Struck off in one blow

Published: August 18, 2014 

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

The Planning Commission needed to be returned to its first purposes, to its transparent and audacious planning for an India progressing without old enervations and new injustices to prosperity.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

The 18th century nursery rhyme, its original probably a riddle, is loved for the one image it invokes — a great fall. The picture of a dumpy egg, of a being crashing to his well-deserved and irreparable end provokes mirth among children. It also provides to short-of-ideas parents and teachers the relief of a successful attempt at distraction.

The Union Planning Commission has been toppled off in a progressively untenable balancing act. Reconciling projection with implementation, performance with evaluation, discussion with allocation has taken its toll.

And applause greets its fall.

I regard this as not just unfair and unfortunate but positively dangerous for with all its Humpty Dumptyness, the Planning Commission represents a crucial strand of our post-Independence self-definition. It represents a people whose leaders very consciously integrated India’s political goals with its social and economic aspirations and made planned economic progress a tool not just for progress per se but for balanced well-being.Origins of planning

The Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological family would do well to note that the first almost rudimentary idea of economic planning as part of republican justice in India arose not from the father of Indian planning, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his exceptional colleague in planning, P.C. Mahalanobis, but from another equally kinetic twosome. In a vital blueprint drawn in 1938 when he was Congress President, Netaji Subhas Bose, with the collaboration of the physicist and mathematician, Meghnad Saha, gave us a glimpse of all that planning for the long term, by an independent and transparent apex, could do for an India of the future.

In his presidential address at the Haripura session of the Congress in February 1938, Netaji envisaged “the first task of the Government of Free India” as being the setting up of a “National Planning Commission” in order to address the task of fighting poverty. He created what was, in effect, the nucleus for the future Union Planning Commission in the National Planning Committee under the aegis of the Indian National Congress, with Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Chairman of the Committee.

DEBUT OF AN OUTSIDER - The prime minister has many ideas, some good, some less so

Writing on the wall - Ashok V. Desai

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140819/jsp/opinion/story_18725604.jsp#.U_KtY_mSxqo

The prime minister’s Independence Day speech was refreshing. He spoke fluently and extempore; he was full of ideas. Some were good, others not quite. The government’s actions affect millions; if it makes mistakes, millions suffer the consequences. Hence it is necessary to identify mistakes before they are made; inaction is better than wrong action. I shall take up some of the prime minister’s ideas, and suggest how he could do better.

The prime minister wants to replace the Planning Commission with something else. Five-year plans are too mechanical. The government has a one-year plan, which is the budget. But it is necessary for governments to look further ahead than a year, since many projects take longer. The Planning Commission had three basic functions. One was to allocate money between the plans of various ministries. Another was to look five years ahead. The third was to allocate Central funds between states. The first can be done by the finance ministry. Fixed five-year plans are a bad idea; but the government should have a rolling plan for up to a dozen years. On the third, the prime minister is discontented with the Planning Commission, having been the chief minister of a state. But a joint institution of the Centre and the states would be a bad idea. Historically, the Indian Constitution created a strong Centre. It is useful in international relations. But we have another arbitrator between the Centre and the states, namely the quinquennial finance commissions. They are small and unbureaucratic, and work fast. The prime minister should think of a permanent or more active finance commission, or give the function to the finance ministry.

The prime minister is keen on manufacture. The world’s leading nations — Britain in the 19th century, the United States of America in the 20th century, Germany and Japan after World War II, China in the past quarter century — have been industry leaders. India tried hard to encourage industry by discriminating against imports after Independence. That policy failed; after the 1991 reforms, India dismantled it. India’s failure in industry rankles many. But as long as workers are moving into more productive activities, it does not matter what those activities are; information technology was not manufacturing, but India did well out of it. It is worth asking what obstructs productive activity. Answers have been available from Transparency International and other bodies for years; the government should look at them and start removing the obstructions they pointed out.

India ranked 5th amongst top 10 wind power producers:

Published: August 18, 2014 

A clutter of windmills near Kaavalkinaru in Tirunelveli district. File Photo

India ranked fifth amongst top ten wind power producers in the world by adding 1,700 MW capacity in 2013, a report said.

“China was the leading wind power producer by adding 16,100 MW capacity in 2013, followed by USA, Germany and Spain,” Renewables 2014 Global Status Report said.

By the end of 2013, China, the US, Brazil, Canada and Germany remained the top countries for total installed renewable power capacity, the report said.

According to the report, over the past few years the costs of electricity generation from onshore wind and particularly solar PV (photo-voltaic) have fallen sharply which has resulted in an increase in wind and solar power projects being built without public financial support.

In terms of annual investment in the wind energy sector and production, China ranked number one followed by Germany, UK, India and Canada.

Worldwide more than 35,000 MW wind power capacity was added taking the total number to 3,18,000 MW in 2013 to which India contributed 1,700 MW.

“The wind industry continued to be challenged by downward pressure on prices, increased competition among turbine manufacturers, decline in key markets among other reasons,” it added.

About 40,000 MW of new hydro power capacity was commissioned in 2013 increasing the total global capacity by 4 per cent to approximately 1,000,000 MW.

By far the most capacity was commissioned in China (29,000 MW), with significant capacity also added in Turkey, Brazil, Vietnam, India and Russia.

India, which added more than 4,000 MW renewable capacity in 2013 also plans to increase the capacity to 55,000 MW by 2017 from the current level of around 30,000 MW.

http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/india-ranked-5th-amongst-top-10-wind-power-producers-report/article6328884.ece

The Maoist example

Yubaraj Ghimire | August 19, 2014

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-maoist-example/99/

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hope that Nepal’s Maoists would leave their history of violence behind and help deliver the constitution mirrors the collective wish of the Nepalese people, now fading. That Modi chose to mention it from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort on August 15 sent a powerful message across the border. Modi issued no appeal to Indian Maoists to come forward for dialogue and shun violence, but he gave enough indication that the success of Nepal’s example would influence the course of Indian Maoism.

Indian Maoists have called their Nepalese comrades — once part of the larger campaign in South Asia under the common banner of CCOMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia) — “revisionists” and “betrayers”. If they do come to a peace process, it will be more under domestic compulsions and their own calculations than inspiration from Nepal’s Maoists.

