ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

[Anthea]

Wall Street Journal

Outreach to Alawi Officers From Syria Fell Flat

Former Syrian army officers housed in a special camp in southern Turkey aren’t the only Assad regime defectors who feel abandoned by the West. The camp was set up to house Sunni Muslim officers, some with decades of military experience and know-how, as described in a Wall Street Journal article.

Some military officers and government officials from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s own Alawite sect, along with members of the Ismaili Shia Muslim sect, also fled to Turkey with high hopes for the opposition. Like the Sunnis, they grew disillusioned.

Despite their shared goal of removing Mr. Assad, the groups weren’t housed together because they were too distrustful of each other, officers said. The Sunnis largely remain in the 24-acre Camp Apaydin, complete with a grocery and exercise yard; the Alawis and Ismailis were sent to live in private homes and hotels in southern Turkish towns, and many of them have since moved to Europe and broken off ties with the Syrian opposition.

“We were afraid of the Sunnis there,” said one defector, Ahmad Hallak.

The Alawi and Ismaili defectors couldn’t work or travel, and often felt trapped, said Yaseen Adaymah, an Alawi who said he headed a Syrian regime intelligence unit in the province of Latakia before heading to Turkey in 2012. He said he moved to Paris earlier this year.

The Central Intelligence Agency and Turkey’s MIT spy agency in 2011 and 2012 reached out to Alawi commanders in Syria in a bid to weaken Mr. Assad, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. At the time, the U.S. and Turkey thought a surge in Alawi military defections could help force Mr. Assad to relinquish power. But most top Alawi commanders who were approached weren’t interested in defecting, according to U.S. and Turkish officials who said they were briefed on the outreach efforts. Fewer defectors than expected came to Turkey, a Turkish official said.

Mr. Adaymah was so embittered by his experience that he said he urged fellow Alawi officers who remained in Syria to stay there. “There is nothing here: no protection, nothing. You will be shamed in the streets,” he said he told them.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/11/1 ... itics_Blog

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

No place like home: What to do when jihadists return
By Mirren Gidda


British citizen Abdul Rakib Amin appeared in an Islamic State recruitment video in June

Over 15,000 foreign jihadists from 80 countries are believed to be fighting alongside militants in Syria, the US intelligence agency CIA says. Some countries try to stop the flow, others turn a blind eye, but all face the same problem: what to do when the jihadists return home?

Analysts have drawn parallels between the current conflict and the Afghanistan war of the 1980s. Then, like now, thousands of foreigners flocked there to help the mujahideen (Islamic fighters) battle Soviet forces.

The decade-long conflict finally ended in 1989 with the Islamists victorious. But for many foreign fighters, the war was not over.

One name stands out amongst the jihadists who returned home to countries like Egypt and Algeria to carry out attacks there. Osama Bin Laden, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, was a Saudi Arabian citizen who fought with the mujahideen.

Few wish to see a similar figure emerge from Syria, but there is little consensus on how to prevent this.

Threats and beheadings


Many foreign fighters are believed to have joined militant group Islamic State

In September, Belgium, the country with the highest number of foreign fighters per capita, tried 46 of its citizens - some in absentia - for their involvement with Sharia4Belgium, a group that helped send jihadists to Syria. Only eight appeared at the trial, the others are still in Syria, dead or alive.

Belgium's response is not unusual. France, Australia, Norway and Britain - countries with high numbers of foreign fighters - have also arrested returning jihadists, many of whom joined the militant group Islamic State (IS).

UK police say they have made 218 arrests so far this year while around 40 British citizens are currently awaiting trial on terror charges.

Under existing terror legislation the UK can seize passports of suspected jihadists and detain returnees from Syria for up to 14 days without charge.

The UK government is due to publish a new Counter-Terrorism bill by the end of November which will include special exclusion orders. These measures, which could last for more than two years, will prevent suspected fighters entering the UK unless they agree to strict controls.



Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose government has introduced new anti-terror laws, made his position on foreign fighters clear. "If they come back, they will be taken into detention, because our community will be kept safe by this government," he said.

But deciding who to arrest is difficult. Travelling to Syria is not illegal and determining what foreign fighters did in the country - namely whether they were involved in acts of terror - requires detailed intelligence.

However, the desire to arrest is perhaps understandable. When IS first came to international attention, they claimed the West was not a target. Their goal, they said, was to establish a caliphate in the Middle East, away from Western influences.

