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US mulling withdrawal of Sinai multinational force, reports say

April 6, 2016

US mulling withdrawal of Sinai multinational force, reports say, DEBKAfile, April 6, 2016

The Obama administration is considering the redeployment of the multinational peacekeeping force in the Sinai Peninsula, made up primarily of US troops, from bases in the north to more well-protected ones in the south, and replacing the troops with unmanned technology, reports said Wednesday. The move comes amid continuing terrorist attacks by ISIS in the area. Defense Department spokesman Christopher Sherwood said in a statement issued Tuesday that “The (Pentagon) supports the role being played by the Multinational Force and Observers in supporting the Treaty of Peace between Israel and Egypt,” adding that “We are in continuous contact with the MFO and adjust force protection capabilities as conditions warrant.” The MFO consists of soldiers from numerous nations including 700 US troops. Some of its observer stations were shut down in September 2015 after four of peacekeepers were injured in an ISIS roadside bomb attack.

Categories: Department of Defense, Egypt, Islamic State, Israel borders, Siani
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The Bipartisan Enemy of the Good

April 5, 2016

The Bipartisan Enemy of the Good, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, April 5, 2016

secretary_kerry_with_president_al-sisi_july_2014

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.

On March 25, The New York Times published an editorial effectively calling for US President Barack Obama to abandon the US alliance with Egypt.

The Obama White House’s house paper urged the president to “reassess whether an alliance that has long been considered a cornerstone of American national security policy is doing more harm than good.” The editorial concluded that Obama must “start planning for the possibility of a break in the alliance with Egypt.”

The Times’ call was based on an open letter to Obama authored by a bipartisan group of foreign policy experts that call themselves the “Working Group on Egypt.” Citing human rights violations on the part of the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Working Group urged Obama to tie US financial and military assistance to Egypt to the protection of NGOs operating in Egypt.

The self-proclaimed bipartisan band of experts is co-chaired by Robert Kagan from the Brookings Institution and Michele Dunne from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Among its prominent members are Elliott Abrams, Ellen Bork, Reuel Gerecht, Brian Katulis, Neil Hicks and Sarah Margon.

The Working Group has a history.

In January 2011, it called for Obama to force then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to resign from office. In so doing, it provided bipartisan cover for Obama’s decision to abandon the US’s most critical and dependable ally in the Arab world. Then, as now, the group’s esteemed experts argued that due to the regime’s infringement of human rights, the US could not in good conscience support it. Back in 2011, Israelis found a rare wall-to-wall unanimity of purpose in vocally and forcefully defending Mubarak from his American detractors. From the far Left to the far Right, from the IDF General Staff to the street, Israelis warned anyone who would listen that if Mubarak were forced out of power, the Muslim Brotherhood would take over and transform Egypt into a jihadist state.

Due in large part to the presence of senior Republican foreign policy hands on the Working Group, by and large Israel’s warnings were ignored in Washington. Facing the unusual Israeli consensus backing Mubarak was an American consensus insisting that “democracy” would ensure that a new liberal democratic Egypt would emerge out the ashes of the Mubarak regime.

The Americans chided us for repeating over and over again that the Muslim Brotherhood, the progenitor of al-Qaida, Hamas, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and every other major Sunni jihadist terrorist group around at the time, was a terrorist group.

We were attacked as “anti-democratic,” for insisting that the Facebook posters and twitterers on Twitter were in no position to replace Mubarak.

Who were we, the Americans scoffed, to point out that the “Facebook revolutionaries” were but a flimsy veneer which barely hid the Islamists from willfully blind Western officials and reporters who refused to admit that liberal values are not universal values – to put it mildly.

In the ensuing five years, every single warning that Israel expressed was borne out in spades.

Just as we said, right after Mubarak was forced from power, the Islamists unceremoniously dispatched with the Facebook crowd. The two million Islamists who converged on Tahrir Square to hear Sheikh Yussuf Qaradawi call for jihad and the Islamic conquest of Israel weren’t interested in democracy.

The women and Christians of Egypt soon realized, Mubarak’s overthrow, which paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood electoral victories in 2012, did not expand their rights, it endangered their lives. As for the hapless Americans, immediately after Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi was inaugurated to serve as president of Egypt, the government began demanding that the US release from prison Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheikh who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. The US embassy in Cairo was the target of jihadist riots on September 11, 2012.

Then, since Morsi was elected democratically, none of this was any sweat off the back of Washington’s Egypt experts. They supported sending F-16s to his air force even after he hosted then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Cairo, let Iranian warships traverse the Suez Canal and became a strategic ally of Hamas. They also supported his government, even though he enabled Libyan arms to flow through Egypt to Syria, transforming the war in Syria from a local dispute into the incubator for Islamic State – the precursor of which Morsi also gave a free hand to operate in the Sinai, in conjunction with Hamas.

The Americans didn’t reconsider their belief that Morsi was the guy for them, even after he allowed his Muslim Brothers to torch Coptic churches and massacre Christians. They didn’t revisit their support for the Muslim Brotherhood government even after Morsi arrogated to himself dictatorial powers that even Mubarak never dreamed of.

Perhaps if Morsi had been a responsible economic leader, and maintained the liberalization policies Mubarak enacted during his last five years in power, then defense minister Abdel Fatah Sisi wouldn’t have felt the need to remove him from power. After all, Morsi appointed Sisi to his position.

But in addition to ending even lip service to human rights, Morsi gutted the economy. By the time the military overthrew Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in the summer of 2013, Egypt had a mere $5 billion in reserves, and according to the World Health Organization, a quarter of Egyptians were starving.

