U.S. Pushes Back Against Warnings That ISIS Plans to Enter From Mexico
A border agent on patrol. Credit Eric Gay/Associated Press
“There’s a longstanding history in this country of projecting whatever fears we have onto the border,” said Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas. Credit Rod Lamkey/Getty Images
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT SEPT. 15, 2014
WASHINGTON — Militants for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have traveled to Mexico and are just miles from the United States. They plan to cross over the porous border and will “imminently” launch car bomb attacks. And the threat is so real that federal law enforcement officers have been placed at a heightened state of alert, and an American military base near the border has increased its security.
“There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an active plot by ISIL to attempt to cross the southern border,” Homeland Security officials said in a written statement, using an alternative acronym for the group.
Democrats say opponents of President Obama are simply playing on concerns about terrorism as part of their attempt to portray Mr. Obama as having failed to secure the border against illegal immigration.
“There’s a longstanding history in this country of projecting whatever fears we have onto the border,” said Representative Beto O’Rourke, Democrat of Texas, who represents El Paso and other areas near the border. “In the absence of understanding the border, they insert their fears. Before it was Iran and Al Qaeda. Now it’s ISIS. They just reach the conclusion that invasion is imminent, and it never is.”
At a congressional hearing last week, Representative Jeff Duncan, Republican of South Carolina, pushed back strongly against the testimony of Homeland Security Department officials and Mr. O’Rourke, saying they were ignoring a gathering threat.
“Wake up, America,” Mr. Duncan said before storming out of the hearing. “With a porous southern border, we have no idea who’s in our country.”
But counterterrorism officials say they are far more concerned that an ISIS militant will enter the United States the same way millions of people do each year: legally, on a commercial flight. Their efforts have focused on the more than 2,000 Europeans and 100 Americans who have traveled to Syria to fight alongside extremist groups, nearly all of them crossing over its unprotected borders. Without markings in their passports to show that they traveled to Syria, American border authorities have few ways of determining where they were and stopping them from entering the country.
Warnings about the possibility of terrorists entering the United States from Mexico have been sounded in the past. During the 2012 presidential campaign both Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, said Islamic extremists working with countries in Latin America, including Mexico, posed a significant threat to the United States.
“We know that Hamas and Hezbollah are working in Mexico, as well as Iran, with their ploy to come into the United States,” Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, said [ http://archives.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1111/22/se.06.html ] at a Republican debate in 2011. “So the idea that we need to have border security with the United States and Mexico is paramount to the entire Western Hemisphere.”
Mr. Perry repeated his concerns in a speech [ http://www.heritage.org/events/2014/08/southern-border-rick-perry ] last month at the Heritage Foundation in Washington in which he said that because the border was not secure, “individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states could be” crossing into the United States. “I think it’s a very real possibility that they may have already used that,” he said.
“High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued,” the report said. “Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.”
Judicial Watch said intelligence officials had “picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to ‘carry out an attack on the border.’ “ It quoted a “high-level source” saying that the attack was “coming very soon.”
Mr. O’Rourke said that immediately after that report was posted he called the F.B.I. and Homeland Security Department. They told him they had no intelligence about such an attack. Mr. O’Rourke said he spent the rest of his day arguing with members of the news media in Texas about why the Judicial Watch report was not a story. He largely failed to convince them, and the article was widely reported.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, said the Obama administration had a history of looking the other way on national security threats, particularly ones involving the border.
“President Obama or his administration should acknowledge this dire threat on the border, whatever its political ramifications are for the debate on immigration,” Mr. Fitton said.
Mr. Fitton said that the idea of ISIS coming across the border “goes against the narrative that the border is secure” and that Americans “don’t need to worry about illegal immigration.”
“If they show their ugly head in our area, we’ll send them to hell,” said the sheriff, Gary Painter, of Midland County. “I would like for them to hit them so hard and so often that every time they hear a propeller on a plane or a jet aircraft engine that they urinate down both legs. When you do that, then you’ve accomplished a lot.”
The Real Death Valley THESE STUDENTS FROM BAYLOR UNIVERSITY DUG UP A TRAGIC SECRET IN TEXAS. THEIR DISCOVERY WILL MAKE YOU MAD. 5 September, 2014 http://www.twclongform.com/stories/real-death-valley/ [with documentary video embedded]
Iran Rejects A Global Strategy Against Islamic State Militants
In this photo released by the official website of the Iranian supreme leader's office, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014. ASSOCIATED PRESS
By ELAINE GANLEY and LARA JAKES Posted: 09/15/2014 8:21 am EDT Updated: 09/15/2014 9:59 pm EDT
PARIS (AP) — As more than two dozen nations pledged Monday to help Iraq fight the Islamic State militants, the United States said it was open to talking to Iran about a role in resolving the crisis, despite Washington's earlier opposition to Tehran even attending the conference.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ruled out any military coordination with Iran, which in the end was not invited to Paris.
"That doesn't mean that we are opposed to the idea of communicating to find out if they will come on board, or under what circumstances, or whether there is the possibility of a change," Kerry told a small group of reporters.
France and Iraq see Shiite-powerhouse Iran as an interlocutor who could bring its influence to bear in the region against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group, but some Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, disagree.
The U.S. opposed a place for Iran at the conference. But Tehran, which has political and military influence with its neighbor Iraq, still managed to be part of the conversation.
The absence of Iran underscored the conflicting sensitivities and complex politics in the region as Western countries seek to battle the Islamic State group, which has taken control of large parts of Iraq and Syria.
The meeting of foreign ministers from Asia, the Middle East and the West was a first step toward deciding who does what in a multilayered offensive against the Islamic State group. As envisioned by France and Iraq, the effort would include intensifying airstrikes, cutting off financing, and helping Baghdad cope through humanitarian aid and reconstruction. There would be no combat troops on the ground, however.
As the conference began, two French jets took off over Iraq in France's first reconnaissance missions over the country in a sign of the larger battle ahead. Later, the United States, which has led airstrikes over Iraq since August, said it had taken the first step in its planned expanded fight against Islamic State militants, going to the aid of Iraqi security forces near Baghdad who were being attacked by enemy fighters.
The strikes represent the newly broadened mission authorized by President Barack Obama to go on the offensive against the Islamic State group wherever it is. Previous U.S. airstrikes in Iraq were conducted to protect U.S. interests and personnel, assist Iraqi refugees and secure critical infrastructure. U.S. officials said Iraqi forces requested assistance when they came under fire from militants.
"We are asking for airborne operations to be continued regularly against terrorist sites. We must not allow them to set up sanctuaries. We must pursue them wherever they are," Iraqi President Fouad Massoum said, an apparent reference to neighboring Syria.
Syria, deep in a civil war waged in part by rival extremist groups, was the wellspring for the Islamic State group, with its fighters sweeping across the border into Iraq, overwhelming the military in Sunni-dominated Anbar province and capitalizing on grievances against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
The fighters went on to conquer Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, with the U.S.-trained military crumbling, and seized tanks and other military equipment, then steamrolled across northern Iraq.
The CIA estimates the group has access to between 20,000 and 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria — including foreigners lured to the cause.
The recent beheadings of three Western hostages — British aid worker David Haines and two American journalists — added new urgency to the task of creating a viable strategy to knock out the Islamic State group.
"We must cut off their financing. We must bring them to justice and we must stop the fighters in neighboring countries from joining them," Massoum said at the conference opening.
The group brings in more than $3 million a day from oil smuggling, human trafficking, theft and extortion, according to U.S. intelligence officials and private experts.
The Paris meeting was a coalition of strange bedfellows, some of whom have allegedly financed extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, and others, like Russia, which backs Syria's Bashar Assad who is also supported by Iran.
Less than a week ago in Baghdad, Kerry was clear about the U.S. position regarding Iran, embroiled in a years-long dispute with the West over concern that Tehran wants nuclear weapons.
