Monthly Archives: February 2015
ISIS ‘Jihadi John’ named as Mohammed Emwazi, portrayed as victim of UK counter-terrorism policies
The Washington Post reports: The world knows him as “Jihadi John,” the masked man with a British accent who has beheaded several hostages held by the Islamic State and who taunts audiences in videos circulated widely online.
But his real name, according to friends and others familiar with his case, is Mohammed Emwazi, a Briton from a well-to-do family who grew up in West London and graduated from college with a degree in computer programming. He is believed to have traveled to Syria around 2012 and to have later joined the Islamic State, the group whose barbarity he has come to symbolize.
“I have no doubt that Mohammed is Jihadi John,” said one of Emwazi’s close friends who identified him in an interview with The Washington Post. “He was like a brother to me. . . . I am sure it is him.”
A representative of a British human rights group who had been in contact with Emwazi before he left for Syria also said he believed Emwazi was Jihadi John, a moniker given to him by some of the hostages he once held.
“There was an extremely strong resemblance,” Asim Qureshi, research director at the rights group, CAGE, said after watching one of the videos. “This is making me feel fairly certain that this is the same person.” [Continue reading…]
Qureshi, in a statement on the CAGE website, portrays Emwazi as a victim of British counter-terrorism policies:
This case should trigger thinking about British domestic and foreign policy. What risk assessments, if any, have been made about British counter-terrorism policy and the key part it plays in radicalising individuals? How have the security services been allowed to get away with abusing British citizens without redress? Why are the long-standing grievances over Western interventions in the Muslim world been ignored?
Propagandists have a habit of becoming the most devout believers in their own narrative, but I think it requires a particularly distorted mindset to portray Emwazi, given his alleged actions, as a victim.
In a press conference today, Qureshi described Emwazi as a “kind” and “gentle” young man.
In a video released today, Qureshi says: “The questions shouldn’t be about Jihadi John but they should be about what role our security services have played in alienating people in this society and turning them away from being able to find solutions to the problems they have.”
Moazzam Begg, CAGE’s director of outreach and a former detainee at Guantánamo, can also reasonably argue that he has been a victim of Britain’s counter-terrorism policy and what some see as its over-zealous security services.
Given Qureshi’s reasoning, are we to imagine that Begg or anyone else finding themselves in a similar position might be just as likely to follow in Emwazi’s footsteps and become another of ISIS’s executioners?
In fact, Begg has no illusions about ISIS: “You have no idea how dangerous these people are,” he wrote on Facebook in early 2014.
He also wrote:
“I saw muhajireen (foreigners), locked in cages, by Allah worse, than my Guantanamo cell.
“They beat people to make them confess…just like the Arab regimes, there is no difference.
“I have been to many places, Bosnia, Afghan… but never seen this kind of fitnah [turmoil] and such dangerous extremism and readiness for takfeer [excommunication].
“Syrians on the ground have started to hate foreigners because of them.
“ISIS have even detained and killed aid workers…brothers from UK who have taken convoys [have] been looted by ISIS, guns shoved in faces of brothers who have crossed Europe to bring aid.
“And what’s the basis of detaining the non-Muslim aid worker [Alan Henning] who came in as a guest of Muslims, under their protection? They’ve probably murdered him too, just like many Muslims they’ve done that to.”
The world is full of people who for multitudes of justifiable reasons regard themselves as victims, yet this doesn’t absolve them of responsibility for their own actions.
The Guardian adds: “Jihadi John” is one of a trio of Britons who held hostage Spanish, French, Danish, British and US nationals. The hostages were captured in northern Syria, some in Idlib province, others in Aleppo and a third group in and around Raqqa province, which has since become the main Syrian stronghold of Isis.
The jihadi cell that spawned Isis was initially strong in Idlib province, having taken root there in the summer of 2012. From there it spread to Aleppo, where hostages that had been captured at that point were held in one of two locations – under the eye hospital in the centre of the city or in a factory deep in an industrial zone on its northern outskirts.
By February last year, all the hostages, including Briton John Cantlie, who is one of two remaining western hostages, were moved to Raqqa.
It was in Raqqa that the hostages first became aware of the status that Emwazi had developed among Isis. One former hostage described him as “cold, sadistic and merciless”.
