Reader links for July 7 – 2015

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Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

67 Replies to “Reader links for July 7 – 2015”

  1. This should be a classic:
    Also note Zakir Naik made it clear he watched it:

  2. ISIS terrorists are arriving in Europe hidden among migrants crossing the Mediterranean on boats, warns EU’s top prosecutor

    Michele Coninsx says ISIS fighters are crossing Mediterranean into Europe

    Adds they are being smuggled across on boats hidden among migrants

    Ms Coninsx added that the flow of migrants into Italy has risen fivefold

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3151326/ISIS-terrorists-arriving-Europe-hidden-migrants-crossing-Mediterranean-boats-warns-EU-s-prosecutor.html

  3. Last night a load of detonators and plastic explosive was taken from a French army base in Marseilles, about a year and a half ago there was a load of explosives taken from some mining company. I think they got about 150 detonators in last nights event…

    2016 will be very very bloody…

  4. With global economic policies hamstrung, investors turn to earnings

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/investors-turn-from-greece-to-earnings-115305182.htmlf

    The investors should have been looking at the earnings of the companies all along and looked at the government goals last.

    One of the interesting things in the article is the sentence about Chinas desperate attempt to stop their economy for melting down failing. China has been in economic trouble for a long time and has covered this with fake reports in the west anyone releasing reports like those would have been arrested) and printing more money.

  5. US is only training 60 Syrian fighters, far below expectations, as of July 3, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says at Senate panel – @Reuters

    Watch Live: Senate Hearing on White House ISIS Strategy

    • U.S. only training 60 Syrian fighters, far below expectations

      The United States was only training about 60 Syrian opposition fighters to battle Islamic State as of July 3, far below expectations, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress on Tuesday, citing rigorous U.S. vetting of recruits.

      The program, which launched in May in Jordan and Turkey, was designed to train as many as 5,400 fighters a year and seen as a test of President Barack Obama’s strategy of engaging local partners to combat extremists.

      Carter’s acknowledgement of the low number of recruits will give ammunition to critics who say Obama’s strategy is too limited to have any influence on Syria’s brutal civil war.

      “Given the poor numbers of recruited and trained Syrian fighters thus far, I am doubtful we can achieve our goal of training a few thousand this year,” said Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

      Some Syrian rebel leaders say the force the United States is training risks sowing divisions and cannot succeed without directly targeting Syrian government forces, who are currently off-limits for U.S. offensive operations.

      The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Jack Reed, said Islamic State “remains the dominant force in western Syria.”

      “Absent a moderate opposition that is willing to and capable of taking territory from ISIL and holding it, any change in the status quo is unlikely,” he said, using an acronym for the group.

      Obama was briefed by his top military commanders at the Pentagon on Monday. He said at a news conference later that “we will do more to train and equip the moderate opposition in Syria” but did not offer details.

      Carter told Congress the number of recruits would increase as the United States learned how to better streamline vetting.

      “We are also refining our curriculum, expanding our outreach to the moderate opposition, and incorporating lessons learned
      from the first training class,” Carter said.

      Obama has yet to announce whether he will go beyond resupplying and financing the proxy force, and protect them with U.S. fighter jets if they clash with Assad’s forces. The United States is already conducting near daily air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.

      Carter said he believed the Syrian recruits needed some U.S. protection but said no decisions had been made on what assistance to provide.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/07/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-idUSKCN0PH1IW20150707

  6. Poisoned Iftar meal kills 45 I S fighters in Mosul

    Forty-five Daesh militants died on Tuesday after consuming poisoned food during an Iftar meal in the Iraqi city of Mosul, according to Saeed Mamozeny, the spokesman of the Democratic Kurdish Party.

    Mamozeny told media that 145 militants sat down for a group Iftar in Mosul. However, the food was poisoned, and at least 45 have died as a result.

    According to the report it is remains unknown if the militants were intentionally poisoned or if the food had simply expired.

    However, Mamozeny believes that this might be a response from the citizens against Daesh militants because of their abusive acts against the residents of Mosul.

    http://www.albawaba.com/news/poisoned-iftar-meal-kills-45-daesh-fighters-mosul-716738
    =================================================================

    video – Ramadan in the Islamic State _ ( 8 min 50 )

    • Islamic State Baghdadi foils attempted coup

      The first attempted coup against IS leader Baghdadi has been foiled and 13 of the group’s senior leaders have been executed, reflecting growing divisions within the group.

