Raqqa, Syria. Militant Website, File AP\/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
Ten \u201cletters from Raqqa\u201d have been published in openDemocracy covering a period of a little over two years, the most recent one being on 8 December 2016. They are part of my regular series of weekly articles which have been published since September 2001, offering close analysis of the "war on terror", but with a difference: they are written as if coming from an ISIS supporter working in Raqqa, northern Syria.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The letters therefore give a view of the conflict which contrasts with the typical analysis from western perspectives.\u00a0 In doing so they use a wide variety of sources, both published and oral, to try and get inside the thinking of a well-educated, intelligent but utterly committed ISIS supporter.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Reaction has varied greatly. Some deeply antagonistic and vituperative comments angrily condemn the letters as unalloyed ISIS propaganda. Many others have been much more positive, welcoming them as a necessary attempt to examine perspectives that are radically different to the norm. <\/p>\n
This level of interest, in the context of a conflict that shows every sign of evolving futher in 2017, suggests that it might be useful to gather the letters together. They appear below, each with a brief introduction to set the scene.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Paul Rogers, 29 December 2016<\/p>\n
————-<\/p>\n
9 October 2014<\/p>\n
The first letter introduces the 'writer' and his family, the impact of the war, and his motives for joining the group and moving to Raqqa. It refers to the start of the air war three months earlier, while celebrating the successes of the movement across northern Iraq earlier in the year as a model for long-term success.<\/em><\/p>\n When I came to Raqqa two years ago my brother had been here for more So Inevitably we have hugely bitter feelings towards I have only been here a couple of years and much of my Yes, we dress But I\u2019m getting away from The They\u2019ve They still say they will The only operation that No, the surprise was the effort they put into trying to I also find it weird how Our progress across northern Iraq three months We are also doing amazingly well with all our There is much else I could discuss but perhaps I The word there Indeed, How will What they I That\u2019s all for now, more in a couple of months.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n 31 October 2014<\/p>\n A second letter, written soon after the first and giving more background. Somewhat controversially it implies that ISIS has quite a sophisticated intelligence and analysis capability, which did not go down well with some readers of the column when it appeared in openDemocracy. However, it is a reasonable assessment given the more widely accepted view that ISIS ran, and still runs, a very professional if often appalling news dissemination programme via the web and new social media.<\/em><\/p>\n When I last wrote As you know, I came two years ago to join my My After more than eighteen months into this Most of our That, incidentally, is an area where the You ask how I think the struggle is Second, as you will recall, our core military One of You Our mission First, our leaders have now formally stated Second, as the Third, I simply On top of this, Binyamin Netanyahu announces —-<\/p>\n 22 January 2015\u00a0 <\/p>\n Nearly six months into the air war and his attitude is rather less exuberant, admitting to considerable losses and even suggesting that the leadership might have underestimated the impact. Even so, he remains very committed and outlines why he thinks the ISIS paramilitaries are so resilient in the face of the intense air attacks. He also explains the function of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris and the manner in which ISIS aims to stir up anti-Islamic antagonism as a substantial part of its strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n I had hoped to write to you before the end of the year but, as you You My When Already You ask how we There have been many civilians killed, Where does You may As I Interestingly, I So what of the next few months? Well, three elements are significant.\u00a0 As I said last That is the second point: that That brings me to my final point, the impact of the Paris attack Because of this we have developed In short, we can survive I —-<\/p>\n 22 March 2015<\/p>\n Two months later he presents a still-positive account of where ISIS is, what its strengths are, and his insistence that it is an entirely positive cause. As is usually the case, he sees developments beyond Iraq as frequently favoring the movement, most notably Binyamin Netanyahu\u2019s electoral success. To him, and ISIS, the Israeli prime minister is an asset because of his treatment of the Palestinians. His own work reflects this reverse view \u2013 he is to run an analysis unit on Britain\u2019s forthcoming election, the hope being that right-wing parties will succeed. For ISIS, anything that adds to the alienation of Muslims in the UK is to be welcomed, as is a British government of a hawkish persuasion.<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for asking after my brother. When I last wrote I was You ask about how I see the war going My fighting life ended early when I lost my left arm in One The But what I really wanted to say is that the It is two months since I last wrote to you and the short answer is that it is going more or less according to plan, The Iraqis are losing at least sixty of their people every I\u2019m not sure There is also a huge advantage coming to us from the actions of the hated Iraqi Shi\u2019a <\/em>militias as they plunder and burn Sunni<\/em> villages. This has been a persistent element of the war that has been going on for many months. One example was when a large Shi\u2019a<\/em> This We The attacks on the apostate mosque in I mentioned earlier on that I would say more about Our immediate concern, though, is with Britain and the The ideal Maybe it still will, We have already passed on this analysis to the SOBRA The problem is that the British military I have no doubt, —-<\/p>\n 14 May 2015<\/p>\n He \u201cexplains\u201d the loss of Tikrit and points to other successes, as well as highlighting his own work. His view of the British political scene immediately after the general election is positive: the Conservative victory is welcome, as is the continued significance of Nigel Farage, while there's relief that Ed Miliband\u2019s Labour Party didn't win (out of fear that Britain might adopt a more cautious stance on military action against ISIS). From his perspective, ISIS wants to be attacked in order to maintain its status as the defender of \u201ctrue\u201d Islam.<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you again for asking after my brother. I am pleased to say that he is now almost fully recovered and expects to return to the fight within a couple of months. For now, though, the leadership has given him a training role. That's something he is really well suited to given his years of combat, especially during the war with Task Force 145 back in 2005-06. His experience under torture at Camp Bucca has also proved a great asset. It gives him a real authority with recruits, and helps him prepare them for what they might face as our war escalates here and in Iraq.\u00a0 <\/p>\n My brother tells me that there is a good chance that he will be sent to northern Afghanistan to help with the further training of Taliban and foreign fighters. Apparently our recent support for the Taliban in the fighting around Kunduz has proved to be welcomed by their leadership, helping to overcome any suspicion of our motives. At the very least we will be able to work with them some more and our long-term aim is that they embrace our vision of the new Caliphate, a much more potent idea than their own rather limited ethno-nationalistic outlook.<\/p>\n You ask me to let you know what I think of recent western political developments, now that I am full-time on the SOBRA department that analyses external developments for the leadership. I am happy to do so but will first say a little about the recent western insistence that the war is going well for them.<\/p>\n For us in SOBRA we really find it quite laughable. Those people in Washington seem to think that because we made such rapid progress from Fallujah to Mosul a year ago, any slower rate of progress indicates impending failure, Tikrit being a good example. They seem quite unable to understand what we are about, or the long timespan of our programme. Even in the short term, though, they get it wrong, though we suspect that the real reason for protestations of success is to keep their own domestic opinion quiet.<\/p>\n Look at it from our perspective. In the past nine months we have experienced close to 10,000 airstrikes with over 6,000 targets hit, yet are still as active as ever. We only had a few hundred men defending Tikrit and most of them withdrew successfully when the planned decision was taken. Tikrit, though, is now a wrecked town, as was Kobane last year, and one of the key results is that on the few occasions that they take territory, the level of destruction that they leave behind just makes for more converts to our cause as our Sunni brethren return to their shattered homes, shops, factories and farms.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, while they take the occasional town we make progress elsewhere, including that destruction of their brigade HQ the other month. Take a specific example – we currently have less than 200 of our fighters controlling a large part of the Baiji refinery, ensuring that such an important source of revenue is unavailable to their regime. Also, the complex of pipes, tanks and industrial plant make for an excellent guerrilla warfare environment. They cannot bomb it because that would be self-defeating, while their own soldiers are simply not up to taking us on \u2013 and the Shi\u2019a <\/em>militias are no better. At some stage they will assemble many thousands of men, as they eventually did around Tikrit, and we will quietly and calmly withdraw and move on elsewhere. We may not even bother to wreck the refinery since we will be back before long.<\/p>\n As far as Baiji is concerned you may ask, why do it? Well the answer is straightforward -symbolism.\u00a0 For us to control one of the country\u2019s most important industrial sites for weeks and months with little more than a token force is a vivid demonstration of our capabilities and is not lost on Sunni <\/em>communities across Iraq as they suffer under the apostates. Moreover, it has a similar impact in the wider world and posting that video of our surveying the refinery with our very own reconnaissance drones has had a huge impact. Meanwhile, as I said at the start, we are becoming steadily more active in Afghanistan, a development as welcome as it has been unexpected.<\/p>\n But you ask specifically about my work in election monitoring and I will tell you about that now, especially in relation to the British election result. The unit as a whole puts its greatest emphasis on the United States, followed by the UK and France, but it also looks at others, including Stephen Harper\u2019s Canada and dear old Tony Abbott over in Australia. Those last two don\u2019t receive much attention at present, although Canada\u2019s decision to send its CF-18s into action in Syria as well as Iraq is a thoroughly welcome development, not least as the chance of one of their planes getting shot down and the aircrew captured has risen.<\/p>\n France is of some interest not least because of the continuing and greatly welcome strength of the National Front, and the United States has no elections in the near future. Mind you, we are looking quite positively at next year\u2019s presidential election. Any Republican that makes it to the White House is well nigh certain to be more hawkish than Obama and we have no worries about the hardline nature of a Hillary Clinton administration. Our concern is if a more liberal Democrat makes progress in the primaries, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.<\/p>\n That leaves us with Britain and I have to confess that a week ago we were getting seriously worried because of the risk that Miliband would somehow get in. Our nightmare was Miliband running a minority government with informal SNP and LibDem support and being both cautious over foreign wars and careful about how to tackle what they call \u201cextremism\u201d. Both would be singularly unhelpful to our cause. You will recall that in my last letter I said that our dream result would be a Tory coalition with a vibrant UKIP and Nigel Farage as deputy prime minister and home secretary \u2013 manna from heaven (if you will allow me to borrow a Crusader phrase!).