IslamicBoard
Experience a richer experience on our mobile app!
View Full Version : Oh Syria the victory is coming
سيف الله
08-31-2019, 08:58 AM
Salaam
Alliances on the ground keep shifting.
Protests at the Turkish border
An interview
The Town of Binnish: Interview
The town of Binnish lies in Idlib province and quickly became associated with the uprising and insurgency in the northwest of Syria.
What is the present situation in the town? To learn more, I interviewed a resident of Binnish who used to be a media activist. We also discussed his own view of the long term outlook for the northwest of Syria.
This interview was conducted on 20 August 2019. It is slightly edited and condensed for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.
Q: Can you tell me a little about the town of Binnish generally? The number of inhabitants and IDPs currently, and the general situation in the town.
A: The number of original inhabitants was previously around 40,000. After displacement, around 20,000-25,000 have remained. And regarding the number of IDPs currently, I cannot give you an estimate because you know of the movement of displaced people that has occurred some days ago. By God as your trustee, not one house- even ruined- has remained without being inhabited. Even two days ago, the local council set up a camp on the peripheries for IDPs.
The situation generally right now: we can say it is acceptable regarding normal and civilian life.
Q: Is there water available in the homes?
A: It is made available through water trucks [tankers].
Q: And all the electricity comes from generators?
A: Yes of course, from generators for more than 3 years.
Q: What are the main problems regarding services and the humanitarian situation?
A: Regarding services in Binnish, the aid organizations that undertake services are very few or perhaps there are none. Therefore there will be shortcoming in services and the simplest example is that of moving garbage or fixing landfills.
There is a deterioration in the humanitarian situation especially in light of the decrease of the value of the Syrian pound and rise of the value of the dollar and the resultant rise of prices.
Q: So there is much shortcoming in moving garbage.
A: No, not much. Perhaps once a week it is moved and sometimes [once every] two weeks, and the reason is that there is no capability of operating vehicles to move garbage.
Q: Currently many of the youth of Binnish are fighting on the fighting fronts in south Idlib?
A: Yes, there are many. Those I know of my companions to be wounded and those who are going out: more than 50 people have enlisted. Of course there are also battalions and groups participating in south Idlib that are from Binnish.
Q: Most of these battalions from Binnish are with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham?
A: No. There are commandos affiliated with Ahrar al-Sham and battalions affiliated with Faylaq al-Sham.
Q: Currently how do you assess the fighting on the fronts in south Idlib? It seems that the factions have lost many fighters.
A: Attrition.
Q: And they are withdrawing from the areas.
A: Exactly, they have lost many fighters and much equipment. Their withdrawal is because of a scorched earth policy.
Q: Meaning a scorched earth policy by the Russians?
A: Exactly.
Q: From Binnish for example how many fighters have died during the recent fighting?
A: Around 35 people have been killed in the recent battles.
Q: Do you expect that Khan Sheikhoun will fall and with it all of north Hama countryside?
A: No. Regarding Khan Sheikhoun if it is going to fall, [it will fall] after the fall of the areas surrounding it from the north: i.e. after cutting off the reinforcement path and that is the Aleppo path. But the regime is not in the business of entering into street battles and fighting. As for the fall of the north countryside: if the Russians and Turks and other parties agree to a handover, all areas will fall. And this is what is happening now. The simplest example of this is as follows: why don't the Russian and Syrian forces bomb the Turks' points if in their view the Turks are the ones supporting the factions fighting on the fronts? Note that there is a point for the Turks in the town of Morek and it is around 15km to the south of Khan Sheikhoun.
Q: Yes, true. What are your expectations regarding the Idlib area in general for the long term?
A: We will be like the Gaza Strip in Palestine. That is, an area of experiments of international agreements and experiments for weapons and constant conflicts.
Q: Not a good future by God.
A: God knows best. A future that is not good. But this has become the case in more than one state from Palestine to Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon etc.
Q: Yes true. What is the opinion of the civilians about the factions?
A: Pleasing the people is an unattainable goal. Among them are those who are very afraid and will tell you that they have sold out [the cause/revolution] and all of them are [embodying] agendas. And there are people who will say to you: God give them victory. And there are people [who say]: God rid us of the two sides. To God is the matter.
Q: So the opinions differ from one person to the next.
A: Of course.
http://www.aymennjawad.org/2019/08/t...nish-interview
ReplyAlliances on the ground keep shifting.
Protests at the Turkish border
An interview
The Town of Binnish: Interview
The town of Binnish lies in Idlib province and quickly became associated with the uprising and insurgency in the northwest of Syria.
What is the present situation in the town? To learn more, I interviewed a resident of Binnish who used to be a media activist. We also discussed his own view of the long term outlook for the northwest of Syria.
This interview was conducted on 20 August 2019. It is slightly edited and condensed for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.
Q: Can you tell me a little about the town of Binnish generally? The number of inhabitants and IDPs currently, and the general situation in the town.
A: The number of original inhabitants was previously around 40,000. After displacement, around 20,000-25,000 have remained. And regarding the number of IDPs currently, I cannot give you an estimate because you know of the movement of displaced people that has occurred some days ago. By God as your trustee, not one house- even ruined- has remained without being inhabited. Even two days ago, the local council set up a camp on the peripheries for IDPs.
The situation generally right now: we can say it is acceptable regarding normal and civilian life.
Q: Is there water available in the homes?
A: It is made available through water trucks [tankers].
Q: And all the electricity comes from generators?
A: Yes of course, from generators for more than 3 years.
Q: What are the main problems regarding services and the humanitarian situation?
A: Regarding services in Binnish, the aid organizations that undertake services are very few or perhaps there are none. Therefore there will be shortcoming in services and the simplest example is that of moving garbage or fixing landfills.
There is a deterioration in the humanitarian situation especially in light of the decrease of the value of the Syrian pound and rise of the value of the dollar and the resultant rise of prices.
Q: So there is much shortcoming in moving garbage.
A: No, not much. Perhaps once a week it is moved and sometimes [once every] two weeks, and the reason is that there is no capability of operating vehicles to move garbage.
Q: Currently many of the youth of Binnish are fighting on the fighting fronts in south Idlib?
A: Yes, there are many. Those I know of my companions to be wounded and those who are going out: more than 50 people have enlisted. Of course there are also battalions and groups participating in south Idlib that are from Binnish.
Q: Most of these battalions from Binnish are with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham?
A: No. There are commandos affiliated with Ahrar al-Sham and battalions affiliated with Faylaq al-Sham.
Q: Currently how do you assess the fighting on the fronts in south Idlib? It seems that the factions have lost many fighters.
A: Attrition.
Q: And they are withdrawing from the areas.
A: Exactly, they have lost many fighters and much equipment. Their withdrawal is because of a scorched earth policy.
Q: Meaning a scorched earth policy by the Russians?
A: Exactly.
Q: From Binnish for example how many fighters have died during the recent fighting?
A: Around 35 people have been killed in the recent battles.
Q: Do you expect that Khan Sheikhoun will fall and with it all of north Hama countryside?
A: No. Regarding Khan Sheikhoun if it is going to fall, [it will fall] after the fall of the areas surrounding it from the north: i.e. after cutting off the reinforcement path and that is the Aleppo path. But the regime is not in the business of entering into street battles and fighting. As for the fall of the north countryside: if the Russians and Turks and other parties agree to a handover, all areas will fall. And this is what is happening now. The simplest example of this is as follows: why don't the Russian and Syrian forces bomb the Turks' points if in their view the Turks are the ones supporting the factions fighting on the fronts? Note that there is a point for the Turks in the town of Morek and it is around 15km to the south of Khan Sheikhoun.
Q: Yes, true. What are your expectations regarding the Idlib area in general for the long term?
A: We will be like the Gaza Strip in Palestine. That is, an area of experiments of international agreements and experiments for weapons and constant conflicts.
Q: Not a good future by God.
A: God knows best. A future that is not good. But this has become the case in more than one state from Palestine to Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon etc.
Q: Yes true. What is the opinion of the civilians about the factions?
A: Pleasing the people is an unattainable goal. Among them are those who are very afraid and will tell you that they have sold out [the cause/revolution] and all of them are [embodying] agendas. And there are people who will say to you: God give them victory. And there are people [who say]: God rid us of the two sides. To God is the matter.
Q: So the opinions differ from one person to the next.
A: Of course.
http://www.aymennjawad.org/2019/08/t...nish-interview
Login/Register to hide ads. Scroll down for more posts
سيف الله
08-31-2019, 06:26 PM
Salaam
Another update
Syria: Assad holds rich cousin so he can pay Putin’s war loans
Syria’s ruling family has been torn apart by a row between President Assad and his cousin, the country’s richest man, over his refusal to pay off the nation’s war debts with his ostentatiously displayed fortune.
The dispute, reported by pro and anti-regime figures as well as news websites, began with social media posts by Mohammad Makhlouf, 22, the son of Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s first cousin, who owns many of Syria’s biggest businesses.
Mr Makhlouf Jr has become known for his Instagram feed, on which he is seen posing in front of sports cars and the enormous villa in which he lives in Dubai. In a recent article he claimed to be about to invest $300 million in property in Syria, saying that the money came…
rest here
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/s...oans-pl7pplrm6
Moscow collects its spoils of war in Assad’s Syria
Company controlled by friend of Russian president gains foothold in lucrative phosphate sector
At the state-run fertiliser plant near the city of Homs, gun-toting Russian mercenaries are on patrol, protecting a key element of Syria’s important phosphates industry.
President Vladimir Putin’s decision to throw Russia’s military weight behind Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad helped turn the eight-year civil war in the regime’s favour. The Homs factory points to what Moscow received in return: a lucrative foothold in a key Syrian strategic resource.
Syria is estimated to have one of the world’s largest reserves of phosphates, which is essential to make fertilisers. And a company controlled by Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko, a close friend of Mr Putin, appears to have built an increasingly dominant position.
Syrian state-owned media reported in March 2018 that the country’s People’s Assembly was set to ratify a contract for Mr Timchenko’s company, Stroytransgaz Logistic, to operate the phosphate mine near the Syrian city of Palmyra.
According to such press reports, it is also partnering with state-owned General Fertiliser Company (GFC) at the Homs plant and this year received a contract to run the port of Tartous, from where raw phosphate rock and fertiliser are shipped overseas. Iran, which also gave military support to the Assad regime, has been promised access to key industries, including rights to another phosphate mine.
Syria’s phosphates trade is not illegal — but it is shadowy. One reason, say businesspeople, is that according to contract terms reported by Syrian state-owned media, some profit from the sale of the resource ends up in the hands of the Assad regime, an international pariah for its brutal conduct during the civil war.
Phosphates are not subject to US, European and UN sanctions that have hurt the country’s other industries, notably its oil sector. But the fear of dealing with sanctioned entities ensures that foreign companies are generally wary of Syrian exports.
Mr Timchenko and Stroytransgaz were also sanctioned by the US for “materially assisting” Russian government officials following the 2014 invasion of Crimea. When it was reported last year that phosphates traded under the Stroytransgaz deal had reached Greece, it prompted questions in the European Parliament.
Executives at other phosphate companies say that to circumvent the reluctance to deal with Syria, their teams label raw Syrian phosphate as Lebanese, even though there are no phosphate mines in Lebanon.
The true extent of relabelling is unclear, but EU data show phosphates worth €2m arrived in the Netherlands from Lebanon in 2018. According to one person who clears goods at the Syrian border, a regular flow of phosphate-loaded trucks crosses into Lebanon.
Lebanese and Syrian customs documents seen by the Financial Times show two near-6,000-tonne shipments of phosphate fertiliser were transported from the Lebanese port of Tripoli in May and June. The first vessel, Raouf H, later docked at the Greek port of Nea Karvali, according to data from MarineTraffic.com.
Shipping documents for the second vessel, Tenacity, also show Nea Karvali as the cargo’s discharge port. There are several fertiliser plants in the surrounding Kavala municipality.
Cedar Marine Services, the Lebanese company that operates Raouf H, did not respond to a request for comment. Tenacity’s operator could not be reached for comment. Greece’s statistical authority told the FT it would search for import data covering phosphates and fertiliser, then stopped responding to messages.
Syria’s phosphate exports jumped this year, despite the obstacles. Data from CRU, a commodity research firm, showed exports would hit 460,000 tonnes this year, from 328,000 tonnes in 2018. The data may not include all exports. In 2010, exports were 3.1m tonnes, but crashed to zero in 2016 as civil war raged.
People with knowledge of the trade said current phosphate exports were from stockpiles, and that no fresh mining had started. Stroytransgaz appears to have rights to mine Syrian phosphate but it is unclear whether it has actually begun mining.
Stroytransgaz has won dozens of contracts to build energy infrastructure and logistics projects in Russia and other countries with strong ties to Moscow. Mr Timchenko is an old friend and judo sparring partner of the Russian president. The pair worked together during Mr Putin’s time in the St Petersburg administration in the 1990s.
Mr Timchenko’s connections to the Kremlin and the fact he has already been sanctioned make him a rare industrialist able and willing to oversee Russian involvement in Syrian phosphates, fertiliser industry executives and analysts say. “It’s a simple bit of business for [him],” said one. “It’s low cost and the market is there.”
https://www.ft.com/content/30ddfdd0-...d-8e884d3ea203
ReplyAnother update
Syria: Assad holds rich cousin so he can pay Putin’s war loans
Syria’s ruling family has been torn apart by a row between President Assad and his cousin, the country’s richest man, over his refusal to pay off the nation’s war debts with his ostentatiously displayed fortune.
The dispute, reported by pro and anti-regime figures as well as news websites, began with social media posts by Mohammad Makhlouf, 22, the son of Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s first cousin, who owns many of Syria’s biggest businesses.
Mr Makhlouf Jr has become known for his Instagram feed, on which he is seen posing in front of sports cars and the enormous villa in which he lives in Dubai. In a recent article he claimed to be about to invest $300 million in property in Syria, saying that the money came…
rest here
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/s...oans-pl7pplrm6
Moscow collects its spoils of war in Assad’s Syria
Company controlled by friend of Russian president gains foothold in lucrative phosphate sector
At the state-run fertiliser plant near the city of Homs, gun-toting Russian mercenaries are on patrol, protecting a key element of Syria’s important phosphates industry.
President Vladimir Putin’s decision to throw Russia’s military weight behind Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad helped turn the eight-year civil war in the regime’s favour. The Homs factory points to what Moscow received in return: a lucrative foothold in a key Syrian strategic resource.
Syria is estimated to have one of the world’s largest reserves of phosphates, which is essential to make fertilisers. And a company controlled by Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko, a close friend of Mr Putin, appears to have built an increasingly dominant position.
Syrian state-owned media reported in March 2018 that the country’s People’s Assembly was set to ratify a contract for Mr Timchenko’s company, Stroytransgaz Logistic, to operate the phosphate mine near the Syrian city of Palmyra.
According to such press reports, it is also partnering with state-owned General Fertiliser Company (GFC) at the Homs plant and this year received a contract to run the port of Tartous, from where raw phosphate rock and fertiliser are shipped overseas. Iran, which also gave military support to the Assad regime, has been promised access to key industries, including rights to another phosphate mine.
Syria’s phosphates trade is not illegal — but it is shadowy. One reason, say businesspeople, is that according to contract terms reported by Syrian state-owned media, some profit from the sale of the resource ends up in the hands of the Assad regime, an international pariah for its brutal conduct during the civil war.
Phosphates are not subject to US, European and UN sanctions that have hurt the country’s other industries, notably its oil sector. But the fear of dealing with sanctioned entities ensures that foreign companies are generally wary of Syrian exports.
Mr Timchenko and Stroytransgaz were also sanctioned by the US for “materially assisting” Russian government officials following the 2014 invasion of Crimea. When it was reported last year that phosphates traded under the Stroytransgaz deal had reached Greece, it prompted questions in the European Parliament.
Executives at other phosphate companies say that to circumvent the reluctance to deal with Syria, their teams label raw Syrian phosphate as Lebanese, even though there are no phosphate mines in Lebanon.
The true extent of relabelling is unclear, but EU data show phosphates worth €2m arrived in the Netherlands from Lebanon in 2018. According to one person who clears goods at the Syrian border, a regular flow of phosphate-loaded trucks crosses into Lebanon.
Lebanese and Syrian customs documents seen by the Financial Times show two near-6,000-tonne shipments of phosphate fertiliser were transported from the Lebanese port of Tripoli in May and June. The first vessel, Raouf H, later docked at the Greek port of Nea Karvali, according to data from MarineTraffic.com.
Shipping documents for the second vessel, Tenacity, also show Nea Karvali as the cargo’s discharge port. There are several fertiliser plants in the surrounding Kavala municipality.
Cedar Marine Services, the Lebanese company that operates Raouf H, did not respond to a request for comment. Tenacity’s operator could not be reached for comment. Greece’s statistical authority told the FT it would search for import data covering phosphates and fertiliser, then stopped responding to messages.
Syria’s phosphate exports jumped this year, despite the obstacles. Data from CRU, a commodity research firm, showed exports would hit 460,000 tonnes this year, from 328,000 tonnes in 2018. The data may not include all exports. In 2010, exports were 3.1m tonnes, but crashed to zero in 2016 as civil war raged.
People with knowledge of the trade said current phosphate exports were from stockpiles, and that no fresh mining had started. Stroytransgaz appears to have rights to mine Syrian phosphate but it is unclear whether it has actually begun mining.
Stroytransgaz has won dozens of contracts to build energy infrastructure and logistics projects in Russia and other countries with strong ties to Moscow. Mr Timchenko is an old friend and judo sparring partner of the Russian president. The pair worked together during Mr Putin’s time in the St Petersburg administration in the 1990s.
Mr Timchenko’s connections to the Kremlin and the fact he has already been sanctioned make him a rare industrialist able and willing to oversee Russian involvement in Syrian phosphates, fertiliser industry executives and analysts say. “It’s a simple bit of business for [him],” said one. “It’s low cost and the market is there.”
https://www.ft.com/content/30ddfdd0-...d-8e884d3ea203
سيف الله
09-02-2019, 07:18 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Hundreds of thousands of new internally displaced refugees have fled to the Turkish border in order to escape the advancing Syrian Arab Army. We asked them what they thought about the Turkish military presence in Syria, here's what they had to say...
Blurb
We often hear about negotiations and foreign conferences in the name of the Syrian revolution. Our team toured the city of Dana in Idlib Governorate to find out what the people are think about the negotiations and whether they are aware of those who are negotiating and representing them.
Protests against HTS in Idlib.
Dissent.
Counter demonstrations.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
Hundreds of thousands of new internally displaced refugees have fled to the Turkish border in order to escape the advancing Syrian Arab Army. We asked them what they thought about the Turkish military presence in Syria, here's what they had to say...
Blurb
We often hear about negotiations and foreign conferences in the name of the Syrian revolution. Our team toured the city of Dana in Idlib Governorate to find out what the people are think about the negotiations and whether they are aware of those who are negotiating and representing them.
Protests against HTS in Idlib.
Dissent.
Counter demonstrations.
Welcome, Guest!
Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.
When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up
When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up
سيف الله
09-03-2019, 10:01 PM
Salaam
Another update.
From Erdogan.
US bombings killed 700 in Idlib within last two days - Erdogan
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said plans for the safe zone to be established along the Turkish border in Syrian territory were not progressing despite the agreement reached with the United States, and spoke further about developments in the war-torn country.
“When we say ‘Let’s go,’ we can’t find anybody to take action. The safe zone is left only in name,” said Erdoğan in a press briefing on Tuesday.
“Idlib is slowly disappearing, like Aleppo was torn to the ground,” said President Erdoğan.
Erdoğan continued to say that the U.S. bombings in Idlib last two days have killed some 700 civilians in the area. “However the U.S. got involved with the bombings activities within last two days unfortunately, and the fact that there are 700 civilians killed here. There may be militants with ties to terrorism as well as civilians,” he said.
The strategically important town of Khan Sheikhoun in the Idlib province had been captured by Syrian regime forces on August 11, which also resulted in Turkish troops in the region to be trapped.
Russia expert Kerim Has spoke to Ahval Turkish and said Turkey’s observation point no.9 had come under the regime’s control.
“Turkish troops, who had entered Idlib to protect civilians from regime attacks, became hostages to the regime and attempted to keep their prestige intact by asking for help from Russian troops,” said Has, and added that Turkey was escorted out of the observation point no.9 by Russia.
In the press briefing, President Erdoğan also spoke about the European Union’s refugee policies and said Turkey invested 40 billion dollars, whereas the EU fell short of three billion euros. “They keep stalling,” he said.
“The offer [of a safe zone] had been on the table in Mr. Obama’s term, and I proposed the safe zone matter to Mr. Trump as well,” said Erdoğan on Tuesday. The Turkish president added that Germany, France and Saudi Arabia agreed that the proposal was good, but haven’t taken any action.
Erdoğan detailed his vision of the safe zone as a 30 km-deep area along the whole of the Turkish border, with housing projects constructed by Turkish companies. The houses to be built would have gardens and refugees to be resettled in the area would be able to grow their own food.
https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-usa/us-...o-days-erdogan
Edit - another update.
ReplyAnother update.
From Erdogan.
US bombings killed 700 in Idlib within last two days - Erdogan
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said plans for the safe zone to be established along the Turkish border in Syrian territory were not progressing despite the agreement reached with the United States, and spoke further about developments in the war-torn country.
“When we say ‘Let’s go,’ we can’t find anybody to take action. The safe zone is left only in name,” said Erdoğan in a press briefing on Tuesday.
“Idlib is slowly disappearing, like Aleppo was torn to the ground,” said President Erdoğan.
Erdoğan continued to say that the U.S. bombings in Idlib last two days have killed some 700 civilians in the area. “However the U.S. got involved with the bombings activities within last two days unfortunately, and the fact that there are 700 civilians killed here. There may be militants with ties to terrorism as well as civilians,” he said.
The strategically important town of Khan Sheikhoun in the Idlib province had been captured by Syrian regime forces on August 11, which also resulted in Turkish troops in the region to be trapped.
Russia expert Kerim Has spoke to Ahval Turkish and said Turkey’s observation point no.9 had come under the regime’s control.
“Turkish troops, who had entered Idlib to protect civilians from regime attacks, became hostages to the regime and attempted to keep their prestige intact by asking for help from Russian troops,” said Has, and added that Turkey was escorted out of the observation point no.9 by Russia.
In the press briefing, President Erdoğan also spoke about the European Union’s refugee policies and said Turkey invested 40 billion dollars, whereas the EU fell short of three billion euros. “They keep stalling,” he said.
“The offer [of a safe zone] had been on the table in Mr. Obama’s term, and I proposed the safe zone matter to Mr. Trump as well,” said Erdoğan on Tuesday. The Turkish president added that Germany, France and Saudi Arabia agreed that the proposal was good, but haven’t taken any action.
Erdoğan detailed his vision of the safe zone as a 30 km-deep area along the whole of the Turkish border, with housing projects constructed by Turkish companies. The houses to be built would have gardens and refugees to be resettled in the area would be able to grow their own food.
https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-usa/us-...o-days-erdogan
Edit - another update.
سيف الله
09-11-2019, 10:06 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
There’s a debate within Free Syria as to whether journalists here should cover all the news or be selective in their reporting. At OGN we believe that our viewers have the right to know what is happening in order to make informed decisions.
Blurb
Highly and widely respected military commander of HTS, Abu Abd, released an unprecedented video charging HTS with corruption & mismanagement of the jihad in Syria. This is a translation of his statement in full. OGN cannot independently verify his statements.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
There’s a debate within Free Syria as to whether journalists here should cover all the news or be selective in their reporting. At OGN we believe that our viewers have the right to know what is happening in order to make informed decisions.
Blurb
Highly and widely respected military commander of HTS, Abu Abd, released an unprecedented video charging HTS with corruption & mismanagement of the jihad in Syria. This is a translation of his statement in full. OGN cannot independently verify his statements.
سيف الله
09-16-2019, 07:24 PM
Salaam
Like to share.
Blurb
Air strikes have been targeting hospitals in the rebel-held province of Idlib, Syria, despite the fact that it is a war crime. Medics have been forced underground in order to survive.
The UN accuses the Syrian government and allied Russian warplanes of conducting a deadly campaign that appears to target medical facilities.
BBC's Middle East correspondent, Quentin Sommerville, visits one hospital in a secret location.
ReplyLike to share.
Blurb
Air strikes have been targeting hospitals in the rebel-held province of Idlib, Syria, despite the fact that it is a war crime. Medics have been forced underground in order to survive.
The UN accuses the Syrian government and allied Russian warplanes of conducting a deadly campaign that appears to target medical facilities.
BBC's Middle East correspondent, Quentin Sommerville, visits one hospital in a secret location.
سيف الله
09-22-2019, 09:28 PM
Salaam
Another update. Leader of HTS has been reported dead, needs to be confirmed.
This is outdated but interesting insight into the evolution of HTS.
Amid the ongoing conflict in NW #Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (#HTS) continues to evolve in intriguing ways - into a more politically mature & intelligent jihadist movement.
It's current leadership clearly seeks to position itself somewhere between #MuslimBrotherhood & #AlQaeda.
There's now little question that #HTS no longer represents #AlQaeda.
It's clearly still an extremist movement, but signs continue to add up indicating that it's developing into something qualitatively different than the Jabhat al-Nusra of 2014-15 - a "Shami #Taliban," perhaps.
Most recently in the public space, #HTS issued a statement acknowledging its willingness to abide by an externally-negotiated (by #Turkey, #Iran & #Russia) ceasefire.
That was a first.
Its never happened before in #Syria & it's not a move any #AlQaeda affiliate would ever take.
On Aug 3, #HTS leader #Jolani held a "press conference" addressing the situation in #Idlib & #Syria nationwide.
His language was a stark departure from a jihad-heavy, theologically-dominated lecture.
Close your eyes & he sounded like an #FSA leader, albeit far more intelligent.
#pt: In a 22-min dialogue, #Jolani combined military, political, societal & economic analysis into his comments on #Syria.
He talked about "Alawites," not "Nusayris."
He talked about "revolution," not "jihad."
He described sacrifice as a loss, not a religious duty to glorify.
Some of #Jolani's rhetorical change is almost certainly "controlled pragmatism" employed for strategic reasons, but these public changes are beginning to have an effect.
I'm told:
- #HTS recruitment is up.
- Local donations are up.
- Popular credibility is starting to recover.
#Jolani's rhetorical shifts are also not limited to the public.
In closed meetings, he continues to push the concept of an entity called "The Liberated Territories of Northern Syria."
He frequently cites lessons from #CheGuevara & goes deep on modern Arab political history.
What's equally interesting is developments behind the scenes.
- Several #Europe-an governments are debating whether to engage in exploratory dialogue with #HTS's political office.
- Several independent Western initiatives are already talking with #HTS, deciphering its vision.
This interest in the West, centered in #Europe, isn't coming from nowhere.
CT & #Syria analysts in government have been watching #HTS's evolution closely. So has the @UN.
And #HTS has repeatedly sent messages through intermediaries indicating their interest in dialogues.
For now, I'm not sure (a) we or (b) (#HTS) is necessarily ready for any such initiative.
But #Afghanistan's #Taliban stands as a precedent, particularly if #Idlib remains unresolved/irreconcilable or "Gazified."
However, #HTS's designated status presents a significant obstacle.
#pts: Whatever does/doesn't come from this in the NW #Syria context, jihadists worldwide are watching #HTS closely.
Some are viscerally critical & others are intrigued by #Jolani's so-called "popular" model.
Amid #AlQaeda's continued decentralization, #HTS lessons are crucial.
#Zawahiri is in bad health & #HamzaBinLaden is dead.
Despite #Zawahiri ordering his affiliates to re-pivot back to #BinLaden's "elite vanguard" model, most continue to pursue some variation of #Nusra's localized #Syria strategy, which furthers their respective autonomy from AQC.
In #Algeria, #AQIM is encouraging its members & supporters to pursue *only* peaceful political protest, while fighting jihad elsewhere.
In #Yemen, #Mali & elsewhere, #AlQaeda affiliates have doubled-down on localism, embedding deeply in local dynamics to broaden their appeal.
This localism appears to be the future of an #AlQaeda movement increasingly disconnected strategically & tactically from its aging, besieged & disconnected leadership.
This isn't necessarily a good thing -- more nimble, embedded & intelligent jihadists pose worrying challenges.
Some context to bear in mind:
This thread above is purely analytical, based on my intensive research focus on #Nusra/#JFS/#HTS since '11-12.
I've been told I'm on their hit-list.
I've had multiple, serious threats from them, because of my work & contacts within their ranks.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...474148866.html
Good point, why would western elites be interested in dealing with HTS.
ReplyAnother update. Leader of HTS has been reported dead, needs to be confirmed.
This is outdated but interesting insight into the evolution of HTS.
Amid the ongoing conflict in NW #Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (#HTS) continues to evolve in intriguing ways - into a more politically mature & intelligent jihadist movement.
It's current leadership clearly seeks to position itself somewhere between #MuslimBrotherhood & #AlQaeda.
There's now little question that #HTS no longer represents #AlQaeda.
It's clearly still an extremist movement, but signs continue to add up indicating that it's developing into something qualitatively different than the Jabhat al-Nusra of 2014-15 - a "Shami #Taliban," perhaps.
Most recently in the public space, #HTS issued a statement acknowledging its willingness to abide by an externally-negotiated (by #Turkey, #Iran & #Russia) ceasefire.
That was a first.
Its never happened before in #Syria & it's not a move any #AlQaeda affiliate would ever take.
On Aug 3, #HTS leader #Jolani held a "press conference" addressing the situation in #Idlib & #Syria nationwide.
His language was a stark departure from a jihad-heavy, theologically-dominated lecture.
Close your eyes & he sounded like an #FSA leader, albeit far more intelligent.
#pt: In a 22-min dialogue, #Jolani combined military, political, societal & economic analysis into his comments on #Syria.
He talked about "Alawites," not "Nusayris."
He talked about "revolution," not "jihad."
He described sacrifice as a loss, not a religious duty to glorify.
Some of #Jolani's rhetorical change is almost certainly "controlled pragmatism" employed for strategic reasons, but these public changes are beginning to have an effect.
I'm told:
- #HTS recruitment is up.
- Local donations are up.
- Popular credibility is starting to recover.
#Jolani's rhetorical shifts are also not limited to the public.
In closed meetings, he continues to push the concept of an entity called "The Liberated Territories of Northern Syria."
He frequently cites lessons from #CheGuevara & goes deep on modern Arab political history.
What's equally interesting is developments behind the scenes.
- Several #Europe-an governments are debating whether to engage in exploratory dialogue with #HTS's political office.
- Several independent Western initiatives are already talking with #HTS, deciphering its vision.
