West Asia News and Discussions (YEMEN, gulf)

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Philip
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Philip »

Fascinating and tragic read.Tom Holland writing in the Spectator.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/929 ... b-of-gods/
The greatest melting pot will soon be gone
The Islamic State and the land of lost gods
From the dawn of civilisation, the Fertile Crescent has been a cradle to strange and fascinating sects. Not any more.
Tom Holland 23 August 2014
As the fighters of the Islamic State drive from village to captured village in their looted humvees, they criss-cross what in ancient times was a veritable womb of gods. For millennia, the Fertile Crescent teemed with a bewildering variety of cults and religions. Back in the 3rd Christian century, a philosopher by the name of Bardaisan was so overwhelmed by the sheer array of beliefs to be found in Mesopotamia that he invoked it to disprove the doctrines of astrology. ‘It is not the stars that make people behave the way do but rather the diversity of their customs.’

Bardaisan himself was a one-man monument to Mesopotamian multiculturalism. A Jewish convert to Christianity, a Platonist fascinated by the wisdom of the Brahmins, an inhabitant of the border zone between the Roman East and the Iranian empire of the Parthians, he stood at the crossroads where antiquity’s most potent traditions met and intermingled. Just how far the process of blending rival faiths could be taken was best illustrated by a man born in Mesopotamia a few years before Bardaisan’s death: a soi-disant prophet called Mani. Brought up within a Christian sect that practised circumcision, held the Holy Spirit to be female, and prayed in the direction of Jerusalem, he fused elements of Christianity with Jewish and Zoroastrian teachings, while also claiming, just for good measure, to be the heir of the Buddha. Although Mani himself would end up executed by a Persian king, his followers were nothing daunted. Cells of Manichaeans were soon to be found from China to Carthage. Syncretic as their religion was, and global in its ambitions, Manichaeism was a classic Mesopotamian export of the age.

Nevertheless, home of the cutting edge though the Fertile Crescent was throughout the first millennium AD, it simultaneously nurtured traditions of a fabulous antiquity. Priests and astrologers had been active in Mesopotamia since the dawn of civilisation, and they still flourished even as the ziggurats which had once dominated ancient capitals such as Nineveh and Babylon crumbled away into dust. In Harran, a city lying on what is now the frontline between Turkey and the Islamic State, the ancient gods were worshipped well into the Christian era. Sin, the ‘Lord of the Moon’, continued to be paraded every year through the streets and then ferried back to his temple on a barge, while eerie figures framed by peacock feathers stood guard over desert lakes. In a Fertile Crescent increasingly dominated by monotheistic autocrats, first Christian and then Muslim, the Harranians clung stubbornly to their worship of the planets. ‘How empty and impoverished the earth would have been without paganism!’ So one devotee of Sin defiantly declared, even as he worked in the caliphal library in Baghdad. ‘Who was it that settled the world and founded cities, after all, if not the pagans?’

Inline sub2

Such bravado, though, in a world governed by the dictates of Islamic imperialism, was given increasingly short shrift. Islam, rather as Manichaeism had done, fused elements drawn from numerous traditions, and granted, in unacknowledged recognition of this, a high-handed tolerance to those religions to which it stood in particular debt. Jews, Christians and a mysterious people named the Sabaeans: all were ranked in the Qur’an as ‘Peoples of the Book’. Devotees of other gods, though, were regarded with a stern disapproval. In the year 830, so it is said, the Caliph al-Mamun visited Harran, and was appalled by what he found. The pagans were told to convert or face death. Most duly became Muslims; but a few, pulling a lawyer’s trick, declared themselves to be none other than the Sabaeans. Only in the 10th century was their final temple destroyed. By the 1120s, when the Spanish traveller ibn Jubayr visited Harran, he could find no trace of the Sabaeans.

To this day, though, across the Fertile Crescent, there remain communities which bear witness to the extraordinary antiquity of its religious traditions. There are the Mandaeans, who hold themselves, as Mani did, to be sparks of a cosmic light, and whose priests, like their Babylonian forebears, are obsessive astrologers. There are the Alawites, who revere Plato as a prophet, believe in reincarnation, and pray towards the sun. There are the Yezidis, whose home of Sinjar still preserves in its name an echo of the ancient Harranian moon god. Like the Harranians, they reverence the planets; and like the Harranians, they hold a special place in their hearts for the peacock. Melek Taus, the angel whom they believe to be God’s lieutenant here in the material world, wears the form of the bird; and back at the beginning of time, when the earth was nothing but pearl, he laid his feathers over it, and gave colour to its forests and mountains and seas.

Various strategies were adopted by these communities to survive the disapproval of their Muslim overlords. All of them kept the precise details of their faiths a secret; and all of them, when faced by bouts of persecution, would retreat to remote and inaccessible fastnesses, whether in marshes or on mountain tops. The Mandaeans, copy-ing the strategy of the Harranians, were able to market themselves as Sabaeans; the Alawites, some of whom believe Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, to have been the reincarnation of St Peter, took on a patina of Shi’ism. Even the Yazidis, who proudly keep a list of the 72 persecutions they have survived over the course of the centuries, were sometimes willing, when particularly hard-pressed, to accept a nominal baptism from an amenable bishop.

It is hard to believe, though, that they will survive the 73rd persecution. Their prospects, and those of all the religious minorities of the Fertile Crescent, look grim. Mandaeans, exposed to murder and forced conversions in the wake of Saddam’s overthrow, are now almost extinct in Iraq. The future of the Alawites is bound inseparably to that of their co-religionist, the blood-stained president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. As for the Yezidis, targeted as they are for extermination by the slave-taking, atrocity-vaunting murderers of the Islamic State, how can they possibly survive in their ancient homeland? Meanwhile, with Iraqi and Syrian Jews now only to be found in Israel, and Christians emigrating from the region in increasing numbers, even the Peoples of the Book are vanishing from the Fertile Crescent.

The risk is that all traces of what once, back in antiquity, made the area the most remarkable melting pot in history will soon have been erased. In cultural terms, it is as though a rainforest is being levelled to provide for cattle-ranching. Not just a crime against humanity, it is a crime against civilisation.

Tom Holland is the author of a history of early Islam, In the Shadow of the Sword, and recently translated Herodotus’ Histories for Penguin.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Samudragupta »

ISIS is fundamentally an Iranian headache...no need for India to jump into the jargon...and a positive from Indian POV as it keeps Iran busy in the Western border leaving India to deal with the Hindukush with one less competitor
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by ramana »

Iran Didn’t Create ISIS; We Did


Instead of shifting blame for ISIS’s rise, the West and its allies should look in the mirror.


