Category Archives: News

The mercenaries commanding UAE forces in Yemen

Middle East Eye reports: An Australian citizen is the commander of an elite UAE military force deployed in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led coalition, which human rights groups accuse of war crimes.

Mike Hindmarsh, 59, is a former senior Australian army officer who is publicly listed as commander of the UAE’s Presidential Guard.

The Presidential Guard is a unit of marines, reconnaissance, aviation, special forces and mechanised brigades, according to the US State Department website.

Hindmarsh oversaw the guard’s formation in early 2010 shortly after he took up his estimated $500,000-a-year, tax-free job in Abu Dhabi, where he reports directly to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

The Presidential Guard has been lauded for playing a key role in the Saudi-led coalition seeking to reinstall the exiled Yemeni government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. [Continue reading…]

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Christmas in Syria: Children’s hospital in Aleppo bombed by Russian jets

Anadolu Agency reports: At least six civilians were killed and dozens were injured Friday in airstrikes carried out by Russian warplanes in Aleppo, Syrian security sources said.

The sources added that the airstrikes, which targeted Azaz district, caused heavy damage to the hospitals’ buildings. One of the medical facilities is believed to be a children’s hospital.

Russian airstrikes have killed more than 250 civilians this week alone across Syria.

According to a report released earlier this month by Amnesty International, Russian airstrikes in Syria have killed “hundreds” of Syrian civilians over the last three months. [Continue reading…]

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Iraqi forces to retake Mosul from ISIS after Ramadi secured, says PM

Reuters reports: Iraq’s armed forces will move to retake the major northern city of Mosul from Islamic State once they capture the western city of Ramadi, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Friday.

Capturing Mosul would deprive the militant group of its biggest population center in both Iraq and Syria, effectively abolishing the state structure of IS in Iraq, depriving it of a major source of funding and dealing a blow to its influence.

The capture of Ramadi would give the army a major psychological boost in its move toward Mosul. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS sanctioned organ harvesting in document taken in U.S. raid

Reuters reports: Islamic State has sanctioned the harvesting of human organs in a previously undisclosed ruling by the group’s Islamic scholars, raising concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.

The ruling, contained in a January 31, 2015 document reviewed by Reuters, says taking organs from a living captive to save a Muslim’s life, even if it is fatal for the captive, is permissible.

For a U.S. government translation of the document, click here

Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the authenticity of the document. U.S. officials say it was among a trove of data and other information obtained by U.S. special forces in a raid in eastern Syria in May.

“The apostate’s life and organs don’t have to be respected and may be taken with impunity,” says the document, which is in the form of a fatwa, or religious ruling, from the Islamic State’s Research and Fatwa Committee. [Continue reading…]

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Pope Francis attacks consumerist society in midnight mass at Vatican

The Guardian reports: Pope Francis returned to one of his favoured themes in his homily at midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the Vatican, castigating a hedonistic and consumerist society and a culture of indifference.

Meanwhile, one of his senior cardinals, Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and the leader of the Catholic church in England, focused his Christmas Eve message on “gratuitous violence” in the home and the suffering of persecuted Christians around the world.

Neither Catholic leader mentioned the continuing refugee crisis, a surprising omission at the end of a year in which the plight of those fleeing conflict, persecution and hardship has dominated international headlines. In September, Francis called on every religious community across Europe to offer sanctuary to refugee families. [Continue reading…]

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Americans use more energy on Christmas lights than is used to power entire countries

AFP reports: American household Christmas lights, a favorite holiday tradition, use up more electricity than some poorer countries — such as El Salvador or Ethiopia — do in a year.

Bright lights strung on American trees, rooftops and lawns account for 6.63 billion kilowatt hours of electricity consumption every year, according to a recent blog post by the Center for Global Development.

That’s more than the national electricity consumption of many developing countries. El Salvador for one, uses 5.35 billion kilowatt hours, while Ethiopia consumes 5.30 billion and Tanzania 4.81 billion. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS’s countercultural appeal is real

ISIS-catwalk

Simon Cottee writes: If you want to get a sense of what attracts westernized Muslims to ISIS, you could do worse than listen to one of its sympathizers, as opposed to its legion of opponents, who are liable to pathologize the group’s appeal as an ideological contagion that infects the weak, instead of taking it seriously as a revolutionary movement that speaks to the young and the strong-minded.

