Middle East Thread

[Anubis]

They had to get Syria over and done with quickly, in order to get onto the really important topic of a new Royal Yacht.

[Anubis]

Discussing Russia and Syria at the COBRA meeting....

 

 

Theresa May, PM: "Suppose you precipitate a full-scale war?"

 

Colonel West: "In that case, Madam Prime Minister, we can clean their choronometers."

[dennis tooth]

https://www.rt.com/news/362559-syria-iraq-mosul-isis/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=aplication_chrome&utm_campaign=chrome

[dennis tooth]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/12/syri-o12.html

[Section_31]

Russia once described us as 'a small island nobody listens to'. Hard to argue with that to be honest.

 

I also love MiG 29s. I'm talking sexually.

[Jairzinho]

Fucking anti-semites!

 

 

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-palestine-un-human-rights-occupation-a7362786.html

 

Israeli human rights group urges UN to take action to end country’s ‘brutal occupation of Palestine’

 

‘The rights of Palestinians must be realised, the occupation must end, the UN Security Council must act, and the time is now’

 

An Israeli human rights group urged the UN Security Council to take decisive action now to end the country's occupation of Palestinian territory. 

 

Hagai El-Ad, executive director of B'Tselem, told an informal council meeting Friday on “Illegal Israeli Settlements: Obstacles to Peace and the Two-State Solution” that Israel has controlled Palestinian lives in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the past 49 years “and counting”. 

 

“Israel will not cease being an oppressor simply by waking up one day and realising the brutality of its policies,” he said. 

With the 50th anniversary of the occupation approaching next year, El-Ad said: “The rights of Palestinians must be realised, the occupation must end, the UN Security Council must act, and the time is now.”

 

Mr El-Ad stressed that the council “has more than just power: you have a moral responsibility and a real opportunity to act with a sense of urgency before we reach the symbolic date of June 2017 and the second half of that first century begins.”

 

Another Israeli rights group, Peace Now, was invited to speak but it was represented by its sister organisation, Americans for Peace Now, which has also campaigned for an end to Israeli occupation. 

 

“The occupation is a threat to Israel’s security and to Israel's very existence,” said Lara Friedman, the group’s director of policy and government relations. 

 

When Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation signed the Oslo peace accords 23 years ago, the settler population in the West Bank was 116,000, she said. At the end of 2015, it was almost 390,000. 

 

“I urge you here today to finally take action in the Security Council to send a clear message to Israel that the international community stands by the two-state solution and unambiguously rejects policies that undermine it – including Israeli settlement policies,” Ms Friedman said. 

 

Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon accused B'Tselem of joining “Palestinian attempts to wage diplomatic terror against Israel at the UN”.

 

He also accused the group of choosing “to slander and besmirch Israel’s good name” and vowed that “we will continue to fight and tell the truth about Israel despite the attempts to spread lies about us”.

 

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, called the informal meeting “a very positive exercise” that builds on his discussions about a new UN resolution that would demand an end to Israeli settlement building. 

 

The Palestinians pushed for the Security Council to adopt a resolution against settlements in February 2011 but it was vetoed by the United States. The 14 other Security Council members voted in favour of the resolution, reflecting the wide support for the draft which had more than 100 co-sponsors. 

 

What the United States might do about a new settlements resolution remains to be seen. 

 

US deputy ambassador David Pressman told the meeting that “the United States remains firmly committed to advancing a two-state solution ... [and] we are deeply concerned about continued settlement activity”.

 

He recalled that last week the United States condemned new Israeli settlements and said that since 1 July more than 2,400 settlement units have been advanced in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This makes “a viable Palestinian state more remote”, he said. 

 

“In short, we need to start implementing the two-state solution on the ground right now,” Mr Pressman said. 

 

While a peace deal can only be achieved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, he said, “significant progress towards creating a two-state reality can be made now that will help restore hope and lay the groundwork for successful negotiations”.

