US ''Fighting'' Terror Group with Fictional Leaders

In 2007, the New York Times revealed that long-vilified “Islamic State” leader Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi did not exist, and that the creation of this fictional character was a ruse to obfuscate the role of foreigners in the creation and perpetuation of “Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

In an article titled, “Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says,” the NYT reports that:

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The NYT would also reveal the purpose of the deception:

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.

The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

The admission by US military leaders, reported in the NYT, reveals that the so-called “Islamic State” was nothing more than an appendage of Al Qaeda – with Al Qaeda itself directly armed, funded, and backed by stalwart US allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Despite the NYT and the Pentagon’s admissions, the entire ruse has continued, on an exponential scale.

US Intentionally Raised and Unleashed Al Qaeda Upon Iraq and Syria

Al Qaeda’s current presence in Iraq and Syria, and their leading role in the fight against the Iranian-leaning government’s of Damascus and Baghdad, are the present-day manifestation of a Western criminal conspiracy exposed as early as 2007. Revealed by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” it was stated explicitly that (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

While the NYT attempted to shift blame to sponsors in “Pakistan” in 2007, the paper itself, along with many others across the West’s vast media monopolies, have since then admitted that America’s closest allies in the Middle East are behind Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq, not “Pakistan.”Hersh would go on to document in his 9-page report, the West and its regional partners intentional engineering of a devastating, regional sectarian bloodbath.

The Daily Beast would report in an article literally titled, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS,” that:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

Unfortunately for the spin doctors at the Daily Beast, the fact that this “threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war,” has already been revealed as a joint enterprise not only among Persian Gulf autocracies, but in fact, led by the United States itself, means that Al Qaeda’s expansion in Syria and Iraq, is the verbatim manifestation of the conspiracy warned about by Hersh in 2007.

Baghdadi Ruse Not Only to Hide “Foreign” role, but to Hide US-Saudi Involvement

Today, another “al-Baghdadi” allegedly leads the “Islamic State.” His existence and leadership role is also unconfirmed and the likelihood that Al Qaeda’s “Baghdadi ruse” is simply being repeated, amid feigned and complicit ignorance by the Pentagon, is all but confirmed. Not only does the “Islamic State’s” leader appear to be entirely fictional, but so is ISIS itself. It is nothing more than the rebranding of Al Qaeda, working seamlessly with other Western and Persian Gulf-backed militant fronts including Al Nusra, for the explicit goal of overthrowing the government of Syria and using the despoiled nation as a staging ground for a similar proxy war to be waged upon Iran.

The United States, bombing a fictional terrorist organization led by a non-existent, fictional character, is at the very heart of the ruse described by the NYT in 2007, a ruse that continues to present day. The goal is not to eliminate ISIS, but to use the fictional front as a pretext to further intervene on behalf of real militant extremists forming the core of the joint US-NATO-Saudi proxy front for the purpose of overthrowing the government in Damascus.

Attempts to portray ISIS as an “indigenous” movement sprung from the Iraqi and Syrian deserts, is to obfuscate the fact that Al Qaeda is currently harbored by NATO in nearby Turkey, and the summation of its support, fighters, weapons, and cash flows from NATO territory, not “seized oilfields” in Syria or from amongst local populations.

This reality comes into sharper focus considering other recent reports that so-called “ISIS” territory has in fact, doubled in the wake of US airstrikes, not shrunk. Fox News reports in their article, “ISIS control of Syria reportedly expands since start of US-led airstrikes,” that:

The Islamic State terror group reportedly has increased the amount of territory they control in Syria as the U.S.-led bombing campaign approaches its four-month anniversary.

The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. government and independent assessments, say that the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS, has control of a large swath of northeastern Syria and is creeping toward key cities in the country’s west, including Aleppo, a center of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

At face value, it would seem as if US policy has failed utterly, if in fact its goal was to truly neutralize ISIS. But with ISIS a fictional creation led by non-existent leaders, and the stated goal of the US being the overthrow of the Syrian government, the doubling of territory held by Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda’s approach to cities like Aleppo on the brink of being liberated by Syrian troops, it is clear that America’s presence in Syria – not to mention in neighboring Iraq – is to support, not stop these terrorist forces.

Recognizing the West’s role in Syria as unprecedented, deplorable, genocidal state-sponsorship of terrorism, and treating the terrorist fronts operating in and along Syria’s borders as a foreign incursion, may allow Syria and its allies to reveal current military operations as a massive counter-terrorism effort, not a “civil war,” and allowing for more open support for the government in Damascus to ensure this effort succeeds.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”, where this first appeared.