By Ben Reynolds

August 31, 2014


The Baroness Turner of Camden recently argued in The Diplomat that Iran is the “major driving force” in Iraq’s civil war, and furthermore, that Iran is “central to the broader conflict that has seemingly put the entire Middle East beyond hope of stability.” The Baroness’ article is right about one thing: the Iranian regime brutally suppresses dissidents. But it is not the main party responsible for Iraq’s civil war, or for the broader conflict in the Levant. It may be convenient for dissidents and opponents of the current Iranian regime to blame Iran for the rise of ISIS, but history tells a different story.

The U.S., Western Europe, and their regional allies in fact bear most of the responsibility for the rise of extremist groups like ISIS. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which Britain notably supported, was a strategic disaster. Contrary to speculation at the time, Saddam Hussein’s secular Ba’athist regime prevented Al Qaeda from operating out of Iraq. Iraq had also been supported by the West before the 1991 Gulf War as a counterbalance against the revolutionary Islamic Republic during the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S.-led invasion changed all of that.

The Iraq War toppled Saddam, destabilized the country, and led to a wave of sectarian bloodshed. It also made Iraq a safe haven and recruiting ground for Al Qaeda affiliates. Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS’s forerunner, was founded in April 2004. AQI conducted brutal attacks on Shia civilians and mosques in hopes of sparking a broader sectarian conflict. Iran naturally supported Shia militias, who fought extremists like AQI, both to expand its influence in Iraq and protect its Shia comrades. Iran cultivated ties with the Maliki government as well. Over the long term, Iran tried to seize the opportunity to turn Iraq from a strategic counterweight into a strategic ally. The U.S. didn’t do much to stop it.

When the U.S. helped to establish Iraq’s government, it consistently supported Maliki, even going so far as to assist in Maliki’s persecution of dissidents and civil society activists. The U.S. was probably more instrumental than Iran in cementing Maliki’s power in Iraq. Maliki alienated Sunnis in Iraq by cracking down on his opponents and pursuing discriminatory policies in government and the armed forces. When Maliki’s troops stormed Sunni protest camps in 2013, they were armed with U.S.-made weapons. By the time the U.S. and Western Europe finally decided Maliki was enough of a liability to push out of government, fertile ground already existed for an ISIS-led Sunni insurgency in Western Iraq.

The Syrian story is even more important. In 2011 the Assad regime violently suppressed peaceful pro-democracy protests. This civil society movement rapidly transformed into an armed uprising against the Syrian government. Why? In the early stages of the war, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey began funneling arms to opposition forces, seeing an opportunity to destabilize a key ally of Iran and Hezbollah, their geopolitical foes. As the civil war deepened, extremist groups joined the fight against what they saw as an odious secular regime. They also became the beneficiaries of large amounts of arms and funding from America’s regional allies.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey knowingly funded extremist groups including Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra quickly became one of the most effective and influential rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have been fighting over doctrinal and practical matters for months, but some al-Nusra elements have also merged into ISIS. The extent of Saudi support for ISIS is uncertain and hotly debated, but many analysts agree that there has been a substantial bleed of funding and weapons between rebel groups.

The U.S.’s own involvement in the Syrian conflict is telling. Early in the civil war, the Obama administration expressed its conviction that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had to go. Given U.S. antagonism toward Iran and its allies, this statement did not come as a surprise. The U.S. offered nonlethal aid to the Syrian rebels and eventually covertly armed them, going so far as to operate a training camp for rebels in northern Jordan.

But the U.S. didn’t appear to expand its direct support for the Syrian rebels beyond this point, and for good reason. When the Obama administration asked Congress for $500 million to train and equip “moderate rebels,” the Pentagon testified that it anticipated difficulties finding moderate fighters to train and arm. In plain English, this means that they don’t really exist. With ISIS’s victories in Iraq, the U.S. strategy of fueling the fire in Syria without allowing either side to win is finally revealing its inherent contradictions.

No one is innocent in the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars, but Iran is not primarily responsible for the current state of affairs. The U.S. and its allies destabilized Iraq and Syria in turn, creating safe havens for extremists that previously did not exist. U.S. allies provided the material support that allowed ISIS and groups like it to become threats to the entire region, despite lacking any substantial popular base in Syria and Iraq. It is not unreasonable for Iran and Hezbollah to fight against these groups, which murder and enslave Shia and other religious minorities. Their actions conceivably fall under one of the West’s favorite principles of international law: the duty to protect.

Iran has been the most serious foreign force fighting against ISIS from the very beginning of the Syrian civil war. The Syrian Army is constantly beset by manpower and equipment problems. It is difficult to believe that the Syrian government would have held its own without the assistance of the Iranian Qods Force and Iran’s allies in Hezbollah, much less without Iranian weapons. Contrary to the Baroness’ objections, Iran is the most viable regional partner for a temporary, pragmatic alliance against ISIS.

Western politicians and activists like the Baroness of Camden understandably oppose the Iranian regime’s domestic repression. But Iran and its regional allies are not the cause of ISIS’s rapid and brutal rise. Extremist groups like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra have been consistently aided by disastrous Western interventions in the Middle East and the influence of regional actors like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Responsibility for the rise of ISIS isn’t much of a mystery: the West and its allies just have to look in the mirror.

Ben Reynolds is a writer who graduated from the College of William and Mary. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by anmol »

The Return of the Arab Spring
by Joe Herring, americanthinker.com
September 1st 2014
This essential point is missed by our major media, who, due to an irrepressible confirmation bias, assume that the only reason to upending a government is to throw off oppression. Their failure to factor the all-encompassing influence of Islam leads inexorably to an inability to comprehend the willingness among many in the Middle East to replace repressive secular regimes with far more repressive Islamist regimes. Surprising as it appears to the Western mind, this frying pan-to-fire behavior is de rigueur in societies that credit the legitimacy of their governments to the seal of approval of their god.

Apprehension of these truths require the West to confront the elephant in the room – the one that political correctness forbids us to address – that being Islam, and its ideology of supremacy.

Terrorism is a tool, not an ideology. "Terrorist" is a functional description of someone who employs this tool in furtherance of their agenda.

The failure in the West to name that agenda is at the root of our failure to defeat it. In the Middle East, that agenda is the re-birth of an Islamic caliphate. In the West, it is a relentless Islamist agenda to mainstream Islamic doctrine in the mind of the average citizen, incrementally positioning Islam as an irreproachable inevitability, declaring any opposition as Islamophobic and anti-religion.

Last year, the Obama administration wanted to nudge the stalled Arab Spring back into motion with the removal of Assad, but their trademark clumsiness attracted the attention of the Russian bear, who quickly turned the feckless Obama into a laughingstock over the whole “red line” fiasco. Now, the rise of ISIS gives Obama the cover to resume his mission to remove Assad. Benghazi halted the Arab Spring, but the beheading of James Foley may revive it.

Already the Pentagon has openly discussed the need to enter Syria in order to pursue and eliminate ISIS fighters. While such a need does exist, it also creates an exploitable circumstance where the scales may be tipped militarily in favor of anti-Assad forces. If Christmas comes early to the White House, then the death or removal of Assad might come about as collateral damage.

