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Airstrikes have little impact as ISIS advances on Kobane and Baghdad

McClatchy reports: The Turkish government says 160,000 Kurds have crossed from northern Syria in the past week, and there were at least 10,000 more on Monday, according to Sanliurfa.Com, a local news portal.

On Tuesday, a McClatchy reporter witnessed Kurds arriving at a rate of about 500 an hour. Turkish authorities processed them in an orderly and efficient manner, with children offered rubella vaccinations in a medical tent, and everyone required to register at a mobile immigration office before being transported by a fleet of minibuses to nearby towns.

The regional Kobane government, controlled by a Kurdish group that Turkey, the United States and the European Union have labeled as a terrorist organization, said the U.S.-led coalition staged two airstrikes on Islamic State positions Monday night about six miles west of Kobane, but the Islamic State advance seemed to be undeterred.

Idriss Nassan, the deputy foreign minister of the Kobane canton, reached by phone, told McClatchy that Islamic State fighters were within three miles of the city on the south and east and six miles on the west. Other estimates put the Islamic State as close as two miles outside the town, which is also known in Arabic as Ayn al Arab.

If the U.S. and its Arab allies appeared reluctant to save Kobane from the Islamic State, there was no sign that Turkey would intervene, either. The Turkish military brought more than 30 tanks and armored vehicles to the border Monday and menacingly pointed their turrets into Syria. But one day later, they were parked in a lot close to the border with no sign of crews.

The tragedy of the Kobane region is that its leadership had been able to secure peace and calm for the past two years, a period in which internally displaced Kurds and other groups migrated there by the tens of thousands. When the Islamic State began pressuring last spring, the local Kurdish militia, known by its Kurdish initials as the YPG, seemed to be able to hold them off. But in recent days, the Islamic State has been advancing, and the U.S. coalition, no doubt spurred on by Turkey’s fears that the YPG is allied with its own Kurdish separatist insurgents, hasn’t come to the rescue. When Turkish Kurds tried to send in fighters, the Turkish government stopped them, using tear gas.

On Tuesday there was no sign of more volunteers, and none of the two dozen or so returning Kobane residents said they intended to join the militia, and a sense of hopelessness swept those who’d fled. [Continue reading…]

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that since ISIS began its attack on September 16, it has seized 325 villages in the area surrounding Kobane.

Reuters reports: Islamic State beheaded seven men and three women in a northern Kurdish area of Syria, a human rights monitoring group said on Wednesday, part of what it described as a campaign to frighten residents resisting the militant group’s advance.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human, Rights Rami Abdulrahman, said five anti-Islamic State Kurdish fighters, including three women, and four Syrian Arab rebels were detained and beheaded on Tuesday 14 km (8 miles) west of Kobani, a Kurdish town besieged by Islamic State near the Turkish border.

He said a Kurdish male civilian was also beheaded.

“I don’t know why they were arrested or beheaded. Only the Islamic State knows why. They want to scare people,” he said.

NBC News reports: ISIS militants seized weapons and besieged hundreds of Iraqi soldiers after overrunning an army base northwest of the capital, a senior security official told NBC News. The attack on the Albu Aytha military camp, 50 miles outside of Baghdad, comes amid airstrikes by the U.S. and its allies and gains by Kurdish troops on the Iraqi-Syria border. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said late Tuesday that poor communications from the base meant it was unclear exactly how many soldiers remained trapped inside the base but reports suggested between 240 and 600 people were under siege. The senior security official added that some of the soldiers at Albu Aytha were able to escape before ISIS arrived.

NBC News also reports: Iraqi military pilots mistakenly gave food, water and ammunition to enemy ISIS militants instead of their own soldiers, a senior security official and a brigadier-general told NBC News. The supplies were supposed to help besieged Iraqi army officers and soldiers who had been fighting Islamist extremists for a week in Saglawyah and the village of Al-Sijar in the country’s western province of Anbar.

“Some pilots, instead of dropping these supplies over the area of the Iraqi army, threw it over the area that is controlled by ISIS fighters,” said Hakim Al-Zamili, a lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament who is a member of the security and defense committee and acts as a security liaison for service members and commanders formed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. “Those soldiers were in deadly need of these supplies, but because of the wrong plans of the commanders in the Iraqi army and lack of experience of the pilots, we in a way or another helped ISIS fighters to kill our soldiers.”

