Thomas Wictor

My gut told me that something extraordinary was happening in Syria. It took me weeks to find the evidence. I’m now convinced that I’m right, so my prediction is that Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims will make peace within the next five years.

A prediction based on fact

I found video of something that I won’t discuss. It’s such a gigantic change that I would never have thought it possible. However, there’s no question that what’s being reported from Syria isn’t what’s happening. Or rather, much more is happening. I don’t want to sound mysterious; it’s just that the parties involved would prefer that this not get out.

Let me say this: There’s unambiguous proof that people who appear to be enemies are actually cooperating in order to prevent a recurrence of the sectarian catastrophe that took place in Iraq after the US-led Coalition overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. Although I still believe that Saddam should’ve been removed from power, we did almost everything wrong. This section from Wikipedia is relevant to the clandestine operations of the Syrian civil war.

The first Central Intelligence Agency team entered Iraq on 10 July 2002. This team was composed of members of the CIA’s Special Activities Division and was later joined by members of the U.S. military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Together, they prepared for the invasion of conventional forces. These efforts consisted of persuading the commanders of several Iraqi military divisions to surrender rather than oppose the invasion, and to identify all of the initial leadership targets during very high-risk reconnaissance missions.

Because westerners are impatient, our leaders wanted major combat operations over as soon as possible. Thus we won the war but lost the peace.

The Arab League began preparing for the current war in 2008. They needed to create new units for unconventional warfare, they had to fund the Israeli development of new weapons, and they had to train how to use the new weapons in new ways. I adopted the term “C6ISR forces,” coined by IDF Brigadier General Gal Hirsch (retired). C6ISR stands for “Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Cyber, Commando, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance.”

A C6ISR force of strategic special operators is about 800 men organized roughly along these lines.

I’m going to keep using the term, but Arab League and allied strategic special operators should rightfully be called “C6ISRP units.” That is, “Command, Control, Communications, Computing, Cyber, Commando, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Persuasion.”

As lethal as these men are, they appear to have a superhuman ability to persuade fellow Muslims to lay down their arms.

Prediction, not wish-casting

Don’t get me wrong: Lots of Sunnis and Shi’ites will have to be killed, because they won’t get with the program. The graph below may or may not be accurate, but it suits our purposes.

People ally themselves with others based mostly on fear. One way you can alleviate someone’s fear is to show through your actions that you mean them no harm.

There’s video out there that proves once and for all that the Saudis and their allies have no nefarious intent in Syria. Although my blog won’t change the course of history, and although the video is open source, I don’t want to post it. One screen grab will have to suffice.

That’s just to show you that I’m basing my prediction on something.

Prediction for Hezbollah and the mullahs

All I can tell you is that they’ll either change their behavior or be destroyed. As I’ve said many times, I’m too vengeful. My own approach would lead to long-term failure. Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman is planning out the next century. He can see that far ahead. When it comes to Hezbollah and the Iranian mullahs, whatever bin Salman does will remain a secret. That’s a prediction I can make.

The Saudis and their allies have become militarily invincible. Unimaginable power combined with patience allows them to break all the rules of warfare. Although I’ve studied war for forty years, I’ve been unable to comprehend anything the Saudis have done, until long after the fact. Only in retrospect do their actions make perfect sense.

They’re fooling absolutely everybody. Not a single western military “expert” grasps the astonishing brilliance of Mohammed bin Salman. It appears—appears—that his approach is rubbing off on his allies.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday an Islamic State leader was killed when his car was targeted in a strike on Raqqa on Thursday night.

It did not identify the dead militant, but U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the United States believed it killed Haji Iman - an alias for Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, a senior Islamic State leader in charge of the group’s finances, and Abu Sarah, who Carter said was charged with paying fighters in northern Iraq.

U.S. special forces carried out the strike against Haji Iman, officials told Reuters. One of the officials said the plan was to capture, not kill, him. But after the commandos’ helicopter was fired on, the decision was made to fire from the air.

I don’t believe that. The US sent the Specialized Expeditionary Targeting Force of 200 men to Iraq; it arrived in January of 2016. Would our risk-averse commander-in-chief have authorized a mission to fly this far by helicopter just to capture the head Islamic State bookkeeper?

And Reuters says the helicopter was fired on. Believe me, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment—the Night Stalkers—is perfectly capable of coming in silently and surprising the enemy.

I don’t know how Haji Iman was killed. But I don’t have to know. If US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is giving me a completely fabricated version of events, that’s fine. Keep everybody guessing. I’m positive that the Saudis engineered this.

A top jihadi commander in the ranks of the Islamic State (ISIS) was killed on Sunday after internal clashes broke out among the group’s militants in Syria’s northeastern city of Raqqa.

Abu Ali al-Tunisi, a Tunisian jihadi and commander of ISIS military operations in northern Raqqa, was killed at the hands of fellow ISIS militants, according to an informed source in Raqqa.

“Al-Tunisi was attacked by a group of ISIS militants who used to fight under his command in the northern countryside of Raqqa,” local media activist Ammar al-Hassan told ARA News.

The militants have reportedly opened fire at the car of their commander on Sunday evening, killing him and two of his escorts.

And now for another view of the Brussels suicide bombings.

The recent arrest of Paris terror attack suspect Salah Abdeslam in Brussels was likely seen as an existential threat to IS-linked cells inside Belgium. The perception of a breach may have driven planners to accelerate operations, for fear that the European authorities could employ critical intelligence gained from Abdeslam to disrupt future attacks.

Such a ticking clock may explain why the terrorists opted for a crude dual-bombing in place of a more sophisticated and co-ordinated hybrid assault similar to that undertaken in Paris in late 2015.

As IS stunned the world with its blitzkrieg across eastern Iraq in 2014, there was little need for it to conduct attacks outside the Middle East. Its apparent success and superiority over its local rivals was more than enough to draw large amounts of external support and recruits for its cause.

But as IS has weakened over the past two years, its popularity and freedom of action have become increasingly constrained within its immediacy. In such circumstances, insurgent groups often seek to strike outside their own borders as both a punitive measure and a demonstration of strength to potential supporters.

What’s going to happen?

Prediction for the west

Europe is going to be hit really hard, over and over and over. The US most likely will not experience a massive wave of terrorism. Why not?

And these are legal in forty-eight of fifty states.

I feel bad for Europe, but it’s really a binary choice: Either you’re going to defend yourself, or you’re not.

If Muslims themselves have the will to fight jihadist terrorists, why in the world are non-Muslims so reluctant?