ISIS update 4/4/2016..Salaries of ISILTerrorists in Syria and Iraq cut by 50 percent.
International Military Review – Syria & Iraq, Apr. 4, 2016
Demands that Assad should leave hinder political process
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U.S. To “Greatly Increase” Special Forces Deployed In Syria | Zero Hedge
Last week, Reuters reported a development which should have surprised precisely nobody: while the Kremlin announced one month ago that it would begin withdrawing military forces from Syria at once, Putin was doing the opposite.
As Reuters explained “when Vladimir Putin announced the withdrawal of most of Russia’s military contingent from Syria there was an expectation that the Yauza, a Russian naval icebreaker and one of the mission’s main supply vessels, would return home to its Arctic Ocean port. Instead, three days after Putin’s March 14 declaration, the Yauza, part of the “Syrian Express”, the nickname given to the ships that have kept Russian forces supplied, left the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk for Tartous, Russia’s naval facility in Syria. Whatever it was carrying was heavy; it sat so low in the water that its load line was barely visible.”
Its movements and those of other Russian ships in the two weeks since Putin’s announcement of a partial withdrawal suggest Moscow has in fact shipped more equipment and supplies to Syria than it has brought back in the same period, a Reuters analysis shows. It is not known what the ships were carrying or how much equipment has been flown out in giant cargo planes accompanying returning war planes.
But the movements – while only a partial snapshot – suggest Russia is working intensively to maintain its military infrastructure in Syria and to supply the Syrian army so that it can scale up again swiftly if need be. Putin has not detailed what would prompt such a move, but any perceived threat to Russia’s bases in Syria or any sign that President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s closest Middle East ally, was in peril would be likely to trigger a powerful return.
As part of our rhetorical conclusion to an article which suggested a Russian Iskander ballistic missile may have been spotted in Syria for the first time, we asked “how will John Kerry, the state department, and allied forces react once it becomes clear that not only did Putin not withdraw forces from Syria but may have added nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to the Russian arsenal in Syria?”
We now have the answer: according to a follow up report by Reuters, the U.S. administration is considering a plan to greatly increase the number of American special operations forces deployed to Syria “as it looks to accelerate recent gains against Islamic State.”
According to Reuters, this troop expansion would leave the U.S. special operations contingent many times larger than the around 50 troops currently in Syria, where they operate largely as advisors away from the front lines.
In other words, while Russia has been hinting at de-escalation while in reality it was building up a military presence, now it is the US’ turn.
The proposal is among the military options being prepared for President Barack Obama, who is also weighing an increase in the number of American troops in Iraq. A White House spokeswoman declined comment.
The proposal appears to be the latest sign of growing confidence in the ability of U.S.-backed forces inside Syria and Iraq to claw back territory from the hardline Sunni Islamist group.
As documented before, ISIS, which still controls the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria has been rapidly losing momentum in Iraq and Syria, where the tide of war has shifted against Islamic State. U.S. officials say the group is losing a battle to forces arrayed against it from many sides in the vast region it controls. In Iraq, the group has been pulling back since December when it lost Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar. In Syria, the jihadist fighters have been pushed out of the strategic city of Palmyra by Russian-backed Syrian government forces.
U.S. forces have also had increased success in eliminating top ISIS leaders. Air strikes in recent weeks killed a top official called Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, and an Islamic State commander described as the group’s “minister of war” — Abu Omar al-Shishani, or Omar the Chechen.
To be sure, now that the world is far more focused on ISIS’ Turkish source of funds, while Russian air strikes have decimated ISIS oil supply routes to Turkey, suddenly the money feeding the ISIS state has slowed to a crawl.
Nonetheless, the ISIS-controlled cities remain potent threat abroad, claiming credit for major attacks in Paris in November and Brussels in March.
As such, as we have written on previous occasions, there appears to be a scramble between Russia and US forces to be the first to gain control over these two cities. Here Reuters notes that the dozens of U.S. special operations forces now in Syria are working closely with a collection of Syrian Arab groups within an alliance that is still dominated by Kurdish forces. The United States has been supplying Arabs in the thousands-strong alliance with ammunition since October.
