Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

US designates Georgian man as global terrorist

By

global terroristThe United States has placed a Georgian national on a list of individuals it accuses of working with extremist organizations such as the Islamic State (IS) to provide financial and material support to terrorist fighters in Syria, RFE/RL reports.

Tarkhan Batirashvili, described by US authorities as a “Syria-based Georgian national,” was one of 11 individuals listed as “specially designated global terrorists” by the US Treasury Department on September 24.

Batirashvili has held “top military positions” within IS and “has led a number of attacks” over the past several years, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

He also oversaw an Islamic State-controlled prison facility in Syria where foreign hostages may have been held, and he previously led militants from Chechnya and elsewhere in the Caucasus fighting in Syria, the Treasury Department said.

Armenian President at UN called ISIS barbarians not related to faith

By

president-sarkissianNEW YORK. – What is happening in Syria and Iraq should be viewed as a crime against humanity, said Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in his speech in the UN General Assembly’s 69th session.

President Sargsyan in his speech once again voiced the commitment to join international efforts against ISIS terrorists. In his speech Armenian leader stressed:

“Today in front of all of us terrible events are taking place in Syria and Iraq, where religious and ethnic minorities become targets of groups committed to hatred. Two days ago terrorists blowed up the Der Zor of the Holy Martyrs Armenian Church, which was a grave of many martyrs who died during Armenian Genocide. Such barbarism is a crime that has no relation to any faith.

In Syria and Northern Iraq there is a catastrophic situation that is constantly deteriorating, and today it is a direct threat to hundreds of thousands of innocent people, including tens of thousands of Armenians in Aleppo. This is a very dangerous situation that must be considered to prevent crimes against humanity. Armenia voices the need to protect the Syrian people and the Iraqi Kurdish population in the north-west and we are encouraged to see the international community stand united on this issue.”

Armenia News – NEWS.am

BREAKING NEWS U.S. and Allies Hit ISIS Targets in Syria reports NYT

By

NYT
The United States and allies launched airstrikes against Sunni militants in Syria early Tuesday, unleashing a torrent of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs from the air and sea on the militants’ de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, and along the porous Iraq border.
American fighter jets and armed Predator and Reaper drones, flying alongside warplanes from several Arab allies, struck a broad array of targets in territory controlled by the militants known as the Islamic State. American military officials said the targets included weapons supplies, depots, barracks and buildings the militants use for command and control. Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from United States Navy ships in the region.
The strikes represent a major turning point in President Obama’s war against the Islamic State and open up a risky new stage of the American military campaign. Until now, the administration has bombed Islamic State targets only in Iraq, and had suggested it would be weeks if not months before the start of a bombing campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria.
The strikes come 13 days after Mr. Obama announced in an address to the nation that he was authorizing an expansion of the military campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

READ MORE »
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/world/middleeast/us-and-allies-hit-isis-targets-in-syria.html?emc=edit_na_20140922

Turkish ISIS Destroys Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Der Zor

By

By

Armenian_Genocide_Memorial_in_Der_Zor_Syria-199x300DER ZOR, Syria (A.W.)—The Islamic State (also known as ISIS) destroyed the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Der Zor, news agencies in the Middle East reported.

The reports surfaced as Armenia was celebrating the 23rd anniversary of its independence on Sept. 21.

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian issued a statement condemning the destruction of the church, which housed the remains of victims of the Armenian Genocide, calling it a “horrible barbarity.”

Nalbandian called upon the international community to cut the Islamic State’s sources of supply, support, and financing, and eradicate what it referred to as a disease that “threatened civilized mankind.”

The church was built in 1989-1990, and consecrated a year later. A genocide memorial and a museum housing remains of the victims of the genocide was also built in the church compound.

Thousands of Armenians from Syria and neighboring countries gathered at the memorial every year on April 24 to commemorate the genocide.

Many refer to Der Zor as the Auschwitz of the Armenian Genocide.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished in Der Zor and the surrounding desert during the genocide. In summer 1916 alone, more than 200,000 Armenians, mostly women and children, were brutally massacred by Ottoman Turkish gendarmes and bands from the region.

 

Legislator: 53 Turkish Families Joined IS

By

AP_logo_update_20130709A Turkish opposition legislator said Tuesday that at least 53 Turkish families — some with children — had crossed into Syria to join the Islamic State group in the past week alone and accused Turkey’s government of doing little to stem the flow.

Comments by Atilla Kart, a member of main opposition Republican People’s Party, came hours after Turkey’s new prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, strongly rejected Western media reports that said many Turks were swelling the ranks of the jihadi group.