Now the situation is different. Western-backed air strikes have angered the group, and they have beheaded British and American captives in what they say is revenge. Videos of the killings come with graphic threats to the West. Bravado perhaps, but a challenge nonetheless.

Careers advice


Still from an IS recruitment video, one of many used to lure foreigners to Syria

In the port city of Aarhus in Denmark, IS threats do not deter the authorities. Instead, returning jihadists are met with counselling and careers advice rather than jail.

The thinking behind the Aarhus model is simple. Many of those who left were young men, some with few prospects, who didn't feel welcome in Danish society. Interrogating and arresting them on their arrival could further radicalise them, but engaging them in dialogue might not.

Officials are also making their presence felt at Aarhus' Grimhojvej mosque. A suspected hotbed for jihadist recruitment - the US claims one of the imams has links to al-Qaeda, which the mosque denies - authorities hope by engaging mosque leaders in debate they can deter future jihadists.

Eventually, many fighters might long for the leniency Denmark offers. Hundreds arrive in Syria only to realise the persuasive recruitment videos do not match the brutal reality. But once in Syria, it is difficult to return.

Professor Peter Neumann of King's College London told the Times newspaper in September that he had been contacted by 30 British jihadists eager to leave Syria but fearing arrest on their return.

The family of British student Muhammed Mehdi Hassan who was killed in Kobane in October blamed his death on the government making it difficult for foreign fighters to return home.

Jihadists from Saudi Arabia, however, may not worry as much. Despite the country being notoriously harsh on criminals, the kingdom has had its own jihadi rehabilitation programme for several years now.

'Underwear bombing'


Former al-Qaeda militants play volleyball at the Care rehabilitation centre in Riyadh

Set up to help repatriate former Guantanamo Bay inmates, the Care programme offers Islamist extremists counselling and education within an impressive compound in the country's capital Riyadh. Residents discuss the meaning of the Koran with clerics, receive counselling and are helped to find jobs, housing and even wives on their release.

Care claims a 90% success rate but an investigation by the BBC programme Newsnight found that two of its residents, once released, escaped to Yemen where they founded al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). This group later planned the failed "underwear bombing" attack over Detroit in 2009.

Constant monitoring

If rehabilitation is too "soft", treating returning fighters like criminals can be equally problematic. There is a risk they will turn against their home country or try and travel back to the conflict.

The US has opted for the middle ground. In September, Washington confirmed it was monitoring American jihadists who had returned though no public arrests have been made.

Those that come back from Syria and Iraq do not fit one profile. For every jihadist with extremist views, there are many more who believe their fight is now over.

If used properly, surveillance allows security services to gather evidence against those planning acts of terror, whilst enabling them to reach out to those who don't pose such a threat.

But surveillance, as previous attacks have shown, is not foolproof. Constant monitoring of an individual requires a team of around 30 intelligence officers, and with hundreds of fighters now coming home, security services must make difficult choices about who to watch, and who to leave.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29725116

[Anthea]

I would be happy to give returning terrorists career advice

Live target on a rifle range

Infect them with Ebola and study them as they die slowly and in pain

Shoot them and study the effects of the bullet wounds as they die

I think the latter is most appropriate as they did join the Islamic State with a view to killing innocent people

Do not spend my hard earned tax pounds on rehabilitating this trash

Spend it on all the innocent people who have lost everything and are now starving and homeless due to the Islamic State

Do not reward these pieces of SHIT

[Anthea]

War in Syria's Aleppo takes toll on storied Baron Hotel
By Sammy Ketz

Aleppo (Syria) (AFP) - Indifferent to the sniper fire and shelling around him, the owner of the oldest hotel in Syria's Aleppo sits gloomily in the storied property he has been forced to close.



Just a few metres from the front line separating government and rebel forces in the city, Armen Mazloumian smokes a cigarette on the terrace of the Baron Hotel.

The hotel was founded in 1911 by Mazloumian's grandfather, whose name it bears, and was once the fanciest in Aleppo, Syria's former commercial hub.

In 1958, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser delivered a speech here. It was also at the Baron that Agatha Christie wrote parts of "Murder on the Orient Express".

But since fighting arrived in the city in 2012, paying clients have dwindled to zero and the once-glamourous building is falling into disrepair.

