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Ahmed the clockmaker is moving to Qatar to study

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Teenage student, who was arrested in Texas after taking a homemade clock to school, accepts scholarship offer in Doha.

Many believe Mohamed's arrest was influenced by bias against his Muslim religion [AP]

Many believe Mohamed’s arrest was influenced by bias against his Muslim religion [AP]

by Al Jazeera

An American boy arrested for bringing a homemade clock to his Texas school, that was mistaken for a bomb, is moving to Qatar after accepting a scholarship offer to study there.

Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Mohamed’s family announced the move in a statement on Tuesday, a few hours after he was at the White House for an astronomy night hosted by President Barack Obama.

The bespectacled ninth-grader became a global sensation after his September arrest, which many believe was influenced by bias against his Muslim religion.

Mohamed accepted an offer from the Qatar Foundation to study in its Young Innovators Programme.

“This means, that we, as a family, will relocate to Qatar where Ahmed will receive a full scholarship for secondary and undergraduate education,” his family said in a statement.

Mohamed visited Doha earlier in the month and has been on a worldwide tour, visiting a number of foreign dignitaries, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, according to Sudanese media.

A statement released by the Qatar Foundation on Tuesday said the Young Innovators Programme “encourages recipients to follow their aspirations in education while fostering a culture of innovation and creativity”.

Quoted in the Qatar Foundation’s statement , Mohamed said, “I was really impressed with everything that Qatar Foundation has to offer and the campuses are really cool.

“I got to meet other kids who are also really interested in science and technology. I think I will learn a lot and also have lots of fun there.”

At the White House on Monday night, Obama briefly met Mohamed as he shook hands with students at the event, giving the student a hug.

At the time of the arrest, Obama’s Twitter feed had a message of support for Mohammed, which read: “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”

“It was amazing, and a honour meeting President Obama,” Mohamed said on Twitter after meeting Obama.

Chicago Police ‘disappeared’ over 7,000 people to secret interrogation facility

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Nearly 6,000 of those secretly imprisoned and interrogated at secret interrogation facility were black

Chicago police sent a total of 7,185 people to Homan Square between 2004 and 2015. (Photo: Michael Kappel/flickr/cc)

Chicago police sent a total of 7,185 people to Homan Square between 2004 and 2015. (Photo: Michael Kappel/flickr/cc)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

Police in Chicago kidnapped and imprisoned more than 7,000 people between 2004 and 2015 at the secret interrogation warehouse now known publicly as Homan Square, according to new reporting by the Guardian.

Nearly 6,000 of the disappeared were black, which is proportionately more than double the city’s black population and 82.2 percent of the 7,185 total individuals sent to the facility. An additional 11.8 percent were Hispanic and 5.5 percent were white.

Only 68 people—less than one percent—held at the ‘domestic black site’ were allowed access to lawyers or to tell others where they were. As Common Dreams previously reported, the imprisonments and interrogations at Homan Square happened off the books, without detainees’ names being entered into official law enforcement databases, which would have made them easier to find.

“The reality is, no one knows where that person is at Homan Square,” University of Chicago Law School professor Craig Futterman said. “They’re disappeared at that point.”

The latest disclosures in the Guardian‘s series on the site, the result of an ongoing transparency lawsuit and investigation, reveal that police officers kept detainees at Homan Square for hours and even days and pressured them to become informants as part of the department’s anti-gang operations.

Spencer Ackerman reports:

The police portrayals contrast sharply with those of Homan Square detainees and their lawyers, who insist that “if this could happen to someone, it could happen to anyone”. A 30-year-old man named Jose, for example, was one of the few detainees with an attorney present when he surrendered to police. He said officers at the warehouse questioned him even after his lawyer specifically told them he would not speak.

“The Fillmore and Homan boys,” Jose said, referring to police and the facility’s cross streets, “don’t play by the rules.”

