Presbyterian commissioners have voted to divest the 1.76 million-member denomination from three companies that do business with Israel. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly passed a heavily amended policy statement on the Middle East by a 310-303 vote.

The report adopted by the PCUSA General Assembly requires church agencies to divest themselves of holdings in Motorola Solutions, Hewlett Packard and Caterpillar, which all sell non-lethal equipment to the Israeli military.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) previously adopted a policy of divestment in 2004, reversing itself two years later in the face of strong criticism from both within and outside of the denomination.

Although divestment was its most debated item, the overture also affirms the PC(USA)’s commitment to interfaith and ecumenical dialogue and relationships in the region, and a preamble was added on the floor to reinforce that, saying, “The PC(USA) has a long-standing commitment to peace in Israel and Palestine. We recognize the complexity of the issues, the decades-long struggle, the pain suffered and inflicted by policies and practices of both the Israeli government and Palestinian entities. We further acknowledge and confess our own complicity in both the historic and current suffering of Israeli and Palestinian yearning for justice and reconciliation,” according to the Presbyterian Church website.

Immediately after the vote, Moderator Heath Rada reaffirmed that, saying, “In no way is this a reflection for our lack of love for our Jewish sisters and brothers.”

However, there are dissenting views.

According to IRD President Mark Tooley, “Presbyterians have endorsed conflict over reconciliation.”

“Key PCUSA elites are pro-Palestinian activists who portray Israel as the source of nearly all evil in the Middle East,” said Tooley, adding, “Those church activists ignore that much of the Middle East is under the sway of non-democratic movements that oppress their own people and refuse to recognize Israel, a lonely democracy, as the Jewish homeland. Enemies of Israel are also largely the enemies of the United States, the West, democracy and Christian minorities in the region.”

The post Presbyterians Back Anti-Israel Divestment appeared first on Eurasia Review.

One need not be prescient to understand the unfolding “Jihadi Spring” is fueling the plans and perhaps destiny of ascendant Islamists in this region with the increasing help of in-country nationalists, including remnants of the Iraqi Baath Party. This, according to more than a dozen ardent supporters of The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), known locally as DAASH whose representatives allowed this observer over the past six months to interview some of its supporters to discuss what they found inaccurate in a piece I wrote about DAASH actions in Raqqa, Syria. In that article I claimed that DAASH was selling Syria’s archeological treasures, just as they are selling Syria’s oil and in some instances, food warehouse contents, to the highest foreign bidder. There is no paucity of the latter.

The final “S” in the acronym “ISIS” relates to the Arabic word “al-Sham” which itself is variously used to refer to the Levant, Syria or even Damascus. But DAASH (ISIS) means the Levant or Eastern Mediterranean including Cyprus, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and southern Turkey. ISIS has just announced that Raqqa, the only one of 14 Governorates its controls in Syria, is now the “Capital” of their emerging “Caliphate” which so far is a swathe of territory encompassing much of eastern and northern Syria and western and northern Iraq. The Emir is to be their military strategist and leader and successor of Abu Mus‘ab Zarqawi, Dr. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Those interviewed at length include sympathizers, students of politics and of the Islamist ‘spring’ in Syria and Iraq, as well as a few shadowy claimed jihadist recruiters, some working with a claimed new specialized DAASH unit organized at the beginning of 2013 and which focuses exclusively on destroying the Zionist regime occupying Palestine. DAASH’s “Al Quds Unit” (AQU) is currently working to broaden its influence in more than 60 Palestinian camps and gatherings from Gaza, across Occupied Palestine, to Jordan, and Lebanon up to the north of Syria seeking to enlist support as it prepares to liberate Palestine.

DAASH believes, according to one of its claimed academic advisers, that the ummat al-Islamiyah (Islamic community), as a US Foreign Relations staffer, on 6/18/14 advised this observer, that the White House estimates that approximately six million Iraqi Sunni have recently become supportive of the armed action by DAASH. The support excludes its strict, indeed anti-social societal mores and abhorrence of current harsh realities of life in DAASH territory. The Islamist organization believes it currently has massive regional support for it rapidly expanding “revolution of the oppressed.” Large numbers in this region do appear to appreciate its recent successes, despite its history of calculated brutality for political purposes. DAASH urges the public to study its remarkable history that reaches back to 2003 when Abu Mus‘ab Zarqawi got out of prison in Jordan and headed to Afghanistan, gained valuable experience from if the trust of Osama Bin Laden, and then crossed over to Iraq to wage jihad against America. DAASH appears to be using sectarian appeals in Iraq and Syria much the same way Zawqawi did when he confronted the ascendant Shia militia following the US invasion and occupation.

DAASH supporters claim that it has been joined by more than a dozen Sunni groups such as one called Men of the Army of the Naqshbandia Order.” JRTN as it is known locally, was established in 2007 following the execution of Saadam Hussein and is made up of former Hussein regime loyalists, including intelligence officers and soldiers from his Republican Guards. If its alliance with DAASH holds, JRTN can contribute thousands of fighters with strong social roots in the community. One JRTN interlocutor explained to this observer, “As Sunni Muslims, DAASH can resolve differences between its views of Islam and those of the Ummah. First we need victory and to achieve that we need each other and if our Baathist partners decide to position themselves to be secular guardians of Sunni Arab nationalism that can be discussed later. The official website of the Naqshbandi Army includes a 1/1/2014 announcement: “To all our brothers and families of the tribes and factions we tell you, you are not alone in this battlefield.”

DAASH insists that it has become less active in killing anyone who works for the government of Syria or Iraq including rubbish collectors, a barbaric practice that alienated the Sunni population and that their support is growing as they increasingly provide the essential social services in the forming proto-Caliphate. “Zionists call us masked, sociopathic murderers but we are much more complicated and representative of those seeking justice than they portray us. Are we more barbaric than the Zionist terrorists who massacred at Dier Yassin, Shatila twice at Qana, and committed dozens of other massacres? History will judge us after we free Palestine.” A few years ago the CIA and others estimated that the Zionist occupation of Palestine will collapse in less than a decade. DAASH claims it can do the job in 72 months.

With respect to events surrounding its takeover of Mosel and other social media broadcast exhibitions of mass brutality, ISIS claims it was done for a purpose, the same purpose that other state and non-state actors have used over the past two decade and that is for 90% of the world 1.5 billion Muslims (Sunni) to free themselves from the oppression of the 10% (Shia).

Several reasons were given as to why Palestinians should hold out hope for ISIS succeeding in their cause when all other Arab, Muslim, and Western claimed Resistance supporters have been abject failures and invariably end up benefiting the Zionist occupation regime terrorizing Palestine. “All countries in this region are playing the sectarian card just as they have long played the Palestinian card but the difference with ISIS is that we are serious about Palestine and they are not. Tel Aviv will fall as fast as Mosul when the time is right”, a DAASH ally explained. Another gentleman insisted, “DAASH will fight where no one else is willing.”

ISIS appears uniformly contemptuous of the Zionist regime and its army and also appears eager to fight them in the near future despite expectation that the regime will use nuclear weapons. “Do you think that we do not have access to nuclear devises? The Zionists know that we do and if we ever believe they are about to use theirs we will not hesitate. After the Zionists are gone, Palestine will have to be decontaminated and rebuilt just like areas where there has been radiation released.”

DAASH supporters claim that it reaches out to local notables and tribal leaders and discuss their differences and seek their tribal counsel. DAASH claims that the Roman Catholic Vatican supports its own claims that when they captured Mosul last week they did not harm Christian residents or desecrate churches. In this they are supported by Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, the Apostolic Nuncio (Pope’s envoy) in Iraq who this week told the media: “The guerrillas who are in control of Mosul have to date not committed any violent act or damaged the churches there.”

It is becoming clear that DAASH has set up well organized local administrations in areas it controls, including an Islamic court system and a local non-hostile police force which support public safety with measures such as closing shops for selling poor products in the souks and supermarkets and on the street, destroying cigarettes and whipping some individuals for disrespecting and insulting their neighbors, confiscating counterfeit medicines in addition to some death sentences for apostasy.

DAASH supporters claim that as soon as they ‘liberate” an area they invest in public works such as the new souk in Raqqa, installs new power lines and conducts training sessions on how citizens can do-it-yourself for more self-reliance with fixing infrastructure problems. In addition DAASH claims that it quickly fixes potholes, runs a low fare bus system, has established a ‘green’ program to build parks and plant trees and flowers, helps farmers with harvests and runs a zakat (alms-giving) organization. Moreover, ISIS has established a number of religious schools for children, including ones for girls where they can memorize the Koran and receive awards if successful, while also holding ‘fun days’ for kids including all the ice cream they can eat and inflatable slides. For their older counterparts, ISIS has established training sessions for new imams and preachers. Schedules for prayers and Koran lessons are posted at mosques. In a more worrisome development, ISIS runs training camps for “cub scouts” and houses these recruits for ‘instruction’. Several social media reports and a few eyewitness accounts appear to confirm that DAASH has developed health and welfare programs, operates bread factories and distributes free fruits and vegetables to needy families, passing the goods out personally as well as setting up a free food kitchen in Raqqa and an adoption agency to place orphans with families in their areas. Unlike the Taliban and some other regimes which exhibit paranoia about vaccination campaigns, DAASH claims to be more ‘modern” and actively promotes polio-vaccination in its areas to try stop its spread.

The social services that DAASH provides obviously do not ameliorate the deadly violence it carries out, but does suggest it is well-organized and has caught the interest of the Sunni Muslims who feel besieged by Shia. According to an al-Bagdadi relative, nearly the half a billion dollars that was snatched from Mosul’s central bank this month will help to win hearts and minds and correct some of its “bad press”. DAASH appears to ascribe to the cliché that half of any war is a rumor. It condemns the project of many satellite channels and claims that they do not objectively report the news but mainly spread rumors with sectarian instigation as the goal. On this point who can refute them?

