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An ISIS defector just revealed how the group could start to fracture

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isis militants

Disputes between different groups of foreign fighters could undermine ISIS, according to a defector from the group who was interviewed by The Daily Beast.

The ISIS defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled, spoke with Michael Weiss at length in Istanbul, Turkey, about ISIS and its internal operations.

According to Abu Khaled, although ISIS relies upon foreign fighters, its leaders still fear that those militants might not be entirely loyal and are concerned that ISIS could fracture along national or ethnic lines.

Previously, Khaled told Weiss, foreign fighters would be organized into battalions based upon their origin for ease of communication and control. But this practice has been halted following the dissolution of a 750-member-strong Libyan brigade, known as al-Battar, that was deemed to be insufficiently loyal to ISIS's overall hierarchy.

"Its men, ISIS found, were more loyal to their emir than they were to the organization," Weiss writes. "So al-Battar was disbanded."

This distrust of foreign fighters has now led ISIS to create battalions with fighters of mixed origin, even when some of those fighters aren't Arabic speakers.

Abu Khaled told Weiss that ISIS officials in Raqqa, Syria, denied his request to form a French-speaking battalion due to the earlier experience with the Libyans.

"They told me, 'We had a problem before with the Libyans. We don't want the French in one katiba [battalion],'" Abu Khaled said.

Syria control map oct 2015

Abu Khaled's description meshes with earlier reporting that battlefield setbacks have exposed fissures within the group. Chechen and Uzbek militants clashed after ISIS failed to take the strategic border city of Kobane in January, for example, with each blaming the other for the siege's failure, The Telegraph reports.

Two senior ISIS officials were apparently killed during the infighting.

Tensions are also reportedly emerging between ISIS foreign fighters and local Syrians. These divisions undermine a key propaganda concept within ISIS — namely, the unity of all practicing Muslims within its "caliphate."

Foreigners in the organization can earn twice as much pay as local fighters. Foreign fighters also receive better living accommodations in ISIS-controlled cities and are less frequently deployed to the frontline than their Syrian or Iraqi counterparts, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"We're seeing basically a failure of the central tenet of ISIS ideology, which is to unify people of different origins under the caliphate," Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told The Washington Post in March. "This is not working on the ground. It is making them less effective in governing and less effective in military operations."

Kurds Kurdish Fighters PKK Sinjar Iraq ISIS

Allegedly preferential treatment for foreign fighters has bred resentment within ISIS, as Syrians feel that they take a larger share of the group's military risk. The disparity has also sparked violence between the groups within ISIS. Foreign fighters and Syrian militants waged a shootout in the town of Abu Kamal on the Iraqi border following an order that deployed the Syrians to the Iraqi front line in March, The Post reports.

When disputes arise within ISIS, Abu Khaled told Weiss, they escalate quickly — and often violently. In one case, Abu Khaled described the extreme lengths an ISIS leader in Raqqa went to in order to protect himself from jihadists who were purportedly under his control.

"I was in Raqqa once, and there was five or six Chechens. They were mad about something. So they came to see the emir of Raqqa," Abu Khaled said. "He was so afraid, he ordered ISIS to deploy snipers to the roofs of buildings. He thought the Chechens would attack. The snipers stayed there for two hours."

ISIS's ground-level setbacks in Syria and Iraq and failure to take significant additional territory are likely to further tensions among the various groups fighting under the terrorist organization's umbrella.

French jets have pounded ISIS positions in its de facto capital of Raqqa, the Syrian military broke a year-long ISIS siege of an airbase outside Aleppo, and US-backed Kurdish forces just retook Sinjar, Iraq, from ISIS, cutting off a supply route for the militants stretching between Iraq and Syria.

Such losses may eventually add to the discontent within the organization. But in the near term, ISIS may continue to plan major attacks around the world in an attempt to distract supporters from its failures within the "caliphate's" borders.

SEE ALSO: Russia could be ISIS's next front

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Ben Carson's campaign slams bombshell New York Times report as 'affront to good journalistic practices'

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ben carson

One of Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson's foreign-policy advisers questioned the candidate's grasp of Middle East events in an interview with The New York Times, prompting a quick rebuke from Carson's campaign.

Duane Clarridge, a former CIA officer whom The Times identified as a "top adviser to Mr. Carson on terrorism and national security," said Carson struggled to understand the intricacies of the Middle East and that Carson needed weekly foreign-policy conference calls to "make him smart."

"Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East," Clarridge told The Times.

Clarridge was repeatedly described by The Times as a top Carson foreign-policy adviser, though Clarridge's exact role in the Carson campaign was not immediately clear. Carson's campaign pushed back on that description of Clarridge and suggested the paper was taking "advantage of an elderly gentleman."

"Mr. Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of the daily, not weekly briefings, that Dr. Carson receives on important national security matters from former military and State Department officials," Doug Watts, a Carson campaign spokesman, told Business Insider in an email.

"He is coming to the end of a long career of serving our country. Mr. Clarridge's input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is clearly not one of Dr. Carson's top advisors. For the New York Times to take advantage of an elderly gentleman and use him as their foil in this story is an affront to good journalistic practices."

Armstrong Williams, Carson's longtime business manager who frequently acts as a campaign surrogate, said Clarridge was a "good guy" who wasn't aware of the extent of Carson's full preparations on foreign policy.

"Mr. Clarridge is a good man, he's been a friend of Dr. Carson's, he's well-meaning," Williams told Business Insider. "He's just frustrated because he was unaware that Dr. Carson was talking to so many other advisers."

Williams said that over the past two years, Clarridge has met with Carson twice face-to-face and spoken with him on the phone about four times.

"He's just a good guy. He's really a good guy," Williams said of Clarridge. "I know that [the Carson campaign] mentioned in that press release 'elderly,' but that man is sharp as a tack."

The Times sent Business Insider a statement from senior politics editor Carolyn Ryan, who points to Williams as the source of the Clarridge interview.

"It was Ben Carson's closest adviser, Armstrong Williams, who recommended that we talk to Mr. Clarridge and described Mr. Clarridge as a 'mentor' to Mr. Carson on foreign policy," Ryan said in the statement. "Mr. Williams also gave us Mr. Clarridge's phone number. Mr. Clarridge picked up the phone and our reporter, Trip Gabriel, conducted a very straightforward interview with him."

Ryan added: "Mr. Clarridge was the only adviser whose name was given to us by Armstrong Williams."

The breadth of Carson's foreign-policy knowledge was heavily scrutinized last week when he said during a Republican presidential debate that China was involved in the conflict in Syria.

In response to a question about President Barack Obama's decision to send 50 members of special-operations forces to Syria and to keep 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan, the retired neurosurgeon said having the US forces in Syria was better than not having them there. He then noted that Syria was a "very complex place."

"You know, the Chinese are there, as well as the Russians, and you have all kinds of factions there," Carson said.

Foreign-policy experts and journalists questioned this analysis. And the White House colorfully shot down Carson's suggestion that China had a role in the four-year civil war that has torn Syria apart and allowed jihadist factions to grow as Syrian President Bashar Assad has struggled to hold on to power.

Amid the criticism, Carson's campaign released documents that attempted to explain Carson's assessment.

"China has had longstanding and well-documented security ties to Syria, provided various military weapons and equipment that Syria is using in the current conflict," a statement from the campaign said. "Dr. Carson does not believe China is currently fighting in or deploying troops to Syria, and contrary to press reports, he has never made that assertion."

ben carson

But Williams told Business Insider last week that intelligence sources and military operatives in the Middle East had told Carson that "Chinese military advisers are on the ground in Syria operating with Russia special operations personnel."