This interest in the West, centered in #Europe, isn't coming from nowhere.
CT & #Syria analysts in government have been watching #HTS's evolution closely. So has the @UN.
And #HTS has repeatedly sent messages through intermediaries indicating their interest in dialogues.
For now, I'm not sure (a) we or (b) (#HTS) is necessarily ready for any such initiative.
But #Afghanistan's #Taliban stands as a precedent, particularly if #Idlib remains unresolved/irreconcilable or "Gazified."
However, #HTS's designated status presents a significant obstacle.
#pts: Whatever does/doesn't come from this in the NW #Syria context, jihadists worldwide are watching #HTS closely.
Some are viscerally critical & others are intrigued by #Jolani's so-called "popular" model.
Amid #AlQaeda's continued decentralization, #HTS lessons are crucial.
#Zawahiri is in bad health & #HamzaBinLaden is dead.
Despite #Zawahiri ordering his affiliates to re-pivot back to #BinLaden's "elite vanguard" model, most continue to pursue some variation of #Nusra's localized #Syria strategy, which furthers their respective autonomy from AQC.
In #Algeria, #AQIM is encouraging its members & supporters to pursue *only* peaceful political protest, while fighting jihad elsewhere.
In #Yemen, #Mali & elsewhere, #AlQaeda affiliates have doubled-down on localism, embedding deeply in local dynamics to broaden their appeal.
This localism appears to be the future of an #AlQaeda movement increasingly disconnected strategically & tactically from its aging, besieged & disconnected leadership.
This isn't necessarily a good thing -- more nimble, embedded & intelligent jihadists pose worrying challenges.
Some context to bear in mind:
This thread above is purely analytical, based on my intensive research focus on #Nusra/#JFS/#HTS since '11-12.
I've been told I'm on their hit-list.
I've had multiple, serious threats from them, because of my work & contacts within their ranks.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...474148866.html
Good point, why would western elites be interested in dealing with HTS.
سيف الله
10-01-2019, 04:36 PM
سيف الله
10-09-2019, 01:35 PM
Salaam
Americans are withdrawing from Syria.
And the reasoning behind it.
Turkey moving in
Kurds mobilise in Syria as Turkey poised for imminent attack
Civilians urged by Kurdish leadership to head to the border with Turkey to face the expected military onslaught.
Syrian Kurds issued a "general mobilisation" call to civilians to head to the border on Wednesday to "resist" an imminent military operation by neighbouring Turkey that could lead to a "humanitarian catastrophe".
Ankara has massed thousands of troops and readied heavy weapons for days along its border with Syria and vowed it would go ahead with the operation and not bow to a US threat over its military plans against the Kurds and their military, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
"We announce three days of general mobilisation in northern and eastern Syria," the Kurdish civilian administration said in a statement.
It urged all civilians to "head to the border with Turkey ... to resist during this delicate historical moment".
Turkey has long threatened an attack on the Kurdish fighters in Syria whom Ankara considers "terrorists" allied with a decades-long Kurdish insurgency within Turkey that has left an estimated 40,000 people dead.
Expectations for an assault rose after President Donald Trump on Sunday abruptly announced American troops would step aside ahead of the Turkish push - a shift in US policy that essentially abandoned the Syrian Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS) in Syria.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/...082738194.html
Turkish troops advance into Syria as Trump washes his hands of the Kurds
Civilians flee as airstrikes and artillery hit border region
Trump on Kurds: ‘They didn’t help us in Normandy’
Turkish troops have advanced into north-eastern Syria, following airstrikes and artillery barrages aimed at US-backed Kurdish forces who control the region.
The Turkish military confirmed on Wednesday it had “launched the land operation into the east of the Euphrates river” and later said it had hit 181 “militant targets”.
Video footage showed civilians fleeing towns with columns of smoke rising in the background and jet trails visible in the sky.
Activists and observers said at least seven civilians had been killed so far. There were also early reports of civilian casualties in border towns hit by shelling. Pictures and video shared on social media showed wrecked buildings and bodies in the rubble.
Turkey’s offensive was triggered by a call between Donald Trump and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Sunday, in which, the Turks claim, Trump handed over leadership of the campaign against Isis in Syria to Ankara. The American president announced on Sunday night that US troops would withdraw from the region.
Gülnur Aybet, one of the Turkish president’s senior advisers, told CNN: “President Trump and President Erdoğan have reached an understanding over precisely what this operation is.” Aybet added that Trump “knows what the scope of this operation is”.
Hours after the bombing began, Trump issued a statement mildly criticising the offensive aimed at Kurdish forces, which for nearly five years fought alongside the US against Isis.
“The United States does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea,” the statement said, before noting: “There are no American soldiers in the area.”
In remarks later, Trump presented the invasion as a historical inevitability, saying Turks and Kurds “have been fighting each other for centuries”. And he downplayed the US debt to Kurdish fighters, saying: “They didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us with Normandy … but they’re there to help us with their land.”
The UN security council is due to convene on Thursday to discuss the offensive at the request of its five current European members, but it is not expected to deliver a strong rebuke to Turkey, given tacit Russian support and US ambivalence.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ws-kurds-trump
ReplyAmericans are withdrawing from Syria.
And the reasoning behind it.
Turkey moving in
Kurds mobilise in Syria as Turkey poised for imminent attack
Civilians urged by Kurdish leadership to head to the border with Turkey to face the expected military onslaught.
Syrian Kurds issued a "general mobilisation" call to civilians to head to the border on Wednesday to "resist" an imminent military operation by neighbouring Turkey that could lead to a "humanitarian catastrophe".
Ankara has massed thousands of troops and readied heavy weapons for days along its border with Syria and vowed it would go ahead with the operation and not bow to a US threat over its military plans against the Kurds and their military, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
"We announce three days of general mobilisation in northern and eastern Syria," the Kurdish civilian administration said in a statement.
It urged all civilians to "head to the border with Turkey ... to resist during this delicate historical moment".
Turkey has long threatened an attack on the Kurdish fighters in Syria whom Ankara considers "terrorists" allied with a decades-long Kurdish insurgency within Turkey that has left an estimated 40,000 people dead.
Expectations for an assault rose after President Donald Trump on Sunday abruptly announced American troops would step aside ahead of the Turkish push - a shift in US policy that essentially abandoned the Syrian Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS) in Syria.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/...082738194.html
Turkish troops advance into Syria as Trump washes his hands of the Kurds
Civilians flee as airstrikes and artillery hit border region
Trump on Kurds: ‘They didn’t help us in Normandy’
Turkish troops have advanced into north-eastern Syria, following airstrikes and artillery barrages aimed at US-backed Kurdish forces who control the region.
The Turkish military confirmed on Wednesday it had “launched the land operation into the east of the Euphrates river” and later said it had hit 181 “militant targets”.
Video footage showed civilians fleeing towns with columns of smoke rising in the background and jet trails visible in the sky.
Activists and observers said at least seven civilians had been killed so far. There were also early reports of civilian casualties in border towns hit by shelling. Pictures and video shared on social media showed wrecked buildings and bodies in the rubble.
Turkey’s offensive was triggered by a call between Donald Trump and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Sunday, in which, the Turks claim, Trump handed over leadership of the campaign against Isis in Syria to Ankara. The American president announced on Sunday night that US troops would withdraw from the region.
Gülnur Aybet, one of the Turkish president’s senior advisers, told CNN: “President Trump and President Erdoğan have reached an understanding over precisely what this operation is.” Aybet added that Trump “knows what the scope of this operation is”.
Hours after the bombing began, Trump issued a statement mildly criticising the offensive aimed at Kurdish forces, which for nearly five years fought alongside the US against Isis.
“The United States does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea,” the statement said, before noting: “There are no American soldiers in the area.”
In remarks later, Trump presented the invasion as a historical inevitability, saying Turks and Kurds “have been fighting each other for centuries”. And he downplayed the US debt to Kurdish fighters, saying: “They didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us with Normandy … but they’re there to help us with their land.”
The UN security council is due to convene on Thursday to discuss the offensive at the request of its five current European members, but it is not expected to deliver a strong rebuke to Turkey, given tacit Russian support and US ambivalence.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ws-kurds-trump
سيف الله
10-09-2019, 08:41 PM
Salaam
Much commentary on Trumps decision. an American supporter who wants an end to US involvement.
The Great Withdrawal begins
The God-Emperor is directly confronting the treasonous neoclowns.
There are precisely zero Americans who aren't on the neoclown take who don't support the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East. The most idiotic thing about the mainstream narrative here is that it wasn't the US military that defeated ISIS in the first place, it was Syria, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.
It's not as if the neoclowns actually care about the Kurds or the sovereign integrity of Syria, it's that they are seeing their insane dreams of orchestrating a US-Iran war vanishing into smoke.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/
ReplyMuch commentary on Trumps decision. an American supporter who wants an end to US involvement.
The Great Withdrawal begins
The God-Emperor is directly confronting the treasonous neoclowns.
President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to pull back U.S. troops from northern Syria drew quick, strong criticism Monday from some of his closest allies in Congress. It was condemned, too, by Kurdish fighters who would be abandoned to face a likely Turkish assault after fighting alongside Americans for years against the Islamic State.
The announcement threw the military situation in Syria into fresh chaos and injected deeper uncertainty into U.S. relations with European allies. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it “a disaster,” while Syria’s Kurds accused the U.S. of turning its back on allies and risking gains made in the years-long fight against ISIS.
Trump defended his decision, acknowledging in tweets that “the Kurds fought with us” but adding that they “were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so.”
“I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home,” he wrote.
The announcement threw the military situation in Syria into fresh chaos and injected deeper uncertainty into U.S. relations with European allies. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it “a disaster,” while Syria’s Kurds accused the U.S. of turning its back on allies and risking gains made in the years-long fight against ISIS.
Trump defended his decision, acknowledging in tweets that “the Kurds fought with us” but adding that they “were paid massive amounts of money and equipment to do so.”
“I held off this fight for almost 3 years, but it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home,” he wrote.
It's not as if the neoclowns actually care about the Kurds or the sovereign integrity of Syria, it's that they are seeing their insane dreams of orchestrating a US-Iran war vanishing into smoke.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/
سيف الله
10-09-2019, 09:37 PM
Salaam
A Kurdish perspective.
I am not a proponent of what Kurds do politically (my own people) however the amount of Muslim Asian people who support turkey and what they are about to do to my people makes me sick to my stomach and angers me alot.
Kurds fully support their Muslim brothers around the world yet you cannot do the very same? You support a tyrant who will eviscerate kurdish lands and take what doesn't belong to him.
You support tyranny on your own Muslim brothers and sisters? I could not care less about PKK and ypg but the innocent civilians who will lose their homes and lives, you truly need to wake up and stop being fully stuck in the deep deep crevices of Turkish. . . . .
Sunni Muslims supporting killings on other sunni Muslims. You Asian Muslims need to wake up wallah.
More scepticism.
The wider perspective.
Unusual, the Arab league is reacting fast to Turkish actions.
Arab League calls crisis meeting on Turkey's Syria offensive
Saturday talks to focus on consequences of Turkish offensive
The Arab League will hold an emergency meeting Saturday on a Turkish military offensive unleashed earlier Wednesday inside Syria, a source at the organisation has said.
The meeting will be held at the level of foreign ministers in the premises of the Arab League in Cairo, the source added on condition of anonymity.
The gathering comes at Egypt’s request and will discuss the consequences of the Turkish invasion and ways to protect Syria’s territorial integrity, the source said.
Egypt has condemned the Turkish incursion into north-eastern Syria, calling it an “unacceptable, blatant aggression”.
https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/arab....1570654063821
Bibi is outraged at the sight of ethnic cleansing, irony is dead.
He has a short memory.
Will the real Bibi please stand up?
ReplyA Kurdish perspective.
I am not a proponent of what Kurds do politically (my own people) however the amount of Muslim Asian people who support turkey and what they are about to do to my people makes me sick to my stomach and angers me alot.
Kurds fully support their Muslim brothers around the world yet you cannot do the very same? You support a tyrant who will eviscerate kurdish lands and take what doesn't belong to him.
You support tyranny on your own Muslim brothers and sisters? I could not care less about PKK and ypg but the innocent civilians who will lose their homes and lives, you truly need to wake up and stop being fully stuck in the deep deep crevices of Turkish. . . . .
Sunni Muslims supporting killings on other sunni Muslims. You Asian Muslims need to wake up wallah.
More scepticism.
The wider perspective.
Unusual, the Arab league is reacting fast to Turkish actions.
Arab League calls crisis meeting on Turkey's Syria offensive
Saturday talks to focus on consequences of Turkish offensive
The Arab League will hold an emergency meeting Saturday on a Turkish military offensive unleashed earlier Wednesday inside Syria, a source at the organisation has said.
The meeting will be held at the level of foreign ministers in the premises of the Arab League in Cairo, the source added on condition of anonymity.
The gathering comes at Egypt’s request and will discuss the consequences of the Turkish invasion and ways to protect Syria’s territorial integrity, the source said.
Egypt has condemned the Turkish incursion into north-eastern Syria, calling it an “unacceptable, blatant aggression”.
https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/arab....1570654063821
Bibi is outraged at the sight of ethnic cleansing, irony is dead.
He has a short memory.
Will the real Bibi please stand up?
سيف الله
10-11-2019, 10:42 AM
Salaam
Perspectives from those who are in favour of this operation and those critical of Kurdish actions. Have to say some of the language they use is deeply troubling, borrows a lot of rhetoric from the 'war on terror' almost Orwellian. For example Operation 'Peace Spring'? Really? :hmm:
Blurb
Turkey has launched a major military operation in northeastern Syria aimed at removing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the border area and creating a "safe zone" so millions of Syrian refugees can be returned.
The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias that was instrumental in driving out ISIL over the past four years, backed by air strikes of a US-led coalition.
But Turkey considers the Kurdish-led alliance a “terrorist” group because it says its main fighting force is The People's Protection Units, or YPG.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for more than three decades.
Western criticism of Turkey’s Syria operation is a joke
The West's fetishisation of the YPG in northern Syria is ignorant and insulting to all Kurds - and that's just one part of a broad narrative riddled with hypocrisy and an ignorance of history.
Were it not for its effect on the lives, safety and security of real people, the Western pantomime over how it treats its NATO ally Turkey would be an absolute joke.
Western politicians, journalists, analysts, and experts have been, on the whole, highly critical of Turkey’s operation in northern Syria to clear out what Ankara has dubbed a “peace corridor” across a stretch about 30 kilometres deep and 400 kilometres wide.
US President Donald Trump spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and stated that his country’s forces would not get in the way of Ankara’s plans to secure its border with Syria.
The collective shrieking about “the Kurds”, this monolithic entity that the Western imagination has conjured up, is embarrassing. This is not only because it is based on lies, but also because this sudden Western fascination with “stability” and “not betraying allies” is said with such a straight face, you’d think the West never destabilised the Middle East in the first place and had never betrayed any of their so-called “allies” before.
Obama’s betrayal created this situation
Firstly, it is an insult to Kurdish people for Western policymakers and pundits to lump them all under the banner of the YPG – the Syrian branch of the PKK terrorist organisation.
There are millions of Kurds, and to describe them all as leftist extremists who have no qualms about recruiting child soldiers, racist war crimes, and a plethora of human rights abuses is fetishistic and typical of Western reductionism.
For Western analysts to continue to harp on about “Rojava”, an absolute non-entity, and to make it out like it is an almost contiguous zone inhabited solely by Kurds is to change the facts on the ground to cover up for the YPG’s reign of terror over northern Syria’s Arab and Turkmen population.
The radical leftist group has been actively razing Arab and Turkmen villages, displacing populations, and refusing to let them return despite there no longer being a Daesh threat to justify their war crimes.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without Commander-in-Speech Barack Obama’s disastrous Syria policy. Rather than accusing Trump of “betraying” Washington’s Marxist friends, perhaps Western policymakers and influencers would have deigned to remember that Obama betrayed millions of Syrians – Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen – when he did not enforce his red line on Syrian tyrant Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
The harrowing footage of Syrian civilians gasping for their final breaths should haunt these people’s dreams if they had any conscience left in them.
Obama also abandoned the Free Syrian Army and other pro-democracy groups out of sheer simplicity. The excuse that had been bandied about Washington and which has resurfaced in light of Trump’s recent announcement was that the Turkish-backed FSA was riddled with jihadist groups and that is why the Obama administration sided with the YPG to use as their ground forces against the Daesh menace.
Not only is that a perfidious lie that is rooted in Western anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment, but Turkey, a state-actor with the second-largest army in NATO, was also shunned in favour of the YPG which had since been rebranded as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF was incessantly fetishised with its female fighters shown to be “Western enough” to be worthy of support and attention, with everyone else being akin to “terrorists” whose lives did not matter if Assad blotted them out or not.
The net result of all this was that Obama spat in the face of his Turkish ally, actively armed and funded the YPG that is so clearly linked (PKK) that to deny it is to be a bare-faced liar, and forced Ankara to decouple its policy priorities from Washington’s and focus on its urgent national security instead.
Turkey’s recalibration is all perfectly reasonable, and the US’ actions created a fissure between these two NATO allies, pushing Turkey to move closer to Russia.
Blaming Trump for Obama’s mistakes is ludicrous
This is why it is outrageous for people like Senator Lindsey Graham, who described the arming of YPG militants as a “dumb idea” earlier this year and publicly admitted they are a threat to Turkey, to now come out swinging against Turkey and threatening economic sanctions should Ankara defend its borders as it has every right to.
Watching American conservatives suddenly come out in support of ideological Marxists is interesting in and of itself, but also shows how ideology gets kicked to the back of the bus when realpolitik is at play.
Suddenly, the YPG morphed into “the Kurds”, completely ignoring Kurdish factions aligned to Turkey and the FSA as well as ordinary civilians who are not partisan.
All Trump is doing is effectively reversing a catastrophic strategic decision and, at least for now, appears to be getting out of the way of his state actor ally in maintaining its national security priorities through military intervention.
It is out of the question for Turkey to allow a YPG-controlled zone right on its border where they will surely assist the PKK who will commit even more terrorist attacks against the Turkish public.
The YPG was never an ally to the United States but were in fact tools. Now that the Daesh threat has been largely eliminated or at least massively curtailed, it is in Washington’s interests to move closer to its actual ally, Turkey, which is a state actor, can and has contributed to US interests around the world, and has an economy with which to do business with.
To the US government, the YPG were grunts on the ground, no more and no less, and they should never have been relied upon in the first place.
Think-tankers, policymakers, journalists and others worried about American credibility in selling out a terrorist organisation would find their time better spent worrying about American credibility in continuing to abandon Turkey, a close ally since the Cold War.
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/wes...s-a-joke-30504
More on the background.
Blurb
Western news media outlets seem to think they owe a debt of gratitude to the PKK-aligned militias that Trump dumped last week to get eaten by Turkey. Here is what everyone is forgetting!
Turkish PR
The numbers are questionable but good short summary on PKK/YPG etc record
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...532601857.html
A deal has been done by the major powers in this conflict?. Can believe it.
Assad to be restored, pre 2011?
ReplyPerspectives from those who are in favour of this operation and those critical of Kurdish actions. Have to say some of the language they use is deeply troubling, borrows a lot of rhetoric from the 'war on terror' almost Orwellian. For example Operation 'Peace Spring'? Really? :hmm:
Blurb
Turkey has launched a major military operation in northeastern Syria aimed at removing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the border area and creating a "safe zone" so millions of Syrian refugees can be returned.
The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias that was instrumental in driving out ISIL over the past four years, backed by air strikes of a US-led coalition.
But Turkey considers the Kurdish-led alliance a “terrorist” group because it says its main fighting force is The People's Protection Units, or YPG.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for more than three decades.
Western criticism of Turkey’s Syria operation is a joke
The West's fetishisation of the YPG in northern Syria is ignorant and insulting to all Kurds - and that's just one part of a broad narrative riddled with hypocrisy and an ignorance of history.
Were it not for its effect on the lives, safety and security of real people, the Western pantomime over how it treats its NATO ally Turkey would be an absolute joke.
Western politicians, journalists, analysts, and experts have been, on the whole, highly critical of Turkey’s operation in northern Syria to clear out what Ankara has dubbed a “peace corridor” across a stretch about 30 kilometres deep and 400 kilometres wide.
US President Donald Trump spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and stated that his country’s forces would not get in the way of Ankara’s plans to secure its border with Syria.
The collective shrieking about “the Kurds”, this monolithic entity that the Western imagination has conjured up, is embarrassing. This is not only because it is based on lies, but also because this sudden Western fascination with “stability” and “not betraying allies” is said with such a straight face, you’d think the West never destabilised the Middle East in the first place and had never betrayed any of their so-called “allies” before.
Obama’s betrayal created this situation
Firstly, it is an insult to Kurdish people for Western policymakers and pundits to lump them all under the banner of the YPG – the Syrian branch of the PKK terrorist organisation.
There are millions of Kurds, and to describe them all as leftist extremists who have no qualms about recruiting child soldiers, racist war crimes, and a plethora of human rights abuses is fetishistic and typical of Western reductionism.
For Western analysts to continue to harp on about “Rojava”, an absolute non-entity, and to make it out like it is an almost contiguous zone inhabited solely by Kurds is to change the facts on the ground to cover up for the YPG’s reign of terror over northern Syria’s Arab and Turkmen population.
The radical leftist group has been actively razing Arab and Turkmen villages, displacing populations, and refusing to let them return despite there no longer being a Daesh threat to justify their war crimes.
Of course, none of this would have been possible without Commander-in-Speech Barack Obama’s disastrous Syria policy. Rather than accusing Trump of “betraying” Washington’s Marxist friends, perhaps Western policymakers and influencers would have deigned to remember that Obama betrayed millions of Syrians – Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen – when he did not enforce his red line on Syrian tyrant Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
The harrowing footage of Syrian civilians gasping for their final breaths should haunt these people’s dreams if they had any conscience left in them.
Obama also abandoned the Free Syrian Army and other pro-democracy groups out of sheer simplicity. The excuse that had been bandied about Washington and which has resurfaced in light of Trump’s recent announcement was that the Turkish-backed FSA was riddled with jihadist groups and that is why the Obama administration sided with the YPG to use as their ground forces against the Daesh menace.
Not only is that a perfidious lie that is rooted in Western anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment, but Turkey, a state-actor with the second-largest army in NATO, was also shunned in favour of the YPG which had since been rebranded as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF was incessantly fetishised with its female fighters shown to be “Western enough” to be worthy of support and attention, with everyone else being akin to “terrorists” whose lives did not matter if Assad blotted them out or not.
The net result of all this was that Obama spat in the face of his Turkish ally, actively armed and funded the YPG that is so clearly linked (PKK) that to deny it is to be a bare-faced liar, and forced Ankara to decouple its policy priorities from Washington’s and focus on its urgent national security instead.
Turkey’s recalibration is all perfectly reasonable, and the US’ actions created a fissure between these two NATO allies, pushing Turkey to move closer to Russia.
Blaming Trump for Obama’s mistakes is ludicrous
This is why it is outrageous for people like Senator Lindsey Graham, who described the arming of YPG militants as a “dumb idea” earlier this year and publicly admitted they are a threat to Turkey, to now come out swinging against Turkey and threatening economic sanctions should Ankara defend its borders as it has every right to.
Watching American conservatives suddenly come out in support of ideological Marxists is interesting in and of itself, but also shows how ideology gets kicked to the back of the bus when realpolitik is at play.
Suddenly, the YPG morphed into “the Kurds”, completely ignoring Kurdish factions aligned to Turkey and the FSA as well as ordinary civilians who are not partisan.
All Trump is doing is effectively reversing a catastrophic strategic decision and, at least for now, appears to be getting out of the way of his state actor ally in maintaining its national security priorities through military intervention.
It is out of the question for Turkey to allow a YPG-controlled zone right on its border where they will surely assist the PKK who will commit even more terrorist attacks against the Turkish public.
The YPG was never an ally to the United States but were in fact tools. Now that the Daesh threat has been largely eliminated or at least massively curtailed, it is in Washington’s interests to move closer to its actual ally, Turkey, which is a state actor, can and has contributed to US interests around the world, and has an economy with which to do business with.
To the US government, the YPG were grunts on the ground, no more and no less, and they should never have been relied upon in the first place.
Think-tankers, policymakers, journalists and others worried about American credibility in selling out a terrorist organisation would find their time better spent worrying about American credibility in continuing to abandon Turkey, a close ally since the Cold War.
https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/wes...s-a-joke-30504
More on the background.
Blurb
Western news media outlets seem to think they owe a debt of gratitude to the PKK-aligned militias that Trump dumped last week to get eaten by Turkey. Here is what everyone is forgetting!
Turkish PR
The numbers are questionable but good short summary on PKK/YPG etc record
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...532601857.html
A deal has been done by the major powers in this conflict?. Can believe it.
Assad to be restored, pre 2011?
anatolian
10-11-2019, 07:31 PM
‘War on terror’ is a rhetoric for the imperial western states who invade the oil rich countries coming from the other part of the world but it is unfortunately a reality for Turkey who has been continously attacked by these terrorists for decades. Our target must be only to keep that safe zone. On the other hand I dont trust our president so much as in all the other cases. Inshallah everything becomes all right.
Replyسيف الله
10-12-2019, 10:41 AM
Salaam
More thoughtful analysis.
Turkey was hesitant to support the revolution directly. But what made them change their mind was the Libya blunder. Turkey did not support anti-Qaddafi protests first due to huge economic ties. But they soon realized Qaddafi is falling and new order could turn against Turkey.
Turkish leadership caught up quickly and compensated for its late support to Libyan rebels by great logistic and advocacy for the rebels. Libyans accepted the change and Turkey became a main player in post-Qaddafi period. So they had that in mind when thinking of Syria.
In addition to the ‘lesson’ learnt from Libya, they saw the Egypt experience. How the new order in Egypt dominated by Islamists was proving to be a great ally. The thought of such an ally in Syria was a delicious one.
Turkish leadership suddenly saw itself at the leadership of the pro-Arab Spring wave. The Syrian revolution had greatest emotional support across the Sunni world and not supporting it would have killed Erdogan’s image in the Muslim world as the ‘mazlumlarin sesi’.
Turkey finally made its mind. It took the side of thE Syrian people. And when the Syrian revolution got militarized, they provided support. Turkey had chosen a path of no-return. Assad had to go. The goal in Syria became ‘praying victory at Ummayid mosque’.
Turkey was fully aware how the pro-PKK Kurds had exploited Assad’s weakness to slowly take charge in the Kurdish areas. But Turkey was amidst another promising path: peace process with PKK. There was a ceasefire. They watched PYD rise in Syria but did nothing.
Fast forward. Everything changed. Counter-Arab Spring wave gained momentum. Egypt MB failed. Russia & Iran came to Assad’s rescue. Syrian opposition failed. ISIS appeared. From Russia/Iran media & Saudis to Gulenists, Erdogan was linked to ISIS. AKP lost 1st election in 15 yrs
Erdogan soon realized not only his neo-Ottaman dreams are difficult to achieve, he is about to lose power facing a more united opposition while Turkey is about to be neighbors with a pro-PKK autonomous region. And suddenly the panic kicked in. Turkey changed course in Syria.
At home, Erdogan embraced a more nationalist tone. He allied with a faction of the ultra-nationalist Turks, MHP. Then in foreign policy, while kept his pro-democracy rhetoric and relative support for MB, he no longer did it aggressively. He finally accepted reality.
Erdogan realized that it is difficult if not impossible for a nation state to act as an empire. Its allies in the region were weak while its enemies were stronger than ever. He had to choose between being the president of Turkey or the leader of the MENA Muslim Democrats.
Although I am yet to make a final judgement for this is this still in the making, one can say with a great degree of certainty that Erdogan is happy to be the president of Turkey alone. The Milli Gorus rhetoric may continue but the policies are largely Kemalist.
Kurds may not be as oppressed as the 1990s or worse the 1920s, but Erdogan will no longer say in parliament “Kurdistan was used by Ottomans and the First Parliament”. He will also abandon the multi-ethnic confederation he once dreamed of.
Finally, Turkey’s policy in Syria is no longer ‘praying at the Ummayid mosque’. Turkey is now correcting a “mistake”. They are happy to get back to pre-2011. Erase PYD rule, force back all Syrian refugees out, and let Assad be in power.
This is a sad moment in Turkey’s history. The most popular leader since Ataturk who was different is failing himself and millions across MENA. He abandons a great vision for the small gains, the greatness of Ottomans to the narrow confines of Turkey.
It is even sadder when all these might not be enough to keep him in power. He may choose the ‘Old Turkey’ and end his ‘New Turkey’ dreams but the ‘Old Turkey’ does not like him. But even if he kept power, he will do so as a guardian of a system he spent his life opposing.
Erdogan changed everything except the system and the system seems to have changed him. When he is gone, or may be even before his going, the Old Turkey will come back full force. The 1990s Turkey is only one blink away. Sad for them. Sad for MENA. But the hope continues.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...902403074.html
ReplyMore thoughtful analysis.
Turkey was hesitant to support the revolution directly. But what made them change their mind was the Libya blunder. Turkey did not support anti-Qaddafi protests first due to huge economic ties. But they soon realized Qaddafi is falling and new order could turn against Turkey.
Turkish leadership caught up quickly and compensated for its late support to Libyan rebels by great logistic and advocacy for the rebels. Libyans accepted the change and Turkey became a main player in post-Qaddafi period. So they had that in mind when thinking of Syria.
In addition to the ‘lesson’ learnt from Libya, they saw the Egypt experience. How the new order in Egypt dominated by Islamists was proving to be a great ally. The thought of such an ally in Syria was a delicious one.
Turkish leadership suddenly saw itself at the leadership of the pro-Arab Spring wave. The Syrian revolution had greatest emotional support across the Sunni world and not supporting it would have killed Erdogan’s image in the Muslim world as the ‘mazlumlarin sesi’.
Turkey finally made its mind. It took the side of thE Syrian people. And when the Syrian revolution got militarized, they provided support. Turkey had chosen a path of no-return. Assad had to go. The goal in Syria became ‘praying victory at Ummayid mosque’.
Turkey was fully aware how the pro-PKK Kurds had exploited Assad’s weakness to slowly take charge in the Kurdish areas. But Turkey was amidst another promising path: peace process with PKK. There was a ceasefire. They watched PYD rise in Syria but did nothing.
Fast forward. Everything changed. Counter-Arab Spring wave gained momentum. Egypt MB failed. Russia & Iran came to Assad’s rescue. Syrian opposition failed. ISIS appeared. From Russia/Iran media & Saudis to Gulenists, Erdogan was linked to ISIS. AKP lost 1st election in 15 yrs
Erdogan soon realized not only his neo-Ottaman dreams are difficult to achieve, he is about to lose power facing a more united opposition while Turkey is about to be neighbors with a pro-PKK autonomous region. And suddenly the panic kicked in. Turkey changed course in Syria.