While the strategy is showing results so far, U.S. officials and Kurdish leaders agree that a predominately Arab force is needed to take Raqqa, a majority Arab city whose residents would consider Kurds as occupiers.
That is unless the Syrian army, supported by Russia, isn’t able to liberate the city first.
Meanwhile, in a separate report, the Daily Beast reports that there while there are currently only 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq—about what a colonel usually commands. But for this ISIS war, as many as 21 generals have been deployed (to a war the US denies fighting). More:
In the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the U.S. military is notably short on soldiers, but apparently not on generals.
There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon.
At U.S. headquarters inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, even majors and colonels frequently find themselves saluting superiors at a pace that outranks the Pentagon and certainly any normal military installation. With about 5,000 troops deployed to Iraq and Syria ISIS war, that means there’s a general for every 416 troops, give or take. To compare, there are some captains in the U.S. Army in charge of that many people.
* * *
But if the U.S. footprint is so small, why does the war demand so many generals?
Why so many generals to so few troops? Perhaps because, just like the Syrian “special forces” reinforcements, the U.S. troops are about to be deployed in Iraq as well where they will have more than enough generals to guide them.
Which begs the question: as the ongoing proxy war in the Middle East has been gradually pushed back from the front pages, are all these stealthy reinforcements indicative that something far bigger is about to be unleashed in the region.
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Russian experts have begun removing mines in the roads leading to the ancient city of Palmyra
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Footage of the airstrike that killed al-Nusra figure Abu Firas al-Suri
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Report: ISIL Reduces Salaries of Terrorists in Syria by Half
The
recently released reports unveiled that the salaries of the members of
the terrorist groups, specially the ISIL, in Libya has remained
unchanged while those of the terrorists in Syria and Iraq has been cut
by 50 percent.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported
that the ISIL’s financial section in Raqqa in a circulation to the
militants had informed them of reductions in their salaries.
The
observatory said that the ISIL terrorists are mad at their decreasing
salaries, fearing that only Syrian militants are to be subjected by the
salary cuts.
The Research Center of the US Congress had
previously reported that the ISIL terrorists received between $400 to
$1,200 per month in addition to $50 for each wife and $25 for each
child.
However, the ISIL militants in Libya receive between $800
to $6,000. But, the salaries of their commanders and the experts are
much higher than this.
In a relevant development on Sunday, the
Russian-language Sputnik news agency reported that the ISIL was once
described as the richest terrorist group in the world, but apparently
those days are long since over.
The terrorist group’s finances
have crumbled thanks to the Russian and US-led multinational coalitions
destroying the bulk of the group’s oil infrastructure, the global slide
in oil prices and territorial losses in Iraq and Syria, it said.
The self-proclaimed caliphate, unlike other terrorist groups, generates its income locally.
The militants mostly make money from taxes, extortion, kidnappings, oil smuggling and private donations.
These
sources have recently been affected, with ISIL losing territories,
fighters, civilians, hard cash, oil fields and smuggling routes.
Although
many have warned against predicting ISIL’s swift financial demise, more
reports have emerged pointing to the group’s major financial troubles.
This might be indirect evidence, but it is nevertheless telling.
While
senior ISIL commanders are said to have clashed over allegations of
corruption, mismanagement and theft, some fighters have not been paid at
all, the US media reported, citing US counterterrorism officials.
“Cash
shortages already have forced the group to put many of its Iraqi and
Syrian recruits on half-pay, and accounts from recent defectors suggest
that some units haven’t received salaries in months,” the media outlet
detailed.
Civilians and businesses living in cities under ISIL’s
control “complain of being subjected to ever-higher taxes and fees to
make up the shortfall.”
Conflict monitor groups painted the same picture in mid-March, saying that ISIL “was struggling financially.”
The
trend manifested itself in “tax hikes, increases in the cost of
state-run services and significant cuts of up to 50 percent in the
salaries” paid to the fighters.
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Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/04/isis-update-442016salaries-of.html
