Biden admits Saudis funded ISIS. Saudis a cash machine for terrorists -
Hillary (Wikileaks)
Newsletter published on 8 October 2014
(1) Biden admits that Saudis, Turkey & UAE
funded ISIS; says US could
not stop them
(2) Biden transcript: "our
biggest problem is our allies"
(3) US reversal: it is now helping Assad to
survive
(4) Turkey's Erdogan demands apology from Biden over Syria
comments
(5) Biden Apologizes to Turkey President in Phone Call
(6) Saudi
Arabia a cash machine for terrorists - Hillary Clinton, in
WikiLeaks cables
(2010)
(7) US embassy cables: Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists raise funds in Saudi
Arabia
(8) Qatar and Saudi Arabia 'have ignited time bomb by funding
global
spread of radical Islam'
(9) Syrian Town freed after 291 Days of
‘Islamic Justice’ - Franklin Lamb
(10) Shiites regain power in Yemen; Saudis
fear Iranian influence
(11) The Clash Within Civilisations: How The
Sunni-Shiite Divide Cleaves
The Middle East
(12) Pakistani Taliban praise
ISIS, but remain loyal to Afghan Taliban
leader
(1) Biden admits that
Saudis, Turkey & UAE funded ISIS; says US could
not stop them
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/06/pers-o06.html
Biden’s
admission: US allies armed ISIS
6 October 2014
Speaking to
students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy Forum Thursday, US
Vice President
Joseph Biden committed what the US media characterizes as
a “gaffe.” In
other words, he told an embarrassing truth about US
government policy, one
that is usually obfuscated in the remarks of
government officials and the
commentaries of media pundits.
Asked about US policy in Syria, Biden
touched on the dirty secret of the
current US-led war against the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria. ISIS (or
ISIL as the Obama administration terms it)
is essentially the creation
of the United States and its allies who fomented
civil war in Syria
against the government of President Bashar
al-Assad.
Referring to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,
Biden
said, “They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have
a
proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions
of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would
fight against Assad—except that the people who were being supplied were
al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from
other parts of the world.”
“Now you think I’m exaggerating,” he
continued, to emphasize his point.
“Take a look! Where did all of this go?”
Biden claimed that the US
opposed arming these al Qaeda-linked groups, which
included ISIS,
adding, “We could not convince our colleagues to stop
supplying them.”
According to Biden’s narrative, only in the summer of
2014 did these
countries realize that ISIS was a threat to them as well as
to Assad,
and shifted, joining in the US campaign of air strikes against
ISIS
targets in Syria. He gave as an example the position of Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggesting that he had admitted the
error of a permissive policy towards the extremists: “President Erdogan
told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many
people through, now we are trying to seal the border.”
It is
testament to the degeneracy of the American political system that
the
circumstances behind ISIS’s rise, alluded to in Biden’s remarks,
have not
been the subject of any investigation. There have been no calls
in Congress
for hearings to examine the origins of an organization whose
actions have
been seized on to proclaim a new war in the Middle East.
As for the
media, it merely serves as a government mouthpiece.
Significantly, no US
media source reported or commented on these
portions of Biden’s remarks at
Harvard. But once the comments were
publicized, first by the Russian-based
RT network, then throughout the
Middle East, Biden hastened to mend fences
with the offended client states.
The US embassy in Ankara released a
statement that Biden had called
Erdogan personally to “clarify recent
comments made at Harvard
University.” According to the embassy, “The Vice
President apologized
for any implication that Turkey or other Allies and
partners in the
region had intentionally supplied or facilitated the growth
of ISIL or
other violent extremists in Syria.”
Whatever the level of
“intentionality” involved, ISIS was the recipient
of the US-supported arms
aid to the Syrian rebels, routed by the CIA
through Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
Turkey and other Mideast client states.
The State Department and CIA were
well aware that the Syrian rebels
included many Islamic militants, including
those linked to al-Qaeda,
because it had previously employed many of these
fighters in the
overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya in
2011.
Originally established as Al Qaeda in Iraq during the eight years
of
warfare that followed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the group only
took the name ISIS in April 2013, long after it had built up significant
strength in Syria as part of the US-backed rebel forces fighting the
Assad regime.
In other words, as Biden admits, ISIS was created by
the methods pursued
by the US government and its allied reactionary regimes,
both the
Islamist government of Erdogan in Turkey and the Gulf monarchies
like
Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Another confirmation of this
relationship came in the form of a
Washington Post report Sunday on the
supposedly contradictory role of
the sheikdom of Qatar, another of the
Persian Gulf despotisms that is a
client state of American imperialism.
Qatar hosts the huge Al-Udeid Air
Base, headquarters for US air operations
in the region and the directing
center of the air war in Syria and
Iraq.
Only 20 miles from the base is the Grand Mosque in the Qatari
capital,
Doha, which “has served as a key outpost for al-Qaeda-linked rebels
fighting the Syrian regime,” the Post noted, including the al-Nusra
Front, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which was formerly part
of ISIS until a split last year.
Despite the presentation in the
Post, there is nothing surprising in
Qatar hosting the US Air Force and
raising money for al-Qaeda militants
in Syria. As long as ISIS gathered
strength in Syria, as part of the
US-backed “rebels” opposed to Assad, it
was encouraged in its ambitions.
It was only when ISIS moved its forces back
across the border from Syria
into Iraq—and in particular threatened oil-rich
regions in northern
Iraq—did the Obama administration move against
it.
The contradictions in US policy persist. Even as it seeks to
forestall
ISIS’s advance, the US is arming and promoting “moderate” forces
within
Syria that are openly allied with al-Nusra and other Islamic
fundamentalist groups. The main target of American imperialism remains
the Syrian government, which is also the reason why Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Turkey and other countries that fostered ISIS and are hostile to the
Assad regime are now supporting the operation.
The “war against
ISIS,” America’s erstwhile ally against the Assad
regime, is only the latest
episode in the intervention of US imperialism
in the Middle East, whose goal
is not freedom, or democracy, or the
struggle against “terrorism,” but the
domination of the oil-rich region
and the preparation of new and even
bloodier wars against Iran and
against the main targets of Washington:
Russia and China.
Patrick Martin
(2) Biden transcript: "our
biggest problem is our allies"
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2014 07:49:09
+0300
From: Debbie Menon <debbiemenon@gmail.com>
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/10/03/510328joe-bidens-latest-foot-in-mouth/
Friday, October 3rd, 2014 | Posted by Sharmine Narwani
Joe Biden’s latest
foot in mouth
Middle East geopolitical analyst, Sharmine Narwani,
examines the
breathtaking admission by US Vice President Joe Biden that
America’s
Sunni coalition partners have funded and armed ISIL & Co. None
of the
major US networks have reported this story yet – that scoop was left
to
Russia Today and Al Manar. Less mentioned are Biden’s comments that
there are no “moderates” among Syria’s opposition fighters. The only
moderates inside that country, he stresses, are “shopkeepers, not
soldiers.”
Biden may be known to often put his foot in his mouth, but
this time he
has done the world a favor, notes Ms. Narwani.
by
Sharmine Narwani
Joe Biden latest foot-in-mouth comments could scuttle
the US’s plans for
Syria.
When Joe Biden gets candid, he really lets
rip. The US vice president,
speaking at the John F. Kennedy Jr Forum at
Harvard University’s
Institute of Politics, on Thursday told his audience –
point blank –
that America’s Sunni allies are responsible for funding and
arming Al
Qaeda-type extremists in Syria.
And he named names: Turkey,
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, specifically.
Others – like Qatar – are
undoubtedly complicit too, but Biden’s
comments were made off-the-cuff
during the question and answer period
following his prepared
statement.
Of course, much of what Biden said has been suspected for
years by Syria
watchers, but to acknowledge this outright during the early
days of
President Barack Obama’s much-vaunted ISIL-busting Coalition –
featuring
these very same Sunni Arab partners – is a jaw-dropping
concession.
But that’s not all. Biden also managed to fundamentally
undermine his
administration’s efforts to train and arm “moderate” Syrian
rebels
today, by claiming there is no “moderate middle (in Syria) because
the
moderate middle are made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers.”
Keep
in mind now that just two weeks ago Congress approved – at the
request of
this White House – $500 million dollars to train and arm
“moderate” Syrian
rebels. Obama’s second-in-command is saying there are
none of those, so who
exactly are US forces teaching to fight with heavy
weapons in Saudi training
camps today?
Let’s go directly to the Q&A session following Biden’s
speech. Here is
an unedited version taken from the audio recording released
on The White
House’s YouTube channel:
Question: In retrospect do
u believe the United States should have
acted earlier in Syria, and if not
why is now the right moment?
Biden: The answer is ‘no’ for 2
reasons. One, the idea of
identifying a moderate middle has been a chase
America has been engaged
in for a long time. We Americans think in every
country in transition
there is a Thomas Jefferson hiding beside some rock –
or a James Madison
beyond one sand dune. The fact of the matter is the
ability to identify
a moderate middle in Syria was – there was no moderate
middle because
the moderate middle are made up of shopkeepers, not soldiers
– they are
made up of people who in fact have ordinary elements of the
middle class
of that country. And what happened was – and history will
record this
because I’m finding that former administration officials, as
soon as
they leave write books which I think is inappropriate, but anyway,
(laughs) no I’m serious – I do think it’s inappropriate at least , you
know, give the guy a chance to get out of office. And what my constant
cry was that our biggest problem is our allies – our allies in the
region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends –
and I have the greatest relationship with Erdogan, which I just spent a
lot of time with – the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing?