But Modi’s consistency and focus on Nepal has put Nepal’s political actors in a tight spot. Coinciding with the expression of Indian concern at the highest level, European and other Western donors have scaled down their support to the campaign for ethnicity- and caste-based federalism. That alone, however, does not guarantee the constitution will be delivered on time.

“It will not invite a political disaster if the final draft of the constitution is not ready by the January 22 deadline,” said Sher Bahadur Deuba, former PM and senior leader of the ruling Nepali Congress. Given the speculation about the health of PM Sushil Koirala, Deuba is being seen as a likely successor. Thus, the failure to have the draft ready by January 22 will be to his disadvantage. But the prevailing uncertainty about the government’s leadership and its impact on the coalition is not the only factor raising doubts about the constitution.

Painted into a corner

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/painted-into-a-corner/99/

Christophe Jaffrelot | August 19, 2014

In 2011, Khan held a meeting in Lahore attracting about 1,00,000 people, a turning point.

Government’s handling of the constitutional amendment bill has set up a face-off between executive and judiciary.

If one goes by the media coverage of Imran Khan’s Azadi March from Lahore to Islamabad last Saturday — strident, anecdotal and picturesque as it has to be on TV — one may conclude that he has become the leader of the opposition, even if this title is officially held by Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). But after a week in Islamabad, including a day and half a night watching the cavalcade and listening to the speeches of Imran Khan and his lieutenants, I could not help but wonder if he can conceal the obvious weaknesses of his strategy.

Khan founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in 1996, four years after winning the cricket World Cup. But the party bagged only one seat in 2002, Imran’s own, and boycotted the 2008 elections. The PTI began to gain in 2011 by capitalising on two themes: the defence of national sovereignty vis-à-vis the US (especially after drone strikes in the Pashtun belt) and the fight against corruption, the scourge of Pakistan that had reached new highs under Asif Ali Zardari. In 2011, Khan held a meeting in Lahore attracting about 1,00,000 people, a turning point.

Imran Khan’s popularity owed largely to the fact that he was in tune with the expectations of many Pakistanis, including the urban middle class and the youth. The formula “Naya Pakistan”, which was extensively used by the Pakistani media to describe the atmosphere of the 2013 elections — which registered a record turnout — was originally the PTI’s campaign slogan. The party, which made inroads in the big cities, came second in Faisalabad and Karachi. It also came second at the national level with 16.7 per cent of valid votes against the 15.1 per cent of the PPP, which was relegated to third position for the first time, though it won more seats than the PTI.

The calm in Kabul

Vivek Katju | August 19, 2014 

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-calm-in-kabul/99/

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and Afghanistan's presidential candidates Ashraf Ghani, and Abdulah Abdullah hold their arms in the air together after announcing a deal for the auditing of all Afghan election votes at the United Nations Compound in Kabul. (Source: A Government’s handling of the constitutional amendment bill has set up a face-off between executive and judiciary.

US secretary of State John Kerry was compelled to visit Kabul on August 7 and 8 to mediate between the Afghan presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, after the election audit and power-sharing deal brokered by him on July 13 unravelled. Both candidates had failed to agree on the basic principle for the identification of the fraudulent votes cast in the second round of the polls. They were also unable to make headway on forming a national unity government, a key part of the deal.

Till Kerry’s August visit, it seemed that the audit would go on for months and the unsuccessful candidate, most likely Abdullah, would reject the results. These developments were leading to a major political fracture and the army was in danger of splitting on ethnic lines. An invigorated Taliban, with Pakistan’s support, is waiting to launch a major move, possibly even take over territory in the south and east. Afghanistan was on the edge of a precipice. Has the August 8 agreement kept the country from tipping over?

Both candidates have now agreed to ensure that the audit concludes soon so that the new president can take over by August. This would enable him to attend the Nato summit on September 4 and 5, where the organisation’s post-2015 plans for Afghanistan would be finalised. Both candidates, unlike President Hamid Karzai, have agreed to sign a bilateral security agreement with the US as soon as they assume office. Nato has threatened a full pullout from Afghanistan by 2014 unless the agreement is signed. Obviously neither candidate wants this. An immediate total withdrawal, which would result in vastly reduced financial flows, would be catastrophic.

Not a zero-sum game

By: Daniel Carmon
August 19, 2014 
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/not-a-zero-sum-game/99/

The next phase of the rehabilitation in Gaza has to be monitored by the international community for the well-being of Palestinians. It has to entail a free, peaceful and prosperous society not captive to Hamas.

Once again, another ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is about to expire. Almost all parties involved in the indirect negotiations or affected by it share the expectation to reach a lasting agreement or at least extend the ceasefire. All but Hamas. This terrorist organisation had already rejected a few Egyptian proposals for a long-term Gaza truce. Hamas’s spokesman even said on Monday that if Israel will not accept all their demands it will “face a long war”.

Israel’s operation in Gaza over the past month is first and foremost a reaction to the terrorist organisation Hamas’s aggression, as more than 20,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and other terror organisations since 2007. Rockets are aimed to kill. Even the smallest of the more than 3,300 Hamas projectiles launched at Israel since July 7 can kill. Mortar shells that were fired and hit Israel caused a number of casualties in Israel, while in other cases they landed on the Palestinian side causing civilian casualties there too.

Israel completely evacuated the Gaza Strip in 2005 and handed over the keys to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel’s wish — and the international community’s dream — was to see Palestinians take responsibility for their own fate and to show the world their capability of successfully managing their territory.

Unfortunately, this did not happen. In 2007, the terror organisation Hamas violently seized control of the territory of Gaza and imposed its ruthless rule on the population in an actual coup d’état against the PA.

The importance of being moderate

The Statesman, 19 Aug 2014

Andrew Sheng

The 19th century playwright and wit, Oscar Wilde, who wrote the successful play, The Importance of Being Earnest, made his name by playing with words in contradiction and double meaning. Earnest was not just the name of a principal character in the play, but also meant being determined. Wilde, a man of notable success and excesses, said “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

So are we living in a world of success or excess?

For the silent majority who go about earning our living and leaving politics to the politicians and religion to God, it seems that the world is becoming more and more polarised ~ fundamentalism is on the rise and extremism is winning.