 

“We continue to stress the urgency and importance of taking these steps now and refraining from actions that corrode the prospects for two states,” Mr Pressman said. 

 

Mr Mansour called Mr Pressman’s use of the word “now” twice very interesting, saying his comments are in line with strong messages from Washington expressing “outrage against the intensification of settlement activities”.

He said it was too early to say whether this would translate into US support for a new settlements resolution. 

[Jairzinho]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-documents-leak-recruits-islam-sharia-religion-faith-syria-iraq-a7193086.html

[Red Phoenix]

Wow. Kind of speechless.

 

Turkey pro-Kurdish leaders Demirtas and Yuksekdag detained

 

The two co-leaders of Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party have been detained along with other MPs, officials say.

 

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag were detained at their respective homes as part of a counter-terrorism inquiry, security sources quoted by Anadolu news agency said.

 

At least nine other HDP MPs were also taken into custody.

 

Meanwhile social networks could not be accessed from inside Turkey.

 

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Whatsapp were reported to be inaccessible shortly after the detentions, even when users tried to circumvent restrictions using a virtual private network (VPN).

 

Mr Demirtas had tweeted about his arrest before the sites were restricted.

 

Another MP from the party who is currently abroad, Ertugrul Kurkcu, told the BBC that the detentions were "totally unlawful".

 

He said: "This crackdown tonight is nothing to do with procedural law, criminal law, any law whatsoever or the constitution. This is an unlawful hijacking of HDP parliamentarians.

 

"The Turkish government is heading towards a dictatorship of Nazi style [sic].

 

"Will the Turkish government abide by the internationally accepted standards of parliamentary democracy? This is the basic question."

 

More here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37868441

[Red Phoenix]

Reuters :

 

Turkey's pro-Kurdish party HDP's 11 MPs detained - Interior Ministry

 

Turkey detained two co-leaders and nine other lawmakers of Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) early on Friday over reluctance to give testimony for crimes linked to "terrorist propaganda."

 

The Turkish Interior Ministry said detention orders for 13 MPs were issued, but only 11 were detained as two lawmakers were abroad. Lawyers had earlier said 15 MPs were detained.

 

Turkish police raided the Ankara house of co-leader Selahattin Demirtas and the house of co-leader Figen Yuksekdag in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, the party's lawyers told Reuters.

 

"HDP call international community to react against Erdogan Regime's coup," the party said on Twitter, referring to President Tayyip Erdogan.

Police also raided and searched the party's head office in central Ankara. Television images showed party officials quarreling with police during the raid, and a Reuters witness said many police cars and armed vehicles had closed the entrances to the street of the HDP headquarters.

 

A group of protesters chanting slogans tried to reach the party offices, but were stopped by police before they could enter the street, a Reuters witness said.

 

"Very bad news from Turkey. Again. Now HDP members of parliament are being detained," European Parliament's Turkey rapporteur, Kati Piri, said on Twitter.

 

A widespread difficulty in reaching social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook as well as messaging app WhatsApp were reported across Turkey after the detentions started at midnight.

 

HDP is the third largest party in the 550-seat Turkish parliament, with 59 seats. Parliamentarians in Turkey normally enjoy immunity from prosecution, but the pro-Kurdish party's immunity was lifted earlier this year.

 

Turkey accuses the HDP of links to the Kurdish militant group PKK, which is deemed a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

 

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Sandra Maler; Editing by Sandra Maler)

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-kurds-idUSKBN12Y2XA?il=0

[Anubis]

Because of the stink in Syria, Erdogan has been slipping under the radar. He's a nasty piece of work, but it aptly demonstrates the hypocrisy of the West when they bang on about democracy in other states. Their allies don't get a mention (and I'm thinking Saudi as well as Turkey now).

[setreal]

Briton who reported rape in Dubai could face jail for extramarital sex

 

Woman was arrested and had passport confiscated after reporting alleged attack by two men from Birmingham

 

A British woman who reported being raped by two men is “petrified” after being told she faces jail in Dubai for extramarital sex.

