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Syria: Recruited by Al-Qaeda: Foreign fighters in a Damascus jail tell their stories (Video)

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Raouchan Gazakov brought his family to Syria, taught his 5-year-old son to make bombs and bade farewell to his relative, a suicide bomber. RT’s Maria Finoshina talked to him in a Damascus prison and asked him why he came to fight for Al-Qaeda.

Foreign fighters“A group called Murad approached me a year ago and convinced me that Muslims in Syria are being oppressed and killed, and that I should go and take up arms against Assad for world jihad,” Raouchan said in the spartan prison, where some 200 inmates are held – most of them jihadist fighters for Al-Qaeda or affiliated groups. The prisoners’ fate is unknown, although it looks grim.

Raouchan says he sneaked into Syria last January through Turkey. In Istanbul, two men claiming to be from Al-Qaeda met Raouchan and accompanied him to Syria. There, he joined a large terrorist group run by an Egyptian jihadist.
“My job was mainly to prepare bombs for cars. There were many people, all from different countries. Our ‘teachers’ showed us how to make bombs – which ingredients to use, and how exactly to make them,” he says.

Raouchan came with his entire family to Syria. In a macabre home movie later found on his laptop, he, his son and a group of men say goodbye to their male relative, who is about to go and blow up a police station in a suicide bomb attack.

In another video, Raouchan shows his son how to make a bomb.
In the Damascus prison, there are many stories of men recruited from faraway lands to come fight for jihad in Syria.

Another detainee, Amer El Khadoud, tells Maria Finoshina how he left a normal life in France, where he lived for years with his wife, a French woman, to join the Syrian jihad with an Al-Qaeda affiliated group.

“I volunteered,” says Amer. “I went to Turkey. In a refugee camp, there I met a Salafi group and I trained with them for about 2 1/2 months, and then we illegally crossed the border into Syria.”
However, upon his arrival, Amer says he was disappointed that the jihad was not as he was promised.

“I saw my Sunni Syrian brothers suffering here. I saw on Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and other channels that kids are also suffering. I took up arms, and I was ready to use them. But when I came here – I didn’t see the enemy.”
The prisoners’ stories of Al-Qaeda recruitment came as a new report, published by the Washington think tank Bipartisan Policy Center, entitled “Jihadist Terrorism: A Threat Assessment,” concluded that “the civil war in Syria may provide Al-Qaeda with an opportunity to regroup, train and plan operations.”

The presence of so many foreign jihadist fighters in the Damascus prison appears to support the center’s findings.
“Foreign fighters hardened in that conflict could eventually destabilize the region or band together to plot attacks against the West,” the report said.

Reports have been growing for some time of jihadists recruited internationally to fight against Assad’s government.
For instance, in January, a leaked memo provided an inside look at how Saudi officials commuted the sentences of 1,200 death row inmates on the condition they join the rebels and fight against Assad in Syria, the Assyrian International News Agency reported.

Source; RT

Turkish dictator Erdogan risks war with Assad, peace with Kurds, lost Olympic to Tokyo

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The paper tiger is angry…
Erdogan deploys troops on the border, 72% Turks against attack

(by Francesco Cerri) ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 10 – Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just been through the negative outcome of Istanbul’s KT_Erdogancompetition to host the 2020 Olympics. Now two fronts are opening up and they are both risky. Ankara is deploying troops and tanks on the border with Syria and is getting ready for a possible war against the Assad regime just as the peace process in Kurdistan is at risk. The withdrawal of PKK militants towards northern Iraq has paused.

Erdogan has sided, since the beginning of the crisis, with Syria’s Sunni rebels and against his ex ally, President Bashar al-Assad. He is one of the main supporters of US President Barack Obama’s plan for military intervention against Damascus.

The Turkish Islamic premier has said he is ready to participate in ‘any coalition’ against Assad and has been long campaigning for international intervention, not only a ‘punitive’ one of limited duration, but a major strike ‘like in Kosovo’, to topple Assad. For a week now Ankara has concentrated its efforts along the Syrian border moving men, tanks and surface-to-air Stinger missiles. The army is building a new base on Mount Kal, which dominates the Syrian Mediterranean coast of Lattakia and the ‘Alawite’ country, until the Russian base of Tartus. This part of the Mediterranean is extremely crowded with Russian, US, British, French and Iranian warships.

But the activism of the Islamic government on the Syrian front – the opposition has accused Erdogan of going as far as helping the al Qaeda-linked al Nusra Front -is not backed by the public opinion. According to a recent survey, 72% of Turkish nationals oppose military intervention against Damascus. And growing doubts concerning allegations that the regime used chemical weapons against civilians on August 21 risk to further strengthen the anti-war front. Statements by Belgian professor Pier Piccinin, who was held hostage for five months by Syrian rebels along with Italian veteran war correspondent Domenico Quirico, is boosting suggestions that rebels might have ‘provoked’ with an attack aimed at leading the international community to intervene against Damascus.