This week, Carson's advisers said his information on China and Syria came from a phone conversation with a freelance American intelligence operative in Iraq, according to The Times. A Carson aide who was on the line noted that the source said "multiple reports have surfaced that Chinese military advisers are on the ground in Syria, operating with Russian special operations personnel."

But Clarridge told The Times that the information turned out to be incorrect.

The Times reported that the Carson campaign's sole paid foreign-policy adviser was retired Army Gen. Robert Dees, who defended the candidate to The Times.

"Dr. Carson is an amazing intellect," he said. "He has the right stuff to be commander in chief."

SEE ALSO: BEN CARSON: Here's the evidence that China is involved in Syria

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US refugee advocates urge governors not to 'panic' about Syria

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Refugees and migrants line up inside a camp, as they wait to cross Greece's border with Macedonia near the Greek village of Idomeni, November 10, 2015.  REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis

BOSTON (Reuters) - The heads of several U.S. refugee advocacy and resettlement agencies on Tuesday called on the nation's governors to back down from efforts to close their states to new refugees from Syria in the wake of Friday's deadly Paris attack.

The calls came in the wake of statements of varying intensity by the mostly Republican governors of 25 states who say they are worried about people resettling in their states after fleeing Syria's four-year civil war. The governors cited concerns that some refugees could be associated with Islamic State militants.

"If ISIS had hoped that their attacks in Paris would provoke the United States and its allies to react with small-minded panic, some governors are helping them get their wish," said Linda Hartke, president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, one of nine agencies contracted by the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees.

"This is not an either/or situation," Hartke said on a conference call with reporters and the heads of three other refugee advocacy groups. "The United States can continue to welcome refugees while continuing to ensure our own security."

Lavinia Limon, chief executive of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, noted that most refugees, which are referred to the United States by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, undergo about two years of security and background checks before they are allowed to enter the United States and that none have committed terrorist attacks.

"The millions of tourists and businessmen that come in every year do not undergo even remotely the level of checks that refugees do," Limon said.

Governors over a wide swath of the United States, from Idaho to Florida, said they were not confident that existing programs to screen potential refugees would exclude those who might carry out attacks. A Syrian passport found near the site of one of the Paris attacks indicated that its holder had entered the European Union through Greece, raising concerns that an attacker had entered with a crowd of refugees.

Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said an estimated 4 million people have fled the fighting in Syria, with the United States having taken in about 2,200.

"We haven't even come close to the burden-sharing that we need to be at," Appleby said. "We call upon all the governors, all our officials in Congress to come together and look at real solutions to this crisis and not to politicize it."

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Clinton calls Republican anti-refugee sentiment 'a new low'

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Hillary Clinton SpeechFormer Secretary of State and Democratic 2016 frontrunner Hillary Clinton weighed in Tuesday on the talk among Republicans to ban Syrian refugees, and specifically Muslim refugees.

On Twitter, she called the rhetoric "hateful" and said that "the idea that we'd turn away refugees because of religion is a new low."

A number of GOP lawmakers and White House candidates have called for a suspension of plans under President Obama's refugee resettlement program to accept 10,000 Syrians in the next fiscal year. Some Republicans, such as 2016er Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), have suggested that only Syrian Christians and Jews who have been persecuted under the Islamic State should be allowed to settle in the United States while Syrian Muslims are barred from entering the country.

President Obama slammed the idea Monday, saying, “That’s not American. That’s not who we are.”

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France can't put enough boots on the ground by itself to beat ISIS

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French army france

In the immediate aftermath of Friday's attacks across Paris, French President François Hollande announced that France is "at war" with the Islamic State and will see to its destruction. The problem is that the first battle France is going to face will be between this stated goal and its practicality.

Historically, France values its independence and sovereignty very highly, and remains the most heavily armed European nation.

Then-President Charles de Gaulle took France out of NATO in 1966, following a dispute over control of the French nuclear arsenal, and today, it is the only other country in the world besides the US that operates a nuclear aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle. France has also taken upon itself the responsibility for maintaining European space launch capability, because it views access to space as integral to maintaining national sovereignty.

This national emphasis on sovereignty means that, from a political perspective, France will have no choice other than to respond very decisively and very visibly. There is simply no way for a French politician not to do that after the size of Friday's attacks. Hollande's comments about destroying IS and being "ruthless" are exactly what one might expect in the face of a terrorist attack of this scale.

France has a sizable, powerful military with very modern, very high-tech equipment, and a respectable nuclear arsenal. Moreover, it is (once again) a member of NATO, one of the largest and most successful military alliances in recent memory.

However, this intent is going to run headlong into the realities of modern warfare and budgets. Counterinsurgencies are typically very labor-intensive — sometimes even more than fighting a traditional conventional war of pitched battles.

According to 2015 French defense statistics, the French army had a force of 111,628 in 2014, with another 15,453 in reserves. Minus the Paris Fire Brigade (which is part of the army), Hollande has, very roughly, 120,000 soldiers at his disposal if he pulls in all French forces from around the globe.

The first part of Hollande's problem is how armies fight short fights versus long, drawn-out, knock-down fights.

French President Francois Hollande answers a reporters' question during a joint press conference following his meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, November 4, 2015.   REUTERS/Lee Jin-Man/POOL

In the case of a dire national emergency, you can send everyone to the front. At the other end, for a typical long-run fight where you have to rotate troops in and out of the theater of war, only about a third of the troops will be fighting at any one time. As that third fights, a third are coming back and being replenished and resupplied, while another third are training up and getting ready to deploy. Real numbers vary somewhat, but this is a rough estimate. That means that starting with 120,000 soldiers, the French army could put some 40,000 boots on the ground for an extended fight.

This leads to the question of how many you really need. If this were a regular pitched-battle, conventional-war kind of fight, 40,000 troops on offense can take on one-third that many (call it 13,500) who are on the defense. Which is actually a bit better than the 10,000 or so that the Islamic State can put in the field right now. Without getting into lengthy pros and cons, the IS guys are a pretty credible light infantry, but aren't quite up to speed with complex maneuvers and combined-arms operations. So, all other things being equal, the French military should be able to defeat IS in any kind of conventional fight.

But the problem is that IS doesn't always fight like that — it fights mostly like an insurgency. The most common way of calculating the number of troops needed to wage a counterinsurgency campaign is soldiers per 1,000 locals. In a really brutal fight, like Algeria's war of independence which France fought (and lost) in the 1950s and '60s, the French needed 46.3 soldiers per thousand locals. The lowest ratio for a significant post-World War II insurgency gets down to 2.6 soldiers per thousand.

Syria had a prewar population of about 22 million. Now, between deaths and refugees, that number is closer to 16 million. If you take the most benign possible scenarios, France would have just enough troops to fight a nationwide counterinsurgency: They'd have to come up with a constant presence of 43,160 troops to keep a lid on Syria. But at the ugly end of the spectrum, that number explodes to 768,580 — which is more than the US and French armies combined.

ISIS Islamic State Raqqa SyriaIn essence, France fighting alone would have a good shot at taking Raqqa, the de facto IS capital, but would have a hard time holding it against a sufficiently determined IS.

Which brings us back to coalitions. There are two realities of Western coalition warfare today. The first is that, going forward, the US will (almost certainly) go to war in a coalition — the political legitimacy of multilateral operations is just too important in US politics to pass up, except in the worst of cases. The second reality is that no other Western power will fight a war without the US, because at most current defense spending levels, countries just don't have the firepower to get into and win great big fights without the US. Essentially, the US provides the brawn while the rest of the world provides the approval.

