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You are here: Home / Archives for Islamic State

ISIS our biggest challenge: Rajnath Singh

December 1, 2014 by Nasheman

Rajnath Singh

by Manoj Anand, Asian Age

Union home minister Rajnath Singh said here on Saturday that the growing threat of Islamic State (ISIS) in the Indian subcontinent was the biggest challenge, especially in the wake of some youth being lured by them.

Referring to the attack in Arnia sector, Mr Singh said that Pakistan claims “non-state” actors are behind such incidents, which is not true.

“I want to ask Pakistan if its intelligence agency the Inter-Services Intelligence, is also a ‘non-state actor’,” Mr Singh said, reiterating that Pakistan was engaged in destabilising India.

The Union home minister also pointed out, “Though ISIS was born in Syria and Iraq, it is a fact that the Indian subcontinent is not outside its radar, especially as some Indian youth are also getting attracted to it.”

He said, “Moreover, the Al Qaeda had recently announced the formation of a new outfit, Qaeda-ul-Jihadi, with the intention of specifically targeting Gujarat, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Bangladesh.”

He said, “India cannot remain unaffected by international terrorism, (and the) activities of the Islamic State. We can’t take Al Qaeda’s threat of turning India into an Islamic country lightly, we should consider it a challenge.”

Asserting that India was capable of handling these threats, Mr Singh, in his inaugural address at the 49th police conference, however, asserted, “There might be many terrorist organisations in the world, but we will not allow them to get a foothold in our country.”

Mr Singh also expressed confidence that these Islamic terror groups will never be able to succeed in India and said that the majority of Indian Muslims will not side with them. “I am sure these terror groups will never succeed in India. They may try to convert India into an Islamic country on the assumption that a large number of Muslims will support them. But the fact remains that Indian Muslims had fought and sacrificed equally with others for India’s independence,” Mr Singh said.

The home minister, at the meeting attended by police chiefs from across the country as well as senior officials from intelligence agencies, also urged states to fill up vacancies in police forces and assured them of all possible help.

Speaking about modernising police forces, Mr Singh stressed the need to make the police people-friendly.

“Our coastal security network is inadequate and it should be strengthened,” he said while expressing his concern on the growing use of cyberspace by anti-national and anti-social forces. He asked the police chiefs to deliberate on strategies and steps to monitor cyberspace. He admitted that the biggest stumbling block in this direction was that the majority of servers are outside India. “We should work out a strategy on how to handle it,” he said.

Filed Under: India Tagged With: ISIS, Islamic State, Rajnath Singh

U.S.-led strikes have killed 910 people in Syria: monitor

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

Thick black smoke rises over an eastern Kobani neighborhood following an air strike on November 8, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS

Thick black smoke rises over an eastern Kobani neighborhood following an air strike on November 8, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS

by Reuters

Beirut: Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 910 people, including 52 civilians, since the start of the campaign against Islamic State and other fighters two months ago, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

The majority of the deaths, 785, were Islamic State fighters according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Islamic State, a hard-line offshoot of al Qaeda, has seized land in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led strikes since July.

Eight of the civilians killed were children and five were women, the Observatory said. The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate any reports of such deaths.

The Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of contacts on the ground, said 72 members of al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on Sept. 23.

The United States has said it has targeted the “Khorasan Group” in Syria, which it describes as a grouping of al Qaeda veterans under the protection of Nusra Front. Most analysts and activists do not differentiate between the groups in this way.

According to the United Nations, around 200,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which is in its fourth year.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Susan Thomas)

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, United States, USA

U.S troops will deploy to Iraq without congressional approval: Pentagon

November 21, 2014 by Nasheman

This Department of Defense photo shows US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey as he addresses questions from US military members during a town hall meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, November 15, 2014. AFP/DOD/ D. Myles Cullen

This Department of Defense photo shows US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey as he addresses questions from US military members during a town hall meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, November 15, 2014. AFP/DOD/ D. Myles Cullen

by Al-Akhbar

Some of the 1,500 new US troops authorized to “advise and train” Iraqi forces in their fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants will be deployed in Iraq within the next few weeks without waiting for Congress to fund the mission, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said leading elements of the US force would begin moving to Iraq in the coming weeks, even if Congress has not yet acted on a $5.6 billion supplemental request to fund the expanded fight against the militants who overran northwestern Iraq earlier this year.

