. policy and, in sight of the expanding Islamic State, a sensible one. Posted by b on November 17, 2014 at 20:38 UTC | Permalink Comments