A brigadier-general in Iraq’s Defense Ministry, who declined to be named, confirmed the incident, which occurred on Sept. 19. “Yes, that’s what had happened,” the officer said, adding that some air force pilots “do not have enough experience … they are all young and new.” Both Al-Zamili and the brigadier-general said there would be an investigation to determine the cause of the blunder.

Middle East Eye: The Pentagon, appealing for patience, warned that there would be no quick and easy end to the fighting.

No one should be lulled into a false sense of security by accurate air strikes,” Pentagon spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby, told reporters. “We will not, we cannot bomb them into obscurity.”

A long-term effort will be needed to train and arm Syrian rebel forces and strengthen Iraq’s army, he said.

He said “military action alone will not win this effort”.

Kirby criticised some media coverage as raising unrealistic expectations about the air campaign in Syria and Iraq.

Commanders from the outset had made clear that air power alone would not be enough while a long-term effort would be needed to train and arm Syrian rebel forces and strengthen Iraq’s army, he said.

“Even as we share the sense of urgency about this group, we must also share a sense of strategic patience about this entire effort. And I think some of that has been lacking,” Kirby said.

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Europeans say U.S. never briefed them on plot by the ‘Khorasan Group’

McClatchy reports: European counterterrorism specialists say their American counterparts never mentioned an imminent plot by al Qaida operatives in Syria to attack Western targets and didn’t brief them on the group that’s supposedly behind the plan, a previously unknown terrorist unit that American officials have dubbed the Khorasan group.

The interviews with the specialists, from two European NATO allies with close intelligence ties to the United States, raise questions about why the United States used its first series of airstrikes on the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in Syria to also attack eight installations belonging to the Nusra Front, an al Qaida affiliate that anti-government rebel groups consider an important ally in their fight to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

U.S. officials didn’t use the word Nusra to identify the targets, instead saying the strikes in Idlib province, far from Islamic State-controlled territory, were aimed at the Khorasan group. But activists and other rebels in Syria identified the positions hit as belonging to Nusra and said 50 Nusra fighters were killed.

U.S. officials said the Khorasan group was composed of senior al Qaida operatives who’d been dispatched to Syria to plot attacks against the West. The officials said the strikes were intended to break up a plan for an imminent attack.

The White House declined Friday to expand on that description or say with whom the intelligence about the group had been shared.

“We, along with our foreign partners, have been watching this group over the past two years since many of its members arrived in Syria from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we took action when their plotting reached an advanced stage,” said Caitlyn Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council. “I’m not going to be able to discuss with whom intelligence was shared in this case.”

The European specialists, who meet regularly with U.S. officials on terrorism issues – particularly air travel and potential terrorist operations involving Western passport holders – said they were never specifically warned about such a group or such a plot. Such an omission, the specialists said, seemed unlikely if the plot were truly imminent. [Continue reading…]

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Turning point as Kurds push back ISIS at Iraqi-Syrian border

Rudaw reports: In a potential turning point in the fightback against the Islamic State, Kurdish forces on Tuesday said they had retaken the strategic Iraqi town of Rabia that straddles a main road near the border with Syria.

Rabia has provided a road link for the jihadists between their strongholds in Syria and Iraq, including the country’s second largest city of Mosul which IS captured in June.

The loss of Rabia would be the most significant setback for ISIS forces in northern Iraq since the launch of U.S. and allied air strike earlier this month.

A Peshmerga commander, Shiekh Ahmad Mohammad, told Rudaw: “Rabia is under the control of Kurdish forces. We are leaving their bodies behind and picking up their abandoned weapons.”

The YPG, the protection force of the Kurdish-held zone in neighbouring Syria, said the capture of Rabia was a joint operation between them and the Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) but this was not immediately confirmed by the Peshmerga side.

The YPG has been harassing ISIS forces in the area, while further west, in Rojava, its units have been resisting the advance of ISIS forces against the Syrian-Turkish border town of Kobane.

