he refugees have fled an offensive by Syrian government forces and Iranian-backed militias,
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ISIL aims to launch cyberattacks on U.S. - 0 views
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ISIL's Hacking Division as of late December have tried penetrating the U.S. national electricity grid. Two hackers were caught, having accessed over 1,305 U.S. military personnel's addresses, locations, numbers and family information. Recent ISIL bloggers have discussed crashing passenger jets by hacking into on-board electronics. Other extremists have discussed triggering a lethal radiation release by sending rogue commands to nuclear power plants.
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Turkey's Erdogan denounces US support for Syrian Kurds - BBC News - 0 views
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More than 500 people, including dozens of civilians, have been killed since the assault began 10 days ago
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urkey has already taken in more than 2.5 million Syrian refugees over the past five years and says it will continue to do so in a "controlled fashion".
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urkey's president asked in a speech: "Are you on our side or the side of the terrorist PYD and PKK organisation?"
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While Turkey sees the PYD and YPG as offshoots of the banned PKK, the US does not and believes they are the only effective force against IS on the ground in Syria, reports the BBC's Mark Lowen in Istanbul.
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France's outgoing Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, also questioned the commitment of the US to resolve the crisis in Syria on Wednesday, saying its "ambiguous" policy was contributing to the problem.
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Turkey has denounced the United States for providing support to the Democratic Union Party, who any are calling a terrorist group. This is contributing to the bloodshed.
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Turkey is mad at U/S over their support for Syria's Kurdish group. Turkey claims them as a terrorist group. Refugees are still fleeing from Syria.
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US support of Syrian extremist group, the Democratic Union Party, has been denounced by Turkish president Erdogan. The recent fighting has displaced 50,000 people and cut off key supply routes for bringing in aid. Turkey has vowed to continue to accept refugees.w
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Isis supporters threaten the UK with terror attacks in new propaganda video | Home News... - 0 views
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As Iraqi forces close in on Mosul, ISIS lashes out - CBS News - 0 views
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Saudi Arabia's Key to Security Is Not the Sword - 0 views
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Saudi Arabia's mass execution of 47 people on January 2 was a bloody emblem in the country's self-marketing as a leader in the global campaign against ISIS and other armed extremist groups. But it was also a stark example of what Saudi Arabia, and many other countries, are getting wrong in that effort.
Confronting Islamic State: The next war against global jihadism | The Economist - 0 views
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shared by allieggg on 28 Sep 14
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Islamists Aren't the Obstacle | Foreign Affairs - 0 views
www.foreignaffairs.com/...islamists-arent-the-obstacle
middle east democracy Islamists institutions egypt politics tunisia
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micklethwait liked it
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A minority of the population -- 26 percent of Tunisians and 28 percent of Egyptians -- believes that Islam should play a large role in government.
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Islamist parties received considerable support in both countries' recent elections -- not only because there is a broad ideological affinity for Islamism among the population but also because of Islamist parties' effective campaigning.
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When asked about the most important feature of a democracy, 69 percent of Egyptians and 32 percent of Tunisians put providing people with basic necessities or narrowing the gap between rich and poor at the top of their lists.
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Tunisia has fared better than Egypt so far in the post-Arab Spring transition, with less violence, fewer demonstrations, and greater political stability. This is in part because challenges are easier to confront in a country of only 11 million, 98 percent of whom are Sunni Muslim, compared to the more diverse and populous Egypt. But Tunisia's success is primarily a result of its stronger institutions, which provide a conduit for political debate.
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Egypt's institutions are weak and have been routinely undermined by entrenched interests. The countries' different geopolitical situations play a role here. Tunisia's minimal strategic importance means that foreign countries have less reason to intervene. But Egypt's proximity to Israel and the Palestinian territories, its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and its role as an intermediary between Israel and Hamas make its political developments important to Israel and the United States. Consequently, Egypt is vulnerable to foreign interference, particularly to attempts to prop up its military. Furthermore, beyond serving as a pillar to Egypt's authoritarian regimes, the Egyptian military has significant business interests and accounts for ten to 30 percent of Egypt's gross domestic product.
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Many onlookers claim that Egypt's more tumultuous post-revolution trajectory is because of the country's legacy of religiosity and Islamism.
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Egypt's judicial branch, which is also more powerful than Tunisia's, has at times undermined democratic processes.
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Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the Islamist-dominated parliament and the Constituent Assembly it elected were unconstitutional, because Islamist parties contested seats intended for independent candidates. The move polarized the country and pushed the executive branch to take extreme measures.
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Egyptian democracy is undermined by the inability of institutions to address citizens' demands and the impulse of powerful actors to interfere, not by the divide between Islamists and secularists. Institutions in Egypt fail to provide a meaningful forum for debate. As a result, violent street protesters and extremist sheiks are gaining power.
