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fcastro2

U.N. concerned by Islamic State's ability to unite Afghan insurgents - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...state-un-idUSKBN0MC20920150316

UN ISIS Afghanistan

shared by fcastro2 on 16 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The United Nations is concerned by the presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan but says the militant group's power to unite insurgents is more significant than its capabilities in the war-torn country
  • forces
  • attempts are under way to broker an end to 13 years of conflict between the Taliban, who were ousted in a U.S.-led war in 2001, and Afghan and foreign
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Afghan forces killed 10 fighters who claimed to be part of Islamic State on Sunday
  • growing numbers of disgruntled Taliban fighters have joined the militant group that has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq
  • significance is not so much a function of its intrinsic capacities in the area but of its potential to offer an alternative flagpole to which otherwise isolated insurgent splinter groups can rall
  • U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's latest report to the Security Council on Afghanistan said a handful of Taliban commanders had declared allegiance to Islamic State and that an increasing number were seeking funding or cooperation with Islamic State.
  • The radical Islamist group has declared a caliphate in the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. A U.S.-led alliance has been targeting Islamic State with air strikes in Iraq and Syria for some six month
  • Militants loyal to Islamic State have also been exploiting chaos in Libya, while Boko Haram, which is seeking to carve an Islamist emirate out of northeastern Nigeria, has pledged its allegiance to Islamic State
  • "an alignment of circumstances that could be conducive to fostering peace talks" between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Officials said last month the Afghan Taliban has signaled it is willing to open peace talks.
  • continues a frank dialogue with the Taliban on humanitarian access and on human right
  • fcastro2 on 16 Mar 15
     
    The UN is concerned by the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan but says the militant group's power to "unite insurgents is more significant than its capabilities in the war-torn country."
csosa14

CNN exclusive: Video shows ISIS recruiting Afghans - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...afghanistan-isis-recruits

cnn exclusive video recruiters

shared by csosa14 on 24 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • csosa14 on 24 Mar 15
     
    Concerns are growing about how ISIS may expand into Afghanistan as CNN films a recruiter looking for fighters.
  • csosa14 on 24 Mar 15
     
    Concerns are growing about how ISIS may expand into Afghanistan as CNN films a recruiter looking for fighters.
  • csosa14 on 24 Mar 15
     
    Concerns are growing about how ISIS may expand into Afghanistan as CNN films a recruiter looking for fighters.
blantonjack

U.S. Broadens Fight Against ISIS With Attacks in Afghanistan - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...th-attacks-in-afghanistan.html

ISIS Afghanistan

shared by blantonjack on 02 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 02 Feb 16
     
    The United States has carried out at least a dozen operations - including commando raids and airstrikes - in the past three weeks against militants in Afghanistan aligned with the Islamic State, expanding the Obama administration's military campaign against the terrorist group beyond Iraq and Syria.
tdford333

Everything you need to know about the drone debate, in one FAQ - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ut-the-drone-debate-in-one-faq

shared by tdford333 on 08 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • "drone" has come to refer to unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), which are UAVs equipped with combat capabilities, most commonly the ability to launch missiles.
  • Predators were deployed to Afghanistan almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and on Oct. 7, 2001 they conducted their first armed mission there.
  • The current program is jointly administered by the CIA and the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC).
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Predator drones can carry up to two Hellfire missiles. Those have warheads of about 20 pounds, which are designed to pierce tank armor;
  • Reapers are another story. They feature a maximum payload of 3,000 pounds, or 1.5 tons. That means they can carry a combination of Hellfires and larger 500 pound bombs like the GBU-12 Paveway II and GBD-38 JDAM. Those have an "effective casualty radius" of about 200 feet.
  • From 2008 through October 2012, there were 1,015 strikes in Afghanistan, 48 in Iraq, and at least 105 in Libya
  • Primarily al-Qaeda and its affiliates. That includes al-Shaabab in Somalia, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (which works in Yemen), and the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
  • Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born al-Qaeda operative in Yemen, was killed in a drone strike in 2011, as was his American-born 17-year-old son
  • Ahmed Hijazi, also an American citizen based in Yemen, was killed in 2002. 
  • The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) will prepare lists of potential targets, which will be reviewed every three months by a panel of intelligence analysts and military officials. They are then passed along to a panel at the National Security Council, currently helmed by CIA director nominee Brennan, and then to Obama for final approval.
  • There is, however, substantial evidence that the percentage of casualties borne by civilians is much lower with drone strikes than with just about any other kind of military intervention
  • It derives the authority for the strikes from the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in the wake of 9/11, which grants the government broad powers against al-Qaeda.
  • allows states to make war in the interest of self-defense
  • Critics, like UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions Christof Heyns, say that this defense is a stretch, and the killings plainly run afoul of the laws of war and international human rights treaties.
  • Only the United States and the United Kingdom (which assists in the Pakistan drone effort) currently use drones in combat
  • All told, the GAO estimates that 76 countries, at least, have drone technology.
  • The Yemeni government quietly agreed to the strikes
  • Citizens in both countries deplore the campaigns.
  • there are deeper doubts as to whether the strategy is recruiting more militants than it kills, by turning local populations against the United States.
allieggg

