Taming Carbon Emissions From the ‘Invisible

SAN DIEGO — With its cavernous cargo holds and gleaming white superstructure, the 730-foot Perla del Caribe, which is nearing completion at a shipyard here, looks like any midsize container ship.

But at the stern, visible through cutouts in the superstructure, are two huge steel tanks that show this is no typical vessel. The bulbous tanks, 90 feet long and painted an eye-catching lime green, together will carry half a million gallons of liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. The gas will be the primary fuel used to power the ship when it begins moving cargo on a weekly schedule from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Juan, P.R., early next year.

While L.N.G. has been used for some ferries and other vessels, the ship and a second, identical one that began plying the Jacksonville-San Juan route last month, are the first container ships to use the fuel. Cleaner-burning L.N.G., which consists almost entirely of methane, can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 15 percent to 20 percent compared with the heavy tarlike fuels used on most ships.

“We came to a decision that rather than putting Band-Aids on things, we should look for ways to address core issues of maritime emissions,” said Peter Keller, the executive vice president of Tote, the shipping company that built the two vessels at a cost of about $350 million.

The two ships will make only a tiny dent in the amount of CO2 released by ships worldwide, about a billion tons a year. And as nations gather in Paris for final negotiations on a new climate treaty, the issue of greenhouse gas emissions from shipping remains a point of dispute.

Environmentalists and others say that too little has been done to rein in ship emissions. As a percentage of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions, the contribution from shipping is relatively small — about 2.6 percent of the global total in 2012, the most recent year for which firm data available. But that figure is poised to grow enormously.

A report released last month by the European Parliament concluded that as the global economy expands, and as countries and other industries reduce their carbon footprint, by 2050, shipping could account for about one-sixth of all the CO2 released into the atmosphere by human activity.

“It will consume a large part of the carbon budget,” said Sotiris Raptis, an analyst with Transport and Environment, a federation of European environmental groups. “That will put us at serious risk of missing emissions targets” that would help limit global warming, he said.

A Hidden Industry

Because most of its work occurs at sea, shipping is something of a hidden industry. And out of sight can be out of mind for emissions.

“It doesn’t feel that the industry is under any scrutiny,” said Tristan Smith, a lecturer and researcher at University College London who helped prepare a 2014 report on ship emissions. “It’s so invisible to the general public.”

As evidence of this lack of scrutiny, environmentalists say, language about emissions from shipping, and from commercial aviation, was eliminated from a draft of the Paris climate treaty during earlier negotiations. Although the language was eventually reinstated, there is no certainty it will make the final cut.

And while the previous climate treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, did mention shipping, “unfortunately, nothing meaningful happened,” Mr. Raptis said.

The shipping industry and the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency that is responsible for regulating it, disagree.

A ship in Qingdao, China. The country’s imports and exports have declined, which could temporarily drop emissions.

EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Pound for pound and mile for mile, shipping is already the most environmentally efficient way to move cargo, and standards to improve efficiency in new ships went into effect earlier this year. Those standards are subject to regular review and could be tightened “if the technology supports that,” a spokeswoman for the United Nations agency said.

Improving a ship’s efficiency means it burns less fuel. And for most ships, fuel represents at least half the operating cost. “So there is an enormous economic incentive for shipping companies to try to minimize their operating costs,” said Christopher L. Koch, who recently retired as the president of the World Shipping Council, which represents so-called liner shipping companies that own and operate container ships and other vessels. “And the more you save on fuel, the less CO2 you’re producing.”

Many liner shippers have adopted efficiency improvements, which can include relatively straightforward steps like polishing the propeller or coating the hull with paint that inhibits the growth of algae and other organisms, to more extensive and expensive work to improve engine performance, reshape the bow or add fins or ducts to the propeller.

Some improvements are even more elaborate. Silverstream Technologies, a London-based company, is one of several that have developed systems that produce a carpet of tiny air bubbles along the bottom of a ship. “The hull touches mostly air, so there’s much less friction,” said Noah Silberschmidt, the company’s chief executive.

Silverstream’s technology, which includes pumps and other equipment and modifications to the hull, has been tested by Shell; in sea trials on a 575-foot-long tanker, it improved efficiency by about 5 percent. A Norwegian Cruise Line ship under construction in Germany will have the technology when it is launched in 2017.