 

The 25-year-old tourist claimed she was attacked by two men while on holiday in the United Arab Emirates and reported the incident to police.

 

But officers then charged the professional from Cheshire with extramarital sex and, despite being bailed, she is not allowed to leave the country. Her passport has been confiscated and UK-based UAE legal experts Detained in Dubai said she could face a prison sentence if found guilty.

 

The family of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have set up fundraising pages online to raise money to cover her legal costs. She is currently residing in a safe house.

 

The woman’s father wrote online that his daughter had met the two men in her hotel who raped her. He claims the alleged attack was filmed. He added: “She is stranded, is not allowed to leave the country, and is alone scared, and in a dreadful situation, as you can imagine.”

 

Shortly afterwards, two men were arrested at Dubai airport. They have been named as thai boxer David Butlin, 22, and footballer Louis Harris, 24. They have both been bailed and also remain in the country.

 

Butlin and Harris, who are cousins and both live in the West Midlands, have appeared on the Instagram page of Towie’s James Argent. They were pictured at a Dubai beach club with the reality TV star. The men are understood to firmly deny the claims.

 

A relative of Harris, who lives in Lichfield, Staffordshire, said it was a “difficult” time. She said: “All I’ll say is that he’s a really lovely boy. We can’t comment further but it’s a difficult time.”

 

 

 

One neighbour – who wished to remain anonymous – said Butlin was often flying back and forth from Dubai, where the alleged rape took place. They said: “It’s always on Facebook when he goes there. It must cost a lot of money.”

 

It is understood that the UK Foreign Office is providing assistance, including the alleged victim and two UK nationals, and working with the local authorities.

 

In a post on a fundraising page, the woman’s father wrote: “She was befriended by two guys from Birmingham ... and went with them for a drink, in a hotel where they were staying, the guys concerned were travelling home in around 4/5 hours.”

 

He added: “(NAME) was taken to the police station where the incident was reported, and the prosecutor is setting a date for her trial, which is a complicated scenario because of the laws of the country.”

 

After reporting the alleged assault, the woman ended up in a prison cell. Her passport was confiscated and her family claim she now faces trial. Her relative returned to the UK and she was joined in the UAE by her mother. It is understood her mother has also now returned to the UK .

 

Her father wrote: “(NAME) has been put in a safe house, but is stranded in the country for a period of between three and six months, or even longer, until a trial date is confirmed and the case is brought to court.”

 

It is claimed that the woman has had to find a lawyer to represent her and legal costs will amount to £24,000.

 

Nine days ago her father updated the fundraising page writing: “(NAME) mum is now on her way back to the UK, she has spent as much time as she possibly could helping to get things moving in the right direction.”

 

Radha Stirling, founder and director of Detained in Dubai, said the woman could be stuck in Dubai for as long as six months even if she was found innocent.

 

“There is a huge backlog in the system,” she said. “If she wins the first stage, the prosecution can appeal and they often do … So by the time she is found innocent, by the time she gets her passport returned, we can be talking at least six months.”

 

Stirling said the UAE was not a safe place for women to report allegations of rape. “Sex outside marriage is a crime there and, therefore, if a rape allegation is made and can’t be proved to be rape then it’s almost automatic that the person is charged with voluntary sex outside marriage,” she said.

 

Stirling said it was hard to predict what the woman’s sentence would be if she were found guilty of having extramarital sex. “They have no precedent system there so while one person can be given one year for the same allegations, another person might be given one month or six months or just a deportation or a fine.”

 

She said similar cases in the past had resulted in seven-month prison sentences and that the best chance the family had to speed up the process would be to work to put diplomatic and media pressure on the UAE government.

 

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We are supporting a British woman in relation to this case and will remain in contact with her family.”

 

In 2008 an Australian woman, Alicia Gali, was jailed for eight months in Fujairah for having an illicit sexual relationship after she reported being drugged and raped by three co-workers. In 2009, the South African national Roxanne Hillier was jailed for three months after it was alleged she spent time alone with her male employer, despite medical reports suggesting she had not had sex.

