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Thanks for the narrative Rayzur. You bring impeccable information to the table and great news items on a truly gigantic outcome riding on the taking or not of Kobane.

I am continually amazed at the nuances of all the ME.  Relationships defined by going back to their never forgotten enemies (brothers??), lack of trust, tribal differences and not forgotten past skirmishes n battles that define their allegiances. A Crazy melting pot of history!!

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RE: FSA peeps in Kobane: They are led by Col. Abdul-Jabbar Mohammed al-Aqidi, is an  old timer and been around for years commanding FSA troops against Assad. He is a former Colonel of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) having defected in early 2012.

 

He was the top commander of FSA meeting with a Top commander of the YPG, Sipah Hamo, in the city of Afrin (north of Aleppo, in order to formalize their agreement to fight against a common enemy ISIS. On 27 Aug 2014, both parties have agreed to create a common front to fight against ISIS which is preparing for new offensive in north of Aleppo to seize the border crossing with Turkey (Kobane)....

 

It is noted that In some videos circulated on the internet last year, Aqidi was appearing with extremists with speaking anti-Kurdish remarks..... however a year later in Au he went to the YPG asking for their cooperation in fighting ISIS... The rise of ISIS generated one hck of a game of musical chairs in terms of alliances... 

 

Here is a photo of the group at that meeting....

 

ypg_fsa.jpg?w=604&h=326:

 

If nothing else those with concern about FSA in Kobane, may find some relief knowing  they have been there all along and the new ones entering are likewise troops from this Colonels command and who were part of the agreement with YPG to fight together....

BTW, YPG General Afrin, remains top commander of all troops in Kobane, with all new arrivals from FSA and Pesh, including the Colonel, coming under her command........

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The forward team for Pesh went in with FSA to Kobani the other day with trucks. "Today" its reported there have have been so many air strikes near Kobane they they lost count. Its covering for the larger group of Pesh to go into Kobane on the west side  with heavy weapons.

 

 

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Info from within Kobane over the pat few days has been limited. Likely an aspect of re-org or realign in execution of new strategies available with the heavy armor now at their disposal. The following article is a fairly good overview of what is coming out about Kobane and Iraq in general....

In Iraq its now been confirmed that ISIS killed  600 prisoners from the prison near Mousel and over 322 men women and children of Albu Nimr tribe that opposed them in Iraq. Apparently the executions of the are continuing.....

For those following the Yazidis on Sinjar, there are reports of a massive attack against IS in that area by the Peshmerga and YPG working together to free those refugees...

Meantime, there have been numerous videos of the IS men talking about going to the slave auction of Yazidi girls and women, (over 7000 kidnapped and to be sold)... These videos are taken down by YouTube as soon as they find them. I though about posting some of them, but you'd have to look at them almost as soon as I post as they go down pretty quick.. and I would post them for no other reason than to highlight the reality of what is happening and underscoring just how brutal and despicable are these men of IS. 

The sick magnet of IS continues to draw every lost insecure whacko from the world and hundreds pour into various outlets (Turkey) to join the beardos in their fight. I would love to see the US lead the world in legislation that revokes the citizenship of any US person who joins the fight of IS, which is genuinely fighting with an enemy against this country... As it stands anyone joining IS can return here to the US with little consequence except spending our tax dollars to follow them...

If not that, at the very least I would suggest if they return, they be regarded  as an enemy of the state and treated as such in some confined facility that keeps them all together and deprograms (or something like that).

 

 

 

By Mariam Karouny and Omer Berberoglu

BEIRUT/MURSITPINAR, Turkey, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish fighters have joined the fight against Islamic State militants in Kobani, hoping their support for fellow Kurds backed by U.S.-led air strikes will keep the ultra-hardline group from seizing the Syrian border town.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the civil war, said heavy clashes erupted in Kobani and that both sides had suffered casualties, while the U.S. military said it had launched more air raids on Islamic State over the weekend.

Idriss Nassan, deputy minister for foreign affairs in Kobani district, said Iraqi Kurds using long-range artillery had joined the battle on Saturday night against Islamic State, which holds parts of Syria and Iraq as part of an ambition to redraw the map of the Middle East.

"The peshmerga joined the battle late yesterday and it made a big difference with their artillery. It is proper artillery," he told Reuters.

"We didn't have artillery we were using mortars and other locally made weapons. So this is a good thing."

Nassan did not elaborate and it was not immediately possible to verify that progress against Islamic State had been made.

The arrival of the 150 Iraqi fighters -- known as peshmerga or "those who confront death" -- marks the first time Turkey has allowed troops from outside Syria to reinforce Syrian Kurds, who have been defending Kobani for more than 40 days.


ALL EYES ON KOBANI

"They are supporting the YPG. They have a range of semi-heavy weapons," said Jabbar Yawar, secretary general of the peshmerga ministry in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, referring to the main Syrian Kurdish armed group.

Eyewitnesses in the Mursitpinar area on the Turkish side of the border from Kobani said two rockets were fired on Saturday night.

A Reuters witness said fighting on Sunday was heavier than in the last two days, noting a strike in the late morning and the sound of three explosions.

Attention has focused on Kobani, seen as key test of the effectiveness of American air strikes, and of whether combined Kurdish forces can fend off Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot made up of Arabs and foreign fighters.

Air strikes have helped to foil several attempts by Islamic State, notorious for its beheading of hostages and opponents, to take over Kobani.

But they have done little to stop its advances, in particular in Sunni areas of western Iraq, where it has been executing hundreds of members of a tribe that resisted its territorial gains.

In their latest air strikes, U.S. military forces staged seven attacks on Islamic State targets in Syria on Saturday and Sunday and were joined by allies in two more attacks in Iraq, the U.S. Central Command said.

In the Kobani area, five strikes hit five small Islamic State units, while two strikes near Dayr Az Zawr 150 miles (240 km) to the southeast in Syria destroyed an Islamic State tank and vehicle shelters.

U.S. and partner nations hit small Islamic State units near the Iraqi cities of Baiji, north of Baghdad, and Falluja, in Anbar province to the west of the capital.

The ultra-hardline Islamic State regards Iraq's majoriy Shi'ites as infidels who deserve to be killed.

The group is expected to try and deploy suicide bombers to inflict mass casualties as Shi'ites prepare for the religious festival of Ashura, an event that has been marred by sectarian bloodshed in the past.

Two car bombs killed a total of 20 Shi'ite pilgrims in different parts of Baghdad on Sunday, police and medics said.

Shi'ite militias and Kurdish peshmerga fighters stepped in to try and fill a security vacuum after U.S,-funded Iraqi military forces crumbled in the face of an Islamic State onslaught in the north in June.

Islamic State inflicted humiliating defeats on the Kurds.

While the Kurds have retaken some territory with the support of U.S. air strikes in the north, Islamic State faces limited resistance in Iraq's western Anbar province, where its militants last week executed over 300 hundred members of the Albu Nimr tribe because it had defied the group for weeks.

In the first official confirmation of the scale of the massacre, the Iraqi government said Islamic State had killed 322 members of the tribe, including dozens of women and children whose bodies were dumped in a well.

The systematic killings, which one tribal leader said were continuing on Sunday, marked some of the worst bloodshed in Iraq since the Sunni militants swept through the north in June.

The Albu Nimr, also Sunni, had put up fierce resistance against Islamic State for weeks but finally ran low on ammunition, food and fuel last week as Islamic State fighters closed in on their village at Zauiyat Albu Nimr.

"The number of people killed by Islamic State from Albu Nimr tribe is 322. The bodies of 50 women and children have also been discovered dumped in a well," Iraq's Human Rights Ministry said.

Since Islamic State declared a "caliphate" in large areas of Syria and Iraq in June, the militants have lost hundreds if not thousands of fighters in battles against other Sunni rebels, Islamist groups, forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and in U.S.-led air strikes.

Fighters inside the group say that it receives hundreds of volunteers every month, which helps it carry our more attacks. It also received pledges of allegiances from Islamist groups in places such as Pakistan, Africa and some Arab states.

 

(Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher)

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For those following Sinjar:

 

 



Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga commanders on the Zumar – Sinjar front line have said that zero hour in the battle to liberate the Yazidi majority town of Sinjar in northern Iraq is nearing.
 
A Peshmerga commander who spoke on condition of anonymity, told BasNews that their forces have been planning an operation to free the town. Sinjar has been under the control of Islamic State militants for the last three months.
 