But the simplest way to improve a ship’s efficiency is by slowing down. Studies have shown that such “slow steaming” — reducing speed by at least several nautical miles per hour — can significantly reduce fuel consumption, and thus CO2 emissions. In some cases, emissions have been reduced by more than half.

Slow steaming was widely adopted by liner shippers during the global economic slowdown that began in 2008, and industry groups point to it as being largely responsible for reducing the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of cargo.

But critics point out that there is no guarantee slow steaming will continue. In a stronger worldwide economy, there will be greater pressure on shippers to get more goods to market sooner. Even if slow steaming continues and per-unit emissions remain low, as more cargo is shipped, total emissions will increase.

Liner shippers move only about 60 percent of ocean-going cargo. With other types of shipping — including bulk carriers of oil, grains and other commodities — the shipowner passes the fuel cost on to the company that is chartering the vessel, so there is little incentive for the owner to make improvements.

The United Nations agency’s efficiency standards apply only to new ships, not the approximately 70,000 existing commercial vessels. And because of the unique structure of the shipping industry — vessels are usually registered in countries like Panama and Liberia, partly to avoid stricter regulations elsewhere — it can be difficult to get information about environmental performance for the industry as a whole and for individual ships.

L.N.G.-powered ships like the Isla Bella, leaving Jacksonville, Fla., for San Juan, P.R., promise more efficiency.

C. WHITE

The Carbon War Room, established by Richard Branson and others to promote market-based efforts to reduce emissions, is trying to plug that hole, evaluating and rating ships for their efficiency, or lack of it, so companies that want to be more environmentally responsible can charter cleaner vessels.

“There’s a lack of information and transparency in being able to tell a more efficient ship from one that is less efficient,” said Victoria Stulgis, a senior associate with the Branson project, ShippingEfficiency.org. By enabling charterers to hire cleaner ships, the project aims to accelerate retrofitting of older ones, some of which could still be plying the oceans a quarter-century from now.

A Call for Targets

But environmentalists say that efficiency standards, even if more broadly applied, can go only so far. The only way to truly rein in shipping emissions, they argue, is by adopting specific reduction targets, as many countries and other industries have.

Even if the International Maritime Organization tightens its efficiency standards, “this won’t be enough to reduce emissions,” said Mr. Raptis of Transport and Environment. “We need reduction targets.”

But the shipping industry is concerned that targets could eventually disrupt world trade by restricting ships, and the United Nations agency has for now rejected that approach — most recently in May, when it put off discussion of a proposal that would only have set up a process to work toward reduction targets.

The proposal came from the Marshall Islands, which as the third-largest register of ships after Panama and Liberia, benefits greatly from the shipping industry but also stands to suffer from rising sea levels in the Pacific caused by climate change.

Riyadh talks aim to unite Syrian opposition positions

Saudi Arabia is ready to host a three-day meeting in Riyadh to try to unite the Syrian opposition before potential talks with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

It will not be the first attempt at this, but this time international peace efforts are gaining momentum.

There is a need for the opposition to speak in one voice and present a common vision for Syria's future.

The alliances in this conflict are a complicated maze: there is no clear way through.

There is a thorn in the works already following the decision by Saudi Arabia not to invite Democratic Union Party (PYD), the largest Kurdish group, and its armed wing the YPG. Its allies, the Syrian democratic forces, have not been invited either.

Instead, they will be holding a separate meeting in in country's northeastern province of Hasakeh.

The Saudi meeting comes amid international efforts to restart peace negotiations with the Syrian government and there is a need to create a delegation to represent the opposition.

Global and regional powers recently met in Vienna and agreed on launching peace talks and a political process but there was no agreement on President Bashar al-Assad’s role in that process.

Foreign backers of the warring sides disagree on whether the Syrian leader can stay in power during the transition process. The opposition is just as divided.

"The majority of the opposition believes Assad is part of the problem. There can’t be a solution unless he steps down immediately," Louay Safi, who was a member of the opposition delegation which attended the first peace conference held in Geneva last year, said.

Safi will be attending the meetings in Saudi Arabia but he is no longer a member of the main political opposition in exile, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC).

The SNC will be sending delegates to Riyadh but so will the Damascus-based National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change. They are known as the tolerated opposition.

