On Saturday, Bakr al-Baghdadi released a rare audio recording in which the ISIS leader threatened Israel (“we are getting closer to you everyday”), insisted that the Russian air campaign had not weakened the group (“hear the good news that our state is doing well"), and called upon Muslims to join the caliphate and take up arms against its enemies.
Over the past five weeks, Turkey’s role in facilitating the trafficking of illicit Islamic State crude has been exposed for the world to see. Ankara’s move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian border prompted a media blitz from Moscow, which has variously accused the Erdogan government of being complicit in a business that nets Bakr al-Baghdadi between $500 million and $1 billion per year in revenue.
“For sure it will cause a big delay and it may kill the whole process. Whoever committed this crime is pushing for a military solution, not a political process solution.”
That’s a quote from Hadi al-Bahra, a Syrian opposition leader. The comments come a day after an apparent Russian airstrike killed Zahran Alloush. Alloush, the son of Saudi-based cleric Abdallah Alloush, is (or, more appropriately “was”) the leader of Jaysh al Islam, a powerful Syrian opposition group whose forces number some 10,000.
Turkey’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office have confirmed that ISIS militants were in communication with Turkish military officers, after wiretapping phones belonging to various Turkish military officials. The wiretapping took part in 2014 as part of an investigation into six missing Turkish citizens who were believed to have joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Rt.com reports: An investigation was launched into as many as 27 suspects, some of them in Syria, the report revealed.
Earlier this week, we recounted Seymour Hersh’s latest investigative report in which we learn that apparently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff worked to undermine the efforts of the White House and the CIA in Syria.