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Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 4-1-Iran-7

The Iranian Leadership Will Make A Historic Announcement That The 2007 Iran-Syria Defense Agreement Has Been Activated On June 3, 2015

Cees -- : Again if this is to happen like it or not and we in the West will definitely argue that this would be illegal however the than still sovereign state Syria and Iran have a formal agreement, as others in the world do to justify their actions. While many in the west and Middle Eastern leaders will comment and object, they forgot what we did ourselves in the past by disposing rulers and invading countries often on muddy and thin ice presented fact or even without formal UNSCR’s. Additionally the so called Saudi led coalition in Yemen is currently also not acting on a UNSCR, so now what if Iran fulfils is agreement. Moreover didn’t Saudi Arabia ask Pakistan to fulfil their part of a previous signed agreement not so long ago? Finally while we in the West fail to see the bigger threat: spreading Ideology and annihilations of borders and countries we still prefers to talk and not to act, let alone to have a comprehensive strategy to address. Iran is willing to do so, and by doing so they will upset many especially those who failed to take their responsibility and reluctance to act while we could have made a change. -- Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, said in an Al-Jazeera interview Wednesday evening that his group “could cut off the hands and legs of Iran in the region, and if it does not stop, we will take the conflict to its interior.”

Moreover Iran coming to the rescue of the Assad regime, who many in the West and region would like to see fall, to the benefit of Daesh and AQ affiliates, without knowing the what then? Our failing strategy – if there is one at all - serves Iran’s intent to have their ally still in the seat. Not only that if we look close at the map than Iran is spreading its influence

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from western Afghanistan, through Iraq; with its support to dislodge Daesh north and west of Baghdad and now likely deep into Syria. By doing so Iran will become a power to recon with, moreover the so-called Shia Crescent will become a fact. Not to the liking of regional players and many in the West. And in the not so far out future the west needs Iran as they have – thanks to years of western sanctions - the fourth largest oil reserves in the world at approximately 150 billion barrels (24×10^9 m3) as of 2014, with still – for now - Saudi Arabia as the second largest in the world, estimated to be 268 billion barrels (43×10^9 m3) --- With oil trading 40% below its high of one year ago, Saudi Arabia has spent more than $70 billion of its oil reserve since October, will likely run a fiscal deficit of $100 billion in 2015, all while waging a war in Yemen. But for Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, things are kind of going as planned.

“I’m not stressed, I’m happy,” said Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister at the start of the week. He wasn’t just referring to his upcoming retirement. Saudi Arabia is not only increasing production, it’s increasing capacity. It increased its crude output to 10.3 million barrels a day in April, the highest level in decades. Saudi Arabia has increased investment in drilling. Can the oil kingdom pump 12 million barrels a day? Some seem to think so. There was speculation prior to the OPEC meeting that a potential surprise could see the oil cartel decide to boost production targets. Saudi Arabia, it seems, not only wants to protect market share, but to gain market share.

Yes, it wants to inflict pain on U.S. shale energy producers, like EOG Resources and Pioneer Natural Resources. And the new OPEC policy has caused four U.S. corporate bankruptcies and managed to get the rig count down to 646 from 1609 in October. It also wants to hit another pocket of unconventional North American oil supply, the Canadian oil sands, which is believed to have experienced its lowest production in two years last month. (C: Saudi Arabia the one we still call Our friends.)

"Based on current trend lines, it is time to start thinking about a post-Assad Syria," argues a U.S. intelligence official. Until recently, U.S. analysts had characterized the situation there as more of a stalemate. U.S. officials see mounting pressure on Assad from four directions. A potent new rebel coalition known as Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, seized the capital of Idlib province late last month. Fighting ferociously alongside this coalition is Jabhat al-Nusra, or the al-Nusra Front, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda. Moderate rebels known as the "Southern Front," backed by the United States and Jordan, are finally gaining some ground in southern Syria. And the Islamic State, the most fearsome group of all, is rampaging across northern, central and eastern Syria." Assad faces hard choices as battlefield losses mount," says the U.S. The Islamic State has gained so much ground in Syria and Iraq recently that some Middle Eastern strategists argue for allying now with a lesser evil, the al-Nusra Front faction and other jihadists, to stop the Islamic State. The logic, explains one official, is "First you defeat Hitler, then you defeat Stalin." Other analysts argue that the only good knockout punch is Turkish military intervention, backed by U.S. air support …. It seem that in the next hours Iran will act instead of talk….C --

