By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
The terrorist group the Islamic State of the Levant (ISIL) has arrived in Baghdad, setting off multiple explosions in the area. On Sunday, a car bomb killed 10 and wounded 15; a falafel shop and another target were also hit.
ISIL Baghdad tactics are first meant to cause fear, panic and exaggeration of forces. The arriving jihadists will appear to make themselves larger than they appear, by making lots of noise and setting off bombings scattered at seemingly random points in the city. They have only to upset the order and prey on soft targets there.
The US is evacuating some embassy staff in Baghdad, but “will remain fully equipped to handle is national security mission there,” said U.S. officials.
ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, directed a threat statement at the U.S.: “Soon we will be in direct confrontation and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day.”
Additional airlift assets and U.S. Marines and Army soldiers have been sent to or are standing at the ready.
Other embassies are being asked to evacuate Baghdad by the Iraqi government.
This weekend, ISIL claimed that it massacred 1,700 captured Iraqi soldiers. A video of the war crime and mass murder was released.
Almost one million Iraqis have been displaced as a direct result of ISIL attacks.
The US is sending an aircraft carrier, destroyer and Cruiser to the Persian Gulf. Traditional allies such as Israel, Egypt and Jordan are stretched to their limits. Israel is not welcome and might become the next target. Any actions by Israel will be last resort and covert assist and respond missions. Egypt is battling political targets and terrorists from within. Jordan is capped with a bordering Syrian Civil War and the policing of order amidst a bulging refugee crisis.
Washington was reported as planning to make a phone call to Tehran in finding ways to coordinate a counter-offensive against ISIL (according to the Wall Street Journal).
Most importantly, this is not a simply an American problem. What is happening in Iraq is not just a regional conflict; this is a global conflict.
All international actors that desire the safeguard a more stable world order must contribute to neutralizing ISIL.
With the quick victories taking control and holding key cities predominantly Sunni Iraq, ISIL has advanced into a phase two objective: a Shia genocide in Iraq and or the possible incitement of genocide. ISIL’s main objective is an Islamic state and violent extremist Islamic caliphate.
ISIL must be stopped by all means necessary.
ISIL cannot be allowed to hold territorial bases to further regional and international jihad warfare.
The organizing movement certainly cannot be permitted to ever form a bona-fide al Qaeda caliphate anywhere; and especially [symbolic] Iraq.
This most likely something the Arab state leadership and the Iranians and the world can all agree on. Unfortunately, one will only be able to recruit the leadership of Arab states and some, but not all, of the Arabian peoples; whereas in Iran, the people and the government will offer full and total support to end ISIL. Arab states have many extremist followers of Islam both passive and violent that would not necessarily go against external sister movements, violent or otherwise.
The Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, may be hesitant to upset their domestic bases to get involved in the crisis. On the other hand, their own leadership is imperiled by violent jihadists they can wind up but cannot control. In any case, they may be slower to move and or offer to move in to “secure” the Sunni portions of Iraq and redirect ISIL to the majority Shi zones.
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