But many, like Safi, believe its members are hostages of the government.

"They are under the influence of the regime and they are scared of the regime. They cannot outright call for Assad’s departure."

Politicians are not the only ones who do not see eye to eye. On the ground, armed groups do not share similar ideologies.

They have fought together on the front-lines against the Syrian government and its allies. But apart from that, they lack a unified command, and have different visions for the country's future.

One of the most powerful forces in Syria, Al Nusra Front will not be present in Riyadh. It has been listed by the US and the UN as a terrorist organisation and Syrian opposition politicians have urged Al Nusra Front to disassociate itself from al-Qaeda. 

Until now, it hasn’t. It's allies on the battlefield, though, will be attending the meetings in Saudi Arabia.

"If everything goes well in Riyadh, some groups will distance themselves from Nusra," Marwan Kabalan, a Syria expert, said. "There could also be a split within Nusra. Some may join ISIL and others may, for example, join Ahrar al Sham."

Even if Saudi Arabia succeeds in getting the opposition to speak in one voice, some in the delegation may not be acceptable to Russia, the Syrian government’s main backer. Russia does not want to negotiate with groups like Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al Islam, another powerful force based in the Damascus countryside.

For the opposition’s backers, however, they are the backbone of the armed rebellion.

Ahrar al-Sham is a powerful group with thousands of fighters and it will be represented in the Saudi meeting. The US has so far refused to work with it since it cooperates with Al Nusra. 

"What is becoming clear is that whoever doesn't support the Vienna process will be classified as terrorist organisations," Kabalan said.

Jordan has been tasked with coming up with a list of groups deemed terrorist organisations. The ones on the list will not have representation at the talks and will not be part of any ceasefire deal.

And there are realities on the ground that could cause further conflict. 

Kurds' omission

While Syria’s Kurds will be represented, the exclusion of the PYD, YPG and SDF started causing tension even before talks in Riyadh started.

They are partners of the US in the fight against ISIL but Turkey - a backer of the opposition - considers them terrorists. And some in the opposition accuse the PYD and the YPG of being allies of the Assad government.

We're not concerned with the output from the Riyadh conference and we will act like it never happened PYD official

Also omitted is the new Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The PYD and the SDF - an alliance that groups the YPG with smaller Arab and Christian forces fighting ISIL with US backing) - have decided to hold their own meeting in Hassakeh to discuss "Syria's future political system which must be decentralised as well as a constitutional solution for the national rights of the Kurdish people".

"We're not concerned with the output from the Riyadh conference and we will act like it never happened," the PYD said.

"No one, whoever they may be, can impose on us any decision in which we did not take part."

A party official told Al Jazeera that the exclusion is an attempt to weaken them at the behest of Turkey.

"We have already been attacked by opposition groups and we expect the violence to continue," the official said.

"They should have invited all groups except ISIL and al-Qaeda offshoots or else the fighting won't stop and Syria will be divided in the future."

Lately, there has been fighting on some front lines in northern Syria between YPG and SDF and the Arab rebel groups.

This has not only complicated the battlefield but also the political landscape at a time the opposition is supposed to come together to present a united front.

Marine Le Pen's victory is a bigger threat than ISIL

For the first time, the extreme-right National Front (FN) party has claimed victory in a national election in France. The first round of the regional elections has left Marine Le Pen's movement as the leading political force in French politics, ahead of the traditional socialist and republican parties.

Winning the ballots in six out of 14 regions, the chance for the xenophobic movement to seize control of at least two of them  - Nord Pas de Calais in the north and Provence Alpes Cote d'Azur in the south - has been increased by Nicolas Sarkozy's irresponsible decision to refuse any alliance with President Francois Hollande's socialist party against Le Pen, in the hope of maximising his own chances for the presidential election in 2017.

This result is of historical magnitude. The National Front had recorded the highest score during the European elections last year but the timeliness of the party's anti-Brussels rhetoric could well be credited for its capacity to cash in on widespread discontent in France.

Polarisation of French politics

On Sunday, Le Pen capitalised on the French population's feeling of insecurity after the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, with the results of the regional elections confirming the polarisation of French politics. 

If the power of regions in French politics remains limited as opposed to the German Landers, Le Pen's likely victory in Lille - as well as that of her niece in Marseilles - will provide the xenophobic movement with a tribune to spread its populistic and narrow-minded political platform. 