June 4, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6065 Former Advisor To Iran's Defense Minister: In A Few Hours The Iranian Leadership Will Make A Historic Announcement That The 2007 Iran-Syria Defense Agreement Has Been Activated On June 3, 2015, following reports in the Arab and world press that thousands of Iranian and Iraqi troops are being dispatched to Syria to defend the Syrian regime,[1] which is said to be on the verge of collapse, Amir Mousavi, a former advisor to the Iranian defense minister,[2] announced in a Facebook post that in a few hours  the Iranian leadership will announce the activation of its mutual defense

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agreement with Syria.[3] The defense agreement between the two countries, which essentially places all of Iran's defensive capabilities at Syria's disposal, was signed in 2007.[4] In 2012 then-Iranian defense minister Ahmad Vahidi said that Iran would "activate the agreement upon [the Syrians'] request."[5]

The following is a translation of Mousavi's post: "In the next few hours, the leadership of the Islamic Revolution in Iran will announce, God willing, the historic decision to activate the mutual defense pact with Syria's legitimate government. I believe that parallel decisions will be taken in Lebanon and Iraq that will reinforce the comprehensive strategy of this decision, [resulting in] an improved state of the resistance axis countries for the purpose of confronting the spread of the extremist terrorist movements supported by the Aal-Sa'ud regime and the global Free Masons organization."

Endnotes:

 [1] See June 3, 2015 reports in the Lebanese Daily Star that Iran dispatched 15,000 Iranian and Iraqi fighters to Syria to defend the Assad regime; an AFP report from the same date on the arrival of 7,000 Iranian and Iraqi fighters in Damascus, and a report in the Lebanese Al-Safir, also from June 3, on the arrival of 20,000 Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese fighters in the Idlib region.[2] Amir Mousavi is a former Iranian diplomat and the current director of the Center for Strategic Studies and International Relations in Tehran. In an interview with the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen TV on July 25, 2014, he advocated arming the West Bank with missiles. He claimed that, thanks to the fight against the takfiri organizations, Iran had discovered efficient routes for transferring weapons to the Palestinians, including via Jordan and the Golan Heights. He added that because of  the West Bank's proximity to Tel Aviv and Haifa, short-range missiles would suffice. See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1108, Iran's New Strategy Of   Diversion: Persuading The Sunni Camp To Fight Israel, Not Iran , August 1, 2014.  On December 27, 2014, Mousavi threatened that Iran would respond sharply to the oil price war Saudi Arabia had launched against Iran. See  MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5918. "IRGC Weekly To Saudis: 'Iran Has Many Options For Harming Saudi Arabia... All [It] Needs To Do Is Use A Single One Of [Them] So That Nothing Remains Of The Entity Named The Aal-Saud Regime Or Of Saudi Arabia Itself'," December 31, 2014.[3] Facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=767474936704774&id=654385158013753, June 3, 2015.[4] On the pact, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 380, "The Strategic Alliance Between Iran and Syria – Military and Economic Aspects," August 14, 2007.[5] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 4907, Iran's Defense Minister: We Will Activate The Iran-Syria Defense Agreement Upon Syria's Request, August 23, 2012.

Exclusive: Tehran expected to invoke defense pact for large-scale troop deployment to Syria

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 4, 2015, Thursday, June 4, reliable sources in Tehran expected the Iranian government to invoke its 2006 mutual defense pact with Syria “in the coming hours” for the transfer of Iranian troops to Syria - most likely by air. This was reported by DEBKAfile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources. It would be Tehran’s first direct military intervention in the Syria conflict as it goes into its fifth year. Bashar Assad’s regime and the Syrian and Hizballah armies are collapsing under the twin assaults of the Islamic State and the armed Syrian opposition forces and in need of urgent life support.

The possibility of invoking the Iranian-Syrian mutual defense pact for saving the Assad regime was first raised in a DEBKA file article on May 30. Tehran was persuaded that, without direct intervention, its ally would go under at any moment Thursday when Islamic

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State forces broke through Syrian army defenses to the northern Syrian Kurdish town of Hasakeh, which sits on the Syrian-Iraqi-Turkish border junction. Towards evening, the Islamists had come to within one kilometer of the strategic town and captured its power station. Its defenders, the Syrian army’s 52nd Division, were falling apart under the ISIS assault; some of the soldiers making a run for it. Although the town is ruled by a coalition of central government and local Kurds, there was no operational coordination between the Syrian and Kurdish forces defending the town against the common enemy.If ISIS manages to take Hasakeh, it would chalk up its third major victory in a couple of weeks after capturing Palmyra in Syria and the Iraqi town of Ramadi. Its fall would provide the Islamists with an open route across northern Syria to northern Iraq and strengthen their grip on Mosul, their Iraqi capital. It would also count as a major setback for the United States, whose air strikes in support of Hasakeh’s Kurdish defenders failed to stall the Islamist advance. In the southern sector too, Syrian troops of the 68th and 13th divisions defending Deraa are reported to have laid down arms and fled under the massive onslaught of the opposition Army of Conquest coalition. Tehran’s final decision about sending a substantial Iranian force to Syria is awaited in the coming hours. This intention was strongly intimated in the last 48 hours by Adm. Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran’s National Security Council, and Gen. Qassem Soleimani, supreme commander of Iran’s Middle East operations. Both announced that dramatic events for Syria are to be expected in the coming days.