Selahattin Demirtas, a leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) crossed the border into Kobane on Tuesday in a visit of solidarity. He later called on the Turkish government to support the fight of Syrian Kurds against ISIS. He said this was an opportunity to strengthen Turkey’s peace process with its own Kurdish population. [Continue reading…]

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Turkish government to ask parliament for approval to join campaign against ISIS

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Turkish government was expected to submit motions to parliament Tuesday that if approved would give it authorization to intervene in Iraq and Syria against forces of the extremist Islamic State.

The motions are to be debated in a closed or open session of parliament Thursday, with a vote immediately to follow. An affirmative vote is predicted.

“We will definitely be where we need to be,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said over the weekend. “We cannot stay out of this.”

Some opposition political parties in Turkey have staunchly opposed any Turkish military action in Syria and are expected to challenge the motions, despite government pleas. [Continue reading…]

Today’s Zaman reports: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants are advancing on a tomb in northern Syria regarded by Turkey as sovereign territory and guarded by Turkish soldiers, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said on Tuesday.

Arınç’s remarks, made after a Cabinet meeting, confirmed a news report by pro-government Yeni Şafak daily that ISIL has been reinforcing militants around the tomb of Süleyman Şah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, Osman I, for the past three days.

“It is true that ISIL militants are approaching Süleyman Şah tomb,” Arınç said, adding, however, that Turkish troops guarding the tomb have not been evacuated.

The report said there are now 1,100 ISIL militants surrounding the Süleyman Shah tomb, citing unnamed local sources. It also said an attack on the tomb is possible and that ISIL militants might take some 36 Turkish soldiers stationed there hostage.

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Protests against ISIS’s Kobane siege continue across Turkey

Today’s Zaman reports: Demonstrators have gathered in cities across Turkey to protest the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) siege of the strategic Syrian town of Kobane, which is inhabited predominantly by ethnic Kurds.

An all-female protest including women from some 36 civil society organizations gathered in İstanbul to protest against ISIL over the weekend, marching towards the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) headquarters in Kadıköy.

The group included women activists from civil society organizations such as the Human Rights Association (İHD) and the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP). The group chanted slogans, saying, “If there is no Rojava [the Kurdish-populated region of northern Syria], there won’t be peace,” “Women’s solidarity against ISIL” and “Murderer ISIL, collaborator AK Party.”

The group said in a statement made during the protest that the ISIL attacks are also targeting the settlement process in Turkey, which aims to solve the Kurdish problem in the country, and called on the international community to take action for Kobane. The statement said the Turkish government should not allow ISIL members to cross into Syria from Turkey.

The protesters also stressed that they do not want a buffer zone in Syria.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has insisted that a buffer zone to protect Turkey’s borders with Iraq and Syria, as well as a no-fly zone over Syria, must be established. US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made clear at a Pentagon news conference that the US is not actively considering a buffer zone. [Continue reading…]

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U.S-led raids hit grain silos in Syria, kill workers

Reuters reports: U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding militants, a group monitoring the war said on Monday.

The aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There was no immediate comment from Washington.

The United States has targeted Islamic State and other fighters in Syria since last week with the help of Arab allies, and in Iraq since last month. It aims to damage and destroy the bases, forces and supply lines of the al Qaeda offshoot which has captured large areas of both countries.

The strikes in Manbij appeared to have killed only civilians, not fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory which gathers information from sources in Syria.

“These were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people,” he said. He could not give a number of casualties and it was not immediately possible to verify the information. [Continue reading…]

A CENTCOM news release said the airstrikes “struck an ISIL training camp and ISIL vehicles in a staging area next to an ISIL-held grain storage facility near Manbij that ISIL was using as a logistics hub and vehicle staging facility.”

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Causes of California drought linked to climate change

EurekAlert!: The atmospheric conditions associated with the unprecedented drought currently afflicting California are “very likely” linked to human-caused climate change, Stanford scientists say.

In a new study, a team led by Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh used a novel combination of computer simulations and statistical techniques to show that a persistent region of high atmospheric pressure hovering over the Pacific Ocean that diverted storms away from California was much more likely to form in the presence of modern greenhouse gas concentrations.

The research, published on Sept. 29 as a supplement to this month’s issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is one of the most comprehensive studies to investigate the link between climate change and California’s ongoing drought.