At home, Erdogan embraced a more nationalist tone. He allied with a faction of the ultra-nationalist Turks, MHP. Then in foreign policy, while kept his pro-democracy rhetoric and relative support for MB, he no longer did it aggressively. He finally accepted reality.
Erdogan realized that it is difficult if not impossible for a nation state to act as an empire. Its allies in the region were weak while its enemies were stronger than ever. He had to choose between being the president of Turkey or the leader of the MENA Muslim Democrats.
Although I am yet to make a final judgement for this is this still in the making, one can say with a great degree of certainty that Erdogan is happy to be the president of Turkey alone. The Milli Gorus rhetoric may continue but the policies are largely Kemalist.
Kurds may not be as oppressed as the 1990s or worse the 1920s, but Erdogan will no longer say in parliament “Kurdistan was used by Ottomans and the First Parliament”. He will also abandon the multi-ethnic confederation he once dreamed of.
Finally, Turkey’s policy in Syria is no longer ‘praying at the Ummayid mosque’. Turkey is now correcting a “mistake”. They are happy to get back to pre-2011. Erase PYD rule, force back all Syrian refugees out, and let Assad be in power.
This is a sad moment in Turkey’s history. The most popular leader since Ataturk who was different is failing himself and millions across MENA. He abandons a great vision for the small gains, the greatness of Ottomans to the narrow confines of Turkey.
It is even sadder when all these might not be enough to keep him in power. He may choose the ‘Old Turkey’ and end his ‘New Turkey’ dreams but the ‘Old Turkey’ does not like him. But even if he kept power, he will do so as a guardian of a system he spent his life opposing.
Erdogan changed everything except the system and the system seems to have changed him. When he is gone, or may be even before his going, the Old Turkey will come back full force. The 1990s Turkey is only one blink away. Sad for them. Sad for MENA. But the hope continues.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...902403074.html
سيف الله
10-12-2019, 11:20 AM
Salaam
Continued. . . . .
Turkey which was built by destroying Ottoman caliphate was not just a country, it was also a mechanism to make sure another Ottoman style model does not arise. Kemalism as a state ideology was the means to carry out this mission.
Kemalism was built on 3 pillars: a- Reversing the multi-cultural-multi-ethnic Ottoman model by equating Turkish citizenship to being Turk. B-Imposing secularism to prevent pan-ummah thinking & C-neutrality in foreign policy except for protecting Turkey’s borders.
Kemalism was not only a cultural and ideological departure from past. It was also a psychological barrier from Middle East. Turkey was isolated from its ‘Muslim depth’ surrounding it. ‘Ummah’ was redefined to mean the Turkish nations near and far.
Kemalist Turkey was a peaceful touristic destination with an army that had to periodically intervene to restore ‘secular order’ and oppress Kurds to make sure ‘territorial integrity’ was maintained. Such a Turkey was an asset to NATO due to its geopolitical location.
Ataturk’s ‘Yurtta sulh cihanda’s sulh’ (Peace home and abroad) meant the assimilation of Kurds at home and dealing with an iron fist with any separatist movement while keeping largely neutral in Middle East’s crisis especially on issue such as Palestine.
The West had no problem with Turkey oppressing the Kurdish minority or the army’s frequent interventions. The only problem between Turkey-West/NATO was the Cyprus issue. But even that did not hurt the relations with Turkey beyond reparation.
The ‘Isolated Turkey’ was not only an asset to NATO but also the MENA dictatorships. They were afraid of Khomeini for exporting the Islamist revolution but Turkey’s democracy was not for export. None in Turkey had such an agenda. Everyone was happy with Antalya beaches.
But the relative democratic opening after CHP’s one party rule had allowed the growth of Milli Gorus, a centre right conservative movement with a mixture of nationalist and Islamic slogans. Milli Gorus proved to carry with it the seed of Turkey’s conflict with the West.
Milli Gorus was mostly in the sidelines. It was always a part of larger coalitions. It was also banned frequently and reappeared under different names. But then came Refah Partisi led by Milli Gorus historical leader Necmettin Erbakan. And what was feared, happened.
Refah’s star started to rise in the 1990s. Kemalism was still the state idoelogy: Kurds and conservatives oppressed. Refah came first in 1994 elections. Erbakan became prime minister of a coalition government while a young Erdogan became mayor of Istanbul.
Refah was the head of a shaky coalition of government. But Erbakan embraced an openly anti-Kemalist rhetoric. He called for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue based on Islam and called for an Islamic alliance. His first visits were to Iran, Libya and Saudi.
Erbakan’s increasingly Islamist rhetoric made him an easy target for the strong Turkish Kemalist state institutions. Turkey’s secular media started a campaign of vilification against him and he was accused of trying to restore ‘Shariah state’.
The media, judiciary and all state apparatus prepared for a soft coup. The state started a heavy handed crackdown on conservatives. And in February 1995, the military forced Erbakan to sign a memorandum which was basically his resignation. Erbakan was removed in a coup.
The 1990s Turkey was not a hell for conservative Turks only. It was a hell for Kurds too. Ban on language, cultural rights, Kurdish songs, Kurdish parties continued. Kuridsh MPs were jailed for taking oath in Kurdish. Kurdish singers had to leave country for singing Kurdish.
The mutual oppression against Kurds and conservative Turks had created a natural affinity between the two. Refah’s heirs like Fazilet and Saadet continued to to embrace ‘brotherhood in Islam’ as the solution for Kurdish issue. They always came first in the Kurdish areas.
Erdogan himself started his national political career in mid 1990s by embarking on a ‘hearing journey’ to the Kurdish provinces. He concluded that Kurds were facing oppression and he promised restoring cultural rights when Refah in power.
Erdogan was removed as Istanbul mayor and jailed for reading a poem which was deemed anti-Kemalist state. After his release and following his dispute with Erdogan, he decided to take on a different course and tone down ‘Islamist’ rhetoric.
There was a growing sense amongst conservative Turks from Milli Gorus background that the state apparatus, the army and the West will not accept them as long as they embraced Islamic rhetoric. They changed course and founded AK Parti.
During these years of state oppression against Kurds and conservatives, the Western support to Turkey was at its highest levels especially in its fight against PKK. Ocalan, PKK leader, was captured in a joint MIt-Mossad-CIA operation and returned to Turkey.
The newly founded AKParti embraced a democratic progressive rhetoric. Promised greater reforms and more democratic opening to join EU. Erdogan started his AK Parti journey by a trip to US and EU. AK Parti became the face of progress and hope for Turkey.
The economic recession of late 1990s was the opportunity which gave AK Parti power. The ban on Erdogan was removed. He became the prime minister after Gul. He started a series of reforms including removing the emergency state in the Kurdish provinces.
Erdogan’s progressive domestic progressive politics continued. But unlike Erbakan he took a different course in foreign policy. He visited Israel and avoided making any ‘Islamist’ remarks. He said that they have removed ‘their milli gorus shirts’.
Erdogan made the major Diyarbakir declaration in 2005 in which he admitted that there was a Kurdish issue in Turkey beyond the ‘PKK terror issue’. It followed a period of democratic & cultural opening. Between 2001-2007, AKParti was hailed in Western press as a success.
Then in 2007 AK Parti decided to nominate Abdullah Gul for presidency, a symbolic position but important. The secular opposition, judiciary and army joined forces. Amongst other reasons, they said a man with a hijabi wife can’t be in Ataturk’s place.
Secular opposition went to streets against Erdogan in what was called ‘Repbublic Rallies’. They were saying the secular state is in danger. Judiciary wanted to close the party and failed. Army’s intervention against AKP made Erdogan stronger and more popular.
Erdogan’s progressive polices home continued. But on foreign policy, he started to change tone. The 2008 Gaza war was a turning point. For the first time, Erdogan criticised Israel openly. The new foreign policy proved popular in Turkey & Muslim world.
Erdogan’s ‘one minute’ with Israeli president Shimon Perez was the moment the new Erdogan came into stage full force. Across the Muslim world, he became the progressives Muslim leader leading a successful economy and speaking up against oppression.
Progressivism home and anti-oppression foreign policy abroad proved electorally popular. This gave him the confidence to take on Kemalism in full force. He reversed anti-conservative and anti-Kurdish policies and also started a peace process with PKK.
Erdogan’s new foreign policy was alarming to Arab dictators who saw his popularity amongst their nations alarming. Israel was unhappy and so was the Western political establishment and strong power circles in the US. And then came the Arab Spring.
The Arab Spring was the moment when Erdogan decided to scrap Turkey’s Kemalist foreign policy altogether. Erdogan embraced the popular movements& leading Islamists. For a brief moment it looked liked Turkey is going to take lead of a new order. This alarmed many home & abroad
Meanwhile domestically, Erdogan’s peace process with PKK was facing strong opposition from the secular, nationalist opposition. But also from his Gulenist allies. He was strong but for first time since 2001 he was facing real opposition.
Erdogan invested heavily in the peace process with PKK. He put all his credit on line. He brought back Ocalan into Turkish public life. Ocalan and his cell in Imrali became a new power house. Peace process gave birth to a ceasefire which encouraged Erdogan even more.
But suddenly everything went bad for Erdogan. The Arab Spring and the peace process which he has invested in so heavily proved more difficult. While counter Arab Spring current gained momentum and MB failed, peace process at home was too slow.
PKK refused to listen to Ocalan’s call for disarmament while AKP was losing the narrative war to the ultra nationalists who were making huge gains taking away from AKP votes. Meanwhile, HDP under Salahaddin Demirtas became Erdogan’s main headache.
Erdogan was cornered. He was losing Turkish vote and Kurdish vote at the same rate. His Arab Spring policy had gained him new enemies such as Saudi and UAE. Meanwhile his attempts to gain more powers had given the lobbies/media the chance to portray him as authoritarian.
No other modern leader of Turkey or any other country faced what Turkish leadership did. But Erdogan has all these enemies without having made any real changes in the system. The army was still largely against him and the losing electorally was always a threat.
Erdogan was overwhelmed. He had no allies home and weak allies abroad. He was about to lose power in Turkey electorally while eyeing expansion abroad. He had an option to change the system Or embrace it. He did the latter.
Erdogan decided to ally with the nationalists. But more than that, he decided to adopt nationalism which was his only way for keeping power electorally. He then adopted the ‘there is no Kurdish issue but a PKK terror issue’ cliche which is the Kemalist talking point.
Slowly, Erdogan metamorphosed into Bahceli (at discourse level): strong religious nationalist sentiments which are mainly about the survival of the ‘Turkish state’ mixed with a rhetorical affinity with Muslim causes around the world.
This Erdogan is no threat to anyone outside Turkey. Unless circumstances change dramatically, Erdogan doesn’t have any intention to do what he did between 2010-2015: Peace process with Kurds or challenging Sykes-Picot borders/order.
But for many in the West, Erdogan is still the person with the Islamist expansion image. Moreover, things have changed domestically. The secular opposition has adopted a new rhetoric. AKP is facing splits. Erdogan can lose power electorally any moment.
Erdogan’s way out looks like more nationalism and less of it. Neuralising the threat of a Kurdish pro-PKK entity on its borders is something any Turkey’s leader will do. Such an entity represents existential danger to Turkey’s territorial integrity.
Erdogan is basically now spending his final moments in power to protect the territorial unity of Turkey’s Sykes-Picot borders and in that he has gained admiration and support from all Turks including his dire Kemalist enemies.
The end of the operation with success might give Erdogan the chance to stay in power until 2023. Its failure means his end before the elections. But in both situations, Erdogan as we knew it has ended.
Every country in enmity with Turkey today doesn’t oppose Turkey but Erdogan and that is because of his nationalist policies or today’s war against the Kurdish entity, theh do so because of his past and the Islamist spark left in him that might develop again!
PKK is lucky that it is fighting Erdogan and say not another figure like Ecevit because they would get zero sympathy. And Kurds are lucky because of not for the anti-Erdogan alliance, they would have been killed in silence. But both Erdogan and Kurds are losers in this fight.
There is a chance that Western opposition to Erdogan might lead to a no fly zone which could eventually turn into a self ruled entity but I doubt that the NATO/West will do that against Turkey for theh know Erdogan is going while their Old Turkey friend is coming back.
NATO and others including Erdogan’s enemies in Israel and UAE and their lobbies abroad have zero problem with Turkey going into Syria, ending Kurdish-led entity. Turkey is a great ally. But they aren’t happy with Erdogan’s Turkey doing so.
In short: The New Erdogan is now for the Old Turkey. But the Old Turkey and its allies home and abroad don’t accept him.
Solution? Kurds and Turks need new leaderships that go beyond Sykes-Picot mentality and do that at any cost.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...766878208.html
ReplyContinued. . . . .
Turkey which was built by destroying Ottoman caliphate was not just a country, it was also a mechanism to make sure another Ottoman style model does not arise. Kemalism as a state ideology was the means to carry out this mission.
Kemalism was built on 3 pillars: a- Reversing the multi-cultural-multi-ethnic Ottoman model by equating Turkish citizenship to being Turk. B-Imposing secularism to prevent pan-ummah thinking & C-neutrality in foreign policy except for protecting Turkey’s borders.
Kemalism was not only a cultural and ideological departure from past. It was also a psychological barrier from Middle East. Turkey was isolated from its ‘Muslim depth’ surrounding it. ‘Ummah’ was redefined to mean the Turkish nations near and far.
Kemalist Turkey was a peaceful touristic destination with an army that had to periodically intervene to restore ‘secular order’ and oppress Kurds to make sure ‘territorial integrity’ was maintained. Such a Turkey was an asset to NATO due to its geopolitical location.
Ataturk’s ‘Yurtta sulh cihanda’s sulh’ (Peace home and abroad) meant the assimilation of Kurds at home and dealing with an iron fist with any separatist movement while keeping largely neutral in Middle East’s crisis especially on issue such as Palestine.
The West had no problem with Turkey oppressing the Kurdish minority or the army’s frequent interventions. The only problem between Turkey-West/NATO was the Cyprus issue. But even that did not hurt the relations with Turkey beyond reparation.
The ‘Isolated Turkey’ was not only an asset to NATO but also the MENA dictatorships. They were afraid of Khomeini for exporting the Islamist revolution but Turkey’s democracy was not for export. None in Turkey had such an agenda. Everyone was happy with Antalya beaches.
But the relative democratic opening after CHP’s one party rule had allowed the growth of Milli Gorus, a centre right conservative movement with a mixture of nationalist and Islamic slogans. Milli Gorus proved to carry with it the seed of Turkey’s conflict with the West.
Milli Gorus was mostly in the sidelines. It was always a part of larger coalitions. It was also banned frequently and reappeared under different names. But then came Refah Partisi led by Milli Gorus historical leader Necmettin Erbakan. And what was feared, happened.
Refah’s star started to rise in the 1990s. Kemalism was still the state idoelogy: Kurds and conservatives oppressed. Refah came first in 1994 elections. Erbakan became prime minister of a coalition government while a young Erdogan became mayor of Istanbul.
Refah was the head of a shaky coalition of government. But Erbakan embraced an openly anti-Kemalist rhetoric. He called for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue based on Islam and called for an Islamic alliance. His first visits were to Iran, Libya and Saudi.
Erbakan’s increasingly Islamist rhetoric made him an easy target for the strong Turkish Kemalist state institutions. Turkey’s secular media started a campaign of vilification against him and he was accused of trying to restore ‘Shariah state’.
The media, judiciary and all state apparatus prepared for a soft coup. The state started a heavy handed crackdown on conservatives. And in February 1995, the military forced Erbakan to sign a memorandum which was basically his resignation. Erbakan was removed in a coup.
The 1990s Turkey was not a hell for conservative Turks only. It was a hell for Kurds too. Ban on language, cultural rights, Kurdish songs, Kurdish parties continued. Kuridsh MPs were jailed for taking oath in Kurdish. Kurdish singers had to leave country for singing Kurdish.
The mutual oppression against Kurds and conservative Turks had created a natural affinity between the two. Refah’s heirs like Fazilet and Saadet continued to to embrace ‘brotherhood in Islam’ as the solution for Kurdish issue. They always came first in the Kurdish areas.
Erdogan himself started his national political career in mid 1990s by embarking on a ‘hearing journey’ to the Kurdish provinces. He concluded that Kurds were facing oppression and he promised restoring cultural rights when Refah in power.
Erdogan was removed as Istanbul mayor and jailed for reading a poem which was deemed anti-Kemalist state. After his release and following his dispute with Erdogan, he decided to take on a different course and tone down ‘Islamist’ rhetoric.
There was a growing sense amongst conservative Turks from Milli Gorus background that the state apparatus, the army and the West will not accept them as long as they embraced Islamic rhetoric. They changed course and founded AK Parti.
During these years of state oppression against Kurds and conservatives, the Western support to Turkey was at its highest levels especially in its fight against PKK. Ocalan, PKK leader, was captured in a joint MIt-Mossad-CIA operation and returned to Turkey.
The newly founded AKParti embraced a democratic progressive rhetoric. Promised greater reforms and more democratic opening to join EU. Erdogan started his AK Parti journey by a trip to US and EU. AK Parti became the face of progress and hope for Turkey.
The economic recession of late 1990s was the opportunity which gave AK Parti power. The ban on Erdogan was removed. He became the prime minister after Gul. He started a series of reforms including removing the emergency state in the Kurdish provinces.
Erdogan’s progressive domestic progressive politics continued. But unlike Erbakan he took a different course in foreign policy. He visited Israel and avoided making any ‘Islamist’ remarks. He said that they have removed ‘their milli gorus shirts’.
Erdogan made the major Diyarbakir declaration in 2005 in which he admitted that there was a Kurdish issue in Turkey beyond the ‘PKK terror issue’. It followed a period of democratic & cultural opening. Between 2001-2007, AKParti was hailed in Western press as a success.
Then in 2007 AK Parti decided to nominate Abdullah Gul for presidency, a symbolic position but important. The secular opposition, judiciary and army joined forces. Amongst other reasons, they said a man with a hijabi wife can’t be in Ataturk’s place.
Secular opposition went to streets against Erdogan in what was called ‘Repbublic Rallies’. They were saying the secular state is in danger. Judiciary wanted to close the party and failed. Army’s intervention against AKP made Erdogan stronger and more popular.
Erdogan’s progressive polices home continued. But on foreign policy, he started to change tone. The 2008 Gaza war was a turning point. For the first time, Erdogan criticised Israel openly. The new foreign policy proved popular in Turkey & Muslim world.
Erdogan’s ‘one minute’ with Israeli president Shimon Perez was the moment the new Erdogan came into stage full force. Across the Muslim world, he became the progressives Muslim leader leading a successful economy and speaking up against oppression.
Progressivism home and anti-oppression foreign policy abroad proved electorally popular. This gave him the confidence to take on Kemalism in full force. He reversed anti-conservative and anti-Kurdish policies and also started a peace process with PKK.
Erdogan’s new foreign policy was alarming to Arab dictators who saw his popularity amongst their nations alarming. Israel was unhappy and so was the Western political establishment and strong power circles in the US. And then came the Arab Spring.
The Arab Spring was the moment when Erdogan decided to scrap Turkey’s Kemalist foreign policy altogether. Erdogan embraced the popular movements& leading Islamists. For a brief moment it looked liked Turkey is going to take lead of a new order. This alarmed many home & abroad
Meanwhile domestically, Erdogan’s peace process with PKK was facing strong opposition from the secular, nationalist opposition. But also from his Gulenist allies. He was strong but for first time since 2001 he was facing real opposition.
Erdogan invested heavily in the peace process with PKK. He put all his credit on line. He brought back Ocalan into Turkish public life. Ocalan and his cell in Imrali became a new power house. Peace process gave birth to a ceasefire which encouraged Erdogan even more.
But suddenly everything went bad for Erdogan. The Arab Spring and the peace process which he has invested in so heavily proved more difficult. While counter Arab Spring current gained momentum and MB failed, peace process at home was too slow.
PKK refused to listen to Ocalan’s call for disarmament while AKP was losing the narrative war to the ultra nationalists who were making huge gains taking away from AKP votes. Meanwhile, HDP under Salahaddin Demirtas became Erdogan’s main headache.
Erdogan was cornered. He was losing Turkish vote and Kurdish vote at the same rate. His Arab Spring policy had gained him new enemies such as Saudi and UAE. Meanwhile his attempts to gain more powers had given the lobbies/media the chance to portray him as authoritarian.
No other modern leader of Turkey or any other country faced what Turkish leadership did. But Erdogan has all these enemies without having made any real changes in the system. The army was still largely against him and the losing electorally was always a threat.
Erdogan was overwhelmed. He had no allies home and weak allies abroad. He was about to lose power in Turkey electorally while eyeing expansion abroad. He had an option to change the system Or embrace it. He did the latter.
Erdogan decided to ally with the nationalists. But more than that, he decided to adopt nationalism which was his only way for keeping power electorally. He then adopted the ‘there is no Kurdish issue but a PKK terror issue’ cliche which is the Kemalist talking point.
Slowly, Erdogan metamorphosed into Bahceli (at discourse level): strong religious nationalist sentiments which are mainly about the survival of the ‘Turkish state’ mixed with a rhetorical affinity with Muslim causes around the world.
This Erdogan is no threat to anyone outside Turkey. Unless circumstances change dramatically, Erdogan doesn’t have any intention to do what he did between 2010-2015: Peace process with Kurds or challenging Sykes-Picot borders/order.
But for many in the West, Erdogan is still the person with the Islamist expansion image. Moreover, things have changed domestically. The secular opposition has adopted a new rhetoric. AKP is facing splits. Erdogan can lose power electorally any moment.
Erdogan’s way out looks like more nationalism and less of it. Neuralising the threat of a Kurdish pro-PKK entity on its borders is something any Turkey’s leader will do. Such an entity represents existential danger to Turkey’s territorial integrity.
Erdogan is basically now spending his final moments in power to protect the territorial unity of Turkey’s Sykes-Picot borders and in that he has gained admiration and support from all Turks including his dire Kemalist enemies.
The end of the operation with success might give Erdogan the chance to stay in power until 2023. Its failure means his end before the elections. But in both situations, Erdogan as we knew it has ended.
Every country in enmity with Turkey today doesn’t oppose Turkey but Erdogan and that is because of his nationalist policies or today’s war against the Kurdish entity, theh do so because of his past and the Islamist spark left in him that might develop again!
PKK is lucky that it is fighting Erdogan and say not another figure like Ecevit because they would get zero sympathy. And Kurds are lucky because of not for the anti-Erdogan alliance, they would have been killed in silence. But both Erdogan and Kurds are losers in this fight.
There is a chance that Western opposition to Erdogan might lead to a no fly zone which could eventually turn into a self ruled entity but I doubt that the NATO/West will do that against Turkey for theh know Erdogan is going while their Old Turkey friend is coming back.
NATO and others including Erdogan’s enemies in Israel and UAE and their lobbies abroad have zero problem with Turkey going into Syria, ending Kurdish-led entity. Turkey is a great ally. But they aren’t happy with Erdogan’s Turkey doing so.
In short: The New Erdogan is now for the Old Turkey. But the Old Turkey and its allies home and abroad don’t accept him.
Solution? Kurds and Turks need new leaderships that go beyond Sykes-Picot mentality and do that at any cost.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...766878208.html
Serinity
10-12-2019, 11:23 AM
I just hope Turkey becomes more pro Islam and more independent militarily and innovative like the early Ottomans.
The early Ottomans were producers. Not consumers.
They were entrepreneurs and great at making ships and therefore being independent.
The latter ottomans failed because they grew to become consumers. And because of that they no longer was as independent as before.
Worst being the fact that the population grew more europe - loving and wanted to be like Europe even if it meant destroying their own nation.
So. Who knows. Allah knows best.
ReplyThe early Ottomans were producers. Not consumers.
They were entrepreneurs and great at making ships and therefore being independent.
The latter ottomans failed because they grew to become consumers. And because of that they no longer was as independent as before.
Worst being the fact that the population grew more europe - loving and wanted to be like Europe even if it meant destroying their own nation.
So. Who knows. Allah knows best.
سيف الله
10-13-2019, 10:29 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
The families are said to have broken out as Turkish troops intensified their air and ground assault against Kurdish-led Forces in the area. At least nine people were reported killed when Turkish airstrikes hit a convoy of civilians and fighters.
A convoy which our International Editor Lindsey Hilsum had been travelling with earlier in the day. Both the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor have phoned President Erdogan, urging him to halt the Turkish offensive immediately. President Trump used a tweet to renew his threat of sanctions on Turkey.
More comment.
It’s been painted by some as Turkey vs the Kurds. I don’t think this is helpful. The SDF are not representative of all Kurds. In fact I found Syrian Kurds that were opposed to the SDF and were glad to see them go.
I also spoke to FSA factions made up of Syrian Kurds fighting against the SDF. I interviewed a Syrian Kurdish commander opposed to the SDF
There was fear on the ground from the local Kurdish population but it wasn’t of the turkish military it was fear of some of the FSA. The FSA is not one body, some of the factions are a bunch of cowboys, others are thugs, but there are genuine people dedicated to the cause.
I found some villages empty, the locals had fled...some had returned after a while. There was signs of looting, carried out by some FSA members.
In one village young one FSA fighter showed me videos on his phone of him executing members of the SDF. It’s hard to say how widespread this was
The SDF are the Syrian affiliate of the PKK/YPG There’s no denying that. It’s clear for everyone to see. Here’s an American general giving the breakdown of how their change in name came about by US request
The Kurdish groups have been successful in having a media strategy that draws sympathy from western journos. The women fighters, the access granted to western media and the fight agaisnt isis
Other groups in Syria have been fighting the regime and isis but have not drawn the same sympathetic coverage. The SDF/YPG have appealed to certain secular liberal values, so are usually painted as the good guys.
Syria is messy. Turkey does not differentiate between isis and the YPG. In fact they see the pkk/YPG as a bigger enemy as they’ve carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Turkey.
As for isis prisoners. Of course they’re at risk of escaping. But we can’t just see all of them as guilty. They’re being held without trial. Some are family members, there’s been no due process. But of course there’s a massive risk of some isis members regrouping
This operation is all about Turkey’s interests and ultimately the US will side with its NATO ally rather than, in comparison, a smallish group in Syria. Not saying it’s right or wrong but it’s just reality.
Just to add, my camerman when I was in Syria is Turkish Kurd and my boss was also a Turkish Kurd, they helped me get an insight into the complexities
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...850504706.html
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
The families are said to have broken out as Turkish troops intensified their air and ground assault against Kurdish-led Forces in the area. At least nine people were reported killed when Turkish airstrikes hit a convoy of civilians and fighters.
A convoy which our International Editor Lindsey Hilsum had been travelling with earlier in the day. Both the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor have phoned President Erdogan, urging him to halt the Turkish offensive immediately. President Trump used a tweet to renew his threat of sanctions on Turkey.
More comment.
It’s been painted by some as Turkey vs the Kurds. I don’t think this is helpful. The SDF are not representative of all Kurds. In fact I found Syrian Kurds that were opposed to the SDF and were glad to see them go.
I also spoke to FSA factions made up of Syrian Kurds fighting against the SDF. I interviewed a Syrian Kurdish commander opposed to the SDF
There was fear on the ground from the local Kurdish population but it wasn’t of the turkish military it was fear of some of the FSA. The FSA is not one body, some of the factions are a bunch of cowboys, others are thugs, but there are genuine people dedicated to the cause.
I found some villages empty, the locals had fled...some had returned after a while. There was signs of looting, carried out by some FSA members.
In one village young one FSA fighter showed me videos on his phone of him executing members of the SDF. It’s hard to say how widespread this was
The SDF are the Syrian affiliate of the PKK/YPG There’s no denying that. It’s clear for everyone to see. Here’s an American general giving the breakdown of how their change in name came about by US request
The Kurdish groups have been successful in having a media strategy that draws sympathy from western journos. The women fighters, the access granted to western media and the fight agaisnt isis
Other groups in Syria have been fighting the regime and isis but have not drawn the same sympathetic coverage. The SDF/YPG have appealed to certain secular liberal values, so are usually painted as the good guys.
Syria is messy. Turkey does not differentiate between isis and the YPG. In fact they see the pkk/YPG as a bigger enemy as they’ve carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Turkey.
As for isis prisoners. Of course they’re at risk of escaping. But we can’t just see all of them as guilty. They’re being held without trial. Some are family members, there’s been no due process. But of course there’s a massive risk of some isis members regrouping
This operation is all about Turkey’s interests and ultimately the US will side with its NATO ally rather than, in comparison, a smallish group in Syria. Not saying it’s right or wrong but it’s just reality.
Just to add, my camerman when I was in Syria is Turkish Kurd and my boss was also a Turkish Kurd, they helped me get an insight into the complexities
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...850504706.html
anatolian
10-14-2019, 07:26 PM
Its rediculous at its best to blame Turkey for not being like the Ottoman empire and invading Syria at the same time. If there was an Ottoman empire in place of Turkey today, they would have invaded Syria hundreds of times and let no breath taking terrorist over there.
ReplySerinity
10-14-2019, 10:47 PM
I am honestly disgusted at how America and its its allies so freely support PKK and attack Turkey for wanting to bring peace to Syria.
What do they expect? That Turkey will just quietly sit by while these kurdish terrorists PKK YPG whatever send rockets hitting turkish border towns?
America and Israel have no say in how Turkey does things. Now they are on a slur campaign against Turkey for daring to cleanse north east syria from Kurdish terrorists.
This is not a fight against Kurds, but terrorists. That would be like saying "fighting ISIS, and you are an racist because ISIL is arab" or whatever nonsense.
In any case. Turkey has no real allies. America? America wants to be able to Attack Turkey whenever they want, so no chance they'll go with anything that will strengthen Turkey.
Israel? Same. They dont want any Muslim States to be strong.
Turkey needs to become producers and independent militarily and domestically.
Even have nukes.
Turkey has lots of refugees and cant keep holding on to them, the solution is to make a peace corridor to then relocate them.
Turkey should not and will not let terrorists have a safe place to plan and plot attacks against Turkey.
ReplyWhat do they expect? That Turkey will just quietly sit by while these kurdish terrorists PKK YPG whatever send rockets hitting turkish border towns?
America and Israel have no say in how Turkey does things. Now they are on a slur campaign against Turkey for daring to cleanse north east syria from Kurdish terrorists.
This is not a fight against Kurds, but terrorists. That would be like saying "fighting ISIS, and you are an racist because ISIL is arab" or whatever nonsense.
In any case. Turkey has no real allies. America? America wants to be able to Attack Turkey whenever they want, so no chance they'll go with anything that will strengthen Turkey.
