Tag Archives: Sectarian

Al-Azhar, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Islam, Sectarianism, Shi'as

Muslim Wars: Shaikh of Al Azhar Starts Ramadan with a Sectarian Message………

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With the advent of the month of Ramadan, Muslims are waging wars on each other. Saudis and their hired allies are bombing Yemen into rubble. Syrians and Libyans and Yemenis are killing each other. Egyptian kangaroo military courts are handing out unprecedented numbers of death sentences to political critics of the military regime. Sinai and parts of the Nile valley are becoming uncontrollable terrorist hubs. Wahhabi terrorists are busy committing massacres and reinstating (female) slavery in Iraq and Syria. And now the Mubarak-appointed Shaikh of Al Azhar (he now calls himself the Grand Imam but there is nothing Grand about him) has jumped again into the sectarian fray.

Shaikh Ahmad Al Tayeb, a former functionary of Hosni Mubarak’s Nationalist Party, opened Ramadan by warning of a “feverish” campaign to convert young Egyptians away from the Sunni sect to Shi’ism. The shaikh, apparently insecure about his own faith, has warned of an “organized” campaign of conversion that uses education, science, and media. He claimed that there are evil and sneaky attempts to destabilize Egypt through the conversion of its the youth. He warned that “they”, WTF they are, would sneak upon “us” through the Egyptian affection toward the family and descendents of the Prophet and use that to gradually convert people into Shi’ism.

Yes, “they” might be sneaky, and this Ahmad Al Tayeb is probably the most insecure and the silliest Shaikh in the history of the once venerable Al Azhar……….

King Abdullah Earns a Doctorate from Al Sisi University, Morsi Moves from Elba to Saint Helena………
Grand Ayatollah of Al Azhar Gets His Just Reward on the Gulf………
Marine Le Pen Meets Egyptian Islamic Hypocrisy at Al Azhar: J’Accuse au Caire……
Islamic Outer Space: Al Azhar Tackles a Communist Jewish Shi’a Magi Conspiracy……

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Iraq, Sectarianism, Shi'as, U.S. Foreign Policy

Iraqi Federalist Papers? It’s the Economy, Publius………

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“Their lingering hostility reflects a widespread mistrust of military leadership among Iraqi troops, one of a host of problems hampering U.S.-backed efforts by Iraq’s central government to revive the security forces after a meltdown last year as Islamic State advanced. “It’s a common thing for us to see our commanders abandoning us,” said Sgt. Adwani. He recounted an experience last year in Ramadi—the provincial capital of Anbar, which Islamic State seized in May—where his captain retreated during a close firefight. Ammar Mohamad, an explosives specialist receiving new training from Spanish, Portuguese, and American soldiers at this Iraqi base some 50 miles south of Baghdad, remembered getting orders to withdraw from Mosul as Islamic State assaulted the city in early June last year…………”


Years ago, during the sectarian mini civil war in Iraq, the issue of the division of Iraq was widely discussed inside and outside that country. The issues of federalism and confederation was also discussed by Iraqi factions and famously suggested by then Senator Joe Biden and Leslie Gelb. That was when the Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi and other foreign uninvited Wahhabi ‘guests’ set to provoke Iraqi Shi’as against Iraqi Sunnis and vice versa. At some point the issue faded as Iraq became engulfed in a complex multi-faction conflict that went beyond sect and geography.

Now, as Al Qaeda in Iraq ( AQI ) has morphed into the Caliphate of ISIS (DAESH) that threatens Iraqis across their publicized “identities” you would think the issue of some form of political division would be on the back burner. Apparently it is not: it is being fed by sectarian violence among the various “good Iraqis”. It is also being fed by some Westerners, including many in the U.S. House and Senate who apparently think they have no urgent domestic American issues to deal with. But ISIS have already created their own division, their own Caliphate, and unless Iraqis can solve their sectarian issues, DAESH will not go anywhere.
Often economic forces usually trump political ambitions and passions, in the end. Economic forces draw the boundaries and limits of political action. In Iraq, that is the case in the end, if there is to be a viable situation. The distribution of economic resources in Iraq, either oil or agriculture, are tilted toward the southern regions, the mainly Shi’a lands and to a lesser extent the northern mainly Kurdish lands. The Kurds now have Kirkuk, courtesy of the blitzkrieg of ISIS into Mosul in 2014. They probably believe their borders are mostly set, subject to developments in Baghdad and the vagaries of the ruling Turkish Islamists under their neighbor Caliph Erdogan. That leaves much of the Euphrates basin and the vast desert of southwestern Iraq. That is where “it is the economy, stupid” comes in.