“Our research finds that extreme atmospheric high pressure in this region—which is strongly linked to unusually low precipitation in California—is much more likely to occur today than prior to the human emission of greenhouse gases that began during the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s,” said Diffenbaugh, associate professor of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

The exceptional drought currently crippling California is by some metrics the worst in state history. Combined with unusually warm temperatures and stagnant air conditions, the lack of precipitation has triggered a dangerous increase in wildfires and incidents of air pollution across the state. A recent report estimated that the water shortage would result in direct and indirect agricultural losses of at least $2.2 billion, and lead to the loss of more than 17,000 seasonal and part-time jobs in 2014 alone. Such impacts prompted California Governor Jerry Brown to declare a drought emergency, and the federal government to designate all 58 California counties as “natural disaster areas.” [Continue reading…]

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Iranian president gives qualified support for Western action against ISIS

The Guardian reports: The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, gave qualified support to western military action against Isis inside Iraq, saying a concerted campaign could be successful as long as it was requested by the Iraqi government.

Speaking to journalists in New York while attending the UN general assembly, Rouhani appeared to draw a sharp distinction between Syria, where the Assad regime had not been informed of US air strikes, let alone asking for them; and Iraq, where the new government has formally called for military assistance.

He criticised western states for responding late to Iraq’s call for help, claiming Iran had been the first to come to its defence and helped prevent Irbil and Baghdad falling to Isis. He also questioned the value of relying on aerial power alone. [Continue reading…]

AFP adds: Iran will attack ISIS inside Iraq if they advance near the border, ground forces commander General Ahmad Reza Pourdestana said in comments published Saturday.

“If the terrorist group (IS) come near our borders, we will attack deep into Iraqi territory and we will not allow it to approach our border,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Pourdestana as saying.

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Secret Service fumbled response after gunman hit White House residence in 2011

The Washington Post reports: The gunman parked his black Honda directly south of the White House, in the dark of a November night, in a closed lane of Constitution Avenue. He pointed his semiautomatic rifle out of the passenger window, aimed directly at the home of the president of the United States, and pulled the trigger.

A bullet smashed a window on the second floor, just steps from the first family’s formal living room. Another lodged in a window frame, and more pinged off the roof, sending bits of wood and concrete to the ground. At least seven bullets struck the upstairs residence of the White House, flying some 700 yards across the South Lawn.

President Obama and his wife were out of town on that evening of Nov. 11, 2011, but their younger daughter, Sasha, and Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, were inside, while older daughter Malia was expected back any moment from an outing with friends.

Secret Service officers initially rushed to respond. One, stationed directly under the second-floor terrace where the bullets struck, drew her .357 handgun and prepared to crack open an emergency gun box. Snipers on the roof, standing just 20 feet from where one bullet struck, scanned the South Lawn through their rifle scopes for signs of an attack. With little camera surveillance on the White House perimeter, it was up to the Secret Service officers on duty to figure out what was going on.

Then came an order that surprised some of the officers. “No shots have been fired. . . . Stand down,” a supervisor called over his radio. He said the noise was the backfire from a nearby construction vehicle.

That command was the first of a string of security lapses, never previously reported, as the Secret Service failed to identify and properly investigate a serious attack on the White House. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS reconciles with Jabhat al-Nusra as Syria air strikes continue

The Guardian reports: Air strikes continued to target Islamic State (Isis) positions near the Kurdish town of Kobani and hubs across north-east Syria on Sunday, as the terror group moved towards a new alliance with Syria’s largest al-Qaida group that could help offset the threat from the air.

Jabhat al-Nusra, which has been at odds with Isis for much of the past year, vowed retaliation for the US-led strikes, the first wave of which a week ago killed scores of its members. Many Nusra units in northern Syria appeared to have reconciled with the group, with which it had fought bitterly early this year.

A senior source confirmed that al-Nusra and Isis leaders were now holding war-planning meetings. While not yet formalised, the addition of at least some al-Nusra numbers to Isis would strengthen the group’s ranks and further its reach at a time when air strikes are crippling its funding sources and slowing its advances in both Syria and Iraq.