<\/p>\n In the event we actually think we have done better than this since a Tory majority has some considerable advantages for us, especially as Farage has quickly reversed his resignation and will stay a prominent figure on the British political scene.<\/p>\n What we now envisage is a Tory government doing what it has really wanted to do all along, but it will be increasingly beset with internal party divisions, restless and quite far right-wing backbenchers and all kinds of complications over Europe. Meanwhile, Labour will spend the next four months arguing about the leadership and systematically failing to provide opposition. The Tories will become more and more confident so that when the cracks in the edifice start to appear next winter they will look more and more for enemies to divert attention. We make great enemies!<\/p>\n What is even better is that they are already planning to tighten up on their counter-terror legislation which is of course exactly what we want. Just think \u2013 more surveillance, new laws restricting freedom of speech, more arrests, tougher sentencing and more young people jailed for long periods. UK prisons are already hugely useful in proselytising for new recruits and as the numbers rise, so will the opportunities.\u00a0 Moreover, all of this will be in a climate of increased xenophobia and fewer life-chances for our young Muslim brothers and sisters. Remember, we are in this for decades.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Perhaps it will all come apart for Cameron and his ilk as it did twenty years ago for that hapless John Major but I doubt it. In any case, it will not be too quick, so we have at least a couple of years to savour.\u00a0 I have to say that, on reflection, this was an excellent result and far better than we feared. For someone like me watching the British scene it is really good to be alive! <\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n 15 July 2015<\/p>\n The writer continues to show confidence in the future of his movement, pointing to successes, as he sees them, across south Asia, and indicating that the movement has potential in Russia. In assessing the UK, concern that the all-too-peaceful Jeremy Corbyn might be a problem if he ever gets into power is moderated by the belief that the chances of this are minimal.<\/em><\/p>\n This is my sixth letter to you since we started our correspondence last October Well, From your Even I\u2019ll Afghanistan continues to show Even so, we have been able to make some What In Libya, our progress is steady and has none of the One Then What we find hugely welcome is that their president, But Just before the election we had had sleepless nights that Miliband Yet there is just a bit of a worry, because the I personally also have a slight concern that Cameron\u2019s speech There is much more I When Britain joins —-<\/p>\n 15 October 2015<\/p>\n Three months further on and ISIS is experiencing the full brunt of the air assault. He continues to present a positive slant but there is an element of concern in the language. The confidence in ultimate success perhaps dented by the losses, though he seeks comfort from the possible effects of those very losses in terms of a positive impact on recruitment and the progress that he sees ISIS making in the wider world, notably Afghanistan and Libya. Russian involvement in the war in Syria is an asset, allowing Moscow to be framed as anti-Islamic.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for asking after my brother. In my last letter I You asked me to As you know it is now a year since I first wrote Instead Even Fortunately for us, Corbyn has Beyond The ANA, in any case, is in disarray and this is In Iraq and Syria, the What the The The second is The third is that our core paramilitary leaders are You ask What Moreover, the Russian missiles had a failure More Where Russia really aids us, though, is Now that Russian strike-aircraft and helicopters You might also like to know that our leadership is As you can imagine these are —-<\/p>\n 4 February 2016<\/p>\n By now\u00a0 the writer\u2019s work has been redirected to covering the American presidential election campaign as it takes shape. His assessment includes the then forlorn hope of what, from ISIS\u2019s perspective, would be the ideal result: a victory for Donald Trump!\u00a0 He is hopeful, though, that any result will deliver a more hawkish administration than Barck Obama, which would be welcome among the leaders in Raqqa. <\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for your letter and all the news from Baghdad. I am glad to Thanks also for asking once again after my What few people in the western military realise is that You At It wasn\u2019t to be but at least Miliband Because As In addition to our You may ask why we would be content with such a In spite It So put it together \u2013 America goes Perhaps you can understand why —-<\/p>\n 28 July 2016\u00a0 <\/p>\n The war is hardly going well for ISIS, given the intensity of the air attacks. The writer, however, says little about this. His delight at the Brexit result is palpable, seeing it as a major part of the move towards xenophobia and Islamophobia in western Europe, trends likely to make Muslims more fearful and at least some of them likely to see ISIS as the true way forward. He rejoices yet again that the west has so little understanding about the nature of ISIS and the new Caliphate. From his perspective, ISIS wants to be attacked and seeks to damage community relations in Europe as much as possible, thus damaging society from within.\u00a0 For him, plenty of politicians and much of the western media are giving ISIS precisely what it wants.<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for your letter and I am pleased to hear you were nowhere I must apologise for taking At least I have now been fitted with a prosthetic You ask again after my brother. I have some really surprising I understand that You ask about my own work. It has mainly In the event the result Where Cameron turned out to be an utter gift for As What our leaders You ask me to be frank with you about Look at it through other eyes, though. In Iraq the apostate government continues to favour the Shi\u2019a<\/em> Put I also suspect that western analysts have no idea about the impact of There is a further They But they went further, in determining to take The effect of all of this, especially in France and Germany, Even so, our main I have to say that even though I worked for —-<\/p>\n 8 December 2016<\/p>\n The tenth and most recent of the letters. Here he acknowledges that the days of a defined geographical Caliphate might be coming to an end. Yet he does not see this as a disaster, given the election of Trump and the renewed xenophobic tendencies in Europe. Indeed, he now sees the Caliphate as a symbol for the long term and is deeply frustrated that he is not allowed to fight. He hopes yet to do so, concluding that this might be his final letter.<\/em><\/p>\n Thank you for your letter and for asking after my brother. I must apologise for taking so long to reply, especially as I last wrote As you My You also ask after me, and I have to My superiors You As you will know, my work involves In According to sources from the far enemy, primarily the Something isn\u2019t quite right Look at what is Then what? It all Even so, I will say to you But before I come to the significance of that, let me For a Then look even Look at the rise in Islamophobia across Europe, at Geert I Remember what I said to you in an earlier letter when I was working on the analysis of the US election: <\/p>\n "As So Perhaps Since then, not only has Mr Trump won But I very much doubt We do something that they simply cannot even This may be my last Raqqa, Syria. Militant Website, File AP\/Press Association Images. All rights reserved. Introduction Ten \u201cletters from Raqqa\u201d have been published in openDemocracy covering a period of a little over two years, the most recent one being on 8 December 2016. They are part of my regular series of weekly articles which have been published since September…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthan a year and was already a platoon leader. He had fought the American
\n special forces in Anbar for three years until captured and tortured
\nlate in 2006, so he had even survived Operation Arcadia. After four
\nyears in Bucca camp\u00a0\u2013 a singularly formative educational experience
\nwhere he learnt much about US military attitudes\u00a0\u2013\u00a0he was finally
\nreleased. He had, though, lost two uncles and three cousins to American
\nand British attacks, with our father, two aunts and four cousins killed
\nin airstrikes and two more cousins maimed for life. It was hardly
\nsurprising that he joined up with the Baghdadi group at the first
\nopportunity, nor that I should follow him not long afterwards.<\/p>\n
\nwhere are we now? First, let\u2019s just remember that we have more than one
\naim and a thorough mix of motives. Behind it all is the desire to be
\npart of the historic mission to restore the Caliphate, bringing true
\nrule to the world even if it takes centuries, but there is more to it
\nthan that.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nthe Shi\u2019a<\/em> in Iraq and do not see Haider al-Abadi as any different to
\nNouri al-Maliki. We are passionately opposed to Bashar al-Assad and his
\nAlawi clan but also hate the utterly unacceptable Sunni <\/em>regimes
\n dominating our region, most of all the appalling House of Saud and its
\npreposterous claim to be Guardian of the Two Holy Places. Beyond that
\nlies the American-Israeli nexus, its occupation of the Third Holy Place,
\n with the Zionist massacres of our Palestinian friends a continuing
\natrocity.<\/p>\n
\nwork is analysing western attitudes, but I simply cannot understand the
\nreaction to our killing of hostages, Iraqi soldiers and police and other
\n opponents. Is it really worse to be beheaded, a near instant death, or
\nto die slowly from hideous burns, from being shredded by hundreds of
\nsub-munitions or crushed slowly to death under a collapsed building?
\nSure we make an example of captured soldiers and police, but that scares
\n off others and makes our task easier. It is no different to innumerable
\n attacks done by the Americans over the past ten years, including those
\nwhich they themselves characterised as punitive.<\/p>\n
\nhostages in orange jump-suits and maybe that makes a few in the west
\nthink, but how many know there are still more than a hundred in
\nGuant\u00e1namo, many there for more than a decade and likely to be kept in
\nprison for the rest of their lives – a slow living death with no hope of
\n an end to it, not quick and merciful.<\/p>\n
\nmyself when I really wanted to write down where we are now, perhaps the
\nstart of an occasional diary but I will keep this first entry brief.<\/p>\n
\n Americans started their airstrikes exactly two months ago, more or less
\n when we expected them to do so, and so we had dispersed most of our
\nassets in good time. They did have some effect here and there and
\nhalted a couple of advances, but much of the equipment they hit was
\nsurplus to our requirements and was mostly their own stuff anyway.<\/p>\n
\n done 388 raids so far, the majority in Iraq, and they are now having
\ntrouble trying to identify suitable targets. Yes, they do have British,
\nFrench, Belgian, Danish, Australian and Canadian aircraft either here or
\n on their way, as well as some from a few local states, although the
\nlatter are almost entirely incompetent.<\/p>\n
\nnot put \u201cboots on the ground\u201d but the numbers of special forces are
\ncreeping up and the Pentagon is currently moving an army brigade HQ to
\nIraq, a sure sign that more is planned.<\/p>\n
\ntook us by surprise was the first big raid on Syria, but it was not
\ntheir attacks on us that caught us out. Apart from a few unlucky
\nsupporters killed at a roadblock outside the city we had long since
\nevacuated everyone and had also dispersed almost all our weapons and
\nkit.<\/p>\n
\ndamage the Khorasan group over in the west. We have nothing to do with
\nthem and their weird insistence in plotting attacks abroad, but they
\ncertainly scared the Americans. In the event, it kept the pressure off
\nus so Khorasan actually did us a service.<\/p>\n
\n the western press seems to pick on just one happening \u2013 the Mosul dam
\nattack or, just now, the fighting around Kobane \u2013 not getting even a
\nremote understanding of the wider picture. What that picture shows is
\nthat we are making progress on many fronts, especially but not only in
\nAnbar province. Even in Syria, Assad\u2019s crowd still see us as an asset
\nand long may that last, while the Turks are so conflicted on the Kurdish
\n question that we see little threat from them apart from a possible
\nsymbolic action.<\/p>\n
\nago was no surprise to us \u2013 after all we had been preparing for it for
\nmore than a year, and we are not seriously affected by the air attacks.
