“Nano Rebellionis what I can call the Syrian case. So many factions and groups and sub groups andsub-sub factions, all allegedly on one side. Splitting and sprouting and spawning new groups in the swamp that is the ‘Syrian opposition’……….”I, moi, я, ich, ana, ma,n…….
“The existence of Katiba al-Bittar al-Libi as a front group for ISIS perhaps reflects a wider pro-ISIS trend across central North Africa with the Ansar ash-Shari’a movements in Tunisia and Libya. In the former country, Ansar ash-Shari’a takes an official pro-ISIS line that dates back to at least the summer of last year (likely explaining the disproportionate number of Tunisian fighters in ISIS’ ranks). In the video linked to,Ansar ash-Shari’a in Tunisia’s official spokesman hails ISIS for making “the Jews, Rafidites [Shi’a] and Nasara [Christians] cry”in addition to freeing Muslim brothers from their prisons. In a document dated to 26th June 2013 and written by Sheikh Abu Ja’afar al-Hatab, a member of the organization’s Shari’a committee, it is argued that “the bay’ah [pledge of allegiance] of Jabhat al-Nusra is false in every aspect, so whoever pledges bay’ah to Jabhat al-Nusra, his bay’ah is corrupt, and there is no bay’ah to him or on him, and the members of Jabhat al-Nusra must repent to God and switch their bay’ah to the IslamicState of Iraq and ash-Sham.”………….”
Nano Rebellion is what I can call the Syrian case. So many factions and groups and sub groups and sub-sub factions, all allegedly on one side. Splitting and sprouting and spawning new groups in the swamp that is the “Syrian opposition”. New factions and groups and militias split or emerge almost every day.
Syria‘s civil war evolved from early protests in 2011 into a civil war. It probably would not deserve the title of “civil war’ if it were not for the various tough Jihadist groups that entered the country and were joined by some locals. At one stage the so-called ‘more moderate’ rebels groups were so fractured that they became ineffective on the ground. That is why the rest, including the Free Syrian Army and the SNC, came out strongly in support of Jabhat Al-Nusra (Nusra Front) when the United States correctly condemned it as a terrorist group. They knew it was the only effective military force, relatively speaking.
Now that particular advantage of themore extremistJihadists has dissipated with the breakup of some groups into factions and the emergence of new groups.
Of course in Syria it is all relative:moderatescan kidnap and cut throats and hold for ransom as well as the extremists. They can kill civilians of other faiths or sects as eagerly. It is all a matter of degree. The regime can and has inflicted more damage on towns and casualties on civilians only because it has better and heavier weapons (both sides are happy to use whatever they have). Not necessarily because it is more vicious than the rebel militias.
Syrianrebel groups are becoming harder and harder to follow and distinguish.Some of the names are bandied about in the media and there are probably others started in garages that I have never heard of, even as I write this. A few of the names are just anticipations on my part (lol if you must):
Islamic State of Iraq and Ash-Sham (ISIS) –Jabhat al-Nusra –Not QuietFree Syrian Army – Islamic Army of Syria – Syrian Islamic Council (SIC) – Syrian National Council – Syrian National Coalition- Syrian Opposition Coalition – National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces – Supreme Military Council – Muhajireen Battalions of Syria – Islamic Front – Ajnad al-Sham Islamic Union – Katiba al-Bittar al-Libi – Ansar ash-Shari’a (Supporters of Shari’a) – Ahfad Mohammed (grandchildren of Mohammed) – Kataeb Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubair (Brigades of ABZ) – Kataeb Al Bu Omar (Brigades) – Kataed Al Bu Lail (Brigades)- Jaish Al Q’aQa’a Army – Ahl Al Sunna Wal Jama’a – Jaish Al Qadisiya – Military Council Brigades – Kataeb Al Farooq Brigades – Jund al-Sham – Army of Mujahedeen – Ansar al-Islam – Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan – Junud al-Sham (Chechen group) – Liwa al-Tawhid wal-Jihad – Army of Mujahedeen – Harakat Fajr ash-Sham al-Islamiya (Syrian Dawn Islamic Movement) – Martyrs of Syria Brigades – Northern Storm Brigade – Ahrar Souriya Brigade (Free Syrians) – Liwa al-Haqq (Righteousness Brigade)- Liwa al-Tawhid (Monotheism Brigade) – Suqour al-Sham (Eagles of Syria) – Syrian Islamic Liberation Front – Liwa Fath al-Sham – Yarmouk Martyrs’ Brigade – Jaysh al-Muhajirin wa al-Ansar – Ghuraba Al Sham Free Officers Movement –Furqat Hassaballah (Hassaballah Band) – Serial Polygamy Brigade– Syrian Tea Party – Diwaniyat Sho’ara Al Nabat (Nabati Poets Society)……..