      An attempted coup against the Islamic group’s leader, Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri, better know as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was recently foild by the extremist group, Iraqi and Syrian sources have told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

      The attempt failed and 13 leading members from Morocco, Syria, Yemen, and Kuwait, as well as a Chechen and a Kurd were all killed by the group for involvement in the abortive coup.

      They included five well known senior figures in the group’s General Military Council.

      Reportedly the coup was due to intense disagreements over the group’s military operations, its decision to expand and include jihadist groups in Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, and last month’s Saudi mosque bombings.

      “The coup was foiled a few days before it took place. The plan was to target Baghdadi’s convoy with improvised explosive devices south of the Syrian city of Raqqa and kill him,” an anonymous source from the Iraqi city of Mosul told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

      The source said Baghdadi had monopolised decision-making within the militant group and transformed its Sharia Committee into a ceremonial body with no real say. They explained this contradicts the concept of shura (consultation) that has been used to govern the group over the past three years.

      A traitor reportedly revealed the coup two days before it was due to be carried out. Baghdadi arrested the plotters, beheaded them, and hung their heads in one of the group’s main training camps until Ramadan began.

      A Syrian fuel merchant who deals with the IS reported that the group’s leaders no longer unanimously support Baghdadi.

      “Baghdadi said the 13 leaders were beheaded because they were US and Saudi spies. In reality they were found guilty of taking part in a well-planned assassination attempt,” the merchant added.

      A tribal source from Iraq’s Anbar governorate told al-Araby al-Jadeed it was hoped this meant the group was beginning to disintegrate earlier than expected.

      “It is natural that there are disagreements and divisions within the group, because it grew rapidly and expanded over large areas in a short time period,” said retired General Mohammad al-Khalidi, an expert in Iraqi armed groups.

      http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/2015/7/7/islamic-state-baghdadi-foils-attempted-coup

  7. TUNISIA – Britain to send Special Forces to ‘seek and destroy’ ISIS terrorists in Tunisia

    BRITAIN is to send 50 special forces trainers to help the Tunisian Government “seek and destroy” the Islamic State terrorists behind the Sousse massacre.

    The move comes a week after the beleaguered Tunisian Government appealed to the international community for help.

    According to senior military sources, the 50-strong team will be drawn from Special Forces units.

    They will be joined by “Foreign Office experts” as well as French and German advisors who will help to evaluate additional equipment is needed by Tunisia’s 27-000 strong Army.

    Britain’s contribution will also include the deployment of ground locating radar which can spot human movement over large areas.

    Last night a senior Whitehall source revealed that the operation will be funded directly by the Foreign Office.

    “This is not about the UK stamping a mark on Tunisia, we are simply offering advice which will include the training of specialist forces and a review of what material we can deliver,” said the source.

    “They need electronic counter measures and there are systems which with training could be deployed by Tunisian forces in the border areas to monitor human movement in vast remote areas.”

    A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are keen to step up our efforts and to provide more assistance to Tunisia on security. The Prime Minister has made this clear to President Essebsi and further discussions with the Tunisians are underway to take this forward.

    “The UK is cooperating closely with France and Germany, and has deployed a team of security experts to examine security arrangements at major tourist resorts.”

    The news follows indications this week that the Government aims to expand Britain’s actions against IS to include Syria as well as Iraq. But Defence Secretary Michael Fallon’s suggestion that the extra effort be limited to air strikes drew criticism from experts.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/sunday/588897/Britain-send-Special-Forces-fight-ISIS-terorrists-Tunisia

  8. Syria Turkmen move to form anti-Kurd army

    The decision to form the council comes after calls emerged from Turkmen military formations to fight both ISIS and the Kurdish PYD.

    BEIRUT – Syrian Turkmen military and political officials, who are close to Turkey, have been moving to form a unified army in northern Syria capable of confronting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as a terror group.

    “Turkmen fighting groups in Syria have taken the decision to offer greater support to each other and work to create a Turkmen army if conditions permit,” Syrian Turkmen Assembly chief Abdel Rahman Mustafa told Turkish Anadolu news on Monday.

    The Turkmen official’s comments came as the Syrian Turkmen Assembly held a meeting in southern Turkey’s Gaziantep that brought together Turkmen representatives from Aleppo, Tal Abyad, Jarabulus, Latakia, Idlib, Raqqa and the Golan.