Large swathes of land in Iraq have become ISIS strongholds as the extremist group, which declared a “caliphate” in the territory it seized in Iraq and Syria, drove Iraq’s army – the recipient of $25 billion in US training and funding since the 2003 invasion – to collapse.

Late October, the Pentagon revised its estimate of the cost of the US air war in Iraq and Syria, saying the price tag for the campaign against ISIS comes to about $8.3 million a day.

Since US airstrikes began on August 8, the campaign – which has involved about 6,600 sorties by US and allied aircraft – has cost the US $580 million, said Pentagon spokesman Commander Bill Urban.

In addition, the campaign, which has so far failed to stop ISIS from advancing, has also cost the Iraqi government $260 million.

Officials initially indicated they needed to get lawmakers to approve the funding for the troops deployment before the Pentagon could start the mission, but General Lloyd Austin, the head of US troops in the Middle East, recommended starting the effort using resources already available to him.

“The commander … can reallocate resources inside his theater as he deems fit. So he is going to .. try to get a jump start on this program,” Kirby told reporters, adding that congressional approval of the $5.6 billion was still needed to carry out the “more robust program.”

The Pentagon’s announcement came just days after US officials said some 50 troops had been sent to Ain al-Asad air base in Anbar province in Iraq to establish an operation to “advise and train” Iraqi troops.

Kirby said Austin thought that starting the expanded mission sent a message both to Iraqis and other coalition partners.

“It sends an important signal … about how seriously we’re taking this,” Kirby said. “The sooner we get started, the sooner Iraqi units will improve … and the sooner we’ll get coalition contributions to that particular mission.”

US President Barack Obama, who was elected in 2008 largely due to his promises to exit Middle Eastern military entanglements – especially in Iraq – and avoiding new ones, announced plans last week to double the number of American troops in Iraq, approving an additional 1,500 forces to establish sites to “train” nine Iraqi military brigades and three Kurdish peshmerga brigades.

The move came almost three years after US troops completed their withdrawal from Iraq after a nine year occupation that left the country in turmoil.

Iraq ranked first out of 162 countries on the Global Terrorism Index, the Australia and US-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said in a report published Tuesday, giving the country a score of 10 out of 10.

According to the report, 80 percent of the lives lost to terrorist attacks in 2013 occurred in just five countries – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

The influx in terrorist attacks raises questions about the effectiveness of the US “War on Terror” launched by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks, which included the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The campaign failed to eliminate or even reduce terrorism, as the report showed a steady increase in the death toll over the last 14 years, from 3,361 in 2000 to 11,133 in 2012 and 17,958 in 2013.

On the contrary, the campaign in general and the US invasion of Iraq in particular served as a recruitment tool for terrorist groups, such as ISIS, as figures show that terrorism rose precipitously in Iraq since 2003.

Kirby indicated additional US troops would begin deploying to Iraq before the end of the year.

“You’re going to start to see initial elements of the 1,500 or so additional start to flow in the next few weeks,” he said. “I think certainly by the end of the calendar year you’re going to see a much more robust presence, not just by the United States doing this but by coalition partners as well.”

Some 3,500 US troops are believed to be on Iraqi land.

ISIS claims Erbil suicide bombing

The US-led anti-ISIS campaign has so far failed to stop ISIS from gaining ground, thus drawing criticism from many sides, including the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous region, Massoud Barzani.

On Wednesday, following a suicide bombing that hit the usually secure capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Barzani accused Western countries of not providing enough heavy weapons to help peshmerga forces deliver a “decisive blow” against ISIS militants.

Later on Thursday, ISIS claimed responsibility of the suicide attack in an online statement.

“We breached all the security checkpoints of the agent Kurdistan government and reached the heart of the city of Erbil,” the statement said.

It identified the bomber as Abdul-Rahman al-Kurdi, indicating that he was an ethnic Kurd.

The bomber struck the main checkpoint on the way to the provincial government headquarters in the northern city just before noon on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding more than two dozen.

The bombing was the worst attack to hit Erbil since September 29, 2013, when militants struck the headquarters of the Asayesh security forces in the city, killing seven people and wounding more than 60.

In that attack, the Asayesh said a suicide bomber detonated explosives at the entrance to their headquarters, after which they killed four more would-be bombers before a fifth blew up an ambulance rigged with explosives.

Kurdish peshmerga forces joined the battle against ISIS in August after the extremist group targeted ethnic and religious minorities, took control of the country’s largest dam and moved within striking distance of Erbil, where many Western expatriates, including oil industry and aid workers are based.