Al-Nusra, which has direct ties to al-Qaida’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, denounced the attacks as a “war on Islam”, in an audio statement posted over the weekend. A senior al-Nusra figure told the Guardian that 73 members had defected to Isis last Friday alone and that scores more were planning to swear allegiance in coming days. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. airstrikes trigger largest protests in Syria in months

Scott Lucas writes: This week’s US airstrikes inside Syria have had an unexpected consequence — they have mobilized the largest opposition protests in months.

However, these demonstrations are not celebrating the American attacks. To the contrary, they are denouncing the “Crusader coalition, despite its declared intention to degrade and destroy the Islamic State.

The initial criticism of the opposition, activists, and local residents of the US airstrikes was that they were not targeting the Assad regime as well as the jihadists.

That complaint was soon supplemented by the claim that the Americans are also trying to degrade the insurgency — effectively helping President Assad’s forces — through deadly attacks on the Islamist faction Jabhat al-Nusra.

On Friday, rallies expressed solidarity with Jabhat al-Nusra as they denounced the US: [Continue reading…]

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While strikes hit ISIS, Syrian rebels’ military needs remain unmet

The Wall Street Journal reports: Moderate rebels in Syria say they are far from taking advantage of the U.S.-led attacks against Islamic State targets because they remain outgunned by both the extremists and President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

The rebel groups also blame the slow pace of training new fighters for the Free Syrian Army, which is backed by Western and Arab countries.

A $500 million program was approved by the U.S. Congress this month to expand a Pentagon program to train and equip rebels, but it will take at least six months to churn out the first batch of fighters.

“This is the luxury of time we don’t have,” said Husam Almarie, a spokesman for the FSA’s northern factions in Reyhanli, a Turkish town on the border with Syria. “The programs now don’t cover our needs.”

The rebels are receiving training in several countries in the region including Jordan, where most are being trained in an initiative run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Syrian opposition officials say they were given weapons this month through the Military Operations Command, a CIA-led grouping of Western and Arab intelligence agencies created to streamline support to rebels. But the transfer was mostly light arms, not the antitank missiles that have helped the FSA defend their positions, or the more coveted antiaircraft weapons the opposition has requested for more than three years.

“When they gave us the weapons, they said ‘this is something to stay alive until the new program starts,” said one opposition official who spoke with U.S. representatives at the Military Operations Command. “They’ve been giving us enough weapons to stay alive for three years, but never to progress.”

Adding to opposition frustrations are the civilian casualties caused by the U.S.-led strikes, which have killed nearly two dozen Syrians since the campaign started early Tuesday.

The casualties risk creating a popular backlash against the FSA over their alliance with the international coalition. On Friday, thousands of Syrians came out across the country protesting the airstrikes and chanting anti-American slogans.

“Our fear is that those airstrikes will hurt civilians and create casualties and increase recruits for” Islamic State, said Ahmed al-Eid, a commander for Harakat Hazm, one of the U.S.-backed FSA groups that is fighting in Syria’s north.

No matter how big the international coalition becomes, he said, “it won’t be able to stand in the face of the people if they enraged” by civilian casualties. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey ‘to do whatever needed’ in anti-ISIS coalition, Erdoğan says

Hurriyet Daily News reports: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has given the clearest signal yet of Turkey’s readiness to join a possible ground operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). “Related countries are now planning a ground operation,” Erdoğan said, while mentioning Oct. 2 as the key date the Turkish Parliament is expected to vote on a new motion to expand the scope of motions authorizing the army to conduct cross-border operations into Iraq and Syria.

“We will protect our borders ourselves,” he added.

Here are the key remarks of Erdoğan, who spoke to journalists aboard Turkey’s presidential jet TC-TUR on his way back to Turkey from New York, to which he paid an official visit for the United Nations sessions: [Continue reading…]

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Jabhat Al Nusra vows retaliation against U.S.-led air strikes

Reuters reports: The al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front on Saturday denounced U.S.-led air strikes on Syria, saying they amounted to a war against Islam and vowing to retaliate against Western and Arab countries that took part.

“We are in a long war. This war will not end in months nor years. This war could last for decades,” group spokesman Abu Firas al-Suri said.

“It’s not a war against Nusra Front, it’s a war against Islam,” he added in an audio message published on the group’s social media network in its first reaction since the launch of the U.S.-led strikes on Tuesday.

