Yazidi Community, Nadia Murad, victim of ISIS - a powerful testimony

Nadia Murad delivers her powerful message to the UN Security Council.

Heart wrenching testimony of Yezidi woman before UN (no comment Samantha Power) https://www.facebook.com/DemandforAction/posts/492899270889546 

We as Muslims must condemn the forced conversion to Islam!!
"Yazidis have been exposed to campaigns of forced Islamization and assimilation, according to the Turkish sociologist Ismail Besikci, a prominent expert on Kurdistan:

 
"During the 1912-13 Pontic Greek deportations and the 1915 Armenian genocide, Yazidis were also driven out from their lands. Throughout the history of republican Turkey, all methods have been tried to Islamize the Yazidis. Before 1915, for instance, Suruc was an entirely Yazidi town. So was the town of Viransehir. Today, there is not a single Yazidi left in Suruc. Furthermore, the Islamized Yazidis can be seen exhibit insulting behavior towards those who remain Yazidis."

 
Because they are Kurds, the state has not recognized their Kurdishness; and because they are Yazidis, the state has not recognized their religion.

Nadia's participation in this important event was coordinated by Yazda. Nadia was accompanied by Murad Ismael of Yazda, to deliver her speech. Please find her written speech below.

Mr. President
Ladies and gentlemen, delegates of the Security Council, good afternoon.

I would like to thank the United States for calling for this debate and for inviting me to speak.
It is with great sadness, gratitude and hope that I stand before you today as one of the few survivors of one of the world’s oldest ethnic and religious group now threatened by extinction.

I am here today to speak on the way the so-called Islamic State trafficked us, transformed the Yazidi women into sex slaves, and the way IS committed a genocide against my people. I am here to tell what has happened to me and my community that lost hope is headed to the unknown, I am here also to speak on behalf of those who remain in captivity.

I am here to speak about a global terrorist organization that came to end our existence, culture and freedom, to speak about the nightmare that changed life for a community, overnight.

Before August 3, 2014, I was living with my family in Kocho village with my single mother and brothers and sisters, our village was beautiful, we were living in peace. But on August 3rd, the militants of the Islamic State attacked our areas and we found ourselves faced with a brutal genocide. These large groups of armed men of various nationalities in uniforms with weapons had decided that the Yazidis were infidels and had to be eradicated. 

The Islamic State didn’t come to kill the women and girls, but to use us as spoils of war, as objects to be sold with little or to be gifted for free.

Their cruelty was not merely opportunistic. The IS soldiers came with a pre-established policy to commit such crimes.

Islamic State had one intention, to destroy the Yazidi identity by force, rape, recruitment of children, and destruction of holy sites they captured, especially against the Yazidi woman where the used rape as a mean of destruction for Yazidi women and girls and ensuring these women will never return to a normal life.

On August 15th, the militants called us to the school building, where they separated men from us; I witnessed from the second floor of the school, they took the men and killed them, including six of my biological and step brothers who were killed, and three who escaped the mass killing with creator blessing.

We, the women and the children, were driven away to another area. Along the way, they insulted us; they were forcefully touching women and girls.

I was taken with some other 150 girls to Mosul, in a building in Mosul, there were thousands of Yazidi women and children who were previously captured by IS to be offered as gifts.

A militant approached me, he said they would take me, I was looking down, I was terrified, when I looked up, I saw a big man, he looked like a minister. I cried, I said I don't want you, I told him you are too big for me, I am a little girl. Another militant walked in, I was still looking down, I saw his feet, he had small feet, I begged him to take me for himself, I was so scared of the big militant.

The one who took me asked me to convert, I did not, he then one day asked me for "marriage", I told him I am sick, most of the captive women there had their menstrual period due to the fears. Then he one day forced me to dress for him and put on makeup, I did, and during that black night, he did it.

He forced me to serve his militant squad; he insulted me by forcing me to dress improperly. I was unable to bear more rape and torture, I decided to escape, but I failed and I was captured by one of the guards.

That night, he beat me, forced me to undress, and put me in a room with six militants. They continued to commit crimes to my body until I became unconscious.

After three months of abduction, finally I was able to escape. Now, I live in Germany. Thanks to Germany who accepted to treat me.

But it was not only me who suffered, it was a collective suffering, the Islamic State gave us two choices, convert or die, for those who accepted to convert fearing their lives, their men were killed, women were enslaved and children were recruited.

To date, 16 mass graves have been found, including a mass grave of 80 women which contained the remains of my mother, who they didn’t desire, therefore decided to kill. More than 400,000 Yazidis are displaced, more than 40 percent of our areas remain under control of IS, and the liberated areas are not habitable because of the destruction and Yazidi fears to return and live in their homes with peace.

Over the past week only, more than 70 Yazidi women and children drowned on their way through dangerous paths to Europe, thousands are seeking an exodus, and great percentage see immigration is the only choice.
Mrs. President, Ladies and gentlemen

The Islamic State has made the Yazidi women a fuel for human trafficking.
I am presenting to you our requests and I have hope that humanity has not died, yet:

1- Bring back more than 3400 women and children currently suffering under the mercy of those who lost every bit of mercy.

2- Recognized the mass killing, enslavement and human trafficking committed as genocide, I appeal to you to find a way to open a case before the International Criminal Court.

3- Liberate our land, Liberate Kocho so that Kocho people can bury the remains of their dead, provide Yazidi Areas and other threaten minorities Areas with international protection so we can return one day and live in peace, I also request that you allocate an international fund to compensate victims and build our areas.