(Al-Akhbar, Reuters, AFP)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Pentagon, Syria, United States, USA

Video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi allegedly injured in Mosul aired by Egypt's Balad TV

November 15, 2014 by Nasheman

Screenshot of footage aired by Balad TV supposedly showing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi injured after his convoy was attacked by coalition air strikes.

Screenshot of footage aired by Balad TV supposedly showing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi injured after his convoy was attacked by coalition air strikes.

by Abdelhak Mamoun, Iraqi News

The video below, broadcast on Balad TV, claims to show ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his convoy being attacked in an airstrike that led to his injury or death.

The video claims to show al-Baghdadi next to a black SUV car, suffering injuries due to the airstrike.

In the beginning, Baghdadi appears to be lying on the ground, groaning in pain while one of his aides is lying dead beside him. Baghdadi moves slightly before ISIS elements hurry to rescue him.

The injured, who Balad TV claims is al-Baghdadi, is dressed in a military uniform and is said to be wearing a watch on his right hand which appears similar to the one he wore during his sermon at Mosul. IraqiNews.com has not independently verified these claims.

A spokesman for the Central Command of the US Army, Col. Patrick Raider, said two days ago that warplanes of the international coalition targeted ISIS leaders who were meeting near Mosul and that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may have been among those who were targeted.

According to officials from the United States, US air raids managed to destroy a convoy of 10 cars belonging to the organization of the Islamic State; they were traveling in a convoy near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abu Bakr Baghdadi, Airstrikes, Balad TV, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Mosul, United States, USA

The U.S. launches another dumb war in the Middle East. Why hitting ISIS will just make matters worse

November 11, 2014 by Nasheman

For most of this century, we’ve been fighting wars to enhance our security, and each time, we find ourselves with more enemies and less security.

Kobani strike

by Steve Chapman, Reason

War, it’s been said, is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. Maybe we do learn how to locate the countries we invade or bomb on a map. But recent experience indicates how much we don’t know about those societies and how slow we are at learning.

The United States is still involved in a 13-year-old war in Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has undertaken a new one against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, just three years after he withdrew the last of our troops from Iraq. The administration is also carrying on a drone missile campaign—which looks eerily like war from the receiving end—in Pakistan and Yemen.

Yet the republic has just concluded an election campaign that gave almost no attention to what the United States government is doing, or should be doing, in these places. For the most part, the topic was discussed in only the vaguest terms, but often it was simply absent. No country in history has ever done so much fighting in so many places with so little interest from its own citizens.

Nor do the people in power who make these ambitious commitments necessarily have a clue where they will lead. Over and over, things turn out in ways that come as a complete and thoroughly unwelcome surprise.

No one could have imagined in October 2001, when we went into Afghanistan to crush the Taliban and al-Qaida, that we would still be there 13 years later and so would they. Nor did we realize that our crucial supposed ally in the fight, Pakistan, would prove not merely unhelpful but downright hostile.

As New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall documented in her book “The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014,” the government of Pakistan was actively helping our foes while reaping $23 billion in aid from Washington. U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke eventually realized, “We may be fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country.”

Unexpected? Of course. But it’s the sort of thing that happens when governments act with slivers of knowledge and mountains of hubris, relying on bright visions and brute force. That’s how we stormed into Iraq and won a swift military victory—which we proceeded to squander by disbanding the Iraqi military and banning former members of Saddam Hussein’s party from the new government.

Both decisions sounded sensible—but only because our leaders were so ignorant of Iraq that they had no idea what the effects would be. In practice, we managed to turn huge numbers of Iraqis against us and spawn an insurgency that would kill thousands of our troops. We also inadvertently rained blessings on our longtime enemy to the east. The U.S. fought a war against Iraq, and the winner was Iran.

The war on Islamic State is even more rife with uncertainty, because so many of its enemies are our enemies. If we do damage to it, we are indirectly strengthening the mullahs in Tehran, al-Qaida and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. We’re also bolstering the irresponsible Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad whose persecution of Sunnis gave rise to the group.

The Wall Street Journal reports that by hitting Islamic State targets in Syria, we helped al-Qaida units to defeat the “moderate” Syrian rebels we have helped in their fight against Assad. Meanwhile, our NATO ally Turkey balks at assisting us. Why? Because those fighting on “our” side include Kurdish groups allied with separatists it has been fighting for 30 years.