June 3, Tehran is believed to be preparing to dispatch a substantial Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) special operations unit to Syria to tackle the separate rebel and ISIS advances closing in on the Assad regime, Western and Arab intelligence sources report. They say the Syrian army is already setting aside an area in northern Syria for the Iranian troops to take up position. If this happens, DEBKAfile’s military sources note that it would be the Revolutionary Guards first direct intervention in the nearly five-year Syrian war. Up until now, Tehran has carefully avoided putting Iranian boots on the ground in both Syria and Iraq. The only place where Iranian forces are directly engaged in battle is at Iraq’s main refinery town of Baiji, where small infantry and artillery units have been trying - without success thus far - to dislodge ISIS forces from the refinery complex. In the other Syrian and Iraqi war arenas – and elsewhere - Tehran follows the practice of using local Shiite militias as surrogates to fight its wars, providing them with training and arms. The Guards have also brought Shiite militias over from Pakistan and Afghanistan.That Tehran is about to change course to save Bashar Assad was indicated in a surprise statement Tuesday, June 2 by Gen. Qassem Soleimani, supreme commander of Iranian forces fighting outside the country. After urgent consultations in Damascus with President Assad and his military chiefs, the Iranian general said enigmatically that “major developments” are to be expected in Syria “in the next few days.” Another source quotes him more fully as saying: “In the next few days, the world will be pleasantly surprised [by the arrangements] we [the IRGC] working with Syrian military commanders are currently preparing." DEBKAfile, which Sunday, May 31, exclusively disclosed Soleimani’s post-haste arrival in Damascus, now reports from its military sources that Hizballah military chiefs were summoned to Damascus to attend those consultations. On his way to the Syrian capital, those sources also reveal that the Iranian general stopped over at the Anbar warfront in western Iraq near the Syrian border.

The IRGC expeditionary force, according to Gulf sources, will have to initial objectives to recover Jisr al-Shughour in northwestern Syria and Palmyra. The first has been taken over by Syrian rebels of the Army of Conquest, a band of Sunni militias sponsored by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar; the second was captured by the Islamic

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State last month. The recovery of the two cities and their return to Syrian government control would deflect the immediate threats posed by opposition and Islamist forces to the highways from Homs to Damascus and the Mediterranean port of Latakia. This, in turn, would relieve the Assad regime of much of the military pressure threatening its survival.

May 28, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6059 Senior Sunni Cleric: Both ISIS And The Fight Against It Serve The Interests Of The West And The Shi'ite RegimesOn February 9, 2015, Moroccan cleric Dr. Ahmed Al-Raissouni, deputy head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), posted an article on his website, Raissouni.ma, in which he called the Islamic State (ISIS) a creation of "elements hostile to Arabs and [Sunni] Muslims," referring to the West, particularly the U.S., as well as to Syria, Iraq, and Iran. He added that the fight that is ostensibly against ISIS is actually serving the interests of the West, which is profiting hugely from the opportunities it offers for weapons testing and sales, for military operations, and for establishing its control in the warzones.

Iran and Iraq, he noted, are exploiting the fight against ISIS to "pound Sunni regions and their residents in order to further ambitions of Shi'ite expansionism" while the Syrian regime was rescued from "certain death" by ISIS's emergence. He emphasized that Sunni Arabs and Muslims have no connection whatsoever to ISIS, and called on the countries of the region to break free of their dependence on the West and to cooperate amongst themselves to combat the organization.The following are excerpts from the article:

Al-Raissouni (Image: Raissouni.ma)