DAASH supporters deny any interest in training and directing foreign fighters to attack Europe and other places, claiming that their goals are to establish an al-Sham Caliphate and liberate Palestine. With respect to exactly how DAASH intends to liberate Palestine, the Iraqi’s and now the Obama administration ar3 in possession of an encyclopedia of information about detailed DAASH plans, and tactics it will confront the Zionist occupiers with, according to a congressional staffer via email with this observer. Reportedly the employment of large numbers of militarily untrained foreign volunte

ers as suicide bombers, moving on foot wearing suicide vests, or driving vehicles packed with explosives is just the tip of a deep iceberg of what DAASH is planning.

The trove reportedly came from Iraqi intelligence sources that came upon it less than 48 hours before Mosul fell. Apparently a fellow known as “Abu Hajjar” a captured trusted DAASH messenger broke under Iraqi torture and turned over more than 160 computer flash sticks which contained the most detailed information to date about DAASH. The US intelligence community are still decrypting and analyzing the flash sticks.

Predictably, no sooner that this information reached the US Congress, than Congresswoman and Israeli agent, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen former Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and her partners at AIPAC went to work trying to get ahold copies of the flash sticks and share them with the Israeli Embassy and no doubt the Mossad. The current sense on Capitol Hill is reported to be that the Obama administration in not in the mood to share anything with Israel these days and certainly not with the Netanyahu regime which it loathes.

Time will reveal if DAASH achieves one or both of its objectives. Many believe if they eject the Zionist regime from Palestine, the expanding Islamist group will set in motion historic currents that in all likelihood will be rather different from the Ehud Omert-Condeleeza Rice fantasy of “a New Middle East.”

In any event, it is unlikely that Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, among other countries in this region, are going to look much like what George Bush and Dick Cheney and their still active neocon advisers had in mind when they were beating the drums for a U.S. invasion of Iraq, Libya, and now Syria and Iran.

The post Will ISIS Create Al-Sham Caliphate And Liberate Palestine? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Over the past four decades, women have played increasingly important roles as breadwinners in their families. At the same time, women’s share of unpaid care work and housework has remained high. A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), “Women, Working Families, and Unions,” explores the role unions play in addressing the challenges facing working women and families in balancing their work and family responsibilities. The paper looks at trends in unionization for women; the impact of unions on wages, benefits and access to family and medical leave; and the role of unions in addressing work-life balance issues.

“There are few other interventions known to improve the prospects for better pay, benefits and workplace flexibility as much as unions do.  Anyone who cares about the well-being of women workers and working families should also care about unions,” states Nicole Woo, a co-author of the report.

The report finds that unions increase access to benefits that help working families succeed in this economy. Women in unions are 36 percent more likely to receive health insurance benefits through their jobs and 53 percent more likely to participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Unions also support working Americans when they need time off to care for themselves or their families.  Union workplaces are 16 percent more likely to allow medical leave and 21 percent more likely to offer paid sick leave.  Companies with unionized employees are also 22 percent more likely to allow parental leave, 12 percent more likely to offer pregnancy leave, and 19 percent more likely to let their workers take time off to care for sick family members.

One out of nine women in the United States are represented by unions. They make up almost half of the union workforce and are on track to be the majority by 2025. The report also analyses the demographics of women in unions, including the shares of black, Latino, white, and Asian and Pacific Islander women, educational attainment, age, occupations, and states of residence.

On average, women in unions earn 13 percent more per hour – about $2.50 – than their non-union counterparts, all else being equal. This advantage holds even for low-wage jobs such as hotel cleaners, office cleaners, child-care workers, and health aides. The report discusses how unionization helps reduce the gender pay gap as well. This report’s findings indicate that union coverage gives a significant boost to women’s pay, benefits, and workplace flexibility as well as demonstrate how unions can play a central role in helping workplaces meet the needs of 21^st century working families. As the share of women in unions continues to grow, the importance of unions in addressing work-family issues grows, too.

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A letter has been released by the School Board for District 14 in Connecticut about the decision to block student access to the Vatican’s website, as well as those deemed to be conservative.

This situation has gone from bad to worse. Now the Board of Ed is telling us that no one deliberately decided to block the websites. After consulting with the filtering service provider, Dell SonicWALL, the board concluded that the problem “was a function of how the parameters were set in the filtering criteria, and we are confident it has been remedied.” In other words, it was Dell’s fault.

No one with half a brain believes this to be true. Dell sure doesn’t. Here is what it said: “A school had a policy [Nonnewaug High School] to block a category of sites rated as Politics/Advocacy Groups at their site using our content filtering product. It’s important to note that our product does not come with that category turned on. The school actively turned it on.”

Blocking the Vatican website, and the others, was the result of a conscious effort to censor the First Amendment rights of students. The person, or persons, responsible should be fired.

Contact the Connecticut Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor:
stefan.pryor@ct.gov

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Costa Rica does it again – beating Italy 0-1. With a gritty performance and a clear strategy that they executed for perfection, los Ticos have gone clear on top of one of the tournament’s most difficult groups and guaranteed themselves a spot in the knock-out rounds.

In a group with Italy, England and Uruguay, it would have been considered folly to predict that Costa Rica would be on top of the bracket after two matches, but there it is.

The Italian coach, Cesare Prandelli, said before the match that he expected his players to suffer, but he was referring to the weather, not their performance.

The Italians suffered from poor passing, lack of imagination and simply a lack of will. They were caught offside 11 times, evidence of their failure to adjust and adapt.

They came out flat and in the first 45 minutes there were only two clear chances on goal, both from Balotelli. He could not capitalize on either.

The first half ended with what appears to have been a blown call by the referee, who did not grant a penalty after the Costa Rican forward, Campbell, was taken down in the box. But only moments later, Ruiz rose to meet a lovely cross from Diaz to put his team ahead.

The Azzurri started the second half with a bit more energy but then faded once again.

The Costa Ricans were able to neutralize Pirlo in the midfield. The Italian playmaker was never given time or space to create and was essentially taken out of the match.

Balotelli’s only contribution in the second half was a fit of anger that earned him a yellow card.

And it was not just the Italians who suffered.

Balotelli had twitted earlier that he needs to get a kiss from the English Queen should Italy beat Costa Rica. English fans around the world had been counting on Italy to keep their hopes alive. This was not the result they wanted but it was a deserved outcome for the Costa Rican squad, who continue to impress.

The post World Cup: Costa Rica Beats Italy, Sends England Home appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells across the state of Pennsylvania could be leaking methane gas into the atmosphere, a new report states.

If true, it could mean the same is happening in old wells all over the United States, potentially contributing to climate change in ways that are not effectively documented by government groups like the Environmental Protection Agency.

The study was conducted by Princeton University scientist Mary Kang, and involved the inspection of 19 abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. According to a report by the Guardian, each well was confirmed to be leaking various amounts of methane – a greenhouse gas that, over the course of a century, is about 34 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Since Pennsylvania is home to anywhere between 280,000 and 970,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, the possibility that thousands of them are releasing methane is cause for concern.

What’s more, the EPA does not account for methane in its federal estimates for total US greenhouse gas emissions, and Kang’s study stated that Pennsylvania’s current regulations are insufficient for controlling the wells’ methane leaks. Wells are not routinely inspected by officials, and the state’s rules are geared towards liquids, not gases.

Although Kang would not comment on the issue since her study is under review, Duke University’s Robert Jackson has also conducted research revealing methane leaks to be a problem in the US, and he said it was one worth seriously looking into.

“The emissions from single wells were relatively small, but there are hundreds of thousands of such wells in Pennsylvania alone,” he told the Guardian. “The total emissions could be as much as one eighth of all methane released by human activities in the state.”

Concern over a link between methane and oil exploration also made headlines earlier this month, when scientists found a link between the high levels of the gas in Parker County, Texas, and neighboring fracking operations. As RT reported previously, the Texas Railroad Commission found the link to be “inconclusive,” but closer inspection of the data by another earth scientist said it’s clear the methane in the water supply came from the fracking process.

Separate tests by the University of Texas at Arlington, meanwhile, found methane levels in the water to be much higher than the Railroad Commission did.

In Pennsylvania, though, it will likely be unclear just how much methane is being released until more studies are conducted encompassing more wells. Pennsylvania State University professor Terry Engelder said that although methane is obviously leaking from some wells, chances are that not all of them are, since some geologic formations release lots of gas early in the drilling operation and less later.

Cornell University’s Lawrence Cathes, meanwhile, downplayed methane leakage’s present effect on the climate, but said if Kang’s study is accurate, it might help to reduce emissions going forward.

“I don’t think presently leaking wells will change our perspective on greenhouse warming because their leakage has already been accommodated by the climate system and methane is only 20 to 30 percent the total greenhouse forcing at present,” Cathles told the Guardian. “What matters is how methane leakage changes in the future. If the well leakage is significant, reducing it in historic wells might reduce greenhouse forcing somewhat (and thus present a remedial opportunity).”

The post Thousands Of Oil And Gas Wells In Pennsylvania Suspected Of Leaking Methane appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah met with newly elected President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi in Cairo on Friday, to pledge the Kingdom’s support for the country’s political transition and economic development.

“The visit comes at a crucial time,” said Saudi Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz Al-Qattan on Friday. “It is significant because this is the first visit by a top Arab leader since the election of El-Sissi as president.”

The king’s visit underscores the close ties between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. “Saudi Arabia and Egypt are two pillars of the Arab nation,” Al-Qattan said. “The visit is aimed at coordinating and synchronizing their efforts on key regional issues.”

He said Egypt and its people value the support of Saudi Arabia during a difficult period. “The king expressed his delight and total support for El-Sissi when he was sworn in as the new president earlier this month,” said Al-Qattan.