The commander also said that the have received new heavy artillery for the assault.
 
“The three main Peshmerga battalions have just arrived in the area to liberate Sinjar and clear it of IS insurgents,” said the Peshmerga commander.
 
He said that Peshmerga forces are currently on the outskirts of Snuny, a town about 25 km north of Sinjar. 
 
The commander said that since the liberation of the strategic town of Zumar last week, Kurdish forces have been getting themselves ready to attack Sinjar, coordinating with the United States-led coalition, which will attack IS militants from the air.
 
The Peshmerga commander also revealed that on Saturday night, US warplanes targeted IS positions in Tel Afar, a town north east of Sinjar.
Edited by Rayzur
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Raysur, I am of the opinion that removal of the citizenship status from these lice who go to the aid of ISIS is not enough.  They need to sought out, killed or arrested, their names removed from all US records: birth certificates, schools, churches, SS, etc., and no mention of their names in any newspaper, media, or message.  Any bank accounts or holdings should be confiscated and given to the people of Iraq whom they persecuted and killed.  They should become "non-persons" as far as the US is concerned.  

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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/18/Ted-Cruz-Senate-Democrats-Abandon-Hillarious-Clinton-s-Support-For-Revoking-U-S-Citizenship-From-Terrorists

 

by Matthew Boyle 18 Sep 2014

 

Senate Democrats Block Ted Cruz Bill Revoking U.S. Citizenship of Terrorists

 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday ripped U.S. Senate Democrats for blocking his bill that would revoke the U.S. citizenship of those who join the ISIS terrorist organization, noting that they are abandoning something Hillarious Clinton supported when she was Secretary of State.

 

 

The Democrats blocked Cruz’s bill on Thursday, a bill that would revoke citizenship from Americans who join ISIS. Cruz’s bill is very similar to one that then Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA)—who is now running in New Hampshire against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)—and then Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) offered a couple of years ago.

 

 

“As then-Secretary of State Hillarious Clinton said concerning the Brown-Lieberman legislation — quote — ‘United States citizenship is a privilege, it is not a right. People who are serving foreign powers or in this case foreign terrorists are clearly in violation of that oath which they swore when they became citizens.’ The Expatriate Terrorist Act of 2014 is only a very modest change to current law. It’s one small step in a larger and necessary effort to refocus our ISIS strategy that I urge President Obama to consider immediately.”

 

 

On the campaign trail last week in New Hampshire, Brown endorsed Cruz’s bill.

 

 

“When people are in ISIS and they’ve left their citizenship at the door, they made it crystal clear when they went there planning on fighting—they’re not coming back for a house with a picket fence, they’re coming back potentially using and hiding behind that citizenship,” Brown said in a press scrum at an event where Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) endorsed him. 

“I agree with Sen. Cruz. I’m glad he filed [that bill] and I filed twice already because they should not be able to hide behind the rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution, especially when they’re looking to hurt and kill our citizens,” Brown added.

 

 

Cruz had made an effort to seek unanimous consent to have his bill considered, and Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii objected on behalf of the Senate Democrats on the Senate floor. Cruz said then:

 

 

It seems only prudent to address this threat, and I am therefore going to be asking for unanimous consent for the Expatriate Terrorist Act or ETA of 2014, which will make fighting for ISIS, taking up arms against the United States, an affirmative renunciation of American citizenship—and I should note here that the ETA is very similar to the bipartisan legislation proposed by Senators Joe Lieberman and Scott Brown in 2010 to address Americans who were joining al Qaida overseas, notably the radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki, or here at home, like Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to blow up a car bomb in Times Square.

 

 

:cowboy2:

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Quote from TG:

The Democrats blocked Cruz’s bill on Thursday, a bill that would revoke citizenship from Americans who join ISIS.

 

I'm at a complete loss to understand why any one from any party would block this?!?!?! This is not even remotely a partisan issue (it would seem)!!! I just don't get it... Wow...

 

Thanks TG!!...

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Great piece on 60 minutes.... hopefully our elected tuned in and got conscious....Here's the link I don't know how to post just the video from this link... 

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/recruiting-for-isis-60-minutes/

 

And here is the transcript for those who don't want to watch:

 

The following is a script of "Recruiting for ISIS" which aired on Nov. 2, 2014. Clarissa Ward is the correspondent. Randall Joyce, producer.

This past week the U.S. government ordered stepped-up security at some 9,000 government buildings. This, in response to the attack on Canada's Parliament by a lone radicalized Muslim convert. Clarissa Ward, on assignment for 60 Minutes, reports why authorities in North America and Europe are keeping an increasingly close watch on homegrown Islamic extremists.

One of the most shocking things about the recent rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria has been the thousands of westerners who have given up everything to travel to a bloody battlefield far from home and live under strict Islamic Sharia law. But to understand the mentality of these jihadis, you don't need to travel to the Middle East. Across the West, ISIS has a committed support base that is actively recruiting young Muslims. We sought out a man at the heart of that movement, a British preacher who sees no border between the streets of London and the frontlines of the Middle East. Talking to him and his followers gives you a window into a world you may find disturbing and difficult to understand.

There are at least 500 U.K. citizens fighting in Syria and Iraq and every week, according to British police, another five recruits join the fight.

British jihadis have been on the front lines with ISIS from the very beginning. In the group's recent videos showing the executions of western hostages, the masked man holding the knife speaks with a London accent.

The spike in western fighters may be in part due to this man, Anjem Choudary, a British-born lawyer turned Islamic preacher, who lives in London and has for years been asserting his democratic right to call for an end to democracy.

choudary001.jpg

Anjem Choudary: I believe Islam is superior. And will not be surpassed. So I believe that the law of God is much superior to man-made law.

Clarissa Ward: So, in that sense, you believe that Islam and democracy are mutually exclusive? That they can't exist side-by-side?

Anjem Choudary: Allah is the only one to legislate. So, obviously, in that sense it's completely, diametrically opposed. You cannot have man legislating and playing God in Parliament, and at the same time believe that Allah is the only legislator.

Clarissa Ward: You have the freedom to come here today. You have the freedom to speak on television, to worship whichever God you please. But you're advocating a system that essentially would take away all of those freedoms?

Anjem Choudary: Allah created my tongue to speak. I don't have freedom to come here, because Allah created my feet to walk. So I walk, and I speak, and I look, and I hear according to what God says.

Choudary has been accused of inspiring hundreds of Muslims from across the West to join ISIS. We went to a meeting he held in an east London basement. On the wall was a large picture of Buckingham Palace turned into a mosque. He described the newly formed Islamic state in Iraq and Syria as a kind of utopia. Talking about jihad, he sounded at times like a coach giving a pep talk before the big game.

[Anjem Choudary: When the heavens are with you, when the earth is with you, when the sea is with you, when the wind is with you. Who's going to defeat you after that? Nobody.]

 

choudary-at-board001.jpg

Choudary has fronted a series of organizations that have been banned by the British government under the country's anti-terror laws, but he denies that he actively recruits fighters.

Anjem Choudary: You know, the messenger Mohammad, he said, "Fight them with your wealth, with your body, with your tongue." So, I'm engaged here, if you like, in a verbal jihad.

Clarissa Ward: But what you're actually doing essentially is inspiring young men to go and fight in these countries, while you stay here and enjoy a comfortable life...

Anjem Choudary: No, I mean...

Clarissa Ward: ...in the United Kingdom.

Anjem Choudary: ...this is a kind of, the rhetoric that the western media come out with. But, I mean, there are no examples of anyone, in fact, who is in any of the battle fronts, who actually say, "Well, actually, Mr. Choudary asked me to come here." Or, "He bought my ticket." You know? If it were the case...

Clarissa Ward: They wouldn't say that you bought...

Anjem Choudary: ...if it were the case...

Clarissa Ward: ...their ticket.

Anjem Choudary: Well, no if it were the case...

Clarissa Ward: But they might say that you inspired them with your message.

Anjem Choudary: There was a report out recently which said that I inspired 500 people, in fact, to carry out operations here and abroad. And if that were really the case, don't you think that I'd arrested be? And I'll be sitting in prison.

Clarissa Ward: So if a young man, one of your students, comes to you and says, "Should I go and fight in Syria or Iraq," what would you tell them?

Anjem Choudary: Well, they haven't come to me. And if they come to me I'll think about a suitable response. But I'm engaged...