June 4, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6064 Saudi Press: Iran Behind Attacks In Shi'ite Mosques In Eastern Saudi ArabiaAgainst the backdrop of the general tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and especially the war in Yemen, Saudi media has been replete with anti-Iranian propaganda. Many articles accused Iran of striving to destabilize and destroy the region through terrorism and violence, and cartoons depicting Iran as malicious and even demonic were published on a daily basis. The recent bombings in two Shi'ite mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia[1] served the Saudi media as another opportunity for a harsh attack on Iran and its policy. Alongside articles that condemned the bombings and stressed the need for unity among Sunnis and Shi'ites in the kingdom, many other articles were published that held Iran responsible for the attacks, while ignoring the problem of extremism and anti-Shi'ite incitement in Saudi Arabia itself. Some editorials and op-eds described the attacks as an Iranian response to the failure of Iran's plan to take over Yemen by means of the Houthis and to destabilize and take over other countries in the region. Iran, they said, is behind ISIS and other Sunni terrorist organizations, and uses them to target the Gulf countries – especially Saudi Arabia, in order to distract it from the war against the Houthis in Yemen. Many Saudi cartoons likewise depicted Iran as a sponsor of violence and terrorism.           The following are excerpts from some of the articles, and a sampling of the cartoons.'Al-Madina' And 'Al-Riyadh' Editorials: Mosque Attacks In Saudi Arabia Came In Response To Iranian Defeats In YemenEditorials in the Saudi press claimed that Iran's defeats in Yemen had prompted it to activate ISIS in Saudi Arabia. The May 26, 2015 editorial for the official Saudi daily Al-Riyadh stated: "...Anyone observing what is happening in the region can clearly see that ISIS is a militia

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backed by a [certain] country [hinting at Iran] that does not shy away from attacking the most dignified of sites in order to achieve its goals, while it takes advantage of the movements of chaos in the region that have provided fertile ground for destabilizing public order in [various] countries... This [activity] is aimed at facilitating that country's expansion and its establishment of itself as an alternative presence [in those countries] to fill the vacuum [created there]. We have already seen this happen in several neighboring countries. The political and military events [in the region], the most prominent of which was [Operation] Decisive Storm, caused countries in the region [again hinting at Iran] to sense a great danger threatening their destructive schemes [and] shattering their plans to 'export [the revolution].'"[2]The May 25, 2015 editorial in the official Saudi daily Al-Madina also hinted that the Al-Qudaih attack took place due to "motives and aims that are hidden from no one, after our air force's and our heroic military's successes against... the Houthi scum in Operation Decisive Storm, thwarting the despicable Safavid [Iranian] plan" in Yemen. The editorial continued: "... It is clear that the failure of the Safavid expansionism, in its desperate attempt to sow the seeds of fitna using ISIS and other Sunni and Shi'ite terrorist organizations, has caused it to commit heinous crimes such as [the attack in Al-Qudaih], which mercilessly spill innocent blood without distinguishing Sunni from Shi'ite, man from woman, and child from elderly. As for mobilizing ISIS and other terrorists organizations [to carry out the attack]... – that is another crime, no less heinous..."[3]Another Al-Madina editorial, published on June 1, 2015, several days after the second bombing, in Al-Dammam, stated in a similar vein: "What does it mean that ISIS has staged two consecutive attacks, both of them on Friday, on mosques in the east of the country, [and this] at a time when Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab coalition in a war against the terrorist Houthi militia that is serving Iran's interests by trying to steal Yemen, deny its Arabism and harm its security and stability? Clearly, targeting Saudi Arabia at this time is aimed at engaging it on two fronts at once, in order to take pressure off the Houthis. This means that there is no difference between the Houthis and ISIS: both are acting as agents of Tehran in the region and both follow its orders, striving to undermine the region and its stability..."[However,] the crime in Al-Dammam and the similar crime that occurred in the east, in Al-Qudaih village, one week earlier did not fulfill the hopes of Tehran and its terrorist allies... for these evil attempts were dashed against the rock of our national unity..."[4]

Iran in suicide vest comprising ISIS fighters (Source: Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia, May 25, 2015)'Al-Sharq Al-Awsat' Columnist: Iran Fights Saudi Arabia Using Sunni Terrorist Organizations Such As ISISFollowing the May 22 attack, Saudi journalist 'Abdallah bin Bjad Al-'Otaibi stated, in his column in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, that Iran has been allied with fundamentalist Sunni terrorist organizations for decades, and that it uses them as a tool to carry out attacks on Saudi Arabia. He wrote: "The open conflict in the Middle East is the one between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Arab countries led by the Gulf states, especially the Saudi kingdom. In its war against Saudi Arabia and the Arab states, Iran is relying on... sectarianism as a violent political weapon, and on fundamentalist Sunni terrorist movements – whether by creating them or by supporting them. What leads us to this topic is the tragic incident last Friday in the town of Al-Qudaih in the Al-Qatif governorate...