“Not much shakes me in this business—baby murder, sex assault, I’ve done it all,” one attorney, David Gaeger, told the Guardian. “That place was and is scary. It’s a scary place. There’s nothing about it that resembles a police station. It comes from a Bond movie or something.” Gaeger’s client was sent to Homan Square in 2011 for a marijuana arrest.

In fact, the majority of those sent to the facility were arrested for drug charges, rather than violent crime.

Many others were never even charged.

Meanwhile, police accounts have varied widely from those of the disappeared. In many cases, officers stated that detainees were given access to attorneys when they were not, or the visits proved too short to be useful. One woman, identified as Chevoughn, said she was kept for eight to ten hours at Homan Square over theft allegations, where she was questioned in a “cage” and denied access to a lawyer until she went to central booking after her kidnapping.

Cook County commissioner Richard Boykin and U.S. Representative Danny Davis in March demanded that the Department of Justice investigate the activities that took place at Homan Square.

Drone Papers ‘no surprise to Yemenis,’ says man who lost family

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“For years, we have been confused by the sharp contrast between what we see with our own eyes and what the U.S. government tells the world,” said Faisal bin Ali Jaber.

"For years, we have been confused by the sharp contrast between what we see with our own eyes and what the U.S. government tells the world. Slowly, the whole truth will come out," said Faisal bin Ali Jaber. (Photo: Reprieve)

“For years, we have been confused by the sharp contrast between what we see with our own eyes and what the U.S. government tells the world. Slowly, the whole truth will come out,” said Faisal bin Ali Jaber. (Photo: Reprieve)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

One man who lost family members to the covert U.S. drone war in Yemen responded Friday to The Intercept‘s explosive new exposé of the American “assassination complex” by proclaiming he is not surprised but now more hopeful “the whole truth will come out.”

“I read that the Americans have very little knowledge of the innocent civilians they are killing in Yemen,” said Faisal bin Ali Jaber, a Yemeni engineer whose nephew Waleed bin Ali Jaber and brother-in-law Salem bin Ali Jaber were killed in a 2012 U.S. drone strike attack on their village of Khashamir.

“This is no surprise to Yemenis,” he continued. “For years, we have been confused by the sharp contrast between what we see with our own eyes and what the U.S. government tells the world. Slowly, the whole truth will come out.”

“I hope that my American court case will help that happen. But how many innocent Yemeni men, women and children will die before it does?” Jaber added, referencing his months-long court battle for justice or, short of that, acknowledgment of his loss. The administration of President Barack Obama earlier this month rejected a settlement offer that would have required a formal apology for the drone strike that killed Jaber’s family.

Joe Pace, an attorney for the legal charity Reprieve who represents Jaber, said: “We were told that the drone program was ‘safe’ and ‘effective.’ When we raised concerns with the Administration that it was anything but, we were told ‘trust us.'”

“These leaked reports confirming the staggering inaccuracy of the U.S drone program may be news to the American people who have been lied to by this Administration, but there’s nothing revelatory for [Jaber] or the millions who live under constant threat of U.S. drone strikes,” Pace continued. “[Jaber] and countless others have witnessed their loved ones literally blown to pieces based on a toxic combination of garbage intelligence and U.S. indifference to foreign lives.”

Muslim Americans win chance to sue NYPD for spying

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Philadelphia court rules plaintiffs had legal standing to assert claims that police surveillance violated their rights.

NYPD

by Kristen Saloomey, Al Jazeera

New York: An appeals court in the US has given Muslim Americans another chance to sue the New York Police Department for its surveillance on them.

Last year, a lower court had dismissed the case in which the police were accused of deliberately targeting Muslims because of their religion.

However, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia reversed a lower court’s decision, finding the plaintiffs had legal standing to assert claims that the country’s so-called counterterrorism programme violated their rights.

(Agencies)

Victims file suit against CIA torture architects for ‘systemic brutality’

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Psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who thus far escaped accountability, face charges of ‘cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes.’

