ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

delft

Brigadier
Well, the UK will decide, through their elected representatives, what they want to do...and then will have to live with the results and consequences.

However, I am not sure that you can make that last statement.

Jihadists are such that that particular attack would have likely occurred in any case...and they would have killed those Brits or other westerners in any case too IMHO.
Tunisia would have been much less vulnerable without the destruction of the Libyan state.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
Sun Jul 5, 2015 11:29am EDT
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Islamic State suicide bombers strike in Iraqi refinery town
BAGHDAD
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A military vehicle is seen in Baiji, north of Baghdad, July 2, 2015.
REUTERS/MUSHTAQ MUHAMMED
Islamic State suicide bombers and fighters attacked the center of Iraq's northern oil refinery town of Baiji overnight, forcing the army and Shi'ite fighters to pull back, military sources and the local mayor said on Sunday.

The town of Baiji and its refinery - Iraq's largest - have been a battlefront for more than a year. The hardline Islamists seized the town in June 2014 as they swept through much of northern Iraq towards the capital Baghdad.

Control of Baiji neighborhoods has changed hands many times during the conflict. The latest Islamic State offensive comes after authorities said they controlled nearly the whole town and expected to drive insurgents from the refinery within days.

The militants attacked around 8 pm (1300 EDT) on Saturday with two suicide car bombings. The blasts were followed by fierce clashes that lasted until midnight and drove the army and mainly Shi'ite Hashd Shaabi forces from the center of town, two army colonels said.

Baiji mayor Mahmoud al-Jabouri said there had been a pattern of withdrawals by Islamic State fighters in the town followed by counter-offensives. "Their lethal weapons are suicide attacks and snipers, and this is why we have fighting back and forth."


Army officers said the army and Hashd groups were preparing a response. "Islamic State fighters are still holding positions in three neighborhoods in Baiji and they are still receiving reinforcements," said one of the army colonels.

In Anbar province west of Baghdad, witnesses said two rockets hit a crowd in the Islamic State-controlled provincial capital Ramadi on Saturday evening, killing at least 18 people.

They said a group of people had gathered after the daily Ramadan fast to play Muhaibis, a game where players have to identify a member of the opposing team who is hiding a ring.

"I heard a blast and saw fire coming from Dolphin Square. I ran to the place and saw vehicles carrying bodies and wounded covered with blood. They were innocent people playing a ring game; they were not making bombs,” said Haj Thamir Ahmed, a Ramadi resident who lives nearby.

In northwest Baghdad, at least three people were killed and 11 wounded when a bomb went off near a restaurant in the mainly Shi’ite district of Shulaa on Sunday morning, police and medical sources said. Another two people were killed by a bomb in Hussainiya on the city's northern outskirts.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for those attacks, but statements in the name of Islamic State said the group carried car bombings on Saturday evening in Baghdad and Balad Roz which killed 10 people.



(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by
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; Editing by Larry King)
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Jeff Head

General
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Naval Today said:
Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan is working around the clock to support day and night strikes against key ISIL targets in the Middle East launched from the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

She’s the latest Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer to take her place with a US carrier battle group on operations in the Gulf region, and is part of a coalition of more than 60 countries.

The vessel has the ability to provide air traffic and fighter control.

As well as supporting the international effort against the ISIL fundamentalists – the 8,500-tonne warship has also joined the wider security mission in the region: patrolling the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman and accompanying shipping through the key choke points in the region such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al Mandeb.

Working with the US carrier also sets the pace for the arrival of the Royal Navy’s two new Queen Elizabeth class carriers – allowing the Service the opportunity to develop effective techniques.
 
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flyzies

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Islamic State propaganda: what the West doesn't understand

July 9, 2015 - 9:41AM
Beirut: Behind the ultra-violent execution videos that have become the Islamic State's disturbing trademark is a carefully calibrated set of messages aimed not at terrorising but at recruiting people to "an alternative way of living".

In the last two months the terrorist group has begun publishing photographs depicting shops on the street and corner ice cream parlours along with descriptions of economic prosperity in areas under its control, Charlie Winter, a senior researcher at the UK-based counter-extremism think-tank Quilliam told Fairfax Media.

