Category Archives: Syria

Arab Revolutions, Jihadis, Syria

Syria’s Jihadists: Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Farouq Brigade, AQAP, Bloods, Crips, Chihuahua ……….

   

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“The fighter, Abu Mohamed al-Shami Abu al-Absi, led a brigade known as Jubhat al-Nusra, which calls itself a Qaeda affiliate. His body was found Wednesday in an area known as Sarmada on the Turkish border, several rebel fighters said in interviews over the Internet. All said he had disappeared three days earlier and was evidently kidnapped and assassinated. His killing aroused calls for revenge from his family as well as the group of Islamist brigades operating in the area, known as the Islamic Shura Council, in which he also played a leading role. Some quickly pointed the finger at a major fighting group based in Homs, Al Farouq Brigade, which is considered Islamist but is opposed to Mr. Absi’s hard-line ideology. Brigades often collaborate on specific actions or fights, but each typically reports to its own leader. “There has been tension between Al Farouq fighters and the rebels from the Shura Council,” said the commander of another brigade in the area, speaking on the condition of anonymity for his safety. “Now his tribe and the Shura Council want to take revenge against the Farouq brigade,” he continued, lamenting the growing complexity of the rebel forces. “Every day we have new Islamic movements.”………….”

Now we know what the latent Syrian potential has been. We know they (Aflaq and Bitar) produced the Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party (modeled on European Nazis and Fascists). The party that fucked up (literally and figuratively) both Syria and Iraq for fifty years.
But think what they could not produce all these years of Ba’athist dictatorship and repression. The creative talent that was, has been, suppressed for decades. A bounty, an embarrassment of riches: Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Farouq Brigade, al-Tawheed, Kidnappers Anonymous, Bloods, Crips, Chihuahua Cartel, Haqqani Network, the Corleone, Al Capone, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Al QAP, Salafis for True Democracy, Islamic Heritage Revival Society, Al-Sau………ops, sorry, got carried away there………..
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Iraq, Syria, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Oracles of War or Junket Kings: Three U.S. Senators Declare Two New Middle East Wars…………

   

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“U.S. Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham on Friday urged Washington to help arm Syria’s rebels with weapons and create a safe zone inside the country for a transition government. They also called for a far tougher position against Iran over its suspected, and seemingly inexorable, drive toward acquiring nuclear weapons capability. McCain blasted President Barack Obama, who defeated him in the 2008 presidential election, for recently setting the “red line” for Syria at use of chemical weapons. “If you’re (Syrian President) Bashar Assad, maybe you interpret that to mean that you can do anything short of chemical weapons before the United States will intervene,” the Republican from Arizona told the Ambrosetti Forum, a gathering of political and business leaders on the shores of Lake Como in Italy…………”

These three U.S. senators seem to spend more time in our region, the Middle East, than in the USA. More time than even some of us spend. They gave up on their early plan to establish their own private base in Iraq after the American (early) withdrawal. They would have called that a ‘settlement’: McCain and Graham violently opposed Lieberman’s suggestion of the term “Kibbutz”: they said it sounded socialistic and un-American; ditto for shtetl. They threatened to storm the beaches of Libya (along with Bernard–Henri Lévy) but were beaten by NATO. They have been trying to liberate Syria and Iran for several years (and Lebanon), but have been frustrated.
Remember: McCain had originally wanted to remain in Iraq for one hundred years (a hundred year Reich?) if necessary, and to retire after that to Arizona where he would run for the job of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Now they are all waiting for Mr. Obama to be defeated in November so that General John Bolton can march through the Middle East with his terrible swift sword again, making it the New New Middle East again.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, France, Iran, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Predictable Syrian War: Iranian Suleimani to Assad, French Anti-Aircraft to FSA……………

   

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“Western intelligence officials say that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has personally sanctioned the dispatch of the experienced officers to ensure that the Assad regime, Iran’s most important regional ally, survives the threat to its survival. In addition, Iran has shipped hundreds of tons of military equipment, including guns, rockets, and shells, to Syria through the regular air corridor that has been established between Damascus and Tehran. Intelligence officials believe the increased Iranian support has been responsible for the growing effectiveness of the Assad regime’s tactics in forcing anti-government rebel groups on the defensive. In the past few weeks, pro-Assad forces have seized the offensive by launching a series of well-coordinated attacks against rebel strongholds in Damascus and Aleppo. The Iranian operation to support Mr Assad is being masterminded by Qassem Suleimani…………”

