The ISIS threat to Europe

[choffer]

I wonder how yesterday's news has impacted on applicants for this job?

Quote

ISIS Looking for New Oil Refinery Manager and Oil Staff

Published in Oil Industry News on Saturday, 21 November 2015

Islamic State (ISIS) militants raised quite a few eye eyebrows after announcing they're looking for oil refinery staff and other oil industry positions.

Several media reports claim that the dreaded jihadist group is struggling to look after the oil fields they captured in both Iraq and Syria. They are therefore, looking for a new manager for the oil refineries and are ready to pay a salary of $225,000 a year – an instance that might trigger another round of debate on the source of income for the Sunni hardliner group.

When you discover that you'll be working for the jihadist terror group ISIS in the battle-scarred oilfields of Iraq and Syria, and possibly on the receiving end of Allied airstrikes, then it may well be the last job on your CV.

It is probably one of the least attractive job offers in the oil industry, or in fact in any industry, anywhere.

The terror group has been using black market agents to advertise the post and have cast their net as far as North Africa.

ISIS has captured at least 11 oilfields in its relentless expansion in Iraq and Syria and was making up to £2million a day from sales in June.

But profits have slumped recently for a number of reasons, prompting terror chiefs to put out the job offer for the refineries manager position – the most senior of several vacancies they are hoping to fill.

The jihadists initially ran their business by intimidation – threatening the families of the engineers but the terrified staff fled.

The oilfields have also been hit by a string of fatal accidents which have disrupted production.

Expert Robin Mills, at Manaar Energy, a consultancy firm in Dubai, says that ISIS will struggle to attract the best staff.

He said: "The money is good, but it's not that good. A western oil exec posted to Iraq right now, let alone working for ISIS, would expect to earn a lot more than that."

And officials at Iraq's North Oil Company, which has lost one field to ISIS, said: "With each round of fighting, more staff drift away. Initially they coerced staff, threatening to kill their families. Now they're offering the carrot instead."

It is believed the militant group has also struggled to attract large buyers for its product.

Analyst Matthew M Reed, based in Washington DC, USA, has said: "No big traders, no serious companies are going to fool around with that oil. That oil is essentially radioactive at this point. No one wants to touch it."

ISIS oil is being sold to middlemen – people who own their own tanker trucks and who have connections to established smuggling networks in northern Syria and southern Turkey, or to local refineries in places such as Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan and Turkey.

Mr Reed said: "They're relying on very small transactions and a lot of them in order to move the oil because they're selling it by tanker truck more often than not. And a tanker truck can't hold that much oil."

Using smuggling networks to transport their product across borders, jihadists can make around £15 a barrel.

Source

(To be fair the article does cite the Daily Mirror as the source for the story so maybe a pinch of salt required).

[omariqy]

7 minutes ago, Awol said:

Serious question, instead of stating what won't fix lots of dead civilians, what do you think will? 

In terms of the ideology you know where it comes from - Wahabbi Saudi Arabia.  The majority of their weapons were taken from the Iraqi army.

It's now largely self funding through oil sales, flogging looted antiquities and internal taxation on businesses and individuals.  

What drives it is a desire to remake the world according to its own twisted ideology, that's not a point of potential compromise.

So short of persuading psychotic Saudi Arabia to stand up and denounce its founding doctrine, I'm not sure what you think can be done at that end of things? 

Exactly that! Saudi needs to be challenged. Muslim states should take responsibility. Military action would be much better coming from them rather than us being just another western state bombing Syria.  Which is what most people will see across the world.

[TrentVilla]

35 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Turn of phrase. Is that acceptable to you?

A little unnecessary Chindie. 

You took issue with someone querying your choice of words, I was simply saying they had a point.

[MakemineVanilla]

Last night's farce at least offered considerable consolation for those who didn't vote in the election.

The whole process demonstrated the workings of our sham democracy, where it is all decided before hand, and then the public is treated to a PR presentation after the fact, followed by the theatrics and faux-drama of the already-committed walking through the lobbies they'd picked long before a word was spoken.

Then just to add to the pretence, there was the ordinary people holding their futile placards in the rain, to maintain the fiction that when it comes to war the opinion of ordinary people counts for something.

The lies, empty rhetoric, sloganeering, platitudes and hyperbole of the enthusiasts for war, played on the same chauvinistic tropes as every war in modern history, with its appeal to the jingoist's vanity about the nation's self-ascribed image as the noble ally and friend of justice and freedom, and disregarded any question with regard to the effectiveness of air-strikes.

All questions about why death by British bombs will be effective where a thousand raids by the Americans have failed, were just ignored.

But at least, thanks to Mr Corbyn giving the opposition a free vote, we will know who to blame when the innocents are killed and on whose hands the blood will lie.

Sadly, the vote was really about confirming whether we had learned our lessons from Blair's murderous misadventure in Iraq, which we still have not extricated ourselves from, and last night's vote proved that we have learned absolutely nothing, except that Blair had no need to lie.

Go ahead Mr Cameron and Mr Benn, kill the innocents, but not in my name.

 

[TrentVilla]

29 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Exactly that! Saudi needs to be challenged. Muslim states should take responsibility. Military action would be much better coming from them rather than us being just another western state bombing Syria.  Which is what most people will see across the world.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. The best, if not the only solution to this is direct action Muslim states, sadly I think we all know for a variety of reasons this simply isn't going to happen particularly where Saudi is concerned, they wouldn't even take any refugees.