Suleiman Abdullah Salim, who survived the CIA's brutal torture regime, was released after five years of being held without charge. (Photo via ACLU)

Suleiman Abdullah Salim, who survived the CIA’s brutal torture regime, was released after five years of being held without charge. (Photo via ACLU)

by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams

The two psychologists credited with creating the brutal, post-9/11 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture regime are being sued by three victims of their program on charges that include “human experimentation” and “war crimes.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday filed the suit against CIA contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, on behalf of torture survivors Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, who died of hypothermia in his cell as result of the torture he endured.

The suit, which is the first to rely on the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, charges Mitchell and Jessen under the Alien Tort Statute for “their commission of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes,” all of which violate international law.

The pair, both former U.S. military psychologists, earned more than $80 million for “designing, implementing, and personally administering” the program, which employed “a pseudo-scientific theory of countering resistance that justified the use of torture,” that was based on studies in which researchers “taught dogs ‘helplessness’ by subjecting them to uncontrollable pain,” according to the suit.

“These psychologists devised and supervised an experiment to degrade human beings and break their bodies and minds,” said Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “It was cruel and unethical, and it violated a prohibition against human experimentation that has been in place since World War II.”

In a lengthy report, the ACLU describes each plaintiff’s journey.

After being abducted by CIA and Kenyan agents in Somalia, Suleiman Abdullah, a newly wed fisherman from Tanzania, was subjected to “an incessant barrage of torture techniques,” including being forced to listen to pounding music, doused with ice-cold water, beaten, hung from a metal rod, chained into stress positions “for days at a time,” starved, and sleep deprived. This went on for over a month, and was continually interspersed with “terrifying interrogation sessions in which he was grilled about what he was doing in Somalia and the names of people, all but one of whom he’d never heard of.”

Held for over five years without charge and moved numerous times, Abdullah was eventually sent home to Zanzibar “‘with a document confirming he posed no threat to the United States.” He continues to suffer from flashbacks, physical pain, and has “become a shell of himself.”

Mohamed Ben Soud was captured in April 2003 during a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid on his home in Pakistan, where he and his wife moved after fleeing the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Ben Soud said that Mitchell even “supervised the proceedings” at one of his water torture sessions.

Describing Ben Soud’s ordeal, the ACLU writes:

The course of Mohamed’s torture adhered closely to the “procedures” the CIA laid out in a 2004 memo to the Justice Department. Even before arriving at COBALT, [a CIA prison in Afghanistan] Mohamed was subjected to “conditioning” procedures designed to cause terror and vulnerability. He was rendered to COBALT hooded, handcuffed, and shackled. When he arrived, an American woman told him he was a prisoner of the CIA, that human rights ended on September 11, and that no laws applied in the prison.

Quickly, his torture escalated. For much of the next year, CIA personnel kept Mohamed naked and chained to the wall in one of three painful stress positions designed to keep him awake. He was held in complete isolation in a dungeon-like cell, starved, with no bed, blanket, or light. A bucket served as his toilet. Ear-splitting music pounded constantly. The stench was unbearable. He was kept naked for weeks. He wasn’t permitted to wash for five months.

According to the report, the torture regime designed and implemented by Mitchell and Jessen “ensnared at least 119 men, and killed at least one—a man named Gul Rahman who died in November 2002 of hypothermia after being tortured and left half naked, chained to the wall of a freezing-cold cell.”

Gul’s family has never been formally notified of his death, nor has his body been returned to them for a dignified burial, the ACLU states. Further, no one has been held accountable for his murder. But the report notes, “An unnamed CIA officer who was trained by Jessen and who tortured Rahman up until the day before he was found dead, however, later received a $2,500 bonus for ‘consistently superior work.'”

The ACLU charges that the theories devised by Mitchell and Jessen and employed by the CIA, “had never been scientifically tested because such trials would violate human experimentation bans established after Nazi experiments and atrocities during World War II.” Yet, they were the basis of “some of the worst systematic brutality ever inflicted on detainees in modern American history.”