Check out, as just one of many examples, the Twitter user “Bint Emergent”: an apparent ISIS fangirl and keen observer of the jihadist scene. (Bint Emergent has not disclosed her identity, or gender, but bint is an honorific Arabic word for girl or daughter; like umm — mother in Arabic — bint features prominently in the Twitter display names of female ISIS sympathizers.)

“Jihadis,” she explains on her blog BintChaos, “look cool — like ninjas or video game warriors — gangstah and thuggish even — the opposition doesnt.” She concedes that “There aren’t a lot of jihadist ‘poster-girls’ displayed—they all wear niqab [face veil], but sometimes its tastefully accessorized with an AK47 or a bomb belt.” By contrast, “Team CVE [a reference to Countering Violent Extremism, or Anglo-American counterterrorism entrepreneurs whose role, state- or self-appointed, is to challenge “extremist” narratives],” consists “mostly [of] middleaged white guys with a smidgin of scared straight ex-mujahids [ex-jihadists] and a couple middleaged women.” [Continue reading…]

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Turkey’s Kurdish cities become war zones

The Wall Street Journal reports: Turkey’s stepped-up military campaign to crush Kurdish insurgents has reduced some urban neighborhoods in the southeast of the country to battle zones, raising fears the conflict could escalate and spread elsewhere in the country unless peace talks resume.

Since the government last week declared what it called a “decisive” campaign to end five months of limited violence between Kurds and government security forces, young Kurdish militants in the cities of Diyarbakir, Cizre, Silopi and Nusaybin have been targeted by Turkish tanks, helicopters, artillery and snipers, according to local residents and news reports from the region.

Militants in the mainly Kurdish cities have erected barricades to seal off neighborhoods they’ve declared outside the authority of the Turkish state, and are using AK-47s, rocket launchers and homemade bombs to defend the enclaves, these residents say.

Turkish officials said Wednesday that about 170 Kurdish militants and at least 11 members of Turkey’s security services have been killed since the government’s announcement last week.

The rising death toll has raised concerns among human-rights groups, the U.S. and the European Union that the fighting could expand beyond southeastern Turkey and become more indiscriminate if both sides fail to heed appeals by Washington and Brussels to stop fighting and return to negotiations. [Continue reading…]

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A Christmas of despair for Syrian Christian refugees in Lebanon

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The Washington Post reports: Not so many years ago, Christmas Day for the Kouriehs began with Mass at the village church. The family would return home for an afternoon feast of rice and meat with sides of salad and hummus.

Neighbors would stop by to extend holiday greetings. Children would play next to the Christmas tree.

That was before the Islamic State and other extremists started kidnapping Christians like the Kouriehs, before the relentless violence, before civil war tore apart their country.

That was before the Kouriehs had to flee Syria for their lives.

“It used to be beautiful there,” Joseph Kourieh, 57, recalled from the dilapidated apartment in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, where he, his wife and five of his grown children now live.

More than a million Syrians have taken refuge in neighboring Lebanon, a country of barely 4 million people that can hardly cope with the influx. Among the mostly Muslim refugees are hundreds and possibly thousands of Syrian Christian families that also endure the hardship and humiliation of displacement. [Continue reading…]

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Refugees who had fled from murderers and drought will be forced to return home

The Washington Post reports: The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with the operation.

The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a related surge of unaccompanied minors.

The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to officials familiar with the undertaking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because planning is ongoing and the operation has not been given final approval by DHS. The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds and possibly greater.

The proposed deportations have been controversial inside the Obama administration, which has been discussing them for several months. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has been pushing for the moves, according to those with knowledge of the debate, in part because of a new spike in the number of illegal immigrants in recent months. Experts say that the violence that was a key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged again, with the homicide rate in El Salvador reaching its highest level in a generation. A drought in the region has also prompted departures. [Continue reading…]

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Fanatical Trump supporter arrested on suspicion of threatening to kill Muslims

San Jose Mercury News reports: On Dec. 4, William Celli stood outside the Islamic Society of West Contra Costa County and yelled “I’m going to kill you all” at worshipers as they left a prayer service, the mosque’s leader said Monday.