Three things previously stood in the way of a successful overthrow of Assad: Vladimir Putin, Iran, and the lack of a direct threat to Americans.

Putin is presently engaged in Ukraine and becoming increasingly isolated for his behavior there. Meanwhile, the clear lack of interest on our part in halting Iran’s nuclear program appears to have given the imprimatur of Obama for the mullahs to develop low-yield nuclear weapons, calming Iranian fears of a Sunni-dominated caliphate on their western border.

Finally, the beheading of Foley and the ominous threats of a very mouthy ISIS leave Americans feeling the heat.

So the question begs for an answer: is ISIS really the overlooked ragtag junior varsity of Obama’s description, or is it a legitimate threat to global stability – a threat of which this administration has been well aware?

First, it is important to understand the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the United States. According to multiple sources within the intelligence community, the growth and development of ISIS was not “overlooked.”

ISIS may have been ignored, but it was certainly well-surveilled. In a world where technology permits us to trace the source of an E. coli outbreak down to the person who failed to wash his hands, it is an impossibility that a major army was gathered, trained, and deployed outside America’s strategic and tactical awareness.

So, given the fact of our foreknowledge, is it fair to ask this administration whether they might be playing a very dangerous game, allowing a brutal force to gather and deploy in order to use the resulting chaos as a pretext to Syrian adventurism?

This particular game will be played on fields well outside the Middle East. Putin has already thrown his lot in with Assad, and his Ukraine adventure notwithstanding, there is nothing to indicate that he would turn a blind eye to American intervention in Syria regardless of the pretext. Putin wants a warm-water port for year-round transport of his energy products, and Assad wants protection from Islamist rebels. This dynamic has not been altered by the rise of ISIS. If anything, Islamist expansionism in Syria and northern Iraq presents as much of an opportunity for adventurism by Putin as by Obama – perhaps more, considering Russia’s geographic proximity.

It is entirely possible that Putin could be invited by Assad to assist in the elimination of ISIS, placing American and Russian forces in close proximity to each other. This almost guarantees conflict.

It is indeed a very dangerous game Obama is playing to further the expansion of his Brotherhood friends.

If the above scenario is correct, then the application of significant “kinetic action” by American forces within the borders of Syria will occur almost immediately, setting a precedent for further incursions in weeks to come. Assad will not allow this, and the Arab Spring hawks in the administration are likely giddily hoping he will engage American troops in combat, cementing his fate.

The dynamic of alliance and ambition in that part of the world creates a nearly impenetrable and always unpredictable climate for diplomacy in the Middle East; the willingness of nations to shed their alliances like wet clothing on a cold night ensures that any successes will be short-lived. The only constants in the region are Islam and oil. Until we recognize that every action in the Middle East ultimately relates to one or both, we will continue to react to circumstances rather than anticipate them.

The secular governments swept away by the Obama-supported Arab Spring posed far less of a threat than do the Islamists who have taken their place. Negotiating about oil with secular governments interested in money and prestige was certainly to be preferred over fighting about religion with Islamist governments interested only in their supremacy and our death.

Watch out, world. The match is lit.

Joe Herring writes from Omaha, NE and welcomes visitors to his website at readmorejoe.com. Dr. Mark Christian, a former Muslim, is the executive director of the Global Faith Institute and the vice president of Arabs for Israel.

The “Arab Spring” changed seasons with Benghazi. In the eyes of many Americans, the media-hyped chimera of democratic forces seeking freedom from dictatorships vanished with the reported sodomy and murder of our ambassador to Libya.

The reality is, the impetus behind the Arab Spring was never really a desire for self-rule as we understand it, but rather a desire for Islamic rule. Each country that fell to that faux-organic sweep of protest shared a trait in common: aside from being brutal dictatorships, they were also secular governments.

This essential point is missed by our major media, who, due to an irrepressible confirmation bias, assume that the only reason to upending a government is to throw off oppression. Their failure to factor the all-encompassing influence of Islam leads inexorably to an inability to comprehend the willingness among many in the Middle East to replace repressive secular regimes with far more repressive Islamist regimes. Surprising as it appears to the Western mind, this frying pan-to-fire behavior is de rigueur in societies that credit the legitimacy of their governments to the seal of approval of their god.

Apprehension of these truths require the West to confront the elephant in the room – the one that political correctness forbids us to address – that being Islam, and its ideology of supremacy.

Terrorism is a tool, not an ideology. "Terrorist" is a functional description of someone who employs this tool in furtherance of their agenda.

The failure in the West to name that agenda is at the root of our failure to defeat it. In the Middle East, that agenda is the re-birth of an Islamic caliphate. In the West, it is a relentless Islamist agenda to mainstream Islamic doctrine in the mind of the average citizen, incrementally positioning Islam as an irreproachable inevitability, declaring any opposition as Islamophobic and anti-religion.

Last year, the Obama administration wanted to nudge the stalled Arab Spring back into motion with the removal of Assad, but their trademark clumsiness attracted the attention of the Russian bear, who quickly turned the feckless Obama into a laughingstock over the whole “red line” fiasco. Now, the rise of ISIS gives Obama the cover to resume his mission to remove Assad. Benghazi halted the Arab Spring, but the beheading of James Foley may revive it.

Already the Pentagon has openly discussed the need to enter Syria in order to pursue and eliminate ISIS fighters. While such a need does exist, it also creates an exploitable circumstance where the scales may be tipped militarily in favor of anti-Assad forces. If Christmas comes early to the White House, then the death or removal of Assad might come about as collateral damage.

Three things previously stood in the way of a successful overthrow of Assad: Vladimir Putin, Iran, and the lack of a direct threat to Americans.

Putin is presently engaged in Ukraine and becoming increasingly isolated for his behavior there. Meanwhile, the clear lack of interest on our part in halting Iran’s nuclear program appears to have given the imprimatur of Obama for the mullahs to develop low-yield nuclear weapons, calming Iranian fears of a Sunni-dominated caliphate on their western border.

Finally, the beheading of Foley and the ominous threats of a very mouthy ISIS leave Americans feeling the heat.

So the question begs for an answer: is ISIS really the overlooked ragtag junior varsity of Obama’s description, or is it a legitimate threat to global stability – a threat of which this administration has been well aware?

First, it is important to understand the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the United States. According to multiple sources within the intelligence community, the growth and development of ISIS was not “overlooked.”

ISIS may have been ignored, but it was certainly well-surveilled. In a world where technology permits us to trace the source of an E. coli outbreak down to the person who failed to wash his hands, it is an impossibility that a major army was gathered, trained, and deployed outside America’s strategic and tactical awareness.

So, given the fact of our foreknowledge, is it fair to ask this administration whether they might be playing a very dangerous game, allowing a brutal force to gather and deploy in order to use the resulting chaos as a pretext to Syrian adventurism?


