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BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label al-qaida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label al-qaida. Show all posts
10 October 2017
08 October 2017
Niger adventures: More U.S. soldiers die in a land of no U.S. interest 8OKT17
Americans learned the sad news Thursday that three American Special Forces soldiers had been killed and two more wounded in the West African desert state of Niger the day before.
They also learned that some 800 U.S. forces are based in Niger, that one drone base has been built and is manned by Americans in Niamey, the Niger capital, and that another drone base is being constructed in Agadez, in northern Niger.
The Pentagon is saying that it will be looking into the circumstances under which the Americans were killed and wounded, particularly since, in principle, the U.S. troops are in Niger working with that country’s troops only in a training capacity, and, presumably, building and operating the drone bases.
The first question is, what are hundreds of U.S. troops doing in Niger? It is a French-speaking nation for which France has traditionally played the important “godfather” role, including with military forces. Niger is a poor nation of 21 million, with few notable resources apart from the fact of its central location, landlocked, and bordering on Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Nigeria and southern Libya, a largely desert area of little or no strategic importance to the United States.
The claim in the past has been that some of the various shadowy tribal militia forces operating in the region have al-Qaida or Islamic State links but the intelligence supporting that argument for U.S. forces to be in Niger is shaky at best. They can better be described as armed bandit gangs.
The second major question is why Americans learn of U.S. military involvement in Niger, in combat in fact, only when American soldiers die? No one seems to recall an American president or Congress declaring war in Niger. What we are looking at instead is one piece of an expansion of U.S. military activity in Africa to justify the existence of the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM.
U.S. forces under AFRICOM for years chased around unsuccessfully in Central Africa the Lord’s Resistance Army, no threat to the United States. It has helped wealthy Nigeria combat, also relatively unsuccessfully, the forces of Boko Haram, based in northeastern Nigeria and occasionally active in neighboring Cameroon, Niger and Benin. U.S. forces have been active in Somalia, off and on since 1992, trying to bring some sort of order there, coherent government in Mogadishu, the capital, having been absent since January 1991. The fighting in Somalia has justified the creation and maintenance of a U.S. base, the only one in Africa, in neighboring Djibouti, ex-French Somaliland, with thousands of U.S. forces, fighter bombers and a drone base.
The deaths of three elite U.S. soldiers in obscure Niger should raise in Washington, at the Pentagon, the White House and in Congress the profound question — with large financial implications — of why the United States is involved in sub-Saharan Africa at all. There was no AFRICOM until 2008. Why is there one now, at a time of declining resources for such Beau Geste adventures, expensive in financial terms and now in American forces’ lives?
15 April 2017
Donald Trump's Syria strike looks a lot like Barack Obama's plan, despite what Rubio, others say 12APR17
(ONE has to wonder what this is going to do to the drumpf/trump-iranian revolutionary guards investment partnership in Baku, Azerbaijan).
THE drumpf/trump-pence administration's illegal war with out end Syria policy isn't any different than the Obama-Biden administration's with one exception. (NOT MY) president drumpf/trump is a megalomaniac, too unstable to be trusted to be commander-in-chief with access to our nuclear weapons arsenal. At least Obama went to congress for authorization for military action in response to assad's use of chemical weapons in 2013, though he didn't for his other military actions in the Middle East. drumpf/trump doesn't plan on asking congress for authorization for military action in the Middle East under the war powers act because nobody is going to tell him what he can and can not do with "his military". NOTE to drumpf/trump, STOP referring to the US Military as "my military". It is not yours, it is the military of the United States of America and it's responsibility is to protect the American people, not to be used as the pawn of the war lord you (and little marco) seem to think you are. This from PolitiFact....
Donald Trump's Syria strike looks a lot like Barack Obama's plan, despite what Rubio, others say
It was "the right move" for President Donald Trump to launch airstrikes in Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack, said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on CNN April 7.
But almost four years ago, Rubio opposed President Barack Obama’s plan to order airstrikes in Syria, also after dictator Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his people.
Rubio explained why 2017 is different than 2013 on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
"Here's the first thing that's changed from 2013 to now: The Russians are now there," Rubio said in an April 9 interview. "Assad was losing back in 2013. If we had armed non-jihadist elements on the ground, they could have overthrown him. That's what I thought was the better approach at the time.
"The second is that the administration, what they were proposing, had no clear objective. They wanted to blow up some things to send a message. I don't think you use the U.S. military simply to send a message. This strike was limited, but it had a clear strategic objective, which was the destruction or degrading of a key airbase installation that is used in these chemical attacks."
Rubio is one of several Republicans — including Trump — who have flipped from opposing post-chemical weapons airstrikes in 2013 to supporting them in 2017.
Rubio has a point that the geopolitical situation in Syria has changed; Russia, Iran and the Islamic State are all bigger players in the Syrian civil war than they were three and a half years ago. But we were also interested in Rubio’s assertion that the Obama administration’s proposal, compared to Trump’s actions, didn’t have a clear objective.
The argument rings hollow.
Obama and his team spent several days making the case to Congress and the public that they should support military action in Syria, and the goals and plans they laid out were quite similar to the actions Trump took in 2017.
We reached out to Rubio's staff for comment but didn't hear back.
Making the case
In August 2013, Assad’s regime killed more than 1,400 people in a chemical weapons attack on the city of Damascus. Obama wanted to strike Syria in retaliation, but he chose to ask Congress to authorize his use of military force. Obama couldn’t get enough votes to pass his proposal, so he did not order strikes fired in direct retaliation for the chemical attacks.