\nWe are therefore in a good position to consolidate our territorial
\ncontrol as we prepare for the long war. Indeed, our morale after two
\nmonths of attacks has never been higher, born from the pleasure that we
\nare now engaged in combat with a serious enemy not joke forces like the
\nIraqi army.<\/p>\n
\ninternational communications. The sophistication of the media operations
\n is a joy to behold and is way ahead of anything that the enemy can muster,
\nespecially in reaching out to young believers and drawing them to the
\ncause. I understand that the leadership has some worries about the force
\n with which mosque leaders are condemning us in some countries such as
\nBritain, but these are small setbacks in an otherwise positive
\nenvironment.<\/p>\n
\nmight end on one big issue \u2013 where next and what do we most want our
\nenemies to do? I am not close enough to the leadership to be sure, but
\nthe city is a hotbed of gossip and what I try to do is to listen to
\nthose sources that have been accurate in the past.<\/p>\n
\nis that what is most wanted is serious numbers of western boots on the
\nground. There are scores, if not hundreds, of men who fought Task Force
\n145 \u2013 a Rangers battalion, SEAL Team 6 and an SAS squadron \u2013 especially
\nin that crucial 2005-06 period, and they seriously want revenge for the
\nwholesale slaughter and torture of their friends and relatives.<\/p>\n
\n many of them live in eager anticipation of the opportunity to capture
\nwestern troops and then dress them up in the orange suits, waterboard
\nthem, and execute them, all on video for worldwide distribution. Revenge
\n will be sweet and for quite a few of them revenge is a far stronger
\nmotive than seeking the new Caliphate. It is just as well that the
\nAmericans and British have no understanding of this, making it all the
\nmore likely that they will blunder into yet another trap.<\/p>\n
\n this trap be sprung? Difficult to say, but I know one of the senior
\npeople close to Baghdadi is obsessed with the Tet offensive nearly half a
\n century ago, sure that this time it will make the Americans increase
\ntheir forces rather than withdraw. Where will it be sprung? Again, I
\ncan\u2019t be sure but there is one pointer. The western media is making
\nquite a lot of our recent advance between Fallujah and Baghdad,
\nincluding this week\u2019s success in and around Abu Ghraib. <\/p>\n
\n all seem to be missing is that we already have highly effective yet
\ndispersed forces well ensconced in the western districts of Baghdad
\nitself. Take a look at the area around Baghdad international airport,
\nnot doing much on the civil side but an absolute hive of military
\nactivity as the American forces pour in (Bing is far better than Google
\nfor this – much clearer maps). Then look to the west and east of the
\nairport complex. Westwards is Abu Ghraib, barely ten miles away with
\nlots of farms, irrigation ditches and villages between it and the
\nairport \u2013 quite decent paramilitary country and easy to disperse. Then
\nlook to the east and within five miles are the crowded Baghdad suburbs
\nof Saidya, Khadra, Ameria and, of course, the appropriately-named Jihad.
\n None of them is openly under our control but we are everywhere.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n may be wrong, but this is one bit of gossip I take seriously. Watch
\nthis space as we do our very best to wreak havoc and then get the
\nAmericans really involved, and this time on our terms.<\/p>\n
\n I said that I might add something in a couple of months, but the
\nquestions you raise have prompted me to make a more immediate response.
\nThe first two were: what am I doing here just now, and how did I come to
\n be doing it?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nbrother and fight for the cause of an Islamic Caliphate. My motivation,
\nas was his, was primarily revenge, given that we had lost two uncles and
\n three cousins in fighting the Americans and British, and our father,
\ntwo aunts and four cousins to airstrikes. That may still be part of our
\nmotivation, particularly the death of our beloved father, but we now see
\n a much more positive future as we embrace the prospect that our leaders
\n hold before us of a true Islamist entity. Whether we live to see it in
\nthis life is not relevant \u2013 that we are already part of it is.<\/p>\n
\noriginal journey here, my haphazard training (quite unlike the
\nprofessionalism we have now) and my induction into fighting were all
\nover within four weeks when I was caught in a Zionist attack, losing my
\nleft arm and very nearly my life. I survived, recovered and was
\ndesperate to return to the fight, but our leaders had other plans,
\ntelling me bluntly that I could play a far more important role for our
\ncause by joining the analysis team SOBRA. (I understand that this stands
\n for State Office Briefing Room A, the place in our main bunker where
\nwe originally worked).<\/p>\n
\nwork, I have to accept that they were right \u2013 it does make far better
\nuse of my Masters degree from SOAS and my three years of living in the
\nUK and USA, and I now lead a small team that monitors western media and
\ngovernment output to prepare briefings for the leadership. I have three
\npeople working for me, and our whole section numbers more than twenty,
\ncovering all the major western languages as well as Chinese and Russian,
\n and with excellent communications systems that have so far been
\nentirely unaffected by the numerous US airstrikes.<\/p>\n
\noutput is for the main planning cells, with some of it going right
\nthrough to the leadership. But we also feed in a constant supply of
\ninformation to our colleagues in media production. They tend to use our
\nmaterial in a highly nuanced if not frankly propagandistic manner, but I
\n have to admit that when it comes to propaganda they are the very best,
\nand simply streets ahead of their western opponents. Their numbers have
\nincreased substantially and there are now over thirty of them, many
\nbeing recent recruits from among the more knowledgable of our western
\nbrothers and sisters.<\/p>\n
\nrate of expansion is hugely positive. We now have many thousands of
\nyoung recruits joining us from across the region. Even more importantly,
\n many hundreds a month come from western countries, mostly men but with
\nan increasing number of women.<\/p>\n
\n going, especially with what outsiders see as our failure to take
\nKobane.\u00a0 I have to say that our leaders have little concern, for two
\nreasons. First, we fully expected that at some stage the Americans would
\n try to start a serious air war and would eventually strong-arm the weak
\n Turks to allow the Iraqi Kurds to help defend the town. Both are
\nproving to be useful training exercises for our less experienced
\nmilitias.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nleadership has many people who learned how to handle the Americans in
\nIraq eight to ten years ago, but we have thousands of younger fighters
\nwith far less experience. This is what they are now getting. It is going
\n to prove invaluable during the coming winter when the Americans will
\nreally step up the air attacks against us here in Raqqa.<\/p>\n
\nthe things we are expecting is a determined and sustained effort to
\nwreck our civil infrastructure. Transport and communications will be the
\n priority, together with the sustained disruption of power supplies. One
\n of my recent assignments was to investigate the current status of the
\nAmerican \u201cblackout bomb\u201d that they used in Serbia in 1999, disrupting
\npower supplies of over 70% of the country. I\u2019ve found out that it is very
\nmuch around, designated the BLU-114\/B, and we expect it to be used
\nfrequently this winter, so much so that our leaders are already
\npreparing counter-measures. You have probably never heard of this, so
\nhere\u2019s a link.<\/p>\n
\n also ask me about morale and I can only reply that it is currently very
\n high. As I have said, my main function is to analyse the western media
\nand I must admit that they still have little conception of what they are
\n dealing with.\u00a0 They report, almost jubilantly, our failure to take
\nKobane but cannot understand that this is little more than a sideshow.