King Abdullah has called for a donor conference to help Egypt overcome its economic difficulties.

He urged Egyptians to reject the “strange chaos” of the Arab uprisings, saying Egypt “needs us today more than ever.”

El-Sissi mentioned King Abdullah by name in his first speech as president, when he thanked the king for organizing the donor conference.

The most populous Arab state, Egypt has the largest army in the Middle East, though the military’s main focus has been domestically driven for decades.

The post Saudi Arabia King’s Visit To Egypt Reaffirms Support For El-Sissi appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By AbdulRahman Al-Rashed

Saudi Arabia had started distancing itself from Iraq a long time before Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki came to power eight years ago.
The Kingdom believed that the United States was too tangled in Iraq and should have left the Iraqis to deal with their problems alone.

After toppling Saddam Hussein, the US asked Saudi Arabia to intervene and help them in the political process to form the new Iraq. But Riyadh chose to distance itself from post-war Iraq, even to the extent of banning its businessmen from dealing with Iraqi and American operations in Iraq. All the multi-billion-dollar projects were assigned to Kuwaiti companies and others.

When the US empowered Ghazi Al-Yawar Al-Jarba, an Arab Iraqi Sunni who is close to Saudi Arabia, (He lived and studied in the Kingdom) and made him Iraq’s first president after the fall of Saddam Hussein, through the governing council in 2004 — Riyadh refused to deal with him.

Jarba used to visit Saudi Arabia on a personal level and not as a president. Many have tried in vain to convince Riyadh to change its self-distancing policy and participate in drawing the future of Iraq.

Instead of thanking Saudi Arabia for distancing itself from Iraq and not supporting any party for 10 years, Al-Maliki has consistently attacked the Kingdom, although knowing that it is a powerful neighboring country that includes eminent Sunni religious authorities.

Al-Maliki knew that the Kingdom was on good terms with the US and could have changed the balance during the occupation years, but it didn’t. Al-Maliki’s mistake was not that he attacked Saudi Arabia; it is a tactic that he adopted along with many of his ministers for political reasons. He committed a huge mistake against his country and citizens.

For eight years, he purposely refrained from instituting a national reconciliation process, even though he had all the abilities to do so, especially in light of the wide system of government that can embrace everybody. Instead of reconciliation and participation, he adopted an extreme centralization policy, without engaging anyone although he was in charge of a coalition government. He maintained the tension between all parties, thinking that it will weaken his rivals.

He is not the leader of the Dawa party that he belongs to, has no religious authority and is not a national politician who can unite the numerous factions. He adopted a sectarian policy and did not only act against Sunnis who were against him but he prosecuted Sunnis who accepted to work with him, and dared to stand against other Sunni fanatics.

In my opinion, Al-Maliki — far from being a religious leader — is a politician who is always keen on exploiting Shiite fanatics to rally his ranks within the Sunni-Shiite struggle. Shiites who are against him are well known for being from clerical dynasties, like Muqtada Al-Sadr and Ammar Al-Hakim, who are supported by millions of Iraqis.

Both Sadr and Hakim have developed a better political project than Al-Maliki and ironically are less sectarian than he is. Al-Maliki believes that by oppressing Sunnis and resorting to intimidation and incitement, he will gain more popularity and isolate all other Shiite leaders.

Al-Maliki has also marginalized the majority of Shiite party representatives who led him into the government, by monopolizing authorities, to the extent that he has established in the premiership a huge-budgeted office to deal with key ministries, thus taking away the powers of ministers.

He is doing what Saddam did before him. When Mosul and other cities and regions fell in the hands of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), he started blaming the army since there is no one else to blame — he is the minister of defense, interior, finance and intelligence.

This is why Al-Maliki is searching for a solution to evade his responsibilities. If he were in another country, he would have been put on trial and held accountable. To be exempted from blame, he invented a conspiracy theory, but who are the conspirators?

He did not name anyone, because if he had gone into the details it would not have been convincing.

He is the defense minister who appointed all army commanders, including those in Mosul and the rest of Nineveh: They all let him down despite being in their majority Shiites. The same applies for military and security intelligence.

When Homs was attacked by ISIL militants and local armed men, the army did not fight back. Instead, its officers fled, leaving thousands of soldiers in danger. The army was also the victim of Al-Maliki’s decisions, wrong choices and corruption. He blamed regional countries, including Saudi Arabia. How can Saudi Arabia conspire against a country that has more troops than it has, and that are trained by the US? Why would Saudi Arabia conspire against changing the regime, after avoiding intervention in forming a new regime for 10 consecutive years?

Finally, Iraq cannot handle more problems, and neither does the region, especially that the conflict-ridden country is at a fork in the road. Iraq needs to restore its broken parts and start addressing its real problems through internal reconciliation, and should establish a government that can embrace all parties, or follow the lies and sink deeper into further fatal errors.

Email: Alrashed.arabnews@gmail.com

The post Al-Maliki’s Blame Game – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Over the last few weeks, Periodic Review Boards have been held at Guantánamo for the last two Kuwaiti prisoners, Fawzi al-Odah and Fayiz al-Kandari, who have been held for the last 12 years.

The PRBs, consisting of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been taking place since last November, and were established to decide whether 71 of the remaining prisoners should still be regarded as a threat, or whether they should be recommended for release.

As opposed to the 75 men still held who were cleared for release by the Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established shortly after taking office in 2009, these 71 men were either recommended for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial (on the dubious basis that they were too dangerous to release, even though insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial) or for prosecution (until most of the charges in the military commission trial system collapsed following legal challenges). Both Fawzi and Fayiz were recommended for ongoing imprisonment by the task force.

Prior to the Kuwaitis’ PRBs, six reviews had taken place for other prisoners, and decisions had been reached in five — with three men recommended for release and two recommended for ongoing imprisonment. Those recommended for release are still held because they are Yemenis, and the US government refuses to release any Yemenis, because of fears about the security situation in Yemen. As a result, the three men have merely joined the list of 55 other Yemenis, cleared for release by Obama’s task force, who are still held. For the two men recommended for ongoing imprisonment, the PRBs are also problematic, because they suggest that there is a real legitimacy to the process, when, as I explained here and here, there appears to be no sound reason for concluding that the two men in question should continue to be held.

I have been covering the Kuwaitis’ story for many years, first in my book The Guantánamo Files, and, since 2007, in my many articles, and, throughout all this time, I have found no credible reasons for believing that either man poses — or has ever posed — a threat to the US. I wrote about Fawzi for the BBC in December 2007, and wrote with dismay about his failed habeas corpus petition in August 2009. Similarly, I wrote a major profile of Fayiz in October 2009, and wrote with dismay about his failed habeas petition in September 2010. In February 2012, I traveled to Kuwait, where I met both men’s fathers, and also met many of Fayiz’s relatives, and where my belief that neither man constitutes a threat to the US was only reinforced.

Fawzi’s PRB took place on June 4, and I’m posting it below, as I find the comments made by the representatives assigned to him by the military to be useful. The representatives, not identified in the released document, describe Fawzi as “intelligent, genuinely polite and professional,” and not how he wishes only to work, get married and have children. They also note that, although he “had disciplinary incidents in the past,” these have come to an end, because, as they explain, “he finally realized that he could not continue to perpetually remain frustrated and angered by his long and indefinite detention. He needed to let that mindset go, so that he could rediscover himself again.” As they add, “He continues to work on improving his perspective and has shown extraordinary improvement and maturation in his approach to his detention.”

In its unclassified summary, the government also acknowledges that Fawzi’s “infractions” have “declined in recent years,” as well as noting profound problems with some of the more outrageous claims against him. As the summary states, “We lack confidence in statements from other detainees that KU-232 [Fawzi] was closely associated with Usama Bin Ladin [sic] or belonged to an ai-Qa’ida cell in London,” both implausible claims that should never have been believed.

Periodic Review Board, June 4, 2014
Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Al-Odah, ISN 232
Opening statement of Personal Representative

Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the board. We are the Personal Representatives for Mr. Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Al-Odah, and will be happy to answer any questions that you may have throughout this proceeding.

As the representatives for Mr. Al-Odah we, in collaboration with Mr. Eric Lewis and Ms. Katherine Toomey, the Private Counsel for this case, have strived to provide you the information that will demonstrate that Fawzi poses no continuing significant threat to the security of the United States. We have had the honor of meeting with Fawzi over the past five months, learning much about him. He is a man who has endured twelve years of detention here at Guantánamo Bay. His family’s unwavering support for him and his own father’s tireless endeavors to bring his son home has helped sustain Fawzi through his long detention. But it has also made him regret that his circumstances have caused such pain and struggle for his parents. We are also aware that Fawzi has had disciplinary incidents in the past.

We have discussed this with him — particularly the apparent change that he underwent a few years ago. He explained to us that he finally realized that he could not continue to perpetually remain frustrated and angered by his long and indefinite detention. He needed to let that mindset go, so that he could rediscover himself again. He continues to work on improving his perspective and has shown extraordinary improvement and maturation in his approach to his detention.

During our meetings we have learned that Fawzi is intelligent, genuinely polite and professional, and has been willing to participate throughout. Fawzi has stated repeatedly, and we believe credibly, that he envisions a future for himself as a private citizen who works, is married and has children. Those are his most immediate aspirations. We believe that you too will today see his sincerity in wanting to achieve those simple goals.

As we’ve prepared for this board, Mr. Lewis and Ms. Toomey have worked hand-in-hand with us throughout this process, attending every meeting with Fawzi. In addition, they have traveled to Kuwait to secure witness testimonies and exhibits for the board’s consideration, which you have in front of you today, and on which they will soon comment. Fawzi’s country, including the highest officials in its government, supports him and has an established rehabilitation program for returning detainees. We believe that the Kuwaiti rehabilitation program, coupled with his family’s steadfast support and Fawzi’s own peaceful goals — of getting married, starting a family, and working with his father in his plumbing supply business — reveal that Fawzi is indeed a man worthy of selection for transfer. At this time, we would like to introduce Mr. Eric Lewis for his opening statement. Thank you for your time and consideration.