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First airstrikes hit ISIS in Kobane outskirts

Rudaw reports: The US-led anti-Islamic State coalition launched airstrikes targeting militant strongholds on the outskirts of the beleaguered Kurdish city of Kobane for the first time early Saturday, according to local officials.

The strike follows a weeklong Islamic State (IS or ISIS) offensive that has driven over 140,000 Syrian Kurds across the Turkish border.

Ahmed Sulaiman, an official of the Democratic Progressive Party in Syria, told Rudaw that the mission targeted ISIS militants based in Jim-Hiran, Ali-Shar, Mirde Smill, and southern sections of Sheran, all villages east of Kobane, the unofficial capital of the autonomous Kurdish vilayets in Northern Syria.

The bombings began at approximately 6am, according to witnesses, and continued through the morning.

This is the first time that coalition airstrikes targeted the vicinity of the embattled Kurdish city, arriving after a week of desperate pleas from local residents and opposition militias for the coalition to intervene.

ISIS fighters retaliated by shelling the city from positions 10 kilometers away.

Residents reported five major explosions inside the city at 3:30pm. This is the first time the city itself has come under attack. [Continue reading…]

Middle East Eye adds: The US-led coalition overnight and this morning also expanded its campaign against militants in eastern and central Syria, hitting the Homs province for the first time on Saturday, and also targeting the town of Minbej, near the western limit of IS control, the Observatory said.

Further attacks were also unleashed on Raqqa, which Islamic State have made their headquarters, the Britain-based monitoring group said, while adding that IS-held oil fields had also come under attack from the air.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said the targets hit in Homs province were far away from the front line with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, who control Homs city, Syria’s third largest.

“The US-Arab coalition has for the first time struck IS bases in the eastern desert of Homs province,” Abdel Rahman said, adding that the positions were in the area of Al-Hammad, east of ancient city Palmyra.

Washington has been keen not to let Assad’s forces exploit the air campaign against IS to take the upper hand in the more than three-year-old civil war.

However, speculation about increasing cooperation between Assad and the coalition is growing. [Continue reading…]

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Turkish intellectuals call for help to Kobane

Hurriyet Daily News reports: Two hundred Turkish academics, writers and civil society activists issued a statement on Sept. 27, calling on the Turkish people as well as all international organizations, especially the United Nations, to take a strong position in defense of Kobane, which has been under siege of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.

The statement is as follows:

“We believe that joining our voices to loudly condemn the atrocities committed by ISIL has become a requirement for peace and democracy in our region. The fact that ISIL receives support from some Muslims within and outside the region does not render this entity legitimate. In fact, for the overwhelming majority of Muslims the main concern should be the fact that ISIL is using religious values and symbols in its barbaric acts. ISIL, which emerged in the environment of social and political chaos in Iraq and Syria and extended it territorial control with the claims of establishing a caliphate order, is imposing a cruel fundamentalism and commits a myriad of crimes against humanity. It is massacring Shiites, Christians, Ezidis, all who do not accept to be subordinated to its own primitive creed. Its practices include raping women and selling them as slaves.

Through the power struggles in the Middle East, sectarian and radical Islam was tolerated and at times even supported. ISIL is a product of these political processes. Against the expressions of sectarianism, discrimination and violence in the name of any religion or sect, it is therefore all the more significant to embrace and defend secular political norms defined by the respect for peace and freedom for all.

We should not forget that a democratic political outlook that promotes the values of democracy and freedom is the only guarantee for the peaceful coexistence of different communities practicing their own religion. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. considers a no-fly zone to protect civilians from airstrikes by Assad regime

The New York Times reports: The Obama administration has not ruled out establishing a no-fly zone over northeastern Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes by the Syrian government, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

Mr. Hagel and General Dempsey indicated they are open to considering the request of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey for a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border, where tens of thousands of Syrians have sought refuge. Mr. Hagel said, “We’ve discussed all these possibilities and will continue to talk about what the Turks believe they will require.” He said 1.3 million Syrian refugees are now in Turkey.

General Dempsey added that “a buffer zone might at some point become a possibility,” but he said it was not imminent. Creating a buffer, or no-fly zone, would require warplanes to disable the Syrian government’s air defense system through airstrikes. [Continue reading…]

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