Epstein Secrets

S about eight months ago. "We have participated in battles in [Syria], and in a few days we will go to Iraq and will fight them and will even go to Lebanon and Jordan, wherever our sheik [Baghdadi] wants to send us." "Send us, we are your sharp arrows. Throw us at your enemies, wherever they may be,"

communique noted then how sophisticated the attack was, combining car bombs, suicide bombers and coordinated mortar fire. When ISIS swept through Mosul this month, the group freed another 2,000 to 3,000 veteran fighters from a prison outside the town. Though the U.S. official describes Baghdadi as

e two ports combined have the capacity to export over 500,000 barrels per day, the announcement generated a drop in the market price for crude oil. Lebanon: Lebanon enjoyed a relative lull in violent spillover from the fighting in Syria for a few months this spring, but terrorist incidents returned in l

Lebanon. This recent flurry of attacks in Hezbollah-friendly neighborhoods and in support of Sunni militants closely followed IS(IL)'s take-over of Mosul in Iraq and its move toward Baghdad. Evidencing the deteriorating security situation in Lebanon, a Saudi delegation recently met with Lebanese autho

making than with the blurring 4 the lines drawn in Arab sands decades ago. On the map, Tripoli, on the Med=terranean Sea, lies within the borders of Lebanon and is the country's s=cond-largest city. But Tripoli, staunchly Sunni, with an Alawite minority, has always been within the orbit of the S=rian cit

/2013=03-24/world/37989851_1maliki-iranian-flights-state-john-f-kerry> in Damascus. But in western Iraq, the Sunni strongholds of Anba= province and Mosul have been stirred up by the Syrian rebellion. The same=tribes straddle the border between the two countries. Smugglers and traders, and now Sunni w

n of Iraq in 2003. Photo: Youtube/Brown Moses Governments and bor=ers are under siege elsewhere, as well. For more than a year, Shiite milit=as from Lebanon have moved into Syria and operated as a virtual arm of the=Syrian government. Meanwhile, so many Syrian refugees have gone in the opposite directio

icious groups in chaotic conditions.<=span> ISIS is a threat fo= both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but its easy conquests over the past week=97including Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city—were made possible by gove=nments hobbled by years of insurgency and opposition aided by those two countries and like-m

eylaz, an Iranian analyst cited by the Journal, remarked, "Iran's geopolitical policies have failed. We have lost Hamas, overstretched Hezbollah in Lebanon, and now have al Qaeda spilling from Syria to Iraq." Iran benefits most, so the doves appear to reason, when the Sunnis are not being driven into

idely changing regional landscape. Ten days before the Egyptian- Saudi meeting, Iraq, the Middle East and the whole world was jolted by the fall of Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city, to the group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The threat of the territorial disintegration of I

airo in January. There was no reaction in Washington to this report. If there is going to be a resolution of the Syrian crisis without a decade of Lebanon-style war, then allies of the US will have to speak to someone of the calibre of Gen Suleimani, a far more important figure than Mr Ahmadinejad. Co

Fallujah and Samarra. Three days after that, a large protest closed the highway from Baghdad to Syria and Jordan. The popular resistance spread to Mosul on Dec. 27. These protests erupted during a constitutional crisis and as an expanding Arab-Kurd conflict has become increasingly militarized. Iraq

l, for their editing contribution. Miklos Pinther, former chief UN cartographer, who in 2000 oversaw the delineation of the Blue Line between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, compiled and produced the maps in this volume. Finally, my executive assistant, Jilla Moazami, gave invaluable administrative support. Wit

rmen: mandates 463 (1920) “4 ao French British Under British protection T U R K E Y (1932) Year of independence _Adana oa: ii : Co 14 ee eres san x ~ Mosul . CYPRUS ef gn 111001010) 1110110 1011101) 101) 0011101) ities ese (1943) =: 2} Latakia Log PERSIA SYRIA e. (1946) i 2 LEBANON w . (1943) | Kermansha

Cairo in January. There was no reaction in Washington to this report. If there is going to be a resolution of the Syrian crisis without a decade of Lebanon-style war, then allies of the US will have to speak to someone of the calibre of Gen Suleimani, a far more important figure than Mr Ahmadinejad. Coul

i, Fallujah and Samarra. Three days after that, a large protest closed the highway from Baghdad to Syria and Jordan. The popular resistance spread to Mosul on Dec. 27. These protests erupted during a constitutional crisis and as an expanding Arab-Kurd conflict has become increasingly militarized. Iraqi

d Cairo in January. There was no reaction in Washington to this report. If there is going to be a resolution of the Syrian crisis without a decade of Lebanon-style war, then allies of the US will have to speak to someone of the calibre of Gen Suleimani, a far more important figure than Mr Ahmadinejad. Coul

i, Fallujah and Samarra. Three days after that, a large protest closed the highway from Baghdad to Syria and Jordan. The popular resistance spread to Mosul on Dec. 27. These protests erupted during a constitutional crisis and as an expanding Arab-Kurd conflict has become increasingly militarized. Iraqi P