Clarissa Ward: What would you tell them?

Anjem Choudary: I don't deal with hypotheticals.

Clarissa Ward: It's a hypothetical question.

Anjem Choudary: I don't deal with hypotheticals. I deal with reality. You know, I mean, there are many things that could happen, hypothetically. Young men come to me...


Clarissa Ward: Why won't you answer the question?

Anjem Choudary: Because it's a...

Clarissa Ward: It really should be an easy question.

Anjem Choudary: I like to deal with reality. If that happens, you can have another interview with me, and I'll deal with it.

But one week after our interview, Choudary was arrested "on suspicion of being a member of a proscribed or banned organization... and encouraging terrorism." Also rounded up in the raids, was one of his young followers, Abu Rumaysah.

[Abu Rumaysah: We want Islam. We want Islam to dominate the world.]

Talking to Rumaysah, you come face to face with a version of Islam that wipes out every other aspect of a person's identity. He is a convert from Hinduism but his new beliefs bar even the most basic human feelings towards his mother and other family members who didn't convert.

Abu Rumaysah: I don't love them as non Muslims, but I desire for them to become Muslim and embrace Islam.

Clarissa Ward: But you love her as your mother?

Abu Rumaysah: She's my mother and she has rights over me, so I have to take care of her. I have to look after her. I have to make sure that, you know, she's protected and secure. So I fulfill my obligations like that.

Clarissa Ward: But do you feel love for her?

Abu Rumaysah: It's not allowed for me to love non-Muslims. So that's something that is a matter of faith.

rumaysah001.jpg

Clarissa Ward: So do you feel that you are British?

Abu Rumaysah: I identify myself as a Muslim. If I was born in a stable, you know, I'm not going to be a horse. If was born in Nazi Germany, I'm not going to be a Nazi. I mean, this is just an island I was born in.

Rumaysah and Choudary both live in east London, which is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the U.K. In one part of town, Rumaysah and his associates have set up so called "Sharia patrols" to go out and discourage behavior that they deem un-Islamic.

On this night they stopped to talk to a couple of non-Muslim men who were in a park drinking beer, which is forbidden under Islam.

[Male voice: So we're just reminding anyway. Reminding the community about staying safe. And in this area there's a lot of gambling that goes on. A lot of alcohol drinking and it leads to a lot of problems. So we advise you and we advise anyone we see to stay away from these things.]

But the patrols are not always so friendly. Online clips give a very different picture.

A woman in a short skirt is abused. A man the patrol thinks is *** is insulted.

Walking through London with Rumaysah you experience an alternate reality where there is no compromise and all conversations are one sided.

Abu Rumaysah: Ultimately, I want to see every single woman in this country covered from head to toe. I want to the see the hand of the thief cut. I want to see adulterers stoned to death. I want to see Sharia law in Europe. And I want to see it in America as well. I believe our patrols are a means to an end.

Clarissa Ward: The only thing I would say is that in America and in the United Kingdom, we have a system: democracy.

Abu Rumaysah: A backwards one.

Clarissa Ward: But it's a system...

Abu Rumaysah: A barbaric one.

Clarissa Ward: ...that allows the people to choose what they want and allows people freedom.

Abu Rumaysah: So why can't I choose Sharia? When in Rome, overthrow Caesar and commit to Sharia.

Clarissa Ward: In your home, you can do whatever you want?

Abu Rumaysah: But what about in the public? Why can't I tell you to cover up? Am I free to say that?

Clarissa Ward: Because it would be outrageous. Of course, you're not...

Abu Rumaysah: So where's my freedom? Where's my freedom?

Clarissa Ward: You can say it to me, but you...

Abu Rumaysah: Okay. So cover up. Wear the hijab.

Clarissa Ward: That's absurd.

The thought of Choudary's supporters taking the law into their own hands is deeply frightening to most British people. This is a group that believes the West is at war with Islam. And that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan justify any kind of violence in response.

The most shocking example of that logic was the gruesome and very public murder of British soldier Lee Rigby on a London street last year. On that day the man wielding the knife was a known associate of Choudary.

Choudary has refused to condemn Rigby's murder. Nor will he criticize ISIS for the beheading of American journalist James Foley and other western hostages.

Anjem Choudary: You know, I don't know the details about James Foley, but...

Clarissa Ward: I know the details. Let me educate you, because he was a friend of mine.

Anjem Choudary: I don't believe you. I'm sorry, I don't believe you.

Clarissa Ward: You don't believe me that...

Anjem Choudary: The fact...

Clarissa Ward: ...James Foley was a journalist?

Anjem Choudary: I don't believe. No, I don't believe any western journalists, quite frankly. I believe you're liars until proven otherwise. But let me tell you something, the perspective of the Muslims of journalists, whether that be James Foley and others, is that they are the propaganda for the western regimes.

Clarissa Ward: Have you formed an opinion for yourself?

Anjem Choudary: I form my opinion on the basis of what the Muslims say, not on the basis of what you say.

Clarissa Ward: I'm sensing a double standard here. Because essentially you're very quick to condemn acts of violence by the West. But you refuse to condemn any act of violence by your fellow Muslims.

Anjem Choudary: No, I believe that there's a difference between the oppressor and oppressed.

Britain's authorities have struggled with how to handle extremists like Choudary and his followers. He has been arrested multiple times but never convicted of anything more than staging an illegal demonstration.

And now the police face a new challenge that is nearly impossible to manage: the spread of Islamic extremism through slickly produced online propaganda films from real fighters in real battlefields.

[british jihadi: We will chop off the heads of the Americans, chop off the heads of the French, chop off the heads of whoever you may bring.]

Those videos have proven wildly attractive to thousands of young people who feel alienated from the western societies they live in. For them, jihad offers the promise of power and glory.

Sir Peter Fahy is in charge of a government program called "Prevent," set up to combat the radicalization of British Muslims.

 

Sir Peter Fahy: I think the big concern about the current situation is just a huge amount of material which is available on social media, in the various publications and the various videos that I think a lot of us are struggling to come to terms with and get a good picture of.

Clarissa Ward: So in a sense, it's less about preachers radicalizing young men. And it's more young fighters radicalizing other young fighters from the battlefield using social media as their recruitment platform?

Sir Peter Fahy: I think you're absolutely right. That is my concern is that what has changed again over recent months is that you have got local people identifiable as real people. You've got, you know, a person who's identifiably British who's gone out there and is absolutely using social media to be able to communicate directly into your son or daughter's bedroom and to encourage them to come out. And I think that is extremely worrying as a new development. As I say, I think a lot of families and a lot of parents, including obviously Muslim parents, are very concerned about that.

Clarissa Ward: Bedroom jihad, they're calling it.

Sir Peter Fahy: Absolutely. It's almost that personal contact which is the worrying aspect. But, you know, we need to be aware of all different forms of brainwashing and radicalization.

Clarissa Ward: If their parents can't stop it, what can you do to stop it?

Sir Peter Fahy: Well, all we can do is raise awareness. But you're absolutely right. And we constantly agonize about whether this is a job for the police or not.

Britain's mainstream Muslim leaders are speaking out against ISIS and have discouraged young men in their communities from joining the fight. But the ongoing U.S.-led military campaign in Syria and Iraq has stoked anger and raised fears of terrorist retaliation attacks in the West.

Clarissa Ward: Do you believe that there will be more attacks in the West?

Anjem Choudary: Yes. I believe it's inevitable.

Clarissa Ward: If you believe that, would you ever use your role as a British citizen, and as a Muslim, to actively dissuade people from launching attacks here in the U.K., in the U.S., in the West?

Anjem Choudary: Well, I think we need to deal with the root causes. I think it's really absurd to say, "Well, why shouldn't people react?" The fact is if we don't deal with the root cause, which is the occupation of the Muslim land, which is the torture of Muslims, which is the foreign policy of governments like Britain and America, that you will never be able to stop people.

Clarissa Ward: So, just so I understand, you will continue to refuse to condemn acts of terror?

Anjem Choudary: Well, as I say, you know, I'm not in the game of condemnation or condoning.

Clarissa Ward: It's really just a yes-or-no question.

Anjem Choudary: Well, I don't want to answer you with a yes-or-no answer.

But Choudary, who is out on bail, will have to give answers when he reports to police in January. His case is a serious test of the government's strategy to fight extremism.

