Saudi authorities arrest Sheikh Safar Ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Hawali, and sons, for criticizing rulers domestic and foreign policies

Saudi authorities arrest Sheikh Safar Ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Hawali, and sons, for criticizing rulers domestic and foreign policies

    Friday, July 13, 2018   No comments

Human rights campaigners and online activists said on Thursday that Sheikh Safar Ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Hawali had been detained, without providing further details.
However, some of his followers believe that he was arrested because of his views that were expressed in a 3000 page eBook released last week. In the book al-Hawali is highly critical of Saudi foreign and domestic policies and military interventions in the region.

The book, Muslims and Western Civilization, is available only in Arabic at this point, is available in the public domain and can be read below.


Hawali is a leading figure in Saudi Arabia's Sahwa (Awakening) movement, which opposes the presence of US troops in the Arabian Peninsula.

In the 1990s, Hawali was jailed for opposing the Saudi ties with US troops leading a military operation in Kuwait. In 1993, he was banned from public speaking and dismissed from his academic posts on suspicion of attempting to incite civil disobedience. In 1994, the Islamic scholar was once again arrested, but was soon released.

Last month, Saudi authorities detained a number of prominent women’s rights advocates, just days before lifting the decades-long ban on women's driving.

Hundreds of influential Saudi businessmen and members of the royal family were also rounded up in November 2017 in an alleged “anti-corruption campaign” spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Bin Salman was appointed the first in line to the Saudi throne by his father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, last June.

Since then, he has engaged in a string of radical economic and social projects in a bid to portray himself as “reformist.” However, those projects have been widely seen as being more about consolidating his personal power rather than bringing about real change to Saudi Arabia.


Read News report about the arrest of al-Hawali

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المسلمون والحضارة الغربية

Arizona Muslim woman running for Senate is told, "We hate your filthy death cult"

Arizona Muslim woman running for Senate is told, "We hate your filthy death cult"

    Wednesday, July 19, 2017   No comments

A Muslim attorney hoping to unseat Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has been deluged with threats after posting a patriotic message on her Facebook page.

Deedra Abboud, a Phoenix attorney who’s running as a Democrat in the Senate race, has endured vitriol since announcing her campaign in the spring, but her recent post on religious tolerance prompted a wave of threatening messages, reported The Republic.

...

Social media users attacked Abboud and made violent threats, some of which were printed in the newspaper.

“Nice try but your first love is Satan (AKA Allah) and your second love is to a litter box your ‘people’ come from,” said S. Jason Parr. “You are as American as Chinese checkers.”

“BAN ISLAM IN THE USA…WE HATE YOUR FILTHY DEATH CULT,” posted Chris Ruen.

“I bet you’ll be a BLAST with constituents,” wrote Tony Madden. source

Abboud, an attorney and community activist, says she’ll handle the cringe-worthy comments like she would any bully who confronted her on the political playground.

“We haven’t dealt with this really hateful rhetoric,” Abboud said. “We as a society never dealt with it, and we’ve been operating under a bogus bullying theory that if you ignore the bullies, they’ll go away.”

Abboud isn’t ignoring it, but she’s not letting it get to her either: “You’re going to win a match against a bully when you stay strong.” Source

Abboud, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and who converted to Islam 19 years ago, is asked to go back... to somewhere. Michael Scozzari wrote “Vote to send them back to the sand pit, were (sic) these scumbag people belong!”

 

The attacks came in reaction to a post about her support for the separation of church and state:

 "Almost 250 years ago a group of dreamers came together and sketched out a revolutionary vision. No longer would they be shackled to the whims of a distant government, nor bound to the religion of an idiosyncratic king. They set out to forge their own futures, determine their own destinies, and follow their own faith. In their infinite wisdom, the Founding Fathers decreed that this nation would separate church and state, and in doing so protect both institutions. Government would be free from religious overreach, and religion would be free from government interference."

