Archive for August 2016

How YOU gave £1million to Sweet Shop jihadist gang

August 31, 2016

Revealed: How YOU gave £1million to Sweet Shop jihadist gang while they held ‘sharia surgeries’ and waged their campaign of hate

Source: How YOU gave £1million to Sweet Shop jihadist gang | Daily Mail Online

Britain’s most notorious Islamist extremists were bankrolled by more than £1 million of taxpayers’ money while waging their campaign of hate, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

A dozen supporters of Islamic State recruiter Anjem Choudary – many of them now convicted terrorists or jihadis who are fighting in Syria or have died there – were paid wages by a businessman who was handed huge sums of public money to run computer training courses in libraries and job centres.

And now a judge has found that the man – a close associate of Choudary’s – funnelled tens of thousands of pounds through front companies to key members of Choudary’s banned terrorist group Al-Muhajiroun (ALM).

A dozen supporters of Islamic State recruiter Anjem Choudary (pictured) were paid wages by a businessman who was handed huge sums of public money to run computer training courses in libraries and job centres

His firms included an old-fashioned sweet shop in the East End of London, in whose basement the extremists would hold ‘Sharia surgeries’ and discuss their plans for murderous jihad.

But, astonishingly, the businessman continued to receive grants from a Government agency nearly four years after his links to Choudary first became known.

Many members of the gang he financed and provided a headquarters for are now behind bars or fighting for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, including:

  • Siddhartha Dhar, the IS executioner known as ‘Jihadi Sid’, who was employed as a printer maintenance technician for the training firm;

His firms included an old-fashioned sweet shop in the East End of London (pictured), in whose basement the extremists would hold ‘Sharia surgeries’ and discuss their plans for murderous jihad

  • Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Choudary’s right-hand man, who is facing jail for supporting IS but once designed websites and did marketing;
  • Brusthom Ziamani, serving a 22-year sentence for trying to kill a British police officer or serviceman, attended ALM talks underneath the sweet shop and was on its payroll;
  • Trevor Brooks, behind bars for trying to reach Syria, was a ‘hardworking’ employee of the firm who ‘even did overtime’.

The businessman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was branded a terrorist funder by Ministers and had his bank accounts frozen after police and MI5 said he had enabled ALM ‘to exist and grow by providing employment and meeting places under an apparent legitimate veil of a confectionery shop’.

But he was never charged with any offence and has now won his appeal against the Treasury’s freezing of his assets.

Details of the astonishing state funding of Britain’s most notorious terror group have only emerged in the High Court case he brought against the Government.

The executioner: Siddhartha Dhar (left), 32, was an ALM leader and worked at Master Printers but is now an IS executioner in Syria. The lollipop jihadi: Trevor Brooks (right) was caught supposedly on his way to Syria just days after the Paris terror attacks

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1321835.html

Last night there was outrage that taxpayers’ money had been used for as long as a decade to prop up Choudary’s evil empire.

Home Affairs Committee chairman Keith Vaz MP told the MoS last night he would demand answers from the Home Secretary over the case and said: ‘This is a most disturbing state of affairs.

‘It is incredible that so much Government money has been spent on an organisation that supports individuals engaged in such activities.

‘The Government must ask for its money back from this company and there must be a full inquiry into this. I shall be writing to the Home Secretary asking for a full explanation.’

Choudary, 49, is now facing ten years’ jail for swearing allegiance to IS, having avoided prosecution for years even as his extremist groups were banned by the Government and his vile outbursts sparked outrage.

The trained lawyer became notorious when ALM celebrated the 9/11 hijackers as the ‘magnificent 19’ and Choudary inspired a generation of British terrorists including Lee Rigby murderer Michael Adebolajo.

But it has never been revealed until now that ALM was relying on Government money to stir up hate against Britain.

The knifeman: Brusthom Ziamani (left) is serving 22 years for plotting to behead a soldier. The protester: Abdul Muhid (right) was jailed for his role in the Danish embassy demonstration

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1161208.html

According to the High Court judgment published last Friday, the businessman – identified only as ‘C’ – set up Best Training Solutions in 2001 and soon started getting Government grants to help people get jobs by giving them basic computer skills.

It became ‘very successful’ and at one stage had a turnover of £1.4 million, employed some 40 people, operated four branches and ran partnerships with ten libraries and community centres as well as having ‘a presence’ in 20 Jobcentres.

The judge, Mr Justice Cranston, said 95 per cent of its turnover came from public money.

Choudary’s associate ‘C’ also set up a printing firm called Master Printers and an old-fashioned sweet shop called Yummy Sweets, later known as Yummy Yummy, and kept them afloat by diverting at least £693,663 to their bank accounts from the state-funded Best Training.

And according to the judgment, 12 of the sweet shop’s 13 employees were members of ALM and many also had roles in the training firms.

In addition, the cellar of a terraced building used by Master Printers and Yummy Yummy in East London became a key meeting place for the extremists.

But even after Best Training’s links to Choudary were exposed in 2011, its state funding continued.The

The deputy: Mohammed Mizanur Rahman (left) is awaiting a lengthy jail term for inviting support for IS. The boxer: Anthony Small (right) was cleared last year of plotting to join IS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1321915.html

Figures seen by this newspaper show the training firm received £1,187,883 of public money from the Skills Funding Agency between 2012 and 2014 alone.