"It's been nearly four years since the war began and I see nothing that inspires any optimism in me, quite the contrary," says 63-year-old Mazloumian, unshaven and wearing a blue woollen hat.

Aleppo has been divided between government control in the west, and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began.

The conflict, which started with anti-government protests in March 2011 and has since spiralled into a brutal civil war, has ravaged large parts of the historic second city.

Mazloumian is the last of four generations of Armenian hoteliers in Aleppo in his family.

His great-grandfather Krikor opened the family's first hotel, named Ararat after the mountain revered by Armenians, in the second half of the 19th century.

- 'The only first-class hotel' -

In the Baron's lobby, on a yellowing wall, an advert from the 1930s can still be seen. "Hotel Baron, the only first-class hotel in Aleppo," it proclaims.

"Central heating throughout, complete comfort, uniquely situated. The only one recommended by travel agencies."

Nowadays, it's a different story. Everything inside seems outdated and dusty -- the reception hall, the telephones, the polished wooden bar with empty liquor bottles.

The roof has been perforated by incoming shell fire, with water leaking inside when it rains.

Rooms that once hosted celebrities and political leaders are empty, or home to a handful of displaced families who have been allowed to take refuge in the hotel.

The hotel is not far from the Aleppo Museum, which has been closed since the war began, and near the rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr district.

"You think all this will stop? It will take years," Mazloumian says over the sound of gunfire.

It's a world away from the hotel's glory days of glitterati.

Many of the hotel's rooms are forever linked to the famous guests who once stayed in them -- Room 201 was that of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, while Room 215 was where King Faisal I of Iraq and Syria stayed.

Lawrence of Arabia stayed in Room 202 and Christie preferred Room 203 for her visits.

"I met her in 1959, but I was too young to know why she was important, I only learned that later," said Mazloumian.

"She came every year with her husband, the archeologist Max Mallowan, who did excavations at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak" in northeastern Syria.

Every Syrian president except Nureddin al-Atassi has stayed at the hotel.

Hafez al-Assad, father of Syria's current President Bashar al-Assad, visited the Baron shortly after the coup that brought him to power in 1970.

"There were so many famous people who came here that if I started listing them all for you I wouldn't finish before tomorrow morning," he said, ticking off names like billionaire David Rockefeller, former French leader Charles de Gaulle and aviator Charles Lindburgh.

"But this is all in the past now. Honestly, the hotel will never go back to how it was," Mazloumian sighed, stroking Sasha, his black terrier.

"The best years are behind us now."

http://news.yahoo.com/war-syrias-aleppo ... 36041.html

[Anthea]

CNN

'I used to see my dad in my dreams:' Syria's children recall horrors of war
By Arwa Damon

Editor's note: Many children have lost one or both of their parents during Syria's long civil war. If you'd like to help, please visit the Maram Foundation's website here:

http://maramfoundation.org/

Reyhanli, Turkey (CNN) -- Maram scrunches up her little nose and pauses as she remembers. The eight-year-old was daddy's favorite.

"When he was going to work he was shot," she says. By whom, no one can say for sure, but Syria's merciless war does not differentiate between combatant and civilian -- and it is leaving behind countless children like Maram who have lost one or both parents along with their innocence.

"I saw him when they brought him to the house when he was dead," Maram continues. "I said 'God have mercy on you' and I prayed."

She has an inquisitive, heart-shaped face. She listens intently to our questions, and often stops to think before answering.

"I would see him in my dreams, I would see him giving someone something or taking someone somewhere. I used to see him, but now I don't anymore."

She is one of around 34 children between the ages of two and 10 who live during the week at the Beyti Orphanage in southwest Turkey, near the Syrian border. Their fathers are all dead -- some lost to illness and some, like Maram's dad, to the violence consuming Syria. Their mothers, refugees in Turkey, can't afford to properly clothe and feed them.

At Beyti there is bath time, fresh clothes, and beds to sleep on. There are toys to replace those that the children had to leave behind, regular hot healthy meals, and clean water to wash with.

Maram and her friend Mohammed whisper next to me on the couch. He pulls a tie out of his pocket. "Someone was giving them out," he explains.

The pair erupt in giggles as Maram tries to put it on him. Her father had taught her how to tie the knot, but she doesn't really remember.

"Are you guys best friends?" I ask.

"We're not friends, we're siblings," Mohammed replies. Maram looks at me, her eyes open wide, and she smiles.

