ISIS- SYRIA-THREAD

[Anthea]

Islamic State Built 'Gitmo' Jail To Torture People, Ex-Hostage Claims

The Islamic State group has created its own U.S.-style "Guantanamo Bay" compound to mentally torture people being held there, claims an ex-hostage.

Former hostage and Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa recently wrote of his hostage experience in Spain's El Mundo newspaper, noted AFP.

Espinosa, who was kidnapped on Sept. 16, 2013 and released on March 29, 2014, said the Gitmo-style jail in Syria held up to 23 hostages from 11 Western countries.

According to Espinosa, the hostages were subjected to fake executions by their Islamic State captors, which sound eerily similar to what the CIA did to detainees, noted The Guardian in 2009.

According to The Scotsman, Espinosa wrote:

"The Beatles — that was our nickname for the three British militants guarding us — loved this sort of theater. They had me sat on the floor, barefoot, with a shaven head, a thick beard and dressed in the "orange uniform" that had made Guantanamo, the American prison, famous.

"'Jihadi John' wanted maximum drama. He had brought along an antique sword of the kind Muslim armies used in the Middle Ages. It was a blade of almost a meter in length with a silver handle.

"He caressed my neck with the blade but kept talking: "Feel it? Cold, isn’t it? Can you imagine the pain you’ll feel when it cuts? Unimaginable pain." After finishing with the sword he holstered his pistol, a Glock. He placed it against my head and pulled the trigger three times. Click. Click. Click. It’s called a mock execution. But not even this terrifying intimidation seemed to satisfy them."

AFP notes that Espinosa recalled how hostages were forced to look at pictures of executed Russian engineer Sergei Gorbunov.

"You may wind up like him," Espinosa quoted an ISIS guard. "Or maybe we will make you unearth him and dig another grave so you can sleep with him."

Espinosa has waited almost a year to reveal these details because Islamic State threatened to execute the other people being held with him. At this time, his fellow prisoners have either been released or executed.

Sources: The Scotsman, AFP, The Guardian

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/world/is ... age-claims

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamic State moves west to attack Syrian army in Homs

Islamic State fighters attacked a military airport in Syria's Homs province on Monday as they pushed on with an offensive against government strongholds towards the west, a monitoring group said.

Skirmishes by Islamic State -- which is strongest in the northeast and east -- into the provinces of Homs, Hama and even Damascus pose a fresh challenge for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria's army has carved a bulwark of territory from Damascus through the cities of Homs and Hama to the western coast by defeating other, less powerful militias including rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the violence through a network of sources in the country, said Islamic State attacked a military airport in Tadmur, a town in Homs province, early on Monday.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment, and the fighting was not reported on state media.

The offensive followed a three-day battle that erupted on Friday further west in Hama around Sheikh Hilal village, the Observatory said. Islamic State was trying to cut the road from Hama to Aleppo, once Syria's most populous city, it added.

Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman, said 74 soldiers in Hama had been killed by Islamic State, which he speculated launched both attacks to raise morale after losses to Kurdish forces in the northeast.

Around 200,000 people have been killed since 2011 in Syria's civil war, which pits Assad against a range of rebels including jihadist groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda's Nusra Front. A U.S-led coalition is bombarding Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq.

Kurdish forces, backed by coalition air strikes, defeated Islamic State in the northern Syria town of Kobani this year and other areas in the northeast.

Syrian state television said Syria's army killed 19 Islamic State fighters on Monday in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, one of the insurgent group's strongholds.

Government supporters posted a video on YouTube on Saturday showing trucks covered in the national flag carrying coffins of people said to have been killed fighting Islamic State in Hama province.

The footage was said to be taken in Salamiyah, a religiously-diverse town east of Hama that has been attacked by jihadist brigades.