Eventually, in September 2014, police searched the associate’s home and offices and arrested him along with ten other people on suspicion of terror offences.

In the headquarters, officers found ‘a list of Muslim prisoners, including some sentenced for terrorist offences’ and an IS flag.

When questioned by police, C ‘denied knowledge of any of those items’ and was not charged with any offence.

However the High Court heard that a Detective Sergeant Collins believed that ‘without C’s support, ALM could not have functioned’ at the New Road address.

Police believed, according to the court judgment, that the associate ‘was using substantial profits from Best Training to subsidise the failing enterprise Yummy Sweets, the employees of which were all members of ALM’.

He had ‘enabled the group to exist and grow by providing employment and meeting places under an apparent legitimate veil of a confectionery shop’.

The convert: Simon Keeler, 44, (pictured) a builder at Yummy Sweets, was previously convicted of terror fundraising

As a result, C was designated under the Terrorist Asset-Freezing Act 2010 in February 2015.

But a judge has now allowed his appeal because C claims he no longer has any money with which to fund terrorism.

The MoS knows the identity of C, who declined to comment on the judgment yesterday.

A Skills Funding Agency spokesman said it was made aware in 2014 that the police were investigating Best Training.

‘The SFA worked in full co-operation with the police which resulted in Best Training being suspended with immediate effect from SFA’s register of training providers and Government funding ceased.’

Does The Death of ISIS #2 Man Mean We’re Winning?

August 31, 2016

Does The Death of ISIS #2 Man Mean We’re Winning? Clarion Project, Elliot Friedland, August 31, 2016

Iraq-US-drone-MQ-1B-predator-wikimedia-commons-640-320An MQ-1B Predator Drone takes off from a US airbase in Iraq. (Photo: © Wikimedia Commons)

[A] concerted effort to delegitimize and deconstruct the underlying ideology of Islamism is the only way to secure a lasting solution to the problem of jihadist terrorism.

**********************

Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) spokesperson Mohammed al-Adnani, who was reportedly tipped to be the successor to self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed in Aleppo, Syria, according to an ISIS announcement.

ISIS-adnani-dead

The Islamic State has vowed to exact revenge for his death.

The Pentagon confirmed they targeted al-Adnani with a drone strike.

“We are still assessing the results of the strike, but al-Adnani’s removal from the battlefield would mark another significant blow to ISIS,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.

“Al-Adnani has served as principal architect of ISIS’ external operations and as ISIS’ chief spokesman. He has coordinated the movement of ISIS fighters, directly encouraged lone-wolf attacks on civilians and members of the military and actively recruited new ISIS members,” he said, explaining the importance of al-Adnani to the Islamic State.

Adnani was thought to be behind the Paris attacks, according to CNN.

Yet, however important al-Adnani was, he was still just one man. Killing terrorist leaders is important. But until the radical Islamist ideology that spawns terrorism is eradicated, this “War on Terror” will continue to resemble whack-a-mole.

ISIS has no shortage of eager jihadists ready to take his place and who can be trained to fulfill his role. Perhaps they will not succeed as well as he has, perhaps they will do even better.

The elimination of individual jihadists, while important, has not significantly eroded terrorism in the past.

On the contrary, more jihadists have simply stepped forward.

Islamist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, yet his teachings still influenced Omar Mateen to massacre revelers at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida.

When Osama bin Laden was killed in a drone strike in 2011, Aymen al-Zawahiri took over as leader of Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden’s son Hamza released an audio message earlier this year calling on Saudis to overthrow their government.

Since the “War on Terror” began in 2001, global terrorism has increased. According to the Global Terrorism Index fatalities caused by terrorism increased from 3,361 in 2000 to 11,133 in 2012 and 18,111 in 2013. In 2014 the figure was even higher, with 32,658 fatalities.

ISIS and Boko Haram (which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State) were jointly responsibe for 51% of those deaths.

This is despite Obama’s drone strike program killing from 2,372 to 2,581 combatants with drone strikes between January 20, 2009 and December 31, 2015 according to official White House figures, not including deaths from air strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

The administration claims to have killed 64 to 116 civilians in drone strikes over the same time period, a number that human rights and monitoring groups have slammed as being much lower than the real figure.

The Obama administration has killed up to 10 times as many terrorists in drone strikes as the Bush administration did, depending on which figures you use, yet terrorism increased.

Last year the number of terror attacks dropped.

“The total number of terrorist attacks in 2015 decreased by 13% and total deaths due to terrorist attacks (28,328) decreased by 14%, compared to 2014,” the US annual Country Reports on Terrorism stated.

Advances of Kurdish and Iraqi government forces and airstrikes on Islamic State oil fields probably had a lot more to do with the reduction than the killing of any one man, no matter how important.

Yet, as the Islamic State loses territory in its base of Iraq and Syria, they threaten to expand their terror attacks abroad.

Therefore a concerted effort to delegitimize and deconstruct the underlying ideology of Islamism is the only way to secure a lasting solution to the problem of jihadist terrorism. Defeating ISIS and similar groups must occur both on the battlefield, to deny them the freedom of movement and operation which enables them to plan and execute attacks, and in the realm of ideas.