But US President Barack Obama has no incentive to go into Syria, and would view as a political nonstarter anything that would result in the deployment of large US forces for major combat operations. And if the US won't go, then France won't.

So, essentially, the problem the French are running into is that, at their current levels of defense spending, they have to get permission from the US to really destroy IS. Which, per sovereignty comments above, isn't going to sit that well in France. So, Hollande will need to have something very visible and very decisive that he can order, short of invading the "caliphate" and ridding the world of its so-called government.

Which is where airstrikes come in. The French navy has already sent that nuclear-powered aircraft carrier off to the Persian Gulf to join in airstrike operations. The press has been covering those air operations with great vigor, describing a veritable onslaught of French firepower over the weekend. Truth be told, it was 10 aircraft dropping 20 bombs on various IS targets. Which isn't very much at all. For the month of October, coalition forces were averaging 86 "weapons releases" per day.

Against that backdrop, the French must (and almost certainly will) step up their participation to push back against notions that France is too weak to protect its own citizens, or to avenge them. This means France will be sending more aircraft to hit more targets, but in the end, that's only going to go so far.

syria russia caspian airstrike

Even with better intelligence and targeting, there's an upper limit to the effectiveness of bombing from the air. After the fall of Mosul and the involvement of the US-led coalition in airstrikes over the past few months, IS commanders have learned that they shouldn't present good targets to hostile and very well-equipped air forces.

This turns back to the slog-and-grind stuff, which is never an easy sell. One thing that Hollande might end up doing is something similar to Obama's recent announcement that the US would have Special Forces operating directly on the ground in Syria. Using Special Forces working with locals and supported by high-tech airpower is something that can work — as was seen in the 2001 ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But ejecting someone from territory isn't the same thing as keeping them out, as we see in the ongoing fighting with the Afghani Taliban.

So, maybe the locals on the ground can be augmented by French troops to pull together the necessary force? Well, that's kind of what's been happening with the largely successful Kurdish campaigns in northern Iraq and Syria. But the Kurds have shown no interest in liberating any of the neighboring folks with whom they've had feuds, and may very well not back a campaign to wipe out IS. Besides, too much support for the wrong Kurdish factions might put the French at odds with a NATO ally they'd most certainly need: Turkey, the historical enemy of the Kurds.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad is seen during an interview in Damascus with the magazine, Literarni Noviny newspaper, in this handout picture taken January 8, 2015 by Syria's national news agency SANA. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via ReutersNow, there are a whole lot of people fighting in Syria besides the Kurds. However, if the French buddy up with anyone who isn't explicitly on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian ally, it might result in Russian airstrikes killing French soldiers, which would be a political disaster. The flip side to that scenario is France signing up with Russia and Iran if the US isn't game. But the political price of publicly turning away from the US to side with a self-described opponent of NATO and fighting alongside the Iranians would be far, far too high.

Similarly, if France were to seek out Iraqi forces to work with, that would again mean sidling up alongside the Iranians, which is a no-go. As to the other options in Iraq, there aren't a lot, since the Iraqi Sunni militias the US has been counting on have been slow to materialize and probably wouldn't be much good for a drive deep into Syria anyway.

The French could sit around trying to pull together a large multinational Arab coalition to go in, but it's hard to see how they could pull off the requisite diplomacy if they can't convince the US to commit troops.

So, what's left? Sending supplies and weapons? That would be very low-profile and unimpressive, and it carries all kinds of new risks. Some of that more advanced weaponry will almost certainly fall into the wrong hands, which means a subsequent risk of seeing something like a French surface-to-air missile being used in another terrorist attack.

French Soldiers Chad

What if the very large bulk of the French response will be in the intelligence arena? If France can nab some big bad guys or disrupt some very public plots, then it will provide an occasional measure of public victory.

If Hollande pursues a very aggressive intelligence effort (which he very likely will), along with increased Special Forces on the ground in Syria, and some photogenic airstrikes, he'll probably cover his bases about as well as can reasonably be expected.

There's an outside chance that he might go for something to really extend the visibility of those measures. For instance, adding long-distance cruise-missile strikes to the mix, or maybe a large airborne raid on Raqqa or an IS site. However, the reality is that, while some sort of very visible show of force could hurt IS and hurt it bad, Paris just doesn't command enough boots on the ground to stomp out IS for good.

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This is how the Syrian refugee screening process actually works

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syrian refugees

Republican governors, lawmakers and presidential candidates are calling for a halt to federal program that resettles Syrian refugees in the U.S.

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, many in the GOP say they are concerned that a terrorist could slip into the country by posing as an asylum seeker, an argument that President Obama and other Democrats reject.

All refugees taken in by the U.S. undergo extensive background checks. The small number from Syria are subject to additional layers of security screening. 

“Of all the categories of persons entering the U.S., these refugees are the single most heavily screened and vetted,” explains Jana Mason, a senior adviser to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Here are answers to some of your questions about how the program works.

How are Syrian refugees referred to the U.S.?

Syrian refugee in Greece

The process begins with a referral from UNHCR. The U.N.’s refugee agency is responsible for registering some 15 million asylum seekers around the world, and providing aid and assistance until they are resettled abroad or (more likely) returned home once conditions ease. The registration process includes in-depth refugee interviews, home country reference checks and biological screening such as iris scans. Military combatants are weeded out.

Among those who pass background checks, a small percentage are referred for overseas resettlement based on criteria designed to determine the most vulnerable cases. This group may include survivors of torture, victims of sexual violence, targets of political persecution, the medically needy, families with multiple children and a female head of household.

What happens once a refugee is referred to the U.S.?

Our government performs its own intensive screening, a process that includes consultation from nine different government agencies. They meet weekly to review a refugee’s case file and, if appropriate, determine where in the U.S. the individual should be placed. When choosing where to place a refugee, officials consider factors such as existing family in the U.S., employment possibilities and special factors like access to needed medical treatment.

How do we know the refugees aren’t terrorists?

Every refugee goes through an intensive vetting process, but the precautions are increased for Syrians. Multiple law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies perform “the most rigorous screening of any traveler to the U.S.,” says a senior administration official. Among the agencies involved are the State Department, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. A DHS officer conducts in-person interviews with every applicant. Biometric information such as fingerprints are collected and matched against criminal databases. Biographical information such as past visa applications are scrutinized to ensure the applicant’s story coheres.

What percentage of applicants “pass” the screening process?

Just over 50%.

How long does the whole process take?

Refugees wait to get on a dinghy to sail off for the Greek island of Chios from the western Turkish coastal town of Cesme, in Izmir province, Turkey, November 4, 2015.  REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Eighteen to 24 months on average.

How many have been resettled here?

About 1,800 over the past year. They’ve been placed in dozens of states across the country, but most are in big states with large immigrant populations, such as California, Texas, Illinois and Michigan.

Who are they?

According to a senior administration official, roughly half the refugees admitted have been children. Around 25% are adults over 60. Only 2% of those admitted, the senior administration official said, have been single males of “combat age.”

Has the system been successful so far?

The security checks have a pretty good record. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. has admitted some 750,000 refugees. None have been arrested on domestic terrorism charges, though two—a pair of Iraqis in Kentucky—were charged with terrorist activities connected to aiding al-Qaeda.

How many will be coming in the future?