This particular game will be played on fields well outside the Middle East. Putin has already thrown his lot in with Assad, and his Ukraine adventure notwithstanding, there is nothing to indicate that he would turn a blind eye to American intervention in Syria regardless of the pretext. Putin wants a warm-water port for year-round transport of his energy products, and Assad wants protection from Islamist rebels. This dynamic has not been altered by the rise of ISIS. If anything, Islamist expansionism in Syria and northern Iraq presents as much of an opportunity for adventurism by Putin as by Obama – perhaps more, considering Russia’s geographic proximity.

It is entirely possible that Putin could be invited by Assad to assist in the elimination of ISIS, placing American and Russian forces in close proximity to each other. This almost guarantees conflict.

It is indeed a very dangerous game Obama is playing to further the expansion of his Brotherhood friends.


If the above scenario is correct, then the application of significant “kinetic action” by American forces within the borders of Syria will occur almost immediately, setting a precedent for further incursions in weeks to come. Assad will not allow this, and the Arab Spring hawks in the administration are likely giddily hoping he will engage American troops in combat, cementing his fate.

The dynamic of alliance and ambition in that part of the world creates a nearly impenetrable and always unpredictable climate for diplomacy in the Middle East; the willingness of nations to shed their alliances like wet clothing on a cold night ensures that any successes will be short-lived. The only constants in the region are Islam and oil. Until we recognize that every action in the Middle East ultimately relates to one or both, we will continue to react to circumstances rather than anticipate them.

The secular governments swept away by the Obama-supported Arab Spring posed far less of a threat than do the Islamists who have taken their place. Negotiating about oil with secular governments interested in money and prestige was certainly to be preferred over fighting about religion with Islamist governments interested only in their supremacy and our death.

Watch out, world. The match is lit.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by ramana »

Above article was written before the new beheading by ISIS.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by A_Gupta »

On ISIS:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origina ... merga.html
....ne must look at the order of battle, organization and military tactics of the Islamic State, which can be best described as a semi-military, semi-political body that wants to translate its day-by-day military gains into a long-lasting political body. To that end, IS fields generally motorized companies of 80 to 100 men or battalions with 200 to 300 fighters, skilled in urban warfare, high mobile and capable of executing terrorist tactics such as improvised explosive device attacks and hit-and-run attacks, as well as conventional military tactics at the company and battalion levels. I don’t agree with the view that IS a new offspring of al-Qaeda. IS is a new breed that has caused much confusion to international actors who can’t decide what to do against IS. We are facing an organization and a modus operandi we are not at all familiar with.

IS has about 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq. One-third of these are trained and experienced fighters, with an estimated 1,000 foreigners among them. Former Baath cadres, Sunni tribes and organized smuggling rings are also active within the IS. This gives the IS an appearance of an “umbrella organization” of about 25,000 fighters.

The IS is highly skilled in executing the “clear-hold-build” tactic the United States had implemented as a counterinsurgency method in Afghanistan and parts of Iraq. It is proficient in quickly adapting to changing conditions and learning fast. Iraq’s generally flat terrain and settlements located along a good system of roads offers IS a major advantage.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by anmol »

Another Pakistani, a girl have joined ISIS:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... reets.html#

Her tweets(before her account was blocked):
https://archive.today/h6fiT
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by brihaspati »

how many has she to enthuse and rejuvenate per day? jihad is also peaceful and loving, u knw!
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Prem »

brihaspati wrote:how many has she to enthuse and rejuvenate per day? jihad is also peaceful and loving, u knw!
She will still be Virgin when she fly back to her nest in West.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by habal »

a LOT of airtime is being given on US-UK media to some american foot-soldier beheading or another. Either US-UK deep state are trying to build up another Bin Laden in this British muslim suspect, maybe earlier Bin Laden has not completed his job in facilitating anglo war machine. Or there is a deeper conspiracy here brimming.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Arjun »

habal wrote:a LOT of airtime is being given on US-UK media to some american foot-soldier beheading or another. Either US-UK deep state are trying to build up another Bin Laden in this British muslim suspect, maybe earlier Bin Laden has not completed his job in facilitating anglo war machine. Or there is a deeper conspiracy here brimming.
This is providing a live replay to the current generation of how Islam emerged out of Arabia and in short order, devastated a large part of its neighborhood with genocide and mayhem. Do we really want our daughters and sons to grow up in close quarters of such dregs of humanity ??....Surely a question that would haunt a large section of the population that does not share the medieval values of these thugs.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by habal »

>> Do we really want our daughters and sons to grow up in close quarters of such dregs of humanity ??....

that question was posed and answered quite some time ago with 9/11. Western mango public of today is highly suspiscious of anything Islamic. This present publicity to beheading is for creating a ground for another purpose.

If this is shown to be happening in Syria, then it will form ground for sending drones to Syria and provide air cover for ISIS or destroy Syrian air defence and allow ISIS to compete in Western Syria too. Maybe they want to create another bin laden figure. Showing & talking extensively on a particular beheading is propaganda and it cannot be cause-effect analysis based on the peddled propaganda. The reasons will be become evident when analyzing geo-strategic goals and core agenda.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by anmol »

Captives held by Islamic State prove tough quandary for Obama
by Mark Hosenball, reuters.com
August 30th 2014 4:06 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After Islamic State's beheading of journalist James Foley, President Barack Obama's administration is making little headway in efforts to secure the release of three other Americans held by the insurgent group in Syria, officials said.

Journalist Steven Sotloff and two others whom Reuters is not naming are among fewer than 10 Westerners that Islamic State (IS) is holding in kidnappings that until recently were aimed at simply raising ransoms, they said. The U.S. government has said it does not pay ransoms or negotiate with IS.

Washington has contacted about two dozen countries for help in freeing the three, but no foreign government appears to have influence over or even significant contact with IS, which has declared an Islamic caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
"What we've found is that ISIS isn't responsive" to outreach, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity and using an alternate acronym for the group.



Another administration official said Washington was working with other Western countries whose citizens are being held hostage, and with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and others in the region thought by the United States to possibly have influence with the groups Al-Nusrah and IS.

The hostages' fate received little public attention until Islamic State posted an online video on Aug. 19 showing Foley's beheading. It now presents a frustrating challenge for Obama.

Islamic State "is far more difficult to deal with" than Iran or the militant group Hezbollah, which also took Americans captive, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and White House official now at the Brookings Institution think-tank. The group "wants to terrorize Americans, it's not really interested in deals."

WHITE HOUSE INVOLVEMENT

U.S. officials and supporters of the remaining hostages requested that most details about them and efforts to free them be withheld.

One is Steven Sotloff, a freelance journalist kidnapped in Syria in August 2013. At the end of the video depicting Foley's murder, a militant holding Sotloff threatened his life.