The particularity of the French electoral system is one of the key reasons for the success of the extremist movement. Despite its slow growth over the past 30 years, the National Front has never been able to elect more than two parliamentary members in a winner-takes-all system (apart from a brief stint in 1986-88) because of the unwillingness of other parties to be associated with Le Pen's racist political platform.

As a result, the French population has rarely been able to assess the ineptitude of the National Front leaders or to realise the real dangers that the extreme-right party represents.

While other minority parties ... have been regularly forced to ally with other forces, soften its political positions and accept compromises ... the National Front embraced the role of outcast, which allowed it to grow outside of the spotlight.

While other minority parties, such as the Green Party, have been regularly forced to ally with other forces, to soften its political positions and to accept compromises to ensure a parliamentary presence essential for its financial survival, the National Front embraced the role of outcast, which allowed it to grow outside of the spotlight.

Shady loans from Russian banks 

The financial sacrifice resulting from the absence of members of parliament and electoral victories - political parties in France receive public funds on the basis of the number of elected members - was swiftly alleviated when the party reportedly received loans from Russian banks earlier this year.

This opportunistic support from Russia raises serious questions about the movement's independence and its vassalage to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the few cases when the National Front has been able to win a local election, its track record is appalling. In Hayange, the extreme-right mayor was found to have falsified its electoral budget. In Beziers, the National Front mayor Robert Menard has encouraged the creation of private militias and the religious listings to target minorities. In each of the Southern cities of Toulon, Vitrolles, Orange and Marignane, once held by the National Front, corruption, nepotism and mismanagement has been endemic. 

After a few years of National Front administration, each city ended up in severe debt and unable to balance budgets despite severe cuts in spending in culture and social welfare. 

On every occasion, the National Front has proved to be inept in any power position. Unfortunately, the very electoral system that prevented the parliamentary representation of the National Front might end up ushering a tsunami of incompetent and corrupt politicians in the coming years.

Supporters of French National Front political party leader Marine Le Pen [REUTERS]

Scapegoating a community

No doubt, the November 13 attacks in Paris have played a part in the National Front victory. The terrorist actions from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been an opportunity for Le Pen to target Muslim minorities and scapegoat a community that is mostly peaceful and respectful of the French Republican values of Freedom, Equality and Solidarity. This is in no way a coincidence. 

ISIL's very objective is to polarise French society and surf on the dismantlement of its civic structure to recruit simple-minded individuals who feel rejected by the xenophobic discourse of the National Front and the cowardice of French leaders to stand against it.

While France is ailing and still mourns the attacks against its multicultural society, the National Front's victory on Sunday, in the same vein as ISIL terrorist attacks, is another step towards communitarianism and the defeat of a secular and progressive model inherited from the Enlightenment and the philosophical triumph of reason.

Those who continue to vote for Marine Le Pen simply fail to realise the obvious contradiction of their act. Those who prefer favouring short-term electoral interests, such as Nicolas Sarkozy, are the favourite allies of anti-republican forces.

Remi Piet is assistant professor of public policy, diplomacy and international political economy at Qatar University.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Cameron Says Flooding 'Absolutely Horrific'

The Prime Minister said it was "an absolutely horrific thing to happen" to households who now face not being home for Christmas.

Mr Cameron also promised a review of flood defence plans following the devastation caused by Storm Desmond.

He was speaking after visiting a family whose home was hit by two feet of water as torrential rain saw the nearby River Eden overwhelm flood barriers.

Mr Cameron said: "Well it's an absolutely horrific thing to happen and for some of these people it's not the first time it's happened, which is why we built these great barriers here, which have prevented Carlisle from flooding on two other occasions, but they weren't enough this time.

"Something like 14 inches of rain in 24 hours, it really was torrential.

"The emergency services have been brilliant but that's no consolation to people who you know, face a very wet few days and then not perhaps being home for Christmas.

"But after every flood the thing to do is sit down, look at the money you are spending, look at what you are building, look at what you are planning to build in the future and ask, 'Is it enough?'

"And that's exactly what we will do."

wanted to "live free from the fear of being flooded," he said.

Mr Cameron added: "We need to make sure they get all the support they need.

