Ynet: Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog – currently the main contender to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister – took aim at the hawkish leader’s security policy, blasting him for being weak on Hamas, the terror group ruling Gaza with which Israel locked horns in a 50-day war over the summer.
“For years Hamas has been tunneling under our communities near the Gaza border. And what did you do? You waited, stalled and hesitated,” Herzog said in a new video.
Kabir Chibber: In recent months, a street movement called Pegida — Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident — has emerged from nowhere in Germany, seeking to “protect Judeo-Christian culture” and halt to what it calls the spread of Islam. Though it denies being xenophobic or racist, its leader quit after being pictured dressed as Hitler. Pegida’s rallies have attracted tens of thousands of people in Germany.
And now the group is spreading abroad. Pegida held its first march in Vienna and is to hold its first British rally in the city of Newcastle on Feb. 28, with more planned in the UK. Britain already has anti-Islamic groups such as the English Defence League, a small but vocal force. Only this weekend, the EDL attracted as many as 1,000 people to a march against the building of a mosque.
The Guardian reports: The head of the international organisation monitoring the conflict in Ukraine has said pro-Moscow separatists are constantly being re-armed, but warned that for western states to supply weapons to the Ukrainian army would risk an expansion of the war.
Lamberto Zannier, secretary general of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE), issued the warning at the Munich security conference where the debate over supplying arms to Kiev has pitted eastern European states and US members of Congress against Germany, the UK and other western European countries. The Obama administration says it has not made up its mind.
Zannier said he supported reform and non-lethal support of the Ukrainian army, but saw huge problems in supplying lethal weaponry.
“This carries a risk with it, and the risk is that this will strengthen a narrative we are seeing already appear on the side of the separatists, that they are fighting a war against Nato and against the west,” Zannier told the Guardian in an interview in Munich. [Continue reading…]
AFP reports: With Australian Peter Greste freed and a Canadian colleague close to release, the other Al-Jazeera journalist arrested in Cairo faces languishing in jail for an indefinite period because he has only Egyptian nationality.
Under global pressure to release the prisoners, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a decree tailored for Greste and colleague Mohamed Fahmy, allowing the deportation of foreigners but overlooking Baher Mohamed in the process.
Greste, an acclaimed reporter for Al-Jazeera English, was deported last week.
Fahmy, a dual national, had to renounce his Egyptian citizenship and his release and deportation to Canada is imminent, a government official said.
But in the face of delays, prominent lawyer Amal Clooney, who married Hollywood star George Clooney last year, has requested a meeting with Sisi to press Fahmy’s case, a letter obtained by AFP on Saturday showed, leaving Mohamed in the cold.
“We’re paying the price for being Egyptian,” his embittered wife Jihan Rashid told AFP. [Continue reading…]
Reuters reports: Islamic State’s defeat in Kobani and other recent setbacks in Syria suggest the group is under strain but far from collapse in the Syrian half of its self-declared caliphate.
Islamic State’s high-profile defeat by Kurdish militia backed by U.S.-led air strikes capped a four-month battle that cost Islamic State 2,000 of its fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war.
Further from the spotlight, Islamic State has also lost ground to Syrian government and Syrian Kurdish forces elsewhere. Its foes have noted unusual signs of disorganization in its ranks, while reports of forced conscription may indicate a manpower problem as the group wages war in both Syria and Iraq.
There is a long way to go before the tide turns decisively against the group in Syria, where it has faced less military pressure than in Iraq. Islamic State still has a firm grip over its Syrian stronghold in Raqqa province and territory stretching all the way to the other half of its caliphate in Iraq.
The group faces no serious challenge to its rule over those Sunni Arab areas, where it has violently crushed all opposition.
It may yet respond to the Kobani defeat by opening new fronts in Syria. And its capacity to wage psychological warfare was amply demonstrated by this week’s video showing the group burning to death a captive Jordanian pilot.
Yet the Kobani defeat marks the first significant setback for Islamic State (ISIL) in Syria since the rapid expansion of its territorial grip there last year following its capture of Iraqi city of Mosul in June. [Continue reading…]
Abd Doumany reports: For 18 months of the conflict I was forced to stay at home after I was injured in the leg by sniper fire. It pained me that the world knew so little of what how terrible the situation is in Syria, and in my city in particular. And I could do nothing about it.