For that matter, the U.S. air war is the best recruiting tool the Islamic State ever had. Already, a confidential UN Security Council report recently noted, some 15,000 foreigners have poured into the region to join it and other extremist groups.

“Numbers since 2010 are now many times the size of the cumulative numbers of foreign terrorist fighters between 1990 and 2010—and are growing,” it said, according to The Guardian. As usual, we’re creating jihadis faster than we kill them. Chances are excellent that we are also sowing an array of unforeseen problems that will haunt us for years to come.

For most of this century, we’ve been fighting wars to enhance our security, and each time, we find ourselves with more enemies and less security. By now it should be clear that is not a coincidence. If the war on Islamic State solves nothing or makes things worse, we will be unhappy, but we shouldn’t be surprised.

Steve Chapman is a columnist and editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Barack Obama, Conflict, Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria, United States, USA, War

Washington moving towards wider war in Iraq and Syria

November 10, 2014 by Nasheman

A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq

by Bill Van Auken, WSWS

There are new indications that Washington is moving toward a wider and protracted military intervention in the Middle East in the name of combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In the wake of last weekend’s collapse of US-backed Syrian “rebels” in the face of an offensive by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Al Nusra Front, plans are being prepared to extend the three-month-old US-led bombing campaign deeper into Syria. The ostensible purpose of these air strikes would be to provide air support for the Western-backed militias formed to prosecute the war for regime change against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The concern within US military and intelligence circles is that the Nusra Front fighters appear poised to seize control of the strategic Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, which has served as a key conduit for funneling arms and other aid to the Syrian “rebels.”

A substantial portion of that aid, including heavy weapons such as TOW anti-tank missiles and GRAD rockets, fell into the hands of the Nusra Front last weekend as the American-backed groups—the Syrian Revolutionary Front and Harakat Hazm (Steadfastness Movement)—surrendered without a shot being fired. Many of the members of these groups then joined the Nusra Front.

“The recent fighting in northwestern Syria has been taking place a long way from areas farther east where US and Arab warplanes have been pounding Islamic State positions,” the Washington Post reported Wednesday. “But US concern has grown rapidly in recent days amid fears about the [Bab al-Hawa] border crossing, according to senior administration officials who spoke about internal discussions on the condition of anonymity.”

The report cited discussions about likely “complications” arising from air strikes in the area, in particular whether the Syrian government would “tolerate an expansion” of the war beyond Iraq and areas of Syria near the Iraqi border, which have fallen under ISIS control.

There are, however, multiple demands that Washington carry out such an expansion with the aim of directing the US-led war precisely at toppling the Assad regime.

This is the position being advanced by the governments of both France and Turkey. French foreign minister Laurent Fabius wrote an opinion column published by several media organizations earlier this week calling on the US and its allies to shift the military intervention away from the Kurdish border town of Kobane, where there have been regular US bombings, to the city of Aleppo. Previously Syria’s industrial capital, Aleppo has been the scene of stepped up fighting as the Syrian government seeks to consolidate its control by defeating the so-called rebels.

“France cannot resign itself to the breakup of Syria or to the abandonment of the Aleppans to this fate,” Fabius wrote. “That is why—together with our coalition partners—we must focus our efforts on Aleppo, with two clear objectives: strengthening our support for the moderate Syrian opposition, and protecting the civilian population from the twin crimes of the regime and Daesh [ISIS]. After Kobane, we must save Aleppo.”

Just two days later, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned that if Aleppo were to fall to the government forces, Turkey could face a major new refugee crisis. “This is why we called for a safe zone as well as taking measures against not only the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS] but also the Assad regime,” he said. Turkey has called for the creation of a “buffer zone” inside Syria along the Turkish border. Such a “buffer” would serve the dual purpose of providing a safe haven for the Western-backed “rebels” and breaking up the autonomous zones created in the border area by Syrian Kurds, which Ankara sees as a threat in terms of its own conflict with the country’s Kurdish population.

Turkey has also advocated the imposition of a “no fly zone,” which would entail a massive bombing campaign against Syria’s air force and air defenses.

These same positions find support within Washington from, among others, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, who, after Tuesday’s midterm election, will become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, giving him access to a significant lever for shifting the US toward a more aggressive policy.

On the eve of the election, McCain charged that the collapse of the American-backed “rebels” to the Nusra Front constituted proof that “the administration’s current strategy in Syria is a disaster.” He demanded a greater military intervention to “protect the Syrian people.”