Hijra, Islamic Migration

August 30, 2016

Hijra, Islamic Migration, Political Islam via YouTube, August 26, 2016

The blurb beneath the video states,

As it does with everything in life, Islam has its own views about migration. For us migration is for an individual’s gain—a better job, for instance. But for Islam, migration was the beginning of Mohammed’s success. He preached the religion for 13 years and converted 150 Arabs to Islam. After he migrated to Medina, he became and politician and jihadist, which led to every Arab in Arabia becoming a Muslim.

After Mohammed’s death, Islam exploded out of Arabia in its second migration. When Islam settles into a society, the society becomes all Islamic (with a couple of exceptions—Spain and the Balkans). Islam does not assimilate, but dominates. This is because of its Sharia law.

The purpose of migration is to start jihad and the purpose of jihad is install the Sharia. Undeer the Sharia, the other religions are subjected to taxes, domination and humiliation. After enough time, everyone will become a Muslim.

Today in the West, we see the beginning of the annihilation of our civilization due to the deference we pay to Islamic migration and Sharia and we refuse to see the true nature and goals of Islam—complete domination of all aspects of our society.

Trump Spox: Clinton’s Newly Discovered Benghazi Emails Raise Additional Questions

August 30, 2016

Trump Spox: Clinton’s Newly Discovered Benghazi Emails Raise Additional Questions, BreitbartAlex Swoyer, August 30, 2016

(Sexist! Besides, she was just dreaming of having yoga lessons and getting her hair styled in Benghazi. — DM)

Donald Trump’s campaign is hitting Hillary Clinton over recent revelations that there were emails pertaining to Benghazi on her private email server.

“Today’s disclosure that 30 additional emails about Benghazi were discovered on Hillary Clinton’s private server raises additional questions about the more than 30,000 emails she deleted,” stated Trump’s senior communications advisor Jason Miller. “Hillary Clinton swore before a federal court and told the American people she handed over all of her work-related emails. If Clinton did not consider emails about something as important as Benghazi to be work-related, one has to wonder what is contained in the other emails she attempted to wipe from her server.”

Miller’s statement comes after the Washington Examiner reports, “State Department attorneys said Tuesday the agency had discovered 30 emails among the records recovered from Hillary Clinton’s private server that discussed Benghazi.”

According to the report, the 30 emails about Benghazi were within the 15,000 uncovered from Clinton’s private server by the FBI.

Developing an Effective Counter Radicalization Strategy

August 30, 2016

Developing an Effective Counter Radicalization Strategy, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Scott Newark, August 29, 2016

Western governments appear to have finally accepted the reality that a new front on the Islamist war has opened up and it’s in our own backyards. It is all too easy for al-Qaida, or ISIS, or whatever new Islamist group, to publish propaganda to incite radicalized or radically prone young Muslims living in the West, and to hand them chillingly accurate information to “build bombs in your mother’s kitchen.”

These young recruits are being recruited to kill soldiers, police and civilians in their own countries rather than attempting to travel to join the Islamist slaughter abroad. And while there has been some success in suppressing the capabilities of international Islamist networks and in military action against the ISIS “caliphate,” domestic terrorist attacks throughout the West show that the threat has not gone away or even been diminished. And that means our approach must also evolve.

We must acknowledge that this threat comes from people and groups who have an unyielding belief that their version of Islam calls for the submission of the world to its dictates, and that killing those who oppose or resist this is not only permissible but obligatory..

Equally, while the Islamist ideology may prey on and exploit persons with mental illness, they are yelling Allahu Ahkbar and not “Sigmund Freud” when they detonate the suicide bombs or murder innocent civilians with knives, guns or trucks. The extremist religious motivation is the key to understanding their actions and in developing a strategy to help prevent the radicalization that leads to it.

Second, this “religious” motivation must be acknowledged by our official entities and the larger Muslim community within Western societies who want nothing to do with it and who reject its goals. For them, Islam may be a religion of peace that forbids killing of innocent civilians, but for others, their version of Islam commands it. There are clearly different conclusions being reached, but the good guys and the bad guys are reading from the same book, and acknowledging this fact is essential if we’re going to be successful. Candor, however uncomfortable, is a better long-term strategy than forcing security and law enforcement agencies to twist themselves into pretzels at each new incident to avoid offending anyone.

It is also critical to recognize that the domestic terrorist pool is comprised of people who, through different processes, have been indoctrinated into the Islamist extremist ideology that includes committing murderous acts of terrorism. This must be the starting point of the counter-radicalization strategy. Simply focusing on “de-radicalizing” extremists does nothing to stop someone from heading down that path in the first place. Similarly, limiting intervention to those espousing extremist beliefs and violent intentions assumes an ability to foretell actions that is simply unrealistic. While not all Islamic extremists are terrorists, all Islamist terrorists ascribe to the extremist version of Islam. It only makes sense to start where the terrorism motivation originates.

We also must acknowledge that the Islamist strategy includes establishing a “global Caliphate.” This vision is not limited to the overt savagery wrought on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but also includes the murky Islamist political efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood and its spidery network of seemingly benign organizations. Their intent, in their own words, is “destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” One other quote worth keeping in mind is the official motto of the Muslim Brotherhood which says it all:

“God is our goal, Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle [jihad] is our way, and death in the service of God is the loftiest of our wishes.”