4- Open your borders for my community, we are victims of genocide and we have the right to seek a safe place where our dignity will be preserved. We request that to give Yazidis and other threatened minorities the choice to resettle, especially to the victims of human trafficking, as Germany Did.

5- Bring an end to IS. I have seen them; I have lived the pain they caused. We have to bring all human traffickers criminals and those who committed genocide to justice so that the women and children in Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, and everywhere in the world can live in peace. These crimes against women and their freedom shall stop now. 

سيدي الرئيس
السادة والسيدات ممثلي دول المجلس، طاب يومكم.
أشكر الولايات المتحدة على إقامة هذه الجلسة ودعوتي للتحدث امامكم.

بالحزن والامتنان والأمل انا هنا اليوم اقف، ناجية ايزيدية وابنة واحدا من اقدم الاديان المهددة بالزوال.
أنا هنا اليوم لاتحدث عن ممارسات ما يسمى بالدولة الإسلامية ضدنا، من الاتجار بالبشر، استخدام نسائنا للاستعباد الجنسي، وتجنيد أطفالنا للحرب، التشرد وارتكاب جريمة ألابادة الجماعية بحقنا، انا هنا لأخبركم عن ما حدث لي وعن ما حدث لمجتمعي الذي فقد الامل بالحياة وصار يتجه الى المجهول. انا هنا ايضا لاتحدث بأسم اكثر من 3400 طفل وامرأة لا يزالوا تحت الخطف.

أنا هنا لاتحدث لكم عن هذه المنظمة الارهابية العالمية التي أتت الينا لتقضي على وجودنا، على ثقافتا، وعلى حريتنا. انا هنا لاتحدث عن الكابوس الذي غير حياة مجتمع كامل بين ليلة وضحاها.

قبل الثالث من أب 2014، كنت اعيش مع عائلتي في قرية كوجو، مع أمي الوحيدة واخوتي وأخواني، كانت قريتنا جميلة وكنا نعيش بسلام. ولكن في الثالث من أب قامت ميليشا الدولة الاسلامية بالهجوم على مناطقنا ووجدنا أنفسنا امام إبادة حقيقية، هذه المجاميع الكبيرة من قوى الشر، اتوا من الكثير من الدول، بالاسلحة والاعتدة والملابس العسكرية، وكان غايتهم هي انهاء الوجود الايزيدي برمته، بالاستنادا الى تفسيرهم باننا كفار.

أتت الدولة الاسلامية ليس فقط لتقتلنا نحن النساء والبنات، ولكن لاخذنا كغنائم حرب، كاداوت لتباع بالاسواق مقابل القليل من المال او حتى دون مقابل.
هذا الاجرام الذي ارتكب لم يكن اجراما عابرا، ولكن كانت سياسة ممنهجة ومسبقة التخطيط.

الدولة الاسلامية اتت بدافع وحيد، وهو تدمير الهوية الايزيدية باستخدام القوة، الاغتصاب، تجند الاطفال، وتدمير جميع معابدنا الذي استولوا عليها. وكل هذا لا يمكن تفسيرها سوى انها كانت بالفعل ابادة جماعية ضد هويتنا، وخاصة ضد المرأة الايزيدية حيث استخدموا الاغتصاب كوسيلة لتدمير النساء والبنات وتاكيد بان هولاء النساء لن يعودوا الى حياتهم الطبيعية بعد ألان.

في 15 من أب قامت عناصر الدولة الأسلامية بدعوتنا جميعا الى مدرسة القرية، حيث قاموا بتفريق الرجال من النساء والأطفال، رأيتهم ومن الطابق الثاني للمدرسة، اخذوا الرجال وقاموا بتصفيتهم، 6 من اخواني قتلوا و3 منهم نجوا من القتل الجماعي.

نحن النساء , والاطفال، أخذونا في المركبات من المدرسة الى منطقة أخرى، وفي الطريق كانوا يقومون بأهانتنا، كانوا يلمسوننا بطريقة تخش الحياء.
قاموا بأخذي الى الموصل مع اكثر من 150 امرأة ايزيدية أخرى، وفي بناية كبيرة هناك، كانت هناك الالاف من النساء الايزيديات والأطفال يتم اعطائهم كهدايا.
عنصر من عناصرهم اقترب مني، وقال يريد ان يأخذني، كنت انظر الى الأرض، كنت في حالة رعب، وعندما رفعت رأسي وجدت رجلا ضخما جدا، كان بالفعل كوحش مفترس، صرخت وبكيت كثيرا، وقلت له انني صغيرة لك وانت ضخم جدا، فقام بركلي وضربي. بعدها بلحظات اقدم عنصر اخر، وكنت لا أزال انظر الى الأرض، فرأيت حجم اقدامه اصغر، فتوصلت الى الشخص حتى يأخذني لنفسه، كنت خائفة جدا من الرجل الضخم الأول.

الذي قام بأخذي، طلب من ان أغير ديني، ولكنني رفضت، وبعدها أتى في يوم وطلب مني ما يسمونه "الزواج"، قلت له بأنني مريضة، فأغلب النساء الختطفات كانت لديها الدورة الشهرية من شدة الخوف. مرت أيام قليلة، واجبرني ان البس له، واضع له المكياج على وجهي، وفي تلك الليلة السوداء، فعلها.
اجبرني ان اخدم فصيله العسكري، وقام بأهانتي كل يوم، أجبرني ان البس ما لا يحفظ جسدي. لم اكن قادرة على تحمل المزيد من الاغتصاب والتعذيب، قررت ان اهروب ولكن احد الحراس كان هناك، وقام بمسكي.