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

So short of persuading psychotic Saudi Arabia to stand up and denounce its founding doctrine, I'm not sure what you think can be done at that end of things? 

That, specifically, may indeed be difficult but it might make actions taken by the UK in bombing Syria and elsewhere look slightly better in the eye of others if were to stop saying how vital a partner Saudi is in terms of security and keeping UK citizens safe.

With apologies to Bill: what do they do, show us where they're sending the money?

Edited December 3, 2015 by snowychap

[Swerbs]

Airstrikes are next to useless without a sizeable ground force operating there. Since the west doesn't want to commit ground troops the only army I see capable of taking on ISIS is the regime's. Should of at the very least waited till there was a ceasefire agreement.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

Serious question, instead of stating what won't fix lots of dead civilians, what do you think will? 

In terms of the ideology you know where it comes from - Wahabbi Saudi Arabia.  The majority of their weapons were taken from the Iraqi army.

It's now largely self funding through oil sales, flogging looted antiquities and internal taxation on businesses and individuals.  

What drives it is a desire to remake the world according to its own twisted ideology, that's not a point of potential compromise.

So short of persuading psychotic Saudi Arabia to stand up and denounce its founding doctrine, I'm not sure what you think can be done at that end of things? 

I have a question.

The Syrian civil war, which has been going on for ages, precedes the existence of ISIL. The calamity in Iraq precedes the existence of ISIL (indeed, the leadership of ISIL is in part at least made up of former Saddam henchmen).

The Saudi (violent, extreme, misogynist, inhumane) doctrine has existed for long before ISIS, long before the misadventures in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.

So why would getting the Saudis to renounce their stone age sky fairy beliefs and founding doctrine make a blind bit of difference regarding either ISIL or the Syrian civil war?

Even if (as we are told) the ISILs share the same stone age sky fairy beliefs (and I don't think they all do, personally) what difference will some kind of formal Saudi renunciation of these superstitions and their comical legal system and all the rest of it, make to it all?

 

[Davkaus]

Well, Stan Collymore thinks it's a mistake, if that changes anyone's mind.

[omariqy]

Syria Wall Chart

 

[PongRiddims]

I assume there is intelligence about who the backers of ISIS are and how they get their weapons and funding? To put it as simply as possible (and I understand the complexity of the situation probably isn't suited to one question), why can't we stop the financial backing and the weapons sales at source? I'm not being facetious either, it's a genuine question.

[PongRiddims]

Syria Wall Chart

 

I take offence to someone spending time creating a very useful looking table but not making all cells and columns the same width, animals! (Maybe for the TTPYOBS thread)

[chrisp65]

I'm just hoping that doing exactly what we've done time and time before yields a completely different result this time.

 

[PongRiddims]

I'm just hoping that doing exactly what we've done time and time before yields a completely different result this time.

 

Einstein Insanity quote goes here (not aimed at you either Chris, that would be a little unfair, I don't know you)

[chrisp65]

Yep, I nearly posted it as the Einstein thing but wanted a version without the word insanity on it, 'cos I'm nice.

Then, a 2 minute google diversion suggested it might not even really be an Einstein original. Not that that really matters. It's got a basic common sense truth to it.

 

[blandy]

24 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I'm just hoping that doing exactly what we've done time and time before yields a completely different result this time.

Well, previously we bombed Libya, which is in Africa - so that's completely different. And we bombed Iraq, which isn't Syria, and so that's also completely different. And when we got rid of Saddam and left an utter mess, that was different to getting rid of Ghadaffi and leaving an utter mess, because he was a Colonel, and Saddam wasn't. So that's completely different, too. And now you see, we are bombing Syria but not getting rid* of Assad (who hasn't got any kind of rank or military uniforms) - so you see it's nothing like the same thing at all. All completely different and not in the tiniest way repeating the same old mistakes over and over again.

And also this time it was the Frenchies who asked for us to do bombs with them, and previously it was the Americans with the whole Iraq bombs stuff (the frenchies said no to that one**, though they did do bombs on Libya too). So it's all completely not the same at all. It's bound to end differently.***

'*yes, I know we would like to get rid of Assad, but it's not all about him -  that was so last year. 

** can you imagine what would happen if we asked the French to help us and they said no. I don't need to imagine, Margaret Beckett, because it happened. The yanks renamed chips and the rest of us went "actually, the French have got more than a point there" and we got on with the bombing regardless.)

***yes  I know they haven't actually ended.

[chrisp65]

Well I've misunderstood the whole thing.

I thought we were going after the terrorists and their support network at their base.

I'd thought we were bombing Molenbeek in Belgium.

 

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I'd thought we were bombing Molenbeek in Belgium.

Futile - Belgium runs fine without a Government - completely resistant therefore to overthrowing whoever's in charge. And imagine the mess  - there'd be chips and mayonnaise everywhere.Eeeewww! Who'd want to rebuild after that kind of mayhem?  Not Haliburton that's for sure. It's way too gross.. Bleurrgghh. 

[blandy]

I rather shamefully didn't give a complete answer above to Margaret Beckett's question about "can you imagine what would happen if we asked the French to help us and they said no" - I unforgivably forgot to add in that they'd get called names - "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys".

Doesn't seem so clever now, does it?

 

[Rugeley Villa]

22 hours ago, Awol said:

Hillary Benn... 'kin hell.  That was a very powerful speech and he's gone up hugely in my estimation. 

yes it was a brilliant speech.