\nMeanwhile, they miss out so many other developments.<\/p>\n
\nis to create a new Caliphate, starting here in Syria and Iraq but
\nspreading out over the next decade or more to bring in links right
\nacross the Islamic world. Let me just give you just three examples of
\ncurrent progress.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nthe connection between our cause and the suffering of our Uyghur cousins
\n in China. Just making that statement, and publicising it widely across
\nour world, begins the process of unification.<\/p>\n
\nAmericans and British finally withdraw from Afghanistan, our Taliban
\ncousins spread their control over more and more territory. They are
\ndoing it quietly but to great effect and this will continue, with a
\nsubstantial increase in control after the winter. We do not pretend that
\n we control them, nor do we seek or need to do so.\u00a0 In the wider scheme
\nof things it is enough that they make progress.<\/p>\n
\ncannot understand how the west, especially the Americans, fails
\nrepeatedly to recognise the effect of the actions of the Zionists. Even
\nnow, they have no appreciation of how useful the Gaza war was to us and
\nhow much anger it induced across the Muslim communities in the west \u2013
\nand still does as the Zionists and the Egyptian leader al-Sisi together
\nblock the rebuilding.<\/p>\n
\n the building of 1,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem and then
\ncloses Haram al Sharif, one of the holiest of all our sites. It is
\nsimply unbelievable, and the effect on recruitment to our cause will be a
\n joy to behold.\u00a0 Do you seriously need to ask how we see the future? To
\nsay that we see it with confidence is a masterpiece of understatement.<\/p>\n
\nmay have heard, my brother was badly injured in an American airstrike
\nand I spent a lot of time making sure he got the right treatment. The
\nattack was on the Fallujah-Abu Ghraib road and while he got immediate
\nmedical help there, he had to be brought back to our much better
\nfacilities here in Raqqa. I am really pleased to say that he is
\nrecovering well and very anxious to get back to his platoon.<\/p>\n
\nmentioned in your last message that you had passed on my letter to some
\nfriends, one of whom scanned it and put it online and, as a result, it
\neven got picked up by one of those western websites that quaintly thinks
\n it presents a broad spectrum of opinion on our region!\u00a0 Never mind,
\nperhaps someone will read it and get the message, but since you might
\nwant to do this again, I\u2019ll just report a bit of background.<\/p>\n
\n brother came to join the cause three years ago after many members of
\nour family had been killed, and I joined him a year later. I had come
\nto fight but got injured early on, losing an arm. They then had me join
\n the group analysing western attitudes and their media, seeing us
\nthrough their eyes to help our planner conduct the war most
\neffectively. I am part of a large group working in many languages but
\nbecause of my SOAS degree and years in London, I concentrate on Britain.<\/p>\n
\n I last wrote at the end of October, the air war was already under way
\nand we had experienced nearly 400 attacks, losing some of our soldiers
\nvery early on. Fortunately our losses were not too great and, in any
\ncase, are mostly new recruits \u2013 martyrs are serving as a marvellous
\ninspiration to young people to come and join us. Now that the war with
\nthe far enemy
\n has really started it is so much easier for us to present the case that
\n the Islamic world is once again under attack from the Crusader-Zionist
\nconspiracy, and we can point to all the other examples \u2013 Afghanistan,
\nIraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Libya and the rest.<\/p>\n
\nwe are seeing an increase in the numbers of young men and even women
\ncoming to our cause. I saw a recent western estimate of 18,000 joining
\nus so far, including 3,000 from outside the region. Surprisingly, they
\nare not too far out with these figures except that they are seriously
\nunderestimating the numbers from western Europe.<\/p>\n
\nare coping with the attacks. Well I have to say that the intensity has
\ncaught us just a little by surprise. There have been about 3,500 attacks
\n so far on nearly 2,500 targets, with around 7,000 bombs and missiles
\ndropped. Our statistical bureau colleagues tell us that over a thousand
\nof our fighters have been killed and about the same number injured, but
\nthat our paramilitary leaders were planning for much higher losses and
\nare not remotely worried – we and they may mourn the deaths but
\ncelebrate the martyrdom.<\/p>\n
\nincluding children, and our social media people have done a remarkable
\njob in telling their stories and sending the news right around the
\nworld. This, alone, is a really helpful recruiting aid.<\/p>\n
\n it all leave us, and you rightly ask how the war is going?\u00a0 As you know
\n I am not in the propaganda business and in the analyses I organise for
\nthe leaders they insist on me telling them it as it is, so I will be
\nstraight with you, too. Firstly, our progress has been blunted by the
\nattacks but no more than we expected. We are not even bothering to put
\nresources into taking Kobane, as that had little strategic importance
\nbeing more a matter of presentation than anything else. Secondly, we
\nhave actually made some progress in Iraq, especially consolidating our
\nhold over large parts of Anbar province and increasing our infiltration
\nof western Baghdad. Finally, and most importantly, we have made
\nsignificant territorial gains in northern Syria, aided by the agreement
\nwith al-Nusra which continues to hold in most districts.<\/p>\n
\nwonder how this can be when we are facing an air assault that is much
\nmore intensive than any meted out to the Afghans in recent years. The
\nmain reason is that our paramilitary leaders know what to expect since
\nmost of them fought the Americans and their allies for years in Iraq.
\nOne of my friends in military planning, who fought in Chechnya, Kashmir
\nand Afghanistan before being injured in Iraq and transferring to desk
\nduties told me that in his considered opinion our paramilitary
\nleadership is probably the best in the world, and certainly superior to
\nthe other side. With all their advanced weaponry and firepower, they are
\n not remotely near understanding us or what we are about.<\/p>\n
\nmentioned, my duties involve analysing the western media and I am
\nrequired to pay particular attention to the military literature,
\nespecially in the United States. What I do see there, if only
\noccasionally, is some public acknowledgment that they are facing a much
\nmore difficult task than they imagine, and that unless they can train
\neffective Iraqi army forces this war will last for years. Even so, there
\n is very little attention paid to such views.<\/p>\n
\noccasionally see reports from well-informed analysts in civil
\nthink-tanks pointing out that generational cohorts of combat-trained
\nparamilitaries have been produced, first in Afghanistan in the 1980s and
\n again in the 1990s, then in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, more recently
\nin Libya and now once again in Iraq and Syria. It is hardly surprising,
\nis it, that the current generation is an elite in every sense of the
\nword? Fortunately, the very few analysts saying this are systematically
\nignored, which is just as well for us.<\/p>\n
\n time, we are very keen to have enemy boots on the ground fighting us
\ndirectly. We are now getting this \u2013 the recent engagement with Canadian
\nspecial forces is an example. The more of this the better, and what we
\nreally want is ordinary troops involved. We can then capture some, build
\n up a pool of prisoners and execute them one by one, no doubt ensuring a
\n substantial escalation in the war.<\/p>\n
\n outcome is precisely what we want. I still cannot understand that the
\nleaders of the far enemy do not appreciate that we want a war! Do I
\nreally have to shout it – for it seems so obvious. If our main near-term
\n aim is to show we are defending Islam, how can we do that if we are not
\n being attacked? It would make no sense. How can we ensure an increased
\nsupply of recruits if there is little work to recruit for? As one of
\ntheir TV adverts puts it \u2013 \u201csimples\u201d!<\/p>\n
\n and what it means in the coming months. The brothers who staged that
\nattack were not part of us, but they did a very good job of stirring up
\nanti-Islamic antagonism. This is something we really do need if we are
\nto get more disillusioned young people flocking to the cause. In fact if
\n we can ensure that inter-communal relations across the west are wrecked
\n then that is really good news.<\/p>\n
\nover the past year a new department that works specifically to place
\ndedicated young people with direct combat experience back in their own
\ncountries in order to prepare for attacks. We are obviously losing some
\nto the security forces but plenty are surviving. We anticipate a number
\nof incidents in the coming months and have some brilliant targets
\nidentified which will come as great surprises and have maximum effect.
\nAs well as directly inspiring more recruits to our cause, far more of
\nour Muslim friends will be more marginalised and alienated by the
\nfracturing of society that our attacks cause, with ever more of them
\ncoming to see that ours is the only way.<\/p>\n
\nthe air war with ease, for months if not years. We welcome and hope
\nearnestly for ground combat. And we look forward to more strikes at the
\nheart of the far enemy and the sense of mission that will be engendered.
\n In short, things are going very largely according to plan. <\/p>\n
\n will write again with news of my brother\u2019s progress in a few weeks but I
\n very much suspect he will be back in action long before then – after
\nwhat he has suffered, and all the losses to his family, there is just no
\n stopping him.<\/p>\n
\nconfident that he would soon be back on the frontline, probably in
\nTikrit, but I am sorry to say that one of his wounds turned septic and
\nfor a week we thought he would lose his right leg. Fortunately his
\nbrigade commander heard what was happening and pulled sufficient weight
\nfor him to be brought back to one of our military medical centres here
\nin Raqqa. The treatment has been excellent and he is now up and about.
\nOne of the good things about this is that I have been able to see him
\nalmost every day and we have been able to talk and share our visions of
\nthe future more than at any time since I first came here over two years
\nago.<\/p>\n
\n and I will tell you, but first let me bring you up to date on my own
\nnews. You will recall that I originally came here to fight, following my
\n brother and utterly determined to aid the cause after the huge
\nsuffering our family had experienced \u2013 my brother and I still talk
\nfondly about our beloved father and his terrible death in that crusader
\nairstrike.<\/p>\n
\n a Zionist air attack and since then I have worked for the leadership in
\n the SOBRA team, my responsibilities being to monitor and analyse the
\nwestern media, especially in Britain. They seemed to recognise my hard
\nwork and my ability to be ruthlessly independent in my analysis and I
\nwas promoted to run the whole unit early last year. You might expect
\nthat they don\u2019t want to be presented with bad news but that is simply
\nnot the case. They are so hardened, not least from the experience of
\nmany of them against those crusader special forces in Task Force 145 in
\nIraq, and they are absolutely insistent on being told it as it is.<\/p>\n
\n of their increasingly significant requirements is for high-quality
\nanalysis of the political trends in those crusader countries that
\nprovide us with such dedicated recruits. Britain and France are
\nimportant although they were also particularly concerned about Israel
\nwhen it looked as though Binyamin Netanyahu would lose the election \u2013 <\/em>a potential disaster for us since he has been such a marvellous recruiting sergeant for our cause.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n relief at the result right across the movement has been palpable. Not
\nonly will he encroach still further on our lands but there is every
\nchance of his stirring up a crisis between the crusaders and the hated
\napostates in Tehran. It may not happen soon, and there might even be an
\ninitial nuclear deal, but we are not in this for the short term so that
\nis hardly important.<\/p>\n
\nleadership instructed me last month to establish an election research
\nunit within SOBRA to provide analysis of electoral trends in key
\ncrusader states, with an emphasis on impending elections. My first task,
\n already underway, is to analysis the forthcoming British election and
\nhow we might influence it in the right way. I\u2019ll say a bit more about
\nthat before I finish but first let me respond to your query about how
\nthe war is going.<\/p>\n
\n especially in Tikrit. I know that would have surprised you a couple of
\nweeks ago, given the way the Iraqi propagandists had been trumpeting
\ntheir early progress but I\u2019m sure you will have heard what has happened
\nrecently. In effect, the operation has stalled even though we have less
\nthan 1,000 fighters, facing 3,000 Iraqi soldiers and 20,000 Iraqi
\nmilitia fighters supported by many Iranians including their special
\nforces.<\/p>\n
\n day, with scores more injured who are now clogging up their hospitals.