Israel? Same. They dont want any Muslim States to be strong.
Turkey needs to become producers and independent militarily and domestically.
Even have nukes.
Turkey has lots of refugees and cant keep holding on to them, the solution is to make a peace corridor to then relocate them.
Turkey should not and will not let terrorists have a safe place to plan and plot attacks against Turkey.
سيف الله
10-15-2019, 10:03 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Syrian troops have begun moving into Kurdish-held territory in the country's north east, as Turkey and its allies continue their offensive, insisting they are countering an “imminent terrorist threat”.
In the face of a growing international outcry, Turkey's President Erdogan insisted his troops would “finish what we started”. Dozens of civilians have been killed on both sides and around 160,000 people have fled their homes. These reports contain distressing images.
More comment.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
Syrian troops have begun moving into Kurdish-held territory in the country's north east, as Turkey and its allies continue their offensive, insisting they are countering an “imminent terrorist threat”.
In the face of a growing international outcry, Turkey's President Erdogan insisted his troops would “finish what we started”. Dozens of civilians have been killed on both sides and around 160,000 people have fled their homes. These reports contain distressing images.
More comment.
DanEdge
10-17-2019, 10:56 AM
I have been watching this story closely from the US. Most of those in Congress and the media do not oppose Turkey on this issue, they oppose Trump. Trump made the unilateral decision to withdraw from Syria against the council of his own advisors and his own party.
My opinion: Turkey is our Ally, and they are not the ones who want to attack us. ISIS does. So as long as Turkey does not allow ISIS terrorists to flourish under their watch, then there is no reason for the US to be there. But, we told the Kurds that we would stay and help them in exchange for them helping us. Trump made us liars [emoji35].
And now, Trump is bragging that Saudi Arabia is paying us a lot of money to send them troops and weapons to fight Iran. US soldiers should not be mercenaries.
ReplyMy opinion: Turkey is our Ally, and they are not the ones who want to attack us. ISIS does. So as long as Turkey does not allow ISIS terrorists to flourish under their watch, then there is no reason for the US to be there. But, we told the Kurds that we would stay and help them in exchange for them helping us. Trump made us liars [emoji35].
And now, Trump is bragging that Saudi Arabia is paying us a lot of money to send them troops and weapons to fight Iran. US soldiers should not be mercenaries.
Ahmed.
10-17-2019, 11:07 AM
LOL!!! You know what Saudi soldiers did when Saddams army invaded their border area in 1991?, well they advanced towards the Iraqis, and just as they were about 1000 feet away from the advancing iraqi tanks, they turned around and fled back to their mummies!!! :Emoji46::Emoji46::Emoji46:
Who needs to fight and die when you can just pay America to do it for them eh??? :Emoji46::Emoji46::Emoji46:
ReplyWho needs to fight and die when you can just pay America to do it for them eh??? :Emoji46::Emoji46::Emoji46:
سيف الله
10-18-2019, 01:05 PM
Salaam
Spot the difference!
A week is a long time in politics and all that.
Edit - update.
Now they are being ditched after they have served their purpose cue the articles - 'I never liked them anyway, they are not worth it etc etc'
Col Kratman on the Kurds
Long before the recent media campaign on behalf of the Kurds - which of course is nothing more than a pathetic neoclown attempt to put pressure on the God-Emperor Trump - Tom Kratman wrote about why the Kurds are not a people who merit help, much less sympathy, from anyone on the planet:
President Trump's position of not defending the Kurds from our actual allies, the Turks, is legally, militarily, and morally correct. If anything, the US military is treaty-bound to defend the Turks against Kurdish incursions as per its NATO obligations.
And, of course, those tactics very likely explain this near-incident between Turkish and US forces:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/10/c...-on-kurds.html
ReplySpot the difference!
A week is a long time in politics and all that.
Edit - update.
Now they are being ditched after they have served their purpose cue the articles - 'I never liked them anyway, they are not worth it etc etc'
Col Kratman on the Kurds
Long before the recent media campaign on behalf of the Kurds - which of course is nothing more than a pathetic neoclown attempt to put pressure on the God-Emperor Trump - Tom Kratman wrote about why the Kurds are not a people who merit help, much less sympathy, from anyone on the planet:
My first experience of the Kurds – rather, of how the rest of the area thinks of and feels about them – was before I’d ever met my first one. This was at a majlis, in the town of Judah (or Goodah), Saudi Arabia, sometime in December or so, 1990. Citizenship is kind of an iffy and flexible concept in that part of the world, so there were folk from Saudi, from Oman, from the Emirates. There was even one Arab who insisted he was a citizen of the Gulf Cooperation Council, since he was a fully documented citizen of so many places in the GCC. I had my doubts right up until he pulled out a bilingual ID card which, indeed, did seem to list him as a citizen of the GCC. One of the attendees had brought with him a book detailing the results of the chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja by the army and air force of Saddam Hussein.
It was really heartbreaking, all those picture of gassed, dead, discolored, and decomposing Kurdish kids, who are, in fact, every bit as cute as the papers and television made them out to be. At least when they’re not dead they are. My team sergeant, Sig, and I were duly appalled and sickened.
The Arabs, though, didn’t seem to understand. To paraphrase, “What’s the problem? Don’t you understand that these were _Kurds_ who got gassed?”
At the time, I found that attitude completely inexplicable.
Fast forward a few months; we’ve incited the Kurds and Shia to rise up and overthrow Saddam. They didn’t, of course, while such an uprising would have looked difficult and might have done us some good. Oh, no; instead the Shia – whose rebellion was spontaneous, anyway – waited until it looked like the Iraqi Army was crushed and such an uprising would be easy. The Kurds – who were organized – waited even longer.
Sorry, boys, but when we offer you a quid pro quo, that doesn’t translate into “free lunch.” Moreover, when we’ve already offered someone a cease-fire it’s a bit late to try to get us to start hostilities again. In short, we owed them nothing.
Fast forward, again, to late May, 1991. I’d come home from the Middle East, hung around a while, and been sent back, this time to Operation Provide Comfort, the Kurdish Rescue, there to quasi govern a few towns, run refugee camps, coordinate humanitarian relief, and such like. While we’re waiting in the camp on the Turkish side of the border, not too far from Silopi, overwatched by a Turkish police fort on a hill, some Kurds got in position to fire at the fort such that, should the fort return fire, the Turks will be shooting at us. So much for gratitude from people you’re trying to save, eh?
Fortunately, Turkish discipline held firm and enlightened Kurdish dreams of advancing the cause of having a homeland of their own by getting their rescuers killed came to naught.
It was really heartbreaking, all those picture of gassed, dead, discolored, and decomposing Kurdish kids, who are, in fact, every bit as cute as the papers and television made them out to be. At least when they’re not dead they are. My team sergeant, Sig, and I were duly appalled and sickened.
The Arabs, though, didn’t seem to understand. To paraphrase, “What’s the problem? Don’t you understand that these were _Kurds_ who got gassed?”
At the time, I found that attitude completely inexplicable.
Fast forward a few months; we’ve incited the Kurds and Shia to rise up and overthrow Saddam. They didn’t, of course, while such an uprising would have looked difficult and might have done us some good. Oh, no; instead the Shia – whose rebellion was spontaneous, anyway – waited until it looked like the Iraqi Army was crushed and such an uprising would be easy. The Kurds – who were organized – waited even longer.
Sorry, boys, but when we offer you a quid pro quo, that doesn’t translate into “free lunch.” Moreover, when we’ve already offered someone a cease-fire it’s a bit late to try to get us to start hostilities again. In short, we owed them nothing.
Fast forward, again, to late May, 1991. I’d come home from the Middle East, hung around a while, and been sent back, this time to Operation Provide Comfort, the Kurdish Rescue, there to quasi govern a few towns, run refugee camps, coordinate humanitarian relief, and such like. While we’re waiting in the camp on the Turkish side of the border, not too far from Silopi, overwatched by a Turkish police fort on a hill, some Kurds got in position to fire at the fort such that, should the fort return fire, the Turks will be shooting at us. So much for gratitude from people you’re trying to save, eh?
Fortunately, Turkish discipline held firm and enlightened Kurdish dreams of advancing the cause of having a homeland of their own by getting their rescuers killed came to naught.
And, of course, those tactics very likely explain this near-incident between Turkish and US forces:
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that US troops in Syria "came under artillery fire from Turkish positions" and demanded that Turkey halt all operations that could require the US to take "immediate defensive action."
سيف الله
10-19-2019, 08:00 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Ankara counts itself a victor after Syria incursion
Trump administration hands Turkey an outcome it has long pressed Washington to accept
Days after Turkey defied an international outcry to push ahead with an offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Syria, Ankara was facing pressure on multiple fronts.
Donald Trump was threatening to “swiftly destroy” the Turkish economy with US sanctions as he faced mounting criticism from within his Republican party for initially clearing the way for the operation. European powers condemned the incursion and suspended arms sales to Ankara. And a sudden deal struck between the Kurds and Damascus meant that Syrian regime forces, supported by Russia, were rapidly advancing north into a region where they had not set foot for years, putting them on a potential collision course with Turkish troops.
But, on Friday, a day after the US brokered a five-day ceasefire to pause the offensive, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut a relaxed figure as he spoke in Istanbul, hailing a “new page” in Ankara’s relations with Washington and proclaiming a “victory against terrorism”.
He had reason to be confident. Under the deal reached late on Thursday after nearly five hours of talks between Mr Erdogan and Mike Pence, US vice-president, the Trump administration handed Turkey’s leader an outcome he has long pressed Washington to accept.
As a result, Ankara can now count itself a victor following a tumultuous week that has underlined the perception that the US is disengaging from the region, while also strengthening Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s hand and reinforcing Russia’s position as the powerbroker in the country.
“Turkey got what it wanted from the US,” said Emile Hokayem at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “What happened [with the US-Turkey deal] was a farce, not real negotiation because the US is an exiting power. It was a de facto acceptance of the fait accompli and of the new balance of power in the northern Middle East.”
Crucially for Mr Erdogan, the so-called safe zone cleared of Kurdish militants that Turkey has long desired along a section of its southern border is set to be created, while the threat of US sanctions on Ankara has been lifted — for now.
Under the US-Turkey deal, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, which had been armed and trained by the US to fight against the jihadis of Isis, has 120 hours to pull back from the border region, give up its heavy weapons and dismantle its fortifications.
Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Istanbul-based Edam think-tank, described it as a “win-win” for Turkey and the Trump administration.
“The failure of an agreement would have brought additional sanctions by the US, a reaction by Turkey and an escalation,” he said. “Also, this [deal] is the strong signal that the US partnership with [Kurdish forces], which has been such an irritant in the bilateral relationship, has come to an end.”
The US decision to arm the SDF had put a severe strain on relations with Ankara. Turkey considers the group an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ party [PKK] which has fought a more than three-decade insurgency against Turkey.
Mr Erdogan saw the opportunity to launch the offensive against the SDF after Mr Trump provided the green light by withdrawing US troops from the border area following a telephone call between the two leaders. The US president then announced that he would pull all 1,000 US troops out of Syria.
These decisions triggered a rare bipartisan outcry from both Republicans and Democrats who accused Mr Trump of abandoning a US ally, the Kurds, while emboldening the Assad regime and its foreign backers, Russia and Iran.
Indeed, much will now depend on talks between Mr Erdogan and Mr Putin scheduled for Tuesday, just as the 120-hour deadline agreed under the US deal will expire.
“Tuesday is important for what we will do in the safe zone. We have no intention of remaining [in Syria],” Mr Erdogan said on Friday. He added that he had no objection to Syrian forces taking over areas previously controlled by the SDF, as long as the border areas were cleared of Kurdish fighters.
Mr Ulgen at Edam said that such shifting dynamics were likely to accelerate re-engagement between Ankara, which has been the main supporter of the Syrian opposition during the country’s eight-year civil war, and Damascus.
“Moscow’s game plan is to push Turkey towards recognition of the [Assad] regime, in return of which the regime will undertake responsibility for ensuring that this piece of territory is not to be used for exporting terrorist activities to Turkey,” he said.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, described the ceasefire deal as “a chance if not to stop, then at least to suspend, the use of force”.
“While the very fact of the cessation of the military operation, of course, is encouraging, what will happen next is not completely clear yet,” he said. “And it will clearly not be decided by Washington.”
In north-east Syria on Friday, the ceasefire remained fragile, with the SDF accusing Turkey of continuing to shell Kurdish positions, killing five of its fighters.
SDF officials had suggested that the group would accept the ceasefire before accusing Turkey of violating it. Kurdish militants have been left weakened and marginalised by the events of the past two weeks.
Nawaf Xelil, director of the Center for Kurdish Studies, a UK-based think-tank, said the deal that agreed to the creation of a 30km deep buffer zone “legitimises Turkey’s occupation” in northern Syria.
https://www.ft.com/content/eff21e8c-...e-4367d8281195
Americans withdrawing.
ReplyAnother update.
Ankara counts itself a victor after Syria incursion
Trump administration hands Turkey an outcome it has long pressed Washington to accept
Days after Turkey defied an international outcry to push ahead with an offensive against Kurdish militants in northern Syria, Ankara was facing pressure on multiple fronts.
Donald Trump was threatening to “swiftly destroy” the Turkish economy with US sanctions as he faced mounting criticism from within his Republican party for initially clearing the way for the operation. European powers condemned the incursion and suspended arms sales to Ankara. And a sudden deal struck between the Kurds and Damascus meant that Syrian regime forces, supported by Russia, were rapidly advancing north into a region where they had not set foot for years, putting them on a potential collision course with Turkish troops.
But, on Friday, a day after the US brokered a five-day ceasefire to pause the offensive, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut a relaxed figure as he spoke in Istanbul, hailing a “new page” in Ankara’s relations with Washington and proclaiming a “victory against terrorism”.
He had reason to be confident. Under the deal reached late on Thursday after nearly five hours of talks between Mr Erdogan and Mike Pence, US vice-president, the Trump administration handed Turkey’s leader an outcome he has long pressed Washington to accept.
As a result, Ankara can now count itself a victor following a tumultuous week that has underlined the perception that the US is disengaging from the region, while also strengthening Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s hand and reinforcing Russia’s position as the powerbroker in the country.
“Turkey got what it wanted from the US,” said Emile Hokayem at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “What happened [with the US-Turkey deal] was a farce, not real negotiation because the US is an exiting power. It was a de facto acceptance of the fait accompli and of the new balance of power in the northern Middle East.”
Crucially for Mr Erdogan, the so-called safe zone cleared of Kurdish militants that Turkey has long desired along a section of its southern border is set to be created, while the threat of US sanctions on Ankara has been lifted — for now.
Under the US-Turkey deal, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, which had been armed and trained by the US to fight against the jihadis of Isis, has 120 hours to pull back from the border region, give up its heavy weapons and dismantle its fortifications.
Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Istanbul-based Edam think-tank, described it as a “win-win” for Turkey and the Trump administration.
“The failure of an agreement would have brought additional sanctions by the US, a reaction by Turkey and an escalation,” he said. “Also, this [deal] is the strong signal that the US partnership with [Kurdish forces], which has been such an irritant in the bilateral relationship, has come to an end.”
The US decision to arm the SDF had put a severe strain on relations with Ankara. Turkey considers the group an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ party [PKK] which has fought a more than three-decade insurgency against Turkey.
Mr Erdogan saw the opportunity to launch the offensive against the SDF after Mr Trump provided the green light by withdrawing US troops from the border area following a telephone call between the two leaders. The US president then announced that he would pull all 1,000 US troops out of Syria.
These decisions triggered a rare bipartisan outcry from both Republicans and Democrats who accused Mr Trump of abandoning a US ally, the Kurds, while emboldening the Assad regime and its foreign backers, Russia and Iran.
Indeed, much will now depend on talks between Mr Erdogan and Mr Putin scheduled for Tuesday, just as the 120-hour deadline agreed under the US deal will expire.
“Tuesday is important for what we will do in the safe zone. We have no intention of remaining [in Syria],” Mr Erdogan said on Friday. He added that he had no objection to Syrian forces taking over areas previously controlled by the SDF, as long as the border areas were cleared of Kurdish fighters.
Mr Ulgen at Edam said that such shifting dynamics were likely to accelerate re-engagement between Ankara, which has been the main supporter of the Syrian opposition during the country’s eight-year civil war, and Damascus.
“Moscow’s game plan is to push Turkey towards recognition of the [Assad] regime, in return of which the regime will undertake responsibility for ensuring that this piece of territory is not to be used for exporting terrorist activities to Turkey,” he said.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, described the ceasefire deal as “a chance if not to stop, then at least to suspend, the use of force”.
“While the very fact of the cessation of the military operation, of course, is encouraging, what will happen next is not completely clear yet,” he said. “And it will clearly not be decided by Washington.”
In north-east Syria on Friday, the ceasefire remained fragile, with the SDF accusing Turkey of continuing to shell Kurdish positions, killing five of its fighters.
SDF officials had suggested that the group would accept the ceasefire before accusing Turkey of violating it. Kurdish militants have been left weakened and marginalised by the events of the past two weeks.
Nawaf Xelil, director of the Center for Kurdish Studies, a UK-based think-tank, said the deal that agreed to the creation of a 30km deep buffer zone “legitimises Turkey’s occupation” in northern Syria.
https://www.ft.com/content/eff21e8c-...e-4367d8281195
Americans withdrawing.
سيف الله
10-21-2019, 06:40 PM
Salaam
Like to share.
Perspective from Afghanistan.
Trump being honest.
ReplyLike to share.
Perspective from Afghanistan.
Trump being honest.
سيف الله
10-22-2019, 12:18 AM
Salaam
More tragedy.
Assad re-establishing his regime.
The end result.
ReplyMore tragedy.
Assad re-establishing his regime.
The end result.
سيف الله
10-24-2019, 12:45 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
War is the continuation of politics by other means, and nowhere is this more evident than in Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian battlespace. Although policymakers in Ankara have genuine interests in Syria and see the ongoing fight as an exercise of geopolitics - the stakes are even higher for the Turkish President. For Erdogan, Syria is also about political survival as it defines his endgame.
Edit - more analysis.
https://medium.com/@insightmediaoffi...t-282793a789eb
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
War is the continuation of politics by other means, and nowhere is this more evident than in Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian battlespace. Although policymakers in Ankara have genuine interests in Syria and see the ongoing fight as an exercise of geopolitics - the stakes are even higher for the Turkish President. For Erdogan, Syria is also about political survival as it defines his endgame.
Edit - more analysis.
https://medium.com/@insightmediaoffi...t-282793a789eb
سيف الله
10-25-2019, 11:28 PM
Salaam
Interesting take on the US withdrawal.
Cutting off the cash
The Deep State is raging at Trump's persistent attempts to cut off the flow of funding to them:
Well, that and trying to keep themselves off the scaffold for their treason, of course.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/10/c...-off-cash.html
War is big business particularly for the rich and powerful.
ReplyInteresting take on the US withdrawal.
Cutting off the cash
The Deep State is raging at Trump's persistent attempts to cut off the flow of funding to them:
High-placed federal law enforcement sources dropped a bombshell, claiming the renewed push to impeach the president is rooted, in part, in President Trump’s move to pull the United States out of the conflict in Syria — and stop untold millions in dirty cash from flowing into the deep state’s pockets.
“This isn’t about the Kurds, it’s about the cash,” one FBI source said.
And that cash is no chump change; it’s millions and millions of dollars flowing into the coffers of crooked politicians and deep-state pockets worldwide.
Federal sources paint a dark picture here, alleging crooked politicians and their benefactors are fuming. For years, it is alleged, deep state players have been raking in millions in illicit profits through the manufacturing and distribution of narcotics in Syria.
But that profitable network could stop producing its riches for U.S. players if the cease-fire Trump negotiated continues and if Trump’s plan to remove U.S. personnel from Syria commences.
“This isn’t about the Kurds, it’s about the cash,” one FBI source said.
And that cash is no chump change; it’s millions and millions of dollars flowing into the coffers of crooked politicians and deep-state pockets worldwide.
Federal sources paint a dark picture here, alleging crooked politicians and their benefactors are fuming. For years, it is alleged, deep state players have been raking in millions in illicit profits through the manufacturing and distribution of narcotics in Syria.
But that profitable network could stop producing its riches for U.S. players if the cease-fire Trump negotiated continues and if Trump’s plan to remove U.S. personnel from Syria commences.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/10/c...-off-cash.html
War is big business particularly for the rich and powerful.
سيف الله
10-27-2019, 07:29 AM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
The United States has carried out an operation targeting Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told news agencies. A US official told The Associated Press that the ISIL leader was targeted in Syria's Idlib province. Another US official confirmed to Reuters news agency that the operation took place but did not disclose details and did not say whether it was successful.
Newsweek, citing a US Army official briefed on the result of the operation, said al-Baghdadi was killed in the raid.
US reportedly carries out operation against Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
No details have been released but Donald Trump expected to make statement at 9am Washington time
The US has carried out a raid in Syria targeting the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to multiple reports.
A US official told Reuters an operation had taken place targeting the terrorist leader but did not say whether it had succeeded it capturing or killing him.
Newsweek said it had been told by a US Army official briefed on the raid that Baghdadi, 48, was dead. It said the operation took place in Syria’s north-western Idlib province, and was carried out by special operations forces after receiving actionable intelligence.
Citing two senior administration officials, the New York Times reported that US special operations commandos had carried out a risky raid in north-western Syria on Saturday against a senior terrorist leader there, but did not name the person targeted.
Iran was informed by Syrian sources that Baghdadi had been killed, two Iranian officials told Reuters on Sunday.
“Iran was informed about Baghdadi’s death by Syrian officials who got it from the field,” one of the officials said.
Reuters was also told by Iraqi security sources that Baghdadi had been killed.
“Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib, after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border,” one of the sources told Reuters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syria war monitor, meanwhile reported that a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by a warplane belonging to the international coalition attacked positions of the Hurras al-Deen (an al-Qaida affiliated group) where IS operatives were believed to be hiding in the Barisha area north of Idlib city.
Associated Press reported the observatory as saying nine people had died in the attack, but it was not known whether Baghdadi was one of them.
Earlier on Saturday the White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said Donald Trump planned to make a “major statement” at 9am on Sunday morning (1300GMT).
Gidley gave no further details, and it was unclear what the topic of the president’s statement might be.
The New York Times reported that the US defence secretary would appear on the morning shows to discuss developments in Syria, however it also reported that some analysts had expressed skepticism that Baghdadi would be hiding in Idlib.
The region is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that opposes Isis and routinely executes people thought to be affiliated with the group.
There was speculation, however, that Trump might have news about al-Baghdadi, who has been the subject of an international manhunt for years.
The president gave an indication that something was afoot earlier on Saturday night when he tweeted without explanation: “Something very big has just happened!”
Trump has faced withering criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for his troop withdrawal from north-eastern Syria, which permitted Turkey to attack the US’s Kurdish allies.
Many critics of Trump’s Syria pullout have expressed worries that it would allow the Islamic State group to regain strength and pose a threat to US interests. An announcement about Baghdadi’s death could help blunt those concerns.
Trump was expected to make the statement in the White House diplomatic reception room, which he has used to make a number of major announcements. Last week he used the same room to announce that a ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurds had taken hold.
For days, US officials had feared that Isis would seek to capitalise on the upheaval in Syria. But they also saw a potential opportunity, in which Isis leaders might break from more secretive routines to communicate with operatives, potentially creating a chance for the US and its allies to detect them.
Baghdadi, who has $25m bounty on his head, was long thought to hiding somewhere along the Iraq-Syria border. He has led the group since 2010, when it was still an underground al-Qaida offshoot in Iraq.
On 16 September, Isis’s media network issued a 30-minute audio message purporting to come from Baghdadi, in which he said operations were taking place daily and called on supporters to free women jailed in camps in Iraq and Syria over their alleged links to his group.
In the audio message, Baghdadi also said the US and its proxies had been defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the US had been “dragged” into Mali and Niger.
At the height of its power Isis ruled millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to the outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
But in 2017, the fall of Mosul and Raqqa, its strongholds in Iraq and Syria respectively, stripped Baghdadi, an Iraqi, of the trappings of a caliph and turned him into a fugitive thought to be moving along the desert border between Iraq and Syria.
US air strikes killed most of his top lieutenants, and before Isis published a video message of Baghdadi in April there had been conflicting reports over whether he was alive.
Despite losing its last significant territory, Isis is believed to have sleeper cells around the world, and some fighters operate from the shadows in Syria’s desert and Iraq’s cities.
The group claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people in April, though police in the Indian Ocean island country say they are yet to establish a direct link to the terrorist group.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...kr-al-baghdadi
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
The United States has carried out an operation targeting Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have told news agencies. A US official told The Associated Press that the ISIL leader was targeted in Syria's Idlib province. Another US official confirmed to Reuters news agency that the operation took place but did not disclose details and did not say whether it was successful.
Newsweek, citing a US Army official briefed on the result of the operation, said al-Baghdadi was killed in the raid.
US reportedly carries out operation against Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
No details have been released but Donald Trump expected to make statement at 9am Washington time
The US has carried out a raid in Syria targeting the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to multiple reports.
A US official told Reuters an operation had taken place targeting the terrorist leader but did not say whether it had succeeded it capturing or killing him.
Newsweek said it had been told by a US Army official briefed on the raid that Baghdadi, 48, was dead. It said the operation took place in Syria’s north-western Idlib province, and was carried out by special operations forces after receiving actionable intelligence.
Citing two senior administration officials, the New York Times reported that US special operations commandos had carried out a risky raid in north-western Syria on Saturday against a senior terrorist leader there, but did not name the person targeted.
Iran was informed by Syrian sources that Baghdadi had been killed, two Iranian officials told Reuters on Sunday.
“Iran was informed about Baghdadi’s death by Syrian officials who got it from the field,” one of the officials said.
Reuters was also told by Iraqi security sources that Baghdadi had been killed.
“Our sources from inside Syria have confirmed to the Iraqi intelligence team tasked with pursuing Baghdadi that he has been killed alongside his personal bodyguard in Idlib, after his hiding place was discovered when he tried to get his family out of Idlib towards the Turkish border,” one of the sources told Reuters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syria war monitor, meanwhile reported that a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by a warplane belonging to the international coalition attacked positions of the Hurras al-Deen (an al-Qaida affiliated group) where IS operatives were believed to be hiding in the Barisha area north of Idlib city.
Associated Press reported the observatory as saying nine people had died in the attack, but it was not known whether Baghdadi was one of them.
Earlier on Saturday the White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said Donald Trump planned to make a “major statement” at 9am on Sunday morning (1300GMT).
Gidley gave no further details, and it was unclear what the topic of the president’s statement might be.
The New York Times reported that the US defence secretary would appear on the morning shows to discuss developments in Syria, however it also reported that some analysts had expressed skepticism that Baghdadi would be hiding in Idlib.
The region is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that opposes Isis and routinely executes people thought to be affiliated with the group.
There was speculation, however, that Trump might have news about al-Baghdadi, who has been the subject of an international manhunt for years.
The president gave an indication that something was afoot earlier on Saturday night when he tweeted without explanation: “Something very big has just happened!”
Trump has faced withering criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for his troop withdrawal from north-eastern Syria, which permitted Turkey to attack the US’s Kurdish allies.
Many critics of Trump’s Syria pullout have expressed worries that it would allow the Islamic State group to regain strength and pose a threat to US interests. An announcement about Baghdadi’s death could help blunt those concerns.
Trump was expected to make the statement in the White House diplomatic reception room, which he has used to make a number of major announcements. Last week he used the same room to announce that a ceasefire between Turkey and the Kurds had taken hold.
For days, US officials had feared that Isis would seek to capitalise on the upheaval in Syria. But they also saw a potential opportunity, in which Isis leaders might break from more secretive routines to communicate with operatives, potentially creating a chance for the US and its allies to detect them.
Baghdadi, who has $25m bounty on his head, was long thought to hiding somewhere along the Iraq-Syria border. He has led the group since 2010, when it was still an underground al-Qaida offshoot in Iraq.
On 16 September, Isis’s media network issued a 30-minute audio message purporting to come from Baghdadi, in which he said operations were taking place daily and called on supporters to free women jailed in camps in Iraq and Syria over their alleged links to his group.
In the audio message, Baghdadi also said the US and its proxies had been defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the US had been “dragged” into Mali and Niger.
At the height of its power Isis ruled millions of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to the outskirts of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
But in 2017, the fall of Mosul and Raqqa, its strongholds in Iraq and Syria respectively, stripped Baghdadi, an Iraqi, of the trappings of a caliph and turned him into a fugitive thought to be moving along the desert border between Iraq and Syria.
US air strikes killed most of his top lieutenants, and before Isis published a video message of Baghdadi in April there had been conflicting reports over whether he was alive.
Despite losing its last significant territory, Isis is believed to have sleeper cells around the world, and some fighters operate from the shadows in Syria’s desert and Iraq’s cities.
The group claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people in April, though police in the Indian Ocean island country say they are yet to establish a direct link to the terrorist group.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...kr-al-baghdadi
سيف الله
10-28-2019, 08:42 AM
Salaam
Lots of comment after his death.
Blurb
US special forces have said that they carried out a mission that led to the death of Abu Bakr Baghdadi in north western Syria. Bilal Abdul Kareem is standing by to answer your questions now!
Finally.
I hate Bush, Blair, Obama and Trump far more than I ever hated Baghdadi. He died a Muslim and now his reckoning is with Allah (swt). Performative acts of cursing to prove that you’re not a terrorist are frankly pathetic.
Killing Baghdadi won’t kill the idea of Caliphate. That will endure. For however long it takes to re-establish it.
No doubt Baghdadi was a terrorist. He terrorised Muslims and kuffar alike. His terrorism was nothing compared to the Syrian regime (whom Trump thanked yesterday), the Russians (bombing schools and hospitals) or the Americans (the ravaging of Iraq...
...through relentless bombing for years and through swingeing sanctions that killed over 500,000 children, ‘a price worth paying’). And no, I’m not interested in reading your op-ed where you’ve condemned all this.
If there were justice in this world then Bush, Blair, Putin, Assad, Obama would be scurrying around from cave to cave as wanted men. They would be mercilessly hunted down as terrorists. And the American, British and Russian public would be falling over themselves to curse them...
...and utterly disavow any association with them.
I had no time of day for Baghdadi and his gang. Their ‘Caliphate’ was but a thugocracy garbed in religious clothing. But until the true criminals are brought to book I’m not interested in condemning him. That’s all I have to say.
https://twitter.com/GleamingRazor/st...52995200188417
ReplyLots of comment after his death.
Blurb
US special forces have said that they carried out a mission that led to the death of Abu Bakr Baghdadi in north western Syria. Bilal Abdul Kareem is standing by to answer your questions now!
