An important article via geoffb. Some excerpts
[W]when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated. SPIEGEL has gained exclusive access to the 31 pages, some consisting of several pages pasted together. They reveal a multilayered composition and directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised for the anarchical situation in Syria’s rebel-held territories. In a sense, the documents are the source code of the most successful terrorist army in recent history.
Until now, much of the information about IS has come from fighters who had defected and data sets from the IS internal administration seized in Baghdad. But none of this offered an explanation for the group’s meteoric rise to prominence, before air strikes in the late summer of 2014 put a stop to its triumphal march.
For the first time, the Haji Bakr documents now make it possible to reach conclusions on how the IS leadership is organized and what role former officials in the government of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein play in it. Above all, however, they show how the takeover in northern Syria was planned, making the group’s later advances into Iraq possible in the first place. In addition, months of research undertaken by SPIEGEL in Syria, as well as other newly discovered records, exclusive to SPIEGEL, show that Haji Bakr’s instructions were carried out meticulously. […]
It was there that the “Lord of the Shadows,” as some called him, sketched out the structure of the Islamic State, all the way down to the local level, compiled lists relating to the gradual infiltration of villages and determined who would oversee whom. Using a ballpoint pen, he drew the chains of command in the security apparatus on stationery. Though presumably a coincidence, the stationery was from the Syrian Defense Ministry and bore the letterhead of the department in charge of accommodations and furniture.
What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover. It was not a manifesto of faith, but a technically precise plan for an “Islamic Intelligence State” — a caliphate run by an organization that resembled East Germany’s notorious Stasi domestic intelligence agency.
The plan would always begin with the same detail: The group recruited followers under the pretense of opening a Dawah office, an Islamic missionary center. Of those who came to listen to lectures and attend courses on Islamic life, one or two men were selected and instructed to spy on their village and obtain a wide range of information. To that end, Haji Bakr compiled lists such as the following:
*List the powerful families.
*Name the powerful individuals in these families.
*Find out their sources of income.
*Name names and the sizes of (rebel) brigades in the village.
*Find out the names of their leaders, who controls the brigades and their political orientation.
*Find out their illegal activities (according to Sharia law), which could be used to blackmail them if necessary.The spies were told to note such details as whether someone was a criminal or a homosexual, or was involved in a secret affair, so as to have ammunition for blackmailing later. “We will appoint the smartest ones as Sharia sheiks,” Bakr had noted. “We will train them for a while and then dispatch them.” As a postscript, he had added that several “brothers” would be selected in each town to marry the daughters of the most influential families, in order to “ensure penetration of these families without their knowledge.” […]
IS wanted to know everything, but at the same time, the group wanted to deceive everyone about its true aims. One multiple-page report, for example, carefully lists all of the pretexts IS could use to justify the seizure of the largest flour mill in northern Syria. It includes such excuses as alleged embezzlement as well as the ungodly behavior of the mill’s workers. The reality — that all strategically important facilities like industrial bakeries, grain silos and generators were to be seized and their equipment sent to the caliphate’s unofficial capital Raqqa — was to be kept under wraps. […]
Within IS, there are state structures, bureaucracy and authorities. But there is also a parallel command structure: elite units next to normal troops; additional commanders alongside nominal military head Omar al-Shishani; power brokers who transfer or demote provincial and town emirs or even make them disappear at will. Furthermore, decisions are not, as a rule, made in Shura Councils, nominally the highest decision-making body. Instead, they are being made by the “people who loosen and bind” (ahl al-hall wa-l-aqd), a clandestine circle whose name is taken from the Islam of medieval times.
Islamic State is able to recognize all manner of internal revolts and stifle them. At the same time, the hermitic surveillance structure is also useful for the financial exploitation of its subjects.
The air strikes flown by the US-led coalition may have destroyed the oil wells and refineries. But nobody is preventing the Caliphate’s financial authorities from wringing money out of the millions of people who live in the regions under IS control — in the form of new taxes and fees, or simply by confiscating property. IS, after all, knows everything from its spies and from the data it plundered from banks, land-registry offices and money-changing offices. It knows who owns which homes and which fields; it knows who owns many sheep or has lots of money. The subjects may be unhappy, but there is minimal room for them to organize, arm themselves and rebel.
I h/t sdferr who sent it to me and I Tweeted it out.
these are the people Obama handed Iraq over to?
i don’t get what he was thinking
He was and is thinking to punish America and her traditional allies for their transgressions against his own godlike view of justice. Of course he can never tell the truth about this, but must forever keep his own glorious counsel.
I don’t care what anyone says, Obama, at heart, is a Muslim.
Muslims are at heart fascist.
The Christian God loves His creation, calling His church the bride of Christ.
The Muslim god does not love creation, and regards humanity as slaves or infidels, with no worth in and of themselves, only for their service to Allah.
Now, how do ya figure Obama regards us?
“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
All within Islam, nothing outside Islam, nothing against Islam, sounds about right too.