Lest there be anyone who still doubts the existence and clear purpose of this long-term strategy, let me suggest you read the materials in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing case or the compelling 2011 book, The Grand Jihad by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy.

It is also important to understand that for the Muslim Brotherhood network of groups, “war is deception.” Lying to the kuffar (non-believers) is fully authorized by the Quran through the doctrine known as taqiyya.

Domestic Islamist inspired terrorism incidents in the West (and elsewhere) are getting worse. What’s more, there is clear evidence that significant numbers of their Western citizens have travelled to the Middle East to pursue murderous Islamist jihad, and increasing numbers of them are finding ways to return “home.”

While some cases have involved people who received training abroad, most of these cases involve radicalization that took place in Western societies including Canada and the United States. That’s a chilling reality that must be acknowledged including determining how it took place and who was involved. That hard truth was summed up by a parent of one of the young Toronto 18 would-be terrorists when he warned, “They’re stealing our kids.” It’s time we started focusing on who “they” are.

While there has been significant work done on analyzing the general psychological profile of persons vulnerable to such radicalization, very few concrete measures have been taken to identify and then proactively target the means by which such radicalization occurs.

What follows, therefore, are specific action item suggestions to confront and defeat this newest security threat.

Counter-radicalization actions

1/ Ensure there is a clear and official awareness of the threat of extremist Islamism and domestic radicalization, and an understanding of the supportive Muslim Brotherhood’s long-term goals.

2/ Identify all Muslim Brotherhood links in Islamic groups including mosques and Islamic learning centers.

3/ Identify all Wahabbi/Saudi/Salafist linked funding of mosques and learning centers and Islamic organizations with a consideration of prohibiting it.

This issue has already been the subject of some media reporting and given the charitable or non-profit status of such organizations, the required information should be available. What’s required is personified by the mission statement of the Investigative Project on Terrorism: Investigate, Analyze, Expose.

4/ Improve “community outreach” efforts

Outreach to the Islamic community is a critical component of preventing radicalization, but it must be conducted on an informed basis so that the people included are not pursuing a contrary agenda. Authorities engaging in outreach activities must conduct sufficient background analysis to ensure that liaisons are established with persons genuinely seeking to prevent Islamist radicalization rather than with self-appointed “leaders” of the community whose views (public and private) are not representative of the communities they claim to represent. The goal is to both detect and assist people at risk of radicalization (and their families) and to help rehabilitate people who have been radicalized.

5/ Promote integration and identify segregation efforts

Successful integration into Western multicultural society is likely the best protection against radicalization, and thus efforts to promote it should be recognized and supported. Conversely, deliberate efforts by mosques, learning centers or Islamic organizations to promote segregation of Muslims away from the larger community should be recognized as cause for concern.

6/ Use existing legal tools

Use existing hate speech laws, which prohibit promoting hatred against groups based on religion, gender or other defined factors, for unlawful conduct that is part of Islamist radicalization. Also, use the full spectrum of civil regulatory tools to try to prevent publicly regulated facilities from being used to promote radicalization or activities which are contrary to defined Western societal values. This strategy of “using all the tools in the toolbox” will be controversial but will also likely expose such anti-social practices to the light of day, which is a good thing.

7/ Amend Immigration and Citizenship Legislation

These statutes could be amended to modernize inadmissibility or acquired citizenship revocation criteria to people who actively advocate or promote cultural, religious or racial intolerance, gender inequality or the elimination of any of secular democracy, individual liberty or the rule of secular law. It’s time we recognize that we do have a “culture” and it’s worth protecting and preserving.

8/ Proactive cyber efforts against recruitment/radicalization sites

Self-radicalization, aided by jihadi websites, is a reality facing intelligence and law enforcement personnel. While monitoring such sites is obviously a useful tactic, at some point the harm in allowing the glorification and recruitment outweighs the benefit of monitoring this activity. Deploying a proactive offensive cyber attack strategy to melt down the bad guys’ cyber and social media capabilities is worth considering.

9./ Protect children from radicalized parents

Children living in Western societies should receive the full benefit of our laws that are explicitly designed to protect them from harm, including anti-social indoctrination or abuse from their parents in the name of extremist Islam. This could provide refuge for victims of “honor violence,” like the murdered Aqsa Parvez and the Shafia sisters in Canada. These kids deserved better and we should ensure that such abuse does not continue because of a politically correct aversion to confronting the truth.

Western countries face an unprecedented threat to domestic security through the radicalization of persons to a nihilistic Islamist ideology, where death is a preferred tactic to discussion. These suggestions will legitimately generate controversy precisely because they go to the core of the threat, which is violence predicated on religious beliefs. It is clearly a difficult challenge, but one that must be undertaken with truth and candor as our guides.

Turkish EU bid ‘unrealistic’ while Erdogan in power – European commissioner

August 30, 2016

Turkish EU bid ‘unrealistic’ while Erdogan in power – European commissioner

Published time: 30 Aug, 2016 13:28 Edited time: 30 Aug, 2016 17:20

Source: Turkish EU bid ‘unrealistic’ while Erdogan in power – European commissioner — RT News

 

Turkey is unlikely to join the European Union as long as its president remains in office, a top official from the bloc has said, adding that Ankara’s bid will be an issue for negotiations “for the time after Erdogan.”