Libya has become the latest Isil conquest - Telegraph - 0 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...-the-latest-Isil-conquest.html

ISIL militias armed groups syria Iraq Jihad Benghazi

shared by allieggg on 17 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • If the conditions remain unchallenged and, hence, unchanged, it will turn into another Syria or Iraq.
  • Nowhere is this threat more profound than with the rise of radical Islam in Libya
  • The ongoing low-level insurgency in Benghazi is driven by two factors. The first is the radical Islamist ideology of certain groups that refuse to recognise the modern state and its institutions. For example, according to the leader of AS’s Benghazi branch, Mohammed al-Zahawi, his group will not disarm and demobilise until its version of sharia is imposed. The realisation of such an Islamic state constitutes the group’s main aim. In other words, it is the nature of their Jihad.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The second reason is the Islamists’ history with the state security forces. During the 1990s, Muammar Gaddafi unleashed a crackdown on all expressions of Islamism, which saw thousands of youths arrested and jailed as political prisoners. Many were incarcerated in the notorious Abu-Saleem prison. Today’s rejection of state institutions has its roots in that brutality.
  • However, Benghazi is not the only Islamist stronghold in Libya: the city of Derna, which has historically been a strong recruiting ground for Jihadi fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently Syria, is of serious concern
  • Derna’s Shura Council of Islamic Youth and Ansar al-Sharia have decided to declare Derna an “Islamic emirate” and publicly announce their allegiance to ISIL and its leader and so called “Caliphate” of Abu Baker al-Baghdadi. This means that ISIL now has its terrorist tentacles in Libya.
  • If the international community continues to overlook the current Libyan crisis, the country is likely to become an incubator of militant Islamist groups.
  • In addition to a military response, however, we need a holistic and proactive approach that focuses on achieving reconciliation and stability. This involves forcing all rival political parties to the negotiation table to agree that a newly elected parliament is the sole representative body in the country.
  • allieggg on 17 Nov 14
     
    This article basically accentuates the driving factors to the ongoing insurgency of ISIL in Libya and how the threat is even more extreme than that of Iraq and Syria. One is the Islamist ideology in itself, rejecting any form of a modern state and the institutions that accompany its success. For example in Libya the leader of the AS branch declares that his militants will not disarm or demobilize until sharia law is imposed. Second, during Gaddafi's rule he unleashed a crackdown on all Islamic expression. The brutality shown towards Islamic groups during this time has fueled their resentment towards sectarian rule and has urged them to push for the rejection of state institutions even more so. The article explains how Islamic groups have claimed power in both Benghazi and Derna, the latter being the historic recruiting ground for Jihad fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The author makes it clear that both military and diplomatic force from the international community is crucial for the reconciliation of security.
pvaldez2

How Egyptian Women Are Fighting Absurd Rape And Abortion Laws - 0 views

www.youthkiawaaz.com/...s-rights-and-struggle-in-egypt

egyptian fighting laws women rights

shared by pvaldez2 on 03 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • pvaldez2 on 03 Feb 16
     
    "Egypt ranks the second country in the world after Afghanistan in terms of sexual harassment". While the sexual harassment law is considered an accomplishment regarding women's rights in Egypt, there are many sections in the Egyptian penal code which still carry forms of discrimination against women. Organizations are helping women fight back. An example is HarassMap.
cthomase

Libya... Britain's next Afghan disaster? UK colonel warns of 'mission creep' - 0 views

www.rt.com/...-libya-war-afghanistan-wieloch

war isis Libya revolution

shared by cthomase on 11 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • cthomase on 11 Apr 16
     
    British plans to send troops to Libya could result in another Afghanistan-style disaster, according to a former army colonel who led a "calamitous" mission in the war-ravaged North African state in 2012. Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Wieloch told the Telegraph on Monday that British involvement carried " a great danger of mission creep.
mcooka