An escalation of the war is a virtual certainty now the US midterm elections are over. As Foreign Policy commented Wednesday: “When it comes to foreign policy, a GOP win could make it easier for Obama … if the president decided to shift his strategy against the Islamic State, [to] win Congressional backing for sending ground troops to Iraq or Syria.”

A revealing indication of the intense and protracted character of the war that US imperialism is preparing in the Middle East was provided by theWashington Post ’s well-connected national security correspondent, Walter Pincus.

“The Defense Department is certainly preparing for a long fight,” Pincus wrote, citing a recent notice to military contractors of department plans for an eight-year contract for the Air Combat Command of the US Air Force, set to begin in October 2016. The contract is for operating and supporting the command’s “major war reserve materiel facilities in Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.”

Among the items to be pre-positioned at these sites are mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs), massive amounts of ammunition and “medical contingency hospitals for expeditionary medical support.” The plan also calls for creating “facilities and equipment that could house 3,300 airmen and 72 fighter aircraft at expeditionary locations.”

In the meantime, the Pentagon’s Central Command announced Wednesday it had carried out four air strikes in Syria and 10 in Iraq since Monday. A CENTCOM spokesman said the strikes had hit various ISIS vehicles, bunkers and small units.

From Iraq itself, however, came a different account of the US bombing runs. In al-Qaim, in western Anbar province near the Syrian border, security officials told the National Iraqi News Agency that a US warplane fired two missiles into a popular market in the center of the city. The explosions ripped through the crowded market, leaving at least seven Iraqi civilians dead and 27 others wounded, many of them critically.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Al Qaeda, Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria, United States, USA

Islamic State leader possibly killed – or possibly not – by airstrikes in Iraq

November 10, 2014 by Nasheman

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

by Liz Fields, Vice News

The fate of the Islamic State’s top commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, remains murky in the aftermath of coalition airstrikes that reportedly targeted a house in Iraq where top militants were meeting Saturday, according to witnesses and local media.

Dozens were wounded and killed in an attack that reportedly hit a gathering of Islamic State leaders near the western Iraqi town of Quaim, local residents told Reuters. Unconfirmed reports have stated that the reclusive al-Baghdadi was among those injured or possibly killed.

Following the assault, witnesses told Al Arabiya News that Islamic State fighters cleared a hospital in the town southwest of Mosul and brought their wounded there, using loudspeakers to encourage locals to donate blood to the fallen.

US Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US troops in the Middle East, said that coalition warplanes conducted a “series of air strikes” against “a gathering of (IS) leaders near Mosul,” but did not confirm whether al-Baghdadi was there, AFP reported.

“This strike demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL [IS] terrorist network and the group’s increasingly limited freedom to maneuver, communicate and command,” Centcom spokesman Patrick Ryder said Saturday.

Conflicting reports on the possible death or wounding of al-Baghdadi, who rarely appears in public and has been reported killed on numerous previous occasions, continued to circulate over the weekend.

Tribal sources told Al Arabiya News that al-Baghdadi was “critically wounded” in the strikes. Other senior Islamic State members believed to be among the dead or injured include the group’s leader of Iraq’s Anbar Province and his deputy, local residents told Reuters.

The Islamic State did not immediately issue any statements, but a Twitter account associated with the group stated that their leader was “alive and well.”

I can report to the Muslims that Amir Al-Momineen Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Hafid hu’allah is alive and well. #IslamicState #Iraq RT @sheikhajmee

— State of Islam (@Dawla_accountt) November 8, 2014

“Until now, there is no accurate information available,” a senior Iraqi intelligence official told AFP when asked whether Baghdadi had been killed.

“The information is from unofficial sources and was not confirmed until now, and we are working on that,” the official said without specifying what the initial reports indicated.

Al-Baghdadi’s death would be a major victory for the US and coalition forces fighting against the Islamist insurgency in Iraq and Syria. Washington has put a $10 million bounty on the leader’s head.

The airstrikes came a day after President Barack Obama announced the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq, and the same weekend that a spate of deadly car bombings and a suicide truck attack killed at least 58 people and injured dozens more in cities across the country.