President Obama wants to take in at least 10,000 between now and next October. Republicans came out against that plan after European officials said one member of the terrorist cell that killed at least 132 in the City of Light was a Syrian citizen who entered the continent on Oct. 3 in Greece, as part of the vast stream of refugees fleeing the war-torn Middle East nation. (It’s not fully clear whether the passport the attacker was carrying was a forgery.) Meanwhile, top Democrats like Secretary of State John Kerry and presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton would prefer to increase the figure to around 75,000. But for now, Mark Toner, a spokesman for the State Department, says the Obama administration remains “steadfastly committed” to its 10,000 target.

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BREMMER: The Paris attacks put Russia and Iran ‘in a stronger position'

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hollande PutinFrance has declared war on the Islamic State, and it is looking for partners.

"We must combine our forces to achieve a result that is already too late in coming," French President Francois Hollande said in a rousing speech at the Palace of Versailles on Monday, days after France suffered the deadliest attack on its soil since World War II, at the hands of assailants linked to the Islamic State.

France has long resisted going harder against ISIS in Syria for fear of undermining or eliminating a principal rival of its longtime enemy, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But on Monday, Hollande made it clear that the Paris attacks had forced French officials to reassess their priorities — and accept that Russia, a longtime ally of Assad, may have an important role to play.

"The lack of Syrian fighters on the ground that look like acceptable partners is as true today as it was before the France bombings," geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, told Business Insider in an email on Saturday. "And there won't be enough support for [Western] troops to get it done alone."

"This puts Russia — and Iran — in a stronger position," Bremmer added. "And the French are much more likely to take the lead in working with them than the Americans, especially now."

Bremmer's predictions, so far, are panning out.

'Our enemy is Daesh'

Though France continues to oppose any role for Assad in a "political solution" for the crisis in Syria, "our enemy is Daesh (Islamic State)," Hollande said on Monday. In doing so, he implied that France's priority now, above all, is to fight ISIS.

Place de la Republique ParisTo this end, Hollande announced that he will seek to form a single coalition against ISIS that includes Russia and the US — and, implicitly, Iran, which has been funneling fighters and weapons to the Assad regime since 2011. Such a move would seemingly unite the countries' counterterrorism operations in Syria for the first time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, taking advantage of this shift in focus away from Assad and toward ISIS, echoed Hollande's sentiment on Monday. 

“It is clear, that to effectively fight this evil we need real joint efforts by the entire international community,” Putin said in a statement.

To its point, Russia launched airstrikes against the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa on Tuesday in what amounted to its first significant effort to target the jihadist group since it began its bombing campaign in late September. 

It is unclear whether the trend will continue. The airstrikes coincided with Russian cruise-missile attacks in Aleppo and the Idlib province — where government forces, aided by Iran-backed Shia militias, have been battling predominantly non-ISIS rebels. 

Syria control map oct 2015

But it undoubtedly plays into Russia's desire to position itself as a leader in the region — a role which, up until now, had been facilitated largely by Moscow's partnership with Tehran.

"Russia and Iran were always going to leverage Sunni jihadi terrorism to suit their own objectives on the ground in Syria — namely, shutting down support for Sunni opposition forces and getting the issue of an Assad transition completely taken off the table," Tony Badran, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider on Tuesday.

"But the Russians are pushing up against a door left open by the Obama administration, which has from day one been framing its efforts in Syria as a battle against [Sunni] ISIS so as to not upset [Shia] Iran," Badran continued.

"Russia has simply taken that narrative and expanded it to define terrorism in Syria as a Sunni variety of extremism, in the hopes of backing the few remaining supporters of the Syrian revolution — such as France — into a corner."

'Assad is the root cause'

On Monday, US President Barack Obama effectively ruled out a dramatic shift in the US' ISIS strategy, saying that putting more American troops on the ground in Syria "would be a mistake."

As Bremmer sees it, this is the right approach — for France and for the US.

"The US is going to need to work with Moscow and back away from the 'Assad must go' rhetoric," Bremmer said in an email. "The rebels aren't credible proxies and the Americans aren't going to get the job done themselves."

obama putin g20Bremmer pointed to a piece he wrote in The Financial Times shortly after Russia intervened in Syria, where he claimed that if the US and its partners want to defeat ISIS — while limiting their involvement in the region — it will mean "swallowing the idea that Iran ... is now a regional powerbroker, that Mr. Assad will remain in power, and that Russia will play a larger and lasting role in the Middle East."

But the problem with stepping back from the Middle East and relinquishing Syria as an Iranian and Russian sphere of influence, some experts say, is that it will give the person fueling the terror groups a new lease on life.

"The big winner from the Paris attacks: Bashar al-Assad," Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted on Monday.

"Barely mentioned among the causes of the Syria war or the flood of refugees," he added of Assad.

Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, went one step further, asserting that working with Assad and his allies will allow ISIS to tighten its grip on the areas it already controls. 

"If you work with Assad [against] ISIS, you lose the rebels' greater manpower, intelligence, legitimacy among populations living in ISIS areas," Hokayem said on Twitter.

syrian refugeesIn an op-ed in The Guardian, a former French hostage of ISIS echoed Hokayem's sentiment.

"The Syrian people need security or they themselves will turn to groups such as ISIS," Nicolas Henin, who spent 10 months in captivity, wrote on Monday.

"After all that happened to me, I still don’t feel ISIS is the priority. To my mind, Bashar al-Assad is the priority. The Syrian president is responsible for the rise of ISIS in Syria, and so long as his regime is in place, ISIS cannot be eradicated."

And Rabe Alkhuder, a Syrian refugee living in Washington, DC, concurred.

"The Syrian people already hate ISIS," Alkhuder told Business Insider in an email. "Fighting and defeating the group will be much easier and more achievable when Assad is no longer barrel bombing his own people into oblivion."

He added: "There is a root cause for every problem. Assad is the root cause of this mess, and world leaders must take serious steps to take him down."

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Donald Trump is spreading dangerous lies about Syrian refugees

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Syrian Refugees

"Our President wants to take in 250,000 from Syria," says Donald Trump, falsely.

"Think of it, 250,000 people. And we all have heart, and we all want people taken care of and all of that, but with the problems our country has, to take in 250,000 people — some of whom are going to have problems, big problems — is just insane."

It is not insane. It is a lie. It is a lie that Mr. Trump repeats, even as fact checkers and reporters point out that it is wrong. Not just repeats, but embellishes.

Last month, the number was lower: "Now I hear we want to take in 200,000," he said on ABC News. "We don't know where they're coming from. We don't know who they are. They could be ISIS. It could be the great Trojan horse."

We have grown accustomed to politicians exaggerating, sometimes stretching the truth, sometimes fogging it up for effect. But it is disturbing on a different scale to see a U.S. politician repeating a big lie again and again, in a way that is calculated to inflame bigotry and fan fears.

Here are the facts: President Obama wants to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country next year. The number may increase a bit the year after that, but it will be nowhere close to 200,000 or 250,000.

So far, over the course of a four-year civil war, the United States has accepted fewer than 2,000 Syrian refugees, and the screening process for each prospective admission can take up to 18 months.

donald trump armsTo the extent it has any connection to reality, Mr. Trump's number appears to reflect the total number of refugees, from all over the planet, that the United States may accept over the next three years.

Mr. Obama wants to increase the country's take from between 70,000 and 80,000 people annually to 100,000 in 2017. Some of the additional refugees would come from Syria. Many others would be fleeing desperate conditions in Africa and other dangerous corners of the world.

After the Paris attacks, it's understandable that Americans ask questions about the quality of U.S. refugee screening. But the discussion must be based on reality, not phantoms.