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U.S. policy must support institutions rather than actors, and processes rather than outcomes, in order to help Egypt and Tunisia achieve their democratic potential.
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The Council on Foreign Relations published an article about democratization in the middle east and the major obstacles that are present in the process. While most assume Islamists and Islamic embedded institutions are the root of the delayed democratic transition, the problems are much bigger than that. While Islamist regimes do indeed stunt the growth of democratic progress in terms of creating a stable government, Arab countries struggle with economic and social factors as well. The Arab Spring Revolutions have caused economic and social degradation across the region, resulting in a road block of political leadership. Without a reliable and capable government structure, the states are unable to progress economically. However, in order to have a stable government, social and economic institutions must be in place to create this capitalist economy that they strive for. Because most wealth resides in oil, the revenue that the states bring in isn't distributed properly throughout society and is concentrated within few business elites. The article stresses that instead of foreign aid going into the hands of an unstable leader or regime, it should be invested in institutions in order to spur economic growth and eliminate corruption. Rather than focusing on the Islamist-secularist divide, the world should be working towards the strengthening of institutions to create a stable foundation for governance.
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Inside The Chilling Online World Of The Women Of ISIS - 0 views
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women of ISIS appear to have established networks across social media platforms, which they use to connect with one another and recruit other women.
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Interested parties are directed to online guides with step-by-step instructions on how to get to ISIS-controlled territory — including advice on how to deceive Turkish customs agents.
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I am more then confident that no one in dawlah fears US invasion in fact we are all pretty excited more shuhadah and more slaying kuffar
Richard Dawkins' tweets on Islam are as rational as the rants of an extremist Muslim cl... - 0 views
www.theguardian.com/...kins-tweets-islam-muslim-nobel
dawkins tweets islam social media islamophobia
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ISIS vs. mainstream Muslims: The media battle - CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs - 0 views
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France, Britain dismiss calls to renew relations with Syria's Assad | Reuters - 0 views
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France and Britain dismissed on Friday any suggestion of restoring relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying this would likely end all hope of a political transition and push moderates into the arms of radical Islamist groups.
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With the rise of Islamic State insurgents, some European |Union member states are critical of the position in Paris and London and say it might be time to re-establish communication with Damascus given that a four-year-old revolt has failed to overthrow Assad
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"In reality, Bashar represents injustice, chaos and terror. We, France and Britain, say no to all three
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the French and British foreign ministers hit back at those who sought a rapprochement with Assad by saying he was using the fear of Islamic State, which has seized wide areas of northern and eastern Syria, to win back international support
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countries would have to work with Assad to defeat Islamic State, while the U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said earlier this month that Assad must be part of the solution for defusing the conflict in Syria
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This week a four-man cross-party delegation of French parliamentarians traveled to Syria and some met with Assad, and triggering a national debate on the issue
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An initially peaceful street uprising against Assad has spiraled into a civil war that has seen a level of suffering some diplomats see as justifying contacts with Damascus in pursuit of a political solution
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Britain and France see Assad's departure as a precondition of peace negotiations but the collapse of his government has become less likely as the war grinds on inconclusively
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For our own security, we must defeat Islamic State in Syria. We need a partner that can act against extremists. We need a negotiated political settlement
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compromise would be needed between elements of the existing government and relatively moderate opponents of Assad.
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Emirates brand groups - 0 views
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On Saturday, The United Arab Emirates (AP) made the decision to group together dozens of organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and name them terrorist organizations. According to the United Arab Emirates, these groups should be viewed on the same level as other extremists groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State. The Emirates claim that these Islamist groups are trying to topple the Western ruling system.
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shared by sheldonmer on 03 Nov 14
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Egyptians visit Washington to defend their 'revolution' - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the ... - 0 views
www.al-monitor.com/...si-human-rights-terrorism.html
United States egypt egyptian revolution washington
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during an anti-Morsi and anti-Muslim Brotherhood protest in Tahrir Square in Cairo, June 28, 2013. (photo by REUTERSAsmaa Waguih)
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group of influential Egyptians sought to convince a dozen Americans that the removal of elected president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and his replacement by Field Marshal Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was a plus for Egypt’s political evolution and US interests.
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Morsi had violated the constitution by claiming dictatorial powers in November 2012 and acquiesced in the brutal beating of demonstrators in front of the presidential palace. Crime rose during Morsi’s tenure and Egyptians were afraid to walk the streets or send their kids to school, she told Al-Monitor.
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The Americans, in turn, criticized Egypt for criminalizing the Muslim Brotherhood, killing more than a thousand people and detaining thousands more, including journalists and secular liberals, in the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster.
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told Al-Monitor that the Egyptians conveyed their support for Sisi, who, after ruling as head of a military council that replaced Morsi, was elected president in May with a large percentage of votes, although a smaller turnout than in the previous presidential election.
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Zaki said the delegation also expressed their view that while “we know we are moving toward a strong state, a strong state needs civil society and political opposition.” The third message, he said, was that Egypt wants US support in the fight against terrorism.
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Washington has praised Cairo for mediating last summer’s Gaza war between Israel and Hamas and expressed sympathy for those fighting Islamic extremists, such as the Egyptian soldiers killed in the Sinai Peninsula on Oct. 24.
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l some restrictions on US aid to Egypt and many analysts in Washington assert that Egypt cannot return to stability while repressing major components of its society. They also criticize an impending edict for civil society groups to register with the government, which has led many respected foreign-funded nonprofit organizations
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encouraged the Egyptians to embrace political and religious pluralism. “The Egyptians should understand that no government can deliver peace, prosperity and law and order that does not involve all sections of society,” he said.
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“Don’t deal with us like a teacher with a pupil,” said Nashwa el-Houfi, a columnist for the daily newspaper Al Watan. “No one has the whole truth. You have part and I have part.”
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Another plea was for Americans to stop acting as though they knew better what was in the interests of a country with a recorded history going back 7,000 years.
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This article talks about how some Americans feel like Egypt did itself a disservice by getting rid of Morsi's rule. This article describes the conversation had by some members of the Egyptian delegation that were invited to Washington by Hands Along the Nile Development Services. This articles goes on to talk about different issues regarding U.S., Egyptian relations and basically was the U.S. condones and what it doesn't, as if it mattered.
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Islamic State leader Baghdadi reportedly resurfaces | World news | The Guardian - 0 views
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repeatedly attacking “the Jews” and “apostate” and “treacherous” Muslim (Arab) leaders who feared the return of the Muslim faithful to the ways of the caliphate.
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“lying media” in claiming that the coalition, which includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain,
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“Be assured, O Muslims, for your state is good and in the best condition,” Baghdadi declared. “Its march will not stop and it will continue to expand, by Allah’s permission. The march of the mujahidin [Muslim holy warriors] will continue until they reach Rome. And soon, the Jews and Crusaders will be forced to come down to the ground and send their ground forces to their deaths and destruction.”
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shared by allieggg on 14 Nov 14
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Car Bombs Explode Near Egyptian and U.A.E. Embassies in Libya - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...nd-uae-embassies-in-libya.html
UN militias armed groups war middle east proxy car embassies nytimes
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Car bombs exploded outside the embassies of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates in Tripoli, Libya, early on Thursday, apparently in a backlash against the two countries for their role in a regional proxy war playing out in Libya.
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The side that controls Tripoli includes hard-line and more moderate Islamists, as well as non-Islamist regional or tribal groups who all say they are fighting against a return to Qaddafi-style authoritarianism. The other side, based in Tobruk and Baida, includes former soldiers loyal to Colonel Qaddafi and tribal groups who say they are fighting Islamist extremists.
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Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have backed the anti-Islamist faction. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and their ally, Saudi Arabia, all see Libya as a central front in a broader regional war against the forces of political Islam — a fight that began to intensify when the Egyptian military ousted President Mohamed Morsi last year.
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The United Arab Emirates launched a series of airstrikes from Egyptian bases against Islamist-allied militias fighting in Tripoli over the summer. And Egyptian forces have actively aided anti-Islamist military units fighting around Benghazi in eastern Libya.
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Western diplomats familiar with intelligence reports say that Egyptian special forces have participated in raids near the airport in Benghazi, Libya, as well as at a camp near the Libyan stronghold of Derna, with mixed results.
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Each side in Libya’s conflict now claims its own government — one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk. The anti-Islamist government in Tobruk includes the headquarters of a recently elected Parliament, although it operates with little visibility and the number of lawmakers attending its sessions has been difficult to assess.
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The Islamist-allied government in Tripoli contends that a recent Supreme Court decision invalidated the election of the Parliament in Tobruk. The government in Tobruk argues that the court was intimidated by the threat of militias in Tripoli.
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Any doubts that Libya has pivoted to a proxy war have been eliminated with the recent bombings outside UAE and Egyptian embassies as a backlash against their role in the regional "tug of war" on Thursday. Each side of the conflict has its own government as well as city headquarters. Islamists have occupied Tripoli and Haftar's forces Tobruk. The actions of regional players are escalating the civil war to the utmost extent.
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No LOL Matter: FBI Trolls Social Media for Would-Be Jihadis - NBC News.com - 1 views
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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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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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shared by allieggg on 19 Nov 14
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The New Arab Cold War - 0 views
www.foreignpolicy.com/...r_saudi_arabia_uae_libya_syria
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.