Once I recovered, I started documenting what I saw as rights violations in my city. I have focused on photographing the wounded because I know personally how that feels, having been injured several times.
I have never covered conflict in another country. But I am certain it is different to report on it at home. [Continue reading…]
The Los Angeles Times reports: Amid deepening political turmoil here, the United States has resumed drone strikes against Al Qaeda’s most feared franchise without seeking approval from the Shiite Muslim rebels who have tightened their control of a government once considered a close American ally.
The insurgents, known as Houthis, dissolved Yemen’s parliament Friday and announced plans to set up interim bodies to run the government, a move that opponents said amounted to a coup. The capital was calm but tense as armed men loyal to the movement quickly filled the streets.
Yemen has been roiled by uncertainty since the Houthis seized the presidential palace and put U.S.-backed President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi under house arrest on Jan. 22, leading him and his Cabinet to tender their resignations. [Continue reading…]
The Associated Press reports: Yemen’s Shiite rebels proclaimed a formal takeover of the Arab nation Friday, dissolving parliament in a dramatic move that completes their power grab in the region’s poorest nation where an al-Qaida terrorist offshoot flourishes.
Angry demonstrators protested the rebels’ move in street rallies in several cities, raising fears of a full-blown sectarian conflict between Yemen’s new Shiite tribal rulers, known as Houthis, and the disenfranchised Sunni majority.
The unrest could strengthen Yemen’s al-Qaida branch, considered the world’s most dangerous wing of the terror movement, and complicate U.S. counter-terrorism operations in Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor. While Houthi rebels are bitter enemies to al-Qaida, they also are hostile to the United States, and frosty to the predominantly Sunni Saudis. The region’s Shiite powerhouse, Iran, looms as a potential key backer. [Continue reading…]
Reuters reports: European defence officials warned on Friday that arming Ukraine in its fight against pro-Russian separatists would only inflame the conflict, but were told by NATO’s top soldier, an American general, that the West should consider using “all tools” if diplomacy with Moscow wasn’t working.
The debate at the Munich Security Conference highlighted an emerging rift between Europe and Washington over how to confront Russian President Vladmir Putin as Moscow-backed rebels make territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.
President Barack Obama is under pressure from some in Congress to provide Kiev with lethal weapons.
German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen voiced Europe’s misgivings about this strategy: “Are we sure we would be improving the situation for the people in Ukraine by delivering weapons? Are we really sure that Ukraine can win against the Russian military machine?”
“And would this not be an excuse for Russia to intervene openly in the conflict?” asked the German minister.
Britain also fears that sending weapons could “escalate the conflict”, her British counterpart Michael Fallon told the conference. [Continue reading…]
The Wall Street Journal reports: In Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa, a Syrian city on the banks of the Euphrates, few Syrians hold positions of power these days. Running the show, residents say, are the thousands of foreigners who have converged there to establish an Islamic utopia they believe will soon conquer the planet.
“What we have is a foreign occupation,” said Sarmad al-Jilane, a former electronics student from Raqqa who now runs a website from neighboring Turkey documenting Islamic State abuses in his hometown called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently. “Those who are paid by them, like them, of course. But most others hate them because of all these killings and beheadings.”
Around 20,000 foreign fighters have joined Islamic State in Syria and Iraq over the past two years, Western intelligence officials estimate. While many nationalities are represented, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Russia and France have produced some of the largest contingents.
As this unprecedented influx continues, mostly through Syria’s long and porous border with Turkey, the rise of the foreign fighters is changing the very nature of the Syrian war.
In the early days of the conflict, many of these combatants came to Syria because of their desire to defend fellow Sunni Muslims against President Bashar al-Assad ’s regime.
Now, their main motivation often appears to be participating in the experiment of creating a new Islamic society — an experiment in which the fate of Syria and Syrians is secondary at best.
“People go now because they envisage a future there, not just because they want to fight on behalf of the Syrian people,” said Thomas Hegghammer, an expert on Islamic State and director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. “Many think it is a historical project that they can be part of, and that they will be remembered for being among the first — almost like the companions of the prophet.” [Continue reading…]
Cults commonly entice their recruits with the promise that they can have a unique place in history. For individuals burdened by their own lack of sense of purpose, this can be an irresistible promise.
Cults also maximize the division between insiders and outsiders — outsiders are defined, in part, by their incapacity to recognize the supposedly historic nature of the movement.
