In the recent raid on ISIS, the US reportedly captured a large amount of information concerning the origin of ISIS. Does anyone know why this would be significant enough to bother reporting? Is there some mystery to the origin? Did “unknown forces” “conspire” or something along those lines that can now be illuminated?
Doesn’t it have to do with Queen Hatshepsut and her amulet?
Moderating
In GQ we ask to refrain from joke answers until there has been a serious effort to answer the question. No warning issued, but let’s hold off on answers like this until the question has been answered.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It’s worth finding out if there were specific groups or organizations that were providing money or other support to ISIS.
Funded and armed by the Saudis and the CIA via Turkey as a surrogate force to topple President Assad’s government (which would be called a “regime” if you were on the opposite side). An indigenous rebel force cannot exist without outside support.
ISIS, like Al Qaeda is a sunni extremist group. I’m guessing various powers in the area funded them for political and ideological reasons.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if Saudi Arabia played a role. I’d wonder if Iran would benefit from ISIS since it would destabilize the region and make it easier for them to take over the south of Iraq (I have no idea honestly).
From what is known about ISIS/L while it did receive a bit of outside funding it seems to have been mostly been shakily self-financed. After all at its height it was functionally a territorial state. It sold pirated Iraqi oil and engaged in a variety of extortionate financial schemes, including shake-downs and kidnapping. Basically a brutally extractive economy with a finite lifespan, but one that served to keep its military arm in the field in the short run. An army with a state, rather than a state with an army - there have been other examples in history.
Turkey’s pet project has largely been the Free Syrian Army. There are allegations of backhanded support or at least careful avoidance of conflict with ISIS, but they are definitely not major patrons like with the FSA. I wouldn’t be surprised at any details on that front, but at least since 2016 they seem to have decided they’re not a horse worth backing.
They get some, but as above they seem to have been mostly self-financing when they still held a lot of ground. One assumes that has steadily crumbled as the passed their territorial peak. I wouldn’t be shocked at revelations that they have been have been getting more than at has been hinted at to date. But I suspect it would just be fleshing out the details, rather than a big reveal.
But this is rather unlikely. ISIS was a threat to the central government of Iraq and Iran is the Iraq central government’s best friend( if anyone thinks it is the U.S., they are mistaken ). Iran has been very heavily involved in the military actions against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. Both are Shi’a friendly/dominated governments and is to Iran’s advantage to prop up both and demolish existential threats to them.
Tamerlane is right here - Syria has been one of Iran’s few reliable allies in the Middle East. ISIS’s fighting against the Syrian dictatorship is completely against the national interests of Iran. To illustrate:
Presumably the signficance is that the material will conclusively prove Trump’s claim that Barack Obama was the founder of ISIS.
And Syrian oil… Guess who the buyers were. Satellite images showed columns of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Isis in Syria and Iraq, and then crossing the border into neighbouring Turkey. Erdogan and family were directly linked to profiteering from this oil.
BTW, The US never bombed these tankers.It was the Russian air force’s bombing campaign of these tankers and infrastructure that made a significant dent in Isis’s ability to produce, refine and sell oil.
Moderating
Let’s refrain from political commentary in GQ. No warning issued, but let’s stick to the question in the OP.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator