Thursday, October 30, 2014

U.S. officials calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "chickenshit"

    Thursday, October 30, 2014   No comments
The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here

The Obama administration's anger is "red-hot" over Israel's settlement policies, and the Netanyahu government openly expresses contempt for Obama's understanding of the Middle East. Profound changes in the relationship may be coming.

The other day I was talking to a senior Obama administration official about the foreign leader who seems to frustrate the White House and the State Department the most. “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickenshit,” this official said, referring to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by his nickname.

This comment is representative of the gloves-off manner in which American and Israeli officials now talk about each other behind closed doors, and is yet another sign that relations between the Obama and Netanyahu governments have moved toward a full-blown crisis. The relationship between these two administrations— dual guarantors of the putatively “unbreakable” bond between the U.S. and Israel—is now the worst it's ever been, and it stands to get significantly worse after the November midterm elections. By next year, the Obama administration may actually withdraw diplomatic cover for Israel at the United Nations, but even before that, both sides are expecting a showdown over Iran, should an agreement be reached about the future of its nuclear program.


The fault for this breakdown in relations can be assigned in good part to the junior partner in the relationship, Netanyahu, and in particular, to the behavior of his cabinet. Netanyahu has told several people I’ve spoken to in recent days that he has “written off” the Obama administration, and plans to speak directly to Congress and to the American people should an Iran nuclear deal be reached. For their part, Obama administration officials express, in the words of one official, a “red-hot anger” at Netanyahu for pursuing settlement policies on the West Bank, and building policies in Jerusalem, that they believe have fatally undermined Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace process.

Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and “Aspergery.” (These are verbatim descriptions; I keep a running list.)  But I had not previously heard Netanyahu described as a “chickenshit.” I thought I appreciated the implication of this description, but it turns out I didn’t have a full understanding. From time to time, current and former administration officials have described Netanyahu as a national leader who acts as though he is mayor of Jerusalem, which is to say, a no-vision small-timer who worries mainly about pleasing the hardest core of his political constituency. (President Obama, in interviews with me, has alluded to Netanyahu’s lack of political courage.)

“The good thing about Netanyahu is that he’s scared to launch wars,” the official said, expanding the definition of what a chickenshit Israeli prime minister looks like. “The bad thing about him is that he won’t do anything to reach an accommodation with the Palestinians or with the Sunni Arab states. The only thing he’s interested in is protecting himself from political defeat. He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts.”

read more >>

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Davutoglu: Turkey will help in Kobane when the anti-ISIL coalition arm FSA to overthrow the Syrian Government

    Tuesday, October 28, 2014   No comments

 In a recent interview on the BBC, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, again, equated the Syrian government to ISIL. He insisted that Turkey will help save Kobane when the anti-ISIL coalition commits to a strategy that leads to the overthrow of the Syrian government. He contended that ISIL is strong because the West failed to arm the Free Syrian Army.
Davutoglu expressed surprise about Western countries criticism of his government for not doing enough to fight ISIL. To support his government's strategy of fighting both the Syrian government and ISIL at the same time, he argued that the Syrian government killed 300,000 people and that ISIL was able to fill the gap because the West failed to arm the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Both claims are false. 

The 210,000 people (not 300,000), were killed by both the government and the various armed groups, including the Free Syrian Army. Human rights organization estimated that 65,000 people are Alawites, the community to which Assad belongs. More than 90,000 are from Sunni, Christian, Druze, and Kurdish communities who did not side with ISIL and other rebel groups.
ISIL is strong and well armed thanks to the weapons and training provided to the FSA during the first 18 months of the war in Syria. Most of ISIL fighters were initially FSA fighters. Even former Iraqi military officers joined ISIL. Arming the so-called "moderate" groups ultimately leads to arming ISIL fighters because FSA fighters voluntarily join ISIL or are defeated by ISIL. 
It appears that the Turkish government is determined to pursue a personal and/or partisan obsession focused on overthrowing the Syrian government no matter what the cost and even if that would mean siding with ISIL.




Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has rejected claims that it is not doing enough to help Syrian fighters defeat Islamic State (IS) in Kobane. He told the BBC it would only take part…

Turkey PM Ahmet Davutoglu: 'We will help coalition forces'





Monday, October 27, 2014

Nidaa Tounes wins 38% of the seats in the Tunisian parliament

    Monday, October 27, 2014   No comments
Tunisia's Ennahda party, the first Islamist movement to secure power after the 2011 "Arab Spring" revolts, conceded defeat on Monday in elections that are set to make its main secular rival the strongest force in parliament.
Official results from Sunday's elections - the second parliamentary vote since Tunisians set off uprisings across much of the Arab World by overthrowing autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali - were still to be announced.

But a senior official at Ennahda, which ruled in a coalition until it was forced to make way for a caretaker government during a political crisis at the start of this year, acknowledged defeat by the secular Nidaa Tounes party.

"We have accepted this result, and congratulate the winner Nidaa Tounes," the official, Lotfi Zitoun, told Reuters. However, he repeated the party's call for a new coalition including Ennahda. "We are calling once again for the formation of a unity government in the interest of the country."

Read more >>
 

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Diplomacy for Erdoğan is very personal for, his closest friends are very small and embattled: Hamas and Qatar; and of course Massoud Barzani

    Sunday, October 26, 2014   No comments
Even though Turkey tried to win a seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) this month by presenting itself as a regional power in the Middle East, it lost the contest, and according to this week's guest for Monday Talk, it was a litmus test on how unpopular Turkish foreign policy is in contrast to 2008 when Turkey was able to secure many more than the required two-thirds of the votes.

“Erdoğan destroyed his positive foreign policy legacy. If you look at Turkey's relations with major players, for example Egypt, it is troubled,” said Michael Thumann, diplomacy correspondent at the Berlin office of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, regarding the policies of Turkey's former prime minister and current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“I strongly criticize the coup d'état in Egypt as a reporter and journalist who was there at the time, but still, it got very personal for Erdoğan even though it is about relations between the states. The closest friends are very small and embattled: Hamas and Qatar; and of course Massoud Barzani,” added Thumann, who used to be the Middle East bureau chief for Die Zeit in İstanbul between September 2007 and October 2013.

European countries have been especially critical of Turkey as they say Ankara did not crack down on foreign fighters who have traveled through Turkey to join extremist groups in Syria.

Thumann said Turkey needs to be clear about the ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) threat: “In decisive moments you need to be clear; and regarding Kobani, Turkey needs to be clear. It does not have to send tanks but [it can] help by all means -- open borders, open routes and help the free movement of Kurds. Turkey needs to at least treat Kurds equally to the other opposition groups to the [Bashar al-Assad] regime.”

Thumann, who answered our questions in Berlin during an event organized by the Friedrich Neumann Foundation on the German media system, elaborated on the issue.

read more >>

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

ISIL Using Banned Chemical Weapons in Kobani

    Wednesday, October 22, 2014   No comments

Redur Khalil, spokesman of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria’s Kurdistan region, disclosed that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Takfiri terrorists have been using banned weapons in their recent attacks on the town of Kobani.
“The terrorists have used banned weapons in their recent attacks,” Khalil told FNA on Tuesday.

He noted that the scars on the dead bodies of the YPG forces who have been killed in the warfronts with the ISIL militants indicate that the terrorists have used unconventional weapons to break the resistance of Kobani defenders.

“We need heavy weapons for driving the terrorists out of the region, we do not need dispatch of forces because we have our own fighters who can change the balance of war against the terrorists in the region if they have weapons,” Khalil said.

The YPG spokesman pointed to the recent stances of the Turkish government on regional developments, and said, “The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has so far adopted a dual-approach policy towards regional developments and Ankara’s stances on ISIL terrorists are not transparent and all the forces who have come from abroad and joined the ranks of ISIL terrorists have entered Syria through Turkey.”

The YPG spokesman further asked for the formation of a regional front against ISIL, and said these are the regional nations who should form a coalition against the terrorist group, and not those states that are from outside the region.
read more >>

Battle for Kobani: Turkey's actions have revealed that it is pursuing its own contradictory political agenda

    Wednesday, October 22, 2014   No comments
Just a few kilometers away from the Turkish border, the war is raging. In the Kurdish city of Kobani, US jets bomb Islamic State positions while the town's last defenders, equipped with more grit than guns, fight the jihadists on the ground .

As the Turkish army impassively watches the deadly battle from its side of the boundary with Syria, it has opened its own mini-front on the outskirts of Suruç, a Turkish border city. A young policeman, his finger on the trigger of his automatic weapon, stands in front of the town's sports club, a second officer next to him holding a grenade launcher for tear-gas cartridges. Behind them are two dozen soldiers and policemen, and armored vehicles bearing mounted machine guns and crates of ammunition.

Since Oct. 6, the jittery unit has been detaining a number of Kurdish civilians who fled across the border from Kobani. In the beginning, they numbered 160 -- most of them were young men, though there were also women and children. The guards in front of the gate are not allowed to say why the civilians are being held and they point their weapons at everyone who approaches.

Suddenly, a group of boys from a local team appears. A boy of about 10 explains that they're arriving for weekly soccer practice, held on the field next to the gymnasium. A man in uniform searches through their gym bags, one after the other, while the others look on nervously.

The scene is prosaic and absurd. But it is, for that very reason, symbolic of what is taking place on the Turkish side of the border these days. The fight for Kobani -- which, thanks to its proximity to the border, is being filmed and watched around the world in real time -- is no longer exclusively about control of the city. The desperate defense mounted by the Kurds embodies their decades-long struggle for an independent country.

Kobani was a city where a Kurdish government sprouted and flourished, a fulfillment of dreams in miniature. Now that the city is being threatened with destruction by Islamic State Ankara is doing nothing to prevent it, and thus putting the future of Turkish-Kurdish reconciliation in danger -- and domestic peace along with it.

Incomparable Triumph

read more >>

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

From al-Qaeda affiliate to ISIL to "The Islamic State"

    Tuesday, October 21, 2014   No comments


The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.


The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.



Friday, October 17, 2014

ISIL fighters training to fly Syria warplanes

    Friday, October 17, 2014   No comments
Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) jihadists are being trained by Saddam Hussein's former pilots to fly three fighter jets captured from the Syrian military, a monitoring group said Oct. 16.
     
The planes, which are believed to be MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets, are capable of flying although it is unclear if they are equipped with missiles, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.       

The jets were seized from Syrian military airports now under ISıL control in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Raqa, according to the Britain-based group, which has a wide network of sources inside the war-torn country.
     

It said that former Iraqi army officers who once served under Saddam were supervising the training at the military airport of Jarrah, east of the city of Aleppo.
     
Witnesses have reported seeing planes flying at a low altitude to avoid detection by radar after taking off from Jarrah.

read more >>

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

ISIL, through its new flagship magazine called Dabiq, calls Erdogan Apostate and explains its slaughter of Kurds

    Wednesday, October 15, 2014   No comments
ISIL released the second issue of its flagship magazine, Dabiq. In it, it tried to provide its own narrative to set itself apart from all other Islamist groups, encourage Muslims to migrate to the "Islamic State", and providing some behind the scenes reporting about its military and security operations in Syrian and Iraq. It also tried to explain why the group's forces are attacking Kurdish towns and, in a warning to Turkish leaders, calls Erdogan apostate.The following is a sample of the articles appearing in the magazine of the genocidal group.



The Fight against the PKK

Comprising territory that spans from eastern Turkey, through northeastern Syria and northern Iraq, all the way to northwestern Iran, the area commonly referred to as Kurdistan is a region that is mostly home to a Sunni Kurdish population.

In the 1970s, a group of students led by Abdullah Ocalan founded a communist political organization
called the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, with the goal of establishing an independent marxist state. Thirty years ago, the PKK began an armed conflict against Turkey in an effort to advance their goals. The conflict continued on and off with occasional ceasefires until 2013, when the PKK announced the end of hostilities after lengthy negotiations between the apostates Erdogan and Ocalan.

Approximately ten years ago in neighbouring Shām, the marxist Kurds in the north founded a political opposition party called the PYD (Democratic Union Party), which shares the kufri ideology
of Ocalan and is seen as being a Syrian front for the PKK. During the course of the jihad in Shām, the PYD’s armed wing, the YPG, became increasingly involved in clashes with the mujahidīn as they attempted to control a number of towns and cities in the north with significant Kurdish populations.
The Islamic State did not hesitate to wage war against the communist murtaddīn of the PKK/YPG, while simultaneously continuing their fight against the nusayrī regime and the sahwāt.

There are presently a number of fronts in the Islamic State being defended against the Kurdish communists in both Iraq and Shām. The month of Ramadān saw numerous operations taking place against the PKK and their Iraqi counterparts, the Peshmerga. The following is an account of some of the operations carried out by the mujahidīn.

On the 3rd of Ramadān, the soldiers of the Islamic State made preparations to strike the PKK in the village of Zūr Maghār, near Jarāblus. The  of Jarāblus. Numerous weapons were captured as ghanīmah, including assault rifles, PKC machine guns, RPG launchers and rounds, a sniper rifle and a night vision scope. During the course of the battle there was one shahīd and a number of light injuries. This battle was just one of a number of successful advances made against the PKK on numerous fronts, including the capture of the village of Kindār and a number of other villages adjacent to it on the western front of Tal Abyad on the 11th of Ramadān, with the advance continuing towards ‘Ayn Al-’Arab. This was in addition to a number of operations against the PKK within their main strongholds, including istishhādi operations carried out against the PKK/Peshmerga murtaddīn in both Iraq and Shām, as well as a number of PKK vehicles blown up by the Islamic State’s undercover cells in Wilāyat Al-Barakah, all leading to many of their apostate soldiers being killed.
May Allah continue to humiliate the secularist murtaddīn in all their colors and stripes.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Turkey accused of denying Kurds medical help after preventing Syrian Kurds from returning to Kobane to fight ISIL

    Tuesday, October 14, 2014   No comments
Kurdish mother mourns her son killed by ISIL October 10
With medical supplies depleted in the war-ravaged north Syrian town of Kobane, Kurdish activist Blesa Omar rushed three comrades wounded in battle against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) straight to the border to dispatch them to a Turkish hospital.

He spent the next four hours watching them die, one by one, from what he believes were treatable shrapnel wounds, while Turkish border guards refused to let them through the frontier.

"To me it is clear they died because they waited so long. If they had received help, even up to one hour before their deaths, they could have lived," said Omar, 34, an ethnic Kurd originally from Iraq who holds Swedish nationality.

"Once the soldiers realised they were dead, they said, 'Now you can cross with the bodies.' I cannot forget that. It was total chaos, it was a catastrophe," he said, choking back tears.

Deaths of wounded fighters held up at the border have become another emotive charge in a litany of Kurdish grievances against Ankara, which Kurds accuse of turning its back on their kin fighting across the frontier against ISIL.

The anger has brought violence to Turkey itself: Turkey's 15 million-strong Kurdish minority rose up last week in riots in which at least 35 people were killed. On Oct. 14, there were reports that Turkish war planes had bombed Kurdish militants for the first time in two years.

Turkey says it has been generous to Kurds, taking in 200,000 refugees from the Kobane area since Islamic State fighters launched their offensive four weeks ago.

But as the United Nations warns of a potential massacre in Kobane in full view of Turkish tanks that have done nothing to help protect the town, Kurdish anger threatens to unravel a peace process to end a decades-long insurgency in Turkey itself.

Friday, October 10, 2014

UN's Staffan de Mistura urged Turkey to allow in volunteers to Syria to defend the town from Islamic State militants

    Friday, October 10, 2014   No comments
There are reports that IS has taken control of the Kurdish headquarters in the town, but this has been denied by a Syrian Kurdish official there.

Kobane has been a major battleground for IS and the Kurds for three weeks.

The fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of Syrians, mainly Kurds, to flee into neighbouring Turkey, which has so far ruled out any ground operation on its own against IS.

Kurdish forces, who are being helped by US-led coalition strikes against IS, say they urgently need more weapons and ammunition to push back the militants' advance in the town.


The US Central Command (Centcom) said that US fighter jets alongside UAE and Saudi Arabian military aircraft carried out airstrikes on Thursday and Friday around the southeast of Kobane and in Deir al-Zour, in eastern Syria, destroying several IS vehicles and training facilities.
'No Srebrenica'
Except for one narrow entry and exit point, Mr de Mistura said Kobane was "literally surrounded" by IS, with hundreds of mainly elderly civilians still inside the city centre and another 10-13,000 gathered nearby, AFP reports.

He said the civilians would "most likely massacred'' if the town fell to IS, warning that the UN did not want to see another Srebrenica - where thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 during the Bosnian conflict.