في تلك الليلة قام بضربي، وطلب مني ان اتخلى عن ملابسي، ووضعوني مع الحراس في الغرفة، واستمروا بارتكاب جرائمهم بجسدي حتى فقدت الوعي.
بعد ثلاثة اشهر من الخطف، استطعت أخيرا الهروب، الان أعيش في المانيا التي قبلت معالجتي مشكورة.
لم أكن أعيش المعاناة لوحدي، كانت معاناة جماعية، حيث قامت الدولة الإسلامية باعطاءنا خيارين، الأسلمة او الموت، حتى أولئك الذين اعلنوا اسلامهم خوفا على حياتهم، تم أيضا قتل الرجال منهم وسبي النساء وتجنيد الأطفال.

اكتشف الى الأن 16 مقبرة جماعية، بما فيها مقبرة ل 80 أمراة لم يرغبوهم فقاموا بقتلهم، وتم تشريد اكثر من 400 الف، اكثر من 40 بالمئة من مناطقنا لا تزال تحت سيطرة الدولة الأسلامية، ومناطقنا المحررة غير مهيئة للعيش فيها بسبب الدمار وبسبب عدم ثقة الأنسان الايزيدي بالعيش على ارضه مرة أخرى.
خلال الأسبوع الماضي فقط، غرق اكثر من 70 أيزيدي في طريقهم عبر طرق خطرة نحو اوربا، الالاف يبحثون عن مخرج ونسبة كبيرة تجد الهجرة الخيار الوحيد.
سيدي الرئيس، السيدات والسادة

لقد جعلت الدولة ألاسلامية من للمرأة الايزيدية وقود للاتجار بالبشر.
أتقدم اليكم اليوم بمطاليبنا وانا لدي ألامل بان الإنسانية لم تنتهي بعد:

1. تحرير اكثر من 3400 أمراة وطفل لايزالوا يعيشون المعاناة تحت رحمة من لا رحمة لهم.
2. نطالب ان يتم تعريف ما حدث من القتل والاستعباد الجماعي والاتجار بالبشر على انها إبادة جماعية، التمس منكم اليوم ان تجدوا الحلول لفتح ملف الإبادة امام المحكمة الدولية.

3. تحرير جميع مناطقنا، تحرير كوجو حتى يستطيع أهل كوجو دفن موتاهم، توفير حماية دولية لمناطق الأيزيدية والأقليات المهددة حتى نستطيع ان نعود يوما الى مناطقنا ونعيش بسلام، كما واطالب بتخصيص ميزانية دولية تحت اشراف دولي لتعويض الضحايا وبناء المنطقة.

4. افتحوا أبواب بلدانكم لمجتمعي، فنحن ضحايا الإبادة ومن حقنا البحث عن بلد أمن يحفظ كرامتنا، كل يوم يخاطر المئات من الناس بحياتهم، نلتمس منكم ان تعطوا خيار إعادة التوطين الايزيدية والأقليات الأخرى المهددة وخاصة لضحايا الاتجار بالبشر كما فعلت المانيا.

5. انهاء داعش نهاية ابدية، انا عشت الألم الذي سببوا لي، رأيت شرهم. يجب ان يتم جلب جميع مرتكبي جرائم الأتجار بالبشر والابادة الى العدالة، حتى تعيش المرأة والطفلة بأمان في العراق، سوريا، نيجيريا، صوماليا، وكل مكان في العالم. يجب ان تتوقف الأن هذه الجرائم ضد المرأة وضد حريتها

Supporting terrorists, Turkey shoots down Russian plane

by crescent-online

November, 2015

Turkey's shooting down of a Russian plane over Syria has dangerously escalated tensions in an already volatile region. Fearing its consequences, Turkey has also requested a meeting of Nato ambassadors. This exposes Nato and its allies' support for the terrorists in Syria. No amount of rhetoric can camouflage this fact.

Beirut, Crescent-online
Tuesday November 24, 2015, 10:07 EST

How the West backed ISIS in Syria’s war

READING radical alternative news and commentary about Western foreign policy often leads to intense self-doubt and to questions like “why isn’t anyone else talking about this?”, “am I reading this right?” and even “perhaps I am losing my mind?”

Two recent news reports about the US involvement in Syria have triggered these exact questions for me.

Last month a formerly classified August 2012 Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report was published by the right-wing watchdog Judicial Watch.

In the heavily redacted document the DIA — the intelligence arm of the US Department of Defence — notes that “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaida in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”

The next sentence in the report is this: “The West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition, while Russia, China and Iran support the (Bashar al-Assad) regime.”

Later, the DIA makes another extraordinary statement: “There is the possibility of (the opposition) establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in Eastern Syria (…) and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre and arguably the leading expert on the Syrian insurgency, provided the second jaw-dropping reading experience in May 2015. “The US-led operations room in southern Turkey, which co-ordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to vetted opposition groups (…) specifically encouraged a closer co-operation with Islamists commanding frontline operations,” including with official al-Qaida branch Jabhat al-Nusra, Lister explained in Foreign Policy magazine.

So, to summarise, the West — the US and likely Britain too — was supporting Syria’s armed insurgency in 2012 in the full knowledge it was dominated by Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida in Iraq. Three years later the US is encouraging rebel groups to co-operate with al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.

What happened, you might well ask, to the epic generational struggle against al-Qaida and radical jihadists that we have been fighting since 2001 to save Western civilisation? A war and evil enemy, lest we forget, that has been repeatedly hyped up by a pliant media and supported by all the main political parties in the US and Britain.

Except for Seumas Milne in the Guardian, the mainstream media has ignored the extraordinary revelations of the DIA and Lister. The BBC has, as far as I’m aware, not mentioned either on any of its many news platforms.