The 2017 chemical weapons attack was much smaller, killing about 80 people. Two days later, without advance notice or requesting congressional approval, Trump launched nearly 60 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield used to carry out the chemical weapons attacks.
Because the Obama administration spent several days lobbying Congress and the public to support his proposed military action, there are numerous speeches, media interviews, documents and congressional hearings during which his team laid out the strategy.
For Trump, in contrast, we have to look at what members of his administration have said to justify the airstrikes after the fact.
Here are three examples each of the Obama and Trump administrations laying out their goals. Both describe sending a message to Assad that chemical weapons use is unacceptable. Both involve a targeted attack plan designed to degrade Assad’s chemical weapon capabilities by taking out related facilities and resources.
If anything, the Obama White House’s objectives, as well as the scope of the operation, were more clear than Trump’s because the Obama administration had to lobby the public instead of acting unilaterally.
Obama:
In this 2013 photo, members of former President Barack Obama’s administration — Martin Dempsey, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel — appear before the Senate to make the case for military action in Syria. (Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press)
• Obama’s proposal to Congress: "The objective of the United States' use of military force in connection with this authorization should be to deter, disrupt, prevent, and degrade the potential for, future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction."
• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey in a House hearing: "(Obama) has directed me to plan for a militarily significant strike that would do the following: deter the Assad regime's further use of chemical weapons and degrade the regime's military capability to employ chemical weapons in the future. We've assembled target packages in line with those objectives. We have both an initial target set and subsequent target sets should they become necessary. The planned strikes will disrupt those parts of Assad's forces directly related to the chemical attack of 21 August; degrade his means of chemical weapons delivery; and finally, degrade the assets that Assad uses to threaten his neighbors and to defend his regime. Collectively, such strikes will send Assad a deterrent message, demonstrating our ability to hold at risk the capabilities he values most and to strike again if necessary."
• Secretary of State John Kerry in a Huffington Post article: "It would be a tailored action to make clear that the world will not stand by and allow the international norm against the use of chemical weapons to be violated with impunity by a brutal dictator willing to gas hundreds of children to death while they sleep. Our action would be a limited and targeted military action, against military targets in Syria, designed to deter Syria's use of chemical weapons and degrade the Assad regime's capabilities to use or transfer such weapons in the future."
Trump:
In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, a guided-missile destroyer launches a missile in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017. (via Associated Press)
• Trump in a statement to Congress two days after the strikes: "United States intelligence indicates that Syrian military forces operating from this airfield were responsible for the chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians in southern Idlib Province, Syria, that occurred on April 4. I directed this action in order to degrade the Syrian military's ability to conduct further chemical weapons attacks and to dissuade the Syrian regime from using or proliferating chemical weapons, thereby promoting the stability of the region and averting a worsening of the region's current humanitarian catastrophe."
• National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in a press briefing: "Obviously, the regime will maintain the certain capacity to commit mass murder with chemical weapons, we think, beyond this particular airfield. But it was aimed at this particular airfield for a reason because we could trace this murderous attack back to that facility. And this was not a small strike."
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on This Week: "The president was very clear in his message to the American people that this strike was related solely to the most recent horrific use of chemical weapons against women, children and, as the president said, even small babies. And so the strike was a message to Bashar al-Assad that your multiple violations of your agreements at the U.N., your agreements under the Chemical Weapons Charter back in 2013, that those would not go without a response in the future."
Rubio himself had the opportunity to question Obama administration officials about Syria in a September 2013 Senate hearing. There, he said he was concerned that Obama’s proposed operation was too narrow to degrade Assad’s chemical weapons abilities and deter future attacks — a position that conflicts with his current stance that Obama administration’s plans weren’t focused enough.
"Quite frankly, I'm a bit skeptical that the act, that what the president is asking for will provide the support needed to achieve these objectives and that these objectives are even realistic at this point," Rubio said. "It leads me to my second question: How confident are you, and how confident can you express to this committee, you are that we can, in fact, put in place a military plan that's limited in scope and duration, that can effectively degrade Assad's capability to carry out future chemical attacks?"
Dempsey replied, "I'm confident in the capabilities we can bring to bear to deter and degrade. And it won't surprise you to know that we will have not only an initial target set, but subsequent target sets should they become necessary."
Philip Gordon, who was the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf Region from 2013 to 2015, told PolitiFact that he doesn’t see any material difference between the Trump administration’s actions in 2017 and Obama’s proposed actions in 2013 that could lead a politician to change their position, other than political calculation.
Yes, the dynamics of the Syrian civil war have changed, in that Russia, Iran and ISIS now play larger roles, Gordon said, "But none of those are relevant to the core question at hand: Is this strike capable of deterring chemical weapons? That’s the stated goal of both presidents."
Our ruling
Rubio said the Obama administration’s 2013 Syria airstrike proposal "had no clear objective," while Trump’s Syria strike "had a clear strategic objective."
In 2013 Obama’s team made their goals clear through a days-long lobbying effort: to degrade Assad’s chemical weapons abilities and deter future attacks through targeted military strikes on facilities and resources related to the attack.
Trump in 2017, conversely, didn’t lobby Congress and the public because he launched his strike unilaterally. After the strike, his team said the action was designed to degrade a facility related to the chemical weapons attack and send a message that the United States doesn’t tolerate chemical weapons use.
There is little material difference between what Obama planned to do and what Trump actually did, in terms of goals and scope. We rate Rubio’s claim False.