Edited by Rayzur
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Thank God that preachers of Christ still have the freedom in the US to speak freely of Him to others.  I am also in the recruiting business as a Child of God.  I work every day to teach and train Christians to spread the message of truth and reason in an unreasonable world.  But the teachings of God through the Bible are 180 degrees from anything being taught by the Muslim preachers.  

 Just reading this man's words sickens my stomach.  He knows nothing of true love, nothing of God, and nothing of his own need to be spiritually changed.  How great is his blindness!

But he is appealing to individuals who are disenfranchised from their parents, society, and are craving for direction and control of their own lives.  They see our society in the "Christian world" as fraudulent and farcical, filled with resentment and hate, and holding on to only a semblance of belief or understanding of God.  A society that has gone wild with personal pleasures and sin without the thought that God may be displeased. But the what is really revealing is that they do not care whether God is offended or not, as long as they are happy.  

We don't want to admit it, but we have created the garden for the harvesting of men like Abu Rumaysah by men Anjem Choudary.  

Until we starting living the life of harmony and peace and love that God's teaching brings, and until we start teaching others to live that life of thinking of others, we will remain the harvest field for infidels like Anjem Choudary.  

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A Synopsis of the Situation in Kobane

ypg-3.jpg?w=604&h=336

According to military, political and civilian sources in Kobane YPG has been gaining a momentum after successfully repelling strong ISIS attacks in eastern front which aimed at seizing the border crossing. Despite excessive many power and close combat in eastern front, YPG forces did not allow ISIS to advance.

With recent offensive in eastern front, ISIS hoped to seize the border gate to Turkey to totally suffocate the city and force YPG to surrender. Senior YPG sources report ISIS resorted to more than 20 car bombs in recent days, and all of these attacks were thwarted successfully with only some light YPG injuries.

One other reason for the recent ISIS attack on east was to prevent arrival of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmergas and heavy weaponry they brought along. As of November 3, the situation in eastern front is stable and ISIS members were further driven out from the border area. Kobane sources report that the failure of recent ISIS push caused demoralization of ISIS, and killing of 3 princes in last 48 further even worsened the situation on the ground.

On Sunday night clashes continued in East and South with some YPG advance reported. In Western front Kurdish peshermergas first time actively involved in a major assault. In this front YPG, “Euphrates Volcano” and Peshmerga forces carry out attack against ISIS positions in Abrus, Albalur and Minaz villages.

ypg-kobane.jpg?w=604&h=339

One other note is that US led coalition airstrikes have been playing a major role in destroying heavy ISIS weaponry which caused serious damages and destroyed many houses in the city. Sources in Kobane add that ISIS shelling decreased thanks to successful airstrikes.

However, it is still too early to conclude that the danger is over and ISIS is defeated. It is not secret that ISIS has made Kobane a matter of honor and will not give up easily. Therefore, despite recent major setbacks, ISIS forces in Kobane still receive reinforcements from Raqqa and surrounding cities, and some field commanders were replaced with new ones.

It is also reported that the arrival of peshmergas has brought a positive atmosphere for the Kurds and considerably lifted the spirit of YPG fighters on the frontline as well as the civilians in the city.

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Thanks rayzur this is my favorite read of my day now.

I cant belive these liberal a$$holes in washington will not revoke the citizenship of isis fighter and will allow them back in the US.

It just dont make sense. 

My hats off to the Kurds I wish we could offer more help.

This is a world problem thats just going to get bigger if we dont stop them now.

If I could have one wish I would wish for a military coup in this country and sort out in washington 

who is guilty of corruption and who isnt.  Repubs and Dems alike . Then replace them with honest hardworking patriotic citizens.

Those guilty would be place against the wall and shot as a reminder to the next group of leaders what can happen when

you turn on your own citizens. Sounds a bit harsh

But I think its damm well time for harsh. 

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An interesting take -

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/kobane-gift-assad-201411353822585523.html

 

 

Kobane is a gift to Assad
 
 
The trap is thinking the Assad regime has the answers to the challenges of extremism

 

 

This September 11, as Syria's President Bashar al-Assad celebrated his 49th birthday, you can imagine that he felt confident the direction of the conflict and the future of his rule were heading in the right direction.

For over three years as Syria's cities were both emptied and pulverised, Assad preached a single and unerring message - that the crisis was the fault of a wider conspiracy against the Syrian state and that it was being fuelled by foreign terrorists. The rise and rise of ISIL has fitted into this narrative perfectly with their acts of savage barbarism dominating the global headlines and their blitzkrieg into Iraq forcing the hand of US re-intervention in the region.

Today all eyes are on the small town of Kobane, a place many wouldn't have suspected to be touched by history but which was described by the Economist this week as "the Kurdish Stalingrad". The focus on the town and the role of Kurdish forces, ISIL and US air strikes have taken complete attention away from Assad's new offensive threatening to encircle rebels in Aleppo and a devastating new aerial campaign. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in less than a fortnight, Syrian warplanes have dropped at least 401 barrel bombs on rebel areas in eight provinces across the country.

Kobane is a gift to Assad, allowing the regime in Damascus to push militarily while simultaneously driving a diplomatic charm offensive positioning itself as the rational and moderate player in the increasingly bloody Middle East power equation. Bouthaina Shaaban, nominally an Assad "adviser" told veteran reporter Robert Fisk last week that Syria is suffering from a US attack against the state itself rather than an attempt at regime change. Shaaban suggested that "the conspiracy theory is no longer a 'theory' it is a reality we must confront together". But is the regime the victim of a conspiracy theory or the proponent of one?

Setting a trap

The conspiracy theory has long been a staple of the region and Kobane and the rise of ISIL has allowed Assad to set a trap into which more and more people are falling. The trap is thinking that the regime has the answers to the challenges of extremism without examining in closer detail their relationship to and with it. Much like talking to a pyromaniac about the problem of fires, the more we hear about ISIL, the more reasonable it would seem to be engaging with the regime.

This is partly due to the global nature of many of ISIL's fighters. A UN Security Council report revealed on Friday that some 15,000 foreign jihadis have travelled to Syria and Iraq from more than 80 countries to fight alongside ISIL and other groups. This has led to huge amounts of navel-gazing, especially in the West, as to issues of radicalisation and levels of domestic threat.

However, speaking last month at Chatham House, former UN/Arab League Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi reminded the audience that ISIL was born in Iraq. This birth was largely a cause of the state collapse that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of the country and subsequent disbanding of the Iraqi armed forces including the border guard some 35,000 strong.

Into these ungoverned spaces flowed foreign fighters seeking to join a Sunni insurgency allowed to flourish by the sectarian dynamics of the post-2003 Iraqi body-politic. Syria's border with Iraq became known as the "Ho Chi Minh Trail" for foreign fighters entering the country. Assad, wary of US success in Iraq leading to thoughts of unseating him, was happy to allow fighters to travel east.

While there is no clear evidence of the Assad regime having direct command and control of groups operating on the ISIL-spectrum there is certainly anecdotal evidence that Damascus was happy to see the extremist contagion as splitting opposition against him and appealing to the West's primary concern of global terrorism.

Assad withdrew his security forces from large swaths of the country as the scale of the rebellion became clear. Defecting Syrian intelligence officers have reported that Assad released known "Islamist militants" from prison to subvert the peaceful protests. Visitors to Aleppo reported earlier this year that while the Jabhat al-Nusra HQ was left untouched, Assad forces pounded the FSA facilities.

It is hard to know whether Assad, who had a long-standing extremist "challenge" from Jund al-Sham before the 2010 crisis, could ever have predicted how ISIL would grow in size and lethality. However, faced with a choice of enemies, ISIL at present serves the dual purpose for Damascus of splitting and hurting the opposition while keeping the attention of those who could pursue regime change on a different threat level.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel's "leaked memo" criticised Obama's plan for not having a clear policy towards Assad and Syria. Kobane is hiding the cracks in wider US policy, and its biggest impact is giving Assad a free hand to effectively consolidate its own conspiracy theory.

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Thanks for posting that TD! I saw that article and thought it a rather interesting analysis of some of the other issues going on in Syria... It will be interesting to see how things develop after Kobane in terms of FSA/YPG alignment...