"The United States does not cooperate, militarily or otherwise, nor does it have any intention in this process of doing so, with Iran," he had said.
France, stressing a pragmatic approach, felt Iran could be an ally against a common enemy if, as President Francois Hollande said, Tehran "abides by principles permitting a sincere and useful conversation."
On Monday, Kerry, in an apparent about face, said he wouldn't shut the door to talking to Iran about a common enemy.
"We're not coordinating with Iran, but as I said, we're open to have a conversation at some point in time if there's a way to find something constructive," he said.
Kerry spoke after Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the U.S. had in fact requested that Tehran join the fight against the Islamic State group but it rejected the overture because of Washington's "unclean intentions."
Kerry did not respond directly to questions about that claim. He said there are often discussions on the sidelines of nuclear talks.
"I'm never going to shut the door to something that could solve a problem if there's a way to do it," Kerry said.
Back-door dealings are common in Middle East diplomacy, but it was unclear whether Iran would cooperate. Khamenei said Iran is proud not to be part of the U.S.-led coalition and warned it will suffer the same problems it suffered in the past should it enter Iraq and Syria without authorization.
Massoum would have liked Iran at the talks.
"We have a nearly 1,000-kilometer (625-mile) border with them (Iran) and from the first day the Islamic State group made itself known ... Iran gave us humanitarian and military aid," Massoum told The Associated Press ahead of the conference.
He conceded "there are perhaps sensitivities between certain countries and Iran."
There was never any question of adding Iran to the coalition planning airstrikes, but Tehran is closely linked to Iraq.
"There will be no success in Iraq without cooperation with Iran," said Francois Gere, of the French Institute of Strategic Analysis.
Opponents of Iranian involvements cite Iran's backing of Assad, mainly via the Hezbollah group it helped create decades ago and, as one diplomat said, "all these dark zones about Iranian intentions."
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Monday that Syria and Iran are "natural allies" in the fight against the extremists, and therefore must be engaged, according to Russian news agencies.
"The extremists are trying to use any disagreements in our positions to tear apart the united front of states acting against them," he said.
Talks and possibilities to review options with Iran are not over. Discussions likely will continue informally at the U.N. General Assembly later this month, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal has said.
Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten, Sylvie Corbet, Angela Charlton and Lori Hinnant in Paris and Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran contributed to this report.
An open letter to Barack Obama: World War III is here
By Larry Gatlin Published September 03, 2014
Dear Mr. President,
It’s been quite a summer. The world is not a pretty place right now but I see you have had a chance to play golf. In fact you’ve played golf through the worst of it. Right after announcing that American journalist James Foley had been beheaded.
Now I play golf and I enjoy it. But I’m not president of the United States… so I have a little more time.
But I digress. Let's skip on down to the really important part... I hope you’ll read closely. There will be a quiz.
One of your predecessors said this when our country was being threatened…
"Hostilities exist. There is no blinking to the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. I ask that that congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Empire of Japan. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. With confidence in our armed forces, with the un bounding determination of our people-we will gain the inevitable triumph--so help us God."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt uttered those words on a December day almost 73 years ago.
In the name of that same God invoked so eloquently and powerfully by that president, I ask that you, Mr. President -- if you're not too busy playing golf, campaigning, orchestrating the cover ups of all the "phony scandals," and just being cool -- could again declare war on the enemies who have unleashed "unprovoked and dastardly attacks" on the United States.
This summer we have now seen two American journalists beheaded by the “Islamic State” – ISIS or IL or IS. We are at war, sir, whether you like it or not.
Over 2,400 members of the United States military were killed that December morning long ago, in an attack not really on the United States mainland. It happened in Hawaii. I know you are familiar with Hawaii. The Aloha State was just a territory of the United States at that time.
That war would last for 4 long years and would kill 60 to 80 million people, including 291,557 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
That terrible toll was exacted in a war wherein the enemy combatants of the Axis powers, Japan, Germany, and Italy, had no means whatsoever of successfully mounting a military strike against the United States homeland.
Even if we hadn't won the war, and even if we hadn't captured/liberated Werner Von Braun and the other German scientists at Peenemunde before the Russians got to them, it would have been at least 10-15 years before Germany would have had a rocket/missile capable of reaching the U. S. mainland. And yet President Roosevelt galvanized, mobilized, and energized, and united the American people like never before.
Then America, in its "righteous might" unsheathed and unleashed the most devastating war machine in the history of mankind.
Guess what Mr. President, THE GOOD GUYS WON!! They won because President Roosevelt had the "cojones" to "pull the trigger," giving no thought to his legacy, but giving thought only to the preservation of the American way of life.
Forget the fun on the golf course, Mr. President. Does that way of life mean anything to you, sir, or are you still so hell bent on "fundamentally changing" the American way of life that you cannot, or will not, change course and "pull the trigger?"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that, for Israel, the question of the current conflict with the enemies of Israel is an existential one.
In my opinion, sir, and in the opinions of most of the grown-ups in our military apparatus, and other expert military analysts, the United States is now engaged -- or not really engaged -- in no less an existential conflict.
Please pay attention sir. It's not your shot yet. It's Alonzo's shot.
We are being told every night on TV that the American people don't have the stomach for more war 10,000 miles away. Well sir, I think you should conduct another of your seemingly endless polls and ask those Americans a few simple questions:
Do Americans have the stomach to see planes crash into our buildings again, or citizens running through the streets of New York City with the residue of those buildings and the ashes of those who were burned alive on their faces again, or a man and wife holding hands and jumping out of an 80th story window, together, to keep from being burned alive again?
Sir, why don't you ask Americans these simple questions and see what their answers are.
Whether you like it or not sir, World War III has already started and it is time for America to "take arms against a sea of trouble, and by opposing," try to keep 9/11 and other attacks on America from happening again.
From 1941-45, 291,557 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines died to defeat an enemy that had absolutely no means of attacking the United States mainland. And now, we are being told that after more than 10 years of fighting those ruthless bastards in Iraq and Afghanistan where "only" 6,802 of our warriors have been killed, America doesn't have the stomach to go do what needs to be done?
Please understand the context of the word "only." With all my heart I thank all thank these warriors and their families for the sacrifices they have made, and continue to make. And now we are giving up the fight? We are surrendering? We are being told that AMERICA DOESNT HAVE THE STOMACH TO DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE????????
Well sir, you need to have enough stomach, GUTS, COJONES for all of us. It's called LEADERSHIP!!
If that is so, that America doesn't have the stomach to do what needs to be done, I say shame on us, and especially, shame on you, Mr. President. We deserve what we will get.
I believe that it is time for America to go on wartime footing, all the way up to and including a "peacetime" draft if necessary. Heck, pay the soldiers what congressmen, senators, and your White House spin doctors make.
Go save Iraq -- AGAIN. Take 20% of their oil revenue until the money we have spent freeing them -- TWICE -- is paid back. Leave a residual force there to keep this from happening again (see Japan, Germany, and Italy) and tell anyone who doesn't like it to kiss AMERICA's happy, safe rear end.
I am 66 years old, I'm in pretty damn good shape and I will go right now. I've lived a good life and I want my granddaughters to have the chance to live one too.
I was #296 during Vietnam... I didn't have to go, but I would have gone if I had been called.
I will go now if called… Unfortunately, I know that I never will be called, so I will answer a different call.
I will call on you, Mr. President. Do you have the stomach to lead our scared, uncertain, worried, "tired of war" American citizens in a fight to the death against the Islamic murderers, even if the "tide of public opinion" is against it?
Anyone can lead people who are willing and eager to go. Can you, will you lead people who are not willing, but need to go?
Finally, while it is long past time to start treating our veterans with the dignity and care they deserve, it is also long past time to stop treating our current soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. They have been trained to defend the United States, Mr. President, to the death, if it comes to that.