"He considers himself my brother," she tells me.

"We're all family here," another child pipes in.

The Beytin Orphage, which opened in September, was established by the Maram Foundation. It was named not the little girl we met, but for another of the same name who was paralyzed from the waist down by a shrapnel wound to her spine.

"We're trying to raise our children away from all of the ideologies happening inside Syria," Beyti's co-founder Yakzan Shishakly tells us, alluding to the radical extremist violent Muslim ideology that is thriving in his homeland. "And we also want to give them the right to have a normal life away from the war because of the regime."

The focus here is not only on trying to create a "normal" environment, but also on helping these children heal from the trauma they witnessed.

"There were some cases that were very obvious, those were the cases of anger and aggression," says Mayada Abdi, head of the orphanage, describing some of the children who have come to Beyti since it opened.

Maram was very solitary when she first arrived, preferring to stay alone.

"She would remember things that were beautiful memories that were taken from her, especially those that were tied to her father, all her trips," Abdi says. "All her stories are about her father. So you would often find her sitting remembering those times."

Nothing can alter the inexplicable pain brought into these children's lives by violence that defies logic, from a war they are too young to understand. But at least here they have a chance to perhaps move past it and salvage what they can of their childhood.

Maram, for one, is already looking to the future. "I want to be an Arabic teacher," she says. "Back home in Syria."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world ... index.html

[Anthea]

CNN

Editor's note: Anthony Lake is executive director of UNICEF. He was National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton and Director of Policy Planning in President Carter's administration. The views expressed are his own.

(CNN) -- Children living in the Syrian city of Aleppo watch the sky. Not for signs of winter's approach, although the cold winds are already blowing, but for the barrel bombs, mortars and shellfire they know will not distinguish between military targets and their families' homes.

It is hard to be a child -- or to have a childhood -- in Aleppo.

The litany of deprivation and endangerment is long. Indiscriminate attacks have reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble. Across the city, more than a half-million displaced people are living in appalling conditions, struggling every day to find safe drinking water, enough food to feed their children, fuel, or even a warm place to sleep. Most hospitals are closed and most doctors and health professionals have been either killed, forced to flee, or unable to go to work. Interruptions in immunization programs have left tens of thousands of children more vulnerable to disease.

The threat of attacks has driven some children underground into makeshift classrooms -- while others are learning in converted shops, mosques or empty buildings -- when they're lucky enough to go to school at all.

This has been the situation in Aleppo for more than two years. And while some parts of the city remain relatively calm, escalating violence in recent months has signaled ominously of worse days to come.

Despite all this, Aleppo is not a place without hope -- and there has been progress. Working with communities and local authorities, humanitarian staff are reaching some children and families in need across the city. In recent months, United Nations convoys, including those led by UNICEF, have been able to cross conflict lines, bringing with them critical supplies to help children suffering from a lack of nutrition and to increase the availability of safe water and improved sanitation.

In all the hardest-hit areas of Syria -- in Aleppo, in Homs and in Deir Ezzor -- we are doing all we can to reach the hardest to reach children and families with therapeutic foods, water purification supplies, warm clothing, school supplies and textbooks, and other critical assistance as winter descends.

Of course, we are acutely aware that this assistance is not enough. Not even close to enough, when there are up to 2 million people in the troubled city of Aleppo alone -- including 250,000 children and families in eastern Aleppo who are cut off from regular humanitarian assistance. When hundreds of thousands of children cannot be reached in rural Damascus due to fighting and siege. When the nation's youngest children have known nothing but war and adolescents are coming of age in a culture of conflict.

The reality is that an entire generation of Syrian children is at risk, not only from violence itself, but also for want of education, protection and emotional support to help them overcome the trauma they have been suffering for nearly four brutal years. Without these critical necessities, how will they have the ability and the desire to rebuild their country someday?

We must reach them, not only for the good our support can provide today, but for the hope for tomorrow it can help keep alive. For children who have been robbed of nearly everything, it is a reminder that they have not been forgotten. That their futures matter.

In the end, the only solutions for Aleppo, and for Syria and for the region -- are political solutions. But in the meantime, the children of Aleppo need protection now. And we need unconditional, unrestricted humanitarian access from all sides now.

