Posted on 05/18/2015 7:40:50 AM PDT by AnalogReigns
SANLIURFA, Turkey — When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group’s promised Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the globe.
Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis...
All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein...
His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq’s former Baathist army...
...almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.
The raw cruelty of Hussein’s Baathist regime, the disbandment of the Iraqi army after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the subsequent insurgency and the marginalization of Sunni Iraqis by the Shiite-dominated government all are intertwined with the Islamic State’s ascent, said Hassan Hassan, a Dubai-based analyst and co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”
“A lot of people think of the Islamic State as a terrorist group, and it’s not useful,” Hassan said. “It is a terrorist group, but it is more than that. It is a homegrown Iraqi insurgency, and it is organic to Iraq.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Excellent point.
Because Iraq had crossed Kuwait and was approaching the Saudi Arabian border? Nah, that couldn't have been why.
So true.
The Kurds are an ethnicity, not a religion, and they are not monochromatic. Their history is long, often violent, and rocky as they contended with Persians, Arabs, Turks, and others.
bump
Two Russian Generals involved in that effort to depose Gorbachev were given award medals by Saddam Hussein a week or so before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. [snip] Gen. Achalov was a former Soviet deputy defense minister and airborne troops commander and chief of the rapid-reaction forces. Gen. Maltsev was chief of the Soviet air defense forces. Both backed the aborted coup against Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and were sacked afterward. A third photograph shows the two generals with the head of the Iraqi chief of the general staff, Gen. Izzat Ibrahim. .... [/snip] -----Washington Times4
Kurds very rarely “contended” with Persians. Remember that Persians are less than half of the population of Iran, the rest are other Iranian groups (including Kurds) and Azeris (Turkicized Iranians) and some Arabs.
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