    Alaraby Aljadeed reported that the Turkmen military and civilian officials in the meeting decided to form a military council which reports to the Syrian Turkmen Assembly, a pro-opposition group with ties to the Turkish government.

    The decision to form the council comes after calls emerged from Turkmen military formations to fight both ISIS and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party that controls the YPG, the London-based daily added.

    Syrian Turkmen have already armed themselves in a series of brigades throughout Syria that are loosely affiliated with each other and count on about 10,000 armed men in total, with the largest fighting units operating in the Aleppo province.

    Turkey’s security institutions maintain close links with the Turkmen units in Syria, providing special forces training to the brigades, which are affiliated with the Free Syrian Army and have taken part in operations in Aleppo, Idlib and outside Latakia.

    Confronting Kurds

    The Turkmen National Assembly chief stressed the formation of a Turkmen army would confront what he describes as the “danger of the YPG and the acts of sectarian cleansing it is carrying out, beginning with the expulsion of 200 Turkmen settlements in [the] Tel Abyad [area].”

    Both Turkish and Turkmen officials have accused YPG forces of forcibly displacing Turkmen in northern Syria because of their ethnicity amid the Kurdish troops’ advances against ISIS.

    On June 15, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the YPG of “seizing certain regions and forcing people living there to migrate,” in reference to the Kurdish advance into Tel Abyad—a mixed Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen border town previously held by ISIS.

    Meanwhile, a top figure in the Iraqi Turkmen Front told Turkish Hurriyet newspaper on June 19 that the PYD was forcing Turkmen out of their homes as “a part of a project to found a Kurdish state in the region.”

    The YPG flatly denied ethnic cleansing accusations, with its official spokesperson Redur Xelil assuring Tal Abyad residents: “you are our people and you will return to your towns, villages and properties.”

    However, the Turkmen National Assembly leader warned that the YPG “is threatening to head west towards Jarablus and Aazaz where there is also [a] Turkmen [population].”

    “For a thousand years, we have ruled our areas, but now, certain nationalistic military formations are trying to take our lands by force,” Mustafa claimed.

    “If we do not move we will find ourselves [unable] to return to our houses and our territory. We will stay [that way]: without a homeland.”

    His comments come amid growing reports in the Turkish press that the country is preparing a ground incursion to create a buffer zone stretching from north of Aleppo to west of Kobane in territory currently held by ISIS in a bid to stop Kurdish forces from stretching further westward in northern Syria.

    Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) forces backed by international coalition airstrikes have made stunning advances against ISIS, rolling back the extremist group in northeastern Syria and linking two of their de-facto autonomous cantons in mid-June after the seizure of Tel Abyad.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on June 26 warned that his country “will never allow” the establishment of a Kurdish state along its border, setting the stage for the reports that Turkey’s ground incursion would aim to preempt any further Kurdish advances against ISIS along the border.

    https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/NewsReports/565547-syria-turkmen-move-to-form-anti-kurd-army

    • Turkish army says detains almost 800 trying to cross illegally from Syria

      Turkey’s army said Tuesday it had detained almost 800 people trying to cross
      illegally from Syria, including three suspected ISIS militants, after bolstering security in border areas near where the radical Islamists hold ground.

      The military said 768 people had been detained Monday alone while trying to cross the border. The three suspected ISIS members were sent to jail in the southern city of Sanliurfa after being detained separately on July 2, it said.

      Wary of advances by both Syrian Kurdish forces and ISIS in northern Syria, Turkey has sent extra troops and equipment to strengthen parts of its 900 km (560-mile) border as the risk of spillover rises.

      Turkey has maintained an open border policy throughout Syria’s conflict, absorbing close to two million refugees, but requires legitimate refugees to pass through checkpoints and be documented. The military did not say why the 768 people had been detained.

      Turkey has faced criticism from some Western nations for failing to do more to stop foreign fighters crossing and joining ISIS. It argues that domestic intelligence agencies in the West need to stop their nationals being radicalized and travelling to Turkey in the first place.

      Ankara has mooted the creation of a ‘secure zone’ on Syrian soil to prevent a new wave of refugees crossing the border, a strategy which would be likely to require a military incursion, but has made clear it will not act alone and has been lobbying for support from the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

      Retired General John Allen, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama to build that coalition, held talks Tuesday in Ankara with Turkish officials.