Finally.
I hate Bush, Blair, Obama and Trump far more than I ever hated Baghdadi. He died a Muslim and now his reckoning is with Allah (swt). Performative acts of cursing to prove that you’re not a terrorist are frankly pathetic.
Killing Baghdadi won’t kill the idea of Caliphate. That will endure. For however long it takes to re-establish it.
No doubt Baghdadi was a terrorist. He terrorised Muslims and kuffar alike. His terrorism was nothing compared to the Syrian regime (whom Trump thanked yesterday), the Russians (bombing schools and hospitals) or the Americans (the ravaging of Iraq...
...through relentless bombing for years and through swingeing sanctions that killed over 500,000 children, ‘a price worth paying’). And no, I’m not interested in reading your op-ed where you’ve condemned all this.
If there were justice in this world then Bush, Blair, Putin, Assad, Obama would be scurrying around from cave to cave as wanted men. They would be mercilessly hunted down as terrorists. And the American, British and Russian public would be falling over themselves to curse them...
...and utterly disavow any association with them.
I had no time of day for Baghdadi and his gang. Their ‘Caliphate’ was but a thugocracy garbed in religious clothing. But until the true criminals are brought to book I’m not interested in condemning him. That’s all I have to say.
https://twitter.com/GleamingRazor/st...52995200188417
سيف الله
10-28-2019, 09:13 PM
Salaam
Some scepticism over his reported death.
Abu Bakr al Baghdadi dies… yet again
Veteran Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says there are good reasons to doubt Donald Trump’s account of his latest “triumph’ – the alleged killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
We never knew how good an actor President Donald Trump was until his press conference yesterday announcing that U.S. Special Forces had killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in Syria’s Idlib province.
He basked in self-awarded triumph and behaved as though he had achieved a monumental victory, as though he had defeated the Soviet Union at the height of its power.
Each and every one of his utterances and movements, even his facial gestures, were carefully calculated and pre-rehearsed.
The information Trump provided about the operation – including how Baghdadi “crying, whimpering and screaming” blew himself and several of his wives and children up in an escape tunnel – may have been true. But it may not have been. If we are to believe it, we will need some concrete visual evidence.
The Russians, who Trump thanked for their cooperation, denied knowing anything about the operation and expressed their doubts about whether Baghdadi had indeed been killed. The Syrians, who Trump also indicated had been cooperative, ridiculed the notion.
Tracking Baghdadi is the last of their priorities right now, and in any case, the Syrian army exerts no control over Idlib. Perhaps Trump confused the Syrian government with the Syrian opposition, which would not be surprising.
A professional liar
Trump is a professional liar. His statements and tweets are replete with untruths. This may be just another of his fabrications – like the purported killing of Hamza Bin Laden, unaccompanied by any evidence or photographs – aimed at crediting him with some “victory” that diverts attention from his overall failure in Syria and projects him as a hero to his electorate.
And never forget his obsession with one-upping his predecessor Barack Obama. Obama killed Osama bin Laden, so here is Trump killing the even more dreaded ISIS chief.
When the Americans killed Saddam Hussein’s sons Udai and Qusai, they displayed their corpses for the world’s press to see. They also ensured that video footage of their father’s hanging was leaked to the media.
They placed the body of Libya’s murdered leader Muammar al Gadhafi’s in a refrigerated container for “viewing” until the stench got too strong. So why haven’t they shown us footage of their three most prized and celebrated trophies – Osama and Hamza bin Laden and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi?
I have followed Al Qaida and ISIS closely as a journalist for a long time, and one thing they always do is issue official statements confirming the death of their commanders — if only to fulfil their religious obligation to inform the families, facilitate inheritance procedures and permit their wives to remarry if they choose.
But unlike Bush Jr.’s administration, Obama’s and Trump’s never showed us pictures of their trophies. Their burial places are unknown. This suggests that they have something to hide, and we may not learn the truth about it for decades.
End of ISIS?
Even if Baghdadi was indeed killed, that is unlikely to have much effect on ISIS. He was more of a figurehead than a hands-on leader of the organisation, even when it had seven million people, thousands of fighters and 240,000 square kilometres of territory under its control. The destruction of his “Caliphate” and the killing or capture of 13,000 of his troops certainly did not enhance his stature.
Baghdadi had none of the charisma of his original mentor Osama bin Laden. He only ever made two videotaped appearances – the first when he proclaimed his Caliphate in Mosul in 2014, and the second four years later when he appealed to his followers to fight on against the Americans and their allies after its collapse.
Baghdadi has been killed four times before, according to official U.S. statements. On each of those occasions, the Russians correctly refuted the claim, so we are inclined to believe them this fifth time.
Even if Baghdadi indeed met his end in the gruesome way described, that will not be the end of ISIS. The collapse of Al Qaeda led to the emergence of two even more extreme groups: ISIS and the Nusra Front. The same may happen again, given the fertile territory for a re-emergence that exists in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
If Baghdadi’s killing is confirmed, his followers can be expected to mount revenge attacks in various parts of the world, especially the U.S. and Western Europe. He may also be transformed into a legend, especially if the story of him killing himself to avoid capture takes hold.
One ISIS follower I interviewed while researching my book Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate told me that if the Caliphate were destroyed, its followers would go underground, from where they could operate more freely and ferociously as they would no longer have to bear the costly burden of looking after a large civilian population.
He also said that if its leader were killed, the group’s response would resemble an earthquake.
Could this happen now after Baghdadi’s fifth reported killing? Will the U.S., which many accuse of being behind the establishment of ISIS in the first place, prove to be the engineer of its renaissance?
https://5pillarsuk.com/2019/10/28/ab...ies-yet-again/
Russia casts doubt on US version of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death
In his announcement, Trump added: "He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place.”
However, the Russian Ministry of Defence has reportedly questioned the 'contradictory details' emerging about the operation.
According to the Daily Star , a ministry statement said: "The increase in the number of direct participants and countries allegedly taking part in this operation, each with completely contradictory details, raises legitimate questions and doubts about its reality and all the more in success.”
Russian Major General Igor Konashenkov added that there had been no US or coalition air strikes in the area of Syria where the killing apparently took place, the news agency RIA Novosti reports.
It was only three days ago that Trump became aware of the plans to take out Baghdadi.
As part of the plan the US had to secure permission from Russia to fly over its airspace.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...-isis-20740219
ReplySome scepticism over his reported death.
Abu Bakr al Baghdadi dies… yet again
Veteran Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says there are good reasons to doubt Donald Trump’s account of his latest “triumph’ – the alleged killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
We never knew how good an actor President Donald Trump was until his press conference yesterday announcing that U.S. Special Forces had killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in Syria’s Idlib province.
He basked in self-awarded triumph and behaved as though he had achieved a monumental victory, as though he had defeated the Soviet Union at the height of its power.
Each and every one of his utterances and movements, even his facial gestures, were carefully calculated and pre-rehearsed.
The information Trump provided about the operation – including how Baghdadi “crying, whimpering and screaming” blew himself and several of his wives and children up in an escape tunnel – may have been true. But it may not have been. If we are to believe it, we will need some concrete visual evidence.
The Russians, who Trump thanked for their cooperation, denied knowing anything about the operation and expressed their doubts about whether Baghdadi had indeed been killed. The Syrians, who Trump also indicated had been cooperative, ridiculed the notion.
Tracking Baghdadi is the last of their priorities right now, and in any case, the Syrian army exerts no control over Idlib. Perhaps Trump confused the Syrian government with the Syrian opposition, which would not be surprising.
A professional liar
Trump is a professional liar. His statements and tweets are replete with untruths. This may be just another of his fabrications – like the purported killing of Hamza Bin Laden, unaccompanied by any evidence or photographs – aimed at crediting him with some “victory” that diverts attention from his overall failure in Syria and projects him as a hero to his electorate.
And never forget his obsession with one-upping his predecessor Barack Obama. Obama killed Osama bin Laden, so here is Trump killing the even more dreaded ISIS chief.
When the Americans killed Saddam Hussein’s sons Udai and Qusai, they displayed their corpses for the world’s press to see. They also ensured that video footage of their father’s hanging was leaked to the media.
They placed the body of Libya’s murdered leader Muammar al Gadhafi’s in a refrigerated container for “viewing” until the stench got too strong. So why haven’t they shown us footage of their three most prized and celebrated trophies – Osama and Hamza bin Laden and Abu Bakr al Baghdadi?
I have followed Al Qaida and ISIS closely as a journalist for a long time, and one thing they always do is issue official statements confirming the death of their commanders — if only to fulfil their religious obligation to inform the families, facilitate inheritance procedures and permit their wives to remarry if they choose.
But unlike Bush Jr.’s administration, Obama’s and Trump’s never showed us pictures of their trophies. Their burial places are unknown. This suggests that they have something to hide, and we may not learn the truth about it for decades.
End of ISIS?
Even if Baghdadi was indeed killed, that is unlikely to have much effect on ISIS. He was more of a figurehead than a hands-on leader of the organisation, even when it had seven million people, thousands of fighters and 240,000 square kilometres of territory under its control. The destruction of his “Caliphate” and the killing or capture of 13,000 of his troops certainly did not enhance his stature.
Baghdadi had none of the charisma of his original mentor Osama bin Laden. He only ever made two videotaped appearances – the first when he proclaimed his Caliphate in Mosul in 2014, and the second four years later when he appealed to his followers to fight on against the Americans and their allies after its collapse.
Baghdadi has been killed four times before, according to official U.S. statements. On each of those occasions, the Russians correctly refuted the claim, so we are inclined to believe them this fifth time.
Even if Baghdadi indeed met his end in the gruesome way described, that will not be the end of ISIS. The collapse of Al Qaeda led to the emergence of two even more extreme groups: ISIS and the Nusra Front. The same may happen again, given the fertile territory for a re-emergence that exists in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
If Baghdadi’s killing is confirmed, his followers can be expected to mount revenge attacks in various parts of the world, especially the U.S. and Western Europe. He may also be transformed into a legend, especially if the story of him killing himself to avoid capture takes hold.
One ISIS follower I interviewed while researching my book Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate told me that if the Caliphate were destroyed, its followers would go underground, from where they could operate more freely and ferociously as they would no longer have to bear the costly burden of looking after a large civilian population.
He also said that if its leader were killed, the group’s response would resemble an earthquake.
Could this happen now after Baghdadi’s fifth reported killing? Will the U.S., which many accuse of being behind the establishment of ISIS in the first place, prove to be the engineer of its renaissance?
https://5pillarsuk.com/2019/10/28/ab...ies-yet-again/
Russia casts doubt on US version of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death
In his announcement, Trump added: "He died like a dog. He died like a coward. The world is now a much safer place.”
However, the Russian Ministry of Defence has reportedly questioned the 'contradictory details' emerging about the operation.
According to the Daily Star , a ministry statement said: "The increase in the number of direct participants and countries allegedly taking part in this operation, each with completely contradictory details, raises legitimate questions and doubts about its reality and all the more in success.”
Russian Major General Igor Konashenkov added that there had been no US or coalition air strikes in the area of Syria where the killing apparently took place, the news agency RIA Novosti reports.
It was only three days ago that Trump became aware of the plans to take out Baghdadi.
As part of the plan the US had to secure permission from Russia to fly over its airspace.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...-isis-20740219
سيف الله
11-01-2019, 09:17 AM
Salaam
Another update.
On Turkey, Assad said what many still don’t get: Erdogan is not Turkey
He said most Turkish parties & many in army/security are against Erdogan’s position on Assad.
He also said Erdoğan will accept him once he comes under domestic/international pressure. On SDF, which the anchors called ‘dissolved militia’, Assad said they have had ties with them even before Turkish invasion.
Syrian regime return will be in full eventually but they will gradually do that.
No armed group, administration will be allowed outside Syrian state. On Kurdish rights, Assad said they are not against cultural rights. He gave ‘patriotic’ Armenians as an example that they have full cultural rights
He said sensitivity about Kurds is because they talk about ‘Syrian Kurdistan’ and ‘Greater Kurdistan’ and that will not be allowed. On ties with Turkey, he said there have been several meetings b/w security officials with Russian presence inside Syria & in Russia.
He said a meeting w/ Erdogan or his people won’t honour him but he is ready to do it if it served Syrian interest. On Idlib he said the final solution will be one of three: they either leave to Turkey, surrender or go to war.
He said that all agreements and steps are temporary and the only solution acceptable is retaining control of all Syrian territory by the Syrian state. On Baghdadi, he said that they had no role in the operation and Trump had thanked them only to make the operation look credible.
He doubted that the operation has happened and said anything Americans say should not be accepted at face value. When asked if Obama was better than Trump because former rejected Turkish demands for a safe zone but latter allowed, Assad disagree.
Assad described Trump as least worst American president ‘because he is transparent’. When asked why meet with Turkish invaders but not with Israel, Assad said Turkey is a neighbor and they have ties despite fluctuations in the relationship while they do not recognise Israel’s existence at all.
On Turkey again, Assad claimed that the Turkish military and intelligence were supporting him until ‘Erdoğan conducted the coup against them’ but he had no doubt that the relations will get better soon either because Erdogan’s end or him changing course under pressure. On Arab League’s decision on reinviting Syria into the League, he said Syria had said nothing when the Arab League decided to suspend their membership and won’t say anything now either.
Then laughed and said that is enough about Arab League. All in all, Bashar al-Assad came out to declare victory.
He sees the picture much more clearly than all analysts who have crowded this space.
The killer of 200,000 civilians is winning thanks to an immoral spineless international order and he knows it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...192230400.html
ReplyAnother update.
On Turkey, Assad said what many still don’t get: Erdogan is not Turkey
He said most Turkish parties & many in army/security are against Erdogan’s position on Assad.
He also said Erdoğan will accept him once he comes under domestic/international pressure. On SDF, which the anchors called ‘dissolved militia’, Assad said they have had ties with them even before Turkish invasion.
Syrian regime return will be in full eventually but they will gradually do that.
No armed group, administration will be allowed outside Syrian state. On Kurdish rights, Assad said they are not against cultural rights. He gave ‘patriotic’ Armenians as an example that they have full cultural rights
He said sensitivity about Kurds is because they talk about ‘Syrian Kurdistan’ and ‘Greater Kurdistan’ and that will not be allowed. On ties with Turkey, he said there have been several meetings b/w security officials with Russian presence inside Syria & in Russia.
He said a meeting w/ Erdogan or his people won’t honour him but he is ready to do it if it served Syrian interest. On Idlib he said the final solution will be one of three: they either leave to Turkey, surrender or go to war.
He said that all agreements and steps are temporary and the only solution acceptable is retaining control of all Syrian territory by the Syrian state. On Baghdadi, he said that they had no role in the operation and Trump had thanked them only to make the operation look credible.
He doubted that the operation has happened and said anything Americans say should not be accepted at face value. When asked if Obama was better than Trump because former rejected Turkish demands for a safe zone but latter allowed, Assad disagree.
Assad described Trump as least worst American president ‘because he is transparent’. When asked why meet with Turkish invaders but not with Israel, Assad said Turkey is a neighbor and they have ties despite fluctuations in the relationship while they do not recognise Israel’s existence at all.
On Turkey again, Assad claimed that the Turkish military and intelligence were supporting him until ‘Erdoğan conducted the coup against them’ but he had no doubt that the relations will get better soon either because Erdogan’s end or him changing course under pressure. On Arab League’s decision on reinviting Syria into the League, he said Syria had said nothing when the Arab League decided to suspend their membership and won’t say anything now either.
Then laughed and said that is enough about Arab League. All in all, Bashar al-Assad came out to declare victory.
He sees the picture much more clearly than all analysts who have crowded this space.
The killer of 200,000 civilians is winning thanks to an immoral spineless international order and he knows it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...192230400.html
سيف الله
11-03-2019, 04:14 PM
Salaam
Another update.
I want to firstly start of by saying I am not pro pkk/ypg, I believe the pkk have damaged the plight of the kurds more than help it.
I believe their criminal activities cannot be debated and I believe they are among the many traitors currently present among the kurdish political.
Spectrum. The fact that they allied with assad and are adamant to kill off any sort of opposition, be it kurd or turk (search pkk aggression on kurds in turkey/iran) who are also pro kurdish independence just proves that they are not interested in defending kurds.
But to call them communists is just a result of your ignorance or following up what other turks say in order for them to use it as a “muslim vs kuff” argument.
They’re ideology has shifted from communism to socialism/liberterianism.
The turks are also secular, so as a muslim, you should neither be supporting turkey nor ypg - the ypg also has many muslim members, so the argument that turkey has many muslims in the army is obsolete when in fact they are fighting for a batil constitution.
The picture is proven to show that many muslim kurds in syria who took up arms against isis/rebels/assad joined the ranks of the ypg because it was the only group in which it had a common identity with.
Ypg are not the same as pkk in terms of recruitment.
While ypg is still as ruthless and terroristic in nature since it’s being governed by heads of the pkk - those who join pkk do so willingly (other than those who are kidnapped and forced - small%) whereas those who join ypg do so as a will to survive and be protected.
The point of this in conclusion is to state that there are many muslims (be it very ignorant) among the ypg - so one cannot come forward and say “turkey are a muslim army”.
Those who do need to know the politics of using religion to mobilise and manipulate the masses.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...006124037.html
ReplyAnother update.
I want to firstly start of by saying I am not pro pkk/ypg, I believe the pkk have damaged the plight of the kurds more than help it.
I believe their criminal activities cannot be debated and I believe they are among the many traitors currently present among the kurdish political.
Spectrum. The fact that they allied with assad and are adamant to kill off any sort of opposition, be it kurd or turk (search pkk aggression on kurds in turkey/iran) who are also pro kurdish independence just proves that they are not interested in defending kurds.
But to call them communists is just a result of your ignorance or following up what other turks say in order for them to use it as a “muslim vs kuff” argument.
They’re ideology has shifted from communism to socialism/liberterianism.
The turks are also secular, so as a muslim, you should neither be supporting turkey nor ypg - the ypg also has many muslim members, so the argument that turkey has many muslims in the army is obsolete when in fact they are fighting for a batil constitution.
The picture is proven to show that many muslim kurds in syria who took up arms against isis/rebels/assad joined the ranks of the ypg because it was the only group in which it had a common identity with.
Ypg are not the same as pkk in terms of recruitment.
While ypg is still as ruthless and terroristic in nature since it’s being governed by heads of the pkk - those who join pkk do so willingly (other than those who are kidnapped and forced - small%) whereas those who join ypg do so as a will to survive and be protected.
The point of this in conclusion is to state that there are many muslims (be it very ignorant) among the ypg - so one cannot come forward and say “turkey are a muslim army”.
Those who do need to know the politics of using religion to mobilise and manipulate the masses.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...006124037.html
سيف الله
11-04-2019, 07:12 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
President Donald Trump said that the US military would withdrawing from Syria, but then said they would be securing Syria's oil fields. So what exactly are the US doing in Syria?
Edit - Very insightful.
Blurb
US media and government seems to have turned on #Turkey. A lot of Washington, DC types are expecting a fundamental change in the US-Turkey relationship. Here's why they won't get it.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
President Donald Trump said that the US military would withdrawing from Syria, but then said they would be securing Syria's oil fields. So what exactly are the US doing in Syria?
Edit - Very insightful.
Blurb
US media and government seems to have turned on #Turkey. A lot of Washington, DC types are expecting a fundamental change in the US-Turkey relationship. Here's why they won't get it.
سيف الله
11-14-2019, 08:12 AM
Salaam
Like to share
Blurb
This entire podcast is dedicated to analysing the Syrian conflict since its inception in 2011 and how the balance of power has drastically shifted from the Sunni rebels to the Assad regime.
In light of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi earlier this month, Moazzam explains why the Syrian revolution remains a blessed struggle, and how the resistance has endured a military bombardment and betrayal from global superpowers and their regional proxies.
Topics of discussion also include Moazzam’s incarceration in February 2014 over “Syria-related terrorism activities” for which he was released without charge, how the Syrian conflict has affected anti-terrorism laws in the UK, and why Muslim scholars in the West have either become silent regarding Syria or are intentionally ignoring the ongoing plight of Syrians.
ReplyLike to share
Blurb
This entire podcast is dedicated to analysing the Syrian conflict since its inception in 2011 and how the balance of power has drastically shifted from the Sunni rebels to the Assad regime.
In light of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi earlier this month, Moazzam explains why the Syrian revolution remains a blessed struggle, and how the resistance has endured a military bombardment and betrayal from global superpowers and their regional proxies.
Topics of discussion also include Moazzam’s incarceration in February 2014 over “Syria-related terrorism activities” for which he was released without charge, how the Syrian conflict has affected anti-terrorism laws in the UK, and why Muslim scholars in the West have either become silent regarding Syria or are intentionally ignoring the ongoing plight of Syrians.
سيف الله
11-26-2019, 10:19 AM
Salaam
More comment and analysis.
Blurb
UNCAGED is a new, no holds barred, fortnightly discussion putting a unique perspective and insight on the War on Terror and the campaign for justice.
In this second episode of UNCAGED we talk about the significance of the death of Baghdadi and expose the unholy alliance between the capitalist West and the ‘anti-imperialist’ Assad regime to crush the cries for freedom in Syria AND how Russia fits in all of this melee.
Sceptical commentary.
haroon hussein
This is why I will never support Cage. To me they are a front organisation representing other interests. I cannot believe the discussion that is going on between these two zionist stooges. It is a well known fact that the moment the demonstrations started in Syria, it very quickly turned very violent and there is absolutely no doubt that it was orchestrated and funded from outside. The CIA had people on the ground. There is no doubt that Mossad was involved. It is also k own that the CIA were arming the protesters. The protesters were just part of the total mix. Trained mercenaries were brought in. US special forces were stationed on the Jordanian border. It is now well known that Israel and the West sent in massive amounts of mercenary personnel and huge quantities of weapons.
These idiots are talking about Syrian Government atrocities. What atrocities. When people are liberated from Free Syrian Army clutches with the toxic mix of other terrorist groups.,people rejoice at being freed by government forces.
It seems these two paid stooges are just regurgitating western media propaganda. Jyst recently Cage were looking for donations. Now they have a new talk show and that too for propaganda purposes. Wolves in sheep's clothing, deceptive and dangerous
And a response.
CAGE
@haroon hussein You make some serious and totally unfounded allegations here. I'd recommend you read this: How sections of the ‘Left’ mimicked the War on Terror narratives they once condemned when it came to Syria
How sections of the ‘Left’ mimicked the War on Terror narratives they once condemned when it came to Syria
https://www.cage.ngo/how-sections-of...-came-to-syria
ReplyMore comment and analysis.
Blurb
UNCAGED is a new, no holds barred, fortnightly discussion putting a unique perspective and insight on the War on Terror and the campaign for justice.
In this second episode of UNCAGED we talk about the significance of the death of Baghdadi and expose the unholy alliance between the capitalist West and the ‘anti-imperialist’ Assad regime to crush the cries for freedom in Syria AND how Russia fits in all of this melee.
Sceptical commentary.
haroon hussein
This is why I will never support Cage. To me they are a front organisation representing other interests. I cannot believe the discussion that is going on between these two zionist stooges. It is a well known fact that the moment the demonstrations started in Syria, it very quickly turned very violent and there is absolutely no doubt that it was orchestrated and funded from outside. The CIA had people on the ground. There is no doubt that Mossad was involved. It is also k own that the CIA were arming the protesters. The protesters were just part of the total mix. Trained mercenaries were brought in. US special forces were stationed on the Jordanian border. It is now well known that Israel and the West sent in massive amounts of mercenary personnel and huge quantities of weapons.
These idiots are talking about Syrian Government atrocities. What atrocities. When people are liberated from Free Syrian Army clutches with the toxic mix of other terrorist groups.,people rejoice at being freed by government forces.
It seems these two paid stooges are just regurgitating western media propaganda. Jyst recently Cage were looking for donations. Now they have a new talk show and that too for propaganda purposes. Wolves in sheep's clothing, deceptive and dangerous
And a response.
CAGE
@haroon hussein You make some serious and totally unfounded allegations here. I'd recommend you read this: How sections of the ‘Left’ mimicked the War on Terror narratives they once condemned when it came to Syria
How sections of the ‘Left’ mimicked the War on Terror narratives they once condemned when it came to Syria
https://www.cage.ngo/how-sections-of...-came-to-syria
سيف الله
12-02-2019, 01:16 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Tauqir Sharif, a British aid worker in northern Syria, who was stripped of his British citizenship in 2017 has decided to boycott his appeal against the ruling. He believes it was made impossible for him to defend his case as much of the evidence against him is kept secret by the government from himself and his legal team.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
Tauqir Sharif, a British aid worker in northern Syria, who was stripped of his British citizenship in 2017 has decided to boycott his appeal against the ruling. He believes it was made impossible for him to defend his case as much of the evidence against him is kept secret by the government from himself and his legal team.
سيف الله
12-13-2019, 03:03 PM
Salaam
Another update.
blurb
A Maldivian mujahid in Syria, tells us why he left the exotic islands of the Maldives for war-torn Syria and warns his fellow Maldivians back home about the rise of anti-Islamic infiltration in the Maldivian government.
ReplyAnother update.
blurb
A Maldivian mujahid in Syria, tells us why he left the exotic islands of the Maldives for war-torn Syria and warns his fellow Maldivians back home about the rise of anti-Islamic infiltration in the Maldivian government.
سيف الله
12-19-2019, 03:45 AM
Salaam
Another update
Blurb
As the war in Syria continues to drag on with no sign of relief for the suffering people from rockets, barrel bombs, and hunger, the UAE praised Assad for his "wise leadership". Hundreds of thousands have been killed by Assad forces during the conflict.
The conflict grinds on.
Blurb
As Syrian and Russian jets continue to attack rebel positions, the rebels have been using the recent cloud cover to improve their defence lines.
ReplyAnother update
Blurb
As the war in Syria continues to drag on with no sign of relief for the suffering people from rockets, barrel bombs, and hunger, the UAE praised Assad for his "wise leadership". Hundreds of thousands have been killed by Assad forces during the conflict.
The conflict grinds on.
Blurb
As Syrian and Russian jets continue to attack rebel positions, the rebels have been using the recent cloud cover to improve their defence lines.
سيف الله
03-04-2020, 10:38 PM
Salaam
Long overdue update. (Note this was before direct Turkish intervention).
Is this the Endgame for the People of Shaam? | Tauqir Sharif & Dr Ahmed Alhameed
Blurb
Is this the final war for humanity? Because what humanity is left if we sit and let this pass us by?
In this week's emergency #Unscripted podcast, we are joined by Dr Ahmed Alhameed and Tauqir ‘Tox’ Sharif as he gives an emotional message about the dire situation in Idlib, Syria, in what could be their last stand. They analyse the war and its history, what we can do now and for the future, as well as the obligation upon the Muslims to ensure this never happens again.
Latest news.
Blurb
President Erdogan and President Putin meet in Moscow, Russia tomorrow to discuss the crisis in Idlib, Syria. Bilal Abdul Kareem discusses the possible outcomes and which will be more favourable for the Syrian people.
ReplyLong overdue update. (Note this was before direct Turkish intervention).
Is this the Endgame for the People of Shaam? | Tauqir Sharif & Dr Ahmed Alhameed
Blurb
Is this the final war for humanity? Because what humanity is left if we sit and let this pass us by?
In this week's emergency #Unscripted podcast, we are joined by Dr Ahmed Alhameed and Tauqir ‘Tox’ Sharif as he gives an emotional message about the dire situation in Idlib, Syria, in what could be their last stand. They analyse the war and its history, what we can do now and for the future, as well as the obligation upon the Muslims to ensure this never happens again.
Latest news.
Blurb
President Erdogan and President Putin meet in Moscow, Russia tomorrow to discuss the crisis in Idlib, Syria. Bilal Abdul Kareem discusses the possible outcomes and which will be more favourable for the Syrian people.
FinalNyc
03-13-2020, 08:15 AM
So heartbreaking to see the innocent citizens in Syria, especially the kids who are experiencing the cruelty of war. When will it be an end game? :(
Replyسيف الله
04-23-2020, 02:11 PM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Bilal Abdul Kareem interviews British researcher Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a specialist on the Syrian conflict.They discuss a range of topics including whether Western governments should deal with rebel groups, foreigners in Idlib, the view of Idlib as a terrorist hub and whether the revolution has failed or not.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
Bilal Abdul Kareem interviews British researcher Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a specialist on the Syrian conflict.They discuss a range of topics including whether Western governments should deal with rebel groups, foreigners in Idlib, the view of Idlib as a terrorist hub and whether the revolution has failed or not.
Avis
04-23-2020, 07:49 PM
When Muslims wake up and go back to the Path that the Prophet Muhammad :saws1: laid out for us.
Replyسيف الله
05-22-2020, 07:13 AM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Bilal Abdul Kareem is live from Syria on the 27th night of Ramadan.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
Bilal Abdul Kareem is live from Syria on the 27th night of Ramadan.
سيف الله
05-28-2020, 10:36 AM
Caplets
05-28-2020, 01:33 PM
السلام عليكم
"...Militias fighting alongside the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad destroyed and desecrated the grave of the eighth Umayyad Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz yesterday, located in the north-west province of Idlib.
Video footage of the destruction emerged on social media yesterday, showing the graves of the Caliph, his wife and his servant damaged and with the contents exhumed and disappeared. The site in which the graves are housed, located in the village of Deir Al-Sharqi in the area of Maarat Al-Nu’man, is seen to be burnt following its capture by the regime and militia forces in February this year...."
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200528-tomb-of-umayyad-caliph-exhumed-by-militias-in-syria/
This is the true face of the calls to "brotherhood" of the shee'ah.
- Caplets
---------------
Reply"...Militias fighting alongside the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad destroyed and desecrated the grave of the eighth Umayyad Caliph Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz yesterday, located in the north-west province of Idlib.
Video footage of the destruction emerged on social media yesterday, showing the graves of the Caliph, his wife and his servant damaged and with the contents exhumed and disappeared. The site in which the graves are housed, located in the village of Deir Al-Sharqi in the area of Maarat Al-Nu’man, is seen to be burnt following its capture by the regime and militia forces in February this year...."
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200528-tomb-of-umayyad-caliph-exhumed-by-militias-in-syria/
This is the true face of the calls to "brotherhood" of the shee'ah.
- Caplets
---------------
سيف الله
07-06-2020, 07:59 AM
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Abdullah, the nephew of jailed aid worker Tauqir "Tox" Sharif tells OGN that the HTS representative present during recent meeting asked why Sharif hasn't been contributing to them. Additionally, the family was warned to not raise voices on social media.
ReplyAnother update.