Thenames of their leaders (often called Emirs) range from:
Abu Qatada, Abu Mus’ab,Abu Shallakh, Abu Lahab, Abu Lam’aa (Al-Assli), Abu Bin Adham, Abu Tibin, Abu Sinatra, Abu Boo Boo, Abu Polygamy, among others………
“Syria’s opposition fighters have been supplied with U.S.-made antitank missiles, the first time a major American weapons system has appeared in rebel hands. It is unclear how the rebels obtained the wire-guided missiles, which are capable of penetrating heavy armor and fortifications and are standard in the U.S. military arsenal. The United States has sold them in the past to Turkey, among other countries, and the Pentagon approved the sale of 15,000 of the weapons to Saudi Arabia in December. Both countries aid Syrian opposition groups. U.S. officials declined to discuss the origin of the weapons but did not dispute that the rebels have them…………”
You have two and a half guesses as to the source of these anti-Tank missiles (TOWs) in Syria. The two full guesses would be about the indirect sources; that would be Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Either one is a very likely the source, or both, although the U.S. arms deals stipulate against the resale to third parties. As to the ‘half source’, that would be the country of manufacture, either directly or, more likely, indirectly on a limited restricted trial-balloon basis. Still, it is not as bad as supplying anti-aircraft missiles. If that happens, you can only imagine the nightmare scenario for airliners along the eastern Mediterranean.
An Egyptian daily newspaper quotes a high government official that Saudi Arabia has postponed delivery of any new aid to Egypt until after the results of the coming presidential elections are ‘known’. The official is quoted that a ‘huge’ financial aid package will be announced after the victory of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi is assured (just in case there is any doubt about the kind of election they are staging in Egypt). This new aid is promised to surpass all previous aid packages to Egypt………
The Saudis are sending a clear message: the princes will put money into Egypt as long as the Egyptian people are obedient and elect the ‘Saudi’ choice for president. This is quite a bold shift: it is a public downgrading of Egypt’s status and a new Wahhabi chain around the Egyptian neck. Gamal Abdel Nasser is probably having another heart attack wherever he is now. Even Anwar Sadat and King Farouk are shaking in the grave. Even under Mr. Mubarak the Saudis did not so openly and boldly interfere in the fake elections he held every few years.
Theofficial did not explain what guarantees Egyptian voters will have that the Saudi aid will be forthcoming if when Sisi wins. When asked if the Egyptians can dump Sisi if the Saudi money is not up to what was promised the official may have smirked and said: “They can try, but we can’t guarantee anything”.
Sisi, for his part, has been trying on his coming role as president. He is going around wearing a civilian suite and talking to himself in the mirror, repeating “yes we can, yes I can”. Yet what would he do in the improbable and impossible case that he loses and pigs start flying? Will he continue wearing the suit? Will he show up at the barracks wearing military garb and order a new military coup? Will they obey him? The answer is: yes, yes, yes. Which in Spanish would be Si Si Si.
“A court in southern Egypt on Monday decreed a mass death sentence for nearly 700 people, including the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement of Egypt’s ousted Islamist president. On the same day, another Egyptian court banned the April 6 movement, which was among the primary engines behind the landmark 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.
