By Elizabeth Kendal
In addition to this week's Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin on Syria --
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 167 | Wed 11 Jul 2012
SYRIA: Christians' plight lost under mountain of propaganda
-- I am providing a short reading list of recently published, freely-available articles for those who would like some help in cutting through the propaganda.
A Jihadist, Anti-Western Agenda is Being Forced on Syria
By Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs.
Analysis, April 2012 (via oilprice.com)
Quotes: "The international community has been blindly following a jihadist-driven agenda for Syria; a solution the majority of Syrians reject, but which Turkey and Qatar have been driving. It begs the question: why are analysts in Washington — or Paris or London — not digging more deeply into what is really happening, given that the solution they have endorsed is so profoundly anti-Western?"
". . . the West, led by the US, Turkey, and Qatar, is striving to repeat in Syria the legacy of the interventions in Bosnia and Libya, irrespective of the realities on the ground or the desires of the local population. To justify such an intervention, the US leads a media campaign to portray the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as westernized and democratic when Arab governments and the Arab media know that this is simply untrue.
"The Syrian National Council has always been a front of the more militant- jihadist wing of the Muslim Brothers [MB: the Ikhwan]."
"At the core is the confrontation between resurgent Sunni Arab Islam-ism and the region’s aspirant non-Arab Islamist hegemonic powers: Mahdivist Iran and neo-Ottoman Turkey."
"The Fertile Crescent of Minorities — from east to west counter-clockwise: Ahwazi Arabs, Kurds, ‘Alawites, Druze, Maronites, Jews and Circassians — serves as the buffer, preventing a cataclysmic eruption."
"Only a viable Fertile Crescent of Minorities — of which the ‘Alawites and Druze of Syria are presently the most beleaguered elements — can thus prevent the simmering Arab Middle East from conjoining with the Islamist ascent of Turkey and Iran and jointly creating an explosive critical mass. . . . The marginalization and destruction of the Syrian section of the Fertile Crescent of Minorities, even if in the name of democracy, not only would not elevate the Sunni majority but would cause cataclysmic upheaval throughout the greater Middle East."
Influx of foreign fighters add to Syria's carnage
By Hala Jaber, The Sunday Times, 17 June 2012
Quote: "Another fatwa, by a fellow Sunni cleric, Adnan Arour, was even more direct, threatening not only Syria's Alawite rulers, but Christians and other minorities who side with them. 'We will chop you up and feed you to the dogs,' Arour said."
(If the link takes you to a subscription page - trying cutting the pasting the title into a google search -- that usually seem to get around it) Alternatively - here is film footage.
Duplicity drives West's Syria policy
By Bob Rigg, Asia Times Online, 4 July 2012
Quotes: "The West falsely claims that its interest in Syria is purely humanitarian, while it is covertly pouring political and logistical fuel onto the flames of civil war in Syria, escalating the conflict and ensuring ever greater losses of human life."
". . . when the West speaks of human rights, this may well be a front for self-interested geopolitical power plays."
Regime change in Syria: A true story
By Francois-Alexandre Roy, Asia Times Online, 6 July 2012
This article covers subheadings:
* US and al-Qaeda: same goal this time around
* Turkey's game
* Western media (which includes a reference to the Houla massacre false flag operation).
-------------------------------
Houla massacre
For more on the Houla massacre, now exposed as a false flag operation wherein Free Syrian Army forces disguised as pro-Assad 'thugs' massacred unsympathetic mostly non-Sunni families and blamed the regime, see:
Reconsidering The Houla Massacre – OpEd
By: Paul Woodward
Euraisia Review, 11 June 2012
The UN and the Houla Massacre: The Information Battlefield
By Ronda Hauben, 18 June 2012.
THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
Detailed Investigation by Marat Musin
Global Research, 1 June 2012
-------------------------------
Halting Syrian chaos
By Robert D Kaplan and Kamran Bokhari
STRATFOR via Asia Times Online, 7 july2012
Quotes: "But [Assad's] removal might well hasten the slide into chaos within Syria and in adjacent Lebanon, rather than slow it.
"Assad's departure could even ignite a disintegration of the Syrian power structure into various gangs and militias."
"One can also argue that from a human-rights perspective, chaos can be worse than authoritarianism."