Incredibly, the highly respected Middle East specialist Shadi Hamid describes the Obama administration as “opting to remain disengaged in Syria”.

In addition to this explosive new evidence of Western support for jihadists, the West’s key allies in the region have also been supporting the more extreme elements of the resistance to the Syrian government.

In August 2014 the Washington Post reported that before their blitz in Iraq, “Turkey rolled out the red carpet” to Islamic State, eager to aid any enemy of the Assad government. “Wounded jihadists from the Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front (…) were treated at Turkish hospitals,” the Post noted. “Most important, the Turks winked as (…) Turkish towns became way stations for moving foreign fighters and arms across the border.”

The Wall Street Journal carried a similar report in March this year, except this time it concerned Israel and how some of the al-Nusra Front’s “severely wounded fighters are regularly taken across the frontier fence to receive treatment in Israeli hospitals.”

Unsurprisingly, on this issue the Western media invariably report the official US government line that the US is opposed to these actions and is putting pressure on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to stop supporting jihadists in Syria.

However, a close reading of mainstream news reports suggests that far from being opposed, the US is deeply involved in these nefarious networks. For example, earlier this year the Wall Street Journal published a story with the headline Saudis Agree to Provide Syrian Rebels With Mobile Anti-aircraft Missiles.

According to the report, “rebel leaders say they met with US and Saudi intelligence agents, among others, in Jordan on Jan. 30 (...) That is when wealthy Gulf States offered the more sophisticated weapons (anti-aircraft missiles).”

Writing about increased co-ordinated support to the Syrian rebels provided by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the Guardian’s Martin Chulov recently noted the Saudi king told allies “the US would not stand in the way.”

And in June 2013 the Los Angeles Times noted that arms shipments from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to Syrian rebels were “provided with assent from the US.”

Public denials at odds with covert actions are, of course, meat and potatoes when it comes to outsourcing foreign policy to regional proxies. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” the US-supported Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh told US General David Petraeus in January 2010 about US drone strikes in his country.

According to the Washington Post, a similar deception has long been in effect between the US and Pakistan, with the Pakistani government publicly condemning US drone strikes, while at the same time secretly co-operating with the US.

And of course, if the US really felt as its Middle East allies as they publicly claim to, a simple way to pressure them to stop supporting jihadis in Syria would be for the US to threaten to stop selling its allies arms.

In reality, the US continues to arm countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia despite — or perhaps because of — their support for the Syrian insurgency. In March 2015 the Stockholm Peace Research Institute noted that the Gulf Co-operation Council states and Turkey are “scheduled to receive further large order of major arms in the coming years” — mainly from the US and Europe.

It’s certainly possible I’m not reading the evidence correctly. I may be taking it out of context. There may well be good reasons why the media has chosen not to cover the story, and I could well have lost my mind. But what if the reports point to a far more frightening conclusion — that it is the Western media and political elite is mad and delusional?

ISIS is a US creation

The Islamic State, like Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda has been consciously created by the U.S. This has now been confirmed by the release of classified documents of the US Defense Intelligence Agency by Judicial Watch that obtained these through a federal lawsuit in the US.

It was doubly confirmed in an interview to Al Jazeera more recently by Lt General Michael T.Flynn , the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, and chair of the Military Intelligence Board from July 24, 2012, to August 2, 2014.

The first reports of this filtered out from the Syrian government over three years ago under the US-Turkey sponsored siege by rebel groups. Senior advisor to President Bashar al Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban told this writer in Damascus in 2012 that the al Qaeda had joined the rebels being pumped with arms and money by the governments opposing the Syrian government. Shortly after she said that new forces had joined the Opposition and could be more dangerous than even the al Qaeda.

These claims from the Syrian government were stoutly denied by the U.S, Turkey and other countries involved in pushing the rebels through the conflict. A denial that has continued till recent days, despite the emergence of the more lethal Islamic State that is controlling large tracts of land now in both Syria and Iraq.

The DIA report, formerly classified “SECRET//NOFORN” and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Department and others.

The DIA report states that

“THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHICH] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…”

In an intense interview with Al Jazeera where he was questioned thoroughly US military’s top intelligence man admitted that extremist insurgency that turned into the Islamic State has been stoked by US policy in West Asia. General Flynn said that clearly there was something wrong with American policy and strategy for the region as the number of designated terrorist groups had doubled. He said that the war had given rise to the Islamic State, and the US should have focused not on conflict but perhaps on solutions. He said that history was not going to be kind when it looked on the US involvement in Iraq. He agreed that the ‘system’ was guilty of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prisons in Iraq had contributed directly to the rise of the Islamic State.

General Flynn confirmed in the interview that the US had information about the Islamic State in 2012 saying, “I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was willful decision… It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing”.

Bouthaina, a dynamic and bold advisor to President Assad, had full details right from the very beginning of the composition of the so called rebels who were set up by the US, Turkey and the Gulf countries to fight the Syrian regime. It started with the funding of border smuggling and arms mafias, who were joined by various small insurgent groups in the region. The Syrian Army that despite being largely Sunni in composition stayed united behind President Assad right from the beginning till date was able to tackle these groups at the onset. However, these were then added to by what the Syrian government had identified as the Salafists, the al Qaeda and other more hardline groups operating in the region. Arms and money was poured into the region to fund these groups as the powers behind them were determined to get Assad out.

The dual policy remains with the Islamic State being supported by Turkey that has been working closely with the US against Syria. The recent announcement by the Turkish government to crack down on the IS surprised many, but as was exposed by the Kurds this was again a cover to bomb and kill them. The Kurds who for long have been seen by Ankara as the real threat have been mercilessly attacked by Erdogan’s government for, as their spokespersons have said, “fighting the Islamic State.”