I have a collection of books on Western philosophy that divided history into different ages. The Renaissance period (14th to 17th century) was the Age of Adventure. The 17th century was the Age of Reason, when logic and mathematics flourished. The Age of Enlightenment described the 18th century, but the 19th century became the Age of Ideology with the rise of Capitalism, Socialism and the like. The 20th century was the Age of Analysis, when computers and data enabled us to become very empirical and rational.

Unfortunately, the 21st century is an Age of Uncertainty, when even science is no longer sure of anything. With our spacecraft and super-telescopes, we looked out further and further and realised that there were not only more and more universes out there, but also black holes that we cannot understand. With our microscopes, we see smaller and smaller things and then realised that even the smallest particles disappear into energy and concepts we are only just beginning to appreciate, let alone measure.

If we believed in Hollywood, an American way of life would be nirvana. There are many in this world who are no longer so sure. Such a life of materialist consumerism is possible for the few, but certainly not for the majority.

It is this Age of Uncertainty that has created polarisation and extremism in views and excesses. We are not sure where to go and he who shouts loudest appears to have the most attention.

A lot of this has to do with democracy. No one disagrees that democracy has become the accepted ideology of our age. Even Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe accepts the principle of democracy ~ after all, he has won every election he has participated in, but not everyone would agree with his methods of governance.

** A moral foundation for foreign policy

Vijay Prashad

August 18, 2014 

The Indian people’s role in this is to push their government on issues where Indian leverage is meaningful. Today it is for Palestine. Tomorrow it might be for the Yazidis.

Turmoil in Greater Arabia has made the clocks move faster. Every second counts — an Israeli bomb has dropped in this neighbourhood in Gaza, an Egyptian blogger has been arrested here, a town in northern Iraq has fallen to the Islamic State. The fast pace of news makes it difficult to digest the region’s rhythms of history. What is at stake here? Is this a grand battle between various Islamic sects, or do those surface fights hide greater geopolitical challenges? Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey seem stable. But have they exported their tensions to create instability in Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Syria? Or even more diabolical, have old Cold War animosities (between Russia and the West) revived — spilling blood in an anachronistic proxy war? So much seems at stake and yet so little of Greater Arabia and its politics is understood. It is far easier to reduce everything to a cliché, to religious and social backwardness. It is exactly the least useful way to understand the region.

West’s approach

Citizens are welcome to their prejudices, but governments cannot afford them. In the interstate system, governments have to engage each other for interstate benefits (such as trade) and to maintain peace through international law. An erroneous view of the social dynamics in a region does not help in the formation of national and international policy. The West, for instance, approaches Syria with an anachronistic view — that it is embroiled in a civil war between Authoritarianism (the Assad regime) and Freedom (the rebels). If this view was correct in late 2011, it is certainly not the case now. But western policy has not changed, which means that the West has few options when it comes to its intervention in the region. The Islamic State, for instance, cannot be tackled by a few bombing runs by the West. It will require collaboration with the governments of Iraq, Syria and Turkey to contain the Islamic State’s rapid advance. The West’s inability to engage Syria means that it has no meaningful strategy to take on the Islamic State.

When U.S. President Barack Obama said, “America is coming to help” in northern Iraq, he misled world opinion. What the U.S. did was to bomb an artillery battery that the Islamic State had stolen from the Iraqi Army in Mosul and was now using to threaten America’s close ally, Iraqi Kurdistan. That bombing did not actually help the 40,000 Yazidis trapped on Mt. Sinjar. On the ground, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian ally (YPG) had left their bases in Syria and Turkey to rush to Mt. Sinjar. They took the towns of Gwer and Makhmur, before seizing Lalesh, home of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir’s tomb, spiritual heart of the Yazidis. When the USAID workers arrived by helicopter to Mt. Sinjar, the YPG and PKK fighters greeted them. The U.S. could not admit this in public because under pressure from its NATO ally Turkey, it has notified the PKK as a terrorist organisation. Mr. Obama’s paternalist humanitarianism comes out of a frozen sense of America’s place in the world. There is a failure to recognise that non-state actors cannot be tackled by conventional weaponry and strategy. Indeed, the old ways (the full-scale assault on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya) produce more problems than they solve. It takes a hundred years to build the institutions of a state. They can be destroyed from 30,000 feet in an afternoon. A few bags of food from the sky do not make up for that catastrophe.

**** On the frontline, 100 years ago

August 17, 2014 

A 1920 painting by Thomas Flowerday Clarke titled The second ride of Lance Dafadar Gobind Singh, VC at Peizieres France Dec 1, 1917.

UK honours First World War Indian heroes

UDE Singh I 14th Sikh Regiment: Third battle of Krithia

They were part of the British Indian Army that fought in the First World War. They braved gunfire, saved lives and chased enemies out of trenches, largely unacknowledged by history. As the world marks the centenary of that war, their families recall their stories of valour.

Battle of Cambria

By Samudra Gupta Kashyap

Nothing would deter Gobind Singh Rathore from delivering the message. Not enemy fire. Not his dead horse. Not even sheer exhaustion.

The story goes thus: On December 1, 1917, the 2nd Lancers (Gardner’s Horse) unit of the British Indian army was surrounded by enemy German forces in Epehy, France, at the height of the Battle of Cambrai. The unit was cut off from its brigade, headquartered six miles away, on the outskirts of Peizieres. Someone had to ride a horse to Peizieres to deliver a message about the unit’s siege by the Germans. Lance Dafadar Gobind Singh Rathore and Sowar Jot Ram volunteered to do so.

Both were given different routes. Ram was killed on the way in enemy fire. Rathore galloped along until, half a mile later, his horse was shot dead in a hail of gunfire. He briefly lay near his horse, and then, hoping he wasn’t being watched, got up and ran furiously. More gunfire followed. Rathore fell down, pretending to be dead, and then got up and ran. This went on till he finally got to the brigade headquarters. Now, a message had to be relayed back to the unit at Epehy. He mounted another horse, but two-thirds into the journey, the animal was shot dead. He ran back under enemy fire to his unit.

An hour later, another message had to be sent to the HQ and Rathore volunteered again. His colleagues told him that he’d taken enough risks, but he said that he knew the route like no one else did. So he set off on another horse. Half way through Epehy, a direct hit from a shell cut his horse into two, and Rathore ran on foot again. Dehydrated and wounded, he arrived at the HQ, where he volunteered to make another trip, but was denied permission.