      While concerned about the threat from ISIS, Turkey also fears the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria which could further embolden its own 14 million ethnic Kurds.

      Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday there were no immediate plans for any incursion into Syria, but said Turkey would respond if its security were threatened.

      http://www.kataeb.org/en/live-news/details/219019/Turkish+army+says+detains+almost+800+trying+to+cross+illegally+from+Syria

      • Kurdish militia proving to be reliable partner against Islamic State in Syria

        WASHINGTON

        Nearly a year into a bombing campaign intended to degrade and destroy the Islamic State, the United States finally may have found a reliable partner on the ground in Syria.

        In comments Monday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter acknowledged that Kurdish fighters from the YPG militia are identifying bombing targets for U.S.-led airstrikes. He referred to the militia as “capable,” hailed its “effective action,” and said because of the Kurds’ actions, U.S. forces had been able to “support them tactically.”

        It was the first public description by a senior Obama administration official detailing the cooperation that has been unfolding for months between the United States and the militia, which has drawn the ire of key NATO ally Turkey.

        The militia’s success is one of the reasons the United States is intensifying its bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, Carter said.

        “That’s what we were doing over the weekend north of Raqqa, which is conducting airstrikes that limit ISIL’s freedom of movement and ability to counter those capable Kurdish forces,” Carter said, referring to the Islamic State by a common acronym.

        Carter’s singling out of the YPG, or the People’s Protection Units, comes after months in which U.S. officials have said they were putting off a more concerted campaign in Syria in favor of pressing against the Islamic State in Iraq because the U.S. lacked a capable ground partner in Syria. As long ago as October, then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was blunt about why U.S. activities there were lagging: “We don’t have a willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria. It’s just a fact.”

        But at a briefing for reporters with visiting French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Carter praised the YPG’s recent successes against the Islamic State. Backed by U.S. air power, he said, YPG forces have advanced in the past weeks to within 18 miles of Raqqa, the main stronghold of the Islamic State in Syria.

        “That’s the manner in which effective and lasting defeat of ISIL will occur, when there are effective local forces on the ground that we can support and enable so that they can take territory, hold territory and make sure that good governance comes in behind it,” Carter said.

        How far the YPG will push its offensive is uncertain. Raqqa is not traditionally a Kurdish area, and Kurdish forces, which are said to number an estimated 16,000 troops, are not expected to try to take the city alone.

        But the YPG offers a much more robust anti-Islamic State force inside Syria than does the training program the United States has undertaken: so far, only about 190 so-called moderate rebels have been enlisted in the program, which is intended to train 5,000 anti-Islamic State fighters a year.

        The United States last month also expanded its airstrikes to northern Aleppo, another key northern Syria city about 100 miles west of Raqqa, putting the Islamic State on notice that a new drive to remove them from what is called the Marea front could be in the offing.

        President Barack Obama also spoke of an intensifying campaign in Syria Monday after he attended a briefing at the Pentagon with Carter and other top Pentagon leaders.

        Obama did not mention the Kurdish fighters by name, but he ticked off Islamic State losses in Syria and Iraq going back to last August, many of them defeats in which either the YPG or Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga troops played important roles.

        “Over the past year we’ve seen that, when we have an effective partner on the ground, ISIL can be pushed back,” Obama said.

        Obama repeated Pentagon claims that the Islamic State “has lost more than a quarter of the populated areas that it had seized in Iraq,” an assertion that some analysts have criticized for failing to account for the militant group’s offsetting gains in the same period.

        The closer links between the Pentagon and the Kurdish fighters, however, seem likely to increase tension between the United States and Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim nation among the 28 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

        The YPG is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party, known as PYD, which represents the 2.2 million Kurds in Syria.

        The PYD, in turn, has close ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, called the PKK., which has waged a 30-year armed struggle against the Turkish government to establish an independent Kurdistan.

        Turkey fears the Syrian Kurds will establish an autonomous zone along the Turkish border and encourage Turkish Kurds to press their autonomy campaign. Last week, Turkey said it was willing to establish a working relationship with the Syrian Kurds, but only if the Kurds gave up on plans to establish local governments in the Syria towns its captured.

        Neither Carter nor Obama made reference to such disputes in their comments Monday.