\nFor the time being they have stopped trying to advance and are waiting
\nfor reinforcements. At some stage we will suddenly withdraw all our
\nforces and they will claim a great victory. We, on the other hand, will
\nhave ended up with hundreds more recruits having got firsthand combat
\nexperience while also taking territory elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nwhether you know that only last week we overran the headquarters of the
\nIraqi army\u2019s 26th brigade at Thar Thar, close to Baghdad. We killed or
\ncaptured many Iraqi soldiers and took truckloads of equipment and
\nmunitions before moving on.<\/p>\n
\n militia force tried to take control of Amerli (or \u201cliberate\u201d it, as
\nthey say) last summer. The fighting was hard and in the process they
\nstaged scores of reprisal raids against Sunni<\/em> villages in the
\nsurrounding areas. At least thirty were attacked, the villages looted,
\nmen abducted and thousands of buildings burned to the ground.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n has now been happening around Tikrit and we have no doubt that the
\neffect will be to increase support for our cause right across the
\nprovince, as happened around Amerli. Tacitus had it right when he said
\n\u201cthey make a desert and called it peace\u201d, and this will be repeated time
\n and time again. In the short term they will make gains, including, no
\ndoubt, Tikrit, but in the longer term these will greatly play to our advantage. <\/p>\n
\n are being helped in many other ways too. Little by little other
\nfighters are rallying to our cause, from Libya right through to
\nKazakhstan. Also, the museum attack in Tunis last week is having
\nprecisely the intended effect. Picking the afternoon of a cruise-ship
\nvisit and crusader tourists present there means that it had a worldwide
\nimpact, and hitting Tunisia\u2019s tourist trade is hugely important. With
\nits rampant graduate unemployment and hundreds of thousands of
\nwell-educated young people excluded from mainstream society, Tunisia has
\n long been one of our best recruiting grounds, but the resurgence in the
\n tourist industry and the employment provided was a worry for us. This
\nwill now be happily averted, and not only will the government crack down
\n heavily on dissent but there will be more and more angry and frustrated
\n people on the margins.<\/p>\n
\nYemen are also very helpful especially in boosting our financial support
\n base in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have been hugely worried at the rapid
\nincrease in Iranian political influence in Iraq, a key part of their
\nmuch-feared Shi\u2019a <\/em>crescent from the Mediterranean to the
\nArabian Sea, and their near-paranoia has been greatly boosted by the
\nrise in Houthi power in Yemen with its obvious Iranian backing. For our
\npeople to attack apostate mosques to such an effect is a clear
\nindication to our Saudi backers that we are increasingly a force to be
\nreckoned with.<\/p>\n
\nour new Election Research Unit.\u00a0 As must be obvious to any intelligent
\nperson, if we are wanting to increase the number of recruits coming to
\nour cause from outside the region, then the more angry, resentful and
\nmarginalised young Muslims there are, the better. In the long term we
\nhave high hopes for Marine Le Pen and the Front National, even if her
\nclaims to being the \u201cfirst party of France\u201d are currently a bit over the
\n top.<\/p>\n
\nforthcoming general election where we have some serious worries, almost
\nas bad as the fear that Netanyahu would lose in Israel last week.
\nObviously what we want in Britain is the best performance possible from
\nUKIP and Nigel Farage. They are great assets as they play to the fear of
\n immigrants in general and Muslims in particular.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\noutcome, which looked plausible a few weeks ago, would have been a weak
\nConservative Party trying to form a government but dependent on UKIP to
\nform a new coalition. In our dreams the real delight would have been a
\nweak Cameron as prime minister with Farage as deputy prime minister and
\nhome secretary (what the British call the interior minister). Just
\nimagine having Farage in overall charge of community relations and
\nimmigration \u2013 it would have made our day! <\/p>\n
\nbut the problem is that there is a risk that Cameron will not even be in
\n that position, especially as UKIP looks ominously to be past its peak.
\nThere is now a real possibility that Miliband could end up with the
\nlargest number of seats and our even greater worry is that he forms a
\nminority government with tacit support from that Scottish lot, the
\nextraordinary thing being that they actually want immigrants north of
\nthe border! Can you believe it? We could actually see a government in
\npower that is favourable to minorities, including even Muslims. This
\nreally is our worst nightmare and hugely damaging to our growing support
\n base there.<\/p>\n
\nleadership and they are putting together plans to try and prevent this,
\nbut they have already run into difficulties. One proposal was to make a
\ndetermined effort to capture some British military who could then be
\ntreated as war criminals in the usual way, perhaps in an appropriate
\nmanner over Easter.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nhave, for once and rather unusually, seen this coming and have recently
\nminimised their exposure, including postponing new military training
\nmissions in Iraq until after the election. This is really annoying as it
\n would have been by far the best way to really stir up Islamophobia in
\nBritain and with it more support for UKIP.<\/p>\n
\nthough, that SOBRA is looking at other ways of affecting the election
\nresult and you are likely to see something significant happen in the
\ncoming weeks. Even if it doesn\u2019t, Britain does look like entering a
\nperiod of political uncertainty and that, at least, is good news for us \u2013 <\/em>
\n uncertainty means scapegoats and we all know what that involves.<\/p>\n
\n and while I know that you, in the relative safety of western Baghdad,
\ndo not share my views, at least our old friendship allows us to continue
\n to write. You ask again after my brother and I remember that when I
\nwrote to you in May he was back in good health, training young recruits and hoping to be sent to Afghanistan as our campaign there expands.<\/p>\n
\n as you might expect from him, the training he was running involved a
\nnear total commitment and the result has been that his recovery has been
\n slower than expected. As a result he has been put on lighter duties for
\n the next two months. In one way I am very pleased because while I would
\n have been hugely proud of him had he been sent to this important
\ntheatre, at least I now see more of him. He told me last week during Eid
\n that his next task will most likely not be a posting to Afghanistan but
\n to Libya, where our links are strengthening by the day.<\/p>\n
\n most recent letter I see that you are still very keen to learn what I
\nthink of the progress of our war, and there is much to report. First, I
\nshould say that my work is still focused on being an effective part of
\nthe SOBRA analysis centre here in Raqaa, and I remain largely concerned
\nwith the UK, not least because the post-election environment needs to be
\n followed closely in relation to its implications for our work.<\/p>\n
\n so, the UK is not quite as important as it was, and one of my most
\nsignificant duties is to contribute to a very small cell that seeks to
\nmaintain a realistic overview of our overall campaign beyond our
\nestablished caliphate and, indeed, beyond the Middle East.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n begin by giving you our perspective on this vast region, and say that
\nwhile there are interesting developments in south Asia and sub-Saharan
\nAfrica, the main focus is on Afghanistan, Libya and a third country
\nwhich may surprise you \u2013 Russia \u2013 which is attracting much interest
\namong our most senior leaders. Before covering Russia, though, I\u2019ll just
\n update you on the other two.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nprogress, but it is variable, mainly because of our uncertain
\nrelationship with the Taliban and some other armed opposition groups.
\nYou always have to remember that the Taliban simply do not share our
\nvision of a transnational caliphate ultimately encompassing the whole
\nworld. They are essentially Pashtun nationalists with little more than a
\n veneer of religious purity. As such, they are all too ready to
\ncompromise with local norms in the pursuit of power, an attitude that we
\n find utterly frustrating.<\/p>\n
\n strong links with some of them and have even been part of significant
\ncampaigns, often bringing our paramilitary expertise to bear in a manner
\n that the more prescient and intelligent of them welcome. Indeed, what
\nwe have recently heard is that the crusader leadership in Afghanistan
\nthink we are such a serious threat that they may reconsider their
\noriginal plan to withdraw their remaining 9,800 troops by the end of
\nnext year. As one of their generals put it, they think we have moved from a \u201cnascent\u201d threat to one that is \u201cprobably operationally emergent\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n a weird phraseology, yet it is music to our ears! If the crusaders
\nstill have thousands of troops in the country when they elect their new
\nleader next year, then we expect that whoever gets to their \u201cWhite
\nHouse\u201d will be more militaristic than Obama. This means that we will
\nlook confidently to many more years of war and thousands more recruits
\nto our cause.<\/p>\n
\n problems of the narrow nationalism of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
\nInstead, though, it is a country that is so unstable and disjointed that
\n any effective organisation can make rapid progress. The crusaders did
\nus an immense favour in getting rid of Gaddafi \u2013 even now they fail to
\nrecognise how brutal and effective he was in suppressing our cause.<\/p>\n
\n effect of that was that thousands of young Libyans left the country and
\n came to join the fighting in Iraq after 2003, and many of those that
\nsurvived are moving back to Libya to aid our programme of expansion.