Dukhtar: A Woman’s Story in Pakistan

By Sonya Rehman

August 17, 2014

An independent Pakistani filmmaker defies the odds to tackle an important human rights issue. 

Slated for release this year, the film, Dukhtar (Persian for “Daughter”), by Afia Nathaniel, an independent Pakistani filmmaker, has begun to generate quite a buzz in the local entertainment industry.

A nail-biting, ambitious drama/thriller set in northern Pakistan, Dukhtar follows Allah Rakhi and her young daughter, Zainab, who are on the run. The production is based on a human rights issue significant to South Asia: child marriages. On discovering that her 10-year-old daughter is to be wed to a tribal leader, Tor Khan, Allah Rakhi embarks on a tense escape from her village with her little girl in tow.

In 1999, Nathaniel heard of a story she never forgot: A Pakistani woman had left her husband and fled with her daughters, only to be persistently hunted by her family. The filmmaker was inspired. “Her journey of escape was a harrowing tale spread over several years,” Nathaniel says, “What remained in my mind was the vision of this one woman and her extraordinary courage.”

Nathaniel wrote Dukhtar while undertaking an MFA in Film Directing at Columbia University in New York. While at grad school the filmmaker found herself feeling extremely nostalgic about her homeland; writing provided a much-needed, cathartic release. “The writer in me found a way to connect with home through this story. And the wanderer in me crafted the character of Allah Rakhi so I could give her the freedom to find a new life with her daughter.”

“I come from a family of very strong women,” Nathaniel says. “Women who have endured tough lives to give a better life to their children.” Through Dukhtar, Nathaniel hopes that the sacrifices made by Pakistani women for their children are never forgotten.

Interestingly, in creating Allah Rakhi’s character, the filmmaker drew on her own maternal great grandmother, a tough woman who went against the grain, living a life of strength, courage, grace and resilience.

“My great grandmother became a widow very early in life in Quetta and her husband left her penniless with four young children,” Nathaniel states, “She became a school teacher and raised her four children by herself, choosing to stay in Quetta alone rather than going back to the tribal areas where she came from. She had a will of steel and nothing deterred her in life. So while I was filming Dukhtar I felt very close to the spirit of her journey. And from it, I derived a lot of strength to undertake this very ambitious film project.”

The Foreign Policy Essay: Afghan Lessons Learned

By Bruce Riedel

August 10, 2014 

Editor’s Note: The United States is supporting the Afghan government with troops and other military assistance in the fight against Islamist radicals based in Pakistan. As the United States ponders its policy options, it would do well to heed lessons from a time when the situation was reversed. In one of America’s biggest Cold War successes, the Carter and Reagan administrations supported the anti-Soviet mujahedin in Afghanistan and helped them defeat the Soviet Union. Bruce Riedel, author of the newly released What We Won: America’s Secret War in Afghanistan, identifies lessons from the anti-Soviet struggle and contends that the United States risks repeating some of Moscow’s many mistakes.

***

Twenty five years ago, after 3,331 days of war, the Soviet 40th Red Army retreated in defeat from Afghanistan. An American-led coalition had orchestrated support for the Afghan mujahedin that shattered the myth of Red Army invincibility. The CIA had won the last and decisive battle of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall fell within months of the Soviets’ defeat in Afghanistan and the Warsaw Pact disintegrated. The danger of nuclear war between the two super powers, which had terrorized the world for generations, vanished overnight.

This secret war a quarter century ago holds many lessons for Americans considering how to react to crises in 2014. At a cost of roughly $3 billion and without a single American casualty, the secret American war in Afghanistan may have been the most successful covert action in our nation’s history. It was a bipartisan victory. President Jimmy Carter created the coalition of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Britain and others that secretly backed the mujahedin in just a few weeks after the Russian invasion in early 1980. President Ronald Reagan continued the covert campaign and then escalated it in 1986 to victory. The Congress was not only kept fully informed on the war, it was an enthusiastic supporter.

Covert actions can produce significant policy successes if they are well planned, have achievable goals, are supported by robust coalitions, and exploit enemy weaknesses. But they inevitably have unforeseen consequences which must be understood in real time, not after the fact.

Days after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979, Carter told the CIA to turn Afghanistan into Russia’s Vietnam, a quagmire that would bog Moscow down in an endless insurgency. The goal was simple and clear cut. The Afghans were eager to fight the Russians; all they needed was weapons. In 1986, at the prompting of Pakistan’s dictator, Zia-ul-Haq, Reagan gave the mujahedin Stinger surface-to-air missiles. In less than six months, both the Russians and Iranians had captured Stingers, but Reagan did not stop supplying them. He was not paralyzed by fear of weapons falling into the wrong hands; it was a price worth paying for victory.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security advisor, traveled in early 1980 to Asia to assemble the alliance that defeated Russia. Bill Casey, Reagan’s CIA director, guided it to victory. Zia was the keystone of the alliance. Carter and Reagan both put aside their concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear program to focus on the more immediate goal.

China: The Danger From Within

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/china/articles/20140817.aspx 

August 16, 2014: The government anti-corruption campaign has prosecuted more high-ranking thieves recently, and a lot more lower-ranking officials as well. This campaign has been going on longer, and taking down more people than any previous effort. The government also insists that this campaign will not, as in the past, simply diminish and fade away as past anti-corruption efforts have. This worries a lot of Chinese, even though most admit that the corruption is the greatest threat the current communist government faces. The potential problem is the growing risk that corrupt businessmen and officials who fear prosecution will get organized and fight back. This could mean anything from assassinations of politicians backing the prosecutions to the worst case; another civil war. The fears are real because most Chinese with a lot of money (the top one percent of wealthy Chinese basically own a third of the wealth and control most of the economy) had to deal with corruption (either enthusiastically or out of necessity) to get where they are. If supreme leader Xi Jinping and his anti-corruption allies are to succeed they must continue their efforts (to greatly diminish the corruption and keep it diminished) without triggering a violent response. Where this gets tricky is figuring out how to deal with all those senior government officials who are dirty, especially since a lot of them would rather not be. Worse yet, Xi Jinping has broken a long-observed, but unwritten, rule against prosecuting the most senior officials. Xi Jinping is now doing that and this makes many Chinese, and non-Chinese nervous. 