The plight of the trailblazers — so the conceit goes — is to be unrecognized and maligned by a world that lacks their vision.
This is why ISIS cannot be defeated by the construction of a persuasive counter-narrative. The proponents of such a narrative will be seen by those inside ISIS as essentially blind, which is to say, incapable of offering an alternative to something they have failed to appreciate.
The vilification of ISIS by the U.S. government, for instance, is thus unlikely to sow seeds of doubt and much more likely to prompt derisory laughter from the group’s followers.
For ISIS to break down ideologically, it seems like the fractures will have to develop from within the group.
AFP reports: The Islamic State group has learned from the mistakes of past jihadist movements and established a near-impregnable base of support within Iraq and Syria with spectacular appeal to many of the world’s Sunni Muslims, a new book has warned.
The authors of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, published this month in the US, spoke to dozens of fighters and members of the group to understand its allure and how it justifies its brutal tactics.In a telephone interview with AFP, one of the authors, Syrian-born journalist Hassan Hassan, said it was vital to understand that some of the group’s core religious beliefs were widely shared.
“It presents itself as an apocalyptic movement, talking about the end of days, the return of the caliphate and its eventual domination of the world,” said Hassan, who lives in Abu Dhabi where he works as a researcher for a think tank.
“These beliefs are not on the margins — they are absolutely mainstream. They are preached by mosques across the world, particularly in the Middle East.
“ISIS takes these existing beliefs and makes them more appealing by offering a project that is happening right now,” he said, using an alternative name for IS.
Hassan’s research along with co-author Michael Weiss — a US-based journalist — gave them a rare insight into IS training camps for new recruits, which vary in length from two weeks to one year.
“Recruits receive military, political and religious training. They are also trained in counter-intelligence to avoid being infiltrated,” said Hassan.
“After they graduate, recruits remain under scrutiny and can be expelled or punished if they show reservations, or sent back to the camps to ‘strengthen their faith’.”
IS uses certain texts and in-house clerics to provide religious justification for their violence, particularly a book called “The Management of Savagery“, which argues that brutality is a useful tool for goading the West into an over-reaction. [Continue reading…]
The Independent reports: As the eyes of the world remain fixed on Isis, Bashar al-Assad’s forces have killed an estimated 330 civilians in Syria since the start of this year alone, observers claim.
Bombings and chemical attacks like the ones that almost led Britain to war in 2013 have been carried out largely unnoticed as the so-called Islamic State continues its bloody campaign.
Isis has provoked global horror with its filmed beheadings, amputations, crucifixions, massacres and murders, most recently with the burning to death of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh.
The group’s horrific cruelty to civilians is well-documented, particularly the persecution of religious minorities and anyone who does not conform to their violent interpretation of Sharia law.
But whereas Isis gleefully spreads its gory propaganda videos around the world, the regime’s atrocities including the use of banned barrel bombs and chemical weapons, goes undocumented and unnoticed. [Continue reading…]
Mitchell Prothero reports: At least 12 former members of the French military are among the estimated 1,000 French citizens who’ve joined the Islamic State, including one highly trained special forces commando who was radicalized while working as a security contractor in the Persian Gulf, according to French officials and analysts as well as Arab security services.
One French intelligence official said the number is a reflection of France’s changing demographics, even though mandatory military service ended in France in 2001.
“I don’t have any hard numbers on this because France is a secular society where religious affiliation isn’t supposed to be tracked formally, but the general sense is that the French military has evolved into a heavily – and often devout – Roman Catholic officer corps leading a primarily and somewhat devout Muslim enlisted formation,” said the official, who spoke under the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
At least three former soldiers have been apprehended attempting to return to France from the Middle East after having fought alongside insurgents, according to a recent statement by French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Nine others currently fighting with the Islamic State have been identified. [Continue reading…]
The Guardian reports: The leaders of Germany and France abruptly announced a summit with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Friday in response to overtures from the Kremlin, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the year-old Ukraine conflict.
The sudden and unusual decision by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the president, François Hollande, to travel to Moscow, with the French leader talking of decisions of war and peace, increased the stakes in the crisis while also raising suspicions that the Kremlin was seeking to split Europe and the US. Putin was said to have made “initiatives” to the European leaders in recent days.