Filed Under: Muslim World Tagged With: Abu Bakr Baghdadi, Airstrikes, Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Middle East, Mosul

Free Syrian Army (FSA) founder warns of airstrikes, says ISIS not U.S. target

October 23, 2014 by Nasheman

FSA founder, Colonel Riad al-Asaad

FSA founder, Colonel Riad al-Asaad

by Mohamed Al Faris; Editing by Ridha Ali, Zaman Al Wasl

Founder of rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) on Saturday said that planned U.S. airstrikes will eliminate Syrians’ revolution as it will strengthen Bashar al-Assad and his key ally, Iran.

Syria’s army defector Colonel Riad al-Asaad, who met with National Coalition’s Secretary-General Nasr al-Hariri on Friday, expressed concern to Zaman al-Wasl over the planned American airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), saying: “Syrian revolution will be eliminated under this pretext.”

The war-wounded officer also has warned of the American invitation to Iran to join the International coalition against ISIS.

Al-Asaad called on moderate rebels to mass efforts for more unity to revive the Syrian revolution after being kidnapped by radical Islamist groups and West-backed agendas. “We are looking for rebel commanders who share us the national concern,” he added.

The United States is planning to carry out airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, while the U.S. Congress on Thursday gave final approval to Obama’s plan for training and arming moderate Syrian rebels to take on the militants, according to Reuters.

Other Western powers have been more reluctant to launch military strikes in Syria, which could be seen to bolster al-Assad.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Iran had a role to play in a global coalition to tackle Islamic State militants.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this week said he had rejected an offer by Washington for talks on fighting Islamic State. Kerry said he refused to be drawn into a “back and forth” with Iran over the issue, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, more than 191,000 people killed and over 9 million forced to flee their homes.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Colonel Riad al-Asaad, Free Syrian Army, FSA, Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Nasr al-Hariri, Syria, Syrian Revolution, United States, USA

Spanish parliament approves deployment of 300 soldiers to train Iraqi army to fight IS

October 23, 2014 by Nasheman

Iraqi Army soldiers march as part of a parade marking the founding anniversary of the army's artillery section in Baghdad. © REUTERS/ Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud

Iraqi Army soldiers march as part of a parade marking the founding anniversary of the army’s artillery section in Baghdad. © REUTERS/ Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud

Madrid/RIA Novosti: The Congress of Deputies of Spain (the lower house of parliament) on Wednesday has voted in favor of sending troops to Iraq to train the country’s army to fight against the Islamic State (IS) militants, with 314 lawmakers out of 329 supporting the move.

“IS is a rather strong enemy. They have at least 30,000 militants, about 12,000 of which are foreigners. They have a lot of seized artillery ammunition in northern and central parts of the country,” Spanish Defense Minister Pedro Morenes said, addressing lawmakers.

Spanish soldiers will train the Iraqi military to take part in special, and mine clearance operations. The Spanish troops will not participate in military operations.

Morenes stressed that 300 Spanish soldiers will be deployed to Iraq in the end of 2014, or in the beginning of 2015. They will stay close to Iraqi city of Nasiriyah for up to six months, and the operation will cost Spanish government about $44 million.

“The participation of Spain in the international coalition against the IS shows country’s willingness to maintain peace and stability in the world,” Morenes added.

Twenty two countries already said that they are willing to provide some sort of assistance in battling IS, which has recently taken over swathes of Iraq and Syria, proclaiming an Islamic caliphate on the controlled territories.

Spain was the first country to withdraw their troops from Iraq in 2004, after a terrorist attack in Madrid on March 11, 2004, which claimed 191 lives.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Iraq, Islamic State, Military Aid, Pedro Morenes, Spain

Canada, at war for 13 years, shocked that ‘a terrorist’ attacked its soldiers

October 23, 2014 by Nasheman

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper outlines his government's plan to participate in a military campaign against Islamic State militants, in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa October 3, 2014. REUTERS/CHRIS WATTIE

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper outlines his government’s plan to participate in a military campaign against Islamic State militants, in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on October 3, 2014. REUTERS/CHRIS WATTIE

by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

In Quebec on Monday, two Canadian soldiers were hit by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old Canadian who, as The Globe and Mail reported, “converted to Islam recently and called himself Ahmad Rouleau.” One of the soldiers died, as did Couture-Rouleau when he was shot by police upon apprehension after allegedly brandishing a large knife. Police speculated that the incident was deliberate, alleging the driver waited for two hours before hitting the soldiers, one of whom was wearing a uniform. The incident took place in the parking lot of a shopping mall 30 miles southeast of Montreal, “a few kilometres from the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, the military academy operated by the Department of National Defence.”

