BOSNIA - The Sarajevo Mosque

"Is Saudi-funded mosque in Sarajevo threat to Bosnia's moderate Muslims?" PBS NewsHour 5/16/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  International officials are convinced that Bosnia's brand of Westernized, moderate Islam is the best possible bulwark against radicalization.  The nation's official Islamic Community is cracking down on rural mosques that it says are too in line with Islamists — but some say the true extremist threat lies in the heart of the capital itself.  Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

MALCOLM BRABANT (NewsHour):  I'm in Central Bosnia, about 100 miles from the capital, Sarajevo.

I'm heading up to a remote mountain village called Osve, which is a place where, supposedly, there are some supporters of the so-called Islamic State.  There have been people who've gone from this village to fight in Syria.  Some have reportedly been killed.  And we're going to meet somebody who used to play rock ‘n' roll, but is now labeled by the head of the Islamic community in Bosnia as someone who is a terrorist.

Izet Hadzic used to be lead guitarist in a band called Black Lady.  After fighting in the Bosnian War, he abandoned what he thought was a decadent lifestyle and sought peace in religion.  He leads one of these so-called radical mosques.  While he's in dispute with the Islamic establishment, he insists he's no terrorist.

IZET HADZIC, Mosque Leader (through interpreter):  Where does it come from to call us terrorists?  It is because that people who look like us, have these beards, are doing such acts in the world, specifically ISIS and this cretin Baghdadi.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  Two doors away from Hadzic's small holding is the father of a young man killed in Syria.  Next door is a family Hadzic regards as extreme.  Bosnian intelligence officers are frequent visitors.

Hadzic unequivocally condemns Islamic State.

IZET HADZIC (through interpreter):  You can't call this jihad.  To take a gun while someone is walking down the street with his family and begin to shoot?  Can you imagine soldier doing this?  These people are equal to cowards.

MALCOLM BRABANT:  We had a polite, but frosty reception in Bocinje, a nearby village that was a stronghold of foreign mujahideen during the Bosnian War.  We hoped to interview a man who returned from Syria in 2014, but he didn't want to be filmed because of an impending court case.  His name is Ibrahim Delic.

Dozens of other Bosnians now in Syria are said to want to return because they are horrified by ISIS atrocities.  Crippled and radicalized during the Bosnian War, Delic recently talked to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.  Significantly, he criticized the Free Syrian Army, who are enemies of ISIS.

MIDDLE EAST - Iraqi Prison Escapees Join Islamic Militants

"Escaped Inmates From Iraq Fuel Syrian Insurgency" by TIM ARANGO and ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times 2/12/2014

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A series of daring but little noticed breakouts from Iraqi prisons has freed hundreds of hardened militants who are now among the leaders and foot soldiers of the radical Sunni groups operating in neighboring Syria and, increasingly, in Iraq itself.

The role of the former inmates in fueling a new wave of Sunni jihad across the region is an unfortunate reminder of the breakdown of authority in Iraq since the United States departed in 2011, of the security vacuum that has spread around the region and of the continuing threat of Sunni-led terrorist groups that the United States said it was fighting during its occupation of Iraq.

The prison breaks also reflect the surging demand for experienced fighters, which led to a concerted effort by militant groups, particularly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, to seek them in the one place where they were held en masse — Iraq’s prison cells.

That group even had a name for its prison strategy, “Operation Breaking the Walls,” which unfolded during a 12-month campaign from July 2012 until a major break at Abu Ghraib, the main Iraqi prison, on the western outskirts of the capital, in July 2013.  In all, American officials estimate, a few hundred of the escapees have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, several in senior leadership roles.

While the group was already gaining strength in this period, an American counterterrorism official said, “The influx of these terrorists, who collectively have decades of battlefield experience, probably has strengthened the group and deepened its leadership bench.”

MALI - European's Support for France's Intervention

"How Far Will Europeans Support France’s Counter-Jihad?" by HARVEY MORRIS, International Herald Tribune (IHT) 1/18/2013

It did not require a crystal ball to foresee, as Rendezvous did in our 2013 preview, that Mali would be in the news and that France might be the first to intervene there to counter a perceived terrorist threat to Europe.

Less predictable, however, is the extent to which the French can rely on the support of their European allies now that they have decided to go it alone.

The crisis had been building for the best part of a year since mutinous soldiers staged a coup in Bamako, the Malian capital, last March, and separatist Tuareg tribesmen took the opportunity to seize the north of the country. The tribesmen were quickly pushed aside by radical Islamists, including those behind this week’s hostage-taking in neighboring Algeria.