Also Read: Russian president Vladmir Putin explains who created ISIS (Video)

India does not seem to have factored any of this into its policy for the region.In fact there are doubts now whether it is even watching the region as closely as it should, given its proximity to West Asia and the millions of Indian nationals employed there. Some notice of the developments have been taken by retired officials. Former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet secretariat and a well informed intelligence officer Vappala Balanchandran took note of this in an article for The Citizen where he had asked ,”Was the core of this group trained by NATO countries and supported by leading Arab nations in their effort to destabilize the Syrian Assad regime? Is the Jihadi war against Iraq an unanticipated by product of those efforts?” More recently retired Ambassador Mk Bhadrakumar has pointed to these developments in his regular column for Rediff.com where he has pointed towards a sequel to this in Afghanistan. He wrote, The specious plea being advanced by Washington currently is that the US wants to turn Afghanistan into a regional hub to wage a war against the IS — a war by the US and its partners, which, in the opinion of Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could last not less than a generation.

This Dempsey guy is a smart general, isn’t it? It was under his watch that the IS was finessed and deployed as the instrument of US regional policy to overthrow the established government in Syria and to force Baghdad to allow the return of American troops to Iraq – and now he pops up in Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s office in Kabul one fine day two weeks ago to make the proposition that Washington might need an open-ended military presence in Afghanistan for another 15-20 years to wage the global war against the IS.”

Disclaimer: The article was first published in 'TheCitizen'. India TV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

Lavrov: US knows ISIS positions, refuses to bomb

September 13th, 2015 - 

Pnp.ru - translated for Fort Russ by Joaquin Flores - 

"Lavrov: Russia has information that the US knows the position of the IS, but does not bomb them"

Russia has information that the US know the specific location points of the "Islamic State" (extremist organization banned in Russia), but did not give an order to strike on the positions "of the IS," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

In the program "Sunday times" on "Channel 1" Lavrov said that the US government "was not originally very careful in creating a coalition, or conspired towards goals that were not the declared ones." 

According to the foreign minister, the coalition was created spontaneously, "within just a few days it was announced that it includes a number of countries and then begun strikes." 

Lavrov said that the analysis of aviation operations in countries included in the coalition, "creates a strange impression," - as if in addition to fighting "the IS" "there is something else which is a concern of the coalition."

The minister said: "I hope not to disappoint anyone in saying that some of our colleagues from the incoming coalition of countries have information on where exactly and on what positions are "IS" or other subdivisions, and the commander of the coalition (the United States ) does not give consent to striking them. "

Islamic State Arose from US support for al-Qaeda in Iraq

By Nafeez Ahmed

August 17, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Medium" -  A new memoir by a former senior State Department analyst provides stunning details on how decades of support for Islamist militants linked to Osama bin Laden brought about the emergence of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS).

The book establishes a crucial context for recent admissions by Michael T. Flynn, the retired head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), confirming that White House officials made a “willful decision” to support al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists in Syria — despite being warned by the DIA that doing so would likely create an ‘ISIS’-like entity in the region.

J. Michael Springmann, a retired career US diplomat whose last government post was in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, reveals in his new book that US covert operations in alliance with Middle East states funding anti-Western terrorist groups are nothing new. Such operations, he shows, have been carried out for various short-sighted reasons since the Cold War and after.

In the 1980s, as US support for mujahideen fighters accelerated in Afghanistan to kick out the Soviet Union, Springmann found himself unwittingly at the heart of highly classified operations that allowed Islamist militants linked to Osama bin Laden to establish a foothold within the United States.

After the end of the Cold War, Springmann alleged, similar operations continued in different contexts for different purposes — in the former Yugoslavia, in Libya and elsewhere. The rise of ISIS, he contends, was a predictable outcome of this counterproductive policy.

Pentagon intel chief speaks out

Everyday brings new horror stories about atrocities committed by ISIS fighters. Today, for instance, the New York Times offered a deeply disturbing report on how ISIS has formally adopted a theology and policy of systematic rape of non-Muslim women and children. The practice has become embedded throughout the territories under ISIS control through a process of organized slavery, sanctioned by the movement’s own religious scholars.

But in a recent interview on Al-Jazeera’s flagship talk-show ‘Head to Head,’ former DIA chief Lieutenant General (Lt. Gen.) Michael Flynn told host Mehdi Hasan that the rise of ISIS was a direct consequence of US support for Syrian insurgents whose core fighters were from al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, former Director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a lengthy interview with Al-Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan

Back in May, INSURGE intelligence undertook an exclusive investigation into a controversial declassified DIA document appearing to show that as early as August 2012, the DIA knew that the US-backed Syrian insurgency was dominated by Islamist militant groups including “the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

Asked about the DIA document by Hasan, who noted that “the US was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups,” Flynn confirmed that the intelligence described by the document was entirely accurate.

Telling Hasan that he had read the document himself, Flynn said that it was among a range of intelligence being circulated throughout the US intelligence community that had led him to attempt to dissuade the White House from supporting these groups, albeit without success.

Flynn added that this sort of intelligence was available even before the decision to pull out troops from Iraq:

“My job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be, and I will tell you, it goes before 2012. When we were in Iraq, and we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011, it was very clear what we were going to face.”

In other words, long before the inception of the armed insurrection in Syria — as early as 2008 (the year in which the final decision was made on full troop withdrawal by the Bush administration) — US intelligence was fully aware of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) among other Islamist militant groups.

