Demonstrators, one with a Jordanian flag image painted on his face and Arabic that reads, “Muath,” as in slain Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, chant anti-Islamic State group slogans during a rally in Amman, Jordan, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Several thousand people marched after Muslim Friday prayers in support of King Abdullah II’s pledge of a tough military response to the killing of the pilot. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
ISIS recently released a footage showing the captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive in a Hollywoodish scene.
Technically, the brutal scene was professionally filmed. It was taken from various angles with high-resolution lenses. They also prepared the scene very well, as there was a cage and the fighters wore military uniforms inspired by traditional Afghani dress.
ISIS succeeded in sending a brutal message to the world.
The message is also intended to terrify members of the coalition against them.
The revenge
A few hours after the footage released, the Jordanian king delivered a brief televised speech from Washington. He asked the Jordanian people to unite against what he described as misled thugs using the banner of Islam.
The following day, Jordanian state television reported that two prisoners had been executed before dawn.
“One of them was Sajida al-Rishawi, the Iraqi woman militant who was sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 suicide bombing in Amman that killed 60 people,” reported the Independent.
Iraqi News reported that Jordanian sources confirmed, “The Jordanian King Abdullah II will participate personally on Thursday in conducting air strikes against the shelters of the terrorist ISIL organization to revenge the execution of the Jordanian pilot Maath al-Kassasba by the ISIL.”
Media outlets reported the King Abdullah II as saying “The war against ISIL will not end and we will fight them in their shelters.”
The Jordanian air force carried out air strikes against Islamic State targets in Mosul, killing 55 including a top IS commander known as the “Prince of Nineveh,” according to i24news.
The ‘ridiculous strategy’
Airstrikes against ISIS’s locations are, so far, the mainstay strategy. However, al-Qaida affiliated groups have no pyramidal command, but are cluster groups that share a common ideology. They often fight each other for zones of influence. For example, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are bitter enemies, although they have the same ideology.
However, Iran and its Iraqi allies are effectively fighting ISIS on the battlefield. They eradicated ISIS from many Iraqi districts in al-Anbar and Tikrit.
“Baghdad was prevented from falling because of the presence and assistance of the Islamic republic,” Yadollah Javani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared as pictures of the general with a group of Kurdish peshmerga fighters were aired on Iran’s state TV.
“With the Islamic republic’s help, experience and advice, the people of Iraq have blocked the actions of Daesh [ISIS in Arabic].” Iranian General Qasem Suleimani was risking martyrdom, Javani said. “We will not let insecurity come close to our borders.”
The League of the Righteous is now one of the more effective fighting forces on the Shiite side in Iraq, backing up the lackluster Iraq National Army (also now mostly Shiite) against Daesh/ISIL or ISIS.
The campaign to save the Shiite Turkmen of Amerli from Daesh was spearheaded by LOTR last fall. The effort received close air support from … the United States Air Force. LOTR and other militias took Jurf al-Sakhr in October — a Sunni town formerly under the thumb of Daesh. Likewise, the US is allegedly providing weaponry, or having weaponry provided to, the Shiite militias — even heavy weaponry like a tank.
Notably, ISIS is a professional terrorist group. They control a Syrian-Iraqi zone that exceeds the area of France and they have effective, ‘terrifying’ propaganda. Or perhaps the Western governments allow ISIS’s Internet appearances to justify their interventions.
Airstrikes will not defeat ISIS. In contrast, they will irritate the local community against foreign attacks. However, as long as ISIS’s ideology is present, such groups will be ‘hatched’ in hot spots, such as: Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan and Kashmir.
Criminalization of the Wahhabi ideology, also known as Takfiri or Salafi ideology, is the first and most important step to eliminate al-Qaida style groups, although this step will take time to get the results.
Drying up sources of funds and preventing logistic supply would also play a major role in defeating such neo-fascistic thugs.
Originally published at The Arab World 360º.
Content posted to MyMPN open blogs is the opinion of the author alone, and should not be attributed to MintPress News.