        Carter made it clear that U.S. and allied warplanes are increasingly depending on the Kurdish forces as part of the Pentagon’s broader campaign to defeat the Islamic State.

        “We are doing more in Syria from the air,” Carter said. “I think you saw some of that in recent days. And the opportunity to do that effectively is provided in the case of the last few days by the effective action on the ground of Kurdish forces, which gives us the opportunity to support them tactically.”

        The Kurds in Syria provide Washington with a more secular Muslim ally than Islamist militants fighting to oust the government of President Bashar Assad, who have often cooperated with the al Qaida’s Nusra Front, the terror group’s Syrian affiliate.

        Carter made no reference to the YPG’s affiliation with the PKK, which the U.S. State Department designated a terrorist organization in 1997.

        The war in Syria is not the only violence that is creating odd bedfellows for Washington.

        In Iraq, the United States has relied on Shiite Muslim militias with ties to Iran, still a U.S. enemy despite a recent thaw in relations, to confront Islamic State militants in that country.

        http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article26598160.html

  9. NYT – UKRAINE – Islamic Battalions, Stocked With Chechens, Aid Ukraine in War With Rebels

    MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Wearing camouflage, with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard flowing over his chest and a bowie knife sheathed prominently in his belt, the man cut a fearsome figure in the nearly empty restaurant. Waiters hovered apprehensively near the kitchen, and try as he might, the man who calls himself “Muslim,” a former Chechen warlord, could not wave them over for more tea.

    Even for Ukrainians hardened by more than a year of war here against Russian-backed separatists, the appearance of Islamic combatants, mostly Chechens, in towns near the front lines comes as something of a surprise — and for many of the Ukrainians, a welcome one.

    “We like to fight the Russians,” said the Chechen, who refused to give his real name. “We always fight the Russians.”

    He commands one of three volunteer Islamic battalions out of about 30 volunteer units in total fighting now in eastern Ukraine. The Islamic battalions are deployed to the hottest zones, which is why the Chechen was here.
    Continue reading the main story
    Related Coverage

    Muslims gathered in Stavropol, Russia. Converts pose a special threat by challenging the Orthodox identity that the Kremlin has used to rally the country in place of Soviet Communism.
    Russia Sees a Threat in Its Converts to Islam JULY 1, 2015
    graphic
    Russia’s Endgame in UkraineMARCH 9, 2015

    Fighting is intensifying around Mariupol, a strategic seaport and industrial hub that the separatists have long coveted. Monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe say they have seen steady nighttime shipments of Russian military equipment on a rail line north of here. Recently, the Ukrainian authorities released photos — which they said were taken by a drone flying north of the city — that showed a massing of heavy weapons, including tanks and howitzers, on the rebel side.

    Anticipating an attack in the coming months, the Ukrainians are happy for all the help they can get.

    As the Ukrainians see it, they are at a lopsided disadvantage against the separatists because Western governments have refused to provide the government forces with anything like the military support that the rebels have received from Russia. The army, corrupt and underfunded, has been largely ineffective. So the Ukrainians welcome backing from even Islamic militants from Chechnya.

    “I am on this path for 24 years now,” since the demise of the Soviet Union, the Chechen said in an interview. “The war for us never ended. We never ran from our war with Russia, and we never will.”

    Ukrainian commanders worry that separatist groups plan to capture access roads to Mariupol and lay siege to the city, which had a prewar population of about half a million. To counter that, the city has come to rely on an assortment of right-wing and Islamic militias for its defense.

    The Chechen commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a Ukrainian militia.

    Neither the Sheikh Mansur group nor Right Sector is incorporated into the formal police or military, and the Ukrainian authorities decline to say how many Chechens are fighting in eastern Ukraine. They are all unpaid.

    Apart from an enemy, these groups do not have much in common with Ukrainians — or, for that matter, with Ukraine’s Western allies, including the United States.

    Right Sector, for example, formed during last year’s street protests in Kiev from a half-dozen fringe Ukrainian nationalist groups like White Hammer and the Trident of Stepan Bandera. Another, the Azov group, is openly neo-Nazi, using the “Wolf’s Hook” symbol associated with the SS. Without addressing the issue of the Nazi symbol, the Chechen said he got along well with the nationalists because, like him, they loved their homeland and hated the Russians.