The risk from a small number of vetted refugees is far outweighed by the humanitarian imperative to help innocent people escaping from Syria's evil rulers and from the Islamic State.

Mr. Trump is fanning hysteria in other ways. Whereas the integration of Muslims in U.S. society, including in the armed forces, is a success story compared with Europe, the businessman would have us believe the opposite.

"The hatred is beyond belief," Donald Trump said Monday, as he talked about surveilling and even shuttering mosques. "The hatred is greater than anybody understands."

We continue to have enough faith in voters to believe that Mr. Trump won't wind up in the White House. But he can still promote misconceptions that pull his party down, sully the post-Paris policy debate and, ultimately, hurt innocent people. Given his serial refusal to accede to reality, we doubt he will agree. The rest of his party must do better. 

SEE ALSO: Anonymous has begun publishing personal details of suspected ISIS extremists

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NOW WATCH: Obama ripped Trump's mass deportation plan


Russia deployed 25 long range strategic bombers to Syria for the first time

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russia tu-160 bomber

It looks like Moscow stepped up its military effort in Syria even before the intention to intensify the air strikes was announced by Putin on Nov. 17.

As initially reported by Reuters, a US official has confirmed that Moscow has conducted a significant number of strikes in Syria using both sea-launched cruise missiles and long-range bombers.

The Russian MoD said 25 long-range bombers took part in the raid: 5 x Tu-160s, 6 x Tu-95MS and 14 x Tu-22M3.

Tu 95 Bear RAF

According to one our sources who wishes to remain anonymous, the long-range bombers the Russian Air Force has used against ground targets in Syria early in the morning on Nov. 17 were Tu-22M Backfire strategic bombers.

The aircraft were allegedly launched from Mozdok airbase, in Ossetia, where as many as 6 Tu-22s were spotted on a recent deployment.

Russian Tu-22M

Remains of a KH-555 missile wreck were found in Syria: considered that this type of air-launched missile is mainly carried by Tu-95 Bear and Tu-160 Blackjack bombers (Tu-22s have been tested with the KH-555 but full integration is not completed or at least unknown), the long-range bombers that launched the attack on ground targets using those missiles may have been the Tu-95s or Tu-160s flying alongside the Backfires.

SEE ALSO: ISIS pulled off two of its most alarming attacks in the space of less than a month

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NOW WATCH: NATO is flexing its muscles with its largest military exercise in a decade

The bitter rift between Obama and Putin is giving way to a common cause

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President Barack Obama (L) talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and U.S. security advisor Susan Rice (2nd L) prior to the opening session of the Group of 20 (G20) Leaders summit summit in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, Turkey November 15, 2015. Man at 2nd R is unidentified. REUTERS/Cem Oksuz/Pool

MOSCOW (AP) — In a striking shift, President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin are embarking on a tentative path toward closer ties and possible military cooperation, as the bitter rift over Ukraine gives way to common cause against the Islamic State group.

After weeks of accusing Moscow of trying to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad by bombing U.S.-backed rebels, Obama changed his tune on Wednesday, praising Putin as a "constructive partner" in a nascent diplomatic effort to resolve Syria's civil war.

Putin, too, has issued conciliatory signals, softening his tone about the U.S. and calling for the U.S. and Russia to "stand together" against the extremist threat.

Speaking on the sidelines of a summit in the Philippines, Obama even raised the prospect of military coordination with Russia — a possibility that has seemed remote ever since the U.S. cut off military ties last year over Moscow's actions in Ukraine.

"If we get a better understanding with Russia about the process for bringing an end to the Syrian civil war," he said, "that obviously opens up more opportunities for coordination with respect to ISIL." He was using an alternative acronym for the extremist group.

Obama suggested that Russia might be reorienting its military campaign in Syria toward IS targets following the downing of a Russian jet in Egypt — a step the president said "we very much want to see."

putin obama g20The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Oct. 31 crash that killed 224, and Putin has vowed to hunt down those responsible and punish them.

For Putin, the terror attacks in Paris marked a watershed moment in relations with the West. At a summit this week in Turkey, Putin huddled amicably with Obama and other Western leaders, whose changing attitudes reflected the political reality that the U.S. and its allies need Russia's help to confront an extremist threat now striking at the heart of Europe.

In a sign of an emerging Russia-West axis, French President Francois Hollande announced he would travel to Washington next week and Moscow two days later to discuss stepping up cooperation against IS with Obama and Putin.

Forging an alliance with the West to fight IS would offer Putin a chance to raise Russia's global clout and prestige and to repair relations that were shattered by the Ukraine crisis.

"The West may find it hard to discuss a degree of Russia's responsibility for what happened in Ukraine, or the legitimacy of its presence in Syria, at a moment when the IS has reached all the way to the Eiffel Tower," Gleb Pavlovsky, a political strategist who used to work for the Kremlin, said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Yet, while the Kremlin is clearly hopeful that cooperation against IS will push Ukraine to the sidelines, both the U.S. and Russia have rejected any link between Syria and Ukraine.

Bomb Damascus SyriaA White House official said no matter what happens in Syria, the U.S. won't lift crippling economic sanctions against Russia until it fulfills its obligations under a Ukraine peace deal reached in February.

Because Obama has suspended formal U.S.-Russia military ties, coordination in the fight can only go so far — even if Moscow sharpens its focus on IS. In recent days the U.S. has seen Russia begin focusing some of its strikes on IS, but the vast majority have targeted moderate rebels fighting Assad, said an official who wasn't authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Putin's high-intensity air campaign makes him a major player in the Syrian conflict, and Russia's influence over its ally, Assad, gives it a key role in diplomatic efforts to negotiate a political solution. Obama said that for weeks now, Russia has played a helpful role in talks in Vienna that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says could produce a ceasefire within weeks.

Though distrustful of Russia's government after years of skirmishes, Obama has sought to compartmentalize the various conflicts in which the former Cold War foes inevitably cross paths.

Despite its quarrels over Syria and Ukraine, the U.S. worked with Russia to secure the nuclear deal with Iran, after which Obama thanked Putin for his "important role" in that formulating the accord.

obama putin g20Obama's interactions with Putin at the Group of 20 summit this week were notably devoid of the grim-faced exchanges they've had in the past. Instead, the two were spotted leaning in close at a coffee table and, in another run-in, grinning broadly as they casually chatted.

And Putin, who has rarely missed a chance to mock the U.S., avoided outright gloating as he spoke to reporters at the meeting in Turkey. Instead, he deployed even-mannered restraint when asked to assess the efficiency of the U.S.-led coalition's air war against IS, which has thus far fallen woefully short of Obama's goal of defeating the extremist group.

"It's not the right moment to judge who is better and who is worse," Putin said. "Now it's necessary to look forward and pool efforts to fight the common threat."

Whether the U.S. and Russia can make good on hopes of cooperating in Syria will likely hinge on their ability to reconcile their disagreement about Assad's future. That effort will likely be daunting.

While Russia has sought to buttress Assad, the U.S. and its allies insist he's lost legitimacy and can't be part of any future Syrian government. U.S. officials waxed hopeful that Russia was finally coming around, pointing out that Russia signed on to a diplomatic statement in Vienna on Saturday calling for a "Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition."

But Putin later said the issue must be decided by the Syrians as part of that process. Assad's political future, Putin said, is a "secondary issue," to be decided later.