We have trained them, fed them, housed them, equipped them, armed them, and stationed them in close proximity to hot spots all over the world, in order to be ready for the start of World War III.
Well, Mr. President, WORLD WAR III is here.
It's high time we turn our troops loose to let them GO KILL THE BAD GUYS. Turn them loose, sir, and give America another, "righteous might, so help us God" moment.
American political situation begins to resemble Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
OpEdNews Op Eds 8/1/2014 at 12:35:31
By Marc Jampole
Image from page 7 of .Songs from Alice in wonderland and Through the looking-glass. (1921) (image by internetarchivebookimages)
Have we fallen down a rabbit hole and entered a surrealistic world as Alice did when she fell into Wonderland? Have we walked through a looking glass to a world that looks like ours but operates on a weird kind of logic?
I can't be the only one who looks at the political scene in Washington, D.C. and concludes it looks a lot like Lewis Carroll's 19th century fantasies, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.
What could be more bizarre than the lawsuit of the Republicans against President Obama because he has failed to implement parts of a law that they vehemently opposed and then spent four years trying to repeal?
Or how about this bit of logic from John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives? In the morning he says that Congress will come up with a plan to solve the current border crisis and in the afternoon we find out the plan is to tell the president to do something. Of course, if the president does do something about the border crisis, he will be expanding the powers of the presidency, the same sin of which the lawsuit accuses him.
Or how about this bit of lunacy? Dick Cheney, John McCain and others want to send more troops to Iraq to support a government known for repressing segments of its population. Or think of a world turned upside down in which the United States supports a coup d'etat and Russia supports the constitutionally elected government? Believe it or not, that's what has happened in the Ukraine--although I have to add that by no means serves as an endorsement of Russia's support of Ukrainian rebels.
As our political landscape begins to resemble the Wonderland into which Alice fell, I find myself assigning characters to an imaginary Washington Wonderland: Our President would have to be Alice.
[INSERT: The President has to be Alice, yep, central so must be. Just as i'm a bit fuzzy on the Wonderland characters, lol, i felt to check that one ..
yeah, ok. The rest of the characters are even more spot on.]
John Boehner as unctuous but ineffectual The White Rabbit and Ted Cruz as the completely bonkers Mad Hatter are easy calls, and if Cruz is the Mad Hatter, then Jeff Sessions is the March Hare and Mitch McConnell is the Dormouse who sits squeezed tight between these two crazies. The Mock Turtle, a creature that doesn't exist outside of a mediocre pun, is Marco Rubio. Paul Ryan is the mean-spirited and hypocritical Duchess.
And who is the self-satisfied Cheshire Cat, sitting in a tree above the action--or should I say above the rhetoric and posturing masquerading as action--with a sly, knowing smile? It's has to be America's ultra-wealthy as represented by those fat cats, the Koch brothers. While our elected officials, especially our legislatures, continue to create chaos out of order, the ultra-rich enjoy a regime of low taxes, enormous tax loopholes for corporations, insufficient environmental regulations and a foreign policy driven solely by the needs of the 1%. The Cheshire Cats smile, too, because they know they are sitting pretty, what with current campaign finance laws that allow them to buy elections and the Republican campaign to restrict voting rights (which, BTW, takes a page from wealthy northerners in the 1870's and the South from the end of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, who also moved to dramatically restrict eligible voters).
The more things don't change, the more the ultra-wealthy smile like Cheshire Cats.
Kurds retake Christian villages from Iraq militants
Kurdish peshmerga forces on Tuesday recaptured seven Christian villages in northern Iraq in clashes with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. (ISIS) (File photo: Reuters)
By AFP | Erbil Tuesday, 16 September 2014
Kurdish peshmerga forces on Tuesday recaptured seven Christian villages in northern Iraq in clashes with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an officer and a cleric said.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians, most of them Chaldeans, fled their homes when ISIS militants launched a renewed drive in the north in early August.
Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh, and dozens of other villages were all but emptied in what Christian leaders described as the worst disaster for the minority in centuries.
On Tuesday, peshmerga forces ousted ISIS militants from seven villages west of the Kurdish capital Arbil during fighting in which rockets and mortar rounds were used, a senior officer said.
“We liberated those villages with the support of US aircraft,” Major Sardar Ali said, referring to the Nineveh plains area between Arbil and Mosul, the main IS hub in Iraq.
The United States, whose air force has been targeting ISIS militants in the area since early August, has yet to confirm it carried out the latest reported strikes.
The officer said many of the homes were booby-trapped by the jihadists before they retreated.
The peshmerga, the main security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, are receiving arms and ammunition from countries including the United States and France.
A source in the Catholic Chaldean church told AFP that Kurdish forces had made progress Tuesday.
“The peshmerga managed to liberate several villages... (ISIS) militants have now fled from there,” the cleric said on condition of anonymity.
The villages were important because of their location close to the towns of Bartalla and Qaraqosh, he added.
IS jihadist fighters on June 9 launched an offensive that saw them seize the second city of Mosul and sweep through much of Iraq’s Sunni heartland in a matter of days.
In another push in early August, they targeted minority groups, took control of the country’s largest dam and moved within striking distance of Arbil.
That prompted Washington to send warplanes back into the skies over Iraq for a bombing campaign to support efforts by Kurdish and federal forces to recapture lost ground.
ISIS militants have also seized large areas of neighbouring Syria and beheaded three Western hostages, causing an international outcry.
Last Update: Tuesday, 16 September 2014 KSA 22:53 - GMT 19:53
Note: Kerry just reminded us that the suggestion the moderate forces in Syria in opposition to Assad have formed a truce with ISIS is ISIS misinformation. Period.
Saudi Arabia's Top Clerics Condemn Terrorism, Citing Quran
Reuters
Posted: 09/17/2014 6:27 am EDT Updated: 09/17/2014 9:59 am EDT
RIYADH, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's top clerical council, the only body in the country authorized to issue fatwas or Islamic legal opinions, declared on Wednesday that "terrorism is a heinous crime" under Sharia, and perpetrators should be made an example of.
The statement, days after Saudi Arabia and other Arab states pledged in Jeddah to combat militant ideology, was the most comprehensive attack the kingdom's conservative clergy have made so far on Islamist radicalism and the Islamic State group.
In a statement carried on state media, they did not specify particular punishments, but said they should act as a deterrent. Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty, usually by public beheading, for many serious crimes.
Signed by all 21 members of the council and quoting extensively from the Koran and sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, the statement also prohibits militant financing or encouraging young people towards militant acts.
It said people who issued fatwas or other opinions that "justify terrorism" were not permissable in any way and were "the order of Satan."
Saudi Arabia has joined international efforts headed by the United States to combat the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and has also worked with Washington in its battle against al Qaeda.
Sharia is the primary legal system in Saudi Arabia, where clerics of the official Wahhabi Sunni Muslim school enjoy significant power through a close alliance with the ruling Al Saud dynasty, which bases its legitimacy in part on religion.
Some liberal Saudis and foreign analysts have said that while senior Wahhabi clerics have spoken out against militant groups, they routinely use highly intolerant language towards Shi'ites and non Muslims that may contribute to radicalisation.
FATWAS
The kingdom's Grand Mufti, who heads the state-appointed Council of Senior Scholars, has already described militants of Islamic State and al Qaeda as Islam's foremost enemy in a series of public comments in recent weeks.
The mufti, Sheik Abdulaziz Al al-Sheik, in 2007 said "terrorists" deserved "had al-harraba," the ultimate punishment under Sharia which involves execution followed by the public display of the body as a deterrent.
The statement described terrorism as any crime aimed at corrupting and undermining security, offenses against lives or property, homes, schools, hospitals, factories, bridges, state facilities or oil and gas pipelines, or blowing up or hijacking airplanes.
Dozens of people have been sentenced to long jail terms over the past month for security offenses connected to militant attacks in the kingdom last decade, and to efforts to join conflicts in foreign countries.