Why Bashar Assad won’t fight ISIS
Time reports: The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has long had a pragmatic approach to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), says a Syrian businessman with close ties to the government. Even from the early days the regime purchased fuel from ISIS-controlled oil facilities, and it has maintained that relationship throughout the conflict. “Honestly speaking, the regime has always had dealings with ISIS, out of necessity.”
The Sunni businessman is close to the regime but wants to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions from both ISIS supporters and the regime. He trades goods all over the country so his drivers have regular interactions with ISIS supporters and members in Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in Syria, and in ISIS-controlled areas like Dier-ezzor.
The businessman cites Raqqa’s mobile phone service as an example of how there is commerce between the regime, Syrian businesses, and ISIS. The country’s two main mobile phone operators still work in Raqqa. “Both operators send engineers to ISIS-controlled areas to repair damages at the towers,” he says. In addition, there are regular shipments of food to Raqqa. “ISIS charges a small tax for all trucks bringing food into Raqqa [including the businessman’s trucks], and they give receipts stamped with the ISIS logo. It is all very well organized.”
The businessman has a driver who lives in an ISIS-controlled area near Dier-Ezzor. “My driver is always telling me how safe things are at home. He can leave the door to his house unlocked. ISIS requires women to veil, and there is no smoking in the streets. Men can’t wear jeans either. But there are no bribes, and they have tranquility and security. It’s not like there are killings every day in the streets like you see on TV.”
And, he notes, ISIS pays well — slightly less than the pre-war norms but a fortune in a war-torn economy: engineers for the oil and gas fields are paid $2,500 a month. Doctors get $1,500. Non-Syrians get an expatriate allowance, “a financial package that makes it worthwhile to work for ISIS,” says the businessman.
Assad does not see ISIS as his primary problem, the businessman says. “The regime fears the Free Syrian Army and the Nusra Front, not ISIS. They [the FSA and Nusra] state their goal is to remove the President. But ISIS doesn’t say that. They have never directly threatened Damascus.” As the businessman notes, the strikes on ISIS targets are minimal. [Continue reading…]
More Assyrian Christians captured as ISIS attacks villages in Syria
The New York Times reports: Continuing its assaults on a string of Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria, the Islamic State militant group has seized scores more residents over the past two days, bringing the number of captives to as many as several hundred, Assyrian organizations inside and outside Syria said on Thursday.
The number of captives reported by different Assyrian groups has varied because, in the chaos of fighting, many families are fleeing and it has taken time to verify by name those captured.
The Syriac Military Council, a militia formed in recent years to protect Assyrian villages in the traditionally diverse area of Hasaka, in northeastern Syria, said in a statement that more than 350 civilians from 12 villages had been abducted.
George Stifo, a leader of the United States branch of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, part of the Syrian opposition, provided the names of 96 captives, which included several children. The Assyrian International News Agency, a website tracking community news, reported that 150 were missing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an antigovernment monitoring group with a network of contacts in Syria, said on Thursday that 220 were missing. [Continue reading…]
UN’s plan to ‘freeze’ the conflict in Syria is a gift to Assad
Emile Hokayem writes: Military and diplomatic efforts in Syria are converging in Aleppo, once the country’s largest city and commercial center. Last week, U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura reported to the Security Council that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to suspend for six weeks all aerial and artillery bombardment of the besieged city, which is divided between the regime and rebel groups.
The supposed agreement, however, does not represent much of a breakthrough, especially when compared with the diplomat’s initial ambitions of a broad “freeze” over the whole province of Aleppo, which would then be replicated in other regions later. Behind closed doors and in front of the media afterward, de Mistura sought to lower expectations, saying he had “no illusions” about the difficult task ahead. He also did not explain how a limited freeze in Aleppo could change the calculations of the various local and regional players or create new incentives for a political negotiation among the warring sides.
De Mistura’s New York briefing coincided with a large-scale regime offensive to fully encircle Aleppo from the north. Regular military units, the paramilitary auxiliaries of the National Defense Force, and Hezbollah fighters sought to press their advantage in the areas of Handarat and Malaah, north of the city, with the intention of seizing three important villages and breaking rebel groups’ siege of the Shiite towns of Zahra and Nubl. Controlling these villages and connecting roads would sever the links between the Aleppo countryside and the vitally important border with Turkey.
