Part 10
By Abu Umair al-Afghani
The WikiLeaks files, a collection of some 400,000 reports, reveal something striking once you turn to the section on the Middle East. The reports make one thing clear:
America does not want peace in the Middle East.
A strong state in the Middle East runs against the interests of both the United States and Israel.
War must continue in the region.
According to those reports, al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, Iran, and Russia were all regarded as America’s most dangerous enemies at the time. One document also stated that an extremist Salafi emirate could be used as a tool to pressure the Arab world while at the same time containing Iran and Bashar al-Assad. The documents also show that Islamist groups in the Middle East were meant to be turned against one another. Daesh was the ideal project for achieving those goals. More striking still, the reports indicate that the idea of Daesh had already been anticipated two years before the group officially came into existence.
Now let us look a little more closely at another point: how Daesh adopted the battlefield methods long associated with the CIA and Mossad.
1. Propaganda Warfare
This has long been one of the CIA’s and Mossad’s best-known tactics. It relies on media campaigns, professionally produced videos, spreading fear, and cultivating the image of an unstoppable force. Daesh excelled at all of these. Its propaganda closely resembled the psychological operations, or PsyOps, used by the CIA and Mossad.
2. Intelligence Cells
Another hallmark of the CIA and Mossad is the use of small, independent cells. Each group is assigned a specific mission while remaining isolated from the others, so that one cell knows nothing about another. Daesh relied heavily on the same system, one of the core features of both intelligence services.
3. Targeted Killings
This tactic is especially associated with Mossad. It includes carrying out assassinations in carefully chosen locations, staging bombings in public places to pressure governments, and conducting covert operations designed to show power and spread fear.
4. Informal Governing Networks
Daesh was not a previously existing organization. It captured large territories in only two months. Yet within that short time it had tax offices, courts, police, and intelligence services up and running. Building a functioning administration that quickly without outside intelligence backing is difficult to explain.
All of these tactics together make clear that Daesh was a joint and specifically designed project of the CIA and Mossad.
5. The Clearest Sign of Daesh’s Relationship with Mossad
The most significant incident that exposed the connection between Daesh and Mossad came after Daesh seized territory stretching across Iraq and Syria. It erased the border between the two countries and declared that it recognized no borders. After capturing the Syrian city of Al-Bukamal (Abu Kamal), it crossed directly into Iraq and seized Al-Qaim. The two towns stand opposite each other on either side of the frontier. The same pattern was repeated in Mayadin, the countryside of Deir ez-Zor, Rawah, Anah, and the Al Waleed border crossing.
Wherever Daesh advanced, national borders meant nothing to it.
Yet everything changed once it reached the border with Israel.
The Jaysh Khalid ibn al-Walid faction of Daesh captured the Yarmouk Basin, parts of western Daraa province, and areas overlooking the occupied Golan Heights. At that point, many Muslims around the world believed the moment had come to liberate Al-Aqsa. They expected ISIS to cross the border and begin fighting Israel.
Nothing of the sort happened.
Instead of turning its guns toward Israel, Daesh turned back and resumed fighting Jabhat al-Nusra. It controlled those border areas for well over a year and a half, yet not once did it wage war against Israel. It did not fire a single bullet across the border. It launched no car bombs. It fired no rockets. All this despite the fact that much of that land belonged to Syria and had been occupied by Israel by force.
Muslims across the world kept asking the same question: Why does Daesh refuse to fight Israel?
There was never an answer. Only silence.
Baghdadi issued warnings from Iraq against the Afghan mujahideen fighting the American occupation, yet remained silent toward Israeli soldiers stationed only a short distance away. Even in its threats and propaganda campaigns, Daesh carefully avoided mentioning Israel.
Israel, for its part, has never hesitated to raise alarm whenever it detects even the smallest sign of Islamist activity anywhere in the world. It has repeatedly taken its concerns to the United Nations and the international community. Yet when Daesh became its neighbor, Israel voiced no complaints and showed no sign of concern. During that same period, reports surfaced more than once claiming that wounded Daesh fighters were receiving treatment in Israeli hospitals and that Mossad was providing training to Daesh militants.