Members of the mosque alerted police, and they launched an investigation into the local plumber and self-proclaimed Donald Trump supporter who posted on Facebook that he would follow the Republican presidential candidate “to the end of the world.” On Sunday, police said, they arrested Celli, 55, after learning he posted a photo of a pipe bomb on social media. Inside his Richmond home, investigators said they found a pipe bomb-type device that was not armed with explosives.

The mosque, which is attended by several hundred people, has hired private security guards to ensure the safety of its worshipers, said Imam Hamza Mehter, adding it’s the first time in the nearly two decades the mosque has been in that neighborhood that threats have been made.

It also marks the latest in a string of alleged incidents targeting Bay Area Muslims in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino attacks — and amid a heated presidential campaign dominated by Trump’s controversial remarks surrounding Muslims. [Continue reading…]

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The ‘No Fly List’ operates in secret, and its power to exclude is vast

Jeffrey Kahn writes: The No Fly List is not a government program easily challenged. Indeed, it operates in secrecy, from an undisclosed location, administered by an office – the Terrorist Screening Center – that doesn’t accept public inquiries. When challenged in court, the watchlisters routinely declare their methods safe but secret and fight the disclosure of their standards and criteria for inclusion.

The British Muslim family recently denied travel to Disneyland might soon discover this, despite the fact that Prime Minister David Cameron has been called upon to examine the case.

The Guardian reported that, despite prior US approvals, the entire family was turned away from Gatwick’s departure lounge. Without warning or a hearing, their freedom to travel was stripped away at great expense and deep humiliation. Instantly, they were reduced to the status of suspected terrorists by anonymous US officials working without any judicial oversight.

Imagine your family in their shoes. If you can’t, then you don’t understand the power of the US No Fly List. [Continue reading…]

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The British Muslim family’s refused entry reveals America’s hypocrisy

Ali Gharib writes: The Mahmood family’s ordeal at Gatwick airport in London, where the Disneyland-bound group of 11 UK citizens was pulled out of the boarding line by American officials and had their tickets cancelled, speaks to more than just the apparent institutional prejudices of the American government’s security measures.

Also laid bare are the paradoxes of the fight over Islamophobia here at home. How can we ask Muslim communities the world over – including in the US – to forcefully reject the extremists among them and, more onerously, reveal themselves as the peace-loving people they are when at the same time we fail to treat them this way at our borders?

After the San Bernardino, California, attack, where armed assailants took the lives of 14 innocent people after reportedly being radicalized, Barack Obama demanded that Muslims take on more responsibility in the ideological fight against terrorists.

There is no, Obama said,

denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse. Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like [the Islamic State] and al-Qaida promote; to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect and human dignity.

That’s a nice thought. But how can one ask that of Muslims when one arbitrarily denies them entry to our country on the apparent basis of little more than their religion? Mutual respect and human dignity are not words that spring to mind when considering the recent spate of seemingly arbitrary denials of entry that barred British Muslims seeking to do no more than visit the US. [Continue reading…]

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Christmas message in UK will be delivered by father of drowned Syrian boy

Channel 4 News reports: Abdullah Kurdi, the father of the drowned Syrian boy whose body was photographed on a Turkish beach, will deliver Channel 4’s Alternative Christmas message.

The heartbreaking images, which will be shown as part of the broadcast, shocked the world and came to symbolise the horror of the refugee crisis.

They prompted European leaders to do more to tackle the stark reality of the desperate situation facing many refugees. Abdullah lost his wife Rehanna and two sons: Alan, 3 and Galeb, 5, as they attempted to flee the war ravaging their Syrian homeland.

Over 4 million people have fled the country since the start of the civil war. More than 250,000 have been killed. This year alone 500,000 Syrian refugees attempted to reach Europe and North America.

In the Alternative Christmas Message, which will be broadcast on Christmas Day at 3.35pm on Channel 4, Kurdi calls for empathy and understanding for those caught up in the current refugee crisis:

My message is I’d like the whole world to open its doors to Syrians. If a person shuts a door in someone’s face, this is very difficult. When a door is opened they no longer feel humiliated.

Kurdi appeals as a parent, speaking of the desperation of the Syrian people:

At this time of year I would like to ask you all to think about the pain of fathers, mothers and children who are seeking peace and security.

