Erdoğan vows to prevent Kurdish state in northern Syria, as Iran warns Turkey

Erdoğan vows to prevent Kurdish state in northern Syria, as Iran warns Turkey

    Sunday, June 28, 2015   No comments

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to prevent the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Syria, while Iran warned Turkey over military intervention into its neighbor.

"I am addressing the whole world: We will never allow a state to be formed in northern Syria, south of our border," Erdoğan said at a Ramadan event organized by Turkish Red Crescent in Istanbul  late June 26.

"We will keep up with our struggle whatever the cost is. They are trying to complete an operation to change the demographics of the region. We will not condone," he said.

Turkey's pro-government media outlets have recently been claiming that Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought ISIL engaged in "ethnic cleansing" targeting Syrian Turkmens.

Erdoğan criticized those who supported the "#TerroristTurkey" hashtag on Twitter after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched on June 25 its second offensive to capture Kobane, a Kurdish town near Syria's border with Turkey.

"If you have honor and pride, how can you label a country as terrorist although it hosts people who fled Kobane?" Erdoğan asked, before slamming accusations that Ankara supported ISIL as "slander."

The president also accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian affiliate PYD of preventing Turkey to help more to the people of Kobane.

"I strongly condemn the efforts to corner Turkey," he said, claiming that ISIL, the PKK and the Syrian regime were "aligned" to undermine Ankara.

The PYD's armed wing, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), expelled ISIL fighters from Kobane on June 27 and took back full control of the town on the Turkish border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Turkey’s government wants more active military action to support the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against the regime, Kurdish and jihadist forces in Syrian territory, but the military is reluctant to do so, playing for time as the country heads for a new coalition government, official sources told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Iranian ambassador speaks out

Elaborating on Turkish media reports, Iran’s Ambassador to Turkey Ali Reza Bikdeli said on late June 26 that any violation of territorial integrity of a UN member country would destroy Turkey’s capacity on maintaining peace and stability of Syria.

Asked reports that Turkey aims to intervene into Jarablus town of Syria, Iranian ambassador stressed that Turkey earlier refuted these claims.

“This issue came up several times. And at the time Turkey’s official authorities refuted this allegations,” Bikdeli said while speaking to members of Diplomacy Correspondents’ Association in Ankara.

“Violating territorial integrity of a UN member country would destroy all these capacities. We hope Turkey and Iran would jointly use their capacities to achieve peace and stability,” Bikdeli stated, referring to what he described as Turkey's "major capacity to maintain peace and stability in Syria."

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‘False legitimacy’: Saudi Arabia hosting UN Human Rights Council slammed by watchdog

‘False legitimacy’: Saudi Arabia hosting UN Human Rights Council slammed by watchdog

    Monday, June 08, 2015   No comments

The decision to hold a UN-backed human rights summit in Saudi Arabia in early June, attended by the Human Rights Council’s chief, has sparked an outcry from rights organizations, claiming that the visit gave the Gulf kingdom “false legitimacy.”

The main point of the international summit held in Jeddah June 3-4 was declared to be combating intolerance and violence based on religious belief.
 The conference was attended by the Human Right Council president Joachim Rücker, who said in the opening statement that “Religious intolerance and violence committed in the name of religion rank among the most significant human rights challenges of our times.”

Later, Rücker was accused by the Geneva-based human rights campaign group UN Watch of giving the summit “false international legitimacy.”

“It’s bad enough that the oppressive and fundamentalist Saudi monarchy was elected to sit on the UN Human Rights Council,” The Independent cited UN Watch executive director, Hillel Neuer, as saying.

Saudi Arabia is one of the few absolute monarchies left in the world. There is no legal code in the country, leaving it to individual judges to set the punishment for a crime in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic doctrine.

 The death penalty is stipulated for a number of crimes, including murder, blasphemy, denial of Islamic faith, treason, sorcery, drug smuggling and acts of homosexuality. Adultery is punished with 100 lashes, the penalty for stealing is the amputation of a hand, while drinking alcohol and slander are punished at discretion of the judge.

The Gulf monarchy is the world’s only country where women are not allowed to drive.

Human rights activists have also pointed out that the conference took place at a time when the Saudi Arabian Supreme Court had upheld the sentence for blogger Raif Badawi, condemning him to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam through religious channels.”

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Western and Gulf States fuelled the rise of ISIL to weaken regimes they don't like

Western and Gulf States fuelled the rise of ISIL to weaken regimes they don't like

    Sunday, June 07, 2015   No comments

 Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq

by Seumas Milne

The sectarian terror group, ISIL, won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place.

The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting.

The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead with the trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition.

That didn’t only include the “non-lethal assistance” boasted of by the government (including body armour and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of “arms on a massive scale”. Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime.