Kaplan and Bokhari recommend that the US hand "Iran (and maybe Russia) a total strategic defeat in Syria" on the grounds that "fighting a proxy war with Iran and Russia there is less desirable for the United States than reaching out to them."
There will be hell to pay for NATO's Holy War
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times Online, 10 July 2012
Quote: "In the event of a post-Assad Syria dominated by hardcore Sunnis infiltrated by Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadists, guaranteed blowback will leave Afghanistan after the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad looking like a ride on Disneyland Hong Kong."
VIDEO
Vatican's Fides News Agency - U.S. Backed Syrian Rebels Killing Christians.
14 June 2012 (YouTube 3:49mins)
'Attack on Iran after Syria falls major goal of the West'
8 July 2012 (YouTube 5:18mins)
For further background - see this blog, label: Syria
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
MALI: Islamists destroy heritage and take human shields
By Elizabeth Kendal
The cultural heritage of Timbuktu -- destroyed
Having seized control of northern Mali, al Qaeda-linked jihadists are now destroying the cultural heritage of Timbuktu.
Reached by telephone in an undisclosed location in northern Mali, Ansar Dine spokesman Oumar Ould Hamaha told Associated Press: "The only tribunal we recognize is the divine court of Shariah. The destruction is a divine order. It's our Prophet who said that each time that someone builds something on top of a grave, it needs to be pulled back to the ground. We need to do this so that future generations don't get confused, and start venerating the saints as if they are God."
See: Islamistscontinue destroying Timbuktu heritage
By Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press 2 July 2012
According to Reuters: "The UNESCO ambassadors meeting in St. Petersburg on Tuesday joined Malian Culture Minister Toure in appealing to global governments and organisations and 'all people of goodwill' to act to prevent the prevent the destruction of the Timbuktu monuments by 'vandals'. 'We consider this action to be a crime against history,' the appeal said.
"Experts are comparing the Timbuktu tomb destructions to similar attacks against Sufi shrines by hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year. The attacks also recall al Qaeda attacks on Shi'ite shrines in Iraq in the past decade and the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan."
See: Timbuktu tomb destroyers pulverise Islam's history
By Pascal Fletcher , Tue Jul 3, 2012
No-one should be surprised, for as history demonstrates, cultural destruction such as this is to be expected when Islamist take power. [see footnote]
The citizens of Gao -- taken hostage
According to Mossa Ag Attaher, a Paris-based spokesman for the Tuareg-nationalist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its offshoot, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), "have mined the area surrounding Gao. Many people are trying to escape, to take the bus to go to Bamako, but the Islamists are stopping them."
The MNLA spokesman told AFP that Gao residents "are facing a serious humanitarian crisis. After the criminal destruction of the shrines of Muslim saints, (the Islamists) are now using the population as hostages, as a human shield to protect itself from an MNLA counter-attack."
A west African source also confirmed to AFP that landmines had been planted around Gao "to prevent a possible attack by troops" from the west African regional bloc ECOWAS.
See: Al-Qaeda has mined access to key Mali town:Tuareg rebels
Monday, 02 July 2012
Also: Islamists smash Timbuktu relics
AEST Tue Jul 3 2012
" 'The population in Gao has been taken hostage,' Bernard Valero, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, said separately. 'Within the context of war and a food crisis, mines appear to have been laid around the city to prevent people from leaving. This in our eyes is an act of terrorism. ' "
See: Islamists mine Gao
3 July 2012, By John Irish and Tiemoko Diallo
Footnote:
For more on this subject of Islam's destruction of its own history,
see: Islam vs. History
by Daniel Pipes
July 2, 2012
On Islam destroying Christian history:
Surely one the most horrendous "crimes against history" committed in recent decades is the desecration and destruction of well over 100 churches, monasteries and religious sites across Serbia's Kosovo province between 1999-2003.
What makes this "crime against history" so particularly egregious is that, unlike the crimes against history committed in North Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, the crimes against history committed in Kosovo were not committed by militant African, Middle Eastern and "Afghan" Salafi jihadi purists exploiting a security vacuum, but by "white" Albanian Muslims and US-allied KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) personnel under the watchful eye of US-NATO KFOR "protection" forces.
