Islamska drzava

[iDemo]

'oce l' njima nekad da dodje predizborna shutnja™ - malo da o'ladimo?? Ne pitam za druga nego me zivo zanima dokle ce svi mediji da im daju toliki prostor. 

[Marcus Wulffings]

dok se rusi ne umilostive da ih sravne sa zemljom, sada se bave drugim stvarima, ali kako stvari stoje, sačekaćemo do te šutnje još neko vrijeme

[iDemo]

faken hel...

[Marcus Wulffings]

neiskreni su u svojim namerama isto kao i ameri što su neiskreni

[Ros]

Edited October 8, 2015 by Ros

[Pečorin]

http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2015&mm=10&dd=08&nav_category=12&nav_id=1049055

[Prospero]

A Leaked Budget May Finally Show How the Islamic State Makes Its Money

 

By Avi Asher-Schapiro

October 7, 2015 | 11:55 pm

 

 

 

While it's well known that the Islamic State (IS) has developed many of the institutions that define other states — schools, police, professional media, a standing army — exactly how IS has paid for these institutions has often been a matter of blind speculation.

 

Now, however, newly leaked documents appear to give unprecedented insight into the group's finances. Originating in the IS-run Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, they indicate that IS doesn't tax the people living under its rule so much as it steals from them in order to pay its fighters' salaries and other operating costs.

 

The documents, which detail expenses and income sources in the province between December 23, 2014 and January 22, 2015, was made public by Aymenn al-Tamimi, a fellow at the UK Middle East Forum who is currently based somewhere on the Syrian border. It's the first-ever account of IS finances to be made public.

 

According to the ledger, between December 2014 and January 2015 IS brought in more than $8 million in revenue in Deir Ezzor, an oil-rich province in eastern Syria that's been under IS control since early 2014. But nearly 45 percent of those funds originated from what IS calls "confiscation," dwarfing all other sources of income like trade, taxes, and oil sales.

 

"If you miss prayers three times consecutively, then you are going to get your shop confiscated," Tamimi explained. "If you transport banned goods like cigarettes, they are going to take the money you are carrying." The vast majority of these confiscations took place on the borders of the province, where IS fighters appeared to be stripping travelers of their valuables to pay for safe passage.

 

"This document really undercuts IS propaganda," Tamimi said. "Seeing that they get the plurality of their income from taking things from people — that doesn't put the group in a very good light."

 

IS tends to portray itself as a miracle of statecraft; the group's propaganda campaigns regularly celebrate not only military victories but also the strength of the group's bureaucracy. Over the past year, IS has successfully established mundane services like sanitation as it also built up a standing army. Brigham Young University political scientist Quinn Mecham has even characterized the group as an Islamic "start-up."

"The notion that 'We are building something' — that's a crucial point for IS supporters," he said.

 

But the documents leaked from Deir Ezzor reflect a state-building project on the rocks. About 63 percent of IS expenditures — nearly $5 million — go to supporting its military in the form of salaries and "base expenditures." It spends another 10 percent on a police force. That leaves only about $2 million to fund the IS bureaucracy, its healthcare system, and the social services.

 

That makes IS perilously close to a "failed state," Mecham says, though he cautions against reading too much into the documents. For the past few months, Mecham has been working to quantify IS "state-capacity," a term political scientists use to describe the effective functioning of government institutions. Mecham estimates that IS is the 16th most failed state in the world.

 

"It's ahead of more than a dozen states that actually sit at the UN," he said. "But still, they aren't really doing that well." 

 

The documents from Deir Ezzor help flesh out the details of IS limitations, especially when it comes to capitalizing on oil resources. After IS swept through northern Syria into Iraq last summer, analysts scrambled to estimate the wealth the group would generate from oil fields and seized bank deposits in its new territory. While the bank deposits, which some measured in the billions, were a one-time infusion of income, the oil fields had the potential to be a renewable source of financing that could keep IS afloat for years. Over the past year, a number of estimates put IS oil production at about 44,000 barrels a day in Syria alone, netting up to $4 million in daily profits — though no concrete documents surfaced to verify these estimates.

Deir Ezzor holds the most productive oil fields under IS control in Syria, and it's ledger shows a much weaker oil extracting capacity than previously thought.

 

"If IS had capital, manpower, and know-how, these oil fields could be quite profitable," said David Butter, a leading expert on Middle East energy, economics, and business at Chatham House in the UK. "But that's a big if."