SEE ALSO: Russian passenger jet that crashed in Egypt was reportedly downed by a bomb placed in the main cabin

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NOW WATCH: Putin played a hockey game with ex-NHL players for his birthday and scored 7 goals

Suspected planner of Paris attacks boasted of crossing borders and mounting attacks in Europe

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An undated photograph of a man described as Abdelhamid Abaaoud that was published in the Islamic State's online magazine Dabiq and posted on a social media website.  REUTERS/Social Media Website via Reuters TV

BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected planner of the Paris attacks, mocked European frontier controls and boasted of the ease with which he could move between Syria to his Belgian homeland and the rest of Europe.

As police piece together how militants mounted Friday's assaults, evidence that some involved had fought in Syria and were on wanted lists, yet slipped back to kill 129 people, will raise a host of questions on how Europe tracks local Islamists and controls the borders it has opened to half a million Syrian refugees.

Abaaoud, a 28-year-old of Moroccan origin, was the best known of more than 350 Belgians to fight in Syria -- proportionately the biggest contingent from Europe -- and in particular of dozens of young men from the poor Molenbeek district of Brussels to take up arms for Islamic State.

His notoriety was based on videos on social media and, for the past year, his boasts of mounting attacks in Europe.

In a slick online English-language magazine produced by Islamic State in February, Abaaoud, now known as Abu Omar al-Baljiki -- the Belgian -- said he had been in his homeland the previous month planning attacks with two others who had fought in Syria and who died in a Belgian police raid in January.

He had, he said, returned to Syria, despite his face having been well known to police thanks to a much-posted video of him driving a pick-up truck towing the bloodied bodies of prisoners.

french police paris"I suddenly saw my picture all over the media, but alhamdulillah (thanks be to God), the kuffar (infidels) were blinded by Allah," he said. "I was even stopped by an officer who contemplated me so as to compare me to the picture, but he let me go, as he did not see the resemblance.

"This was nothing but a gift from Allah."

Boasts like that from one of Europe's most wanted men are likely to fuel debate on stepping up measures like the use of biometric passports, including fingerprint or iris data, that could combat the use of fake documents and human recognition.

A promising student

Once a student of some promise -- at 12 he won a scholarship to an elite Catholic school miles from his family clothes store in Molenbeek -- he later worked with his father, Omar, but in 2013 vanished suddenly before showing up in Syria.

Omar has since disowned him and accused him of kidnapping his younger brother who, at just 13, was vaunted on social media as becoming the youngest foreign fighter in Syria.

Security officials have said Abaaoud may have first returned briefly to Europe in late 2013 and then returned before the attacks on French magazine Charlie Hebdo this January.

Belgian police stage a raid, in search of suspected muslim fundamentalists linked to the deadly attacks in Paris, in the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, November 16. 2015.A week later, two of his alleged accomplices were killed in a raid in the eastern Belgian town of Verviers that officials said foiled a plot to kidnap and kill a police officer.

In his online interview, supposedly back in Syria, Abaaoud said he was the only one who travelled with the two dead men, named in Belgium as Sofiane A and Khalid B, both in their 20s, although a third man was arrested in connection with the case.

Asked if the trio, who were pictured together in the online publication Dabiq against a background of blue sky and olive trees, had found it hard to return to Europe, he said:

"We faced a number of trials during the journey. We spent months trying to find a way into Europe, and by Allah's strength, we succeeded in finally making our way to Belgium."

Security officials believe they entered Europe via Greece.

"We were then able to obtain weapons and set up a safe house while we planned to carry out operations against the crusaders.

"The kuffar raided the place with more than 150 soldiers from both French and Belgian special forces units. After a gun battle that lasted about 10 minutes, both brothers were blessed with shahadah (martyrdom), which is what they had desired."

Abaaoud noted that he had previously been in prison in Belgium -- local media have said he was jailed for robbery in 2010 and spent time alongside Salah Abdeslam, the 26-year-old Molenbeek man also sought over the Paris attacks and whose elder brother has been identified as one of seven suicide bombers.

mohammed abdeslam salah paris attack interviewThe Abdeslam brothers ran a Molenbeek bar shut down for drug dealing this summer. Both were on the Belgian intelligence services radar as possibly having been radicalised, judicial officials told Le Soir newspaper.

The elder, Brahim, had travelled to Turkey hoping to reach Syria but was deported by the Turks and questioned on his return. So too was Salah, though it is unclear if he had ever tried or succeeded in travelling to Syria.

"Allah blinded their vision"

After the Verviers raid, Abaaoud told the Dabiq online site: "They gathered intelligence agents from all over the world ... to detain me. They arrested Muslims in Greece, Spain, France, and Belgium in order to apprehend me." None of those were associates, he said, and he was able to make it back to Syria.

"Allah blinded their vision and I was able to leave and come to Sham (Syria) despite being chased after by so many intelligence agencies. All this proves that a Muslim should not fear the bloated image of the crusader intelligence. My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely."

Abdelhamid AbaaoudFrench and Belgian security officials believe Abaaoud has been closely involved with at least three other attacks. He was in contact with Mehdi Nemmouche, the Frenchman facing trial for killing four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum in May 2014.

He is suspected of a role in a failed attack on a church in a Paris suburb in April this year and in an abortive attempt by another man to shoot dozens of people aboard an Amsterdam-Brussels-Paris Thalys express train in August.

A French judicial source said a French jihadist questioned on his return to France from Syria in August said he was ordered by Abaaoud to travel via Prague to avoid detection and to scout out a soft target in Europe -- such as a concert hall -- to ensure a high death toll.

Roland Jacquard, a French security expert, said Abaaoud was part of a French-speaking brigade of Islamic State in Raqqa, which was targeted by French air strikes last month, and that he was subordinate to Salim Benghalem, a Frenchman on global most wanted lists and may have ultimately ordered the Paris attacks.

Omar Abaaoud, whose own father arrived in Belgium from Morocco four decades ago to work in the coalmines, told Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws in January after the Verviers raid:

"We had a good, I'd say a fantastic life. Abdelhamid wasn't a difficult child and a good manager. But then he all of a sudden left for Syria.

"I think about why he left every day and why he turned so incredibly radical at such short notice. There will never be a real answer ... I don't understand why he wanted to attack Belgium. Our family owes everything to this country."

SEE ALSO: Here's the intense, rigorous process each refugee goes through before coming to the US

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NOW WATCH: France says it hit two targets in airstrikes on ISIS capital

ISIS claims to execute Norwegian and Chinese captives

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ISIS Islamic State Millitants Convoy Flag

Islamic State said in its magazine on Wednesday that it had killed a Chinese and a Norwegian captive, showing what appeared to be pictures of the dead men with a banner reading "executed."

In its previous issue of Dabiq, it had said the two captives were "for sale."

Islamic State also said it had originally planned to bring down a Western plane over Egypt's Sinai but changed its target to a Russian one after Moscow launched airstrikes in Syria.

It said it had smuggled the bomb onto the Russian plane after finding a security loophole at Sharm al-Sheikh airport.

 

SEE ALSO: ISIS claims to reveal 'evidence' of how it brought down the Russian plane with an IED

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NOW WATCH: Here's why Obama won't send troops into Syria to destroy ISIS

An ISIS defector explained a key reason people continue joining the group

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isis militants islamic state

Despite ISIS's claims of ruling over a Islamic "caliphate" in line with Sharia law, a large number of the group's fighters joined for reasons having little to do with religion, according to a defector from the group that The Daily Beast's Michael Weiss interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey.

Instead, people are joining the organization because they are desperate for money and are struggling to find a way to survive in Syria, where four years of civil war have decimated the economy. 