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"Iran has a long history of attempting to do damage to Saudi Arabia. In 1987, it sparked a riot during the pilgrimage season, murdering pilgrims from all the Muslim countries[5]... It repeated this with several Kuwaiti and Saudi citizens in the blasts in Al-Mu'aisam in 1989 at the Hajj ceremonial site in the Mina [area].[6] It tried to harm the Gulf countries by attempting to assassinate [former Kuwaiti emir] Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad in Kuwait [in May 1985], and by hijacking the Kuwaiti jet.[7] It has also spared no efforts in its deployment of espionage cells in the Gulf countries, and in its plan to destabilize these countries and their peoples and to occupy parts of their lands. What does Iran gain by murdering Shi'ites in Iraq, in the Gulf countries, and particularly in Saudi Arabia? This is the greatest political conflict in the Middle East, and it is about Iran's desire to expand and spread its influence. Therefore, these incidents were not aimed at harming the Shi'ites that Iran purports to protect... but rather at destabilizing politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries."Iran does this in two ways. One way is by encouraging some aberrant Shi'ites to carry out terrorist attacks such as the 1996 Al-Khobar bombing[8]... the recurring Al-'Awamiyah incidents,[9] and incidents fanned by the likes of the terrorist Nimr Al-Nimr. The second way is by encouraging Sunni terrorist movements such as Al-Qaeda to spark sectarian conflicts, as they did in the past in Iraq, as they are doing now with ISIS, and as they have done with their years-long support for Al-Qaeda in its war against Saudi Arabia."The November 2014 Al-Dalwa attacks;[10] the cell of 65 [ISIS members whose capture was] announced by Saudi Arabia later, [on April 28, 2015]; the attempt to smuggle explosives from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia [in early May, 2015], and the Al-Qudaih bombings... all prove that Iran is continuing on its criminal path and is allied with Sunni terrorism in an attempt to harm Saudi Arabia and [actualize] its grand goals in the region."Iran's connection to Sunni fundamentalism and terrorism, [which manifests in] its alliance and support [for them], have existed for decades..."[Today,] while Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, and the Arab countries are busy fighting terrorist and fundamentalist organizations, Iran is expanding its collaboration with them and its support for them. This raises an important question: Why haven't any of the many Sunni terrorist organizations, from Al-Qaeda to ISIS, attacked Iran, even though their evil afflicts all

the [other] countries of the world? The answer lies in the fact that they are partners who agree with each other."[11]

Iran stands behind ISIS and carries out its crimes (Source: Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia, May 23, 2015)Former 'Al-Sharq Al-Awsat' Editor: ISIS Serves Iran; The Attack Is Part Of the Regional Conflict'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, former editor-in-chief

of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and of Alarabiya.net, argued that "all signs indicate that ISIS is indirectly serving the Syrian and Iranian regimes... If ISIS did not exist in Iraq today, we would not have witnessed the rise of Iran's military influence in the country. ISIS carries out attacks in Saudi Arabia while the Houthi militias also fight the Saudis... ISIS fights Iraq and Syria, but its ideology and the threats made by its leaders on YouTube are addressed to countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This is not a sectarian conflict; it is a regional political conflict that utilizes the weapon of sectarian warfare. When a terrorist group attacks a Shi'ite mosque in Saudi Arabia, we must view this as part of the regional [Iran-Saudi Arabia]

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conflict, not as part of the historic [Sunni-Shi'ite] conflict between the two sects! The ISIS army's vanguard is advancing on the Saudi and Jordanian borders, but at the same time, we are not seeing them operate against Iran at all..."[12]

Iran "exports sectarianism" – i.e. ISIS fighters – to the Gulf countries. (Source: Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 25, 2015)

Iranian regime rides "extremist groups" (Source: Al-Jazirah, Saudi Arabia, May 23, 2015) Saudi Columnist: The Attacks Are Iran's Response To Its Failure In Yemen'Abdallah bin Khamis Al-'Amri, a columnist for the Saudi daily Makkah, wrote: "At this historical turning point for the Arab region, and the Gulf in particular, Saudi Arabia faces a critical phase due to the exposure of many plots meant to harm its security and stability... The forces of evil wanted to open a domestic front to distract Saudi Arabia from the foreign front, namely from leading the Decisive Storm coalition and the Restoring Hope phase in Yemen. This [activity in Yemen] was a resounding slap in the face [for Iran], and the coalition countries used [this activity] to take the initiative and sever the Iranian hand in Yemen, and prevent the completion of the Shi'ite Crescent that Iran wants [to create] in order to besiege Saudi Arabia. Saudi and Arab diplomacy also managed to bring about the approval of Security Council Resolution 2216, which demands that the Houthi militias and their ousted ally [former president Saleh] return everything they forcefully captured to the legitimate Yemeni government."The Shi'ite jurisprudent [Khamenei] and the Ayatollahs (in Qom), who bragged that three Arab capitals [Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut] had fallen [into their hands] and that they were expecting a fourth one, [Sana'a, to fall as well], so as to implement Tehran's imperialist policy, were displeased by... [Saudi Arabia's] successes on the ground. Sensing this disappointment and abject failure... Iran desired – as it often does, and in light of its extensive experience in plotting – to spark sectarian fitna in Saudi Arabia by using the black ISIS organization, which had been planted in Iraq and Syria. Hence [the attack] on peaceful worshippers at the 'Ali bin Abi Talib mosque in the town of Al-Qudaih in the Al-Qatif governorate [in Eastern Saudi Arabia]..."[13]

