Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) - Council on Foreign Relations

Authors: Zachary Laub, Online Writer/Editor, and Jonathan Masters, Deputy Editor
Updated: August 8, 2014

Introduction

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a predominantly Sunni jihadist group, seeks to sow civil unrest in Iraq and the Levant with the aim of establishing a caliphate—a single, transnational Islamic state based on sharia. The group emerged in the ashes of the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and the insurgency that followed provided it with fertile ground to wage a guerrilla war against coalition forces and their domestic allies.

After a U.S. counterterrorism campaign and Sunni efforts to maintain local security in what was known as the Tribal Awakening, AQI violence diminished from its peak in 2006–2007. But since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in late 2011, the group has increased attacks on mainly Shiite targets in what is seen as an attempt to reignite conflict between Iraq's Sunni minority and the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Burgeoning violence in 2013 left nearly eight thousand civilians dead, making it Iraq's bloodiest year since 2008, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, in 2012 the group adopted its new moniker, ISIS (sometimes translated as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL) as an expression of its broadened ambitions as its fighters have crossed into neighbouring Syria to challenge both the Assad regime and secular and Islamist opposition groups there. By June 2014, the group's fighters had routed the Iraqi military in the major cities of Fallujah and Mosul and established territorial control and administrative structures on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Origins

The insurgent group was launched by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Arab of Jordanian descent, and flourished in the sectarian tensions that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Zarqawi had commanded volunteers in Herat, Afghanistan, before fleeing to northern Iraq in 2001. There he joined with Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), a militant Kurdish separatist movement, for whom he led the group's Arab contingent. Analysts say this group, not al-Qaeda, was the precursor to AQI.

Ahead of the 2003 invasion, U.S. officials made a case before the UN Security Council linking Zarqawi's group with Osama bin Laden, though some experts say it wasn't until October 2004 that Zarqawi vowed obedience to the al-Qaeda leader. The U.S. State Department designated AQI a foreign terrorist organization that same month. "For al-Qaeda, attaching its name to Zarqawi's activities enabled it to maintain relevance even as its core forces were destroyed [in Afghanistan] or on the run," wrote Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism fellow at the New America Foundation.

According to a 2011 report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Zarqawi developed a four-pronged strategy [PDF] to defeat the coalition: isolate U.S. forces by targeting its allies; discourage Iraqi collaboration by targeting government infrastructure and personnel; target reconstruction efforts through high-profile attacks on civilian contractors and aid workers; and draw the U.S. military into a Sunni-Shiite civil war by targeting Shiites.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the transitional government established by the United States and its coalition partners, made two decisions early in the U.S.-led occupation that are often cited as having fed the insurgency. The CPA's first order banned members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party from government positions (so-called "de-Baathification"); its second order disbanded the Iraqi army and security services, creating hundreds of thousands of new coalition enemies, many of them armed Sunnis.

"For al-Qaeda, attaching its name to Zarqawi's activities enabled it to maintain relevance even as its core forces were destroyed [in Afghanistan] or on the run." —Brian Fishman, New America Foundation

AQI's fighters were drawn initially from Zarqawi's networks [PDF] in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and later merged with recruits from Syria, Iraq, and its neighbours. The group's makeup became predominantly Iraqi by 2006, the Washington Post reported. But while the group peaked in 2006 and 2007 at the height of Iraq's sectarian civil war—which AQI helped foment—its ranks were diminished by a counterterrorism campaign by U.S. Special Operations Forces and the U.S.-backed Sahwa, or Sunni Awakening movement.

Leadership

Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri believed AQI's indiscriminate attacks on fellow Muslims would erode public support for al-Qaeda in the region, and in July 2005 they questioned Zarqawi's strategy in written correspondence. Fishman said the relationship collapsed when Zarqawi ignored al-Qaeda instructions to stop attacking Shiite cultural sites.

A U.S. air strike that killed Zarqawi in June 2006 marked a victory for U.S. and Iraqi intelligence and a turning point for AQI. In its aftermath, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian-born explosives expert and former Zawahiri confidant, emerged as AQI's new leader. In October 2006, Masri adopted the alias Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) to increase the group's local appeal, which suffered just as Zawahiri had feared, and embody its territorial ambitions; it later came to be known as ISIS, reflecting its broadened ambitions as instability in neighbouring Syria after the 2011 uprising there created new opportunities to exploit.

ISIS is currently led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Du'a. The U.S. government believes he resides in Syria.

Funding

Supporters in the region, including those based in Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, are believed to have provided the bulk of past funding. Iran has also financed AQI, crossing sectarian lines, as Tehran saw an opportunity to challenge the U.S. military presence in the region, according to the U.S. Treasury and documents confiscated in 2006 from Iranian Revolutionary Guards operatives in northern Iraq. In early 2014, Iran offered to join the United States in offering aid to the Iraqi government to counter al-Qaeda gains in Anbar province.

The bulk of ISIS's financing, experts say, comes from sources such as smuggling, extortion, and other crime. ISIS has relied in recent years on funding and manpower from internal recruits [PDF]. Even prior to ISIS's takeover of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, in June 2014, the group extorted taxes from businesses small and large, netting upwards of $8 million a month, according to some estimates.

Staying Power

Heavy-handed actions taken by Maliki to consolidate power in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal have alienated much of the Sunni minority, and ISIS has since exploited the "failed social contract," said former CFR press fellow Ned Parker. Maliki's Shiite-dominated government was reluctant to integrate Awakening militias into the national security forces, and critics say he has persecuted Sunni political rivals and stoked sectarian polarization for political gain.

Sunnis who felt marginalized by the Maliki government began protesting for reforms in Anbar province in December 2012, and prominent Shiite clerics such as the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Moqtada al-Sadr acknowledged the legitimacy of their grievances, Parker wrote. According to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service [PDF], there were roughly a dozen days in 2012 on which ISIS executed multi-city attacks that killed at least twenty-five Iraqis. On at least four of those days, coordinated attacks left more than a hundred Iraqis dead.

In April 2013, Iraqi security forces raided a protest camp at al-Hawijah, provoking an escalation in Sunni militancy. Car bombings and suicide attacks intensified, with coordinated attacks regularly targeting Shiite markets, cafes, and mosques. In 2013, 7,818 civilians (including police) were killed in acts of terrorism and violence, more than double the 2012 death toll, according to United Nations figures. An additional 17,891 were injured, making 2013 Iraq's bloodiest year since 2008. At the end of 2013, security forces sought to clear a protest camp in Ramadi. The move provoked an uprising in which security forces pulled out of the city as well as nearby Fallujah, and ISIS moved to fill the void.

Meanwhile, the civil war in neighbouring Syria has drawn Sunni jihadists into the rebellion against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which is dominated by the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

While al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria have fought among themselves and with the secular opposition, the Free Syrian Army signed a truce with ISIS in late September, an acknowledgment of their efficacy on the battlefield. But divisions within the Islamist opposition camp remain stark.

ISIS declared a merger with Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate that has greater indigenous legitimacy in Syria, in April 2013. But Zawahiri, who succeeded bin Laden as head of so-called "core al-Qaeda," annulled the merger, ruling that Baghdadi's group's operations be limited to Iraq. Baghdadi rejected Zawahiri's ruling and questioned his authority, his group's pledge of fealty to al-Qaeda notwithstanding. Various rival Islamist militant groups coalesced in late 2013 as the Mujahedeen Army with the common goal of forcing ISIS to cede territory and leave Syria.

At odds with al-Qaeda's aims, ISIS has since expanded its territorial control, establishing a "de facto state in the borderlands of Syria and Iraq" that exhibits some of the traditional markers of sovereignty, note Douglas A. Ollivant and Fishman. Beyond fielding a militia, it provides limited services and administers its ultraconservative brand of justice. Much of Anbar province has remained outside the central government's authority since January 2014, and in mid-2014, a Sunni insurgency wrested control of Mosul and its environs after the predominantly Shiite army, hobbled by desertions and cronyism, retreated overnight. ISIS is at the vanguard of the insurgency, but the tactical alliances it has formed with non-jihadi Sunnis, including former members of the Ba'athist regime, have led analysts and policymakers to question how long it can rule over a population concerned by ISIS's extremism.

