Music: Tigran Hamasyan — ‘Gypsyology’
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…]
‘What the ISIS jihadis lose in strength from the air strikes they may gain in legitimacy’
Hassan Hassan writes: Since Islamic State (Isis) were formed in their current incarnation in April last year, they have had a dilemma: how to gain legitimacy from the local population while continuing to be ruthless and genocidal against fellow Sunnis. The decision by the American-led coalition to strike against Isis while overlooking the Assad regime seems to have resolved this dilemma for the jihadist organisation. What Isis will lose in terms of strength and numbers as a result of the air strikes they might gain in terms of legitimacy.
Air strikes against Isis were inevitable, as the group’s advances towards Baghdad, Erbil and northern Syria seemed irreversible by local forces. But the way the US-led coalition, which the UK has now joined, has conducted itself so far threatens to worsen the situation in favour of Isis.
Most importantly, by overlooking the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which caused the death of nearly 200,000 Syrians, the air strikes create the perception that the international coalition is providing a lifeline to the regime. Despite repeated reassurance by Washington, such a perception is likely to become entrenched if the Assad regime begins to fill the vacuum left by the offensive against Isis, especially that there has been no evidence yet that the opposition forces are part of the military strategy against Isis. [Continue reading…]
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…]
The anti-ISIS campaign may lead to an Assad exit
Michael Young writes: If Iran and Hezbollah appear worried about the attacks being directed by the United States and its allies against the Islamic State, or ISIS, the reason is simple. They realize that the logical outcome of military operations in Syria is likely to be pressure for a political solution that leads to Bashar al-Assad’s departure.
The connection between the anti-ISIS campaign and the Syrian conflict was made on Thursday at a Friends of Syria foreign ministers’ meeting in New York. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal expressed it succinctly: “For as long as the strife in Syria continues, the growth of extremist groups will continue.”
Applying the same logic as in Iraq, the Americans are also likely to soon conclude that only a more inclusive government in Syria can consolidate the gains made against ISIS. In Iraq, the aim was to bring Sunnis into the political process, in the belief that they are necessary to defeating ISIS, and to do so the Obama administration helped remove Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Why should Syria be any different?
Perhaps what disturbs Iran and Hezbollah the most is that their strategy in both Iraq and Syria is crumbling. When Mosul fell to ISIS, Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was asked what was to be done. “We must rely on Shiite solidarity,” Suleimani allegedly replied.
That was decidedly not the solution that the United States pursued, nor one that would have allowed the Iraqi government to prevail over ISIS. If anything, Shiite solidarity would only have solidified the Iraqi divide, allowing ISIS, with its core of Saddam-era officers, to reinforce its hold over Sunni areas. [Continue reading…]
How an ancient tomb is a fault line in Syria’s brutal civil war
Ishaan Tharoor writes: At some point in 1236, the Turkic warlord Suleyman Shah perished by the banks of the Euphrates river. Some say he drowned in its waters. At the time, he was one of an array of notables warring over parts of Anatolia and what’s now Syria. And his legacy has less to do with his own achievements than that of his progeny: His grandson, Osman, gave his name to the Ottoman dynasty, a line that ruled one of the greatest empires the Middle East and Europe would ever see.
A shrine associated with Suleyman Shah has sat by the Euphrates for centuries since, within what’s now modern-day Syria, but less than 20 miles from the border with Turkey. Moreover, it remains technically Turkish territory: So potent was the symbolism of this Ottoman ancestor’s tomb that the new Turkish republic concluded an agreement in 1921 with France, then Syria’s colonial ruler, guaranteeing Ankara’s ownership over the site. Since at least the 1970s, when the tomb was relocated following the damming of the Euphrates, a Turkish guard has been posted there to protect it.
The arrangement over the tomb, in most circumstances, would be a curious footnote of history. But it now may be at the heart of a battle in one of the more intense fronts of the brutal, three-year-long Syrian civil war. The site is not far from the border city of Kobane, where the extremist fighters of the Islamic State have been advancing on Syrian Kurdish militias. The battles of the past few weeks prompted the single most dramatic refugee exodus of the whole war: a conspicuous moment, given that the conflict has displaced roughly a quarter of all Syrians.
As Syrian Kurdish militias struggle to resist the Islamic State, it’s believed that the tomb has been encircled by Islamic State forces and that the Turkish soldiers guarding it have been taken hostage. Details are a bit murky. But the position of the Turkish exclave could not be more geopolitically fraught. [Continue reading…]
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…]
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…]
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.