Iran carries ISIS like a knife in its sheath (Source: Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia, May 29, 2015)Saudi Columnist: ISIS Members Do Not Necessarily Know That They Are Operated By Iranian Intelligence ApparatusesMuhammad Aal Al-Sheikh, a columnist for the official Saudi daily Al-Jazirah, wrote: "...Even though I do not believe in the conspiracy theory, I must rely on it to explain

these ISIS attacks [on the Shi'ite mosques in Saudi Arabia], [which took place] at the exact time that the Persian Iranians, through their Houthi agents in Yemen, suffered blow after blow and could not [do anything but] surrender... One might say that the phenomenon of ISIS is a natural and expected one because, when [Islam] is made political, [this results in] violence that presumes to represent Islam... Here, [Iran's] intelligence apparatuses entered the picture

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and worked to guide the violent actions [of ISIS] so that they served their interest. And this, in my estimation, is ISIS's link to Iranian intelligence."The leaders of ISIS, and certainly its young recruits, are not necessarily aware that they effectively contribute to the realization of Iran's goals. On the contrary, they probably do not know this at all. They act without being aware of such infiltrations [by Iranian intelligence into their ranks]... A [fanatically] ideological man always lacks the ability to look ahead. [His] ideology enslaves him and takes over his thoughts and his entire being, to the point that he sees no other goal or purpose and strives to realize [the ideology] at any cost. This makes it simple and easy for Iranian intelligence to guide him, even if it requires [Iranian

intelligence] to turn a blind eye to the murder and abuse of some Shi'ites, so long as it eventually achieves its primary goal."The most important [goal] for Iran's leaders and intelligence apparatuses is to lead the Muslim world and paint Sunnis as sectarian, takfiri, and bloodthirsty... and present them – not Shi'ites – as the Muslim terrorists. ISIS provides this service in the best way possible... This is the Iranian plot and the secret [behind] these despicable murderous acts that ISIS carries out in order to blacken [the image] of Sunnis for the benefit of Iran.

"As for the U.S., its position is, 'let [the sides] fight each other, and the winner will be worthy of ties with us and serve as our regional policeman."[14]

Iran spreads sectarianism with its terrorist hatchery (Source: Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 31, 2015) Endnotes: [1] On May 22, 2015, a suicide bomber exploded in the village of Al-Qudaih in the Al-Qatif governorate, killing 22 people and injuring dozens. The following day, the Saudi authorities identified the bomber as a 20-year-old Saudi, Saleh 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Saleh Al-Qash'ami, a member of an Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist cell, and announced that 26 of his fellow cell members had been apprehended. Saudi King Salman bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz said that "all those who took part or planned the attack, or cooperated [with the perpetrators], will be punished." (Al-Quds Al-Arabi, London, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, May 24, 2015). One week later, on May 29, a suicide bomber disguised as a woman tried to enter a Shi'ite mosque in the city of Al-Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia, but, after being challenged by a young man, detonated his charge outside the mosque, killing four and injuring four others. ISIS claimed responsibility for this attack as well (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, May 30, 2015).    [2] Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), May 26, 2015.[3] Al-Madina (Saudi Arabia), May 25, 2015.[4] Al-Madina (Saudi Arabia), June 1, 2015.[5] During the July 1987 pilgrimage season, clashes broke out between Shi'ite Iranian pilgrims and Saudi security forces, resulting in over 400 dead and 650 injured.[6] During the 1989 Hajj, Saudi authorities arrested 20 Kuwaiti Shi'ites who were accused of orchestrating two blasts near the Al-Haram mosque in Mecca that killed one and wounded 16. The authorities claimed that the men had received orders and instructions from the Iranian Embassy in Saudi Arabia.[7] In December 1984, a Kuwaiti airliner was hijacked by four Lebanese Shi'ites under orders from Hizbullah military wing commander 'Imad Mughniyah. Mughniyah's goal was to force Kuwait to release 17 men it had arrested following a wave of attacks in the country, which were carried out by Mughniyah's group some one year earlier. After Kuwaiti authorities refused to release the men, a Shi'ite suicide bomber crashed his car into a vehicle carrying then-Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, killing his two bodyguards.[8] The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, which targeted a housing complex for foreign military personal in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killed 19 and wounded some 500.[9] A reference to protests in the Shi'ite town of Al-'Awamiyah in the Al-Qatif governorate that began in July 2012 following the arrest of Shi'ite cleric Nimr Baqr Al-Nimr, who was charged with incitement against the regime. See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 868, Saudi Arabia Fears Spread Of Shi'ite Protests In Country, August 7, 2012.[10] On November 3, 2014, on the anniversary of the Battle of Karbala and the death of the Imam Hussein, several masked men opened fire at a Husseiniya (Shi'ite religious center) in the village of Al-Dalwa in the Al-