The takeovers highlighted Baghdad's weakness: In Fallujah, Maliki called on Sunni tribesmen to resist ISIS, and in Mosul, which had been considered a model for the surge and Awakening, he called on the Kurdish security forces, the peshmerga, to do the same. Maliki has also mobilized Shiite militias implicated in sectarian killings, and Iraqi forces are accused of indiscriminate airstrikes. Meanwhile, ISIS gains in the country's north set back the peshmerga and have created a humanitarian crisis for thousands of Iraqi Christians and Yezidis, who are among religious and ethnic minorities targeted by ISIS.

Insurgents' consolidation of territorial control is a concern for the United States, which believes such areas outside of state authority may become safe havens for those jihadists with ambitions oriented toward the "far enemy"—the West. The Obama administration has responded to the regional resurgence by increasing the CIA's support for the Maliki government, including assistance to elite counterterrorism units that report directly to the prime minister, and providing Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones. After Iraqi forces retreated from Mosul, the insurgents who routed them released more than one thousand prisoners and picked up troves of U.S.-supplied matériel.

Additional Resources

The International Crisis Group explains how Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's policies have benefitted al-Qaeda in Iraq as it took control of parts of Anbar province.

Will McCants describes factions within al-Qaeda, including the ISIS–al-Nusra internecine conflict.

Rania Abouzeid reports on the backlash against ISIS among rebel groups in Syria.

The New York Times presents a visual guide to the 2014 crisis in Iraq.

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) - Council on Foreign Relations

Islam: Governing Under Sharia (aka shariah, shari'a)- Council on Foreign Relations

Authors: Toni Johnson, and Mohammed Aly Sergie, Senior Online Writer/Editor
Updated: July 25, 2014

Introduction

Sharia, or Islamic law, influences the legal code in most Muslim countries. A movement to allow sharia to govern personal status law, a set of regulations that pertain to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody, is even expanding into the West. "There are so many varying interpretations of what sharia actually means that in some places, it can be incorporated into political systems relatively easily," said CFR's Steven A. Cook. Sharia's influence on both personal status law and criminal law is highly controversial. Some interpretations are used to justify cruel punishments such as amputation and stoning, as well as unequal treatment of women in inheritance, dress, and independence. The debate is growing as to whether sharia can coexist with secularism, democracy, or even modernity, an idea that is being tested by several countries in the Middle East in the wake of popular uprisings and civil wars.

What is Sharia?

Also meaning "path" in Arabic, sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life, including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunna—the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Precedents and analogy applied by Muslim scholars are used to address new issues. The consensus of the Muslim community also plays a role in defining this theological manual.

Sharia developed several hundred years after the Prophet Mohammed's death in 632 CE as the Islamic empire expanded to the edge of North Africa in the West and to China in the East. Since the Prophet Mohammed was considered the most pious of all believers, his life and ways became a model for all other Muslims and were collected by scholars into what is known as the hadith. As each locality tried to reconcile local customs with Islam, hadith literature grew and developed into distinct schools of Islamic thought: the Sunni schools, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanafi; and the Shiite school, Ja'fari. Named after the scholars that inspired them, they differ in the weight each applies to the sources from which sharia is derived, the Quran, hadith, Islamic scholars, and consensus of the community.

The Hanbali school, Islam's most orthodox which spawned the Wahhabi and Salafi branches, is embraced in Saudi Arabia and by the Taliban. The Hanafi school, known for being the most liberal and the most focused on reason and analogy, is dominant among Sunnis in Central Asia, Egypt, Pakistan, India, China, Turkey, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. The Maliki school is dominant in North Africa and the Shafi'i school in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Yemen. Shia Muslims follow the Ja'fari school, most notably in Shia-dominant Iran. The distinctions have more impact on the legal systems in each country, however, than on individual Muslims, as many do not adhere to one school in their personal lives.

Punishment and Equality Under Sharia

Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, while criminal law is the most controversial. In sharia, there are categories of offenses: those that are prescribed a specific punishment in the Quran, known as hadd punishments, those that fall under a judge's discretion, and those resolved through a tit-for-tat measure (i.e., blood money paid to the family of a murder victim). There are five hadd crimes: unlawful sexual intercourse (sex outside of marriage and adultery), false accusation of unlawful sexual intercourse, wine drinking (sometimes extended to include all alcohol drinking), theft, and highway robbery. Punishments for hadd offenses—flogging, stoning, amputation, exile, or execution—get a significant amount of media attention when they occur. These sentences are not often prescribed, however. "In reality, most Muslim countries do not use traditional classical Islamic punishments," said Ali Mazrui of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies in a Voice of America interview. These punishments remain on the books in some countries, but lesser penalties are often considered sufficient.

The issue of sharia law versus secular law gained new scrutiny in 2011 in the wake of uprisings in several Arab countries.

Extremist groups such as the al-Qaeda spinoff known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), have become notorious for executions by stoning and crucifixion. They apply hadd punishments rarely used in Islamic history. Vigilante justice also takes place. Honour killings, murders committed in retaliation for bringing dishonour on one's family, are a worldwide problem. While precise statistics are scarce, the UN estimates thousands of women are killed annually in the name of family honour. Other practices that are woven into the sharia debate, such as female genital cutting, child and adolescent marriages, polygamy, and gender-biased inheritance rules, elicit as much controversy.

There is significant debate over what the Quran sanctions and what practices were pulled from local customs that predate Islam. Those that seek to eliminate or at least modify these controversial practices cite the religious tenet of tajdid. The concept is one of renewal, where Islamic society must be reformed constantly to keep it in its purest form. Though many scholars share this line of thought, there are those who consider the purest form of Islam to be the one practiced in the seventh century.

Sharia vs. Secularism

The issue of sharia law versus secular law gained new scrutiny in 2011 in the wake of uprisings in several Arab countries, such as Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt, which ousted long-time autocrats and helped Islamist political parties gain prominence. A 2013 Pew poll conducted in thirty-nine countries found strong support for Islam in politics and for harsh punishments for crimes such as theft, adultery, and conversion away from Islam. At the same time, Muslims in only five countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, preferred a strong leader to a democratic form of governance.

Whether democracy and Islam can coexist is a topic of heated debate. Some conservative Muslims argue democracy is a purely Western concept imposed on Muslim countries. Others feel Islam necessitates a democratic system and that democracy has a basis in the Quran since "mutual consultation" among the people is commended (42:38 Quran). Rather than rejecting democracy, many Muslims see sharia as a means "to be liberated from government corruption and believe it can exist within a democratic and inclusive framework."

Some Muslim scholars say that secular government is the best way to observe sharia. "Enforcing a [sharia] through coercive power of the state negates its religious nature, because Muslims would be observing the law of the state and not freely performing their religious obligation as Muslims," said sharia expert Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im.

Opinions on the best balance of Islamic law and secular law vary, but sharia has been incorporated into political systems in three general ways:

Dual Legal System. Many majority Muslim countries have a dual system in which the government is secular but Muslims can choose to bring familial and financial disputes to sharia courts. The exact jurisdiction of these courts varies from country to country, but usually includes marriage, divorce, inheritance, and guardianship. Examples can be seen in Nigeria and Kenya, which have sharia courts that rule on family law for Muslims. A variation exists in Tanzania, where civil courts apply sharia or secular law according to the religious backgrounds of the defendants. Several countries, including Lebanon and Indonesia, have mixed jurisdiction courts based on residual colonial legal systems and supplemented with sharia.

Western countries are also exploring the idea of allowing Muslims to apply Islamic law in familial and financial disputes. In late 2008, the United Kingdom officially allowed tribunals governing marriage, divorce, and inheritance to make legally binding decisions if both parties agreed. The new system is in line with separate mediation allowed for Anglican and Jewish communities there. Criminal law remains under the gavel of the existing legal system. Supporters of this initiative, such as the former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, argued that it would help maintain social cohesion in European societies increasingly divided by religion. However, some research suggests the process discriminates against women.

Sharia has become a topic of political concern in the United States in recent years. The state of Oklahoma passed a ballot measure in November 2010 to ban the use of sharia law in court cases, which supporters said was "a necessary pre-emptive strike" against Islamic law.

Several opponents of the construction of new mosques around the United States, including one near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, have cited fear of the spread of sharia as a reason for their opposition. And about a third of Americans in an August 2010 Newsweek poll suspected U.S. President Barack Obama sympathizes with Islamist goals (PDF) to impose sharia.