 

The fundraising page has now raised more than £11,000.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/17/briton-reported-rape-dubai-extramarital-sex-charge

[Stu Monty]

Don't fucking go there then, you cretin.

 

You can't willingly go to a country that prosecutes rape victims and then be surprised when exactly that happens.

[stringvest]

Don't fucking go there then, you cretin.

 

You can't willingly go to a country that prosecutes rape victims and then be surprised when exactly that happens.

Indeed.

[Rico1304]

I've never understood the attraction of Dubai. From the stories I've heard you sit in an air conditioned car, into an air conditioned hotel or shopping centre as its hot enough to melt glass out in the sun.

[Strontium]

United Arab Emirapes

[Red Phoenix]

Rebels/Al-Qaeda related groups have recently lost around 40% of their territory in Aleppo. Comparison from May :

 

[SasaS]

What happens with Kurds when the rebels are finished? Will the government go after them?

[polymerpunkah]

They'll be next as they're in the way.

[Jairzinho]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-mosul-latest-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-leader-hiding-defeat-iraq-offensive-assault-a7392016.html

[Jairzinho]

Got bored trying to format that other one.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-aleppo-iraq-mosul-isis-middle-east-conflict-assad-war-everything-youve-read-could-be-wrong-a7451656.html

 

This is why everything you’ve read about the wars in Syria and Iraq could be wrong

 

It is too dangerous for journalists to operate in rebel-held areas of Aleppo and Mosul. But there is a tremendous hunger for news from the Middle East, so the temptation is for the media give credence to information they get second hand 

 

The Iraqi army, backed by US-led airstrikes, is trying to capture east Mosul at the same time as the Syrian army and its Shia paramilitary allies are fighting their way into east Aleppo. An estimated 300 civilians have been killed in Aleppo by government artillery and bombing in the last fortnight, and in Mosul there are reportedly some 600 civilian dead over a month.

 

Despite these similarities, the reporting by the international media of these two sieges is radically different.

In Mosul, civilian loss of life is blamed on Isis, with its indiscriminate use of mortars and suicide bombers, while the Iraqi army and their air support are largely given a free pass. Isis is accused of preventing civilians from leaving the city so they can be used as human shields.

 

Contrast this with Western media descriptions of the inhuman savagery of President Assad’s forces indiscriminately slaughtering civilians regardless of whether they stay or try to flee. The UN chief of humanitarian affairs, Stephen O’Brien, suggested this week that the rebels in east Aleppo were stopping civilians departing – but unlike Mosul, the issue gets little coverage.

 

One factor making the sieges of east Aleppo and east Mosul so similar, and different, from past sieges in the Middle East, such as the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982 or of Gaza in 2014, is that there are no independent foreign journalists present. They are not there for the very good reason that Isis imprisons and beheads foreigners while Jabhat al-Nusra, until recently the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is only a shade less bloodthirsty and generally holds them for ransom. 

 

These are the two groups that dominate the armed opposition in Syria as a whole. In Aleppo, though only about 20 per cent of the 10,000 fighters are Nusra, it is they – along with their allies in Ahrar al-Sham – who are leading the resistance.

 

Unsurprisingly, foreign journalists covering developments in east Aleppo and rebel-held areas of Syria overwhelmingly do so from Lebanon or Turkey. A number of intrepid correspondents who tried to do eyewitness reporting from rebel-held areas swiftly found themselves tipped into the boots of cars or otherwise incarcerated.

 

Experience shows that foreign reporters are quite right not to trust their lives even to the most moderate of the armed opposition inside Syria. But, strangely enough, the same media organisations continue to put their trust in the veracity of information coming out of areas under the control of these same potential kidnappers and hostage takers. They would probably defend themselves by saying they rely on non-partisan activists, but all the evidence is that these can only operate in east Aleppo under license from the al-Qaeda-type groups.