Before another bomb or shell drops.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/17/opini ... hpt=imi_c2

[Anthea]

Aleppo (Syria) (AFP)


A ruined mosque in Aleppo, pictured on 18 November

At dawn Syrian civil servants Abu Asaad and Abu Abdo each begin their commutes across the war-torn city of Aleppo, a once-short journey that now takes 10 hours.

A frontline slices through the former economic hub from north to south, with rebels in control of more than half of the devastated city.

People like 45-year-old Abu Asaad, who works as a driver for the state, must travel for more than 400 kilometres (250 miles) by bus just to get from one side to the other.

They face grave danger as they detour through an area under the control of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, which has seized large areas in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Until a year ago, residents could cross from one side of Aleppo to the other through a checkpoint at Bustan al-Qasr. But because of snipers, it was closed.

After working for 10 days straight in a regime-held neighbourhood, Abu Asaad waits for the bus at a station in the New Aleppo district to go home to Shaar, a rebel area just five kilometres (three miles) away.

To get there the bus must first cross an area that is under army control, before reaching a desert zone that has become a no-man's land over the course of the more than three-year-old war.

He and other passengers then risk their lives as their bus drives through Al-Bab, an area of Aleppo province that is controlled by IS. From there, the bus travels back into Aleppo city.

"Before we reach the IS checkpoint, women climb into the back of the bus and veil their faces completely," said bus driver Mohammad, who makes the risky journey three times a month.

"They are not allowed to travel alone, according to the laws imposed by the jihadists. So we must make sure they are accompanied by their husband or brother. I check carefully, because I will pay the price if anything goes wrong," he told AFP.

For Abu Asaad, each journey is now a dive into the unknown.

"A jihadist from Daesh gets on the bus, armed with a sword rather than a Kalashnikov," he said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"He checks everyone's documents, and forces suspects to get off the bus, threatening them with his weapon. I always say I am a tailor, because if I admit I am a civil servant, they will throw me in jail," Abu Asaad said.

But all of the forces on the ground -- loyalists, the IS and the rebels -- have their databases.

"One mistake, and you disappear," he said.

- Extreme danger -

Abu Abdo lives in the rebel district of Sakhur. He too crosses the frontline to get to the ministry where he works.

"Our journey from one side of Aleppo to the other is filled with danger. It used to take 10 minutes, but now it takes 10 hours because of a big detour," he told AFP.

"There are many checkpoints and dangers along the way, but I must make the journey because I am a civil servant and I have no other source of income. Sometimes, I make the journey twice or three times a week. God have mercy on us," he said.

The bus ticket price has shot up because of the war.

It used to cost just 20 Syrian pounds to get from one neighbourhood to the other. Now it costs 2,500 pounds ($12.5) from the government to the rebel sides.

About 800 people make the journey each day from the regime side, while roughly the same number leave from the rebel area, said Munir, who runs the bus station.

People living on both sides say loyalists and rebels demand bribes to let them through their checkpoints, but IS poses the biggest danger for drivers.

One told AFP he received 30 lashes because the jihadists thought his beard was too short.

Another said he was lashed because he forgot to switch off the radio before he reached the IS checkpoint.

A third driver said he spent 48 hours in an IS jail, and that he was only set free when he could recite a prayer correctly.

Many passengers make sure to have one last cigarette before climbing on board, because IS forbids smoking.

"This is the road of fear. It is absurd to have to drive for hours through the desert to get from one side of the city to the other," said Abu Ahmad, who travelled to the regime-held side of Aleppo to see his doctor.

"This division of Aleppo is absurd."

http://news.yahoo.com/buses-brave-road- ... 44824.html

[Anthea]

I admit it - I am STUNNED

It never occurred to me that in a time of civil war - anyone could get on a bus and travel from one side of Aleppo to the other - from one warring side to the other

Yet this normality makes me wonder exactly what is happening in Aleppo - the city does not appear to be suffering from anywhere near as much conflict and actual fighting as Kobani does

[Anthea]

UPI

Islamic State releases video encouraging terror attacks in France

The Islamic State recruitment video comes days after French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve reported a doubling in the number of French citizens joining the Islamic State since January.



The Islamic State has released a video message encouraging Muslims in France to join the terror group.

In the video, four purportedly French men urge those in France who aspire to join IS to travel to Iraq and Syria. For those that cannot travel to the conflict region, they encourage jihadi aspirants to "operate within France."