The obvious solution to this problem involves giving a lot of the corrupt a way to obtain some form of amnesty and have the anti-corruption effort concentrate on the worst offenders. If there are no rules or guidelines on how this will proceed, opposition may form and get violent. Meanwhile a growing number of wealthy Chinese and senior government officials are moving assets, and sometimes family, to other countries. Just in case. This sort of moving cash out of the country is often illegal and it is estimated that over a trillion dollars have been moved since 2002. More wealthy Chinese are now being prosecuted for this money laundering, which often left a lot more clues behind in the West (where the money landed) than in China (where financial records are less regulated and more subject to tampering.) China did not even start investigating and prosecuting this sort of thing until 2013. 

The government recently concluded several months of intense anti-Japanese propaganda in state controlled mass media. Most of this consisted to broadcasting details of Japanese atrocities during World War II. All this is because Japan decided (according to diplomatic messages decrypted after the war by the U.S.), even before their surrender in 1945, to play the victim when it came to their responsibility for horrific wartime actions. While this played well in Japan, it annoyed and disturbed the neighbors. Some Japanese understand what is going on here, but because the Japanese educational system is based on this 1945 decision (which played down Japanese atrocities in Japanese textbooks and media in general) most Japanese cannot understand the reaction of foreigners when it comes to Japan and World War II. Among Chinese, too many (as far as the government is concerned) note that, while the Japanese are guilty as charged, their own government is not much better. During World War II the communists were into atrocities as well, although not as massively and effectively as the Japanese. Then after the war this bad behavior continued. Most Chinese know about the massive starvation and political killings in the 1950s and 1960s and how their government continues to try and hide what actually went on. Many Chinese still regard Mao Zedong as a hero, even though his polices led to the death of over 20 million Chinese and the impoverishment of most of the population. When Mao died in 1976 his fellow communists (who had survived the many purges ordered by Mao) took a different path and made China what it is today. Despite that success, the Chinese leaders, like their Japanese counterparts, continue to try and hide the ugly past and learn nothing from it. 

China's Xinjiang policy: A Middle East headache

15 August 2014

China wants to play an active and constructive role in achieving peace in the Middle East.

That's what Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, recently said when reiterating Foreign Minister Wang Yi's 'Five Point Proposal' promoting an end to violence in Gaza. This was presented as an extension of Xi Jinping's May 2013 'Four Point Proposal' on the Palestine issue.

While China seeks to project a soft-power image with such proposals, China's domestic policy in Xinjiang threatens to undermine its potential to move toward a more active and constructive Middle East policy.

In China, religious activity is strictly monitored and regulated by the Communist Party, which fears any belief system that may undermine its authority. While restrictive policies have been in place for a number of years, in reaction to the spate of attacks and violence in Xinjiang since last year, the Chinese Government has enforced further regulations curbing expressions of Islamic identity in the region. During the month of Ramadan, several government departments required employees to sign pledges to not fast. In universities, Muslim students were forced to eat meals with professors to ensure government orders were being followed. This policy was only applied to Muslims in Xinjiang — other Muslim minorities, such as the Hui, living in other parts of China, were not subject to the same restrictions.

While onlookers in Beijing may interpret these as necessary precautions against the spread of terrorism and extremism, or as evidence of the Government's unwavering authority in Xinjiang, China's restrictive policies are further fueling anti-government sentiment among the Uighur population. On the day before Eid al-Fitr, nearly 100 people were killed in the violence that ensued when government buildings, police stations and vehicles were attacked in the western city of Yarkand. Shortly afterwards, Jume Tahir, the government-appointed Imam of Kashgar's Grand Mosque and vocal advocate of the Party's anti-terror policies, was stabbed to death.

China's Xinjiang policy is counterproductive to its image across the Middle East, as demonstrated by anti-Chinaprotests held in Saudi Arabia and Turkey in July.

SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTES: CHINA HAS EVIDENCE OF HISTORICAL CLAIMS – ANALYSIS

By Li Dexia and Tan Keng Tat

AUGUST 16, 2014

China possesses historical references dating back to the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127AD), which cannot be fairly presented in such a short commentary.

Bill Hayton, in his RSIS Commentary entitled The Paracels: Historical Evidence Must Be Examined,’ asserted that “Advocates of the Chinese territorial claim to the islands of the South China Sea frequently cite vague historical references in support of their arguments”. This assertion in article has no merit.

China’s territorial claim is based on centuries of verifiable historical records, long-term use, treaties, international/customary laws plus records from the prodigious sea voyages of the Yuan and Ming dynasties. China was the world’s predominant maritime power between 1292 to 1433.

Early Chinese references to Paracels

To obliquely imply China was incapable of first discovery of islands in the South China Sea flies in the face of logic. To expect anyone to present the litany of verifiable evidence, dating from the Northern Song dynasty would require a monograph, not a short article as this. Manila’s legal brief to support its claim to some Nansha (Spratly) Islands and the Huangyan (Scarborough) Island, exceeds 4,000 pages.

Hayton’s claim that none of the references to ancient documents that mention ‘the Sea’ or ‘islands’ can be identified with any specific islands, is baseless.

One of the earliest Chinese references to today’s Xisha (Paracels) is the “Chu Fan Chi” a 13th century book, translated by Friedrich Hirth and W.W. Rockhill in 1911, into ‘Chau Ju-kua: His work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the 12th and 13th Centuries’. Chau, the customs inspector of foreign trade in Fujian province, wrote “To the East of (Hainan island) are the ‘Chien-li chang-sha’ and the ‘Wan-li shih-chuang’”. Both translators agreed they referred to the Paracels.

In 1292 the Yuan Emperor, who sent a 1,000-ship expeditionary force to Java to attack King Kertanegara for assaulting an envoy, sailed through ‘Ch’i-chou yang’ (Paracels) and ‘Wan-li shi-tang’ (Spratlys).

During the Ming dynasty period when China was the world’s sole maritime power from 1405-1433, Admiral Zheng He set sail with 317 ships passing through ‘Wan-sheng shih tang’ (Paracels) and ‘Shih-shing Shi-tang’ (Spratlys) enroute to Champa (part of old Vietnam), Malacca, India and later East Africa.

