AFP, Syria’s Alawites are closely associated with Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father Hafez (L)
‘Muslim quality’
In part from BBC: The Alawites emerged in the 10th Century in neighbouring Iraq.
Little has been confirmed about their beliefs and practices since then because, according to the leaders, they had to be hidden to avoid persecution.
However, most sources say the name “Alawite” refers to their veneration of the first Shia imam, Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Muhammad.
AFP: Shia power Iran and Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement are assisting the Assad regime
For full comprehensive summary by the BBC, go here.
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al-Arabiya: The most significant development coming from Syria in the last few days is not the killing of Al-Qaeda spokesperson in Idlib or the US-Russian chatter denying a plan to oust Bashar Al-Assad. It was a document leaked to the Western media and dubbed as the “declaration of identity reform” signaling signs of discontent from elders in the Alawite community towards the Syrian regime.
Alawite discontent
“The declaration from the Alawite leaders is a watershed moment in how the minority is publicly untying itself from Assad family, and attempting to pursue a pact of coexistence in Syria”, Joyce Karam.
Assurances from Region and Russia
WSJ: GENEVA—Talks aimed at ending the five-year war in Syria ground to a halt with the government and opposition divided over fundamental issues, including whether President Bashar al-Assad’s political fate even belongs on the agenda.
The regime insists that Mr. Assad remain in power, and the opposition demands that he step down. With an August United Nations deadline looming to form a new government and the peace process floundering, participants in the talks have floated alternatives aimed at breaking the deadlock that appease some parties but anger others.
Among the ideas are to transfer Mr. Assad’s powers to a handful of deputies; to form a new ruling council comprised of Syrian military officials and moderate rebel leaders; and to coalesce around a new Syrian leader who feuding camps could support.
None of the alternatives has gained traction, and each would face serious, possibly insurmountable, obstacles even if they garnered support in the Geneva talks. The discussions around them are a sign of the lengths to which negotiators are going in an effort to maintain some form of dialogue.
“Geneva is a process without content,” a senior Western diplomat said. Much more here.
Category Archives: Insurgency
Trump: America First, Foreign Policy Presentation
Good for Donald Trump, America should be first when it comes to policy and diplomacy. Applause to the Donald for that standard. Well said.
Tell us again how to pronounce Tanzania or San Bernardino.
What was not said however is disturbing for those who have a keen interest in foreign policy. Of particular note, the Ambassador of Russia was sitting on the front row. Perhaps this is but one reason, Trump never mentioned Russia or Vladimir Putin.
Remember it was only recently that Russia has been more than provocative in reckless actions against a U.S. destroyer and U.S. military aircraft. This is a violation of the IncSea Treaty. This is not the first time either, noting Russian bombers off the West Coast and the same with our European allies. What about the Baltic States, Crimea or Ukraine? Anything?
What about the constant war in the cyber realm? Trump did mention artificial intelligence, does he know what that is? What about electronic or economic warfare?
al Qaeda, Boko Harem, Haqqani, Jabhat al-Nusra, Houthis? Nah….the plight of Jews and Christians, Yazidis, Peshmerga? Standing with France on their recent attacks? Nothing about China’s aggression with the new islands and fighter jets there?
Well said Donald on the destruction of Islamic State, high marks for that. Additional high marks for the IRGC and kidnapping our sailors.
Trump made a mere simple reference to Iran and their nuclear program, stating they will never have a nuclear weapon and the Joint Plan of Action was a bad deal. How come no reference to Iran being a violator of conventions, a rogue state sponsor of terror? Nothing about the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp or Hezbollah or IED’s made by Iran that killed and maimed our soldiers? What about Iran’s collusion with North Korea? Anything on that? No…
Does Trump approve of John Kerry’s work as the current Secretary of State? Humm, perhaps as Trump never mentioned Kerry.
Syria unleashed Islamic State? Really? Trump blames China for North Korea. Does Donald think that China is fully, exclusively responsible and accountable for Kim Jung Un?