“With opposition forces consolidating their hold over enclaves in the country captured from the regime, Francois Hollande’s government senses an opportunity for the West to give the rebels military assistance for the first time, a diplomat has said. Until now Western powers have insisted on giving rebel fighters only “non-lethal” aid, fearing that the armed opposition’s chaotic and fractured organisational structure could allow weapons to fall into the hands of radical Islamist groups. While acknowledging that arming the rebels remains potentially hazardous, France is impressed with the way the opposition is administering towns under its control after it set up local revolutionary councils to impose law and order………”

These Iranians, all they seem to have for export, besides oil and gas and carpets, is the same poor old Qassem Suleimani (and some weapons to to allies in Syria and Lebanon). He flies around more than Ahmadinejad, more than McCain and Lieberman: from Damascus to Yemen to Bahrain to Iraq and Lebanon (never fear, he is always near). Playing the favorite bogeyman of the West, of our oligarchs, of the Salafis, and of the Gulf Wahhabi-liberals. No sightings of him in Tel Aviv or Riyadh yet; but the Likud are looking for evidence that he was in Bulgaria a few weeks ago, maybe dressed as a long-haired teenage tourist with a backpack loaded with explosives. So predictable, the mullahs: you’d think this Suleimani would delegate for once and send one of his deputies or flunkies.
But then we can say the same for the Europeans: what they mostly export to our region as solutions are weapons. Arms for the FSA bands, arms and chemical weapons for Saddam Hussein, tear gas and bullets for the despots in Bahrain, etc, etc. Even weapons to the Assad regime if only he had played his cards right (and the Syrian people be damned). I bet they would send the same stuff to Iran if the mullahs play their cards right and go kosher.
Meanwhile the Syrian regime is pissed at Egypt’s president Morsi for calling for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad (and his replacement with the Muslim Brotherhood, of course). It is not clear what Hajj Erdogan of Turkey thinks of all these developments nowadays.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Last Refuge of Scoundrels: How Manaf Tlass Discovered a new Wahhabi God………

   

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“Religion is the last refuge of these scoundrels……..” Paraphrased by Me

“Brigadier-General Manaf Tlas hails from a family with a long history in the Syrian military establishment starting from his father former Syrian Defense Minister Lieutenant General Mustafa Tlas to his cousins who defected from the Syrian regime. Tlas’s defection dealt a severe blow to the Syrian regime not only because he is the son of a former defense minister, but also because of his own rank in the army. Tlas comes from Rastan in the Homs governorate. Homs was, in fact, the main reason for the fallout between Manaf Tlas and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Tlas asked Assad to stop military operations in Homs, which at the time, had claimed the lives of hundreds of Syrians. Manaf Tlas, commander of the Republican Guard’s 105th brigade, is the second son of Mustafa Tlas, who was minister of defense from 1972 during the reign of Hafez al-Assad, to 2004, four years after Bashar al-Assad inherited power following his father’s death. Bashar al-Assad dismissed Mustafa Tlas, who he saw as a member of the “old guard,” one year before the assassination of his friend former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri…………….”

This is too cute, from the semi-official Saudi royal mouthpiece Alarabiya. They even add a bit of fantasy hint about how his father Mustafa Tlass was retired in order for ‘someone’ to be able to kill Hariri. Oh, yeah: Tlass was the protector of Hariri the al-Saud man in Lebanon. Suddenly the whole Tlass family, partners in the looting and repression of Syria for many decades, are presented as saviors of Syria. Saviors of Syria from their own past.
Suddenly Manaf Tlass makes the obligatory Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca, a symbolic political gesture in this case devoid of religion. This Umrah was like a political campaign gesture in the West. It was a political gesture meant to satisfy the al-Saud, their Wahhabi shaikhs, and the Muslim Brotherhood-Salafi forces that control the opposition movement inside Syria.
This Umrah also indicates that the al-Saud princes now own Manaf Tlass: lock, stock, and barrel. He is their prize possession that will help rule Syria the way the al-Saud want it to be ruled. Maybe the way the Western powers want it to be ruled.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Iran, Syria

Salehi Does Some Wishful Thinking on Syria………….

