The Syria Analysis Thread

Longface Saturday 12 Oct 2013

Turkish Shias in fear of life on the edge

ome Alawites have found their way to Istanbul where they are being looked after by the Alevi community. “A month ago we found Alawites wandering the streets of Istanbul and sleeping in parks where they earned a little money selling water and paper bags,” says Zaynal Odabashi, the head of the Pir Sultan Abdal Alevi cultural and religious centre in Gazi district where 180,000 out of a population of 520,000 are Alevi. He says that “we decided to take them in though the governor of Istanbul told us not to”, explaining that some 40 Syrian Alawite refugees are living in large tents at his centre alone and another 400 have been found places to sleep in houses nearby. The three million Syrian Arab Alawites may differ in religious practices from the Turkish Alevi, but they both follow core Shia beliefs such as reverence for the Twelve Imams. They both feel threatened by Sunni militants and know they are easily identifiable as even the poorest house has pictures of the Shia saints on the walls.
“They consider us as non-believers,” says Mr Odabashi, adding: “Of course, our people feel sympathy for the Alawites and we are against Turkey’s involvement in the war in Syria.”
Alawite refugees fed and housed by the Alevi tell grim tales of torture, disappearances and death. On a mat outside a big tent at the Pir Sultan centre lay an elderly looking man who said he is a Turkoman Alawite from Damascus whose district had been captured by the Free Syrian Army that held him and his 12-year-old daughter for up to 27 days.
His frightened eyes darted nervously around as he said his name was Ali Jabar and he was not sure of some details of what had happened to him because he had been blindfolded all the time he was held. His captivity began when there was a ring at his door at midnight and a voice said a neighbour needed to see him, but when he opened the door a man hit him on the head with his gun butt.
He was blindfolded by his captors whom he identified as the Free Syrian Army. They asked him if he believed in Bashar al-Assad and demanded he curse Imam Ali, but he had said: “No, not even if you cut my throat.”
They whipped him and set fire to a plastic bag so molten plastic dripped on to to his back. He rolled up his shirt to reveal half-healed whip marks and burns and took off his shoes to show where several of his toenails had been ripped out with pliers. He expected to be killed, but instead the men who held him threw him out of a car on a country road where he was found by a shepherd. He does not know what has happened to his daughter.
Ali Jabar later met other Alawite Turkomans who had fled from Aleppo and were sleeping in parks in Damascus. They managed to secure enough money to take 42 of them to Turkey in a bus, but they thought it was too dangerous for them to enter Turkish refugee camps. They finally reached Istanbul where they did not know where to go until the Alevi of Gazi offered to help them. Turkish government supporters deny or play down the connection between the Alevi and the Alawites but there is a common bond as both feel endangered by growing Sunni hostility to all Shia sects, regardless of their precise religious beliefs. Dogan Bermek, the president of the Alevi Foundation, a lobbying group mostly made up of better-off Alevi, asserts: “In Syria and in Turkey we are all the same Alevi. The differences between us are only regional because we have developed in different regions without contacts. We are on the same road though it has a thousand paths.”

More at the link.

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 12 Oct 2013

Longface

The Alevi could end up performing the role of 'blowback' for what Erdogan has tried to do to Syria.

Vuk Tuesday 15 Oct 2013

Stubby Wednesday 16 Oct 2013

lmao at the last one, maybe this is why the al-qaeda clones are so popular, they're less likely to accidentally shoot you.

Fitz Friday 18 Oct 2013

Rebel snipers kill high-ranking Syrian general

[IMG]

BEIRUT | Thu Oct 17, 2013 3:49pm EDT

(Reuters) - Rebel snipers killed a top-ranking general in Syrian military intelligence on Thursday, state television and opposition activists said.

State TV said General Jama'a Jama'a was shot dead in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, which is in a province largely held by opposition forces trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad monitoring group, said Jama'a was a member of Assad's inner circle and one of Syria's most prominent military figures.

"General Jama'a Jama'a has been martyred while carrying out his national duty of defending Syria and its people and pursuing terrorists in Deir al-Zor," a statement on Syria TV said.

The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of activists across Syria , said snipers shot Jama'a in the midst of a battle with rebel units that it said included some forces linked to al Qaeda.

According to the Observatory, Jama'a was investigated for a suspected role in the assassination of the Lebanese statesman Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Many blamed the Beirut car bombing that killed Hariri on Assad's government and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is allied to Assad and is now fighting alongside him in Syria against the rebels.