Egypt’s sharp turn toward authoritarianism in the nearly 10 months since an interim government took power has provoked expressions of concern from human rights groups and Western governments, but little in the way of meaningful punitive actions against the military-backed regime………………”
The best scenario, an optimistic scenario, in this impending Egyptian butchery is that it is just a political show. They are setting the stage for a great show of mercy by the new dictator. The Kangaroo courts continue their job, preparing the way for a new dictator for life in Cairo. He, Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi will probably show “restraint” and “mercy” after pleas from allies and suppliers in the West. He will likely show calculated moderation by commuting most of these hundreds, thousands by then, of death sentences to life in prison. All these people, including tens of thousands awaiting trial, will end up in prison for life simply because they exercised their right of protest.
The Western world will be relieved for it, and it will applaud this military justice that it would not accept in the West. But that will be okay: these are only Arabs and in some places life can be cheap and freedom might be overrated. Cheers
mhg
“Four French journalists held hostage in Syria for 10 months have been released, officials said Saturday, the latest batch of reporters to be freed in what has become the world’s deadliest conflict for the media. President Francois Hollande’s office said in a statement that he felt “immense relief” over the release of Edouard Elias, Didier Francois, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres — all said to be in good health in neighboring Turkey………The four went missing in June 2013 in two incidents. Press freedom advocate Reporters Without Borders has called Syria “the most dangerous country in the world” for journalists. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in April that 61 journalists were kidnapped in Syria in 2013, while more than 60 have been killed since the conflict began. The widespread abductions of journalists is unprecedented, and has been largely unreported by news organizations in the hope that keeping the kidnappings out of public view may help to negotiate the captives’ release. Jihadi groups are believed to be behind most kidnappings…………..”
Actually the last sentence should read that: “opposition groups are behind almost all kidnappings of journalists in Syria”. The only group that may not be directly involved in kidnappings are the exiled 5-star leaders of the SNC (Syrian national Coalition), for their offshore role is confined to finding excuses for the Jihadists, ignoring those killed, and thumbing their chests whenever some are released. Besides sipping tea and nibbling crumpets with visiting Arab petroleum potentates.
Notice how the French journalists were liberated “in Turkey”. The would-be liberators of Syria have liberated the French journalists inside liberated Turkey. Before that, the same liberators of Syria liberated a bunch of Lebanese (Shi’a) hostages also inside liberated Turkey. I forgot: were the captive priests and nuns liberated? I mean those that were not beheaded. If so, were they liberated inside liberated Turkey as well?
“Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appeared set to win re-election for another five years on Friday after a vote opponents dismissed as a stage-managed fraud to keep the ailing leader in power. Sitting a wheelchair, Bouteflika cast his vote on Thursday in a rare public appearance since suffering a stroke last year that has raised doubts about whether, after 15 years in power, he is fit enough to govern the North African oil state. Official results were scheduled to be released later on Friday by the interior ministry, but Bouteflika’s allies on Thursday were already claiminga landslide victory……………………”
So, it has been three plus years on since the Arab uprisings started in Tunisia in December of 2010 and spread eastward. Let us look at the situation now:
In Algeria, president Bouteflika (father of teflika, wtf that be) ‘wins’ a fourth or fifth term of presidency today. At this rate he will be in power when he becomes eligible for a place in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo or in a basement corner of the Louvre where the mummies are kept.
Abd Rabbuh Hadi bin Zombie of Yemen won 98% of the vote last time in an election that the GCC potentates declared was clean and free and democratic. He may be getting ready to run again, unless a U.S. drone mistakes him for an Al Aqaeda zombie. Meanwhile the allegedly deposed Ali Abdallah Saleh is not far from the center of power, very likely plotting something or another.
Egypt is getting ready to “elect”, by the usual landslide, Generalisimo Field Marshal Sisi bin Mubarak Al Saud. Interim non-leader Adly Mansour Al Zombie will vanish; he will go back into the vast caverns of Mr. Mubarak’s everlasting bureaucracy.
Bashar Al Assad will apparently ‘win’ another term later this year in Syria. Before you start guffawing think of this: given the sorry state of the opposition Jihadis and the divisive fear they have sown inside Syria he actually might win an election by a plurality (probably not by a majority). Quite a feat given the bloody mess his country is in.