 

In other news, also interesting I have read the following article in German, French, Spanish and saw it in all kinds of ME news as well as news all over Europe (Dutch, Swedish, etc)... and the only English article I can find this early in the day is from Syria written in English... Will be interesting to see how long it takes US News to pick it up... if ever.... (though I did see the Fox had picked something... it might have been this.. or it was Sinjar... too much info floating through my brain cells and too late at night)

 

November 4, 2014

ISTANBUL,—  Kurdish children from the Syrian city of Kobani (or Ain al-`Arab in Arabic) were tortured and abused while detained by Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Human Rights Watch said today. Four children gave detailed accounts of the suffering they endured while held for four months with about 100 other children.

The children, aged 14 to 16, were among 153 Kurdish boys whom ISIS abducted on May 29, 2014, as they traveled home to Kobani. According to Syrian Kurdish officials and media reports, ISIS released the last 25 of the children on October 29. Interviewed one by one in Turkey, where they had fled to safety after ISIS released them in late September, the four boys described enduring repeated beatings with a hose and electric cable, as well as being forced to watch videos of ISIS beheadings and attacks.

“Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, children have suffered the horrors of detention and torture, first by the Assad government and now by ISIS,” said Fred Abrahams, special advisor for children’s rights at Human Rights Watch.

 

“This evidence of torture and abuse of children by ISIS underlines why no one should support their criminal enterprise.”

ISIS initially stopped about 250 Kurdish students from Kobani as theywww.Ekurd.net traveled home after taking their middle school exams in Aleppo on May 29. ISIS released all the girls, around 100, within a few hours, but kept 153 boys at a school in Manbij, a town 55 kilometers southwest of Kobani.

About 50 of the boys escaped or were released between June and September, with about 15 of them apparently being exchanged for ISIS fighters held by the Kurdish armed group, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). In late September, ISIS released about 75 of the remaining boys, including those interviewed by Human Rights Watch. The four children did not know what prompted their release.

An official from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish political party administering Kobani, told Human Rights Watch that ISIS released the last 25 boys on October 29. The children are making their way to Turkey because of the fighting in Kobani, he said. 

 

According to the four children interviewed by Human Rights Watch, ISIS guards at the Manbij school beat the children who tried to escape, did poorly in compulsory religious lessons, or did anything else perceived by their captors as misbehaving. ISIS gave especially bad treatment to the boys from families that had a relative in the YPG, the children said.

“It was really those whose families were close to the YPG who suffered most,” said one of the boys, aged 15. “They [iSIS] told them to give them the addresses of their families, cousins, uncles, saying ‘When we go to Kobani we will get them and cut them up.’ They saw the YPG as kafir [unbelievers].”

The 15-year-old said ISIS guards used an electric cable to beat children on the hands, back, and soles of their feet, especially when they misbehaved. He described one incident:

One child who muttered “Oh Mother!” when he was caught in another group’s room was strung up, suspended with his hands tied behind his back, one foot tied to his hands, and told he should call on God, not his mother.

The four boys said ISIS divided the children into eight groups, with each group sleeping in a different classroom. Each child received three blankets:two to sleep on the floor and one as a cover. The guards let them bathe once every two weeks. They provided food twice per day but did not allow the children to play outside after some of them escaped.

The children said they got very occasional visits and phone calls from their parents. They were also initially forbidden from speaking Kurdish.

All of the children described being forced to pray five times a day and undergoing intense religious instruction. The teachers also forced them to watch videos of ISIS in combat and beheading captives.

The children said the guards and religious teachers at the school were a combination of Syrian Arabs and people from Jordan, Libya, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia. The Syrians gave the worst beatings, especially a man named Abu Shehid from near Aleppo, all of them said.

One of the boys, 16, explained more about the frequent beatings:

 

Those who didn’t conform to the program were beaten. They beat us with a green hose or a thick cable with wire running through it. They also beat the soles of our feet. The tire was used less often. I was once put inside the tire and beaten. They sometimes found excuses to beat us for no reason. The Syrian guards were the worst and beat us the worst. They made us learn verses of the Quran and beat those who didn’t manage to learn them. When some boys tried to escape, the treatment got worse and we were all punished and given less food.

The four boys said they got no explanation for their release beyond that they had finished their religious training. They were given 150 Syrian pounds (US$1), a DVD with religious material, and let go.

In addition to the children abducted in May, ISIS has seized other children and adult male and female civilians from villages near Kobani, and is apparently holding some of them hostage as a bargaining chip for the release of ISIS fighters held by the YPG, four Kurds from the Kobani area told Human Rights Watch (see details below).

Taking hostages is a war crime under international humanitarian law (the laws of armed conflict). The war crime of torture, under international humanitarian law, is the infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering for purposes such as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, or coercion.

On August 15, the UN Security Council passed resolution 2170, calling on all member states to take national measures to stop the flow of foreign fighters, financing, and arms to ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and any other individual or group associated with al-Qaida.

On September 24, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2178, urging states to counter terrorism by establishing screening measures, effective border controls, and other steps to prevent the recruitment, organization, and movement of terrorists, including those affiliated with ISIS. The resolution also urged states to improve cooperation, pursue prosecutions, and help build the capacity of other states to fight terrorist groups.

“Governments in the Middle East and the West should swiftly implement the UN Security Council resolutions aimed at curbing support for ISIS,” said Abrahams. “To stem ISIS abuses, governments need to tackle its fundraising and recruitment.”

 

Other Syrian Kurds Taken Hostage by ISIS
A woman and her daughter-in-law from Kunaftar village near Kobani, interviewed together, said that ISIS had seized two men and 12 women and children after it captured the village on May 21. A document prepared by the YPG listed the names and ages of the 14 people, 6 of whom were children under 10. ISIS released the women and most of the children on June 28, the day before Ramadan began, but four months later were still holding the two men and one 17-year-old boy.

The daughter-in-law, 20, said she was one of those detained and released. She said ISIS held the 14 people in Manbij and interrogated them without violence about the captives’ relations to the YPG. The woman said she gave birth to a baby during her captivity and ISIS guards took her to a hospital for the delivery.

The woman’s mother-in-law said she went to the ISIS commander in Manbij during the group’s detention to complain. “I went to the emir of Manbij, Abu Hashim, to plead for him to release them,” she said. “He said: ‘Let the YPG release our people who they are holding prisoner and we will release them.’”

In Minas village, also near Kobani, ISIS seized seven civilian men when it captured the village in the beginning of October, a male relative of two of the captives told Human Rights Watch. Three of the men had stayed in the village as ISIS advanced; the other four, including two of the man’s uncles, returned after ISIS arrived to get some personal possessions, he said. The man said he called and briefly spoke with one of his uncles after the uncle had been caught.

A 40-year-old farmer from Ghassaniya (Helinj in Kurdish) village said ISIS had abducted four of his nephews, ages 16, 17, 18, and 27 or 28, in late February as they were driving through ISIS-controlled territory en route to Iraqi Kurdistan. The family found their abandoned vehicle at a place called Aliya on the Aleppo-Hassakah road, 10 km west of Tel Tamer, he said. “This area was under ISIS control and I have no doubt that ISIS took them for the purpose of frightening and terrorizing people,” he said.

Two officials from the PYD told Human Rights Watch that the four men are among an estimated 160 men and boys that ISIS abducted from the same location in late February as the group was traveling to Iraqi Kurdistan for work. They reported that none of the group is known to have been released.

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 ^5 TD thanks!

Not very much coming in right now. Some reports suggest that Daesh (ISIS) have stopped fighting for the time being and that YPG/Pesh is on the offense... not sure that's totally true... Other reports say Kobane is asking for more outside assistance in order to prevail. Hard to sort out what's what right now... Was surprised to see the official map of Kobane and who had control of what... That was the other day and showed Daesh (ISIS) actually had (several days ago) control of about 60% which is much higher than has been reported in past week.... 

Meantime US vets continue to go to Kobane to fight alongside YPG/Peshmerga..... any vet wanting to join them, let me know and I can hook you up... Its interesting that the US vets are telling vets here (in all capital letters)  if you decide to go, under no circumstances should you travel through Turkey whether by land or connecting flight... And Turkey is "very active" in "neutralizing any US citizen /vet" coming in to fight with YPG....Further, most forget or don't know that winter is setting in and is very cold so bring long underwear and shooting gloves... If nothing else we vets are very practical...  :D

Sorry I don't have more right now.... ..

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With a little work - Open Sourc news can actually give a decent picture - but you have to dig into some corners...