Merkel and Hollande met the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, in Kiev on Thursday evening but left without making any comment. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Pavlo Klimkin, said on Twitter that the leaders had discussed “steps so that the Minsk agreement can start working”. A ceasefire signed in Minsk in September froze the frontlines at their positions at the time, but never held.
Friday’s visit will be Merkel’s first trip to Russia since the outbreak of violence in eastern Ukraine, which has now cost more than 5,000 lives. The increase in diplomatic efforts came as the US secretary of state, John Kerry, also met Poroshenko and other top officials in Kiev.
At a joint news conference with Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Kerry sounded lukewarm about Merkel and Hollande’s visit. [Continue reading…]
Shaun Walker writes: In Kiev, John Kerry had a clear message for Russia and Vladimir Putin: the Kremlin should respect Ukraine’s territory, negotiate constructively and stop funnelling weapons and troops into the east of the country.
The problem is that it is the same message the US secretary of state and other western politicians have been delivering for more than half a year, to pretty much zero effect.
The issue for western negotiators has been how to force Russia to stop doing something that, even in private, it won’t admit it is doing. Washington is now grappling with whether it should back up its messages to Putin with an “or else” and seriously begin negotiations on supplying arms to Kiev.
In an editorial, The Guardian says: Europe does have leverage, if it chooses to use it. Russia may be a geopolitical giant but its GDP is no bigger than Italy’s. It is dependent on Europe’s financial structures. Yet next to the plunging oil price, the EU sanctions thus far have had a virtually symbolic impact. Cutting Russian banks and companies from the Belgium-based Swift international transaction system would, by contrast, impose a serious jolt. It could be done quickly, but then also rolled rapidly back. It has worked before, against Iran, which entered nuclear negotiations soon after being banned from Swift in 2012. Many businesses would balk at the costs. But these would surely be easier to bear than the enduring damage done by a widening war on the European continent.
Mr Putin regards the EU as a strategic midget. He will respect it only when Russia’s predatory oligarchy is confronted with some red lines. When Mrs Merkel and Mr Hollande head for Moscow, they should put Swift on the table.
Michael Kofman writes: The release of a report this week calling for a vast expansion of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, titled “Preserving Ukraine’s Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression,” helped reignite the debate in Washington, D.C. on the provision of lethal weapons and a reassessment of the U.S. role in the conflict. The authors are prominent former diplomats and highly respected members of the national-security establishment, including Michele Flournoy, Strobe Talbott and Steven Pifer, amongst others. As a result, the president’s administration has come under heavy political pressure to reevaluate the existing policy of support for Ukraine. The prominence and experience of the political figures behind this report makes it impossible to ignore. It is a concise piece of argument, demanding the United States supply $1 billion per year in defense articles to Ukraine, ranging from anti-tank missiles to advanced air defense, and a variety of technical enablers for the Ukrainian military.
The proponents of this armaments proposal have treated support for arming Ukraine as a litmus test for supporting Ukraine in its hour of need. But this is a false equivalence. In fact, it is entirely reasonable to support Ukraine fully and simultaneously oppose sending additional weapons into a volatile conflict region. Indeed, the proposed arms shipments would do little to help Ukraine militarily and might actually worsen the situation. Kyiv is in desperate need of financial, technical and political support to achieve vital objectives, which include a fledgling reform agenda and negotiating a durable settlement to hold the country together. This in fact is the position adopted by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and other U.S./NATO allies.
Sending a mix of weapons to Ukraine is unlikely to improve the situation, given the overwhelming force-on-force mismatch the country faces against Russia, but it could add fuel to a fire that is steadily consuming the country’s chances of emerging as a new nation on a European path. Instead, the United States should provide equipment and supplies to sustain Ukraine’s fledgling military, save lives, double down on economic aid and increase efforts aimed at reforming the country. Ukraine needs a genuine army, not weapons. Creating a sustainable professional force in Ukraine is a long-term effort the West must undertake as part of an overall strategy for the country, and perhaps under the framework of a strategic partnership that should emerge from thought and deliberation. Sending weapons in and of itself is not a strategy, either for Ukraine, or for settling the conflict. The United States must focus on achieving a durable political settlement first. This report does not offer recommendations on a path to peace, and no explanation of how weapons shipments could result in a political settlement to the war currently raging in the Donbass.
