By Kit Klarenberg – Mar 30, 2024
Contrary to their mainstream portrayal, as inspired purely by religious fundamentalism, Daesh are primarily guns for hire.
Within just 24 hours of the horrific mass shooting in Moscowâs Crocus City Hall on March 22nd, which left at least 137 innocent people dead and 60 more critically wounded, US officials blamed the slaughter on ISIS-K, Daeshâs South-Central Asian branch. For many, the attributionâs celerity raised suspicions Washington was seeking to decisively shift Western public and Russian government focus away from the actual culprits – be that Ukraine, and/or Britain, Kievâs foremost proxy sponsor.
Full details of how the four shooters were recruited, directed, armed, and financed, and who by, are yet to emerge. The savage interrogation methods to which they have been, and no doubt continue to be subjected are concerned with prising this and other vital information from them. The killers may end up making false confessions as a result. In any event, they themselves likely have no clue who or what truly sponsored their monstrous actions.
Contrary to their mainstream portrayal, as inspired purely by religious fundamentalism, Daesh are primarily guns for hire. At any given time, they act at the behest of an array of international donors, bound by common interests. Funding, weapons, and orders reach its fighters circuitously, and opaquely. There is almost invariably layer upon layer of cutouts between the perpetrators of an attack claimed by the group, and its ultimate orchestrators and financiers.
Given ISIS-K is currently arrayed against China, Iran, and Russia – in other words, the US Empireâs primary adversaries – it is incumbent to revisit Daeshâs origins. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere just over a decade ago, before dominating mainstream media headlines and Western public consciousness for several years before vanishing, at one stage the group occupied vast swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory, declaring an âIslamic Stateâ, which issued its own currency, passports, and vehicle registration plates.
Devastating military interventions independently launched by the US and Russia wiped out that demonic construct in 2017. The CIA and MI6 were no doubt immensely relieved. After all, extremely awkward questions about how Daesh were comprehensively extinguished. As we shall see, the terror group and its caliphate did not emerge in the manner of lightning on a dark night, but due to dedicated, determined policy hatched in London and Washington, implemented by their spying agencies.
âContinuingly Hostileâ
RAND is a highly influential, Washington DC-headquartered âthink tankâ. Bankrolled to the tune of almost $100 million annually by the Pentagon and other US government entities, it regularly disseminates recommendations on national security, foreign affairs, military strategy, and covert and overt actions overseas. These pronouncements are more often than not subsequently adopted as policy.
For example, a July 2016 RAND paper on the prospect of âwar with Chinaâ forecast a need to fill Eastern Europe with US soldiers in advance of a âhotâ conflict with Beijing, as Russia would undoubtedly side with its neighbour and ally in such a dispute. It was therefore necessary to tie down Moscowâs forces at its borders. Six months later, scores of NATO troops duly arrived in the region, ostensibly to counter âRussian aggressionâ.
Similarly, in April 2019 RAND published Extending Russia. It set out âa range of possible meansâ to âbait Russia into overextending itself,â so as to âundermine the regimeâs stability.â These methods included; providing lethal aid to Ukraine; increasing US support for the Syrian rebels; promoting âregime change in Belarusâ; exploiting âtensionsâ in the Caucasus; neutralising âRussian influence in Central Asiaâ and Moldova. Most of that came to pass thereafter.
In this context, RANDâs November 2008 Unfolding The Long War makes for disquieting reading. It explored ways the US Global War on Terror could be prosecuted once coalition forces formally left Iraq, under the terms of a withdrawal agreement inked by Baghdad and Washington that same month. This development by definition threatened Anglo dominion over Persian Gulf oil and gas resources, which would remain âa strategic priorityâ when the occupation was officially over.
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âThis priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war,â RAND declared. The think tank went on to propose a âdivide and ruleâ strategy to maintain US hegemony in Iraq, despite the power vacuum created by withdrawal. Under its auspices, Washington would exploit âfault lines between [Iraqâs] various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflictsâ, while âsupporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iranâ:
âThis strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forcesâŚThe US and its local allies could use nationalist jihadists to launch proxy campaigns to discredit transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populaceâŚThis would be an inexpensive way of buying timeâŚuntil the US can return its full attention to the [region]. US leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni ConflictâŚby taking the side of conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.â
âGreat Dangerâ
So it was that the CIA and MI6 began supporting ânationalist jihadistsâ throughout West Asia. The next year, Bashar Assad rejected a Qatari proposal to route Dohaâs vast gas reserves directly to Europe, via a $10 billion, 1,500 kilometre-long pipeline spanning Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. As extensively documented by WikiLeaks-released diplomatic cables, US, Israeli and Saudi intelligence immediately decided to overthrow Assad by fomenting a local rebellion, and started financing opposition groups for the purpose.
This effort became turbocharged in October 2011, with MI6 redirecting weapons and extremist fighters from Libya to Syria, in the wake of Muammar Gaddafiâs televised murder. The CIA oversaw that operation, using the British as an armâs length cutout to avoid notifying Congress of its machinations. Only in June 2013, with then-President Barack Obamaâs official authorisation, did the Agencyâs cloak-and-dagger connivances in Damascus become formalised – and later admitted – under the title âTimber Sycamoreâ.
At this time, Western officials universally referred to their Syrian proxies as âmoderate rebelsâ. Yet, Washington was well-aware its surrogates were dangerous extremists, seeking to carve a fundamentalist caliphate out of the territory they occupied. An August 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report released under Freedom of Information laws observes that events in Baghdad were âtaking a clear sectarian direction,â with radical Salafist groups âthe major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.â
These factions included Al Qaedaâs Iraqi wing (AQI), and its umbrella offshoot, Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The pair went on to form Daesh, a prospect the DIA report not only predicted, but seemingly endorsed:
âIf the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern SyriaâŚThis is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in order to isolate the Syrian regimeâŚISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create great danger.â
Despite such grave concerns, the CIA inexorably dispatched unaccountably vast shipments of weapons and money to Syriaâs âmoderate rebelsâ, well-knowing this âaidâ would almost inevitably end up in Daeshâs hands. Moreover, Britain concurrently ran secret programs costing millions to train opposition paramilitaries in the art of killing, while providing medical assistance to wounded jihadists. London also donated multiple ambulances, purchased from Qatar, to armed groups in the country.
Leaked documents indicate the risk of equipment and trained personnel from these efforts being lost to Al-Nusra, Daesh, and other extremist groups in West Asia was judged unavoidably âhighâ by British intelligence. Yet, there was no concomitant strategy for countering this hazard at all, and the illicit programs continued apace. Almost as if training and arming Daesh was precisely the desired outcome.