Sotloff's mother Shirley appealed on Wednesday in a videotaped message to Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for her son's release.

One of the other U.S. hostages is a female aid worker, age 26, for whom Islamic State has demanded $6.6 million in ransom, according to ABC News.

Lisa Monaco, Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser, has been "very deeply involved in this," the senior U.S. official said. Monaco, along with the State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been in contact with hostages' families, the official said.

Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said, " The Administration has had regular interactions with the families of those Americans who have been held hostage in Syria since the kidnapping of their loved ones. These interactions included representatives from all the relevant agencies, including the Department of State, the FBI, the Intelligence Community, and the White House."

Obama authorized a covert raid in Syria in July to rescue Foley and other American hostages, but they were not at the site where they were thought to be held. Another rescue attempt would be risky for U.S. special forces and the hostages.

The American diplomatic effort also is aimed at persuading European countries not to pay ransoms, officials said.

U.S. and European officials have said that France, Spain and Italy have tolerated or facilitated ransom payments for citizens held in Syria. Islamic State released numerous European journalists this year, including two Spaniards in March and four Frenchmen in April.

The French government has denied a news report that it paid a ransom to free the four. Spain's foreign ministry has not commented on the matter.

The U.S. policy of refusing to pay ransoms to discourage further hostage-taking "is as close as we are likely to come to governments influencing ISIS on the matter of seizing hostages", said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA analyst now at Georgetown University.

U.S. officials have said that Qatar played a critical role in persuading a rival group in Syria, the official al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, to free American journalist Peter Theo Curtis, whom it had been holding since 2012.

Qatar is working to help free other Americans held captive in Syria, a Gulf source told Reuters, but U.S. officials said the Qatari government has little if any leverage with Islamic State.
Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser:
Lisa Oudens Monaco (born February 25, 1968) is an American federal prosecutor who currently serves as the United States Homeland Security Advisor to President Barack Obama; the chief counterterrorism advisor to the President, and a statutory member of the United States Homeland Security Council.
Monaco previously served as the Assistant Attorney General for National Security from 2011 to 2013, and as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents Anthony and Mary Lou Monaco, she was raised in Newton, Massachusetts, and graduated from The Winsor School in 1987.

Monaco attended Harvard University, graduating with her Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude in American History and Literature, in 1990. After graduating, she worked as a research associate for The Wilson Quarterly at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 1990 to 1991, and as a senior associate for the Health Care Advisory Board, a healthcare advisory group, from 1991 to 1992. She worked for as a research coordinator for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1992 to 1994 under then chairman Joe Biden, where she worked on the Violence Against Women Act; before enrolling into the University of Chicago Law School where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable. During her time at the University of Chicago, she briefly worked as an intern for District Court Judge Wendell P. Gardner, Jr., on the D.C. Superior Court and as an intern for the United States Department of Justice in 1995. She worked as an intern for the White House Office of Legislative Affairs in 1996, and entered private practice as a summer associate for the law firm Hogan and Hartson, LLP, before receiving her Juris Doctor in 1997. She was admitted to the New York City Bar Association in 1998.

United States Department of Justice

From 1997 to 1998, Monaco worked as a law clerk for the Honorable Jane Richards Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and as the Counsel to then Attorney General Janet Reno from 1998 to 2001. From 2001 to 2007, she worked in the United States Attorney's office for the District of Columbia, where she was as an assistant prosecuting attorney, and was appointed as a special prosecutor, co-leading the trail counsel for the Justice Department's Enron Task Force, from 2004 to 2006. Monaco received Department of Justice Awards for Special Achievement in 2002, 2003 and 2005. After the end of the Enron trial and the Justice Department's disbandment of the special task force, Monaco worked as a special counselor to FBI Director Robert Mueller. She was later chosen by Mueller to work as a full-time counselor and as his Deputy Chief of Staff from May to September 2007, when she was appointed by Muller as his Chief of Staff; a position she held until January 2009.

In 2009, Monaco was appointed by United States Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden to serve as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General; the top aide to the Deputy Attorney General. After Ogden left in February 2010, Monaco was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the Assistant Attorney General for National Security; leading the Justice Department division which oversees major counterterrorism and espionage cases, and authorizes the use of FISA warrants. Monaco has been involved in meetings and the failed attempts to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
SOURCE: wikipedia.
:rotfl:
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by habal »

Washington has contacted about two dozen countries for help in freeing the three, but no foreign government appears to have influence over or even significant contact with IS, which has declared an Islamic caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
"What we've found is that ISIS isn't responsive" to outreach, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity and using an alternate acronym for the group.
Wonder which 'contact' the GoI used to release them nurses in Mosul.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Arjun »

habal wrote: Maybe they want to create another bin laden figure. Showing & talking extensively on a particular beheading is propaganda and it cannot be cause-effect analysis based on the peddled propaganda. The reasons will be become evident when analyzing geo-strategic goals and core agenda.
^^^Not sure what you are talking about. Lets examine the act both from the POV of the perpetrators and the broadcasters. Is the beheading inconsistent with the beliefs or techniques of Islamic terror or something that is way too gruesome for the Islamic world which it actively repudiates ? Surely the answer to that is NO.

Coming to the broadcaster side - can you point me to other beheadings of Americans by terrorist / religious cults that were glossed over by the media, so we have some basis to evaluate your conspiracy theory ? Clearly this was a barbaric act and one that was executed in public glare so as to maximize media publicity. Are you suggesting that the American media should have glossed over this act - a reaction that would have been typically Indian but one that I don't expect the global media to share ?
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by habal »

take a look here
http://www.catholic.org/news/internatio ... p?id=56481 (NSFW so don't even try it unless you are into gory pics)

and tell me why that alone requires such great outrage. ofcourse an american was beheaded, but it is not as if it is the first time. The first time with Foley, yes that is an outrage since an a member of an 'exceptional' race/civilization has to undergo such a fate but then when it is repeated and it again requires such in-depth discussion .. hain ? You see nothing amiss in this, apart from american exceptionalism ?
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Arjun »

You are implying that the more the ISIS executes its deeds, the less the outrage should be. I don't subscribe to that defeatist mentality ! And for the sake of the future of all our daughters and sons - I certainly hope the sane world does not agree with it.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by habal »

>> You are implying that the more the ISIS executes its deeds, the less the outrage should be.

who expresses that outrage is the more important question.

when a powerful entity expresses outrage, then it is also in a position to extract vengeance. When a powerless entity expresses outrage, it is meaningless.

selective outrage, meanwhile is the tool of the scoundrel.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by pankajs »

http://www.firstpost.com/world/saudi-ar ... 94229.html

Saudi Arabia says it arrests 88 for preparing "terrorist" raids
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has detained 88 people, more than half of them Saudis, on suspicion of plotting "terrorist" attacks at home and abroad, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

A ministry statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency said the ministry had been following a number of suspects in view of what it called the spread of "strife and sick ideas" that lured members of the community to "places of strife".