    To try to bolster the abilities of the Ukrainian regular forces and reduce Kiev’s reliance on these quasilegal paramilitaries, the United States Army is training the Ukrainian national guard. The Americans are specifically prohibited from giving instruction to members of the Azov group.

    Since the Afghan war of the 1980s, Moscow has accused the United States of encouraging Islamic militants to fight Russia along its vulnerable southern rim, a policy that could deftly solve two problems — containing Russia and distracting militants from the United States. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has accused the Western-backed Georgian government of infiltrating Islamic radicals into the North Caucasus, though he has not offered proof.

    In Ukraine, the Dzhokhar Dudayev and Sheikh Mansur units are mostly Chechen, but they include Muslims from other former Soviet areas, such as Uzbeks and Balkars. The third unit, Crimea, is predominantly Crimean Tatar. There is no indication of any United States involvement with the groups.

    Along the front about seven miles to the east, the battalions career about in civilian cars, AK-47 rifles poking from the windows, while the regular army holds back in a secondary line of defensive trenches.

    The Chechens, by all accounts, are valuable soldiers. Ukrainian commanders lionize their skills as scouts and snipers, saying they slip into no-man’s land to patrol and skirmish.

    The Chechens are also renowned for their deft ambushes and raids. In the Chechen wars, insurgents had a policy of killing officers and contract soldiers who were taken prisoner, but conscripted soldiers were spared.

    In Ukraine, the Chechens’ calls of “Allahu akbar,” or God is great, are said to strike fear in the hearts of the Russians.

    In the interview, the Chechen commander said his men liked to fight with little protective gear. “This is the way we look at it,” he said. “We believe in God, so we don’t need armored vests.”

    In the interview at the restaurant, a steakhouse and favorite haunt of Right Sector, the Chechen said he was about 45, had fought against Russia in both Chechen wars and had seen a good deal of violence. When he talks about combat, his eyes grow dark and inscrutable.

    For the Ukrainians, the decision to quietly open the front to figures like the Chechen — who are making their way here from Europe and Central Asia — has brought some battle-hardened men to their side. The Chechen had been living in France, and he founded the Chechen battalions last fall along with Isa Musayev, an émigré from Chechnya who had been living in Denmark.

    Mr. Musayev, the Chechen said, had received approval from senior members of the Ukrainian government, but “there were no documents, nothing was written,” he said, adding that Mr. Musayev was killed in fighting in February.

    Though religious, the Chechen groups in eastern Ukraine are believed to adhere to a more nationalist strain of the Chechen separatist movement, according to Ekaterina Sikorianskaia, an expert on Chechnya with the International Crisis Group.

    Not everyone is convinced. The French authorities, on edge over Islamic extremism in immigrant communities, detained two members of the Sheikh Mansur battalion this year on accusations of belonging to the extremist group Islamic State, the Chechen said. He denied that the two were members of the group.

    “All of Europe is shaking with fear of the Russians,” he said. “It’s beneficial for Europe that we fight here as volunteers. But not everybody understands.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/world/europe/islamic-battalions-stocked-with-chechens-aid-ukraine-in-war-with-rebels.html

  10. Bangladesh arrests 12 suspected al Qaeda militants, weapons found

    Bangladesh security forces have arrested 12 suspected militants, including the chief of the al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which claimed responsibility for two killings this year of bloggers critical of religious extremism.

    The 12 were arrested in overnight raids in different parts of Dhaka, said Maksudul Alam, a deputy director of the anti-terrorism Rapid Action Battalion.

    Mainul Islam, the AQIS chief coordinator in Bangladesh, and his top adviser, Zafar Amin, were among the 12.

    “Explosives, bomb-making materials, sharp weapons and training manuals were recovered from them,” Alam said.

    AQIS is an Al Qaeda affiliate for militant activities in South Asia.

    Three online critics of religious extremism in the Muslim-majority nation have been hacked to death this year by machete-wielding attackers in Bangladesh. AQIS has claimed responsibility for two of the killings, including that of U.S.-Bangladeshi activist and blogger Avijit Roy.

    In May, Bangladesh also arrested three suspected members of Islamic State, including an IT manager at a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Co in Dhaka, amid growing fears that the militant group could be extending its influence in South Asia.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/02/us-bangladesh-islamists-idUSKCN0PC0PR20150702

    • Al Shabaab gunmen killed 14 people, mostly quarry workers, officials said, in an overnight attack on a residential complex in northeast Kenya that the Islamic militant group said had targeted Christians.