Despite last year’s release of the Senate Torture Report, the government has prosecuted only a handful of low-level soldiers and one CIA contractor for prisoner abuse. Meanwhile, the architects of the CIA’s torture program, which include Mitchell and Jessen, have escaped any form of accountability.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a statement saying they welcomed the federal lawsuit as “a landmark step toward accountability,” and urged the U.S. Department to follow suit and criminally “investigate and prosecute all those responsible for torture, including health professionals.”

In the wake of the Senate report, the group strongly criticized Mitchell and Jessen for betraying “the most fundamental duty of the healing professions.”

In Tuesday’s statement, Donna McKay, PHR’s executive director, said: “Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to ‘do no harm,’ but Mitchell and Jessen’s actions rank among the worst medical crimes in U.S. history.”

US anti-Islam rallies ‘fizzle’ nationwide

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Interfaith support quashes anti-Muslim rallies

A grand total of zero anti-Muslim activists attended today's rally in Huntsville, Alabama #HateUnchecked

A grand total of zero anti-Muslim activists attended today’s rally in Huntsville, Alabama #HateUnchecked

by Common Dreams

A series of planned anti-Islam rallies targeting more than 20 U.S. cities Saturday fizzled out despite extensive social media promotion; morphing instead into a welcomed show of support and tolerance.

In Armarillo, Texas, police department Cpl. Cody Lavery told the Amarillo Globe News “All of these people are supporters of the center. Everything’s been very peaceful so far, and the protestors haven’t shown up yet.” At the Khursheed Unissa Memorial Community Center in Amarillo,  more than 100 people opposing the anti-Islam rally came out in an impromptu show of support.

In Dearborn, Michigan, the media and police reportedly out-numbered all protesters at the anti-Islam rally. As media reports began to preview the protest, Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly told citizens Friday to go about their business and ignore the visitors, who billed their event a Global Rally For Humanity. Counter-protesters and others saw it as an unwarranted attack on an entire religious group holding up signs that read, “No to Anti-Islam Bigots” and “Unity Yes! Racism No!” while chanting “Stop Terrorizing Muslims at Home and America!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, racist fascists got to go!” Fewer than 10 anti-Islam protestors reportedly showed up, four carrying weapons.

The protests were billed as “open carry” events and participants were encouraged to come armed with guns.

The United Church of Christ (UCC) also issued a call on Friday for local congregations to show support and solidarity with Muslims across the country over the weekend.

“I want to say as clearly as I can, and in no uncertain terms, that the United Church of Christ stands in full solidarity with people of the Muslim faith,” wrote UCC president Rev. John C. Dorhauer.

“Their contribution to religion, to peace, to humanity, and to the goodness of all is to be celebrated. The United Church of Christ deplores the narrow-mindedness that fails to see this and seeks instead to engender fear, hatred, and anxiety.”

Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said Sunday that the anti-Islam hate rallies planned at mosques nationwide on Saturday “fizzled” and that interfaith partners turned out at a number of mosques to show their support for the Muslim community. CAIR noted that one hate rally in Phoenix included apparent neo-Nazis wearing swastika symbols. “We are pleased that what was planned as a campaign of hate and marginalization turned instead into a show of support for the American Muslim community and for religious inclusion,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.   CAIR listed a number of images and media reports contrasting non-existent or poor turnout for the hate rallies with enthusiastic support for Muslims by interfaith partners: CAIR Photo: 25 People of Other Faiths Turn Out at Maryland Mosque to Show Support Against Haters CAIR-OK Photo: Interfaith Partners Show Support for Muslims in Oklahoma CAIR-OK: Islam Haters ‘Few and Far Between’ in Oklahoma Photo: Lone, Possibly Illiterate Anti-Islam Protester in Oklahoma City Video: Sad and Lonely Hater Outside Plano, Texas, Mosque at Jummah TX: Anti-Islam Protester Outnumbered 100 to 1 TX: People Show Support for Local Mosque After Concerns Over Rumored Anti-Islam Rally TX: Handful of Islamophobes Show Up at Richardson Mosque – Given Water by Congregation AL: Planned Protest Outside Huntsville Islamic Center Falls Flat TN: Supporters Outnumber Protesters at Mosque WA: Interfaith Celebration Counter Anti-Islam Protests CAIR-WA: No Anti-Islam Protesters, But Interfaith partners Show Support for Muslim Community WA: Other Faiths Stand with Spokane Muslims WA: Friends of Muslim community in Kitsap County Gather MI: Rally Against Islam Outnumbered by Counter Protesters Oregon Anti-Muslim Rally “Re-Branded” as Pro-Police MA: Mayor Walsh Stands with Hub’s Muslims Video: CAIR-SFBA Director Zahra Billoo Says Anti-Islam Hate Rallies Will Expose Islamophobia