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Ahsa governorate, killing eight Saudi Shi'ite citizens and wounding several others. See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5901, Saudi Columnists: There Is Anti-Shi'ite Incitement In Our Country, December 10, 2014. Three weeks later, Saudi authorities announced that the attack had been carried out by ISIS. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), November 25, 2015.[11] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), May 23, 2015.[12] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), May 23, 2015.[13] Makkah (Saudi Arabia), May 30, 2015.[14] Al-Jazirah (Saudi Arabia), May 31, 2015.

Cees a look back tofrom my 2014 files. , In my 2014, Part19, and 19-21 and 19-71, I addressed the Shia Cresent concern that could frustrate Al Zawahiri’s Caliphate; In my; Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2014 Part 19-71-Caliphate-Sunni-Shia-1

Iran a key player is Strategic positioning: For the first time, Iran has a foothold in the southern gate of the Red Sea2, literally on the Bab El-Mandab Strait, which separates Asia from Africa. The western coast of Yemen is also adjacent to the western coast of Saudi Arabia, with all its strategic facilities, posing a double threat: to freedom of movement in the straits and to Saudi security. As we know, the Iranians are believed to be engaged in political and military subversion in Saudi Arabia’s eastern regions — including the coast — through the Shiite minority there. Now they may be jockeying to open a second front on the country’s western side. Additionally, The Shia militias, backed and coordinated by Iran, are now filling the vacuum left behind by the regular army. This phenomenon was rapidly if unintentionally bolstered by a fatwa from Iraq's most senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sistani, on the obligation to defend the country in the face of the I.S. threat. While Sistani had intended to encourage people to enlist in the official security forces, in practice his fatwa go’s in-between the broad umbrella of Shia militias conventionally dubbed al-hashad al-sha'abi ("the popular

1 Both Bin Laden and Zawahiri have mentioned that the higher cause – the Caliphae goal -supersedes the division between. 2014 doc Part 19: Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and author of the book Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State” for example, writes that bin Laden viewed the Shias as non-Muslims, but bin Laden also considered the establishment of a global Islamic state more important than dwelling on sectarian differences, which is why he never fought the Iranians. And, October 10, 2013 Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a new statement, considered to be orders for the coming phase. The emir of the international organization changed his old tone, and called to avoid killing Shia, Christians, Hindus, and Sufis in the context of "warding off sin," in order to "focus on striking the American spearhead." Al-Zawahiri said that "the mistake of the Taliban" in not expanding participation in their government must be recalled and avoided by all Islamist groups. When the mujahideen take over in Iraq or elsewhere, al-Zawahiri wrote, insurgent leaders must direct political as well as military action "by [working for] alliance, cooperation and gathering of all leaders of opinion in the Iraqi arena." Al-Zawahiri pointedly noted that this meant Shiite-Sunni cooperation and not just intra-Sunni unity. Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, July 9, 2005; Step 5 of the 2020 Plan: The Phase of Proclaiming The Nation : This phase focused on the establishment of the Daulah Islammiyah through unifying the various jihad organizations around the globe with Al-Qaeda which are planned for the year 2013-2016…………

2 Cees, In my 2014, Part19, I addressed the Shia Cresent concern that could frustrate Al Zawahiri’s Caliphate. In this part Two I will address and discuss another side of the Coin, a much more dangerous option. A Terrorist Super-Axis; dubbed the “Coalition Of Muslim Soldiers.” The coalition, led by Soleimani, with Iran the main source of funding, is based on a strategic collaboration and devoid of ideological differences and opinions of Shiite and Sunni Marjas. Where AQ-C is in accordance to their general plan in Phase 5: the establishing of the caliphate, a next phase could well be in the final stage of preparation: AQ-C predicted Phase: "Total Confrontation," 2016-2020: A worldwide Islamic army will be ready for final battles with the believers versus nonbelievers, of its 2020 plan, What if battles –simultaneously to start at the western home front are included? And al Qaida is not conducting it alone? See also my, Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2014 Part 19-71-Caliphate-Sunni-Shia