Why no mention of foreign aid? There is likely a bailout coming for Puerto Rico. Does Trump have a clue on that? When it comes to NATO, Trump backed off and merely mentioned that only four member countries pay the 2% of GDP. Never a mention that countries do pay the United States for bases and protection like Philippines and Japan. Did Trump slight Israel by not stating nurturing and restoring the relationship or is he still in a neutral position when it comes to the Palestinians? Hamas? Anything on human rights violations? What about the corruption of the United Nations?
When referencing Cuba, Trump correctly stated that Obama was slighted at the airport with no Cuban official being on the formal reception. Is Trump cool with normalizing relations with Cuba considering the treatment of dissidents or U.S. criminals that have receive safe haven on the island or the debt Cuba owes to U.S. domestic corporations for nationalizing them? What about Guantanamo as a whole?
Forgotten is a war we are currently fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan…not a word at all by Trump.
Trump did layout his policy on foreign matters stating diplomacy, caution and restraint. That is always the standard. Did Trump mention he was going to revisit or retool those approaches? No….
Most disturbing, included in Trump’s foreign policy speech was the feeble condition of our own nuclear program and the military as a whole. Why explain any weakness at all where adversaries are listening with a keen ear? The U.S. military is still today the most advanced power on the globe while new technologies and weapons systems are in the future pipelines. Hey Donald, how about making a positive declaration about the military condition and the work of the Pentagon and the military collaboration with allies that does demonstrate strength?
Well, here is the text of his speech for your reference.
For additional reference, those included on Trump’s foreign policy team are:
Zalmay Khalilzad, the former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is under investigation. Trump only met Khalilzad earlier in the day. Further, the Ambassador stated that if Hillary had asked him to be part of her team, he would gladly do so.
Walid Phares, a Lebanese Christian and commentator on Middle East Affairs.
George Papadopoulos, energy consultant
Carter Page, energy consultant and lobbyist for Gazprom, a Russian energy company
Joe Schmitz, fired as former Inspector General, Department of Defense, formerly of Blackwater and his sister is Mary Kay Letourneau gained infamy after having a sexual relationship with her 12-year-old student, to whom she is now married.
LTG Keith Kellogg (ret), Chief Operating Officer of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq
A New Scheme for Syrian Refugees?
Related: Obama pledge to welcome 10,000 Syrian refugees far behind schedule
Read more from the White House directly:
Infographic: The screening process for refugee entry into the U.S.
Download graphic
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“Alternative Safe Pathways” for Syrian Refugees – Resettlement in Disguise?
CIS.org: With the Syrian crisis entering its sixth year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is thinking of “innovative approaches” to organize Syrian admissions, alongside the refugee resettlement program, to countries willing to welcome them. UNHCR’s target for resettlement is 480,000 places over the next three years; it is not sure how many additional admissions into the U.S. and elsewhere these new “alternative safe pathways” will ensure. Refugees who are not resettled could be “legally admitted” using various routes described below.
The legitimacy and transparency of these new “alternative pathways,” aimed at admitting increasing numbers of Syrian refugees into the United States without calling them “refugees,” remain to be seen. They might even amount to convenient admissions detours at a time when the U.S. refugee resettlement program is under tight scrutiny.
In a panel discussion on The Global Refugee Crisis: Moral Dimensions and Practical Solutions organized by the Brookings Institution earlier this year, Beth Ferris, Research Professor at Georgetown University and adviser to the United Nations Secretary General on humanitarian refugee policy, talked about the need to find different solutions to the ongoing humanitarian Syrian crisis. The refugee resettlement program was no longer sufficient to admit Syrian refugees she said; “alternative safe pathways” are needed:
Refugees and government officials are expecting this crisis to last 10 or 15 years. It’s time that we no longer work as business as usual … UNHCR next month [March 2016] is convening a meeting to look at what are being called “alternative safe pathways” for Syrian refugees. Maybe it’s hard for the U.S. to go from 2,000 to 200,000 refugees resettled in a year, but maybe there are ways we can ask our universities to offer scholarships to Syrian students. Maybe we can tweak some of our immigration policies to enable Syrian-Americans who have lived here to bring not only their kids and spouses but their uncles and their grandmothers. There may be ways that we could encourage Syrians to come to the U.S. without going through this laborious, time-consuming process of refugee resettlement.” (Emphasis added.)