Oregon shooter had 13 guns and was student at Umpqua

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Six guns found at scene and seven at home of Chris Harper Mercer, who was enrolled at college where shooting took place.

Oregon's top federal prosecutor said Mercer used a handgun when he opened fire on classmates [EPA]

Oregon’s top federal prosecutor said Mercer used a handgun when he opened fire on classmates [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

The gunman behind the latest mass shooting in the US had hoarded an arsenal of weapons and was enrolled in the class where the fatal shootings occurred, authorities have said.

The names of the nine people, five women and four men, aged between 18 and 67, who died on Thursday’s shooting at Umpqua Community College were released on Friday.

Though officials have yet to formally name him, the gunman, who died in a shoot-out with police, has been widely identified as Chris Harper Mercer, 26.

Officials said they had recovered 13 weapons belonging to him, including six at the school and seven at the apartment he shared with his mother.

A flak jacket and five rounds of ammunition were also recovered at the school after the shooting.

US media said Mercer left behind a typed statement several pages long in which he indicated he felt lonely and was inspired by previous mass killings.

Seven other people were wounded in the attack in Roseburg, about 180 miles south of Portland.

Mercer’s weapons had been purchased legally over the past three years, some by him, others by relatives, said Celinez Nunez, assistant field agent for the Seattle division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Oregon’s top federal prosecutor said Mercer used a handgun when he opened fire on classmates and stashed a rifle in another room but did not fire it.

Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said on Friday that Mercer was enrolled in the class where the fatal shootings occurred.

Rita Cavin, interim president of the school, told CNN that Mercer was enrolled in English and theatre classes and that he initially opened fire in an English class.

Special school

The army revealed that Mercer had failed basic training in 2008.

Army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Ben Garrett said Mercer was in the military for a little over a month at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, but was discharged for failing to meet the minimum standards.

Garrett did not say which standards Mercer failed.

Generally, the army requires recruits to pass physical fitness tests and to be in overall good physical and mental health.

Recruits must also pass a multiple-choice test covering science, mathematics, reading comprehension and other topics.

Mercer graduated from the Switzer Learning Center in Torrance, California in 2009, according to a graduation listing in the Daily Breeze newspaper.

Switzer is a private, nonprofit school geared for special education students with a range of issues from learning disabilities, health problems and autism or Asperger Syndrome, according to the school’s website.

In Washington, President Barack Obama lamented the government’s inability to pass stricter gun laws even after attacks like the one in Oregon.

At a news conference at the White House on Friday, Obama said he planned to keep talking about the issue and “will politicise it” because inaction is itself a political decision the US is making.

He said it was impossible to identify mentally ill people likely to perpetrate mass shootings ahead of time.

The only thing the US can do, he explained, is ensure they do not have an arsenal available “when something in them snaps”.

Nine dead in shooting at college in US state of Oregon

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Nine people killed at a college in Roseburg by 26-year-old gunman who was later killed in a shootout with police.

Chris Harper Mercer

by Al Jazeera

A gunman went on a shooting rampage at a college in the US state of Oregon, killing nine people and wounding seven before he died in a shootout with police.

Authorities initially said more had died in Thursday’s shooting but the Sheriff’s department corrected this.

A visibly angry President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea for gun control in the wake of the shooting, blasting Congress for its failure to act in the face of “routine” mass killings.

