Bodyguard of Syrian rebel who defected to Isil reveals secrets of the jihadist leadership

Bodyguard of Syrian rebel who defected to Isil reveals secrets of the jihadist leadership

    Tuesday, November 11, 2014   No comments

Saddam Jamal held the mother and father at gunpoint and forced them to watch as his jihadist comrade murdered their children, one by one.

The Isil commander felt no remorse for killing this Syrian family, his bodyguard said, nor did he believe he was fulfilling a God-given creed: for him being a member of the extremist group was a matter of business, not religion.

"Starting with a thirteen-year-old boy, they lined up the sons according to their height and beheaded them in that order," said the bodyguard, who called himself Abu Abdullah and who has now defected.

"Afterwards, they hung the boys' heads on the door of the school the family had been hiding in."

Before joining Isil, Jamal had been a drug dealer, then a commander in the western-backed Free Syrian Army, claiming contacts in the CIA.

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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's "White Palace" is more than 1/2 billion US dollars and his jet is $185 million

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's "White Palace" is more than 1/2 billion US dollars and his jet is $185 million

    Tuesday, November 04, 2014   No comments

Ak Saray (white palace), which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will use as his new presidential building, cost more than TL 1 billion, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has announced.

Responding to questions by opposition lawmakers during budget talks in Parliament late on Monday, Şimşek said the new building cost TL 1.37 billion ($615 million). Stating that TL 964 million has already been spent on Ak Saray, Şimşek said the government allocated TL 300 million for the building from the 2015 budget.

Constructed inside the Atatürk Forest Farm (AOÇ) on an area of 300,000 square meters in Ankara, Ak Saray has been at the center of strong criticism for being oversized for the presidential post, which is symbolic in Turkey.


Ak Saray may even be touted as the world's largest residential palace. The Guinness World Records currently lists the Istana Nurul Iman palace of the sultan of Brunei, in Bandar Seri Begawan, as the world's largest residential palace with 200,000 square meters of floor space. Completed in 1984, the Brunei sultan's palace cost 300 million pounds, which was equivalent to $422 million at the time, or $970 million today.

The word “Ak” in the name Ak Saray also refers to the name of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

Şimşek also announced the cost of the new presidential jet, an Airbus A330-200 Prestige, during the budget talks, saying the jet cost $185 million. Noting that the government has not yet paid for the jet, which was purchased by Turkish Airlines (THY), Şimşek said the Prime Ministry will pay THY this year.
Erdoğan's discretionary fund 20.5 times higher than last 3 PMs'

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Moderate rebels in Syria that the US have armed and trained to fight jihadists have joined al-Qaeda

Moderate rebels in Syria that the US have armed and trained to fight jihadists have joined al-Qaeda

    Monday, November 03, 2014   No comments

Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda.

The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles.

But on Saturday night Harakat Hazm surrendered military bases and weapons supplies to Jabhat al-Nusra, when the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria stormed villages they controlled in northern Idlib province.



The development came a day after Jabhat al-Nusra dealt a final blow to the SRF, storming and capturing Deir Sinbal, home town of the group's leader Jamal Marouf.

 The attack caused the group, which had already lost its territory in Hama to al-Qaeda, to surrender.

"As a movement, the SRF is effectively finished," said Aymen al-Tammimi, a Syria analyst. "Nusra has driven them out of their strongholds of Idlib and Hama."

The collapse of the SRF and attacks on Harakat Hazm have dramatically weakened the presence of moderate rebel fighting groups in Syria, which, after almost four years of conflict is increasingly becoming a battle ground between the Syrian regime and jihadist organisations.



For the United States, the weapons they supplied falling into the hands of al-Qaeda is a realisation of a nightmare.

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

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.”

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

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…

Islamic State crisis: Turkish PM rejects Kobane criticism

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

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

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."

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

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.
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ISIL Using Banned Chemical Weapons in Kobani

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

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

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

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.