Could We Have Stopped This Tragedy? | Foreign Policy - 5 views
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President Barack Obama erred when he jumped the gun in 2011 and insisted “Assad must go,” locking the United States into a maximalist position and foreclosing potential diplomatic solutions that might have saved thousands of lives
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Assad’s “Gamble for Resurrection.” From the very start, a key problem in Syria was the lack of an attractive exit option for the entire Assad regime. As the titular leader of the Alawite minority that has dominated Syria since 1970, Assad and his followers saw relinquishing power as a mortal threat.
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More than 200,000 people are now dead — that’s approaching 100 times as many victims as 9/11 — and numerous towns, cities, and villages have been badly damaged, if not destroyed. There are reportedly some 11 million displaced people either internally or out of the country, about half Syria’s original population. A flood of refugees and migrants has landed in Europe, provoking a new challenge to the European Union’s delicate political cohesion and raising the specter of a sharp increase in right-wing xenophobia. The carnage in Syria has also helped fuel the emergence and consolidation of the so-called Islamic State, intensified the Sunni-Shiite split within Islam, and put additional strain on Syria’s other neighbors
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Strife in Yemen: The world's next failed state? | The Economist - 0 views
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Yemen’s army can claim unwonted accuracy in its latest offensive, Operation Scorched Earth
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The clashes pit regular government troops, backed by lighter-armed tribal allies, against tribesmen loyal to the Houthi family, a powerful northern clan
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would suggest a link to global jihadists. But most of their adherents belong to the Zaydi sect, a normally quietist branch of Shia Islam that is unique to Yemen and which most Sunnis regard as quaintly schismatic.
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BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq and Syria recall ambassadors - 0 views
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Iraq and Syria have both recalled their ambassadors in a deepening rift over claims Damascus was harbouring militants who bombed Baghdad.
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The two Arab neighbours only revived diplomatic links in 2006, after more than 20 years of mutual hostility.
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In a separate development that appeared to run counter to the confession, a statement from an extremist Islamist militant group, that is violently opposed to the secular Baathists, has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Islamic State of Iraq, known to be an al-Qaeda umbrella group, said it had carried out the bombings to "wreck the bastions of infidelity" in Baghdad. The statement was posted on Tuesday morning on a website commonly used by extremist militant groups.
White House Report Faults Pakistan's Antimilitant Campaign - WSJ.com - 0 views
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Pakistani officials have said they don't lack the will and that they have generally stepped up their efforts in response to U.S. requests, getting too little credit for it. But they say their army is already stretched thin—a problem exacerbated when soldiers were diverted to respond this summer to the worst flooding in the country's history. "The Pakistan military continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al Qaeda forces in North Waziristan," the White House concludes, referring to the Pakistani tribal region that U.S. officials say is being used as a staging ground for attacks on troops in Afghanistan, as well as to plot attacks on targets in Europe. U.S. officials say they are increasingly frustrated by Pakistan's decision not to send large numbers of ground forces into North Waziristan. "This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets," the unclassified, 27-page report finds.
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Questions about aid to Pakistan have been growing in Congress in recent months, and congressional aides said the downbeat assessment could fuel lawmakers' qualms and calls for putting more conditions on U.S. funding. U.S.-Pakistan tensions are already high. The limited U.S. military presence in Pakistan, restricted to training and advising the country's security forces, is particularly sensitive. A series of cross-border raids by North Atlantic Treaty Organization helicopter gunships from Afghanistan, including one that killed several Pakistani border guards who fired their weapons to wave off a coalition helicopter, have inflamed anti-American sentiment and prompted Islamabad to shut a key crossing used to deliver supplies to the U.S.-led coalition.
In Yemen conflict, number of displaced grows -- latimes.com - 0 views
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They have fled the war in nearby Saada province, where the nation's army, after five years of sporadic warfare in the region, has launched what it calls a final offensive against a Shiite Muslim rebel group called Houthis.
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A poor but strategic country on the Gulf of Aden, Yemen is increasingly unstable. Washington is concerned about the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh being embroiled in conflicts that include a separatist insurgency in the south and growing numbers of Al Qaeda fighters using the nation as a base to launch attacks across the Middle East.
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The plight of the displaced has become a political issue within Yemen, with the government and the Houthis accusing each other of using civilians as shields and obstructing access to aid groups.
AFP: Yemen joins gas exporters' club - 0 views
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Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries, joined the international club of gas exporters Saturday with pumping starting at a newly built liquefied natural gas plant in the Gulf of Aden.