Government Under God. In Muslim countries where Islam is the official religion, sharia is declared to be a source, or the source, of the law. Examples include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, where the governments derive their legitimacy from Islam. In Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, among others, it is also forbidden to enact legislation that is antithetical to Islam. The crafting of new constitutions following the ouster of long-time rulers in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia has led to a discussion about the role of Islamic law in a democracy. Efforts to force an Islamist agenda in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood led to the 2013 ouster of Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president, and the return of a more secular military government.

Saudi Arabia employs one of the strictest interpretations of sharia. Women are under the guardianship of male relatives at all times, and must be completely covered in public. Elsewhere, governments are much more lenient, as in the United Arab Emirates, where alcohol is tolerated. Non-Muslims are not expected to obey sharia, and in most countries they are the under jurisdiction of special committees and adjunct courts under the control of the government.

Completely Secular. Muslim countries where the government is declared to be secular in the constitution include Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Chad, Somalia, and Senegal. Islamist parties run for office occasionally in these countries and sharia often influences local customs. Popular Islamist groups are often viewed as a threat by existing governments. As in Azerbaijan in the 1990s, secularism is sometimes upheld by severe government crackdowns on Islamist groups and political parties. Similar clashes have occurred in Turkey. Under the suspicion that the majority party, the Islamist Justice and Development Party, was trying to establish sharia, Turkey's chief prosecutor petitioned the constitutional court in March 2008 to bar the party from politics altogether. Secular Muslim countries are a minority, however, and the popularity of Islamist political parties are narrowing the gap between religion and state.

Modern Economies and Sharia

Global Islamic financial assets rose to $1.3 trillion in 2012, double the level of 2007, an expansion rooted in consumer demand for products that comply with religious codes. Sharia-compliant financial instruments can't pay or collect interest, due to Islam's proscription of usury; Islamic investments also can't be associated with alcohol, pork, gambling, pornography, or other Muslim prohibitions. Islamic finance surged in recent decades by introducing products that mimic credit cards, savings accounts, and mortgages while avoiding interest. Islamic banks are growing rapidly in countries from Malaysia to Morocco, and even international lenders such as HSBC, Crédit Agricole, and Standard Chartered have developed Islamic banking divisions.

The growing pool of sharia-compliant assets is fuelling demand for Islamic bonds, or sukuk, issued by corporations and governments, mainly in Muslim countries. Malaysia and Saudi Arabia dominate the sukuk market, but Prime Minister David Cameron's 2013 announcement that the United Kingdom will issue a £200 million ($327 million) sukuk indicates the potential for Islamic finance in global markets.

Lauren Vriens contributed to this report.

Additional Resources

This CFR Backgrounder looks at the links between sharia and militancy.

The book Islam and the Secular State by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im examines the place of sharia in predominantly Muslim societies.

Law expert Noah Feldman in the New York Times in 2008 looked at sharia's contradictory reputation and why it has experienced a major revival among Muslims.

This CFR Backgrounder explains the origins and rise of Islamic finance.

Explore Muslim attitudes toward Sharia in this 2013 worldwide survey by the Pew Research Centre.

Islam: Governing Under Sharia - Council on Foreign Relations

Abu Qatada will not be allowed back in UK, says Theresa May

Josh Halliday, Alan Travis, and Alice Su in Amman The Guardian, Thursday 25 September 2014

Home secretary says deportation order and UN travel ban will prevent cleric’s return after Jordan acquittal on terror charges,

 

Cleric Abu Qatada thanks God and lawyers after terror acquittal. Source: Reuters

The home secretary, Theresa May, has insisted that Abu Qatada will not return to Britain after the radical preacher was acquitted of terrorism charges in a Jordanian court.

In a ruling that brought a surprise end to a decade-long legal battle, a judge in Amman struck down the case against Qatada and declared him free to leave custody to re-join his family and lawyers.

In a televised statement, May insisted Qatada would not return to Britain despite his acquittal: “Due process of law has taken place in Jordan, that is absolutely as it should be,” she said.

“The UK courts were very clear that Abu Qatada posed a threat to our national security – that’s why we were pleased as a government to be able to remove him from the United Kingdom. He is subject to a deportation order. He is also subject to a UN travel ban – that means he will not be returning to the UK.”

The preacher, who fought a bitter and protracted legal battle against extradition from his London home to face the charges, was accused of plotting terrorist attacks on Americans and Israelis during millennium celebrations in Jordan – charges he was convicted of in absentia in 2000.

He was finally deported in July last year after the UK and Jordan signed a treaty stating that evidence gathered against him through torture would not be used in any retrial.

Qatada’s lawyers always maintained that he had been convicted by the Jordanians using torture-tainted evidence from his alleged co-conspirators.

The Islamist preacher calculated that there would be no other evidence available to convict him when he returned voluntarily to Jordan on the basis of the “fair trial” treaty, saying that for the first time in 12 years he felt safe returning to Amman.

His calculation appeared to have paid off when, to loud cheers and shouts from members of his family, the judge dismissed the prosecution case as weak and inadmissible. “The accused is found innocent,” he announced.

Seven armed guards stood in front of Qatada’s cell as he entered the court in brown detainment robes. The cleric was quiet, blowing a kiss to his family members filling a row of courtroom seats. They sat calmly, some smiling. “Inshallah, he will be with us today,” his sister said.

Outside the courtroom, one of Qatada’s lawyers, Ghazi Althunibat, told reporters: “Justice took place today. The decision is aligned with Jordanian law and the UK treaty. He is innocent and he deserved to be declared innocent.”

Another of his lawyers, Husain Mubaidin, said he had expected the decision. “There is no substantial evidence against him in the first place,” he said. “Abu Qatada wanted to come back for a fair trial in Jordan and we are thankful that Britain sent him back. No further charges stand against him. He will walk free today.”

One of Qatada’s sons said: “We are very happy. We expected this.”

In Britain, his acquittal was less warmly received. David Blunkett, home secretary when Qatada was detained in 2002, said the length of time it took to deport the preacher made it harder to prosecute him successfully. “Abu Qatada managed to do what he wanted to do, which was to prevaricate for 10 years,” Blunkett said. “By doing that he’s made it very much more difficult for the prosecution. However, it also proves that he was wrong, because the case he made against extradition was that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in Jordan, and he clearly has.”

Qatada was first detained in Britain in 2002 in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and the failure to deport him was a major headache for successive home secretaries. The European court of human rights ruled that he could not be sent back to Jordan if he was to face trial based on torture-tainted evidence – a ruling that fuelled much Tory and tabloid hostility.

The trial was chaotic at times, with Qatada regularly pacing up and down his cage in the courtroom and apparently smuggling written statements out of his cell. In one speech from the dock, he denounced the beheading of two US journalists by Islamic State (Isis) militants, saying that reporters were “messengers of the truth” and killing them was in breach of Islamic teachings.

Outside court, Mubaidin restated his client’s opposition to Isis. “He didn’t make these statements because of pressure from Jordan’s courts,” he said, insisting Qatada supported the release of hostages. “He is against Daesh [the Arabic term for Isis] and everything they do. He believes their actions are against Islam.”

Abu Qatada will not be allowed back in UK, says Theresa May | World news | The Guardian

Scotland referendum: Alex Salmond to step down as first minister in wake of referendum defeat

Saturday 20 September 2014

Video: Alex Salmond accepts defeat (ABC News)

Related Story: Scots urged to put aside 'deep divisions' after independence vote fails

Map: Scotland

Scotland's first minister and leader of the Scottish independence campaign Alex Salmond has announced he will resign as the leader of his party, after Scots rejected breaking away from the UK in the country's independence referendum.

He will also quit as the country's first minister, after the poll which saw 55 per cent of voters decide against independence.

"For me as leader my time is nearly over but for Scotland the campaign continues and the dream will never die," Mr Salmond told reporters in Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, dozens of rival Union and independence supporters gathered in the centre of Glasgow, where they had to be separated by police.

A police spokeswoman say there were about 100 people in each of the two groups with some "minor disorder" reported.

Mr Salmond said he would not accept the nomination as leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) at an annual conference in November and that he would then resign as first minister.

"After the membership ballot I will stand down as first minister to allow the new leader to be elected," he said.