In February, King Abdullah decreed prison terms for people giving support to extremist organizations or going overseas to fight, following concerns that young Saudis with militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen may eventually target their homeland.
The statement also hit out at criticism of some religious teachings in schools and remarks by senior clergy, which critics of the Al Saud have said fosters hate.
(Reporting By Angus McDowall; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Arab League condemns ISIL terrorism in Iraq, does not call for member intervention
June 15, 2014 by Hawar Berwani 1 Comment
Arab League Chambers – File Photo
Morocco (IraqiNews.com) The Arab League condemned on Sunday all acts of terrorism practiced in Iraq by the organization of ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, during its council meeting of permanent delegates, which was held in Morocco.
The Council stressed “the need to achieve national political stability among all Iraqi forces by engaging in a serious dialogue to achieve a national consensus to overcome the current crisis and facing the serious threats against Iraq’s security, stability and territorial integrity.”
ISIS is selling cheap oil to its enemies — from Syria's government to the Kurds
PRI's The World Producer Stephen Snyder
September 16, 2014 · 7:00 PM EDT
Credit: Reuters
Blue jerry cans, usually used by smugglers ferrying oil from Syria to Turkey, are stacked for sale in front of a shop in the Turkish border town of Hacipasa.
ISIS has been described as the world's "richest terrorist group," largely thanks to the oil fields it controls in Iraq and Syria. The militants likely generate more than $1 million in sales each day, and much of that oil is pumped in eastern Syria with the tacit approval of the group's ostensible enemy: the Assad regime.
[NOTE:] (This story is based on a radio interview. Listen to the full interview.)
"It seems that this is going through brokers," says Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at Oklahoma University. "In particular, one person who's been fingered is a very prominent Christian businessman .. https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/562681-minority-report .. close to the [Syrian] president who buys it, then arranges with the Syrian government to have it shipped back."
Western trade sanctions block imports of fuel into Syria. Landis says that has made the Assad regime reliant on oil that's either smuggled into the country or pumped inside Syria itself — which means dealing with ISIS.
"The Assad government has to run its war machine, it has to run its cities, it needs power," Landis says, and it can get its power from ISIS "cheaply" because ISIS controls much of the country's oil fields.
Syria isn't the only unlikely customer, he says. "Turkey, the Kurds — everybody is buying cheap oil and smuggling it across their border. So the notion that you have clear allies working against ISIS, it's not the case."
There's potential for current American airstrikes to destroy the black market oil trade and cut this important source of income for ISIS. "We can easily take out the oil," Landis says. "We can bomb ISIS tankers, we can bomb the oil wells. This would be very easy. They're sitting out in the desert where everyone could see them."
But that would be a last resort. "[The US] may ask the neighbors to stop exporting it first, because it doesn't want to destroy all this infrastructure," he says. "It will, of course, cause a lot of hardship to the civilian population, and I'm not sure America is there yet."
WEARY TRAVELERS Thousands of people journey daily between Iraqi Kurdistan and territory controlled by the Islamic State. Credit Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, identified the group called Khorasan as a danger “to the homeland.” Credit T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images
By MARK MAZZETTI, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and BEN HUBBARD SEPT. 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — As the United States begins what could be a lengthy military campaign against the Islamic State, intelligence and law enforcement officials said another Syrian group, led by a shadowy figure who was once among Osama bin Laden’s inner circle, posed a more direct threat to America and Europe.
American officials said that the group called Khorasan had emerged in the past year as the cell in Syria [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html ] that may be the most intent on hitting the United States or its installations overseas with a terror attack. The officials said that the group is led by Muhsin al-Fadhli, a senior Qaeda operative who, according to the State Department, was so close to Bin Laden that he was among a small group of people who knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks before they were launched.
There is almost no public information about the Khorasan group, which was described by several intelligence, law enforcement and military officials as being made up of Qaeda operatives from across the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. Members of the cell are said to be particularly interested in devising terror plots using concealed explosives. It is unclear who, besides Mr. Fadhli, is part of the Khorasan group.
The director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., said on Thursday that “in terms of threat to the homeland, Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State.”
Some American officials and national security experts said the intense focus on the Islamic State had distorted the picture of the terrorism threat that has emerged from the chaos of Syria’s civil war, and that the more immediate threats still come from traditional terror groups like Khorasan and the Nusra Front, which is Al Qaeda’s designated affiliate in Syria.
Mr. Fadhli, 33, has been tracked by American intelligence agencies for at least a decade. According to the State Department, before Mr. Fadhli arrived in Syria, he had been living in Iran as part of a small group of Qaeda operatives who had fled to the country from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. Iran’s government said the group was living under house arrest, but the exact circumstances of the Qaeda operatives were disputed for years, and many members of the group ultimately left Iran for Pakistan, Syria and other countries.
In 2012, the State Department identified Mr. Fadhli as Al Qaeda’s leader in Iran, directing “the movement of funds and operatives” through the country. A $7 million reward was offered for information leading to his capture. The same State Department release said he was working with wealthy “jihadist donors” in Kuwait, his native country, to raise money for Qaeda-allied rebels in Syria.
At the same time, the rise of the Islamic State has blunted the momentum of its rival groups in Syria, including the Nusra Front, once considered to be among the most capable in the array of Syrian rebel groups. The Islamic State’s expansion across northern Iraq and in oil-rich regions of eastern Syria has sapped some of the Nusra Front’s resources and siphoned some of its fighters — who are drawn by the Islamic State’s battlefield successes and declaration of a caliphate, the longtime dream of many jihadists.
It is difficult to assess the seriousness and scope of any terror plots that Khorasan, the Nusra Front or other groups in Syria might be planning. In several instances in the past year, Nusra and the Islamic State have used Americans who have joined their ranks to carry out attacks inside Syria — including at least one suicide bombing — rather than returning them to the United States to strike there.
Beyond the militant groups fighting for control of territory, Syria has become a magnet for Islamic extremists from other nations who have used parts of the country as a sanctuary to plot attacks.
“What you have is a growing body of extremists from around the world who are coming in and taking advantage of the ungoverned areas and creating informal ad hoc groups that are not directly aligned with ISIS or Nusra,” a former senior law enforcement official said.
Spokesmen for the C.I.A. and the White House declined to comment for this article.
The grinding war in Syria, well into its fourth year, has led to a constant shifting of alliances among the hard-line rebel groups.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of Al Qaeda, anointed the Nusra Front as its official branch in Syria and cut ties with the Islamic State early this year after it refused to follow his orders to fight only in Iraq. Officials said that Khorasan was an offshoot of the Nusra Front. According to a new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center [ http://bipartisanpolicy.org/ ], a nonprofit research and analysis organization, the rifts among these various groups “threaten to create a conflict throughout the jihadist movement that is no longer confined to Syria and Iraq.”
While Nusra has been weakened, it remains one of the few rebel organizations that has active branches throughout Syria. Analysts view the organization as well placed to benefit from American strikes that might weaken the Islamic State.
Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst with the Institute for the Study of War [ http://www.understandingwar.org/ ] in Washington, said that American strikes could benefit the Nusra Front if the United States did not ensure that there was another force ready to take power on the ground.
“There is definitely a threat that, if not conducted as a component of a properly tailored strategy within Syria, the American strikes would allow the Nusra Front to fill a vacuum in eastern Syria,” she said.
She noted that the Nusra Front had been the primary force in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour before it was pushed out by the Islamic State earlier this year, and that the group had maintained better relationships with the local tribes than ISIS had. This could make it easier for the group to return if ISIS is chased out by American airstrikes.
While the Nusra Front does not openly call for attacks on the West, it remains loyal to Mr. Zawahiri, whose clout among jihadists has waned with the rise of the Islamic State.