They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy
Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of
dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would
fight against Assad except that the people who were being supplied were
Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from
other parts of the world. Now you think I’m exaggerating – take a look.
Where did all of this go? So now what’s happening? All of a sudden
everybody’s awakened because this outfit called ISIL which was Al Qaeda
in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open
space in territory in eastern Syria, work with Al Nusra who we declared
a terrorist group early on and we could not convince our colleagues to
stop supplying them. So what happened? Now all of a sudden – I don’t
want to be too facetious – but they had seen the Lord. Now we have – the
President’s been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni
neighbors, because America can’t once again go into a Muslim nation and
be seen as the aggressor – it has to be led by Sunnis to go and attack a
Sunni organization. So what do we have for the first time?
The audio
clip ends there. While you are taking a moment to readjust
your worldview
and re-categorize the ‘good guys’ and bad guys,’ do also
note the veiled
swipe Biden takes at former US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton whose
recent book criticizes Obama’s Syria decisions
while he is still a sitting
president.
Before you allow Biden to transfer all blame for the
radicalism in Syria
onto the convenient Muslims-du-jour, consider for a
moment the US’s role
in all of this.
We have press reports that the
CIA was a major conduit for the transfer
of weapons from Libya to Syria – a
role, no doubt, facilitated by US
Ambassador Christopher Stevens who was
killed in Benghazi by unknown
extremists.
We are also told that the
US assisted in the logistics of delivering a
Saudi-bankrolled transfer of
Croatian weapons in 2012 to Syrian
‘rebels.’ According to the BBC: “The CIA
is also reported to have been
instrumental in setting up the alleged secret
airlift of weapons from
Croatia. And here is The Telegraph‘s take on
things:
“The shipments were allegedly paid for by Saudi Arabia at
the
bidding of the United States, with assistance on supplying the weapons
organised through Turkey and Jordan, Syria’s neighbors.”
These
weapons were later caught on video in the hands of Ahrar al-Sham,
which
today is a target of US airstrikes inside Syria. The New York
Times goes
further:
“With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey
have
sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in
recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the
uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic
data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of
rebel commanders.”
“From offices at secret locations, American
intelligence officers
have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons,
including a large
procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders
and groups to
determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive,
according to
American officials speaking on the condition of
anonymity.”
Exactly how does that exonerate Americans from delivering
weapons to “Al
Nusra and Al Qaeda?”
Biden’s comments on Thursday were
a bombshell that will be heard across
the globe. They will fundamentally
undermine Obama’s attempts to arm
“moderate rebels” and assemble a coalition
that includes the very same
Sunni Arab states that have helped create
ISIL.
So what did the mainstream US media say about it? Nothing. Zip.
Nada.
No – wait. There were headlines about Biden’s speech – let me be
fair.
But this is what CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox News pulled out of their
collective hats:
CNN: “Joe Biden gets colorful on being a VP – and it
rhymes with
glitch.” This, a reference to Biden’s use of the word “bitch” in
jokingly describing the job of a vice president.
CNN (again): “Joe
Biden explains how Ebola is like ISIS.”
ABC: “This might be the best
thing Joe Biden’s ever said.” Another
reference to the ‘bitch’
comment.
NBC: “Vice President Joe Biden’s Foul-Mouthed Quip on Job Draws
Laughs.”
Bitch, again.
CBS: “Joe Biden’s salty description of being
VP.” Yawn.
Fox: “Biden on being Vice President: It’s a b-itch.” Kill me
now.
Enough said. Washington’s partners in fighting extremism – and
trampling
all over international laws to do it – are the same ones who have
fueled
it. The Vice President of the United States just said so. And
Americans
are snickering over the B-word. Leaders of the free world
indeed.
(3) US reversal: it is now helping Assad to survive
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/09/25/510178coalition-of-the-clueless-in-syria/
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/?p=510178
Thursday,
September 25th, 2014 | Posted by Sharmine Narwani
Coalition of the
Clueless in Syria
by Sharmine Narwani
RT
"[...] heads of
state from Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, the UK and France were
paraded onto the
podium to drum in the urgency of American strikes
against the Islamic State
of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra
and other militant groups
inside Syria. [...]
The global crew of journalists that descends annually
on the UN for this
star-studded political event, enthused over US President
Barak Obama’s
ability to forge a coalition that included five Arab Sunni
states –
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain and the UAE.
Few
mentioned that these partners are a mere fig leaf for Obama,
providing his
Syria campaign with Arab and Muslim legitimacy where he
otherwise would have
none. Not that any of these five monarchies enjoy
‘legitimacy’ in their own
kingdoms – kings and emirs aren’t elected
after all – and two of these
Wahhabi states are directly responsible for
the growth and proliferation of
the Wahhabi-style extremism targeted by
US missiles. [...]
On the
ground in Syria, dead civilians – some of them children killed by
US bombs –
muddied the perfect script. Confused Syrian rebels – many who
had called for
foreign intervention to help crush the government of
Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad – demanded to know how these airstrikes
were meant to help
them.
Sunni Arabs would be radicalized by these strikes, they warned, as
ideologically sympathetic citizens of the Arab coalition states took to
their information channels and swore revenge for airstrikes against ISIL
and al-Nusra.
The Syrian government, for the most part, remained mute
– whether to
save face or because they could ‘smell’ the gains coming.
Contrary to
Washington’s prevailing narrative, privately the story was that
the US
had informed the Assad government of both the timing and targets of
the
attacks in advance.
Residents inspect a damaged site after what
activists say were four air
strikes by forces loyal to Syria’s President
Bashar al-Assad in Douma,
eastern al-Ghouta, near Damascus September 24,
2014 (Reuters / Bassam
Khabieh)
Sources say that the US even provided
‘guarantees’ that no Syrian
military or government interests would be
targeted. A Reuters exclusive
claiming that the US went so far as to provide
assurances to Iran,
suggests this version is closer to the truth. When US
airstrikes against
Syria were on the table a year ago, the various parties
went through a
similar game of footsies. Last September, the Americans
backed off –
allegedly because of communications from their adversaries that
even a
single US missile would trigger a warfront against Israel. This time,
Washington needed to know that scenario was not going to be activated,
and this week they offered the necessary guarantees to ensure it.)say
that the US even provided ‘guarantees’ that no Syrian military or
government interests would be targeted.
Although the Russians and
Iranians have publicly lashed out at the
illegality of US strikes, they do
not seem too worried. Both know – like
the Syrian government – that these
air attacks could be a net gain for
their ‘Axis.’
Firstly, the United
States is now doing some useful heavy-lifting for
Assad, at no real cost to
him. The Syrian armed forces have spent little
time on the ISIL threat
because their focus has traditionally been on
protecting their interests in
Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama – and the
countryside in these areas – as well
as towns and cities around the
Lebanese and Jordanian borders. That changed
when ISIL staged successful
attacks on Mosul and created new geopolitical
urgency for Assad’s allies
– which triggered some major Syrian strikes
against ISIL targets.
But to continue along this path, the Syrians would
have to divert energy
and resources from key battles, and so the American
strikes have
provided a convenient solution for the time
being.
Secondly, the Syrians have spent three years unsuccessfully
pushing
their narrative that the terrorism threat they face internally is
going
to become a regional and global problem. The US campaign is a Godsend
in
this respect – Obama has managed to get the whole world singing from the
same hymn sheet in just two months, including, and this is important,
the three states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – most instrumental in
financing, weaponizing and assisting ISIL and other extremist militias
inside Syria.
Syria, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and a host of
like-minded emerging powers
are pleased about this new laser focus on jihadi
terror and for the
accompanying resource shift to address the
problem.
Thirdly, the US has now been placed in the hot seat and will be
expected
to match words with action. For three years, Washington has
overlooked
and even encouraged illegal and dangerous behaviors from its
regional
Sunni allies – all in service of defeating Assad. With all eyes on
America and expectations that Obama will fail in his War on Terror just
like his predecessors, the US is going to have to pull some impressive
tricks from its sleeves.
Ideally, these would include the shutting
down of key border crossings
(Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon); punishing financiers
of terror and inhibiting
the flow of funds and assistance from Washington’s
regional allies;
cutting off key revenue streams; tightening immigration
policies to stem
the flow of foreign fighters; disrupting communications
networks of
targeted terrorist groups; broader intelligence sharing with all
regional players; and empowering existing armies and allied militias
inside the ‘chaos zone’ to lead and execute ground operations.
Thus
far, there are signs that some of these things are already
happening, with
possibly more to come.
(4) Turkey's Erdogan demands apology from Biden
over Syria comments
http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/10/04/turkeys-erdogan-demands-apology-from-bid?videoId=346457113&videoChannel=1
2:37pm
EDT - 01:48
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reacts angrily after US Vice
President
Joe Biden says Ankara has supported extremist groups, including al
Qaeda. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
Diplomatic tensions between the
U.S. and Turkey over comments made by
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on
Turkey's role in Syria. Biden said
Turkey and other regional countries had
been so determined to topple
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that they had
supported extremist
groups including al Qaeda and al Nusra Front. Now
outrage from Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan. (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) TURKISH
PRESIDENT,
TAYYIP ERDOGAN, SAYING: "If Biden has used such expressions he
will be
history for me. I have never made those remarks. Neither at that
time
when I was the Prime Minister, nor today, we have never provided help
and support to any terrorist organization - I say terrorist organization
- including the Islamist State. Nobody can prove otherwise." In an
address to Harvard University students last week Biden said Erdogan told
him they had made a mistake by letting so many foreign fighters through
the Turkish border to fight Assad's forces. (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish)
TURKISH PRESIDENT, TAYYIP ERDOGAN, SAYING: "It is very inappropriate to
make such accusations against Turkey. I regret it. The last time we met
when I was in the United States, I never said: 'We were wrong, we made a
mistake, you were right.' It never happened. If Mr. Biden has made those
remarks at Harvard he should apologize." Biden's comments are the
strongest yet from a senior U.S. official on Turkey's alleged support
for Islamist groups in Syria's more than three-year-old civil
war.