Blurb
Abdullah, the nephew of jailed aid worker Tauqir "Tox" Sharif tells OGN that the HTS representative present during recent meeting asked why Sharif hasn't been contributing to them. Additionally, the family was warned to not raise voices on social media.
سيف الله
07-16-2020, 07:14 AM
سيف الله
08-14-2020, 09:14 AM
Salaam
More bad news, Tox (again) and Bilal have been arrested.
His Step son speaks out.
Maybe the reason.
Or is something more sinister and murky going on?
More comment.
ReplyMore bad news, Tox (again) and Bilal have been arrested.
His Step son speaks out.
Maybe the reason.
Or is something more sinister and murky going on?
More comment.
سيف الله
09-10-2020, 10:17 AM
Salaam
Another update
Blurb
After much speculation, OGN is finally able to reveal Tauqir 'Tox' Sharif's torture testimony video and confirm that he was tortured at the hands of HTS whilst incarcerated in their prison during his initial arrest.
Tox describes the torture methods that were used during his interrogation and the impact it had on him. He was re-arrested on the 11th of August 2020 by HTS. Two days later, on the 13th of August 2020, Bilal Abdul Kareem from On The Ground News was also arrested, for reasons unknown. They are both currently detained by HTS. Their families demand the immediate release of Tauqir, Bilal and Muayad
Blurb
Bilal Abdul Kareem's interview with Dr. Hani al-Sibai who has written and researched extensively on the subject of prisoners and their rights in Islam.
It is released following revelations that Tauqir Sharif was tortured during his time in HTS custody
This interview with Dr Hani al-Sibai was recorded just before Bilal Abdul Kareem was also arrested by HTS on 13th August 2020.
Bilal Abdul Kareem and Tauqir Sharif are still detained by HTS. Please pray for their safe and swift release.
ReplyAnother update
Blurb
After much speculation, OGN is finally able to reveal Tauqir 'Tox' Sharif's torture testimony video and confirm that he was tortured at the hands of HTS whilst incarcerated in their prison during his initial arrest.
Tox describes the torture methods that were used during his interrogation and the impact it had on him. He was re-arrested on the 11th of August 2020 by HTS. Two days later, on the 13th of August 2020, Bilal Abdul Kareem from On The Ground News was also arrested, for reasons unknown. They are both currently detained by HTS. Their families demand the immediate release of Tauqir, Bilal and Muayad
Blurb
Bilal Abdul Kareem's interview with Dr. Hani al-Sibai who has written and researched extensively on the subject of prisoners and their rights in Islam.
It is released following revelations that Tauqir Sharif was tortured during his time in HTS custody
This interview with Dr Hani al-Sibai was recorded just before Bilal Abdul Kareem was also arrested by HTS on 13th August 2020.
Bilal Abdul Kareem and Tauqir Sharif are still detained by HTS. Please pray for their safe and swift release.
سيف الله
03-30-2021, 07:25 AM
Salaam
Like to share.
Blurb
In this insightful episode of the Blood Brothers podcast, Dilly Hussain speaks with the Outreach Director of advocacy group CAGE and former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg.
Good news Bilal Abdul Kaareem.
Syria: US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem released by HTS after six months
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham detained reporter after he highlighted allegations of torture inside group's prisons
Syrian militant group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has released US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem after imprisoning him for six months in northwest Syria.
HTS detained Abdul Kareem in August after he reported on allegations that the militant group tortured detainees inside its prisons. Abdul Kareem is a Middle East Eye contributor who has been in opposition-controlled Syria since 2014. His detention followed a string of arrests by HTS of aid workers and journalists in Idlib province and its environs. Moazzam Begg, the outreach director for UK-based human rights group CAGE, campaigned for Abdul Kareem's release and spoke to him after he was freed.
"Bilal is fine and doing well. He is in good health and remains upbeat," Begg told MEE.
"He is now heading to a reception arranged for him in one of the mosques, where he will be welcomed back into his household and meet his newborn daughter. People have missed him a lot."
A picture posted by Begg showed Abdul Kareem standing next to British aid worker Tauqir Sharif, who was also detained by HTS last year. Activists suspect Abdul Kareem was detained after he criticised HTS's treatment of Sharif on his news channel On the Ground News (OGN).
HTS said it had released Abdul Kareem after he was charged with "working with groups that harm public security" and "incitement" against the militant group It also charged the US journalist of "publishing and promoting lies that affect institutions without evidence or proof".
HTS said Abdul Kareem’s sentence was reduced to conditional release after it accepted a petition submitted by elders from the Atmeh region. Ignacio Miguel Delgado Culebras, the Middle East and North Africa representative for the New-York based group, told MEE that the CPJ was "very concerned" for Abdul Kareem's safety.
OGN said Abdul Kareem was abducted in the Syrian town of Atmeh and taken to an unknown location by HTS members His stepson, Jihad, later told OGN that Abdul Kareem had finished praying at a mosque near Atmeh when he and a cameraman were approached by two cars of armed men.
"Abdul Kareem tried to flee, but they pointed their guns at him. I ran away, and they were unable to arrest me. They beat them severely and handcuffed them," said Jihad. Abdul Kareem's work has been featured by media networks including the BBC, CNN and Sky News.
He is best known for his reports from the final days of the battle for Aleppo in December 2016, when he remained with opposition fighters under bombardment and was transported with them out of the city's eastern neighbourhoods as part of a ceasefire deal.
The journalist previously said he feared execution at the Syrian government's hands over his coverage of the country's civil war. He also alleges that he was erroneously placed on a US "kill list" and was targeted by US missiles on multiple occasions in 2016. The allegations are currently the subject of a legal challenge in Washington brought by Abdul Kareem against the US government.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/s...m-released-hts
ReplyLike to share.
Blurb
In this insightful episode of the Blood Brothers podcast, Dilly Hussain speaks with the Outreach Director of advocacy group CAGE and former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg.
Good news Bilal Abdul Kaareem.
Syria: US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem released by HTS after six months
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham detained reporter after he highlighted allegations of torture inside group's prisons
Syrian militant group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has released US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem after imprisoning him for six months in northwest Syria.
HTS detained Abdul Kareem in August after he reported on allegations that the militant group tortured detainees inside its prisons. Abdul Kareem is a Middle East Eye contributor who has been in opposition-controlled Syria since 2014. His detention followed a string of arrests by HTS of aid workers and journalists in Idlib province and its environs. Moazzam Begg, the outreach director for UK-based human rights group CAGE, campaigned for Abdul Kareem's release and spoke to him after he was freed.
"Bilal is fine and doing well. He is in good health and remains upbeat," Begg told MEE.
"He is now heading to a reception arranged for him in one of the mosques, where he will be welcomed back into his household and meet his newborn daughter. People have missed him a lot."
A picture posted by Begg showed Abdul Kareem standing next to British aid worker Tauqir Sharif, who was also detained by HTS last year. Activists suspect Abdul Kareem was detained after he criticised HTS's treatment of Sharif on his news channel On the Ground News (OGN).
HTS said it had released Abdul Kareem after he was charged with "working with groups that harm public security" and "incitement" against the militant group It also charged the US journalist of "publishing and promoting lies that affect institutions without evidence or proof".
HTS said Abdul Kareem’s sentence was reduced to conditional release after it accepted a petition submitted by elders from the Atmeh region. Ignacio Miguel Delgado Culebras, the Middle East and North Africa representative for the New-York based group, told MEE that the CPJ was "very concerned" for Abdul Kareem's safety.
OGN said Abdul Kareem was abducted in the Syrian town of Atmeh and taken to an unknown location by HTS members His stepson, Jihad, later told OGN that Abdul Kareem had finished praying at a mosque near Atmeh when he and a cameraman were approached by two cars of armed men.
"Abdul Kareem tried to flee, but they pointed their guns at him. I ran away, and they were unable to arrest me. They beat them severely and handcuffed them," said Jihad. Abdul Kareem's work has been featured by media networks including the BBC, CNN and Sky News.
He is best known for his reports from the final days of the battle for Aleppo in December 2016, when he remained with opposition fighters under bombardment and was transported with them out of the city's eastern neighbourhoods as part of a ceasefire deal.
The journalist previously said he feared execution at the Syrian government's hands over his coverage of the country's civil war. He also alleges that he was erroneously placed on a US "kill list" and was targeted by US missiles on multiple occasions in 2016. The allegations are currently the subject of a legal challenge in Washington brought by Abdul Kareem against the US government.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/s...m-released-hts
keiv
03-30-2021, 05:10 PM
So now it seems Bilal is being targeted by at least 3 different groups. US, Syria, and rebel groups.
Replyسيف الله
04-11-2021, 10:22 AM
Salaam
Interesting interview, looks like Jolani and co going through a rebranding excercise.
ReplyInteresting interview, looks like Jolani and co going through a rebranding excercise.
سيف الله
06-05-2021, 12:40 AM
Salaam
Another update
Blurb
In an exclusive interview with MEE, US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem talks for the first time about the six months he spent in a Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham prison in Syria.
Abdul Kareem, who has been reporting from opposition-held Syria since 2012, believes he was arrested for reporting on allegations of torture against the group - and says he heard the screams of prisoners during his own captivity.
Admitting he was putting himself in jeopardy by talking to MEE, Abdul Kareem accused HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani of lying about conditions in the militant group's prisons, and said he was "unfit to rule".
EXCLUSIVE: Bilal Abdul Kareem breaks silence over HTS detention in Syria
US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem has broken his silence to speak for the first time about his arrest and months-long detention by militant group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria's Idlib province.
Speaking exclusively to Middle East Eye, Abdul Kareem accused Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the HTS leader, of being “unfit to rule” and of lying about conditions in the organisation's prisons.
Jolani denied in an interview broadcast this week on the US PBS network that detainees held by the group were being tortured.
Abdul Kareem is currently banned by HTS from reporting, or appearing on social media, as a condition of his release from prison in February. He admitted he was putting himself in jeopardy by speaking out against the group, though he said he had left the territory under HTS control.
HTS is an alliance of Islamist militant factions which has controlled most of Idlib since 2017 and has been one of the most effective fighting opposition fighting forces during Syria's decade-long civil war. But it is considered a terrorist organisation by the UN, the US and many other Western countries and has been accused of atrocities, executions and war crimes by human rights monitors.
Jolani, its leader, formerly commanded the Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), which was al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until 2016 when it changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
Abdul Kareem told MEE he had been threatened with physical abuse himself and kept mostly in solitary confinement for more than six months after his arrest last August. He said he had frequently heard the sound of other prisoners being tortured in nearby cells.
“Almost every day of every week, I had to listen to the screams of torture just a few metres away from me. Everyone in the prisons can always hear the torture,” he told MEE.
“Just to sum up the whole thing: Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, point blank, he lied.”
Abdul Kareem has been reporting from opposition-held areas of Syria since 2012, mostly for his own On the Ground News platform, and has been based in the country since 2014. He has contributed to MEE, and has also worked with CNN, the BBC and Sky News.
He is best known for his reporting from the final days of the battle of eastern Aleppo in December 2016, when he was evacuated alongside opposition fighters as part of a deal in which rebel-held areas of the city were handed over to Syrian government control.
Threatened with beatings
Abdul Kareem told MEE he had been arrested after raising concerns about torture in HTS prisons in his own reporting. One prominent case he covered was that of Tauqir Sharif, a British aid worker who said he had been restrained in a tyre and beaten while in HTS custody.
After his arrest, Abdul Kareem said he had been handcuffed and blindfolded and subjected to daily questioning in which he was threatened with beatings by his interrogator.
“He said: 'We need to ask you some questions. If your answers are not forthcoming, then we do have the authority to physically do things to you so that you will tell us what we need to know'. They lined me up against the wall as if they were about to start beating on me.”
Abdul Kareem said he was eventually sent back to his cell and was not subjected to any kind of physical torture. “I had no lawyer, I had no access to anybody on the outside. I was just gone. That was my situation.”
Four-and-a-half months later, guards came to Abdul Kareem's cell. “They put a blindfold on me and shackles on my hands. Then they put me in a van and they took me to another location, removed the shackles, removed the blindfold and said: 'Your trial is about to start.'"
He was subsequently sentenced to 12 months in prison on charges including “working with groups that harm public security", "incitement" against the authorities, and "publishing and promoting lies that affect institutions without evidence or proof".
Abdul Kareem said he could not help himself laughing when he was found guilty on all charges a few weeks later. “I thought it was the funniest thing. They didn't like that so much. They said: 'Why are you laughing?' I said: 'I'm laughing because I used to do stand-up comedy, but I can't write jokes like you guys'. “I said: 'There is no justice in this. There is no Islamic justice, no secular justice. There's no justice in this at all.'”
Following his sentencing, Abdul Kareem says he was offered the prospect of an early release if he agreed to apologise as part of a plea for clemency. He says he refused to do so and was prepared to serve the full 12-month sentence.
Abdul Kareem was eventually released on 17 February following what HTS described as a petition submitted by the elders of Idlib's Atmeh region.
Amicable relationship
Abdul Kareem told MEE that he had once enjoyed an amicable relationship with HTS, as well as with other opposition groups fighting against Syrian government forces and their allies, whom he had often accompanied to battlefronts to report on the conflict.
He said he had sought to give HTS and its previous iterations an opportunity to speak when they were being accused of terrorism – access that has led some to describe him as a “jihadist propagandist”.
But he said HTS had become increasingly hostile to him since 2018, as his reporting grew more critical of the group's shortcomings after it had established itself as the de facto authority in Idlib.
“Now, what was the change that happened?" he told MEE. " The change is simple. They came to power... and then they start doing things other than that which they said. They promised to bring Islamic rule. They didn't do it. They promised to bring justice. They didn't do it. I was obligated to report those shortcomings. And that's when they turned hostile to me.”
Allegations of HTS's and its predecessors' involvement in arbitrary detention and torture predate its rise to power in Idlib. A United Nations Human Rights Council report published in March by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic cited allegations of detention-related violations linked to HTS and related groups dating back to 2011.
It said HTS had been “arbitrarily detaining civilians in a systematic effort to stifle dissent” and had established “punishment prisons” in which “torture and ill-treatment were widespread”.
Abdul Kareem said he had sought to report on earlier complaints of torture against HTS, but that most of those making allegations were not prepared to go on camera or identify themselves.
He cited a report by On the Ground News in April 2019 in which a mother said that her son, Marwan al-Umqi, had been tortured to death in an HTS prison as a “turning point” in his relationship with the group.
Their politics towards me changed," Abdul Kareem said. "And some of their members said to me: 'Bilal we thought you were cool'.
And I said: 'Well, you know what? If covering up your torture means that I'm cool, then go back and tell them that I'm not cool and I'm not going to be cool because that's not what I came here for.'”
HTS has repeatedly denied allegations that it mistreats and tortures prisoners.
In an interview with PBS's Frontline, filmed in February but broadcast only on Tuesday, Jolani said there was “no torture” in Idlib and suggested that the region's prisons were under the control of the Salvation Government, the HTS-backed civilian government, rather than the group itself.
“There is no torture. This is completely rejected,” said Jolani.
“And we are not responsible for it, arresting, torturing and the whole process at the courts. The judicial corps is completely independent in the liberated zones. It is not ours. There is an entire government here.”
'Unfit to rule'
But Abdul Kareem said Jolani and those in HTS who defended him were guilty of condoning the same abuses they had once condemned when carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's security forces.
Abdul Kareem said that one HTS official he had spoken to had tried to defend Jolani's remarks by arguing that the physical abuse meted out to prisoners did not amount to torture and was permitted as a form of punishment to make them admit their wrongdoings.
“I said to him, well, issue number one, you're starting to sound like the Americans: 'We're not calling it torture. We're calling it enhanced interrogation techniques.' Torture by any other name is still torture.
“The second thing is beating people, hanging them for long periods of time, whippings on the soles of their feet and the backs of their legs. These are the things that your leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani condemned the Assad regime for doing. How is it that he's now doing the exact same thing?”
Abdul Kareem said that he did not consider Jolani to be a terrorist because HTS had not sought to carry out attacks outside of Syria. But he said he would not remain silent about Jolani's shortcomings as a leader, and suggested he was courting Western legitimacy by speaking to PBS.
“I don't think he's a terrorist. I think he's unfit to rule if he's going to continue on the path that he's continuing on now. So if he wants Western legitimacy and he wants to go after that, that's fine. That's his business. But if he thinks that I'm going to stay silent while he tortures and indefinitely detains his way to power, as we say in America, I didn't come to Vegas to lose.”
Abdul Kareem also dismissed the Salvation Government as a sham. “Nobody here gives any great credence to the Salvation Government,” he said. “I doubt that there's one in a hundred people who could even tell you who the president of the Salvation Government is, because everyone knows that he wields no power.” In fact the Salvation Government is headed by a prime minister, currently Ali Keda who has been in office since 2019.
Abdul Kareem told MEE he had now left HTS-controlled territory because of concerns for his own safety after being told by HTS officials that he was considered a security threat.
“They told me that they considered me to be more of a threat in these territories than an ISIS suicide bomber. And the reason he said that was 'because people listen to you'. So I was forced to leave their territories. I could either just be quiet and open up a hot dog [stall] or a pizzeria. Or I could say I'm going to change my location and I'm going to continue to report.”
But he said he remained committed to reporting on events in Syria, despite the risks. “I think the Syrian people have tremendous resiliency, ingenuity, and I think that they're going to come out on top in the end. It's going to cost. It's important for everybody to understand that if you want real change it doesn't happen overnight.
“So my fight continues. And as long as I'm effective, then I'll continue to be here. When I'm not effective any more, I'll pick up my marbles and go.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/e...etention-syria
ReplyAnother update
Blurb
In an exclusive interview with MEE, US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem talks for the first time about the six months he spent in a Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham prison in Syria.
Abdul Kareem, who has been reporting from opposition-held Syria since 2012, believes he was arrested for reporting on allegations of torture against the group - and says he heard the screams of prisoners during his own captivity.
Admitting he was putting himself in jeopardy by talking to MEE, Abdul Kareem accused HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani of lying about conditions in the militant group's prisons, and said he was "unfit to rule".
EXCLUSIVE: Bilal Abdul Kareem breaks silence over HTS detention in Syria
US journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem has broken his silence to speak for the first time about his arrest and months-long detention by militant group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria's Idlib province.
Speaking exclusively to Middle East Eye, Abdul Kareem accused Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the HTS leader, of being “unfit to rule” and of lying about conditions in the organisation's prisons.
Jolani denied in an interview broadcast this week on the US PBS network that detainees held by the group were being tortured.
Abdul Kareem is currently banned by HTS from reporting, or appearing on social media, as a condition of his release from prison in February. He admitted he was putting himself in jeopardy by speaking out against the group, though he said he had left the territory under HTS control.
HTS is an alliance of Islamist militant factions which has controlled most of Idlib since 2017 and has been one of the most effective fighting opposition fighting forces during Syria's decade-long civil war. But it is considered a terrorist organisation by the UN, the US and many other Western countries and has been accused of atrocities, executions and war crimes by human rights monitors.
Jolani, its leader, formerly commanded the Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra), which was al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until 2016 when it changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.
Abdul Kareem told MEE he had been threatened with physical abuse himself and kept mostly in solitary confinement for more than six months after his arrest last August. He said he had frequently heard the sound of other prisoners being tortured in nearby cells.
“Almost every day of every week, I had to listen to the screams of torture just a few metres away from me. Everyone in the prisons can always hear the torture,” he told MEE.
“Just to sum up the whole thing: Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, point blank, he lied.”
Abdul Kareem has been reporting from opposition-held areas of Syria since 2012, mostly for his own On the Ground News platform, and has been based in the country since 2014. He has contributed to MEE, and has also worked with CNN, the BBC and Sky News.
He is best known for his reporting from the final days of the battle of eastern Aleppo in December 2016, when he was evacuated alongside opposition fighters as part of a deal in which rebel-held areas of the city were handed over to Syrian government control.
Threatened with beatings
Abdul Kareem told MEE he had been arrested after raising concerns about torture in HTS prisons in his own reporting. One prominent case he covered was that of Tauqir Sharif, a British aid worker who said he had been restrained in a tyre and beaten while in HTS custody.
After his arrest, Abdul Kareem said he had been handcuffed and blindfolded and subjected to daily questioning in which he was threatened with beatings by his interrogator.
“He said: 'We need to ask you some questions. If your answers are not forthcoming, then we do have the authority to physically do things to you so that you will tell us what we need to know'. They lined me up against the wall as if they were about to start beating on me.”
Abdul Kareem said he was eventually sent back to his cell and was not subjected to any kind of physical torture. “I had no lawyer, I had no access to anybody on the outside. I was just gone. That was my situation.”
Four-and-a-half months later, guards came to Abdul Kareem's cell. “They put a blindfold on me and shackles on my hands. Then they put me in a van and they took me to another location, removed the shackles, removed the blindfold and said: 'Your trial is about to start.'"
He was subsequently sentenced to 12 months in prison on charges including “working with groups that harm public security", "incitement" against the authorities, and "publishing and promoting lies that affect institutions without evidence or proof".
Abdul Kareem said he could not help himself laughing when he was found guilty on all charges a few weeks later. “I thought it was the funniest thing. They didn't like that so much. They said: 'Why are you laughing?' I said: 'I'm laughing because I used to do stand-up comedy, but I can't write jokes like you guys'. “I said: 'There is no justice in this. There is no Islamic justice, no secular justice. There's no justice in this at all.'”
Following his sentencing, Abdul Kareem says he was offered the prospect of an early release if he agreed to apologise as part of a plea for clemency. He says he refused to do so and was prepared to serve the full 12-month sentence.
Abdul Kareem was eventually released on 17 February following what HTS described as a petition submitted by the elders of Idlib's Atmeh region.
Amicable relationship
Abdul Kareem told MEE that he had once enjoyed an amicable relationship with HTS, as well as with other opposition groups fighting against Syrian government forces and their allies, whom he had often accompanied to battlefronts to report on the conflict.
He said he had sought to give HTS and its previous iterations an opportunity to speak when they were being accused of terrorism – access that has led some to describe him as a “jihadist propagandist”.
But he said HTS had become increasingly hostile to him since 2018, as his reporting grew more critical of the group's shortcomings after it had established itself as the de facto authority in Idlib.
“Now, what was the change that happened?" he told MEE. " The change is simple. They came to power... and then they start doing things other than that which they said. They promised to bring Islamic rule. They didn't do it. They promised to bring justice. They didn't do it. I was obligated to report those shortcomings. And that's when they turned hostile to me.”
Allegations of HTS's and its predecessors' involvement in arbitrary detention and torture predate its rise to power in Idlib. A United Nations Human Rights Council report published in March by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic cited allegations of detention-related violations linked to HTS and related groups dating back to 2011.
It said HTS had been “arbitrarily detaining civilians in a systematic effort to stifle dissent” and had established “punishment prisons” in which “torture and ill-treatment were widespread”.
Abdul Kareem said he had sought to report on earlier complaints of torture against HTS, but that most of those making allegations were not prepared to go on camera or identify themselves.
He cited a report by On the Ground News in April 2019 in which a mother said that her son, Marwan al-Umqi, had been tortured to death in an HTS prison as a “turning point” in his relationship with the group.
Their politics towards me changed," Abdul Kareem said. "And some of their members said to me: 'Bilal we thought you were cool'.
And I said: 'Well, you know what? If covering up your torture means that I'm cool, then go back and tell them that I'm not cool and I'm not going to be cool because that's not what I came here for.'”
HTS has repeatedly denied allegations that it mistreats and tortures prisoners.
In an interview with PBS's Frontline, filmed in February but broadcast only on Tuesday, Jolani said there was “no torture” in Idlib and suggested that the region's prisons were under the control of the Salvation Government, the HTS-backed civilian government, rather than the group itself.
“There is no torture. This is completely rejected,” said Jolani.
“And we are not responsible for it, arresting, torturing and the whole process at the courts. The judicial corps is completely independent in the liberated zones. It is not ours. There is an entire government here.”
'Unfit to rule'
But Abdul Kareem said Jolani and those in HTS who defended him were guilty of condoning the same abuses they had once condemned when carried out by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's security forces.
Abdul Kareem said that one HTS official he had spoken to had tried to defend Jolani's remarks by arguing that the physical abuse meted out to prisoners did not amount to torture and was permitted as a form of punishment to make them admit their wrongdoings.
“I said to him, well, issue number one, you're starting to sound like the Americans: 'We're not calling it torture. We're calling it enhanced interrogation techniques.' Torture by any other name is still torture.
“The second thing is beating people, hanging them for long periods of time, whippings on the soles of their feet and the backs of their legs. These are the things that your leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani condemned the Assad regime for doing. How is it that he's now doing the exact same thing?”
Abdul Kareem said that he did not consider Jolani to be a terrorist because HTS had not sought to carry out attacks outside of Syria. But he said he would not remain silent about Jolani's shortcomings as a leader, and suggested he was courting Western legitimacy by speaking to PBS.
“I don't think he's a terrorist. I think he's unfit to rule if he's going to continue on the path that he's continuing on now. So if he wants Western legitimacy and he wants to go after that, that's fine. That's his business. But if he thinks that I'm going to stay silent while he tortures and indefinitely detains his way to power, as we say in America, I didn't come to Vegas to lose.”
Abdul Kareem also dismissed the Salvation Government as a sham. “Nobody here gives any great credence to the Salvation Government,” he said. “I doubt that there's one in a hundred people who could even tell you who the president of the Salvation Government is, because everyone knows that he wields no power.” In fact the Salvation Government is headed by a prime minister, currently Ali Keda who has been in office since 2019.
Abdul Kareem told MEE he had now left HTS-controlled territory because of concerns for his own safety after being told by HTS officials that he was considered a security threat.
“They told me that they considered me to be more of a threat in these territories than an ISIS suicide bomber. And the reason he said that was 'because people listen to you'. So I was forced to leave their territories. I could either just be quiet and open up a hot dog [stall] or a pizzeria. Or I could say I'm going to change my location and I'm going to continue to report.”
But he said he remained committed to reporting on events in Syria, despite the risks. “I think the Syrian people have tremendous resiliency, ingenuity, and I think that they're going to come out on top in the end. It's going to cost. It's important for everybody to understand that if you want real change it doesn't happen overnight.
“So my fight continues. And as long as I'm effective, then I'll continue to be here. When I'm not effective any more, I'll pick up my marbles and go.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/e...etention-syria
SoldierAmatUllah
06-05-2021, 05:20 AM
Means AK didn't know a thing about Nusra fronts tortures back in the fitan between Isil& Nusra that earned fame as khawarij from noble Shuyookh in Syria like Abu Basir,Back then he was cool about Nusras actions debunked by people of RevolutionThis man was close to Nusra & I'm surprised he was not reporting back then.
I think Allah Ta'aala accepted some deed of AK that brought him to finally speak anti oppression.
Better late than never
ReplyI think Allah Ta'aala accepted some deed of AK that brought him to finally speak anti oppression.
Better late than never
SoldierAmatUllah
06-05-2021, 05:38 AM
Jolani lost his balls & it was earlier leaked he was linked with IS secretly.
The changes in Imaan are REAL.Happening.But if only we study Islamic texts open our eyes do istekhara listen to seniors in Jihad outside Syria that's the land of khawarij in the end times& dajjals place follow good akhlaaq as we are commanded in Quran & Ahadeeth,save ourselves from oppressing others fear death in such war zone like Syria there can be found good people too& save peeps from khawarijism & be the ancestors of dajjals & I request all to gather information on khawarij in the end times & since Syria is gonna have fitan of khawarij it's incumbent upon everyone to pay heed & fear death every second with good deeds & akhlaaq for brothers and sisters,it's extremely scary...
ReplyThe changes in Imaan are REAL.Happening.But if only we study Islamic texts open our eyes do istekhara listen to seniors in Jihad outside Syria that's the land of khawarij in the end times& dajjals place follow good akhlaaq as we are commanded in Quran & Ahadeeth,save ourselves from oppressing others fear death in such war zone like Syria there can be found good people too& save peeps from khawarijism & be the ancestors of dajjals & I request all to gather information on khawarij in the end times & since Syria is gonna have fitan of khawarij it's incumbent upon everyone to pay heed & fear death every second with good deeds & akhlaaq for brothers and sisters,it's extremely scary...
SoldierAmatUllah
06-05-2021, 06:01 AM
Regarding Khawarijite and Messiah ad dajjal:
There will emerge from them [khawarijites]ad dajal .
In a narration it states from their[khawarijs] treachery.And in one manuscript ‘from their ranks’And that refers to a great army ,from the ahadeeth narrated by Ibn Umar in Ibn Majah.
*They will deny dajjal of course because they unknowingly are preparing for him
*The dajjal will start in Isfahan and 70k Jews in person armour will join him
“The Dajjal would be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls. “ (Muslim, 7034)
He then travels to iraq/syria will he declares he's Allah[Naoozub'ILLAH
[This is where he officially appears to the world
https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/d...qbBX.jpg:small
Listen my madhab is of Ibn Kathir and Ibn tamiya. My madhab by them is traced back to Rasul Allah(saw)
Iraq and sham are Khawarij strongholds.They will keep on appearing till last of them appears with dajjal. Many times Khawarij have appeared from there and they will keep on .
ISI fitan came from iraq and spread in sham with takfir and killings of other Mujahideen .Thats why this quote suits khwarij of Iraq and shaam at all times of their appearance. I quote this quote as it also suits present young foolish generation of IS as well as others of past.
Ibn Kathir said, “If the Kharijites ever gained power, they would corrupt the entire land, Iraq and Syria. They would not leave a boy or a girl or a man or a woman, for in their view the people have become so corrupt that they cannot be reformed except by mass killing.”
Source: Al-Bidayah wa Nihayah 10/584
قال ابن كثير إِذْ لَوْ قَوُوا هَؤُلَاءِ لَأَفْسَدُوا الْأَرْضَ كُلَّهَا عِرَاقًا وَشَامًا وَلَمْ يَتْرُكُوا طِفْلًا وَلَا طِفْلَةَ وَلَا رَجُلًا وَلَا امْرَأَةً لِأَنَّ النَّاسَ عِنْدَهُمْ قَدْ فَسَدُوا فَسَادًا لَا يُصْلِحُهُمْ إِلَّا الْقَتْلُ جُمْلَةً
10/584 البداية والنهاية ثم دخلت سنة سبع وثلاثين ذكر خروج الخوارج من الكوفة ومبارزتهم عليا رضي الله عنه بالعداوة والمخالفة
So many Fitnas related to one place and that is IRAQ.. so Noble Prophet صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم mentioning its IRAQ as a core place of Fitna has been proved at the later stages.
ReplyThere will emerge from them [khawarijites]ad dajal .