About this statement:
07 February 2014
Syria's assad allied with al qaida terrorist group isis/isil in civil war & Al-Qaeda slaughters on Syria's killing fields & Syrian Activists Say Al-Qaida Stole Their Revolution 23&21JAN14&7FEB14
SYRIA'S assad claims the civil war raging in his country is a fight with terrorist. He is not lying, as this report from the PBS NewsHour states assad's military is not attacking areas held by al Qaida linked isis/isil. Consider this revelation from the broadcast; "Today,
however, a new argument was being made. And the opposition has made
this before, but this time, we heard it from seasoned Western diplomats,
who said, actually, that the Assad regime is in cahoots with the
al-Qaida-linked groups. And their proof is that in areas that ISIS, as
it’s called, these al-Qaida-linked groups control, the regime doesn’t
bomb.
They will bomb a town next door, and they don’t bomb Raqqa, the city that ISIS has taken control of. and furthermore, this Western diplomat alleged, ISIS is financing itself through oil revenues out of oil wells that essentially the regime is allowing them to have control over and operate." assad is taking a very dangerous risk. Consider how the American government's support of the taliban and other terrorist groups during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan turned out. When assad falls the terrorist he has allowed in will prolong the civil war and the suffering of the Syrian people. This video report is from Montreux, Switzerland during the failed peace talks, and is followed by reports on the al q terrorist in Syria from Aljazeera English and NPR...
TRANSCRIPT
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/al-qaeda-slaughters-syria-killing-fields-2014121112119453512.html
They will bomb a town next door, and they don’t bomb Raqqa, the city that ISIS has taken control of. and furthermore, this Western diplomat alleged, ISIS is financing itself through oil revenues out of oil wells that essentially the regime is allowing them to have control over and operate." assad is taking a very dangerous risk. Consider how the American government's support of the taliban and other terrorist groups during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan turned out. When assad falls the terrorist he has allowed in will prolong the civil war and the suffering of the Syrian people. This video report is from Montreux, Switzerland during the failed peace talks, and is followed by reports on the al q terrorist in Syria from Aljazeera English and NPR...
Published on Jan 23, 2014
Though open talks took a break for a
day, U.N. Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi met separately with
the Syrian government's delegation and the opposition, ahead of a
planned, mediated meeting between the two sides. Hari Sreenivasan gets
an update from chief foreign correspondent Margaret Warner, reporting
from Geneva.
http://youtu.be/ee0Hpl9H9KQ
GWEN IFILL:
As the Syrian peace talks in Switzerland took a break today to move
from Montreux to Geneva, the supporting drama continued with more heated
rhetoric from the opposition and from government representatives.
And, as Hari Sreenivasan reports, some are wondering whether the two sides will even keep their plans to meet tomorrow.
HARI SREENIVASAN: U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met separately today with the Syrian government’s delegation and the opposition in the wake of yesterday’s tense formal opening session.
QUESTION: Are you confident of being able to …
LAKHDAR BRAHIMI, U.N. Envoy to Syria: I’m not speaking.
HARI SREENIVASAN: He declined to comment on his conversations or about prospects for face-to-face talks that the two sides are supposed to hold tomorrow.
Ahmad Al-Jarba, head of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, reiterated again today that Syrian President Bashar-al Assad must go.
AHMAD AL-JARBA, president, Syrian National Council (through translator): It’s clear to us and to you that the regime is dead. I think that the world is convinced today that Assad is not staying and will not stay in power.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The Syrian government has repeatedly pushed back at that idea. And, today, the country’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said the Assad government’s priority is to focus on fighting terrorism in Syria, not to discuss peace. And he dismissed the Syrian National Coalition as not representative of the opposition.
Indeed, many of the civilian opposition groups refused to come, and none of the fighting forces, secular or Islamist, sent representatives. Instead, they have been fighting among themselves. Today, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri released an audio message urging the Islamists to unite.
Meanwhile, the president of Iran called for elections to decide Syria’s future. Hassan Rouhani addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, after his country was barred from yesterday’s peace talks.
PRESIDENT HASSAN ROUHANI, Iran (through translator): We must pave the wave for the opposition and the government to sit at the table of negotiations and dialogue. The best solution is a free election in Syria. We must all respect whatever the people vote for.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Iran’s support has helped President Assad’s forces make important military gains in recent months. Perhaps with that in mind, Secretary of State John Kerry said today it’s obvious that, for now, Assad is not ready to step down.
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner is in Geneva.
So, Margaret, given all that happened yesterday, are these two sides likely to meet face-to-face tomorrow?
MARGARET WARNER: They are, Hari, and we have been told that, today, Brahimi had meetings — that is Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special envoy — with both sides, and they have agreed on an M.O. for tomorrow.
They will meet at the Palais des Nations right here and they will start in the same room. And Brahimi will propose to them what he is thinking of. They will speak through each person’s, each side’s representative to Brahimi, not to one another. Great care has been taken to make sure that nothing explodes, you don’t have a situation like yesterday.
Then, once that’s happened, they will each retire to different rooms. And from then, the question is, will that then amount to turning to shuttle diplomacy, with Brahimi going from room to room, or will they return and again in this very structured way exchange ideas through Brahimi?
HARI SREENIVASAN: Even though they are in the same room, they are going to speak through Brahimi.
How much did what happened yesterday and how much could it impact the rest of this conversation?
MARGARET WARNER: Well, interestingly, Hari, the opposition, which had to really be pressured to even come here by the West and its backers, comes out of the meeting in Montreux, with a little bit of wind in its sails.