Some of the suspects had links to the Islamic State group operating in Syria and Iraq, to the Nusra Front group in Syria or to the al Qaeda branch in Yemen, Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour Turki told Reuters after a news conference.

...
Turki said that around 2,500 Saudis were believed to be involved in militant activities abroad, including in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

...
Saudi King Abdullah warned on Saturday that terrorism would soon spread to Europe and the United States unless it was quickly dealt with in the Middle East.
Aditya_V
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Aditya_V »

habal wrote:take a look here
http://www.catholic.org/news/internatio ... p?id=56481 (NSFW so don't even try it unless you are into gory pics)

and tell me why that alone requires such great outrage. ofcourse an american was beheaded, but it is not as if it is the first time. The first time with Foley, yes that is an outrage since an a member of an 'exceptional' race/civilization has to undergo such a fate but then when it is repeated and it again requires such in-depth discussion .. hain ? You see nothing amiss in this, apart from american exceptionalism ?
If america is serious about such acts, it must stop supporting the Saudi Pakistani and Cheen alliance and reagard them as hostile until they have India type secular laws and public behaviour with significant minority religious followers.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by habal »

they can stop it with just 1000 sf personnel with air backup, if they wish to stop IS. This group of 10,000 chimps will melt back into whichever hole they emerged from with various parts missing. But they trained this very force called ISIS to 'finish' wounded syrian soldiers and maybe even eliminate fence-sitter civilians once they hold an area (this ofcourse is not admitted in open), now the IS, inorder to impress their handlers, improvised on that mandate and started beheading w/video, to improve the theatrics and drama of it all, they were also given their Order of Battle by the same set of trainers who taught them how to ambush and how to 'finish' the wounded. Now which hypocritical outrage they want the rest of the world to spill out for them ?

http://rt.com/news/161820-us-trains-syrian-rebels/
US trains Syrian rebels in Qatar to ‘ambush' soldiers and 'finish off' the wounded – report

At a secret base in Qatar, the US military is training rebels to raid Syrian government troops and vehicles, as well as to “finish off the soldiers still alive after an ambush,” first-hand interviews in a Frontline documentary have revealed.

The documentary, scheduled to air Tuesday night on PBS stations, offers rare insight into how Washington is fostering the armed insurgency against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It features interviews by journalist Muhammad Ali with Syrian rebels presented as members of a “moderate faction” who describe a clandestine meeting with their “American handlers” in Turkey, along with the receiving of weapons and ammunition and the subsequent travel to Qatar for training.

At a Qatar base, said to be on the border with Saudi Arabia, the rebels allegedly received three weeks of training in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, and also received new uniforms and boots.

“They trained us to ambush regime or enemy vehicles and cut off the road,” a fighter identified only as 'Hussein' told Ali.

“They also trained us on how to attack a vehicle, raid it, retrieve information or weapons and munitions, and how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush,” the masked rebel said.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... script-63/
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by member_28705 »

Interesting article by the German Foreign Minister. It is not everyday that Germany join these campaigns so assertively.
The terror organisation that calls itself the Islamic State is advancing with monstrous brutality, persecuting and killing anyone who stands in its way. In the areas they control, the IS terrorists enslave and humiliate people who do not share their beliefs. Yazidis and Christians, but also Muslims who refuse to submit to their radical ideology, are forced to leave everything behind and flee for their lives. The IS now controls a transnational territory that is home to more than five million people and contains cities, oil wells, dams and airports. The fact that these terrorists include a growing number of foreign fighters from Europe is a cause of alarm for all of us.

With the advanced weapons that the IS has captured, and its significant financial means, the terrorist group is a threat to the survival of Iraq’s Kurdistan region and to Iraqi statehood itself — and even to the already fragile regional order in the Middle East. Without the recent determined military intervention by the United States, Kurdish forces would not have been able to halt the advance by comparatively better-armed IS fighters.

In this dramatic situation, Germany has provided humanitarian assistance to the people fleeing the IS and supported
the Kurdistan regional government by supplying food, blankets, tents and generators. Now my government has decided to expand its aid to the Kurds in the fight against the terrorists by sending weapons and military equipment.

This decision has sparked intense debate in Germany. Indeed, some people even see it as a fundamental change in German foreign policy.
I do not share this view. The fact is that Germany is taking on its responsibility in the world — in the fight against the IS, but also in the Middle East, in Africa and in Afghanistan. Along with the European Union, we are particularly active in the search for a political solution to the highly dangerous crisis close to home, the conflict between Russia
and Ukraine.

Responsibility is always about concrete action. We must calibrate our engagement depending on what is at stake for the fundamental principles of a peaceful and just international order, for our own interests and our closest partner countries and allies. Germany’s scepticism about military intervention and its restrictive approach to arms exports are politically well founded and deeply ingrained in Germans’ collective consciousness. There is no paradigm shift regarding our foreign-policy principles, which include a policy of military restraint. But in the face of a threat like the one posed by the IS, we must not hide behind principles. We must take responsible decisions, knowing full well that they involve difficult trade-offs. We take the greatest care in making such decisions, and do so in close coordination with our European, transatlantic and regional partner countries.

Where there is a threat of mass murder, where the stability and order of countries and entire regions are endangered, and where there is no chance of successful political settlement without military support, we must be willing to honestly weigh up the risks of getting involved against the consequences of doing nothing. This was why Germany decided to take part in international military interventions in Kosovo in 1999 and in Afghanistan in 2001. That is also why we decided that there were good reasons for opposing military action in Iraq in 2003.
Our opposition to the IS terrorists does not start with supplying arms, nor does it end there. The IS cannot be stopped by either humanitarian or military means. We, the international community, must develop a comprehensive political strategy to counter this terrorist organisation systematically.

In my view, four main elements are crucial here: We need a new, effective and inclusive Iraqi government in Baghdad to dry up potential support for the IS by closing ranks with the Sunni tribes. We need intensive diplomatic efforts to unite the countries in the region to confront the IS threat together. We need the Islamic world’s leaders to clearly distance themselves from the IS and to unmask the rank cynicism of the propagandists and ideologists claiming religious legitimacy for terrorist savagery. Finally, we need resolute steps to hamper and prevent the flow of fighters and funds to the IS.

Looking at the crises spanning the Maghreb, the Middle East and eastern Europe, many perceive that the world is coming loose from its moorings. Crisis and conflict are creeping closer to Europe, and certainties that have prevailed for 25 years since the end of the Cold War have lost their hold.

We in Europe must not indulge the illusion that we could just shut ourselves away from the world if it goes to pieces, and maybe offer a bit of humanitarian aid. Our prosperity and our security depend on our unprecedented network of political and economic ties to the whole world. Wherever order falls apart — especially in the vicinity of Europe’s borders — we will be affected too.