Al Anbar province and the rest of what the media and pundits call the “Sunni” areas are economically handicapped. Some agriculture and ranching, with little oil, do not create a viable political entity, especially for a landlocked region. Al Anbar is not Switzerland or Austria: it has even less natural resources than landlocked Afghanistan. If the western regions of Iraq can’t depend on Baghdad, they will have to rely on the “outside”.

An independent western Iraq will have to rely mainly on Saudi Arabia and maybe Qatar or UAE to support its economy. It is unlikely that these countries want to carry the burden of these millions, no matter how much sympathy they have and how tempting politically. Besides, just think of the disputes over the borders, with Baghdad and with the Kurds. That would set Iraq up for continued internal conflict, then as now financed and fueled by outside money and volunteers. It would be outside Salafi influence trying to sway Iraqi Sunnis who are mostly moderates and are averse to Wahhabism.


Federalism with an American-style system (or even a German system) that protects the rights of the regions and their peoples seems the best solution. But not a feasible solution now. Alas, Iraq is not like America or Germany. Nobody there that remotely seems as capable of the task as a Hamilton or a Madison. No Iraqi Publius……….

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Caliphate, Iraq, North Africa, Sectarian, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

The War for MENA: Militias, Bombers, Cargo Cultists, and International Brigades……..

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“Unthinkable just a decade ago, the main government forces leading the battle are Shiite fighters—the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) that are under the control of militia leaders. These forces’ main partners are Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has called the situation “the most overt conduct of Iranian support” since the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) began…………… The White House seems to view growing Iranian involvement in the war as a reality that cannot be wished away, which is probably true, but also as a step forward in U.S.-Iranian relations, which is arguably naive. Events on the ground in eastern Iraq suggest a different way of looking at the issue. If anything, the battle for Tikrit has shown that there is a whole side of the war from which the international community has been deliberately excluded. Iran and its Iraqi proxies have been carving out a zone of influence in eastern Iraq…………”

His title asks: “What to Do With Iraq’s Shia Popular Mobilization Units?”
Everyone, people of every faith and every sect are involved in this war: Wahhabi, Sunni, Shi’a, Christian, Jewish, possibly even Buddhist and Zoroastrian and Cargo Cultist. There are the Sunni and Wahhabi and Shi’a warplanes, which bomb targets in Syria and Iraq. There are also Christian, Jewish, and no doubt a few atheist bombers as well among them. I am not sure what the Caliph’s true faith is.

Those warplanes from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and possibly others? They are not flown by Shi’as: these are excluded from flying warplanes or doing sensitive military and security jobs. Not to mention that everybody on the other side, on the dark side, is Wahhabi, from the ISIS terrorists to their financiers to their female slaves and concubines.

This is not a sectarian war for the Levant anymore. It is now a sectarian world war that has gone beyond the Levant. It is a Middle East and North Africa war. A MENA War that goes beyond what the West usually calls a Sunni-Shi’a war: it is Wahhabi terrorists against everyone else, be they Sunnis or Shi’as. It now stretches from Iraq and Syria through Egypt and Libya, all the way deeper into North Africa. With the possibility of other outlying fronts in remote areas of Asia and Africa. It has attracted the misguided faithful from all over the world. So, both sides, nay all sides, in ‘this war’, have their powerful “International Brigades“.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Europe, Muslims, Sectarian, Terrorism

Salafi Sectarian War and Terrorism in Europe……..

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Jan 2, 2015:  Reports of  protests against anti-Muslim attacks in Sweden.

Jan 5, 2015: Neo-Nazi anti-Muslim immigrant rallies in Germany.