The ISIS defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled, spoke with Weiss about the group's internal dynamics, and what it was like to live under ISIS's rule.

According to Abu Khaled, a large number of people are joining ISIS because they need money. After joining the militants, people are paid in US dollars instead of Syrian liras. Abu Khaled said that ISIS also runs its own currency exchanges.

ISIS members receive additional incentives to fight for the group. “I rented a house, which was paid for by ISIS,” Abu Khaled, who worked for ISIS's internal-security forces and "provided training for foreign operatives,"told Weiss. “It cost $50 per month. They paid for the house, the electricity. Plus, I was married, so I got an additional $50 per month for my wife. If you have kids, you get $35 for each. If you have parents, they pay $50 for each parent. This is a welfare state.”

And those financial benefits are not just limited to the organization's fighters. According to Abu Khaled, any member of ISIS, ranging from construction workers to doctors, receives similar compensation. In war-torn Syria, these salaries are a powerful lure for people who might not otherwise be able to support their families — or for people just hoping to get rich.

“I knew a mason who worked construction. He used to get 1,000 lira per day. That’s nothing," Abu Khaled told Weiss. "Now he’s joined ISIS and gets 35,000 lira—$100 for himself, $50 for his wife, $35 for his kids. He makes $600 to $700 per month. He gave up masonry. He’s just a fighter now, but he joined for the income.”

Syria control map oct 2015Other Syrians who have fled from ISIS's rule have corroborated Abu Khaled's reports, confirming that one of the only ways to accumulate wealth and status under ISIS's rule is by joining the organization. Yassin al-Jassem, a Syrian refugee from near ISIS's de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, shared his experience with The Washington Post.

"There is no work, so you have to join them in order to live," al-Jassem told the Post. "So many local people have joined them. They were pushed into Daesh by hunger."

According to Newsweek, there is a widening gap in living standards for those under ISIS rule. Members of the organization have access to food, free medical care, and desirable housing. In contrast, people who aren't ISIS members suffer under a barely functioning economy with rapidly increasing prices.

ISIS can afford to pay people seeking to join its ranks through four main sources of income: oil, the sale of looted antiquities, taxation, and kidnapping ransoms.

The militant group either controls or has an operational presence around a number of oil wells in Iraq and in the majority of oil-producing areas in Syria. This allows the group to earn a steady income from oil production and smuggling that helps it to continue its daily operations.

The New York Times estimates that ISIS can make upward of $40 million a month through oil-related activities. In a bid to cut the group's income, the US conducted its first airstrikes against ISIS oil trucks on November 16.

ISIS Islamic State Raqqa SyriaISIS's main source of income is significantly more difficult for the US and other coalition partners to target by air. According to Foreign Policy, ISIS makes the majority of its money through extortion and taxation of people living under the group's rule.

ISIS taxes nearly every possible economic activity, with the revenue ultimately covering the expenses of waging continuous war along multiple fronts. Foreign Policy notes that taxes are put in place for militants who loot archaeological sites. Non-Muslims must pay religious taxes, and all ISIS subjects pay a base welfare and salary tax in support of the fighters. All vehicles passing through ISIS territory — which may carry the only food available to those living under ISIS control — must pay taxes often totaling hundreds of dollars.

This ad hoc war economy means that ISIS has little money to spend on improving the lives of those who are forced to live under its rule. But as Abu Khaled's account confirms, it still finds the money for conducting military operations and incentivizing militants to join the group.

That money and the other benefits that ISIS fighters receive means that Syrians join ISIS out of desperation — and not necessarily out of religious or ideological conviction. 

Pamela Engel contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: An ISIS defector just revealed how the group could start to fracture

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NOW WATCH: President Obama: Syrian refugee rhetoric is a 'potent recruitment tool for ISIL’

Honduran police detained 5 Syrians heading for US with stolen Greek passports

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syrian refugees

Honduran authorities have detained five Syrian nationals who were trying to reach the United States using stolen Greek passports, but there are no signs of any links to last week's attacks in Paris, police said.

The group of Syrian men was held late on Tuesday in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on arrival from Costa Rica and they were planning to head to the border with neighboring Guatemala. The passports had been doctored to replace the photographs with those of the Syrians, police said.

SEE ALSO: The White House's top spokesman had an intense argument with a Fox News host over the Paris attack

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NOW WATCH: President Obama: Syrian refugee rhetoric is a 'potent recruitment tool for ISIL’

US governors say they don't want to accept Syrian refugees, but one that made it to the US describes the horrors he fled

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Mohammad Abd Rabboh fled Syria with his wife and two daughters in 2012 — right as the nation's civil war was heating up.

The refugee family spent the next three years in Jordan trying to get into the US. Abd Rabboh described the experience to Reuters as "years of suffering."

But it still beat the horrors he saw that made him and his family flee their home in Homs, the third-largest city in Syria.

"We see weapons everywhere in the street," he said. "We see war and fighting in every corner. We have witnessed things that are difficult to describe. We'd be walking in the street and suddenly see somebody shot in the head and fall dead right in front of you."

Abd Rabboh and his family were relocated to Sacramento, California, in September. He knows there is nothing to return to in Homs, the site of some of the most brutal fighting in recent months.

"Whatever was left of our house was not livable anymore. One, because there was no electricity or running water, but also because the snipers would shoot at the house," he explained. "They were targeting the water tanks and fuel tanks to make sure they were drained so that people could not come back to their homes."

After Friday's attacks in Paris, more than half of US governors have said they don't want to accept Syrian refugees in their states.

Abd Rabboh said he is thankful for his new home. It has given him and his family renewed hope.

"This is a beautiful country of civilization," he said.

Story by Allan Smith and editing by Kristen Griffin

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SEE ALSO: The brother of two of the Paris attackers found out about their involvement on TV like everyone else

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Here's the gargantuan aircraft carrier France sent to fight ISIS

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France just dispatched the European Union's largest aircraft carrier to bolster efforts to destroy the Islamic State's operations.

The Charles de Gaulle — roughly the length of three football fields — left for the Middle East on Wednesday. It's carrying 20 planes, which will nearly triple France's firepower in the region. The warship is also nuclear-powered.

France started carrying out massive airstrikes against ISIS in Syria on Sunday evening after the Paris attacks on Friday.

Story by Allan Smith and editing by Adam Banicki

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SEE ALSO: France says it hit two targets in airstrikes on ISIS capital

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Intense video shows Russian warplanes carpet bombing in Syria

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Russia bombing syria

Beginning on Nov. 17, the Russian Air Force has started pounding ground targets across Syria using its heavy bombers: Tu-95MS, Tu-160 and Tu-22M.

During the first wave, 5 x Tu-160 Blackjack, 6 x Tu-95MS Bear and 14 x Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers flew round trip missions from airbases in Russia: Backfires flew 4,510km in 5h 20mins, Blackjacks and Bears over 6,500km in 8h 20mins and 9h 30mins.

Whilst the Tu-95s and Tu-160 launched 34 cruise missiles the Tu-22s dropped several FAB iron bombs during carpet bombing passes.

The following video was filmed at short distance from the targets of the carpet bombing: some 19 bombs can be seen falling from the sky before hitting somewhere not too far from the cameraman.

Actually, there is someone who believes these could be ALCMs (Air Launched Cruise Missiles) since they look quite slander: although this can’t be ruled out, the way they fall close one another seem to suggest these are not cruise missiles but dumb bombs whose shape appears a bit distorted because of the poor quality of the footage.