So had the Muslim Brotherhood remained in power, Egypt would not have remained a democracy.

It would have become a jihadist state as dangerous as Iran, with the economic prospects of North Korea.

In other words, five years ago, there was no chance that a post-Mubarak Egypt would become a liberal democracy. There were only two options – a US-allied tyranny that fought jihad and maintained the peace with Israel, or a jihad state, aligned with Iran, that posed an existential threat to Israel, Jordan, the US and the international economy.

Those are still the choices today, but the stakes are even higher. Due to the Muslim Brotherhood’s year in power, the jihadist elements that gathered force in the Sinai over the past 20 years were able to organize as a more or less unified force, under the rule of Islamic State (ISIS), and in strategic alliance with Hamas. Like ISIS in Syria, ISIS in Egypt is an aggressive, dangerous group that stops at nothing to achieve its aims of expanding the ISIS empire.

The war it now fights against the Egyptian state is a total war.

To his credit, Sisi recognizes the nature of the threat and has taken steps to counter jihad that Mubarak never contemplated. The Egyptian leader recognizes that to defeat ISIS nothing less than a reformation of Islam is required. And so, in addition to fighting ISIS with everything he has, he is risking everything by taking on the jihadist belief system.

Sisi has mobilized the clerics at Al-Azhar seminary to develop an Islamic narrative that rejects jihad.

Sisi risks everything because everything is already at risk. If ISIS wins, Egypt is finished.

To win this war, he has publicly embraced Israel as an ally. He has openly sided with Israel against Hamas. Unlike Mubarak, Sisi has been fully willing to acknowledge that just because Hamas’s primary victims are Jews doesn’t mean that it isn’t a terrorist group that has to be destroyed.

Without putting too fine a point on in, for his fearless fight to the death with the forces of jihad – both in the mosque and on the battlefield – Sisi has already entered the pantheon, alongside Winston Churchill, of word historical figures. And yet, rather than embrace him and support him in his fight for Egypt and humanity, the same “experts” who called for Mubarak to be overthrown now urge Obama to abandon Sisi.

It is depressing that there is no magic bullet – like democracy – for the pathologies that afflict the Islamic world. But there is no magic bullet. And there are no easy choices for people who refuse to recognize that the natural state of man is neither liberal nor democratic.

But it is hard to accept the credibility of those who refuse to learn from their mistakes. It is harder still as well to listen to the “moral calls” of those who refuse to accept that because their past advice was heeded, thousands have died, and if their current calls are heeded, millions of lives will be imperiled.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Human rights, Islam and human rights, Islamic reformation, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Leftists, Morsi, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Egypt, Obama and Islam, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood, Republicans, Sisi, U.S. Congress
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Senator Leahy and 10 House Democrats call to Investigate Israel for Killing Terrorists

March 30, 2016

Senator Leahy and 10 House Democrats call to Investigate Israel for Killing Terrorists, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 30, 2016

Leahy

Senator Leahy (D-Time Warner) heading this up is not a surprise. His pro-terrorist and anti-Israel views are well known. There’s a long and ugly history there. And Leahy is once again trying to defund the Israeli military.

The Leahy letter to Kerry though is blatantly Muslim Brotherhood inspired. It classes together Israel and Egypt, accusing Israel of “extrajudicial” killings of Islamic terrorists and broadcasting the Muslim Brotherhood’s claims of victimhood in Egypt.

The claims about “human rights violations” in Egypt lists Muslim Brotherhood figures who were killed by Egyptian police in a shootout with the Islamic terror group after it was removed from power by political protests, including Osama al-Husseini, Hisham Khifagy and Ibrahim al-Sisi, the Brotherhood’s “defense minister”.

The Leahy letter never mentions the Muslim Brotherhood though making it not only a pro-terrorist letter, but a dishonest one.

Leahy and other Democrats also complain about Israel killing some of these Islamic terrorists…

Fadi Alloun stabbed a 15-year-old in Jerusalem in early October, 2015, moderately wounding him. The attacker fled and was killed by police fire after they noticed the knife in his hand.

Saad Al-Atrash was killed by soldiers in late October, 2015, after he had attacked them with a knife near a pedestrian checkpoint down the street from the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Hadeel Hashlamoun was shot after attempting to stab an Israeli soldier at an IDF check point in Hebron in September, 2015.

This is what Leahy is defending. Also signing on is Jim McDermott and James McGovern, who are in the same pro-terrorist category as Leahy. Also on board is radical leftist Chellie Pingree backed by the anti-Israel group, J Street, and retiring Rep. Sam Farr.  Also signing on are career progressive caucusers Betsy McCollum and Raúl Grijalva who would just happily sign on to a letter proposing Stalin for a posthumous Model of Freedom award.

Andre Carson, a Muslim convert who has a history of appearing at Islamist pro-terrorist events and anti-Israel activism, is not a surprising signature.

But there are also a number of Congressional Black Caucus members here, Hank “Guam will tip over” Johnson, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Eleanor Holmes Norton.

This is not just an anti-Israel letter. It’s a pro-terrorist letter. It covertly advocates on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood and its contents were no doubt formed and shaped by Brotherhood activists in America.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Democrats, Egypt, IDF, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian terrorists, U.S. Congress
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The Sinai Insurgency is Spiking

March 29, 2016

The Sinai Insurgency is Spiking, Israel Defense, Dr. Shaul Shay, March 29, 2016

(Please see also, Sisi asks Obama for military intervention to save Egypt from ISIS. — DM)

SianiPhoto: AP

On March 19, 2016, a terrorist attack on a checkpoint in the Safa neighborhood in southern Arish city resulted in the death of 15 police personnel. The victims were two police captains, a first lieutenant, and 12 conscripts. A police officer and two conscripts are still missing after the attack and the whereabouts of the three “missing” police officers are still unknown. Egyptian security forces killed five of the terrorists after violent clashes that lasted for two hours.

