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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SPEECH OF PRESIDENT CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ DURING THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 69th session

SPEECH OF PRESIDENT CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ DURING THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 69th session

    Tuesday, September 30, 2014   No comments

Summary CRISTINA FERNÁNDEZ, President of Argentina, said
most of the problems facing the world today resulted from a lack of democratic multilateralism. In that context, she welcomed the vote by the Assembly on resolution 68/304, to restructure the foreign debts of all countries. That had long been before the Assembly, which had called for reform of the international financial system and the Security Council. Argentina had previously experienced the kind of economic and financial crisis that had spread throughout the world in 2008, when, in 2001, it had been forced to default on its sovereign debt. Contributing to that collapse were the creditors’ terms that had been forced upon the country. As a result, there had not only been economic collapse, but a social and political implosion as well. Argentina owed 162 per cent of its GDP. Its creditors, having contributed to that, were obligated to shoulder some of the burden.

...

The country had been able to formulate agreements with 92.4 per cent of its creditors, enabling it to improve the condition of its people, she said. Today the IMF recognized that the economic growth rate achieved by Argentina between 2004 and 2011 was the third largest in the world. In fact, Argentina now had the best growth in Latin America, which had been possible because $193 billion in debt had been restructured. Today, it carried one of the lowest debt loads in the world.
However, she added, there were “vulture funds” of individuals who would not participate in the restructuring, but instead turned to the countries indebted to them and chose to go through the court systems. Some reaped more than 1,600 per cent profit over a five-year period. Those “vulture funds” amounted to economic terrorism, creating poverty, misery and hunger through the sin of speculation. For that reason, she called for a convention on multilateralism.
Highlighting the attack on the Israeli Embassy, she said that Argentina had also experienced political terrorism. The country had sought to bring the perpetrators to justice, including through a memorandum negotiated with Iran, enabling the accused Iranian citizens to make statements in Argentina’s courts. Dialogue was essential, and in that context, she recognized the need for a two-State solution in the Middle East. She called on the Assembly to recognize Palestine as a State and full Member of the Assembly, noting that Israel must also be secure within its borders. “In a time of economic vultures and hawks of war, we need more doves of peace,” she said.
Turning to the Security Council, she said that as long as the votes of the five permanent members counted more than those of other countries, nothing would ever be resolved. There would be a real beginning to a solution when the Assembly, where each member had one vote, became the sovereign body of the Organization. As a non-permanent member of the Council, she had questions about who had armed the “bad guys”, some of whom were now starting to cooperate. But one group had led to another, and now there was ISIS. “Where does this come from?” she asked. Some might be able to answer such questions, she said. In closing, she expressed thanks to all who had supported resolution 68/304 in the face of pressure not to do so.

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