Erdogan, whose image has already been marred abroad by the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in June – which contributed to the doomed candidature of Istanbul to host the 2020 Olympics – risks paying a very high political price with a conflict in Syria whose outcome is uncertain. The ‘sultan’ is gearing up for three high-risk local, presidential and political elections in the next 18 months. And the situation has become even more complex in the past few hours with the PKK’s decision to stop withdrawing its 3,000 militants from the Turkish territory towards northern Iraq as part of peace talks conducted with the Erdogan government by historic Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. Kurdish rebels accuse the Islamic premier od not respecting agreements. In exchange for the truce agreed in March and the withdrawal of rebels, Ankara should have implemented political and cultural reforms to guarantee more democracy and autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan and start freeing thousands of Turkish politicians, journalists, unionists and activists who are still in jail. These measures have yet to be implemented.

The PKK has now issued a warning. The truce however is still in place. At least for now. (ANSAmed)

Turkification of Armenian Orphans (Video)

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Article by

“‘Rescued and Safe:’ Armenian Orphans and the Experience of Genocide”
Turkification-of-Armenian-Orphans-2-568-x250The decision taken by the Young Turk authorities in the spring of 1915 to expel the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire set into motion a state-sponsored plan that not only resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians. It completely eradicated the Armenian community from Anatolia.The seemingly endless columns of Armenian women and children, elderly Armenians, and weak oneswere deported to Syria. Along the way they were attacked by marauding Muslim bands, tribes, andvillagers as well as the
Te
ş
kilât-i Mahsusa
(Special Organization), which had been formed specifically toexterminate them. The gendarmes assigned to escort the deported Armenians did little in the way of preventing the attacks. In many cases they took part in the mass killings, rapes, and abductions.Children were perhaps
the most vulnerable of the Armenian deportees. Their parents andother family members had either been killed or succumbed to the horrendous conditions inflictedupon the deportees. Children were forcibly separated from their parents, young women andchildren were
kidnapped, sold, delivered to brothels or adopted into Muslim families. The trauma of these children did not lessen after they were torn from their families. They were often abused and madeto perform strenuous tasks by the families that had taken them in. The forced integration of thesechildren into Muslim households repressed or subsumed their Armenian identity within the dominantcultural and religious milieu. Those children who were orphaned at an especially early age would laterbe unable to recall any memories from their previous lives.
This essay aims to introduce its readers tothe plight of the Armenian orphans and touch, very briefly, upon the international rescue movementthat was born in the midst of the Genocide.Although circumstances differed from case to case, the similarities of the orphans’ experiencesduring the war are striking. In order to gain a better understanding of the ordeals they underwent onecan turn to a variety of sources. One source is the oral testimonies of the survivors, collected largelydecades after the Genocide. In one such collection, we can read stories like Anaguel’s. She was seven oreight in 1915 and her family was killed on the deportation route from her native Mezre. Left alone shehad to beg for food, and survived because of the generosity of several Turks she encountered along her
1- For studies on orphans during the genocide, see especially Keith David Watenpaugh, “The League of Nations’Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920-1927,”
 AmericanHistorical Review
115 (December 2010): 1315-39; Ara Sarafian, “The Absorption of Armenian Women and Childreninto Muslim Households as a Structural Component of the Armenian Genocide,” in
In God’s Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century
, eds. Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack (New York: Berghan, 2001), 209-21.

Corbett Report Intervew: Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects (Book) (Audeo)

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by Kevin Robert Ryan

Were the crimes of September 11, 2001 solely the work of Osama bin Laden and nineteen troubled young Arabs, or were more powerful people involved? After a decade of investigation, the long-time co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies, Kevin Ryan, offers an evidence-based analysis of nineteen other suspects. Although a number of bo9-11 bookoks have demonstrated that the official accounts are false, Another Nineteen takes the next, crucial step toward a new investigation into the crimes of 9/11. With the support of victim’s families and leading 9/11 researchers, Ryan examines nineteen suspects who were in position to accomplish major elements of the crimes that still need to be explained. Detailed evidence is presented that reveals how each of the alternative suspects had the means, motive and opportunity to accomplish one or more aspects of the 9/11 events. In light of a forty-year history of deep events and crimes against democracy, Ryan shows how 9/11 fits into the pattern of a deep state operation, how the alternate suspects worked together throughout that history, how each was connected to two men who were in perfect position to coordinate the attacks, and how these suspects can either be charged with 9/11 crimes today or further investigated in focused ways.
 