For 60 pages of documentary evidence see: Kosovo Crucified.
This report lists 107 desecrated and destroyed sites; identifies which NATO force was responsible for protecting that site; details the degree of destruction; and provides foundation dates.
For example:
(2) The Church of the Mother of God near Suva Reka;
KFOR zone of responsibility: German;
church razed (terrain cleared, all traces of existence removed);
church founded in 1315.
Around 35 churches and monasteries were subsequently desecrated and destroyed when some 50,000 Albanian Muslims went on an anti-Serb and anti-Christian racial-religious pogrom across Kosovo over 17-19 March 2004.
Quite a few of the properties destroyed dated back to the mid 14th century and contained some of the most exquisite iconography known, but now lost, to the world.
Friday, June 29, 2012
MALI: Islamists oust Tuareg-nationalist MNLA -- making the reality official.
By Elizabeth Kendal
BACKGROUND
After the Malian government in Bamako was overthrown in a military coup on 22 March, the Tuareg nationalist-secularist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), with support from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists of Ansar Dine, exploited the chaos to advance and seize control of northern Mali. Since then, more than 300,000 people are estimated to have fled northern Mali.
See MALI: Christians flee as jihadists seize control of north
Religious Liberty Monitoring 11 April 2012
As long as the MNLA and Ansar Dine were fighting their common enemy (the Malian government) the alliance worked well. However, the mismatched forces proved unable to work together in government, for while the MNLA's goal is an independent state, Ansar Dine's goal is the imposition of Islamic Sharia law across the whole country. From the very beginning, despite the MNLA's leadership and elevated profile, the reality on the ground has always been that the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine is the stronger force and the one in control.
See MALI: Islamist's weapons seizure will greatly boost AQIM's striking power
Religious Liberty Monitoring 5 June 2012
ISLAMISTS OUST TUAREG-NATIONALIST MNLA
-- making the reality official.
On Tuesday 26 June, the Islamists seized control of Gao from the Tuareg MNLA. Twenty-six people were killed (mostly armed militants; mostly MNLA) and dozens wounded in fighting which involved the use of heavy weapons. MNLA political leader, Bilal Ag Cherif, was wounded. The al-Qaeda-linked Islamists took over buildings that had been occupied by the Tuaregs -- including their headquarters.
Claiming to have merely made a tactical retreat, the MNLA denies it has lost the fight. "Right now some MNLA units, stationed at the borders of Azawad, are coming back to completely rid the city of Gao of Islamist groups that are terrorizing the population," MNLA spokesman Mossa Ag Attaher said in a written statement.
Reuters reports that a Timbuktu resident said on Thursday (28 June) that MNLA fighters who had been stationed at the city's airport and port had now even abandoned those positions. (Confirmed by AP)
See Reuters: Islamists declare full control of Mali's north
By Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra
BAMAKO, Thu 28 June 2012
Details in Serge Daniel's account will give Bamako cause for concern, along with all the Christians, secularists and moderates who have fled there:
"The Islamists slowly moved their chessmen into place, first blocking the Tuareg from accessing the heavy weapons they had brought back from Libya and hidden in the AQIM-controlled mountains in north-eastern Mali, experts said.
"Then they won sympathy on the ground among the different tribes in the north, where Tuareg are a minority, by distributing basic goods and insisting they wanted to maintain the territorial integrity of Mali.
" 'When the mujahideen took Gao, they walked through the town brandishing the Malian flag, we liked that,' said Saly Toure who works for the Sahel Museum in Gao which has been closed since the beginning of the crisis.
"But to win 'the Islamists also played the corruption card wholeheartedly,' said an African diplomat based in Bamako, on condition of anonymity. 'A very influent leader of a citizens' association in Gao was "bought". Since then he turned his back on the Tuareg to support the Islamists.'
"He said the defeat of the MNLA would change the framework of negotiations with transition authorities who took over from the junta.
"Lacking money, abandoned by their supporters and riven by internal divisions [between French and Arabic speaking factions], the Tuareg rebels have been sorely weakened, and only hold small towns such as Gossi, Menaka and Anderamboukane.