Jan 7, 2015: Salafi terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Jan 9, 2015: Two hostage situations involving Salafi terrorists in the                              Paris area.

What has gone below the radar in recent years is the low level Muslim vs. Muslim campaign being waged across Europe. It is a one-way Salafi vs. (other) Muslim campaign. It is overshadowed by the general Jihadi threat in Europe and by the sectarian war being waged by Wahhabi salafis against everybody else in the Middle East and by the Western military campaigns in the Middle East.

It is one-sided campaign in Europe by Salafis against other Muslims, especially Shi’as. It verges on violence, although it is more political so far. Salafi (Sunni) groups automatically strongly oppose the establishment of Shi’a mosques in European cities and try to derail them. Even as they complain of European prejudice against Muslims (which also exists).

Sometimes it gets violent. Recently a Belgian court sentenced a Moroccan to 27 years in prison for setting fire to the largest Shi’a mosque in Brussels and killing its Imam. He was acquitted of committing “terrorism” but convicted of setting the fire and causing death. This is not the first time Salafi terrorist plots have been uncovered in Europe against other Muslims (usually Shi’as). A Salafi who was arrested recently in North America admitted that he had plans to attack Shi’a establishments.

What some of the Wahhabi Imams in Europe teach is not just to go to the Middle East and fight the Western infidels. What the dominant message is, what resonates more, is their exhortation to go to the Middle East and fight/kill ‘other’ Muslims who are different. The thousands of civilians who are massacred every year by terrorist bombs and mass murdered in Iraq are Muslims. As are almost all those beheaded and shot in Syria.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Politics, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian

Gulf GCC Opposition Hampered by Tribal and Sectarian Walls……..

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“Saudi security forces have killed four armed men in a clash in Awamiya region, the Interior Ministry said. The troops raided a hideout for fighters in the eastern Awamiya town and killed the four in an exchange of fire on Saturday, the ministry said. The dead, described the government as terrorists, were behind the killing of a member of the security forces and wounding of another last Sunday, a ministry spokesman quoted by the Saudi state news agency SPA, said on Saturday. Among the dead was the leader of that attack, it said. Awamiya has been the focal point of unrest among Saudi Shia since protests in early 2011 calling for an end to perceived discrimination against the minority sect and for democratic reforms…………”

Everybody who rises or publicly or privately criticizes the Saudi regime is either a terrorist or a foreign agent. It doesn’t matter if they are Shi’a or Sunni or Wahhabi. Other GCC media tend to go along with that or just ignore it. Of course, those who resist police attacks or fire on them are also called so.
Regardless of whether those killed are armed or not, the Saudi princes are in an unusually good position for a regime that is the most repressive in the Middle East and one of the most repressive in the world. Its opposition is severely divided. There is a Shi’a opposition, a Sunni opposition, and an extremist Wahhabi opposition. But like almost all opposition groups in the Persian Gulf GCC countries they are plagued by tribal and sectarian divisions.

The tribe and the sect create demarcation lines that these opposition groups rarely cross, if ever. These different groups work on separate planes, and do not cooperate with each other. Once I likened them to little children who play around each other but not with each other. The main Saudi Wahhabi opposition even accuses the ultra-sectarian regime of being ‘too soft‘ on Shi’as.
Advantage, the rulers. At least for the time being.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Islam, Jihadis, Sectarian, Terrorism

Ashura Time is Terrorism Time in the Lands of Jihadist Islam………..

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“The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility for two car bomb attacks against Shiites in Baghdad, with Iraq under tight security Monday ahead of the annual Ashura commemorations………”

This was just one example. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Jihadi terrorists put extra effort in their usual attempts to massacre more Shi’as. This was the Ashura Day, a special day in Islam but especially a day of more historic significance for the Shi’as. Thus the efforts were doubled across the region and beyond.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Elections, History, Sectarianism, U.S. Politics, US Congress

Ebola and American Sectarianism: the Politicization of Everything……..