An Islamic State fighter told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the Hama campaign aimed to eventually take Salamiyah. "The ultimate goal is liberate Salamiya and Hama but it will not happen before Islamic State is 100 percent ready," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/ ... X920150323

[Anthea]

Islamic State recruits 400 children since January

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State has recruited at least 400 children in Syria in the past three months and given these so-called "Cubs of the Caliphate" military training and hardline indoctrination, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the children, all aged under 18, were recruited near schools, mosques and in public areas where Islamic State carries out killings and brutal punishments on local people.

One such young boy appeared in a video early this month shooting dead an Israeli Arab accused by Islamic State of being as spy. A French police source said the boy might be the half-brother of Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children in Toulouse in 2012.

"They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Observatory.

Islamic State declared a caliphate last year in territory it controls in Syria and Iraq and is being targeted by U.S.-led air strikes in both countries.

It has beheaded or shot dead Syrian civilians, combatants, foreign aid workers and journalists and has released videos appearing to show children witnessing or participating in some of the killings. The group persecutes people across sects and ethnicities who do not adhere to its ultra-hardline doctrine.

The group may be resorting to children because it has been having difficulties recruiting adults since the start of the year, with only 120 joining its ranks, Abdulrahman said.

This was partly due to tighter controls on the Turkish border, where foreign fighters tend to enter, he added.

Islamic State has encouraged parents to send children to training camps or has recruited them without their parents' consent, often luring them with money, said the Observatory, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground.

At the training camps, the children learn to fire live ammunition, fight in battles and to drive, it said. Islamic State also recruits children as informants and as guards for its headquarters as well as welcoming children with birth defects into its ranks, the Observatory added.

http://news.yahoo.com/islamic-state-rec ... 48997.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Syrian rebels seize historic town in south - monitor

Insurgent groups fighting the Syrian government have seized control of a southern town near the border with Jordan after four days of battles, the Syrian Observatory for Human rights reported on Wednesday.

A Syrian military source said there had been heavy fighting with armed groups in and around the town of Bosra al-Sham on Tuesday night. "We are investigating the facts in the field," the source said.

The ancient city of Bosra is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.

The Syrian army and allied forces including the Lebanese group Hezbollah launched a big offensive against rebel groups in Syria's southwestern corner early last month. It is an area of strategic importance due to its proximity to Damascus and neighbouring states Israel and Jordan.

Insurgent groups operating in the south include mainstream rebels who have received military support from President Bashar al-Assad's foreign foes and jihadist group the Nusra Front, which is al Qaeda's arm in Syria.

The mainstream rebels say they have received more military support from Assad's foreign foes since the start of the offensive by Damascus.

The Observatory said 21 insurgents had been killed in the four days of battles. The Syrian military on Monday said it had killed several insurgent leaders during the fighting.

Bosra al-Sham is around 20 km (12 miles) north of the Jordanian border in the province of Deraa.

Bosra's historic sites include an ancient citadel built around a 2nd century Roman amphitheatre. Bosra was once the capital of the Roman province of Arabia, according to the UNESCO website.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/2 ... OR20150325

[Anthea]

The Guardian


The graphic cartoon airdropped by US fighter jets to counter the Islamic State’s recruitment efforts in Syria. Photograph: US Department of Defense

The latest US attempt at combatting the Islamic State’s social-media-borne propaganda is decidedly low-tech: leaflet drops displaying a grisly cartoon that portrays the jihadist army as indifferent murders.

While Isis spreads its message through web and mobile media platforms like Twitter, US air force F-15Es dropped 60,000 paper leaflets over Raqqa, its Syrian capital. The drop, on 16 March, was not announced in the daily tally of air strikes provided by the military command in charge of the Iraq-Syria air war.
Who is behind Isis's terrifying online propaganda operation?
Read more

The cartoon shows queued Syrians, meant to be Isis recruits, horrified when their line results in masked fighters leading them into a blood-spattered meat grinder. “Daesh Recruiting Office”, reads a legend in Arabic, using an alternative, slightly insulting name for Isis.

Crude propaganda like that displayed in the leaflet complements a US strategy to combat Isis in Syria that Obama administration officials openly treat as an adjunct to their primary theater in Iraq, something both Syrian rebels and US legislators consider inadequate to seize territory away from Isis.