But the initially rapid advance of the pro-regime forces was stopped and rolled back in several areas. Bad weather grounded Assad’s helicopters and aircraft during much of the battle — overcast weather, a rebel commander quipped to me, imposed the no-fly zone that the Americans had denied the rebellion since 2011. After capturing important territory in surprise attacks over two days, Assad’s forces were surrounded by Syrian rebels who killed well over 100 soldiers and captured dozens more, making this time among the costliest days for the regime since the beginning of the armed uprising. [Continue reading…]
Exile instead of murder: A Syrian refugee’s choice
Al Jazeera reports: Ammar Kassir became a refugee to avoid killing fellow Syrians.
In 2012, as pro-democracy marches on the streets of Damascus were increasing, Kassir was a part of a police unit working under the direct control of President Bashar al-Assad. One afternoon, he was ordered to open fire on protesters marching for democracy.
“Assad told us we must kill these people who are making demonstrations. The protesters were shouting ‘Freedom! Freedom!’, and he said we must kill these people. I did not want to do that,” Kassir told Al Jazeera.
The safe choice would have been to follow the orders he was given. The policeman, who was 20-years old at the time, chose to resist, even though he knew refusing orders meant he would have to escape for his own safety.
Kassir became a refugee, one of three million Syrians who have fled their country in the past three years.
He left Damascus, heading north to his family’s home in Idlib. From there, he made his way alone to Turkey, crossing the border by foot.
Since the Syrian uprising began, 95 percent of the Syrians who fled their native country remained in the region, mainly in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
Kassir had other plans.
He wanted to get to Europe, to reach a safer country that would give him a chance to restart his life.
Legal pathways to Europe for Syrian refugees are rare and Kassir – like many other Syrians who sought refuge in Europe – was forced onto dangerous and expensive smuggling routes. [Continue reading…]
The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site’
The Guardian reports: The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.
Held for hours at secret Chicago ‘black site’: ‘You’re a hostage. It’s kidnapping’
Read moreThe facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.
Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:
- Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
- Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
- Shackling for prolonged periods.
- Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
- Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.
At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead. [Continue reading…]
‘Gestapo’ tactics at U.S. police ‘black site’ ring alarm from Chicago to Washington
The Guardian reports: The US Department of Justice and embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel are under mounting pressure to investigate allegations of what one politician called “CIA or Gestapo tactics” at a secretive Chicago police facility exposed by the Guardian.
Politicians and civil-rights groups across the US expressed shock upon hearing descriptions of off-the-books interrogation at Homan Square, the Chicago warehouse that multiple lawyers and one shackled-up protester likened to a US counter-terrorist black site in a Guardian investigation published this week.
As a second person came forward to the Guardian detailing her own story of being “held hostage” inside Homan Square without access to an attorney or an official public record of her detention by Chicago police, officials and activists said the allegations merited further inquiry and risked aggravating wounds over community policing and race that have reached as high as the White House. [Continue reading…]
Poll: 20% of Germans want a revolution and say capitalism results in poverty and hunger
The Local: One in five Germans believe that a revolution would be the only way to truly reform society, a study released by the Free University of Berlin on Monday shows.
Anti-capitalism, anti-fascism and anti-racism were all are prominent positions according to the study entitled ‘Against state and capital – for the revolution’, which has revealed a public much further to the left than previously thought.
In the report, 20% of the people surveyed agreed with the statement that “Living conditions won’t be improved by reforms – we need a revolution”.
A similar percentage of people said they saw the rise of a new fascism in Germany as a real danger, while as many as a third agreed that capitalism inevitably leads to poverty and hunger.
Former Miss Turkey faces prison for ‘insulting’ Erdogan
The Associated Press reports: The lawyer for a model and former Miss Turkey says she could face up to two years in prison for social media posts that prosecutors have deemed to be critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Emre Telci said Wednesday an Istanbul prosecutor is demanding that Merve Buyuksarac be prosecuted on charges of insulting a public official. A court will decide whether to start proceedings.
Buyuksarac was detained last month for sharing a satirical poem on her Instagram account. She denies insulting Erdogan.