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“We buy shit we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like….” George Carlin

In these divisive and divided times there is hardly anything, any event, or any phenomenon that is not politicized in America. It is almost like the country is reliving the 1860 campaign of Lincoln: it is deeply divided along political, economic,and cultural lines. That makes the politics venomous in election years, almost sectarian, to use a Middle Eastern reality that many Americans have discovered in the past decade or so. It continues in other years which are not election years but have become pre-election and post-election years. There is so much fuel, so much money to spend on politics: buying candidates, buying expensive airtime on the Boob Tube, and effectively buying voters by financing their favorite television shows.

People here are so busy defeating the terrorists by overworking in order to keep up and to buy more goods and gadgets (some call it more stuff, others call it more shit). That was how George W. Bush succinctly expressed one part of his strategy to defeat terrorism after September 2001: go shopping. So between work and other distractions the people have no time to think politically. They emulate corporations that have outsourced their jobs, factories and customer services, mostly to Asia. Many American voters have now outsourced their political thinking to the television sound-bite industry. I suspect that in many cases the last catchy sound bite on the last weekend before the election wins it all.

As per a decision of the Supreme Court of the USA, money has more than equal freedom of speech and political expression (Citizens United). “Corporations are people, my friend” intoned the Least Interesting Man in the World during the 2012 presidential campaign. So, the politics go viral, more than ever before: the country is divided and money is not a constraint anymore.
Some state governors, ambitious and/or terrified of looming elections, decide that Ebola suspects should be completely quarantined in their states. Other politicians, many from the party that is out of the White House, talk of banning flights from West Africa. Then they wait for their rivals to supply the wrong sound bite and provide a political edge.

In this era, nothing is sacred: from God to National Security to Death. Everything is being politicized: first God, then War, then health care, and now Ebola. Even the HIV/AIDS scare was never so politicized in its heyday. Only sports seem to have stayed above the fray, so far………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized, Wahhabi

Paranoid Gulf Opposition: Dastardly Secret Alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean…..

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Following the currents of Saudi opinion on the media and especially the more spontaneous social media is becoming more interesting than ever. The traditional media is not as important anymore, since it is owned, controlled, or otherwise preempted by the rulers and their oligarchy allies. This applies to other Gulf countries as well.

The various shades of the Wahhabi opposition in Saudi Arabia are now very active on social media. They are now the most active, more active than the ‘traditional’ liberal (or the Wahhabi-liberal?) opposition. For one, the Wahhabi opposition are more driven and more ambitious, as more extreme groups often are, than the traditional opposition. They are more absolutist and more active, which sometimes makes them the ‘main opposition’ by sheer noise and default. Remember Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks? Or Khomenie and the Tudeh Communists and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq? Or Hitler and von Hindenburg?
And the educational system and the theocratic bureaucracy still reinforce their ideology of excommunicating and killing the ‘others’.

The Saudi Wahhabi opposition has lately been trying to make a case for the existence of a secret alliance between the Al Saud and the resurgent Houthis in Yemen. They also try to make a case for a secret alliance between the Al Saud and Bashar Al Assad, between the Al Saud and the ruling Shi’a-Kurdish blocs in Iraq: plotting against the ISIS Caliphate and, in their words, “against the Sunnis”. During moments of wild clarity they even tie the Al Saud to Hezbollah of Lebanon, their main nemesis in the eastern Mediterranean. Need I elaborate on where this is leading? No, it it clear that this all leads to Tehran and Qom, via Karbala and Najaf.

To wit: the Al Saud, alleged guardians of the Wahhabi right, are in fact secret allies of the Shi’a left. But the Wahhabi and no-so-Wahhabi argument is commonly heard along the Paranoid Persian Gulf that the mullahs of Iran and their allies from Baghdad to Damascus to Beirut are secret allies of the United States. Hence, they are secret allies of Israel (to the delusional faithful it is a.k.a. TZE: The Zionist Entity).

This paranoia is more frenzied than ever these days, as the nuclear talks move on and the U.S. Knesset Congress has calmed down about its idiotic lobbyist-driven drive to bomb and maybe invade Iran. (BTW: how come the U.S. Congress never threaten to bomb North Korea, for example? Is it because it is not Muslim? Is it because of the aforementioned TZE? Is it both?)