In a narration it states from their[khawarijs] treachery.And in one manuscript ‘from their ranks’And that refers to a great army ,from the ahadeeth narrated by Ibn Umar in Ibn Majah.
*They will deny dajjal of course because they unknowingly are preparing for him
*The dajjal will start in Isfahan and 70k Jews in person armour will join him
“The Dajjal would be followed by seventy thousand Jews of Isfahan wearing Persian shawls. “ (Muslim, 7034)
He then travels to iraq/syria will he declares he's Allah[Naoozub'ILLAH
[This is where he officially appears to the world
https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/d...qbBX.jpg:small
Listen my madhab is of Ibn Kathir and Ibn tamiya. My madhab by them is traced back to Rasul Allah(saw)
Iraq and sham are Khawarij strongholds.They will keep on appearing till last of them appears with dajjal. Many times Khawarij have appeared from there and they will keep on .
ISI fitan came from iraq and spread in sham with takfir and killings of other Mujahideen .Thats why this quote suits khwarij of Iraq and shaam at all times of their appearance. I quote this quote as it also suits present young foolish generation of IS as well as others of past.
Ibn Kathir said, “If the Kharijites ever gained power, they would corrupt the entire land, Iraq and Syria. They would not leave a boy or a girl or a man or a woman, for in their view the people have become so corrupt that they cannot be reformed except by mass killing.”
Source: Al-Bidayah wa Nihayah 10/584
قال ابن كثير إِذْ لَوْ قَوُوا هَؤُلَاءِ لَأَفْسَدُوا الْأَرْضَ كُلَّهَا عِرَاقًا وَشَامًا وَلَمْ يَتْرُكُوا طِفْلًا وَلَا طِفْلَةَ وَلَا رَجُلًا وَلَا امْرَأَةً لِأَنَّ النَّاسَ عِنْدَهُمْ قَدْ فَسَدُوا فَسَادًا لَا يُصْلِحُهُمْ إِلَّا الْقَتْلُ جُمْلَةً
10/584 البداية والنهاية ثم دخلت سنة سبع وثلاثين ذكر خروج الخوارج من الكوفة ومبارزتهم عليا رضي الله عنه بالعداوة والمخالفة
So many Fitnas related to one place and that is IRAQ.. so Noble Prophet صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم mentioning its IRAQ as a core place of Fitna has been proved at the later stages.
سيف الله
06-26-2021, 11:24 PM
Salaam
Like to share
Blurb
In his first live broadcast since his release from prison, journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem answers your questions!
More bad news
ReplyLike to share
Blurb
In his first live broadcast since his release from prison, journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem answers your questions!
More bad news
سيف الله
10-27-2021, 10:35 PM
Salaam
Final update - a look at Irans involvement in the Syria civil war.
Iran’s new brigade infiltrates tribes in east Syria
Iran is working on controlling and infiltrating the Syrian community by supporting local leaders affiliated with it, forming tribal councils and appointing new sheikhs from small clans and families to spread
Shiism in its areas of control in east Syria.
Since the beginning of 2021, Iran has begun working on forming the Hashemiyoon military brigade in Syria, allowing only Shiites to join it. The newly formed faction, which began operating in mid-August, has joined the other pro-Iranian factions in Syria, including Zainabiyoun Brigades, Fatemiyoun Brigade and al-Husseinoun Brigade.
The Hashemiyoon Brigade has engaged in military operations in Syria, with offices and sites spreading through the cities of al-Bukamal, al-Mayadin, Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa in eastern Syria. New offices were also opened in Aleppo and the countryside of Damascus.
The brigade is directly affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and is led by Youssef al-Hamdan, known as Abu Issa al-Mashhadani, and Musa al-Mahdmoud — both of whom are close to Tehran.
In August, the brigade was ordered to convince tribal sheikhs, mukhtars, clerics and other influential dignitaries and figures in east Syria to join the so-called Euphrates Valley Tribes and Clans Council affiliated with Iran, with the aim of spreading Shiism in the area.
Those who agree to join the council would be granted a document certifying that they are from the descendants of the Hashemites (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) and the Husseini House (in reference to Hussein Ibn Ali, the son of Ali, cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, and Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad). They would also receive political, military and media support, and funds to open new headquarters for the recruitment and training of middle and high school students, in addition to organizing school trips to Iranian universities in the city of Qom.
A sheikh of the Bakara tribe in Deir ez-Zor told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “All the members of the Hashemiyoon Brigade are tribesmen from the area, especially from Deir ez-Zor. The brigade is estimated to have around 200 members so far.”
The brigade has confiscated many houses in al-Bukamal and other towns and villages in the Euphrates area, turning them into sites for new recruits, according to the sheikh.
Al-Rahba Citadel in the city of al-Mayadin was also turned into a weapons depot to protect arms from airstrikes, he said, noting that the citadel also serves as a military site for the Iranian leaders of the brigade.
The Hashemiyoon Brigade’s main mission is to recruit tribesmen and forcibly convert the population into Shiism, by bribing influential tribal leaders, the source said.
“Tehran is well aware of the tribes’ influence in this part of Syria, as they are the original inhabitants with the largest population density — something that could help spread Shiism across the Syrian communities. Also, Iran [resorted to tribes] since it could no longer cover all battlefronts given the ongoing losses and the desertion of dozens of fighters,” he noted.
He said, “Meetings are ongoing between tribal dignitaries in the area and Iranian leaders to recruit tribesmen into the ranks of the new brigade and cover battlefronts against Islamic State cells, Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] and the armed opposition factions.”
The source added, “But these efforts to recruit tribesmen will not succeed as we [the Bakara tribe] will wait for the right opportunity to eliminate tribal leaders who are loyal to Iran and who lost influence among tribesmen. Iran has been seeking to use these chiefs to serve its own interests, after having sidelined the opponent tribal leaders."
He continued, “Iran is making sure that the newly formed brigade is made up of tribesmen, since tribes are spread in Iraq and Syria, which would help Tehran control and spread its influence faster in the [Euphrates] area.”
Mudar Hammad al-Assaad, spokesman for the Syrian Tribes and Clans Council, told Al-Monitor, “Iran has been using the Arab tribes to recruit their youths to fight alongside Iranian forces and to gain their allegiance by offering them military and economic support among other benefits. Iran has also appointed many as sheikhs in a bid to undercut the role of tribes, many of whom have joined the political opposition.”
He said, “Tehran is trying to spread the message that the tribes’ fighters fighting with the armed opposition forces do not represent the clans. Many tribes support the Syrian regime and Iran, which deepens the gap between the members of the same clan."
Assaad noted, “Amid the deteriorating economic and security situation, the area’s youth seek to join Iranian-affiliated militias in a bid to escape arrests from the Syrian regime and get some money. The Hashemiyoon Brigade’s leaders also offer some incentives — such as the authority to conduct legal matters and transactions in government departments — to lure in the youth, which is Iran’s tactic in recruiting people in the area.”
He added, “Over the past few weeks, a group of tribal sheikhs have intensified their calls for recruitment. Iran is seeking to have tribesmen join its ranks because hiring foreign fighters is much more expensive."
According to Al-Khabour network covering news in the eastern Euphrates, Iran has failed to control the east of the Euphrates militarily and is now working on controlling it through the support of local leaders loyal to Tehran, and the formation of tribal councils as well as the appointment of new sheikhs from smaller tribes and families belonging to Ahl al-Bayt (referring to the extended family of the Prophet Muhammad), in a bid to spread Shiism in the area.
Private sources cited by Al-Khabour said that Iran announced its support for the Bani Saba clan to hold a conference Oct. 13 in the SDF-controlled Qamishli area in order to split from the Tay tribe, one of the largest tribes in Syria that has no affiliation to any party.
The same sources reported that Iran had granted funds for the Bani Saba dignitaries to be distributed to the families of the Tay tribe in Qamishli, in a bid to gain their loyalty and allegiance.
Anas Shawakh, researcher at the Jusoor Center for Studies, told Al-Monitor, “The Hashemiyoon Brigade aims to sow discord within Arab tribes and to associate them with Iran, Ahl al-Bayt and the Hashemites. The brigade managed to create cracks in the Tay tribe, after the Bani Saba clan announced it was splitting from it to become independent.”
He said, “These defected tribes and clans will need to join military factions, which is why the brigade was formed, to embrace them all. With this move, Russia would no longer be able to expel Iran from the area, because Tehran has managed to deeply infiltrate within the area’s social fabric, achieving its desired goal."
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals...bes-east-syria
Comment.
ReplyFinal update - a look at Irans involvement in the Syria civil war.
Iran’s new brigade infiltrates tribes in east Syria
Iran is working on controlling and infiltrating the Syrian community by supporting local leaders affiliated with it, forming tribal councils and appointing new sheikhs from small clans and families to spread
Shiism in its areas of control in east Syria.
Since the beginning of 2021, Iran has begun working on forming the Hashemiyoon military brigade in Syria, allowing only Shiites to join it. The newly formed faction, which began operating in mid-August, has joined the other pro-Iranian factions in Syria, including Zainabiyoun Brigades, Fatemiyoun Brigade and al-Husseinoun Brigade.
The Hashemiyoon Brigade has engaged in military operations in Syria, with offices and sites spreading through the cities of al-Bukamal, al-Mayadin, Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa in eastern Syria. New offices were also opened in Aleppo and the countryside of Damascus.
The brigade is directly affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and is led by Youssef al-Hamdan, known as Abu Issa al-Mashhadani, and Musa al-Mahdmoud — both of whom are close to Tehran.
In August, the brigade was ordered to convince tribal sheikhs, mukhtars, clerics and other influential dignitaries and figures in east Syria to join the so-called Euphrates Valley Tribes and Clans Council affiliated with Iran, with the aim of spreading Shiism in the area.
Those who agree to join the council would be granted a document certifying that they are from the descendants of the Hashemites (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) and the Husseini House (in reference to Hussein Ibn Ali, the son of Ali, cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, and Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad). They would also receive political, military and media support, and funds to open new headquarters for the recruitment and training of middle and high school students, in addition to organizing school trips to Iranian universities in the city of Qom.
A sheikh of the Bakara tribe in Deir ez-Zor told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “All the members of the Hashemiyoon Brigade are tribesmen from the area, especially from Deir ez-Zor. The brigade is estimated to have around 200 members so far.”
The brigade has confiscated many houses in al-Bukamal and other towns and villages in the Euphrates area, turning them into sites for new recruits, according to the sheikh.
Al-Rahba Citadel in the city of al-Mayadin was also turned into a weapons depot to protect arms from airstrikes, he said, noting that the citadel also serves as a military site for the Iranian leaders of the brigade.
The Hashemiyoon Brigade’s main mission is to recruit tribesmen and forcibly convert the population into Shiism, by bribing influential tribal leaders, the source said.
“Tehran is well aware of the tribes’ influence in this part of Syria, as they are the original inhabitants with the largest population density — something that could help spread Shiism across the Syrian communities. Also, Iran [resorted to tribes] since it could no longer cover all battlefronts given the ongoing losses and the desertion of dozens of fighters,” he noted.
He said, “Meetings are ongoing between tribal dignitaries in the area and Iranian leaders to recruit tribesmen into the ranks of the new brigade and cover battlefronts against Islamic State cells, Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] and the armed opposition factions.”
The source added, “But these efforts to recruit tribesmen will not succeed as we [the Bakara tribe] will wait for the right opportunity to eliminate tribal leaders who are loyal to Iran and who lost influence among tribesmen. Iran has been seeking to use these chiefs to serve its own interests, after having sidelined the opponent tribal leaders."
He continued, “Iran is making sure that the newly formed brigade is made up of tribesmen, since tribes are spread in Iraq and Syria, which would help Tehran control and spread its influence faster in the [Euphrates] area.”
Mudar Hammad al-Assaad, spokesman for the Syrian Tribes and Clans Council, told Al-Monitor, “Iran has been using the Arab tribes to recruit their youths to fight alongside Iranian forces and to gain their allegiance by offering them military and economic support among other benefits. Iran has also appointed many as sheikhs in a bid to undercut the role of tribes, many of whom have joined the political opposition.”
He said, “Tehran is trying to spread the message that the tribes’ fighters fighting with the armed opposition forces do not represent the clans. Many tribes support the Syrian regime and Iran, which deepens the gap between the members of the same clan."
Assaad noted, “Amid the deteriorating economic and security situation, the area’s youth seek to join Iranian-affiliated militias in a bid to escape arrests from the Syrian regime and get some money. The Hashemiyoon Brigade’s leaders also offer some incentives — such as the authority to conduct legal matters and transactions in government departments — to lure in the youth, which is Iran’s tactic in recruiting people in the area.”
He added, “Over the past few weeks, a group of tribal sheikhs have intensified their calls for recruitment. Iran is seeking to have tribesmen join its ranks because hiring foreign fighters is much more expensive."
According to Al-Khabour network covering news in the eastern Euphrates, Iran has failed to control the east of the Euphrates militarily and is now working on controlling it through the support of local leaders loyal to Tehran, and the formation of tribal councils as well as the appointment of new sheikhs from smaller tribes and families belonging to Ahl al-Bayt (referring to the extended family of the Prophet Muhammad), in a bid to spread Shiism in the area.
Private sources cited by Al-Khabour said that Iran announced its support for the Bani Saba clan to hold a conference Oct. 13 in the SDF-controlled Qamishli area in order to split from the Tay tribe, one of the largest tribes in Syria that has no affiliation to any party.
The same sources reported that Iran had granted funds for the Bani Saba dignitaries to be distributed to the families of the Tay tribe in Qamishli, in a bid to gain their loyalty and allegiance.
Anas Shawakh, researcher at the Jusoor Center for Studies, told Al-Monitor, “The Hashemiyoon Brigade aims to sow discord within Arab tribes and to associate them with Iran, Ahl al-Bayt and the Hashemites. The brigade managed to create cracks in the Tay tribe, after the Bani Saba clan announced it was splitting from it to become independent.”
He said, “These defected tribes and clans will need to join military factions, which is why the brigade was formed, to embrace them all. With this move, Russia would no longer be able to expel Iran from the area, because Tehran has managed to deeply infiltrate within the area’s social fabric, achieving its desired goal."
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals...bes-east-syria
Comment.
Disaffected, weak, or ineffectual branches of larger tribes are the primary targets for Iran's demographic change. Why? They're susceptible as they crave recognition they won't get by other means. Everyone has a useless cousin or two, imagine if someone gave them lots of power.
It would be disastrous. Their petty, bitter, small-minded antics would harm the wider family. So too with these minor clans who feel entitled to recognition. They'll suddenly be made "sheikhs" & claim divine lineage, splitting the tribe & pacifying their stubborn cousins.
An area that has historically been governed & populated by Sunnis will be overrun by converts to Shi'ism claiming prophetic lineage who only converted for money & power. This is why I advocate for the creation of a genetic database of legitimate descendants of these lineages.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...615213575.html
It would be disastrous. Their petty, bitter, small-minded antics would harm the wider family. So too with these minor clans who feel entitled to recognition. They'll suddenly be made "sheikhs" & claim divine lineage, splitting the tribe & pacifying their stubborn cousins.
An area that has historically been governed & populated by Sunnis will be overrun by converts to Shi'ism claiming prophetic lineage who only converted for money & power. This is why I advocate for the creation of a genetic database of legitimate descendants of these lineages.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...615213575.html
سيف الله
09-03-2022, 03:18 PM
Salaam
A long overdue update.
Blurb
Syria based aid worker Tauqir Shaif discusses how a Canadian intelligence asset smuggled then 15 year old Shamima Begum into ISIS territory when she was a minor.
Blurb
Canada spy smuggled British schoolgirls to IS*S. I caught up with her lawyer Tasnime Akunjee over what this means for her and us.
And more generally.
Blurb
Time to bring your questions about current affairs! We will be answering your questions now insha Allah and taking your comments!
ReplyA long overdue update.
Blurb
Syria based aid worker Tauqir Shaif discusses how a Canadian intelligence asset smuggled then 15 year old Shamima Begum into ISIS territory when she was a minor.
Blurb
Canada spy smuggled British schoolgirls to IS*S. I caught up with her lawyer Tasnime Akunjee over what this means for her and us.
And more generally.
Blurb
Time to bring your questions about current affairs! We will be answering your questions now insha Allah and taking your comments!
سيف الله
09-27-2022, 07:40 AM
Salaam
Another summary of whats happened. Crucial to understand this uprising was undermined very early on.
ReplyAnother summary of whats happened. Crucial to understand this uprising was undermined very early on.
سيف الله
11-17-2022, 10:05 AM
Salaam
Another update. HTS made an incursion into Northern Syria. Tox gives some background info.
Hes right, who could of imagined this a couple of years back.
ReplyAnother update. HTS made an incursion into Northern Syria. Tox gives some background info.
Hes right, who could of imagined this a couple of years back.
سيف الله
12-31-2022, 12:49 AM
Salaam
The revolution is being betrayed, slowly but surely.
Turkish and Syrian defence and security officials meet for first time in a decade
Move towards peaceful relations represents cause for alarm for more than 4m refugees in Turkey since 2011
Top Turkish and Syrian defence and security officials have held their first public meeting in more than a decade, in a dramatic shift towards normalising relations between the two countries after Ankara backed rebels during Syria’s civil war.
The Turkish defence minister, Hulusi Akar, and the head of the country’s national intelligence organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan, met the Syrian defence minister, Ali Mahmoud Abbas, and the notorious spy chief Ali Mamlouk in Moscow, in a meeting attended by the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
The Turkish defence ministry outlined how the group discussed “the Syrian crisis, the refugee problem”, and coordination regarding efforts to “combat all terrorist organisations in Syria”. The meeting, it added, “was held in a constructive atmosphere”, ensuring that the same officials would meet again in future.
The Moscow meeting represents a marked shift in Turkish policy as Ankara has supported and trained some Syrian rebel groups. Turkish territory along its southern border with Syria provided vital lifelines for rebels during the early stages of the Syrian civil war, and formed an essential exit point for millions of civilians who fled violence.
The move towards peaceful relations between Ankara and Damascus represents cause for alarm for the more than 4 million Syrian refugees who have sought shelter in Turkey since 2011. Turkey has recently accelerated efforts to increase what the state calls “voluntary returns”, including official claims that 100,000 people have been repatriated this year to countries including Syria, part of an anti-immigration push ahead of an election expected in June next year or before.
Human Rights Watch, however, documented how Turkish authorities arrested hundreds in their homes, workplaces or on the street, before detaining them and forcing them to sign voluntary return forms and then forcing them to cross back into Syria at gunpoint.
In 2017, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told a press conference that “[Bashar al-Assad] is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism”, pointing to the thousands of civilians killed as well as 5.6 million refugees who have fled. Yet last September, Erdoğan suddenly signalled the beginnings of a change in policy when he declared that “diplomacy can never be cut off” with Damascus.
Two months later, he added that he was willing to hold a meeting with the Syrian leader. “A meeting with Assad can take place. There is no resentment in politics. Sooner or later, we can take steps,” he said.
Erdoğan’s comments about the need for diplomacy were echoed by foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who sparked protests among opponents of Assad in northern Syria after stating earlier this year that peaceful reconciliation between rebels and the Assad government was now a necessity.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...time-in-decade
More analysis.
And before everybody forgets what the Assad regime is capable of.
ReplyThe revolution is being betrayed, slowly but surely.
Turkish and Syrian defence and security officials meet for first time in a decade
Move towards peaceful relations represents cause for alarm for more than 4m refugees in Turkey since 2011
Top Turkish and Syrian defence and security officials have held their first public meeting in more than a decade, in a dramatic shift towards normalising relations between the two countries after Ankara backed rebels during Syria’s civil war.
The Turkish defence minister, Hulusi Akar, and the head of the country’s national intelligence organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan, met the Syrian defence minister, Ali Mahmoud Abbas, and the notorious spy chief Ali Mamlouk in Moscow, in a meeting attended by the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu.
The Turkish defence ministry outlined how the group discussed “the Syrian crisis, the refugee problem”, and coordination regarding efforts to “combat all terrorist organisations in Syria”. The meeting, it added, “was held in a constructive atmosphere”, ensuring that the same officials would meet again in future.
The Moscow meeting represents a marked shift in Turkish policy as Ankara has supported and trained some Syrian rebel groups. Turkish territory along its southern border with Syria provided vital lifelines for rebels during the early stages of the Syrian civil war, and formed an essential exit point for millions of civilians who fled violence.
The move towards peaceful relations between Ankara and Damascus represents cause for alarm for the more than 4 million Syrian refugees who have sought shelter in Turkey since 2011. Turkey has recently accelerated efforts to increase what the state calls “voluntary returns”, including official claims that 100,000 people have been repatriated this year to countries including Syria, part of an anti-immigration push ahead of an election expected in June next year or before.
Human Rights Watch, however, documented how Turkish authorities arrested hundreds in their homes, workplaces or on the street, before detaining them and forcing them to sign voluntary return forms and then forcing them to cross back into Syria at gunpoint.
In 2017, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, told a press conference that “[Bashar al-Assad] is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism”, pointing to the thousands of civilians killed as well as 5.6 million refugees who have fled. Yet last September, Erdoğan suddenly signalled the beginnings of a change in policy when he declared that “diplomacy can never be cut off” with Damascus.
Two months later, he added that he was willing to hold a meeting with the Syrian leader. “A meeting with Assad can take place. There is no resentment in politics. Sooner or later, we can take steps,” he said.
Erdoğan’s comments about the need for diplomacy were echoed by foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who sparked protests among opponents of Assad in northern Syria after stating earlier this year that peaceful reconciliation between rebels and the Assad government was now a necessity.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...time-in-decade
More analysis.
And before everybody forgets what the Assad regime is capable of.
سيف الله
02-27-2023, 11:03 AM
Salaam
Another update. Long article but well worth a read.
The cataclysmic earthquakes that have struck Syria and Turkey this month have ignited debate about effective aid measures and, by extension, the politics of the Syrian conflict. The Syrian government has taken no small pleasure in an opportunity to ease its official diplomatic freeze in much of the world, blaming Western sanctions for the difficulty in aid and in turn bringing into question the politics of the conflict. Unfortunately, to claim that sanctions are in themselves to blame for aid difficulty ignores the fact that the vast majority of the devastation has hit areas outside government control and under the control of the Syrian opposition, which were already subjected to a crippling, Gaza-style siege by the very same government.
It is a further mistake, not in theoretical but in purely factual terms, to compare Syria with other Muslim countries — such as Afghanistan, Iran, or formerly Iraq — that are under sanctions, because in everything but name the Syrian government has been the major beneficiary of the status quo.
In an article published last week, the author, Faizan Malik, attempts to critique sanctions from the viewpoint that non-Muslim countries have no right to sanction Syria, therefore Muslims should not support such sanctions. It is one thing to critique sanctions — which I agree are generally both politically useless and destructive — and another to base such a critique on the flawed premises that he proceeds to cite.
Effectively the Syrian war is over, argues Malik, and as such Muslims should draw together against Western, colonial-style intrusions such as sanctions. We are even reminded of the refusal by Ali and Muawiyah, may Allah be pleased with them, to draw in non-Muslim powers into their dispute. This analysis misses several major points, which I will examine in the remainder of this article.
A Muslim regime?
Firstly, the regime of Bashar Assad is not a Muslim government. This is not a takfiri denunciation of anybody who has ever worked for or with it — as have much of the opposition themselves before defecting in the early 2010s — but rather a statement of fact. Officially, the regime pointedly notes its secularism and unofficially it is dominated by a certain selection of Alawite elites that almost monopolize policy.
This was the case since the 1960s, when an already narrow “neo-Baath” military elite — so-called because it differed from the original Baathists, who were largely purged — monopolized power after years of back-and-forth military coups, and especially so since the 1970s, when Hafez Assad monopolized power within that elite.
In particular, the elder Assad relied heavily on the intelligence service of the airforce from which he hailed, which acquired a special notoriety for its cruelty, but also other repressive instruments and tactics such as hiring paramilitary “shabiha” thugs, often controlled by family members of an intensely corrupt ruling class. Syria, a historically decentralized, multiconfessional but decidedly Islamic land, became under the neo-Baath a secularist yet sectarian police state, with not only Muslims but other groups, such as the Druze, subjected to recurrent bouts of suspicion and scrutiny.
The Syrian regime’s relationship with Islam has similarly been complicated. The Assads belong to a specific section of the Alawite group that, until Hafez Assad himself, made no claims to Islam, even as a minority sect. Assad’s father, for instance, was a vassal of the French mandate who begged them to either stay in Syria or break away as an Alawite ministate, a la “Christian” Lebanon, specifically in order to keep the Muslim majority at bay: this hostility to Muslims among the regime’s inner circle has been a recurring theme that explains much of its subsequent actions.
But, in order to control a largely Muslim land that was constitutionally bound to have a Muslim ruler, Hafez declared that Alawites were in fact Muslims, making occasional references to Islam even as he closely monitored its practice. Muslims were indeed invited to serve the regime, and many took up the offer: much of the largely Sunni merchant class, which had been an early hotbed for opposition, was eventually co-opted, while some Syrian scholars such as Ramadan Bouti took their perceived opportunity to draw the Assads closer to Islam.
On-off support to select, though severely controlled, Palestinian groups helped as well, and indeed whenever confronted with opposition the regime would routinely insist that it was being targeted for its solidarity with Palestine — a solidarity that was, as its relationship with successive Palestinian groups shows, entirely meant on its own terms.
Many more Muslims were excluded than included in the government’s favor, instead subjected to routine surveillance that reached totalitarian lengths. Stories abound of informants within families, of the notorious dungeons where guards would routinely taunt their prisoners with insults of Islam; even in such a supposedly national institute as the military, Sunnis were routinely pressured into betraying Islamic rules and making blasphemous statements.
Syria was not the only police state in the Muslim world, but it was the only one ruled by a largely non-Muslim elite that considered Muslim identity as an implicit threat. Consequently, under any pressure the regime would lash out, directing its campaigns almost exclusively against Muslims. Take for example neighboring Lebanon, where Hafez Assad’s traditional suspicion toward the Palestinian Fatah movement overcame his suspicion toward their Israel-backed rightwing Maronite rivals. Having long chided such populists for upsetting Lebanon’s balance, when Assad actually entered Lebanon in 1976 his campaign was aimed exclusively, and quite brutally, against the Palestinians, in turn impressing not only the traditional Maronite aristocracy he sought to defend but even the United States whom he supposedly resisted. He was, in the words of the American ambassador, treated as the “latest incarnation of the crusaders.” Unfortunately, this impression extended at home as well and contributed in no small part to the Islamist revolt in Syria that was savagely extinguished, with acts of horrific slaughter, in the early 1980s.
Assad’s strategic utility as a check — against his Iraqi rivals, against the Palestinian groups, and against his own Muslim subjects — was not opposed, but instead largely appreciated and thus accommodated, by foreign powers. France admired in him an Arab Bismarck; he was supported by both the Soviet Union and Iran; and even the United States tolerated him for this utility, only objecting when his proxies in Lebanon collided with those of Israel.
This relationship warmed in the 1990s, after Assad helped Washington fight his longstanding rival Saddam Hussein. But Assad also spied an opportunity in Fatah’s embrace of the Oslo Accord to increase his prestige at home and away, instead supporting their rivals — though again on his, and not their, terms, since he had long disliked Fatah. This did seem to impress many Muslims; even the activist scholar Yusuf Qaradawi would claim after Assad’s death that his son Bashar was effectively acting as a Sunni Muslim — a statement he would soon come to regret and recant.
Although an ever-ruthless cynic, the elder Assad can at least be said to have been his own man — if not the man of the Muslims he ruled. The same is patently untrue of his son Bashar, who first relinquished the Syrian colony in Lebanon and then his own rule at home, both by overreach. Like Iran, Syria under the second Assad’s rule initially joined the American war on terror, for which its dungeons were primely suited, but balked when Washington approached its border by conquering Iraq. To be sure, there was tension between Damascus and Washington in the 2000s; Assad permitted the passage of insurgents into Iraq, and Washington played a role in Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
But these were turf disputes rather than a genuine hostility, and Washington’s alarm toward “Islamists” — a catch-all term under which Assad could easily categorize any Muslim critic — drowned out any distaste it might have for the dictator.
Western Opposition to Assad?
The second point that must be addressed is that of the supposed Western opposition to Bashar Assad. This statement might have briefly been true ten years ago; it is unequivocally false today, except in the most cosmetic of terms. Even after the Arab uprisings broke out in 2010 and 2011, the United States remained initially ambivalent, with much of its establishment continuing to portray Assad as a “reformer.”
The corresponding regime crackdown, coinciding with an actual revolt-turned-regime change in Libya, briefly led the United States to consider the removal of Assad. Certainly, Qatar and Turkey, which had been instrumental in the overthrow of Muammar Qaddhafi, along with Saudi Arabia were enthusiastic about Assad’s overthrow, and Libyan weapons and fighters did make their way to Syria — often through the channels of Muslim governments like Ankara and Doha — not the United States. France, certainly no friend of Muslims, upped the ante by hosting a “government-in-exile,” which, however, was and remains irrelevant.
And in time, the American stance morphed into one of constant denunciation, usually by its ambassador Robert Ford. Over the course of 2012, American officials such as Ford and John McCain did publicly meet, and attempt to co-opt, Syrian opposition.
But such stances were shaky for a Washington still largely in “war on terror” mode, on whose skewed terms, uncomfortable with most public manifestations of Islam, the Syrian revolution was suspiciously religious. In particular, the Nusra Front, then an affiliate of Qaida and since reconstituted sans Qaida link as Tahrirul-Sham, attracted dismay.
This suspicion only deepened after autumn 2012, when the Libyan adventure seemed to have spiraled out of control, and the war-on-terror reflex kicked in. The Nusra Front’s designation as a terrorist group at the end of 2012, which was largely protested even by other groups and activists, was the first sign of a rapid shift in Washington’s policy. Even Western sympathizers of the rebels would attempt, in classic “war on terror” terms, to shoehorn groups between “secular” and “Islamic,” “moderate” and “radical,” and so on — disregarding the fact that most groups, even the relatively radical Nusra, drew from the same pool of relentlessly targeted, largely middle-class or rural, Sunni Muslims.
When and where the United States and France had considered regime change in Syria over 2012, it had been a purely cosmetic venture that sought to replace Assad with another, preferably Sunni, autocrat: the Talas clan, which had been the most powerful Sunni family in Assad’s Syria but propitiously defected, were favored clients-in-waiting. This was obviously at odds with the overwhelming majority of the revolt, which wanted to oust not only Bashar Assad but the cabal at whose helm he stood. So too was the paramount concern that the status quo on the Golan Heights, which the opposition often accused the Assads of having effectively abandoned, remained: thus no later than 2013, the United States withdrew support to the insurgency.