   

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                          Neck of the woods
“Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday that Syria will soon be at peace as the army is gradually suppressing the armed insurgent groups. “Enemies imagined that they could create a vacuum in the management of the country by triggering explosions in Damascus but the enemies of the Syrian nation have been defeated… and the army is gradually gaining supremacy over the armed opposition,” Salehi told reporters after a cabinet meeting. The foreign minister said the opposition can be divided into two groups. The first seeks reforms and its demands should be met by the Syrian government. The second, with the support of the West and certain regional countries, has resorted to violence and seeks the dissolution of the government through civil war……….”


For some reason I don’t believe that Ali Akbar Salehi is right. Something tells me he is wrong about how things will get peaceful in Syria so soon. My imaginary and real sources tell me it is going to get hotter in Syria before it cools down.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Syria, Turkey

Kurds in Syria, FSA in Turkey…………

   

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“Turkey has announced that it will take additional measures against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Syria, after news broke that the PKK’s offshoot in there has seized control of a number of villages along the Syria-Turkey border. Top civilian and military officials held a security summit yesterday to discuss developments inside Syria and along the border. …………”

In this case will Syria reciprocate and take action against the FSA (Free Syrian Salafi Army) and its supply lines in Turkey? Logic would say: hell yeah. Reality would say: not so fast.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Iran, Syria

Muslim Summit in Mecca to Discuss Syria and Bahrain?………

   

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“Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has said that if an extraordinary summit of Muslim leaders is supposed to be held in Mecca, the crisis in Bahrain should be top of the agenda. Mehmanparast made the remarks during his regular press briefing in Tehran on Tuesday in response to a question about the fact that Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said on Sunday that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had called for an emergency Islamic summit in Mecca on August 14 and 15 to address risks of “sedition” threatening Muslim countries. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman stated, “We will welcome any meeting that brings together Muslim countries and will actively participate in it. But the crises are obvious, and it is also clear which countries are taking interventionist measures. If such a meeting is supposed to be held, resolving Bahrain’s crisis” should be top of the agenda…………”

If the summit covers the Syrian civil war, then the Iranians are right in requesting that it should also cover the uprising in Bahrain. I wholeheartedly agree with that. It seems only fair: one Arab uprising is equal to another Arab uprising. By “risks of ‘sedition’ threatening Muslim countries”, I take it the Saudis mean the Arab uprisings and their aftermath. They cannot mean the Western and Israeli military threats against another Muslin country, the threats of another war in our region since they are very likely pushing that (Wikileaks and ‘cutting the head of the snake’ and all that). I suspect the Saudi princes calculate that they have more friends among leaders of Muslim countries than the Iranian mullahs have (they have more money and influential Western friends). They may calculate that they can get a more favorable response.
It is also possible the Saudi princes decided to call this meeting to show that they are still active, in spite of the death of two crown princes and the ailing king Abdullah. Except the King looks near the end of his life, literally, his new crown prince is rumored to be a little slow upstairs, and the foreign minister is ailing. They need to inject new blood (al-Saud blood of course) into their regime quickly, not an easy job.
How about recruiting Shaikh Nimr al-Nimr in the cabinet?

Cheers

mhg
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Al-Qaeda, Syria, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

The Enigmatic Syrian Opposition: about the Jihadists………

   

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“This is not to say that Syria’s uprising is easy to understand, marked as it is by regional and sectarian interests, little to no central command and, yes, a paucity of clear information flows. It is undoubtedly the case that there’s a great deal that the US would like to know about the rebellion that remains out of reach. But that is a far different thing from driving blind. In the same Post article an unnamed “Middle Eastern intelligence official” implied that a great deal is understood, though he complained that vetting the rebel groups is “still in the very early stages.” The Post writes: “The foreign official cited concern that the opposition is at risk of becoming dominated by Islamists pushing for a Muslim Brotherhood government after Assad. ‘We think this is a majority view, at least among those who are fighting in the streets,’ the official said.”…………. There are also Islamist militants of a darker color, from a US perspective, at work in Syria. Jihadis more in the style of Al Qaeda are also operating inside the country. Veterans of the war against the US in Iraq have been involved in attacks on government forces, bringing with them the skills honed in building powerful improvised explosive devices (IEDs) around Iraqi cities like Fallujah………These fighters often stand apart from the FSA.………”

Actually the jihadist terrorist bombers, slitter of throats, choppers of heads and limbs do not stand that far apart from the FSA. As an example: Salafis and Wahhabis in the Gulf GCC states, mostly admirers of al-Qaeda, are always collecting money for the FSA. I suspect they would not be collecting money for them if it did not go to the benefit of their Salafi jihadist brethren, meaning al-Qaeda terrorists.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Syria and the Club of Arab Dictators and Absolute Tribal Kings: “rapists on both sides…..”