 

Butter says that oil fields in Deir Ezzor peaked in the 1990s, and that exploiting them now would require major investment and serious technical know-how — beyond what IS possesses. He estimates that IS now operates the fields at less than half of their capacity, which indicates a much weaker IS energy sector than previously thought. The documents show that IS draws in just $66,433 a day from oil and gas revenues in Deir Ezzor.

 

"Popular conceptions of IS income need to have a more sober and realistic perspective on the role of oil and gas revenues," Tamimi said. "A sounder estimate would put such income at no more than 5 percent to 10 percent of [the $4 million per day estimate]."

 

Rather than operating a sophisticated oil operation, IS is most likely just siphoning off a small amount, allowing locals to make some extra cash as oil smugglers.

 

"I wouldn't be surprised if they are selling off the oil at the pump-head to traders for as little as $5 or $10 a barrel," Butter said.

Still, if the figures from Deir Ezzor are accurate, it doesn't mean IS has an immediate cash problem.

 

"[The Islamic State] has plenty of money," Daniel Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury Department, said at a recent roundtable at the Aspen Institute. Treasury is responsible for implementing US sanctions against IS and cutting of its supply of resources. Officials declined to be interviewed by VICE News, or to comment on the Deir Ezzor documents.

 

Though Treasury has been cagey about how much cash IS brings in, Glaser did speculate at Aspen that it may bring in $500 million a year in oil revenues, a figure that Tamimi disputes.

 

The question of long-term oil revenues is key because it could determine whether IS economic model is ultimately sustainable — and the snapshot from Dier Ezzor does not bode well. In addition to benefitting from oil revenues and "expropriation," IS does operate a taxation system, but that brings in only 23 percent of revenue, which is less than even the beleaguered oil industry.

 

"It's going to be hard to maintain this budget and maintain a measure of support from the populations they are trying to control," Mecham said. "This doesn't have a positive trajectory — eventually they are going to run out of things to seize."

 

[Gandalf]

It's ahead of more than a dozen states that actually sit at the UN," he said. "But still, they aren't really doing that well."

ako se uporedi sa okolnim arapskim drzavama, nisam bas siguran da je razlika znacajna. ako si prave vere, cutis i gledas svoja posla, klanjas se kome treba, placas reket... nece te dirati. za veliki broj ljudi mu mozda dodje isti qrac k'o i ranije, samo su umesto Bashara dobili Bagdadija kao predmet obozavanja.

 

usluge su verovatno lose, ali koliko su losije nego ranije? mozda su cak i bolje u nekim aspektima? navodno, manja je korupcija.

Edited October 8, 2015 by Gandalf

[Prospero]

I meni se čini da se za neku kritičnu većinu stanovništva ništa fundamentalno nije promenilo.

[Shan Jan]

Interesantno... po ovome, ako bi se ISIS pritisnuo i krenuo da se povlaci to bi im smanjilo zestoko prihode i konsekventno mogucnost da ratuju.

[iDemo]

[Marcus Wulffings]

 

BRITANSKI terorist Jihadi John, čije je pravo ime Mohammed Emwazi, na ponižavajuće je načine mučio fotografa Daniela Ryea Ottosena, kojeg je ISIS držao kao taoca u Siriji.

Ottosen, 26-godišnji fotograf iz Danske, koji je prošlo ljeto postao posljednji taoc ISIS-a koji je pušten na slobodu, u nedjelju je za dansku nacionalnu televiziju ispričao kroz kakvu je torturu prolazio tijekom zatočeništva u Siriji.

 

"Želiš li plesati", pitao ga je jednog dana Jihadi John. "Tada me podigao i prisilio da s njim plešem tango", priča Ottosen. Iz prijašnjih mučnih iskustava znao je da će nakon ovog poniženja uslijediti brutalno premlaćivanje.

Prvo "ples", onda brutalno premlaćivanje

 

"U tom trenutku samo sam pogledao u tlo, jer ga nisam htio gledati. Ako ga pogledate u oči, samo dobijete još više batina", priča Ottosen. "Držao sam glavu uperenu prema podu, a ruke na njegovim ramenima, dok me vodio po zatvoru. Onda se odjednom sve promijenilo, gurnuo me na tlo i počeo udarati", nastavlja.