This attack is the last among a series of terrorist attacks that have targeted army and police centers in the Sinai Peninsula. The attack was the biggest in Sinai this year and the deadliest since July 2015. It could mark the return of Wilayat Sinai (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis) to large-scale coordinated attacks after a period of limited operations against checkpoints and security personnel.

Wilayat Sinai has claimed numerous deadly attacks in the region recently, targeting mainly security forces. Earlier this week, an Egyptian soldier and police officer were killed during two separate attacks in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Gunmen affiliated with Wilayat Sinai shot and killed the officer outside his home in el-Arish. A soldier was also killed by a sniper in Sheikh Zuweid, which is not far from el-Arish.

The attack

The terror attack was carefully organized, suggesting it had long been planned. Wilayat Sinai surveillance personnel had probably observed the checkpoint for some time and that automatic weapons and an RPG were stashed nearby.

The checkpoint was close to a valley and olive farm, providing ground cover that the terrorists probably used to crawl undetected on the ground as they hid their weapons. When the suicide bomber struck, his cohorts were then able to fire on any survivors using their cache of weapons.

According to the prosecutor-general, the incident took place at 6.30pm on Saturday (March 19). Prosecutors say checkpoint personnel were subjected to mortar and RPG fire. Ambulances attempting to reach the scene of the attack also came under heavy gunfire.

Wilayat Sinai claimed responsibility

The Wilayat Sinai, which is affiliated with the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement on Twitter, the group said the attack was “part of a series of operations in response to the humiliation and searching of Muslim women at checkpoints.”

The statement said a suicide bomber – Abul-Qaaqaa Al-Masri – drove an explosive-laden car into the security force and detonated it. The statement threatened more attacks in the future.

The response of the Egyptian security forces

President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi held a security meeting attended by the ministers of interior and defense, the army chief of staff and senior army and police commanders. Presidential spokesperson Alaa Youssef said Al-Sisi ordered the army and police to coordinate fully in the field.

Security forces were placed on high alert, and the decision was taken to continue targeting terrorist and criminal dens while simultaneously prioritizing the safety and security of civilians.

Egypt’s North Sinai prosecution began investigations into the attack. The prosecution has inspected the site of the attack and will later listen to the testimonies of eyewitnesses and officials in the checkpoint, judicial sources said.

A few days later, Egypt’s army executed an operation to get revenge for the army and police martyrs. The forces destroyed a number of militant hideouts in Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid cities in raids. An Egyptian Army spokesperson has said that 60 Islamic State group militants were killed after fighter jets targeted the group’s positions in North Sinai.

In a Facebook post detailing the outcome of the operation, Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir said, “counterterrorism units backed by the air force” had “killed 60 terrorists, wounded another 40 and destroyed 27 four-wheel (drive) pick-up trucks south of Rafah and Sheikh Zayed.”

Egypt’s war against terror

A new report of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) think tank, shows Egypt suffered more than 100 attacks on average per month from January to August 2015, compared to around 30 attacks per month in 2014.

The attacks are also spreading around the country. Until June 2013 violence was mostly contained to North Sinai, but after the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi by Egypt’s military, reports of militant strikes are coming in from all over the country. In particular, Greater Cairo (the provinces of Giza and Cairo), Fayoum and Sharqia have seen a spike in incidents.

The insurgency in North Sinai has transformed into near-daily attacks, often with use of advanced weaponry. Civilians account for the majority of casualties in these strikes.

Another report of the Regional Center for Strategic Studies – the Cairo index of stability, confirmed that terrorist organizations in Egypt in 2015 have become more aggressive than ever before. The number of terrorist attacks reached 617 in 2015, compared with 349 in 2014. According to the same index, Sinai’s statistics are among the worst in Egypt, as the number of terrorist attacks there reached 90 in 2015.

Yet details of the index confirmed there was a crackdown on terrorist organizations following the attacks on Sheikh Zuweid (July 2015): The total number of terrorist attacks in Egypt from August to December 2015 dropped significantly to 64, compared with 170 in the same 2014 period. The escalation in the attacks in recent weeks indicates that Egypt’s efforts to eliminate terrorism in Sinai has not been successful.

According to Maha Abdel Azim (Egyptian streets, March 13, 2016), an estimated 2100 people were killed in North Sinai in 2015, including roughly 1800 described by the military as terrorists, 150 civilians, 40 police officers and conscripts, and 140 military personnel. Many civilians are direct victims of militant attacks or are killed by often unidentified shelling. Others were killed in the crossfires during clashes between the military and militant groups. The estimate is a roundup based on statements by the military spokesperson as well as reporting from Aswat Masriya and Ahram Online.

In January 2016, Islamic State wrote in its weekly magazine Naba’, which runs news from the group’s various branches, that the Sinai branch had killed 1,400 people – members of the military and police as well as collaborators and tribal fighters – in the previous 15 months. The Egyptian military has disputed this figure and said only 69 military personnel were killed in that period.

Summary

Egyptian forces are grappling with an Islamist insurgency based in North Sinai governorate, which spiked following the 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. The insurgency has killed hundreds of Egyptian security forces, while the armed forces have said their operations have killed Thousands of militants in the area.

One of Wilayat Sinai’s largest attacks came on July 1 ,2015, when car bombs targeted security checkpoints in Sheikh Zuweid. According to a statement from Egyptian army officials issued shortly after the attacks, 17 soldiers and more than 100 militants died.

The challenge of the ongoing terror attacks in Sinai demand a comprehensive response of military and civilian counter measures. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced last year to spend 10 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.28 million) on developing the Sinai Peninsula. Additionally, the current government has said that it recognizes the need to work with the local population and provide a development program for the region.

Egypt urgently needs to come up with proper long-term social, political, and economic strategies. Only a well-coordinated plan of dialogue with the local population, social and economic development and military and security crackdown on terrorism will return security and stability to the Sinai region.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Islamic terrorism, Siani, Sisi
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Sisi asks Obama for military intervention to save Egypt from ISIS

March 28, 2016

Sisi asks Obama for military intervention to save Egypt from ISIS, DEBKAfile, March 28, 2016

Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi has sent a secret missive to President Barack Obama asking for urgent US military intervention in support of Egypt’s war on the Islamist State in Sinai, before the jihadis pose a real threat to Cairo. DEBKAfile’s exclusive intelligence and counterterrorism sources report that El-Sisi has come to the conclusion that Egyptian army lacks the ability to eradicate the terrorist peril without direct US military support.

In his note, he asks Washington to replicate in Sinai the format of US intervention in the war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, namely, to send in special operations forces to establish bases and operate drones against jihadist targets. Unless stopped, he warns, the Islamic State is on the point of transforming the Sinai Peninsula into its primary forward base in the Middle East, bolstered by its branches of terror across North Africa, especially in Libya. US intervention is necessary to avert this.

So far, Sisi has received no answer from the White House and no sign of one in the pipeline.

Our military sources note that, given his record as former defense minister and a much-decorated general in the Egyptian army, an appeal to a foreign power for military assistance is out of character and would normally be found unacceptable in his own milieu. It must therefore be seen as a sign of extreme distress over Cairo’s failure to vanquish – or even contain ISIS, which now poses a strategic threat to Egypt proper.

In this situation, the generals in Cairo were dismayed to read a New York Timesleader on March 25, captioned “Time to Rethink US relationship with Egypt,” which faults the Egyptian regime’s human rights record and suggests that the relationship does Washington more harm than good.

The NYT concludes by saying, “Over the next few months, the president should start planning the possibility of a break in the alliance with Egypt. That scenario appears increasingly necessary.”

Since this article appeared out of the blue, it is feared in Cairo that it is President Obama’s way of spurring the Egyptian president’s SOS.

Some high-ranking military figures in Cairo have started talking about alternatives: If Washington refuses to come up with military assistance for fighting the Islamic State, perhaps the time has time to go elsewhere.
An Egyptian appeal to Moscow cannot be ruled out.

 

Categories: Egypt, Islamic State, Obama and Egypt, Russia, Siani, Sisi
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Obama Backed Muslim Brotherhool Egypt Coup Against National Security Team Advice

March 18, 2016

Obama Backed Muslim Brotherhool Egypt Coup Against National Security Team Advice, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, March 18, 2016

mubarak_miss_me_yet

Obama usually defends his bad decisions on foreign policy by blaming someone else. He tried to blame General Austinfor his ISIS JayVee team line. He blames Netanyahu for his failed outreach to Islamic terrorists in Israel. Benghazi was caused by a video. The Libyan War was caused by bad advice, especially from Hillary Clinton. Also by the Europeans.

We don’t discuss Egypt much. But, perhaps to get ahead of the blame game, it turns out that Obama rejected the advice of his national security team to back a Brotherhood coup of Mubarak in Egypt. (Yes, I know, the official media narrative is that the overthrow of Morsi was a “coup” but the overthrow of Mubarak was a popular protest, even though both involved the army stepping in. Because the narrative is based on lies and word games.)

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed that President Barack Obama disregarded the near unanimous advice of the national security team and decided to depose then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak because he wanted to be on the “the right side of history.”

“The entire national security team recommended unanimously handling Mubarak differently than we did,” Gates said in a Fox News interview. “And the president took the advice of three junior backbenchers in terms of how to treat Mubarak — one of them saying, ‘Mr. President, you have to be on the right side of history.’”

This isn’t much of a surprise since Obama has always picked his White House juniors and his pet radicals over his official national security team. He’ll blame military people and cabinet members, but not his toadies who got upgraded from speechwriting to unofficially running foreign policy.

How has the “right side of history” worked out. The Muslim Brotherhood has been crushed in most places where it launched its takeovers. (Not counting the United States.) It’s still in the game in Libya though. Maybe Obama can start a second war on its behalf.

Categories: Egypt, Foreign policy, Morsi, Mubarak, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood
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Turkey and Saudi Arabia hit back for the Obama-Putin Syrian pact

March 5, 2016

Turkey and Saudi Arabia hit back for the Obama-Putin Syrian pact, DEBKAfile, March 5, 2016

Zaman_4.3.16Headline of last issue of Turkey’s Zaman before government takeover

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have taken separate steps to break free from Washington’s dictates on the Syrian issue and show their resistance to Russia’s highhanded intervention in Syria. They are moving on separate tracks to signal their defiance and frustration with the exclusive pact between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin which ostracizes Riyadh and Ankara on the Syrian question.

Turkey in particular, saddled with three million Syrian refugees (Jordan hosts another 1.4 million), resents Washington’s deaf ear to its demand for no-fly zones in northern and southern Syria as shelters against Russian and Syrian air raids.