She becomes the latest figure to face trial for insulting Erdogan, amid fear the country is lurching toward authoritarian rule. [Continue reading…]
Music: Bugge Wesseltoft — ‘You Might Say’
Israel’s Africa policies ‘an exercise in cynicism’
Al Jazeera reports: Secret documents obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit expose a deep disdain by South Africa’s spies for their Israeli counterparts, with intelligence assessments accusing Israel of conducting “cynical” polices in Africa that include “fuelling insurrection,” “appropriating diamonds” and even sabotaging Egypt’s water supply.
Political wariness on the part of the South Africans is hardly surprising given Israel’s extensive military and security cooperation with the apartheid regime ousted in 1994. The current South African government is led by the African National Congress, which aligned itself with the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
A secret analysis from South African intelligence dismisses a tour of African countries by the Israeli Foreign Minister in 2009 as “an exercise in cynicism.” [Continue reading…]
‘Ex-Israeli agents’ threatened cyber attack on S Africa
Al Jazeera reports: A group claiming to be former agents of Israel’s Mossad threatened to unleash a devastating cyber attack on South Africa unless its government cracked down on the growing campaign to boycott Israel, according to intelligence documents leaked to Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.
According to the reports, then-Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan received a note from “unknown sources” on June 28, 2012, threatening a cyber attack “against South Africa’s banking and financial sectors.” The hand-delivered letter gave the government just 30 days to achieve the “discontinuation of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and the removal and prosecution of some unidentified individuals linked to BDS”.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has historically aligned itself with the Palestinian national struggle, and the BDS campaign there involves some high profile anti-apartheid struggle figures such as Nelson Mandela’s close friend and fellow Robben Island prisoner Ahmed Kathrada. [Continue reading…]
Spy cables: Greenpeace head targeted by intelligence agencies before Seoul G20
The Guardian reports: The head of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, was targeted by intelligence agencies as a potential security threat ahead of a major international summit, leaked documents reveal.
Information about Naidoo, a prominent human rights activist from South Africa, was requested from South African intelligence by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) in the runup to a meeting of G20 leaders in Seoul in 2010.
He was linked in the intelligence request with two other South Africans who had been swept up in an anti-terrorist raid in Pakistan but later released and returned to South Africa. [Continue reading…]
South Africa spied on own government to get facts on joint project with Russia
The Guardian reports: South Africa’s intelligence service relied on a spy “with direct access to the Russian government” to find out details of its own government’s involvement in a $100m (£65m) joint satellite surveillance programme with Russia, the leaked spy cables obtained by al-Jazeera and shared with the Guardian reveal.
The satellite system, known as Project Condor, which was launched into orbit by Russia in December last year, provides surveillance coverage of the entire African continent. The project has been shrouded in secrecy, with Russia originally refusing to reveal who its client was.
Those in the dark appear to have included South Africa’s intelligence agency. But a South African agent with access to Russian military intelligence was able to help, according to a leaked espionage report marked “top secret” and dated 28 August 2012. [Continue reading…]
Spy cables: Israel airline used as intelligence ‘front’
Al Jazeera: Secret cables obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit confirm that South Africa’s spy agencies concurred with allegations that Israel uses its flag-carrier, El Al Airlines, as cover for its intelligence agencies.
Leaked documents from South Africa’s intelligence agency support claims made on a 2009 South African television programme by a former El Al employee-turned-whistleblower.
Despite official Israeli denials, the whistleblower’s claims prompted an emergency meeting between senior officials from both sides, as well as a separate note of enquiry from Canada’s intelligence agency.
A Danish answer to radical jihad
Der Spiegel reports: If you ask Allan Aarslev, the friendly blond police commissioner from Aarhus, about his almost globally famous program, he answers with numbers. He mentions, for example, 31, 16 and one.
In 2013, he says, 31 Muslim men from Aarhus left for Syria with the intention of joining the radical jihadists of Islamic State (IS). Five of them have since lost their lives and 10 remain in the war zone. But 16 have returned to Aarhus, either for a rest before rejoining the fight, or to remain in Denmark and, as Aarslev says, perhaps become a danger closer to home.
But the program he designed for those returning from Syria has ensured that no such danger has developed. Indeed, since the project began only a single man from Aarhus has traveled to Syria to join the war. “One single person,” says Aarslev, doing his best to sound humble. The young men who live here in Aarhus, he says, are much less radical than they were just one year ago.