\nThey are a powerful force – highly experienced paramilitaries including
\nsome who fought JSOC in 2004-07 but also having intimate knowledge of Libyan society. All in all we see Libya as an environment of great promise.<\/p>\n
\n there is the real surprise \u2013 Russia. You will know that the Chechens
\nand others from the Caucasus have long been important to our cause but
\nwhat is striking is how many of them within Russia share our aim of a Caliphate in all its detail. I do not know the exact figures but I
\nunderstand that we now have close to 2,000 Russians fighting for us
\nhere, with tens of thousands more pledging allegiance within their own
\ncountry.<\/p>\n
\nPutin, knows no other way but to crush dissent with persistent force. He
\n has no idea at all of how counterproductive this will be in the long
\nterm. After all, Russia has at least 16 million Muslims, more than a
\ntenth of the population, and his actions against some of them cause
\nanger among far more. This in turn helps stir up bitter Islamophobia
\namong the majority population, making even more people uneasy and having
\n the potential to provide thousands more recruits to our cause. He
\nreally is clueless!<\/p>\n
\n let me move on to my own area of specialism, Britain, which occupied so
\n much space in my last two letters. You will remember that back in March
\n what we would really have liked from their general election was a
\nConservative-UKIP coalition, ideally with Farage as deputy prime
\nminister and interior minister (they call the post \u201chome secretary\u201d).<\/p>\n
\n might get in, ending up with a government even more cautious than
\nObama. In the event, things have turned out rather well with a
\nConservative government using the chaos in the Labour Party to force
\nthrough many policies. In my last latter,
\n I predicted that \u201cLabour will spend the next four months arguing about
\nthe leadership and systematically failing to provide opposition\u201d. How prescient I was!<\/p>\n
\none candidate who is bitterly opposed to doing what we want – expanding
\nthe war – is currently doing rather well. Indeed Mr Corbyn
\n might even get elected and while we think that will bring on years of
\ninfighting leaving the Conservatives to do what they want, we have this
\nniggling worry that any discussion involving any kind of opposition to
\nthe war is not good news for us.<\/p>\n
\n earlier this week about tackling what he calls extremism was not as
\nhardline as we had hoped, in spite of the deliberate provocation by our
\nTunisian associates. At least he only covered the domestic front and it
\nis clear that he wants to extend the British war to Syria later in the
\nyear. For us, this is far more important.<\/p>\n
\ncould write about, especially in relation to our recent progress in
\nSyria, but I have work to do now and will have to leave that to another
\ntime. Be assured, though, that we are making considerable progress so do
\n not believe the crusader propaganda. Remember that they were saying we
\nwould be finished by the end of last year. Instead we are stronger, with
\n hundreds of recruits joining us every week.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nthe war in Syria we are fully confident that it will help to get even
\nmore from Britain. We might have to do some more provoking but I am
\nconfident that our leaders are following events closely and will decide
\nif and when to order it.<\/p>\n
\n told you that he was recovering from his injuries but that it was
\nturning out to be a longer process and I thought it likely that his next
\n posting would be to Libya rather than Afghanistan. That turned out to
\nbe the case and he left for Libya two weeks ago. I have not heard from
\nhim since which is worrying. But my other sources say that none of our
\nrecent deployments have so far been engaged in heavy fighting, as our
\nassociates in Libya are making very good progress.<\/p>\n
\n give my view on the progress of our war, and I hope our long-term
\nfriendship can survive the obvious differences that we have. Since it is
\n three months since that letter and much has happened, I will try and
\ntell you what the thinking is here in Raqqa. <\/p>\n
\n to you, and that makes it three years since I travelled here to join
\nthis historic cause. I still wish desperately that I could join in the
\nfighting, but with these injuries it is just not possible as I would
\nonly be a burden on my friends. We do have quite a competent prosthetics
\n department at the hospital here in Raqqa but they are very hard pressed
\n and are concentrating on lower-limb losses. Compared with the injuries
\nsome of our fighters are suffering my missing arm is insignificant.<\/p>\n
\n I am continuing my time in Raqqa with my analytical work for SOBRA
\nalthough my responsibilities have changed with time. You will recall
\nthat at the time of the British general election I had been tasked with
\nproviding analysis of the implications of the possible outcomes. Our
\nhope was that a weak Conservative government would be propped up by an
\nexpanding UKIP, ensuring a properly right-wing government committed to
\nwar in Syria and Iraq and enacting hardline policies towards immigrants
\nin the UK. Such a result would have been just right for us but things
\ndid not really turn out as we had wished. <\/p>\n
\n so, Cameron got back in and is reasonably secure, so that was good news
\n for us. I then reported our growing concern about what was happening
\n in the Labour Party\u2019s frenetic leadership campaign. In the event our
\nfears were justified because they have ended up with a leader, this Mr
\nCorbyn, who is essentially anti-war. This is quite a serious issue for
\nus, since our leaders believe that there is considerable scope for
\nincreasing recruitment from Britain, provided it gets fully involved in
\nthe air-war here in Syria.<\/p>\n
\nopposition within his party and only yesterday a number of his members
\nof parliament defied him over an economic issue. We are confident that
\nsufficient numbers will be misguided enough to back Cameron if and when
\nit comes to a vote on bombing Syria.<\/p>\n
\n that, there is much to report, not least because I have returned for
\nmost of the time to my earlier work \u2013 analysing overall western
\nattitudes to our mission. In Afghanistan, our progress has been far
\nbetter than even the most optimistic of our leaders expected, and our
\nposition is greatly helped by the expansion of the Taliban. This is not
\nso much because we work with them \u2013 in many cases we take over from them
\n \u2013 but because their progress elsewhere ties down so much of the Afghan
\nnational army.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n hardly surprising since they have lost over 5,000 of their people so
\nfar this year, leading to rampant desertions and singularly low morale.
\nThe Americans are now planning to keep their 10,000-plus troops there
\nuntil after the end of 2016 \u2013 and since whoever replaces Obama is likely
\n to be more hawkish, that is good news for us. It's one more example of a
\n Crusader occupation for us to exploit.<\/p>\n
\nlast few weeks have seen rather desperate attempts by the Americans and
\nthe other Crusader forces to paint a picture of success. These include
\nthe very recent American claim that they have killed 20,000 of our
\npeople in the past fifteen months, 5,000 more than they were reporting
\nin July. They also say, extraordinarily, that they are not killing
\ncivilians. The reality is far different and we are able to communicate
\nthe many hundreds of personal stories every month, thanks to our
\nremarkable and much-expanded media-outreach system.<\/p>\n
\nAmericans and their coalition do not realise is that though our losses
\nare considerable there are three elements that are working against them,
\n rooted in our long-term aim of persistently showing that we are the
\ntrue protectors of Islam under Crusader\/Zionist attack.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nfirst is that every one of our fighters and civilians killed will have
\nscores of family members and friends, most of whom will be bitter at
\ntheir loss and determined to avenge their killing.<\/p>\n
\nthat our losses are more than made up with new recruits from across the
\nworld.\u00a0 Even the Americans have accepted that around 30,000 people have
\njoined the cause from abroad, twice the size of their estimate barely a
\nyear ago.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nsimply the best in the world \u2013 hardly surprising since they got their
\ncombat-training against the special forces of JSOC in Iraq barely a
\ndecade ago.<\/p>\n
\nabout our attitude to the Russian intervention and I have to say we
\nwelcome it with open arms. It is actually a small-scale operation that
\nwill not be sustainable for any length of time since all the resupply
\nhas to come either by sea from Crimea, which is a ten-day round trip, or
\n by air transport via the convoluted route over Iran and Iraq.<\/p>\n
\n the Russians are very good at, though, is making much political capital
\n out of very little, at the expense of the Americans. Take their
\nmuch-vaunted cruise-missile strikes that I saw got wall-to-wall coverage
\n in the western media. The Russians fired twenty-six missiles, and
\nseemed to get away with presenting these as unique weapons \u2013 whereas the
\n Americans started firing their own cruise missiles at Iraq in the first
\n war 24 years ago!\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nrate of 15 percent, yet barely two weeks earlier the Americans had fired
\n 47 cruise missiles at Syrian targets with a failure rate of under five
\npercent. This was simply not reported in the general western press,
\nthough our media department was quick to monitor it.<\/p>\n
\n generally, the Russians want to prop up Assad and that hardly bothers
\nus because our engagements with the Syrian army are so few and far
\nbetween. Also, if Russia supports Assad this really angers the Turks,
\nwith the result that they will go even easier on us than they have been
\ndoing over the past year.<\/p>\n
\nin Russia itself, with all the added recruitment potential among more
\nthan 16 million Russian Muslims. So far about 2,000 have joined our
\ncause here in the Caliphate and we also have links with powerful
\nparamilitary forces within Russia, especially in the Caucasus but even
\nin Moscow itself.<\/p>\n
\n are killing Muslims here we can publicise that massively through our
\nnetworks (it does not matter that the Muslims being killed may not be
\nlinked to us). I can tell you that at the first sign of Russia moving
\nmilitary forces to Syria our SOBRA chiefs sent out an urgent message
\nthroughout the Caliphate to identify Russian speakers. We already have a
\n taskforce of 20 including many dialect specialists, and they are
\nworking night and day to communicate with potential recruits. We expect a
\n bonanza.<\/p>\n
\nalready prepared for Britain to start bombing Syria and I am proud to
\nsay I will be heavily involved. What has been done is that a number of
\nfluent English speakers, all graduates, have been identified and given
\npreliminary training in script-writing and presentation. They will all
\nbe ready to boost the existing unit, which I will head, as soon as the
\nBritish parliament votes to bomb.<\/p>\n
\nvery exciting times and I have come to feel that I can make a
\ndifference. At long last I will be able to aid the cause while also
\navenging all the members of my family killed by the Crusaders in Iraq.
\nIt has been a long time coming but now I can begin to feel proud \u2013 it is
\n all so clearly worthwhile.<\/p>\n
\n know that your sister has recovered from her injuries, especially as
\nmedicines are in such short supply. I hear that the collapse in oil
\nprices is already leading to a surge in the black market for medical
\nsupplies. Is that true?<\/p>\n
\n brother. I am pleased to say that I have just heard from him at the end
\n of a hugely worrying time since he left for Libya at the end of
\nSeptember. He tells me that he is fit and well and very heavily
\ninvolved in the forays from Sirte down to the oilfields. As we had
\nheard, our militias in Sirte have expanded their hold, having been
\nhugely helped by nearly 2,000 of our fighters who have gone to join
\nthem.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nthe great majority of them are actually Libyans returning home, having
\nfought so well against the crusaders and apostates in Iraq and Syria.
\nThey are therefore dedicated to extending the Caliphate into their own
\nhome territory and also exceptionally experienced in combat. My brother
\ntells me that the crusader military are increasing their use of drones
\nand also using special forces raids but to little effect, so we expect
\nto see systematic bombing raids starting soon, with the inevitable
\ncivilian casualties in turn leading to greater support for our cause.<\/p>\n
\n ask me what I am now doing \u2013 do I still work for SOBRA and indirectly
\nundertake analysis for the leadership, and does this still relate to my
\nBritish experience? In one way I am still frustrated that I cannot be on
\n the frontline, but I am slowly accepting that this is a necessary
\nconsequence of losing my arm in that raid. At least it was my left arm.
