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cbrock5654

Turkey and the PKK: How to deal with Syria's Kurds - 0 views

www.economist.com/...-unsettles-government-how-deal

PKK ISIS Turkey ISIL

shared by cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    This is a news report by The Economist about the Turkish government's reaction to ISIL's assault on Kobane, a Kurdish town in Syria on the border of Turkey. This town is one of three enclaves that are governed by the Kurds. Turkey ceded the area to PKK control, but PKK leaders claim that by not assisting in the fight, the Turkish government is supporting ISIS, because it has a deep-rooted fear of any Kurdish autonomy.
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    A SENIOR commander of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rebel group that has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984, declared on...
mwrightc

Inside Fallujah: ISIS-held ghost town ruled by fear, paranoia as battle looms | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...-paranoia-as-battle-looms.html

ISIS politics war

shared by mwrightc on 21 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • mwrightc on 21 Jan 16
     
    "Inside Fallujah: ISIS-held ghost town ruled by fear, paranoia as battle looms"
joepouttu

Syria: 150 Mines Removed So Far in Palmyra's Ancient Site - ABC News - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...palmyras-ancient-site-37996358

Palmyra Mines IS

shared by joepouttu on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • joepouttu on 29 Mar 16
     
    IS left behind hundreds of mines in the town of Palmyra. Experts are currently working on disarming them, and have disarmed 150 bombs so far in the city. The mines are keeping historians from reaching remote sites in the town to assess damage done by IS. 
jreyesc

Kurds fear Isis use of chemical weapon in Kobani | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ar-isis-chemical-weapon-kobani

ISIS ISIL Chemical Weapons Syria Kobani

shared by jreyesc on 14 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Islamic State (Isis) is thought to have obtained stocks of ageing but still potent chemical weapons when it seized Iraqi army bases where they were stored,
  • There may also have been chemical weapons buried or abandoned elsewhere, that were not destroyed by US forces or the Iraqi military.
  • Iraqi officials said 11 police officers were poisoned by chlorine gas last month, when Isis fighters used it to attack the Iraqi town of Duluiya.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Intense fighting has made it impossible to get doctors the equipment they need to do definitive tests for the use of chemical weapons,
  • Some of the doctors say that it might be phosphorus or poison gas of some kind
  • It is possible that Isis fighters could mistake some chemical munitions for ordinary weapons and use them without being aware of what they are handling.
  • Islamic State (Isis) is thought to have obtained stocks of ageing but still potent chemical weapons when it seized Iraqi army bases where they were stored
  • jreyesc on 14 Nov 14
     
    The Kurds in Syria are now fearing the use of chemical weapons by the extremist group, ISIS. The chemical weapons were used near the town of Kobani.
wmulnea

Strife in Libya Could Presage Long Civil War - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...libyan-unrest.html