Nouri Al Maliki of Iraq may win yet another term as prime minister, unfortunately. That depends on parliamentary election results and how the leaders of the various factions and the Kurds feel. Ayad Allawi will again be the favorite candidate of the Baathists and the neighboring Arab potentates. But as I have fawtad years ago: he will never become prime minister of Iraq.
A gaggle of Lebanese right-wing generals and warlords are fighting for the ceremonial presidency of that country. What is at stake? The figurehead president gets to name a couple of minor cabinet members and he gets a fat Saudi check to help him pick sides.
On the Gulf. The would-be tribal liberators and bearers of democracy to Syria hold tight to absolute power at home, with a little help from their oligarch friends. From Riyadh to Abu Dhabi and Manama, they cling to every morsel of power. Even the unloved prime minister of Bahrain who has been in power for some 42 years. One of my suspect sources tells me he has vowed to leave office the old fashioned way: feet first and straight to Boot Hill.
No need to go over the besotted Sudan, whose president of some 27 years in power is usually wanted by some international criminal court or another but is traveling across the Middle East quite freely.
Then there are the other two bulwarks of the Arab League, Mauretania and Somalia. Frankly I have no idea WTF is going on over there. I assume each of these two countries has a president or a wazir or sublime port or someone like that who rules or pretends to.
I forgot about the Comoros, but maybe next year, after I pay a visit to Moroni.
On the bright side, there are rumors that Gambia may be the next country to join the Arab League and the Gulf GCC. They would need a Saudi invitation for both (even the French would need a Saudi invitation for that). Which has me wondering what is happening in Banjul or even in Pakalinding nowadays.
“Here in the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who gained infamy for his bloody reign as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq during the early years of the American occupation there, the increasingly sectarian war in Syria has ignited militants, inspiring the largest jihadist mobilization the city has ever seen. Jordanian analysts and Islamists estimate that 800 to 1,200 Jordanians have gone to fight in Syria, more than double the number who fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. Though the fighters come from across the country, fully one-third hail from here, the most from any single area. Most fighters disappear without telling their families, only to resurface across the border with the Nusra Front, Syria’s Qaeda affiliate, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a Qaeda splinter group. …………..”
Yes I recall Al Zarqawi and his brief reign of terrorism in Iraq. He and his imported foreign Arab Salafis. He was a proud son of some typical humorless hole of a town in Jordan, as long as he was busy killing and beheading the ‘right’ people in Iraq. But then the Salafi terrorists got too ambitious, and struck inside Jordan. When they attacked a hotel in Amman and created many victims of the ‘wrong’ kind, it suddenly dawned that he was a terrorist. All this hobnobbing with Jihadis will come back to bite the King of Jordan right where it counts, just as it is now biting the current rulers of Turkey. Cheers
mhg
“All Arab political courts are like bad jokes, except to their victims.” Me?
“A son of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi will face trial for alleged possession and use of hashish, judicial sources said on Monday, but no date has yet been fixed. Abdullah Morsi, 19, was arrested on March 1 along with a friend for allegedly possessing two joints while they were in a car parked by the roadside in Qalyubia province north of Cairo. The two were freed the next day pending investigation after agreeing to give urine samples which the prosecution says tested positive. Morsi’s other son Osama has denied the charges against Abdullah, saying the authorities were “fabricating the case” and that his brother’s arrest was an attempt to “defame the family”……………..”
The judicial absurdity does not stop in Cairo, it gets even more absurd by the day. Now they are hounding the family of Morsi, in the true style of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist justice.