Syria's conflict began two and a half years ago as protests against four decades of Assad family rule that degenerated into a bloody civil war. More than 100,000 people have died in the violence.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

Longface Saturday 19 Oct 2013

Increasing Numbers of Central Asian Jihadists in Syria

BACKGROUND: Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, several thousand jihadists across the Muslim World have joined the rebels. In the first half of 2013 alone, more than 600 foreign fighters were killed in Syria. They came from countries ranging from Morocco at the western periphery of the Islamic World to Xinjiang, China. In addition, hundreds of Muslims from Europe, the U.S. and Turkey have joined the rebels.
Although the majority of fighters are Arab, one of the most influential contingents is the North Caucasians who, according to Russian intelligence sources, number more than 200 fighters. The jihadist website Kavkaz Tsentr claimed in March 2013 that Chechnyan-led Jaysh al-Muhajirin wal-Ansar (Army of the Immigrants and Supporters) included jihadists from the “Caucasus Emirate, Russia, Ukraine, the Crimea, and CIS countries.” Yet, there are also several hundred fighters from the five Central Asian countries.
In May 2013, the Dushanbe-based weekly Nigoh confirmed that citizens of Tajikistan were undergoing training in Syria. One month later, in June, Uzbekistan’s Harakat Online reported that several cells from the Islamic Rebirth Party of Tajikistan were sending youths to fight with Syrian jihadists. It also said that Tajikistani labor migrants in Russia had been recruited to fight in Syria. In 2012, the Guardian reported that Uzbeks were in Syria when it interviewed a Turkish jihadist “smuggler” who said he saw Uzbek foreign fighters entering the country almost every day.
Kazakhstan’s Religious Affairs Agency Chairman has said that disaffected Kazakh youths have traveled to Syria. In June 2013, Kazakhstan reported that eight of its citizens were arrested while seeking to secure funds to travel to Syria to fight with the rebels. One month later, in July, a Kazakh named “Brother Abu-Mu’adh al-Muhajir” appeared in a video of the Iraq and Sham [Damascus] Network with Syrian rebels introducing the “mujahedeen from Kazakhstan.” He called on “those who live in tyranny” to “emigrate from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, or any other country” and engage in jihad. Kyrgyzstani officials have also confirmed the presence in Syria of as many as 20 of its citizens and reported detaining several citizens at the airport on the way to Syria.
Finally, there are Chinese militants in Syria. A Han Chinese convert to Islam, Yusuf al-Sini (Bo Wang), was featured in a rebel YouTube video released by Jaysh al-Muhajirin wal-Ansar in March 2013. Another video showing a “Chinese jihadist” was posted on YouTube by the user “Al-Nusrah Front” and featured a group of rebels repairing a projectile weapon, while a militant who appears to be ethnically Uighur and who a rebel calls “The Chinese Man” leads a prayer asking God to support the Muslims against “the infidels.” The Pakistani-based Uighur-led Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has implied its involvement in the Syrian conflict in its magazine Islamic Turkistan where it wrote in March 2013, “If China has the right to support al-Assad in Syria, we have the right to support our Muslim Syrians.” China has alleged that the TIP is sending fighters from Pakistan into Syria by way of allied Turkish Uighur organizations.
IMPLICATIONS: The greatest concern of Central Asian governments is not only that their citizens are fighting with militant groups connected to al-Qaeda in Syria, but that these militants will return home. Syrians who remain in the country report that Central Asian rebels, who mostly speak classical Arabic instead of local Arabic dialects, are more prone than Arab rebels to mistreat the local population in Syria. One reason for this is that they do not understand Syrian dialect or culture or have immediate family members in the country, so they tend to act like an occupying army just as Uzbek militants did when they first migrated to North Waziristan in the early 2000s. This has generated resentment towards Central Asians in the area of northern Syria where they mostly operate. It may also be why some of the rebel groups are encouraging Central Asians to return to their home countries, where they can carry out the jihadist mission without damaging the reputation of the jihadists in Syria.
The first reports that Central Asian jihadists returned to their home countries emerged in July 2013 when China reported that an Uyghur militant who studied in Istanbul and fought in Aleppo was arrested while planning “violent attacks” in Xinjiang. China also alleged that some of the 15 individuals who carried out an attack on a police station and nearby offices that killed more than 40 people in Turpan, Xinjiang in June 2013 were denied permission to travel to Syria and then carried out the attack at home. After the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Bishkek on September 12, Kyrgyzstan also reported that it broke up an Islamic Jihad Union cell, including Kyrgyz and Kazakh returnees from Syria, that targeted the SCO Summit.
Compounding the threat to Central Asia from jihadist returnees from Syria is that there are already several thousand Central Asian jihadists in Afghanistan. Since 2010, there have been numerous reports from the International Security Assistance Forces that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) is carrying out attacks in northern Afghanistan near the Uzbekistan and Tajikistan borders, especially in Kunduz and Takhar provinces. In 2013, the IMU has also been active within 20 miles of the Turkmen border in Afghanistan’s Faryab province.
The IMU is also threatening to attack Central Asia, despite the fact that the Afghan Taliban has promised to focus only on Afghanistan and not neighboring countries as long as they do not support the Karzai government. After IMU members carried out suicide bombings in Panjshir, north of Kabul, the IMU announced in a martyrdom video that its “future conquests are very near in the Mawarounnahr region” (the ancient name for modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan). In addition, the Uzbek-speaking IMU mufti, Abu Zar al-Burmi, said in a video with Kazakh and Caucasian Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) fighters that after the U.S. war in Afghanistan, China will become the “number one enemy.” Before 2001, the IMU and Uighur militants were under the control of the Afghan Taliban, but now they are under the Pakistani Taliban, which may not have the same political interests as the Afghan Taliban to prevent Central Asian militants from attacking their home countries.
CONCLUSIONS: Central Asian fighters in Afghanistan and Syria will pose a threat to their home countries if they return. It is increasingly important for Central Asian countries to coordinate intelligence and identify fighters abroad and monitor them if they return or attempt to connect with radicals through the Internet or other jihadist networks. Moreover, the sympathy towards the rebels in Syria has the potential to radicalize and inspire Muslims throughout the world, including in Central Asia, to join the so-called “jihad.” This should heighten the exigency for Central Asian countries to see an end to the civil war in Syria through a negotiated solution that would necessarily involve Iran, Russia, the U.S and potentially Israel in a broader framework deal that includes chemical, biological and nuclear weapons reductions. The SCO’s support of Russia’s proposal to disarm al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities and avoid an American attack on Syria can be attributed to SCO countries’ desire not to see an rebel victory in Syria - although they recognize an al-Assad-led Syria is also not sustainable. A rebel victory would likely embolden jihadists around the world, lead to al-Qaeda-connected militants controlling several Syrian cities and governorates, and the return home of the Central Asian militants who won their “jihad” in Syria.