In Germany, we therefore need to ask ourselves objectively: What are our options, and what are our responsibilities? In doing so, we also need to be aware of our limitations. Germany is the largest country in the EU, politically stable and economically strong, but what we can contribute with humanitarian assistance, politically or militarily, to conflict resolution is only meaningful and effective if implemented in close collaboration with others. When we act, we act in concert with our European and transatlantic partners — this is, and will remain, the fundamental basis of German foreign policy.
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinio ... -apart/99/
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Singha »

ISIS is perhaps the new age afghan mujahideen...they are using american systems like hummers and TOW missiles in grand style. being equal opportunists they are also using russian weapons captured in Syria.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by anmol »

Philippine military seeks probe against Indian commander of UNDOF in Golan Heights
by TNN, economictimes.indiatimes.com
September 3rd 2014 8:14 PM
NEW DELHI: An Indian Lt-General commanding the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in Golan Heights, Iqbal Singh Singha, has landed in a major controversy with the Philippine military seeking an investigation against him for allegedly endangering the safety of its peacekeeping troops during the stand-off with Syrian rebels over the last weekend.

Philippines armed forces chief Gen Gregorio Pio Catapang, as per reports emanating from the Middle-East as well as Manila, alleged Lt-Gen Singha ordered the Filipino troops under UNDOF to lay down their weapons and "show the white flag" to the Syrian rebels to ensure the safety of 44 Fijian peacekeepers earlier taken hostage by them.

Gen Catapang said the Filipino troops — who held their ground without surrendering last Saturday — would have also been taken captive if they had not defied Lt-Gen Singha's orders.

"The UNDOF commander wanted to save the Fijians at the expense of the Filipinos. Our troops did not want to surrender. Their honour was at stake. He (Lt-Gen Singha) kept on changing his orders. It is but proper that an investigation be conducted to include him," Gen Catapang, was quoted as saying.

Indian Army officers, who are monitoring the situation from here, said it was for the UN to "comment" on the matter.

"But UNDOF is working under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, which is primarily concerned with a supervisory role without any enforcing authority. Peacekeeping operations under Chapter VII give the enforcement authority and the ability to use force beyond self-defence," said an officer.

Incidentally, Lt-Gen Singha, a Rajputana Rifles officer who was appointed UNDOF commander in August 2012, had also courted controversy in March 2011 when he had lauded the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a politician who had "all the qualities of an Army commander" during a public function in Ahmedabad.

"He (Modi) keeps deadlines for completion of work and ensures that the target is achieved by the set time," the then Maj-Gen Singha had held.

India has 194 soldiers under the 1,250-troop UNDOF, which was established in May 1974 to maintain the ceasefire between Israeli and Syrian forces and supervise their disengagement.

But the situation has become complex since mid-2011 with Syria getting embroiled in a civil war between its regular Army and anti-regime rebels.

Overall, India currently has 6,865 soldiers deployed in four UN peacekeeping missions in Congo (3,768), South Sudan (2,004), Lebanon (899) and Golan Heights (194).

India constantly figures in the top three troop contributors for UN missions, and has lost over 140 soldiers since its first commitment to Korea began in 1950. Seven Indian soldiers, including a Lt-Colonel, for instance, were killed in ambushes in strife-
torn South Sudan last year.

Officials, however, feel the large troop contribution reinforces India's claim for a permanent seat when the UN Security Council is eventually expanded, apart from providing handsome monetary compensation and "international exposure" to its soldiers.

Indian Army battalions, in fact, covet UN assignments since their troops get UN allowances in dollars, with officers getting $2,200 and other ranks $1,100, which are over and above their Indian rupee salaries being safely deposited at home.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by member_22733 »

From reading of comments in various online articles in the west, anyone can see that even moderate folks are starting to wake up and smell the Islamic coffee. The Islamics are certainly digging a deep deep hole for themselves.

In the near future, they will have to fight from so many different sides with only two exit strategies. Either they will win over the entire world, or they have to be crushed by the world. There is certainly a world war possible in our lifetimes.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Shreeman »

LokeshC wrote:From reading of comments in various online articles in the west, anyone can see that even moderate folks are starting to wake up and smell the Islamic coffee. The Islamics are certainly digging a deep deep hole for themselves.

In the near future, they will have to fight from so many different sides with only two exit strategies. Either they will win over the entire world, or they have to be crushed by the world. There is certainly a world war possible in our lifetimes.
Selective outrage subsides quickly. ISIS has run out of americans, after the half-dozen western hostages no one will care.

War is good for business all the "free" armies have to supplied, iraqies have to be trained again and so on. Simple economics of supply and demand.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by chanakyaa »

I bet Putin responded with the following after reading the above message. On a more serious note, I wonder why above message and Eye-shis threat wrt India came at around same time...

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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Singha »

that was in context about americans trying to spread freedom and peace....he said it was really funny and it was getting late there and he was feeling sleepy...
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by member_28705 »

The Islamist Erdogan and Davutoglu - the medium-term future of Turkey

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21 ... lus-moment
THE succession was seamless. On August 10th Recep Tayyip Erdogan became Turkey’s first popularly elected president after sweeping 52% of the vote. On August 27th he stepped down from the leadership of his Justice and Development (AK) party at a packed convention in Ankara. His handpicked successor (and foreign minister), Ahmet Davutoglu, was duly elected AK’s new leader. He was due to be sworn in as prime minister after we went to press.

Mr Erdogan outlined his vision for “a new Turkey” in a farewell speech before thousands of party members. Many themes were well worn: a list of AK’s undeniable achievements and Mr Erdogan’s plans for a “new era” (he called it a “holy conquest”) that would bring Turkey more prosperity, piety and global influence.

Although the role of the president is at present ceremonial, Mr Erdogan has made clear that he will continue to run the country until a general election next summer. His ambition is then to be given full executive powers. This can happen only if AK wins enough seats in parliament (two-thirds, or three-fifths with a later referendum) to rewrite the constitution by itself.

So far Mr Erdogan has been successful, if polarising (half the voters despise him for his Sunni sectarianism). He has notched up nine ballot victories since AK shot to single-party rule in 2002. His choice of the chatty Mr Davutoglu may seem controversial. The academic-turned-diplomat is criticised for the collapse of his “zero problems with neighbours” policy. And 49 members of Turkey’s consulate in Mosul, taken hostage by Islamic State (IS) militants in early June, have yet to be freed.

Western governments are increasingly twitchy about the influx of radical fighters into Syria along Turkey’s “jihadist highway”. Although Turkey dismisses this, it will “fall under ever greater international scrutiny”, predicts Firdevs Robinson, a long-time observer. Behlul Ozkan, an academic who has studied Mr Davutoglu, says he sees himself as “infallible, as someone who is shaping history”—but whose dreams of building a Sunni Muslim realm of Turkish influence spanning the Middle East and the Balkans have proved empty.