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Addressing the ceremony, the Yemeni president spoke of the tough situation his government is facing with Shiite rebels in the north and violent protests in the south, as well as attacks by the Al-Qaeda terror network."This is an important strategic project and it is good this project has not been disrupted," Saleh said in reference to inhabitants of the provinces and Shabwa and Maarib where gas is being extracted and processed.
RJ Eskow: A Short Vocabulary Lesson for Sen. Lieberman (With Some History Thrown In At ... - 1 views
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Had Dr. Hasan become "an Islamist extremist"? It sure looks that way. But was the horrific slaughter he carried out intended to "intimidate or coerce" anyone? We've heard no evidence to that effect. These terrible killings may have just been an expression of inchoate rage. And if we don't know whether coercion or intimidation was the goal, than we certainly don't know if it was done "for political purposes."
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If we learn that Malik Hasan left a note saying "anybody who serves in the US Armed Forces must know they will face retribution," we'll know that he is a terrorist. He will have committed his murders in order to intimidate or coerce. But right now we don't have any evidence that suggests Hasan is any different than the civilian who killed 23 people at a cafeteria right down the road from Ft. Hood, shouting "This is what Central Texas did to me!"
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Christian extremist Scott Roeder's act of murder was terrorism, too, because he wants doctors to stop performing abortions. (He and others like him have nearly achieved their goal, too, which makes it pretty effective terror.)
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ISIS' growing sphere of influence in Central Asia and Caucasus poses new security risks... - 0 views
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The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, with close ties to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has already announced its allegiance to ISIS. According to Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB), more than 300 Kazakh citizens are fighting alongside ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq and half of those are women. Poorer countries of Central Asia, such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, especially in their shared Ferghana Valley region, are said to be fertile ground for ISIS recruitment. It is estimated that the number of Chechens fighting in Syria range between 200 and 1,000, many of them veterans of previous conflicts. Chechens are known to have a prominent role in ISIS and the group has threatened to take the fight to Russia. In September, ISIS militants directly threatened Russia.
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Hundreds of Azerbaijanis are known to have joined the ISIS forces in Syria. On 19 November, Dogan News Agency reported the arrest of 22 foreigners on the Turkish-Syrian border town of Kilis trying to cross illegally into Syria. 18 were of Uighur origin and 4 of them citizens of Azerbaijan
A Brief History Of Extremism - Is It Worse Than Ever? - History Extra - 0 views
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extremists believe the ‘other’ must always be opposed, controlled or destroyed because its intrinsic nature and existence is inimical to the success of the extremists’ own group
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examples of extremist behaviour can be found almost as far back as our written histories extend
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Rome razed Carthage to the ground in 146 BC after an extended siege, killing an estimated 150,000 residents and selling the survivors into slavery, in what Yale scholar Ben Kiernan calls “the first genocide”.
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The Spy Who Came Home | The New Yorker - 0 views
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In March, 2016, while visiting his aunt in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he gave a lecture on terrorism at the local World Affairs Council. “We have become the most fragile superpower ever,” he told the audience. While Al Qaeda aims to carry out what its operatives call “spectacular attacks,” he explained, ISIS obsesses over creating a “spectacular reaction.” As an example, he recounted an incident in Garland, Texas, in which two wannabe jihadis were killed after attempting a raid on a provocative anti-Muslim convention. The men had no coherent affiliation with ISIS; they merely followed its instructions—which have been widely disseminated by the American media—to post online that they were acting on behalf of the group. “If you strip the word ‘terrorism,’ two idiots drove from Arizona and got shot in a parking lot,” Skinner said. The real threat to American life was the response. “We shut down cities,” he said. “We change our laws. We change our societies.” He went on, “We’re basically doing their work for them.”
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“Getting killed by ISIS in Savannah is like expecting to get hit by a piano falling from an asteroid,” Skinner said. “It’s batshit insane. Day to day, it’s the people who are kicking in doors and stealing cars who are actually making life unbearable.”
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Because local police departments pay poorly, “the people who have been trained to do this work best are never going to be doing it,” Skinner said. According to a study by Brown University, since 2001 the average American taxpayer has contributed more than twenty-three thousand dollars to veterans’ care, homeland security, and military operations in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. “I used to spend more money on meals and entertainment for a couple of sources in Amman, each year, than the Savannah Police Department has to spend on cars,” Skinner told me. “And whatever the American people got out of my meals in Amman had way less impact on their lives than what was happening down the block.”