The right-wing Canadian government wasted no time in seizing on the incident to promote its fear-mongering agenda over terrorism, which includes pending legislation to vest its intelligence agency, CSIS, with more spying and secrecy powers in the name of fighting ISIS. A government spokesperson asserted “clear indications” that the driver “had become radicalized.”

In a “clearly prearranged exchange,” a conservative MP, during parliamentary question time, asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pictured above) whether this was considered a “terrorist attack”; in reply, the prime minister gravely opined that the incident was “obviously extremely troubling.” Canada’s Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney pronounced the incident “clearly linked to terrorist ideology,” while newspapers predictably followed suit, calling it a “suspected terrorist attack” and “homegrown terrorism.” CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti said “the event was the violent expression of an extremist ideology promoted by terrorist groups with global followings” and added: “That something like this would happen in a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu shows the long reach of these ideologies.”

In sum, the national mood and discourse in Canada is virtually identical to what prevails in every Western country whenever an incident like this happens: shock and bewilderment that someone would want to bring violence to such a good and innocent country (“a peaceable Canadian community like Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu”), followed by claims that the incident shows how primitive and savage is the “terrorist ideology” of extremist Muslims, followed by rage and demand for still more actions of militarism and freedom-deprivation. There are two points worth making about this:

First, Canada has spent the last 13 years proclaiming itself a nation at war. It actively participated in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and was an enthusiastic partner in some of the most extremist War on Terror abuses perpetrated by the U.S. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister revealed, with the support of a large majority of Canadians, that “Canada is poised to go to war in Iraq, as [he] announced plans in Parliament [] to send CF-18 fighter jets for up to six months to battle Islamic extremists.” Just yesterday, Canadian Defence Minister Rob Nicholson flamboyantly appeared at the airfield in Alberta from which the fighter jets left for Iraq and stood tall as he issued the standard Churchillian war rhetoric about the noble fight against evil.

It is always stunning when a country that has brought violence and military force to numerous countries acts shocked and bewildered when someone brings a tiny fraction of that violence back to that country. Regardless of one’s views on the justifiability of Canada’s lengthy military actions, it’s not the slightest bit surprising or difficult to understand why people who identify with those on the other end of Canadian bombs and bullets would decide to attack the military responsible for that violence.

That’s the nature of war. A country doesn’t get to run around for years wallowing in war glory, invading, rendering and bombing others, without the risk of having violence brought back to it. Rather than being baffling or shocking, that reaction is completely natural and predictable. The only surprising thing about any of it is that it doesn’t happen more often.

The issue here is not justification (very few people would view attacks on soldiers in a shopping mall parking lot to be justified). The issue is causation. Every time one of these attacks occurs — from 9/11 on down — Western governments pretend that it was just some sort of unprovoked, utterly “senseless” act of violence caused by primitive, irrational, savage religious extremism inexplicably aimed at a country innocently minding its own business. They even invent fairy tales to feed to the population to explain why it happens: they hate us for our freedoms.

Those fairy tales are pure deceit. Except in the rarest of cases, the violence has clearly identifiable and easy-to-understand causes: namely, anger over the violence that the country’s government has spent years directing at others. The statements of those accused by the west of terrorism, and even the Pentagon’s own commissioned research, have made conclusively clear what motivates these acts: namely, anger over the violence, abuse and interference by Western countries in that part of the world, with the world’s Muslims overwhelmingly the targets and victims. The very policies of militarism and civil liberties erosions justified in the name of stopping terrorism are actually what fuels terrorism and ensures its endless continuation.

If you want to be a country that spends more than a decade proclaiming itself at war and bringing violence to others, then one should expect that violence will sometimes be directed at you as well. Far from being the by-product of primitive and inscrutable religions, that behavior is the natural reaction of human beings targeted with violence. Anyone who doubts that should review the 13-year orgy of violence the U.S. has unleashed on the world since the 9/11 attack, as well as the decades of violence and interference from the U.S. in that region prior to that.

Second, in what conceivable sense can this incident be called a “terrorist” attack? As I have written many times over the last several years, and as some of the best scholarship proves, “terrorism” is a word utterly devoid of objective or consistent meaning. It is little more than a totally malleable, propagandistic fear-mongering term used by Western governments (and non-Western ones) to justify whatever actions they undertake. As Professor Tomis Kapitan wrote in a brilliant essay in The New York Times on Monday: “Part of the success of this rhetoric traces to the fact that there is no consensus about the meaning of ‘terrorism.’”