And the belief is among apparently Syrians in Syria and certainly among many of the world powers that Jarba, the leader of the Syrian opposition, who is really a neophyte to the international stage, did better than Foreign Minister Moallem, just in terms of style.
That is, as we discussed yesterday, Foreign Minister Moallem was very histrionic, very aggressive in his language, very sort of bloody and violent in his terminology, and never talked about the future that they see, and that Jarba, while he also had a litany of grievances, did actually speak to the Syrian people about the kind of inclusive Syria he hoped to see.
So, that said, the Western backers of the opposition have said to him, all right, you don’t represent all of the Syrian people, as you well know. Now is the time to try to capitalize on this little bit of a boost you have given yourself by not rising to the bait of Moallem’s comments yesterday and try to expand your circle.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What about that reservation that we have talked about that not all the people who are fighting on the ground in the opposition are actually represented in the room?
MARGARET WARNER: In fact, none of those really fighting on the ground are even in the room.
And that has to do with a lot of the complicated politics of the fighting forces at the moment, where, as we have explained — as you explained in the setup, they’re fighting a two-front war. So they have no fighting forces here. Some of the civilian groups declined to come. And so that is an Achilles’ heel for the Syrian opposition coalition, absolutely.
And this is why it is very, very important not to prove — for them not to prove the Syrian government right, and to actually be able to in a month or two claim to speak for a broader representation of the Syrian — all the factions that are contending there.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What about if the foreign minister of Syria says this is only to talk about fighting terrorism, not about Bashar al-Assad stepping down? What if that is the limit of what he wants to talk about?
MARGARET WARNER: Well, you are right. He has repeated that again today.
And, of course, the substantive answer is what Secretary Kerry said yesterday, that the only reason there are all these foreign jihadis in there is because Assad’s brutality has created this chaotic situation.
Today, however, a new argument was being made. And the opposition has made this before, but this time, we heard it from seasoned Western diplomats, who said, actually, that the Assad regime is in cahoots with the al-Qaida-linked groups. And their proof is that in areas that ISIS, as it’s called, these al-Qaida-linked groups control, the regime doesn’t bomb.
They will bomb a town next door, and they don’t bomb Raqqa, the city that ISIS has taken control of. and furthermore, this Western diplomat alleged, ISIS is financing itself through oil revenues out of oil wells that essentially the regime is allowing them to have control over and operate.
So, if that is demonstrated to be true, essentially, what they’re saying is, you want to talk about terrorism, let’s talk about terrorism. And the charge is that the Assad government is deliberately encouraging these al-Qaida foreign fighters, some of whom used to get have, you know, in Syria long ago during the occupation of Iraq, that they’re using that to demonstrate to the West that, in fact, the choice is what this diplomat called the big lie: It’s Assad or al-Qaida.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Margaret Warner joining us from Geneva, thanks so much.
MARGARET WARNER: Thank you, Hari
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world-jan-june14-syria-01-23/
And, as Hari Sreenivasan reports, some are wondering whether the two sides will even keep their plans to meet tomorrow.
HARI SREENIVASAN: U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met separately today with the Syrian government’s delegation and the opposition in the wake of yesterday’s tense formal opening session.
QUESTION: Are you confident of being able to …
LAKHDAR BRAHIMI, U.N. Envoy to Syria: I’m not speaking.
HARI SREENIVASAN: He declined to comment on his conversations or about prospects for face-to-face talks that the two sides are supposed to hold tomorrow.
Ahmad Al-Jarba, head of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, reiterated again today that Syrian President Bashar-al Assad must go.
AHMAD AL-JARBA, president, Syrian National Council (through translator): It’s clear to us and to you that the regime is dead. I think that the world is convinced today that Assad is not staying and will not stay in power.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The Syrian government has repeatedly pushed back at that idea. And, today, the country’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said the Assad government’s priority is to focus on fighting terrorism in Syria, not to discuss peace. And he dismissed the Syrian National Coalition as not representative of the opposition.
Indeed, many of the civilian opposition groups refused to come, and none of the fighting forces, secular or Islamist, sent representatives. Instead, they have been fighting among themselves. Today, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri released an audio message urging the Islamists to unite.
Meanwhile, the president of Iran called for elections to decide Syria’s future. Hassan Rouhani addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, after his country was barred from yesterday’s peace talks.
PRESIDENT HASSAN ROUHANI, Iran (through translator): We must pave the wave for the opposition and the government to sit at the table of negotiations and dialogue. The best solution is a free election in Syria. We must all respect whatever the people vote for.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Iran’s support has helped President Assad’s forces make important military gains in recent months. Perhaps with that in mind, Secretary of State John Kerry said today it’s obvious that, for now, Assad is not ready to step down.
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner is in Geneva.
So, Margaret, given all that happened yesterday, are these two sides likely to meet face-to-face tomorrow?
MARGARET WARNER: They are, Hari, and we have been told that, today, Brahimi had meetings — that is Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. special envoy — with both sides, and they have agreed on an M.O. for tomorrow.
They will meet at the Palais des Nations right here and they will start in the same room. And Brahimi will propose to them what he is thinking of. They will speak through each person’s, each side’s representative to Brahimi, not to one another. Great care has been taken to make sure that nothing explodes, you don’t have a situation like yesterday.
Then, once that’s happened, they will each retire to different rooms. And from then, the question is, will that then amount to turning to shuttle diplomacy, with Brahimi going from room to room, or will they return and again in this very structured way exchange ideas through Brahimi?
HARI SREENIVASAN: Even though they are in the same room, they are going to speak through Brahimi.