 

Peshmergas blunt, don’t break, ISIS siege of Syria’s Kobane

 

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2014/11/07/Peshmergas-blunt-don-t-break-ISIS-siege-of-Syria-s-Kobani.html

 

Iraqi Kurdish forces have blunted but not broken the siege of the Syrian border town of Kobane, a week after arriving to great fanfare with heavy weapons and fighters in a bid to save it from Islamic State.

Kobane has become a test of the U.S.-led coalition’s ability to halt the advance of the Sunni Muslim insurgents. The border town is one of few areas in Syria where it can co-ordinate air strikes with operations by an effective ground force.

The arrival of the Iraqi Kurd peshmerga or “those who face death”, with armoured vehicles and artillery, has enabled them to shell Islamic State positions around Kobane and take back some villages.

But the front lines in the town itself are little changed, its eastern part still controlled by the insurgents, and the west still largely held by the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, and allied fighters.

“There is no change at all in Kobane as a result of the peshmerga. Maybe one or two streets are gained then lost, back and forth,” said Rami Abdulrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war.

“ISIS (Islamic State) posts are well entrenched in Kobane city, and the Kurds say they need more heavy weaponry to make a dent ... There also needs to be better co-ordination between the Kurdish units and coalition air forces,” he said, adding that Islamic State suicide attacks were also proving effective.

The peshmerga entered Kobane in more than a dozen trucks and jeeps last Friday from Turkey, cheering and making victory signs.

They were given a heroes’ welcome by Turkish Kurds and Syrian Kurdish refugees, angry at Turkey’s refusal to send in its own troops and optimistic, as they lined the streets cloaked in Kurdish flags, that the peshmerga would turn the tide.

The Kurdistan Regional Government, which runs a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, has made clear from the outset that its peshmerga fighters, numbering around 150, would not engage in direct combat in Kobane but rather provide artillery support to Syrian Kurds.

“Of course the presence of the peshmerga has been helpful because they’re shelling ISIS positions, destroying their fighters and weapons,” Idris Nassan, a local official in Kobane, said by telephone.

“Because of the peshmerga shelling we’ve stopped ISIS advances in the western rural areas as well as the east and southeastern front line of the city,” he told Reuters.

Heavy weapons

There was intense fighting in the days after their arrival, with heavy shelling and almost continuous gunfire as peshmerga forces and fighters from Syria’s moderate rebel ranks helped the YPG push the Islamists out of some surrounding villages.

Nassan said that “constant shelling” by peshmerga forces had taken away some of Islamic State’s ability to attack and that there had been good co-ordination between the Kurdish units and the Free Syrian Army, the moderate rebel fighters.

A Reuters correspondent on the border said the intensity of the shelling had died down since then, and there had been no obvious change in the frontlines in the town itself.

“ISIS brings new fighters and supplies all the time, so we need new fighters and supplies too,” Nassan said, adding Islamic State fighters had seized nine tanks in an attack on the Sha’ar gas field in central Syria which they were bringing to Kobane.

“So we need more coordination with coalition forces and more heavy weaponry, specifically anti-tank weapons and other weapons to counter their cannons, rockets and mortars,” he said.

The Sha’ar gas field, to the east of the city of Homs, has changed hands four times since July when Islamic State fighters first seized it. The Observatory said Syrian government forces retook it on Thursday.

Despite having limited strategic significance, Kobane has become a powerful symbol in the battle against the hardline Sunni Muslim insurgents who have captured large expanses of Iraq and Syria and declared an Islamic “caliphate”.

The battle has raged in full view of the Turkish frontier, and Turkey’s reluctance to help defend the town sparked riots among Turkish Kurds last month in which 40 people died.

Last Update: Friday, 7 November 2014 KSA 16:10 - GMT 13:10

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Thank You Again Rayzur And TankDude For All The Updates... Much Appreciated.

 

Gotta admit I had some major frustration and misty eyes by the time I finished reading this report today.

 

Isil march to centre of Kobane continues despite US air strikes Dispatch from the Turkey-Syria border: 'When Kobane falls, it will be like World War III'
 
By Robert Tait, Mursitpinar

8:15PM BST 07 Oct 2014

 

The desperate bid to prevent Kobane becoming the latest Islamic State [isil] stronghold began before daybreak.

 

It was 4am on Tuesday when the first American air strike targeted the jihadist positions encircling the strategically vital northern Syrian border town, which has been under an intensifying siege for more than a fortnight.

 

At least seven more US missiles struck during the course of the day in a graphic sign of the urgency lent to the situation by Isil's hoisting of its trademark black flag atop a building in Kobane's eastern outskirts on Monday – suggesting it was about to fall.

 

In midafternoon, a missile landed in the town in a ball of flame, before sending up a billowing tower of thick black smoke. It was unclear whether the hit was the result of an American strike or came from Isil's abundant stock of heavy armoury.

 

What was clear was that the fight for possession of this impoverished and physically unprepossessing town – until recently, home to more than 100,000 people – was unrelenting.

 

It could be heard more than a mile away across the Turkish border in the form of rapid machine gunfire – evidence of close-range street-to-street combat, according to those who have recently left for Turkey.

 

Equally apparent was an emerging consensus that more than air strikes were needed to halt Isil's ruthless and relentless march through the Kurdish regions of northern Syria.

 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, voiced that sentiment on Tuesday while forecasting bluntly that "Kobane is about to fall".

 

"I am telling the West – dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution," he said in a televised speech in the eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, adding that the time had come to "cooperate for a ground invasion".

 

The Turkish leader is strongly mistrusted by the Kurds of Turkey and Syria. Many accuse his government – anxious about Turkey's own Kurdish separatist movement – of conniving with Isil and of failing to act to prevent it committing atrocities against the Kurds in northern Syria.
 

At least three dozen Turkish tanks parked in a circle on a hill overlooking Kobane – apparently ready for action but still not deployed – further fuelled Kurdish suspicions, which on Tuesday boiled over into angry protests in Istanbul and other cities and left one man dead.

 

Yet Mr Erdogan's view on air strikes struck a chord.

 

In Kobane itself, the local knowledge of Kurdish guerrillas in the YPG [People's Defence Units] militia was likely to be more effective in combating the invading jihadists than air strikes, according to Ahmed Shekho, 24, head of the Syrian Kurdish students union, who fled at the weekend as the Isil attacks became fiercer.

 

"Now that Isil are in the eastern side of the town, a street war has started. It's like gang warfare," he said. "The YPG fighters know every street. Most of them are sons of Kobane and they are famous for their street fighting.

 

"Isil are better armed but when it comes to street fighting, maybe the situation could be different. The fighting has been intense and 350 jihadist fighters have been killed on the eastern side of Kobane."

 

On the air strikes, Mr Shekho – who, like thousands of other Syrian Kurds, has sought refuge in the Turkish border town of Sururc – shared Mr Erdogan's scepticism.
 

"For the Kurds, the American air strikes were the only hope, but they seem to have been more effective in Iraq," he said. "There's a valley to the south-west of Kobane that had 2,000 Isil vehicles in it for 11 days, yet the Americans have never targeted them. It's as if they only want to scare them or do a little damage. I was in the south-west of Kobane and I saw an American air strike hitting a water pump belonging to a local farmer."

 

Watching their home town go up on smoke from hill top vantage points in Turkey, other natives of Kobane bemoaned what they saw as a weak international response.

 

"Let America, Britain and all the world help us," said Rezdar Azad, 64, who said there was little hope of preventing Kobane's takeover by Isil, even though his three sons were fighting with the Kurdish militia to save the town.

 

"When Kobane falls, it will be like World War III. I haven't spoken to my sons for three days. I don't know what will become of them. No one likes us or cares about us. They just want us to die."

 

Isil's infiltration into Kobane has had the effect of emptying the town of the last remnants of its civilian population, with the Kurdish fighting force now all that is left, according to local sources.

 

Yet standing under a broiling sun by a road side close to the frontier with a group of fellow Kobane natives, Mahmoud Ali Mohammed, 43, told poignantly of another two remaining residents – his elderly parents, who have refused to leave their birthplace despite the mayhem unfolding around them.

 

"My father is 85, blind and can hardly move," said Mr Mohammed, sporting a striking red keffiyeh, who left for Turkey because his son needed medical treatment. "He called me and asked me to go back to Kobane because there is no food or water. I brought him and my mother to the border but they decided to return home. They said, if we are going to die, we want to die in our own homeland, not in Turkey."