Supporting the enemy

Despite this, Flynn’s account shows that the US commitment to supporting the Syrian insurgency against Bashir al-Assad led the US to deliberately support the very al-Qaeda affiliated forces it had previously fought in Iraq.

Far from simply turning a blind eye, Flynn said that the White House’s decision to support al-Qaeda linked rebels against the Assad regime was not a mistake, but intentional:

Hasan: “You are basically saying that even in government at the time, you knew those groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn’t listening?”

Flynn: “I think the administration.”

Hasan: “So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?”

Flynn: “I don’t know if they turned a blind eye. I think it was a decision, a willful decision.”

Hasan: “A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?”

Flynn: “A willful decision to do what they’re doing… You have to really ask the President what is it that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place, because it is very, very confusing.”

Prior to his stint as DIA chief, Lt. Gen. Flynn was Director of Intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command.

Flynn is the highest ranking former US intelligence official to confirm that the DIA intelligence report dated August 2012, released earlier this year, proves a White House covert strategy to support Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Syria even before 2011.

In June, INSURGE reported exclusively that six former senior US and British intelligence officials agreed with this reading of the declassified DIA report.

Flynn’s account is corroborated by other former senior officials. In an interview on French national television , former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas said that the US’ chief ally, Britain, had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009 — after US intelligence had clear information according to Flynn on al-Qaeda’s threat to Syria:

“I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”

Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas on French national television confirming information received from UK Foreign Office officials in 2009 regarding operations in Syria

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor to the movement now known as ‘Islamic State,’ was on the decline due to US and Iraqi counter-terrorism operations from 2008 to 2011 in coordination with local Sunni tribes. In that period, al-Qaeda in Iraq became increasingly isolated, losing the ability to enforce its harsh brand of Islamic Shari’ah law in areas it controlled, and giving up more and more territory.

By late 2011, over 2,000 AQI fighters had been killed, just under 9,000 detained, and the group’s leadership had been largely wiped out.

Right-wing pundits have often claimed due to this background that the decision to withdraw troops from Iraq was the key enabling factor in the resurgence of AQI, and its eventual metamorphosis into ISIS.

But Flynn’s revelations prove the opposite — that far from the rise of ISIS being solely due to a vacuum of power in Iraq due to the withdrawal of US troops, it was the post-2011 covert intervention of the US and its allies, the Gulf states and Turkey, which siphoned arms and funds to AQI as part of their anti-Assad strategy.

Even in Iraq, the surge laid the groundwork for what was to come. Among the hundred thousand odd Sunni tribesmen receiving military and logistical assistance from the US were al-Qaeda sympathisers and anti-Western insurgents who had previously fought alongside al-Qaeda.

In 2008, a US Army-commissioned RAND report confirmed that the US was attempting to “to create divisions in the jihadist camp. Today in Iraq such a strategy is being used at the tactical level.” This included forming “temporary alliances” with al-Qaeda affiliated “nationalist insurgent groups” that have fought the US for four years, now receiving “weapons and cash” from the US.

The idea was, essentially, to bribe former al-Qaeda insurgents to breakaway from AQI and join forces with the Americans. Although these Sunni nationalists “have cooperated with al-Qaeda against US forces,” they are now being supported to exploit “the common threat that al-Qaeda now poses to both parties.”

In the same year, former CIA military intelligence officer and counter-terrorism specialist Philip Geraldi,stated that US intelligence analysts “are warning that the United States is now arming and otherwise subsidizing all three major groups in Iraq.” The analysts “believe that the house of cards is likely to fall down as soon as one group feels either strong or frisky enough to assert itself.” Giraldi predicted:

“The winner in the convoluted process has been everyone who wants to see a civil war.”

By Flynn’s account, US intelligence was also aware in 2008 that the empowerment of former al-Qaeda insurgents would eventually backfire and strengthen AQI in the long-run, especially given that the Shi’a dominated US-backed central government continued to discriminate against Sunni populations.

Syriana

Having provided extensive support for former al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni insurgents in Iraq from 2006 to 2008 — in order to counter AQI — US forces did succeed in temporarily routing AQI from its strongholds in the country.

Simultaneously, however, if Roland Dumas’ account is correct, the US and Britain began covert operations in Syria in 2009. From 2011 onwards, US support for the Syrian insurgency in alliance with the Gulf states and Turkey was providing significant arms and cash to AQI fighters.

The porous nature of relations between al-Qaeda factions in Iraq and Syria, and therefore the routine movement of arms and fighters across the border, was well-known to the US intelligence community in 2008.

In October 2008, Major General John Kelly — the US military official responsible for Anbar province where the bulk of US support for Sunni insurgents to counter AQI was going — complained bitterly that AQI fighters had regrouped across the border in Syria, where they had established a “sanctuary.”

The border, he said, was routinely used as an entry point for AQI fighters to enter Iraq and conduct attacks on Iraqi security forces.

Ironically, at this time, AQI fighters in Syria were tolerated by the Assad regime. A July 2008 report by the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point documented AQI’s extensive networks inside Syria across the border with Iraq.

“The Syrian government has willingly ignored, and possibly abetted, foreign fighters headed to Iraq. Concerned about possible military action against the Syrian regime, it opted to support insurgents and terrorists wreaking havoc in Iraq.”

Yet from 2009 onwards according to Dumas, and certainly from 2011 by Flynn’s account, the US and its allies began supporting the very same AQI fighters in Syria to destabilize the Assad regime.

The policy coincided with the covert US strategy revealed by Seymour Hersh in 2007: using Saudi Arabia to funnel support for al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Islamists as a mechanism for isolating Iran and Syria.