It is a narrative the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group has not come close to countering, Winter argues in a new report examining the group's first year of propaganda.

"There is a very strong strain of Islamic State propaganda that depicts the caliphate as a stable place … that is not even being remotely contested right now," Winter says.

This line of propaganda says while justice may be ruthless "if you operate within Islamic State boundaries and its interpretation of what is right and wrong you will be fine – and not only be fine but you will be eating ice cream as well," Winter says.

It is a message that is getting through – not just to new foreign recruits and their families but also to some living in areas under Islamic State control.

In a country that is in its fifth year of civil war, and all the carnage and chaos that comes with it, some say they welcome the security the militants appear to bring.

Electricity is restored, law and order improves and the streets feel safer, some who lived under Islamic State rule in the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad told Fairfax Media.

Their accounts of life under IS provide a small window into both the deep divisions over the extremist group and also the violence and neglect that has laid the groundwork for the group to take, and maintain, so much territory.

Hattam, 20, lives with his extended family in Akcakale, the Turkish town that borders Tel Abyad to which about 30,000 Syrian refugees fled ahead of last month's fighting.

He spent 1.5 years fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest militia groups operating in Syria. In January 2014, his unit was confronted by IS fighters and he was given an ultimatum: either hand over his weapons and go home or join the militant group.

"I gave them my weapons and I went home," he says, but acknowledges if last month's battle for Tel Abyad had continued any longer, he would have joined the Islamic State group.

And if their Syrian power base of Raqqa is challenged: "I will go to Raqqa to help ISIS defend it."

With IS in charge of his town, "life was much safer, there was no more stealing, everything was more secure," Hatem says.

Before they were driven out by Kurdish forces, the IS soldiers in Tel Abyad were mostly made up of foreign fighters – Chechens, Azerbaijanis and Saudis – who had moved to Syria with their families.

"They were the best to deal with … if you follow Sharia you are OK, they will have nothing to do with you. If you go the wrong way they would take you and you would appear before a judge," Hatem says.

"I know the limits that would make them angry," Hatem says. "For me, it was my lifestyle already: I pray, I go to the mosque and I do not smoke, but those who smoked were not happy."

There is no doubt, Winter says, that some want to live under the Islamic State but "for the majority of people living under them it was the least worst option … not because they believe in their aims and ideals."

The full body of Islamic State propaganda is vast and unprecedented, he says, with an average of three videos and four photographic reports circulated each day.

There are daily radio news bulletins in multiple languages, including Arabic,

Turkish, Kurdish, English, French and Russian, as well as fully produced nashīds (Islamic recitals sung a cappella), while feature-length films depicting its most cruel acts emerge on a monthly basis, the report found.

"Like any mass movement, it captures the imaginations of its potential recruits by offering both immediate change and the ability to transform their future and … an alternate way of living."

For the international audience, the use of brutality by Islamic State is a red herring, Winter's paper argues, that has "fatally derailed mainstream understanding of the organisation and its appeal to its many thousands of foreign recruits."

"While brutality is easily the most prominent of these narratives in the West, utopianism is by far the most important narrative for Islamic State's propagandists; it is the organisation's utopian offer that is most alluring to new recruits."

Unless this utopia is challenged, he says, any attempts to interrupt the flow of propaganda are doomed to fail.

Western Governments' reluctance to tackle the Assad regime was also working against efforts to counter the extremists' message, especially with Syria's Sunni community who have experienced relentless bombardment from the regime air strikes over the last four years of war, Winter says.

And laws that criminalise foreign fighters who turn their backs on the Islamic State and return home, such as those enacted this year by the Abbott Government in Australia, also hamper efforts to push back against the propaganda machine.

"These people are very important resources for counter messaging efforts and putting them in jail can be very harmful to that cause," Winter says.

Acknowledging the need to improve its outreach in support of the international coalition against the Islamic State – of which Australia is a member – the United States and the United Arab Emirates launched a "multinational online messaging and engagement program" on Wednesday.

The Sawab Centre will use direct online engagement to counter terrorist propaganda, including messages used to recruit foreign fighters, fundraise for illicit activities, and intimidate and terrorise local populations, the United States announced overnight.