Thursday, October 09, 2014

Isil hostage Peter Kassig: The point is that Isil is killing Muslims every day. Most of the victims of Isil are Muslims

    Thursday, October 09, 2014   No comments
Isil hostage Peter Kassig 'is now devout Muslim who prays five times a day', says ex-captive
Nicolas Henin, a former cellmate of Peter Kassig and John Cantlie, reveals intimate details of their lives as hostages of Islamic State

 The jihadists however, murdered him regardless.

"For other captors, I had the feeling that [the conversions] made no difference, and even it was explained to us, that since you converted after capture, it was up to God to judge the sincerity of your faith, but we cannot take it into account.


"The point is that Isil is killing Muslims every day," said Mr Henin, referring to the group's wider action in the conflict. "Most of the victims of Isil are Muslims."

read more >>

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Turkey's Erdogan blackmails anti-ISIL coalition and kills 19 Turkish citizens

    Wednesday, October 08, 2014   No comments
Turkey's Erdogan is blackmailing anti-ISIL coalition. His security forces just killed 19 Turkish citizens protesting his role in facilitating ISIL takeover of Kobane. Erdogan is a callous politician who is pursuing the overthrow of Assad by allowing the flow of fighters and weapons to ISIL. He wishes that Kobane falls quickly and that civilians are slaughtered on the hands of ISIL so that he gets his buffer zone inside Syria to facilitate the training and transfer of more weapons to anti-Assad forces, including ISIL. He has no respect for institutions, international law, and human life because he personalizes his politics. He is playing with fire: it is only a a matter of time before ISIL
threatens his country.

While Turkish troops watched the fighting in Kobani through a chicken-wire fence, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that the town was about to fall and Kurdish fighters warned of an impending blood bath if they were not reinforced — fears the United States shares.

But Mr. Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would not get more deeply involved in the conflict with the Islamic State unless the United States agreed to give greater support to rebels trying to unseat the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That has deepened tensions with President Obama, who would like Turkey to take stronger action against the Islamic State and to leave the fight against Mr. Assad out of it.

read article >>

Pro-ISIS radicals with machetes, knives attack Kurds in Germany

    Wednesday, October 08, 2014   No comments
Peaceful protests against IS in Syria and Iraq organized by Kurdish nationals in several German cities ended with serious clashes with pro-jihadist Muslims in Hamburg and Celle. Police had to request reinforcements to restore order. 

Police in Hamburg, a port city of 1.8 million people, used water cannons, batons and pepper spray late Tuesday to disperse crowds of warring Kurds and pro-jihadist Muslims, armed with knives and brass-knuckles, following a protest against Islamic State militants who are attacking the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria near the Turkish border. 

read more >>

AKP prefers ISIL over PKK and Assad government

    Wednesday, October 08, 2014   No comments
Following an avalanche of criticism on social media, a prominent member of Parliament from Turkey’s ruling party has deleted a controversial tweet that favored jihadists over the supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).


“What did the young man whose head was crushed do wrong? The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] can’t beat those who did it to him. ISIL kills, but at least they don’t torture,” Emrullah İşler, a member of Parliament from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and a former deputy prime minister, tweeted on Oct. 7.

A young member of the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par) was reportedly among the people who were killed, numbering at least 18, during the violent protests against ISIL in Turkey.



Sunday, October 05, 2014

Ben Affleck angered over the negative, "incomplete" image that Maher and fellow guest, author Sam Harris, were painting of Muslims

    Sunday, October 05, 2014   No comments
The Gone Girl star, 42, appeared as a guest on Real Time With Bill Maher last week, but became angered over the negative, "incomplete" image that Maher and fellow guest, author Sam Harris, were painting of Muslims.

"We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people," Harris said. "It's intellectually ridiculous."

Mayer supporting him, describing Islam as "the only religion that acts like the mafia" and will "f***ing kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture or write the wrong book".

Cue much anger from Affleck, who called Harris' picture of Islam as "the motherhood of bad ideas" over-generalised and "ugly".



"Hold on – are you the person who officially understands the codified doctrine of Islam?" Affleck responded, branding the pair's remarks "gross" and "racist" and arguing that they were akin to saying "Oh, you shifty Jew".

"Your argument is, 'You know, black people, they shoot each other,'" he said.

