Who is ISIL? Recruited Saddam’s ‘entire intelligence apparatus’

Gertz’s Geostrategy Direct:

NICOSIA — Islamic State of Iraq and Levant has been operating what was described as a first-rate intelligence unit.
Arab sources said ISIL established an intelligence unit manned by former senior officers in the regime of President Saddam Hussein. They said the unit operated a network in both Sunni and Shi’ite communities that enabled infiltration as well as daily suicide strikes around Baghdad.

Then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein talks with Republican Guard officers in Baghdad on March 1, 2003  AP 

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"It is safe to say that ISIL has recruited virtually the entire intelligence apparatus under Saddam," a source said. "These are Sunnis but also Shi’ites as well disenfranchised by the post-Saddam regime."

All it takes is inattention. Irresponsible, well meaning, expecting the good from people, minding your own business, INATTENTION.

The sources said ISIL has used its intelligence unit to track suspected collaborators of the Shi’ite government in Baghdad. They said the unit identified hundreds of Sunni tribal leaders paid to help track ISIL in such provinces as Anbar, Nineveh and Salah Eddin provinces.
Tribal chiefs were believed to have relayed information that led to the assassination of an ISIL commander. The sources cited the death of Abu Anas Al Kurdi, an ISIL commander killed in a U.S.-led coalition in the northern city of Mosul on Sept. 29.
"After his death, ISIL executed hundreds of tribal leaders and instituted security measures," another source said.
ISIL’s intelligence unit has used extortion and abduction to recruit those from leading Sunni tribes as well as the military. The sources said ISIL was believed to have penetrated virtually every Iraq Army and police unit from Baghdad to the north.
"Their knowledge of what is taking place in the security forces is astounding," the second source said. "Nobody can escape their net."

ISIL using electronic warfare tech captured in Iraq to elude U.S.

WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that Islamic State of Iraq and Levant was using advanced electronics in combat operations.
Officials said ISIL was using electronic warfare in attacks in Iraq and Syria. They said the unspecified EW systems were helping ISIL in both reconnaissance, communications as well as concealment.
"They don’t fly flags and move around in large convoys the way they did," Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
"They don’t establish headquarters that are visible or identifiable."
In an interview on U.S. television on Oct. 12, Dempsey said ISIL was using electronic equipment in the battle for the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. The general said ISIL was becoming more capable in the use of electronic equipment in operations.
Officials acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition could not find ISIL. They said only 10 percent of coalition fighter-jets were firing missiles at confirmed ISIL targets in northern Iraq.
"That wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the right number," Dempsey said. "They know how to maneuver and how to use populations and concealment." Officials said some of the EW equipment was taken from Iraq Army bases captured by ISIL in June 2014. They said other equipment could have been bought from the West through Islamic fronts in Europe.
"The enemy adapts and they will be harder to target," Dempsey said.