SEE ALSO: An ISIS defector explained a key reason people continue joining the group

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NOW WATCH: An Iranian actress who posted Instagram photos of herself without a hijab was forced to flee the country

Syrian government to announce a cesefire with the rebels in a strategic Damascus neighborhood

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Assad

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday a local 15-day ceasefire between Syrian rebels and government forces in the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus would be announced "in the coming hours".

The ceasefire will take effect early on Thursday as a "test period" that could be extended if there is further agreement, the British-based Observatory said.

It gave no precise time for the start of the ceasefire, however, and said an agreement had yet to be finalised.

Clashes were ongoing between rebels and pro-government forces late on Wednesday, the Observatory said.

There was no immediate mention of the agreement on Syrian state media and a rebel leader was not immediately available for comment.

It would be the second local ceasefire to take effect in recent months.

Rebels and pro-government forces reached a deal in September to end hostilities around a town near the Lebanese border and two villages in the northwest for a period of six months.

That ceasefire, which was backed by Iran and Turkey in a rare success for foreign diplomacy, appears to be largely holding despite isolated incidents of firing by both sides.

But fighting still rages across much of the rest of Syria in a 4-1/2-year-old civil war that has killed 250,000 people.

Syria control map oct 2015

Rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, which was targeted with chemical weapons in 2013, has come under intense bombardment from government warplanes in recent months.

SEE ALSO: An ISIS defector just revealed how the group could start to fracture

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NOW WATCH: US governors say they don't want to accept Syrian refugees, but one that made it to the US describes the horrors he fled

Ted Cruz responds to Obama’s attack: ‘Come back and insult me to my face’

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Cruz was responding to Obama's recent criticism of Republicans suggesting there be a religious test for Syrian refugees seeking entrance to the country, a plan he called "shameful" and "not American" while in Turkey for the Group of 20 summit.

"If you want to insult me, you can do it overseas, you can do it in Turkey, you can do it in foreign countries. But I would encourage you, Mr. President, come back and insult me to my face," Cruz said, staring directly into the camera.

Cruz got even more schoolyard, challenging the President to a debate any place, any time.

"Let's have a debate on Syrian refugees, right now. We can do it anywhere you want. I would prefer it in the United States and not overseas," the Republican presidential candidate said. "We'll do it on any station."

Cruz also called Obama's remarks "utterly unfitting of a President."

Watch Cruz's full remarks, via NBC News:

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Syria's murderous dictator could be the big winner in the West's attack on ISIS

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FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 15, 2003 file photo, Syrian President Bashar Assad reviews the presidential guard during a welcoming ceremony in Athens. The tide of global rage against the Islamic State group lends greater urgency to ending the jihadis’ ability to operate at will from a base in war-torn Syria. That momentum could also force a reevaluation of what to do about President Bashar Assad’s future and puts a renewed focus on the position of his key patrons, Russia and Iran. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

The tide of global rage against the Islamic State group lends greater urgency to ending the jihadis' ability to operate at will from a base in war-torn Syria. That momentum could also force a reevaluation of what to do about President Bashar Assad and puts a renewed focus on the position of his key patrons, Russia and Iran.

The Syrian leader has lost much of the country to IS and other groups in the four-year war; half the population has been displaced, many areas have been leveled, and masses of refugees are flooding Europe. Along the way, Assad's brutal military response has made him persona non grata in most of the world.

Portraying himself as the only viable alternative to jihadi rule, Assad has labeled all his enemies "terrorists"— a designation that, in the wake of the recent attacks on civilians by IS, may find greater resonance.

Cutting a deal with Assad would be the "lesser evil," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said Wednesday.

"If we want peace, we have to find a way of getting along with Assad, at least in a transition period. ... Roosevelt didn't like Stalin, but he had to get a deal with him in order to defeat the Nazis, who were the greater evil," Garcia-Margallo said.

ISIS Islamic StateBritain's former military chief, Gen. David Richards, echoed that sentiment, saying in a BBC interview that a cease-fire in Syria could allow Assad and his military to take a leading role in battling IS.

The fact remains, though, that the U.S. and its allies don't want to see Assad benefit from any effort to dislodge IS from territory it controls in Syria — unlike in Iraq, where the Baghdad government is considered legitimate by the world community.

A temporary reprieve is starting to seem more possible, setting the stage for what some observers suggest may be an arrangement in which Assad is part of a transition government that has a role in the priority of defeating IS — but then quietly makes way.

Russia and Iran would have to be a big part of engineering such a solution — but they have leverage.

Assad might well have fallen if not for the support of Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy militia based in neighboring Lebanon whose efforts in the past two months have been joined by an active Russian bombing campaign.

Both Iran and Russia are difficult to read and predict — and until now, both have backed Assad's insistence that he stay in power through the rest of his official term, which runs until 2021.

But there are hints that Russia's support may be wobbling even as it ramps up airstrikes against his enemies: Moscow made clear earlier this month it is not crucial that he stay.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on Russian plane crash in Egypt at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia November 17, 2015. REUTERS/Alexei Nikolskyi/SPUTNIK/Kremlin A Syrian opposition figure familiar with the Russian position said Moscow's military campaign aims to facilitate a diplomatic track by strengthening Assad's position and weakening the rebels enough that they all agree to come to the table.

He said the Russians have come to the conclusion that there can be no long-term solution for Syria while Assad remains in power. The question, he said, is how to let go of Assad while safeguarding state institutions and the capital of Damascus. The Russians have yet to answer that, said the opposition figure, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to damage relations with Russia.

Russia has its own interests, wanting to keep its small naval facility at Tartous on the Mediterranean and remaining a player in greater Mideast affairs.

Iran, another major ally, wants to maintain a counterbalance to Israel and keep another Shiite ally in the region.

Iran has sent more advisers to Syria in recent weeks, as well as again reportedly dispatching Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who heads the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard. The country also has suffered increasing casualties from the war.

This week, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian reiterated Tehran's support for the Syrian president, saying "only Assad himself can decide on his participation or non-participation in (future) elections (and) it is only the people of Syria who can say whether they will vote for him or not," according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

In a more ambiguous statement referencing Assad, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that "limiting the regional crises to one person is a strategic mistake."

paris attacksFor now, Iran believes anger over the Islamic State group will force the world to stick with Assad, said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. However, Sadjadpour said Iranian officials also realize how much the civil war has stoked Sunni extremism.

"Syria has been a Pyrrhic victory for Iran," he said. "They've succeeding in keeping Assad in power, but their desire to be the vanguard of the Islamic world has been irreparably damaged. Their image in the Sunni Arab world will likely be tainted for decades to come."

The wheels are in motion for a process that could possibly usher Assad out. Foreign ministers of 19 countries met in Vienna after the Paris attacks and set a Jan. 1 deadline to start negotiations between Assad's government and opposition groups for ending a conflict that has killed more than quarter of a million people. Diplomats hope to have a transitional government six months later, with U.N.-supervised elections within 18 months, although previous efforts have failed.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told the BBC on Tuesday that pushing Assad out "has to be part of a transition if you're going to end the war."

The Russians don't "want to see Iraq, they don't want to see Libya; they don't want to see the leader go down or leave, and then there's chaos afterwards," Kerry said. "So we are all united in our desire to keep the institutions of governance in Syria whole, but that doesn't mean Assad."

Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, isn't so sure Russia and Iran are prepared to see Assad go.

Iran and Russia "can't separate the Assad family from this regime," he said. "The regime has been built around loyalty to the Assads. If you get rid of them, everything collapses."

(Schreck reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Zeina Karam in Baghdad and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.)

 

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