How much did what happened yesterday and how much could it impact the rest of this conversation?
MARGARET WARNER: Well, interestingly, Hari, the opposition, which had to really be pressured to even come here by the West and its backers, comes out of the meeting in Montreux, with a little bit of wind in its sails.
And the belief is among apparently Syrians in Syria and certainly among many of the world powers that Jarba, the leader of the Syrian opposition, who is really a neophyte to the international stage, did better than Foreign Minister Moallem, just in terms of style.
That is, as we discussed yesterday, Foreign Minister Moallem was very histrionic, very aggressive in his language, very sort of bloody and violent in his terminology, and never talked about the future that they see, and that Jarba, while he also had a litany of grievances, did actually speak to the Syrian people about the kind of inclusive Syria he hoped to see.
So, that said, the Western backers of the opposition have said to him, all right, you don’t represent all of the Syrian people, as you well know. Now is the time to try to capitalize on this little bit of a boost you have given yourself by not rising to the bait of Moallem’s comments yesterday and try to expand your circle.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What about that reservation that we have talked about that not all the people who are fighting on the ground in the opposition are actually represented in the room?
MARGARET WARNER: In fact, none of those really fighting on the ground are even in the room.
And that has to do with a lot of the complicated politics of the fighting forces at the moment, where, as we have explained — as you explained in the setup, they’re fighting a two-front war. So they have no fighting forces here. Some of the civilian groups declined to come. And so that is an Achilles’ heel for the Syrian opposition coalition, absolutely.
And this is why it is very, very important not to prove — for them not to prove the Syrian government right, and to actually be able to in a month or two claim to speak for a broader representation of the Syrian — all the factions that are contending there.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What about if the foreign minister of Syria says this is only to talk about fighting terrorism, not about Bashar al-Assad stepping down? What if that is the limit of what he wants to talk about?
MARGARET WARNER: Well, you are right. He has repeated that again today.
And, of course, the substantive answer is what Secretary Kerry said yesterday, that the only reason there are all these foreign jihadis in there is because Assad’s brutality has created this chaotic situation.
Today, however, a new argument was being made. And the opposition has made this before, but this time, we heard it from seasoned Western diplomats, who said, actually, that the Assad regime is in cahoots with the al-Qaida-linked groups. And their proof is that in areas that ISIS, as it’s called, these al-Qaida-linked groups control, the regime doesn’t bomb.
They will bomb a town next door, and they don’t bomb Raqqa, the city that ISIS has taken control of. and furthermore, this Western diplomat alleged, ISIS is financing itself through oil revenues out of oil wells that essentially the regime is allowing them to have control over and operate.
So, if that is demonstrated to be true, essentially, what they’re saying is, you want to talk about terrorism, let’s talk about terrorism. And the charge is that the Assad government is deliberately encouraging these al-Qaida foreign fighters, some of whom used to get have, you know, in Syria long ago during the occupation of Iraq, that they’re using that to demonstrate to the West that, in fact, the choice is what this diplomat called the big lie: It’s Assad or al-Qaida.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Margaret Warner joining us from Geneva, thanks so much.
MARGARET WARNER: Thank you, Hari
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world-jan-june14-syria-01-23/
More than 1,000 Syrians flee al-Qaeda-linked group as they mow down children and behead prisoners in cold blood.
Isabel Hunter
Last updated: 21 Jan 2014 15:31
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Syrian who fled Jarabulus found refuge across the border in Karkamis, Turkey [Isabel Hunter/Al Jazeera]
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| Karkamis, Turkey
- Al-Qaeda fighters have struck a bloody blow in scenes of medieval
violence in Syria's northern border-town of Jarabulus. Fighting came to a
head on January 17, between rebel groups Liwa al-Tawhid Brigade and the
al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the
town, when reinforcements arrived from Raqqa and reclaimed the city in a
brutal four-hour battle. By nightfall, at least 10 men had been beheaded, their heads mounted on spikes, and more than 1,000 refugees fled the 3kms across the border to Turkey. It's a shocking turn of events for residents and Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters alike, who just a week ago believed they were hours away from expelling the al-Qaeda group from their city altogether after surrounding the last 40 fighters in the city's cultural centre. But when an ISIL car bomb killed 33 people - all women and children - the FSA brigade called for backup. Instead, what arrived was a 70-car ISIL convoy from Raqqa, an ISIL stronghold 160kms to the south-east. Fighters say half of the militants wore their usual black uniform and half wore camouflage like the FSA, and were uncharacteristically clean-shaven. The disguised fighters tied white bands around their arms to distinguish themselves from the real FSA. Beheadings More than 100 men were taken from their homes and escorted to the main square for what turned into a bloodbath. Muhammad Jader, 22, and his uncle Ali, 35, were among those arrested. "They lined us up against the wall," Jader told Al Jazeera, "and the emir told them not to waste bullets. Suddenly they grabbed one guy and pinned him down on his stomach. Then one man from ISIL put his knee on his back, shouted 'Allahu Akbar' and cut off his head with a knife."  One was beheaded because they found cigarettes in his pocket. Approximately 40 men were mowed down by a spray of automatic gunfire in a show of reckless and wanton violence. The surviving men were then questioned about their connections to the FSA - even giving the rebels a glass of water earned the person a death sentence. Shocked and shaking, the two men could barely believe they had survived, but despite being released, they knew they were still being hunted, so they made a break for the border. Six of the beheaded were from the Jader family, one of the first to rise up against ISIL in the city. Contrary to initial reports, the men were not leaders of the battalion, but were targeted for their family ties. They have been identified as Hussein Jader, 18; Ahmad Jader, 20, a soldier who had defected from Bashar al-Assad's army; Murat Kirkez Jader, 25; Amar Jader, 40; Ibrahim Jader, 55; and Abdo Jader, 60. In addition to the Jader family, the Jubanat clan was also targeted in the revenge killing. Ali told Al Jazeera that 12 women and children, including a two-year-old, were found slaughtered in their house. Neighbours say ISIL came for the men but massacred the family in their absence. Al-Qaeda's extreme tactics goes a long way to explain how they have reclaimed much of the territory in northern Syria. Despite being fewer in number than the opposing rebel factions, their use of terror and increasing use of attacks on civilians is winning out. Now controlling the entirety of Jarabulus, ISIL has called upon international NGOs previously active in the area to restart their operations. However since the violence began, streams of civilians have crossed the border into Turkey. Aid organisations say more than 1,000 people have arrived in the past few days, with many more fleeing to neighbouring towns in Syria. 'They killed everyone' Most of the refugees are from the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps that surround Jarabulus.
