SANLIURFA, Turkey — When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group’s promised Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the globe.

Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow commanders at an Islamic State meeting last year, he said, he was placed under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.

Abu Hamza, who became the group’s ruler in a small community in Syria, never discovered the Iraqis’ real identities, which were cloaked by code names or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State’s own shadowy security service, he said.

His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq’s former Baathist army in an organization more typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome videos in which they star.

Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.

They have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the Islamic State’s illicit oil trading.

In Syria, local “emirs” are typically shadowed by a deputy who is Iraqi and makes the real decisions, said Abu Hamza, who fled to Turkey last summer after growing disillusioned with the group. He uses a pseudonym because he fears for his safety.

“All the decision makers are Iraqi, and most of them are former Iraqi officers. The Iraqi officers are in command, and they make the tactics and the battle plans,” he said. “But the Iraqis themselves don’t fight. They put the foreign fighters on the front lines.”

The public profile of the foreign jihadists frequently obscures the Islamic State’s roots in the bloody recent history of Iraq, its brutal excesses as much a symptom as a cause of the country’s woes.

The raw cruelty of Hussein’s Baathist regime, the disbandment of the Iraqi army after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the subsequent insurgency and the marginalization of Sunni Iraqis by the Shiite-dominated government all are intertwined with the Islamic State’s ascent, said Hassan Hassan, a Dubai-based analyst and co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”

“A lot of people think of the Islamic State as a terrorist group, and it’s not useful,” Hassan said. “It is a terrorist group, but it is more than that. It is a homegrown Iraqi insurgency, and it is organic to Iraq.”

The de-Baathification law promulgated by L.­ Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, has long been identified as one of the contributors to the original insurgency. At a stroke, 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi army were barred from government employment, denied pensions — and also allowed to keep their guns.

The U.S. military failed in the early years to recognize the role the disbanded Baathist officers would eventually come to play in the extremist group, eclipsing the foreign fighters whom American officials preferred to blame, said Col. Joel Rayburn, a senior fellow at the National Defense University who served as an adviser to top generals in Iraq and describes the links between Baathists and the Islamic State in his book, “Iraq After America.”

The U.S. military always knew that the former Baathist officers had joined other insurgent groups and were giving tactical support to the Al Qaeda in Iraq affiliate, the precursor to the Islamic State, he said. But American officials didn’t anticipate that they would become not only adjuncts to al-Qaeda, but core members of the jihadist group.

[Islamic State appears to be fraying from within]

“We might have been able to come up with ways to head off the fusion, the completion of the Iraqization process,” he said. The former officers were probably not reconcilable, “but it was the labeling of them as irrelevant that was the mistake.”

Under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph, the former officers became more than relevant. They were instrumental in the group’s rebirth from the defeats inflicted on insurgents by the U.S. military, which is now back in Iraq bombing many of the same men it had already fought twice before.

Union Minister Mahesh Sharma has said that his government is committed to building the Ram Temple at Ayodhya but would wait for the Supreme Court verdict or arrive at a “mutual understanding” on constructing the temple. He said it is the “dream” of the people of the country that Ram Mandir is built as early as possible.
“Our party and government have already given their mandate on this issue. We want to build Ram Mandir but we will either follow the Supreme Court’s order or would come at a common conclusion about constructing the Mandir. This is why it is taking time,” he said while speaking at a function here yesterday.”BJP is committed to build Ram Temple and even the people of the country want that the Ram Temple should be established. But the issue is pending in court,” he said.With his remarks sparking a controversy, Sharma later stressed that senior party leaders will take a decision on the issue.”Till an order is issued or mutual understanding arrived at, BJP should follow the situation and even I am not authorised to speak on this topic. Our senior party leader or government will take decision,” he said.The Minister also said that a grand museum is being constructed in Ayodhya.
“A grand museum is being constructed in Ayodhya. The Centre has given its nod to a Rs 170 crore Ram Van Gaman Path project which will depict Lord Rama’s ideals,” he said.Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi stressed the Ram Mandir issue is in court.”The Ram Mandir issue is in court. Steps will be taken on the direction of the court and this is a non-political issue,” he said

The Indian Navy successfully carried out the first test of the long-range surface-to-air missile; Barak-8 from INS Kolkata on Wednesday.

“Quantum jump in air defence capability of Indian Navy. LRSAMs being fitted in capital warships progressively,” the ministry of defence said on Twitter. While two tests had been successfully conducted on-board Israeli ships, this is the first time that the test was held on-board an Indian one. The missile system has been jointly developed by the Indian Navy, India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Israel’s Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure, Elta Systems, Rafael and other companies.

The arrest of an Indian Air Force non-commissioned officer, leading aircraftsman Ranjith, posted at Air Force Station, Bathinda, on charges of spying is the second such case to have cropped up in Punjab in the past 16 months wherein social networking sites were used by enemy agents to ‘trap’ Indian military personnel.
In August 2014, the Punjab police had arrested an Airman, Sunil Kumar, who was posted at the Air Force Station in Pathankot, and who was believed to have passed on information about the airbase, the equipment at the base, military exercises and the deployment of aircraft to an ISI agent through a social networking site.
In both these cases, cyber surveillance had led to the personnel being arrested. While in the case of Ranjith, he was enticed by someone by the name of ‘Damini’, Sunil Kumar was in touch on the internet with one ‘Meena Raina’. Both these profiles were found to be fake and in both instances cash had been transferred to the bank accounts of the two personnel in lieu of information.
The Indian Express had earlier reported in July 2015 that the Military Intelligence had sounded warnings that fake profiles of women were being used on social networking sites in order to extract confidential information relating to the Order of Battle (ORBAT) of various military units.
Senior intelligence officials say this trend of using sites such as Facebook and Whatsapp to contact military personnel and then lure them into friendship through sexually explicit conversation has been consistently coming to light. “In fact, many service personnel have voluntarily reported such attempts to their superior officers when they suspected that information was being extracted from them,” said a senior officer.
It is learnt that both in the case of the Bathinda incident as well as the Pathankot case, fake profiles of girls were used by ISI agents who use internet protocols of western countries instead of Pakistan in order to avoid suspicion. These agents also pose as Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) in order to allay any fear and entice the service personnel into violating security protocols.
The Army too had earlier identified three officers who were suspected to have passed restricted information about movement of units and ORBAT to a girl named ‘Simran’ on Facebook. An inquiry had been ordered against these errant officers.

(26 Dec) Washington D.C., Dec. 26(ANI): Kate Middleton should now be given a Master’s degree in wooing everyone with her chic style sense. During the royal family’s annual Christmas Day church service, the 33-year-old Duchess of Cambridge sported a long, forest green, belted SportMax coat and matching hat, paired with a leaf-shaped diamond brooch and black suede boots, reports E! Online. She was accompanied by husband Prince William, who was seen helping his wife carry an umbrella to shield them from the rain. The two chatted briefly with well-wishers, who gathered outside the church. The royal family recently released a Christmas 2015 card showing the couple with Princess Charlotte and Prince George. (ANI)

Chennai: People living in Tamil Nadu’s coastal districts affected by 2004 tsunami on Saturday paid homage to the thousands who were swallowed by the giant waves on this day. Eleven years ago, life had turned upside down for thousands of families living in the coastal areas like Nagapattinam, Chennai, Cuddalore, Velankanni, Poompuhar in the state. Over 8,000 people lost their lives in Tamil Nadu to the giant waves in 2004. Silent rallies were held in the tsunami affected areas to observe the day, with people offering milk and flowers at the sea for the dead. As a mark of respect to the departed souls, fishermen stayed away from the sea on Saturday. IANS