 

It is inevitable that an opposition movement fighting for its life in wartime will only produce, or allow to be produced by others, information that is essentially propaganda for its own side. The fault lies not with them but a media that allows itself to be spoon-fed with dubious or one-sided stories.

 

For instance, the film coming out of east Aleppo in recent weeks focuses almost exclusively on heartrending scenes of human tragedy such as the death or maiming of civilians. One seldom sees shots of the 10,000 fighters, whether they are wounded or alive and well.

 

None of this is new. The present wars in the Middle East started with the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which was justified by the supposed threat from Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Western journalists largely went along with this thesis, happily citing evidence from the Iraqi opposition who predictably confirmed the existence of WMD.

 

Some of those who produced these stories later had the gall to criticise the Iraqi opposition for misleading them, as if they had any right to expect unbiased information from people who had dedicated their lives to overthrowing Saddam Hussein or, in this particular case, getting the Americans to do so for them.

 

Much the same self-serving media credulity was evident in Libya during the 2011 Nato-backed uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.

 

Atrocity stories emanating from the Libyan opposition, many of which were subsequently proved to be baseless by human rights organisations, were rapidly promoted to lead the news, however partial the source.

 

The Syrian war is especially difficult to report because Isis and various al-Qaeda clones made it too dangerous to report from within opposition-held areas. There is a tremendous hunger for news from just such places, so the temptation is for the media give credence to information they get second hand from people who could in practice only operate if they belong to or are in sympathy with the dominant jihadi opposition groups.

 

It is always a weakness of journalists that they pretend to excavate the truth when in fact they are the conduit rather than the originator of information produced by others in their own interests. Reporters learn early that people tell them things because they are promoting some cause which might be their own career or related to bureaucratic infighting or, just possibly, hatred of lies and injustice.

 

A word here in defence of the humble reporter in the field: usually, it is not he or she, but the home office or media herd instinct, that decides the story of the day. Those closest to the action may be dubious about some juicy tale which is heading the news, but there is not much they can do about it.

 

Thus, in 2002 and 2003, several New York Times journalists wrote stories casting doubt on WMD only to find them buried deep inside the newspaper which was led by articles proving that Saddam had WMD and was a threat to the world.

 

Journalists and public alike should regard all information about Syria and Iraq with reasoned scepticism. They should keep in mind the words of Lakhdar Brahimi, the former UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria. Speaking after he had resigned in frustration in 2014, he said that “everybody had their agenda and the interests of the Syrian people came second, third or not at all”.

 

The quote comes from The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle Eastby Christopher Phillips, which is one of the best informed and non-partisan accounts of the Syrian tragedy yet published. He judiciously weighs the evidence for rival explanations for what happened and why. He understands the degree to which the agenda and pace events in Syria were determined externally by the intervention of foreign powers pursuing their own interests.

 

Overall, government experts did better than journalists, who bought into simple-minded explanations of developments, convinced that Assad was always on the verge of being overthrown.

 

Phillips records that at a high point of the popular uprising in July 2011, when the media was assuming that Assad was finished, that the long-serving British ambassador in Damascus, Simon Collis, wrote that “Assad can still probably count on the support of 30-40 per cent of the population.”

 

The French ambassador Eric Chevallier was similarly cautious, only to receive a classic rebuke from his masters in Paris who said: “Your information does not interest us. Bashar al-Assad must fall and will fall.”

[Jairzinho]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38248316

 

Boris has accidentally told the truth.

 

But, apparently, his views do not represent the government's position. Which, in my opinion, is perfectly fine. It's not like he's the foreign secretary or anything.

[SasaS]

It's his private position. His public position is different.

[Red Phoenix]

The battle for Aleppo is over, Syrian army have just retaken it.

[Anubis]

Seen a few tweets from Aleppo saying people are in the streets singing and chanting for Assad and the army. That won't go down well with the US narrative.

[SasaS]

No compassion, eh?