(5) Biden Apologizes to Turkey President in Phone Call
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkish-president-demands-apology-biden-25961381
ANKARA,
Turkey — Oct 4, 2014, 2:50 PM ET
By SUZAN FRASER Associated
Press
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden apologized Saturday to Turkish
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was angry over comments in which Biden
said
Erdogan had admitted that Turkey had made mistakes by allowing foreign
fighters to cross into Syria.
Erdogan denied ever saying that and
told reporters in Istanbul before
Biden's apology that he "will be history
for me if he has indeed used
such expressions."
Biden spoke with
Erdogan by phone on Saturday, the White House said.
"The vice president
apologized for any implication that Turkey or other
allies and partners in
the region had intentionally supplied or
facilitated the growth of ISIL or
other violent extremists in Syria,"
the White House said, referring to an
acronym for the Islamic State group.
The spat comes as Turkey, a NATO
ally, is expected to define the role it
will play in the U.S.-led coalition
against the Islamic state militants
who have captured a swath of Iraq and
Syria, in some cases right up to
the Turkish border.
Responding to
questions following his speech at the Harvard Kennedy
School on Thursday,
Biden described Erdogan as "an old friend." Biden
added: "He (Erdogan) said:
'You were right. We let too many people
through.' Now they're trying to seal
their border."
Erdogan said: "I have never said to him that we had made a
mistake,
never. If he did say this at Harvard then he has to apologize to
us."
"Foreign fighters have never entered Syria from our country. They
may
come to our country as tourists and cross into Syria, but no one can say
that they cross in with their arms," Erdogan said.
He said Turkey had
prevented 6,000 suspected jihadis from entering the
country and deported
another 1,000.
This week Turkey's parliament approved a motion giving the
government
powers for military operations across the border in Syria and
Iraq and
for foreign troops to use Turkey's territory.
On Friday, the
two men also held a telephone discussion of ways their
two countries "can
work together to degrade and destroy (the Islamic
State group) and restore
security and stability to the region,"
according to the White
House.
At Harvard, Biden said that "our biggest problem is our allies" in
responding to the civil war in Syria.
"The Turks, who are great
friends — I have a great relationship with
Erdogan, whom I spend a lot of
time with — the Saudis, the Emiratis,
etc. What were they doing? They were
so determined to take down (Syrian
President Bashar) Assad and essentially
have a proxy Sunni-Shia war,"
Biden said.
"What did they do? They
poured hundreds of millions of dollars and
thousands of tons of weapons into
anyone who would fight against Assad —
except that the people who were being
supplied were al-Nusra and
al-Qaida and the extremist elements of jihadis
coming from other parts
of the world."
(6) Saudi Arabia a cash
machine for terrorists - Hillary Clinton, in
WikiLeaks cables
(2010)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cables-saudi-terrorist-funding
WikiLeaks
cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists
Hillary
Clinton memo highlights Gulf states' failure to block funding
for groups
like al-Qaida, Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba
Declan Walsh in
Islamabad
* The Guardian, Monday 6 December 2010 02.30 AEST
Saudi
Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for Islamist
militant groups
such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the
Saudi government is
reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to
Hillary
Clinton.
"More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical
financial
support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist
groups,"
says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of
state.
Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf
money
reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Donors in
Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of
funding to Sunni
terrorist groups worldwide," she said.
Three other Arab countries are
listed as sources of militant money:
Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab
Emirates.
The cables highlight an often ignored factor in the Pakistani
and Afghan
conflicts: that the violence is partly bankrolled by rich,
conservative
donors across the Arabian Sea whose governments do little to
stop them.
The problem is particularly acute in Saudi Arabia, where
militants
soliciting funds slip into the country disguised as holy pilgrims,
set
up front companies to launder funds and receive money from
government-sanctioned charities.
One cable details how the Pakistani
militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba,
which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks,
used a Saudi-based front
company to fund its activities in
2005.
Meanwhile officials with the LeT's charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa,
travelled to Saudi Arabia seeking donations for new schools at vastly
inflated costs – then siphoned off the excess money to fund militant
operations.
Militants seeking donations often come during the hajj
pilgrimage – "a
major security loophole since pilgrims often travel with
large amounts
of cash and the Saudis cannot refuse them entry into Saudi
Arabia". Even
a small donation can go far: LeT operates on a budget of just
$5.25m
(£3.25m) a year, according to American estimates.
Saudi
officials are often painted as reluctant partners. Clinton
complained of the
"ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to
treat terrorist funds
emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority".
Washington is
critical of the Saudi refusal to ban three charities
classified as terrorist
entities in the US. "Intelligence suggests that
these groups continue to
send money overseas and, at times, fund
extremism overseas," she
said.
There has been some progress. This year US officials reported that
al-Qaida's fundraising ability had "deteriorated substantially" since a
government crackdown. As a result Bin Laden's group was "in its weakest
state since 9/11" in Saudi Arabia.
Any criticisms are generally
offered in private. The cables show that
when it comes to powerful oil-rich
allies US diplomats save their
concerns for closed-door talks, in stark
contrast to the often pointed
criticism meted out to allies in Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Instead, officials at the Riyadh embassy worry about
protecting Saudi
oilfields from al-Qaida attacks.
The other major
headache for the US in the Gulf region is the United
Arab Emirates. The
Afghan Taliban and their militant partners the
Haqqani network earn
"significant funds" through UAE-based businesses,
according to one report.
The Taliban extort money from the large Pashtun
community in the UAE, which
is home to 1 million Pakistanis and 150,000
Afghans. They also fundraise by
kidnapping Pashtun businessmen based in
Dubai or their
relatives.
"Some Afghan businessmen in the UAE have resorted to
purchasing tickets
on the day of travel to limit the chance of being
kidnapped themselves
upon arrival in either Afghanistan or Pakistan," the
report says.
Last January US intelligence sources said two senior Taliban
fundraisers
had regularly travelled to the UAE, where the Taliban and
Haqqani
networks laundered money through local front companies.
One
report singled out a Kabul-based "Haqqani facilitator", Haji Khalil
Zadran,
as a key figure. But, Clinton complained, it was hard to be
sure: the UAE's
weak financial regulation and porous borders left US
investigators with
"limited information" on the identity of Taliban and
LeT
facilitators.
The lack of border controls was "exploited by Taliban
couriers and
Afghan drug lords camouflaged among traders, businessmen and
migrant
workers", she said.
In an effort to stem the flow of funds
American and UAE officials are
increasingly co-operating to catch the "cash
couriers" – smugglers who
fly giant sums of money into Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
In common with its neighbours Kuwait is described as a
"source of funds
and a key transit point" for al-Qaida and other militant
groups. While
the government has acted against attacks on its own soil, it
is "less
inclined to take action against Kuwait-based financiers and
facilitators
plotting attacks outside of Kuwait".
Kuwait has refused
to ban the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, a
charity the US designated
a terrorist entity in June 2008 for providing
aid to al-Qaida and affiliated
groups, including LeT.
There is little information about militant
fundraising in the fourth
Gulf country singled out, Qatar, other than to say
its "overall level of
CT co-operation with the US is considered the worst in
the region".
The funding quagmire extends to Pakistan itself, where the
US cables
detail sharp criticism of the government's ambivalence towards
funding
of militant groups that enjoy covert military support.
The
cables show how before the Mumbai attacks in 2008, Pakistani and
Chinese
diplomats manoeuvred hard to block UN sanctions against
Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
But in August 2009, nine months after sanctions were
finally imposed, US
diplomats wrote: "We continue to see reporting
indicating that JUD is
still operating in multiple locations in Pakistan and
that the group
continues to openly raise funds". JUD denies it is the
charity wing of LeT.
• This article was amended on 15 December 2010. The
original caption
referred to the Chatrapathi Sivaji station in Mumbai. This
has been
corrected.
(7) US embassy cables: Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists
raise funds in Saudi
Arabia
http://www.theguardian.com/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/220186
US
embassy cables: Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists raise funds in Saudi
Arabia
* theguardian.com, Sunday 5 December 2010 23.00
AEST
Monday, 10 August 2009, 23:56
S E C R E T STATE
083026
SENSITIVE
SIPDIS
RELEASABLE TO PAKISTAN
EO 12958 DECL:
08/07/2019
TAGS EFIN, KTFN, PREL, PTER, UNSC
SUBJECT: UN 1267
(AL-QAIDA/TALIBAN) SANCTIONS: USG
OPPOSITION TO FOCAL POINT DE-LISTING
REQUEST FOR JUD AND HAFIZ SAEED
REF: STATE 65044
Classified By: IO
Assistant Secretary Esther Brimmer for reasons 1.4 (b)
and
(d)
Summary
1. American officials oppose an attempt by Hafiz
Saeed, considered
the effective leader of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, to
escape UN
sanctions. US officials describe how the LeT fundraises in Saudi
and the
Gulf though charitable donations and front companies. Key passage
highlighted in yellow.
2. Read related article
1. (U) This
is an action request. Please see paragraphs
4-6.