A great deal remains uncertain about the Nusra Front’s ultimate aims inside Syria. Hamza al-Shimali, the head of the American-backed rebel group the Hazm Movement, said that he and his allies did not trust the Nusra Front. He said he feared that one day he would have to fight the Nusra Front in addition to the Syrian government and the Islamic State.
American intelligence officials estimate that since the Syrian conflict began, about 15,000 foreigners, including more than 100 Americans and 2,000 Europeans, have traveled to the country to fight alongside rebel groups. Syria’s porous borders make it relatively easy to get in and out of the country, raising concerns among Western officials that without markings on their passports they could slip back undetected into Europe or the United States.
Mark Mazzetti and Michael S. Schmidt reported from Washington, and Ben Hubbard from Gaziantep, Turkey. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
Suspicions Run Deep in Iraq That C.I.A. and the Islamic State Are United
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK SEPT. 20, 2014
BAGHDAD — The United States has conducted an escalating campaign of deadly airstrikes against the extremists of the Islamic State for more than a month. But that appears to have done little to tamp down the conspiracy theories still circulating from the streets of Baghdad to the highest levels of Iraqi government that the C.I.A. [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html ] is secretly behind the same extremists that it is now attacking.
“We know about who made Daesh,” said Bahaa al-Araji, a deputy prime minister, using an Arabic shorthand for the Islamic State on Saturday at a demonstration called by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr to warn against the possible deployment of American ground troops. Mr. Sadr publicly blamed the C.I.A. [ http://www.nytimes.com/video/multimedia/100000003106022/shiites-wary-of-us-as-both-seek-to-drive-is-from-iraq.html ] for creating the Islamic State in a speech last week, and interviews suggested that most of the few thousand people at the demonstration, including dozens of members of Parliament, subscribed to the same theory. (Mr. Sadr is considered close to Iran, and the theory is popular there as well.)
When an American journalist asked Mr. Araji to clarify if he blamed the C.I.A. for the Islamic State, he retreated: “I don’t know. I am one of the poor people,” he said, speaking fluent English and quickly stepping back toward the open door of a chauffeur-driven SUV. “But we fear very much. Thank you!”
The prevalence of the theory in the streets underscored the deep suspicions of the American military’s return to Iraq [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html ] more than a decade after its invasion, in 2003. The casual endorsement by a senior official, though, was also a pointed reminder that the new Iraqi government may be an awkward partner for the American-led campaign to drive out the extremists.
The Islamic State, also known by the acronym ISIS [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_mesopotamia/index.html ], has conquered many of the predominantly Sunni Muslim provinces in Iraq’s northeast, aided by the alienation of many residents to the Shiite-dominated government of the former prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. President Obama has insisted repeatedly that American military action against the Islamic State depended on the installation of a more inclusive government in Baghdad, but he moved ahead before it was complete.
The Parliament has not yet confirmed nominees for the crucial posts of interior or defense minister, in part because of discord between Sunni and Shiite factions, and the Iraqi news media has reported that it may be more than a month before the posts are filled.
The demonstration on Saturday was the latest in a series of signals from Shiite leaders or militias, especially those considered close to Iran, warning the United States not to put its soldiers back on the ground. Mr. Obama has pledged not to send combat troops, but he seems to have convinced few Iraqis. “We don’t trust him,” said Raad Hatem, 40.
Haidar al-Assadi, 40, agreed. “The Islamic State is a clear creation of the United States, and the United States is trying to intervene again using the excuse of the Islamic State,” he said.
Shiite militias and volunteers, he said, were already answering the call from religious leaders to defend Iraq from the Islamic State without American help. “This is how we do it,” he said, adding that the same forces would keep American troops out. “The main reason Obama is saying he will not invade again is because he knows the Islamic resistance” of the Shiite militias “and he does not want to lose a single soldier.”
The leader of the Islamic State, for his part, declared on Saturday that he defied the world to stop him.
“The conspiracies of Jews, Christians, Shiites and all the tyrannical regimes in the Muslim countries have been powerless to make the Islamic State deviate from its path,” the leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in an audio recording released over the Internet, using derogatory terms from early Islamic history to refer to Christians and Shiites.
“The entire world saw the powerlessness of America and its allies before a group of believers,” he said. “People now realize that victory is from God, and it shall not be aborted by armies and their arsenals.”
Many at the rally in Baghdad said they welcomed airstrikes against Mr. Baghdadi’s Islamic State but not American ground forces, the position that Mr. Sadr has taken. Many of the 30 lawmakers backed by Mr. Sadr — out of a Parliament of 328 seats — attended the rally.
Mr. Sadr’s supporters opposed Mr. Maliki, the former prime minister, and many at the rally were quick to criticize the former government for mistakes like failing to build a more dependable army. “We had a good army, so where is this army now?” asked Waleed al-Hasnawi, 35. “Maliki gave them everything, but they just left the battlefield.”
But few if any blamed Mr. Maliki for alienating Sunnis, as American officials assert, by permitting sectarian abuses under the Shiite-dominated security forces.
Omar al-Jabouri, 31, a Sunni Muslim from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad who attended the rally and said he volunteers with a Shiite brigade, argued that Mr. Maliki had alienated most Iraqis, regardless of their sect.
“He did not just exclude and marginalize the Sunni people; he ignored the Shiite people, too,” Mr. Jabouri said. “He gave special help to his family, his friends, people close to him. He did not really help the Shiite people, as many people think.”
But the Islamic State was a different story, Mr. Jabouri said. “It is obvious to everyone that the Islamic State is a creation of the United States and Israel.”
In this picture released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, greets a group of a hospital personnel as he leaves following prostate surgery, in Tehran, Iran. Iran and the United States share a common enemy in the Islamic State militant group, but a deep-seated lack of trust has so far kept the longtime foes from publicly joining hands in a coalition to defeat the extremists. On Monday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, decisively ruled out an alliance. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/Associated Press)
September 20 at 12:39 PM
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran and the United States share a common enemy in the Islamic State militant group, but a deep-seated lack of trust has so far kept the longtime foes from publicly joining hands in a coalition to defeat the extremists.
Their inability to work together complicates efforts to beat back the extremists that both Washington and Tehran see as a threat, and has left Iraq’s new government — which considers both countries allies — scratching its head as it tries to tackle the most serious threat to its stability since American troops left in 2011.
Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, made his frustration clear in a recent interview with The Associated Press, saying U.S. pressure to keep Iran away from talks in Paris aimed at combatting the militant threat had left him “in a very difficult position.”
“I actually find it puzzling that we hold a conference in Paris to help Iraq and to fight terrorism and ... the biggest neighbor of Iraq — Iran — is excluded,” he said.
Iran is convinced the United States wants to use the fight against the Islamic State group as a pretext to strike Tehran’s ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rejecting any cooperation with Assad, Washington is planning airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and says it will beef up Syrian rebels to fill the void as it drives out the extremists.
Iranian officials are even skeptical the U.S. really opposes the Islamic State group, since it is fighting Assad, whom the U.S. wants removed from power. On Tuesday, the top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard dismissed the anti-Islamic State group coalition as “a show.”
“There is not much hope in this coalition since they’ve set it up for their own objectives,” Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said. “We have serious doubts that this coalition seeks to destroy the Islamic State.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, also has ruled out cooperating with the United States in helping Iraq fight Islamic State militants. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday in New York, he expressed doubts about Washington’s willingness and ability to fight the group “across the board.”
The United States is wary of furthering Iranian influence in Iraq by bringing it into the fight. It also does not want to alienate key Sunni countries it is trying to rally behind its coalition, like Saudi Arabia, which is Iran’s top rival in the region.
Nevertheless, Iran has already been closely involved in the fight. Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias have been leading some of the fighting against the group on the ground. Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers in Iraq have helped coordinate between militias and the Iraqi military against the extremists, according to Iraqi officials.
Iran has publicly confirmed that it has provided military advice to Iraqis including Kurds to fight the Islamic State militants but has denied sending forces or shipping weapons.
