ISIS UPDATE: 6.24.16 - Hezbollah set to fight ISIS for Euphrates Valley

ISIS stole army truck to bomb Jordanian troops - http://www.debka.com/article/25494/ISIS-stole-army-truck-to-bomb-Jordanian-troops-

 

The ongoing investigation of the June 21 suicide bombing by ISIS on the Jordan-Syria border, in which six Jordanian border guards were killed and 16 were wounded, has revealed the terrorist organization's sophisticated means of infiltration and attack. According to debkafile's intelligence and counterterrorism sources, ISIS carried out the assault with a stolen Jordanian military vehicle.

 

 Several weeks ago, the truck was transferred by the Jordanian military to one of the rebel groups fighting ISIS in southern Syria. However, an ISIS cell stole the vehicle and transferred it to one of the terrorist organization's bases where it was converted into a truck bomb. ISIS then smuggled the vehicle back into Jordan. When it appeared on Jordanian roads, driven by an ISIS suicide bomber, nobody suspected there was anything unusual because the truck looked like a Jordanian military vehicle. It was therefore not stopped at any checkpoint.

 

 On the morning of the attack, apparently after being hidden for several days, the truck was driven toward the Jordanian outpost at al-Rukban in the Berm area on the Syrian border. Authorities are currently checking whether an accomplice hid the vehicle and arranged for other local accomplices to travel ahead of the suicide bomber and show him the way to the outpost.   

 

 The border patrol troops at the al-Rukban outpost did not open fire on the vehicle as it approached because they thought that it was bringing them supplies. However, the truck suddenly sped up, broke through the gate, barreled into the center of the outpost and exploded.

 

On Wednesday, June 22, in an exclusive report on the attack titled "Jordan's enemy within defies US anti-ISIS wall", debkafile reported as follows: 

 

 The terrorist attack that ISIS carried out on the Jordan-Syria border on Tuesday, June 21, in which a suicide bomber blew up the vehicle he was driving against a Jordanian border patrol, seriously alarmed Amman, Washington and Jerusalem on five counts:

 

 1. The terrorist, who killed six Jordanian soldiers, came from inside Jordan, not across the border from Syria, meaning that ISIS had succeeded in setting up a terror network or networks inside the kingdom.

 

 Suspicion was first raised after the June 6 attack on Jordanian intelligence headquarters in Ain el-Basha near Amman, in which five intelligence officers were killed, by the absence of any claim of responsibility. It now transpires that the ISIS commanders in Jordan had decided to leave no traces for the national security and intelligence services to follow in their investigation.

 

 2. The jihadists' success in pulling off two attacks in two weeks in Jordan - one in the center and the other in the north near the Syrian border, attests to several networks in play across a widely spaced-out region.

 

 3. The attack on Tuesday took place tellingly at Ruqban, where a large exercise by a new brigade of the Jordanian military established to fight ISIS has been taking place for the last few days. The brigade, the first of its kind among Middle Eastern armies, is armed and trained by US counterterrorism advisors, and its structure modeled on that of the ISIS military. The entire brigade travels in new Toyota minivans atop which heavy guns are fixed.

 

 The exercise is therefore preparing for both Jordanian and ISIS forces to fight by means of fast-moving armed convoys when they engage in their next battle in the desert areas between Jordan, Iraq and Syria.

 

 But the Jordanians will have the advantage of air cover by attack helicopters.

 

 That ISIS penetrated the site of a joint Jordanian-US military drill with a truck bomb attests to the upgrading of ISIS operational capabilities in the kingdom.

 

 4. debkafile's intelligence and counterterrorism sources estimate that about 3,000 Jordanians have now joined ISIS and are fighting in its ranks. These homegrown terrorists have the family connections and local knowledge that enable them to move easily around the country. Most ISIS religious leaders and mentors are likewise locals, another advantage for drawing new recruits.

 

 5. The Jordanian military, in cooperation with the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, is currently completing a $500-million project to build a 442-kilometer defensive fence on the country's borders with Syria and Iraq as well as around its bases including those hosting American forces (see map). Its purpose is not only to protect the Hashemite throne, but also to transform the 89,000-square-kilometer kingdom into one of the most important US military outposts in the Middle East in the war against ISIS. The fence will also serve as a barrier between Israel and the forces of ISIS, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

 

 Tuesday's attack, however, raises questions about the entire fence project. Washington and Amman are investing huge sums to keep ISIS out of Jordan when the terrorist peril is creeping up dangerously from within.          

 

Jordan's enemy within defies US anti ISIS wall - http://www.debka.com/article/25494/Jordan's-enemy-within-defies-US-anti-ISIS-wall

 

The terrorist attack that ISIS carried out on the Jordan-Syria border on Tuesday, June 21, in which a suicide bomber blew up the vehicle he was driving against a Jordanian border patrol, seriously alarmed Amman, Washington and Jerusalem on five counts:

 

 1. The terrorist, who killed six Jordanian soldiers, came from inside Jordan, not across the border from Syria, meaning that ISIS had succeeded in setting up a terror network or networks inside the kingdom.