shared by wmulnea on 21 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Salah Badi, an ultraconservative Islamist and former lawmaker from the coastal city of Misurata.
  • Mr. Badi’s assault on Libya’s main international airport has now drawn the country’s fractious militias, tribes and towns into a single national conflagration that threatens to become a prolonged civil war. Both sides see the fight as part of a larger regional struggle, fraught with the risks of a return to repressive authoritarianism or a slide toward Islamist extremism.
  • the violence threatens to turn Libya into a pocket of chaos destabilizing North Africa for years to come.
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • Ansar al-Shariah, the hard-line Islamist group involved in the assault on the American diplomatic Mission in Benghazi in 2012
  • Their opponents, including the militias stocked with former Qaddafi soldiers
  • The ideological differences are blurry at best: both sides publicly profess a similar conservative but democratic vision.
  • an escalating war among its patchwork of rival cities and tribes.
  • Motorists wait in lines stretching more than three miles at shuttered gas stations, waiting for them to open. Food prices are soaring, uncollected garbage is piling up in the streets and bicycles, once unheard-of, are increasingly common.
  • Tripoli, the capital and the main prize, has become a battleground
  • The fighting has destroyed the airport
  • Constant shelling between rival militias has leveled blocks
  • Storage tanks holding about 25 million gallons of fuel have burned unchecked for a month
  • with daily blackouts sometimes lasting more than 12 hours.
  • many Libyans despaired of any resolution
  • In Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, the fighting has closed both its airport and seaport, strangling the city.
  • the rush toward war is also lifting the fortunes of the Islamist extremists of Ansar al-Shariah, the Benghazi militant group.
  • The United Nations, the United States and the other Western powers have withdrawn their diplomats and closed their missions
  • “We cannot care more than you do,” the British ambassador, Michael Aron, wrote
  • Until now, a rough balance of power among local brigades had preserved a kind of equilibrium, if not stability
  • the transitional government scarcely existed outside of the luxury hotels where its officials gathered, no other force was strong enough to dominate. No single interest divided the competing cities and factions.
  • But that semblance of unity is now in tatters, and with it the hope that nonviolent negotiations might settle the competition for power and, implicitly, Libya’s oil.
  • In May, a renegade former general, Khalifa Hifter, declared that he would seize power by force to purge Libya of Islamists, beginning in Benghazi. He vowed to eradicate the hard-line Islamists of Ansar al-Shariah, blamed for a long series of bombings and assassinations.
  • General Hifter also pledged to close the Parliament and arrest moderate Islamist members
  • he has mustered a small fleet of helicopters and warplanes that have bombed rival bases around Benghazi, a steep escalation of the violence.
  • moderate Islamists and other brigades who had distanced themselves from Ansar al-Shariah began closing ranks, welcoming the group into a newly formed council of “revolutionary” militias
  • a broad alliance of Benghazi militias that now includes Ansar al-Shariah issued a defiant statement denouncing relative moderates like the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. “We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,”
  • the general’s blitz has now stalled, it polarized the country, drawing alarms from some cities and tribes but applause from others.
  • the loudest applause came from the western mountain town of Zintan, where local militia leaders had recruited hundreds of former Qaddafi soldiers into special brigades
  • the rival coastal city of Misurata, where militias have allied with the Islamists in political battles and jostled with the Zintanis for influence in the capital
  • the Misurata and Islamist militias developed a reputation for besieging government buildings and kidnapping high officials to try to pressure the Parliament. But in recent months the Zintanis and their anti-Islamist allies have stormed the Parliament and kidnapped senior lawmakers as well.
  • the newly elected Parliament, led at first, on a seniority basis, by a member supportive of Mr. Hifter, announced plans to convene in Tobruk, an eastern city under the general’s control.
  • About 30 members, most of them Islamists or Misuratans, refused to attend,
  • Tripoli’s backup airport, under the control of an Islamist militia, has cut off flights to Tobruk, even blocking a trip by the prime minister.
  • a spokesman for the old disbanded Parliament, favored by the Islamists and Misuratans, declared that it would reconvene in Tripoli
  • In Tobruk, a spokesman for the new Parliament declared that the Islamist- and Misuratan-allied militias were terrorists, suggesting that Libya might soon have two legislatures with competing armies
  • Each side has the support of competing satellite television networks financed and, often, broadcast from abroad, typically from Qatar for the Islamists and from the United Arab Emirates for their foes.
  • Hassan Tatanaki, a Libyan-born business mogul who owns one of the anti-Islamist satellite networks, speaking in an interview from an office in the Emirates. “We are in a state of war and this is no time for compromise.”
  • Fighters and tribes who fought one another during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi are now coming together on the same side of the new fight, especially with the Zintanis against the Islamists. Some former Qaddafi officers who had fled Libya are even coming back to take up arms again.
  • “It is not pro- or anti-Qaddafi any more — it is about Libya,” said a former Qaddafi officer in a military uniform
  • Beneath the battle against “extremists,” he said, was an even deeper, ethnic struggle: the tribes of Arab descent, like the Zintanis, against those of Berber, Circassian or Turkish ancestry, like the Misuratis. “The victory will be for the Arab tribes,”
  • andrea_hoertz on 21 Sep 14
     
    Article explains the civil war that is erupting in Libya. Islamist extremists are trying to take over the country and towns and tribes of Libya are choosing sides. Tripoli has been the biggest battle ground and its airport was destroyed.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
amarsha5

Syria crisis: Aid arrives in besieged towns - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-35597909

Syria Aid war

shared by amarsha5 on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • joepouttu on 17 Feb 16
     
    The first aid convoys have reached the besieged city of Muadhamiya. The convoys will hopefully defuse the hostility and resume the peace talks.
  • csherro2 on 17 Feb 16
     
    Cities in Syria that have been taken over by rebels are in desperate need of resources. This article explains and details what is being brought in.
  • amarsha5 on 18 Feb 16
     
    Aid trucks have arrived in beseiged towns throughout Syria, in a hope by the world powers and the UN that will lead to a "cessation of hostilities". Almost 500,000 people live in beseiged areas, according to the UN.
ralph0