The shooter – identified by US media as Chris Harper Mercer, 26 – opened fire in a classroom at Umpqua Community College in rural Roseburg, and moved to other rooms methodically gunning down his victims, witnesses said.

Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said nine people were killed and seven were injured, several critically. He said the victims’ identities would not be released for at least 24 hours.

Witnesses quoted in US media described scenes of terror and panic as the tragedy unfolded. One man whose daughter was wounded told CNN that the gunman ordered students to stand up if they were Christian and then shot them.

“They would stand up and he said ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second’,” Stacy Boylan told CNN, relaying his daughter Ana’s account.

He said his daughter played dead when the gunman ordered her to stand up as she lay on the floor.

Student Cassandra Welding was in a classroom when she heard 35 to 40 shots coming from an adjacent room.

She saw a fellow student be shot after opening the classroom door to check what was happening.

“Then we locked the doors, turned off the lights and … we were all pretty much in panic mode and called 911 (emergency services) and our parents and (said) ‘I love yous’ because we didn’t know what would happen, if those were our last words.”

‘We have become numb’

Voicing both anger and sadness at the latest mass shooting at a US school, Obama threw down the gauntlet to politicians and voters on the thorny issue of gun control.

“Somehow this has become routine,” said the president. “We’ve become numb to this.”

“We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shooting every few months,” he added.

“It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.”

Hanlin said police were alerted to the shooting shortly after 10:30am and rushed to the site where two officers exchanged fire with the gunman who was later confirmed dead.

Authorities said investigators were examining social media postings thought to belong to the shooter. Several reports said he may have shared his intentions online beforehand.

Other reports said police recovered three handguns and an assault rifle at the scene along with a cell phone that presumably belonged to the shooter who wore a bullet proof vest.

Hanlin confirmed that authorities had identified the gunman, but declined to release his name.

“You will never hear me mention his name,” Hanlin said. “I will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act.”

A candlelit vigil was held late Thursday for the victims in Roseburg, a close-knit logging community with many locals among the 3,300 students at the college.

‘We all froze’

Brady Winder, another student at Umpqua, said he was in class when suddenly he heard a loud pop coming from an adjoining classroom.

He said his teacher called out through the door to see if everything was OK and then further shots rang out.

“We all kind of froze and bolted out the door,” Winder said. “I didn’t really have any time to think. It was fight or flight.”

Police searched the entire campus after the shooting aided by sniffer dogs and patted down students and staff as they left and boarded buses that transported them to local fairgrounds.

“Most of us have relatives taking classes here,” said Douglas County fire Marshall Ray Shoufler. “Pretty much everybody knows everybody type scenario.

“So something like this affects many, many, many people.”

School shootings are a disturbing reality of American life and many facilities have reinforced security in recent years, especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012.

Twenty students and six adults were killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

On Wednesday, a student who got into an argument with the principal at a high school in South Dakota pulled a gun and shot the school official in the arm before he was tackled and subdued by staff.

There have been 142 school shootings in the United States since the Sandy Hook massacre, according to data compiled by Mass Shooting Tracker.

Trump: I would send Syrian refugees home

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Republican Donald Trump vows to send home all Syrian refugee if he is elected, saying they could be ISIL members.

Trump questioned why Syrians were fleeing their country instead of staying and fighting [Reuters]

Trump questioned why Syrians were fleeing their country instead of staying and fighting [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has said he would send back Syrian refugees taken in by the US if he is elected president.

Trump said during a rally in New Hampshire on Wednesday that he was worried the refugees could be disguised members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

“I am putting the people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, if I win, they are going back, they are going back, I am telling you, they are going back,” Trump said.

His remarks came the same day Russian warplanes began air raids in Syria’s centre and north – their first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.

“Look, if Russia wants to go in there, [it] would have been nice if we went in as a unified front, to be honest. But if Russia wants to go in there and knock out ISIS (ISIL) and maybe stabilise, this big migration with 200,000 people into the United States…” Trump later reiterated to CNN.

“If I win, I’m going to say it right now and I’ll say it to you, those 200,000 people – they have to know this and the world will hear it – are going back.

