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

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.

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

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.

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

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."

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

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.

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

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. 

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AKP prefers ISIL over PKK and Assad government

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.

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

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.

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

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.”

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

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.

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See also these reports: Liveleaks and  RT report 

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

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.
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