 

Trump wants to defeat "radical Islamist extremism", he also wants Saudi Arabia, which "is destabilizing the world", to lead

Trump wants to defeat "radical Islamist extremism", he also wants Saudi Arabia, which "is destabilizing the world", to lead

    Wednesday, June 14, 2017   No comments

Just a few months ago, the governor of Indonesia’s largest city, Jakarta, seemed headed for easy re-election despite the fact that he is a Christian in a mostly Muslim country. Suddenly everything went violently wrong. Using the pretext of an offhand remark the governor made about the Koran, masses of enraged Muslims took to the streets to denounce him. In short order he lost the election, was arrested, charged with blasphemy, and sentenced to two years in prison.


This episode is especially alarming because Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has long been one of its most tolerant. Indonesian Islam, like most belief systems on that vast archipelago, is syncretic, gentle, and open-minded. The stunning fall of Jakarta’s governor reflects the opposite: intolerance, sectarian hatred, and contempt for democracy. Fundamentalism is surging in Indonesia. This did not happen naturally.

Saudi Arabia has been working for decades to pull Indonesia away from moderate Islam and toward the austere Wahhabi form that is state religion in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis’ campaign has been patient, multi-faceted, and lavishly financed. It mirrors others they have waged in Muslim countries across Asia and Africa.

Successive American presidents have assured us that Saudi Arabia is our friend and wishes us well. Yet we know that Osama bin Laden and most of his 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and that, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a diplomatic cable eight years ago, “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” ... source

Egypt accuses Qatar of providing sanctuary to individuals who financed the bomb attack on church in Cairo

Egypt accuses Qatar of providing sanctuary to individuals who financed the bomb attack on church in Cairo

    Friday, December 16, 2016   No comments

ISR comments: For the second time in days, Egyptian authorities accuse Qatar of a role in training groups threatening the security of the country. This time, the interior ministry explicitly stated that Qatar is providing sanctuary to individuals who are training and financing the terrorists who bombed the church in Cairo. Other Gulf Stated reacted by rejecting the charges against Qatar claiming that all Gulf States stand against terrorism.

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Egypt's interior ministry Monday accused fugitive Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have fled to Qatar of training and financing the perpetrators of the bomb attack on a Cairo church that killed 25 people.

The ministry said investigations revealed the group was led by a suspect who received financial and logistical support and instructions to carry out the attacks by Brotherhood leaders residing in Qatar.

The Muslim Brotherhood have denied any involvement with the explosion at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church on Sunday.

The incident was the deadliest attack in recent memory on the Christian minority, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population.

The Interior Ministry said late Monday that Mustafa belonged to a terrorist cell founded by an Egyptian doctor and funded by Muslim Brotherhood leaders living in exile in Qatar, long accused by Egypt of supporting militants groups. It said the cell was tasked with staging attacks that would lead to sectarian Muslim-Christian strife. source

Native Deen Uses Rap to Combat Stereotypes About Islam

Native Deen Uses Rap to Combat Stereotypes About Islam

    Tuesday, August 09, 2016   No comments

Summer camp may seem like an unlikely place to create a successful, internationally-acclaimed rap group.

But in the early 90s, during an era when the mix of rap and musical activism was at its prime, three amateur, Muslim-American artists saw an opportunity to blend the Islamic faith and hip-hop culture.

Roughly a decade later — the same year as the Sept. 11 attacks — the trio formed Native Deen, a Washington, D.C., based rap group,which celebrates the Islamic-American experience using a fusion of hip-hop and R&B flavor.

Native Deen meet with students during a trip with members of the U.S. State Department to a school in the Palestinian territories in 2006.


*****

"We grew up during the golden ages of hip-hop. This was the music and the language of young people," group member Naeem Muhammad told NBC News. Their mission? "To spread an uplifting message of Islam" to combat the misunderstanding of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, said group member Abdul-Malik Ahmad. The group now boasts sold out performances internationally and in 2006 won an Al-Mahabba Award, which celebrates Muslim achievements in the arts, in Dubai. "Our music came at a time where a lot of young Muslims were having issues with identity," Muhammad said, adding that Muslim youth often struggle with merging "their Muslim identity with all of their American identity" while growing up in a country that misunderstands their faith. Source

 

  

Quran Fragments, Said to Date From Time of Muhammad, Are Found in Britain

Quran Fragments, Said to Date From Time of Muhammad, Are Found in Britain

    Wednesday, July 22, 2015   No comments

Oldest surviving copies fragments of a Quran manuscript

Fragments of what researchers say are part of one of the world’s oldest manuscripts of the Quran have been found at the University of Birmingham, the school said on Wednesday.
The ancient fragments are probably at least 1,370 years old, which would place the manuscript’s writing within a few years of the founding of Islam, researchers say, and the author of the text may well have known the Prophet Muhammad.