*****

Eric Lewis’s statement has not been made available, but the Associated Press reported that he told the review board that “his client will be closely monitored if returned to his homeland,” because the Kuwaiti authorities “have agreed to keep [him] in a government rehabilitation center for at least a year upon his release” from Guantánamo. Even after leaving the rehabilitation center, he “would surrender his passport, check in weekly with police [and] would be monitored by security authorities,” Lewis added in a statement to the board.

Lewis added that Fawzi “poses no threat to the US and would seek to start a family and work in his father’s plumbing supply business if allowed to return to his homeland.”

For Al-Jazeera America, Jenifer Fenton, who I met in Kuwait three years ago, wrote a powerful article about Fawzi’s father, Khalid al-Odah, who said he was “feeling very good” about his son’s hearing.

Khalid al-Odah described his son as “a lovable person,” adding, “It is very easy for him to make friends. He always smiles.” He also explained how Fawzi “excelled in school and graduated from Kuwait University with a degree in Islamic studies and became a teacher,” adding that Fawzi “had spent his summer vacation in 2000 with other religious Kuwaitis in Pakistan, teaching and distributing money to people in villages near the Afghan border.” On his return, “he told his father he was very interested in relief work and he wanted to do charity work every year.” For 2001, Khalid al-Odah said, “he planned to help Afghan refugees.”

However, as Fawzi himself explained at a hearing at Guantánamo a decade ago, it was his “bad luck and bad timing” that the 9/11 attacks happened while he was in Afghanistan. Like many other Arabs, he fled the country, as news spread that foreigners were being sold for bounty payments, but as he crossed into Pakistan, despite asking to be taken to the Kuwaiti Embassy, he was sent to Guantánamo via the US prisons in Afghanistan.

As Jenifer Fenton notes, exposing serious shortcomings in the US evidence against Fawzi, “Three US reports give different accounts of the circumstances of his capture. One US tribunal report said he was captured with five other men; an administrative review board hearing said he had been part of a group of 12 men; a report by the US Joint Task Force Guantánamo said he had been with more than 100 Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.”

She added:

A close analysis of the most recent classified Joint Task Force Guantánamo report on al-Odah released via WikiLeaks shows, among other things, that a number of the allegations against him are based on testimony from witnesses whose reliability even the US has questioned, or who have denied testifying against him, or even who claim to have been coerced into giving false evidence. Family members and experts say some of the claims against him are unsubstantiated or simply false.

Jenifer Fenton also noted how Khalid al-Odah “had been a strong supporter of the US,” as “a pilot in the Kuwaiti Air Force who trained in America.” During Saddam Hussein’s brutal occupation of Kuwait in 1990, he “joined the local armed resistance movement and provided intelligence to the US military.”

As he wrote in 2005, “I always remember our reception of the American troops following the liberation of Kuwait. At that time I was accompanied by my 13-year-old son, Fawzi. I cannot describe to you the extent of our happiness and gratitude, particularly my son Fawzi who started to shake hands and hug the American soldiers … These historic moments are deeply engraved in the memory of this young guy.”

Khalid al-Odah also said — as many Kuwaitis said to me in 2011 — that “he was sympathetic to the US and the challenges it faced after the 9/11 attacks,” but that “he saw his son’s experience as a sign that America had deviated from its founding principles.” As he put it, “The United States is the beacon of the world always … for honesty, for rule of law, for liberty.” However, his son’s experience in Guantánamo was a sign that “the United States was not keeping with [its] principles.”

On June 12, the review board met to consider the case of Fayiz al-Kandari, with statements made by both his military-appointed representatives, and Barry Wingard, who is now a civilian attorney, but was formerly the military defense attorney appointed to defend Fayiz after he was ludicrously put forward for a trial by military commission in the dying days of the Bush administration, charges which were later dropped.

Throughout Fayiz’s detention, the charges against him have been ludicrous, and elements of those remain in the unclassified summary — in particular, that Fayiz, who arrived in Afghanistan in August 2001, “probably served as Usama bin Ladin’s spiritual advisor and confidant.” In addition, although it is assessed that he “mostly has been compliant with guard staff and has committed no significant disciplinary infractions apart from participating in hunger strikes,” the authorities also maintain that “he has expressed anti-American sentiments,” apparently “indicating he almost certainly retains an extremist mindset.”

Below are the statements by Fayiz’s representatives and Barry Wingard, and it is, I believe, noteworthy that his representatives describe him as “compliant,” and also note that “his behavior during our meetings reflects a well-spoken, thoughtful young man who is ready to quickly move on to adulthood and make up for lost time.” As Wingard adds, “his goal in life is to get married, start a family, and conduct business in Kuwait.”

I can only hope that, when the review boards’ decisions are announced, probably next month, both me will be recommended for release, and will be repatriated shortly after, to resume their long-disrupted lives.

Periodic Review Board, June 12, 2014
Fayiz Mohamed Ahmed Al-Kandari, ISN 552
Opening Statement of Personal Representative

Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the board, the Colonel and I are the Personal Representatives for Fayiz. Mr. Barry Wingard, on my right/left, is Fayiz’s Private Counsel. To my right/left is our translator (translator’s call sign). I first met Fayiz on 11 February 2014 and corresponded regularly with both him and Mr. Wingard since. In the four months we worked with Fayiz, it is apparent that he cares deeply about returning to his family in Kuwait. Additionally, he is compliant and his behavior during our meetings reflects a well-spoken, thoughtful young man who is ready to quickly move on to adulthood and make up for lost time.

Fayiz is a religious man. He is a principled man. He is an intelligent man. His family is ready to receive him in Kuwait. The Kuwaiti Government built Alsalam Rehabilitation Center proving they eagerly await his return and want to assist him to acclimate and move on with his life. The Kuwait Ministry of lnterior, Kuwait Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Emir, himself, have given their assurances that they want Fayiz back in Kuwait and they will support his rehabilitation. Fayiz is not a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States. He is a man with a caring family, supportive government and deep desire to resume his life. His family and the Kuwaiti Government have created an ideal scenario for him to safely return to Kuwait. And he is ready.

Thank you for your time and consideration. The Colonel and I are happy to answer any questions you may have throughout this proceeding. We will now defer to Mr. Wingard for his opening statement.

Opening statement of private counsel Barry D. Wingard

I am Barry D. Wingard. private counsel for Fayiz ai-Kandari (Fayiz). I have served in the United States military for thirty years. I have been involved in representing Fayiz in October 2000 in my capacity as a military officer in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps, first as a major and later as a lieutenant colonel and now as a civilian attorney. I would first like to thank you for the opportunity to represent Fayiz in his twelve and a half years in Guantanamo Bay and my six years as his attorney.

During my time as attorney for Fayiz, I have travelled to GTMO more than fifty times and travelled to Kuwait fifteen times.

Based on my relationship with Fayiz, I unequivocally declare that he is not a threat to the national security of the United States for the following reasons:

Kuwait

Since 1991, the relationship between the United States and Kuwait is the strongest in the Middle East. The US and Kuwait have a robust bilateral defense agreement. Kuwait provided the main platform for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Currently the US houses several thousand troops in Kuwait, and Kuwait regularly purchases billions of dollars in military hardware from the US.

I have conducted endless meetings with Government of Kuwait officials and visited Alsalam Rehabilitation Center more than a half dozen times. From the Emir of Kuwait himself to the Ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs, Kuwait has done everything within its power to facilitate the return of Fayiz back to Kuwait. Below are but a few examples of Kuwait’s efforts:

On numerous occasions, the Emir of Kuwait has given his personal assurance and declared in 2011 that the return of his sons from Guantánamo Bay is his number one priority.

In 2014 Fayiz has agreed to attending Alsalam Rehabilitation Center for a minimum of six months and being subject to professional assessment.

In 2014 assurances from both the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been given (see attachments). [not included]

In 2013 the Kuwaiti Pariament passed the Terrorism Funding Act.

Parliament of Kuwait’s unanimous condemnation of GTMO in 2011.

In 2009, Kuwait spent more than 40 million dollars to build and staff Alsalam Rehabilitation Center.

Family

During my representation of Fayiz, I have had the honor of meeting Fayiz’s family in Kuwait on many occasions. I must admit that spending time with Fayiz’s family is one of the things I look forward to when visiting Kuwait. I recently met with Fayiz’s family the Iast week of April and mid-May 2014 and can report to the Board that they are ready, willing, and able to welcome him home.

Fayiz’s family consists of doctors, lawyers, politicians, and even ministers within the Government of Kuwait, as seen in the video that we submitted. Since the beginning, Fayiz’s family has stood by him during his regular calls home.

An example of the family success is that of Abdullah Kamel Al Kandari, Fayiz’s cousin and former prisoner in Guantánamo Bay (ISN 228). Abdullah was kept in Guantánamo Bay for six years before being returned to Kuwait. Once in Kuwait, Abdullah returned to the al-Kandari family, resumed his career as a professional athlete, started a family, and has posed no danger to anyone.

Fayiz

I have conducted more than one hundred meetings with Fayiz over our six-year relationship. Below is a brief list of reasons why I believe Fayiz should be released:

From the onset Fayiz has maintained his innocence and continues to assert his purpose in traveling to Afghanistan in the middle of 2001 was to perform charity in the form of paying others to repair a mosque and digging two wells.

Fayiz has a long history of charitable works consistent with the teaching of Islam.

By all accounts Fayiz has been a cooperative and compliant detainee, and he has never been a physical threat in Guantánamo Bay.

