“Going After” the Islamic State. Guess Who is Behind the Caliphate Project?

Author’s Note and Update

The following article was first published in September 2014 at the outset of Obama’s air campaign “against the ISIS”. 

Amply documented but rarely mentioned in news reports, the ISIS is a creation of US intelligence, recruited, trained and financed by the US and its allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Israel and Jordan.  

What this means is that the ISIS terrorists are the foot soldiers of the Western alliance in Syria and Iraq. While America claims to be targeting the ISIS, in reality it is protecting the ISIS. 

The air campaign launched by Obama in 2014 was intent upon destroying Syria and Iraq rather than “going after the terrorists”. There is ample evidence that the Islamic State is protected by the US-led coalition.

The inflow and delivery of weapons and supplies are coordinated by the Pentagon in liaison with America’s allies. 

US military aid is channelled to Al Qaeda as well as to ISIS-Daesh.

The US has also used the illegal weapons market  to channel vast amounts of weapons and military hardware to the Syrian “rebels”.  

In March 2017, the US military came to the rescue of ISIS-Daesh commanders who were being evacuated out of Iraq and Syria in US military helicopters. According to the Arabic language al-Hadath news website:

“several US military helicopters landed on kilometer 10 of Deir Ezzur-Hasaka road and evacuated a number of ISIL commanders from the region. … After the helicopter landed, several US marines took 10 ISIL commanders on board and left the region,” …

Abu Dajane Fransawi has most likely been among the top ISIL commanders taken away by the US marines, …ISIL’s man in charge of the terrorist group’s financial affairs in Forat (Euphrates) oilfield.” (quoted by FNA)

Similar rescue operations of ISIS-Daesh Commanders were conducted in Iraq.

Manchester, London

With regard to the Manchester and London terror attacks, this relationship between the ISIS and its Western State sponsors (including the intelligence services of the British government) cannot be ignored.

The blowback thesis is a red herring. The sponsors of ISIS are now heralded as the victims of ISIS, an absurd proposition. Those who are funded and supported by Western intelligence services are now said to be fighting back.

The ISIS has a certain degree of independence in relation to its State sponsors. That is the nature of what is called an “intelligence asset”.  But an “intelligence asset” is always on the radar of the intelligence services.

The British government has supported several Al Qaeda affiliated entities including the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which was linked to the Manchester bombings.

It is worth noting that the release of the Hillary Clinton email archive as well as leaked Pentagon documents confirm that the US and its allies are supportive of ISIS, which according to European press reports, are the alleged architects of the Brussels, Berlin and Manchester terror attacks.

Moreover, a  7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated August of 2012, points to US complicity in supporting the creation of an Islamic State.(Excerpt below)

The governments of the countries whose citizens are the victims of terror attacks are supporting ISIS-Daesh through their intelligence services.

Michel Chossudovsky, March 17, 2017, June 5, 2017

*       *      *

The Islamic State (IS) is portrayed as an Enemy of America and the Western world. 

With the support of America’s indefectible British ally, President Barack Obama has ordered [2014] a series of US bombing raids on Iraq allegedly with a view to defeating the rebel army of the Islamic State (IS).

“We will not waver in our determination to confront the Islamic State If terrorists think we will weaken in the face of their threats they could not be more wrong. (Barack Obama and David Cameron, Strengthening the NATO alliance, op ed published in the London Times, September 4, 2014, emphasis added)

But Who is behind the Islamic State Project?

In a bitter irony,  until recently the rebels of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were heralded as Syria’s “opposition freedom fighters” committed to “restoring democracy” and unseating the secular government of Bashar al Assad.

And who was behind  the jihadist insurgency in Syria?

Those who ordered the bombing campaign are those who are behind the Caliphate Project.

The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of  a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, was and continues to be supported covertly by the United States and its allies.

In other words, the Islamic State (IS) is a creation of US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-‘Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎). Moreover, according to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka) NATO in liaison with the Turkish High Command has been involved in the recruitment of jihadist mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

In relation to the Syrian insurgency, the Islamic State  fighters together with the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist forces of the Al Nusrah Front are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. They are covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel. Their  mandate is to wage a terrorist insurgency against the government of Bashar al-Assad. The atrocities committed by Islamic State fighters in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria.

As a result of media disinformation, Western public opinion is unaware that the Islamic State terrorists have from the very outset been supported by the United States and its allies.

The killings of innocent civilians by the Islamic State terrorists in Iraq are used to create a pretext and a justification for US military intervention on humanitarian grounds.  The bombing raids ordered by Obama, however, are not intended to eliminate the Islamic State, which constitutes a US “intelligence asset”. Quite the opposite, the US is targeting the civilian population as well as the Iraqi resistance movement.