Photo: "Minor disorder" broke out amongst pro-independence and pro-union protestors during a demonstration at George Square in Glasgow. (Reuters: Cathal McNaughton)

Mr Salmond said it had been "the privilege of my life" to serve as the head of the Scottish regional government.

"I think that party, parliament and country would benefit from new leadership," he said.

On Twitter, SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon paid tribute to Mr Salmond, calling him the "finest first minister Scotland has had".

"Alex Salmond's achievements as SNP leader and Scotland's first minister are second to none," she said.

"He led the SNP into government and has given our country a renewed self confidence."

More than 80 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots in the Scottish referendum vote.

 

Cameron's cross-party serenade

 

In wake of Scotland's No vote, the nation waits to see how Cameron's promises of greater independence will be upheld.

Mr Salmond earlier praised the people who voted "yes" as he conceded defeat, a sentiment he echoed in a statement released after announcing his decision to resign.

"I am immensely proud of the campaign which 'Yes Scotland' fought and of the 1.6 million voters who rallied to that cause by backing an independent Scotland," he said.

"I am also proud of the 85 per cent turnout in the referendum and the remarkable response of all of the people of Scotland who participated in this great constitutional debate and the manner in which they conducted themselves."

 

UK will respect referendum outcome: Queen

In an official message following the referendum result, Queen Elizabeth II said she would do everything to build a strong future for Scotland.

"For many in Scotland and elsewhere today, there will be strong feelings and contrasting emotions – among family, friends and neighbours. That, of course, is the nature of the robust democratic tradition we enjoy in this country," she said.

"Now, as we move forward, we should remember that despite the range of views that have been expressed, we have in common an enduring love of Scotland, which is one of the things that helps to unite us all."

The Queen said she had no doubt Scots, as well as others throughout the United Kingdom, would come together in a "spirit of mutual respect and support, to work constructively for the future of Scotland" and the rest of the UK.

"My family and I will do all we can to help and support you in this important task," she said.

AFP and Reuters

Scotland referendum: Alex Salmond to step down as first minister in wake of referendum defeat - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

What’s happening in the Middle East is the third world war – and this time we are on the fringes

Giles Fraser The Guardian, Saturday 13 September 2014

The west’s military involvement in Iraq is no more than a tinkering around the edges of a massive conflagration

This week President Obama authorised airstrikes in Syria and Iraq to combat the threat of Islamic State. Photograph: AP/Saul Loeb

One word was conspicuously absent from Barack Obama’s big speech re-declaring war on Islamic terrorists: the word war itself. Of course, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. And no forest of technical-sounding euphemisms should divert us from this reality. The Israelis insisted that what they did in Gaza was an “operation”. The US tends to use the word “campaign”. Indeed, despite the fact that the UK has been involved in shooting people somewhere around the world throughout all of my lifetime, the last time we actually declared war on another country was against Siam in 1942. The US, for instance, didn’t even declare war on Vietnam. War feels old-fashioned. Since the second world war, we have got used to conflict being geographically limited and containable.

Part of the reason for this reluctance to speak of war is legal and moral: declarations of war require a high degree of political consensus, votes in Congress or parliament and the like. Following Vietnam in 1973, the US Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, limiting the power of the president to commit troops to military conflict for more than 60 days. But this legislation has never been employed to challenge a presidential decision.

Likewise, formal declarations of war inevitably invite discussions of the just war tradition. I am generally suspicious of this tradition for the simple reason that I cannot think of a single instance when this tradition has ever actually prevented a war. On the contrary, when it is convenient – i.e. when it is believed that the just war criteria legitimate war – then it is constantly invoked as justification. In other words, the just war tradition is, in practice, a one-way street.

It is no coincidence that the just war tradition was invented around the time that the Emperor Constantine decided to baptise the Roman empire as Christian. The fact that many Christians had often been pacifists was something of an embarrassment to the head of the largest war machine the world had ever known. So just war was itself created to allow the Roman army to keep on fighting. Those theologians who came up with it were no doubt well-minded, but they were little more than the “useful idiots” of the military complex.

But despite my considerable reservations, it is still useful to invoke one aspect of the just war tradition and apply it to the current conflict in the Middle East: just wars require not only proportionality but also a reasonable chance of success. And the problem with so much of the west’s military involvement in Iraq, in particular, is that it has precious little conception of what success actually looks like. Bombing Islamic State is no more than a tinkering around the edges of a massive conflagration that is now increasingly being compared in scale to the thirty years war.

The sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia, ignited first by the Iranian revolution and then deepened by the ill-advised western invasion of Iraq, is of a much greater order of magnitude than that acknowledged by Obama’s hands-off drone and air-strike approach.

We are witnessing a shift in the political tectonic plates throughout the whole of the Middle East and beyond into Africa, and the west’s apparently surgical involvement will probably do little more than generate some short-term satisfaction that we are doing something. It is not that I am morally squeamish about bombing IS fanatics. Rather, I think we ought to recognise that we are little more than bystanders to a war that is so much bigger than we ever imagined, and so much more complicated than the rhetoric of terrorism or limited conflict allows.

Since the second world war, we have got used to the idea that big war is a thing of the past. But no more. This is the third world war. And this time we are on its fringes.

What’s happening in the Middle East is the third world war – and this time we are on the fringes | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian

After the referendum, the reckoning: why Cameron should fear for his future

Gaby Hinsliff The Guardian, Friday 19 September 2014

The mishandled no campaign in Scotland has left many questioning if Cameron can win the crunch battles ahead

Live blog: Thursday’s Scottish referendum developments

‘Four years in, Conservative backbenchers are losing faith in David Cameron’s ability to wing it.’ Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

For days now, the grumbling in Tory circles has been growing louder: a low, angry chorus muttering that, whatever happens, it’s all David Cameron’s flipping fault. Although flipping isn’t the word they use. When it first began looking as if Scotland might be heading for independence, his party’s anger with him was understandably intense. Even when the consensus shifted back to maybe no-by-a-whisker, his apparent complacency still annoyed them.

But what’s striking is that even when rumours began flying that it might be a firmer no, you could still find Tory MPs wholly unable to forgive a leader who many feel did too little for too long, before panicking and doing too much too late.

It’s not the fact that he offered Scotland extra powers at the last minute that has annoyed English Tories, so much as the back-of-a-fag-packet inelegance with which the deal was presented, and the fact that he seems to have kept so few bargaining chips in reserve. To them, Cameron has resembled nothing so much as the husband who only remembers his wife’s birthday with minutes to spare, and then chucks a bucket load of cash at the problem while praying she never sees the credit card bill.

Well, it will all be over soon. But whatever may or may not happen to the union once the votes have been counted, there are reasons to fear for the future of David Cameron.

Even hardened Tory troublemakers balk at trying to oust him this close to a general election, and not just because many of them would rather wait for Boris Johnson to be in the running. “He’s as close to toast as he’ll ever be,” said one yesterday, a little forlornly, “but the irony is that he’ll remain because nobody wants a change of leader now.” But calls for a change in the style of leadership are a different matter.

It’s become a bit of a cliché to accuse the prime minister of treating government like it’s an undergraduate essay crisis, with everything tackled at 10 minutes to midnight in a caffeine-fuelled blur. Cameron is neither so dim nor so thoughtless as he’s sometimes painted, and nor is he the only senior politician ever secretly reduced to crossing fingers and hoping for the best. But he has now flown so often by the seat of his pants that they’re getting worryingly threadbare. Too often he has either busked his way to the “right” result for all the wrong reasons, or got the wrong result for what were frankly good reasons – namely that he didn’t deserve to win.

We may never know for sure whether Britain missed its best chance to stop Islamic State (Isis) last summer, when parliament was hustled towards military action over Syria and declined. But if Ed Miliband, and those MPs of all parties who followed suit, were wrong not to give the green light to airstrikes at the time, then they were arguably wrong for all the right reasons. No prime minister can reasonably expect to bounce MPs into military action in the Middle East any more without demonstrating clear understanding of and planning for the likely consequences, and Downing Street simply didn’t give itself time or space to make the case.

If history proves on the other hand that we were right to stay out of Syria – that western invention would only have triggered a bigger regional confrontation, that Isis or something like it would have hatched somewhere else instead, that thousands of lives would have been lost either way – then it was the right decision reached arguably more by accident than design, one taken amid some procedural confusion and more in fear of history repeating itself than on its own merits.

