ISIS Militants 'One Plane Ticket Away from US Shores'! Oh Really?

ISIS which has announced the beheading of Steven Sotloff, the second American journalist, is admittedly the most brutal insurgent group in recent history. Shiraj Maher from the “International Centre for the Study of Radicalization”, London feels that the British extremists among them, nearly 400, are “the most vicious and vociferous fighters in ISIS fighting in Syria and Iraq”. A report quoted one Abu Osama from North England telling the BBC that Britain was “pure evil” and that “he would return to England only to raise the black flag of Islam over Downing Street, over Buckingham Palace, over Tower Bridge and over Big Ben”.

On August 28 newspapers published pictures of several half naked men described as captured Syrian soldiers with hands tied behind their backs being escorted by black flag waving ISIS Jehadis. Another photo showed them lying dead on the sand. ISIS told the Reuters that they had killed about 150 Syrian soldiers. Britain-based “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” said the militants rounded up the soldiers in the arid countryside on Aug 28 near the Tabqa airfield, three days after seizing the base. They said that around 120 captive government troops from Tabqa were killed near the base. ISIS killed another 40 soldiers, most of whom were taken prisoner in recent fighting from other bases in the area, in the Hamrat region near Raqqa city, the group’s stronghold. Simultaneously ISIS supporters claimed on Twitter about killing 200 Syrian soldiers. Similar reports have come from Iraq too.

Alarmist predictions are being made by several key US officials. On 24 August 2014 Michael Hayden, former CIA director told a CNN Sunday audience that ISIS had global ambitions. He also underlined their threat very dramatically: “So if it is not Tuesday, it's at a time and place of their choosing. And it will come probably sooner rather than later.” The same apprehension was voiced by US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers when he said that ISIS “is one plane ticket away from US shores”. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee also had similar apprehensions. These assessments provoked Senator John McCain turning his wrath on President Obama calling the White House “feckless” even after the videotaped beheading of James Foley. He asked President Obama to take the leadership role in using airpower in Syria.

However some writers have now started asking whether the global media is unwittingly playing the propaganda game of the ISIS by highly sensational stories about their prowess and reach? An American columnist said on September 1, 2014: “ISIS even received a largely sympathetic portrayal in a five-part series produced and aired by the Rupert Murdoch-backed ‘Vice News’. Indeed, Vice News’ “The Spread of the Caliphate” is reminiscent of the public relations-style reportage produced via the “embedding” of corporate news media personnel with US and allied forces during the 2003 conquest of Iraq”.

On August 20 there was a highly dramatic piece by a Jerusalem based writer on the birth of ISIS. She said that when Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released in 2009 from an Iraqi prison after four years in captivity, his parting words to the American troops were: “I’ll see you guys in New York.” Since then he has collected about 10,000 foreign Jehadis through systematic social media campaign. Another report said that al-Baghdadi was released from Bucca where such detainees were held. But skeptics say that Camp Bucca was transferred to Iraqi control in 2008. So, how could he have possibly warned American troops in 2009? The Jerusalem report had said that ISIS is the “wealthiest” terrorist organization in the world, that it had looted Mosul city’s central bank and stolen more than $466 million and gold bullion and that they had taken control of all the military weapons and equipment left behind after America pulled out of Iraq in 2009. They also seized Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons facility. The writer should have said “ex- chemical weapons facility” as America had already told the UN in July that no intact chemical weapons were on the site and it was impossible to use that material for military purposes.

Hostage taking in no-man’s lands, decapitation in front of cameras or winning some battles against poorly trained Iraq’s army does not mean that ISIS is able to march into Gulf capitals or Europe like a 21st century Attila, the Hun. ISIS has shown their weakness in a regular battle in Sulaiman Bek when faced with combined forces of Iraqi army, Badr militia and Kurdish Peshmerga. Similar exaggerated stories were heard in 2006 about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was killed on June 7, 2006. This writer had then published a column “The Zarqawi Myth”. Western media had said at that time that he was the closest ally of Osama bin Laden and had created an Iraqi al-Qaeda stronger than the original version. Every Sunni attack in Iraq was attributed to him and his deadly gang. Gen.Colin Powell gave him global publicity in his address to UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 by describing him as the link between Saddam Hussain and bin Laden. The global media had said at that time that either Abu-al-Masri, an Egyptian or Abdulla ibn Rasheed al- Baghdadi had taken over command of Zarqawi’s insurgent outfit. No official confirmation on this had come. Italian economist and writer Loretta Napoleani, author of “Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the new generation” had written several pieces during that era how the global media had built up a small-time criminal and made him into a hero. Is the same thing being done with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

Having said all these, the real threat to the rest of the world will be the “Back flush” of ISIS militants and their thinking when they are back in their countries, which will pollute the local social equilibrium as it has happened after the termination of Afghan Mujahideen wars in 1989. That is the biggest danger to countries like England and even for India. (998)