At its essence, the report is intended to press the reluctant president into changing his course in Ukraine, and to make the United States a more active participant in the conflict. Its core premise is that by giving Ukraine the ability to kill more Russian soldiers, sending weapons would raise the costs of war for Moscow to an unacceptable level, thus forcing Russia to abandon its existing policy and thus deterring further aggression. The weakness in the armaments proposal is that it offers no vision for what a new political settlement to the current conflict might look like, or how to move beyond the failed Minsk ceasefire, but recommends an Afghanistan-like approach to dealing with the Russian invasion. [Continue reading…]
The New York Times reports: They came in the dead of night, their faces covered, riding on motorcycles and in pickup trucks, shouting “Allahu akbar” and firing their weapons.
“They started with the shootings; then came the beheadings,” said Hussaini M. Bukar, 25, who fled after Boko Haram fighters stormed his town in northern Nigeria. “They said, ‘Where are the unbelievers among you?’”
Women and girls were systematically imprisoned in houses, held until Boko Haram extracted the ones it had chosen for “marriage” or other purposes.
“They were parking” — imprisoning — “young girls and small, small children, parking them in the big houses,” said Bawa Safiya Umar, 45, whose 17-year-old son was killed when her town fell under Boko Haram’s control. “They parked 450 girls in four houses.”
Refugees flocking into this besieged provincial capital describe a grim world of punishment, abduction and death under Boko Haram in the Islamist quasi state it has imposed in parts of northern Nigeria.[Continue reading…]
Reuters reports: Kurds are celebrating after flushing Islamic State militants out of the town of Kobani, but victory is not yet certain in their campaign to cement hard-won autonomy in northern Syria.
Hundreds of U.S.-led coalition air strikes have devastated the town, which is adrift in an Islamic State-controlled sea. Objections to autonomy from neighboring Turkey and the United States could also make it hard for them to sustain their gains.
The retaking by People’s Protection Units (YPG) last week of predominantly Kurdish Kobani after a four-month siege by Islamic State was a major defeat for the Sunni fundamentalist group that controls a 20,000-square mile arc of Syria and Iraq.
For the Kurds, it is a bittersweet victory, as almost 200,000 people, almost the entire population of Kobani province, are still sheltering in Turkey.
But many were still exuberant. Dozens of men waiting at the Turkish crossing to return to Kobani late last week shouted and danced for joy, unfazed by the wrecked city looming behind them.
Most of Kobani is destroyed, with unexploded shells and twisted hunks of cars strewn along the streets. [Continue reading…]
The Washington Post reports: The Iraqi government on Thursday abolished the nighttime curfew imposed on Baghdad by U.S. troops in 2003, heralding another small milestone in the city’s recent — and surprising — revival.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that the curfew will end at midnight Saturday, as well as a series of other measures aimed at normalizing life in the long-blighted capital, even as much of the rest of the country is consumed by war.
He declared four neighborhoods as “demilitarized zones,” in which unauthorized gunmen will be prohibited. He also vowed to start removing the blast walls and barricades that have blocked streets, sealed off neighborhoods and endowed the capital with the air of a militarized zone for much of the past decade.
Similar moves have been promised in the past, only to founder on waves of bombings and violence or repression by government security forces.
But these days, Baghdad feels different.
Since Islamic State fighters overran much of the north and west of the country in the summer, a paradoxical sense of calm has taken hold. The initial panic that followed the militant onslaught has abated, and as residents have come to realize that the capital is not at risk of falling, Baghdad has sprung to life.
Nightclubs have proliferated, liquor stores dot the streets, and families pile into cars every evening to eat at one of the many new restaurants or stroll in the glitzy new mall. A glittering riverboat plies the Tigris River every night, serving dinner on one deck and coffee on another. A pink neon palace called the Barbie Clinic pampers women with beauty treatments late into the evening.
For those who can’t afford such venues, there are impromptu parties along the bridges and banks of the Tigris, where young men gather with cans of beer to talk, socialize and, after the drink has taken effect, dance in the streets.
The merriment comes to an abrupt close as midnight approaches, triggering a mad dash through the streets to make it home in time.
“Now we will be able to stay until the morning,” Khaled Faisal, 28, said as he sat on a wall beside the river sipping beer with two friends. He welcomed the lifting of the curfew. “It’s good news. It means Baghdad is safe,” he said.
Whether Baghdad is safe is in question. [Continue reading…]