I think of Islam as an ideology which was sold, packaged, as a religion because that was the best way for it to be sold at the time and place it came into being, and Progressiveism/Socialism/Communism/”whatever name”-ism, is a religion which was sold, packaged, as an ideology because that was the best way for it to be sold at the time and place it came into being.
within state you get eggroll
mrs o! says no eggrolls
ClownDeceptor is no Muslim. The onlyest god he worships is his damn self.
Agreed. He went to Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law. Occam’s Razor in action.
obama sucks soros cock
avidly
and then he golfs
then he sucks soros cock some more
hey it’s a living
Iranian opposition activist: “Obama is the son of a Shiite father… Some people call him the Iranian lobby in America.”
Oh, he favors Iran alright. But not on account of religion. Only dumbassed Muslims would think that.
@ 7:11 PM sdferr on target.
I don’t think Obama thinks he’s god.
The 12th Iman maybe…
Think of it this way: he scoffs at all the gods. What does that leave him? The boss of all of them. So maybe not a god, exactly, not the way other people think of gods or God or whatever, but ClownDeceptor knows what he alone knows — there ain’t nobody knows what he alone knows, and he has the keys to the house. He’s havin’ his way with all us dumb sheep. This, he knows.
valgal is o!’s goddess
She’s a tool to him. He’d pitch her over the side in a heartbeat if it meant his purposes were advanced. For the time being, she’s quite useful. Just like the ol’ lady he beat in his first go at state office, Alice Palmer, who was also useful when she was useful and was pitched over the side when she got in the way.
baracky be a pussy whipped metrosexual loser. marie harf says harf
Well now, newrouter, he’s certainly fooled the beejeebers out of you. Just look around a little closer and maybe you’ll catch on. Or here’s another hint (again): he’s a near perfect analog to Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot, and this plane is going into terrain — the one difference being that ClownDeceptor is going to walk away from the crash of the United States and its allies without a scratch on him, chuckling to himself at how exactly he has fooled all the sheep, thus confirming his magnified opinion of himself. Even now he’s laughing and laughing and laughing.
>he’s a near perfect analog to Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot<
nah he ain't got german efficiency nor iq. he be texting stupid stuff while commanding the titanic .
Hmm, looks more like you’re fooling yourself then. It doesn’t have to be ClownDeceptor’s doing, which, I guess he’s always counted on anyhow. People are morons, see, fit to do themselves in. And the Americans have come through in spades.
Well, closet Muslim, Soros puppet, or demented mastermind, I think we can all agree he’s a worldwide disaster.
God help us.
> like you’re fooling yourself then<
as a moron you may be correct. i think the baracky likes golf, vacations and political drones.
Part of the point is that the punishments intended are of two sorts: 1) completed and irrecoverable, and 2) well on the way to completion, in the case of the Iranian nukes-hegemony in the Middle-East deal (include in the reinvigoration of Russian imperialism with that, as well as Chinese strength mounting unopposed). Doesn’t look at all like that latter foreign policy catastrophe can be stopped now. So that would be domestic policy made ruinous, and foreign policy about to be made completely ruinous. That’s getting on to two for two. Which is why the locked cockpit door works at all as a metaphor. And in my view, work it does.
Iago.
That’s the model. Anger, race hatred, intense cunning, perfect deception, revenge, using everyone else’s good opinions against them. But again, Iago gets caught, and to that extent, the model doesn’t work, just as with Lubitz. This guy wants to revel in his successes.
> This guy wants to revel in his successes.<
the hillary certainly will if baracky's "success" is dead americans prior to 11/2016
the hillary certainly will if baracky’s “success” is dead americans prior to 11/2016
you mean like Amb. Chris Stephens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty? Those dead Americans after whose deaths the man was re-elected on the strength of a lie about a movie? or do you mean the dead Americans blown up in Boston? or the ones shot dead at Ft. Hood in an incident of workplace violence? or the many others who’ve died on ClownDeceptor’s watch? Or how about all those “other” people he’s managed skilfully to watch massacred by the hundreds of thousands in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Chad, Mali, Kenya? Them?
>you mean like Amb. Chris Stephens, <
well the dead won't be 4 and they will be here and the liv will notice
“the one difference being that ClownDeceptor is going to walk away from the crash of the United States and its allies without a scratch on him, chuckling to himself at how exactly he has fooled all the sheep, thus confirming his magnified opinion of himself. Even now he’s laughing and laughing and laughing.”
Sounds much like another serpant that eventually met his match in the garden of gethsemane.
Kyle Orton: Saddam and the Islamists, part 2
Tareq Aziza: Al-Qaeda breakup: has Baghdadi won, or is Zawahiri changing tack?
Andreas Lubitz is best analogy I’ve heard yet for Obama.
So I guess while we wait for the controlled flight into terrain to reach it’s inevitable conclusion, we can pass the time debating whether he’s sick or evil.
To shine light on the missing choices, at least as I think of it, a somewhat related quote today from Andrew McCarthy’s defense of his position against criticism by Jack Goldsmith:
As I’ve remarked elsewhere on more than one occasion, the whole point of the impeachment process in the Constitution is toward peaceful resolution of otherwise highly violent disagreements. Throw that away and we’re left with highly violent disagreements.
Kyle Orton: Saddam Hussein’s Regime Produced the Islamic State