The Islamic State (IS) [aka ISIS] Going for the Soft Spot In Iraq’s Belly – Oil production, transport and refineries. The tools in the experiment of Syria are used in their Islamic State of Iraq. In Anbar province, ISIS found fertile soil due to all the wrong decisions by al-Malika and the Obama administration.

King Crude: How Iraq’s ISIS Crisis Restores Saudi Influence
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(Forbes) July 2, 2014 – In Iraq, ISIS has demonstrated a willingness to target oil infrastructure and has disrupted several energy facilities in northern part of the country already – including the country’s biggest refinery and main pipeline to Turkey. ISIS is expected to try striking in Iraq’s Shi’ite dominated south in short order, home to the bulk of Iraqi oil production. The energy advocacy group Security America’s Future Energy points out [pdf] that a disruption of even a third of southern Iraqi production could completely erase global spare capacity later this year. Economists caution that this could send oil prices to $150 per barrel.

Since 2012, Iraq has been the second highest producer of crude oil in the OPEC cartel. In the short term at least, gains by ISIS in Iraq threaten sharp cuts into global spare production levels that are already low by historical standards. President Obama recently acknowledged the risk Iraqi oil disruptions could pose to global oil markets, making clear that one of America’s objectives in this crisis should be to ensure that “some of the other producers in the Gulf are able to pick up the slack.” Yet as the Christian Science Monitor subsequently noted, “essentially `other producers in the Gulf’ really means Saudi Arabia,” since it is the only nation with the capacity to swiftly make up for shortfalls elsewhere.

In anticipation of a likely ISIS attack, Exxon and BP have already evacuated staff from energy installations in southern Iraq.

Iraq: the ISIS Crisis, the oil sector and wider implications from Mars Omega LLP on June 18, 2014

(Oil Voice) – Confused reports continue to emanate from Iraq over whether or not extremists from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) have managed to take the country’s largest oil refinery in Baiji, in Salah al-Din Province in central Iraq. Yesterday foreign workers were evacuated from the refinery while the security forces braced themselves for an attack.

Security sources said ISIS attacked with mortars and machine-guns at around 0400 hrs this morning, trying to force access through two of the three main entrances to the refinery. An official speaking from inside the refinery told Reuters “The militants have managed to break in to the refinery. Now they are in control of the production units, administration building and four watchtowers. This is 75 percent of the refinery.”

The Battle between ISIS and Syria’s Rebel Militias

Continued below the fold …

However, the Iraqi army’s spokesman, Qasim Ata, denied that “Da’ash” (the Arabic abbreviation for ISIS) controlled the refinery. In a press conference this morning, broadcast live by pro-government Al-Iraqiya TV, Ata claimed: “The security forces thwarted an attempt by Da’ash to attack Baiji refinery and 40 terrorists were killed. We [the army] will not allow Da’ash to be present on any iota in Iraq,” he said, adding that the Iraqi army “is taking the initiative now.” He also said “We will purge each iota from them.”  
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However, the advance of ISIS and today’s attack on the oil refinery has sent shockwaves southwards to Iraq’s main oilfields. Some of the international oil companies (IOC) have evacuated foreign workers; this despite the measures taken by Baghdad to tighten security and the fiery rhetoric of Prime Minister (PM) Nuri al-Maliki.

However, the IOCS are plainly not prepared to take risks. Reuters quoted BP’s Bob Dudley saying: “We are just very vigilant in Iraq. Non-essential production people have left, but operations continue.”

ExxonMobil was reportedly sending staff out of Iraq along with BP’s partner, CNPC, which is a partner alongside BP. Gazprom Neft and Lukoil said they were not reducing staff in the short term, but were working on contingency plans.

The Battle between ISIS and Syria’s Rebel Militias for Syria Comment, January 4, 2014
 by Joshua Landis (with invaluable help from A.J.N.)

A major confrontation has broken out between the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Syria’s other rebel militias. It is being led by two newly organized coalitions, called Jaysh al Mujahidiin and the Front of Syrian Revolutionaries. But many other militias have also declared war on ISIS, insisting that it must abandon its attempt to establish a state and that its fighters must either integrate into Syria’s other militias or quit the country altogether. Fighting between Free Syria Army militias and ISIS has been widespread in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib.

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Recent clashes & protests that have taken place against ISIS in northern Syria

The Syrian opposition Coalition claims that ISIS is a regime inspired organization, designed to undermine the principles of the revolution and pervert the meaning of Islam. Chants of “Assad and DA`ASH are one” have been repeated at many recent demonstrations against ISIS. (DA`ASH is the acronym in Arabic for ISIS or Dawla al-Islamiyya fi-l `Iraq wa Sham).

Road to Raqqa by Vijay Prashad for Real News on Jan. 23, 2014

More than anything else, as the United Nations- and Arab League-brokered meetings in Geneva loomed in January 2014, the outside backers of the rebellion (the U.S. and the Europeans) were embarrassed and terrified by the ISIS. The U.S. government suspended its logistical support for the rebels when the ISIS overran the headquarters of Free Syrian Army leader General Salim Idriss and when it took the border posts with Turkey. Tension between the U.S. and the Gulf Arab sheikhs who had supported the Islamic State broke out into the open.

To deal with this problem, the ISIS had to be destroyed both in Iraq and in Syria. On the Iraq front, the U.S. opened a dialogue with the government of al-Maliki to provide the Iraqi military with drones and Hellfire missiles. The Iraqi army would begin operations against the ISIS in Fallujah and Ramadi to squeeze its fighters onto the roadways where they would be open to aerial assault. Undaunted, the ISIS declared on January 3 that Fallujah was now an Islamic state. The Iraqi military forays at the edges of the town have not–at the time of this writing– yielded any simple results.

In Syria, the opposition has tried to regroup in the face of the threat of a resurgent Syrian Army which has taken back many of the towns along the Lebanese border and threatens to recover Aleppo in the face of the ISIS surge. A series of new umbrella groups had been formed, only to lapse into obscurity. In November 2013, with funds from Saudi Arabia and encouragement from the U.S., the radical Islamists who did not belong to the ISIS formed the Islamic Front–drawing in battalions such as the Ahrar al-Sham.

Later in the year, other battalions formed the Syria Revolutionaries’ Front (December) and the Mujahideen Army (January 2014). Almost in coordination with the Iraqi army, these formations began their own assault on the ISIS, with the Islamic Front’s leader Hassan Aboud telling Al Jazeera on January 3 that the ISIS “denies reality, refusing to recognise that it is simply another group. They see themselves as a state. They need to drop this illusion that they have come to believe as an established fact.” The uprising against the ISIS had spectacular success, with its fighters departing from many towns along the Syria-Iraq road.

A source in Raqqa who has closely observed the ISIS-Islamic Front tussles says that there are two reasons for what appears to be the retreat of the ISIS. First, it is “unpopular for its brutality”. As the ISIS retreated, prisoners it had held said that torture had been routine. “We wished to be bombed so that we could be killed rather than kept alive in their prisons,” said one of them. The ISIS killed most of the prisoners it held in Aleppo. The brutal killing of Dr Hussein al-Suleiman, a leader of the Ahrar al-Sham militia in Bab al-Hawa, in December provided fodder for an offensive that had been long in the planning.

Terrorist Designations of Groups Operating in Syria – May 14, 2014 [!]