In a small, makeshift community centre across the border in Karkamis, approximately 250 men, women and children await help. Women and children sleep in the cramped, sparse but warm space, while the men stay outside in the street and all share just two toilets. Mohammed Sulaiby carried his 75-year-old mother, Suad, on his back from Jarabulus because she is too weak to walk. A diabetic, Suad hasn't had insulin for days - her blood sugar level has reached dangerous levels, her son said. "People don't have money and it's expensive here," he told Al Jazeera. "We've been here for three days and no one has helped us. The children are sick and everyone is hungry." A spokeswoman from AFAD, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Committee, said it is the responsibility of the refugees to register themselves with the organisation. She said, "We are dealing with the problem, but they need to apply to us. Karkamis Camp may be full, but then we can bus them to other camps." But this does little for 20-year-old Wafa Turkmani, who is a mother of one, four months pregnant, and has no idea where to go next. Like many of the families who have crossed the border, all she wants is to get into a Turkish government camp, but said she has been told to fend for herself. "We went to Nizip at first," she said, "but the Turkish official there said we had to come back to Karkamis. He told us we had two options - either go back to Syria, or stay with relatives or friends in Turkey because the camp is full." "We are here alone with no food and no money, and why would we go back to Jarabulus? They killed everyone and put their heads on spikes. We're terrified." |
Syrian Activists Say Al-Qaida Stole Their Revolution
In the last three years, rebels fighting President Bashar Assad
have taken control of swaths of northern Syria. In some areas, local
councils were set up. Activists hoped for a freer future. But renegade
jihadists, linked to al-Qaida, have stormed into these "liberated areas"
and attacked activists who launched the uprising against Assad's
regime.
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/07/272932734/syrian-activists-say-al-qaida-stole-their-revolution
30 August 2013
Internal Documents Reveal How the FBI Blew Fort Hood 27AUG13
HERE is another example of a spectacular failure of the fbi to use the tools they have developed to stop an act of terrorism. Before I go any further I will state again I am against the government spying and surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden as it has been administered. The fbi and nsa and other agencies have violated the extremely lax rules governing the patriot act which allows the government to monitor American citizens. But the fbi could have gone to the fisa courts with the concerns they had to get a court order allowing surveillance and monitoring of these two cases, giving them at least the appearance of legality. The first case concerns the Boston Marathon bombing on 15APR13. The Russian government had warned the fbi about the radical Islamic beliefs of tamerlan tsarnaev but there was no followup. Now we find out, the week US Army Major nidal hasan was sentenced to death for the murder of 13 at a Ft Hood, TX medical center on 5NOV09. Again, the fbi had reason to monitor the e mails of nidal hasan, he was, after all, in the US Army but e mailing known terrorist anwar al-awlaki, with hasan's e mails expressing increasingly violent radical Islamic beliefs. Yet the fbi failed to pursue leads that may have prevented this tragedy. The preventable loss of life makes one angry, the fact that the fbi knew, and did nothing makes one furious. Repiglicans and tea-baggers deride the alleged waste, fraud and abuse of social safety net programs as reason to cut their funding to force the agencies to tighten up and administer the programs properly. The recently released report on the federal budget for the "intelligence community" ( U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives detailed in ‘black budget’ summary 29AUG13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and.html ) exposes the tens of billions allocated to these agencies, including the fbi. With these tragic intelligence failures one has to wonder if the repiglicans and tea-baggers will call for cuts in the "black budget" to force them to tighten up and administer the programs properly? NAH, that would threaten the profit margins of the military-industrial complex, and we can't have that, can we? This from Mother Jones.....
Nearly a year before the massacre, the bureau intercepted emails between Nidal Hasan and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki that officials called "fairly benign." They are anything but.
| Tue Aug. 27, 2013 6:42 AM PDT
Last Thursday, as the jury in the trial of Nidal Hasan was deliberating, outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared on CBS News and discussed a string of emails between the Fort Hood shooter and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Islamic cleric with ties to the 9/11 hijackers. The FBI had intercepted the messages starting almost a year before Hasan's 2009 shooting rampage, and Mueller was asked whether "the bureau dropped the ball" by failing to act on this information. He didn't flinch: "No, I think, given the context of the discussions and the situation that the agents and the analysts were looking at, they took appropriate steps."