Fayiz has spent his twelve and a half years reading writing, teaching and becoming fluent in the English language. Fayiz has several business ideas that we frequently discuss. Fayiz has stated on numerous occasions that his goal in life is to get married, start a family, and conduct business in Kuwait.

Conclusion

After hundreds of hours, within a period of six years, I share emphatically that Fayiz is no risk to the national security of the United States.

Fayiz has done everything he has been asked to do. The Government of Kuwait and his family have given every assurance that they can possibly give. Alsalam Rehabilitation Center sits ready and able to treat Fayiz when he returns to Kuwait.

Thank you very much.

The post Kuwaiti Prisoners Fawzi Al-Odah And Fayiz Al-Kandari Ask Periodic Review Board To Free Them From Guantánamo – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Cheryl Pellerin

Special operators that President Barack Obama is sending to Iraq, up to 300 U.S. military personnel, will form assessment teams to evaluate the situation on the ground there and boost Iraq’s ability to counter the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL.

During a press briefing here this afternoon, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said the first set of assessment teams will focus on three areas in Iraq.

The teams will first assess “the state, the cohesiveness and the capability of the Iraqi security forces,” Kirby said.

Also, he added, the teams will assess “the situation on the ground to help us gain more intelligence and more information about what ISIL is doing and how they’re doing it.”

The third area, Kirby said, “is, quite frankly, to assess the feasibility and future potential for follow-on [U.S.] advisory teams.”

The United States hasn’t been present in Iraq in large numbers since 2011, the admiral said. Before adding advisers, he added, the president and his security team need a better sense of where military advisers will be used, for how long, and in what units.

“Just like in any unfolding situation, even a disaster-relief operation, one of the first things you do is to deploy assessment teams to [determine] requirements before you start flowing in support,” Kirby said. “That’s what I think these first couple of teams will do for us.”

In a June 19 statement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he supported the president’s decision to send military advisers to Iraq.

“[And] as the president has repeatedly made clear, Iraq’s problems cannot be resolved through American action alone, or through military force alone,” the secretary said.

“The only viable, long-term solution is a political one that brings together the Iraqi people and addresses the legitimate interests and concerns of all of Iraq’s communities,” Hagel added. “Iraq’s government must summon the courage to unite and lead all of its people.”

Kirby said the first few teams, which are not yet operational, will be drawn from personnel already in Iraq, working in U.S. Embassy-Baghdad’s Office of Security Cooperation.

Advisers and teams that come later will be from inside U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, he added. Such countries include Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen and others.

“The teams will assess and advise. They are not being sent to participate in combat,” Kirby reaffirmed, adding that he expects assessment teams beyond the first few to enter the country “over the next week or so.”

Kirby said U.S. military services routinely perform such missions worldwide with military services from other countries — in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas and elsewhere.

“Force protection remains a priority,” the admiral said.

The advisers, he added, “just like troops that do advising missions elsewhere around the world, have the right of self-defense. And just like anywhere else in the world, if there’s a situation where we need to get them to medical care, we’re going to do it as quickly as we possibly can.”

The total number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq, including the advisers Obama is sending, is less than 400, Kirby said.

The United States also provides intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance support to Iraq’s government, he said, and the support is intensifying.

“We now are flying enough flights, manned and unmanned, that we provide around-the-clock coverage. We’re not looking at the whole country, [just] parts … that are of greatest interest,” the admiral said.

Once the United States has better information about the situation, a decision can be made about follow-on activity, he added.

Incoming troops will be embedded, at least initially, at the headquarters level down to about the brigade level, he said.

The Iraqi government requested the mission and the United States is consulting on its actions with the Iraqis, Kirby said.

“As we do elsewhere around the world, we will ensure that our troops have the appropriate legal protections … so they can operate as they need to operate,” the admiral said.

Asked about the Defense Department’s level of concern on the takeover by ISIL militants of Saddam Hussein’s Al Muthanna chemical weapons facility, Kirby said the best understanding is that the material inside the facility is old and “not likely to be able to be accessed or used against anyone right now.”

U.S. information about the facility isn’t perfect, he said, and any progress that ISIL fighters make is a concern.

“But we aren’t viewing this particular site and their holding it as a major issue at this point,” Kirby added. “Should they even be able to access the materials, frankly, it would likely be more of a threat to them than anyone else.”

In response to another question, the admiral said the Defense Department has indications that there are “small numbers” of Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives in Iraq but that he’s seen no indication of ground forces or major units.

Kirby called the Iraq mission a discrete, measured, temporary arrangement to help the U.S. get eyes on the ground, get a better sense of what’s going on and “to create the kind of intelligence we need should the president decide to take other action.”

The Defense Department has good support on the mission from allies and partners in the region, he added, “and we appreciate that.”

Regarding the Iraqi security forces, Kirby said, “we’re starting to see some cohesiveness and some fight and that’s certainly encouraging, but certainly nobody’s … willing to stop monitoring it or to stop having a shared sense of concern about the progress that ISIL has made.”

The post Kirby: Special Operators Will Assess Situation In Iraq appeared first on Eurasia Review.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson returned to South Texas, and brought with him an interagency team that included White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Muñoz, the Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Paul Zukunft and senior officials from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Health and Human Services (HHS). Secretary Johnson and the group traveled to Texas to visit U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities and Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, to oversee the ongoing government-wide response to the recent influx of unaccompanied children and adults with children across the Southwest Border.

At the McAllen Border Patrol Station, the senior officials met with Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Kevin Oaks and Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz to discuss challenges and recommended solutions to deal with the influx of unaccompanied children. The group then went to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, where they reviewed site operations, and met with HHS officials to discuss the operations at the facility, which is currently housing unaccompanied children.

Over the past few months, CBP has seen a significant increase in the apprehension of unaccompanied children and adults with children from Central America in the Rio Grande Valley area of the Southwest Border. While overall border apprehensions across our entire border have only slightly increased during this time period and remain at near historic lows, the rise in apprehensions and processing of children in the Rio Grande Valley present unique operational challenges for DHS and HHS. CBP has today provided updated apprehension data for the Southwest Border.

As part of the government-wide response to the humanitarian situation along the Southwest Border and in the Rio Grande Valley specifically, DHS today announced that it will establish a temporary facility for adults with children on the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s Artesia, N.M. campus. The establishment of this facility will allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to increase its capacity to house and process individuals in a humane manner. This facility is also one of several that DHS is considering at to increase our capacity to hold and expedite the removal of the increasing number of adults with children illegally crossing the southwest border.

At the direction of President Barack Obama and Secretary Johnson, on June 1, a Unified Coordination Group was established to leverage Federal resources to provide humanitarian relief to the ongoing situation. This includes DHS and all of its components, HHS, the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, GSA, and the Department of State. Secretary Johnson appointed FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate to serve as the Federal Coordinating Official for this U.S. Government-wide effort.

During today’s trip, Secretary Johnson made this statement: “This is my fourth visit to South Texas since I took office six months ago, and my second dedicated to addressing the recent surge in illegal border crossings here. I met with our personnel and also spoke again with many children who took the long journey from Central America to find a parent or a better life in the United States. Their stories are a vivid reminder that the issue we face is as much a humanitarian one as it is a matter of border security. With the recent surge in interagency resources to deal with the situation, our people are moving the increased numbers of children, families and adults through the process in a safe and humane manner. Our personnel are doing a professional and heroic job. We are adding even more resources to handle the increased numbers. Still, we must stem this new tide of illegal migration. We are building additional detention capacity for adults who are apprehended crossing our border illegally with their children, and will increase the number of expedited removals from among this population, consistent with our laws. Additionally, the Vice President had very productive meetings today with officials from the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador on this issue. We are sending the message, in Spanish and English, to parents about the dangers of entrusting your child to a criminal smuggling organization to bring them on the long journey to the U.S. We are doing a number of things to address this situation. We are exploring every lawful option to stem the tide and, with the combined efforts of multiple components of our government, the support of Congress, and our partnerships with our allies in Mexico and Central America. I believe we will.”

The post Homeland Security Chief Visits Texas To Review Border Influx Of Adults And Children appeared first on Eurasia Review.

The United States warned Friday it would not accept any use of Russian troops in Ukraine as it confirmed that Moscow had redeployed “significant” military forces near the border. Russia refuted allegations that Russia is moving troops towards the Ukrainian border, saying that it is determined basing on the current needs in order to ensure the required level of security along the border.

The United States blacklisted seven separatists in Ukraine on Friday and threatened “scalpel” sanctions on Russia’s financial, defense and high-tech industries as more Russian military material has flowed into Ukraine.The US moves respond to what American officials say is Russia’s recent increase in support to Ukrainian separatists, including the provision of Russian tanks and the preparation of more to cross into eastern Ukraine, reports Reuters.

“We are monitoring the situation carefully. We will not accept the use, under any pretext, of any Russian military forces in eastern Ukraine,” said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.

A Russian defense ministry source told RBK news agency this week that troops were prepared to enter Ukraine’s insurgent regions in order to “put up barriers between the civilian population and the Ukrainian army.”

The US is “confident” that Moscow sent tanks and rocket launchers last week from the deployment site in southwest Russia into eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian separatists are fighting to break away Kiev, Psaki said.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov has refuted allegations that Russia is moving troops towards the Ukrainian border. “There is no enlargement (of the military contingent) there. There is only a certain saturation of the border factor,” Ushakov told a press briefing on Friday. He said that was because the Russian administration was concerned about the border situation.

“The troops were pulled back and they will stay pulled back,” the presidential aide noted.

Moscow is somewhat bemused by suggestions that Russia has amassed forces along its border with Ukraine because Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an instruction to step up security on the border several weeks ago, said Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

“We are surprised by such statements about Russian troops allegedly amassed on the border with Ukraine. In this case, any build-up of troops is out of the question. Rather, there are measures to enhance security along the borders of the Russian Federation, measures that are being taken on the direct orders of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin,” Peskov said.