The centre plans also engage and expand the network of people willing to speak out against the terrorist group's propaganda, recruitment and fundraising efforts, the US statement said.

 

ShahryarHedayat

Junior Member
Pentagon: We Found Only 60 ‘Moderate’ Syrian Rebels to Train


As US President Barack Obama pledges increased support for Syria’s moderate opposition in the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terror group, the Pentagon is saying that there may not be enough of such an opposition to support.

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Speaking at the Pentagon on Monday, President Obama reiterated that a successful defeat of IS militants needed local cooperation with ground forces in Syria and Iraq.



"The strong consensus is in order for us to succeed…we have to develop local security forces that can sustain progress."

And so, as part of a broader effort to degrade and ultimately destroy the extremists, the Obama administration has been training and equipping ground forces in Syria and Iraq to combat the terror group, while it leads an airstrike campaign against its territory.

"It is going to be vital for us to make sure that we are preparing the kinds of local ground forces and security forces with our partners that can not only succeed ISIL, but then sustain in terms of security and in terms of grievance."

The only problem with this strategy, it seems, is that there simply aren’t enough people for the Pentagon to train. At least not the kind they are looking for.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter publicly admitted that the Pentagon’s training efforts are a far cry away from their stated goal. The initial goal of the program was to train 3,000-5,000 fighters each year. So far, they have only been able to train 60 Syrian rebels.

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"I said the number 60, and I can look out at your faces and you have the same reaction I do, which is that that’s an awfully small number," Carter told the committee.

The reason for the low number, according to Carter, is the strict vetting process required to identify these so-called moderate rebels. Not only do the fighters have to pass a counter-intelligence screening, but the Pentagon must also ensure that they are opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and that they are committed to fighting IS.

While conceding that the numbers were indeed much lower than expected or needed, Carter continued to back the program, saying that it was "essential" and adding that he expects the numbers to improve.

The defense secretary said the Pentagon was currently vetting around 7,000 prospective recruits. However, given the complicated, and often contradictory requirements, it is difficult to imagine that the Department of Defense will be able to up their 60 recruits to a significant enough force.

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Committee Chairman Senator John McCain was quick to slam the administration’s efforts, noting that IS was gaining territory in Syria and Iraq and expanding influence in the region, and in Africa and Central Asia.

"Our means and our current level of effort are not aligned with our ends," he said. "That suggests we are not winning, and when you are winning in war, you are losing."

"It’s not that we’re doing nothing," he added. "It’s that there is no compelling reason to believe that anything we are doing currently will be sufficient to achieve the president’s long-stated goal of degrading or ultimately destroying ISIL, either in the short term or the long term."

The training efforts have also slowed down in Iraq, largely due to rampant sectarianism in the country, and a lack of trainees. According to Carter, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s efforts to establish an inclusive government in Baghdad are being met with resistance, adding that "Abadi doesn’t have absolute control in Baghdad."

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There are roughly 3,500 US troops in Iraq training around 11,000 Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and 2,000 counter terrorism personnel. Iraq’s security forces are currently being trained to retake the strategic city of Ramadi, captured by IS fighters in May. The Iraqi army has however been struggling to recover from its collapse nearly a year ago in Mosul, when many of commanders and soldiers fled as IS fighters swept through swaths of territory in northern and western Iraq.

"This will be a test of the competence of the Iraqi security forces," Carter said about the campaign to retake Ramadi. "And it’s a test they must pass…we’re going to take the time and encourage them to take the time so that the operation, when they do conduct it, is successful."


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LOL...:D
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
ISIS is bad no doubt, but who do you back? The rearing Cobra? The Rattling Rattle Snake? the Angry Pit Viper? The Black Mamba at your feet?

Whoever you back is just as likely to bite you in the long run.

Injecting more US forces into the Middle of this would be giving Everyone more American Targets Which they would all love to kill, AQ, ISIS, Hezbollah, IRGC

Iran has it's own wants from this and in terms of trying to work with them...at best it would be playing to them which in the long run is likely to cause the US more problems. Remember Iran is a nation that regularly has rousing chants of "Death to America" held in public Official Government Forums.