17 years after war - Yugoslavia again protesting NATO - Workers World - 0 views

www.workers.org/...goslavia-again-protesting-nato

war nato workers world

shared by mcooka on 24 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Home » Global » 17 years after war — Yugoslavia again protesting NATO 17 years after war — Yugoslavia again protesting NATO By Heather Cottin posted on March 22, 2016 Share On March 24, 1999, the U.S. led its European NATO allies in a 78-day bombing campaign targeting
  • Serbia in order to destroy Yugoslavia, the last socialist country holding out in Europe. NATO planes bombed hospitals, factories, schools, trains, television stations, bridges and homes, killing thousands of Yugoslavs.
  • n 2000, the same NATO forces destabilized what remained of Yugoslavia — the republics of Serbia and Montenegr
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • ugoslavia was an independent and relatively prosperous country. With no Soviet Union after 1991, Yugoslavia was vulnerable to the powerful imperialist countries in Western Europe and the United States, which provoked and exacerbated disputes among the various Yugoslav peoples
  • NATO’s pattern for the destruction of Libya and Syria — and also of Iraq and Afghanistan, with variations
  • cialism in Yugoslavia produced artists and intellectuals, free health care, zero unemployment, free education, excellent public transportation and advanced industrial and agricultural developmen
  • After the destruction of Milosevic and his party, neoliberal forces in Serbia and the other republics privatized the health care system, sold off the mines, and closed automobile, petroleum and other industries. Now Bosnia has an unemployment rate of 43 percent, Croatia’s is 19 percent, and tiny Kosovo’s is 45 percent. Kosovo hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Balkans, Camp Bondsteel, which protects Kosovo’s criminal government and oversees NATO control in the Balkans.
  • n the U.S. in 1999-2001, the International Action Center and Workers World Party played a leading role among those who stood firm against expanding NATO’s mayhem and slaughter in Yugoslavia.
  • mcooka on 24 Mar 16
     
    This is an article about Yugoslavia which doesn't want the interference of NATO in their lives any more. NATO and Yugoslavia gets into details about foreign policy 
diamond03

This film will battle a global epidemic prevalent in Egypt: sexual harassment | Egyptia... - 0 views

egyptianstreets.com/...ent-in-egypt-sexual-harassment

film egyptian harassment women

shared by diamond03 on 01 Oct 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
  • Egypt:
  • sexual harassment
  • ‘Creepers on the Bridge’,
  • ...46 more annotations...
  • feeling of intimidation
  • Cairo
  • experience whe
  • n walking down Egyptian streets,
  • , The People’s Girls
  • issue of sexual harassment
  • perfect time to create a documentary that will analyze the causes, provide alternatives to traditional thought and document women fighting back in creative ways,” explained 22-year-old Colette Ghu
  • “Because we’re both frequently in the street alone, we both experience high levels of stares daily, as well as verbal harassment,
  • sexual harassment is still taboo in Cairo
  • to walk outside or take public transportation,
  • don’t want to deal with the intimidation and anxiety.
  • the United States, Latin America, Europe, South Asia- we’ve experienced various levels of sexual harassment.
  • three people with different views of sexual harassment and their daily lives surrounding the issue,
  • three Egyptians to reveal the extent of sexual harassment in Egypt and to get a better understanding of the issue,
  • Esraa is a 25-year-old Egyptian woman
  • challenges social norms by performing in storytelling theater pieces about sexual harassment
  • participating in anti-sexual harassment protests and events.”
  • 8 out of 10 women experience sexual harassment in public transportation,
  • deters us
  • members of society open up about their own experiences and perspectives.”
  • 99 percent of women in Egypt have faced sexual harassment.
  • 2011 revolution had a big impact on the issue of sexual harassment,
  • positive and negative ways
  • unfortunately become more widespread,
  • lack of police
  • gives harassers a sense of immunity
  • more commonplace and accepted.
  • President Sisi
  • police presence in the streets has increased, and more harassers have been brought to justice
  • Egyptian women have reached their boiling point in recent years, and inspired by the revolution, they have become a lot more outspoken
  • critics of Islam often end up blaming misogyny on religion.
  • sexual harassment is not specific to one religion.
  • here remains a common misbelief in the West that Egyptian, as well as all Arab women, are oppressed.
  • women in Egypt have been able to do basically anything a man can do
  • work and have a career
  • degrees in higher education,
  • high leadership roles
  • product of the news cycle following the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
  • societal pressures for women to focus on getting married and starting a family.
  • very similar to the ones women in the West
  • no way means that all Egyptian men are harassers,
  • Arab or Muslim-specific issue.
  • a worldwide problem.”
  • two meanings that it has in Arabic
  • well-mannered, cultured, respectable girl,
  • “When people blame victims of sexual harassment, they often argue that if only the girl was a ‘people’s girl’ then she wouldn’t get harassed. The name is also an ode to all the girls and women of Egypt.”
  • diamond03 on 01 Oct 14
     