Zarif says Iran’s assistance — without any troops — helped Iraq prevent the Islamic State group from taking over Baghdad and the Kurdish capital Irbil.
Washington and Tehran have been in back-room contacts about cooperation for weeks, and leaders of the two countries — who talked a year ago — are arriving next week for the annual ministerial meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Within Iran’s diplomatic circles, some moderate voices supported an alliance with the U.S. against the militants.
But on Monday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, decisively ruled out an alliance. He said Iran had rejected an invitation by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss cooperation.
Khamenei said the U.S. was “seeking a pretext” for military intervention in Iraq and Syria and warned that if the Americans go ahead with it “they will suffer the same problems they faced in Iraq in the past 10 years.”
Speaking later the same day, Kerry did not address whether the U.S. had made any such invitation. He said that while the U.S. has ruled out any military coordination with Iran, it is open to communications “to find out if they will come on board, or under what circumstances, or whether there is the possibility of a change.”
Despite their long decades of enmity, Iran and the United States have been united by a common enemy before: Afghanistan’s Taliban. When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Iran coordinated with it, especially on operations in the western part of the country near its border. The cooperation ended badly, however, when then-President George W. Bush branded Iran part of an “axis of evil,” infuriating Tehran.
Saeed Leilaz, an Iranian political analyst, says Iran has not completely shut the door to talks with the U.S. on the crisis.
“Nowadays, Iranian and American officials privately talk for 10 hours a day. Definitely, they also talk about the Islamic State group,” Leilaz said. But Iran wants the U.S. to clarify its intentions in the region before any cooperation, he said.
But for the moment, Tehran and Washington are likely to operate separately against the group.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Amir Abdollahian, said his country won’t wait for a coalition to act against extremists. He said the best way to fight the group is “to assist Iraqi and Syrian governments, which are actively involved in the fight against terrorism.”
Saudi Arabia is not the source of ISIS, it’s the group’s primary target.
ISIS’ core objective is to restore the caliphate (an Islamic empire led by a supreme leader), and because Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of Islam and the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina, ISIS’ road to the caliphate lies through the kingdom and its monarchy. Indeed, ISIS has even launched a campaign against Saudi Arabia, called qadimun, or “we are coming” to take over the country. Saudi Arabia has put the group on its list of terrorist sponsors, declared that funding ISIS is a crime with severe penalties, and arrested ISIS supporters and operatives over the past several months.
ISIS emerged not from Saudi Arabia but from postwar Iraq and the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s senior officer corps and their local support networks in Iraq and Syria. This has enabled ISIS to capture large swathes of land in these two countries and seize valuable economic, financial and energy assets, thus becoming financially self-sufficient. Now they are after Saudi Arabia’s riches.
The kingdom’s enormous oil fields and monetary wealth have always been coveted by Al Qaeda, as they are now by ISIS. Of course, with typical hypocrisy, while Al Qaeda and ISIS covet the kingdom’s riches, they also despise the way it has modernized in order to capitalize on that wealth — seeing it as having strayed from proper Islamic practices.
Why, then, do so many people believe Saudi Arabia is behind ISIS?
At the root of the claim that Saudi Arabia created ISIS is the belief that both entities practice a version of Islam called Salafism (erroneously known in the West as Wahhabism). While it is true that the kingdom espouses Salafism, ISIS’ claim that it is Salafi has no basis. Salafism is based on the word salaf, or “the ancestors,” referring to the way Islam was practiced by Prophet Muhammad’s early followers in the religion’s first three generations.
The Salafists believe that Islam should be practiced according to the dictates of these ancestors. Different interpretations of these dictates have occurred over time, leading to four schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam. The founders of these schools were Abu Hanifah, Malik, Al Shafi’i, and Ibn Hanbal.
ISIS follows an ideology that is a continuation of a crude sect known as the Kharijites, or the ones that “deviated” from the Muslim community during the reign of the fourth Caliph Ali (whom they assassinated). The Kharijites believed that whoever disagreed with them should be murdered as infidels (takfir), rationalized mass killings against civilians, including women and children (isti’rad), and practiced an extreme form of inquisition to test their opponent’s faith (imtihan).
These concepts make ISIS’ ideology the absolute opposite of Saudi Salafism. The version of Salafism applied in the kingdom’s courts and religious institutions was formulated by one of the four leading Muslim jurists, the ninth-century scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Hanbali law stands firmly against sedition, shedding of blood, and forcible conversion.
One of Ibn Hanbal’s best known sayings typifies current Saudi theology: “Glory to God; shedding blood! Shedding blood! I do not consent nor do I command it; to observe patience in our situation is better than sedition that causes the shedding of blood.”
ISIS poses a unique threat: It is a bloodthirsty movement that can find disaffected young men and women and recruit them from among the world’s 1.3 billion Sunnis. It does not face the numerical constraints of groups like Hezbollah or countries like Iran, whose ideologies only appeal to the smaller Shiite community. With such enormous growth potential, ISIS must be defeated now.
Saudi Arabia is the only authority in the region with the power and legitimacy to bring ISIS down. Having effectively eradicated Al Qaeda in the kingdom, the Saudi government, with its experience fighting terrorism, is uniquely positioned to deal with ISIS, which is, after all, an Al Qaeda-aligned organization. The kingdom has built up an impressive counterterrorism program and its counterterrorism strategies are considered some of the most sophisticated and effective in the world.
More importantly, the Saudi leadership has a unique form of religious credibility and legitimacy, which will make it far more effective than other governments at delegitimizing ISIS’ monstrous terrorist ideology. The message sent to the Muslim and Arab worlds as Saudi Arabia takes on ISIS is radically different from — and much preferable to — the message sent if the United States does so, especially given America’s recent disastrous record in the Middle East.
When ISIS first appeared in Syria in 2011, Saudi Arabia tried to galvanize support for the moderate Syrian opposition against the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad. But the world failed to listen.
Now, as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently pointed out, ISIS is not only a threat to the Middle East, but to Europe and America. We call on the international community to form a solid coalition with Saudi Arabia to roll back ISIS’ military advances while at the same time supporting the kingdom’s ever increasing campaign to delegitimize ISIS in the eyes of the wider Sunni world, in order to ultimately destroy it.
Nawaf Obaid is the chief executive of the Essam and Dalal Obaid Foundation and a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Saud al-Sarhan is the research director at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies.
Kurds head to Syria from Turkey to fight militants
Turkish security forces stand guard as Syrians wait behind the border fences near the southeastern town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province, September 18, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
September 20, 2014, Saturday/ 15:03:28
BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say hundreds of Kurdish fighters are crossing into Syria from Turkey to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and local Kurdish official Nawaf Khalil said Saturday that the fighters were streaming into the Kobani area in northern Syria.
Fighters from ISIL group have been barreling through the Kobani area over the past week, seizing villages and forcing thousands of Syrian Kurds to flee.
ISIL fighters backed by tanks captured 16 Kurdish villages over the past 24 hours in northern Syria near the Turkish border two days ago, prompting civilians to flee their homes amid fears of retribution by the extremists sweeping through the area.
Turkish troops on the border with Syria allowed Syrian Kurds fleeing the advance of the ISIL to cross into Turkey after skirmishes with residents on the Turkish side of the border who wanted to help the displaced.
A call to fight ISIL came from pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Chairman Selahattin Demirtas, who said on Friday that the youth of Turkey, including Turkish, Kurdish, Alevi and Sunni people, should join the fight in Kobane, as international powers and Turkey have remained silent against the terrorist group.
ISIL militants took over the 16 Kurdish villages in Syria's northern Kurdish region of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, since Wednesday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It said there were casualties on both sides, but that Kurdish civilians were fleeing their villages for fear that ISIL fighters "will commit massacres against civilians."