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IntelBrief: The Transnational Nature of Violent White Supremacy Extremism - The Soufan ... - 0 views
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White supremacy extremism (WSE) is a transnational challenge, with tentacles stretching from Canada to Australia, and the United States to Ukraine; it has evolved at a different pace in different parts of the world. The rapid expanse of social media facilitates radicalization and recruitment within the white supremacy extremist domain. There are a number of important similarities between jihadist and white supremacists and particular ways these groups feed off each other, including: use of the internet; propaganda; recruitment; financing; the transnational nature of the networks, and utility of violence. To make serious progress, the United States should consider building upon Canadian and British leadership and begin sanctioning transnational WSE groups as foreign terrorist organizations.
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white supremacist extremists pose a clear terrorist threat to the United States. Following the August attack by a white supremacist extremist in El Paso, TX, white supremacist terrorism became responsible for more deaths on U.S. soil than jihadist terrorism since 9/11. The Anti-Defamation League reports that over the past decade, white supremacy extremists were responsible for three times as many deaths in the United States as were Islamists. In May 2019, a senior FBI official testified to Congress that the bureau is pursuing about 850 domestic terrorism investigations, a ‘significant majority’ of which are related to white supremacist extremists.
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Recruitment and radicalization goals within white supremacy extremism remain consistent over time despite traditional methods of spreading propaganda diverging from more modern ones
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France warns U.S. against pulling troops from fight against Islamists in Africa's Sahel... - 0 views
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France delivered a stern warning on Monday against possible U.S. troop cuts in West Africa, where groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are expanding their foothold.
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The possibility of cuts has alarmed France, which relies on U.S. intelligence and logistics for its 4,500-strong mission in the Sahel. The deaths of 13 French soldiers in a helicopter crash during a combat mission in Mali in November increased France’s determination to secure more support in the zone. France believes it is time to increase, not ease, pressure on militants to prevent “Islamic State from rebuilding in the Sahel,” a senior French defense ministry official told Reuters.
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“Any withdrawal or reduction would likely result in a surge in violent extremist attacks on the continent and beyond,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat Chris Coons wrote in a letter to Esper this month
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America's Forever Wars - The New York Times - 0 views
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it’s time to take stock of how broadly American forces are already committed to far-flung regions and to begin thinking hard about how much of that investment is necessary, how long it should continue and whether there is a strategy beyond just killing terrorists. Which Congress, lamentably, has not done. If the public is quiet, that is partly because so few families bear so much of this military burden, and partly because America is not involved in anything comparable to the Vietnam War, when huge American casualties produced sustained public protest. It is also because Congress has spent little time considering such issues in a comprehensive way or debating why all these deployments are needed
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President Trump, like his predecessor, insists that legislation passed in 2001 to authorize the war against Al Qaeda is sufficient. It isn’t. After the Niger tragedy, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker of Tennessee, has agreed to at least hold a hearing on the authorization issue.
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“a collective indifference to war has become an emblem of contemporary America.”
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The ISIS Beat - The Drift - 1 views
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even as the new Biden Administration announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, to “end” the twenty-year war, it will continue airstrikes and raids to tackle the ever-looming threat of terrorism.
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As the persistence of far-right nationalism suggests, ideologies cannot so easily be destroyed — even those we thought we had bombed out of existence seventy years ago. Yet, the world refracted through this war (the “only one” of the 21st century, Bush hoped) has left us not just morally inept, but also woefully misguided about what is to come next
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The S.D.F. offers a remarkable vision to counter ISIS’s draconian rule — local councils, farmers’ cooperatives, and committees that promote the rights of oppressed minority groups. In the village of Jinwar, a female-controlled town, the S.D.F. has built a commune for women and their children, both Kurdish and Arab, seeking to escape oppressive families and realize a community without patriarchy. According to the constitution of the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the S.D.F.-linked ruling authority in the region, a post-ISIS Syria will be “a society free from authoritarianism, militarism, centralism and the intervention of religious authority in public affairs.” In order to realize this vision, part of the S.D.F.’s mandate is not just to govern, but also to annihilate ISIS. Several soldiers and S.D.F. spokesmen told me that the war against ISIS isn’t over — its aim now, with the support of the U.S., is to destroy sleeper cells and root out the ideology.