    Filmmakers are filming a film that talks about the sexual harassment issue that occurring in Egypt. Ninety-nine percent of women in Egypt have faced sexual harassment. It also shares the common misbeliefs that people believe due to American news. 
fcastro2

Iraq and Syria are 'finishing schools' for foreign extremists, says UN report | World n... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...eign-extremists-says-un-report

syria iraq ISIS politics foreign fighters

shared by fcastro2 on 08 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Iraq and Syria have become “international finishing schools” for extremists according to a UN report which says the number of foreign fighters joining terrorist groups has spiked to more than 25,000 from more than 100 countrie
  • monitoring UN sanctions against al-Qaida estimates the number of overseas terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71% between mid-2014 and March 2015
  • problem had increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters was “higher than it has ever been historically
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • risen sharply from a few thousand … a decade ago to more than 25,000 today
  • The report said just two countries had drawn more than 20,000 foreign fighters: Syria and Iraq. They went to fight primarily for the Islamic State group
  • ited the “high number” of foreign fighters from Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, the increase in fighters from the Maldives, Finland and Trinidad and Tobago, and the first fighters from some countries in sub-Saharan Africa which it did not name. The groups had also found recruits from Britain and Australia.
  • A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering violent foreign terrorist fighters across the world
  • while governments are focusing on countering the threat from fighters returning home, the panel said it was possible that some may be traumatised by what they saw and need psychological help, and that others may be recruited by criminal networks.
  • The number of countries the fighters come from has also risen dramatically from a small group in the 1990s to more than 100 today — more than half the countries in the world
  • foreign fighters who travelled to Syria and Iraq were living and working in “a veritable ‘international finishing school’ for extremists”, as was the case in Afghanistan in the 199
  • an urgent global security problem” that needed to be tackled on many fronts and had no easy solution
  • With globalised travel, it said, the chance of a person from any country becoming a victim of a foreign terrorist attack was growing “particularly with attacks targeting hotels, public spaces and venues
  • It said the most effective policy was to prevent the radicalisation, recruitment and travel of would-be fighters.
  • fcastro2 on 08 Apr 15
     
    The fighting in Syria and Iraq has expanded and gained more foreign fighters from many more countries around the world. 
fcastro2

Syria allies: Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by the regime - CNN.com - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...a-iran-china-russia-supporters

syria allies russia iran china middle east politics

shared by fcastro2 on 28 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • One has to do with economics; the other with ideology.
  • Russia is one of Syria's biggest arms suppliers
  • Syrian contracts with the Russian defense industry have likely exceeded $4 billion
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • Russia also leases a naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartu
  • Moscow also signed a $550 million deal with Syria for combat training jets
  • value of Russian arms sales to Syria at $162 million per year in both 2009 and 2010
  • Russia's key policy goal is blocking American efforts to shape the regio
  • Russia doesn't believe revolutions, wars and regime change bring stability and democracy
  • It believes humanitarian concerns are often used an excuse for pursuing America's own political and economic interests.
  • Putin's existential fear for his own survival and the survival of the repressive system that he and al-Assad represent
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 28 Jan 15
       