This instruction was not issued several days ago, he said.

“It was issued several weeks ago, which was announced earlier and, by the way, received a positive response from European leaders then,” the press secretary said. These measures are being taken in response to “the growing number of border trespass incidents, including by military hardware,” he said.

“As for the number of Armed Forces soldiers, it is determined basing on the current needs in order to ensure the required level of security along the border,” Peskov said.

The post US, EU Promise Strict Sanctions On Russia Over Ukraine appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Riad Kahwaji

The situation in Iraq is much more complex and dangerous than what appears on the surface. It is more than just a radical Islamic group making a surprise large assault and occupying a big chunk of the country. It is more about a sectarian war raging in the country as well as the region for the past few years; and it is about an Iraqi government that has sidelined the Muslim Sunni minority in the country for the past six years; and it is about an escalating cold war between the predominantly Shiite-Persian Iran and the predominantly Sunni-Arab States, especially in the Gulf region. As the United States weighs in on a possible action against the fighters of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that are approaching the capital Baghdad it would be wise to examine the facts before taking any action that could lead Washington into an ethno-sectarian quagmire that would undermine the interests of America and its allies in the Middle East region.

The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has been locked in a conflict with the major Sunni tribal leaders of the country for a few years now. Many of the predominantly Sunni provinces in the central and northern parts of the country were holding strikes and sit-ins in protest of the Maliki government policies for about a couple of years. Maliki sent in government security services and the military several times to put down a public uprising by the Sunni tribes and groups. However, confrontations with the security forces and troops led to the rise of armed groups known as Tribal Rebels who fought several battles with government forces. These clashes soon took on a sectarian dimension with predominantly Shiite government forces clashing with Sunni tribesmen. Arab Gulf countries openly supported the rights of the Sunni tribes against the Iranian-backed Maliki government. Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in arming the tribes and funding the uprising.

In the midst of the tribal uprising, ISIS – a splinter of Al-Qaeda that fell out with the leaders of the mother group and has since been operating separately under Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi – reappeared on the Iraqi scene with more strength and better organization. The ISIS was originally known as the Islamic State in Iraq, but renamed itself two years ago after it moved into Syria to fight on the side of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels against the Iranian-backed Syrian regime forces. The conflict in Syria allowed ISIS to grow in man-power and in military strength, and later it turned against the FSA and now has full control of Al-Raqah province and most of Deir Al-Zour province on the borders with Iraq. ISIS took advantage of the discontent within the Iraqi Sunni population in the north to revive its operations there in a friendly environment. Soon after ISIS joined forces with other Iraqi Sunni groups – Islamists and Tribesmen – in fighting the Maliki forces.

It should be mentioned that when the United States occupied Iraq, American forces found in Iraqi Sunni tribes the best ally against Al-Qaeda. U.S. General David Patraeus struck an alliance with the Iraqi Sunni tribes and helped fund, train and arm tribal groups known as “Al Sahawat” that spearheaded the fight against Al-Qaeda’s Islamic State in Iraq and almost uprooted them from the country. When U.S. forces pulled out of the country five years ago Maliki was supposed to preserve Al-Sahawat and absorb its members within the Iraqi security and armed forces. However, Maliki who was bent on weakening the Sunnis and not allowing them any strong role politically and militarily, disbanded Al-Sahawat and neglected its members who became an easy prey to vengeful attacks by Al-Qaeda. Maliki failed to see that the best means to fight Sunni radicals was to use Sunni tribesmen who defended their towns, cities and way of life from the radical fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq.

The Syrian revolution and its deterioration into a sectarian civil war only worsened the situation in Iraq. Iran and its allied Shiite militias in Iraq and in Lebanon (Hizbullah) sent in men and arms to help defend the Syrian regime that is predominantly Alawite – an offshoot of Shiites. Arab Gulf States have supplied the rebels with arms and funding. Al-Qaeda and ISIS saw a big opportunity in the civil war to establish themselves on the Syrian scene especially after the world’s super powers failed to reach an agreement at the United Nations on how to end the Syrian conflict. Washington and the West decided to refrain from any military intervention as they had done in Libya despite the fact the Syrian regime used chemical weapons and is receiving considerable military assistance from Russia, Iran and Hizbullah.

Now ISIS backed by armed Sunni tribesmen has launched its big on slaught into northern and central Iraq. Maliki has called on the U.S. to intervene militarily and Washington seems to be considering this request. At the same time, Tehran has announced its readiness to intervene, while many press reports in the West and the region are reporting that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are already on the ground in Iraq helping the government forces. Maliki has called for Iraqis to volunteer to military service to help defend their cities and thousands of Iraqi Shiites from the south have joined in for the fight against the onslaught by Sunni groups. It is worth noting that the powerful and influential media outlets in the Arab Gulf States are referring to the conflict in Iraq as a confrontation between “Maliki forces” and the “tribes,” with some role to ISIS. It is being depicted as a war between oppressed Sunnis against Iranian-backed Shiite government forces under Maliki.

The debate is now heating up in Washington as how and whether the U.S. should intervene. U.S. naval ships and a carrier have already been dispatched to Gulf waters, and Secretary of State John Kerry expressed his readiness to meet with Iranian officials to discuss the situation in Iraq. So what is the U.S. objectives and policy about stepping into an ethno-sectarian conflict in the Middle East? On whose side should it be: The Sunni Arabs or the Shiite Persians? Although many U.S. officials might argue that Washington just wants to protect its interests in oil-rich Iraq and wants to pursue its war on terrorism by hitting ISIS and preventing it from establishing a state in Iraq, however, one cannot deny the fact that it is a sectarian war and in wars an intervening party would have to take sides or stay out. Many Arab leaders to this day question the U.S. motives by deciding in the last minute to call off strikes against the Syrian regime. They are also suspicious of Washington’s decision not to properly arm the Syrian rebels and allowing the Syrian regime to regain strength with help from Iran and Shiite militias and not doing anything about it. Hizbullah, which is branded by U.S. as a terrorist group, occupied big chunks of Syrian territory along the borders with Lebanon and the U.S. did not do anything about it, so why now step up and intervene to stop a Sunni group branded as terrorist? These are questions that are and will be raised in the Middle East region, and even beyond. Sunni-Shiite clashes are on the rise in Asian countries where Sunnis are a majority in Pakistan. Malaysia and Indonesia.

For many Arab countries, especially in the Gulf, the United States is still in the doghouse for secretly negotiating and reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Many theories are being discussed in closed rooms in the Arab world as to what are the intentions of the U.S. Administration. Is it really helping Iran establish a Shiite Crescent extending from Iran all the way to Lebanon? Is Washington in conspiracy with Iran to weaken the Arabs? For many Americans this might sound absurd. But for Arabs – people and leaders – watch the situation unfold on the ground it would be seen differently. Hence, Washington must really measure its actions in Iraq in the next few days and weeks and make sure it does not get sucked into a sectarian war that would jeopardize its interests in the Middle East region. Any action by the U.S. Administration must come as part of a comprehensive agreement that would include Iran, Iraq and the Arab Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia. Even though most Arab leaders do not want to see Al-Qaeda or ISIS establish any foothold in the region, they also cannot support actions that would empower Iran and its allies. An American military intervention in Iraq must be part of an overall agreement with the concerned parties to end the Iraqi government oppression of the Sunnis and giving them their rights. It should also take into consideration the situation in Syria where ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hizbullah, Iranian and Shiite militias are getting stronger and would continue to pose a threat on not just Syria’s neighbors, but the whole world.

Riad Kahwaji, CEO, INEGMA

The post US Should Link Political Settlement In Iraq To Any Military Strike To Avoid Sectarian War – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Kanchi Gupta

Foreign Minister of Oman, Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, was the first foreign dignitary from the West Asian region to visit India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s electoral victory. He also met with his Indian counterpart, Sushma Swaraj, and both leaders reviewed the political, economic, defence, security and people-to-people ties between India and Oman. They discussed the welfare of the seven lakh Indians working in Oman and agreed to convene the India-Oman Joint Commission to boost economic engagement between both States.

The Omani minister’s visit highlights Muscat’s diplomatic efforts in seeking greater cooperation with India, in continuation of their historical socio-economic and security partnership. As major powers like China are deepening their military ties with the Gulf, the need for India to look beyond the imperatives of energy and maritime security is critical to its interests in Oman and the wider Gulf region. Deeper security cooperation would also enable India to maintain a balance-of-power in the Indian Ocean littoral.

Even though India’s engagement with the Gulf region is largely limited to energy and trade related exchanges, India and Oman’s security ties are relatively developed. In 1972, they signed a military protocol wherein Indian Navy personnel were deployed in Oman for three years. The protocol was institutionalised in the immediate aftermath of Oman’s independence from Britain.

Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sultan Qaboos had signed a MoU on military cooperation in 1985 and joint naval exercises had begun in January 1993. ’Naseem al Bahr’, a biennial joint naval exercise, completed its ninth edition in September 2013 1. Oman also provides berthing facilities to Indian navy warships for anti-piracy operations2 . MoUs on defence cooperation in 2005 and 2006 strengthened the military dimension of this bilateral relationship.

Over the years, a number of high level ministerial exchanges have reviewed and reinforced the bilateral relationship. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had visited Oman in 2008 and it was agreed to convert the relationship into a strategic partnership. The visit also resulted in the signing of MoUs on a Joint Investment Fund and manpower development with Oman.

Following a boost in relations, Royal Air Force of Oman (ROFA) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) conducted joint military exercises for the first time in 2009. IAF vice Chief Air Marshal P.K. Barbora stated that “The bilateral exercise would also be cost-effective in terms of benefit realization of operational and tactical preparedness over an unknown mixed terrain of land and desert3 “. ROFA airbases also serve as maintenance and refuelling points for the IAF4 .