Subsequent support over the mid-2010s was explicitly conditioned on usage not against Assad, but against the Daesh group that had waded into the fray from Iraq. When and where American support did translate into insurgency against the government, a scandalized Washington hastily withdrew.
From this point on, the United States and other Western countries effectively adopted the policy advocated by Israeli diplomats in 2013: to let the regime and insurgency bleed each other, the only Israeli concern with the former being its support by Iran.
Washington’s first airstrikes in Syria were not against Assad, but against his opponents in the Idlib region who were accused of containing Qaida elements. American support went not to the Syrian revolt, but to Kurdish ethnonationalists in northeast Syria who were cobbled into a disingenuously named “democratic” coalition; moreover, this American-backed group targeted not the Syrian regime but the Turkish state that was the Syrian insurgency’s key lifeline.
In spite of this dizzying mixture — American-backed ethnonationalists, Daesh, Iranian paramilitaries, and regime thugs — the insurgency was again on the march, having taken much of the north and south, by 2015. It was at this point that Russia waded into the fray carrying out a remorselessly brutal campaign that flattened and conquered Aleppo and proceeded, by 2018, to clear out central and southern Syria. Corresponding Turkish campaigns, in 2016 and 2019, were similarly aimed not at ousting the regime but instead fending off Kurdish ethnonationalists.
Far more than Turkish support to the opposition, it has been foreign support that protected and propped up Bashar Assad. To speak then of Muslim sovereignty while discussing a non-Muslim vassal protected by a non-Muslim state is entirely absurd. Even the rebel enclave in the northwest, for its many faults, lays more claim to “Muslim sovereignty” than does the regime in Damascus.
Anarchy versus tyranny?
Could it be argued that the Syrian regime prior to 2011 should have been tolerated, as Malik indicates, on the maxim that a long tyranny maintaining order is preferable to even brief anarchy? Certainly, the argument had been made and tested on several occasions: the Syrian majority suffered the Assads for the majority of their decades in power, the revolt of the early 1980s being the only major exception.
As mentioned previously, scholars such as Bouti interacted with the regime hoping to influence its policy; Muslim groups such as the Qubaisiat pursued private Islamic revivalism; and even Ikhwan-originated groups such as Hamas entertained on-off collaboration with the government before 2011.
Be that as it may, such engagement did not influence the regime sufficiently to resort to form — when faced with even relatively minor dissent in 2011, its totalitarian machinery clicked into action and embarked on a series of massacres that were often colored, as had been the case in the 1980s, by explicitly anti-Sunni hatred.
The regime’s “shabiha” thugs — steroid-bloated criminals who enjoyed state sponsorship in spreading mayhem and massacre among communities — can hardly be said to represent “order” in any sense, let alone an Islamically acceptable sense. In short, the maxim that Malik quotes had been tried — and, ultimately, it did not apply to Syria under the Assads.
Unfortunately, the idea has spread among “traditional” circles that the Syrian revolt was triggered by the foolhardy impatience of unprepared revolutionaries who have since suffered the consequences of their actions. Such claims are often accompanied by disclaimers, as in Malik’s article, that nothing excuses the level of savagery that the regime has practiced, but they nonetheless place primary blame as a trigger on the opposition.
To assess this claim it is also crucial to note the sequence of events in 2011. The government’s armed crackdown in cities such as Daraa and Homs began in the spring; the first political opposition began in the summer; and the first notable armed insurgency began in the autumn. Cases such as Ghaith Matar and Hamza Khatib, murdered under torture not even for opposing the government but merely on the whims of regime thugs, were common throughout.
To put this into perspective, the entire Libyan war came and went before the Syrian opposition militarized. Clearly, it was the regime, that supposed rockwell of stability, that triggered the bloodbath — and has since dominated it, with the vast majority of civilians killed in the war having fallen prey to government-backed massacres.
This is not to deny that sections of the opposition made mistakes. It was always a long shot to expect an international “No-Fly Zone,” particularly given that the United States itself had long engaged in similar bouts of “terrorist”-aimed bombardment for years.
Though Nato had intervened in Libya, the situation there was almost the direct opposite of Syria: no state was willing to stick its neck out for the volatile Qaddhafi, while in Syria Assad was widely seen at the very least as a predictable alternative to “Islamists.” But such claims were made, more often than not, in desperation against crushing bombardment. To analogize, Palestine activists often appeal to international support and even the United Nations against Israel: though they know full well that these channels have long enabled Israel, there is little else they can do under the punishing circumstances — the same holds true for Syria’s opposition. Other mistakes include an early toleration of, and naivete toward, parasitic groups such as Nusra Front, who proceeded to attempt a hegemony under their own iron-fisted rule.
But these mistakes must be seen against the prevailing circumstances, which included routine massacres with an overtly sectarian flavor by the regime and its supporters. When it came to the crunch, the Syrian opposition was far more efficient in disposing of Daesh than the regime, which occasionally tolerated the latter as a tactical counterweight to the rebels.
Ultimately, it was not the revolt but the regime that plunged Syria into today’s anarchy. It is the regime, and not the revolt, that is protected by a non-Muslim occupying force — Russia. Insofar as any foreign power helps the revolt, whose appeal remains widespread even in such parts of government-controlled territory as Daraa, it is Turkey: a Muslim state of the type that Malik seems to mistake Assad’s Syria for. The Syrian opposition resembles, for all its flaws and fractures, a “sovereign Muslim” entity far more than the regime.
Sanctions and Aid
Insofar as any reminders of the brief Western flirtation with the revolt survives, they are in relatively sympathetic news coverage — the type that Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, and Palestine admittedly do not enjoy because the West or its allies were at fault there — and in sanctions.
Certainly, sanctions have been a controversial and, in my opinion, generally deplorable measure. Recall the particularly notorious case of 1990s Iraq, where sanctions and the economic crisis that followed helped trigger deaths in the hundreds of thousands. Today, Taliban-recaptured Afghanistan is being strangled more from petulant spite than any genuine excuse, and Iran has officially been under sanctions by the United States since its 1979 revolution. As a general excuse, such sanctions hurt the population more than the regime.
Syria is a partial exception. I do not believe that sanctions against Damascus are necessary or even necessarily helpful, since the regime has its ways of bypassing them: notably the United Nations, which always maintains a bias for “recognized states” over their opponents. They also back such “autocracy is stability” Arab states as the United Arab Emirates, (tellingly the American “ace” in the Middle Eastern hole not least for its friendliness toward Israel) which has been a favored dropoff spot for Assad’s circles and the pioneering Arab state attempting to rehabilitate Assad.
But “sanctions are not helpful” is an entirely different argument than “sanctions cannot be pursued against Assad as a sovereign Muslim leader.” Assad — unlike the distasteful but authoritative Muslim rulers to whom Malik seems to be referring — is not a Muslim by any conventional definition of the word, nor is he, as a vassal of Russian occupation, in any sense sovereign. The salient comparison here is with Nouri Maliki of occupied Iraq, or Babrak Karmal and Ashraf Ghani in successive Afghan occupations: essentially a puppet, however sullen, in a Potemkin government-on-loan.
The other factor that is directly linked to the earthquake is the question of aid. The majority of aid has been transferred through government hands, in spite of a longstanding record of corrupt appropriation, but also despite the fact that the vast majority of the earthquake’s devastation occurred in opposition-held areas. Trusting Assad to rescue with aid the same area that he has relentlessly bombed to the ground over a decade requires almost willful naivete.
This has not stopped the regime from selling, and well-meant people from buying, the tale that it must be part of any meaningful aid. Such claims are not only disingenuous, but they also ignore the well-established networks of aid and support that have already been in place in the north for years — largely necessitated by the devastation caused by regime bombardment. The White Helmets organization, founded by Raed Saleh, is a case in point: they have long been vilified by the regime and its foreign supporters as terrorists in disguise, yet the very same regime tried to claim their humanitarian activity as its own after the earthquake struck.
A Lost Cause?
The final point that I must address is the claim that the Syrian war is essentially over, and Assad its winner. This is a tempting claim often pushed by both disingenuous and sincere individuals tired of the war’s devastation, even if the principal culprit stands to benefit. To be sure, the 2015-2018 Russian campaign shifted momentum sharply toward the regime.
But there remains a significant opposition stronghold in the north, and even regime/Russia-controlled areas such as the south bubble with unrest. Perhaps more importantly, sympathy for the revolt and its aims remain strong both within and outside Syria. Many of the opposition networks, particularly when it comes to humanitarian aid, still survive, and there is no reason to think they will cave to the will of their oppressor anytime soon.
In this sense the Syrian revolt can be best compared to the Palestinian case, another cause that suffered widespread devastation and displacement, is frequently dismissed by pessimists as being essentially over in favor of the oppressor, but has instead remained a glimmering flame for decades against the odds. And Malik is right: it must be hoped that Allah remains with such cases in spite of their ups and downs in fortunes, because indeed, Allah is with the steadfast.
https://traversingtradition.com/2023...ersus-anarchy/
ReplyAnother update. Long article but well worth a read.
Syria’s Conflict, Islamic Legitimacy, and ‘Order versus Anarchy’
In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious the Most Merciful,
In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious the Most Merciful,
The cataclysmic earthquakes that have struck Syria and Turkey this month have ignited debate about effective aid measures and, by extension, the politics of the Syrian conflict. The Syrian government has taken no small pleasure in an opportunity to ease its official diplomatic freeze in much of the world, blaming Western sanctions for the difficulty in aid and in turn bringing into question the politics of the conflict. Unfortunately, to claim that sanctions are in themselves to blame for aid difficulty ignores the fact that the vast majority of the devastation has hit areas outside government control and under the control of the Syrian opposition, which were already subjected to a crippling, Gaza-style siege by the very same government.
It is a further mistake, not in theoretical but in purely factual terms, to compare Syria with other Muslim countries — such as Afghanistan, Iran, or formerly Iraq — that are under sanctions, because in everything but name the Syrian government has been the major beneficiary of the status quo.
In an article published last week, the author, Faizan Malik, attempts to critique sanctions from the viewpoint that non-Muslim countries have no right to sanction Syria, therefore Muslims should not support such sanctions. It is one thing to critique sanctions — which I agree are generally both politically useless and destructive — and another to base such a critique on the flawed premises that he proceeds to cite.
Effectively the Syrian war is over, argues Malik, and as such Muslims should draw together against Western, colonial-style intrusions such as sanctions. We are even reminded of the refusal by Ali and Muawiyah, may Allah be pleased with them, to draw in non-Muslim powers into their dispute. This analysis misses several major points, which I will examine in the remainder of this article.
A Muslim regime?
Firstly, the regime of Bashar Assad is not a Muslim government. This is not a takfiri denunciation of anybody who has ever worked for or with it — as have much of the opposition themselves before defecting in the early 2010s — but rather a statement of fact. Officially, the regime pointedly notes its secularism and unofficially it is dominated by a certain selection of Alawite elites that almost monopolize policy.
This was the case since the 1960s, when an already narrow “neo-Baath” military elite — so-called because it differed from the original Baathists, who were largely purged — monopolized power after years of back-and-forth military coups, and especially so since the 1970s, when Hafez Assad monopolized power within that elite.
In particular, the elder Assad relied heavily on the intelligence service of the airforce from which he hailed, which acquired a special notoriety for its cruelty, but also other repressive instruments and tactics such as hiring paramilitary “shabiha” thugs, often controlled by family members of an intensely corrupt ruling class. Syria, a historically decentralized, multiconfessional but decidedly Islamic land, became under the neo-Baath a secularist yet sectarian police state, with not only Muslims but other groups, such as the Druze, subjected to recurrent bouts of suspicion and scrutiny.
The Syrian regime’s relationship with Islam has similarly been complicated. The Assads belong to a specific section of the Alawite group that, until Hafez Assad himself, made no claims to Islam, even as a minority sect. Assad’s father, for instance, was a vassal of the French mandate who begged them to either stay in Syria or break away as an Alawite ministate, a la “Christian” Lebanon, specifically in order to keep the Muslim majority at bay: this hostility to Muslims among the regime’s inner circle has been a recurring theme that explains much of its subsequent actions.
But, in order to control a largely Muslim land that was constitutionally bound to have a Muslim ruler, Hafez declared that Alawites were in fact Muslims, making occasional references to Islam even as he closely monitored its practice. Muslims were indeed invited to serve the regime, and many took up the offer: much of the largely Sunni merchant class, which had been an early hotbed for opposition, was eventually co-opted, while some Syrian scholars such as Ramadan Bouti took their perceived opportunity to draw the Assads closer to Islam.
On-off support to select, though severely controlled, Palestinian groups helped as well, and indeed whenever confronted with opposition the regime would routinely insist that it was being targeted for its solidarity with Palestine — a solidarity that was, as its relationship with successive Palestinian groups shows, entirely meant on its own terms.
Many more Muslims were excluded than included in the government’s favor, instead subjected to routine surveillance that reached totalitarian lengths. Stories abound of informants within families, of the notorious dungeons where guards would routinely taunt their prisoners with insults of Islam; even in such a supposedly national institute as the military, Sunnis were routinely pressured into betraying Islamic rules and making blasphemous statements.
Syria was not the only police state in the Muslim world, but it was the only one ruled by a largely non-Muslim elite that considered Muslim identity as an implicit threat. Consequently, under any pressure the regime would lash out, directing its campaigns almost exclusively against Muslims. Take for example neighboring Lebanon, where Hafez Assad’s traditional suspicion toward the Palestinian Fatah movement overcame his suspicion toward their Israel-backed rightwing Maronite rivals. Having long chided such populists for upsetting Lebanon’s balance, when Assad actually entered Lebanon in 1976 his campaign was aimed exclusively, and quite brutally, against the Palestinians, in turn impressing not only the traditional Maronite aristocracy he sought to defend but even the United States whom he supposedly resisted. He was, in the words of the American ambassador, treated as the “latest incarnation of the crusaders.” Unfortunately, this impression extended at home as well and contributed in no small part to the Islamist revolt in Syria that was savagely extinguished, with acts of horrific slaughter, in the early 1980s.
Assad’s strategic utility as a check — against his Iraqi rivals, against the Palestinian groups, and against his own Muslim subjects — was not opposed, but instead largely appreciated and thus accommodated, by foreign powers. France admired in him an Arab Bismarck; he was supported by both the Soviet Union and Iran; and even the United States tolerated him for this utility, only objecting when his proxies in Lebanon collided with those of Israel.
This relationship warmed in the 1990s, after Assad helped Washington fight his longstanding rival Saddam Hussein. But Assad also spied an opportunity in Fatah’s embrace of the Oslo Accord to increase his prestige at home and away, instead supporting their rivals — though again on his, and not their, terms, since he had long disliked Fatah. This did seem to impress many Muslims; even the activist scholar Yusuf Qaradawi would claim after Assad’s death that his son Bashar was effectively acting as a Sunni Muslim — a statement he would soon come to regret and recant.
Although an ever-ruthless cynic, the elder Assad can at least be said to have been his own man — if not the man of the Muslims he ruled. The same is patently untrue of his son Bashar, who first relinquished the Syrian colony in Lebanon and then his own rule at home, both by overreach. Like Iran, Syria under the second Assad’s rule initially joined the American war on terror, for which its dungeons were primely suited, but balked when Washington approached its border by conquering Iraq. To be sure, there was tension between Damascus and Washington in the 2000s; Assad permitted the passage of insurgents into Iraq, and Washington played a role in Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
But these were turf disputes rather than a genuine hostility, and Washington’s alarm toward “Islamists” — a catch-all term under which Assad could easily categorize any Muslim critic — drowned out any distaste it might have for the dictator.
Western Opposition to Assad?
The second point that must be addressed is that of the supposed Western opposition to Bashar Assad. This statement might have briefly been true ten years ago; it is unequivocally false today, except in the most cosmetic of terms. Even after the Arab uprisings broke out in 2010 and 2011, the United States remained initially ambivalent, with much of its establishment continuing to portray Assad as a “reformer.”
The corresponding regime crackdown, coinciding with an actual revolt-turned-regime change in Libya, briefly led the United States to consider the removal of Assad. Certainly, Qatar and Turkey, which had been instrumental in the overthrow of Muammar Qaddhafi, along with Saudi Arabia were enthusiastic about Assad’s overthrow, and Libyan weapons and fighters did make their way to Syria — often through the channels of Muslim governments like Ankara and Doha — not the United States. France, certainly no friend of Muslims, upped the ante by hosting a “government-in-exile,” which, however, was and remains irrelevant.
And in time, the American stance morphed into one of constant denunciation, usually by its ambassador Robert Ford. Over the course of 2012, American officials such as Ford and John McCain did publicly meet, and attempt to co-opt, Syrian opposition.
But such stances were shaky for a Washington still largely in “war on terror” mode, on whose skewed terms, uncomfortable with most public manifestations of Islam, the Syrian revolution was suspiciously religious. In particular, the Nusra Front, then an affiliate of Qaida and since reconstituted sans Qaida link as Tahrirul-Sham, attracted dismay.
This suspicion only deepened after autumn 2012, when the Libyan adventure seemed to have spiraled out of control, and the war-on-terror reflex kicked in. The Nusra Front’s designation as a terrorist group at the end of 2012, which was largely protested even by other groups and activists, was the first sign of a rapid shift in Washington’s policy. Even Western sympathizers of the rebels would attempt, in classic “war on terror” terms, to shoehorn groups between “secular” and “Islamic,” “moderate” and “radical,” and so on — disregarding the fact that most groups, even the relatively radical Nusra, drew from the same pool of relentlessly targeted, largely middle-class or rural, Sunni Muslims.
When and where the United States and France had considered regime change in Syria over 2012, it had been a purely cosmetic venture that sought to replace Assad with another, preferably Sunni, autocrat: the Talas clan, which had been the most powerful Sunni family in Assad’s Syria but propitiously defected, were favored clients-in-waiting. This was obviously at odds with the overwhelming majority of the revolt, which wanted to oust not only Bashar Assad but the cabal at whose helm he stood. So too was the paramount concern that the status quo on the Golan Heights, which the opposition often accused the Assads of having effectively abandoned, remained: thus no later than 2013, the United States withdrew support to the insurgency.
Subsequent support over the mid-2010s was explicitly conditioned on usage not against Assad, but against the Daesh group that had waded into the fray from Iraq. When and where American support did translate into insurgency against the government, a scandalized Washington hastily withdrew.
From this point on, the United States and other Western countries effectively adopted the policy advocated by Israeli diplomats in 2013: to let the regime and insurgency bleed each other, the only Israeli concern with the former being its support by Iran.
Washington’s first airstrikes in Syria were not against Assad, but against his opponents in the Idlib region who were accused of containing Qaida elements. American support went not to the Syrian revolt, but to Kurdish ethnonationalists in northeast Syria who were cobbled into a disingenuously named “democratic” coalition; moreover, this American-backed group targeted not the Syrian regime but the Turkish state that was the Syrian insurgency’s key lifeline.
In spite of this dizzying mixture — American-backed ethnonationalists, Daesh, Iranian paramilitaries, and regime thugs — the insurgency was again on the march, having taken much of the north and south, by 2015. It was at this point that Russia waded into the fray carrying out a remorselessly brutal campaign that flattened and conquered Aleppo and proceeded, by 2018, to clear out central and southern Syria. Corresponding Turkish campaigns, in 2016 and 2019, were similarly aimed not at ousting the regime but instead fending off Kurdish ethnonationalists.
Far more than Turkish support to the opposition, it has been foreign support that protected and propped up Bashar Assad. To speak then of Muslim sovereignty while discussing a non-Muslim vassal protected by a non-Muslim state is entirely absurd. Even the rebel enclave in the northwest, for its many faults, lays more claim to “Muslim sovereignty” than does the regime in Damascus.
Anarchy versus tyranny?
Could it be argued that the Syrian regime prior to 2011 should have been tolerated, as Malik indicates, on the maxim that a long tyranny maintaining order is preferable to even brief anarchy? Certainly, the argument had been made and tested on several occasions: the Syrian majority suffered the Assads for the majority of their decades in power, the revolt of the early 1980s being the only major exception.
As mentioned previously, scholars such as Bouti interacted with the regime hoping to influence its policy; Muslim groups such as the Qubaisiat pursued private Islamic revivalism; and even Ikhwan-originated groups such as Hamas entertained on-off collaboration with the government before 2011.
Be that as it may, such engagement did not influence the regime sufficiently to resort to form — when faced with even relatively minor dissent in 2011, its totalitarian machinery clicked into action and embarked on a series of massacres that were often colored, as had been the case in the 1980s, by explicitly anti-Sunni hatred.
The regime’s “shabiha” thugs — steroid-bloated criminals who enjoyed state sponsorship in spreading mayhem and massacre among communities — can hardly be said to represent “order” in any sense, let alone an Islamically acceptable sense. In short, the maxim that Malik quotes had been tried — and, ultimately, it did not apply to Syria under the Assads.
Unfortunately, the idea has spread among “traditional” circles that the Syrian revolt was triggered by the foolhardy impatience of unprepared revolutionaries who have since suffered the consequences of their actions. Such claims are often accompanied by disclaimers, as in Malik’s article, that nothing excuses the level of savagery that the regime has practiced, but they nonetheless place primary blame as a trigger on the opposition.
To assess this claim it is also crucial to note the sequence of events in 2011. The government’s armed crackdown in cities such as Daraa and Homs began in the spring; the first political opposition began in the summer; and the first notable armed insurgency began in the autumn. Cases such as Ghaith Matar and Hamza Khatib, murdered under torture not even for opposing the government but merely on the whims of regime thugs, were common throughout.
To put this into perspective, the entire Libyan war came and went before the Syrian opposition militarized. Clearly, it was the regime, that supposed rockwell of stability, that triggered the bloodbath — and has since dominated it, with the vast majority of civilians killed in the war having fallen prey to government-backed massacres.
This is not to deny that sections of the opposition made mistakes. It was always a long shot to expect an international “No-Fly Zone,” particularly given that the United States itself had long engaged in similar bouts of “terrorist”-aimed bombardment for years.
Though Nato had intervened in Libya, the situation there was almost the direct opposite of Syria: no state was willing to stick its neck out for the volatile Qaddhafi, while in Syria Assad was widely seen at the very least as a predictable alternative to “Islamists.” But such claims were made, more often than not, in desperation against crushing bombardment. To analogize, Palestine activists often appeal to international support and even the United Nations against Israel: though they know full well that these channels have long enabled Israel, there is little else they can do under the punishing circumstances — the same holds true for Syria’s opposition. Other mistakes include an early toleration of, and naivete toward, parasitic groups such as Nusra Front, who proceeded to attempt a hegemony under their own iron-fisted rule.
But these mistakes must be seen against the prevailing circumstances, which included routine massacres with an overtly sectarian flavor by the regime and its supporters. When it came to the crunch, the Syrian opposition was far more efficient in disposing of Daesh than the regime, which occasionally tolerated the latter as a tactical counterweight to the rebels.
Ultimately, it was not the revolt but the regime that plunged Syria into today’s anarchy. It is the regime, and not the revolt, that is protected by a non-Muslim occupying force — Russia. Insofar as any foreign power helps the revolt, whose appeal remains widespread even in such parts of government-controlled territory as Daraa, it is Turkey: a Muslim state of the type that Malik seems to mistake Assad’s Syria for. The Syrian opposition resembles, for all its flaws and fractures, a “sovereign Muslim” entity far more than the regime.
Sanctions and Aid
Insofar as any reminders of the brief Western flirtation with the revolt survives, they are in relatively sympathetic news coverage — the type that Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, and Palestine admittedly do not enjoy because the West or its allies were at fault there — and in sanctions.
Certainly, sanctions have been a controversial and, in my opinion, generally deplorable measure. Recall the particularly notorious case of 1990s Iraq, where sanctions and the economic crisis that followed helped trigger deaths in the hundreds of thousands. Today, Taliban-recaptured Afghanistan is being strangled more from petulant spite than any genuine excuse, and Iran has officially been under sanctions by the United States since its 1979 revolution. As a general excuse, such sanctions hurt the population more than the regime.
Syria is a partial exception. I do not believe that sanctions against Damascus are necessary or even necessarily helpful, since the regime has its ways of bypassing them: notably the United Nations, which always maintains a bias for “recognized states” over their opponents. They also back such “autocracy is stability” Arab states as the United Arab Emirates, (tellingly the American “ace” in the Middle Eastern hole not least for its friendliness toward Israel) which has been a favored dropoff spot for Assad’s circles and the pioneering Arab state attempting to rehabilitate Assad.
But “sanctions are not helpful” is an entirely different argument than “sanctions cannot be pursued against Assad as a sovereign Muslim leader.” Assad — unlike the distasteful but authoritative Muslim rulers to whom Malik seems to be referring — is not a Muslim by any conventional definition of the word, nor is he, as a vassal of Russian occupation, in any sense sovereign. The salient comparison here is with Nouri Maliki of occupied Iraq, or Babrak Karmal and Ashraf Ghani in successive Afghan occupations: essentially a puppet, however sullen, in a Potemkin government-on-loan.
The other factor that is directly linked to the earthquake is the question of aid. The majority of aid has been transferred through government hands, in spite of a longstanding record of corrupt appropriation, but also despite the fact that the vast majority of the earthquake’s devastation occurred in opposition-held areas. Trusting Assad to rescue with aid the same area that he has relentlessly bombed to the ground over a decade requires almost willful naivete.
This has not stopped the regime from selling, and well-meant people from buying, the tale that it must be part of any meaningful aid. Such claims are not only disingenuous, but they also ignore the well-established networks of aid and support that have already been in place in the north for years — largely necessitated by the devastation caused by regime bombardment. The White Helmets organization, founded by Raed Saleh, is a case in point: they have long been vilified by the regime and its foreign supporters as terrorists in disguise, yet the very same regime tried to claim their humanitarian activity as its own after the earthquake struck.
A Lost Cause?
The final point that I must address is the claim that the Syrian war is essentially over, and Assad its winner. This is a tempting claim often pushed by both disingenuous and sincere individuals tired of the war’s devastation, even if the principal culprit stands to benefit. To be sure, the 2015-2018 Russian campaign shifted momentum sharply toward the regime.
But there remains a significant opposition stronghold in the north, and even regime/Russia-controlled areas such as the south bubble with unrest. Perhaps more importantly, sympathy for the revolt and its aims remain strong both within and outside Syria. Many of the opposition networks, particularly when it comes to humanitarian aid, still survive, and there is no reason to think they will cave to the will of their oppressor anytime soon.
In this sense the Syrian revolt can be best compared to the Palestinian case, another cause that suffered widespread devastation and displacement, is frequently dismissed by pessimists as being essentially over in favor of the oppressor, but has instead remained a glimmering flame for decades against the odds. And Malik is right: it must be hoped that Allah remains with such cases in spite of their ups and downs in fortunes, because indeed, Allah is with the steadfast.
https://traversingtradition.com/2023...ersus-anarchy/
سيف الله
05-07-2023, 06:53 PM
Salaam
Another update. Situation looking more and more grim for the opposition.
Blurb
Over the past 50 years, Syria has emerged as a pariah state on the world stage. As well as having been designated a state sponsor of terrorism, it has been under a brutal dictatorship. On top of this, its violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011 saw it widely condemned and suspended from the Arab League. However, things now seem to be changing. After a dozen years, many Arab states - including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates - are re-engaging with the country. And there have been calls for its suspension to be lifted. So, is Syria regaining international acceptance? And, if so, why?
And its happened.
More comment.
Hard reality and 'Realpolitik' involved.
More analysis.
Having said that.
Never forget.
Lessons to be learned as always.
Which way Turks votes in upcoming presidential elections will have massive impact on whats left of the opposition.
While this is all happening - infighting.
ReplyAnother update. Situation looking more and more grim for the opposition.
Blurb
Over the past 50 years, Syria has emerged as a pariah state on the world stage. As well as having been designated a state sponsor of terrorism, it has been under a brutal dictatorship. On top of this, its violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011 saw it widely condemned and suspended from the Arab League. However, things now seem to be changing. After a dozen years, many Arab states - including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates - are re-engaging with the country. And there have been calls for its suspension to be lifted. So, is Syria regaining international acceptance? And, if so, why?
And its happened.
More comment.
Hard reality and 'Realpolitik' involved.
More analysis.
Having said that.
Never forget.
Lessons to be learned as always.
Which way Turks votes in upcoming presidential elections will have massive impact on whats left of the opposition.
While this is all happening - infighting.
سيف الله
05-12-2023, 12:32 PM
Salaam
UAE from the onset worked relentlessly to undermine the Syrian revolt against Assad regime, but shocking how low they will go.
ReplyUAE from the onset worked relentlessly to undermine the Syrian revolt against Assad regime, but shocking how low they will go.
Otourtle
12-09-2023, 07:07 AM
Allah almighty will always support his believers, no matter what difficulties we face we have the almighty to support us Alhamdulilah
ReplyAbz2000
12-12-2023, 07:14 AM
Ash-Shu'ara' 26:60-68(60) فَأَتْبَعُوهُم مُّشْرِقِينَ (61) فَلَمَّا تَرَٰٓءَا ٱلْجَمْعَانِ قَالَ أَصْحَٰبُ مُوسَىٰٓ إِنَّا لَمُدْرَكُونَ (62) قَالَ كَلَّآۖ إِنَّ مَعِىَ رَبِّى سَيَهْدِينِ (63) فَأَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَىٰ مُوسَىٰٓ أَنِ ٱضْرِب بِّعَصَاكَ ٱلْبَحْرَۖ فَٱنفَلَقَ فَكَانَ كُلُّ فِرْقٍ كَٱلطَّوْدِ ٱلْعَظِيمِ (64) وَأَزْلَفْنَا ثَمَّ ٱلْءَاخَرِينَ (65) وَأَنجَيْنَا مُوسَىٰ وَمَن مَّعَهُۥٓ أَجْمَعِينَ (66) ثُمَّ أَغْرَقْنَا ٱلْءَاخَرِينَ (67) إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَةًۖ وَمَا كَانَ أَكْثَرُهُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ (68) وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ (60) So they pursued them at sunrise.(61) And when the two bodies saw each other, the people of Moses said: "We are sure to be overtaken."(62) (Moses) said: "By no means! my Lord is with me! Soon will He guide me!"(63) Then We told Moses by inspiration: "Strike the sea with thy rod." So it divided, and each separate part became like the huge, firm mass of a mountain. (64) And We made the other party approach thither.(65) We delivered Moses and all who were with him;(66) But We drowned the others.(67) Verily in this is a Sign: but most of them do not believe.(68) And verily thy Lord is He, the Exalted in Might, Most Merciful.English - Yusuf AliGet Quran App: https://gtaf.org/apps/quran#GreentechApps
ReplyHey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.
When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up
When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.