One conclusion drawn by some of the leaders of this Wahhabi opposition is that “the Al saud will never execute Shaikh Nimr Al Nimr” (the Shi’a cleric who was sentenced to be beheaded and crucified). They opine this conclusion:”the Al Saud will never dare execute  him“, they write regretfully. This is supposed to be proof that they are in cahoots with the ‘unbelievers’. Or maybe they are just trying to dare the rulers into chopping the head of Al Nimr and crucifying him.

Cheers
MHG

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Yemen

Battle for Yemen: Houthis vs. Muslim Brotherhood……….

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“In a harbinger of things to come, a UNICEF employee told me that the only way he could get supplies to Saada was by partnering with the Islah Charitable Society (ICS), a local aid agency tied to Yemen’s largest Islamist party. He complained that ICS was padding the books and inflating the numbers of people who had been displaced to gain resources for its wider evangelical work…… It was in ways like this that the Saleh regime manipulated the “sectarian” politics of Northern Yemen, seeking to ensure that the two groups were too distracted by each other to turn their attention elsewhere……….So, why think of this as sectarian war? The Houthi’s march on Sanaa in September cannot be easily glossed as “sectarian” just because they are Zaydi Shiites, and most (though not all) Islahis are Sunnis…………”

So the Islah are as corrupt as anyone else in power in Yemen, which makes sense. Islah means “reform” in Arabic, clearly a misnomer now. Very Orwellian use of language in this case, as in most cases in Arab politics.

The Houthis were the rustic country folks who did not have the slick region-wide organization like the Muslim Brotherhood (or the Persian Gulf Salafis) to support them. They could not have taken Sanaa so easily if the ret of Yemenis were not fed up with the Islah corruption and the impotent president General Ab Rabu Hadi Al Zombie, the former vice president of Mr. Saleh, who was given the job by the princes and potentates of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and Doha. Of course the Yemeni scene is more complicated than that: AQAP and the Southern (Aden) independence movement complicate the mix.

These Gulf worthies and princes are now screaming their old tried and true tactic: they are crying “sectarian”. But then, nobody is as responsible as these same potentates for the current rabid sectarianism in our region.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Terrorism, Wahhabi

A Wahhabi Final Solution in Iraq and the Wider Arab World?……….

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“Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: “The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally ‘God help the Shia’. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them.” The fatal moment predicted by Prince Bandar may now have come for many Shia, with Saudi Arabia playing an important role in bringing it about by supporting the anti-Shia jihad in Iraq and Syria. Since the capture of Mosul by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) on 10 June, Shia women and children have been killed in villages south of Kirkuk, and Shia air force cadets machine-gunned and buried in mass graves near Tikrit. In Mosul, Shia shrines and mosques have been blown up, and in the nearby Shia Turkoman city of Tal Afar 4,000 houses have been taken over by Isis fighters as “spoils of war”. Simply to be identified as Shia or a related sect, such as the Alawites, in Sunni rebel-held parts of Iraq and Syria today, has become as dangerous as being a Jew was in Nazi-controlled parts of Europe in 1940…………..”

The prince needs to be corrected here. When he mentioned a billion ‘Sunni’ Muslims, he meant Wahhabis of the same faith as his family. Sunnis are not Wahhabis, anymore than Shi’as are Wahhabis. Fortunately there are no ‘billion’ Wahhabis, just a few million spread between Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, and across the battlefields of the Levant and North Africa and Afghanistan.

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, was born and raised in a den of rapacious potentates. He is famous for his multi-billion-dollar bribery corruption scandals with BAE Systems that were covered up by Tony Blair. He knew what he was talking about in that quote to the head of MI6. They have had it all planned since the first post-Baath Iraqi elections. His family has had enough money stolen from their people’s oil resources to pay for Wahhabi volunteers and weapons to destabilize Muslim lands from Pakistan through Afghanistan and into Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the African Sahel.

After their Wahhabi terror recruits hit the U.S. homeland in 2001, and again after their Syrian and Iraqi plans backfired and became worldwide incubators for new terrorism, their palace clerics started to issue appropriate fatwas. Yet the recruits and the money have continued to flow, spreading blood and destruction across Muslim lands. 

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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