A long-telegraphed Pentagon program to train “moderate” Syrian fighters into an anti-Isis force, led by a special-operations veteran, major general Michael Nagata, is expected to begin within the month, with approximately 1,500 recruits.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/m ... aqqa-syria

[Anthea]

Is this really something America is doing

Surely this is a JOKE

[Anthea]

Life returns in Syrian town after ISIS withdrawal


Kurdish forces and politicians meet in Tel Brak after the town's liberation from ISIS. Photo: ARA News

The governor of Hasakah province, Mohamed Za’al Ali, met with a number of government employees and teachers in the town of Tel Brak (40 km northeast of Hasakah), in northeastern Syria, to discuss the possibility of returning to work after months of suspension for crisis-related reasons.

Speaking to ARA News, S.H., a teacher in the town, said (on the condition of anonymity) that during his meeting with the suspended employees, the governor asked them to return to the town at the beginning of next month, threatening the violators with dismissal if they did not commit to the regulations.

“You will return even if your offices have been turned into rubble,” the source quoted the governor as saying.

The source added that dozens of teachers in the area left Syria for neighboring countries, especially after the closure of schools due to attacks by the Islamic State group (IS/ISIS) in the area.

“Some teaching professionals left their areas directly after the withdrawal of the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG ) last year,” the source said, pointing out that people feared the wrath of IS radicals as a result of the security vacuum in the town of Tel Brak.

The Kurdish forces regained the town of Tel Brak after forcing IS militants to withdraw following fierce clashes last month.

Rizan Khalaf, civil rights activist, told ARA News in Tel Brak that a state of calmness prevails the region as all roads were reopened in the countryside of the town.

“Normal life gradually returns to the town and many displaced civilians started coming back home,” he said, adding that during the IS control over the town “only gunmen were wandering the streets and public institutions”.

The Syrian government still continues paying employees’ salaries including school teachers who are primarily suffering due to unrest in the region, which caused the displacement of dozens to either safer areas or to one of the neighboring countries.

http://aranews.net/2015/03/life-returns ... ithdrawal/

[Anthea]

Assad 'open' to negotiations with US, says ISIS strengthening despite airstrikes

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that he’s "open" to negotiations with the United States and that airstrikes conducted by a U.S.-led coalition in the region are not defeating the Islamic State terror group.

“We didn’t attack the American population. We didn’t support terrorists who did anything in the United States,” Assad told CBS’ "60 Minutes." "We always wanted to have good relation with the United States. We never thought in the other direction.”

Assad was reacting to comments made earlier this month by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in which Kerry said Washington was "working very hard with other interested parties to see if we can reignite a diplomatic outcome ... Because everyone agrees there is no military solution. There is only a political solution."

Assad has presided over Syria during a devastating civil war that has lasted for four years, claimed over 200,000 lives, and seen the rise of jihadist groups like Islamic State, or ISIS. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that any solution to the conflict would involve Assad's removal from power.

Assad repeated his denial that the Syrian Army has been responsible for thousands of civilian casualties through the use of chemical weapons such as chlorine gas, as well as so-called "barrel bombs." He called the claims by activists "part of the malicious propaganda against Syria."

The Syrian leader said that his government has had no direct contact with U.S. officials, but noted, "As principle, in Syria we could say that every dialogue is a positive thing, and we are going to be open to any dialogue with anyone, including the United States, regarding anything based on mutual respect."

However, Assad refused to countenance the idea of stepping down at the insistence of the U.S., saying "This is not their business. We have Syrian citizens who can decide this. No one else." He said he would step down "when I don't have public support. When I don't represent the Syrian interests and values."

When asked why the West questions his legitimacy as president, Assad said the West is used to having “puppets” and “not independent leaders, or officials in any other country.”

Assad said that ISIS, which has conquered vast swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, has been strengthening despite U.S.-led military action against the terror group, including strikes inside Syria that began this past September.