 

 Suspicion was first raised after the June 6 attack on Jordanian intelligence headquarters in Ain el-Basha near Amman, in which five intelligence officers were killed, by the absence of any claim of responsibility. It now transpires that the ISIS commanders in Jordan had decided to leave no traces for the national security and intelligence services to follow in their investigation.

 

 2. The jihadists' success in pulling off two attacks in two weeks in Jordan - one in the center and the other in the north near the Syrian border, attests to several networks in play across a widely spaced-out region.

 

 3. The attack on Tuesday took place tellingly at Ruqban, where a large exercise by a new brigade of the Jordanian military established to fight ISIS has been taking place for the last few days. The brigade, the first of its kind among Middle Eastern armies, is armed and trained by US counterterrorism advisors, and its structure modeled on that of the ISIS military. The entire brigade travels in new Toyota minivans atop which heavy guns are fixed.

 

 The exercise is therefore preparing for both Jordanian and ISIS forces to fight by means of fast-moving armed convoys when they engage in their next battle in the desert areas between Jordan, Iraq and Syria.

 

 But the Jordanians will have the advantage of air cover by attack helicopters.

 

 That ISIS penetrated the site of a joint Jordanian-US military drill with a truck bomb attests to the upgrading of ISIS operational capabilities in the kingdom.

 

 4. debkafile's intelligence and counterterrorism sources estimate that about 3,000 Jordanians have now joined ISIS and are fighting in its ranks. These homegrown terrorists have the family connections and local knowledge that enable them to move easily around the country. Most ISIS religious leaders and mentors are likewise locals, another advantage for drawing new recruits.

 

 5. The Jordanian military, in cooperation with the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, is currently completing a $500-million project to build a 442-kilometer defensive fence on the country's borders with Syria and Iraq as well as around its bases including those hosting American forces (see map). Its purpose is not only to protect the Hashemite throne, but also to transform the 89,000-square-kilometer kingdom into one of the most important US military outposts in the Middle East in the war against ISIS. The fence will also serve as a barrier between Israel and the forces of ISIS, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

 

 Tuesday's attack, however, raises questions about the entire fence project. Washington and Amman are investing huge sums to keep ISIS out of Jordan when the terrorist peril is creeping up dangerously from within.   

 

 

Hezbollah set to fight ISIS for Euphrates Valley -

http://www.debka.com/article/25490/Hizballah-set-to-fight-ISIS-for-Euphrates-Valley

 

Hezbollah this week ordered a general military call-up for their biggest combat mission in the Syrian war since their forces began fighting in support of the Assad regime in 2013, debkafile military forces report.

 

 Iran's Lebanese proxy has been assigned the task of expelling the Islamic State from broad areas it occupied in the Deir ez-Zor region of eastern Syria and, in particular, the Euphrates River valley which connects eastern Syria and western Iraq.

 

 This Hezbollah offensive is designed to open the way for the pro-Iranian Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces and the Badar Forces militias which entered the ISIS-held Iraqi town of Fallujah Friday June 17 to move west and up the Iraqi side of the valley. The two militias spearheaded the Fallujah operation under the command of Iran's Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani of the Revolutionary Guards and Ground Corps Brig. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour.

 

 The plan is for Hezbollah forces to meet these pro-Iranian militia forces on the Syria-Iraq border and so gain control over the most important strategic land pass between Iraq and Syria.

 

 Whereas the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq are fighting under US air cover, Hezbollah is assured of Russian air support in Syria.  And so, for the first time in the Syria conflict and its own history, Hezbollah will receive air cover from both the US and Russia, the two superpowers now coordinating their military moves in Syria and Iraq.

 

 This strategy, which essentially connects the Syrian and Iraqi campaigns against ISIS, was charted on June 9, at a secret meeting in Tehran of the Russian, Iranian and Syrian defense chiefs.

 

debkafile military sources in Washington say that the operation's plan was put before President Barack Obama and he sanctioned it as part of the war on ISIS.

 

 In the run-up to the Syrian segment of the plan, Hezbollah is transferring substantial combat strength from Lebanon into Syria, and emptying its other Syrian fronts, especially around Aleppo, for the large-scale concentration around Palmyra.

 

 The Hezbollah force will start out by targeting the Syrian town of Al-Sukhna, 63km south of Palmyra and 136km north of Deir ez-Zor, thus gaining command of M20, the main highway link between northern to eastern Syria. debkafile military sources say that this military offensive by Hezbollah against ISIS, with combined US-Russian support, threatens to transform a terrorist organization dedicated to fighting Israel in the service of Iran into one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East. Israel cannot stop this happening. The former Israel defense ministers who harangued this week against the Netanyahu government's alleged "scaremongering" willfully ignored this dangerous development. They must also be held at least partly accountable for the failure of Israel's air raids over Syria to diminish Hezbollah's military capabilities.