Reversing the surge

During this period in which the US, the Gulf states, and Turkey supported Syrian insurgents linked to AQI and the Muslim Brotherhood, AQI experienced an unprecedented resurgence.

US troops finally withdrew fully from Iraq in December 2011, which means by the end of 2012, judging by the DIA’s August 2012 report and Flynn’s description of the state of US intelligence in this period, the US intelligence community knew that US and allied support for AQI in Syria was directly escalating AQI’s violence across the border in Iraq.

Despite this, in Flynn’s words, the White House made a “willful decision” to continue the policy despite the possibility it entailed “of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor)” according to the DIA’s 2012 intelligence report.

The Pentagon document had cautioned that if a “Salafist principality” did appear in eastern Syria under AQI’s dominance, this would have have “dire consequences” for Iraq, providing “the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi,” and a “renewed momentum” for a unified jihad “among Sunni Iraq and Syria.”

Most strikingly, the report warned that AQI, which had then changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI):

“ISI could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”

As the US-led covert strategy accelerated sponsorship of AQI in Syria, AQI’s operations in Iraq also accelerated, often in tandem with Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhut al-Nusra.

According to Prof. Anthony Celso of the Department of Security Studies at Angelo State University in Texas, “suicide bombings, car bombs, and IED attacks” by AQI in Iraq “doubled a year after the departure of American troops.” Simultaneously, AQI began providing support for al-Nusra by inputting fighters, funds and weapons from Iraq into Syria.

As the Pentagon’s intelligence arm had warned, by April 2013, AQI formally declared itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In the same month, the European Union voted to ease the embargo on Syria to allow al-Qaeda and ISIS dominated Syrian rebels to sell oil to global markets, including European companies. From this date to the following year when ISIS invaded Mosul, several EU countries were buying ISIS oil exported from the Syrian fields under its control.

The US anti-Assad strategy in Syria, in other words, bolstered the very al-Qaeda factions the US had fought in Iraq, by using the Gulf states and Turkey to finance the same groups in Syria. As a direct consequence, the secular and moderate elements of the Free Syrian Army were increasingly supplanted by virulent Islamist extremists backed by US allies.

Advanced warning

In February 2014, Lt. Gen. Flynn delivered the annual DIA threat assessment to the Senate Armed Services Committee. His testimony revealed that rather than coming out of the blue, as the Obama administration claimed, US intelligence had anticipated the ISIS attack on Iraq.

In his statement before the committee, which corroborates much of what he told Al-Jazeera, Flynn had warned that “al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) also known as Iraq and Levant (ISIL)… probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014, as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah.” He added that “some Sunni tribes and insurgent groups appear willing to work tactically with AQI as they share common anti-government goals.”

Criticizing the central government in Baghdad for its “refusal to address long-standing Sunni grievances,” he pointed out that “heavy-handed approach to counter-terror operations” had led some Sunni tribes in Anbar “to be more permissive of AQI’s presence.” AQI/ISIL has “exploited” this permissive security environment “to increase its operations and presence in many locations” in Iraq, as well as “into Syria and Lebanon,” which is inflaming “tensions throughout the region.”

It should be noted that precisely at this time, the West, the Gulf states and Turkey, according to the DIA’s internal intelligence reports, were supporting AQI and other Islamist factions in Syria to “isolate” the Assad regime. By Flynn’s account, despite his warnings to the White House that an ISIS attack on Iraq was imminent, and could lead to the destabilization of the region, senior Obama officials deliberately continued the covert support to these factions.

US intelligence was also fully cognizant of Iraq’s inability to repel a prospective ISIS attack on Iraq, raising further questions about why the White House did nothing.

The Iraqi army has “been unable to stem rising violence” and would be unable “to suppress AQI or other internal threats” particularly in Sunni areas like Ramadi, Falluja, or mixed areas like Anbar and Ninewa provinces, Flynn told the Senate. As Iraq’s forces “lack cohesion, are undermanned, and are poorly trained, equipped and supplied,” they are “vulnerable to terrorist attack, infiltration and corruption.”

Senior Iraqi government sources told me on condition of anonymity that both Iraqi and American intelligence had anticipated an ISIS attack on Iraq, and specifically on Mosul, as early as August 2013.

Intelligence was not precise on the exact timing of the assault, one source said, but it was known that various regional powers were complicit in the planned ISIS offensive,particularly Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey:

“It was well known at the time that ISIS were beginning serious plans to attack Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey played a key role in supporting ISIS at this time, but the UAE played a bigger role in financial support than the others, which is not widely recognized.”

When asked whether the Americans had attempted to coordinate with Iraq on preparations for the expected ISIS assault, particularly due to the recognized inability of the Iraqi army to withstand such an attack, the senior Iraqi official said that nothing had happened:

“The Americans allowed ISIS to rise to power because they wanted to get Assad out from Syria. But they didn’t anticipate that the results would be so far beyond their control.”

This was not, then, a US intelligence failure as such. Rather, the US failure to to curtail the rise of ISIS and its likely destabilization of both Iraq and Syria, was not due to a lack of accurate intelligence — which was abundant and precise — but due to an ill-conceived political decision to impose ‘regime change’ on Syria at any cost.

Vicious cycle

This is hardly the first time political decisions in Washington have blocked US intelligence agencies from pursuing investigations of terrorist activity, and scuppered their crackdowns on high-level state benefactors of terrorist groups.

According to Michael Springmann in his new book, Visas for al-Qaeda: CIA Handouts that Rocked the World, the same structural problems explain the impunity with which terrorist groups have compromised Western defense and security measures for the last few decades.