Randall McMurphy Tuesday 22 Oct 2013

British Press Shills for Syria War With 'Baby Snipers' Story

(Ron Paul Institute)

Bob Dylan Roof Tuesday 22 Oct 2013

Obama Administration Reportedly Cuts Aid to Syrian Rebels
(Daily Poz)

President Camacho Tuesday 22 Oct 2013

Assad supporter and political commentator Akram Makkana lost his temper during a recent debate on Lebanese television with Luay al Miqdad, a political coordinator for the Free Syrian Army.
....
“You will hand over your mother and your sister, you filthy pimp,” he responds, as the Lebanese host struggles to maintain order. “To hell with you, you scum, son of scum, son of a bitch. You are scum with no honor. You were born of Israeli semen.”
...
“It’s a disgrace to talk like that about your president,” Makkana adds. “The president is just like you,” al Miqdad retorts. “You are nothing but a boy’s boy,” Makkana says before the host ends the interview.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/qCKJ2oJWC08

Longface Thursday 24 Oct 2013

Battling on two fronts, moderate Syrian rebels struggle for funding, lose fighters
[IMG]

In a medical clinic packed with injured Syrian rebels, 23-year-old Mohammed Hadhoud lies waiting for an operation to remove a machine-gun bullet lodged in his spine. His family cannot afford the bill, and the moderate Islamist brigade he fights with has refused to fully cover the cost.
Down the corridor, two fighters for al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra rest, their treatment paid for. One reaches under his pillow to show the $100 he has been given in spending money.“In case we need anything extra,” he says.
The starkly contrasting scenes highlight the predicament for the moderate Syrian rebel factions that the West has vowed to support. Struggling for funding, rebel leaders complain that they are unable to stem a constant loss of fighters to hard-line Islamist groups that enjoy free-flowing streams of money from donors in oil-rich Persian Gulf states.

Please send money to the moderate islamists less they turn into Al-Qaidah affiliates!!!!

The Syria Analysis Thread

10 posts