“Sometimes you could have local benefit but in general if you want to talk in terms of ISIS, actually ISIS has expanded since the beginning of the strikes.”

He added that “some estimate that they have 1,000 recruits every month in Syria,” and that the number of ISIS fighters is also growing in Iraq and Libya.

In the interview, Assad compared ISIS to the rulers of Saudi Arabia, saying the two are one and the same and have similar "ideology." Saudi Arabia and nine other Arab nations launched airstrikes against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen earlier this week. The Houthi rebels in Yemen, like Assad's government in Damascus, are widely believed to be allied with Iran, Saudi Arabia's great rival in the Middle East.

"It's Wahhabi ideology," said Assad." They use the same books to indoctrinate the people."

Assad also spoke disparagingly of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogen, calling him a "Muslim Brotherhood fanatic" and "somebody who's suffering from political megalomania."

Assad also discussed his relationship with Russian President Vladmir Putin and said that Russia wants “to have balance in the world.”

“They want to be a great power that have their own say in the future of this world,” Assad told CBS News’ Charlie Rose.

When asked what Russia wants for Syria and the region, Assad said "stability."

"Syria, and Iran and Russia, see eye-to-eye regarding these conflicts."

Assad said Syria doesn't have an obligation to any of those countries and that they "do it for the region, and for the world. Because stability is very important to them."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/03/30 ... irstrikes/

[Anthea]

BBC News

IS militants 'enter Yarmouk refugee camp' in Syrian capital

Islamic State (IS) militants have entered the Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk in Damascus, activists and Palestinian officials say.

Clashes erupted between the militants and groups inside the camp, with IS seizing control of large parts of the camp, reports said.

The UN says about 18,000 Palestinian refugees are inside the camp.

IS militants have seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq.

But this is the group's first major attack near the heart of the Syrian capital.

IS fighters had seized control of large parts of the camp, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and an official with the Palestine Liberation Organisation based in Damascus, said.

Yarmouk residents told BBC Arabic that members of Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, a group formed by Palestinian militiamen opposed to the Syrian government, were leading the fight against the IS militants, along with some Free Syrian Army fighters.

Palestinian militiamen were able to retake some areas from IS later on Wednesday, residents told the BBC.

There has been no official statement from IS about the attack.
Children at risk

Unrwa, a UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a statement that the fighting would place Yarmouk's civilians, including large numbers of children, "at extreme risk of death, serious injury, trauma and displacement".

It demanded an end to the fighting and "a return to conditions that will enable its staff to support and assist Yarmouk's civilians".


Anthea: Why are we being shown a photo that is a year old? Surely their is something more recent we could be shown - we need to know what the situation is NOW



Full SHAMEFUL Article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32147888

Anthea: Instead of America and others arming and supporting assorted rebel groups inside Syria - people should wake up to the FACT that it is these same rebel groups who infiltrate areas populated by innocent civilians and in so doing put their lives at risk - there needs to be a concerted effort to rid Syria of ALL rebel groups

[Anthea]

Are Kurds are being gradually squeezed out of so-called Cizire Canton

[Anthea]

Reuters

Al Qaeda kidnaps 300 Syrian Kurds

Women and children were released, Kurdish official says

Victims were travelling in buses

Islamist militants and Kurds have clashed in Syria (Adds Kurdish official)
By Humeyra Pamuk and Oliver Holmes

Al Qaeda's official Syrian wing, the Nusra Front, kidnapped 300 Kurdish men in the country's north, a Kurdish official in Syria said on Monday.

Idris Nassan, an official in the Kobani canton, said the men were taken on Sunday evening as they were travelling from the town of Afrin, which is under Kurdish control, to the cities of Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

"They left women and children but they kidnapped 300 men and young people," he said.

"They captured them in Tuqad village, 20 km (12 miles) west of Aleppo and then they moved them to al-Dana town in Idlib province," he said. The Nusra Front was part of an alliance of militant groups that captured Idlib city last month.

Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish PYD party in Europe, confirmed that around 300 had been taken but said he did not know which group had taken them.

"They were travelling in buses and stopped at a checkpoint. They are civilians. None of them are fighters," he told Reuters by phone from Germany.

The Nusra Front has not claimed the kidnapping. Syrian state media did not report the incident.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, which tracks the conflict from Britain, said Kurds were kidnapped but it was not clear how many.

Kurdish militia and Islamist militants have fought over territorial disputes in Syria during the four-year-long civil war. Some hardline Syrian Islamist militants consider Kurds heretics.

The Observatory also reported on Monday that insurgents from Jaish al-Mujahideen had traded 25 kidnapped women and children in exchange for one of their commanders.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/ ... 7A20150406

[Anthea]

The situation in Syria as of 01/04/2015

Please click on image to enlarge:


Link to larger images and previous maps:

https://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com ... il-1-2015/

[Anthea]

BBC News

UN demands access to Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus

The UN Security Council has demanded humanitarian access to the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in Damascus.

One UN official described the situation for the 18,000 refugees there as "beyond inhumane".

The situation has deteriorated since 1 April, when Islamic State launched an offensive.

Palestinian militiamen opposed to the Syrian government and some Free Syrian Army fighters are leading the fight against the IS militants.

'This has to stop'

The chair of the 15-member Security Council, Jordan's ambassador Dina Kawar, called for the "protection of civilians... humanitarian access... and life-saving assistance".

Delivering a report to the council, Pierre Krahenbuhl, of the Palestinian Unwra relief agency, said the situation was "more desperate than ever".

Full Article - Photos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32198576

[Anthea]

Islamic State opens new military camp in Deir ez-Zor

On Tuesday, the Islamic State group (IS/ISIS) opened a new military training camp in the town of al-Sour in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor province, eastern Syria.

Activists in Deir ez-Zor reported that IS is trying to attract youngsters in Deir ez-Zor to join the newly opened camp, which is expected to provide qualitative training about tactical military operations as well as street fighting to its members and new recruits.

Taim Ali, a civil rights activist based in Deir ez-Zor, told ARA News that the group transferred dozens of its fighters to the battlefront in northern Syria and Iraq, after suffering heavy losses during battles against the Kurdish forces and while under airstrikes by the U.S.-led international coalition.

“IS pays salaries to the youth who recently enrolled in the camp in an attempt to attract more recruits to and encourage them to engage in battles,” Ali said.

In the meantime, the IS-regime battles continued for the second month in the vicinity of the military airport of Deir ez-Zor. The group has repeatedly tried to storm the airport and take it over, without achieving any remarkable advance.

“The military airport of Deir ez-Zor is still under the full control of the pro-regime forces,” a local media activist said on the condition of anonymity.

In other developments, the IS group launched Tuesday a campaign of arrests among retired fighters from the Free Syrian Army in Deir ez-Zor, local sources reported, without specifying the numbers of arrestees.

http://aranews.net/2015/04/islamic-stat ... ce=twitter

[Anthea]

ARA News

U.N. officials to meet Syrian regime on Yarmouk crisis



Two senior United Nations officials are headed to Syria on an “urgent mission” to aid thousands of civilians trapped in a beleaguered Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of the capital Damascus.

The head of U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, Pierre Krahenbuhl, is meeting Syrian officials to discuss the delivery of aid to the Yarmouk camp which has been stormed by and is currently under the control of Islamic State group jihadists.

According to a statement by the agency, “the visit is prompted by UNRWA’s deepening concerns for the safety and protection of some 18,000 Palestinian and Syrian civilians, including 3,500 children still in the camp”.

Militant fighters of the Islamic State (IS/ISIL) took control of most of the Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of Damascus a week ago.

In Yarmouk, more than 18,000 civilians –mostly Palestinian refugees– have suffered years of bombing, army siege and militia control.

http://aranews.net/2015/04/u-n-official ... uk-crisis/