The Role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar

Amply documented, US-NATO support to the Islamic State is channeled covertly through America’s staunchest allies: Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Acknowledged by the Western media, both Riyadh and Doha acting in liaison and on behalf of Washington have played (and continue to play) a central role in the financing the Islamic State (IS) as well as the recruitment, training and religious indoctrination of terrorist mercenary forces deployed in Syria.

According to London’s Daily Express “They [the Islamic State terrorists] had money and arms supplied by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.”

US Saudi connection

“The most important source of ISIS financing to date has been support coming out of the Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia but also Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates,” (According to Dr. Günter Meyer, Director of the Center for Research into the Arabic World at University of Mainz, Germany,  Deutsche Welle)

This money was channeled to ISIS terrorists fighting against government forces in Syria:

Through allies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the West [has] supported militant rebel groups which have since mutated into ISIS and other al‑Qaeda connected militias. ( Daily Telegraph, June 12, 2014)

According to Robert Fisk, the IS caliphate project “has been bankrolled by Saudi Arabia”:

…[M]eet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Sunni caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama.

From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis – and by Kuwaiti oligarchs – now rule thousands of square miles. (Robert Fisk, The Independent,  June 12, 2014

In 2013, as part of its recruitment of terrorists, Saudi Arabia took the initiative of releasing prisoners on death row in Saudi jails.

A secret memo revealed that the prisoners were being “recruited” to join jihadist militia (including Al Nusrah and ISIS) to fight against government forces in Syria.

Saudi prison

The prisoners had reportedly been offered a deal — stay and be executed or fight against Assad in Syria. As part of the deal the prisoners were offered a “pardon and a monthly stipend for their families, who were allowed to stay in the Sunni Arab kingdom”.

Saudi officials apparently gave them a choice: decapitation or jihad? In total, inmates from Yemen, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Jordan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq, and Kuwait chose to go and fight in Syria.(See Global Research,  September 11, 2013)

“Volte Face”: About Turn

On September 11, 2014, coinciding with the commemoration of 9/11, the King of Saudi Arabia together with the Monarchs of the Gulf States announced their unbending commitment to support Obama’s holy war against the Islamic State (IS), which has and continues to be funded by Qatari and Saudi money as part of a carefully engineered intelligence operation.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry, left, speaks with Joseph W. Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on his arrival at the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia on Sept. 11, 2014. (Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski via Associated Press)

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf  States which actively contributed to the financing of the Islamic State, not to mention the recruitment, training of terrorists on behalf of Washington, pledged their unbending support for Obama’s military campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State.

The statement of  support contained in the communiqué, commits the “leading Arab states to working with the U.S. to cut off the flow of foreign fighters and funds to the Islamic State.” It also confirms that members discussed  “a strategy to destroy the ISIL wherever it is, including in both Iraq and Syria.”

Saudi Arabia has come to understand the Islamic State group is a serious threat to their country as well– that it isn’t a mainstream Sunni movement.One element of Obama’s IS plan seeks to undermine the ideological and religious claims that the Islamic State militants make to Islam.

The administration hopes Riyadh will use its influence among Islamic religious leaders. (Voice of America, September 11, 2014)

Recruiting “Moderate Terrorists”

As part of the agreement, the House of Saud is to “host a training facility for thousands of Syrian rebel fighters who are combating both the Islamic State and President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.” An absurd and fake proposition.  Until September 9th, “officially” Saudi Arabia had been supporting the Islamic State against the government of Bashar al Assad and now it has been entrusted in recruiting jihadists to fight the Islamic State. An  absurd and fake proposition. But the media has failed to connect the dots and uncover the big lie.

We are dealing with a diabolical project:  The architects of the Islamic State have informed the World that they are “going after” their own terrorists as part of a counter-terrorism operation.

While these actions are undertaken under the banner of the “Global War on Terrorism”, the US has no intention to target its IS own terror brigades which are integrated by Western special forces and intelligence operatives. In fact the only meaningful and effective campaign against Islamic State terrorists is being waged by Syrian government forces.

Needless to say, US, NATO, Saudi and Qatari support and funding to the Islamic State will continue. The objective is not to destroy the Islamic State as promised by Obama. What we are dealing with is a US sponsored process of destabilizing and destroying both Iraq and Syria. The campaign against the Islamic State is being used as a justification to bomb both countries, largely targeting civilians.

The endgame is to destabilize Iraq as a nation state and trigger its partition into three separate entities.

The broader US-NATO strategic objective is to destabilize the entire Middle East- North Africa -Central Asia -South Asia region, including Iran, Pakistan and India.


Order directly from Global Research

America’s “War on Terrorism”

by Michel Chossudovsky

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.  original

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalization is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.


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About the author:

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations. He is the author of 13 books. He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO's war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

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