In the current circumstances Turkey’s EU accession “is not realistic all through the next decade,” Guenther Oettinger, the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, told Bild newspaper on Tuesday.

“This will surely be an issue [for discussion] for the time after [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan,” he said. The official added, however, that Ankara is an important geostrategic and economic partner for the EU, and keeping good bilateral ties is critical.

German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel has also previously dismissed the Turkish accession bid, which started in 2005. Speaking to reporters in early June, he said Europe was not in a position to admit “even a small state” to its 28-nation ranks, according to the broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW).

“The illusion … here comes someone to soon become a full member in the EU … that’s complete nonsense … that will not eventuate,” he was quoted as saying by DW.

Talks between Ankara and Brussels on Turkey’s EU membership have not been smooth, with Turkey linking the progress in discussions on granting visa-free travel for its nationals to its contribution to a controversial refugee deal.

In turn, the EU cites 72 conditions on issues such as the rule of law and human rights to be implemented by Turkey for lifting the visa requirements. A number of prominent European officials have accused Turkey of “blackmailing” Brussels or even behaving “like at a bazaar” by trying to raising the stakes.

European officials say that although Turkey has fulfilled most of the 72 conditions, it has failed to comply with the most important one, which is to relax its strict anti-terrorism laws, said to have been used to silence Erdogan’s critics.

Ankara maintains that it is Brussels which has not stuck to the initial arrangements and has failed to meet its own obligations.

In a July interview with the German broadcaster ARD, President Erdogan said that Turkey had so far received only €2 billion (US$2.23 billion) of the promised €3 billion as part of the refugee deal. “European leaders are dishonest,” he said. “We have stood by our promise. But have the Europeans kept theirs?”

Last month, top Turkish officials also threatened to withdraw from the controversial refugee deal which Brussels hopes will help stem the huge flow of migrants into the EU.

“If visa liberalization does not follow, we will be forced to back away from the deal on taking back [refugees] and the agreement of March 18,” Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview.

“It can be early or mid-October, but we are waiting for an exact date,” he said.

Erdogan tells US: Stop backing the Kurds

August 30, 2016

Erdogan tells US: Stop backing the Kurds, DEBKAfile, August 30, 2016

5 (1)

US-Turkish discord over the Turkish army’s onslaught on the Kurds of northern Syria reached a new low Wednesday, Aug. 30, when the presidential palace spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in Ankara: “The US must revise its policy of supporting Kurdish forces.”

The demand came after a senior US official called on “all the armed actors in the fight against the Islamic State in northern Syria to stand down,” in an effort to contain the new conflict dragging northern Syria into further chaos.

The call was addressed equally to Ankara to freeze its military operations in Syria and to the Kurdish PYD-YPG militia to halt the flow of fraternal reinforcements for defending Mabij, the Syrian town the militia wrested from ISIS earlier this month with US assistance.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Turkish army and Kurdish forces are already tensely aligned for a decisive battle over Manbij that will determine the outcome of the Turkish invasion of Aug. 24. President Tayyip Erdogan calculates that a Turkish victory will force the Kurds to retreat to the eastern bank of the Euphrates and away from the Turkish border, while Kurdish leaders are determined to halt the Turkish army at the gates of the town, and so brand the invasion a fiasco and carry off an epic victory.

The Obama administration is making a huge effort to avert this confrontation. In the hope of reining in the Turks, Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Ankara on the day their army crossed the Syrian border and met them halfway by issuing an ultimatum to the Kurds to withdraw to east of the Euphrates or else lose US support.

Unheeding of the US warning, the Kurds went forward to build up their fighting strength and engage the Turkish army.

Ankara suspects that the Americans are continuing notwithstanding to give the Kurds weapons and assistance on the quiet.

Washington fears that a Turkish-Kurdish showdown in Manbij will further destabilize the military situation such as it is in northern Syria and northern Iraq, and all their efforts to persuade the Kurds to lead the ground forces of the coalition offensives against ISIS will go for nothing.

In an earlier report on Monday, DEBKAfile covered the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds as it unfolded after the Turkish invasion.

An all-out Turkish-Kurdish war has boiled over in northern Syria since the Turkish army crossed the border last Wednesday, Aug. 24 for the avowed aim of fighting the Islamic State and pushing the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia back. Instead of falling back, the Kurds went on the offensive and are taking a hammering. This raging confrontation has stalled the US-led coalition offensive against ISIS and put on indefinite hold any US plans for campaigns to drive the jihadists out of their Syrian and Iraqi capitals of Raqqa and Mosul.

The Kurdish militia ground troops, who were backed by the US and assigned the star role in these campaigns, are now fully engaged in fighting Turkey. And, in another radical turnaround, Iraqi Kurdish leaders (of the Kurdish Regional Republic) have responded by welcoming Iran to their capital, in retaliation for the US decision to join forces with Turkey at the expense of Kurdish aspirations.

The KRG’s Peshmerga are moreover pitching in to fight with their Syrian brothers. Together, they plan to expel American presence and influence from both northern Syria and northern Iraq in response to what they perceive as a US sellout of the Kurds.