As ShahryarHedayat likes to remind us, at the heart of the leadership of the Militia the Iraqi Government is using these days are Iranian Advisers. So helping Iran is handing Iraq To Iran. Period. That's not going to Help US interests in the long run It might help fight ISIS but what then?

Okay moving on.


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BY
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| July 8th, 2015 | [email protected] |
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As noted at The Long War Journal on July 6, the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria,
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in Aleppo. One of the pictures in particular has caught the attention of jihadists online.

The image, which can be seen above, shows the explosion caused by Abu Osama al Jazrawi after he detonated his improvised vehicle bomb. Look carefully at the peak of the flame and you’ll see what appears to be a hand pointing an index finger towards the heavens. Some jihadists believe this picture shows that Allah approves of Abu Osama’s act. Raising a lone index finger in praise of or supplication to Allah is a common gesture. And the Al Nusrah Front’s supporters think the fire has duplicated it.

Of course, fire creates many shapes. And you’d be hard-pressed to find anything divine in the aftermath of the many suicide bombings launched around the world each year. The jihadists are seeing what they want to see.

But the mythology surrounding Abu Osama’s suicide bombing reminds me of Abdullah Azzam’s writings, and the work Azzam did to popularize the notion of jihad back in the 1980s. One of Azzam’s books, Ayyat al‐Rahman fee Jihad al‐Afghan (God’s Signs in the Afghan Jihad), contains references to supposedly divine acts on the Afghan battlefield. As CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein
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for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in 2008, Azzam marketed mythological details such as: a flight of birds taking flight “as a warning from God that” a “Soviet low tactical airstrike” was imminent, “scorpions that do not sting the Muslim fighters,” “corpses of martyrs that do not decay,” “fog that arrives to shield the Afghan and Arab fighters,” “enemy rounds that do not explode,” “a bullet that hit the belt of Afghan mujahideen leader [Jalaluddin] Haqqani,” “martyrs who refused to relinquish their weapon except to a Muslim,” and “martyrs smiling in death.”

Some of these motifs are still prevalent. For instance, jihadists frequently post pictures of fallen “martyrs” who appear to be smiling.

Azzam’s teachings continue to influence jihadists to this day. The Al Nusrah Front considers him to be
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, which is unsurprising given that Azzam mentored Osama bin Laden.

If he had survived a massive car bombing in 1989 and were alive today, Azzam would undoubtedly see what today’s jihadists see in the photo above — Allah’s will.

The Al Nusrah Front subsequently posted a video of Abu Osama’s suicide attack in Aleppo. One screen shot from the video can be seen below. Note his right hand.
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
As if I needed more proof that the whole affair is going to end in disaster
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BY
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| July 12th, 2015 | [email protected] |
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The green flag of the Badr militia can be seen flying on the Abrams tank in the background.


The Badr Organization, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia, has released new photographs showing it to be in possession of at least one US M1 Abrams tank. In both photos, the Badr flag can be seen flying on top of the tank.

The photos, which were shared with The Long War Journal by Twitter user @Green_Lemonnn, show at least one Abrams tank being touted reportedly in the Saqlawiyah area of Iraq’s Anbar province. Six Badr fighters and commanders posed with the tank in one photo. One fighter can be seen holding a US-supplied AT4 anti-tank rocket. The US began
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in previous months to help the Iraqi military defeat armored Islamic State suicide assaults.

Badr is not the first Shiite militia to publicize its use of the M1 Abrams. The Hezbollah Brigades, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, showed an Abrams, flying the Hezbollah Brigades flag, being transported by the group earlier this year. Additionally, the group has also recently published two videos from Anbar in which several US-made vehicles are seen being used by its forces. [See LWJ report,
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and Threat Matrix report,
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.]

The Badr Organization, formerly known as the Badr Brigade and Badr Corps, is led by Hadi al Ameri, Iraq’s Minister of Transportation. Ameri is closely tied to Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and to Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Badr fought on the side of the Iranians. Ameri is routinely photographed with Soleimani, and
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“I love Qassem Suleimani! He is my dearest friend.”

The Badr Organization is part of the Popular Mobilization Committee, which is directed by Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, a US-listed Specially Designated Global Terrorist who is an adviser to Soleimani. Badr is one of several militias engaged in the fighting against the Islamic State.