The UNHCR conference Ferris was referring to took place in Geneva this March 30. It is one of a series of initiatives aimed at comprehensively addressing the Syrian crisis in 2016. The Geneva “High-level meeting on global responsibility sharing through pathways for admission of Syrian refugees” focused on the need for a substantial increase in resettlement numbers and for “innovative approaches” to admit Syrian refugees. It followed February’s London Conference on Syria, which stressed the financial aspect of this humanitarian crisis ($12 billion pledged in humanitarian aid) and precedes a September 2016 high-level plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Worthy of note here, President Obama will host a global refugee summit this September 20 on the margins of this upcoming General Assembly meeting.
The focus of the Geneva meeting was to introduce “other forms of humanitarian admissions” since “[r]esettlement is not the only aim”, explained UNHCR’s spokesperson. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi appealed to the international community in his opening statement, calling for “alternative avenues” for the admission of Syrian refugees:
These pathways can take many forms: not only resettlement, but also more flexible mechanisms for family reunification, including extended family members, labour mobility schemes, student visa and scholarships, as well as visa for medical reasons. Resettlement needs vastly outstrip the places that have been made available so far… But humanitarian and student visa, job permits and family reunification would represent safe avenues of admission for many other refugees as well.
At the end of the meeting, Grandi highlighted several commitments made by a number of participants in his closing remarks. Promises were made to:
- Increase the number of resettlement and humanitarian admission places.
- Ease family reunification and increase possibilities for family reunion.
- Give scholarships and student visas for Syrian refugees.
- Remove administrative barriers and simplify processes to facilitate and expedite the admission of Syrian refugees.
- Use resources provided by the private sector in order to create labor mobility schemes for Syrian refugees.
The Geneva meeting was attended by representatives of 92 countries, including the United States. Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, reiterated in her remarks the U.S. commitment to refugees: “President Obama has made assisting displaced people a top priority for the U.S. government.” Last year alone the U.S. contributed more than $6 billion to humanitarian causes. So far this year, the United States has provided nearly $2.3 billion in humanitarian assistance worldwide. She also announced additional measures: “We are further increasing our support of Syrian refugees, and we will make additional contributions to the global displacement effort through September, and beyond”, while reminding the participants of President Obama’s role in hosting a high-level refugee summit this September.
The U.S. State Department released a Media Note following the Geneva meeting. It confirmed the goal of resettling at least 10,000 Syrians in FY 2016 and of 100,000 refugees from around the world by the end of FY 2017 – an increase of more that 40 percent since FY 2015. It also announced the following:
- “The United States pledged an additional $10 million to UNHCR to strengthen its efforts to identify and refer vulnerable refugees, including Syrians, for resettlement.”
- “The United States joins UNHCR in calling for new ways nations, civil society, the private sector, and individuals can together address the global refugee challenge.”
- “Additionally, the United States has created a program to allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to file refugee applications for their Syrian family member.” [Emphasis added.]
On this last note, why create a family reunification program for Syrian refugees when refugees in the U.S. are already entitled to ask for their spouse and unmarried children under 21 to join them? Unless of course, the aim is to widen family circles to include aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, grandmothers and grandfathers.
Let’s see if we got this right: More Syrian refugees are to be resettled in the United States; administrative barriers (including security checks?) are to be removed to expedite admissions. Come to think of it, this is exactly what we witnessed with the “Surge Operation” in Jordan, where refugee resettlement processes were reduced from 18-24 months to three months in order to meet the target of 10,000 Syrian refugees this year.
Moreover, the United States government, by its own admission, “joins UNHCR in calling for new ways” to move more Syrians to other countries. With the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program under close scrutiny, other routes for “legal admissions” (not “resettlement”) of Syrian refugees into the United States seem more appropriate. Those routes may vary from private sponsorships, labor schemes, expanded family reunification programs, humanitarian visas, medical evacuation, to academic scholarships and apprenticeships, etc.