A Remote Syrian Airstrip Hints At A Growing American Military Role : Parallels : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...growing-american-military-role

syria ISIS USA foreign policy obama planes airstrip

shared by ralph0 on 25 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 25 Mar 16
     
    This article comments on the growing US involvement in Syria. It refers to a remote airstrip in a Kurdish-controlled town, with American planes arriving and leaving often.
ralph0

Syria's Palmyra: Ghost Town Bearing Scars of IS Destruction - ABC News - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...ing-scars-destruction-38088388

ISIS syria palmayra army

shared by ralph0 on 01 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 01 Apr 16
     
    Finally Palmayra is no longer under the destruction that it was, or whatever's left of it. This article talks about how the city has changed under ISIS. Apparently, they handed out booklets to the residents advertising themselves.
jreyesc

ISIS Reportedly Enters Syria's Kurdish City Of Kobani Near Turkey Border - 0 views

www.buzzfeed.com/...kurdish-city-of-kobani-near-tu

turkey border ISIS city syria politics

shared by jreyesc on 05 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • jreyesc on 05 Oct 14
     
    ISIS had entered the town of Kobani, near the Syrian and Turkish border. This came a day after Turkish lawmakers had stated that they gave the government full power to deal with ISIS.
  • micklethwait on 07 Oct 14
     
    Now it seems ISIS has taken control of Kobani.
Briana S

Islamic State steps up attack on Syrian town of Kobane - 1 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-29474879

ISIS Syria war Kobane

shared by Briana S on 03 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Briana S on 03 Oct 14
     
    ISIS is currently upping their game in terms of destruction in a key Syrian town. They are mainly battling against Kurdish militiamen.
alarsso

Syria Kurds impose military service amid civil war | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/ilitary-service-amid-civil-war

Kurds Syria civil war middle east military

shared by alarsso on 21 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • alarsso on 21 Apr 15
     
    All Kurdish towns ban together to fight any opposition of extremists - along with Turkish Kurds. Kurdish law now requires 6 month service from each man and fighting rarely ceases. With Assad slowly gainig territory and increasing heat from extremists, will the Kurdish stand their ground?
cbrock5654

Turkey-PKK Peace Process at Turning Point - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-europe-30000969

PKK Kurds Turkey peace talks

shared by cbrock5654 on 24 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • cbrock5654 on 24 Nov 14
     
    In this news article on the BBC, a PKK commander claims that while the both sides leadership desires to move forward with the peace process, the peace talks with Turkey are in danger of turning into conflict. Cemil Bayik, a PKK commander in the Qandil mountains, says that the Turkish government's treatment of Kobane shows that it still views the PKK and the Kurdish people as a bigger threat than ISIS. Meanwhile, a Turkish government official, Yasin Aktay, vice-chairman of the ruling AK Party, gave a statement saying that the PKK and the Kurds are using current time of instability to try to "upset the status quo", and try to set up a system of self-governance like Iraqi Kurdish groups. This article ends with dire warnings by both sides. Aktay warns that in the coming weeks and months, Turkey will actively try to prevent a "power grab" by the PKK in Kurdish towns. Meanwhile, Cemil Bayik says that unless the Turkish government changes its policies, the conflict between the Kurds and Turkey will continue, asserting that "if necessary the Kurds will fight against the Islamic State and the Turkish army."
  • cbrock5654 on 24 Nov 14
     
    A PKK commander tells the BBC that the peace process with Turkey is in danger of turning into conflict.
cbrock5654

Turkey to allow Peshmerga, not PKK, to enter Kobane | Middle East Eye - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...not-pkk-enter-kobane-392991687

Peshmerga PKK Kurds Kobane IS

shared by cbrock5654 on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • cbrock5654 on 10 Nov 14
     
    After mounting domestic and international political pressure, the Foreign Minister of Turkey Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that Turkey will allow some Kurdish forces to cross the border into Syria to fight the Islamic State in the Syrian town of Kobane. Turkey will not allow all Kurdish forces to fight, and will only allow the Peshmerga, rather than the PKK, to cross the border. "Peshmerga" is a Kurdish word for armed fighters, but more specifically refers to nationalist soldiers for an independent Kurdish state.
andrea_hoertz

23 Killed in Libya as Islamist Militants Battle Rival Militias - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nts-battle-rival-militias.html

libya civil war Kikla violence islamist zintan

shared by andrea_hoertz on 12 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • andrea_hoertz on 12 Nov 14
     
    Islamist militias have seized control of Tripoli. The anti-Islamist Zintan militia attacked the libyan town of Kikla, an Islamist stronghold.
alarsso

Understanding Syria: From Pre-Civil War to Post-Assad - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...281989

syria understanding history causes war revolution transition

shared by alarsso on 08 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • xtreme temperatures
  • drought from 2006 to 2011
  • 2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms.
  • ...70 more annotations...
  • lessening of rainfall
  • as of the last year before the civil war, only about 13,500 square kilometers could be irrigated
  • agriculture
  • 20 percent of national income
  • employed about 17 percent
  • Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine
  • densely populated
  • less than 0.25 hectares (just over a third of an acre) of agricultural land per person
  • population/resource ratio is out of balance.
  • So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.
  • threw the country into the arms of
  • Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser
  • or three and a half years
  • part of the United Arab Republic
  • A fundamental problem they faced was what it meant to be a Syrian.
  • 1961 Syrians were thrown back on their own resources
  • The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims
  • seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab
  • being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.
  • Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.
  • Israel
  • Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions
  • A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.
  • or Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics
  • bridge the gaps between rich and poor
  • socialism
  • Muslims and minorities
  • Islam
  • society
  • hould be modern
  • secular
  • defined by a culture of “Arabism”
  • the very antithesis of
  • Muslim Brotherhood
  • military, which seemed
  • o embody the nation.
  • help the Syrian people to live better provided only that they not challenge his rule
  • his stern and often-brutal monopoly of power
  • foreign troublemakers
  • Hafez al-Assad sided with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
  • During the rule of the two Assads, Syria made considerable progress.
  • locked into the cities and towns
  • they f
  • had to compete
  • Palestinians
  • Iraqis
  • Syria was already a refuge
  • March 15, 2011
  • small group gathered in the southwestern town of Daraa to protest against government failure to help them
  • government saw them as subversives.
  • He ordered a crackdown
  • And the army,
  • responded violently.
  • Riots broke out
  • attempted to quell them with military
  • what had begun as a food and water issue gradually turned into a political and religious cause.
  • interpretation of Islam
  • the Syrian government is charged with using illegal chemical weapons
  • All observers agree that the foreign-controlled and foreign-constituted insurgent groups are the most coherent, organized, and effective
  • astonishing as they share no common language and come from a wide variety of cultures
  • slam has at least so far failed to provide an effective unifying force
  • all the rebels regard the conflict in Syria as fundamentally a religious issue
  • pwards of $150 billion
  • a whole generation of Syrians have been subjected to either or both the loss of their homes and their trust in fellow human beings.
  • How the victims and the perpetrators can be returned to a “normal life”
  • First, the war might continue.
  • Second, if the Syrian government continues or even prevails, there is no assurance that,
  • t will be able to suppress the insurgency.
  • Third,
  • Syria will remain effectively “balkanized”
  • alarsso on 08 Feb 15
     
    This article captures Syria's geography, history, and all events leading up to the state Syria is in today.
cbrock5654

Islamic State: Turkey's Erdogan Likens Syrian Kurdish Fighters To PKK Terrorists - 0 views

www.ibtimes.com/ighters-pkk-terrorists-1707526

ISIS PKK Kurds Ergodan

shared by cbrock5654 on 20 Oct 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
  • cbrock5654 on 20 Oct 14
     
    This news report in International Business Times covers quite a bit of information, as a lot has happened during the past week in regards the conflict with ISIS. The US has declared support for the PKK and other Kurdish forces, because they are fighting against ISIS. Meanwhile, Turkey's President Ergodan, has condemned the US for supporting the PKK, as the US and Turkey are long-standing allies, and the PKK and Turkey have been embroiled in a decades-long conflict. Kurdish fighters are currently battling ISIS forces in the Syrian town of Kobani, and Turkey is opposing giving the fighters any weapons, and equating them with the PKK.
kbrisba

In Tunisia, One Brother Studied Philosophy, Another Gunned Down Tourists - 0 views

www.ndtv.com/...er-gunned-down-tourists-751876

shared by kbrisba on 06 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • kbrisba on 06 Apr 15
     
    Jabeur Khachnaoui, a terrorist of the attack on the Bardo museum had an older brother who at the same time was attending a rally against terrorism on the other side of town. The two brothers grew up in a family with three other siblings in Tunisia's impoverished southwest. They were close but ended up deeply divided in their outlooks.
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