Watch video


Saturday, October 04, 2014

Qataris who financed 9/11 mastermind now funding terrorists in Syria and Iraq

    Saturday, October 04, 2014   No comments
An al-Qaeda financier jailed for his role in funding the mastermind behind 9/11 is once again raising money for Islamist terrorists after being freed by the Qatari authorities, The Telegraph can disclose.

Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy - a Qatari citizen who was said to have provided 'financial support' for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - was jailed for terrorist offences in 2008 but released after only six months.

He is now accused of funding Islamist terrorists fighting in Syria and Iraq.

New documents released by the US Treasury disclose links between Al-Subaiy and a terror financier accused of bankrolling an al-Qaeda offshoot that plotted to blow up airliners using toothpaste tube bombs.

The American military thwarted the plot in an air strike on the group’s headquarters in Syria just over a week ago.
 The case highlights growing concern over the apparent failure of Qatar, one of the richest nations in the world, to crack down on financial terrorist networks in the country.

Qatar has developed a close relationship with Britain in recent years, investing billions of pounds in the UK, including buying Harrods and building the Shard, the tallest building in Europe. The Gulf State has also secured in controversial circumstances the World Cup in 2022.

But prominent critics are now calling for greater scrutiny of Qatar’s connections to global terrorism with the threat of sanctions if it fails to tackle the problem.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the chair of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, has warned that Qatar “must choose their friends or live with the consequences” while Professor Anthony Glees, director of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said: “The time has come to draw the line under funding by the Gulf States coming into the UK. It is well known that to find the terrorists you have to follow the money and at the moment it seems to be coming from Qatar.”


Friday, October 03, 2014

U.S. VP Joe Biden: Our biggest problem is our allies. Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria

    Friday, October 03, 2014   No comments
U.S. VP Joe Biden has said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan admitted mistakes that paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

"President Erdoğan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border," Biden said during a speech on foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School on Oct. 2.



While speaking to the students for nearly an hour and a half, Biden defended the U.S. foreign policy, stressing that the White House was not late to move against the rise of the ISIL. He said that the regional allies of the U.S, determined to take down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, "poured hundreds of millions dollars, and tens thousands of tones of weapons into anyone who would fight against al-Assad, accepted the people who would be in supply for Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and extremist elements of jihadists coming from other parts of the world."
"Our biggest problem is our allies. Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks, we’re great friends and I have a great relationship with Erdoğan that I spent  a lot of time with. The Saudis, The Emiratis etc... What were they doing?" Biden asked.

"So now what is happening, all of sudden everybody is awakened," Biden added, claiming that like Turkey admitted its mistakes, Saudi Arabia and Qatar stopped the funding of jihadists.


See also these reports: Liveleaks and  RT report 

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Qatar has pumped tens of millions of dollars through obscure funding networks to hard-line Syrian rebels and extremist Salafists

    Thursday, October 02, 2014   No comments
The Case Against Qatar

The tiny, gas-rich emirate has pumped tens of millions of dollars through obscure funding networks to hard-line Syrian rebels and extremist Salafists, building a foreign policy that punches above its weight. After years of acquiescing -- even taking advantage of its ally's meddling -- Washington may finally be punching back. 
Behind a glittering mall near Doha's city center sits the quiet restaurant where Hossam used to run his Syrian rebel brigade. At the battalion's peak in 2012 and 2013, he had 13,000 men under his control near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor. "Part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), they are loyal to me," he said over sweet tea and sugary pastries this spring. "I had a good team to fight."


Hossam, a middle-aged Syrian expat, owns several restaurants throughout Doha, Qatar, catering mostly to the country's upper crust. The food is excellent, and at night the tables are packed with well-dressed Qataris, Westerners, and Arabs. Some of his revenue still goes toward supporting brigades and civilians with humanitarian goods -- blankets, food, even cigarettes.

He insists that he has stopped sending money to the battle, for now. His brigade's funds came, at least in part, from Qatar, he says, under the discretion of then Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah. But the injection of cash was ad hoc: Dozens of other brigades like his received initial start-up funding, and only some continued to receive Qatari support as the months wore on. When the funds ran out in mid-2013, his fighters sought support elsewhere. "Money plays a big role in the FSA, and on that front, we didn't have," he explained.