In 1730, Chen Lun-Chiung’s book ‘Notes on land across the sea’, described the geographical positions of the Paracels and Spratlys. In his ‘General map of four seas’, the Paracels were described as ‘Ch’i-chou yang’ and Spratlys as ‘Shih-tang’.

The Foreign Policy Essay: Where is Japan Headed?

By Jonathan Pollack

August 17, 2014

Editor’s Note: Sixty-nine years ago, on August 15, 1945, Japanese emperor Hirohito took to the airwaves to deliver the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War, announcing to the Japanese people that the government had accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration calling for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military to the allied forces. Just last month, Japan’s cabinet made the historic decision to embrace collective self-defense and expand its national security role. Although neighboring states and many Japanese remain skeptical, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe believes that Japan’s changing security position requires a more regionally- and globally-engaged Japan. Jonathan D. Pollack, my colleague at Brookings who is a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies, analyzes Abe’s decision, offering insights into why the prime minister has pushed the change and the security implications of this move.

***

On July 1, 2014, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced long-anticipated measures that could result in the most important changes in Japanese national security strategy in more than six decades. Unveiled as a cabinet decision, the changes represent the biggest revisions in the country’s defense policy since adoption of the 1947 constitution prepared during the American occupation of Japan. Rather than propose constitutional revision, the Abe administration is advocating constitutional reinterpretation, for which the barriers to legislative approval are far less demanding. These steps presume an inherent right to collective self-defense, as permitted under the United Nations charter, though the cabinet document does not make explicit reference to this term. If implemented, the changes will extend Japanese security policy well beyond the constraints operative throughout Japan’s postwar history. Given that we have just marked the 69th anniversary of Japan’s unconditional surrender to the allied forces in World War II, it is a fitting time to examine what these policy changes could mean for Japan, the region, and the world.

The pronouncements represent the most recent efforts to redefine Japan’s contributions to international security following the end of the Cold War. Prime Minister Abe believes that current national defense policy limits Japan’s ability to protect its fundamental interests. The United States has welcomed these efforts, believing that Tokyo should assume a role more commensurate with its standing as a major power. By design, there is an inherent asymmetry in the U.S.-Japan security relationship. U.S. forces are unequivocally committed to the defense of Japan, without clarity in Japan’s precise contributions to U.S. strategy. This uneven alliance bargain was inherent in the security arrangements that the United States established decades ago. The question is whether these arrangements are sustainable for either Japan or the United States and the consequences for East Asia if they are not.

The cabinet announcement argues that growing threats to Japanese security necessitate these changes. The document states that “the international environment surrounding Japan has become increasingly severe.” It advocates more active measures to prevent conflict and deter possible threats to national security. The principal factors preoccupying Japanese defense planners are North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities and China’s increased military reach, especially Beijing’s maritime and air patrols near the Senkaku Islands (known to the Chinese as the Diaoyus), where China openly contests Japan’s claims to sovereignty. The cabinet document also draws attention to broader technological changes in warfare and to new risks such as cybersecurity, claiming that “any threats, irrespective of where they originate in the world, could have a direct influence on the security of Japan.”

Artillery: The Guns Of August In Iraq

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20140817.aspx

August 17, 2014: How did ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) come to be using American artillery in northern Iraq? Some of these 155mm howitzers are being operated by ISIL and they have been prime targets for U.S. air attacks because the Islamic terrorists were able to use these big guns. There was nothing mysterious about this, at least not if you paid attention to the recent history of Iraq. 

When ISIL overran northern Iraq in early June the Islamic terrorists captured a lot of heavy weapons used by the Iraqi Army. Over the last few years the U.S. has sold lots of used heavy weapons to Iraq at attractive prices. This has included 1,026 M-113 armored personnel carriers, 140 M-1A1 tanks, 21 M88A1 armored recovery vehicles and 60 M1070 tank transporters (which can also carry supplies or other vehicles.) Iraq also bought 24 M-109A5 self-propelled 155mm artillery, and 120 M198 155mm towed howitzers along with thousands of hummers and military trucks, plus infantry weapons, engineer gear and other military equipment. 

In June ISIL captured about fifty of those M198 155mm towed howitzers and began looking for someone to operate this stuff. That was not difficult. This was because Sunni Arabs got most of the leadership (officer, senior NCO) and technical (like operating artillery) jobs during the decades of Saddam’s rule. ISIL has a large pool of experienced users of artillery. While most Iraqi artillery was Russian, they also had over a hundred Western 155mm models, like the South African GHN-45. This weapon was not only similar to the M198 but superior in some ways (like longer range). The main reason the U.S. disbanded the Iraqi armed forces after 2003 was the fact that nearly all the key personnel were Sunni Arabs, who had just lost power and access to most of the oil income. That loss of power and privilege made most Sunni Arabs very angry and that’s why to this day most Islamic terrorists in Iraq are Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Thus ISIL knew it had a waiting supply of qualified soldiers who knew how to operate an M198 and many were willing to do it without too much prompting. 

Until the end of the 20th century the M198 was the standard towed 155mm howitzer for the United States and many NATO counties. Each one weighs eight tons, and can fire conventional rounds as far as 22.4 kilometers (for rocket-assisted projectiles, the range is 30 kilometers). These unguided shells land anywhere within a 200 meter circle. That's at 25 kilometers range. Accuracy gets worse at longer ranges. It takes 12 minutes for the M198 to be ready to fire after the truck towing it stops. It can pack up and move again in about 4 minutes. Using GPS the M198 can be in position to fire in less than ten minutes and shift to another target in about 8 minutes. ISIL are excellent for bombarding cities and towns, which is what ISIL was using them for.

An Underground Maginot Line? Gaza's Tunnels Are Not the Future of War

Forget those pesky smart bombs. We might be in the Age of the Combat Engineer...or not.

Michael Peck

August 18, 2014 

Source Link

Editor’s Note: Please check out our recent “Weapons of War” series including:Five NATO Weapons of War Russia Should Fear, Five Russian Weapons of War NATO Should Fear, Five Chinese Weapons of War America Should Fear, Five American Weapons of War China Should Fear, Five Japanese Weapons of War China Should Fear, Five Best Weapons of War from the Soviet Union and Five Taiwanese Weapons of War China Should Fear.

Judging by the furor over Hamas' tunnel network in Gaza, one would expect every insurgent group and irregular army on Earth to grab a shovel and start digging.