See: Islamists rout Tuareg from their own rebellion in north Mali
By Serge Daniel (AFP) 28 June 2012
Al Jazeera has a more detailed report:
'Dozens killed' in northern Mali fighting
At least 20 people dead as Islamist and Tuareg groups battle for control of northern towns.
Al Jazeera 28 Jun 2012
NOTE: Al Jazeera reports there are at least two Islamist factions involved: the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) - which seized parts of Gao - and Ansar Dine, which based itself in Timbuktu. Both Islamist groups are believed to have links to al-Qaeda.
BACKGROUND
After the Malian government in Bamako was overthrown in a military coup on 22 March, the Tuareg nationalist-secularist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), with support from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists of Ansar Dine, exploited the chaos to advance and seize control of northern Mali. Since then, more than 300,000 people are estimated to have fled northern Mali.
See MALI: Christians flee as jihadists seize control of north
Religious Liberty Monitoring 11 April 2012
As long as the MNLA and Ansar Dine were fighting their common enemy (the Malian government) the alliance worked well. However, the mismatched forces proved unable to work together in government, for while the MNLA's goal is an independent state, Ansar Dine's goal is the imposition of Islamic Sharia law across the whole country. From the very beginning, despite the MNLA's leadership and elevated profile, the reality on the ground has always been that the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine is the stronger force and the one in control.
See MALI: Islamist's weapons seizure will greatly boost AQIM's striking power
Religious Liberty Monitoring 5 June 2012
ISLAMISTS OUST TUAREG-NATIONALIST MNLA
-- making the reality official.
On Tuesday 26 June, the Islamists seized control of Gao from the Tuareg MNLA. Twenty-six people were killed (mostly armed militants; mostly MNLA) and dozens wounded in fighting which involved the use of heavy weapons. MNLA political leader, Bilal Ag Cherif, was wounded. The al-Qaeda-linked Islamists took over buildings that had been occupied by the Tuaregs -- including their headquarters.
Claiming to have merely made a tactical retreat, the MNLA denies it has lost the fight. "Right now some MNLA units, stationed at the borders of Azawad, are coming back to completely rid the city of Gao of Islamist groups that are terrorizing the population," MNLA spokesman Mossa Ag Attaher said in a written statement.
Reuters reports that a Timbuktu resident said on Thursday (28 June) that MNLA fighters who had been stationed at the city's airport and port had now even abandoned those positions. (Confirmed by AP)
See Reuters: Islamists declare full control of Mali's north
By Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra
BAMAKO, Thu 28 June 2012
Details in Serge Daniel's account will give Bamako cause for concern, along with all the Christians, secularists and moderates who have fled there:
"The Islamists slowly moved their chessmen into place, first blocking the Tuareg from accessing the heavy weapons they had brought back from Libya and hidden in the AQIM-controlled mountains in north-eastern Mali, experts said.
"Then they won sympathy on the ground among the different tribes in the north, where Tuareg are a minority, by distributing basic goods and insisting they wanted to maintain the territorial integrity of Mali.
" 'When the mujahideen took Gao, they walked through the town brandishing the Malian flag, we liked that,' said Saly Toure who works for the Sahel Museum in Gao which has been closed since the beginning of the crisis.
"But to win 'the Islamists also played the corruption card wholeheartedly,' said an African diplomat based in Bamako, on condition of anonymity. 'A very influent leader of a citizens' association in Gao was "bought". Since then he turned his back on the Tuareg to support the Islamists.'
"He said the defeat of the MNLA would change the framework of negotiations with transition authorities who took over from the junta.
"Lacking money, abandoned by their supporters and riven by internal divisions [between French and Arabic speaking factions], the Tuareg rebels have been sorely weakened, and only hold small towns such as Gossi, Menaka and Anderamboukane.
See: Islamists rout Tuareg from their own rebellion in north Mali
By Serge Daniel (AFP) 28 June 2012
Al Jazeera has a more detailed report:
'Dozens killed' in northern Mali fighting
At least 20 people dead as Islamist and Tuareg groups battle for control of northern towns.
Al Jazeera 28 Jun 2012
NOTE: Al Jazeera reports there are at least two Islamist factions involved: the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) - which seized parts of Gao - and Ansar Dine, which based itself in Timbuktu. Both Islamist groups are believed to have links to al-Qaeda.