The small pieces of the manuscript, written on sheep or goat skin, sat in the university’s library for about a century until a Ph.D. student noticed their particular calligraphy. The university sent a small piece of the manuscript to Oxford University for radiocarbon dating.

David Thomas, a professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham, said that when the results came back, he and other researchers had been stunned to discover the manuscript’s provenance.

Muslims believe Muhammad received the revelations that form the Quran, the scripture of Islam, between 610 and 632, the year of his death. Professor Thomas said tests by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit indicated with a probability of more than 94 percent that the parchment dated from 568 to 645.

During the time of Muhammad, the divine message was not compiled into the book form in which it appears today, Professor Thomas said. Rather, the words believed to be from God as told to Muhammad were preserved in the “memories of men” and recited. Parts of it were written on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels, he said.
 

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Losing my religion for equality

Losing my religion for equality

    Wednesday, April 22, 2015   No comments

I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.

In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.

The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in the West. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.

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Saudi cleric says Earth doesn’t revolve around itself

Saudi cleric says Earth doesn’t revolve around itself

    Thursday, February 19, 2015   No comments

Founder of Salafism

A Saudi cleric has appeared in a video rejecting that Earth revolves around the sun, claiming instead that it is “stationary.” His statements have incited a fiery response on social media.

When questioned by a student about whether the Earth was stationary or moving, Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari responded with “stationary and does not move,” Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabia reported.

 He then attempted to support his theory with a strange blend of logic and clerical statements.

“First of all, where are we now? We’re going to Sharjah Airport to travel to China by plane, [is that] clear? Focus with me, this is the Earth,” he said while holding up a sealed water cup.

He proceeded to say that if the plane stopped dead in its tracks in mid-air, “China would be coming towards it in case the Earth rotates in one direction. If the Earth rotates in the opposite direction, the plane would never reach China, because China is also rotating,” he said.

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At Prayer Breakfast, Obama Decries 'Distortions' of Faith to Justify Violence

At Prayer Breakfast, Obama Decries 'Distortions' of Faith to Justify Violence

    Thursday, February 05, 2015   No comments

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Thursday, President Barack Obama decried groups like ISIS that commit violence in the name of religion and warned that such "distortions" are not unique to any one group of people.

"We see faith driving us to do right," he said. "But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, being used as a wedge - or worse, sometimes used as a weapon."

Calling the Islamic terror group known as ISIS or ISIL "a brutal, vicious death cult," Obama noted that its extremists oppress minorities and rape women in the name of religion.

And, he said, any faith can be "twisted" by humans to justify acts of injustice and violence.

"There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith," he said.



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Debating Howard Dean's statement that Paris Terrorists "About as Muslim as I Am"

Debating Howard Dean's statement that Paris Terrorists "About as Muslim as I Am"

    Saturday, January 24, 2015   No comments

Debating Howard Dean's statement that Paris Terrorists "About as Muslim as I Am":

HOWARD DEAN: You know, this is a chronic problem. I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life, that’s not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.

    BRZEZINSKI: Interesting, yeah. Hmm.

    DEAN: And I think you got to deal with these people. The interesting thing here, is we talked about guns the last time in regarding the United States, regarding how guns get in the hands of the kind of people that kill the two police officers here two weeks ago.

    France has tremendous gun control laws, and yet these people are able to get Kalashnikovs. So, this is really complicated stuff, and I think you have to treat these people as basically mass murderers. But I do not think we should accord them any particular religious respect, because I don’t think, whatever they’re claiming their motivation is, is clearly a twisted, cultish mind.

Watch it:




Howard Dean defended his position even when challenged by Bill Maher, who believes that Islam, not just a specific interpretation of it by a specific cult or sect and unlike other religions, is a inherently violent religion:

How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists

How Qatar is funding the rise of Islamist extremists

    Sunday, September 21, 2014   No comments

Qaradawi, Qatar asset

The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists

Few outsiders have noticed, but radical Islamists now control Libya's capital. These militias stormed Tripoli last month, forcing the official government to flee and hastening the country's collapse into a failed state.