Kart told The Associated Press that at least 16 people from his constituency of Konya, in central Turkey, had traveled to a recruiting center at Turkey’s border with Syria where they met up with other families, some with children. They were then smuggled across the border in small groups, Kart said.

He said the information was based on some family members of the 16 and on security officials who confirmed that the group had traveled to the border. Interior Ministry officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Speaking at a news conference during a visit to Cyprus, Davutoglu said there were many more people from other European countries signing up with the extremist group than there are Turks and insisted that Turkey was doing all it could to prevent the flow of potential Islamic State recruits.

Kart refuted that statement.

“Participation from Turkey is so high, there can be no comparison with other countries,” he said.

The legislator said the Islamic State group was probably recruiting families with the aim of using them as “human shields” against possible attacks.

Davutoglu said he has asked European countries for closer cooperation to stem the flow of foreign fighters into Syria.

But he said Turkey’s border with Syria remains open to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting there.

NY Times urges Turkish authorities to ensure safety of its reporter

By

The New York Times responded to attacks on its Turkey reporter after it published a report focusing on the alleged recruitment of Turks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the 192688_newsdetailLevant (ISIL) in an Ankara neighborhood, calling on Turkish authorities to ensure her safety. report TodayZAMAN

Ceylan Yeğinsu came under attack by the pro-government media and on social media platforms after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lashed out at a report she wrote for The New York Times that was published on Sept. 15. Erdoğan particularly was angered by the photo that was published along with the story, picturing him and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu leaving a mosque in the same Ankara neighborhood, Hacı Bayram. “This is shameless, ignoble and base,” Erdoğan said in a speech on Wednesday.

Later that same day, The New York Times removed the photo and issued a correction, saying the photo was published in error and clarifying that neither the mosque in the photo nor the president’s visit were related to the recruiting of ISIL fighters described in the article.

The New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said that even though the correction had been issued, the reporter came under an “unacceptable” attack.

“Despite this published correction, some Turkish authorities and media outlets have mounted a coordinated campaign to intimidate and to impugn the motives of the reporter who wrote the story,” Baquet said in the statement released late on Thursday. “She has been sent thousands of messages that threaten her safety. It is unacceptable for one of our journalists to be targeted in this way.”

“We expect the Turkish authorities to work to ensure the safety of our journalists working legally in the country and we would ask these authorities to use well-established procedures for reaching either myself or other top editors of The New York Times should further communication regarding this matter be necessary,” he also said.

Yeğinsu has been targeted in pro-government newspapers and websites, which have published defamatory articles that feature her photo.

“Ceylan wrote that story,” read a front-page story in the Takvim daily on Thursday. Two other pro-government media outlets, Star newspaper and A Haber television, also ran stories on their websites “exposing” The New York Times reporter as a Turk. “A Turk turned out to be behind the New York Times’ perception operation,” read the headline of a story on the website of Star newspaper, again with a photo of Yeğinsu.

Takvim continued to target Yeğinsu on Friday, running another front-page story featuring her photo and titled: “Hear this, Ceylan.” The story offered a compilation of accounts from people it said were residents of Hacı Bayram, criticizing Yeğinsu for her report and dismissing the ISIL recruitment operation described in it.

US jets roar over Kurdish Peshmerga, ISIS terrorist battlefield

By

 

CNN | KPLCTV 

September 17, 2014

state8500HASAN SHAM, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— Airstrikes are proving critical in helping Kurdish Peshmerga forces take back territory from ISIS.
Intense battles took place on Tuesday between Erbil and Mosul in northern Iraq.
As the first rays of sunlight streamed through the clouds, the roar of U.S. fighter jets could be heard right across these desolate plains.
The roar was the signal for the Peshmerga to launch their new offensive against ISIS.
The mission: To reclaim the township of Hasan Sham and the surrounding area which includes a strategic bridge, blown up by ISIS a month ago.
The bridge connects the highway running from Erbil, Kurdistan’s capital to the city of Mosul, an ISIS stronghold just 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) away.

For more than an hour two U.S. fighter jets have been circling, launching airstrikes on enemy targets. Also providing that critical cover for these ground forces to advance toward the bridge.
For the man in charge of these troops and this operation, Dr. Roj Nuri Shawys, he is the one communicating and coordinating with the Americans, advising them on ISIS targets.
When asked what he is wanting the pilots to hit, he has a definite answer.

“To hit hummers or positions where they are fighting very strongly, difficult for the Peshmerga to get in,” he said.

And so far the partnership is working well although the Kurdish forces have made no secret of the fact they would like to see an intensification of the U.S. air campaign.

After hours of strikes, artillery and mortar attacks, the horizon was filled with columns of rising black smoke.

  But some ISIS militants refused to retreat, one packing an oil tanker with explosives and driving it toward the Peshmerga front line.