Hossam is a peripheral figure in a vast Qatari network of Islamist-leaning proxies that spans former Syrian generals, Taliban insurgents, Somali Islamists, and Sudanese rebels. He left home in 1996 after more than a decade under pressure from the Syrian regime for his sympathy with the Muslim Brotherhood. Many of his friends were killed in a massacre of the group in Hama province in 1982 by then President Hafez al-Assad. He finally found refuge here in Qatar and built his business and contacts slowly. Mostly, he laid low; Doha used to be quite welcoming to the young President Bashar al-Assad and his elegant wife, who were often spotted in the high-end fashion boutiques before the revolt broke out in 2011.
read more >>

Followers


Most popular articles


ISR +


Frequently Used Labels and Topics

77 + China A Week in Review Academic Integrity Adana Agreement afghanistan Africa African Union al-Azhar Algeria Aljazeera All Apartheid apostasy Arab League Arab nationalism Arab Spring Arabs in the West Armenia Arts and Cultures Arts and Entertainment Asia Assassinations Assimilation Azerbaijan Bangladesh Belarus Belt and Road Initiative Brazil BRI BRICS Brotherhood CAF Canada Capitalism Caroline Guenez Caspian Sea cCuba censorship Central Asia Chechnya Children Rights China CIA Civil society Civil War climate colonialism communism con·science Conflict Constitutionalism Contras Corruption Coups Covid19 Crimea Crimes against humanity Dearborn Debt Democracy Despotism Diplomacy discrimination Dissent Dmitry Medvedev Earthquakes Economics Economics and Finance Economy ECOWAS Education and Communication Egypt Elections energy Enlightenment environment equity Erdogan Europe Events Fatima FIFA FIFA World Cup FIFA World Cup Qatar 2020 Flour Massacre Food Football France freedom of speech G20 G7 Garden of Prosperity Gaza GCC GDP Genocide geopolitics Germany Global Security Global South Globalism globalization Greece Grozny Conference Hamas Health Hegemony Hezbollah hijab History and Civilizations Human Rights Huquq ICC Ideas IGOs Immigration Imperialism Imperialismm india Indonesia inequality inflation INSTC Instrumentalized Human Rights Intelligence Inter International Affairs International Law Iran IranDeal Iraq Iraq War ISIL Islam in America Islam in China Islam in Europe Islam in Russia Islam Today Islamic economics Islamic Jihad Islamic law Islamic Societies Islamism Islamophobia ISR MONTHLY ISR Weekly Bulletin ISR Weekly Review Bulletin Japan Jordan Journalism Kenya Khamenei Kilicdaroglu Kurdistan Latin America Law and Society Lebanon Libya Majoritarianism Malaysia Mali mass killings Mauritania Media Media Bias Media Review Middle East migration Military Affairs Morocco Multipolar World Muslim Ban Muslim Women and Leadership Muslims Muslims in Europe Muslims in West Muslims Today NAM Narratives Nationalism NATO Natural Disasters Nelson Mandela NGOs Nicaragua Nicaragua Cuba Niger Nigeria North America North Korea Nuclear Deal Nuclear Technology Nuclear War Nusra October 7 Oman OPEC+ Opinion Polls Organisation of Islamic Cooperation - OIC Oslo Accords Pakistan Palestine Peace Philippines Philosophy poerty Poland police brutality Politics and Government Population Transfer Populism Poverty Prison Systems Propaganda Prophet Muhammad prosperity Protests Proxy Wars Public Health Putin Qatar Quran Racism Raisi Ramadan Regime Change religion and conflict Religion and Culture Religion and Politics religion and society Resistance Rights Rohingya Genocide Russia Salafism Sanctions Saudi Arabia Science and Technology SCO Sectarianism security Senegal Shahed sharia Sharia-compliant financial products Shia Silk Road Singapore Soccer socialism Southwest Asia and North Africa Space War Sports Sports and Politics Sudan sunnism Supremacy SWANA Syria terrorism The Koreas Tourism Trade transportation Tunisia Turkey Turkiye U.S. Foreign Policy UAE uk ukraine UN UNGA United States UNSC Uprisings Urban warfare US Foreign Policy USA Uyghur Venezuela Volga Bulgaria wahhabism War War and Peace War Crimes Wealth and Power Wealth Building West Western Civilization Western Sahara WMDs Women women rights World and Communities Xi Yemen Zionism

Search for old news

Find Articles by year, month hierarchy


AdSpace

_______________________________________________

Copyright © Islamic Societies Review. All rights reserved.