The Islamic State and Al-Qaeda
It is quite important that the Islamic State franchises are independent, because it means that they all have different financing. For example in Syria and Iraq the main source of financing for ISIS were the oilfields that were given to it by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator. Bashar al-Assad and Tayip Erdogan, the Turkish President, were buying the oil of the Islamic State in order to fund the group, obviously for very different reasons. See “How Putin and Assad Created the Islamic State”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/07/28/how-putin-and-assad-created-the-islamic-state/
With the oil that was given to the Islamic State by Assad, ISIS had an annual revenue between 1 and 2 billion dollars. And obviously NATO could not bomb the oilfields of ISIS. NATO was bombing the oil refineries of the Islamic State in order to hurt the ability of the group to generate revenues, which would force Assad, Putin and Erdogan to directly fund the group.
Remember that France bombed ISIS oil refineries in November 9th 2015, and in November 13th 2015 the Islamic State retaliated by slaughtering the French people in Paris. See Yahoo “French strike hits IS oil facility in Syria”, November 9th 2015.
See also Wikipedia “November 2015 Paris Attacks”.
Of course ISIS had also revenues from kidnappings, drug trafficking, prostitution, taxing the local populations etc. But the oil fields that were given to it by Assad was an important source of revenue.
Moreover, in Iraq, where Assad and the Arabs of the Persian Gulf were united against the Americans, the Islamic State was receiving financial support from the Arabs of the Persian Gulf too i.e. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait etc. See “The Architects of Al-Qaeda and ISIS”.
https://iakal.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/the-architects-of-al-qaeda-and-isis/
Obviously in Syria things were a lot more complicated because the Arabs of the Persian Gulf and the Turks were fighting Bashar al-Assad, Russia and Iran. Therefore in Syria Turkey and the Arabs of the Persian Gulf wanted the support of NATO to overturn Assad, and they knew that NATO could not support Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
I have said again that Al-Qaeda is the Sunni version of the Lebanese Hezbollah, and it is financed with Arab money, it is staffed with Arab fighters, but it was trained by Iran and Hezbollah, in order for the Iranians and certain Arab circles to jointly fight the Americans and the Saudi King. Obviously Turkey and Pakistan, which are the countries that have the ability to train Al-Qaeda could not have done it because they are American allies, and they are buying their weapons from the United States.
That’s why Iran and Hezbollah had to train Al-Qaeda, in order to jointly fight the Americans and the Saudi King, even though they are fighting each other too. And that’s why the Americans call the Hezbollah fighters class A terrorists, while they call Al-Qaeda Class B terrorists. Obviously Iran and Hezbollah want to have an edge over the Arab fighters of Al-Qaeda.
It is very natural that Iran wanted a strong anti-Western Sunni terrorist organization, a Sunni version of Hezbollah, because Sunnis constitute 80-85% of the Muslim World. And since Turkey and Pakistan could not act like the headquarters of Al-Qaeda, Iran had to do it whether it liked it or not.
In the future Turkey or Pakistan might be able to act as the Al-Qaeda central if Turkey and Pakistan keep moving away from the Western World. Obviously Al-Qaeda was paying Iran and Hezbollah for the training, the logistics and the arms it was receiving, because money was the one thing Al-Qaeda was not lacking.
Obviously the alliance between Iran and Al-Qaeda was forged in Afghanistan, in the early 90s, when the Americans were trying to bring the oil and gas of Central Asia to the India Ocean. See “The Afghan Oil Pipeline and the US Negotiations with the Taliban”.
But there are many reasons and places where Al-Qaeda and Iran can fight together, and there are many reasons and places where Al-Qaeda and Iran can fight each other.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is something very different from Al-Qaeda. It is the ex-people of Saddam Hussein, who launched the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria with the support of Assad and Russia, in order to use the Syria-Iraq corridor to attack the Americans in Iraq, and also to prevent the Americans from using the Syria-Iraq corridor to attack Assad in Syria.
Map Assad VS United States
Map Iraq-Syria
Remember that Syria and Iraq are basically the same Silk Road.What today is Syria and Iraq during the Ottoman years was an Ottoman colony. And when the British and the French won the Ottomans in the First World War they made Syria a French influenced zone and Iraq a British influence zone, in order to construct two pipelines from Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea. And also to connect the colonies in South Asia with the Mediterranean Sea through the Persian Gulf.Note that Britain also took Palestine i.e. today’s Jordan and Israel. See Foreign Affairs “Pipelines in the Sand”, Μάιος 2016.
Map Colonies
http://www.31981782.com/uploads/4/2/2/0/42203051/imperialism_asia.jpg
You can see that during the First World War India was a British colony and Indochina was a French colony.
Assad and Russia were right to believe that NATO could use Iraq as a springboard to attack Syria, in order to clear the Iraq-Syria Silk Road. And that’s why they used the Islamic State to block NATO from finding allies in the Sunni parts of Syria and Iraq, and in order to attack the United States in Iraq.
Erdogan had a motive to support ISIS because it was killing the Kurds in Syria, something that was forbidden by the American allies of the Kurds. And that’s why Erdogan was allowing Jihadists to join ISIS by using the Turkish-Syrian borders, and that’s why Erdogan was buying the oil of the Islamic State. Erdogan was also accusing the West for supporting terrorism i.e. for supporting the Kurds of Syria.
At the same time Erdogan was also supporting Al-Qaeda, because Al-Qaeda was fighting Assad in Syria, and Al-Qaeda was also killing the Kurds of Syria. Erdogan was also supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) i.e. the Sunni rebels of Syria who were supported by NATO, but with a lot less enthusiasm, because the FSA was fighting Assad, but it was not allowing the killings of the Kurds who are American allies.