Luckily it was taken out with an RPG, or rocket-propelled grenade, resulting in this explosion.

By late in the day, the Peshmerga had suffered at least half a dozen deaths but they had taken back control of the bridge.

As of Tuesday morning, there was an ISIS frontline but after an intensive ground operation by the Peshmerga they have managed to clear out Hasan Sham and the surrounding

villages of militants. The focus now is a highway, which runs all the way to Mosul and an operation is underway to slowly and carefully remove what the Peshmerga describe as barrels filled with explosives and IEDs laid alongside the road.

As the engineering unit began detonating the explosives, soldiers showed some ISIS handiwork.

ISIS is laying on the side of the road a primitive pressure plate. If you stand on it, it will set off an explosive.

A deadly device that will no doubt litter the road all the way to Mosul, a future battle the Kurdish forces know won’t be easily won.

 

ISIS Draws a Steady Stream of Recruits From Turkey

By

By    nytimes

16TURKEY-master675President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, hand raised, and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, to his right, in August, leaving the Haci Bayram Veli Mosque in Ankara, the capital, where the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is known to recruit new members. Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

ANKARA, Turkey — Having spent most of his youth as a drug addict in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Turkey’s capital, Can did not think he had much to lose when he was smuggled into Syria with 10 of his childhood friends to join the world’s most extreme jihadist group.

After 15 days at a training camp in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto headquarters of the group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the 27-year-old Can was assigned to a fighting unit. He said he shot two men and participated in a public execution. It was only after he buried a man alive that he was told he had become a full ISIS fighter.

“When you fight over there, it’s like being in a trance,” said Can, who asked to be referred to only by his middle name for fear of reprisal. “Everyone shouts, ‘God is the greatest,’ which gives you divine strength to kill the enemy without being fazed by blood or splattered guts,” he said.

As many as 1,000 Turks have joined ISIS, according to Turkish news media reports and government officials here. Recruits cite the group’s ideological appeal to disaffected youths as well as the money it pays fighters from its flush coffers. The C.I.A. estimated last week that the group had from 20,000 to 31,500 fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The United States has put heavy pressure on Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to better police Turkey’s 560-mile-long border with Syria. Washington wants Turkey to stanch the flow of foreign fighters and to stop ISIS from exporting the oil it produces on territory it holds in Syria and Iraq.

So far, Mr. Erdogan has resisted pleas to take aggressive steps against the group, citing the fate of 49 Turkish hostages ISIS has held since militants took over Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June. Turkey declined to sign a communiqué last Thursday that committed a number of regional states to take “appropriate” new measures to counter ISIS, frustrating American officials.

For years, Turkey has striven to set an example of Islamic democracy in the Middle East through its “zero problems with neighbors” prescription, the guiding principle of Ahmet Davutoglu, who recently became Turkey’s prime minister after serving for years as foreign minister. But miscalculations have left the country isolated and vulnerable in a region now plagued by war.

Turkey has been criticized at home and abroad for an open border policy in the early days of the Syrian uprising. Critics say that policy was crucial to the rise of ISIS. Turkey had bet that rebel forces would quickly topple the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, but as the war evolved, the extremists have benefited from the chaos.

Turkish fighters recruited by ISIS say they identify more with the extreme form of Islamic governance practiced by ISIS than with the rule of the Turkish governing party, which has its roots in a more moderate form of Islam.

Hacibayram, a ramshackle neighborhood in the heart of Ankara’s tourist district, has morphed into an ISIS recruitment hub over the past year. Locals say up to 100 residents have gone to fight for the group in Syria.

“It began when a stranger with a long, coarse beard started showing up in the neighborhood,” recalled Arif Akbas, the neighborhood’s elected headman of 30 years, who oversees local affairs. “The next thing we knew, all the drug addicts started going to the mosque.”

One of the first men to join ISIS from the neighborhood was Ozguzhan Gozlemcioglu, known to his ISIS counterparts as Muhammad Salef. In three years, he has risen to the status of a regional commander in Raqqa, and locals say he frequently travels in and out of Ankara, each time making sure to take back new recruits with him.

Mehmet Arabaci, a Hacibayram resident who assists with distributing government aid to the poor, said younger members of the local community found online pictures of Mr. Gozlemcioglu with weapons on the field and immediately took interest. Children have started to spend more time online since the municipality knocked down the only school in the area last year as part of an aggressive urban renewal project.

“There are now seven mosques in the vicinity, but not one school,” Mr. Arabaci said. “The lives of children here are so vacant that they find any excuse to be sucked into action.”

Playing in the rubble of a demolished building on a recent hot day here, two young boys staged a fight with toy guns.

Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq

According to Peter Neumann, a professor at King’s College London, at least 12,000 foreign militants are fighting in Syria and Iraq — many of them with ISIS. Where the fighters originate from:

When a young Syrian girl walked past them, they pounced on her, knocking her to the floor and pushing their toy rifles against her head. “I’m going to kill you, whore,” one of the boys shouted before launching into sound effects that imitated a machine gun.

The other boy quickly lost interest and walked away. “Toys are so boring,” he said. “I have real guns upstairs.”

The boy’s father, who owns a nearby market, said he fully supported ISIS’s vision for Islamic governance and hoped to send the boy and his other sons to Raqqa when they are older.

“The diluted form of Islam practiced in Turkey is an insult to the religion,” he said giving only his initials, T.C., to protect his identity. “In the Islamic State you lead a life of discipline as dictated by God, and then you are rewarded. Children there have parks and swimming pools. Here, my children play in the dirt.”

But when Can returned from Raqqa after three months with two of the original 10 friends he had left with, he was full of regret.

“ISIS is brutal,” he said. “They interpret the Quran for their own gains. God never ordered Muslims to kill Muslims.”

Still, he said many were drawn to the group for financial reasons, as it appealed to disadvantaged youth in less prosperous parts of Turkey. “When you fight, they offer $150 a day. Then everything else is free,” he said. “Even the shopkeepers give you free products out of fear.”

ISIS recruitment in Hacibayram caught the news media’s attention in June when a local 14-year-old recruit came back to the neighborhood after he was wounded in a shelling attack in Raqqa. The boy’s father, Yusuf, said that the government had made no formal inquiry into the episode and that members of the local community had started to condemn what they saw as inaction by the authorities.

“There are clearly recruitment centers being set up in Ankara and elsewhere in Turkey, but the government doesn’t seem to care,” said Aaron Stein, a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “It seems their hatred for Bashar al-Assad and their overly nuanced view of what radical Islam is has led to a very short- and narrow-sighted policy that has serious implications.”

The Interior Ministry and National Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

On a recent afternoon in Ankara, Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Davutoglu came to pray at the historic Haci Bayram Veli Mosque, just over 100 yards away from an underground mosque used by a radical Salafi sect known to oversee ISIS recruits.

When news of their visit reached the neighborhood, several residents scurried down the steep hill hoping to catch an opportunity to raise the issue.

At the same time, a 10-year-old boy lingered in his family’s shop, laughing at the crowd rushing to get a glimpse of the two leaders. He had just listened to a long lecture from his father celebrating ISIS’ recent beheading of James Foley, an American journalist. “He was an agent and deserved to die,” the man told his son, half-smirking through his thick beard.

US failure to see Saudi role in 9/11 contributed to rise of ISIS – ex-senator

By

9-11-isisFailure by the US to investigate Saudi Arabia’s connection to the 9/11 attacks is among the factors that led to the rise of ISIS, Bob Graham, a former senator and co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11, told The Independent in an interview. Report RT.COM

Graham has expressed doubts about the US’s reliance on Saudi Arabia as an ally in fight against Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). Earlier this week President Obama announced a plan, according to which Saudi Arabia is supposed to provide training for moderate Syrian rebels, who are expected to fight both the ISIS and Assad’s forces.

‘No safe haven’: Obama declares airstrikes on Islamic State ‘wherever it exists’

The former senator said it was not the best decision to rely on the country which has often been accused of sponsoring “the most extreme elements among the Sunni.”

The US appears to have a history of turning a blind eye to the disputable activities of its long-time ally. Graham, who was in the Senate for 18 years and chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee for more than a year following 9/11, questions the way US intelligence treated the Saudis after the attack on the Twin Towers.

Despite the fact that 15 out of 19 of the hijackers were Saudis, some 144 of their compatriots mostly from the Saudi aristocracy, were able to return home to Saudi Arabia within days of the attack without being questioned by the FBI.

“There were several incidents [in which US officials] were inexplicably solicitous to Saudis,” Senator Graham recalls.

“I believe that the failure to shine a full light on Saudi actions and particularly its involvement in 9/11 has contributed to the Saudi ability to continue to engage in actions that are damaging to the US – and in particular their support for ISIS,” he says.

US allies cultivated Islamic State. Now IS plans to ‘raise flag of Allah in White House’

Some light on the Saudi role in the 9/11 tragedy could be shed if the 28 redacted pages from the inquiry were made public. Graham has been campaigning for that.

Obama promised to release the censored documents during his first presidential campaign, but haven’t yet delivered on the promise.

Graham speaks of close personal ties between the Bush family and the Saudi Arabia rulers. But why the “policy of covering up Saudi involvement [in 9/11] persisted under the Obama administration” is something he fails to understand.