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Hamas Disavows FBI Sting Against Right-Wing Boogaloo Boys - 0 views
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Hamas, the group FBI agents were pretending to represent, is publicly denouncing the prosecution and its supposed connection to the two Boogaloo members. “When we read about this, it was really shocking to connect our movement with such extremists,”
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the first time that a designated terrorist group that the FBI pretended to be has come out publicly to denounce a sting case
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“First of all, Hamas is a Palestinian national movement, and we have limited our struggle for freedom and independence within the boundaries of Palestine, and we have nothing to do outside these geographical territories,” Naim said. “The second thing, we have nothing planned and we are not intending to plan anything against the United States.”
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Three Decades After his Death, Kahane's Message of Hate is More Popular Than Ever - MERIP - 0 views
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on November 5, 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane was assassinated in New York City, a seminal event in the annals of American and Israeli history. Years after his death, Kahane’s killing is considered the first terror attack of the group that would later coalesce into al-Qaeda.
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Many of Kahane’s American acolytes followed him to Israel, including top JDL fundraiser and Yeshiva University provost Emanuel Rackman, who took over as rector, and then chancellor, of Israel’s Bar Ilan University. Under Rackman’s tutelage, Bar Ilan’s Law School became an incubator for the Israeli far-right. The most infamous of these students was Yigal Amir. Inspired by the Goldstein massacre, Amir assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, dealing a death blow to Israel’s liberal Zionist camp. Amir carried out the murder on the five-year anniversary of Kahane’s killing.
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The victims of JDL-linked terrorist attacks in the United States were usually innocent bystanders: the drummer in a rock band who lost a leg when a bomb blew up the Long Island home of an alleged Nazi war criminal; the Boston cop who was seriously injured during his attempt to dispose of another bomb intended for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; the elderly lady who died of smoke inhalation in her Brooklyn flat above a Lebanese restaurant torched after its owners were accused of sympathies with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); the young Jewish secretary who was asphyxiated when another fire burned through the Manhattan office of a talent agency that promoted performances of Soviet ballet troupes.
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Homeland Security Is Quietly Tying Antifa to Foreign Powers | The Nation - 0 views
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intelligence officials are targeting activists it considers “antifa” and attempting to tie them to a foreign power, according to a DHS intelligence report obtained exclusively by The Nation.
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The intelligence report, titled “The Syrian Conflict and its Nexus to the U.S.-based Antifascist Movement,” mentions several Americans, including a left-wing podcast host who traveled to Syria to fight ISIS. The report includes a readout of these individuals’ personal information, including their social security numbers, home addresses, and social media accounts, much of the data generated by DHS’s Tactical Terrorism Response Teams. As the intelligence report states, “ANTIFA is being analyzed under the 2019 DHS Strategic Framework for Countering Terrorism (CT) and Targeted Violence.”
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“They targeted Americans like they’re Al-Qaeda” a former senior DHS intelligence officer with knowledge of the operations told The Nation. The officer, who served for years in DHS’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A), compared the operations to the illegal surveillance of activists during the civil rights era. “They essentially were violating people’s rights like this was the 60’s…the type of shit the Church and Pike committee[s] had to address.”
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A New History for a New Turkey: What a 12th-grade textbook has to say about T... - 0 views
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Rather than simply serving as crude propaganda for Erdoğan’s regime, Contemporary Turkish and World History aspires to do something more ambitious: embed Turkey’s dominant ideology in a whole new nationalist narrative. Taken in its entirety, the book synthesizes diverse strands of Turkish anti-imperialism to offer an all-too-coherent, which is not to say accurate, account of the last hundred years. It celebrates Atatürk and Erdoğan, a century apart, for their struggles against Western hegemony. It praises Cemal Gürsel and Necmettin Erbakan, on abutting pages, for their efforts to promote Turkish industrial independence. And it explains what the works of both John Steinbeck [Con Şıtaynbek] and 50 Cent [Fifti Sent] have to say about the shortcomings of American society.
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Turkey has long had competing strains of anti-Western, anti-Imperialist and anti-American thought. In the foreign policy realm, Erdogan’s embrace of the Mavi Vatan doctrine showed how his right-wing religious nationalism could make common cause with the left-wing Ulusalcı variety.[5] This book represents a similar alliance in the historiographic realm, demonstrating how the 20th century can be rewritten as a consistent quest for a fully independent Turkey.
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Ankara is currently being praised for sending indigenously developed drones to Ukraine and simultaneously criticized for holding up Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership. Contemporary Turkish and World History sheds light on the intellectual origins of both these policies
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