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By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

mobilization") in the Iraqi press. The militias themselves, however, like to call themselves, somewhat ominously, al-muqawama al-islamiya ("the Islamic resistance"). The growing importance of the Shia militias' resistance to the I.S. in Iraq is not simply the result of their own combat skills. It is very much a product of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Iranian regime's elite paramilitary force, whose role in regional conflicts—and, it should be noted, terrorism—is large and expanding. This is of great strategic importance."Iraq for Iranians is their first repelling line against IS ... so they believe that the loss of the Iraqi army and the Shia-led government in Baghdad means ISIL and its backers might be on its western border," Abdulwahid Tuama, an independent political analyst, told Al Jazeera. " Also, the failure of the Shia-led government in Iraq, for any reason, would mean Iran losing its strategic ally in the region." What has been very little discussed in the West, however, is that it is the Shia militias who are quickly eclipsing the Iraqi government forces in importance in Iraq; and that these militias are largely dominated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Indeed, many are Iranian proxies. In a rare twist, the U.S. and its allies have launched an air campaign whose most important effect, if successful, would be to advance Iran's agenda of dominating Iraq and eventually becoming the hegemonic power in the region. How did this happen, and what might its consequences be?

Cees: The Middle East is currently the arena for a cross-border sectarian war. The weakening or collapse of repressive regimes has unleashed a fierce war for succession between rival populations, with Shia and Sunni Arabs the main protagonists. This process is playing itself out in Iraq and Syria, with Lebanon increasingly drawn into the vortex of conflict. The regional rivalry between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia further fuels this conflict. The Iranians are the central pillar of the united and cohesive Shia-dominated bloc which includes the Assad regime in Syria, Hizballah in Lebanon and its allies, (parts of) the government of Iraq and the Shia militias in that country. The Saudis are now the main force seeking to stem the Iranian advance. The anti-western Turkey-Qatar-Muslim Brotherhood alliance is also an important element on the Sunni side. The clash between Shia and Sunni and between Riyadh and Teheran is not limited to the geographical area comprising Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. A largely ignored but vital additional arena in this conflict is Yemen. In this regard, the Iranian-backed Houthi militia has made very significant gains in recent weeks, largely ignored by the western media. And in Iraq the government in Baghdad, like the regime in Damascus, is to be saved from those who would destroy it, but only in such a way that its future is to be an instrument of Iran's will. The Iranians' innovative use of sectarian militia power and the cultivation of a variety of paramilitary clients ensures that, if they get their way, no Iraqi government will be in a position to disobey them. Moreover, Iran's role in Iraq is clearly part of its desire—tracing back to the regime's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini—to spread its ideology throughout the Shia population of the Middle East. What this means is that, while the new sectarian military formation being developed by the Iranians in Iraq is likely to prove sufficient to stem the advance of the overstretched I.S. forces, they are also part of Tehran's larger regional strategy to produce a contiguous line of pro-Iran states between the Iran-Iraq border and the Mediterranean Sea.

When the term “Shiite Crescent” was coined a few years back, it was meant to warn of Iranian expansionism across the Levant. The Houthis have won uncontested control of more than half the old North Yemen. South Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s traditional ally, is being gradually eaten away by Iran. The Shiite Crescent is a contentious notion of an emerging alliance of Shiite political forces in the Middle East, backed by a resurgent Iran, with the specific aim of countering the Sunni Arab, US-backed states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. The term was popularized by Jordan’s King Abdullah II in 2004, when he warned

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By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

that a new regional force could “alter the traditional balance of power between the two main Islamic sects and pose new challenges to US interests and allies”. The areas associated with the regional Shiite alliance form a crescent-like shape on the map, stretching from the Levant via Iran to the Persian Gulf and into the Arabian Peninsula: Iran: At the center is the Shiite Islamist regime in Iran, embroiled in a fierce rivalry with the Sunni power Saudi Arabia, and hostile to Israel and US interests. To expand its influence, the Iran seeks partnerships with likeminded governments and organizations in the Arab world, in the hope that some of them might jump to Tehran’s defense in case of an Israeli attack.

Lebanon: To the west, Iran’s most valuable client is the Lebanese Shiite militia of Hezbollah. Hezbollah commands Lebanon’s strongest armed force, and has the support of the majority of Lebanese Shiites – the country’s largest religious community.

Syria: Acting as the link between Iran and Hezbollah, Syria’s ruling Assad family has cultivated a close strategic relationship with Iran since the early 1980s. Assad’s family belongs to Syria’s Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Iraq: Iran has developed extensive trade, political and intelligence networks in the majority-Shiite Iraq, dominated by Shiite political parties since the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.

Gulf Arab Shiites: On the southern flank of the “crescent”, Iran is often accused by its rivals of backing the uprising of the restive Shiite majority in Bahrain, and of inciting similar rebellions among the minority Shiite populations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

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