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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| U.S. training helped mold top Islamic State military commander |
| 2015-09-16 |
| Good read - some of which may be fog and bullshit [McClatchyDC] KILLIS, Turkey The 15 Chechens looking to cross the border from Turkey to Syria didn't strike Abdullah as particularly important or unusual. It was early summer in 2012, and as a smuggler based in the Turkish border town of Killis, Abdullah, who'd fled his home village in Syria because of fighting on the outskirts of Aleppo, was used to secretive groups of foreigners – journalists, aid workers and many recently aspiring jihadists – hiring him to cross Turkish military lines at the border while avoiding what was then still a significant Syrian government presence in northern Syrian. "In 2012, everyone was coming to Syria and we had too much work leading all kinds of people across the border," he explained over lunch in Killis, a Turkish town just a few miles from the rebel-held Syrian city of Azzaz. "A lot were Muslims who had come to support the revolution against Bashar Assad from every country. So many from Europe, Russia, Germany, France. . . ." The 15 men had reached Abdullah through a network of contacts that were funneling new fighters to northern Syria, and Abdullah recalled they said they were going to Syria to assist in the fight against Assad. They were quiet, disciplined and for the most part spoke only a bit of crude formal Arabic. Only later did Abdullah realize that the network that funneled these men to him was the beginnings of the Islamic State, and that one of the 15 would turn out to be the most important non-Arab figure in the Islamic State hierarchy, a former American-trained noncommissioned officer in the special forces of the nation of Georgia, who'd led his men heroically during the 2008 Russian invasion of his homeland. |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #5 OTOH compare wid ... * WORLD NEWS > [Public Technologies] REPORT: OBAMA SPENT US$500.00MILYUHN TO TRAIN FIVE [Anti-?] ISIS FIGHTERS (TEA PARTY, INC.). * ABC NEWS > [US CENTCOM Chief Gen. Lloyd A.] GENERAL AUSTIN: ONLY "4 OR 5" US-TRAINED SYRIAN REBELS [still?] FIGHTING ISIS. Calls US-Training Program under Obama Admin. a complete or abject failure??? VERSUS * FREEREPUBLIC > [Activist Post] RUSSIA FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV CALLS OUT US FOR "PROTECTING" [harboring]ISIS, SAYS US HAS "ULTERIOR MOTIVES" IN SYRIA. D *** NG IT, BUT DOES THE BAMMER = USA HAVE [1990'S] "ALTERIOR" MOTIVES, NOT JUST "ULTERIOR"!? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2015-09-16 23:46 |
| #4 tw, America is ALWAYS at fault. We are that good. Or bad, as the case may be. And since he received his training in 2008, it's Bush's fault as well. No, no -- the training was some time before. He heroically applied it in defense of the nation in 2008. To be fair, that might still be on Bush. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2015-09-16 22:20 |
| #3 Force 17, anyone? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-09-16 12:53 |
| #2 tw, America is ALWAYS at fault. And since he received his training in 2008, it's Bush's fault as well. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2015-09-16 12:10 |
| #1 one of the 15 would turn out to be the most important non-Arab figure in the Islamic State hierarchy, a former American-trained noncommissioned officer in the special forces of the nation of Georgia, who'd led his men heroically during the 2008 Russian invasion of his homeland. So, trained at least a decade before for a different mission far away, which he had fulfilled admirably. Then recently he decided to turn his skills toward jihad --mnot at home, mind you, but in Syria. Unless the rest of those we trained there and then did the same, I don't see how America is at fault. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2015-09-16 12:04 |