What remains to be determined is how transparent these “alternative pathways” will be. Will we be given details about numbers, profiles, locations, screening, or costs? Also, what additional measures are we to expect from this administration as it prepares to host a Global Refugee Summit this September 20?
Meanwhile, we are left to wonder: aren’t these “pathways” for refugees nothing more than disguised resettlement routes? Akin to “pathways to citizenship” in lieu of amnesty…
Documents Show Assad’s Oil Deals with ISIS
ISIS’s Multimillion-Dollar Oil Deals With Assad Regime Uncovered in U.S. Special Forces Raid
Newsweek: The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has negotiated multimillion-dollar oil deals with the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), new documents retrieved from a U.S. raid against the radical Islamists’ oil chief have revealed.
A U.S. special forces raid on ISIS’s oil minister—known by his nom de guerre Abu Sayyaf—in May 2015 saw the extraction of thousands of documents implicating his oil operation with that of the Assad regime, with revenue from the sale of oil to Damascus helping the group to reach a peak of $40 million a month in oil revenue, according to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal.
Sayyaf led the group’s oil ministry, known as the Diwan of Natural Resources, and used deals with the Syrian regime to boost the division’s income, contributing 72 percent of $289.5 million the group earned in natural-resource revenues in the six months preceding February 2015.
A document identified as Memo No. 156, dated February 11, 2015, from the trove of documents extracted from Sayyaf’s Deir Ezzor hideout shows that the Tunisian national requested assistance from an unknown party on how to build investment links with businessmen allied to the Assad regime.
The document states that ISIS already had agreements in place with Damascus that permitted trucks to move from oil fields under the authority of the regime to travel through ISIS-controlled territory. Two former ISIS oil managers also told the The Wall Street Journal that the group had made deals with businessman connected to the Syrian regime.
In the raid, U.S. special forces traveled from Iraq to eastern Syria, where they killed ISIS militants guarding his compound before assassinating Sayyaf. The forces took his wife Umm Sayyaf into custody and transferred her to the hands of Kurdish control.
In their sweep across eastern Syria in late 2013 and early 2014, ISIS seized some of Syria’s key oil fields in the Deir Ezzor province, such as al-Tanak and al-Omar. The group lost its first major oil field in Syria, al-Jasbah, where it was producing 3,000 barrels of oil a day, to Syrian-Kurdish forces in January. The U.S.-led coalition is also targeting the group’s oil fields, significantly reducing its ability to refine lucrative oil and sell it to shadowy buyers.
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In 2014: Officials from the Iraqi oil industry have said that ISIS reaps $1 million per day in Iraq in oil profits and that if they get the Syrian fields in [areas where they’re advancing], the total would be $100 million per month for both Iraq and Syria combined. They sell it for $30 a barrel because it’s a black market. It’s not pegged to international standards for oil prices, which are over $100 a barrel. The oil is bought through Turkey from Syria, and it’s sold to black market traders who function throughout the Levant.
ISIS’s strategy seems to have evolved around generating income. ISIS raises money in several ways, but oil is certainly a part of that. For a long time, they avoided having much direct confrontation with the regime. They generally tended to turn their fire against other rebel groups. They had been selling to the regime, or basically anyone who’d pay for it. But recently it seems like they are taking a more aggressive approach, like with the attack on Shaar. Were they just attacking it to destroy it [to hit the regime], or to take it over and continue selling gas? It’s not clear what their intention was.
If ISIS truly has destroyed fields there, it means the [regime’s] gas supply will be cut off. It’s already down to half of pre-war levels, and this will cause more power cuts and electricity cuts in Damascus. It means the regime will have to use more expensive fuel from Iran. It means more suffering for [civilians], and this perhaps will undercut support there for the regime. And it makes it very hard to have any prospect of the economy recovering.
ISIS, which has an illegal oil export scheme that derives revenue. It seems now that [oil in Syria] is up for grabs and ISIS started this trend [of fighting for it]. It is likely that other groups such as Nusra will try to follow.