   

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“His story was as revealing as it was frightening. Damascus was about to be attacked. But the fighters were out of control. There were drug addicts among them. “Some of our people are on drugs,” the visitor said. “They will take anyone out. We can’t guarantee what some of these men will do. If they went into Malki [a mixed, middle-class area of central Damascus], we couldn’t protect any of the people who live there. ………. It was a true civil war story. There were bad guys among the good guys and good guys among the bad. But sectarianism is biting into the Syrian revolution. At the end of last week, one Syrian told me that “they are bayoneting people in the villages around Damascus”. Women, they say, have been raped outside the city of Homs – one estimate puts the number of victims as high as 200 – and the rapists are on both sides. . ……………”


Regardless of all this, Any respectable leader in a respectable country (that means any leader outside the Arab world) in a similar situation would resign office and go into exile. Bashar al-Assad “inherited” the power from his father with the approval of the Baath Party, misnamed Arab Baath Socialist Party with an Immortal (Eternal) Message to remain in power forever and at any price. And with the approval of all other Arab leaders, the Club of Arab Despots and Dictators and Absolute Tribal Kings. At some point even an Arab dictator, or lousy king, can decide that it is not worth the blood. Take a lesson from Bin Ali of Tunisia: he didn’t insist on staying, he gave it up rather than see more killing. al-Assad should resign and just get the hell out.
I don’t like the current opposition in Syria either, they are a nasty bunch as well, as nasty as the Baath regime, but with less weapons and less goons than the regime to do the dirty deeds. Many of them former henchmen who served the dictators and the part loyally and now pose as revolutionaries.
Syria should hold free elections under the supervision of various world powers, including Russia and China, after which a coalition of Muslim Brothers and Salafis will take power legally. The Kurds will get their nominally autonomous region, and that will leave only al-Qaeda for their allies to deal with. After that, the Syrian people should be left to their own devices to judge how good their new Islamist rulers are, or how badly they fuck up the country (a very likely outcome).
(Of course we know it ain’t gonna happen: nobody will leave the Syrian people to their own devices).


Cheers
mhg
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Syria

The Wahhabi Spring: Al-Qaeda Multitasking in the Levant and Yemen and North Africa and……

   

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“al-Qaeda for the first time came out and openly announced its participation in battles in Syria. They even raised the al-Qaeda flag at the Bab el-Hawa border crossing. A Jordanian security source stated that more than six thousand al-Qaeda fighters have entered Syria in recent months. Most of them are non-Syrian Arabs, according to the al-Sharq Saudi daily. The newspaper reports that two factions of al-Qaeda are competing for supremacy in Syria, one led by Saudi Emir Majid al-Majid and the other led by al-Fatih Abu Mohammed al-Golani………….”

Al-Fatih is the Arabic term for “conqueror”: this al-Golani guy is optimistic. His last name al-Golani, like the rest of his name, is fake (nom de guerre). It implies something about the Golan Heights should al-Qaeda prevail in Syria.
The terrorist group has moved thousands of its fighters into Syria, yet it has enough terrorists left inside Iraq to continue slaughtering civilians in that country. No wonder the Iraqi government refused to support the Arab League call for regime change in Damascus. Considering that the same organization killing Iraqi citizens is now part of the group that the Arab Saudi League wants to take power in Damascus. Not that it matters anymore: no doubt the current regime in Syria is on its way out and it is a matter of when.
Al-Qaeda’s old leadership has been decimated by American firepower in the past few years. Yet al-Qaeda has managed to expand its operations in new parts of the Arab world. It is now more active than ever in Yemen and North Africa and still active in Iraq and making an important grab for a piece of Syria as well as northern Lebanon (thanks to the Hariri alliance). Who would have thunk it, as the funny man in the movies said? The Wahhabi terrorist group has been as much a beneficiary of the so-called Arab Spring as the Saudi and Qatari regimes: both have expanded their influence, and they are ALL three Wahhabis.
The Saudis seem to have maintained their influence in the “New” Egypt and they may be on the verge of expanding their sphere into Syria (replacing Iran and handing it a major diplomatic and logistic defeat). Syrian rebels are often seen raising the photos of Saudi King Abdullah and even the Qatari Shaikh Hamad. Some revolutionaries against despotism, raising photos of the most absolute rulers in the world. But all that is for the short term, of course.
Cheers
mhg
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