No wonder that vote remains something many MPs struggle to feel good about, whichever side they were on. No wonder they are approaching this autumn’s looming decision over Syria and Iraq with such caution. As one Conservative MP who strongly supports airstrikes told me yesterday, when it comes to bringing others with him, Cameron is “already on the back foot because of the disastrous way he handled Syria last year. It’s backfired. Everybody knows it.”

The danger is that this mistrust goes much wider. Four years in, Conservative backbenchers are losing faith in Cameron’s ability to wing it, as he has done over everything from the AV referendum – in retrospect, a gamble he was lucky to pull off – to Libya, where the results have been bloodier and far more uncertain. Having seen the clumsiness with which Downing Street handled a Scottish referendum it could see coming a mile off, who is now confident that Cameron has a fool proof and detailed master plan up his sleeve to negotiate the return of powers from a reluctant EU, and win a far more difficult referendum on staying in Europe?

Having watched Cameron struggle for an answer to anti-establishment politics in Scotland, would you as a Tory MP trust him to get UKIP off your back? Does it seem more or less likely that he will be going to the United Nations shortly with a watertight, meticulously calibrated, long-term plan for tackling Isis that won’t fall apart under pressure? These are huge decisions that could not be more in the national interest.

It would be manifestly unfair to blame Cameron for everything that went wrong in Scotland. He was right to let Labour lead the no campaign, rather than have it contaminated by the “effing Tories”. It’s hardly his fault that there were tensions within the shadow cabinet over how to go about it, or that Labour’s roots in Scotland no longer reach as deep as it likes to think. (On which note, with a YouGov poll this week showing the Greens creeping to within a point or so of the Liberal Democrats, is it crazy to think Miliband will one day have a left-wing rival for the votes of the young and restless down south too?)

The slow death of Scottish conservatism and collapse of faith in the political establishment that have together made things so hard for Number 10 to manage this campaign are trends Cameron has failed to reverse, but they certainly didn’t start or end with him. And while English Tory MPs may be furious at the way devo max was brusquely sprung on their constituents at the last minute, they might have been even angrier had it been included on the ballot paper from the start and allowed Alex Salmond to split the no vote down the middle.

But there is a portion of blame that Cameron will know is his alone. Like many extremely bright people, he has a faith in his ability to pull something out of the bag in a crisis that is sometimes well-founded. (He is only the Tory leader today because, after initially trailing David Davis in the leadership contest, he managed to get it together at the eleventh hour – and prime minister only because he took the enormous risk of going into coalition.) But it’s a faith no longer widely shared by others. Sometimes it doesn’t take a confidence vote to know when you are failing to command it.

After the referendum, the reckoning: why Cameron should fear for his future | Gaby Hinsliff | Comment is free | The Guardian

Scottish independence: no campaigners buoyed by first referendum results

Severin Carrell, Ben Quinn, Rowena Mason and Jill Treanor

theguardian.com, Friday 19 September 2014

Yes campaign claws back some support with 57% in Dundee voting for independence

Scottish referendum results – live coverage

Counting under way in Aberdeen. Photograph: Robert Perry/EPA

Pro-UK campaigners were cheered early on Friday by the first results from the Scottish referendum, reporting figures in line with or better than a poll released on a day that showed the no side was ahead.

The pro-union Better Together camp won the contest in the first council to declare: the small council of Clackmannanshire in central Scotland recorded 19,036 votes for no to 16,350 to yes, amounting to a split of 54% to 46%. Turnout was 88.6% at the council, which comprises 1% of Scotland's total electorate.

The yes campaign clawed back some support with a vote in its favour in Dundee, a centre of pro-independence backing: 57% in the city voted for yes, a margin of more than 13,000. In West Dunbartonshire, an area which was expected to back independence, 33,720 (54%) voted yes, while the no camp garnered 28,776 (46%).

However a number of areas fell to the pro-UK camp early on Friday morning, with a number of big wins for the no campaign particularly towards the border areas. Midlothian, which had been seen as something of a bellwether region for the referendum, saw a victory for the no campaign, with the vote going against independence by 56% to 44%. East Lothian also saw a sizeable no vote, with 44,281 voting no against 27,467 voting yes.

In Renfrewshire, 52% voted no to independence. Stirling also voted no, as did Falkirk – the home of Dennis Canavan, the chairman of the yes campaign.

In Orkney, which had been expected to vote no, the Better Together camp saw an overwhelming win, with 10,004 votes to just 4,883 for yes.

Like its neighbouring islands to the south, Shetland also voted strongly against leaving the union. With a turnout of 84%, there were 9,951 no votes and 5,669 yes votes – making it 64% against and 36% for independence.

Eilean Siar – formerly the Western Isles – voted no despite expectations it would back independence. The vote was split 53% – 10,544 votes – to no and 47% – 9,195 votes – for yes, with 86% turnout.

An extremely tight vote in Inverclyde saw 50.1% vote against independence no and 49.9% vote yes, against on with a turnout of 87%. It had been seen as a good prospect for the yes camp.

Earlier a YouGov poll released just after the ballot boxes had closed suggested that the no camp would secure 54% of the vote, with the yes camp on 46%.

Turnouts continued to hit record heights across Scotland: Inverclyde was at 87.4%, West Dunbartonshire reached 87.9%, Renfrewshire hit 87.3%, while Orkney reached 83.7%. However, turnout was lower in Dundee – expected to lean toward yes – at 78.8% and there was an even lower turnout in Glasgow of 75%.

Sources in both the yes and no camps also confirmed that sampling of the 780,000 postal votes issued for the poll were two to one in favour of Better Together, with yes campaigners confirming they expected Edinburgh to vote no.

Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat Scotland secretary, told the Guardian he was pleased with the YouGov poll: "If that is decision at the end of the night, then that ticks all the boxes that we identified at the start of this process: a fair, legal and decisive decision.

"Assuming no does win, the question Alex Salmond has to answer is 'will you now put your independence obsession to one side, and work for the first time in your political life with other parties, with business, the trade unions and churches, and be part of the consensus, building instead of dividing Scottish politics?'".

Salmond, the Scottish first minister who has hailed the two-year referendum campaign as a positive celebration of democracy, changed plans last night and decided not to go to the count for his Aberdeenshire East constituency.

Salmond will reside overnight at his home in north-east Aberdeenshire, prompting some observers to suggest he expected the yes side to lose the referendum prompting him to limit his exposure overnight. Labour sources told the Guardian that it was looking like the yes campaign will lose in Salmond's backyard of Aberdeenshire.

The first minister is expected to go to Edinburgh early on Friday morning, according to SNP sources. The Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, where the count is taking place for the Aberdeenshire area, was the venue for David Cameron's final plea on Monday to voters to stick with the union.

A Yes Scotland spokesman insisted the YouGov findings were similar to other recent polls but those were failing to capture the tens of thousands of Scots who had only recently registered to vote – part of the "missing million" of irregular and non-voters, suggesting they were failing to capture the true level of independence support.

"The thing is with the turnout at over 80%, which it will be, that invalidates all the polls we've had," he said.

"With that turnout, there's a huge part of the missing millions who have only just registered to vote and a large part of those have therefore been out of reach of the pollsters."

Jim Wallace, the advocate general for Scotland in the UK government, told the Guardian: "This is a referendum of his choosing, his timing, his question. He has had the whole of the Scottish civil service behind the case he has made – and I qualify this with the fact we don't yet know the outcome, but if he doesn't win, there are serious questions about why? He has had a following wind and he has not done it [won]. We will get on and do what we said we would do: deliver more powers to the Scottish parliament."

With the final opinion polls suggesting that the Better Together campaign had nudged ahead of the yes side to take a narrow lead in the last week, the two camps mounted massive ground operations to ensure their supporters made it to the polling stations.

The huge turnout, which saw voters queue up outside polling stations as 16- and 17-year-olds voted for the first time, raised the prospect that the referendum could break the 83.9% turnout in the 1950 UK general election – the post-war high. That was slightly ahead of the 81.1% who turned out in Northern Ireland to vote on the 1998 Good Friday agreement – the highest in a UK referendum.