Clearly, the absurdity of sending someone to prison for doing what ministers and their security officials were up to themselves became too much. But it’s only the latest of a string of such cases. Less fortunate was a London cab driver Anis Sardar, who was given a life sentence a fortnight earlier for taking part in 2007 in resistance to the occupation of Iraq by US and British forces. Armed opposition to illegal invasion and occupation clearly doesn’t constitute terrorism or murder on most definitions, including the Geneva convention.

But terrorism is now squarely in the eye of the beholder. And nowhere is that more so than in the Middle East, where today’s terrorists are tomorrow’s fighters against tyranny – and allies are enemies – often at the bewildering whim of a western policymaker’s conference call.

For the past year, US, British and other western forces have been back in Iraq, supposedly in the cause of destroying the hyper-sectarian terror group Islamic State (formerly known as al-Qaida in Iraq). This was after Isis overran huge chunks of Iraqi and Syrian territory and proclaimed a self-styled Islamic caliphate.

The campaign isn’t going well. Last month, Isis rolled into the Iraqi city of Ramadi, while on the other side of the now nonexistent border its forces conquered the Syrian town of Palmyra. Al-Qaida’s official franchise, the Nusra Front, has also been making gains in Syria.

Some Iraqis complain that the US sat on its hands while all this was going on. The Americans insist they are trying to avoid civilian casualties, and claim significant successes. Privately, officials say they don’t want to be seen hammering Sunni strongholds in a sectarian war and risk upsetting their Sunni allies in the Gulf.

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Obama under pressure to release secret pages of 9/11 report 'showing Saudi Arabia financed attacks'

Obama under pressure to release secret pages of 9/11 report 'showing Saudi Arabia financed attacks'

    Friday, June 05, 2015   No comments

The Obama administration is facing renewed pressure to release a top secret report that allegedly shows that Saudi Arabia directly helped to finance the September 11 attacks.

Rand Paul, the Libertarian Republican senator from Kentucky, is demanding that Mr Obama declassify 28 pages that were redacted from a 2002 US Senate report into the 9/11 attacks.

Mr Paul, who been vocal in attacking the bulk NSA spying programmes revealed by the rogue security contractor Edward Snowden and is running for president in 2016, has now promised to file an amendment to a Senate bill that would call on Mr Obama to declassify the pages.

The blacked-out pages, which have taken on an almost mythical quality for 9/11 conspiracy theorists, were classified on the orders of George W. Bush, leading to speculation they confirmed Saudi involvement.

 According to Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who was chair of the Senate Intelligence committee at the time of the report, they show that Saudi Arabia was the “principle financier” of the attack.

The White House said in January that it was reviewing the file, said that it had set no timetable for the conclusions of its deliberations.

Some families of 9/11 victims have campaigned for several years for the declassification of the 28 pages, supported by Mr Graham who has now enlisted the high-profile Mr Paul to his cause.

“Information revealed over the years does raise questions about [Saudi Arabia’s] support, or whether their support might have been supportive to these Al Qaeda terrorists,” Mr Paul said at the press conference in Washington this week.

“We cannot let page after page of blanked-out documents be obscured behind a veil, leading these families to wonder if there is additional information surrounding these horrible acts.”

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but previous investigations always failed to find a formal link between the country and the terrorist attack, which killed 2,996 people.

Many victims groups believe the full extent of Saudi involvement in 9/11 has long been covered up by both the Obama and Bush administrations to protect US-Saudi relations.

Terry Strada, who leads 9/11 Families and Survivors United For Justice Against Terrorism, said that the supposed Saudi funding link was not a surprise.

"Nearly every significant element that led to the attacks of Sept. 11 points to Saudi Arabia," he said. "Money is the lifeblood of terrorism. Without money, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened."

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Testimonies of arrested prosecutors show Turkey's giovernment had links with ISIL

Testimonies of arrested prosecutors show Turkey's giovernment had links with ISIL

    Monday, May 11, 2015   No comments

The testimonies of four public prosecutors, who were jailed last week for their role in the search of trucks allegedly carrying weapons to opposition groups in Syria, have revealed that some state officials had links with the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and similar organizations operating in Syria, media reports said on Sunday.

Former Adana Chief Public Prosecutor Süleyman Bağrıyanık, former Adana Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Ahmet Karaca, Adana prosecutors Aziz Takçı and Özcan Şişman and former Adana provincial gendarmerie commander Col. Özkan Çokay were arrested on Thursday on charges of “attempting to topple or incapacitate the Turkish government through the use of force or coercion and exposing information regarding the security and political activities of the state.”

The trucks, which were found to belong to the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), were stopped by gendarmes in two separate incidents in the southern provinces of Hatay and Adana in January 2014 after prosecutors received tip-offs that they were carrying arms to Syria.