But to the extent the term has any common understanding, it includes the deliberate (or wholly reckless) targeting of civilians with violence for political ends. But in this case in Canada, it wasn’t civilians who were targeted. If one believes the government’s accounts of the incident, the driver waited two hours until he saw a soldier in uniform. In other words, he seems to have deliberately avoided attacking civilians, and targeted a soldier instead – a member of a military that is currently fighting a war.

Again, the point isn’t justifiability. There is a compelling argument to make that undeployed soldiers engaged in normal civilian activities at home are not valid targets under the laws of war (although the U.S. and its closest allies use extremely broad and permissive standards for what constitutes legitimate military targets when it comes to their own violence). The point is that targeting soldiers who are part of a military fighting an active war is completely inconsistent with the common usage of the word “terrorism,” and yet it is reflexively applied by government officials and media outlets to this incident in Canada (and others like it in the UK and the US).

That’s because the most common functional definition of “terrorism” in Western discourse is quite clear. At this point, it means little more than: “violence directed at Westerners by Muslims” (when not used to mean “violence by Muslims,” it usually just means: violence the state dislikes). The term “terrorism” has become nothing more than a rhetorical weapon for legitimizing all violence by Western countries, and delegitimizing all violence against them, even when the violence called “terrorism” is clearly intended as retaliation for Western violence.

This is about far more than semantics. It is central to how the west propagandizes its citizenries; the manipulative use of the “terrorism” term lies at heart of that. As Professor Kapitan wrote yesterday in The New York Times:

Even when a definition is agreed upon, the rhetoric of “terror” is applied both selectively and inconsistently. In the mainstream American media, the “terrorist” label is usually reserved for those opposed to the policies of the U.S. and its allies. By contrast, some acts of violence that constitute terrorism under most definitions are not identified as such — for instance, the massacre of over 2000 Palestinian civilians in the Beirut refugee camps in 1982 or the killings of more than 3000 civilians in Nicaragua by “contra” rebels during the 1980s, or the genocide that took the lives of at least a half million Rwandans in 1994. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some actions that do not qualify as terrorism are labeled as such — that would include attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah or ISIS, for instance, against uniformed soldiers on duty.

Historically, the rhetoric of terror has been used by those in power not only to sway public opinion, but to direct attention away from their own acts of terror.

At this point, “terrorism” is the term that means nothing, but justifies everything. It is long past time that media outlets begin skeptically questioning its usage by political officials rather than mindlessly parroting it.

UPDATE: Multiple conservative commentators have claimed that this article and my subsequent discussion of it are about this morning’s shooting of a solider in Ottawa. Aside from the fact that what I wrote is expressly about a completely different incident – one that took place in Quebec on Monday – this article and my comments were published before this morning’s shooting spree was reported. So unless someone believes I possess powers of clairvoyance, the claim that I was commenting on the Ottawa shooting – about which virtually nothing is known, including the identity and motive of the shooter(s) – is obviously false.

Then there’s also the extremely predictable accusation that I was justifying the attack on the soldiers. I know from prior experience in discussing these questions that no matter how clear you make it that you are writing about causation and not justification, many will still distort what you write to claim you’ve justified the attack. That’s true even if one makes as clear as the English language permits that you’re not writing about justification: “The issue here is not justification (very few people would view attacks on soldiers in a shopping mall parking lot to be justified). The issue is causation.” If there’s a way to make that any clearer, please let me know.

One more time: the difference between “causation” and “justification” is so obvious that it should require no explanation. If one observes that someone who smokes four packs of cigarettes a day can expect to develop emphysema, that’s an observation about causation, not a celebration of the person’s illness. Only a willful desire to distort, or some deep confusion, can account for a failure to process this most basic point.

UPDATE II: In that brilliant essay I referenced above, published just three days ago in The New York Times, Professor Tomis Kaptian made this point:

Obviously, to point out the causes and objectives of particular terrorist actions is to imply nothing about their legitimacy — that is an independent matter….

That point is so simple and, as he said, “obvious” that I have a hard time understanding what could account for some commentators conflating the two other than a willful desire to mislead.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Ahmad Rouleau, Canada, CSIS, Iraq, IS, ISIL, ISIS, Islamic State, Martin Couture-Rouleau, Stephen Harper, Syria

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