"Get the insurance claim paid quickly, get them the alternative accommodation, make sure the council picks up the furniture and the things they have had to throw out of their houses, and then try and get them back in as soon as possible.

"So what I will say is, we will stay on this as long as we have with previous floods, you have to stay on it and then make sure we do the work to try and help even more in the future."

Earlier, Environment Secretary Liz Truss defended the Government's spending on flood defences, promising to "do everything we can" to help victims of flooding.

Ms Truss said £2.3bn was being spent on 1,500 schemes to protect 300,000 homes and that there had been an increase in flood defence spending under the coalition and would be under the Conservative government.

However, Labour has accused the Government of cutting flood defence spending and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron has claimed that the situation in the north of England had been exacerbated because 300 schemes had been shelved in recent years.

It had emerged that flood defence spending had been due to drop by £116m this year as thousands of families struggle with the aftermath of flooding in the north of the country.

The Government has set aside £695m for dealing with flooding and erosion in 2015/16 – a 14% drop on the previous year, according to the figures released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

It would have been the biggest year-on-year drop in flood funding for four years.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "Last year, the Prime Minister of Britain promised that 'money is no object' in dealing with flooding, itself a consequence of the destruction of our environment.

"But this has proved to be yet another false promise. In the last parliament, the Government slashed spending on flood defences before the 2014 winter floods.

"The Government has failed to deliver on their promises. They have abandoned the consensus on flood investment built by the Labour party after the 2007 floods - and are failing the British people because of their obsession with austerity."

In February 2014, Mr Cameron pledged there would be "no penny pinching" and that "money would be no object" in dealing with the flooding damage in the South East and South West.

The funding for 2013/14 jumped from £621m to £811m.

Around 2,100 homes in Cumbria and Northumberland were flooded over the weekend.

The scenes sparked questions about why the multimillion-pound flood defences, which were upgraded in 2010 - after floods in 2005 and 2009 - to withstand a "once in 100 years" flood, were breached at the weekend.

Beijing Issues First Ever Pollution 'Red Alert'

Schools have been urged to close and half of the city's vehicles are to be kept off the roads as the dense smog is set to shroud parts of the Chinese capital until Thursday.

An online notice from the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau on Monday said it issued the alert to "protect public health and reduce levels of heavy air pollution".

Authorities blame heavy coal-burning in factories and vehicle emissions for the increase in pollution.

China, the world's biggest carbon emitter, plans to upgrade coal power plants over the next five years to tackle the problem.

It says its emissions will peak by around 2030 before starting to decline.

While emissions standards have been tightened and heavy investments made in solar, wind and other renewable energy, China still depends on coal for more than 60% of its power.

Turkey Summons Russian Ambassador Over Rocket-Launcher Incident

Murad Sezer—ReutersThe Russian navy's large landing ship Caesar Kunikov sets sail in the Bosporus toward the Black Sea, in Istanbul on Nov. 25, 2015

Turkey summoned the Russian ambassador Monday after images surfaced of a serviceman allegedly wielding a rocket launcher on the deck of a Russian naval ship as it passed through Istanbul over the weekend.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu described the incident as a “provocation” that “has to end,” reports German news service Deutsche Welle. Relations between Ankara and Moscow have deteriorated since Turkey downed a Russian warplane near the Turkey-Syria border on Nov. 24.

Moscow leveled economic sanctions against Ankara after the downing, which Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said could cost Turkey’s economy up to $9 billion.

The Bosporus Strait is the only passage Russia’s Black Sea fleet can use to access the world’s oceans.

The Isis papers: leaked documents show how Isis is building its state

A recently leaked documentpurportedly drafted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria provides details of the extremist group’s plan to set up a fully functioning government in the Middle Eastern territory it controls, the Guardian reported Monday.

The 24-page document, obtained by the Guardian, sets out a blueprint for establishing foreign relations, a fully fledged propaganda operation, and centralised control over oil, gas and the other vital parts of the economy.

The manual, written last year and entitled Principles in the administration of the Islamic State, lays bare Isis’s state-building aspirations and the ways in which it has managed to set itself apart as the richest and most destabilising jihadi group of the past 50 years.

Together with other documents obtained by the Guardian, it builds up a picture of a group that, although sworn to a founding principle of brutal violence, is equally set on more mundane matters such as health, education, commerce, communications and jobs. In short, it is building a state.