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green text highlights, underlines and bold by me to emphasis. The US Government is Arming the Iraqi state who in tern is .Arming Groups who are Under US Law Recognized Terrorist Organizations. Yes ISIS is evil, but is this (so called) Strategy the lesser of Evils? And If ISIS is defeated What happens to all the US Arms given to Groups like this? does any one Seriously think They will be returned? Or that Iran will not be upgrading there armory with all the Secrets they gained from The new US Tech this has given them?
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
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BY
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| July 10, 2015 | [email protected] |
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Salahuddin Shishani, the former emir of the Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar who now leads a group of jihadists from the Caucasus in Syria, swore allegiance to the new leader of the Islamic Caucasus Emirate. Shishani and his deputy, Abdul Karim Krymsky, were removed from the leadership of Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar (the Army of the Emigrants and Helpers, or Muhajireen Army) just last month.

Shishani announced his pledge to Muhammad Abu Usman in a short video, nearly three minutes long, that was released by Akhbar Sham, a Russian-language website that previously promoted Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar’s activities and leaders in Syria. The video was also
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, which supports the Islamic Caucasus Emirate. A translation of the video was obtained by The Long War Journal.

The video is titled “Emir Salahuddin Shishani and mujahideen of the Caucasus Emirate in Syria pledge allegiance to the emir of the Caucasus Emirate Abu Usman Gimrinski.” Shishani has called his group of fighters “the Caucasus Emirate in Syria” in the past, and even has been photographed with a flag emblazoned with the words “Imarat Kavkaz.” [See LWJ report,
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.]

In the video, Shishani is seen with a group of masked fighters who are armed with an assortment of assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades. An anti-aircraft gun is also seen in the background.

Shishani begins by lamenting the “various kinds of discord that has [sic] been recently sown among mujahideen that inflicts huge damage on the jihad,” which he notes has occurred “on all fronts of jihad,” even in Syria. He is likely referring to divisions caused by the Islamic State’s rise, but may also be referring to the incident that led to his removal as the emir of Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar. But, he argues, “discord is not the reason to abandon jihad.”

“In order not to stray away from this path, we shall orient ourselves to the unanimous opinion of jihad theologians,” Shishani continues. “We, the Caucasus mujahideen, are pleased to have received the news of appointment of Abu Usman Gimrinski as emir of the Caucasus Emirate…. I, the representative of the Caucasus Emirate in Sham, Shishani, pledge allegiance to Abu Usman Gimrinski and I will obey him as long as he follows the Koran and Sunnah. We also urge all Muslims of the Caucasus to follow suit and consolidate around Sheikh Abu Usman.”

Shishani’s pledge to the Islamic Caucasus Emirate is a much needed boost to the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group, which has been plagued by a string of defections to the Islamic State. However, it is unclear how many fighters Shishani still commands. [See LWJ report,
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.]

Shishani and his deputy, Abdul Karim Krymsky, were removed from their leadership positions in Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar and ordered to leave northern Idlib in Syria in mid-June. The two were accused of threatening members of the group with force and with rejecting sharia, or Islamic law.

A judicial official close to Shishani denied the charges. Akhbar Sham interviewed Sheikh Abd al Mahdi Razziq, originally appointed to serve as a judge who would review the decision to remove Shishani and Krymysky; Razziq described Shishani’s dismissal as a “mistake” and denied that he rejected sharia. A transcript of the interview was
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. Razziq also claimed that the judges had already decided to support Shishani’s dismissal, so he resigned.

It is unlikely that either group will defect from al Qaeda’s camp and join the Islamic State anytime soon. Shishani’s oath to the Islamic Caucasus Emirate puts him in al Qaeda’s sphere of influence. In the past,
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.

The new leadership of Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar also appears to remain loyal to al Qaeda. The Al Nusrah Front was involved in the decision to remove Shishani and Krymysky, and that decision was favorable to Jaish al Muhajireen wal Ansar’s new leadership. According to a translation of the judicial decision by From Chechnya to Syria’s Joanna Paraszczuk, “both parties did agree that Jabhat al Nusra shall enter into the role as an additional partner in this question.” This is supported by Razziq, who noted that Sheikh Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini,
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, was also involved in settling the dispute.
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