----------------------
SUMMARY AND
OBJECTIVES
----------------------
2. (SBU) In May 2009, legal
representatives for 1267-listed entity
Jamaat-ud-Dawah (identified by the UN
1267 Committee as an alias for
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, permanent reference number
QE.L.118.05) and its
leader, Muhammad Saeed (permanent reference number
QI.S.263.08)
petitioned on their clients behalf for delisting via the UN
focal point.
The focal point, which was established in the UN Secretariat
pursuant to
UNSCR 1730 to allow listed individuals/entities (or their
representatives) to petition directly for de-listing, forwarded the
de-listing request on behalf of JUD and Saeed for review to the USG
(designating state) and to the Government of Pakistan (state of
citizenship/residence/incorporation). The USG and GOP have had three
months to review the de-listing petition. We have completed our review
and plan to notify the UN focal point on August 25 of our opposition to
de-listing. Before doing so, we would like to take this opportunity to:
-- share the results of our review of the de-listing petition for JUD
and Muhammad Saeed with Pakistani officials; -- seek GOP views on the
request; -- underscore our ongoing concern over the threat posed by
LeT/JUD and Saeed; -- ask Pakistani officials to update us on actions
taken to impose UN 1267 sanctions on LeT/JUD and
Saeed.
----------
BACKGROUND
----------
3. (S) On
December 10, 2008, the UN 1267 Committee took several actions
related to the
terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayibba (LeT), including its
listing of
Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JUD) as an alias for LeT, as well as the
listing of JUD's
leader, Muhammad Saeed. The Committee in 2005 added LeT
to its Consolidated
List citing its affiliation with al-Qaida. The
addition of the JUD alias, as
well as the listing of Saeed, followed
closely on the heels of the
LeT-perpetrated attacks in Mumbai, India, in
November 2008. Prior to the
attacks, our request to list JUD and Saeed
were placed on hold by China at
the behest of Pakistan. In spite of
Pakistani acquiescence to the listings
in December 2008, we continue to
see reporting indicating that JUD is still
operating in multiple
locations in Pakistan, and that the group continues to
openly raise
funds. It is unclear what, if any, steps the GOP has taken to
freeze
JUD's assets or otherwise implement UN 1267 sanctions, which include
an
asset freeze, travel ban, and arms
embargo.
--------------
ACTION
REQUEST
--------------
4. (SBU) USUN is requested to inform the
focal point on August 25, after
both USUN and Islamabad have had a chance to
inform Pakistani officials
of our views, of our opposition to the de-listing
request on behalf of
JUD and Muhammad Saeed. In its communication to the
focal point, USUN
should refute the assertion in Saeed's and his legal
representatives
claim in the focal point de-listing petition that "there are
no grounds
for placing Saeed and JUD on the Consolidated List and the
material
relied upon is incorrect and baseless" and note that we stand by
the
information included in the statements of case we submitted
(co-sponsored by the UK and France) to the UN 1267 Committee to add JUD
and Saeed to the Consolidated List. USUN should further state that we
have seen no evidence of a change in circumstance warranting de-listing
of JUD or Saeed.
5. (SBU) USUN and Embassy Islamabad should inform
Pakistani officials in
New York and Islamabad, respectively, of our
opposition to the
de-listing petition for JUD and Saeed. Action addressees
may wish to
draw upon the following points:
-- We have reviewed the
de-listing petition from attorneys on behalf of
Jamaat-ud Dawa (JUD) and its
leader Hafiz Saeed and will soon inform the
UN 1267 Committee, via the UN
focal point, of our opposition to de-listing.
-- We first wanted to share
our views with Pakistani officials, and to
seek Pakistan's view on the
de-listing petition.
-- As you are no doubt aware, we are deeply
concerned about the threat
posed by LeT/JUD, and reject Saeed's and his
legal representatives claim
in the focal point de-listing petition that
"there are no grounds for
placing Saeed and JUD on the Consolidated List and
the material relied
upon is incorrect and baseless."
-- In fact, LeT
and JUD stem from the same original organization,
Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad
(MDI). When LeT was declared a terrorist
organization in Pakistan in 2002,
MDI publicly divested itself of LeT at
that time and renamed itself JUD. LeT
transferred most of its assets and
personnel to the newly formed JUD,
ensuring its survival.
-- We believe that LeT uses JUD facilities as a
public front for its
activities and shares offices, phone numbers, personnel
and bank
accounts. LeT's old offices merely changed the name on the
door.
-- JUD's budget, using funds from both witting and unwitting
donors, is
dedicated to social services and/or humanitarian relief but some
is used
to finance LeT operations.
-- We are also aware that LeT and
JUD share many senior leaders,
including Hafiz Saeed, who according to
information available to the
USG, as of 2009 continued to control LeT and
issue guidance to LeT members.
-- We would like here your views on the
status of LeT/JUD and Saeed, and
would particularly appreciate an update on
steps Pakistan has taken or
will take to implement UN 1267 sanctions on
them.
6. (S/REL to Pakistan) Embassy Islamabad is also requested to share
a
non-paper, included below in paragraph 7, prepared by our intelligence
community in February 2009 assessing JUD's links to LeT. This non-paper,
which was previously passed by former S/CT Coordinator Dell Daily to
Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani, provides more
detailed information on our concerns about LeT/JUD and Saeed that
underpin our view that their listing by the UN 1267 Committee was and
remains appropriate.
7. (S/REL to Pakistan) BEGIN TEXT OF
NON-PAPER
(U//FOUO) Assessing Jamaat-ud-Dawa's Links to
Lashkar-e-Tayyiba
SUMMARY
(S//REL) The Community assesses that LT,
a Pakistan-based terrorist
group, uses the JUD name as an alias. JUD is a
religious, educational,
and humanitarian organization that the Community
assesses provides cover
and protection for LT's militant activities in
Pakistan. LT and JUD
share many senior leaders; LT falls under the authority
of JUD leader
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed; and JUD supports and facilitates LT's
violent
activities. - LT and JUD stem from the same original
organization*Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad (MDI)*that was founded around 1986
and for which LT served as its armed, militant wing. MDI was renamed JUD
in December 2001. - LT was declared a terrorist organization in January
2002, and MDI publicly divested itself of the LT at that time. LT
transferred most of its assets and personnel under the newly formed
JUD.
(S//REL) The Community assesses that JUD relies heavily on private
donations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), madrassas, and
businesses spread throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
Some of the money to finance LT operations is obtained by fraudulently
redirecting donations intended for humanitarian work.
(S//REL) JUD
and LT have branch offices with different names and have
adopted a number of
aliases as a denial and deception tactic.
END SUMMARY
(C//REL)
Various Names and Aliases
(S//REL) The Intelligence Community assesses
that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT)
and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) are part of the same
organization, originally
called Markaz-ud-Dawawal-Irshad (MDI), that was
founded by Hafiz
Muhammed Saeed and other faculty at the University of
Engineering and
Technology in Lahore in 1986. MDI was established with
funding from
donors in the Middle East and set up camps to prepare its
personnel to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
MDI reorganized after
the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989,
creating LT as its
paramilitary wing to fight in the Indian-controlled
districts of Jammu and
Kashmir while MDI focused on religious and
humanitarian activity. Saeed led
both MDI and LT during the 1990s.
When the US declared LT a terrorist
organization in December 2001, MDI
reorganized*changing its name to JUD to
draw a distinction between its
charitable and educational work and LT's
militant activities*in an
effort by MDI leaders to shield their fundraising
and other activities
from sanctions. Saeed publicly resigned from LT,
telling the media that
he had assumed the leadership of JUD. In mid-January
2002, LT was banned.
Islamabad "watchlisted" JUD in 2003, but the
government has resisted
pressure to take action against the group,
particularly after JUD,s
popular earthquake relief efforts in 2005 and 2006
in response to the
October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan.
LT has used
JUD facilities as a public front for its activities and,
shared offices,
phone numbers, leaders, and bank accounts. LT members
identified themselves
as JUD when in Pakistan and as LT when in Kashmir.
LT/JUD purportedly
raises funds for the Palestinian people in response
to Israel's attacks on
Gaza. The Community judges that as of January,
JUD also may be operating
under the alias Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool.
LT's political affairs
coordinator Khalid Waleed identified himself in
late December as the chief
organizer for a conference for
Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool, according to
intelligence reporting. - On 6
February, the JUD held a Kashmir Solidarity
Conference at which JUD
renamed itself Tehreek-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir (TAK). At
JUD,s first public
protest since December, supporters used old JUD banners
and chanted JUD
slogans, but rallied under the name TAK to avoid
arrest.
BEGIN TEXT BOX
(U//FOUO) UN Links Jamaat-ud-Dawa to
Terrorism
(S//REL) The United Nations (UN) banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD),
and on 10
December, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Al-Qaida and
Taliban Sanctions Committee (the 1267 Committee) approved the addition
of JUD as a new LT alias for targeted sanctions. This UN designation
required all UN member states to freeze any assets this entity may have
under the member states' jurisdiction, impose a travel ban, and
implement an arms embargo against them as set out in paragraph 1 of UNSC
Resolution 1822 of 2008.
(S//REL) The Community assesses that LT/JUD,
in an attempt to evade
restrictions, has established branch offices with
different names and
adopted a number of aliases. One branch, Idara
Khidmat-e-Khalq, is a
publicly acknowledged charitable arm of JUD and has
its own web page
with photos of hospitals and ambulances. Other aliases
include
Paasbaan-e-Ahle-Hadith, Paasban-e-Kashmir, Al-Mansoorian, and
Al-Nasaryeen. We assess that LT and LT-associated militants will
continue to use aliases in order to circumvent restrictions on their
movement and operations.