Denmark can use that kind of comforting news these days. The two murders committed just over a week ago by Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein, a 22-year-old with Palestinian roots, have hit Denmark’s liberal society hard. And they have reignited the debate that was triggered by the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris: How can a society that holds freedom of opinion to be an inalienable right prevent political-religious violence?
Copenhagen was a rather grim place to be last week with police officers armed with machine guns standing at bus stops and in front of shopping centers, helicopters buzzing low over the city and the shriek of sirens frequently piercing the air. Last Monday’s large demonstration, which saw 30,000 people gather at Gunnar Nu Hansens Plads in the heart of the city, did little to alleviate the shock — even if Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt proclaimed that all Danes had joined hands in the face of such difficult times.
Everywhere, though — in the editorial offices of newspapers like Politiken, for example, and at police headquarters in Copenhagen — people were talking about the pilot program in Aarhus. Indeed, the city’s mayor even flew to Washington recently at the invitation of President Barack Obama to talk about the Aarhus project, says Commissioner Aarslev. The city has received 150 requests from across the globe for more information and delegations are constantly visiting.
The program is almost naive in its simplicity. A significant number of the some 250 people involved work as scouts whose job it is to spot young Muslim men who have become radicalized. Once identified, they are approached by authorities in conjunction with a local Muslim cleric in the hopes of turning them away from violence. It is essentially a vast screening program for potential terrorists. And the strange thing is: It appears to be working. [Continue reading…]
The strategy of savagery employed by ISIS
David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith write: Of Egyptian background, [the jihadist theorist, Abu Bakr] Naji, like [Abu Musab] al-Suri, was an al-Qaeda insider with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the latter’s death in 2008. Ultimately, the purpose of violence, whether in the West or in Raqqa, as Naji explained, is to secure the borders of the Islamic State. As he analyzed in The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage Through Which the Umma Will Pass, the chaos of savagery represents the intermediate stage of state breakdown, which the revolutionary cadre must manage en route to the purified Islamic realm. Naji declares: “If we succeed in the management of savagery, that stage will be a bridge to the Islamic state which has been awaited since the fall of the caliphate.” Here we can discern that in his thinking about how to conduct jihad, Naji has read, and is clearly influenced by, Mao Tse-tung’s thinking on protracted people’s war.
In his attachment to a “stages theory” of revolution, Naji, in the manner of a Marxist dialectician, distinguishes between: a) the stage of state breakdown characterized as one of “vexation and exhaustion” where the failing state’s power, as in the Palestinian Authority or contemporary Afghanistan, for example, remains contested and b) the subsequent stage of “savage chaos,” where the people “yearn for someone to manage the savagery.”
The management of the stage of savagery therefore requires securing the region’s borders, providing basic food and medical treatment, and establishing sharia justice, prior to transition to the final historical stage of the reformed Caliphate. Stages One and Two clearly conform to Mao’s understanding of the “Strategic Defensive” and “Strategic Equilibrium” phases of protracted people’s war, as enunciated in On Guerrilla Warfare (1936).
As with Mao, so it is with Naji, the control of the people and the support of the masses in achieving both unity and power are secured “through armed struggle.” The only difference is that Naji’s strategy is intended to facilitate not the liberation of the poor and tabula rasa peasantry, but the implementation of sharia justice. To achieve this, Naji points out, “violence is crucial.” Any backsliding or “softness” will “be a major factor in the loss of the element of strength.” Again, this has strong parallels with Maoist thought, which held that demonstrative acts of terror would be necessary to enforce conformity to the goals of revolution.
Even if the Caliphate is not achieved in the short-term, it is not the end of the matter. Naji continues chillingly, “the more abominable the level of savagery is,” it is still less abominable than enduring stability under “the order of unbelief, nizam al kufir by several degrees.” Indeed, here one can note a further general tendency in Western commentary to discount – often in its totality – the strategic debate that takes place within the Islamist/jihadist domain.
Islamism is – to adapt another Maoist aphorism – a sea in which many fish swim and there is a continuous and often little remarked-upon self-critique that goes on within its ranks about the best means to attain its goals. [Continue reading…]