\nAs I said in my last letter we have a good prosthetics team here in
\nRaqqa but the priority has to be lower limb replacements and I am now
\ntold that it will be some months before I can get a prosthetic arm.<\/p>\n
\n the same time my role has changed and in quite an exciting direction.
\nYou will recall that my analytical work around the time of the British
\ngeneral election was in assessing how the British might react in a new
\nparliament.\u00a0 We had been worried that Miliband might get in whereas our
\ngreatest wish was for a minority Conservative government having to go
\ninto coalition with UKIP.\u00a0 Our vision of Cameron beholden to Farage and
\nhaving to make him home secretary and deputy prime minister would have
\nbeen like heaven to us!<\/p>\n
\nfailed, so our work on UK political analysis was downgraded. Even so, I
\nam tasked with spending a small part of my time keeping a watching brief
\n and have to say that the Corbyn situation is a bit of a worry. Although
\n nearly all the British commentators think he will fail as Labour leader
\n we have a sneaking suspicion that he is striking a chord with more
\npeople than they realise, with this including offering a voice to
\nperhaps 20 million people who do not agree with Cameron\u2019s stance on the
\nwar. It would be a disaster for us and the movement if he was ever to
\nget into Downing Street, but at least that is some years off.<\/p>\n
\n of this I have been asked to run a small but highly knowledgeable team
\nanalysing and advising on US politics throughout this election year. You
\n may remember that I spent parts of two years in Washington so I find it
\n particularly thrilling to be asked to analyse the race for the White
\nHouse, given that the outcome will be so crucial to our future.<\/p>\n
\n far as the contenders are concerned, what we would like most would
\nobviously be a Trump victory \u2013 even better than having Farage sharing
\npower with Cameron in London! Our nightmare, of course, would be a
\nSanders victory but in spite of the Iowa result we do not currently
\nexpect him to get the Democrat ticket.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nanalysis of open sources, we do have some insider voices reporting to
\nus, and also have a wider circle of contacts who add a more general
\nperception. The consensus view is that Sanders has some way to go but
\nthe main impact will be to make Clinton appear more progressive than she
\n really is, but only for the duration of the primaries. The odds are
\nstill on Cruz for the Republicans but my own view is that his support
\nwill recede and that it will be Marco Rubio who comes to the fore. We
\nwill then have a Clinton-Rubio contest and we will be reasonably content
\n with that.<\/p>\n
\ncontest but I think you have to look at the bigger picture. America is
\nmoving slowly but surely to the right, and even Obama is steadily
\nallowing a build-up of US operations against us and our associates. This
\n is just what we want as the true defenders of Islam, and since Clinton
\nor Rubio will be more hardline than Obama, we will have more defending
\nto do, which works wonders for recruiting more followers.<\/p>\n
\n of our recent minor reverses our leadership is in good heart and are
\nbuoyed by three positive developments. The first is the American move to
\n the right which is well-nigh certain to continue and the second is our
\nprogramme of overseas attacks designed principally to stir up as much
\nIslamophobia as possible. More attacks are being planned for western
\nEurope but I understand that an even greater priority is Russia. The
\npossibility of really exacerbating anti-Muslim feelings towards Russia\u2019s
\n 16-million strong Islamic minority is a prize really worth aiming for.<\/p>\n
\n is the third development, though, that is the hugely welcome surprise \u2013
\n the crisis over refugee flows to Europe. I don\u2019t think that any of
\ntheir politicians, even the few intelligent ones, have any idea what is
\nbeing stirred up. Can they not see the impact of desperate people,
\nincluding young children, facing razor wire and being violently repelled
\n by armed riot police as they try to get into Europe? Can they not see
\nthat to Muslims across the world, let alone the Middle East, the vision
\nis just proof positive that Europeans hate and despise them? This hatred
\n will last for years and years.<\/p>\n
\nmore hardline, the wars intensify, the refugee flows grow, Europe turns
\nits back as anti-Muslim feelings increase, community disorder and
\nviolence become the order of the day and. The end result? Many thousands
\n more recruits to our cause.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nsomeone like me is quietly optimistic. Never forget, we are fighting a
\ncause that may take a century or more to achieve. Our opponents, the
\n'far enemy' really do not have a clue, and long may that last!<\/p>\n
\nnear central Baghdad when the bomb went off. I know we have had our
\ndifferences, but do believe me when I say that war has consequences
\nwhich even those involved can regret.<\/p>\n
\nnearly six months since my last letter but things have been very hectic
\nhere as the air strikes \u2013 Russian as well as American \u2013 have come closer
\n to the city.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\narm and have been learning how to manage with it. Since I lost my arm in
\n that American raid several years ago, I had got used to managing
\nwithout, so the new arm is taking some getting used to. It was amazing
\nto get it though, given the pressures that our hospitals are under, and
\nwhile it is hardly state of the art it is certainly making a difference.\n <\/p>\n
\nnews of him. You will remember that back in February I had just heard
\nfrom him in Libya, even though I knew he had been there for some months.
\n Well I have just heard through a friend that he is now in Bangladesh!
\nNot only that but he is part of the small team that has been involved in
\n the rapid development of our organisation there, including the action
\nagainst the foreigners a couple of weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\nthe operation did not go quite according to plan as they had expected to
\n find more Americans there rather than Italians, but the effect on
\nBangladeshi politics has still been considerable. It has also
\ndemonstrated categorically that ISIS has 'reach'. It also coincides with
\n our action in Kabul, which gives the lie to Ghani\u2019s claim that ISIS in
\nAfghanistan is finished.<\/p>\n
\nbeen about continuing to analyse and assess the US presidential election
\n for our SOBRA intelligence centre. But I also still continue with my
\nwatching brief on the UK. You will remember that this was my main role
\naround last year\u2019s election there, and that we had been concerned that
\nMiliband might win and bring in a less antagonistic attitude towards us.
\n That was not, of course, what we wanted. The more the Crusaders attack us the more support we can generate.<\/p>\n
\n was fine for us. We had this dream of a weak Conservative\/UKIP
\ncoalition with Farage as Cameron\u2019s home secretary, but we knew full well
\n that it was unlikely. We were happy to settle for a rather unstable
\nConservative majority. Corbyn coming in for Labour was, as I said in an
\n earlier letter, a bit of a worry since the last thing we wanted in UK
\npolitics was an out-and-out peacenik, but we had few concerns that he
\nwould ever get there given the quintessentially right-wing nature of the
\n British press.<\/p>\n
\nus was his need to assuage his right-wing with a referendum on the EU.
\nYou can imagine our utter delight at the outcome \u2013 roll on Brexit and
\nall the upheaval! All we want now is Marine Le Pen winning the French
\npresidency next spring, followed by an even messier Frexit and the
\nbreak-up of the whole Crusader edifice!\u00a0But more of that later.<\/p>\n
\n I said, my current job is with the US election and I note that my last
\nletter to you mentioned rather wistfully the possibility of Donald Trump
\n getting the Republican ticket. It seemed frankly unlikely back in
\nFebruary, but just look at what has happened since! Not only has he got
\nit but he looks like he is levelling with Hillary Clinton as polling day
\n approaches. Our senior planners are currently working hard to decide
\nhow we might intervene to improve his chances and I am pretty sure there
\n will be some interesting developments there.<\/p>\n
\nwant is a convincing win for Trump and the enacting of his harder-line
\npolicies on immigration, religious freedom and the like, coupled with a
\nreversal of his current rather curious brand of isolationism. Expect
\nsome anti-American spectaculars both before the election and even more
\nso afterwards if he does make it to the White House. These will be
\ndesigned to ensure a renewed onslaught on us by the Americans and their
\nEuropean Crusader allies.<\/p>\n
\nthe current state of the war and I will oblige. You may be surprised to
\nhear how optimistic I remain in spite of the intensity of the war being
\nwaged against us. It is true that we have lost many thousands of our
\nyoung fighters as well as hundreds of women and children, and the recent
\n acceleration in the intensity of the air raids has taken its toll. We
\nhave also lost valuable territory in Iraq, especially the fall of
\nFallujah. So you might think it reasonable to ask why I remain optimistic.<\/p>\n
\n and marginalises our natural supporters. Some of the behaviour is
\ngrotesque, as with the abandoning of tens of thousands of refugees from
\nFallujah even though they were refugees only because of the government
\nassault on their city. Then there is the overwhelming presence of the Shi\u2019a <\/em>militias without which the government could not maintain control.<\/p>\n
\n these together and are you surprised that support for our cause is
\nrising in Iraq at the very time that our prospects are apparently so
\ndim? Furthermore, our military planners are already preparing and
\npositioning for a long-lasting insurgency against the Americans,
\nIranians, Shi\u2019a<\/em> militias and the Iraqi government. In doing so
\nthey are sure of plenty of support from many wealthy backers in the Gulf
\n who are horrified at the rise of Iran and see the Shi\u2019a <\/em>crescent from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea as evolving before their eyes.<\/p>\n
\n our round-the-clock social media reporting of the Crusader air war and
\nof the families torn apart by the bombing and drone strikes. These
\nreports lead to palpable anger across the world and serve most
\neffectively to aid our recruiting base.<\/p>\n
\nelement, however, which helps explain my positive outlook. Let me
\nexplain. If we go back two years, just after the startling successes in
\nIraq, all our emphasis
\n was about the actual achievement of a new Caliphate out of what was
\npreviously northern Iraq and northern Syria. That was lauded as the way
\nforward, in marked contrast to the failed policies of al-Qaida a decade
\nearlier. But our top planners were already looking beyond this.<\/p>\n
\n correctly saw that the Crusaders would come at us with massive force
\nand might eventually cause us huge problems, even to the extent of
\ntaking parts of the new Caliphate away from us. In these circumstances
\nthey reasoned that even the temporary existence of the Caliphate would
\nbe of huge symbolic importance, and its crushing by the Crusaders would
\nbe a call to arms in the coming years.<\/p>\n