END TEXT BOX
(U//FOUO) Financial
Support
(S//REL) The Community assesses that JUD fundraising has relied
heavily
on private donations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
madrassas,
and businesses spread throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and
Europe. Some of JUD's budget, using funds raised both from witting
donors and by fraud, is dedicated to social services or humanitarian
relief projects, while some is used to finance LT operations. - In
December 2005, an official of Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq forwarded JUD
donation receipts to a probable LT front company in Saudi Arabia where
an LT finance official may have been closely associated with the general
manager*possibly acting as a front for moving LT funds, according to
intelligence reporting. - Makki in 2002 frequently visited the Middle
East and viewed it as a main source of funding. To demonstrate results
to donors, JUD would finance the cost of building a new school or
upgrading facilities at a madrassa, but would inflate the cost to siphon
money to LT.
(S//REL) The Community lacks sufficient intelligence to
determine if or
how the November Mumbai attacks have affected donations to
JUD. Some
donors may be dissuaded from supporting JUD if they become aware
that
their funds may be used for additional terrorist attacks, whereas other
donors may support LT's attacks. As public and government scrutiny
increases in the wake of the attacks and subsequent designation of JUD
as an alias of LT by the UN, we assess that JUD will rely more on covert
fundraising efforts.
(U//FOUO) Leadership
(S//REL) The
Community assesses that Saeed is the leader of LT and Lakvi
is LT's
operations commander*and they continue to run the organization
despite being
detained for their role in the November Mumbai attacks. We
also judge that
they have planned, directed, and executed LT attacks
throughout South Asia
and likely have used some funds collected in the
name of JUD's charitable
activities to support multiple LT terrorist
operations, including the
November Mumbai attacks. The Community
assesses that Saeed continues to lead
both organizations. However, the
Community is unable to assess to what
extent senior JUD leaders such as
Saeed are involved in specific terrorist
operations or the level of
detail to which they are knowledgeable about
specific past and pending
attacks. - As of mid-July Lakvi was responsible
for the LT's military
operations budget of PKR 365 million (approximately US
$5.2 million) per
year. He reportedly used the money to purchase all
materials required
for LT operations other than weapons and ammunition,
according to a
source claiming direct and ongoing access to LT
leaders.
END TEXT OF
NON-PAPER
---------------------------------------
REPORTING
DEADLINE AND POINT OF
CONTACT
---------------------------------------
8. (U) Action
addressees should report as soon as possible but no later
than August 19
results of their demarche to Pakistani officials .
9. (U) Questions may
be directed to IO/PSC (Erin Crowe, 202-736-7847).
CLINTON
(8) Qatar
and Saudi Arabia 'have ignited time bomb by funding global
spread of radical
Islam'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11140860/Qatar-and-Saudi-Arabia-have-ignited-time-bomb-by-funding-global-spread-of-radical-Islam.html
General
Jonathan Shaw, Britain's former Assistant Chief of the Defence
Staff, says
Qatar and Saudi Arabia responsible for spread of radical Islam
Gen
Jonathan Shaw is a former commander of British forces in Basra
By David
Blair
10:23PM BST 04 Oct 2014
Qatar and Saudi Arabia have ignited
a "time bomb" by funding the global
spread of radical Islam, according to a
former commander of British
forces in Iraq.
General Jonathan Shaw,
who retired as Assistant Chief of the Defence
Staff in 2012, told The
Telegraph that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were
primarily responsible for the
rise of the extremist Islam that inspires
Isil terrorists.
The two
Gulf states have spent billions of dollars on promoting a
militant and
proselytising interpretation of their faith derived from
Abdul Wahhab, an
eighteenth century scholar, and based on the Salaf, or
the original
followers of the Prophet.
But the rulers of both countries are now more
threatened by their
creation than Britain or America, argued Gen Shaw. The
Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has vowed to topple the Qatari
and Saudi
regimes, viewing both as corrupt outposts of decadence and
sin.
So Qatar and Saudi Arabia have every reason to lead an ideological
struggle against Isil, said Gen Shaw. On its own, he added, the West's
military offensive against the terrorist movement was likely to prove
"futile".
"This is a time bomb that, under the guise of education,
Wahhabi
Salafism is igniting under the world really. And it is funded by
Saudi
and Qatari money and that must stop," said Gen Shaw. "And the question
then is 'does bombing people over there really tackle that?' I don't
think so. I'd far rather see a much stronger handle on the ideological
battle rather than the physical battle."
Gen Shaw, 57, retired from
the Army after a 31-year career that saw him
lead a platoon of paratroopers
in the Battle of Mount Longdon, the
bloodiest clash of the Falklands War,
and oversee Britain's withdrawal
from Basra in southern Iraq. As Assistant
Chief of the Defence Staff, he
specialised in counter-terrorism and security
policy.
All this has made him acutely aware of the limitations of what
force can
achieve. He believes that Isil can only be defeated by political
and
ideological means. Western air strikes in Iraq and Syria will, in his
view, achieve nothing except temporary tactical success.
When it
comes to waging that ideological struggle, Qatar and Saudi
Arabia are
pivotal. "The root problem is that those two countries are
the only two
countries in the world where Wahhabi Salafism is the state
religion – and
Isil is a violent expression of Wahabist Salafism," said
Gen
Shaw.
"The primary threat of Isil is not to us in the West: it's to Saudi
Arabia and also to the other Gulf states."
Both Qatar and Saudi
Arabia are playing small parts in the air campaign
against Isil,
contributing two and four jet fighters respectively. But
Gen Shaw said they
"should be in the forefront" and, above all, leading
an ideological
counter-revolution against Isil.
The British and American air campaign
would not "stop the support of
people in Qatar and Saudi Arabia for this
kind of activity," added Gen
Shaw. "It's missing the point. It might, if it
works, solve the
immediate tactical problem. It's not addressing the
fundamental problem
of Wahhabi Salafism as a culture and a creed, which has
got out of
control and is still the ideological basis of Isil – and which
will
continue to exist even if we stop their advance in Iraq."
Gen
Shaw said the Government's approach towards Isil was fundamentally
mistaken.
"People are still treating this as a military problem, which
is in my view
to misconceive the problem," he added. "My systemic worry
is that we're
repeating the mistakes that we made in Afghanistan and
Iraq: putting the
military far too up front and centre in our response
to the threat without
addressing the fundamental political question and
the causes. The danger is
that yet again we're taking a symptomatic
treatment not a causal
one."
Gen Shaw said that Isil's main focus was on toppling the
established
regimes of the Middle East, not striking Western targets. He
questioned
whether Isil's murder of two British and two American hostages
was
sufficient justification for the campaign.
"Isil made their big
incursion into Iraq in June. The West did nothing,
despite thousands of
people being killed," said Gen Shaw. "What's
changed in the last month?
Beheadings on TV of Westerners. And that has
led us to suddenly change our
policy and suddenly launch air attacks."
He believes that Isil might have
murdered the hostages in order to
provoke a military response from America
and Britain which could then be
portrayed as a Christian assault on Islam.
"What possible advantage is
there to Isil of bringing us into this
campaign?" asked Gen Shaw.
"Answer: to unite the Muslim world against the
Christian world. We
played into their hands. We've done what they wanted us
to do."
However, Gen Shaw's analysis is open to question. Even if they
had the
will, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar may be incapable of
leading
an ideological struggle against Isil. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
is
91 and only sporadically active. His chosen successor, Crown Prince
Salman, is 78 and already believed to be declining into senility. The
kingdom's ossified leadership is likely to be paralysed for the
foreseeable future.
Meanwhile in Qatar, the new Emir, Tamim bin Hamad
al-Thani, is only 34
in a region that respects age. Whether this Harrow and
Sandhurst-educated ruler has the personal authority to lead an
ideological counter-revolution within Islam is doubtful.
Given that
Saudi Arabia and Qatar almost certainly cannot do what Gen
Shaw believes to
be necessary, the West may have no option except to
take military action
against Isil with the aim of reducing, if not
eliminating, the terrorist
threat.
"I just have a horrible feeling that we're making things worse.
We're
entering into this in a way we just don't understand," said Gen Shaw.
"I'm against the principle of us attacking without a clear political
plan."
(9) Syrian Town freed after 291 Days of ‘Islamic Justice’ -
Franklin Lamb
From: "Ken Freeland diogenesquest@gmail.com
[shamireaders]"
<shamireaders@yahoogroups.com>
Date:
Fri, 03 Oct 2014 17:23:23 -0500
Subject: [shamireaders] Fwd: Adra is
Liberated!..............Update from
Syria.
291 Days of ‘Islamic
Justice’
Shell-Shocked Syrian Town Freed after Savage
Massacre
Franklin Lamb
With the Syrian Army at Adra al-Omalia,
northeast of Damascus
In the early hours of Thursday, 9/25/2014, after
five days of fierce
firefights with advancing Syrian troops, approximately
1,000 Jabhat
al-Nusra and Liwa al-Islam (Army of Islam) jihadists quickly
assembled
their hostages from the basements of more than forty buildings in
the
industrial town of Adra al-Omalia.
The town—you could almost
think of it more as a neighborhood—is located
about 12 miles northeast of
Damascus. Those who had been taken hostage,
initially approximately 500
people in all, were in the main government
employees, along with Shia,
Christian, Kurdish, Ismaili, and Druze
residents. As the Syrian Arab Army
closed in last week, the overwhelmed
jihadists marched their captives into
trenches and underground tunnels,
disappearing with them. No one—besides
their abductors—knows exactly how
many of the original 500 people are still
alive, but military sources
believe at least some of the kidnapped families
were moved in the
direction of the town of Douma, which has been the
opposition’s
strategic base since the start of the Syrian crisis in March,
2011.