Much of his book is clearly an effort to make sense of his personal experience by researching secondary sources and interviewing other former US government and intelligence officials. While there are many problems with some of this material, the real value of Springmann’s book is in the level of detail he brings to his first-hand accounts of espionage at the US State Department, and its damning implications for understanding the ‘war on terror’ today.

Springmann served in the US government as a diplomat with the Commerce Department and the State Department’s Foreign Service, holding postings in Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He began his diplomatic career as a commercial officer at the US embassy in Stuttgart, Germany (1977–1980), before becoming a commercial attaché in New Delhi, India (1980–1982). He was later promoted to head of the Visa Bureau at the US embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (1987–1989), and then returned to Stuttgart to become a political/economic officer (1989–1991).

Before he was fired for asking too many questions about illegal practices at the US embassy in Jeddah, Springmann’s last assignment was as a senior economic officer at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1991), where he had security clearances to access restricted diplomatic cables, along with highly classified intelligence from the National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA.

Springmann says that during his tenure at the US embassy in Jeddah, he was repeatedly asked by his superiors to grant illegal visas to Islamist militants transiting through Jeddah from various Muslim countries. He eventually learned that the visa bureau was heavily penetrated by CIA officers, who used their diplomatic status as cover for all manner of classified operations — including giving visas to the same terrorists who would later execute the 9/11 attacks.

CIA officials operating at the US embassy in Jeddah, according to Springmann, included CIA base chief Eric Qualkenbush, US Consul General Jay Frere, and political officer Henry Ensher.

Thirteen out of the 15 Saudis among the 9/11 hijackers received US visas. Ten of them received visas from the US embassy in Jeddah. All of them were in factunqualified, and should have been denied entry to the US.

Springmann was fired from the State Department after filing dozens of Freedom of Information requests, formal complaints, and requests for inquiries at multiple levels in the US government and Congress about what he had uncovered. Not only were all his attempts to gain disclosure and accountability systematically stonewalled, in the end his whistleblowing cost him his career.

Springmann’s experiences at Jeddah, though, were not unique. He points out that Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, received his first US visa from a CIA case officer undercover as a consular officer at the US embassy in Khartoum in Sudan.

The ‘Blind Sheikh’ as he was known received six CIA-approved US visas in this way between 1986 and 1990, also from the US embassy in Egypt. But as Springmann writes:

“The ‘blind’ Sheikh had been on a State Department terrorist watch list when he was issued the visa, entering the United States by way of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the Sudan in 1990.”

In the US, Abdel Rahman took-over the al-Kifah Refugee Center, a major mujahideen recruitment hub for the Afghan war controlled by Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. He not only played a key role in recruiting mujahideen for Afghanistan, but went on to recruit Islamist fighters for Bosnia after 1992.

Even after the 1993 WTC attack, as Springmann told BBC Newsnight in 2001, “The attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 did not shake the State Department’s faith in the Saudis, nor did the attack on American barracks at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia three years later, in which 19 Americans died.”

The Bosnia connection is highly significant. Springmann reports that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad “had fought in Afghanistan (after studying in the United States) and then went on to the Bosnian war in 1992…

“In addition, two more of the September 11, 2001, hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, both Saudis, had gained combat experience in Bosnia. Still more connections came from Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who supposedly helped Mohammed Atta with planning the World Trade Center attacks. He had served with Bosnian army mujahideen units. Ramzi Binalshibh, friends with Atta and Zammar, had also fought in Bosnia.”

US and European intelligence investigations have uncovered disturbing evidence of how the Bosnian mujahideen pipeline, under the tutelage of Saudi Arabia, played a major role in incubating al-Qaeda’s presence in Europe.

According to court papers filed in New York on behalf of the 9/11 families in February, covert Saudi government support for Bosnian arms and training was “especially important to al-Qaeda acquiring the strike capabilities used to launch attacks in the US.”

After 9/11, despite such evidence being widely circulated within the US and European intelligence communities, both the Bush and Obama administrations continued working with theSaudis to mobilize al-Qaeda affiliated extremists in the service of what the DIA described as rolling back “the strategic depth of the Shia expansion” across Iraq, Iran and Syria.

The existence of this policy has been confirmed by former 30-year MI6 Middle East specialist Alastair Crooke. Its outcome — in the form of the empowerment of the most virulent Islamist extremist forces in the region — was predictable, and indeed predicted.

In August 2012 — the same date as the DIA’s controversial intelligence report anticipating the rise of ISIS — I quoted the uncannily prescient remarks of Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, who forecast that US support for Islamist rebels in Syria would likely to lead to “the slaughter of some portion of Syria’s Alawite and Shia communities”; “the triumph of Islamist forces, although they may deign to temporarily disguise themselves in more innocent garb”; “the release of thousands of veteran and hardened Sunni Islamist insurgents”; and even “the looting of the Syrian military’s fully stocked arsenals of conventional arms and chemical weapons.”

I then warned that the “further militarization” of the Syrian conflict would thwart the “respective geostrategic ambitions” of regional powers “by intensifying sectarian conflict, accelerating anti-Western terrorist operations, and potentially destabilizing the whole Levant in a way that could trigger a regional war.”

Parts of these warnings have now transpired in ways that are even more horrifying than anyone ever imagined. The continued self-defeating approach of the US-led coalition may well mean that the worst is yet to come.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an investigative journalist, bestselling author and international security scholar. A former Guardian writer, he writes the ‘System Shift’ column for VICE’s Motherboard, and is also a columnist for Middle East Eye.

He is the winner of a 2015 Project Censored Award, known as the ‘Alternative Pulitzer Prize’, for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian work, and was selected in the Evening Standard’s ‘Power 1,000’ most globally influential Londoners.

This exclusive is published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project.