Oman’s centrality to India’s energy and maritime security dates back to the 19th and 20th century. The British government in India established New Delhi’s political and security role in Oman through the appointment of a Political Agent in Muscat to manage British India’s relations and protect ships in the Arabian Sea. As a protector of the Gulf Sheikhdoms, the British Raj assumed responsibility for the foreign affairs and defence of Oman (and the Gulf Sheikhdoms) in the 19th century.

The Government of Bombay established a Persian Gulf Squadron in 1821 to enforce the General Treaty – anti-piracy treaty – using about 7 ships-of-war and 4 gunboats to patrol the Arabian waters. The Sultan of Muscat was also the first Gulf ruler to be extended the protection of the Gulf squadron5 . Post-independence, India signed a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (1953) with Oman, which segregated Indo-Oman relations from the British Political Agent in Muscat6 .

Since its independence, Oman has followed a foreign policy largely autonomous from the Gulf Cooperation Council member States. In 2013, Sultan Qaboos facilitated secret nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US and rejected Saudi Arabia’s attempts to create a politically and militarily integrated GCC Union. Oman was also the first Arab nation to export oil to China in 1983.

Over the years, Muscat and Beijing have expanded their military relations, which include joint anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Chinese naval vessels dock at the Port of Salalah in Oman for replenishment. Oman’s Defence Minister, Ayyiid Badr al-Busaidi,announced in 2010 that “his military would continue to provide the Chinese naval fleet with supplies if necessary”7 .

Oman’s initiatives to strengthen cooperation with India can, hence, be seen as part of its efforts to diversify its security partnerships. Muscat’s ministerial visit to New Delhi, weeks after the new Indian government took charge, is suggestive of India’s centrality in the Gulf’s strategic calculus. The Gulf, however, is not included in Prime Minister Modi’s “crowded…outbound travel inbox” for the next six months.

Even though the region is extremely critical to India’s core interests of energy and economics, it has not featured sufficiently in New Delhi’s strategic policies. China’s strengthening maritime position and political interaction with the region also necessitate greater defence participation from India in the Gulf.

(The writer is a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

1. “Naseem Al Bahr: Naval exercise between India and Oman held”, Indian Navy http://indiannavy.nic.in/press-release/naseem-al-bahr-naval-exercise-between-indian-oman-navy-held

2. “Indian Ambassador, IAF Observer and Commander RAFO visit IAF contingent at Oman”, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, October 28, 2009 http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=53650

3. “IAF preparing to join anti-piracy operations in Gulf”, Times Now, October 14, 2009 http://www.timesnow.tv/articleshow/msid-4329682,prtpage-1.cms

4. ’India Strengthens Military in Gulf’, Saurav Jha, UPI Asia, November 3, 2009

5. James Onley, “Britain and the Gulf Sheikhdoms: 1820-1971 – the politics of protection”, Centre for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University, 2009

6. Joseph A. Kechichian, “Oman and the World: the emergence of an independent foreign policy”, RAND Corporation, 1995

7. Chinese, Omani defence chiefs discuss stronger ties, anti piracy operations, Ministry of national defence, The People’s Republic of China, June 4, 2010 http://eng.mod.gov.cn/TopNews/2010-06/04/content_4162477.htm

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Tens of thousands of Americans who could have died last year, did not die; yet no one celebrated that amazing news, because very few were even aware of it. Let me explain. Highway deaths over the past six years continue to remain at historic lows. Fatalities in 2012 were at the lowest level since 1950.

American highway fatalities rose during the 50′s and 60′s until they peaked in 1972, at 54,589. Since then they have declined by more than 40% even though the number of cars and drivers has more than doubled.

If traffic deaths occurred at the same rate in 2012 as they did in 1950; over 180,000 more people would have died in the U.S. last year. This fantastic achievement in increasing traffic safety has gone largely unheralded.

Why does the news media devote so much attention to bad news and so little attention to good news? Why do people seem more interested in violence than the absence of violence?

Religions teach us that we should count our blessings. Politicians and the news media teach us to count every single thing that is wrong; everywhere in the world.

How can people keep their optimism, sanity and balance in our media driven democracy? The religious answer is to say a hundred blessings every day. A person who can sincerely voice a hundred blessings a day should feel truly blessed.

The best way of influencing people to think positively about their lives is to teach them the importance of saying blessings for the many things they experience, both in their ordinary daily and weekly life, and at occasional extraordinary times.

Thus, it is a Mitsvah to say blessings at every meal over food and drink.

Every morning when we awaken it is a Mitsvah to say several blessings because various parts of our mind and body still work. During daily prayer there are 18 blessings, and there are blessings for the weekly celebration of the Sabbath.

Their are also many blessings to say for special occasions. The rabbis urged us to thank God for as many blessings as we can, since the more blessings you can say, the more blessed you are. Indeed,

Jewish tradition maintains that everyone who is able to say 100 blessings a day is truly blessed. Among the special occasion blessings there is a blessing for seeing a non-Jewish sage and another one for seeing a Jewish sage.

Their is a blessing for hearing good news and another one for hearing bad news in accordance with Rabbi Huna’s view that we need both joy and suffering in order to experience the ‘very good’ of the sixth day of creation. Here are a few examples of blessings for special occasions:

On beholding fragrant trees: Praised be Adonai our God, Ruler of space and time, creator of fragrant trees.

On seeing trees in blossom: Praised be Adonai our God, Ruler of space and time, whose world lacks nothing we need, who has fashioned goodly creatures and lovely trees that enchant the heart.

On seeing an unusual looking person: Praised be Adonai our God, Ruler of space and time, who makes every person unique.

On seeing evidence of charitable efforts: Praised be Adonai our God, ruler of space and time, who clothes the naked.

On seeing people who overcome adversity: Praised be Adonai our God, ruler of space and time, who gives strength to the weary.

This last one is one of my favorites because it sanctifies the Divine value of plural opinions and human variety. According to the Talmud (Berakhot 58a) when you see a large number of diverse people you should say: Praised be Adonai our God, Ruler of space and time, the Sage of enigmas, for just as no one person’s opinion is just like that of another, so are their faces different from one another.

The best way to preserve your sanity and balance in today’s world is to remember to count your blessings every day.

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Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has ordered the construction of 11 stadiums of highest international standards each with a capacity of 45,000 spectators.

They are to be built in the provinces of Madinah, Qassim, Eastern Province, Asir, Tabuk, Hail, Northern Border Province, Jazan, Najran, Baha and Al-Jouf.

Prince Nawaf bin Faisal, head of the Youth Welfare Presidency, thanked the king for the decision to built new stadiums in different parts of the Kingdom, the SPA reported.

Governors of the 11 provinces as well as prominent personalities have applauded the royal decision. “The sports circle in the Kingdom has received this news with great happiness,” said Prince Talal bin Mansour, a honorary member of Al-Ittihad Club.

Abdul Aziz Abdul Aal, former president of Al-Ahli Club, commended King Abdullah for his tremendous support to sports and youth welfare projects. “The new stadium will help Saudi players perform well at regional and international sports events,” he pointed out.

King Abdullah opened the state-of-the-art sports city in Jeddah on May 1. Located about 50 km from Jeddah, King Abdullah Sports City is in a league of its own, joining the great sporting venues in the world. It also has unique features that surpass many of the world’s best.

KASC was constructed on three million square meters. It also includes a 60,000-capacity football stadium, which comfortably meets the FIFA standards.

One of the most distinguishing features of this stadium is that it does not include an athletics track, which puts the spectators at the heart of the event and makes it more enjoyable to them.

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Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh warned the Saudis against temporary marriages being promoted by marriage brokers abroad, stressing that this marriage is not approved in Islam.

In his Friday sermon at Imam Turki bin Abdullah Mosque in Riyadh, he said that some Muslim youth are tricked into marriage with a legal contract and abuse its use. While traveling outside the Kingdom, they get married using these brokers and may even marry a woman who is already married. Some of them remain married for only a few days, he said, noting that this type of marriage is not recognized by our religion.

He said, “This is not a marriage, but is just a contract for spending pleasure times. A Saudi man may perhaps marry four women with one contract and leave them after the birth of their kids,” he said.

“Those women may marry more than one man, and they transport diseases; such marriages are not accepted and are considered a means of exploitation of Muslim women,” he said.

It is noteworthy the charity for the Care of Saudi Families Abroad (Awasir) stressed the need to beware of such marriage brokers, who are usually stationed at airports in some countries and who try to hunt down some of the Saudis and citizens of Gulf countries to trap them into these temporary marriages, particularly during summer vacation.

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India should carry out the recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to improve protection for children affected by armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. The Child Rights Committee made its recommendations to India public on June 19, 2014, in Geneva.

Non-state armed groups should halt their recruitment and use of children and attacks on schools, Human Rights Watch said.

“Children from India’s poorest and most marginalized communities are ending up on the front lines as combatants, or because their schools are bombed by armed groups,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The UN has laid out a series of steps that the government should take to protect these children better.”

The Child Rights Committee stated that it was “deeply concerned” about opposition Maoist forces in central India as well as armed groups in the northeast, Jammu, and Kashmir recruiting and using anyone under 18 in hostilities. Human Rights Watch has previously documented Maoist forces’ use of children as young as 12 in armed operations. Human Rights Watch has also documented unlawful Maoist attacks on schools.

The committee urged India to promptly enact legislation that criminalizes the recruitment and use of anyone under 18 in hostilities by non-state armed groups. It also said India should take all necessary measures to prevent and eliminate the root causes of forced recruitment of children from poor and marginalized segments of society by non-state armed groups. Unlawful attacks on schools should be promptly investigated, and those responsible should be prosecuted and punished, the committee said.