Douma is also where some of the most important rebel fortifications
are
situated and fighting continues there.
At any rate, last week’s
battle for Adra al-Omalia was a significant
turning point. The town is now
liberated but the story of what took
place here over the past 291 days is
presently emerging, and it is a
horrifying one.
With a pre-massacre
population of over 100,000, Adra housed 600
manufacturing plants and grain
silos. It was a key area. In May of 2013,
Ziad Badour, Director of Adra
Industrial City, told the Syrian Arab News
Agency (SANA), that creative
responses to U.S. unilateral economic
attacks against Syria had given rise
to more than 48,000 job
opportunities in the region. He said Adra had
received workers from
different parts of the country, and had also managed
to absorb internal
refugees—from Douma, Yabroud and Nabek, as well as from
the farms of
Ghouta. With inexpensive yet high-quality housing, the quiet
town, with
its well-maintained streets and sidewalks, became a very
attractive
destination for workers and middle class residents from
Damascus.
Starting on September 21, 2014 government forces advanced upon
the town
in a three-directional pincer operation from the north, west, and
south,
and theoretically should have been able to cut off al-Nusra’s western
escape route to Douma. But the Army admits now that the extent of Adra’s
underground tunnels was previously unknown to them. Some of these
trenches and tunnels appeared to be at least one-half mile in length and
approximately 14 feet deep by 10 feet wide. One trench the army showed
to visitors is connected at the end with a tunnel approximately 3?4 mile
long. It was probably predictable that rebels would attempt an escape to
Douma, still under Islamist control, but no one expected it to happen as
quickly as it did. As we toured the area, some soldiers involved in the
fight, as well as the Army’s public information officer, “Talal,” a
friendly and conscientious Syrian patriot, expressed surprise to this
observer over the unpredicted and fast exist by al-Nusra.
The tunnels
constructed by the group and its disparate gathering of
Islamists from
outside Syria are not quite up to the standards of
Hezbollah’s south Lebanon
and Bekaa tunnels, a half-dozen of which this
observer has visited. Nor,
apparently, are they up to the standards of
the Hamas tunnels which so vexed
and aggrieved the Zionist aggressors
this past summer. Nonetheless, they are
equipped with phone wires,
water, bathrooms and electricity as well as areas
for cooking,
dormitories and IED and bomb-making shops. And in the trenches,
which
are quite large, one finds transport vehicles such as trucks and
minibuses, as well as artillery launchers and 50mm guns mounted on
pick-ups. From inside one of the tunnels, the Army confiscated a large
cache of weapons, ammunition, mobile devices, and chemicals to make
chlorine gas. A Syrian lady friend observed a woman’s bag in the back of
one the trucks, perhaps belonging to one of the hostages who were forced
to leave in hurry or perhaps it belonged to a woman linked to one of the
foreign fighters who tend to acquire a jihadi or slave wife (s) and
family. In any case, scattered diapers suggest some babies were born to
the Islamists during their occupation of Adra as well.
Not all the
tunnels were complete; in fact some were still under
construction, and
inside one of them more than 50 five-gallon buckets
were found. The buckets
were all filled with chipped rock—as if the
jihadists’ tunnel-digging work
had been abruptly interrupted. One
Islamist sympathizer explained to this
observer that al-Nusra and Da’ish
(IS) are the best at building “Iranian
model” tunnels because, unlike
Hezbollah and Hamas Islamists, who Tehran
trains, Syrian Islamists have
to adapt their construction techniques. This
means building tunnels and
trenches very quickly and through solid rock—a
much more difficult
process than simply hollowing out packed sand, the
predominant medium at
certain tunnel locations in Gaza and some part of
Lebanon.
The occupation of Adra al-Omalia lasted nearly ten months,
commencing in
December 11, 2013, when fighters from al-Nusra and the Islamic
Front,
another jihadi group, captured the main employee residential complex,
using an old sewer to outflank government forces. Many apartments in the
area were quickly burned or gutted with grenades or other explosive
devices, the reasoning being that jihadists believed the residents loyal
to the government. What quickly took place was a massacre, and many
eyewitness accounts of the events are now surfacing. Mazhar Ibrahim is a
doctor originally from the Tartus countryside who has lived in Adra for
the past several years and who recalls what happened as the militants
infiltrated into the city last December:
“Since the earlier hours of
that day, I had heard the crackle of gunfire
in front of my house that is in
front of a bakery. Then I realized that
it was fire being exchanged between
the militants and the bakery guards.
I escaped with my wife and my daughter,
Kristin, to a nearby shelter,
where dozens of residents were hiding. Then
the armed men found the
shelter; they started torturing, killing and
investigating, and
demanding to know who supports the regime and who works
with the
government. The militants cut off the hands of the government
workers in
order to prevent the resumption of their work and to behead some
of them
and to torture their bodies in front of the children’s
eyes.”
The doctor also described the horrific scenes that he, with his
family,
saw of decomposed, tortured and beheaded bodies, which were thrown
all
over the streets. His wife said that, “The armed men were non-Syrians.
We lived terrible days, before we could escape with only the clothes
that we wore.”
She added:
“We woke up at dawn with the sound
of bullets… we saw men carrying black
flags of Jaish al-Islam and Jabhat
al-Nusra. Some of them were singing
‘Alawites we have come to cut off your
heads’ song, and this was the
song they first sang at the start of the war
in Idlib.”
Another eyewitness described the grisly events of later that
day:
“The rebels began to attack the government centers, and attacked the
police station—where all the policemen were killed after only a brief
clash because of the large numbers of the attackers. They (the
attackers) then headed to the checkpoint located on the edge of the city
before moving to the clinic, where they slaughtered one from the medical
staff and put his head in the popular market. They then dragged his body
in front of townspeople who gathered to see what was happening. Bakery
workers who resisted their machinery being taken away were roasted in
their own oven. Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic Front fighters went from
house to house with a list of names and none of those taken away then
has been seen since.”
When the Syrian army would try to enter Adra
the Jihadists would throw
women and children from the 20,000 people it
captured off the top floors
in front of the army.
This observer’s
friend, the award winning journalist Patrick Cockburn,
published an account
of the sheer terror experienced by one Adra
family—the Mhala family. The
<http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syria-conflict-an-ordinary-family-a-terrible-war-9117079.html>
story appeared in the UK Independent on February 9, 2014 and also in
Counterpunch. Mr. Nusair Mahla, a government employee, described to
Cockburn the last minutes of the life of his sister, Maysoun Mhala, who
was an engineer who used to help families who were displaced by the
fighting. It was on December 11, 2013 that the family decided to blow
themselves up in their home, including their children Karim and Bishr,
as al-Nusra Islamists broke through the door of their dwelling. Earlier
that day, Nusair was able to telephone his sister Maysoun, who already
at that time could see the militants in the street. “They look so
terrifying, and I am afraid,” she told him. “I was looking out the
window and I saw the terrorists kill one of the NDF [pro-government
National Defense Force militia] with a big knife.” Maysoun went on to
explain to Nusair that she and her husband, Nizar, planned to try and
wedge the door of their apartment shut, but that if this failed and the
jihadis broke in, then the whole family had taken a momentous
resolution: rather than face torture and inevitable death at the hands
of al-Nusra, they would die as a family by detonating grenades. As the
Islamists kicked in the door, the family detonated the explosives,
killing the father and two sons and blowing the leg off Maysoun. The
rebels then dragged Maysoun’s body behind a car around the
neighborhood.
On 9/25/14, the day this observer spent in Adra, Nusair,
the brother of
Maysouon Mhala explained that the four bodies of his family
members were
found in the apartment the day before and had been “buried
decently”.
Stories from Adra residents who survived suggest that the same
people
who helped the Hasan family, also helped al Nusra to get inside their
building. In times of danger some citizens seek to survive via dual and
desperately shifting loyalties.
Cockburn isn’t the only one who has
reported on the Mhala family’s
tragic destruction. Their story was also
alluded to by Syrian Foreign
Minister Walid Muallem, in a speech at the
opening of the Geneva II
Conference on January 22, 2014 in Montreux,
Switzerland:
“Under the name of a ‘revolution,’ we see a father that is
killing
himself and his family so he would save them from strangers entering
his
house. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, and most of you here are fathers of
children. Imagine the feeling of a father when he has to kill his own
family with his own hand to protect them from monsters that take the
form of people and pretend that they are fighting for freedom. This is
what happened in Adra. Adra—I think nobody of you have heard of it.
Strangers came in. They killed and burnt people. You have not heard
anything about it, but probably you have heard about other places where
the same thing happened as happened in Adra, and they have accused the
state and the Syrian Army. However, when no one could believe this lie
any more, they stopped saying anything about it. This is what is being
done by states who are the first attackers on Syria after they put aside
others who were trying to take the leadership of the country through
influence and money, this by using the horrible Wahhabi thought that is
being spread in Syria. From this rostrum I tell you, you know, as I
know, that it will not stop in Syria.”
Visitors arriving in Adra now
see widespread damage to buildings from
the warring parties. Army units will
take the next few weeks to comb the
city and remove explosive devices and
car bombs, often found planted in
parks and squares and at entrances to
buildings.
As this observer was meandering along some streets within the
just-liberated area, he stumbled, almost literally, upon the remains of
a dozen fighters along the side of a destroyed truck. He reported the
shocking discovery to some soldiers, standing on their tanks nearby, who
then called an officer over. The bodies appeared to have been in the
same spot for many months, maybe soldiers lined up and machine gunned.