DEBKAfile’s military analysts trace the evolving steps of this escalating complication of the Syrian war and its wider impact:

  • Since cleansing Jarablus of ISIS, Turkey has thrown large, additional armored and air force into the battle against the 35.000-strong YPG Kurdish fighters. This is no longer just a sizeable military raid, as Ankara has claimed, but a full-fledged war operation. Turkish forces are continuing to advancing in three directions and by Sunday, Aug. 28 had struck 15-17km deep inside northern Syria across a 100km wide strip.
    Their targets are clearly defined: the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwest Syria and the Kurdish enclave of Qamishli and Hassaka in the east, in order to block the merger of Kurdish enclaves into a contiguous Syrian Kurdish state.
    Another goal was Al-Bab north of and within range of Aleppo for a role in a major theater of the Syrian conflict. To reach Al-Bab, the Turkish force would have to fight its way through Kurdish-controlled territory.
  • The Turks are also using a proxy to fight the Syrian Kurds. Thousands of Syrian Democratic Army (SDF) rebels, whom they trained and supplied to fight Syria’s Bashar Assad army and the Islamic State, have been diverted to targeting the Kurds under the command of Turkish officers, to which Turkish elite forces are attached.
  • A Turkish Engineering Corps combat unit is equipped for crossing the Euphrates River and heading east to push the Kurds further back. Contrary to reports, the Turkish have not yet crossed the river itself or pushed the Kurds back – only forded a small stream just east of Jarablus. The main Kurdish force is deployed to the south not the east of the former ISIS stronghold.
KurdishWar480
  • Neither have Turkish-backed Syrian forces captured Manbij, the town 35km south of Jarablus which the Kurds with US support captured from ISIS earlier this month. Contrary to claims by Ankara’s spokesmen, those forces are still only 10-15km on the road to Mabij.
  • Sunday, heavy fighting raged around a cluster of Kurdish villages, Beir Khoussa and Amarneh, where the Turks were forced repeatedly to retreat under Kurdish counter attacks. Some of the villages were razed to the ground by the Turkish air force and tanks. At least 35 villagers were reported killed.
  • In four days of fierce battles, the Kurds suffered 150 dead and the Turkish side, 60.
  • DEBKAfile military sources also report preparations Sunday to evacuate US Special Operations Forces and helicopter units from the Rmeilan air base near the Syrian-Kurdish town of Hassaka. If the fighting around the base intensifies, they will be relocated in northern Iraq.
  • Fighters of the Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga were seen removing their uniforms and donning Syrian YPG gear before crossing the border Sunday and heading west to join their Syrian brothers in the battle against Turkey.
  • The KRG President Masoud Barazani expects to travel to Tehran in the next few days with an SOS for Iranian help against the US and the Turks. On the table for a deal is permission from Irbil for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to win their first military bases in the Iraqi Kurdish republic, as well as transit for Iranian military forces to reach Syria through Kurdish territory..

“Moderate” Muslims? No thank you

August 30, 2016

“Moderate” Muslims? No thank you, Dan Miller’s Blog, August 30, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

In an article posted on August 19th titled “Donald Trump and Islamists,” I stated that I do not use the term “moderate” when referring to Muslims because it is so grossly misused as to have become meaningless. Nevertheless, one commenter stated, “It’s dangerous to perpetuate the myth of moderate Islam,” which I had neither intended to do nor done. This post elaborates on the word “moderate” as it applies to Islam.

The term “moderate” Muslim is often applied to those who do not want to kill for Allah, but who want other Muslims to do it for them and for Allah. Many “moderate” Muslims also want Sharia law for themselves and others. The following video, presented by The Clarion Project, shows Obama and Hillary expressing their views on Islam as the religion of peace. It then rebuts their lies with facts.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and similar Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-affiliated Islamist organizations are viewed by the Obama administration as “moderate” Muslims. They are integral parts of the “countering violent extremism” scam perpetrated by Obama’s Department of Homeland Security.

Their goal is not to fight Islamic “extremism” but to defeat American constitutional principles by implementing Sharia law. Among their tools is their lamentation of the “Islamophobia” which Islamist terrorist activities generate. CAIR and other “moderate” Islamist groups are so intent upon combatting “Islamophobia” that when they can’t find any they solicit Muslims to engage in anti-Islamic “hate crimes” and then blame them on the “Islamophobia” of non-Muslims. Here are a few examples from Jihad Watch. The linked article provides more.

The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), designated a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates, and other Muslims have on many occasions not hesita-ted to stoop even to fabricating “hate crimes,” including attacks on mosques. A New Jersey Muslim was found guilty of murder that he tried to portray as an “Islamophobic” attack, and in 2014 in California, a Muslim was found guilty of killing his wife, after first blaming her murder on “Islamophobia.”

This kind of thing happens quite frequently. The New York Daily News reported just last week that “a woman who told cops she was called a terrorist and slashed on her cheek in lower Manhattan on Thursday later admitted she made up the story, police said early Friday. The woman, who wore a headscarf, told authorities a blade-wielding wacko sliced open her face as she left a Manhattan cosmetology school, police sources said.”

. . . .

In today’s politically correct environment, hate crimes are political capital. They foster the impression that resistance to Islamic terrorism equals hatred of Muslims, and results in the victimization of innocent people. Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacist organizations want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they’re the currency they use to buy power and influence in our victimhood-oriented society, and to deflect attention away from jihad terror and onto Muslims as putative victims. Want power and influence? Be a victim! [Emphasis added.]