We ask just for a little bit of sympathy from you.

Kurdi’s powerful words are interspersed with footage of the refugee crisis and the dangerous Mediterranean crossings from Libya to Italy and from Turkey to Greece. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. pursued secret contacts with Assad regime for years

The Wall Street Journal reports: At the center of that effort was a businessman and confidante of Mr. Assad, Khaled Ahmad, who has served as the Syrian leader’s main interlocutor in recent years with Western officials, including U.S. diplomats. Mr. Ahmad didn’t respond to questions sent by The Wall Street Journal.

“Assad was looking for ways to talk to the White House,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and professor at the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Ahmad, a businessman from Homs province, was his point man.

In late 2013, the former ambassador to Damascus Mr. Ford—then a special administration envoy on Syria—met Mr. Ahmad in Geneva ahead of planned peace talks there. Mr. Ford told Mr. Ahmad the U.S. was still seeking a political transition away from Mr. Assad’s rule.

Mr. Ahmad countered that the U.S. and the West should help the Syrian government fight terrorism.

The rise of Islamic State in 2013 caught the U.S. administration off guard. Mr. Assad found in it a better opening to position himself as a partner in a fight against terror consuming the region, and rippling to the West.

By 2014, when the U.S. expanded airstrikes against the militants from Iraq to Syria, State Department officials were making phone calls to their counterparts at the Syrian foreign ministry to make sure Damascus steered clear of U.S. jets in Syrian skies, U.S. officials and others familiar the communications said.

Today, when Washington wants to notify Damascus where it is deploying U.S.-trained Syrian fighters to battle Islamic State so the fighters aren’t mistaken for rebels, Samantha Power, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., dispatches a deputy to talk to the Syrian envoy, Bashar Jaafari, these people said.

The White House says the notifications are not collaboration with the regime. But Mr. Assad has used them to his advantage.

“The regime was re-legitimized,” said Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian journalist who until 2013 ran the Damascus bureau for Al Hayat, a major pan-Arab newspaper. “Any communication with the U.S.—even the perception of it—gives them the upper hand.” [Continue reading…]

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The Taliban winter offensive bodes ill for Afghanistan’s future

By Amalendu Misra, Lancaster University

The world will mark the 15th anniversary of its military operations in Afghanistan under a dark cloud. After all the efforts of a coalition of 40 powerful countries, over US$1 trillion spent and thousands of uniformed lives lost, the primary objective of the mission undertaken in 2001 has not been met – and war has become the seemingly insurmountable status quo for Afghanistan.

And as the UK announced it was deploying personnel to help try and save the troubled Helmand province and the town of Sangin, one cannot but accept the fact that the dreaded Taliban is back with a bang – and that the rest of the world is nowhere near defeating it. The Taliban would appear to be in a resurgent mode across the country, and many Afghans now believe it’s winning. How did we get it so horribly wrong? Who screwed it up?

A chorus of events has helped the Taliban’s consolidation in recent years. While the end of NATO-led combat operations in 2014 removed any large strategic challenges, it is the fact that Afghanistan is a dysfunctional state, which has proved to be the biggest boon to the Taliban’s revival.

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Russia gives intelligence to Taliban and weapons to their enemy, the Afghan government

The Washington Post reports: A Kremlin official said Wednesday that Russia was exchanging information with the Taliban, the Islamist insurgency that the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, as a bulwark against the spread of the Islamic State militant group in that country.

Zamir Kabulov, a Foreign Ministry department head and President Vladimir Putin’s special representative for Afghanistan, told the Interfax news agency that “the Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours” in the fight against the Islamic State, which has captured broad swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq.

“I have already said earlier that we and the Taliban have channels for exchanging information,” Kabulov added, in remarks reported by Interfax and confirmed to The Washington Post by a ministry spokesman.

A limited partnership with the Taliban, which announced last week that it would send “special forces” to fight the Islamic State, is a striking, and somewhat confusing, twist in Russia’s war on terror. Although Russia plunged enthusiastically into its airstrike campaign against the Islamic State in Syria in September (critics say Russia is mainly there to prop up President Bashar al-Assad), Moscow has opposed the Taliban for more than a decade as a potential vehicle for terror and instability in the former Soviet Union. [Continue reading…]

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