Last year, President Reccep Erdogan tried in desperation to partially open the door for a mass exit of Syrian refugees to Europe. He was aghast when he found that most of the million asylum-seekers reaching Europe were not Syrians, but Muslims from Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan, in search of a better life in the West. Most of the Syrians stayed put in the camps housing them in southern Turkey.

Even the Turkish intelligence agency MIT was hard put to explain this setback.  According to one partial explanation, organized crime gangs of Middle East dope and arms smugglers, in which ISIS is heavily represented, seized control of the refugee traffic heading to Europe from Libya, Iraq and Syria.
This human traffic netted the gangs an estimated $1 billion.

Turkey was left high and dry with millions of Syrian refugees on its hands and insufficient international aid to supply their needs. No less painful, Bashar Assad was still sitting pretty in Damascus.

Finding Assad firmly entrenched in Damascus is no less an affront for Saudi Arabia. Added to this, the Syrian rebel groups supported by Riyadh are melting away under continuing Russian-backed government assaults enabled by the Obama-Putin “ceasefire” deal’

The oil kingdom’s rulers find it particularly hard to stomach the sight of Iran and Hizballah going from strength to strength both in Syria and Lebanon.

The Turks threatened to strike back, but confined themselves to artillery shelling of Syrian areas close to the border. While appearing to be targeting the Kurdish YPD-YPG militia moving into these areas, the Turkish guns were in fact pounding open spaces with no Kurdish presence. Their purpose was to draw a line around the territory which they have marked out for a northern no-fly or security zone.

Saturday, March 5, President Erdogan proposed building a “new city” of 4,500 square kilometers on northern Syrian soil, to shelter the millions of war refugees. He again tried putting the idea to President Obama.

The Saudi Defense Minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman put together a more high-risk and comprehensive scheme. Its dual purpose is to hit pro-Iranian Hizballah from the rear and forcied [Sic] the two big powers to treat Riyadh seriously as a player for resolving the Syrian imbroglio.

The scheme hinged in the cancellation of a $4 billion Saudi pledge of military aid to the Lebanese army, thereby denying Hizballah, which is a state within the state and also dominates the government, access to Saudi funding. But it also pulled the rug from under Lebanon’s hopes for combating ISIS and Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which have grabbed a strip of Lebanese territory in the northern Beqaa Valley.

The Saudi action, by weakening the Lebanese military and its ability to shore up central government in Beirut, risks tipping Lebanon over into another civil war.

The London Economist commented that this Saudi step against Lebanon seems “amateurish.” Under the young prince (30), “Saudi Arabia sometimes acts with bombast and violence that makes it look like the Donald Trump of the Arab World,” in the view of the magazine.

But the Saudi step had a third less obvious motive, a poke in the eye for President Obama for espousing Iran’s claim to Middle East hegemony. Resentment on this score is common to the Saudi royal house and the Erdogan government.

As a crude provocation for Washington, the Turkish president ordered police Friday, March 4, to raid Turkey’s largest newspaper Zaman, after an Istanbul court ruling placed it under government control.

The newspaper released its final edition ahead of the raid declaring the takeover a “shameful day for free press” in the country. A group of protesters outside the building was dispersed with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

Zaman is owned by the exiled Muslim cleric Felhullah Gulen, who heads the powerful Hizmet movement, which strongly contests Erdogan government policies. A former ally of the president, the two fell out years ago. In 1999, after he was accused of conspiring to overthrow the government in Ankara, Gulen fled to the United States.

Today, the exiled cleric runs the Hizmet campaign against the Turkish president from his home in Pennsylvania, for which he has been declared a terrorist and many of his supporters arrested.

The takeover of Zaman was intended both as a blow by Ankara against Muslim circles opposed to the Erdogan regime and as an act of retaliation against the United States, for harboring its opponents and sidelining Turkey from Obama administration plans for Syria.

Oddly enough, the Turkish president finds himself in a position analogous to Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, who is at war with the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement which enjoys Obama’s support.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has his own dilemmas. Struggling to keep his balance while walking a tight rope on the Syrian situation between Israel’s longstanding ties with Washington and handling the Russian tiger lurking next door, he is in no hurry to welcome Erdogan’s determined overtures for the resumption of normal relations.

Turkey is in trouble with both major world powers and, after living for five years under hostile abuse from Ankara, Israel does not owe Erdogan a helping had for pulling  him out of the mess.

Categories: Assad, Egypt, Erdogan, Foreign policy, Iranian proxies, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Nursa Front, Obama - Middle East, Putin, Russia - Syrian war, Russia - Turkey, Saudi Arabia
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ISIS Wages Brutal War in Egyptian Sinai

March 2, 2016

ISIS Wages Brutal War in Egyptian Sinai, Clarion Project, March 2, 2016

Islamic-State-Sinai-CheeringHPIslamic-State terrorist in the Sinai (Photo: Video screenshot from an Islamic State propaganda video)

The people of el-Arish were stunned this week when a caravan of SUVs drove up to the central square in the Egyptian Sinai town. Masked men emerged from the vehicles, shooting wildly into the air to make their presence known. Leading two captives, cowering under the terrorists, they immediately threw one of them on the ground, slaughtering him with a knife and then beheaded him.

The other captive was summarily shot in the head.

Civilians, shocked and terrified, began screaming. Blood was everywhere. But the Egyptian army and police – whose stations are located close by — were nowhere to be found.

The gunmen drove off, disappearing to an unknown location as quickly as they arrived. Eyewitness said many bystanders called the army and police during the event through an emergency hotline, but the only reply they received was from the hospital ambulance services, who said they were not allowed to take the bodies from the streets because they had not received instructions from the police.