"Terrorize them and do not allow them to sleep due to fear and horror... Do whatever you can to humiliate them," a man identified as Abu Salman al-Faranci says in the video.

The men criticize the French government, which is part of the U.S.-led international coalition against IS. "We disbelieve in you and your passports," a masked man says, "and if you come here we will fight you." Some of the men are shown burning what appear to be French passports.

The video follows an announcement by French prosecutors that two of its citizens, Maxime Hauchard and Michaël Dos Santos, both 22, have been identified as IS militants in an execution video of American Peter Kassig.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Sunday reported a doubling in the number of French citizens joining the Islamic State since January, which he attributed to the ability of terrorists to use the Internet to reach potential recruits in France.

It is unclear how Hauchard and dos Santos were radicalized.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/ ... 416486116/

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State video draws attention to Syrian victims
By Sebastian Usher

As Western governments attempt to uncover the identity of the jihadists in the latest Islamic State (IS) video showing the mass killing of Syrian soldiers, information is also now beginning to come out about some of the victims - and their stories.

The sequence in which the 18 soldiers are beheaded simultaneously, shortly after the severed head of the US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig is displayed, is both the most shocking and the slickest footage that IS has so far produced.

Just before the kneeling men are pushed face down and their throats cut, the camera lingers on some of their faces. They are strangely calm and thoughtful rather than fearful.

It was surely not the jihadists' aim, but this humanises and individualises the men as more than just further evidence of horror in Syria. It also allowed their families to identify them.

Most were young men, like Wissam Masaaf, a Christian, or Sharaf Iskander, a lieutenant from a military family. His brother - also a soldier - had already been killed on another front in the war.

The oldest and most senior of the men has been identified as Col Aktham Khatib.

He was from Qardaha in the province of Latakia. It is the birthplace of President Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez, who ruled Syria for three decades, and the heartland of the family's power.

Public brutality

It is more evidence of the toll the conflict has increasingly taken on the group that is most loyal to the president - the minority Alawite sect to which he belongs.

Anger within the sect at the price they are having to pay to help keep the president in power is becoming a little more noticeable, with several small protests. But there is no sign so far of a major shift in support.

The killing of Col Khatib also undermines an IS claim that senior officers left their posts and abandoned their soldiers to their fate as the last army bases around the jihadists' stronghold of Raqqa were overrun in July and August.

The soldiers who have been identified so far were from one of those bases - Division 17.

The severed heads of other captured soldiers from those battles had already been displayed on railings in the centre of Raqqa in another of the gruesome displays of public brutality by IS.

It was unclear then if they had been killed before they were beheaded.

This video - with its slow and stop motion, elaborate soundtrack and almost story-boarded professionalism - would seem to suggest otherwise.

As the media focuses on the beheadings of US and British citizens by IS and the dramatic impact they have had on international efforts to tackle the threat, Syrian and Iraqi victims of IS have received less attention.

Activists in Syria have estimated that some 1,500 Syrian civilians and soldiers have died outside direct combat at the hands of IS and other jihadists since the end of June.

The terrifying sequence in the IS video may be used by Assad supporters as proof of the justness of their cause, ignoring the many atrocities that forces loyal to the president have themselves committed.

But it does reinforce the point that the primary victims of IS are Syrians and Iraqis, not Westerners.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-30117417

[Anthea]

Daily Sabah

ANKARA DEMANDS SOLID SYRIA STRATEGY AS BIDEN VISITS ISTANBUL


Erdogan's palace looks better with all the lighting effects

ISTANBUL — As U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to arrive in Istanbul today, Ankara continues to reiterate its demands of an all-inclusive strategy, including the removal of the Bashar Assad regime along with fighting ISIS militants.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chided the U.S. for failing to meet Ankara's conditions for it to play a bigger role in the international anti-ISIS coalition in Syria. Speaking to reporters at Ankara's Esenboğa airport before departing for a trip to Africa, Erdoğan said the coalition "had not taken the steps we asked of them."

Biden is arriving in Istanbul today for a key three-day visit aimed at finding some common ground with Turkey in the fight against ISIS militants who have captured large areas of Iraq and Syria. Turkey has insisted the anti-ISIS coalition to adopt a coherent strategy to remove Bashar Assad from power and to set up a safe zone along its 911-kilometre border with Syria.