Although the government has claimed that the trucks were transporting humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in Syria, opposition voices have continued to question why, if the operation was within the law, the minister and local authorities stepped in to prevent the trucks from being searched.

In his testimony, Şişman, who stopped the MİT trucks in Hatay, said investigations that were being carried out either by himself and the deputy chief prosecutor's office at that time coincidentally revealed that some state officials did not differentiate between a state duty, collecting intelligence and being involved in terrorism, and that they had unlawful relations with ISIL and similar organizations operating in Syria.

In his testimony, Şişman added that if the trucks were really carrying weapons to Syria, this cannot be described as a state secret. “A criminal action cannot be described as a state secret,” he said.

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Turkish opposition parties' leaders accuse Erdoğan of using Quran and public fund to win votes

Turkish opposition parties' leaders accuse Erdoğan of using Quran and public fund to win votes

    Wednesday, May 06, 2015   No comments

...

The HDP also said Erdoğan has been “exploiting religion,” openly targeting the opposition parties, and “engaging in polemics with opposition leaders.”

The YSK, however, rejected the HDP's appeal late May 6 unanimously, according to Anadolu Agency.

Bekir Bozdağ, a former Justice Minister and a member of the AKP, told Anadolu Agency that a president can only be put on trial for treason by the vote of parliament. "Other than that, nobody has the right or authority to accuse the president," he said.

OSCE highlights concerns

Having already challenged Turkey’s infamous 10 percent election threshold by deciding to go to polls as a party, the HDP and its leaders are being subjected to a rhetorical barrage from President Erdoğan. In public speeches that he has been frequently delivering during collective inaugurations in various provinces, he has targeted not only the HDP but also the CHP.

As recently as late April, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) highlighted concerns over Erdoğan’s “active role in the campaign,” recommending the deployment of a team in order to observe the fairness of the election.

“OSCE/ODIHR NAM interlocutors anticipate the campaign to focus on economic issues, human rights, corruption investigations, the Kurdish-Turkish peace process as well as the question of constitutional reform towards a more presidential system.

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Yemen tribes attack Saudi military post and using weapons to launch attacks on Saudi cities

Yemen tribes attack Saudi military post and using weapons to launch attacks on Saudi cities

    Wednesday, May 06, 2015   No comments

Yemen's rebels fired rockets and mortars into Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, killing at least three people and purportedly capturing five soldiers in an attack showing the insurgents' ability to launch assaults despite weeks of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them.

Saudi Arabia's national airline cancelled flights into the border area of Najran as schools closed early amid the attack, the first by the rebels, known as Houthis, to target a civilian area in the kingdom since the start of the airstrikes late March. Meanwhile, hundreds of families fled the southern Yemeni city of Aden after the Houthis advanced into their neighborhoods, firing indiscriminately as they took over surrounding, towering mountains.

In the Saudi area of Najran, the Houthi shelling killed two Saudi civilians and damaged buildings, Yemeni tribal leaders said. The official Saudi Press Agency carried an Interior Ministry statement saying three people had been killed, though it did not specify if they were all civilians.

The national airline, Saudia, said flights to and from the area would be suspended until further notice, without elaborating. It is the only carrier flying to Najran. Saudi state television reported local schools closed early and aired footage showing cars burnt, smoldering houses and debris covering nearby roads.

The tribal leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, also said the Houthis captured five Saudi soldiers in unclear circumstances.

Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri said that Saudi-led coalition forces continue to respond to the Houthi attack.

Video showing Saudi prisoners of war in the hands of Yemen fighters.
 

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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One of the more important reasons for the Saudi War on Yemen: divert attention elsewhere and stifle internal dissent

One of the more important reasons for the Saudi War on Yemen: divert attention elsewhere and stifle internal dissent

    Monday, April 20, 2015   No comments

Wartime climate in Saudi puts calls for reform on hold
An electronic billboard at an upscale Saudi mall flashes an advertisement for a designer fragrance before switching to images of soaring F-16s and King Salman saluting the troops. "The response has come to you who threaten the nation," the caption says. "To those who test me, take this war as a reply."

The message is directed at the Iranian-allied Shiite rebels in Yemen who have been the target of a three-week Saudi-led air campaign. The nationalist fervor whipped up by the war has put calls for reform in the kingdom on hold as people rally behind their king, the troops and the status quo.

State-run newspapers, radio talk shows and TV programs are almost entirely focused on the war against the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, with local media portraying it as part of a regional struggle against Tehran and its allies in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

Saudi human rights activists who consistently speak out about the need for political and societal reforms declined to speak to The Associated Press or did so only on condition of anonymity, saying they fear arrest in the current climate. In neighboring Bahrain, at least three people have been detained for criticizing their country's participation in the Saudi-led campaign.