As the Islamic State is established, it’s clear that ISIS wants to have all parts of their government and revenue sources well organized, and that energy exports are part of this scheme. The scheme includes the collection of taxes, but also other black market activities like trade in other illegal goods the group plunders from the land it captures. Given the call by [ISIS leader Abu Bakr] Baghdadi on the first day of Ramadan –asking for consolidation of the state and the recruitment of individuals to help run that state – you have to figure that the energy sector figures into his planning. Read full interview in context here.
9/11: 28 Pages, Detainee Facts
Ghassan al Sharbi also used a pro-bono progressive law firm to file a petition and lawsuit against President GW Bush.
He lived and received financial assistance during his time at the Islamic Society Tempe, Arizona. See the file/docket here. It should also be written, the Garland, Texas terror plot also included an Arizona footprint. (CAIR, Islamic Society of North America are implicated in the Holyland Foundation case, charities that raised funds for terror operations)
Noted as prisoner #237, and on November 7, 2005, the United States charged al-Sharbi and four other detainees with war crimes. They were expected to face a trial before a military commission. Al-Sharbi, Jabran Said bin al Qahtani, Binyam Ahmed Muhammad, and Sufyian Barhoumi faced conspiracy to murder charges for being part of an al-Qaeda bomb-making cell.[5] Omar Khadr, 18 years old, faced both murder and conspiracy to murder charges.
Al-Sharbi initially wanted to decline legal representation; a pro bono attorney was arranged by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other organizations when the US had not provided any counsel to the detainees.[6] In 2006, his pro bono attorney, Bob Rachlin, was trying to arrange for al-Sharbi to talk by phone with his parents, hoping they would persuade him to accept Rachlin’s legal assistance, which his father had initiated. He also left his wife and daughter in the United States when he fled to Pakistan. More here in further detail.
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Terror suspect whose flight certificate was linked to Saudis one of Gitmo’s most dangerous
FNC: One of Guantanamo Bay’s most dangerous and longest-held terror suspects is a Saudi national who knows how to fly planes and build sophisticated bombs, speaks fluent English and remains committed to killing Americans, say former U.S. officials who dealt with Ghassan al Sharbi face-to-face.
Revelations last week that Al Sharbi’s flight training certificate, tucked into a Saudi Arabian Embassy envelope, had been found in 2003 among a trove of documents buried in Pakistan following his arrest there, raised fresh questions about the Kingdom’s possible involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Although Al Sharbi, who trained with several of the 9/11 hijackers at an Arizona flight school, did not take part in the attacks, he is seen as one of the most lethal and committed terrorists held at the military base.
“In my view, Ghassan al Sharbi was one of the most dangerous men held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Jay Hood, who oversaw the detention facility. “I knew him well and my assessment is informed by a number of direct interactions I had with him between 2004 and 2006. He is extremely intelligent, well educated, and committed to a violent Islamic ideology.”
“In my view, Ghassan al Sharbi was one of the most dangerous men held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay.”
– Army Maj. Gen. Jay Hood
Al Sharbi’s record, training, testimony and connections to the Al Qaeda terror network that killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 have largely been kept secret, but some details were quietly released last year in a top-secret report called “Document 17” that was declassified by the FBI. The report alluded to the discovery of his flight certificate inside an envelope from the Saudi Embassy in Washington, buried outside a Pakistani safehouse where he was captured by local forces on March 28, 2002. Information about the certificate was released in a 47-page work plan prepared for the FBI in June 2003 but not declassified until last July.
Born in Saudi Arabia, the 41-year-old terrorist is particularly dangerous, military officials and government documents said, because he speaks fluent English, has a degree in electrical engineering from an American university, took flying lessons with the 9/11 terrorists who crashed a plane into the Pentagon and is a proficient bomb maker.
No photo is available of Al Sharbi, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay since June 19, 2002.
The Guantánamo Review Task Force suggested in 2010 that Al Sharbi be prosecuted for war crimes, but that hasn’t yet occurred in the nearly 14 years he’s been held by U.S. forces.