Voting passed off in a mainly friendly atmosphere. But there were isolated incidents of strife at some polling stations. Alistair Darling, the leader of Better Together, was greeted with boos and cheers as he arrived to vote in Edinburgh with his wife, Maggie.

The currency markets trade for 24 hours and some traders worked overnight to deal with clients in Asia as results start to come in. Shares were due to start trading formally at 8am.

A record 97% of adult Scottish residents – total 4,285,323 – registered to take part. The figure includes 789,024 postal voters.

 

Scottish independence: no campaigners buoyed by first referendum results | Politics | theguardian.com

Anti-terror operation in Sydney and Brisbane 'thwarted' beheading plot

 

Police say a large-scale anti-terrorism raid in Sydney this morning has foiled a plot to "commit violent acts" in Australia, including a plan to behead a member of the public.

More than 800 officers launched the raids as part of Operation Appleby in suburbs across Sydney's west and north-west, with a further 70 police involved in raids on properties in Brisbane's south.

Police said 15 people had been detained in Sydney as part of the operation between NSW officers, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO.

Court documents are expected to reveal that the raids, at 25 different properties, were aimed at a cell which planned to behead a member of the public in Sydney.

The documents are expected to say that the plan involved snatching a random member of the public in Sydney, draping them in an Islamic State group (IS) flag and beheading them on camera.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was briefed last night on the operation, adding that the intelligence received by police gave "not just suspicion" but "intent".

"The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country," he said, using another acronym for IS.

"That's why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have."

Mr Abbott will cut short his visit to Arnhem Land today to farewell RAAF crews heading to the Middle East and to attend security briefings on the terror raids in Sydney.

 

'Right now is a time for calm'

He said the operation commenced earlier this year and had interrupted a terrorist attack in Australia.

"Police believe that this group that we have executed this operation on today had the intention and had started to carry out planning to commit violent acts here in Australia," he said.

"Those violent acts particularly related to random acts against members of the public."

Commissioner Colvin said the raids in Brisbane were not "directly linked" to the raids in Sydney, but authorities were looking to see whether there were any links.

He said the Brisbane raids were linked to a similar operation in Queensland last week, when an Islamic bookshop was searched, and two men arrested.

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said the raids reflected "the reality of the threat we actually face".

"You know it is of serious concern that right at the heart of our communities we have people that are planning to conduct random attacks," he said.

"Today we work together to make sure that didn't happen. We have disrupted that particular attack.

"Our police will continue to work tirelessly to prevent any such attacks but certainly can I stress that right now is a time for calm. 

"We don't need to whip this up."

He said cars were also searched in the raids and at least one weapon was seized.

Photo: AFP Acting Commissioner Andrew Colvin said the operation commenced earlier this year. (NSW Police)

A total of 25 search warrants were executed in the Sydney suburbs of Beecroft, Bellavista, Guildford, Merrylands, Northmead, Wentworthville, Marsfield, Westmead, Castle Hill, Revesby, Bass Hill and Regents Park.

Similar raids took place in Brisbane with officers conducting searches on properties at Creek Road in Mt Gravatt East, as well as Logan and Underwood.

The men have been accused of helping to recruit, facilitate and fund people to travel to Syria to engage in hostile activities.

Queensland Police Minister Jack Dempsey has sought to assure people in the state that they were safe.

"Obviously with the lead-in to G20 we're already at a certain risk level which ensures that Queenslanders are even safer than most other states and territories in Australia," he said.

 

Helicopters, loudspeakers involved in Guildford raid

ABC reporter Lucy Carter said part of Bursill Street in Guildford was still blocked off by police, where a home was being raided.

"[Police] are questioning a number of people on the front balcony of a single-storey home," she said.

"Neighbours say police burst into the house before dawn, shouting through loudspeakers and with a helicopter hovering overhead.

"Right now police are removing items including computers from this Guildford home, and a sniffer dog has also been brought in."

Neighbours said the occupants had only lived in the house for about three weeks.

A resident of Bursill Street, who wished to remain anonymous, has been trying to come to terms with the raids.

"I just find it so wrong for that to be happening here in Australia. How do we get to this stage that people are this out of control?" he said.

"You talk about the money going overseas - earlier this morning I heard $18 million or $20 million going overseas, and we don't know about it until it's too late."

Officers are refusing to give more information at this stage, as the operation is still underway.

They say they will provide updates throughout the morning.

 

Man claims he was punched by officer in raids

One man who was at one of the raided properties when police arrived claims to have been punched by an officer.

Photo: Maywand Osman said he was assaulted while being detained during the raids. (Supplied)

Maywand Osman, who was detained during the raids at Waterloo Rd in Marsfield but not arrested, said: "I opened the door this morning at 4:45am to about four police officers."

"They asked me to raise my hands. I immediately raised my hands. Four officers then jumped at me and one punched me in the face.

"They threw me to the ground and started hitting me in the head and pulling my hair.

"One officer grabbed me by the hair and said 'you piece of shit'. While they were beating me I heard one officer say 'just don't make him bleed'.

"They then went inside my house to conduct a search. They found nothing in my house and I was not under arrest or in custody at any point in time."

A statement released by Mr Osman's solicitor said: "My client was brutally attacked by four police officers this morning without provocation."

"He sustained injuries to the face and head. He was escorted to hospital by ambulance."

Commissioner Colvin said he was personally not aware of the claims.

 

Raids follow terror alert level raise: terrorism expert

Greg Barton, who heads the Global Terrorism Centre at Monash University, said the raids followed the warning issued by ASIO director David Irvine.

On Friday, authorities announced Australia's terror alert level had been lifted to high, meaning the risk of an attack is likely.

"He said there was considerable amounts of intelligence about plots underway and that's why he had to raise the terror alert level," Mr Barton said.

"Of course that begs the question: if they know about plots under the way what are they doing to intercept them? Now we're finding the answers today."

Video: Sydney counter-terrorism operation (YouTube: TheNSWPolice)

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told the ABC's AM program that the raids demonstrate the "very real threat that's there".

"I think again [the operation] supports why the Government has been so strong in its response to this threat," he said.

He said the Government was working closely with the Islamic community "more broadly" and that "goodwill exists".

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Radio National this morning that the raids demonstrate Australian authorities are keeping the nation safe.

"Our security is the consequence of continued vigilance and hard work on the part of the security agencies," he said.

"There is no cause, no reason, for being complacent about security.

"There are people regrettably, some of them in our midst, that don't have the nation's best interests at heart."

Ikebal Patel from Muslims Australia told AM that the Islamic community has been stunned by the raids.

"Details are very sketchy and we don't even know who the individuals are and from which particular area, or sort of association they are part of," he said.

"So, it's all very very sketchy. It's all moving very fast."

The ABC understands the raids are linked to a similar operation in Queensland last week, when an Islamic bookshop was searched, and two men arrested.

The men have been accused of helping to recruit, facilitate and fund people to travel to Syria to engage in hostile activities.

Gallery: Anti-terrorism raids in Sydney, Brisbane

Anti-terror operation in Sydney and Brisbane 'thwarted' beheading plot - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Terrorism raids: Isis 'urging followers to behead Australians', says PM

Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Thursday 18 September 2014

• 22-year-old charged with ‘preparing to commit a terrorist act’
• Plan was allegedly to publicly behead someone and film it
• More than 800 officers in biggest counter-terrorism operation
• 15 suspects detained

• Abbott: Isis militants urged ‘demonstration killings’  video

A senior member of Islamic State was urging a network in Australia to carry out public beheadings, the prime minister has said, as a suspect was charged after the largest counter terrorism raids in Australia’s history.

More than 800 police officers were involved in raids in Sydney’s north-west on Thursday morning with 15 people detained.

One man, Omarjan Azari, 22, appeared in Sydney central court on Thursday afternoon to face charges of preparing to commit a terrorist act.

The other 14 detained can be held for a fortnight without charge under Australia’s counter-terrorism laws.

The prosecution said he planned to “shock, horrify and potentially terrify” the public with public executions. He was refused bail because he a serious risk of failing to appear in court, in part due to his “unusual level of fanaticism”.

Defence have argued the case against Azari is based on one intercepted phone call, which the prosecution said was what triggered the operation.

When asked about reports that there were plans to conduct a public beheading in Australia, Tony Abbott replied: “That’s the intelligence we received.”