Moreover, the new overlords of Tripoli are allies of Ansar al-Sharia, a brutal jihadist movement suspected of killing America's then ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and of trying to murder his British counterpart, Sir Dominic Asquith.

Barely three years after Britain helped to free Libya from Col Gaddafi's tyranny, anti-Western radicals hold sway. How could Britain's goal of a stable and friendly Libya have been thwarted so completely?

Step forward a fabulously wealthy Gulf state that owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East.

Qatar, the owner of Harrods, has dispatched cargo planes laden with weapons to the victorious Islamist coalition, styling itself "Libya Dawn".

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Qatar and political power is leveraged by media and Islamism

Qatar and political power is leveraged by media and Islamism

    Monday, September 08, 2014   No comments

Qatar and political power is leveraged by media and Islamism

CAIRO — Standing at the front of a conference hall in Doha, the visiting sheikh told his audience of wealthy Qataris that to help the battered residents of Syria, they should not bother with donations to humanitarian programs or the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.

“Give your money to the ones who will spend it on jihad, not aid,” implored the sheikh, Hajaj al-Ajmi, recently identified by the United States government as a fund-raiser for Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Qatar is a tiny, petroleum-rich Persian Gulf monarchy where the United States has its largest military base in the Middle East. But for years it has tacitly consented to open fund-raising by Sheikh Ajmi and others like him. After his pitch, which he recorded in 2012 and which still circulates on the Internet, a sportscaster from the government-owned network, Al Jazeera, lauded him. “Sheikh Ajmi knows best” about helping Syrians, the sportscaster, Mohamed Sadoun El-Kawary, declared from the same stage.

Sheikh Ajmi’s career as fund-raiser is one example of how Qatar has for many years helped support a spectrum of Islamist groups around the region by providing safe haven, diplomatic mediation, financial aid and, in certain instances, weapons.

...

Propelling the barrage of accusations against Qatar is a regional contest for power in which competing Persian Gulf monarchies have backed opposing proxies in contested places like Gaza, Libya and especially Egypt. In Egypt, Qatar and its Al Jazeera network backed the former government led by politicians of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other gulf monarchies long despised the Brotherhood because they saw it as a well-organized force that could threaten their power at home, and they backed the military takeover that removed the Islamist president.
 

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Can a religious/ethnic state be democratic? Can a religious state be anything but genocidal?

Can a religious/ethnic state be democratic? Can a religious state be anything but genocidal?

    Tuesday, August 26, 2014   No comments

 




Can a religious/ethnic state be democratic? Can a religious state be anything but genocidal?
Are there "small potatoes" and "big potatoes' in the context of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, ...

The Sinai Peninsula is both a vacation paradise and a haven for jihadists and gangs of thugs. The military and the police are trying to regain control over the region. But a new class of haughty warlords and a resentful public mean the state's chances are remote

The Sinai Peninsula is both a vacation paradise and a haven for jihadists and gangs of thugs. The military and the police are trying to regain control over the region. But a new class of haughty warlords and a resentful public mean the state's chances are remote

    Sunday, October 20, 2013   No comments

On the day of his departure, warehouse manager Hussein Gilbana packed his five best shirts and pairs of pants into a black suitcase, together with books and photos. He embraced his wife and kissed his five-year-old son, Omar, and his little boy, Assar.

He told the children that he would return soon, and that he would come to get them and take them to a new home as soon as possible. Then he got into his old Fiat and drove away. He was leaving his home in al-Arish, on the Sinai Peninsula, which he had grown to hate.

Gilbana and his wife had recently taken to calling their city "signa," or "prison." Al-Arish, a city on the northern coast of Sinai, had been sealed off militarily.

Gilbana and his wife had looked on as outsiders invaded al-Arish: petty criminals, Islamists and former felons. They had seen how these people tried to take over the city, and how the Egyptian government had responded with brute violence. They had become familiar with two types of murderers, says Gilbana, "murderers with long beards and murderers in polished military boots."

Gilbana, 32, is a slim and energetic man. He's a Sinai native, and a member of a Bedouin tribe called the Aulad-Suleiman. Life in al-Arish wasn't bad. He worked as a warehouse manager in a cement factory and made a good living. But then his city turned into a war zone, says Gilbana.

The entire country has descended into violence since the military coup in July, but nowhere in Egypt is the fight being waged as bitterly and violently as on the Sinai Peninsula, which is roughly the size of the Republic of Ireland.

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Syria rebels reject Syrian National Coalition, call for Islamic leadership

Syria rebels reject Syrian National Coalition, call for Islamic leadership

    Thursday, September 26, 2013   No comments

Thousands of Syrian rebels have broken with the Western-backed coalition and called for a new Islamist front, undermining international efforts to build up a pro-Western military force to replace President Bashar al-Assad.

Ever more divided on a battlefield where Assad's better armed troops have been gaining ground, allies of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) were among 13 disparate rebel factions to disown the exile leadership and build an Islamic alliance that includes the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, commanders said on Tuesday.

Details of the numbers of fighters involved and of how they would cooperate remained unclear. But, in an online video, a leader of the Islamist Tawheed Brigade said the bloc rejected the authority of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) and the Western- and Saudi-backed exile administration of Ahmad Tumeh.

A spokesman for Coalition president Ahmed Jarba, who was attending the United Nations general assembly in New York, said Jarba would head for Syria on Thursday to respond: "We are not going to negotiate with individual groups. We are going to come up with a better structure for organizing the fighting forces," the spokesman, Loay Safi, said.

The move is a setback for foreign leaders trying to bolster more secular rebel groups and to reassure voters skeptical of deeper involvement in Syria's civil war. Some may think again about help for the fighters, which ranges from weaponry from the Gulf to non-lethal aid from Europe and the United States.

For Assad, already cheered by Russian diplomatic assistance that undermined U.S. plans to bomb his forces following a poison gas attack, any more powerful rebel coalition could challenge his army's resurgence in the field. But that could be more than offset by a weakening of international backing for his enemies.

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Nearly half the rebel fighters in Syria are now aligned to jihadist or hardline Islamist groups according to a new analysis of factions in the country's civil war

Nearly half the rebel fighters in Syria are now aligned to jihadist or hardline Islamist groups according to a new analysis of factions in the country's civil war

    Monday, September 16, 2013   No comments

Opposition forces battling Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria now number around 100,000 fighters, but after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented into as many as 1,000 bands.

The new study by IHS Jane's, a defence consultancy, estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists - who would include foreign fighters - fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda..
Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.

There are also at least a further 30,000 moderates belonging to groups that have an Islamic character, meaning only a small minority of the rebels are linked to secular or purely nationalist groups.

The stark assessment, to be published later this week, accords with the view of Western diplomats estimate that less than one third of the opposition forces are "palatable" to Britain, while American envoys put the figure even lower.

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Al-Qaida-linked Syria rebels hit Christian village

Al-Qaida-linked Syria rebels hit Christian village

    Thursday, September 05, 2013   No comments

Al-Qaida-linked rebels launched an assault Wednesday on a regime-held Christian village in the densely populated west of Syria and new clashes erupted near the capital, Damascus — part of a brutal battle of attrition each side believes it can win despite more than two years of deadlock.

As the world focused on possible U.S. military action against Syria, rebels commandeered a mountaintop hotel in the village of Maaloula and shelled the community below, said a nun, speaking by phone from a convent in the village. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The attack came hours before a Senate panel voted to give President Barack Obama authority to use military force against Syria — the first time lawmakers have voted to allow military action since the October 2002 votes authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

VIDEO: William Cohen on Possible U.S. Action in Syria
The measure, which cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a 10-7 vote, was altered at the last minute to support "decisive changes to the present military balance of power" in Syria's civil war, though it ruled out U.S. combat operations on the ground. It was expected to reach the full Senate floor next week.

The Syria conflict, which began with a popular uprising in March 2011, has been stalemated, and it's not clear if U.S. military strikes over the regime's alleged chemical weapons use would change that. Obama has said he seeks limited pinpoint action to deter future chemical attacks, not regime change.

Obama has been lobbying for international and domestic support for punishing President Bashar Assad's regime, which the U.S. says fired rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin on rebel-held areas near Damascus before dawn on Aug. 21, killing hundreds of civilians.