The corpses remained in the square until 6 am the next morning at which time, the people took them themselves to the hospital morgue. Chaos ensued when the hospital refused to take possession as the bodies had not arrive in an ambulance.

Only after the gathering crowd threatened to ransack the hospital did they relent.

The victims were identified as Radi el-Bareeki, 43, a builder and contractor who was beheaded, and his son Suleiman, 17. The Bareekis were from the village of Charisa in the central Sinai. They had taken refuge in el-Arish after they were threatened by the Islamic State in Sinai (Wilyat-Sinai) for spying on the group for the Egyptian security forces.

Ten days earlier, the terror group published on social media the executions of two civilians also accused of spying for the security forces.

In the terror-laden Sinai, el-Arish was known as a safe haven which, until this latest event, had escaped the clutches of the brutal group.

“The Islamic State Sinai is one of the most brutal insurgent, terrorist and extremist groups. Considering their intentions to expand into Africa, IS Sinai presents an unprecedented threat not only to the security and stability of the Middle East but to Africa as well,” Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al Qaeda and international terrorism expert told Clarion Project.

“With its far reaching expertise, IS Sinai will build its capabilities among like-minded groups both in North Africa and in the Sahel. Before IS Sinai’s influence and capabilities spread further, they should be contained, isolated and eliminated. Otherwise, IS Sinai will destabilize Egypt, the pivotal state linking Africa and the Middle East,” he added.

This video shows images of ISIS reportedly aiming rockets at el-Arish airport:

Categories: Egypt, Islamic State, Siani
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French nuke carrier for sea-air drill with Egypt ahead of Libya offensive

February 29, 2016

French nuke carrier for sea-air drill with Egypt ahead of Libya offensive, DEBKAfile, February 29, 2016

Tahya_MisrFrench-built Egyptian frigate “Tahya Misr”

[T]he joint French-Egyptian naval-air force drill about to take place is the most substantial sign that a real operation to confront ISIS in Libya may finally be about to go forward.

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The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is steaming through the Red Sea on its way to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal for joint maneuvers with the Egyptian navy in preparation for a reduced coalition offensive against Islamic State’s deepening grip on Libya. DEBKAfile’s military sources, reporting this, say it will be the Egyptian navy’s first joint exercise with a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier; and also the first drill to be conducted by the new Egyptian missile frigate Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt!),  which underwent a series of exercises after it was delivered by the French DCNS naval shipbuilders last June.

The Charles de Gaulle departed the Persian Gulf Monday, Feb. 22 and is due to reach the eastern Mediterranean in the first week of March. The Egyptian frigate’s weapons systems can shoot down planes and ballistic missiles as well as striking naval or ground targets. Its weapons systems can shoot down planes and ballistic missiles as well as striking naval or ground targets. But the vessel has been stripped of its regular electronic warfare and satellite communications systems for the exercise – apparently after a quiet understanding between France, Egypt and Israel.

The Egyptian frigate was originally designed to secure the Suez Canal against potential terrorist attacks from the Islamic State networks in the Sinai Peninsula and their offshoots in the Canal cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. The warship was moved into the Mediterranean after President Francois Hollande and Egyptian President Abdul-Fatteh El-Sisi moved forward on plans for a joint assault with Italy to root out ISIS positions in Libya.

The three powers have agreed to launch this offensive in late April or May, DEBKAfile’s military and counterterrorism sources report.

The joint naval exercise will meanwhile drill coordination between the French and Egyptian navies and air forces in readiness for the combat operation. They will practice landing fighter-bombers taking off from the Charles de Gaulle decks at air bases in Egypt’s western desert near the Libyan border, for refueling, reloading munitions or emergency landings, when damaged by enemy fire.

They will also rehearse joint marine landings from French and Egyptian warships.

Our sources report that the trilateral assault plan has undergone repeated revisions in recent weeks, mainly because President Barack Obama has had second thoughts about his initial scheme for the United States to lead the operation in Libya – this time from the front.

His first plan was for a large marine contingent to land on the Libyan coast under heavy air cover. But lately, he can’t decide whether to deploy any US troops at all and inclines towards leaving the main onus of the anti-ISIS campaign in Libya to European and Middle East armies.

A final decision is expected by our Washington sources to substantially scale down the original plan. The dithering in Washington has led to delays in Paris, Cairo, Rome and London on drawing up a final list of ISIS targets to be hit and the size of the invasion forces, although the operation is just weeks away and time is pressing.

Islamic State commanders, viewing this lack of resolve, are beginning to feel safe in their Libyan strongholds, after drawing confidence from the recent downsizing of coalition strikes against its forces and bases in Iraq and Syria.

Since a small coalition vanguard for the main offensive landed in Libya last year, nothing much as happened to hold back ISIS advances in Libya,  except for US drone strikes.

The White House spokesman Josh Earnest said this week that President Obama planned to address the terrorist organization’s advances in Libya with top military officials.

Also this week, Libyan military officials reported that 15 French Special Operations experts had been in Benghazi for the past two months, assisting Libyan national troops in fighting the extremists. According to another report, a “small number” of British advisers has joined US military operatives who are giving local militias “tactical training in Misrata.

However, the joint French-Egyptian naval-air force drill about to take place is the most substantial sign that a real operation to confront ISIS in Libya may finally be about to go forward.