Mr Davutoglu’s Islamist pedigree and loyalty to Mr Erdogan suggest an easy cohabitation. He gets on well with Turkey’s spy chief and Mr Erdogan’s most trusted lieutenant, Hakan Fidan. He has pledged to pursue Mr Erdogan’s battle with Fethullah Gulen, a Pennsylvania-based cleric whose followers in the police force and the judiciary are said to be behind the recent graft case against Mr Erdogan and his friends. That scandal has been squashed by sacking or moving judges, police and prosecutors. Abdullah Gul, the former president and an AK co-founder, has been cruelly pushed out of the race for the party leadership. The main secular opposition party is, as ever, in a mess. Given Turkey’s strategic importance, Western governments will go on doing business with Mr Erdogan.

His biggest headache may be the economy. The robust growth that fuelled AK’s spectacular rise has slowed sharply. Ali Babacan, the respected economy tsar, has agreed to stay in Mr Davutoglu’s cabinet, but only until June. Without him, Mr Erdogan will have freer rein to bully the central bank. And if he insists on pursuing expensive white elephants such as a second Bosporus canal, Turkey could run into even bigger financial difficulty.

The other chink in Mr Erdogan’s armour is the Kurds. Peace talks with the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, are moving at a snail’s pace. His commanders are growing restless. But Mr Erdogan has survived bigger challenges, including attempted coups. A rival has yet to emerge.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by member_28705 »

http://rt.com/news/184875-al-qaeda-india-kashmir/
The leader of terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, says they have launched a new off-shoot in the Indian sub-continent. The new organization aims to create a Muslim caliphate in Burma, Bangladesh and parts of India.

READ MORE: Recipe for hate: Al-Qaeda publish car bomb ‘shopping list’ and suggest UK targets

The information was conveyed in a video message that the Islamist extremist movement posted on Wednesday. The footage, which was found in online jihadist forums by the SITE terrorism monitoring group, said Al-Qaeda would fight to revive the caliphate.

“We want Islam to return to the Indian subcontinent, which was part of the Muslim world before it was invaded. It will serve Muslims in Burma, Kashmir, Gujarat, Bangladesh, Ahmedabad and Assam,” Zawahiri said in the video, according to the New Delhi Television Ltd.

Islam is the dominant religion in Bangladesh, while India and Burma both have sizeable Muslim populations.

Zawahiri goes on to say that “establishing Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent is the result of two years of work to unify the Mujahideen. The rise of this new branch demonstrates that jihad under the leadership of Amir of Believers, Mullah Omar [head of the Afghan Taliban] is expanding.”

The new group will be called “Qaedat al-Jihad” and will be led by Asim Umar, while Ustad Usama Mahmoud will be the branch’s spokesman. The main goals of the new off-shoot are to establish sharia law and free all “occupied Muslim lands” on the Indian sub-continent.

READ MORE: ‘This message is to you, Vladimir Putin’: ISIS threatens ‘to liberate Chechnya and Caucasus’

In June, Al-Qaeda reportedly released a video calling upon Muslims in Kashmir to follow the example of Iraqis and Syrians and revolt against the authorities. Kashmir has been the center of a dispute over territory between India and Pakistan since the 1947 Indo-Pakistani War.

This is for the first time that the Al-Qaeda has specifically targeted Kashmiris in the video that is titled “War should continue, message to the Muslims of Kashmir,” the Guardian reported.

Al-Qaeda has long had a strong hold in Pakistan due to the country’s porous borders with Afghanistan, where the terrorist organization was initially established. The country also harbored Al-Qaeda’s former leader, Osama bin Laden, who moved between various locations in the North Western Frontier Province.

Osama’s family spent the last six years of his life at a compound in Abbottabad, just minutes away from Pakistan’s elite military academy. Osama was shot dead by US Navy SEAL commandos in May 2011.

Al-Qaeda has been under pressure since the death of Bin Laden and is now facing a serious threat in Syria and Iraq from its breakaway faction Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS. Al-Qaeda announced last year that it had split with ISIS, citing its brutality towards Muslims and its declaration of an Islamic caliphate across Syria and Iraq.
Bad Bad News.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by member_22733 »

Well, its a double edged sword. This is a slightly different era in India where information flows a little symmetrically.

The media-crooks and the DIE do not have as much control over narratives as they used to have. This means that there will be a potent middle class Hindu polarization happening in the near future if these goat phuckers try anything.

These guys are trying to awaken a civilizational giant, and if they succeed it will be good for the world. Although I wish we awoke without the need for such violence upon us.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by UlanBatori »

All 400% cr*p.

1. There is NO such thing as "Al Qaeda". That name is 100% an American invention. (Careful how u diss that statement...)
2. There is no real divide between the objectives of the paki-created terror organization that is CALLED by the generic "Al Qaeda" moniker, and these cretins of the ISISP. Same funding sources, same training sources, same weapon sources. The only "competition" is that it may not be Pakistanis now doing the bulk of the training (then again, do u know that it is not?)

After all is said and done, the major distinguishing feature the above article cites is that ISISP videos are shot in daylight, whereas Al Zuwahiri takes care not to show any features of his Islamabad residence.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by ramana »

Also go by whom the ISIS & AlQ are targeting : Russia and India. Shows the real controllers.
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by svinayak »

UlanBatori wrote:A
After all is said and done, the major distinguishing feature the above article cites is that ISISP videos are shot in daylight, whereas Al Zuwahiri takes care not to show any features of his Islamabad residence.
His face looks like it is a impostor
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by chanakyaa »

+100 UBji

China also received its share of attention. Wonder why few countries which this scary organization has decided to allegedly target recently created a bank to challenge IMF :-o :-o . Oh!! I know why. They wanted to open account in the new bank and get a free toaster. When they were told they do not belong to BreeiCs; and application were turned down, they got upset.

IRAQ'S Ministry of Defence has claimed to have captured a Chinese national
durvasa
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Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by durvasa »

Why? This will some violence but will help this country get out of the curse of secularism and it's love for pernicious desert cults, at least one of them. It's a bad news for ~40 crore crore followers of that cancerous cult in this subcontinent.
Arjun
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Joined: 21 Oct 2008 01:52

Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Arjun »

KrisP wrote:Bad Bad News.
Ummm, you seem to have gotten the news about 1200 years late ! :lol:

Anyways, Indians and Spaniards are two races that know a thing or two about not allowing this particular bad news to spread.
Prem
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Location: Weighing and Waiting 8T Yconomy

Re: West Asia News and Discussions

Post by Prem »

Arjun wrote:
KrisP wrote:Bad Bad News.
Ummm, you seem to have gotten the news about 1200 years late ! :lol:
Anyways, Indians and Spaniards are two races that know a thing or two about not allowing this particular bad news to spread.
Bad News Not, But Accha Mauka Aane wala hai!
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