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YPG Commander: Kurds Are Bulwark Against Islamic Extremism in Syria

YPG Commander: Kurds Are Bulwark Against Islamic Extremism in Syria

    Wednesday, August 28, 2013   No comments

Sipan Hemo, commander of the controversial People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria, is adamant: “We are not a military wing of any party,” he says in an interview with Rudaw. Hemo denies that the militia is part of the dominant Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has taken control of Syria’s Kurdish areas and has friendly ties with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PYD has been accused by some of shady ties with the Damascus regime, and of heavy-handed rule over the Kurdish regions. Hemo, whose fighters have been recently involved in deadly clashes with the radical Islamic Jabhat al-Nusra, says that Turkey has nothing to fear from the YPG units. “We see radical Islam as a threat not only to ourselves, but also to the Turkish people and the world as well,” he insists. Here is his interview:
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China claims that "Xinjiang terrorists finding training, support in Syria, Turkey"

China claims that "Xinjiang terrorists finding training, support in Syria, Turkey"

    Monday, July 01, 2013   No comments

From a foreign student studying in Istanbul to a soldier receiving training in Syria's Aleppo, to a terrorist plotting attacks in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 23-year-old Memeti Aili said he felt like his dream was turned into a nightmare.

Memeti Aili was recently caught by the police when returning to Xinjiang to complete his mission to "carry out violent attack and improve fighting skills" assigned by the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is a terrorist group that aims to create an Islamist state in Xinjiang, which works alongside the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association (ETESA), an Istanbul-based exile group.

"After hearing their lectures, all I could think about was jihad and I totally abandoned my studies and my family," he told the police. "But thinking back, it was like a nightmare."

An anti-terrorism official told the Global Times in an exclusive interview that about 100 people like Memeti Aili had travelled to Syria to join the fighting alongside Syrian rebels since last year.

"Their purpose is to overcome their fears, improve their fighting skills and gain experience in carrying out terror attacks," according to the official who declined to be named.

Xinjiang, in China's far west, borders central Asia and is home to 10 million Uyghurs. It was rocked by two terror attacks that killed 35 people last week, just days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the July 5 riot in the capital Urumqi that left 197 people dead.

Yu Zhengsheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, led a work team to Urumqi after President Xi Jinping on Friday arranged measures to safeguard social stability.

"We will step up efforts to crack down on terrorist groups and extremist organizations while tracking down those wanted for these crimes," Yu was quoted by the Xinhua News Agency.

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French President Francois Hollande: "moderate rebels must take territory held by radical Islamists"

French President Francois Hollande: "moderate rebels must take territory held by radical Islamists"

    Sunday, June 23, 2013   No comments

French President Francois Hollande, whose country has been at the forefront of Western efforts to re-organize and back the opposition, said moderate rebels must take territory held by radical Islamists whose involvement in the conflict, he said, gives Bashar al-Assad a pretext for more violence.

"The opposition needs to win back control of these areas ... ‮‮‮they have fallen into the hands of extremists," Hollande told a news conference in the Doha a day after the Friends of Syria met in the Qatari capital.

"If it seems that extremist groups are present and tomorrow they could be the beneficiaries of a chaotic situation, it will be Bashar al-Assad who will seize on this pretext to continue the massacre," Hollande said.

In Damascus, the Ahrar al-Sham and the Islamist Tawhid al-Asima brigades detonated a car bomb in an area known as Mezze 86, inhabited by members of Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has controlled Syria since the 1960s. Two people were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Rebels also attacked two security compounds in Damascus, killing at least five people, sources in the capital said.

In regional repercussions of the increasingly sectarian Syrian conflict, four Lebanese soldiers were killed in clashes with followers of a Sunni Islamist cleric who is a critic of the role of Hezbollah - the Shi'ite Lebanese group - in giving military support to Assad.

Sources in the city said the fighting broke out when a follower of Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir was arrested at an army roadblock in Sidon, 40 km (28 miles) south of Beirut.

The clashes were followed by fighting between Hezbollah members based in the mostly Sunni city and Assir's followers in which automatic weapons and shoulder fired rockets were used, the sources said.

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