One Saudi rights activist said she and a group of academics were planning to launch a campaign and release videos this month challenging Saudi Arabia's male guardianship laws, which give men powerful sway over women's lives and require females to seek a male relative's permission to travel abroad or undergo certain medical procedures. The project was indefinitely suspended, with those in charge of its research saying that it was inappropriate to talk about such issues while the country is in a state of war.

Another political activist, who is facing trial, said people fear being seen as traitors if they question aspects of the war or press for reforms.

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The role of Iraqi Baathist officers in ISIL's takeover of northern Syria and northern Iraq

The role of Iraqi Baathist officers in ISIL's takeover of northern Syria and northern Iraq

    Sunday, April 19, 2015   No comments

 The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State

Aloof. Polite. Cajoling. Extremely attentive. Restrained. Dishonest. Inscrutable. Malicious. The rebels from northern Syria, remembering encounters with him months later, recall completely different facets of the man. But they agree on one thing: "We never knew exactly who we were sitting across from."

In fact, not even those who shot and killed him after a brief firefight in the town of Tal Rifaat on a January morning in 2014 knew the true identity of the tall man in his late fifties. They were unaware that they had killed the strategic head of the group calling itself "Islamic State" (IS). The fact that this could have happened at all was the result of a rare but fatal miscalculation by the brilliant planner. The local rebels placed the body into a refrigerator, in which they intended to bury him. Only later, when they realized how important the man was, did they lift his body out again.

Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi was the real name of the Iraqi, whose bony features were softened by a white beard. But no one knew him by that name. Even his best-known pseudonym, Haji Bakr, wasn't widely known. But that was precisely part of the plan. The former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein's air defense force had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years. Former members of the group had repeatedly mentioned him as one of its leading figures. Still, it was never clear what exactly his role was.

But when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated. SPIEGEL has gained exclusive access to the 31 pages, some consisting of several pages pasted together. They reveal a multilayered composition and directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised for the anarchical situation in Syria's rebel-held territories. In a sense, the documents are the source code of the most successful terrorist army in recent history.

Until now, much of the information about IS has come from fighters who had defected and data sets from the IS internal administration seized in Baghdad. But none of this offered an explanation for the group's meteoric rise to prominence, before air strikes in the late summer of 2014 put a stop to its triumphal march.

For the first time, the Haji Bakr documents now make it possible to reach conclusions on how the IS leadership is organized and what role former officials in the government of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein play in it. Above all, however, they show how the takeover in northern Syria was planned, making the group's later advances into Iraq possible in the first place. In addition, months of research undertaken by SPIEGEL in Syria, as well as other newly discovered records, exclusive to SPIEGEL, show that Haji Bakr's instructions were carried out meticulously.

Bakr's documents were long hidden in a tiny addition to a house in embattled northern Syria. Reports of their existence were first made by an eyewitness who had seen them in Haji Bakr's house shortly after his death. In April 2014, a single page from the file was smuggled to Turkey, where SPIEGEL was able to examine it for the first time. It only became possible to reach Tal Rifaat to evaluate the entire set of handwritten papers in November 2014.

"Our greatest concern was that these plans could fall into the wrong hands and would never have become known," said the man who has been storing Haji Bakr's notes after pulling them out from under a tall stack of boxes and blankets. The man, fearing the IS death squads, wishes to remain anonymous.

The Master Plan

The story of this collection of documents begins at a time when few had yet heard of the "Islamic State." When Iraqi national Haji Bakr traveled to Syria as part of a tiny advance party in late 2012, he had a seemingly absurd plan: IS would capture as much territory as possible in Syria. Then, using Syria as a beachhead, it would invade Iraq.

Bakr took up residence in an inconspicuous house in Tal Rifaat, north of Aleppo. The town was a good choice. In the 1980s, many of its residents had gone to work in the Gulf nations, especially Saudi Arabia. When they returned, some brought along radical convictions and contacts. In 2013, Tal Rifaat would become IS' stronghold in Aleppo Province, with hundreds of fighters stationed there.

It was there that the "Lord of the Shadows," as some called him, sketched out the structure of the Islamic State, all the way down to the local level, compiled lists relating to the gradual infiltration of villages and determined who would oversee whom. Using a ballpoint pen, he drew the chains of command in the security apparatus on stationery. Though presumably a coincidence, the stationery was from the Syrian Defense Ministry and bore the letterhead of the department in charge of accommodations and furniture.

What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover. It was not a manifesto of faith, but a technically precise plan for an "Islamic Intelligence State" -- a caliphate run by an organization that resembled East Germany's notorious Stasi domestic intelligence agency.

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