I wrote last month that: They are doing it again in Cairo. My special
source, snuck secretly into Cairo, reports that Egyptian courts have
been ordered to add some new charges to the litany of charges against
deposed president Morsi. The elected Mr. Morsi was deposed by a military coup d’etat led by Generalisimo Abdelfattah Al Sisi………..just in case, just to make the case against
Morsi watertight, she reports they have decided to add new charges to
the old ones. The new charges could include contributing to global
warming, African threats of diverting Nile waters, the loss of East
Jerusalem to the Jews (King Hussein is dead), the jump in Syrian war
victims from 75 thousand dead to over 100 thousand dead during his year
in office, topless German tourists switching their sun
bathing-activities from Egypt to Cyprus, as well as any epidemic and natural
disaster that may befall Egypt and neighboring countries. She also reports that they toyed with a new charge against the doomed Morsi……………
Here are some relevant links to this absurd topic:
Ahmad Al Jarba, the Saudi-appointed head of the Syrian National Coalition, has insisted that the “free world” provide the Syrian opposition with the means to fight Bashar al Assad. But the “free world” is already supporting his coalition. Saudi Arabia and Qatar and a few other democratic members of the “free world” have been pouring money, weapons, and Salafi Jihadis into Syria for three years. You can’t get any freer than the princes and potentates. They are “free” to do whatever they want in their countries. They are free to loot whatever they want. They are free to silence, shut up, anyone they want, and they do.
How can Mr. Al Jarba claim that the “free world” does not support him and his allied groups and militias? Meanwhile Mr. Al Assad, fresh from a new military victory at Yabroud, is reportedly getting ready to run for a third term as president this year. This no doubt will complicate things. And I am guessing he can win at least as many votes as Al Jarba can, actually much more. As I have written before, Syrians are divided. Anyway, tribal type candidates are not likely to win many votes in the major cities and in Western Syria in general. Personally, I believe if an Assad must run, it should not be Bashar. Too much bloodshed during his reign, although some of it was spilled by the opposition as well. Little Hafez Al Assad (petit-fils) is probably too young to run. Which leaves Asma Akhras Al Assad as the only plausible candidate. I know she has no goatee (saksooka) and hence will not be easily acceptable to the Saudis. Why else do you think they repress their women so much?……….
“The newest inhabitants of the world’s biggest cemetery were killed not here in Iraq but in Syria, where they fought under the green flag of the Middle East’s most potent new Shia Islamic political force, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous). The militia has been busy readying for the afterlife, buying up more than 2,500 square metres of burial plots and erecting shrines for its fallen. And in Baghdad, nearly 100 miles north, the group has been more occupied with the here and now, imposing its influence on Iraq’s fractured political scene and steadily asserting its will throughout the city’s Shia heartland suburbs. Since the American military left Iraq in December 2011, and within two months of the first national election since then, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq has quietly emerged as one of the most powerful players in the country’s political and public life. Through a mix of strategic diplomacy, aggressive military operations and intimidation – signature methods of its main patron, the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani – the group is now increasingly calling the shots in two countries………………..”
This sounds ominous, this fundamentalist group’s entry complicates thing (religious militias always complicate things they touch, adding one more point of contention). Yet something like it has been predicted for almost three years. Once the Syrian uprising, which had legitimate demands in 2011, became a mainly sectarian enterprise as a Saudi-Qatari proxy war.
All this might be one factor behind the ratcheting up of Salafi terrorist attacks in Iraq and their recent expansion into Lebanon. It is partly an attempt by their patrons and financiers to try and reset things in both countries and see if something works in either country. A Shi’a-dominated government in Baghdad has always been treated in some Arab capitals, especially among the potentates of the Persian Gulf and their Salafi allies, as a ‘loss of Iraq’. As if that country has changed its skin and become something else. It takes a lot of petro-money to run a sustained terrorist enterprise of kind that has been murdering Iraqis. That might explain why a frustrated prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki openly accused both Saudi Arabia and Qatar of fomenting and supporting terrorism.
The other angle is to try and get Hezbollah to pull its forces of Syria. Presumably the idea is that Lebanese deaths from terrorism will create popular pressures on Hezbollah to pull out. The ideal goal is to shift the allegiance of most Lebanese Shi’as away and toward ‘other’ politicians. But that is now as likely as pigs being declared halaland kosher and starting to fly. Those ‘other’ politicians are either discredited remnants (feloul) of past Shi’a feudal lords of the South or some known flunkies (a few politicians and clerics) in the pay of the Al Saud princes.
Of course all this can shift again if only Hassan Nasrallah takes down the picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that is probably hanging in his office and replaces it with a picture of the Saudi king.