Israel knew that Hamas had dug tunnels. Israel was shocked at how many tunnels there were. Hamas had built concrete-lined passages almost seventy feet deep, and wide enough to ride a vehicle through.

Not only were the tunnels a way for Hamas fighters to force the Israelis to play whack-a-mole with gunmen popping in and out from holes in the ground, they also crossed the border into southern Israel, enabling Hamas to attack towns and military bases. In other words, tunnels weren't just a means for the weaker side to level the playing field. They were an offensive weapon for carrying the war into enemy territory.

Hamas picked up the tunnel trick from Hezbollah, whose extensive network in southern Lebanon had frustrated Israeli armor and infantry in the 2006 war. In turn, Hezbollah learned from Iran, whose troops burrowed underground during the long First World War-style trench warfare of the Iran-Iraq War. And now the spade had dug full circle, as Hezbollah and Iran battle Syrian rebels who are busily digging their own tunnels.

Even the United States isn't blind to the threat of tunnels. Last year, the U.S. military asked the defense industry to come up with technologies for fighting in subterranean battlefields. Perhaps there are ghosts roaming the halls of the Pentagon; dim institutional memories of the Viet Cong tunnels at Cu Chi or Japanese tunnels at Iwo Jima.

Forget the smart bombs. We might be in the Age of the Combat Engineer.

Yet before we resign ourselves to being cast into the subsoil depths, there are a few reasons why tunnels may not be the battlefield of the future. Before you can build a subterranean Maginot Line, you need a few ingredients.

First, you need time. These aren't hasty field fortifications dug by an infantry platoon or bomb shelters scooped out by desperate insurgents. They are carefully designed fighting positions. Hamas devoted at least five years to building its tunnel system. If these tunnels are being dug covertly—and to do otherwise would defeat the purpose—then construction is slow and careful.

Second, you need resources and skills. It's not that tunnels have to be expensive and resource-intensive; the prisoners in World War II's "Great Escape" were built with homemade tools and funded by sweat. But Hezbollah's tunnels were furnished with electricity, water pipes and latrines, while Gaza's tunnels are lined with scarce, imported concrete that Hamas diverted from the civilian economy.

Danish Security Service Publishes Threat Assessment on Foreign Fighters in Syria

August 15, 2014

The Center for Terror Analysis of the Danish Security Service, the PET, have published online a 6-page unclassified intelligence threat assessment on the danger posed by foreign fighters currently operating in Syria with various militant groups, especially ISIS.

The report discloses that more than 100 Danes are currently believed to be fighting with these militant groups in Syria, and that 15 have been killed. The report also notes that a small but growing number of Danes are now leaving home to fight with ISIS in Iraq.

This very interesting intelligence assessment can be read here.

Syria: Rebuild, Reinforce And Prepare To Retake

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/syria/articles/20140815.aspx

August 15, 2014: In the north ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) is advancing around the northern city of Aleppo, which has been a battleground since 2011. Aleppo is the second largest city in Syria and most of its residents have fled the years of fighting (not the mention the loss of water, sewage, electrical and other municipal services). In the last few months the army has been taking advantage of the fighting between ISIL and the other rebels to rebuild, reinforce and prepare to retake area lost to the rebels in the last three years. ISIL has been winning the civil war within the rebel movement in part because their main opponent, the Syria based Islamic terrorist group al Nusra has been suffering a lot of desertions, especially among non-Syrian Islamic terrorists. Some of the al Nusra men have quit the fighting entirely because of all this fighting between Islamic terrorists. 

Most of the foreign Islamic terrorists are attracted to ISIL because this group is the embodiment of the kind of Old School Islam that is preached by fundamentalist clerics, especially in the Arabian Peninsula. Beheading your enemies, stoning adulterers to death and cutting the hands off thieves is exciting for these guys who tend to be in their teens and twenties attracted by the prospect of sex, violence and righteous retribution against the enemies of Islamic radicalism (which includes most Moslems and all non-Moslems). The sex angle is taken care of by forcing families to marry their daughters to successful Islamic terrorists. Some ISIL factions have interpreted portions of the koran to justify the taking of young women as slaves and using them for sex as well as manual labor. It’s all about being more hard core than any other Islamic radical group and you keep score with dead bodies and horrific headlines. The Assads who have run Syria since the 1960s have seen this before and know that these fanatics eventually self-destruct. So in northern Syria the army gets stronger (via new Russian weapons and more Iranian training and financial support) and prepares to take on ISIL once these Islamic terrorists have defeated or absorbed all the other Islamic terrorists and secular rebels around Aleppo. The army has air support, artillery and effective training and battlefield advice from the Iranians. While ISIL is still a formidable force, they can be beaten and the Syrian army believes they have the knowledge and ability to do it regularly. 

Outside the capital (Damascus) the army continues to clear rebels out of the many neighborhoods they have been active in for the last three years. ISIL has not shown up much hear, not yet. Since the al Nusra and secular rebels continue to make terror attacks in Damascus the government considers clearing out the suburbs a high priority task. 

In eastern Syria ISIL has had problems with former allies (local tribes) and rival rebel groups who both still oppose ISIL control of the area. ISIL has adopted a “kill them all” policy to such opponents and those opponents have vowed to return the favor. The army is concentrating on western Syria, where is has experienced growing success. 

Casualties in Syria are still running at close to a thousand dead a week. At this rate the total dead for the war that began in 2011 will be over 200,000 by the end of the year. 

In July ISIL declared the parts of Syria and Iraq it controlled were the new Moslem caliphate. Naturally the ISIL leaders are running this new caliphate and are calling on all Moslems to follow them. Most Moslems have responded, according to recent opinion polls, by expressing greater fear rather than more admiration for Islamic terrorist groups, especially ISIL. In the meantime (earlier in 2014) al Qaeda leadership condemned ISIL as completely out of control and not to be trusted or supported. While this sort of opposition inspire the most radical Moslems to support or join ISIL, the vast majority of Moslems have been horrified. In the last year opinion polls show Moslems becoming more hostile to Islamic terrorists in general, seeing them as a cause for concern not as defenders of Islam. The same thing happened back in 2007 when Iraqi Sunnis reached the limit of endless Islamic terrorist violence against other Moslems and turned on Iraqi Islamic terrorists, including groups that would survive and evolve into ISIL. When al Qaeda first showed up in the 1990s as a post-Afghanistan international Islamic terrorist organization they were popular to Moslems in proportion to how far away the al Qaeda violence was. Once al Qaeda began killing people nearby Moslems tended to change their minds and expressed open and extreme dislike for Islamic terrorists. Thus while i 2013 37 percent of Turks were concerned about Islamic terrorism that is now 50 percent thanks to increased ISIL violence on the Syrian border and some inside Turkey itself. In 2013 54 percent of the people in Jordan were concerned versus 62 percent now for the same reason. In Lebanon, where the Syrian violence spilled over quickly after 2011, in 2013 81 percent were concerned about Islamic terrorism versus 92 percent today. 