As western aircraft step up their aerial war on Isis targets in Syria, the implication is that the military task is not simply one of battlefield arithmetic. Isis is already far more than the sum of its fighters.

The document – written as a foundation text to train “cadres of administrators” in the months after Isis’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a “caliphate  in Iraq and Syria on 28 June 2014 – sketches out how to organise government departments including education, natural resources, industry, foreign relations, public relations and military camps.

Dated some time between July and October 2014, it details how Isis will build separate training camps for regular troops and veteran fighters. Veterans, it says, should go on a fortnight’s refresher course each year to receive instruction in the “latest arts of using weapons, military planning and military technologies”.

It says they will also be given a “detailed commentary on the technologies” of the enemy and “how the soldiers of the state can take advantage of them”.

The statecraft manual recommends a department for administering the military camps, a complex arrangement that, as described, goes well beyond the capabilities of al-Qaida in Afghanistan during the time it plotted the 9/11 attacks.

The document reveals for the first time that Isis always intended to train children in the arts of war. Isis propaganda from this year has clearly shown children being drilled, and even made to shoot captives.

But the text, authored by an Egyptian called Abu Abdullah, is explicit about the intention to do so from mid- to late 2014. Children, it says, will be receive “training on bearing light arms” and “outstanding individuals” will be “selected from them for security portfolio assignments, including checkpoints, patrols”.

The text highlights the need for Isis to achieve a unified culture encompassing foreigners and natives and sets out the need for self-sufficiency by establishing its own independent “factories for local military and food production” and creating “isolated safe zones” for providing for local needs. 

The document came from a businessman working within Isis via the academic researcher Aymenn al-Tamimi, who has worked over the past year to compile the most thorough log of Isis documents available to the public.

For safety reasons, the Guardian cannot reveal further information about the businessman but he has leaked nearly 30 documents in all, including a financial statement from one of Isis’s largest provinces.

Isis is a project that strives to govern. It's not just a case of their sole end being endless battle

Aymenn al-Tamimi

Isis has suffered military setbacks in recent weeks, and some Sunni Arabs from Raqqa have indicated that its statecraft might be better on paper than it is in practice. 

But Tamimi said the playbook, along with a further 300 Isis documents he has obtained over the past year, showed that building a viable country rooted in fundamentalist theology was the central aim. “[Isis] is a project that strives to govern. It’s not just a case of their sole end being endless battle.”

Gen Stanley McChrystal (retired), who led the military units that helped destroy Isis’s predecessor organisation (ISI) in Iraq from 2006 to 2008, said: “If it is indeed genuine, it is fascinating and should be read by everyone – particularly policymakers in the west. 

“If the west sees Isis as an almost stereotypical band of psychopathic killers, we risk dramatically underestimating them.

“In the Principles in the administration of the Islamic State, you see a focus on education (really indoctrination) beginning with children but progressing through their ranks, a recognition that effective governance is essential, thoughts on their use of technology to master information (propaganda), and a willingness to learn from the mistakes of earlier movements.

“It’s not a big departure from the works of Mao, the practices of the Viet Minh in Indochina, or other movements for whom high-profile actions were really just the tip of a far more nuanced iceberg of organising activity.

Charlie Winter, a senior researcher for Georgia State University who has seen the document, said it demonstrated Isis’s high capacity for premeditation.

“Far from being an army of irrational, bloodthirsty fanatics, IS [Isis] is a deeply calculating political organisation with an extremely complex, well-planned infrastructure behind it.”

Lt Gen Graeme Lamb, former head of UK special forces, said the playbook carried a warning for current military strategy.

Referring to sections of the statecraft text in which Isis repeatedly claims it is the only true representatives of Sunni Arab Muslims in the region, Lamb said it was all the more important to ensure wider Sunni leadership in the fight with Isis, or risk “fuelling this monster”.

“Seeing Daesh [Isis] and the caliphate as simply a target to be systematically broken by forces other than Middle Eastern Sunnis … is to fail to understand this fight.

“It must be led by the Sunni Arab leadership and its many tribes across the region, with us in the west and the other religious factions in the Middle East acting in support.

“It is not currently how we are shaping the present counter-Isis campaign, thereby setting ourselves up for potential failure.”