In the wake of the Fort Hood attacks, the exchanges between Awlaki and Hasan—who was convicted of murder on Friday—were the subject of intense speculation. But the public was given little information about these messages. While officials claimed that they were "fairly benign," the FBI blocked then-Sen. Joseph Lieberman's efforts to make them public as part of a two-year congressional investigation into Fort Hood. The military judge in the Hasan case also barred the prosecutor from presenting them, saying they would cause "unfair prejudice" and "undue delay."
As it turns out, the FBI quietly released the emails in an unclassified report on the shooting, which was produced by an investigative commission headed by former FBI director William H. Webster last year. And, far from being "benign," they offer a chilling glimpse into the psyche of an Islamic radical. The report also shows how badly the FBI bungled its Hasan investigation and suggests that the Army psychiatrist's deadly rampage could have been prevented.
Hasan first appeared on the bureau's radar in December of 2008—nearly a year before the Fort Hood massacre—when he emailed Awlaki to ask him whether serving in the US military was compatible with the Muslim faith. He also asked whether Awlaki considered those who died attacking their fellow soldiers "shaheeds," or martyrs.
At the time, Awlaki, who was killed by a US drone strike in 2011, was emerging as Al Qaeda's chief English-speaking propagandist. He was also known to have ties to several of the 9/11 hijackers, two of whom attended his mosque in San Diego.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, which was tracking Awlaki, intercepted Hasan's December email, along with another sent in January. A search of the Pentagon's personnel database turned up a man named Nidal Hasan who was on active military duty and was listed as a "Comm Officer" at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
Hasan first appeared on the FBI’s radar when he emailed Anwar al-Awlaki to ask if he considered US servicemen who died attacking fellow soldiers "shaheeds," or martyrs.
Normally, when the FBI unearths this kind of raw intelligence, it issues an Intelligence Information Report (IIR), which is shared with law enforcement agencies and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (This system was designed to prevent the kind of information bottlenecks that allowed the 9/11 plot to go undetected.) But the San Diego agents misinterpreted the "Comm Officer" label in Hasan's file to mean "communications officer" (in fact, it meant "commissioned officer") and believed that a person in this role might have access to IIRs. To avoid tipping him off, they skipped the report and sent a detailed memo requesting an investigation directly to the Washington, DC, Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency team overseen by the FBI that investigates terrorism cases in the capital. The message noted that Hasan's "contact with [Awlaki] would be of concern if the writer is actually the individual identified above."
The file languished for nearly two months before it was assigned to an agent for the Defense Criminal Investigative Services, who was on the task force. According to a 2011 report on the Fort Hood shootings by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, DCIS—a law enforcement agency within the Pentagon, which normally deals with fraud and cybercrime among military personnel and contractors—was ill-equipped to tackle a counterterrorism investigation.
Meanwhile, Hasan kept writing Awlaki. Between January and May 2009, he sent the radical cleric more than a dozen emails, and received two relatively benign responses. In one message, ostensibly about Palestinians firing unguided rockets into Israel, Hasan asked Awlaki whether "indiscriminately killing civilians" was acceptable. Two days later, he sent another message answering his own question: "Hamas and the Muslims hate to hurt the innocent but they have no choice if their going to have a chance to survive, flourish, and deter the zionist enemy. The recompense for an evil is an evil." (Hasan's emails contained a number of typos.)
The San Diego field office intercepted these missives, too. But the database where the FBI stored intercepted emails didn't automatically link messages from the same sender, so the staff didn't realize that Hasan's early 2009 emails were from the person who had set off alarms the previous December. Meanwhile, the Washington-based DCIS agent assigned to investigate Hasan put off his inquiry for another 90 days, the maximum allowed under joint task force rules, before conducting a cursory investigation. Over the course of four hours on May 27, 2009, he ran Hasan's name through several databases to see if the psychiatrist had been targeted in previous counterterrorism probes. He also reviewed Hasan's Pentagon personnel file. Hasan's officer evaluations were mostly positive, and the chair of psychiatry at Walter Reed had written that Hasan's research on Islamic beliefs regarding military service had "extraordinary potential to inform national policy and military strategy."
Soldiers mourn before a memorial for Fort Hood victims. San Antonio Express-News/ZUMApress.com
The Senate investigation later found these reports "bore no resemblance to the real Hasan, a barely competent psychiatrist whose radicalization toward violent Islamist extremism alarmed his colleagues and his superiors." Nevertheless, the DCIS investigator concluded, based on Hasan's file, that the Army psychiatrist had contacted Awlaki in connection with his academic research and "was not involved in terrorist activity." The DCIS investigator and a supervisory agent in the Washington field office debated interviewing Hasan or his superiors. They ultimately decided doing so could jeopardize the Awlaki investigation or harm Hasan's career.
Advocates for Fort Hood victims find this decision puzzling. "A US Army major is writing to this imam and essentially asking for religious sanction to kill American soldiers," said attorney Reed Rubinstein, who represents a group of victims who are suing the federal government. "And the FBI's Washington field office doesn't even interview the man or make a phone call to his superiors. It's utterly incomprehensible."
In May 2009, around the time the Washington field office wrapped up its Hasan investigation, Hasan's emails to Awlaki took an ominous turn. In one message, he said he had "heard a speaker defending suicide bombings as permissible" and laid out the speaker's rationale:
For example, he reported a recent incident were an American Soldier jumped on a grenade that was thrown at a group of soldiers. In doing so he saved 7 soldiers but killed himself…So, he says this proves that suicide is permissible in this example because he is a hero. Then he compares this to a soldier who sneaks into an enemy camp during dinner and detonates his suicide vest to prevent an attack that is know to be planned the following day.