 

Tortura je obično završavao prijatnjama da će mu odrezati nos i druge dijelove tijela. I potom bi ga ostavili samog.

 

Džihadisti su Danca pustili na slobodu nakon što je njegova obitelj platila dva milijuna eura tražene otkupnine. Plaćanje otkupnine proglašeno je kontroverznim nakon što je Jihadi John odsjekao glave Amerikancima Jamesu Foleyu i Stevenu Sotloffu te Britancima Davidu Hainesu i Alanu Henningu jer su njihove vlade zabranile plaćanje otkupnina ISIS-u.

[Prospero]

Mosul Eye is considered one of most accurate chronicles of life under Islamic State rule. Its author remains unidentified.  In an exclusive interview with Al-Fanar Media, he talks about his work and his city.

 

 

How did you decide to start blogging?

I’ve long been interested in blogging. In 2003, after the Iraq war, I started gathering everything related to the insurgent groups in an archive, which became huge and is still growing. This archive contains information about almost all of the groups, including some of their original documents such as leaflets and publications.

After the occupation of Mosul, I didn’t want to stop blogging, On the contrary, I was determined to document the first moments of this occupation for the sake of preserving history for the future, and for understanding the nature of events and how people perceive them.

So I started writing summaries in the form of Facebook posts on my personal account. Then, after consulting a friend, the idea of launching the Mosul Eye Facebook page emerged. I stress that I am not a journalist, but a historian, and that my purpose is to document events as they are, keeping my opinions separate.

Mosul Eye was specifically intended for English readers, because I believe that news about Mosul needs to reach the West; the Arab powers are not a real positive actor in the Iraqi crisis.  But I have also started a page called “Maouris Milton,” for Arabic readers.

 

 

Is blogging from inside the city dangerous?

In brief, any word that comes out of Mosul that ISIS takes notice of is a justification for death, according to them. The blogger, his family, and all those related to him could face death. The dangers are quite big and continuous. I have received many threats from ISIS; in the last one they said they would invent a way to kill me that has so far been unknown to humanity.

The real danger is not in blogging itself, but in getting access to accurate information while maintaining your safety and not revealing your identity. I have used dozens of personalities and styles so as to stay safe. I have penetrated ISIS at its most fortified gates without their notice. I admit that this can be exhilarating in a way that helps relieve my fears of being killed at the hands of ISIS.

 

 

To what extent has your blog become a source for journalists and scholars?

Mosul Eye has become one of most reliable sources for international journalists in particular. We have received many requests for interviews. In addition, the blog has received an offer from an academic institution to be its “fundamental resource” for the future study of Mosul.

I think I have succeeded in drawing public attention toward Mosul; I am determined to keep doing so until the end.

 

 

What has been the reaction of the general public to Mosul Eye?

We have more than 11,500 followers, from many countries. They welcome and appreciate our work. Still, some people, mainly Iraqis, do not understand our posts, or they misinterpret them as being a way to support ISIS. They refuse to know the truth; this is a big problem. Sometimes, I think of stopping my blogging because of the generalizations people make.  Others express concern when there are interruptions in our blogging.  There is very little media coverage about Iraq now. Reporters are concentrating on the emigration issue.

 

 

In your opinion, what are the factors that contributed to the fall of Mosul?

The relationship between the citizens of Mosul and the Iraqi government was not good. The way the Iraqi army acted in Mosul was not good. That said, the entire city did not welcome ISIS. In the beginning, they welcomed an unknown power entering the city to replace the old “suppressing” one, and the media did not report that these were ISIS fighters. Ordinary people could not read between the lines to see what was happening. We also need to examine views about radical Islam in the city. How did they perceive figures like Osama bin Laden, or terrorist attacks like those of September 11, 2001? Many people in Mosul admired such figures and acts even before 2003; this helped such a radical group to prevail and overrun the city.

 

 

How do you describe the feelings of Mosul inhabitants today?

Many of them are creating their own worlds to live in, a world in the street different from that in their homes. They cannot trust anybody, in some cases not even their family members. There is a state of fear, just like in the times of Saddam Hussein. People look at ISIS as a cruel, terrifying entity imposing harsh rules, but it provides services that people need.  They try to reconcile these two things. But I am afraid that people will not be able to continue to do this for long, and that they will surrender within five months to totalitarian governance under ISIS.

 

 

How has life in the city changed?

