RUTHFULLY YOURS

A Shiite militia has released an ISIS-style video featuring Turkish workers it took hostage. Its message is aimed at Turkey’s Islamist leader Erdogan, who is allegedly an ISIS backer and certainly a backer of assorted Sunni Islamic terror groups.

While Western media sources aren’t listing the identity of the Shiite terror group responsible, Turkish media outlets claim that Iraq raided Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi version of Hezbollah backed by Iran. The raid resulted in a firefight between what’s left of the Iraqi army and Shiite militias.

A spokesman for the Hashid Shaabi, a government body overseeing armed groups fighting Islamic State including Kataib, denied the militia had any connection to the missing Turks. Karim al-Nuri said a “routine search” had escalated into a quarrel that left one soldier dead and two militia members wounded.

What’s interesting about Kata’ib Hezbollah is how closely Obama is working with it.

The US air campaign to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces break the Islamic State’s siege of Amerli benefited the Hezbollah Brigades, a Shia militia that is supported by Iran and is listed by the US government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. The Hezbollah Brigades is the second Shia militia involved in killing US soldiers to have taken advantage of US airpower to gain territory.

Hezbollah Brigades is one of two Iranian-backed Shia militias to have been identified as fighting at Amerli. The Asiab al Haq, or the League of the Righteous, was also involved in liberating Amerli from the Islamic State. Three leaders of that Shia terrorist group are listed by the US as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

The US military said it launched airstrikes against the Islamic State outside of the town “[a]t the request of the Government of Iraq” and “in support of an operation to deliver humanitarian assistance to address the humanitarian crisis and protect the civilians trapped in Amerli.”

In mid-July 2010, General Ray Odierno, then the commander of US forces in Iraq, said that Hezbollah operatives conducted training inside Iran and were returning to step up attacks on US forces.

So the US is providing air support for a group listed as terrorists and which conducted attacks on Americans and which is now acting much like ISIS. So how is that deal with Iran to “stabilize” Iraq working out?