Hasan made the case that the second act was as heroic as the first. He then delved into the question of "'collateral damage' where a decision is made to allow the killing of innocents for a valuable target."
"I would assume that suicide bomber whose aim is to kill enemy soldiers or their helpers but also kill innocents in the process is acceptable," he wrote.
An FBI agent in the San Diego field office, whom the Webster report identifies as "SD-Agent," reviewed this email, but again failed to link it to the Hasan case. He ultimately determined it was "Not a Product of Interest." On June 11, the same agent read the Washington task force's report on the Hasan investigation. While he still didn't connect the dots with the message he read, the agent was dismayed that the investigation hadn't gone deeper and considered the justification for not interviewing Hasan "weak excuses." His colleagues in San Diego agreed. In fact, according to the Webster Commission, one of them believed Hasan must have been a confidential source—why else would the Washington office conduct such a perfunctory investigation?
At this point, SD-Agent asked the DCIS investigator on his team to press his Washington counterpart to dig deeper, after which the San Diego DCIS agent sent Washington an email asking why the investigation was so "slim." In a follow-up phone call, he explained that San Diego would have at least interviewed Hasan. According to the Webster Commission, the Washington DCIS agent dismissed these concerns, saying the Washington field office "doesn't go out and interview every Muslim guy who visits extremist websites" and stressing that the subject was "politically sensitive." (The Webster report notes that the quotes are not verbatim).
The chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee faulted the FBI and the Pentagon for failing to act on information that "with the clarity of hindsight just shouts out, 'Stop this guy before he kills somebody!'"
According to the FBI's policy for resolving interoffice investigative disputes, at this point the San Diego field office should have communicated its concerns up the chain of command. But that didn't happen. What's more, none of the FBI agents involved thought to query the bureau's database of intercepted electronic communications. Had they done so, the Webster Commission found, they would have uncovered other emails that "undermined the assumption" that Hasan had contacted Awlaki "simply to research Islam."
Within days of the mid-June confrontation between San Diego and Washington, Hasan was transferred to Fort Hood, Texas, where he counseled soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. He also bought a FN Herstal Five-seveN semiautomatic pistol and 5.7x28 mm bullets, a combination know for its armor-piercing capabilities.* That October, he received word that he would be deploying to Afghanistan, but that never happened. On November 5, Hasan marched into a deployment processing center at Fort Hood and opened fire, killing 13 people—including a pregnant soldier, who curled up on the floor and pled, "My baby! My baby!"—before the Army psychiatrist was shot and paralyzed. According to the congressional investigation, SD-Agent immediately pegged Hasan as the culprit. "You know who that is?" he asked one of his analysts. "That's our boy."
Reports of Hasan's contact with Awlaki quickly surfaced in the media, but the contents of the emails were not made public. On November 8, 2009, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee launched its investigation. According to a former Senate staffer who was involved in the inquiry, the committee struggled to get information from the FBI, which was reluctant to hand over the Awlaki emails and refused to let congressional investigators interview the agents involved. "The FBI insisted that it would have a chilling effect on the people making front-line decisions if they had to worry constantly about Congress calling them in to explain their actions," the staffer said.
The bureau eventually agreed to let congressional investigators review the emails, but only inside a secure facility. They weren't allowed to copy the messages or write about them on computers that were connected to the internet, much less discuss them in their final report. Nevertheless, when he presented the committee's findings in February 2011, then-Sen. Lieberman faulted the FBI and the Pentagon for failing to act on information that, "with the clarity of hindsight just shouts out, 'Stop this guy before he kills somebody!'"
In July 2012, the Webster Commission released its report, but the document went largely unnoticed. Besides describing the FBI's missteps in the Hasan case, the report delved into the underlying institutional problems—including shortcomings in the bureau's training, information-sharing, and intelligence-gathering policies—and proposed a series of reform recommendations. The FBI declined to comment for this story, but it issued a statement saying that it "concurs with the principles underlying all the recommendations and has already taken action to implement them."
Many of the issues in the Hasan case—particularly the breakdown in interagency communication—are reminiscent of the intelligence failures prior to the 9/11 attacks. One member of the Webster Commission told Mother Jones that the problems with information sharing have actually grown worse since 9/11 because of "the information explosion."
"Every year the amount of data is doubling," he said. "The sheer amount of information that might result from legitimate surveillance—or, in a criminal context, a legitimate wiretap—is mind boggling compared to what it was 10 years ago." He added that the FBI in particular has struggled to manage the surge in intelligence data, as its focus has shifted to counterterrorism, which wasn't central to its mission before 9/11.
On Friday, a panel of senior military officers found Hasan guilty of 13 counts of murder. This week, they'll decide whether to give him death or a life sentence. But the final verdict on the FBI's actions has yet to be delivered. A group of more than 100 Fort Hood victims and victims' relatives has filed suit claiming that the government's "gross negligence" and "reckless disregard" for the lives of Fort Hood residents and staff paved the way for the tragedy. "The attack should not have happened," says Lisa Bahr Pfund, whose daughter, a Fort Hood victim and a plaintiff in the case, took a bullet to the back and suffers from pain so severe that she can't sit for more than a half hour at a stretch. "It would not have happened if that information was handled properly."
The damning paper trail laid out in the Webster report should give the plaintiffs ample ammunition.
Clarification: An earlier version of this article referred to Hasan purchasing an "armor-piercing pistol." He in fact bought a pistol and ammunition that are armor piercing when used in combination.
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