Hezbollah Leader Denounces ISIS as a “Monster”

August 15, 2014 

Hezbollah Sees Islamic State Insurgents as Threat to Gulf, Jordan 

BEIRUT — The Hezbollah leader described the radical Islamist movement that has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria as a growing “monster” that could threaten Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states, according to an interview printed on Friday. 

In a separate speech, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Islamic State also posed an existential threat to his own nation, Lebanon, the target of an incursion by Islamist insurgents from Syria this month. He said his heavily armed Shi’ite Muslim group was ready to fight the threat in Lebanon - if required. 

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah has been helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fight a Sunni Islamist-dominated insurgency that spilled into the Lebanese border town of Arsal on Aug. 2, triggering five days of battles between the Lebanese army and militants including members of Islamic State. 

"Here we live, and - if the battle is imposed on us - here we fight and here we will be martyred," said Nasrallah. Hezbollah said it stayed out of the Arsal battle, wary of inflaming sectarian tensions with Lebanese Sunnis, many of whom have supported the uprising against Assad. 

Nasrallah was speaking on the eighth anniversary of the conclusion of Hezbollah’s one-month war with Israel. 

Addressing the wider threat to the region from Islamic State, Nasrallah said it could easily recruit in other Arab states where its hardline ideology exists. Even Turkey, the passage for many foreign fighters into Syria, should beware. 

"Wherever there are followers of the ideology there is ground for (Islamic State), and this exists in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait and the Gulf states," Nasrallah said in the interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar. 

Nasrallah, whose group is backed by Shi’ite power Iran, said Islamic State was encountering resistance in some parts of Iraq and Syria. But “it appears that the capabilities, numbers and capacities available to (Islamic State) are vast and large. This is what is worrying everyone, and everyone should be worried.” 

Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Muslim monarchy that has been in a state of cold war with Shi’ite Iran and its allies, has shown growing signs of alarm about the spread of Islamic State. Last month, it deployed 30,000 soldiers at its border with Iraq. 

Saudi Arabia has also been a major sponsor of the anti-Assad uprising. 

Hezbollah’s role in Syria has helped Assad beat back the rebellion against his rule in critical areas of the country including Damascus and a corridor of territory stretching north from the capital. But large parts of Syria’s less densely populated north and east have fallen to Islamic State. 

ISIS Is Paying Attention To What Experts Are Saying About Them

ARMIN ROSEN0

AUG 16, 2014

The recent inaugural issue of Dabiq, ISIS's English-language propaganda magazine, included a typical assortment of jihadist imagery: black flags fluttering over stolen armored vehicles, graphic photos of dead enemies, and pages reveling in the group's assault on northern and western Iraq.

It also demonstrated that one of the world's most brutal terrorist groups isn't indifferent to what the western expert community has to say about them. On page 32, there's a picture of Douglas Ollivant, a former National Security Council official and Army officer and one of the planners of the "surge" strategy in Iraq, under the heading "The Islamic State in the Words of the Enemy."

Next to the photo is a stylish block-quote of an article that Ollivant wrote with Brian Fishman of the New America Foundation this past May for War on the Rocks, in which he argues that ISIS is "no longer a state in nameonly" and in fact possesses most of the characteristics of a formal political entity.

"Out of the crucible of the Syrian civil war and the discontent in Iraq's Sunni regions, something new is emerging," Ollivant wrote in a section quoted in Dabiq. For ISIS, the propaganda message is clear: when decontextualized, Ollivant's analysis seems to validate ISIS's entire mission. What horrifies much of the world about ISIS - its brutality, narrow ideology, outsized ambition, and proven battlefield acumen - thus turns into a potential recruiting point.

A Rogue State Along Two Rivers

How ISIS Came to Control Large Portions of Syria and Iraq

By JEREMY ASHKENAS, ARCHIE TSE, DEREK WATKINS and KAREN YOURISH July 3, 2014

The militant group called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria seemed to surprise many American and Iraqi officials with the recent gains it made in its violent campaign to create a new religious state. But the victories achieved in the past few weeks were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which define a region known as the cradle of civilization. 

The Euphrates

Aleppo: Ejected by Other Rebel Groups 

In 2013, ISIS emerged from the remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq and began to operate in Syria. The vacuum created by the country’s civil war provided a place for ISIS to rebuild. Syrian rebel groups initially welcomed ISIS as an ally, but soon realized that they did not have the same goals. ISIS was more interested in forming an Islamic state than in toppling the Syrian government — and had no problem with killing other insurgents to make it happen. These tensions culminated in a revolt against ISIS. The group was driven out of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, in January by the other rebel groups.

Jarablous: Supply Routes 

ISIS Control

After being pushed out of Aleppo, ISIS moved east, attacking rebel bases and taking over towns like this one, near the border with Turkey, that are arteries for money and supplies.

Deir Hafir: Cutthroat Tactics 

ISIS Control

ISIS has inspired a new generation of jihadists with its emphasis on creating an Islamic state and its willingness to kill Shiites and even rival Sunnis, like when it recently crucified eight rebel fighters in the town square here for being too moderate. Al Qaeda, which has preached against the wanton spilling of Muslim blood, severed ties to ISIS in February and has condemned its tactics.

Maskana: Terror Through Social Media 

ISIS Control

ISIS may practice a seventh-century version of Islam, but its public outreach is thoroughly modern. It has used Facebook as a death-threat generator; the text-sharing app JustPaste to upload book-length tirades; and YouTube and Twitter to post gruesome videos and photos to terrify its enemies (reportedly live-tweeting the amputation of a man's hand in this town, for example).