\n the war to the Crusaders. By the start of last year we were developing a
\n range of capabilities. Some of these were under our direct control,
\nothers subject to strong influence and some technical support, and still
\n others were no more than inspired by our work. A few of the recent
\nattacks were completely unrelated, even if we moved quickly to claim
\nthem.<\/p>\n
\n has been to increase the sense of insecurity, accelerate the rise of
\nanti-Muslim bigotry and increased support for extreme right-wing
\nparties. We are most interested in Germany and France, but work is also
\nunder way to enhance our support-base in several other countries,
\nincluding the Netherlands, Austria and Britain.<\/p>\n
\ntarget has to be France and we are growing increasingly confident of
\ninfluencing next spring\u2019s presidential election in favour of Marine Le
\nPen. We may not have got Farage into the British government but Trump in
\n the White House and Marine Le Pen as president of France will make us
\nvery happy indeed.<\/p>\n
\nthree years in the United States and studied for a year in London, I am
\nstill amazed that senior policy people and analysts in both countries
\nseem so unable to understand ISIS and its aims. Even after 15 years of
\nwar, the Crusader states are no more secure than they were. Yet they do
\nnot even try to learn why. For the sake of our mission, let us hope they
\n never do.<\/p>\n
\n to you nearly five months ago. There is much to say. But first, what of
\n my brother? Last time I wrote he had just gone to Bangladesh to help
\nthe establishment of our new cell there. In the event he stayed a month
\nand then went to Libya, much as I had suspected he would.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n will have heard, the apostate militias and the crusader-backed
\ngovernment started a concerted attack on our movement last May,
\nexpecting to take our main centre of Sirte in a matter of weeks. Three
\nmonths later and in the face of failure, the Americans were forced to
\nbring in their aircraft-carrier and start airstrikes, but even with
\nintense bombardment our forces held out until this week.<\/p>\n
\nbrother\u2019s role is to help organise the next stage. Libya is in utter
\nchaos and many of the factions share our vision, so we see no difficulty
\n at all in regrouping \u2013 indeed, many of our fighters have already melted
\n away from Sirte to reform units elsewhere. There is much to play for,
\nespecially as across the border in Egypt, where al-Sisi is so intent on
\nrepressing our cause that he is playing right into our hands. Already
\nour movement is thoroughly embedded in like-minded groups in Sinai, but
\nwhat is far less known is the growing presence of our supporters in
\nCairo and other cities.<\/p>\n
\nreport both good and bad news. The good news is that my new arm is
\nfunctioning well, and I am able to continue my analytical work with
\nSOBRA with even greater efficiency. The bad news is that my superiors
\nabsolutely refuse to let me join our fighters in Mosul, even though I am
\n fully fit and able to defend with the best of them.<\/p>\n
\ntell me bluntly that the analytical work I do for them on political
\ndevelopments in Britain, Europe and the United States is far more
\nimportant. I know that my three years in London and Washington in the
\nquite recent past do give me an understanding of what is happening
\nwithin the far enemy but I often wish that I had never gone there. That
\nway I could have already fought much more directly for the cause.<\/p>\n
\n and I have been friends for many years and that friendship has held
\neven though you are in Baghdad and I am in Raqqa at the heart of the
\nCaliphate, and we take such radically different views on the future path
\n of our faith. I have to say that my superiors would be deeply
\nantagonistic if they knew I continued with this correspondence, but for
\nnow I want to do so, although you will have gathered that there is
\nanother motive in that.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\naccessing a very wide range of sources from the enemy including press,
\nradio, TV, popular culture, military journals, the web and social media.
\n But I also know that you do sometimes pass on my letters through your
\nown social media. In its way that is helpful since I can learn how
\npeople elsewhere respond to my comments, in turn enabling me to
\nunderstand better the extraordinary misinterpretations that are so
\ncommon across the western world.<\/p>\n
\n your last letter you asked me to explain how morale within the movement
\n could possibly be maintained when facing retreat after retreat \u2013 the
\nloss of Fallujah and Ramadi for example, as well as the impending loss
\nof Mosul. Indeed you report the view that our Caliphate will be
\ndestroyed by the end of next year, thus ending our extraordinary
\njourney. You will not be surprised if I beg to differ, indeed that I get
\n exasperated with such views, but I will try and respond in a rational
\nway. After all, my post in SOBRA is predicated on just such rational
\nanalysis!<\/p>\n
\nPentagon, since their air war started over two years ago they have
\nattacked us with over 16,500 air raids and dropped over 60,000 bombs and
\n missiles hitting over 30,000 targets. This is against our forces that
\nhave usually been estimated by them to number 25,000-30,000. To put it
\nbluntly, they have used enough force to hit every one of us with two
\nbombs or missiles! Indeed the Pentagon claimed back in August that they
\nhad killed well over 40,000 of us.<\/p>\n
\nhere, is it? Either they are lying about killing us or we had far more
\npeople ready to fight or tens of thousands have joined us since the
\nstart. The reality is that their air war has indeed been extremely
\nintense and they have killed very many thousands of our fighters and
\nthousands of civilians but we had many more when the war started and
\nmany thousands have joined our cause since.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nreally happening in Mosul. When their assault started seven weeks ago
\nthey had at least 80,000 attackers from half a dozen countries backed up
\n by plenty of air power including drones, all determined to wipe out our
\n few thousand defenders. In an absolute blaze of publicity they reported
\n rapid progress into the city within two weeks. <\/p>\n
\n went quiet and now there is scarcely any reporting from their side. If
\nyou search through their news sources you will find buried away the fact
\n that they have been fought to a standstill and have taken control of
\nless than a third of the eastern half of the city in seven weeks.
\nMoreover, our main forces are still west of the Tigris. You can even
\nfind some Iraqi security sources admitting that they could still be
\nfighting us in Mosul next summer!<\/p>\n
\nprivately that we are experiencing a very heavy onslaught, one that has
\nbeen going on for more than two years. I will also accept that the
\nCaliphate as we have established it may not last for ever and will,
\ninstead, be part of a much longer process that will stretch over
\ndecades. <\/p>\n
\njust remind you of some of our spectacular achievements of recent years
\nand indeed months.<\/p>\n
\nstart, right across the world they have been forced to spend trillions
\nof dollars since 9\/11 on their failed wars as well as vast sums of money
\n on their own domestic security. Look at the security precautions at
\nevery airport, every legislature and every government office and look at
\n the huge expansion of security forces and intelligence agencies and the
\n across-the-board increases in surveillance. All of this to try and
\ndefeat a far, far smaller number of determined opponents who have little
\n more than light arms and improvised weapons to fight against the best
\ntrained and best equipped military in the world.<\/p>\n
\nmore at the extraordinary political changes. In Britain there is Brexit,
\n won partly by scare tactics. Remember the \u201cbreaking point\u201d poster of
\nthousands of desperate refugees actually presenting an existential
\nthreat to the UK. From our perspective we could hardly have asked for
\nmore! <\/p>\n
\nWilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France, the far-right
\ngovernment in Hungary, the almost-success for the far-right candidate in
\n Austria. All of this has been very largely down to us and people like
\nus. Don\u2019t you see why we are so sure that we will eventually win? <\/p>\n
\n mentioned Libya earlier, but look also at Afghanistan where even the
\nAmericans are hugely worried about the insecurity. They say openly that
\nthe government only controls 60% of the country, and I can assure you
\nthat we are increasingly active there. <\/p>\n
\n far as the contenders are concerned, what we would like most would
\nobviously be a Trump victory \u2013 even better than having Farage sharing
\npower with Cameron in London! Our nightmare, of course, would be a
\nSanders victory but in spite of the Iowa result we do not currently
\nexpect him to get the Democrat ticket… <\/em><\/p>\n
\n put it together \u2013 America goes more hardline, the wars intensify, the
\nrefugee flows grow, Europe turns its back as anti-Muslim feelings
\nincrease, and community disorder and violence become the order of the
\nday. The end result? Many thousands more recruits to our cause. <\/em><\/p>\n
\n you can understand why someone like me is quietly optimistic. Never
\nforget, we are fighting a cause that may take a century or more to
\nachieve. Our opponents, the "far enemy" really do not have a clue, and
\nlong may that last!"<\/em><\/p>\n
\nbut he has already appointed two really hawkish retired generals, one to
\n head the Pentagon and one to be head of his national-security office\u00a0\u2013\u00a0two
\n men who have been particularly anti-Islamic. Perhaps you can understand
\n why I am so optimistic, even if deeply frustrated that I am not allowed
\n to fight on the frontline.<\/p>\n
\n let me finish on one more point \u2013 what in the West they might call a
\n\u201cworst-case scenario.\u201d As I read the western media and assess their
\nchanging attitudes, one thing that comes across is their belief that the
\n Caliphate is finished. They do expect Mosul to fall to them eventually,
\n although even that is no longer certain. Even so, they believe it will
\nhappen and they expect the same to apply to Raqqa. From their
\nperspective that will be the end of it all.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nthat our Caliphate will be ended any time soon. But if that did happen
\nin the next two or three years then what they miss entirely is that the
\nvery existence of an actual Caliphate, even if it lasted just five years
\n or so, is what will count. It will have served as an extraordinary
\nsymbol of what can be achieved by a small but utterly determined group
\nof the true faithful when pitted against the world\u2019s most powerful
\nmilitary forces. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nbegin to comprehend. Our aim, rooted in our faith, is to bring about a
\nglobal transformation to true belief and we as individuals are just one
\nsmall part of a process that stretches far beyond our own lives. We are,
\n in a real sense, engaged in an eternal struggle and they cannot
\nunderstand this, which is why we will win.<\/p>\n
\ncontact with you in this life, as I hope very much to be released from
\nmy post very soon to join that fight as I have wanted to do for so long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"