Categories: Egypt, France, Islamic State, Libya
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Op-Ed: Contemplating a US/Russia Alliance

February 16, 2016

Op-Ed: Contemplating a US/Russia Alliance, Israel National News, Ted Belman and Alexander Maistrovoy, February 16, 2016

Before Donald Trump’s blowout win in New Hampshire he shocked the world by saying he would allow the Russians to do the “dirty work” and would “let them beat the s*** out of ISIS also.”. Trump went further, “I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect,”

Putin, responded by saying: “He (Trump) says that he wants to move to another level of relations, to a deeper level of relations with Russia. How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it.”

The condemnation of Trump for his remarks was immediate but certainly not universal. Many American’s are beginning to see Russia in a new light.

Until the fall of the USSR, the 20th Century was dominated by an ideological struggle between American capitalism and Russian communism. But now that Russia has abandoned communism and the US is embracing socialism, as seen by the Sander’s victory in the New Hampshire primary, the two powers are more alike than ever before.

Now we have a different ideological struggle to contend with, namely a civilizational war between the Christian/Secular West and the Islamic Caliphate. They are inimical to each other. North America, Europe and Russia are natural allies in this struggle as they are different daughters of one civilization.

In the past, both Russia and the US have backed different Arab states or Muslim groups, including radical Islamists. The end result of this US/Russia enmity was to destabilize the ME and Europe and to allow an Islamic fifth column into America and Europe.

The reality is that Russia, Europe and the US desperately need each other. Together they can withstand the hydra of pan-Islamism with its countless heads (ISIS, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, Salafis, Muslim brothers, etc.), can stabilize the Middle East, the cradle of Islamic fanaticism and can stabilize Europe.

For Russia, the triumph of the Caliphate in any form will be a deadly threat to its “soft underbelly”: the Caucasus and Volga region with Tatarstan.

Penetration of Islamic militancy from Afghanistan into Central Asia means the appearance of the Islamists on the longest and vulnerable southeastern border of Russia.

From Europe’s point of view, a destabilized North Africa and Middle East is resulting in a mass migration of Muslims including radical Islamists which threaten to tear it apart and irreparably change it. This in turn will have dire consequences for both Russia and America.

Both US and Russia are not able to cope with the global “jihad” separately” especially when they are supporting different sides. Russia has no resources for a war against radical Islam made more difficult by western sanctions and pressure. The West, in spite of its material power, lacks the will needed to defeat such a savage and ruthless enemy.

Thus an alliance is imperative.

“New Middle East”

A new Middle East is in the making. It will not look like the “New Middle East” as envisioned by Shimon Peres.  Syria, Iraq and Libya are no more. Lebanon looks like it will also fracture due to the influx of 1.5 million Sunnis, either Palestinian or Syrian. Hezbollah Shia have been reduced from 40% to 25% of the population by this influx so expect a power struggle to ensue there.

Alawite Syria, a strong Kurdish state in the north of former Iraq and Syria, tribal unions in Libya, Druze enclaves in Syria, a Christian enclave in Lebanon and perhaps in Iraq, all will appear on the map of the new Middle East. They will all need the support, both militarily and diplomatically, of either the US or Russia. In this way, the west will be empowered to keep the radical Islamists out.

Russia already has supported the Kurdish PYD (Democratic Union Party) in northern Syria diplomatically (Kremlin insists on PYD’s participation in negotiations about the future of Syria) and by providing them with weapons. The US is also supportive of the Kurds but bas been restrained by Turkey’s insistence that the Kurds be denied independence.  If the US forms an alliance with Russia it no longer needs an alliance with Turkey.

The American embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey must be seen as the aberration it is. Rather than support the Islamization of the Middle East and North Africa, America should fight it. Rather than embrace the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists, as Obama did, the US should embrace Russia.

Pressure could then be brought to bear on Turkey to change its Islamist allegiances and to allow greater autonomy to its 10 million Kurdish citizens who otherwise will want to join the newly formed Kurdistan.

The US, by destroying Qaddafi and Mubarak, greatly destabilized North Africa. By waging war against Assad, the US has destabilized the Middle East and Europe. What is needed now is that the US and Russia come together to strengthen President al Sisi of Egypt to enable him to defeat ISIS in Sinai and Libya. Russia should be invited back into Libya to assist in its stabilization.  Europe and Tunisia will also benefit from this stabilization as will African states to the south.

In addition, US and Russia should cut a deal for a political solution for Syria in which Syria is divided into three states based on ethnic lines; Alawite Syria in which Russia holds sway, Kurdish Syria which will join with Kurdistan in Iraq and a Sunni state amalgamating the Sunni areas of both Syria and Iraq.

Such a deal will involve cooperation between Russia, US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. ISIS must be defeated and non-Islamist Sunnis must be put in charge. Saudi Arabia would have a major role in the creation and maintenance of such a state. It is not inconceivable that Jordan would in the end, amalgamate with this state given the number of Sunni refugees it is now host to. This state would serve as a bulwark to an expansionist Iran.

It is in the interest of Russia to placate Saudi Arabia so that Saudi Arabia will cut down on her oil production and allow the price of oil to rise. Saudi Arabia would be agreeable to doing so and to such a division of Syria if Russia would restrain Iran.

Iran

Today, Russia is the de facto ally of Iran and the US is a wannabe.  The Iranian star reached its zenith with the total capitulation of the US in the Iran Deal. Since then it’s been downhill all the way. Without the help of Russia they would have lost Syria as an ally and their connection to Hezbollah. But with that help, Russia is now calling the shots.

It wasn’t so long ago that Russia supported the sanctions on Iran and didn’t want to remove them because it meant the addition of Iranian oil to the world market and the weakening the already weak ruble. Kremlin couldn’t betray its ally but in fact (aside from rhetoric) will not object to a renewal of sanctions. This will save Russia from a powerful competitor in the energy market.