      Putin is scared that the "west" will defeat Russia if Syria is defeated
  • not only driven by the need to preserve its naval presence in the Mediterranean, secure its energy contracts, or counter the West on 'regime change
  • al-Assad cannot lose because it means that one day he, Putin, might as well
  • The West handles the Islamic world the way a monkey handles a grenade," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted
  • Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It has the power to veto Security Council resolutions against the Syrian regime and has done so repeatedly over the past two years
  • religion and strategy.
  • Islamic Republic has provided technical help such as intelligence, communications and advice on crowd control and weapons as protests in Syria morphed into resistance
  • The last thing Iran wants now is a Sunni-dominated Syria -- especially as the rebels' main supporters are Iran's Persian Gulf rivals: Qatar and Saudi Arabi
  • proxy through which Iran can threaten Israel with an arsenal of short-range missiles
  • Iran counted on Syria as its only Arab ally during its eight-year war with Iraq. Iraq was Sunni-dominate
  • war between the front of hegemony and the front of resistance
  • Syrian government is a victim of international plots
  • Iran says the main objective of this plot is to make the region safer for Israe
  • Many believe Iran is Washington's greatest threat in the region, especially with its nuclear potential
  • the Americans will sustain damage like when they interfered in Iraq and Afghanistan
  • Syria's third-largest importer in 2010, according to data from the European Commission
  • maintain its financial tie
  • indicates that China sees Syria as an important trading hub
  • China has said foreign countries shouldn't meddle in Syria's internal affairs
  • Rather than siding with either Assad or the opposition and standing aside to 'wait and see,' Beijing is actively betting on both
  • China said it is firmly opposed to the use of chemical weapons and supports the U.N.'s chemical weapons inspectors.
  • It also said it wants a political solution for Syri
  • China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. And like Russia, China has repeatedly blocked sanctions attempts against the Syrian regime
  • fcastro2 on 28 Jan 15
     
    Syria's allies, Russia, Iran, and China, all stand by them despite western powers opposing the Syrian government. There are different reasons to why these powers seem to stay with Syria such as Russia's ideologies, Iran's strategy, or China's trading. Either way, these government will stand by them until there is nothing left to lose. 
fcastro2

Islamic State executes three of its Chinese militants: China paper | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...is-china-idUSKBN0L90T620150205

china syria extremist ISIS war

shared by fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15 - No Cached
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      China is concerned with rise of Islamic State. May pose threat to its farthest region. 
  • ign of wa
  • But Beijing has also shown no sign of wanting to take part in the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to use military force against the militant group
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      China does not want to join efforts to stop ISIS
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Around 300 Chinese extremists were fighting with the Islamic State after traveling to Turkey
  • Chinese man was "arrested, tried and shot dead" in Syria in late September by the Islamic State after he became disillusioned with jihad and attempted to return to Turkey to attend university
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      1st Chinese extremist shot dead for attempting to flee.
  • "Another two Chinese militants were beheaded in late December in Iraq, along with 11 others from six countries. The Islamic State charged them with treason and accused them of trying to escape
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 13 Feb 15
       
      Many others who were fighting with ISIS killed for "treason"
  • Islamic State, which has seized parts of northern and eastern Syria
  • killed hundreds off the battlefield since the end of June, when it declared a caliphate.
  • Chinese officials blame separatists from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for carrying out attacks in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people. But they are vague about how many people from China are fighting in the Middle Eas
  • China was opposed to "all forms of terrorism"
  • "China is willing to work with the international community to combat terrorist forces, including ETIM, and safeguard global peace, security and stability," Hong said.
  • Human rights advocates say economic marginalization of Uighurs and curbs on their culture and religion are the main causes of ethnic violence in Xinjiang and around China that has killed hundreds of people in recent years. China denies these assertions.
  • hina has criticized the Turkish government for offering shelter to Uighur refugees who have fled through southeast Asia, saying it creates a global security risk.
  • The Islamic State has killed three Chinese militants who joined its ranks in Syria and Iraq and later attempted to flee
  • China has expressed concern about the rise of the Islamic State, nervous about the effect it could have on its Xinjiang region, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
kdancer

Kremlin Talks up ISIS Threat to Central Asia, Russia - 0 views

www.eurasianet.org/71531

ISIS Asia

shared by kdancer on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • kdancer on 13 Apr 15
     
    A senior Kremlin official has warned that the Islamist group ISIS is gathering its forces in northern Afghanistan in preparation for an attack against Central Asia and Russia, and that a wide array of military measures are required to prevent that.
cthomase

Obama Is Pressed to Open Military Front Against ISIS in Libya - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...isis-libya-us-special-ops.html

ISIS war Libya terrorism

shared by cthomase on 04 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • cthomase on 04 Feb 16
     
    Libya, given it's instability due to years of warfare and practically no government, has become a new safe haven for ISIS. If left alone, ISIS could make Libya what Afghanistan or Yemen were to Al Qaeda. This would also have major consequences for Europe, specifically Southern Italy and other Mediterranean countries given Libya's close proximity to southern Europe.
csherro2

Inside Al Qaeda - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Egypt war iraq al qaeda

shared by csherro2 on 09 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • csherro2 on 09 Feb 16
     
    Step inside the lawless border between Afghanistan and Pakistan where foreigners are shot on site.
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