Islamic State fighters have been attacking northern villages
By DIAA HADID and SUZAN FRASER Published: September 20, 2014, 8:09 PM
BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of Kurdish fighters raced Saturday from Turkey and Iraq into neighboring Syria to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State militants. As the fighting raged, more than 60,000 mostly Kurdish refugees streamed across the dusty and barren border into Turkey, some hobbling on crutches as others lugged bulging sacks of belongings on their backs.
The movement of so many reflected the ferocity of the fighting in the northern Kobani area, which borders Turkey. Militants of the extremist Islamic State group had been barreling through the area for three days, prompting Kurdish leaders to plead for international help.
Civilians seeking safety began massing on the Turkish border on Thursday. Turkey did not let them in at first, saying it would send aid to the Syrian side of the border instead. By Friday, it had changed its mind and started to let in several thousand.
The numbers grew quickly as more entry points opened, and by late Saturday afternoon, more than 60,000 had poured across the frontier, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said.
Even by the standards of Syria's bitter war, it was an unusually large movement of refugees. Their numbers add to the 2.8 million Syrians who have become refugees in the past three years, and another 6.4 million who have been displaced within their own country — nearly half of Syria's pre-war population of 23 million.
Many of those who came across Saturday cradled young children or carried them on their shoulders. Kurtulmus said some refugees were staying with relatives, while others took shelter in schools or tents.
"Kobani is facing the fiercest and most barbaric attack in its history," said Mohammed Saleh Muslim, head of Syria's powerful Kurdish Democratic Union, whose members dominate the Syrian Kurdish group known as the YPK, which is fighting the Islamic State militants.
"Kobani calls on all those who defend humane and democratic values … to stand by Kobani and support it immediately. The coming hours are decisive," he said.
On Friday, the president of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, warned that the militant group's attacks on the Kobani area "threaten the whole entirety of the Kurdish nation."
The battle over Kobani is part of a long-running fight between the Islamic State group and Syria's Kurds that has raged across a band of Syrian territory stretching along the Turkish border from the north to the far northeast, where large numbers of Kurds live. The clashes are one aspect of Syria's broader civil war — a multilayered conflict that the U.N. says has killed more than 190,000,
The YPK is viewed with suspicion by many Syrian rebels and their Western supporters because of perceived links to President Bashar Assad's government. That may be changing, however, as Kurdish fighters battle alongside some Syrian rebel groups against the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria.
NATO member Turkey is wary of the group, which it believes is affiliated with the Kurdish PKK movement, a Kurdish movement that has waged a long and bloody insurgency in southeast Turkey.
Several hundred Kurdish fighters streamed into the Kobani area from Turkey, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Kurdish official Nawaf Khalil also confirmed the movement of fighters into Syria.
At least some of the volunteers looked to be PKK fighters, while others appeared to be eager civilians, according to Kurdish officials who insisted on anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to reporters.
Some 600 PKK fighters also crossed from Iraq into Syria, heading toward Kobani, said a military official in Iraq's northern Kurdish region. That official also spoke on condition his name not be used because he wasn't authorized to speak to journalists. The PKK have a base in the Qandil mountains in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Ethnic Kurds dominate a mountainous region that straddles Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
Syrian Kurdish fighters had been successfully fighting off the militants for the past two years. They even clashed with the Islamic State group's fighters in northern Iraq, carving a safe passage for thousands of embattled Iraqis of the Yazidi minority, whom the militant group sees as apostates.
But the tide changed in September as Islamic State group fighters began employing more powerful weaponry they seized from Iraqi soldiers who fled the militants' advance in June.
The U.S. has yet to launch any airstrikes in Syria to stem advances by Islamic State fighters, but airstrikes in Iraq have helped Kurdish fighters there and the Iraqi army stem attacks by Islamic State forces.
U.S. Central Command reported five airstrikes against militants on Friday and Saturday, including one southwest of Baghdad that destroyed an Islamic State group boat carrying supplies across the Euphrates River. The four other strikes were northwest of Haditha, targeting armed vehicles, checkpoints and guard outposts.
The U.S. has now conducted 183 airstrikes across Iraq since the military action began in early August.
Many media organizations have adopted the term "Islamic State," including The Huffington Post. But Secretary of State John Kerry aligns with the French on this issue.
"I call them the 'enemy of Islam' because that's what I think they are, and they certainly don't represent a state even though they try to claim to," Kerry said.
Islamic State militants ban maths, social studies for children
PTI First Published: 21:11 IST(17/9/2014) Last Updated: 21:55 IST(17/9/2014)
Dubai, September 17, 2014 — Thousands of children in swaths of war-torn Syria, now controlled by dreaded Islamic State militants, can no longer study maths or social studies under new diktats issued by the jihadists.
While sports is banned, the children will not be allowed to learn about elections and democracy. Instead, the children will be subjected to the teachings of the radical Islamist group. And any teacher who dares to break the rules "will be punished." ISIS announced its new educational demands in fliers posted on billboards and on street poles, CNN reported.
The Sunni militant group has captured a slew of Syrian and Iraqi cities in recent months as it tries to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, spanning Sunni parts of both countries.
In the letter, IS said alternative courses will be added. It also said teachers must erase the phrase Syrian Arab Republic -- the official name of Syria -- and replace it with Islamic State.
Educators cannot teach nationalistic and ethnic ideology and must instead teach "the belonging to Islam ... and to denounce infidelity and infidels." Books cannot include any reference to evolution. And teachers must say that the laws of physics and chemistry "are due to Allah's rules and laws." The letter ends with a firm warning: "This is an obligatory announcement, and all violators will be punished." 200 Syrians killed in one day.
The brutal advances of ISIS in Syria come as the country grapples with a three-year civil war with no clear victor in sight. The UN estimates more than 190,000 people have died in the violence between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebels seeking an end to four decades of al-Assad family rule.
In recent weeks, the IS militants killed two American journalists and a British aid worker, prompting world leaders to form joint front to eliminate the newest threat.
The IS group has carried out abuses including beheadings and crucifixions, and faced a backlash from Syrian rebel groups opposed to its violations and harsh interpretation of Islam.
A visit to Kentucky's creationist museum, a conservative base in the culture war
Jeffrey Goldberg Sep 16 2014, 8:06 PM ET
Searching for the elusive answer to a persistent question concerning the seeming gullibility of my fellow Americans—namely, why did 42 percent of adults surveyed this spring by Gallup say they believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago?—I recently found myself in the office of Ken Ham, the born-again Barnum behind Kentucky’s $35 million Creation Museum, debating a separate but related question, one whose existence I had not previously recognized but which became for me a source of instant paleontological delight: How could dinosaurs have coexisted with other animals within the teeming confines of Noah’s Ark? Because, you see, Noah’s Ark, in Ken Ham’s understanding of the world, was crammed stem to stern with dinosaurs. The cleverest creationists don’t deny the historicity of dinosaurs; they simply argue that they were alive at the start of the Flood, which, by their calculation, occurred approximately 4,350 years ago. (What happened to the dinosaurs after the waters receded is another story.) One sign of Ham’s genius—and he is, at the very least, a marketing genius—is his ability to shape a conversation on his terms, which is why I heard myself arguing against the possibility of a dinosaur-laden ark, rather than arguing against the notion that the ark itself was an actual thing that existed. My argument, in case you were wondering, is that the Tyrannosauruses would have eaten the sheep. QED, right? Except, no. “Many dinosaurs,” Ham says, “were smaller than chickens.”
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. A short while later, Ken Ham found 40 acres of pastureland in northern Kentucky on which to build a museum devoted to the ideology of “Young Earth” creationism, which holds that the world is 6,000 years old, and which represents for a subset of evangelical Christians not only the most convincing explanation for how our planet, and the humans who rule it in God’s name, came into being, but also a potent weapon in the struggle against homosexuality and other modern ailments. What I didn’t understand until I visited Ken Ham is that his museum, which is devoted to a literal, historical reading of the first book of the Bible, is in itself a forward operating base in the conservative war against legalized abortion, gay marriage, and the belief that man is at least partially responsible for climate change (the creationists’ retort being that God will not allow man to destroy a world that he created).