“OKC man charged in terrorism hoax after allegedly sending letter containing white powder to a mosque,” by Kyle Schwab by Kyle Schwab, NewsOK, August 26, 2016 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

An Oklahoma City man was charged Wednesday with a felony after he allegedly sent a threatening letter to a mosque containing a white powder meant to be mistaken for anthrax.

Justin William Bouma, 32, was charged in Oklahoma County District Court with the rarely filed felony count known as the crime of terrorist hoax. Bouma also was charged with one misdemeanor count of malicious injury and destruction of property.

Prosecutors allege Bouma sent the letter to the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City on June 1. The imam at the mosque, 3815 N St. Clair Ave., contacted the FBI after opening it.

After testing the powder, the Oklahoma City Fire Department determined it was harmless. Police reported the powder was potassium perchlorate.

Bouma admitted to police on Aug. 18 he sent the “anthrax” letter to the mosque, police reported in a court affidavit.

Bouma “purchased some cheap detergent and placed it in the envelope,” according to the affidavit. Police reported threats in the letter were cut out of a magazine and a newspaper.

On Aug. 11, OK Halal Meat & Grocery, a Muslim-owned store adjacent to the mosque, had anti-Muslim sentiments spray-painted on the back.

Bouma admitted he painted the store but said the imam told him to, the affidavit states. [Emphasis added.]

The graffiti referenced the Council on American- Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR. One statement said “CAIR not welcome.” Other remarks were crude and the terrorist group ISIS was mentioned.

Bouma reportedly attended the mosque in the past. Bouma became a suspect after authorities discovered threatening emails he had sent to mosque members, police reported….

Muslim reformers

Muslims who want to reform Islam are not “moderate” Muslims; neither was Martin Luther a “moderate” Roman Catholic. Both represent small minorities seeking material changes in their religions.

Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money, proposing an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the Pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.

The changes sought by Martin Luther were feared by the Church leaders because they would disrupt its cash flow. The changes sought by Muslim reformers are feared by CAIR, et al, because they would disrupt governmental approval and patronage and eventually their power over Muslims. Perhaps Martin Luther was, and those who now seek the reformation of Islam are, “radical” — not, however, in the sense that the term “radical” is used with reference to Islam. Martin Luther did not murder those who did not believe as he did and neither do Muslim reformers.

Mecca and Medina Islam

We sometimes refer to those who adhere to the post-Mecca teachings of Mohammad, as they evolved in Medina and elsewhere later, as “radical” Muslims. It is apparently the view of Obama and His associates that they are not “radical” Muslims because they are not really Muslims. Hence, the Islamic State “has nothing to do with Islam.” The murderous activities directed by Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims and vice versa and, of course, against non-Muslims and Muslims who express “incorrect” views of Islam, are seen as not Islamic.

Ayaan Hiri Ali(1)

Please see Donald Trump and Islamists for a discussion of the substantial differences between Mecca Islam and Medina Islam.The article provides a lengthy quotation from Ayaan Hirsi Ali — a former Muslim now intent upon the reformation of Islam to coincide with Mohammad’s views as set forth in Mecca and to reject those as set forth in Medina. The differences are quite substantial and there appear to be substantially fewer Mecca Muslims than Medina Muslims.

Sharia law

Sharia law, sometimes referred to as Islamic law, focuses on human rights — as practiced in important Islamist countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia — where homosexuals, apostates and others whose words and deeds are seen as offending Mohammad and Allah are executed, often in the most painful ways possible. The Islamic State does the same and, as noted in the By the Numbers video presented above, millions of Muslims want Sharia law. Are they “radical” or “mainstream?”

Muslim reformers in America oppose Sharia law because it is grossly inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution and is also grossly evil per se. Here are the goals of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy as set forth at the adjacent link:

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy’s (AIFD) mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state.

AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization directly confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the common belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State (Islamism). Founded by Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, AIFD looks to build the future of Islam through the concepts of liberty and freedom.

AIFD’s mission is derived from a love for America and a love of our faith of Islam. Dr. Jasser and the board of AIFD believe that Muslims can better practice Islam in an environment that protects the rights of an individual to practice their faith as they choose. The theocratic “Islamic” regimes of the Middle East and some Muslim majority nations use Islam as a way to control Muslim populations, not to glorify God as they portend. The purest practice of Islam is one in which Muslims have complete freedom to accept or reject any of the tenants or laws of the faith no different than we enjoy as Americans in this Constitutional republic.

AIFD believes that the root cause of Islamist terrorism is the ideology of political Islam and a belief in the preference for and supremacy of the Islamic state. Terrorism is but a means to that end. Most Islamist terror is driven by the desire of Islamists to drive the influence of the west (the ideas of liberty) out of the Muslim consciousness and Muslim majority societies. The underlying philosophy of Islamism is what western society should fear most. With almost a quarter of the world’s population Muslim, American security will never come without an understanding and winning out of the ideas of liberty by Muslims and an understanding of the harm of political Islam by non-Muslims. [Emphasis added.]

AIFD seeks to build and establish an institution that can provide an ideological infrastructure for the ideas of liberty and freedom to Muslims and our future generations. We seek to give Muslims a powerful intellectual alternative to political Islam (Islamism) ultimately seeking the defeat of political Islam as a theo-political ideology.

Can the Muslim reform movement succeed?