They were poised to extend their rule this month beyond the two-thirds of the country they already control when the French stepped in at the request of the Bamako government.

As early as last April, Alain Juppé, the then French foreign minister, was warning of the “extremely grave threat” posed by the Qaeda-linked insurgents and their aim of establishing a jihadist regime in northern Mali.

In early September, António Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, was telling readers of the IHT:

If unchecked, the Mali crisis threatens to create an arc of instability extending west into Mauritania and east through Niger, Chad and Sudan to the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden, characterized by extended spaces where state authority is weak and pockets of territorial control are exercised by transnational criminals.

So, did the international community, and Europe in particular, react too slowly to the escalating crisis? Or has France acted precipitously in opting for a military solution to contain the threat?

David Rohde writes elsewhere on Rendezvous that regional experts believe the French had to act.

But, as French troops launched ground operations this week in support of local forces, how far are France’s European allies prepared to be sucked into a potential Malian quagmire?

Germany, Denmark and Britain are among European Union partners that have offered logistical support in Mali.

However, as David Cameron, the British prime minister, assured Parliament when he announced the offer of transport aircraft to assist the French mission, there was no question of putting British boots on the ground.

The government of Chancellor Angela Merkel is being even more cautious, limiting its assistance to supplying planes to airlift African troops from the regional ECOWAS alliance.

“Under no circumstances does Germany want to become involved in a messy conflict with no clear end in sight,” Germany’s Der Spiegel commented, “particularly not in an election year.”

Germany held out against intervention in Libya in 2011, eventually spearheaded by France and Britain, siding with Russia in a crucial United Nations vote in defiance of its European allies.

Libya underlined the lack of a common foreign policy, let alone a common defense policy, among the 27 European partners who now face a new crisis in North Africa.

Facing recriminations from some in France that it was only its soldiers who were doing the fighting, European foreign ministers agreed on Thursday to speed up the dispatch of more than 200 military personnel to train Malian government forces to confront the Islamists.

But that was an option that had been on the table since October, when European Union officials said the alliance was considering such a move.

The E.U. also stressed that the trainers, due to be deployed by mid-February at the latest, would not be involved in combat operations.

Commenting on the outcome of Thursday’s meeting, Christophe Giltay of Belgium’s RTL broadcaster, said, “More and more French people are asking themselves if the Europeans have really understood the gravity of the situation.”

Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer and Martin Michelot of the Washington-based German Marshall Fund of the United States wrote this week that “the glacial pace at which decisions are taken at the national level to support France’s efforts in Mali only underscores the need for European leaders to be willing to discuss common security issues.”

Catherine Ashton, the European Union foreign policy chief, said on Thursday some of France’s partners were “willing to help and support France in every way and they did not rule in or rule out any aspect of that, including military support.”

But, according to the German Marshall Fund experts: “The French military is nevertheless facing the hard reality of acting on its own, with very little support from other European allies.”

SYRIA - Civil War Update, Jihadists

"Islamists Fighting with Syrian Rebels Get Arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar" (Part-1) PBS Newshour 10/15/2012

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Now to Syria, where the death toll continues to climb and there are new reports that most of the weapons sent to aid the rebellion are ending up in the hands of Islamist extremists.

Smoke mingled with sunset in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, as block-by-block battles rage between President Bashar al-Assad fighters and rebels.

MUDAR NAJAR ABU BAKER, Free Syrian Army (through translator): The dead and dying, the innocent, the breast-feeding babies, the children and the old folk, all I desire is that the world shows a little empathy for us. That is all I want.

RAY SUAREZ: To the east, in Deir el-Zour, Internet videos showed casualties in the aftermath of an airstrike. Human Rights Watch reported Sunday the Assad regime is using cluster bombs in civilian areas. They detonate above ground and scatter smaller bomblets.

Based on YouTube videos and eyewitness testimony, the group said its analysts believe the bombs are older Russian munitions of Soviet vintage.

The Syrian government denied it and Russia's foreign minister argued there's no confirmation that the ordnance was supplied by Russia.

And amid the massive human toll, a cultural casualty. The Umayyad Mosque, dating from the 12th century, was partially destroyed over the weekend.

WOMAN: Again, in Aleppo, the Syrian army defeated an armed terrorist group which was trying to occupy the Umayyad Mosque.

RAY SUAREZ: Its state TV said President Assad ordered urgent repairs. Rebels said the Syrian army had been using the mosque as a base.

Meanwhile, Turkey, a former ally of Assad, massed troops and tanks along its frontier with Syria, as refugees kept streaming over the border.