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11147499/Isil-march-to-centre-of-Kobane-continues-despite-US-air-strikes.html

Edited by Maggie123
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Erdogan’s Book of Defeat

Posted on November 8, 2014

Gatestone Institute, by Burak Bekdil, Oct. 31, 2014:

In the entire Middle East, Turkey now has only two allies: Qatar, which looks more like a rich, family-owned gas station than a state; and Hamas, a terrorist organization.

Tunisia was the final chapter in Erdogan’s book of defeat. Neo-Ottomanism was a childish dream. It is, now, a “sealed” childish dream.

Shortly after the Arab Spring rocked several capitals in the Middle East, the Turks devised a plan that would enable their country to emerge as the new Ottoman Empire. While deliberately and systematically antagonizing Israel, Ankara would: replace the Shia-controlled Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad with a Turkey-friendly Sunni ruler; support the Sunni in Iraq and Lebanon and boost their political influence; support Hamas in the Palestinian territories and provoke it to violence against Israel; and make sure that the Muslim Brotherhood or their various brethren rule Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Saudis were already “our Muslim brothers.” Eventually, all former Ottoman lands would produce governments subservient to the emerging Turkish Empire.

Nearly four years later, Syria’s Assad is comfortably sitting in his presidential palace in Damascus and possibly laughing at the mess the Turks created by supporting Syria’s jihadists. These jihadists have only wreaked havoc along Turkey’s nearly 900-mile-long borders with both Syria and Iraq.

The Shia in Iraq are as powerful as before, and remain obedient to Turkey’s regional sectarian rival, Iran.

The Shia in Lebanon — where Turks are a high-value currency on the hostage market — are increasingly hostile to Turkey.

No one knows who rules Libya after the downfall of Colonel Qaddafi, but none of the warring factions want any Turks meddling in the former Ottoman colony.

Meanwhile, a coup in July 2013 toppled the Turks’ most-trusted regional ally, Egypt’s then president, Mohamed Morsi. Today, not only the Turks but also Turkish products — including even soap operas — are unwanted in Egypt.

768.jpg‘Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy…’ Pictured above: Egypt’s then President Mohamed Morsi (left) poses with Turkey’s then Prime Minister (now President) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, before Morsi was overthrown and jailed.

With the downfall — ironically, instead of Assad — of their Islamist allies in the region, the Turks recently discreetly moved to win back Egypt, the most populous Muslim nation in the region.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu asked to meet with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Hassan Shorky Selim, on the sidelines of the UN summit in September. The Egyptian minister abruptly cancelled the meeting, citing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “insulting words about [Egyptian] President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.” A statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry called Erdogan’s words “lies and fabrication.”

More recently, Cairo announced that it would not renew a three-year transit trade agreement with Turkey. The decision indicates a further worsening of bilateral ties, which had been downgraded, as in the instance of Israel, to the level of chargé d’affaires. The transit trade agreement, signed in 2012 when Morsi was in power, had facilitated Turkish exports to African nations and the Gulf through Egypt’s mainland, via Egyptian ports. Turkish companies previously sent their cargo to Gulf and African customers through Syria, when relations with Syria were normal. After Erdogan chose cold war with Syria, the Syrian route was closed to the Turks. The Turks then signed the transit deal with Egypt to use their ports and mainland as the alternative route. Now that Egypt will terminate this agreement, Turkish companies will be deprived of an easy route to Gulf and African customers.

Ironically, only six weeks before General al-Sisi ousted Egypt’s Islamist President Morsi, Turkey had granted Egypt a $250 million loan to finance Turkish-Egyptian joint defense projects. The loan, the first of its kind, was intended to boost defense cooperation and Turkish exports of defense equipment to Egypt. At that time, Turkey was hoping to sell Egypt scores of Turkish-made drones, tactical naval boats and helicopters.

Egypt’s hostile move was a “shock” to Ankara, but only to Ankara. “Apparently everyone dealing with the Egyptians knew this was coming, except the Turks,” said one EU ambassador in Ankara.

It was not a secret that Egypt and the Turks’ “Muslim brothers, Saudi Arabia” aggressively lobbied against Turkey’s failed bid in September to win the seat of the non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The EU ambassador said: “There may be further Egyptian moves to retaliate against Turkish hostilities. After Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Israel, Turkey has completely lost Egypt.”

That mishap left Turkey’s Islamists with one ideological ally in the former Ottoman lands: Tunisia, where the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Ennahda party was in a coalition government — until this past weekend.

Ennahda, the first Islamist movement to secure power after the 2011 Arab Spring revolts, conceded defeat in elections that are expected to make its main secular rival, Nidaa Tounes party, the strongest force in parliament.

This defeat is a huge setback for Erdogan’s Tunisian ideological allies, who had headed a coalition government with two non-religious partners for more than two years.

Tunisia was the final chapter in Erdogan’s book of defeat. Neo-Ottomanism was a childish dream. It is, now, a “sealed” childish dream.

In the entire Middle East, Turkey now has only two allies: Qatar, which looks more like a rich, family-owned gas station than a state; and Hamas, a terrorist organization. But Turkey has a rich menu of hostilities: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, (discreetly) Jordan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, (as always) Cyprus, (now) Tunisia, (also discreetly) Morocco and Algeria, and (most warring factions of) Libya.

In an April 2012 speech, then Foreign Minister Davutoglu defined Turkey’s policy goal as: “On the historic march of our holy nation, the AK Party signals the birth of a global power and the mission for a new world order. This is the centenary of our exit from the Middle East… whatever we lost between 1911 and 1923, whatever lands we withdrew from, from 2011 to 2023 we shall once again meet our brothers in those lands. This is a … historic mission.”

That was a not-so-covert message of a strategic goal of reviving the Empire. Only nine years before the deadline to “meet our brothers” and the birth of Turkey as “a global power with a mission to build a new world order,” Turkey looks rather dramatically isolated.

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This is wavering a bit off Kobane.... its almost like we need several threads... Daesh (ISIS) Turkey and Humanitarian Crises (Kobane and Mt Sinjar)... to keep things straight....

Kobane continues to hold ground and in some reports they are re-claiming lost ground. When you look at the latest maps, they are still surrouded by Daesh (ISIS) controlled areas. They have managed to hold onto the gate to Turkey, despite intense battles to take it. The YPG does daily updates and I'll try to get them in a format to put in here... Air Strikes continue though not at the frequency they were last month.

Mt Sinjar (Yezidi) is still surrounded by Daesh (ISIS). YPG and Peshmerga are there fighting to push them back. There is still no corridor of safety for the Yezidis to escape from the mountain. People continue to die from lack of water, and food. With winter coming and snow with it, it is feared that many will eventually freeze to death. Its unclear why the US in their campaign to eliminate Daesh (ISIS) is not throwing a boatload of helll from the air and simply ending this...

Turkey is continuing to play out the insantiy of their crazed President Erdogan. Here is the latest effort to have him disposed of by  international effort:

 

Petition calls for arrest of Turkey’s president
 
Saturday, November 8, 2014
turkeys_president_recep_tayyip_erdogan..
Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Australians for Kurdistan began this petition on Change.org. It asks the Australian federal attorney-general to arrest Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when he visits Brisbane for the G20 summit on November 15. It also asks the attorney-general to remove the Kurdistan Workers Party from the list of terrorist organisations. To sign the petition go to www.change.org.