Ham is Australian—a rare sort of Australian, in that he is religiously devout and completely humorless—but he possesses a specifically American talent, one on display in mega-churches and theme parks across the country, for staging emotion-saturated high-tech spectacles. And so his museum is filled with buff animatronic Adams and sexpot Eves (plastic breasts covered by waterfalls of extremely healthy hair) and writhing snakes and flying dragons and dinosaurs much larger than the average chicken. The museum’s core argument is posted near the main entrance: “The Bible is authoritative, without error, and inspired by God.” Its other message to the Christian tourist market is left unstated: the Book of Genesis, in addition to being the source of holiness and cosmic truth, is also a source of Epcot-quality fun.
“Why shouldn’t we as Christians use the best technology we can?” Ham asked me, though I had not questioned Christians’ right to deploy Disney-level engineering in their museums. Ham is not only a creationist but an oppositionist. He knows that his ministry, Answers in Genesis, draws the scorn of sophisticates, and so he takes special delight in portraying himself as a rational Daniel in the lions’ den of militant secularism, the lions being the media and the scientific establishment and the ghost of Clarence Darrow and millions of liberal and even not so liberal Christians and pretty much anyone who disagrees with Ken Ham.
My sympathies, by the way, do not lie entirely where you might think. I find atheism dismaying, for Updikean reasons (“Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity … of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we’re dead we’re dead?”), and because, in the words of a former chief rabbi of Great Britain, Jonathan Sacks, it is religion, not science, that “answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?” Like Ken Ham, I am appalled by the idea, as expressed by Richard Dawkins, that “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
Luckily, I belong to a tradition that, in addition to creating the Bible (one of Ham’s colleagues was nonplussed to learn that I could recite passages of Genesis in the mother tongue), came to understand, per Maimonides, that the first chapters of Genesis contain stories meant to advance an understanding of universal, ethical monotheism, rather than scientific explanations for creation. A faith that demands uncompromising fealty to a literal reading of its origin story seems to me a perilously brittle faith.
Many of the Creation Museum’s exhibits are devoted to refuting the body of scientific knowledge accumulated over the past two centuries concerning the formation and development of our planet and its living beings. A full-size animatronic Noah, speaking English in a Count Chocula accent, answers questions about dinosaur husbandry. A placard alongside a mounted dinosaur bone poses a Smithsonian-worthy challenge: “Can you tell how old this fossil is? Fossils don’t come with tags on them that tell us how old they are. We have to study the clues we find to try to figure out their ages.” But then the next placards tell us that the answers are found exclusively in the Bible. “The Bible says God created everything in 6 days. He created people and land animals on Day 6,” and “Adam was the first man. He was created on Day 6. By adding up the ages of Adam, his sons, their sons, and so on, we see that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.”
The final sign reads: “A flood explains why we find billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the Earth. Can you think of an event in the Bible where tons and tons of water flooded the whole Earth?” I toured the museum trailing a family of five from Ohio. The mother read the question to her three sons. They answered correctly. “Why did God send a flood?” The oldest boy answered: “To kill the wicked people.” She then asked: “Will he do it again?” No one answered. “God only punishes the unsaved,” she said. It was at this point that I should have introduced myself.
Instead I followed them to another exhibit, this one quite unlike those devoted to dinosaur apologetics. This exhibit presents with blunt force the case against godlessness, depicting the lives of modern families that have made the tragic error of rejecting the literal truth of God’s word. “In this 7 minute video,” one introductory placard reads, “the boy in the background is ‘on a killing spree’ on his video game. His older brother is looking at internet pornography and has a bag of drugs.” The mother said, “You have to listen to your parents.”
The Creation Museum is not a museum so much as it is a 3-D hellfire sermon with a food court.
Sitting with Ken Ham and Terry Mortenson, a historian of geology and a theologian on staff, I asked why it is so important to convince their visitors—more than 2 million since the museum opened seven years ago—that Genesis is a book of history. “There’s a slippery slope in regard to authority,” Ham replied. “If you say that the history in Genesis is not true, then you can just take man’s ideas as true. When you go outside of Scripture, why shouldn’t you just reinterpret what marriage means? So our emphasis is on the slippery slope regarding authority.”
Did he ever wake up in the morning and have doubts about the truth of the Bible?, I wondered. “No,” he said. “Show me another book in the world that claims to be the word of one who knows everything, who has always been there, that tells us the origin of time, matter, space, the origin of the Earth, the origin of water, the origin of the sun, moon, and stars, the origin of dry land, the origin of plants, the origin of animals, the origin of marriage, of death and sin,” he said.
“Lord of the Rings?,” I answered, tepidly.
“Well, there’s no book so specific as the Bible,” he said.
Mortenson stayed on the subject of gay marriage. “The homosexual issue flows from this. Genesis says that God created marriage between one man and one woman. He didn’t create it between two men, or two women, or two men and one woman, or three men and one woman, or two women and one man, or three women and one man. If other parts of Genesis aren’t true, then how could this idea of marriage be true? If there were no Adam and Eve and we’re all evolved from apelike ancestors and there’s homosexuality in the animal world and if Genesis is mythology, then you can justify any behavior you want.” I found this preoccupation with gay marriage significant, because it suggests that perhaps at least some of those who profess a belief in creationism might simply be signaling their preference for a more traditional social order, rather than a rejection of modern science and free intellectual inquiry.
As I said goodbye, the co-founder of the museum, Mark Looy, brought me a shopping bag filled with books making the case for Young Earth creationism. “Happy early Hanukkah,” he said. As I left the museum, I saw the same family I had been trailing in the exhibit. I introduced myself to the mother. “What did you think of the museum?,” I asked. “It explains everything,” she said.
Dick Cheney and Lewis Black: Stand-Up Comedy (Radio-Television Correspondents' Assn. Dinner 2005) [...] In 2006, Black performed at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC for an HBO special, Red, White, and Screwed. It aired in June and a DVD was released in October. ... [...] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkc0i-a4OLU
"You want one single item of proof that America is a Christian nation and not a Jewish nation and not an Islamic nation?" he asked. "One single bit of proof is all you need: we freely allow restaurants and grocery stores to sell and to serve bacon. That can only happen in a Christian country."
"So the sheer fact that we freely allow the sale and consumption of bacon," he continued, "is absolute proof that we are, in fact, a Christian nation"
Wow! China must be a super-Christian nation. Except it's not, is it?
Fischer is mute on the subject.
But the sheer, mind-numbing hypocrisy of Fischer and his ilk is almost breathtaking. On the one hand, Fischer and his merry band of hate-merchants justify their endless jeremiads against LGBT people [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/anti-gay ] with quotes from Leviticus 18 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviticus_18 ]. But Leviticus 11 is unambiguous about pork products like, erm...bacon:
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.
4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
8 Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.
Yep...seems pretty unambiguous to me: bacon is off the menu.
Let's be clear: the imbecilic Fischer rails against homosexuality because it is 'forbidden' in Leviticus. Without missing a beat, the odious Fischer sings the praises of bacon, which is also expressly forbidden in Leviticus.
How does Fischer square this circle? Oh, yeah...that's right: by being a dimwitted, hateful, lying sack of shit.
Islam, why does God need you to kill me? If He wanted me dead, I'd be dead (or I wouldn't have existed in the first place). Choose: 1.God can't kill me. 2.God doesn't want me dead. 3.God doesn't exist. Which is it? I mean, you really don't give your god much credit. People insult me all the time, and I don't want them dead. What makes you think God is so petty that He can't even take a joke? If you're enlightened, then you can laugh at yourself. Why am I more enlightened than your god?
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