MAN (through translator): Right over there is Azmarin. That's my village. There are so many refugees here now and the camps are overflowing.

Our village has been destroyed. Houses have been burned. The regime has burned down many, many homes. One of those homes was ours.

RAY SUAREZ: For the second time in a week, the Turks also forced a Syria-bound flight to land in Turkey. The Armenian airliner was allowed to fly on after a search found it carried only humanitarian aide, but the flow of lethal assistance to the rebels was raising new questions.

The New York Times reported today that weapons principally from Saudi Arabia and Qatar are ending up mostly with hard-line Islamist groups and jihadists, and not with more secular factions favored by Western nations. The Obama administration has so far declined to ship arms to Syrian rebels, and the State Department today reiterated the concerns about who is being armed.

VICTORIA NULAND, State Department: We have been clear from the beginning that there are issues here as to where this goes and that we need to all work hard to ensure that extremists, jihadists, al-Qaida, other groups who don't share our larger interest in seeing a democratic Syria emerge from all of this, get their hands on weapons that can be used to exploit the situation.

RAY SUAREZ: The U.S. is providing select groups with what it calls nonlethal assistance in the form of communications and logistics.

"Rebels Choose to Work with Jihadists to Expedite Assad Ouster" (Part-2) PBS Newshour 10/15/2012

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SUMMARY: Weapons crossing the Turkish border into Syria are primarily aiding Islamist fighters, a condition that has made the U.S. wary of giving military support to rebels. Ray Suarez talks to former CIA analysts Philip Mudd and Paul Pillar on whether the U.S. should aid extremist rebels to accelerate the demise of Assad.

COMMENT: Need I say? This is NOT good for the West's (including U.S.) security.

AFRICA - Mali Seized by Islamic Militants

"Islamic Militants in Failed State of Mali Seize Control and Impose Sharia Law" PBS Newshour 8/20/2012

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SUMMARY: In April 2012, Islamists and local Tuareg rebels entered the city of Timbuktu and seized control, imposing sharia law. Now, popular militias train to take back the northern part of the country from the militants, who are backed by al-Qaida and other foreign jihadis. Lindsey Hilsum of Independent Television News reports.

COMMENT: Even though it's their country and they have the right to decide what they want, it is sad to see an EXTREME form of religion take hold anywhere in the world.

POLITICS - "Neocons" = "Dead-Enders"

"Neocons dissolve into chaos after GOP defeat" by CHARLOTTE RAAB, Capitol Hill Blue

Neo-conservatives, who laid out the intellectual underpinnings for US President George W. Bush's foreign policy, are in disarray following the Republicans' midterm election defeat.

Already battling with each other over continuing US military setbacks in Iraq, "neocons" are now more divided than ever following Tuesday's election nightmare which saw Republicans lose control of both houses of Congress.

Neo-conservatives essentially believe in America's ability to shape the world in its own image, and see the United States as a "benevolent hegemony" with the power to compel other nations to adopt liberal democracy.

That ideology was extended to Iraq which was supposed to become ultimately a bastion of democracy in the Middle East.

"Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this -- they were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad," said noted neocon Richard Perle in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine.

Another top neocon, Ken Adelman, had assured the administration in February 2002 that "liberating" Iraq would be a "cakewalk," but today disavows all responsibility with how the venture has turned out.

"I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national security team since (president Harry) Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the post-war era," he laments in the same Vanity Fair piece.

Joshua Muravchik, a leading conservative scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, agreed that the neocon role has been overstated.

"In reality, of course, we don't wield any of the power that contemporary legend attributes to us. Most of us don't rise at the crack of dawn to report to powerful jobs in government," he said in an article in Foreign Policy magazine.

"But it is true that our ideas have influenced the policies of President George W. Bush, as they did those of President Ronald Reagan. That does feel good. Our intellectual contributions helped to defeat Communism in the last century and, God willing, they will help to defeat jihadism in this one."

Even well-known proponents are beginning to back away from the neocon label, most notably Francis Fukuyama in his recently published book "America at the Crossroads, Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy."

"I have concluded," he writes, "that neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something that I can no longer support."

"Neo-conservatism has now become irreversibly identified with the policies of the administration of George W. Bush in his first term and any effort to reclaim the label at this point is likely to be futile."

Bold emphasis above is mine

Ah, Neo-conservatives, another group in denial. They will not admit that their philosophy is just wrong. No "one image" can be forced on the world, no matter how "powerful" a nation thinks it is. Dictators and conquerors have tired for centuries, and in the end, always have failed. The Roman Empire no longer exists, this is the history lesson on world domination.

Now it is the Islamic Extremists that need to relearn this.