Ankara also wants the U.S. to help train and equip a large contingent of Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces to fight the Assad regime. Erdoğan said that the "parties have not taken any decisive steps toward the train-and-equip plan" for FSA fighters.

"From the no-fly zone to the safe zone, and training and equipping, all these steps have to be taken now. But the coalition forces haven't taken the steps we asked of them or suggested [alternatives] to them," he added.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had heartened Turkey on Oct. 8 by declaring that a buffer-zone was an idea "worth looking at very, very closely." But in an indication that little progress may be made on the issue by the time of Biden's visit, the U.S. administration does not have such an option on the table for now.

In Istanbul, Biden will meet individually with Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to discuss cooperation in fighting ISIS.

Talks will center on "coping with the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflicts on Turkey's southern border," according to a statement from the White House, as well as "countering the threat posed by foreign fighters."

Erdoğan, however, signaled Ankara would not change its position unless its conditions were met. "Of course Turkey will maintain its stance until this process has been completed."

http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014 ... s-istanbul

[Anthea]

Reuters

Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 910 people, including 52 civilians, since the start of the campaign against Islamic State and other fighters two months ago, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

The majority of the deaths, 785, were Islamic State fighters according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Islamic State, a hard-line offshoot of al Qaeda, has seized land in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led strikes since July.

Eight of the civilians killed were children and five were women, the Observatory said. The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate any reports of such deaths.

The Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of contacts on the ground, said 72 members of al Qaeda's Syria wing Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on Sept. 23.

The United States has said it has targeted the "Khorasan Group" in Syria, which it describes as a grouping of al Qaeda veterans under the protection of Nusra Front. Most analysts and activists do not differentiate between the groups in this way.

According to the United Nations, around 200,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, which is in its fourth year.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Susan Thomas)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/ ... AN20141122

[Anthea]

VICE News

Islamic State Video Offers Glimpse Into Schools Where Kids Are Taught to Kill
By Payton Guion - Follow Payton Guion on Twitter: @PaytonGuion

In some ways, class at an Islamic State school doesn't seem all that unusual: an instructor stands at the head of the classroom teaching children to read and write. But when it's time for physical education, instead of running track or playing dodgeball, the kids learn to handle assault rifles and kill anyone who opposes the Islamic State.

A video released Friday by the militant group shows how foreigners are assimilated into the Islamic State. In this case, it's a group of Kazakh men, women, and children.

The video — which appeared briefly on YouTube before it was removed by the site — starts by showing a group of Kazakh men training for combat. But the majority of the footage focuses on the kids, some younger than three years old.

One scene shows an instructor teaching students how to write their names in Arabic. Later in the video, some of the children appear to be quite comfortable speaking the language, fluent enough to easily transition between Arabic and their native tongue.

According to the video, the goal is to get the children comfortable with reading and writing Arabic so they can study the Quran. Their Islamic education is supplemented with training in jihad.

"We're going to kill you, O kuffar," one boy says in the video, referring to nonbelievers of the Islamic State's brand of Islam. "Insha'allah (God willing), we'll slaughter you."

According to the Kazakh National Security Committee, more than 300 Kazakhs have joined IS as of November 18, including 150 women. No count was given on the number of children who have joined the group with their parents. The 300 figure is likely on the conservative side, and could come from a video released around this time last year that featured about 150 Kazakh militants who said they had come to Syria with their families.

The Kazakhs opting to join the Islamic State aren't coming from a particular group or social class, according to a report from Radio Free Europe. The country's educated and employed citizens are reportedly joining the militant group just as often the poor and disadvantaged.

Tatyana Dronzina, an expert on terrorism from Sofia State University in Bulgaria, told Radio Free Europe that Kazakhs will continue to join the Islamic militants until they get unfiltered information about life in the group, including the knowledge that minority women are often forced into slavery.

A November 3 report from a Kazakh publication said that 80 percent of Kazakhs who had joined the Islamic State were already dead.

The recent Islamic State propaganda video featuring the Kazakhs doesn't present the group as offering refuge. The Kazakh men in the video say they understand that they're training to die.

"Meet some of our newest brothers from the land of Kazakhstan," a message that opens the video says. "They responded to the crusader aggression with their Hijrah and raced to prepare themselves and their children, knowing very well that their final return is to Allah."

https://news.vice.com/article/islamic-s ... ht-to-kill

[Anthea]

Drones fighting Islamic State change the meaning of warfare
By Nancy A. Youssef & McClatchy Washington Bureau

JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. — In America’s war against the Islamic State, many of those fighting sit in a dark, cold room and stare at computer screens for 12 hours at a stretch.