“The exhortations, quite direct exhortations, were coming from an Australian, who is apparently quite senior in ISIL, to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country.

“So this is not just suspicion, this is intent and that’s why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have,” he told reporters in Arnhem Land.

Abbott played down the possibility that Australia’s renewed involvement in Iraq would increase the chance of terror plots against Australian targets. He said Australia was targeted in Bali in 2002 before any involvement in the previous Iraq war.

“These people, I regret to say, do not hate us for what we do, they hate us for who we are and how we live. That’s what makes us a target, the fact that we are different from their view of what an ideal society should look like, the fact that we are free, we are pluralist, we are tolerant, we are welcoming, we are accepting,” he said.

“All of these, in their eyes, are wrong and that’s what makes us a target and that’s something that should never change about us. We should always be a free, fair, open and tolerant country.”

Abbott said he had not received warnings Australia was more likely to be the subject of a home-grown terrorist attack than other countries, but it was important security agencies were one step ahead of groups who wanted to do Australians harm.

Australian federal police Acting Commissioner Andrew Colvin said a violent attack had been planned for “the streets of New South Wales”.

There were reports the plan was to kidnap someone from the street and behead them while filming it.

The pre-dawn raids in Sydney were conducted at the same time as, but not directly related to, raids in Queensland with police saying the raids south of Brisbane were in relation to a counter-terrorism raid last week where two people were arrested and charged. About 70 officers were involved in Thursday’s raids in Queensland.

The New South Wales police commissioner, Andrew Scipione, said there was no need to “whip” up the raids and that the operation reflected the strength and capability of Australia’s counter-terrorism forces.

“Our police will continue to work tirelessly to prevent any such attacks but certainly can I stress that right now, is a time for calm. We don’t need to whip this up.”

Police search at a house in Mount Gravatt, Brisbane, Thursday, Sep 18, 2014. Police are executing search warrants in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt East, Logan and Underwood and have confirmed the operation was linked to the counter-terrorism raids in Sydney. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

He said it would become apparent through the courts what was going to happen.

Some of those arrested have had their passports cancelled because they were planning to travel to Syria or Iraq.

Twenty-five search warrants were executed in the Sydney raids which were in the suburbs of Beecroft, Bellavista, Guildford, Merrylands, Northmead, Wentworthville, Marsfield, Westmead, Castle Hill, Revesby, Bass Hill and Regents Park.

Colvin said the officers included investigators, forensic experts, tactical officers and surveillance officers.

“This is the largest operation of its type undertaken in Australia’s history,” he said.

“I think the message that we need to make clear here is that police are working very hard across this country and are very well coordinated and the community should have absolute confidence in the work of their law enforcement security agencies to work together.

“While the raids in Queensland are not directly related to what has happened here today in NSW, as I said before, the investigations continue and we are looking at the linkages between the two.”

Police would not say if the targets of the operation had any links to Islamic State.

NSW premier Mike Baird delivered warned would-be terrorists that there would be no escape from the authorities.

“We will hunt you down,” he said on Thursday. “If you have any intent to bring overseas conflicts here, if you have any intent to threaten the security of this community, we will hunt you down.”

The raids come after the terror alert level in Australia was raised from medium to high last week.

Police say the threat level was not raised because of the intelligence that led to Thursday’s raids. Colvin said it had been raised because of a range of factors.

When asked if the prime minister was aware of the alleged planned attacks, Colvin responded: “Clearly you would understand that all levels of government need to understand what the national security threat in this country is. We have regular and ongoing briefings with all levels of government including the prime minister on the generic aspects of the national counter-terrorism threat, the national security threat.”

He added: “I don’t think anyone would be surprised it’s in the interests that the PM and political leaders have an understanding of what is going on.”

Two men aged 31 and 21 were arrested in last week’s raids in Queensland in a joint operation involving about 180 federal police and Queensland police.

It is alleged the men were involved in recruiting, facilitating and funding people to travel to Syria to engage in hostile activities.

The 31-year-old, Omar Succarieh, was charged with providing funds to the terrorist organisation Jabhat al-Nusra.

Agim Kruezi, the 21-year-old, is accused of recruiting another person to become a member of Islamic State and obtaining funds in preparation for incursions into a foreign state.

The previous largest counter-terrorism operation in Australia was Operation Pendennis in 2005 when 13 men were arrested over planned bomb attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

Terrorism raids: Isis 'urging followers to behead Australians', says PM | World news | theguardian.com

The five issues to define the Islamic State war

By Bob Bowker Tuesday 16 September 2014

Photo: Only Arabs can reboot Arab values and the institutions from which the horrors of IS have emerged. (Reuters: Stringer)

It is fitting for Australia to be part of a global effort to battle the Islamic State, but the outcome will depend primarily upon regional actors and five key considerations, writes Bob Bowker.

The deployment of Australian forces to the United Arab Emirates in preparation for use in the campaign against the Islamic State (IS) is justified by the gravity of the threat posed by IS to Australian interests, both security and strategic, and the values we support globally.

There is, however, a need for caution and realism in thinking about the objectives we are seeking to achieve.

For all the concerns we may share with regional countries and allies about the Islamic State, it remains a problem that is situated within the historical, political, social and strategic context of the Persian Gulf.

President Barack Obama has committed the power and prestige of the United States to achieving success in the conflict. That is not to be taken lightly. But the outcome will depend primarily upon the choices, capabilities and political leaderships of regional actors.

There are at least five issues that deserve to be recognised in that regard:

 

Iran is still a sore point

First, Arab governments in the immediate region of Iraq are concerned that IS should not be allowed to pose a genuine threat to their territory or their sovereignty. There is widespread revulsion at its cruelty - and a shared sense of shame across the Muslim world at its damage to the image of Islam and Muslims.

However, such concerns about IS remain of less importance in most Arab capitals than the determination to prevail in a decades-long contest against Iran, and within that context, to see the removal of the Assad regime in Syria. Consequently, we shall see continuing concern on the part of major Arab states to extract the maximum value from the United States in support of their particular agendas and priorities, especially in Syria.

There will be less enthusiasm for Western approaches that accept, tacitly or otherwise, the fact that Iran will need to be part of any durable solution to the IS challenge.

 

Suspicion of the West

Second, although their interests are arguably better served by taking a more robust and supportive attitude to the US commitment, Arab governments will be keen to minimise their part in a Western-led intervention against IS.

There is too little mutual respect at either government or popular levels between Arab capitals and Washington since 2001, and too little confidence in estimates of the ultimate outcome, especially where the Iranians are concerned, for Arab leaderships and popular audiences to have an appetite for open engagement of Arab military forces in such a conflict.

Reasonably discreet basing, training, certain special forces operations and intelligence sharing, and some aerial support to Western operations look increasingly likely; but no Arab leader would be willing to fight openly alongside Western forces on the soil of another Arab country when the ultimate beneficiary, in their estimation, would most likely be an Iraqi government beholden to Iran or the United States.

The reasons behind such thinking on the Arab side are simultaneously complex and naïve, calculating, contradictory and emotional.

But above all, they speak to three key themes: an Arab sense of being, for too long, on the receiving end of external agendas in an unequal and mostly conflictual relationship with the Western powers; resentment at being corralled into another US-led effort whose success (in American minds at least) ultimately hinges on addressing deficits of political and social empowerment - notions that make more sense in Washington and among a handful of secular reformist Arab intellectuals than in Arab leadership circles; and a deep sense of insecurity when Arab leaderships contemplate the potential consequences of a resurgent Iran.

 

Sectarian politics at play

Third, the instrumentalisation of sectarian differences for political purposes within Iraq (as elsewhere in the region) over the past decade means that a genuine rebalancing of political power within Iraq to bring the Sunnis on board against IS will be very difficult.

With US air support and a range of force enablers available to the Iraqi government, the risk of military defeat for the Shiah has lessened. Unfortunately, so too has the incentive in Baghdad to press forward with painful reversals of the disastrous policies of the Maliki government, and to bring about a balanced representation of competent Sunni figures within the military and security services.