Their skin was baked dry, leathery, like what one sees in photos of
mummies. Someone had covered them a long time ago with blankets or
sheets that were now caked with thick dust and oil soaked. All wore
military uniforms and a few had rings on their fingers and their hair
appeared baked and brittle–maybe by months in the hot sun, one soldier
speculated.
The site was more than a little numbing, but due to the
priority of Army
engineers in searching for booby traps—and due to the fact
that the
bodies themselves could be booby-trapped—the corpses could not be
removed immediately. Later on that same day, however, as it began
getting dark and I and my friend were preparing to return to Damascus, I
made a point to check the area again, this time relieved to see two
ambulances parked nearby—and that the bodies had finally been
removed.
In taking Adra al-Omalia and expelling the armed militants from
it, the
Syrian Army has made a significant gain. The government now controls
International Highway 5, which connects to Jordan in the south, runs
north up through Damascus to Aleppo and Turkey.
It remains to be seen
how soon the terrorized residents can return to
their homes and begin
rebuilding their lives.
Franklin Lamb is a visiting Professor of
International Law at the
Faculty of Law, Damascus University and volunteers
with the
Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (<http://sssp-lb.com/>sssp-leb.com).
(10)
Shiites regain power in Yemen; Saudis fear Iranian influence
http://gulfbusiness.com/2014/10/saudi-arabia-fears-yemeni-tumult-may-boost-main-foe-iran/
Saudi
Arabia Fears Yemeni Tumult May Boost Its Main Foe Iran
The capture of Yemen's
capital Sanaa by Houthi fighters, who have ties
with Iran, has jolted Saudi
Arabia.
By
Reuters
October 4, 2014
The capture of
Yemen’s capital by rebels with ties to Iran has jolted
Saudi Arabia,
prompting a scramble by Riyadh to prevent its Shi’ite
Muslim rival from
exploiting the takeover to make trouble in the
Kingdom’s
backyard.
The Sunni Muslim country is also concerned that the security
deterioration in its southern neighbour, where the Shi’ite Houthi
fighters seized Sanaa on Sept. 21, does not benefit another old enemy,
al Qaeda.
For the hereditary rulers of Saudi Arabia, the 1,400-km
(870 mile)
border with turbulent, impoverished Yemen which snakes over
remote
mountains and desert, has always been a security
nightmare.
But with their ability to manipulate events south of the
border at the
lowest ebb in decades, the Kingdom’s ruling Al Saud are
scrabbling to
find Yemeni allies who can restore a semblance of order while
remaining
friendly with Riyadh.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud
al-Faisal warned of “accelerating and
extremely dangerous conditions” and
said in New York last week that
Yemen’s violence would “threaten stability
and security on the regional
and international arena”.
Riyadh has
always wielded greater influence in Yemen than other
countries, yet while it
remains a big aid donor, the chaos following the
country’s 2011 uprising has
left it with many potential foes there and
few trusted friends.
For
the Saudis, the risk is not only that Iran could gain a new foothold
across
the border via its ties with the Houthis, but that Al Qaeda in
the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) could take advantage of the unrest to plot
new
attacks.
“The struggle in Yemen is a threat to neighbouring countries and
Saudi
Arabia should worry about this. It could become another Taliban land,”
said Abdullah al-Askar, head of the foreign affairs committee on Saudi
Arabia’s Shoura Council which advises the government on policy.
The
Houthis and other political parties signed a deal last month to form
a more
inclusive government after days of fighting in suburbs of Sanaa,
giving the
rebel movement a new and bigger stake in Yemeni politics.
“It takes a
real government to take action against militants. Sanaa
cannot be left in
the hands of the Houthis and the Iranians. Iran should
be under
international pressure for this. It’s really enough. They
should stop it,”
said Askar.
There are longstanding connections between Iran and the
Houthis, who
have sent leading members to Tehran for training and who have
borrowed
widely from Iranian revolutionary ideology, but the extent of the
relationship is not clear.
Still, what Askar and other Saudis fear is
that the Houthis will follow
the model laid out by Hezbollah in Lebanon,
using popular support among
Shi’ites combined with a hefty military presence
to dominate politics
and project Iranian might.
That would undermine
Saudi Arabia’s position in what has become an
important front of its
region-wide rivalry with Iran, mainly contested
along sectarian lines, by
creating an ally for Tehran in Riyadh’s own
backyard.
The security
threat was underscored in July when an AQAP raiding party
crossed the
frontier to kill several Saudi border guards and detonate a
bomb in a police
building.
REGIONAL COLD WAR
Saudi Arabia has always mistrusted the
Houthis, who emerged early last
decade demanding an end to the
marginalisation of Zaydi Shi’ites, who
make up around a third of Yemenis,
and fought a brief border war with
them from 2009-10.
Although the
Houthi group started as a small-scale protest movement in
one part of north
Yemen, it rapidly gained in strength by tapping Zaydi
grievances and wider
anti-government sentiment and by allying with Tehran.
Zaydi theology is
very different from the Shi’ism practised in Iran and
most other parts of
the Middle East, and the sect historically had good
ties with Yemeni Sunnis.
But one of the Houthis’ main grievances was the
emergence of the hardline
Salafi Sunni strain in Zaydi areas, which they
believe was being encouraged
by Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis’ subsequent fighting with Salafi groups,
along with their
deepening alliance with Iran and adoption of some of its
revolutionary
slogans, has since placed Yemen within a wider sectarian
struggle fought
by proxies of Riyadh and Tehran.
In March, Saudi
Arabia banned the Houthis – along with Hezbollah and
Sunni Islamist and
militant movements including the Muslim Brotherhood,
al Qaeda and Islamic
State – declaring them terrorist organisations.
“What has happened in
Yemen with the Houthis over the past two weeks has
contributed to Riyadh’s
attitude of extreme distrust of Iran,” said a
diplomatic source in the
Gulf.
FRIENDS AND FOES
Riyadh’s efforts to counter growing Houthi
sway have been complicated,
however, by chaos after the ousting of
long-serving president Ali
Abdullah Saleh, the decline of its own allies in
Sanaa and mutual
mistrust with its southern neighbour.
Saudi Arabia
built a patronage network among Yemeni tribes and
politicians under the late
defence minister, Prince Sultan, who
orchestrated Riyadh’s role in Yemen’s
1960s civil war.
The most important of his Yemeni allies, Sheikh Abdullah
al-Ahmar, head
of the Hashid tribal confederation, died in 2007 prompting a
slow
decline in the power of his family among the tribes just as the Houthis
were on the ascendancy.
It left Riyadh without a trusted ally at the
very moment it most needed
to project influence amid the political
transition from Saleh under
interim President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
[...]
(11) The Clash Within Civilisations: How The Sunni-Shiite Divide
Cleaves
The Middle East
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-clash-within-civilisations-how-the-sunni-shiite-divide-cleaves-the-middle-east/349/
By
Stephen Crittenden August 22, 2012
An undeclared war within Islam is at
play in Syria, as popular uprisings
get entangled in old religious disputes
across the region. In the
remaking of the Middle East, it's not just
geopolitical, it's religious.
It is almost 20 years since the late
Professor Samuel Huntington
published his famous Foreign Affairs article,
"The Clash of
Civilizations?", arguing that cultural and religious
differences would
be the major source of conflict in the post-Cold War era.
Forecasting a
looming clash between Islam and the West, and another between
China and
the West, he wrote: "The fault lines between civilizations will be
the
battle lines of the future."
But what about the fault lines that
emerge within civilisations, and
especially within the religious traditions
those civilisations are
founded upon? There is a dangerous 2,000-kilometre
fault line running
through the Middle East between Beirut and Bahrain via
Damascus and
Baghdad, which marks the present line of demarcation between
the two
main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shiite.
Wherever in the
world the missionising influence of Wahhabism is strong,
including Malaysia
and Indonesia, Shiites are vulnerable to persecution.
The 1,300-year-old
schism between Sunnis and Shiites was caused not by a
theological dispute
(those came later), but by rival clans in Muhammad's
tribe, the Quraysh,
squabbling over the succession after his death in
632 AD.
Mostly the
"Sunni-Shia Line" lies dormant, and ordinary Sunnis and
Shiites live out
their separate lives, side-by-side in relative harmony.
In Lebanon and Iraq
it has not been uncommon for Sunnis and Shiites to
intermarry. But the Line
is still always there, just below the surface,
and it has recently
re-emerged as the most significant factor reshaping
geopolitical
relationships in the Middle East, a region where religion
and politics are
always inextricably intertwined.
At present, Syria is the key
battleground on the Sunni-Shia Line; this
began as a popular uprising, but
the international news media was late
to cotton on that there was a
sectarian dimension to the uprising, let
alone to the fact that the civil
war in Syria was connected — at least
in part — to a civil war going on
within Islam itself. Instead,
journalists tended to frame the uprising
solely in terms of the
so-called "Arab Spring", the wave of popular
uprisings across the Middle
East in the past couple of years, which has
swept away corrupt,
authoritarian and often brutal regimes in the hope — as
the slogan
chanted by the demonstrators put it — of Huriyyah, Adalah
Ijtima'iyah,
Karamah (Freedom, Social Justice, Dignity).
But while
that is certainly a big part of what has been going on in
Syria these past
17 months, it's still only a part of the story.
It doesn't explain why
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia — of all people —
supports the opposition
movement in Syria, when in March 2011 he sent
troops across the border into
neighbouring Bahrain to help stamp out a
similar uprising there. Nor does it
explain what possible interest
Al-Qaeda's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, would
have in calling on jihadis
to go to Syria to join the fight. (Whatever else
they are, the King of
Saudi Arabia and Al-Qaeda are no supporters of
Huriyyah, Adalah
Ijtima'iyah or Karamah.)