Moscow needs Iran primarily as a means to put pressure on the West but it can quite easily sacrifice it for the sake of strategic considerations. Iran is not a natural ally of Russian for it doesn’t have any historical or cultural connection similar to the connection both Serbia and Armenia have for example.

The View from the Kremlin

Since the 16th century, the main threat to Russia came from the West. Moscow was occupied by Poles in the 17th century and by Napoleon in the 19th century.  In 1941, the troops of the Wehrmacht came within a few kilometers of Moscow.  St. Petersburg was built by Peter Great to resist the invasion of the Swedes.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a painful blow to Russia and the West took advantage of this collapse. The bombing of Serbia and recognition of Kosovo, the “color revolutions” in the former Soviet Union, NATO’s extension to the Baltic countries, and the constant hectoring of Russia on human rights served to undermine Russia and make her feel threatened. This formed the impetus for the revival of nationalism under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.

The US, Britain and France intervened in Libya in order to both destroy the Gadaffi regime and oust Russia.  Accordingly, they refused Russia’s mediation efforts.  Similarly they tried to oust Assad. But this time, Russia, who had lost its Mediterranean port in Libya was determined to keep its Mediterranean port in Syria.  After many years of death and destruction in Syria brought about by the desire of the US and Saudi Arabia to oust Assad, Assad was on his “death bed”. Russia and Iran doubled down on their efforts to support him. Russia supplied their air force and air defense radar systems and Iran provided more troops. As a result Assad has gained much ground and is in a much better negotiating position today.

During this period, Russia acquired Crimea from the Ukraine and supported an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. A majority of the population of both areas are Russian. The Russians didn’t understand why the West came to the defense of Ukraine. It’s impossible to believe that EU wanted to bring Ukraine into the EU given its large population and systemic corruption.  Moscow believes the West didn’t do so in order to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine but to weaken Russia.  Ukraine, after all, is the backyard of Russia, as Mexica is backyard of US and Corsica is backyard of France.

Last week Russia’s Prime Minister, Medvedev, urged a “more constructive and more cooperative relationship with Russia… I strongly believe that the answer lies with both more defense and more dialogue.”

Last week Henry Kissinger delivered a speech in Moscow in which he began:

“I am here to argue for the possibility of a dialogue that seeks to merge our futures rather than elaborate our conflicts. This requires respect by both sides of the vital values and interest of the other,”

And concluded,

“It will only come with a willingness in both Washington and Moscow, in the White House and the Kremlin, to move beyond the grievances and sense of victimization to confront the larger challenges that face both of our countries in the years ahead.”

Should the West want to pursue such an alliance, it must recognize Russia’s “Near Abroad” – its traditional zone of influence since the 18th century: Ukraine and Belarus, Crimea, whose history is inseparable from Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russia also seeks influence in Europe and in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is imperial policy but Russia is no longer obsessed with ideological madness.  Thus, it is possible to negotiate a rapprochement and to respect each other’s sphere of influence.

Israel is not an ally of Russia nor its enemy.  Israel and Russia agreed to respect each other’s spheres of interest in Syria. In addition, Moscow mediated in delicate situations between Israel and Hezbollah.  This model can be used on a global scale by the US.

It is of historical note that the Byzantium, otherwise known as the Eastern Roman Empire, fought a sustained battle against the Ottoman Turks, who had invaded, only to finally succumb in 1453.  The Turks changed the name of their capital city, Constantinople, to Istanbul.  The Ottoman Empire succeeded over the years in conquering more of Europe and finally laid an unsuccessful siege to Vienna in 1529. There followed 150 years of bitter military tension and attacks, culminating in the Battle of Vienna of 1683. This battle was won by the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nations in league with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth thereby saving Europe from Islamic conquest.

What is needed today is a similar resolute stand by both east and west against the Islamic Jihad’s attempt to conquer Europe.

Will the old prejudices and enmity focused on Russia prevail over rational considerations and the instinct for self-preservation?

According to the Munich Accords just signed, perhaps not.

It now appears that Russia and the US have come to an agreement for the implementation of a ceasefire and a division of spheres of influence. The document was signed by 17 nations, including Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubayr for the Syrian opposition and Iran’s top diplomat Muhammed Javad Zarif in the name of the Assad regime.

DEBKA reports:

“The nub of the Munich accord was therefore the parties authorized to name the terrorists. This was spelled out as follows: “The determination of eligible targets and geographic areas is to be left up to a task force of nations headed by Russia and the United States.”

“This puts the entire agreement in the joint hands of the US and Russia. Lavrov emphasized, “The key thing is to build direct contacts, not only on procedures to avoid incidents, but also cooperation between our militaries.”

“The Munich accord therefore provided the framework for expanding the existing US-Russian coordination on air force flights over Syria to cover their direct collaboration in broader aspects of military operations in the war-torn country.

“Lavrov mentioned a “qualitative” change in US military policy to cooperate with Russia in continuing the fight against the Islamic State, but it clearly goes beyond that.”

“This pact as sets out a division of military responsibility between the two powers: The Americans took charge of areas east of the Euphrates, leaving the Russians responsible for the territory east of the river. “

Hopefully, this accord is just the beginning of a new alliance.

Categories: Christianity, Donald Trump, Egypt, Foreign policy, Fundamentalist Islam, Iran - Middle East, Islam - the religion of war, Islamic invasion, Islamic nations, Islamic State, Islamisation, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama - Middle East, Obama and Islam, Russia - Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Sisi
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