* * *
Be Alert, Be Alarmed! The godfather of ISIS is being welcomed by the Australian government!
Australian federal Attorney-General
The Australian government has recently bolstered “Anti-terror” laws and got involved in a new Middle East military adventure in the name of fighting the Syria and Iraq-based terror gang ISIS.
It cannot be denied that ISIS is a truly monstrous organisation. Their own propaganda features mass executions of civilians and prisoners of war, including those who surrendered without firing a shot, along with crucifixions and decapitations. Severed heads are a recurring motif in their prolific social media output.
In August, after they attacked communities belonging to the Yezidi and Christian minorities in the vicinity of Mt Sinjar, Iraq, they openly boasted not only of their slaughter of thousands of civilians, but of enslaving thousands of women and children, some of whom were sold in public markets for slavery and sexual exploitation. The Australian government declared it had to act.
However, it was not Western forces who rescued the survivors in the Sinjar area. It was the forces of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and their Syrian allies, the Peoples Defence Units (YPG) and Women’s Defence Units (YPJ), forces that continue to defend Sinjar from ISIS attacks until this day.
Appallingly, the PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation under Australian “Anti-terror” laws!
This is at the behest of the Turkish state that has denied Kurdish people basic rights since its creation in the 1920s. In its efforts to crush the PKK and Kurdish aspirations for self-determination, the Turkish state has killed at least 40,000 people since the 1980s.
In Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), in the midst of a multi-sided war in which the various sides seem to compete with each other in human rights abuses and large-scale violence, the Kurdish organisations including the YPG and YPG have created an island of hope: a unique experiment in democratic community self-management characterised by gender equality, ethnic inclusivity and religious tolerance.
Terrified by the example this sets, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used the sadistic ISIS gangs in an attempt to drown it in blood. The world’s attention has become focused on the heroic, besieged town of Kobane. This border town is besieged on three sides by ISIS. The fourth side of siege is maintained by the Turkish state.
Moreover, the Erdogan regime has actively assisted ISIS! This assistance includes:
• Trading with ISIS in stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil;
• Allowing ISIS to use Turkey as a rear base;
• Allowing foreign recruits to ISIS to pass unhindered through Turkish territory;
• Treating wounded ISIS terrorists in Turkish hospitals and allowing them to return to the battlefield; and
• Providing ISIS with heavy weapons and logistical support.
This large-scale Turkish state support does incomparably more to enable ISIS violence than alleged small donations by supporters that have been the pretext for massive anti-terror raids in Australia.
Yet, even while the threat of terrorism is invoked to severely limit the civil liberties of residents and civil society activists during the Brisbane G20 Summit, the Australian government is welcoming Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the summit with open arms!
We therefore demand:
• The arrest of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for supporting terrorism as soon as he sets foot on Australian soil; and
• The immediate end to listing the PKK as a terrorist organisation under Australian law.
Sincerely,
[Your name]

 


Cyprus accuses Turkey of ‘provocative actions’ in Med President says Turkey’s search for oil and gas near the island hinders peace talks, compromises regional security
 November 8, 2014, 4:39 pm
 
000_Nic6385586-635x357.jpg
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi ©, Cyprus' President Nicos Anastasiades (L) and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras shake hands during a press conference following a meeting in Cairo on November 8, 2014. (Photo credit: AFP/Khaled Desouki)
 
 
 

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades on Saturday accused Turkey of “provocative actions” that he said are hindering the island’s peace talks and compromising security in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

Last month Cyprus suspended its participation in UN-led peace talks with Turkey amid tensions over Ankara’s determination to search for oil and gas in the same region where the Cypriot government has licensed exploratory drills in an exclusive economic zone.

 

“Turkey’s provocative actions do not just compromise the peace talks, but also affect security in the eastern Mediterranean region,” Anastasiades said during a visit to Cairo.

“For the (peace) negotiations to succeed Turkey needs to show positive intention and adopt a constructive stance through positive and effective steps in this direction,” he said, according to a translation.

The Greek Cypriot leader was speaking at a joint news conference in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

In a meeting with Anastasiades on Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman condemned Turkey’s exploration, urging each country to respect the sovereign rights of their neighbor, adding that it was “extremely unnecessary” for Turkey to cause friction in a region already mired in conflict.

“We respect the integrity of Cyprus. We’re sure that you have your exclusive rights to explore in your economic zone of the gas and oil reserves,” Liberman told reporters after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Ioannis Kasoulides.

With Israel finding large reserves of gas close to where Cyprus is drilling, the two countries are looking to cooperate on energy issues such as exporting Israeli gas.

Since October 20 a Turkish survey vessel has encroached Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone off the island’s southern coast, according to Nicosia.

Ankara had issued a notice that a Turkish seismic vessel would carry out a survey until December 30 in the same area where the Italian-Korean energy consortium ENI-Kogas is operating.

Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of Cyprus in 1974 in response to an Athens-engineered coup aimed at uniting it with Greece, and the peace talks are aimed at reunifying the island.

Ankara opposes the Cypriot government’s exploitation of offshore energy reserves before a deal is reached to solve the decades-long division of the east Mediterranean island.

Anastasiades, Samaras and Sissi were at a summit in Cairo on Saturday to discuss regional security and economic cooperation.


Even bland ole run of the mill NewsWeek gets it....

 

‘ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally': Former Islamic State Member Reveals Turkish Army Cooperation
Filed: 11/7/14 at 10:35 AM  | Updated: 11/8/14 at 11:28 AM
turkish-tanks.jpg?itok=CLEgWcJG
Smoke rises from the Syrian town of Kobane, Turkish army tanks take position on the Turkish side of the border, October 8, 2014. Umit Bektas/Reuters
  •  

A former member of ISIS has revealed the extent to which the cooperation of the Turkish military allows the terrorist group, who now control large parts of Iraq and Syria, to travel through Turkish territory to reinforce fighters battling Kurdish forces.

A reluctant former communications technician working for Islamic State, now going by the pseudonym ‘Sherko Omer’, who managed to escape the group, told Newsweek that he travelled in a convoy of trucks as part of an ISIS unit from their stronghold in Raqqa, across Turkish border, through Turkey and then back across the border to attack Syrian Kurds in the city of Serekaniye in northern Syria in February.

“ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks,” said Omer of crossing the border into Turkey, “and they reassured us that nothing will happen, especially when that is how they regularly travel from Raqqa and Aleppo to the Kurdish areas further northeast of Syria because it was impossible to travel through Syria as YPG [National Army of Syrian Kurdistan] controlled most parts of the Kurdish region.”

Newsweek Magazine is Back In Print

Until last month, NATO member Turkey had blocked Kurdish fighters from crossing the border into Syria to aid their Syrian counterparts in defending the border town of Kobane. Speaking to Newsweek, Kurds in Kobane said that people attempting to carry supplies across the border were often shot at.

YPG spokesman Polat Can went even further, saying that Turkish forces were actively aiding ISIS. “There is more than enough evidence with us now proving that the Turkish army gives ISIS terrorists weapons, ammunitions and allows them to cross the Turkish official border crossings in order for ISIS terrorists to initiate inhumane attacks against the Kurdish people in Rojava [north-eastern Syria].”

Omer explained that during his time with ISIS, Turkey had been seen as an ally against the Kurds. “ISIS saw the Turkish army as its ally especially when it came to attacking the Kurds in Syria. The Kurds were the common enemy for both ISIS and Turkey. Also, ISIS had to be a Turkish ally because only through Turkey they were able to deploy ISIS fighters to northern parts of the Kurdish cities and towns in Syria.”

“ISIS and Turkey cooperate together on the ground on the basis that they have a common enemy to destroy, the Kurds,” he added.

While Newsweek was not able to independently verify Omer’s testimony, anecdotal evidence of Turkish forces turning a blind eye to ISIS activity has been mounting over the past month.

Omer, the son of a successful businessman in Iraqi Kurdistan, initially went to Syria to join the Free Syrian Army’s fight against Bashar al-Assad, but found himself sucked in to ISIS, unable to leave. He was given a job as a communication technician, and worked at the ISIS communications bureau in Raqqa.

“I have connected ISIS field captains and commanders from Syria with people in Turkey on innumerable occasions,” said Omer.

“I rarely heard them speak in Arabic, and that was only when they talked to their own recruiters, otherwise, they mostly spoke in Turkish because the people they talked to were Turkish officials of some sorts because ISIS guys used to be very serious when they talked to them.”

Omer was then transferred to a battalion travelling to fight Kurdish forces in Serekaniya, north-eastern Syria, and describes travelling through Turkey in a convoy of trucks, staying at safehouses along the way, before crossing back into Syria at the Ceylanpinar border crossing.

Before crossing the border back into Syria, he says: “My ISIS commander reassured us once again that it was all going to be all right because cooperation had been made with the Turks. He frequently talked on the radio in Turkish.”

“While we tried to cross the Ceylanpinar border post, the Turkish soldiers' watchtower light spotted us. The commander quickly told us to stay calm, stay in position and not to look at the light. He talked on the radio in Turkish again and we stayed in our positions. Watchtower light then moved about 10 minutes later and the commander ordered us to move because the watchtower light moving away from us was the signal that we could safely cross the border into Serekaniye."

Once in Serekaniye, Omer says he surrendered to Kurdish forces when they attacked his camp. He was held for several months before his captors were convinced that he had not been a fighter in ISIS and had not taken part in violence.

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