Nor does it explain why
there has been a rash of high-level Sunni
defectors from the Assad regime in
recent weeks. Or why Syria's
Christians are so nervous about their future if
the Assad regime is
toppled. Or why the opposition movement has largely
failed to attract
significant levels of support from the middle classes in
Damascus and
Aleppo — the very people who swarmed to Cairo's Tahrir
Square.
So why has this tension between Sunnis and Shiites resurfaced in
the
Middle East at this particular moment?
There are several
contributing factors. The first is regional power
rivalry, especially
between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Shiism has been the
state religion of Iran
since the time of the 16th century Safavid
Dynasty. The Iranians therefore
are neither Arab nor Sunni; the Sunni
powers of the Middle East, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey, want to check Iran's
rise as a regional power.
To
that end, Turkey recently agreed to allow NATO to install a missile
early
warning system on Turkish soil (a move that angered the Iranians).
Saudi
Arabia has been vocal in expressing its concerns about the
prospect of Iran
developing a "Shiite" nuclear bomb. Last year, the
Saudi prince Turki
al-Faisal, a former ambassador to the United States,
warned: "We cannot live
in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons
and we don't. It's as simple
as that."
Meanwhile, the Sunni princes who run the oil-rich Gulf states
are also
paranoid about Iran stirring unrest among their Shiite populations.
Shiites make up 65 to 75 per cent of the population in Bahrain, 20 to 25
per cent in Kuwait, about 10 per cent in the United Arab Emirates, and
10 to 15 per cent in Saudi Arabia (see map). In March 2011, Saudi troops
crossed into Bahrain to help put down a popular Shiite uprising, and
since then the government of Bahrain has demolished at least 38 Shiite
mosques.
Recently, the all-Sunni, all-Arab member states of the Gulf
Co-operation
Council (GCC) — Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and
the UAE —
have been moving towards some kind of political, economic and
military
union or federation aimed at countering Iranian influence and
encircling
the Gulf's Shiites in a wider Sunni ocean. King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia
has called on GCC members to consider moving "beyond the stage of
cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity".
This
proposal is due to be discussed at the next GCC meeting in Bahrain
in
December. In response, the Iranian newspaper Kayhan, the publication
of
which is supervised by the office of supreme leader, Ayatollah
Khamenei, has
called for the annexation of Bahrain by Iran.
The second factor
contributing to greater tension between Sunnis and
Shiites is the increasing
global influence of the fundamentalist and
puritanical Wahabbi sect that
dominates religion in Saudi Arabia and of
Sunni jihadist groups including Al
Qaeda. The Wahabbis are virulently
anti-Shiite. For them the Shiites are
rafida, or rejectionists, meaning
they rejected the rule of the Sunni
Caliphate that Islamist groups
including the Muslim Brotherhood hope one day
to restore. Saudi schools
teach that Shiism is a Jewish heresy, and it is
common for Shiites to be
referred to as Iranian "fifth columnists". In
December 2006, senior
Wahhabi cleric Abdul Rahman al-Barrak released a fatwa
which has been
very influential on subsequent Sunni discourse about Shiites:
"The
general ruling is that they are infidels, apostates and hypocrites…
They
are more dangerous than Jews or Christians."
The bottom line is
that wherever in the world the missionising influence
of Wahhabism is
strong, including Malaysia and Indonesia, Shiites are
vulnerable to
persecution. Where the influence of Sunni jihadist
movements is unchecked,
Shiites are vulnerable to violent physical
attacks. Such attacks are
commonplace in Pakistan. In Afghanistan, the
Shiite Hazara minority has
experienced vicious persecution at the hands
of the Taliban.
But what
really triggered the recent upsurge in Sunni-Shiite tension was
the US
invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
In the strange
mental space that is the Arab Middle East, "Shiite" is
regarded as just a
synonym for "Persian", and "Arab" means "Sunni". The
fact that many Arabs
are actually Shiites is difficult to swallow.
According to what they
perceive as the natural order of things, Sunnis
are meant to be on top, even
where Shiite Arabs are in the majority, as
in Iraq (and Bahrain, and Lebanon
where they form the biggest single
minority).
The Americans upset
this delicate status quo when they orchestrated
democratic elections in
Iraq, which effectively became the first modern
Arab state to be ruled by
Shiites.
This was an affront not just to the Sunni minority in Iraq
itself, but
also to Sunnis across the region. In December 2004, King
Abdullah of
Jordan was the first to use the term "Shiite crescent", to
describe this
growing Sunni sense of encirclement.
The Arab Spring
represents an opportunity to overcome the postcolonial
past. Overthrowing
the Assad regime in Syria, and destroying the state
of Israel, are both part
of the same fight.
But then the regional pendulum began to swing the
other way thanks to
the so-called Arab Spring. So far, Sunni Islamism —
especially the
Muslim Brotherhood — has been the biggest beneficiary of the
Arab Spring.
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood appears to have mellowed,
and to be
experimenting with how it might get what it wants by engaging in a
democratic political process. Together with the Salifis (Sunni
fundamentalists), the Brotherhood won a sizeable majority in the recent
parliamentary elections, and the newly elected president of Egypt,
Mohammad Morsi, is a Brotherhood apparatchik.
But it would be naïve
to imagine that the Brotherhood has abandoned its
old program of restoring
the Sunni Caliphate. At least, that's not what
leading clerics associated
with the Brotherhood are telling the crowds
in Cairo.
So what is the
religious dimension of the civil war in Syria?
Actually there are two
separate religious dimensions to the conflict,
one domestic, and the other
regional.
Internally, there is the fact that Syria's ruling Assad family
belongs
to the secretive minority Alawite sect. There are about 2.5 million
Alawites in Syria, or 12 per cent of the population, whereas 74 per cent
of Syrians are Sunni. The thinking goes like this: if the Shiite
majority in Iraq could legitimately rise to power over a Sunni minority
that had been used to dominating Iraq, why shouldn't Syria's Sunni
majority have the same opportunity?
In at least one respect Shiism is
a bit like Protestant Christianity:
throughout its history, unlike the Sunni
branch of Islam, it kept
splintering off into new sects; these included the
Ismailis, the Zaidis
in Yemen, the Alawites in Syria, the Druze in Lebanon
and southern
Syria, and, in the 19th century, the Baha'i.
Alawites
don't pray five times a day like other Muslims, or fast at
Ramadan, or go on
pilgrimages. Their beliefs and practices are highly
syncretic — that is,
they are borrowed from non-Islamic traditions
including Phoenician paganism,
Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism and
Christianity. They celebrate Christmas and
Easter, and have a rite that
resembles the Mass, during which bread and wine
are consecrated to
symbolise the body and blood of the murdered first Shiite
Imam, Ali,
from whom they take their name.[...]
(12) Pakistani
Taliban praise ISIS, but remain loyal to Afghan Taliban
leader
http://tribune.com.pk/story/772040/pakistani-taliban-only-loyal-to-mullah-omar-says-ttp-spokesperson/
Pakistani
Taliban only loyal to Mullah Omar, says TTP spokesperson
Reject-s the
media reports that the group has declared allegiance to IS
By Tahir
Khan
Published: October 6, 2014
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Taliban said
on Sunday that they have declared
allegiance only to Mullah Mohammad Omar,
the Afghan Taliban supremo,
rejecting the media reports that the group has
declared allegiance to
the Islamic State.
“We are loyal to
Ameer-ul-Momineen (Mullah Omar) and question does not
arise to withdraw from
his allegiance,” Shahidullah Shahid, spokesperson
for Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) said.
Clarifying his earlier reported comments about
allegiance to the Islamic
State, Shahid said the TTP had only commended the
group.
“We had only praised the Islamic State and advised them to set
aside
differences and show unity,” the TTP spokesperson told The Express
Tribune in a late Sunday email.
Shahid said the TTP will also issue a
clarification about remarks
attributed to him.
The TTP chief Mullah
Fazaullah on Saturday had praised the Islamic State
and assured its complete
support in his Eid message.
Declaring those who are fighting in Iraq and
Syria as brothers, he said,
“We are proud of their victories and advise them
at this difficult time
to forge unity, especially when the enemy stands
united against them.”
The message was sent to the media in Pashto, Urdu
and Arabic languages
via email. It is the first time the Pakistani Taliban
issued message on
the eve of Eid like the Afghan Taliban, who regularly
issues Eid messages.
Fazalullah urged the Islamic State fighters to fight
against the “world
infidel force with unity and to set aside
differences.”
“A lot of hopes have been attached to the land of Iraq and
Syria. We are
with you at this difficult moment,” the Taliban leader
said.
In his message, Fazlullah had declared that the Pakistani Taliban
does
not recognize the Durand Line, which separates Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
“We want to declare that we do not accept the Durand Line,
which has
divided the Pashtoon Muslims like the Berlin Wall. It has
separated
father from son, brother from brother and relatives,” he
said.
“We do not accept boundaries and international borders. We accept
only
one border and that is the boundary between Darul Islam and Darul
Harb.”
He referred to the rare pace dialogue with the government earlier
this
year and claimed that the government was “responsible for its
failure.”
“The peace talks were failed as the Taliban demanded
enforcement of the
Islamic Sharia; however, the “westernized rulers” were
unwilling to
accept the demand.”
“The rulers were insisting the talks
should be held under the Pakistani
constitution. We were calling for Quran
and Sunnah should be the base
for the talks but they preferred the
constitution.”
He said the Taliban faced military operations but did not
deviate from
its stance, adding the Taliban will not sign any such deal
which is a
contrary to this principle.
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