“We’re not going to accept 200,000 people that may be ISIS. We have no idea who they are. And I’m telling you now, they may come in through the weakness of (President Barack) Obama,” but would return to their homeland if Trump makes it to the White House, he said.

Millions of Syrians have been fleeing a civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people since March 2011.

But Trump questioned why Syrians were fleeing their country instead of staying and fighting.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced earlier this month that the US would significantly increase the number of refugees it takes in over the next two years.

So far this year it has taken in about 1,500 Syrian refugees.

Kerry said the US will increase the number of refugees it takes in by 15,000 over each of the next two years, bringing the total to 100,000 in 2017.

The US will accept 85,000 refugees from around the world next year, up from 70,000, he said. Many of them will be Syrians.

Fourteen years after US invasion, Taliban offensive claims major city

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Afghan government pledges to retake Kunduz one day after coordinated assault by Taliban

A Taliban fighter sitting on a motorcycle in Kunduz on Tuesday. (Photo: Uncredited/AP)

A Taliban fighter sitting on a motorcycle in Kunduz on Tuesday. (Photo: Uncredited/AP)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

The U.S. military launched airstrikes against targets in Kunduz, Afghanistan on Tuesday, just a day after Taliban fighters caught the U.S. Army, the Afghan National Security Forces, and local security forces off guard by staging a massive military offensive to capture the key northern city.

According to the ToloNews, a privately-run Afghan 24/7 news agency, local reports from the city “indicate that there are civilian casualties because of Afghan and foreign troops airstrikes.” On Monday, a Doctors Without Borders team working in a Kunduz hospital reported numerous casualties from the initial Taliban offensive.

The Guardian reports:

Kunduz is the first provincial capital in 14 years to effectively fall to the Taliban, and is possibly the militants’ biggest victory since they were ousted from power in 2001.

By Tuesday morning, roads were blocked and some government buildings set on fire, several residents told the Associated Press.

“From this morning, the Taliban have been setting up checkpoints in and around the city, looking for the government employees,” one resident said. “Yesterday it was possible for people to get out of the city, but today it is too late because all roads are under the Taliban control.”

On Tuesday morning the Afghan Ministry of Defense confirmed that the Army, along with other security personnel, had commenced a ground-level counter-offensive just after 8 am local time. Speaking from Kabul, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani later gave a televised address in which he vowed to retake the city. Ghani claimed the “enemy has sustained heavy casualties” and said government forces were “retaking government buildings … and that reinforcements, including special forces and commandos are either there or on their way there.”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

According to Jason Ditz, writing at Anti-War.com, “The loss of Kunduz is a huge blow to the Afghan government, because it had never really been under control of the Taliban even when the Taliban were in power. Kunduz was the center of the Northern Alliance rebellion against the Taliban, which eventually took over the key government positions during the U.S. occupation, and holds them to this day.”

And Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal, argues that the fall of the city speaks to a more robust failure of the Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan, which has allowed the war to drag on—”token” draw downs aside—with nearly no progress towards a negotiated settlement, despite nearly 14 years of continuous fighting.

“The fall of Kunduz,” wrote Roggio on Monday, “would invalidate the entire U.S. ‘surge’ strategy from 2009 to 2012. The U.S. military focused its efforts on the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, claiming that these provinces were the key to breaking the Taliban. Little attention was given to other areas of Afghanistan, including the northern provinces, where the Taliban have expended considerable effort in fighting the military and government. Today, the Taliban are gaining ground in northern, central, eastern and southern Afghanistan, with dozens of districts falling under Taliban control over the past year.”

Regarding additional updates on the fighting on Tuesday, Al Jazeera correspondent Qais Azimy, reporting from Baghlan, just south of Kunduz, said government troops attempted to reenter the city but were turned back due to intense fighting.

The fall of Kunduz, reported Azimy, “sends a message to the international community and Kabul, that the Taliban fighters are now capable of taking control of a provincial capital after 14 years.”

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