Death of a Caliphate:

Anti-Partition Alliance Puts Last Nail in ISIL Coffin

Rasa - Iran has declared the end of ISIL. And no, this is not about Iran expanding its influence across Iraq and Syria during the war with the Wahhabi-Takfiri group. This is about the Real War on Terror with some major results.

News ID: 434959

Date: 24 November 2017 - 23:44

RNA - On Tuesday, November 21, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of IRGC’s Quds Force, sent the news of the end of ISIL to Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. He was speaking on behalf of all the allied forces fighting terrorism and the thousands of Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, Afghans, and Pakistanis who had died in the war on ISIL, Al-Qaeda and other extremist outfits.

The Iranian commander reiterated the United States helped to mastermind ISIL activities and that it was Iran’s support, coupled with the Popular Mobilisation Units (Hashd al-Shaabi), which helped Iraq and Syria defeat the terrorist group.

The declaration of victory follows the liberation of the Syrian city of AlBu Kamal on Sunday. The group now no longer holds any urban territory. What remains of its forces are in villages and the desert areas along the Iraq-Syria border. The group is no more a military threat, but is a security problem.

That’s why Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, says he will only declare final victory over ISIL when the desert areas are also cleared. He, however, maintains that the foreign-backed terrorist group is militarily defeated in Iraq as well.

At any rate, ISIL, its medieval caliphate and utter depravities smashed through the traditional borders of the Middle East with a helping hand from the United States, Israel, and their client states, mainly Saudi Arabia. As the group is militarily defeated and areas once under their control face the mammoth task of physical and political reconstruction, it makes perfect sense for ISIL’s patrons to accuse Iran of expanding its influence.

For instance, the Arab League and its foreign ministers, led by Saudi Arabia, accuse Iran and its allied Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah of destabilizing the region. They have even vowed to take the matter to the UN Security Council! Strange enough, and without providing any hard evidence, they accuse Iran and Hezbollah of supporting “terrorist groups” – the same terrorist groups that the allied forces defeated in Iraq and Syria in accordance with their religious and Islamic duties!

Nor is that all: As maintained by Ayatollah Khamenei, the victory over ISIL terrorist group in Iraq and Syria is tantamount to the defeat of plots to sow division and wage a civil war in the Middle East. Meaning, the war against foreign-backed terrorism and extremism is far from over. Outside powers and their client states will always try and incite divisions in the Muslim world to preserve the status quo. They will try and re-hatch new colonial plots in another part of the region and in another form.

Taken together, ISIL has nothing like the human and material resources it enjoyed at the height of its power when it controlled territory stretching from the Iranian border almost to the Mediterranean coast. The collapse of ISIL and the crumbling away of its American-Israeli caliphate is a major blow to the current and former US administrations, Israel and their vassal regimes who created the terrorist group and provided it with full support in the first place. They failed to affect regime change in Iraq and Syria, they failed to partition the Levant on ethnic-sectarian lines, and they failed to expand their unholy dominance, much less help the usurper regime of Israel to dominate the region.

As a consequence, the ISIL project lies in ruins. But the Real War on Terror by the allied forces is not quite over. ISIL still has some strengths, including experienced and skilful commanders leading a core of fanatical fighters - not to mention foreign backers who preach Wahhabi-Takfiri ideology. It has a tradition of responding to defeats on the battlefield by carrying out terrorist attacks in the region, Europe, Turkey or other parts of the world. Some spectacular atrocities would enable it once again to dominate the news agenda and show it is not beaten. This could happen in the form of provoking countries into an overreaction by some acts of terror in the future.

847/940