 
 
 
 
 

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podcast

 

MoveOn’s New TV Ad Connects the Dots Between Syria and Iraq (video)

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By Nick Berning. Sunday, September 8 2013
moveonFeatured Campaigns
A new 30-second television ad released today by MoveOn.org Political Action urges Congress to reject a resolution providing Authorization for Use of Military Force in Syria. Using images reminding viewers of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ad says, “don’t lead us down this road again.”

The 30-second ad, called “Not Again,” will run this week on MSNBC.

Wesley Clark 4-Star General was told – right after 9/11 – that Pentagon officials planned to attack 7 countries in 5 years … including Iraq, Libya and Syria: (Video)

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Wes Clark – America’s foreign Policy “Coup”

4-Star General Wesley Clark was told – right after 9/11 – that Pentagon officials planned to attack 7 countries in 5 years … including Iraq, Libya and Syria:

Wes ClarkI had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September.

***

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
 
 
 
 

PressTV: Saudi intelligence chief actively pushing US toward Syria war: Journalist (Video)

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New information has emerged, indicating that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar Sultan has been playing a key role in convincing the US administration to Adam-Entous-125-x-125develop and execute a plan for attacking Syria.

“The Saudis…were brought, by members of the Free Syrian Army – which is the Western-backed rebel group – a Syrian who had been exposed to an agent, a chemical agent. The Saudis arranged for that Syrian to be flown to Britain for treatment and to be tested,” the Wall Street Journal correspondent Adam Entous said in an interview with Democracy Now television on Friday.

He added, “That was sort of the first case that was offered credible evidence that chemical weapons had been used.”

“And what you saw in the months that followed was, first, Saudi intelligence, … Bandar’s intelligence agency, concluded that chemical weapons were being used on a small scale by the regime. Followed by that, the Brits and the French were convinced of the same conclusion. It took US intelligence agencies really until June to reach that conclusion. And that’s what led the Obama administration… At least publicly it was cited by the Obama administration as the trigger for Obama’s decision to instruct the CIA and authorize the CIA to start arming the rebels at this Jordan base,” he added.

Entous added that Prince Sultan is already leading a covert campaign with the CIA to support the Takfiri militants operating in Syria.

He added that the Saudi prince is making frequent visits to Paris and Moscow as part of his efforts to undermine the Syrian government.

Entous also said that Sultan has been very aggressively involved in arming and funding the militants in Syria since 2011.
 

“Really what he’s doing is he’s reprising a role that he played in the 1980s, when he worked with the [former US President Ronald] Reagan administration to arrange money and arms for Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and also worked with the CIA in Nicaragua to support the Contras,” the Wall Street Journal correspondent added.

“So in many ways, this is a very familiar position for Prince Bandar, and it’s amazing to see the extent to which veterans of the CIA were excited to see him come back because, in the words of a diplomat who knows Bandar, he brings the Arabic term wasta, which means under-the-table clout. You know his checks are not going to bounce and that he’ll be able to deliver the money from the Saudis,” Entous added.

A Mint Press News report said earlier this month that Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta stated that Saudi Arabia provided chemical weapons for an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, which they blame for the August 21 chemical attack in the region.

The article co-authored by a veteran Associated Press reporter, said interviews with doctors, residents, anti-government forces and their families in Ghouta suggest the terrorists in question received chemical weapons via the Saudi spymaster.

Also, more than a dozen militants interviewed said their salaries came from the Saudi government. They reportedly said Prince Bandar is referred to as “al-Habib (the beloved)” by al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria.

The recent war rhetoric against Syria first gained momentum on August 21, when the militants operating inside the Middle Eastern country and its foreign-backed opposition claimed that over a thousand people had been killed in a government chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus.

The Syrian government categorically rejected the accusation.

Nevertheless, a number of Western countries, including the US, France, and the UK, quickly started campaigning for war.

Blatant calls for war by the US President Barack Obama administration have not faded despite reluctance by some of its closest allies to engage in any military intervention in Syria.

Obama has sought authorization for strikes on Syria from a skeptical Congress.

The UN, Iran, Russia, and China have warned against war.

Source: PressTV

DB/HN/HJL

Caucasus militants Turkic-Islamists Split From Al-Qaeda-Linked Syria Rebels Form new Mujahedin of the Caucasus(Video)

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A group of Islamist militants from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region fighting in Syria say they have split with a major Al-Qaeda-linked rebel unit.

Turkic MiltantThe group, calling itself the Mujahedin of the Caucasus and the Levant, announced its decision to split from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in a video posted on YouTube on September 3.

The video’s authenticity could not be immediately verified.

The announcement in the video was made by a bearded man standing among some 40 fighters and speaking in halting Russian.

It was translated into Arabic by another fighter.

Islamist militants from Russia’s North Caucasus are known to have been involved in some of the major attacks against Syrian government forces over the past year.

Russia is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally.


 

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP