conversation via Skype, a “trusted brother” who was actually an undercover FBI employee, “told Basit that he could help get him inside Al-Nusra. …
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No LOL Matter: FBI Trolls Social Media for Would-Be Jihadis - NBC News.com - 1 views
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updating techniques it has used since the early days of the Internet to engage the enemy on services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
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Sheikh’s case and several other recent terrorism prosecutions shed light on the growing importance of social media in the battles unfolding in Syria and Iraq -- both as a recruiting tool for Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front, and as a means for the FBI to pre-emptively nab the would-be jihadis.
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raises questions about the FBI’s conduct in attempting to head off terrorist recruits and whether they incited them to actions they wouldn’t have otherwise taken.
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During the investigation, the FBI published a webpage that purported to recruit individuals to travel to Syria and join Jabhat al-Nusra (
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posed as a Syrian nurse and "used a Facebook page which promoted the ideology of Islamic extremism" to contact the suspect,
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been able to expand their reach far beyond the traditional jihadi recruitment pool to a much wider audience -- including English-speaking Western nationals."
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FBI at times goes too far to reel in American Muslims, most of them young, who are sympathetic to the Islamic extremist cause.
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her client is “a lonely, mentally ill young man with a tremendous desire to be liked,” which made him susceptible to a paid FBI informant’s online encouragement.
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Suspects began posting on Facebook or other social media expressing support for or seeking contact with one of the Islamic groups fighting in Iraq and Syria and were then engaged by informants or undercover FBI agents.
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'Don't go there in any way, don't go there in thought or expression, don't even toy with the idea of becoming foreign fighters.'"
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eventually agreed to join Al-Nusra, purchased a plane ticket to Beirut and prepared for his journey to jihad
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defense attorneys in all four cases may argue that the FBI actions amounted to entrapment -- the act of tricking someone into committing a crime so that they can be arrested
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sought to make contact with al Qaeda officials on Facebook and other social media, but instead drew the attention of an undercover FBI agent who presented himself as a recruiter for the terrorist group.
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"ISIS recruits are more likely to reach out in the online universe seeking advice on how to reach the land of jihad than to consult the guidance of a traditional cleric or local community leader
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that universe and creating honeypots to draw in and capture potential ISIS recruits, they can help sow doubts in the minds of would-be jihadists in the overall reliability of the Internet as a medium for recruit
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Justice Department plans to review federal law enforcement practices on creating fake Facebook pages in light of an incident,
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Page 2: Islamic Fighters Led by Al-Qaida in Syria Seize Major City - ABC News - 0 views
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Nusra Front as another triumphant day seizing nearly the entire major city of Idlib. Fighting against the regime lasted nearly four days but regime was eventually driven away. This was a good victory for the opposition to take another city, but is the strengthening of Nusra Front a good thing as well?
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U.S. behind Syria strike that killed top Nusra Front militant | The Japan Times - 0 views
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The U.S. Needs to Rethink Its Anti-ISIS Approach in Syria | TIME - 0 views
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ISIS remains essentially unchallenged in its heartland in northern Syria, despite repeated U.S. air strikes
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In the south, nationalists have fared better at keeping ISIS out and Jabhat al Nusra in check, partly due to a coherent, rational U.S.-led support program operating covertly out of Jordan
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A strategy to beat the jihadists and make sure they stay beaten must be locally-driven, led by nationalist forces supported by the Sunni population that forms the insurgency’s social base.
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The U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) has scored some points in Syria, weakening ISIS’s oil infrastructure and revenues and keeping the group out of Kobane
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ISIS offers conquered populations the choice between submission – which brings a sense of order and some protection from regime violence – or futile resistance and death
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air strikes alone, and treating nationalist groups as agents rather than partners, violates this principle
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, the U.S. has helped nationalists in the south avoid the fragmentation, infighting, and lawlessness that weakened them and benefited the jihadists in northern Syria
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the promised U.S. train-and-equip program is unlikely to reverse the nationalists’ losses or jihadists’ gains in northern Syria
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Jabhat al Nusra has driven nationalist forces out of much of their core territory in northern Syria, and ISIS continues to threaten those that remain
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Even if the coalition wants to avoid confronting regime forces, it can and should concentrate air strikes closer to ISIS’s front lines with the nationalist insurgency, helping the latter block ISIS advances in cooperation with local Kurdish forces when possible
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, U.S. interests would be better served by a two-pronged approach in northern and southern Syria, helping nationalist rebels contain ISIS and compete with Jabhat al Nusra for control of the insurgency.
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U.S. airstrikes on jihadists have spared the regime’s forces and inadvertently killed Syrian civilians
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that Sunni Muslims are under siege by oppressive regional minorities, Iran, and even the United States itself
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Ironically, the coalition campaign has contributed to the near-collapse of nationalist forces in northern Syria who, despite their imperfections, were ISIS’s most effective rivals and competed with Jabhat al Nusra for leadership of the insurgency
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campaign has had serious local side effects that have undermined the broader, long-term objective of degrading and destroying ISIS in Syria and preventing the Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al Nusra, from replacing or thriving alongside ISIS
Nusra Front leaves east Syria strongholds | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR - 0 views
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Syrian army makes gains in Daraa with local militia support (VIDEO) - RT News - 0 views
TV station cuts interview after Hezbollah pressure - 0 views
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Rebel factions declare the battle of (The Victory for Madaya children) in the countrysi... - 0 views
Captured Hezbollah members "received little training" - 0 views
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Jihadists edging out US allies in Syria - 0 views
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Six weeks have passed since the US-led coalition began its strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants and other jihadist groups in Syria, but recent developments in the stricken country confirm that the mission is facing huge challenges, as BBC Arabic's Feras Kilani reports "We are vanishing before the eyes of the whole world, including our friends in the US," a disappointed moderate commander told the BBC over the phone, after his group's defeat by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.
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ISIS seizes Camp in Yarmouk - 0 views
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Some 18,000 civilians have been trapped with limited food and water in the Yarmouk camp near Syria's capital, caught between government forces and dueling rebel groups. Their already-tenuous situation deteriorated sharply last week when ISIS launched a push to seize control of the camp from rival armed groups like the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, setting off street battles and mounting alarm for those trapped in the crossfire.
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Syria: Islamic State seizes control of refugee camp near Damascus | World news | The Gu... - 0 views
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Aid agencies have warned of an urgent humanitarian crisis after Islamist militants seized control of a refugee camp, just a few miles from Damascus, the Syrian capital.
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Fighters for the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s official Syria wing, advanced into the camp in the town of Yarmouk – home to 18,000 refugees – on Friday night
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The Observatory, which monitors the conflict from the UK, also said jets from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s air forcebombed the camp on Saturday
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called the crisis in Yarmouk “an affront to the humanity of all of us, a source of universal shame”.
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He said Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the camp, which had previously been besieged by Assad’s forces, were already suffering from starvation and disease
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Their main target was Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, an anti-Assad militia of Syrians and Palestinians from the camp.
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The evacuation of the camp had been made harder as Isis snipers were shooting refugees as they tried to leave the camp.
US-Backed Syrian Rebel Group Dissolves After Losing Hundreds Of Men In Battle - 0 views
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The New Arab Cold War - 0 views
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leadership proxy wars polarization US Saudi Qatar Turkey UAE politics war
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It stretches from Iraq to Lebanon and reaches into North Africa, taking lives in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt's Western Desert, and now Libya
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this violence is the result of a nasty fight between regional powers over who will lead the Middle East
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The recent Egyptian and Emirati airstrikes on Libyan Islamist militias is just one manifestation of this fight for leadership among Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). All these countries have waded into conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and now Libya in order to establish themselves as regional leaders.
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Yet these regional contenders for power have rarely achieved their goals. Instead, they have fueled violence, political conflict, and polarization, deepening the endemic problems in the countries they have sought to influence.
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Barack Obama's attempt to disentangle the United States from the Middle East's many conflicts has only intensified these rivalries. From a particular perspective, Iraq's chaos, Syria's civil war, Libya's accelerating disintegration, and Hosni Mubarak's fall all represent failures of American leadership.
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Turkish government has become a leading advocate of regime change in Syria. Unwilling to intervene in the Syrian civil war and unable to coax the United States to do so, Ankara turned a blind eye to extremist groups that used Turkish territory to take up the fight against Assad.
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Yet the war of words between Ankara and Cairo since then and the support that the Turkish government has extended to the Muslim Brotherhood
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Qatar has been less circumspect than others in its support for groups fighting in Syria and Iraq, both offering official funding to Islamist groups in Syria and allowing private contributions to groups including al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.
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These conflicts have less to do with Iran and the Sunni-Shiite divide than widely believed. Rather, they represent a fracturing of Washington's Sunni allies in the Middle East. Left to their own devices, the proxy wars the Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris, and Turks are waging among themselves will continue to cause mayhem
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This article basically states that since the US's withdrawal from Middle Eastern affairs, regional actors were left to fight over who will lead the region's future. The fight is baiscally a run off between Turkey, Qatar, Saudi, and the UAE, each country doing their part intervening in conflicts aiding their supported side. Rather than achieving goals, these proxy wars have fueled the violence, chaos, and polarization deepening the problems they originally sought to mend. While the US has succeeded in abstaining from Mid East affairs, the question now is whether or not they should continue this resignation or step in to urge for order and peace.
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A daring plan to rebuild Syria - no matter who wins the war - Ideas - The Boston Globe - 0 views
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The first year of Syria’s uprising, 2011, largely spared Aleppo, the country’s economic engine, largest city, and home of its most prized heritage sites. Fighting engulfed Aleppo in 2012 and has never let up since, making the city a symbol of the civil war’s grinding destruction
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ven as the fighting continues, a movement is brewing among planners, activists and bureaucrats—some still in Aleppo, others in Damascus, Turkey, and Lebanon—to prepare, right now, for the reconstruction effort that will come whenever peace finally arrives.
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In a glass tower belonging to the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, a project called the National Agenda for the Future of Syria has brought together teams of engineers, architects, water experts, conservationists, and development experts to grapple with seemingly impossible technical problems
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The team planning the country’s future is a diverse one. Some are employed by the government of Syria, others by the rebels’ rival provisional government. Still others work for the UN, private construction companies, or nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation, like the World Monuments Fund
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As the group’s members outline a path toward renewal, they’re considering everything from corruption and constitutional reform to power grids, antiquities, and health care systems.
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Aleppo is split between a regime side with vestiges of basic services, and a mostly depopulated rebel-controlled zone, into which the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front have made inroads over the last year
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The population exodus has claimed most of the city’s craftsmen, medical personnel, academics, and industrialists
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It took decades to clear the moonscapes of rubble and to rebuild, in famous targets like Dresden and Hiroshima but in countless other places as well, from Coventry to Nanking. Some places never recovered their vitality.
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Of course, Syrian planners cannot help but pay attention to the model closest to home: Beirut, a city almost synonymous with civil war and flawed reconstructio
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We don’t want to end up like Beirut,” one of the Syrian planners says, referring to the physical problems but also to a postwar process in which militia leaders turned to corrupt reconstruction ventures as a new source of funds and power
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Syria’s national recovery will depend in large part on whether its industrial powerhouse Aleppo can bounce back
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The city’s workshops, famed above all for their fine textiles, export millions of dollars’ worth of goods every week even now, and the economy has expanded to include modern industry as well.