      Many died in their sleep, the Kenya Red Cross said. The raid, in the town of Mandera, mirrored one in the same county in December in which 36 quarry workers died.

      Al Shabaab has made a series of deadly incursions into Kenya, which it says will continue until Nairobi withdraws its troops from an African Union force fighting the militants in their home base of Somalia.

      The group’s military operations spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters its gunmen killed more than 10 Kenyan Christians in Tuesday’s raid. It has in the past singled out non-Muslims to be executed.

      “The area … is a plot where quarry workers live. They attacked at around 1 a.m. Most of those killed are workers from upcountry,” Alex Nkoyo, commissioner for Mandera County, told Reuters by phone. He put the death toll at 14.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/07/us-kenya-attacks-idUSKCN0PH0BE20150707

    • The minute ISIS starts fighting Jews in earnest, Mohammedans will unite behind it. And the Western elites would be busy counting their cash from weapons sales.

  11. Britain should lay on FLIGHTS to Syria for Islamist fanatics who want to join ISIS and not let them back, says former anti-terror police chief

    “The government should consider chartering flights to Syria for UK fanatics who want to join ISIS, a former counter-terrorism police chief has suggested.

    Bob Quick, a former Scotland Yard assistant commissioner, said it could be safer to help British extremists leave the country and ban them from returning by withdrawing their passports”.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3152265/Britain-lay-FLIGHTS-Syria-Islamist-fanatics-want-join-ISIS-says-former-anti-terror-police-chief.html#ixzz3fFA1syVq

    • Great article, really useful references. So good in fact, I just gave the author, Malcolm Lowe, his very own file.

    • Same as I said above. Every member of the OIC feels the same deep down in their wretched clan hearts. And they could get the OECD to go along enthusiastically.

  12. Schoolteachers among six in Israel charged with supporting ISIS (CNN, July 7, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/world/israel-arrests-isis-supporters/index.html

    “Jerusalem (CNN)Six men have been arrested on suspicion of supporting ISIS in Israel, following an investigation by Israeli security and counterterror forces.

    The men were indicted on charges of supporting a terrorist organization, possessing and distributing advertising materials of an illegal group, and conspiracy, among other accusations, according to a written statement from police spokeswoman Luba Samri.

    Among the six suspects: four schoolteachers, one of whom taught at an elementary school in Hura. According to police, the man took “every opportunity” to teach his young students about ISIS.

    Police say the teacher would sing songs praising ISIS in class, express his support for the terrorist organization, and show students map drawings of the self-proclaimed Islamic State — the group’s preferred moniker, and also the way it refers to its wide swath of territory across Syria and Iraq.

    He even posted support videos to YouTube, but later removed them. Police say he’d been “warned that it might interfere with his work as a teacher.”

    “We should act in the strongest possible way against teachers who take advantage of their jobs in such an unspeakable way,” Israel’s Minister of Education Naftali Bennett said. “Instead of guarding the students, they harm them.”

    “We will maintain a clean education system,” Bennett said. “We will not allow anyone to contaminate our children.”

    The men were conspiring to travel to Syria to join ISIS, according to police….”

  13. Mecca – Short circuit causes Grand Mosque fire

    JEDDAH: A small fire broke out on the roof of the Grand Mosque on Monday morning, causing minor injuries to five people, including members of the Civil Defense, one security officer and three workers.

    The fire broke out at about 2 a.m. and covered an area of 45 square meters on the roof of the Masa’a, where construction is currently taking place. Members of the Civil Defense and Grand Mosque’s security and safety teams brought the blaze under control with fire extinguishers.

    Initial investigations determined that the previous day iron beams, covered in plastic to protect workers, were placed on a pack of cables linked to cameras. This had placed a strain on the cables and resulted in the short circuit, which had burned the plastic.

    Lt. Col. Saeed bin Sarhan, spokesman of the Civil Defense in Makkah, said the fire broke out in an area under construction, away from worshippers and pilgrims.

    Meanwhile, the Civil Defense in Makkah evacuated 23 pilgrims from a hotel in Aljumaizah neighborhood after a fire broke out, caused by a short circuit of a plasma television on the sixth floor.

    The Civil Defense extinguished the fire and the pilgrims were able to return to their rooms.

    http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/772956