Everything has changed. Gender segregation is imposed everywhere; women are forced to veil their faces, and men must wear long beards. There is a wave of radicalization among young children, which parents are unable to do anything against. Young people are learning a radical ideology even more extremist than that of the current example. Still amid this rise of radicalism, there is a hidden countervailing rise in atheism. People have started to ask questions like “Is God happy with all this killing?” or “Is Islam a problem?” Some have concluded that atheism is the only way to liberate the city.

 

 

Why do you think ISIS is able to recruit so many Westerners?

They are using the current conflict as propaganda, claiming that all of these countries are against them. They use horrific execution videos for two reasons: first, to terrify people who might want to fight them; and second, to attract foreigners who like adventures. These Hollywood-like videos make some people eager to be part of such adventures. ISIS knows all about psychology.

 

 

How does ISIS read history? Why is it bent on destroying the city’s heritage?

ISIS considers history as Islamic only, and does not care for anything preceding the advent of Islam. It is trying to rebuild the city according to its view, and removing the ancient is necessary to build a new identity.  They have burned all copies of The Cultural Encyclopedia of Mosul found in all public libraries.  This is part of their way of deleting the city’s heritage and identity.

 

 

What does the educational system look like now?

ISIS has changed the entire curriculum and has printed its own radical books. The man supervising the new curriculum is a historian from Mosul University. ISIS abolished the faculties of arts, fine arts, political science, and law. Children are forced to wear the Afghani attire, and schools are nothing but places to prepare new ISIS fighters; they concentrate on military training more than education. This is quite dangerous. Many families are not sending their children to school, for fear they will be radicalized. Many kidnapped Yazidi and Shiite Turkmen, as well as children in the orphanages, are being radicalized.

 

 

What message do you want to deliver to Iraqis and the international community?

I want Iraqis not to generalize, to listen for the facts, and to face reality in order to find a solution. They do not need to consider all of the city’s inhabitants their enemies; that is in fact a way to help ISIS. The international community, too, needs to know the facts; the picture of Mosul that reaches them is not accurate. And I want the people of Mosul realize, before anyone else, that life deserves to be lived, and the future deserves to be discovered for what it is, and that life is bigger than just wasting it to know God or to fight for him. If there is a God, he doesn’t want you to kill each other for his sake, and if there is no God, then you have missed the most beautiful things to live for in this life.

 

 

What are the possible solutions, in your opinion?

It is difficult, and it is getting more difficult as time passes. Solutions that were possible yesterday are not available today. The problems we will face in the period following the end of ISIS might be even more difficult. We have a hidden army now, those teenagers with such a radical vision that it is beyond imagining. To end ISIS, we need to eradicate it everywhere, in Iraq, Syria, and everywhere.

 

 

How do you see the future?

It is not difficult to predict the future anymore; the world is on the cusp of a big change, and a shift in humanity’s principles.  In the near future, we will witness continuous wars between the various social groups in the Middle East. Extremism will spread more easily than at any time previously. Our children have a dark future waiting for them. Children have become the most essential source for extremism’s growth in the region. Today, ISIS has youth volunteers who have received strict religious and military training that will transform them into monsters in the future. I cannot watch this world collapsing. The most depressing thing is our seeing everything clear and obvious in front of us. I wish I could have been able to track the way humanity moved from savagery into civilization, but unfortunately, I am tracking now its move from civilization into savagery.Ir

 

[bigvlada]

Nisu oni, ali nisu ni daleko. 

 

 

Mother of Saudi man sentenced to crucifixion begs Obama to intervene

US president urged to rescue Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, sentenced to be beheaded and crucified for allegedly attending anti-government protests

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/14/mother-of-saudi-man-sentenced-to-crucifixion-begs-obama-to-intervene

 

Ljudska prava^tm

[Pečorin]

 

the Saudi ambassador to the UN, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, said he would not talk about Nimr’s case because the “legal process has not been exhausted”, but said the matter was one for Saudi Arabia alone.

 

“We respectfully request the world to respect our systems and our judicial processes, and our laws and regulations, and not to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”

 

Mouallimi said the kingdom would uphold the UN charter on human rights. “The application of sharia law as far as human rights is concerned is the highest form of human rights,” he said, adding: “We believe that we are holding ourselves to the highest standards. If that doesn’t please someone here or there, that’s their problem not ours.”

 

divni ljudi