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A river of rubble marks the no-man’s land separating the two sides. The only way to cross is to leave the city, follow a wide arc, and reenter from the far side.
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Parts of the old city won’t be inhabitable for years, he told me by Skype, because the ground has literally shifted as a result of bombing and shelling
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The first and more obvious is creating realistic options to fix the country after the war—in some cases literal plans for building infrastructure systems and positioning construction equipment, in other cases guidelines for shaping governanc
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They’re familiar with global “best practices,” but also with how things work in Syria, so they’re not going to propose pie-in-the-sky idea
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If some version of the current regime remains in charge, it will probably direct massive contracts toward patrons in Russia, China, or Iran. The opposition, by contrast, would lean toward firms from the West, Turkey, and the Gulf.
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At the current level of destruction, the project planners estimate the reconstruction will cost at least $100 billion
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Recently a panel of architects and heritage experts from Sweden, Bosnia, Syria, and Lebanon convened in Beirut to discuss lessons for Syria’s reconstruction—one of the many distinct initiatives parallel to the Future of Syria project.
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“You should never rebuild the way it was,” said Arna Mackic, an architect from Mostar. That Bosnian city was divided during the 1990s civil war into Muslim and Catholic sides, destroying the city center and the famous Stari Most bridge over the Neretva River. “The war changes us. You should show that in rebuilding.”
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Instead, Mackik says, the sectarian communities keep to their own enclaves. Bereft of any common symbols, the city took a poll to figure out what kind of statue to erect in the city center. All the local figures were too polarizing. In the end they settled on a gold-colored statue of the martial arts star Bruce Lee
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is that it could offer the city’s people a form of participatory democracy that has so far eluded the Syrian regime and sadly, the opposition as well.
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A great deal of money has been invested in Syria’s destruction— by the regime, the local parties to the conflict, and many foreign powers. A great deal of money will be made in the aftermath, in a reconstruction project that stands to dwarf anything seen since after World War II.
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Syrian aircraft bomb area near captured Jordan crossing | Reuters - 0 views
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Syrian military aircraft bombed areas close to its main crossing into Jordan on Thursday, witnesses and a group monitoring the conflict said, hours after insurgents had captured the border post
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Insurgents fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad said they had seized the Nasib crossing in southern Syria late on Wednesday, putting most of 370-km (230-mile) border area stretching up to Israel in the hands of the rebels
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he al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front also said it had captured the crossing but rival rebels denied this and accused them of looting after the crossing fell into rebel hands.
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Jordan closed its side of the crossing on Wednesday. A Jordanian source said on Thursday the kingdom had stepped up security and redeployed some troops to the border
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The Syrian army, which accuses the staunch U.S. ally of harboring rebels on its soil, said the kingdom had deployed its troops inside the crossing after the rebels took control. Amman denies providing training and arms for the insurgents
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ordan has pressured rebels in the past not to overrun the Nasib crossing so the highway could stay open to trade and traffic with Damascus
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Nasib, one of Syria's last official border crossings, is now crucial for importing goods into a country hit hard by Western sanctions
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US and Russia in partnership over Syria - BBC News - 0 views
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Syria's "cessation of hostilities" is making a difference - whatever the arguments about early violations, the level of violence across the country has fallen - and with this fragile modicum of progress, the United States and Russia find themselves in harness after years in which Syria was a forum for their rivalry.
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Syria's "cessation of hostilities" is making a difference - whatever the arguments about early violations, the level of violence across the country has fallen - and with this fragile modicum of progress, the United States and Russia find themselves in harness after years in which Syria was a forum for their rivalry. But privately officials are nervous, both about Russian attempts to brand any group that has ever co-operated with militant elements like the Islamic state or the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front as "terrorist" and, therefore, ineligible to take part in, or make any significant move towards moving President Assad off the political stage. For now there is an agreement to allow the PResident to stay in power and the United States is biting its tongue, hoping that the violence will slow down.
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