The Child Rights Committee also expressed concern about government armed forces occupying schools in Maoist-affected areas, despite Supreme Court rulings prohibiting the practice. The committee said that India should “take all necessary measures to prevent the occupation and use of … places with a significant presence of children, such as schools, in line with international humanitarian law, expedite the vacation of schools as appropriate and take concrete measures to ensure that cases of unlawful … occupation of schools are promptly investigated, and that perpetrators are prosecuted and punished.”

Although security forces’ occupation and use of schools has declined since 2010, when Human Rights Watch documented the occupation of at least 129 schools, instances of dangerous dual use of schools continue, placing students and teachers potentially in the line of fire and harming children’s right to education.

A video released by Human Rights Watch and the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack calls for the end of the military use of schools around the world. The video includes an account from an Indian child concerned about the mistreatment of girls by security forces occupying her school. It also features an Indian teacher amid the rubble of his school, which was attacked by Maoist forces following its use by government security forces.

“The Indian government should finally and fully withdraw its security forces from schools,” Ganguly said. “India’s children are entitled to safe schools and safe childhoods.”

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On May 24, 2014, the leaders of the unrecognized republics of Donetsk and Lugansk signed a document on the establishment of a common state, a Union of People’s Republics, significantly named Novorossiya. The new entity, inspired on the homonym administrative region of imperial Russia, had been proclaimed two days before at the first congress of the New Russia Party in the presence of representatives from eight Ukrainian regions, namely Odessa, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk.

The potentially larger geographical scope of Novorossiya, a confederation of pro-Russian republics that, as such, may be so extended as to include the Moldavian breakaway republic of Transnistria, is a further challenge to Ukraine’s territorial integrity, already undermined by Crimea’s annexation (or reunification) to Russia and the control exerted by the Donbass People’s Militia over large parts of the Donetsk and Lungask oblasts. Although condemned by Kiev, which considers pro-Russian fighters in Ukraine as terrorists, the creation, consolidation and expansion of the Federal State of Novorossiya is a geopolitical process with solid historical basis.

The term “Novorossiya” was coined in 1764 when the first Novorossiysk Governorate was created in the territories of New Serbia and New Sloboda, in what is today the Kirovohrad Oblast. As a military district, the governorate played a key role in the Russo-Turkish war, which allowed Russia to expand southwards by annexing the Northern Black Sea cost and the Caucasus, as well as turning the Crimean Khanate into a Russian satellite state. The eventual colonization of the lands snatched from the Ottomans by the Russians turned Novorossiya into a majority Russophone region stretching from the Donets to the Dniester rivers.

After the Russian revolution, Novorossiya ceased to exist as an administrative component of the Russian Empire, becoming one of the most contested regions during the civil war. While the territory was claimed as a part of an independent Ukraine by both the Ukrainian National Republic and the Ukrainian People’s Republic of Soviets, as well as by the Free Territory of Nestor Makhno, the establishment of the Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic and the Odessa Soviet Republic as self-declared republics of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic actually proved the undeniable Russian essence of those territories, which became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic only in 1922 with the creation of the Soviet Union.

The reason why the largely Russian Soviet leadership decided to give the former Novorossiya (with the exception of Crimea, which would have been “gifted” by Khrushchev three decades later) to Ukraine lays in the policy of korenization promoted by Moscow as a means to fight Great-Russian chauvinism. Nevertheless, the centrality of the Russian element among the nationalities of the Soviet Union prevented a real Ukrainization of the region since the very beginning of the Stalin era, with the result that South-Eastern Ukraine remained de facto a genuinely Russian territory, as attested by the widespread use of the Russian language still today.

The massacres perpetrated by the Ukrainian Army in the Donbass have created a deep trench between Kiev and the millions of Russians living in Ukraine, who do not feel secure in a country where nationalist paramilitary groups are often free to sow terror among Russophone citizens with the complacency of the authorities. As a result, the creation of a federal Ukraine is no longer a viable option for the citizens of Novorossiya, who will have no choice but to keep fighting until independence from Kiev will be secured. Only then, a federal solution may be taken into consideration by the authorities of Donetsk, should they decide to use their sovereignty to join Russia as the eighty-sixth subject of the Russian Federation.

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By Kanchi Gupta

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki and his security establishment is facing major challenge as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has taken over major cities, including Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, Tikrit and now Mosul – the second largest city in Iraq. Mosul is also a strategic intersection between Iraq, Syria and Turkey, providing a stronghold to the ISIS for the flow of fighters across the Syria-Iraq border. The security vacuum has facilitated Iraq’s disintegration along sectarian lines. Kurdish forces seized control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The ISIS has fuelled the endemic sectarian crisis in Iraq by attacking Shiite religious sites and slaughtering hundreds of Shiite members of the country’s security forces.

The ISIS, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, emerged in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. It was formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). Rising citizen causalities during the US occupation and the disbanding of the Iraq army played into the hands of organisations like the Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). However, Al-Qaeda’s radical interpretation of Islam eventually alienated Sunni tribes in the Anbar Province and in cooperation with US forces, they organised themselves into “Awakening Councils” to battle the AQI.

The AQI-aligned Islamic State of Iraq was linked to an increasing number of violent attacks in Iraq after the withdrawal of the US forces and the group was classified as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department in 2011. Led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS is a Sunni Jihadist movement that seeks to unite the umma – the community of Muslim believers – under one rule. The group, extremely sectarian in character, has called for the killing of all non-believers and ‘apostates’, including Jews, Christians, Shiite Muslims and Alawites as well as Sunni Muslims who do not abide by their “self-imposed regulations“.

The beginning of the war in Syria allowed the ISIS (until now ISI) to expand its activities through the creation of Jabhat al-Nusra. Jabhat al-Nusra was founded in 2012 to operate in Syria and was mandated to help the ISI create a “transnational state” ruled by Sharia law. In 2013, al-Baghdadi proposed the integration of Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISI to form the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Greater Syria). However, the merger was refused by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, but the ISI proceeded to call itself the ISIS.

It has been estimated that over half of the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters in Syria defected to join the ISIS, allowing the ISIS to gain control of several posts in Syria. Following the ISIS’s expansion into Syria, the Al-Qaeda issued a statement “disavowing” the splinter group and expressing Zawahiri’s support for Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Nusra also differs from the ISIS in that it aims to topple President Assad’s government in Syria, while the ISIS is focused on consolidating its own rule in captured territories.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s marginalisation of the country’s minority Sunni population has provided a fertile ground for the ISIS recruitment. The failure of the Maliki government to legitimise the “Awakening Councils” – US initiative to cultivate Sunni militia groups or Sahwa to fight AQI in 2006 and 2007 – and engage them in state building also eased the way for the ISIS’s control over the northern part of the country. The Sahwaswere instrumental in containing the ISIS until their alienation by the Maliki government and the withdrawal of US forces. Mosul, having been the cornerstone of the US-led Surge and Awakening efforts during the height of internal violence in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, is indicative of this.

Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak has also referred to Prime Minister Maliki’s partisan politics, stating that there was no real power-sharing during his presence in the government. “We were almost isolated from the decisions, especially regarding the security issue”.

The fall of Mosul has provided the ISIS access to banks and water and electricity resources through the Mosul dam. Attempts are also going on to take control of the town of Baiji, which hosts Iraq’s biggest oil refinery. The ISIS has been raising almost USD 2 million a month through extortion networks in Mosul and other cities. Kidnappings, oil smuggling and private donations from individuals in the Gulf are reported to be other major sources of ISIS funding.

The Economist’s Middle East and North Africa correspondent, Sarah Birke, writes that Turkey has been instrumental in the expansion of the ISIS by allowing foreign jihadists to cross the border. The 10,000-member-strong group includes over 3000 foreign fighters, many of whom are from Chechnya, France, Britain and other European countries. Birke contends that Ankara has an interest in allowing the ISIS to expand in Syria and Iraq and battle the Kurdish forces, including the PYD which has close ties with the PKK militant Kurdish group in Turkey.

Even though the ISIS has support of other groups — like Sunni groups like the Jaish Rijal al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandia, Jaish al-Mujahideen, Jamaat Ansar al-Islam and Al-Jaish al-Islami fil Iraq — its extremist policies have alienated a large proportion of Sunni supporters. The group is often referred to as “Da’ash” or foreign occupiers in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, the ISIS is engaged in battles with the Free Syrian Army and the Jabhat al-Nusra for control of Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo and Qalamoun in Syria, and with the Kurdish forces in Iraq, killing over 600 fighters in the last few weeks.

Prime Minister Maliki’s call for citizen volunteers to fight the ISIS has been echoed by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has also called for the formation of “peace battalions” to protect Shiite shrines. Charles Lister, from Brookings Doha, states that these calls could lead to the reconstitution of Shiite militias that were active during the US occupation and could expand the sectarian conflict to a much larger scale. Robert Ford of the Middle East Instituteadds that mobilisation of Shiite militias could de-stabilise provinces like Baghdad, Diyala and Salah al-Din, which “sit on the fault lines between Shia and Sunni communities“.

The kidnapping of 40 Indian construction workers as well as Turkish diplomats and truck drivers by the ISIS highlights the growing threat of insurgents in Iraq. The increasingly porous Iraq-Syria border has allowed the ISIS to tap into greater sources of finances, fighters and weapons. Groups like the ISIS have capitalised on the Maliki administration’s ethno-sectarian politics, and the resurgence of ethnic animosities has long-standing implications for Iraq and the West Asian region as a whole. As the Kurdish rebel forces, peshmarga, capture disputed territory and Shiite militias mobilise against the ISIS offensive, the absence of a consolidated response from Baghdad is paving the way for the de facto partition of Iraq.

(The writer is a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

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