The incoming government of prime minister Haidar al-Abadi is no more balanced in its representation of Sunnis than its predecessor. Washington will continue efforts to correct that situation: but the larger problems - giving effect to policies likely to achieve a genuine sense among Sunnis that their interests are being taken into account; containing Kurdish expectations on the possibility of independence; and building up local and national forces while dealing with the mutual mistrust among the players as the IS military threat recedes - will be ongoing challenges.

For its part, IS can be expected to modify its tactics in Iraq to counter US firepower by increasing its asymmetric use of bombings and the targeting of government officials and sympathisers. It is crushing any signs of dissent in areas it controls.

It will hope, in time, to exploit frictions between Kurds and Sunnis and the indiscipline of Shiah militias to retain some degree of Sunni acceptance, perhaps even support, while consolidating its coercive grip on urban environments including Mosul and Tikrit.

Social media will portray damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure as a deliberate targeting of Sunnis by the regime and the United States and its allies.

 

IS has strategic depth in eastern Syria

Fourth, at least until an agreed Western, Arab and Iranian strategy for dealing with Syria emerges, IS has the strategic depth of eastern Syria at its disposal. The Assad regime has shown it can remain cohesive. It has adapted to the demands of urban warfare, and can fight on several fronts simultaneously. But its main focus has been on reversing the initial gains of non-IS forces in key urban centres and countering the threat to the Alawite heartland, rather than on confronting threats in the east.

IS has consolidated much of its terrain at the expense of other jihadist forces, but it has also shown the ability to concentrate its forces to isolate and overwhelm key regime assets in Raqqa province. It appears unlikely the regime could reassert control over those points it has lost in the east, especially if its last remaining air base there (at Deir ez-Zor) were to fall into IS hands.

 

Iran still holds a lot of cards

Fifth, and finally, for many years to come Iran will have the largest degree of influence of any external player in regard to the future of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon because, unlike its Arab counterparts and Turkey, it has genuine strategic interests engaged in each of those countries that it is better placed and more determined to defend than any other actor.

It faces complex challenges as well - the politics among the Iraqi Shiah and their views of Iran are exceedingly complicated; it has larger interests at stake in its dealings with the United States than the threat from IS; its policy processes involve multiple competing actors and agendas, and it has resource constraints. But no durable solution will be found to the IS threat, in Iraq or in Syria, unless the Iranians assess it to be to their strategic advantage. 

Against that background, we can hope to find IS on the defensive, at least in Iraq, as the military campaign against it gathers momentum in coming months. But it would appear unlikely to be finally defeated in the foreseeable future in the absence of an Iraqi government that is supported by Iran but that can also command the respect, if not the loyalty of Iraqi Sunnis; with the IS urban foothold only at risk if the Iraqi government can put together a force to oppose it in which Sunnis, rather than Shiah militias, are strongly represented; with the Abadi government tempted to choose the expedient option of relying on Shiah militias and Iranian support rather than rebuilding and broadening its political base; and with eastern Syria providing strategic depth to IS forces.

That is not to argue against an Australian commitment to the struggle against IS. It is fitting for Australia to be part of a global effort to address the challenges ahead for the region, so long as we remember that our military contribution needs to be seen as a part of a wider struggle, necessarily within the region itself, to address the issues that have brought us to this point.

It is not a risk-free strategy for Australia and Australians. But the problems outlined above are formidable, not impossible, and problems in the Middle East tend to grow more complex and intractable the longer they are allowed to drift.

Only Arabs can reboot Arab values and the institutions from which the horrors of IS have emerged. Supporting such a process will have its full share of trade-offs, moral ambiguities and unintended consequences, but we can help bring relief to populations that deserve better futures than the barbarity of IS rule.

Bob Bowker is Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies, Australian National University. He was Australia's ambassador to Syria, 2005 to 2008. View his full profile here.

The five issues to define the Islamic State war - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

How to make Isis fall on its own sword

Chelsea E Manning in Fort Leavenworth

theguardian.com, Wednesday 17 September 2014

Degrade and destroy? The west should try to disrupt the canny militants into self-destruction, because bombs will only backfire

If properly contained, Isis will not be able to sustain itself on rapid growth alone, and will begin to fracture internally. Photograph: via AP

The Islamic State (Isis) is without question a very brutal extremist group with origins in the insurgency of the United States occupation of Iraq. It has rapidly ascended to global attention by taking control of swaths of territory in western and northern Iraq, including Mosul and other major cities.

Based on my experience as an all-source analyst in Iraq during the organization’s relative infancy, Isis cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets – even as the fight is taken to Syria, even if it is conducted by non-Western forces with air support.

I believe that Isis is fuelled precisely by the operational and tactical successes of European and American military force that would be – and have been – used to defeat them. I believe that Isis strategically feeds off the mistakes and vulnerabilities of the very democratic western states they decry. The Islamic State’s centre of gravity is, in many ways, the United States, the United Kingdom and those aligned with them in the region.

When it comes to regional insurgency with global implications, Isis leaders are canny strategists. It’s clear to me that they have a solid and complete understanding of the strengths and, more importantly, the weaknesses of the west. They know how we tick in America and Europe – and they know what pushes us toward intervention and overreach. This understanding is particularly clear considering the Islamic State’s astonishing success in recruiting numbers of Americans, Britons, Belgians, Danes and other Europeans in their call to arms.

Attacking Isis directly, by air strikes or special operations forces, is a very tempting option available to policymakers, with immediate (but not always good) results. Unfortunately, when the west fights fire with fire, we feed into a cycle of outrage, recruitment, organizing and even more fighting that goes back decades. This is exactly what happened in Iraq during the height of a civil war in 2006 and 2007, and it can only be expected to occur again.

And avoiding direct action with Isis can be successful. For instance, in 2009 and 2010, forerunners to the Isis group attacked civilians in suicide and car bombings in downtown Baghdad to try and provoke American intervention and sectarian unrest. But they were often not effective in their recruiting efforts when American and Iraqi forces refused (or were unable) to respond, because the barbarity and brutality of their attacks worked against them. When we did respond, however, the attacks were sold to the Sunni minority in Iraq as a justified response to an occupying government favouring the Shia government led by former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Based on my intelligence work in Iraq during that period, I believe that only a very focused and consistent strategy of containment can be effective in reducing the growth and effectiveness of Isis as a threat. And so far, Western states seem to have adopted that strategy. With very public humanitarian disasters, however, like the ones on Mount Sinjar and Irbil in northern Iraq, and the beheadings of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, this discipline gets tested and can begin to fray.

As a strategy to disrupt the growth of Isis, I suggest focusing on four arenas:

• Counter the narrative in online Isis recruitment videos – including professionally made videos and amateur battle selfies – to avoid, as best as possible, the deliberate propaganda targeting of desperate and disaffected youth. This would rapidly prevent the recruitment of regional and western members.
• Set clear, temporary borders in the region, publicly. This would discourage Isis from taking certain territory where humanitarian crises might be created, or humanitarian efforts impeded.
• Establish an international moratorium on the payment of ransom for hostages, and work in the region to prevent Isis from stealing and taxing historical artefacts and valuable treasures as sources of income, and especially from taking over the oil reserves and refineries in Bayji, Iraq. This would disrupt and prevent Isis from maintaining stable and reliable sources of income.
• Let Isis succeed in setting up a failed “state” – in a contained area and over a long enough period of time to prove itself unpopular and unable to govern. This might begin to discredit the leadership and ideology of Isis for good.

Eventually, if they are properly contained, I believe that Isis will not be able to sustain itself on rapid growth alone, and will begin to fracture internally. The organization will begin to disintegrate into several smaller, uncoordinated entities – ultimately failing in their objective of creating a strong state.

But the world just needs to be disciplined enough to let the Isis fire die out on its own, intervening carefully and avoiding the cyclic trap of “mission creep”. This is certainly a lot to ask for. But Isis is wielding a sharp, heavy and very deadly double-edged sword. Now just wait for them to fall on it.

More from Guardian US on Isis:

• Pentagon: US ground troops may join Iraqis in combat against Isis
• Hagel and Dempsey testify to Senate on Isis threat – live
• Trevor Timm: Is Obama’s Forever War against Isis legal?
• Plus: The sad legacy of 9/11 – Isis and al-Qaida are stronger than ever
• Back story: Chelsea Manning breaks silence to criticise Obama’s Isis strategy

How to make Isis fall on its own sword | Chelsea E Manning | Comment is free | theguardian.com