“I suspect he is still being held because he is being considered by the Military Commissions for prosecution,” Hood said. “But I also suspect that those in the Intelligence community realize the potential threat he would pose as an operational planner and leader to any violent Islamic group. He is extraordinarily committed to his religion, and to using violence to combat capitalism in the Western world.”
The Obama administration has released dozens of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, which once held more than 600 terror suspects but now holds around 80. Al Sharbi ranks with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad as one of the facility’s longest-held and most dangerous residents, according to Brian McGlinchey, director of 28Pages.org, a website that supports the movement to declassify documents believed to link top Saudi officials to the 9/11 hijackers.
“He’s been deemed a high-risk individual who allegedly attended a training camp in Afghanistan and is a self-proclaimed bomb-maker,” said McGlinchey, a former Army officer whose website was the first to report on Al Sharbi’s flight certificate being found. “Other detainees told interrogators Al Sharbi had been seen talking to Usama bin Laden, was very proficient with weapons and had been selected for specialized remote control detonation training.”
Al Sharbi was captured in Pakistan in 2002 along with Abu Zubaida, whom the U.S. government at one time believed was a top Al Qaeda lieutenant but later concluded was not.
Al Sharbi has never hidden his terrorist intentions.
“I am your enemy, I will fight the United States. Period,” he told a military judge, according to Paul Rester, who headed military intelligence, interrogation and analysis at Guantanamo on and off from 2002 until 2010.
“He was very forthcoming and very determined,” said Rester. “He was not in the planner-organizer echelon, he was in the executor-operator echelon. He made bombs, had direct ties to Bin Laden, and had sway over others because of that tie. He was extremely important to his terrorist network because he was well-trained and could make things work.”
The buried documents, which were recovered by the FBI, included manuals on bomb-making and other explosive devices, and are included among thousands of items confiscated from suspected terrorists being held at Guantanamo that filled a 2,000-square-foot room.
Born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1974, Al Sharbi lived in Arizona from 1998 to 2000 while studying electrical engineering at Mesa Community College and then at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., in the months preceding 9/11. One of the founding members and president of the Islamic Student Society at Embry Riddle, he abruptly left the school in August 2001, and traveled to Pakistan with stops in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates.
Known in Al Qaeda circles as the “electronic builder,” government reports say he was trained and taught others to produce circuit boards for use in remote-controlled car bombs, IEDS and other detonation devices that would be used to kill American soldiers and to help build remote-control devices that could be placed in the United States and detonated by a mobile phone from Pakistan.
In 1999, Al Sharbi and another suspected Al Qaeda operative were involved in an incident that caused a Washington-bound flight to be diverted and was mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report. The other man, who was flying with Al Shari, tried to enter the cockpit, which the commission concluded may have been an intelligence gathering operation to test in-flight security measures in preparation for the attacks that would come two years later.
Since he first entered Guantanamo, Al Sharbi’s behavior has been “generally non-compliant, often showing signs of aggression,” according to a report Hood completed while head of the facility. The 2004 report detailed an incident in which Al Sharbi assaulted a guard and numerous cases in which he led fellow detainees in creating disturbances.
“It has been determined that the detainee poses a high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies,” Hood wrote.
In his own testimony before a military tribunal in 2006, Al Sharbi, who goes by several alias including Abdullah al Muslim, Abu Muslim, Ghassan Abdallah Ghazi al Shirbi and Abdullah al Sharbi, said he must “defend the Islamic nation.”
“I came here to tell you I did what I did and I’m willing to pay the price,” he said, according to a Reuters pool reporter. “Even if I spend hundreds of years in jail, that would be a matter of honor to me.
“I fought the United States; I’m going to make it short and easy for you guys: I’m proud of what I did.”
The Obama administration has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay’s detention camp and release, return to their country of origin or place the remaining detainees in facilities on U.S. soil. His proposal continues to garner opposition from military leaders and Republicans, who say releasing some of America’s most dangerous enemies will lead to more American lives lost.