Under Obama, the Muslim reform movement has not had even a ghost of a chance to succeed. Obama supports such “moderate” Islamist groups as CAIR and has made no attempt to consider the contrasting views of Islamic reformers which CAIR — and perhaps Obama — deem “Islamophobic.” Perhaps the reform movement actually is “Islamophobic,” if one deems Islamism perfect and any reform harmful to the already perfect status quo.

How many have heard of “moderate” CAIR? How many have heard of  “Islamophobic” reform movements such as Dr. Jasser’s American Islamic Forum for Democracy? Substantially fewer, I suspect, than have heard of CAIR, et al. Perhaps the lack of attention afforded the Islamic reform movement is among the reasons many adhere to the view that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. Perceptions of the views of Muslim reformers seem likely to change for the better under President Trump.

Conclusions

Insofar as Islam is concerned, we have been living on Obama’s Islamist plantation for nearly eight long years. Blacks have been living on the Democrat Party’s racist plantation for far longer.

LBJ's blacks

Trump has tried to convince Black voters to leave the racist Democrat Plantation. As he recently asked rhetorically, “what do you have to lose?”

What do we have to lose by abandoning Obama’s Islamist plantation? Nothing, but we have much to gain. When we do, our relationship with Islam won’t get worse and seems very likely to get better as Islamic reform movements get a voice in our official policy toward Islam.

Would you prefer to have Islamist organizations such as CAIR, or Muslim reform organizations, speak to and for American Muslims? One or the other will do so.

Dr. Jasser discusses the 10K Syrian refugees admitted into U.S. & examines the importance of vetting

August 30, 2016

Dr. Jasser discusses the 10K Syrian refugees admitted into U.S. & examines the importance of vetting, Fox News via YouTube, August 29, 2016

Enjoy the Internet, Before Obama Abandons It to the UN

August 30, 2016

Enjoy the Internet, Before Obama Abandons It to the UN, PJ MediaClaudia Rosett, August 29, 2016

internet and UN

In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Gordon Crovitz sounds an urgent warning about President Obama’s plans, during his final months in office, to fundamentally transform the internet. It’s an intricate tale, but the bottom line is that unless Congress acts fast, the World Wide Web looks likely to end up under control of the UN.

That would be the same UN that serves as a global clubhouse for despotic regimes that like to wield censorship as a basic tool of power. Russia and China occupy two of the five veto-wielding permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Iran since 2012 has presided over one of the largest voting blocs in the 193-member General Assembly, the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement. Among the current members of the Human Rights Council are Venezuela, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia — where blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, for blog posts the Saudi government considered insulting to Islam.

We’re talking here about the same UN which for generations has proven incorrigibly corrupt, opaque and inept at managing almost anything except its own apparently endless expansion and self-serving overreach. This is the UN of the Oil-for-Food worldwide web of kickbacks; the UN of the evidently chronic problem of peacekeepers raping minors they are sent to protect; the UN that can’t manage to adequately audit its own books, and offers its top officials an “ethics” program of financial disclosure under which they are entitled to opt out of disclosing anything whatsoever to the public.

This is the UN where a recent president of the General Assembly, John Ashe, died this June in an accident that reportedly entailed a barbell falling on his neck, while he was awaiting trial on fraud charges in the Southern District of New York — accused by federal authorities of having turned his UN position into a “platform for profit.”

So, how might this entrancing organization, the UN, end up controlling the internet? Crovitz in hisJournal column explains that Obama’s administration is about to give up the U.S. government’s longstanding contract with Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which, as a monopoly, operates “the entire World Wide Web root zone.”

If that sounds like a good idea, think again. This is not a case of Obama having some 11th-hour 180-degree conversion to the virtues of minimalist government. It works out to the very opposite. Here’s a link, again, to Crovitz’s column on “An Internet Giveaway to the UN.” Crovtz explains that as a contractor under government control, Icann enjoys an exemption from antitrust rules. When the contract expires, the exemption goes away, unless Icann can hook up with another “governmental group” so as to “keep its antitrust exemption.” What “governmental group” might that be? Well, some of the worst elements of the UN have already reached out. Crovitz writes:

Authoritarian regimes have already proposed Icann become part of the U.N. to make it easier for them to censor the internet globally. So much for the Obama pledge that the U.S. would never be replaced by a “government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.”

This is far from the first time the UN has cast a covetous eye at the internet. For years, there have been UN proposals, shindigs and summits looking for ways to regulate and tax the Web. Recall, as one example among many, the 2012 UN jamboree in Dubai. Or 2007 in Rio. Or the 2009 Internet Governance Forum gathering in Egypt, inspired by the 2005 conference of wannabe-be web commissars in Tunis.

All that hoopla pales next to the alarming reality of Obama’s plan to cut loose Icann this fall, and let the economic and political currents carry it straight into the waiting clutches of the United Nations. Crovitz notes that the Obama administration, while preparing to drop Icann’s contract, has already “stopped actively overseeing the group,” with dismal results inside Icann itself. Crovitz concludes, “The only thing worse than a monopoly overseen by the U.S. government is a monopoly overseen by no one — or by a Web-censoring U.N.”

Lest that sound hopeless, Crovitz adds: “Congress still has time to extend its ban on the Obama administration giving up protection of the internet.” But not a lot of time. The deadline is Sept. 30th.