There are dozens of them, men and women, each wearing camouflage, looking for suspected Iraqi and Syrian jihadists scurrying across the screen. If something changes on the screen — a group of dark figures crossing a street, a string of vehicles racing down a road — they pass the information to another pilot, who might decide to open fire with a Hellfire missile or an electronically guided bomb.

The greatest combat hazard they face is from the Red Bull and other sugary drinks they devour to stay awake; their unit has the worst rate of dental cavities in the Air Force.

“I would rather be deployed,” said Capt. Jennifer, a reservist and intelligence analyst whose full name the Air Force withheld for security reasons. “My daughter calls me because she is sick and I have to pick her up from school. When I am deployed forward I am deployed. I don’t have to worry about the day-to-day.”

With the Obama administration’s strategy of “degrading and ultimately destroying” the Islamic State without putting American combat troops — “boots on the ground” — at risk, much of the war against the group depends on remotely piloted aircraft with names such as Predator and Reaper that are guided from rooms like this one, at a base three hours south of Washington. How the administration now talks about war is changing the nature of war itself.

Drones that in previous conflicts had been used to provide support to troops on the ground now have become a vital form of fighting. But with no one on the ground to corroborate what pilots think they see from the drones, the certainty of what’s happening is limited. Air Force and U.S. Central Command officials concede that’s delayed the response to some Islamic State activity.

The airmen — the title applies to female pilots, too — can’t agree among themselves whether they’re at war. Some think they should qualify for a coveted combat patch — right now they don’t — while others say it’s harder to fight a war when one is not actually there. They say they must resist thinking they’re playing a video game.

“We are not going to get a perfect answer in the theater we are operating in,” Col. Timothy Haugh, the commander of the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, said about the uncertainty with which they operate. “Without a commander on the ground, that puts the responsibility on us.”

The Air Force won’t say how many of the bombing raids over Iraq and Syria have been handled from control centers like this one. As of Sunday, the Air Force had conducted 60 percent of the strikes in Iraq and Syria since operations began Aug. 8, including 63.7 percent of Syria strikes. There are more than 160 Air Force fighter, bomber, ISR, tanker and other types of aircraft in the region at any given time, according to the Air Force, and the number of sorties, an individual plane flying an individual mission, now numbers in the thousands, including 1,400 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

Whether the flights are piloted from a stateside control room or the cockpit of a manned aircraft, the decision to depend so heavily on the air campaign to defeat ground forces changes the possible outcome, experts say.

“If you want to defeat a dismounted light-infantry terrorist organization, the best tool is to use a dismounted light infantry force, like more special forces,” said Christopher Harmer, a senior naval analyst with the Middle East Security Project at the Institute for the Study of War. “Right now, what we are doing in reality is a strategy of containment. But when we say we are out to degrade and destroy ISIS but then we practice containment, there is a disconnect between the rhetoric and the policy.”

With no major ground force present, many analysts depend on intelligence gleaned from the eight-year occupation of Iraq that ended in 2011. It’s a treasure trove of intelligence built up by a million troops, and it’s still valuable, albeit dated.

But in Syria, where U.S. troops have had no presence, there’s little historical intelligence available.

Even Iraq intelligence is of little value to the men and women who are trying to fight a war in which the only illumination comes from a computer monitor, and the fluorescent glow of a lamp lights the edge of an American flag hung on the wall. Few of those here, whose average age is the mid-20s, have been to Iraq.

That lack of firsthand knowledge makes their job much harder.

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east ... e-1.315697

[Anthea]

FOX News

Syrian rebels and al-Qaida militants attack besieged Shiite villages in northern Syria

BEIRUT – Syrian activists say rebels and al-Qaida militants are attacking two predominantly Shiite Muslim villages in northern Syria that have been besieged by hardline opposition fighters for some 18 months.

The Local Coordination Committees, which is an activist collective, and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group say the attack on the pro-government villages of Nubul and Zahra began overnight.

The Observatory says Islamic rebel groups and fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front seized an area south of Zahra on Sunday. It says at least eight rebels and several pro-government fighters have been killed in the clashes.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/11/23 ... llages-in/