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ISIS militants fleeing Syria leave behind a valuable trove of intelligence
[USATODAY] Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... murderous Moslems fleeing strongholds in Syria are leaving behind a trove of records detailing everything from the terror group’s finances to personnel documents on individual fighters. "Their record keeping is phenomenal," Maj. Gen. James Jarrard told USA TODAY in an interview from Baghdad. The Islamic State, also called ISIS, kept meticulous records, including directives and orders marked with official stamps. Over the past three years, the coalition and local forces have seized "hundreds of terabytes" of data from ISIS computers and storage devices in northern Syria, where U.S.-backed forces are operating, according to the coalition headquarters. Each terabyte can hold more than 80 million pages of Microsoft Word documents. "We did learn a lot about their organizational structure, how they communicated, how they facilitated personnel and finances," Jarrard said. "It is a very detail oriented book keeping organization (with) tremendous amount of details on every individual," Jarrard said. The records include a "laundry list of individuals that have moved into Syria and Iraq," he said. The information has allowed the coalition to target the group’s top leaders. "The most valuable stuff that we look for immediately is the connections, the understanding of the organization’s construct so we can focus our targeting efforts," Jarrard said. The Pentagon said it has killed many of the group's most bigwigs, though the top leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi  ...the head of ISIS, or what remains of it, and a veteran of the Abu Graib jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us. So far he has been killed at least four times, though not yet by a stake through the heart..., remains on the lam. Analysts also use the intelligence to paint a broader picture of how ISIS functioned. At its peak, the Islamic State earned about $50 million a month from oil revenues and had another $500 million it had looted from banks in areas it controlled. In 2014 it swept into Iraq from Syria, capturing large swaths of territory, including djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , Iraq’s second-largest city. At the time it appeared invincible, drawing fighters from around the world to its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Today, the Islamic State has lost 98% of the territory it once controlled, according to the coalition. Pockets of murderous Moslems have fled to remote areas, including villages along the Euphrates River Valley, stretching between Iraq and Syria. Revenues have been depleted. "They are struggling for cash in some areas," Jarrard said. "They’re telling folks no when they request money and resources." Jarrard, who commands the Special Operations Joint Task Force in Iraq and Syria, said it will take at least a few more weeks to finish eliminating the caliphate. "That doesn’t mean the war is over," he said. "We will have to continue to maintain that pressure." Much of the intelligence data was captured when U.S.-backed forces pushed murderous Moslems out of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s global capital, in October. The organization was controlled from the city in northeast Syria. Posted by: Fred 2018-01-14 |
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