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…]
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…]
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…]
Omar Saif Ghobash: Facing the ideological challenge posed by ISIS
Omar Saif Ghobash, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Russia, interviewed by Knowledge@Wharton:
I think we moderate Muslims have done Islam a disservice by not providing a clear framework for young men and women, whether in the West or in Indonesia or in the Arab world, to deal with the problems of modernity. There is an existential crisis that young men face when they haven’t got a job, when they haven’t got a wife, and they haven’t got any opportunities. How do we take Islam as this moderate force and provide sustenance to them rather than providing an extremist version of Islam that satisfies their anger and their need for vengeance of some sort?
The West’s Syria policy has been shaped by media missionaries
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: Three beheadings have compelled the US into an action that nearly 200,000 gruesome deaths had failed to precipitate.
Last Monday, the US launched a bombing campaign in Syria putatively aimed at the extremist jihadi group ISIL. Also targeted were some “Al Qaeda-linked” organisations. The strikes killed many members of Jabhat Al Nusra (JAN) and Ahrar Al Sham (AS). Both groups are hardline, but their focus is regional. Neither threatens the US; both fight ISIL.
But for the US, according to one administration official, it is all “a toxic soup of terrorists”.
Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad concurs. State media quoted him as supporting any international effort to combat “terrorism” in Syria. For weeks, his regime had been volunteering itself as an ally to the US in its “war on terror”, a status that it had enjoyed under George W Bush. Damascus was once a favoured destination for CIA rendition flights.
It is possible it got its wish. The Syrian opposition, which western polemicists habitually describe as “US-backed”, received no warning of the attacks. The US State department said Assad did. The Free Syria Army (FSA) learnt of the attacks from the news.
If JAN and AS have ended up in the same “toxic soup” with their rival ISIL, then it has much to do with poor intelligence and an impoverished media discourse. [Continue reading…]
David Sheen on Israeli incitement to genocide
How Israel silences dissent
Mairav Zonszein writes: On July 12, four days after the latest war in Gaza began, hundreds of Israelis gathered in central Tel Aviv to protest the killing of civilians on both sides and call for an end to the siege of Gaza and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. They chanted, “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies.”
Hamas had warned that it would fire a barrage of rockets at central Israel after 9 p.m., and it did.
But the injuries suffered in Tel Aviv that night stemmed not from rocket fire but from a premeditated assault by a group of extremist Israeli Jews. Chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Death to leftists,” they attacked protesters with clubs. Although several demonstrators were beaten and required medical attention, the police made no arrests.
The same thing happened at another antiwar protest in Haifa a week later; this time, the victims included the city’s deputy mayor, Suhail Assad, and his son. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no statement condemning the violence, even though he had previously stated his primary concern was the safety of Israeli citizens. [Continue reading…]
Why the symbol of life is a loop not a helix
Jamie Davies writes: Here is a remarkable fact about identical twins: they have the same DNA, and therefore the same ‘genetic fingerprint’, yet their actual fingerprints (such as they might leave behind on a murder weapon) are different, and can be told apart in standard police observations. Fingerprints are, of course, produced by the pattern of tiny ridges in skin. So, it would appear that certain fine-scale details of our anatomy cannot be determined by a precise ‘genetic blueprint’.
It isn’t only fine details that seem open to negotiation in this way: anyone who has seen Bonsai cultivation knows how the very genes that would normally build a large tree can instead build a miniature-scale model, given a suitable environment. Bonsai trees aren’t completely scaled down, of course: their cells are normal-sized – it’s just that each component is made with fewer of them.
In the 1950 and ’60s, many children were affected by their mothers taking the drug thalidomide while pregnant, when the drug blocked growth of the internal parts of their limbs. Even though growth of the skin is not directly affected by thalidomide, the very short limbs of affected children were covered by an appropriate amount of skin, not the much larger amount that would be needed to cover a normal limb. The growth of the skin cannot, therefore, just be in response to the command of a hard-wired internal blueprint: something much more adaptive must be going on.
Such observations are not troubling for biological science as such. But they are troubling for a certain picture of how biology works. The symbol for this worldview might be the DNA double helix, its complementary twisting strands evoking other interdependent pairs in life: male and female, form and function, living and non-living. DNA on its own is just a chemical polymer, after all, essential for life but not itself alive. Yet it holds out the promise that we can explain living processes purely in terms of the interactions between simple molecules. [Continue reading…]
Music: Mathias Eick — ‘Cologne Blues’