Category: Terrorism

The Evolution of Vehicles as a Terrorist Weapon | Paul Ashley | Pulse | LinkedIn

French police forces and forensic officers stand next to a truck July 15, 2016 that ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday on the Promenade des Anglais killing at least 60 people in Nice, France, July 14. Credit: Eric Gaillard/Reuters
French police forces and forensic officers stand next to a truck July 15, 2016 that ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday on the Promenade des Anglais killing at least 60 people in Nice, France, July 14. Credit: Eric Gaillard/Reuters

Since the early 1980s, vehicles have been used as a weapon in numerous terrorist attacks. The basic ‘model’ had vehicles delivering explosives to a target and then detonating them, causing death and injury. The normal saloon/sedan car has historically been seen as too small to carry out attacks. But like any other terrorist weapon, terrorists have seen greater potential in their usage.

We have now seen a different type and style of attack, after the December 19, 2016 terrorist attack in Berlin, Germany. A large heavy lorry was driven into a crowded Christmas market and has left many wondering where it is safe from such an attack and what to do should one happen.

The use of a vehicle as a terrorist weapon has its origins in 1980’s Lebanon with multiple attacks using vehicles as a tactic. The first was on April 18, 1983 when a van packed with explosives detonated outside the United States Embassy in Beirut killing 63 people.

The attacks at the time were attributed to the Islamic Jihad which was thought to be backed by Iran.Later the use of a vehicle as terrorist weapon was used again in Beirut, where large vehicles were driven into the American Marines barracks. On the October 23, 1983 a large Mercedes van was driven next to the barracks of the Marines and detonated were large numbers of soldiers were sleeping. The explosion left 146 American Marines dead. On the same day and nearly at the same time a French barracks which housed the Parachute Chasseur Regiment in Beirut was attacked using the same tactic which resulted in 58 soldiers dying.

In December 1989 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) used a large dump truck which they armoured to attack a permanent British Army checkpoint between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland border at Derryard near Rosslea, County Fermanagh. Inside the armoured vehicle, the terrorists had various weapons, including machine guns, rockets, grenades and a flame thrower, which they used to attack a small detachment of eight British soldiers and one member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Two soldiers died and one was severely wounded.In May 1992 PIRA carried out a three part coordinated attack on different security force locations in Northern Ireland. Two were carried out using a Human Proxy Bomb, where cars were used with large amounts of explosives, but failed in their attempt to blow up their target. The third location at Cloghoge vehicle checkpoint manned by the British Army was attacked using a large van which was packed with a large amount of explosives and detonated.

The attack showed remarkable ingenuity. The South Armagh Brigade of PIRA fitted a van with wheels that could be driven along a railway track. The vehicle was “driven” on the railway track until it was very close to the checkpoint. The vehicle was then detonated using a mile long wire. The explosion killed one soldier but twenty three that were inside a fortified bunker survived with injuries.

On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef, who was born from Pakistani-Palestinian parents, drove a van loaded with a 1,310-lb (590kg) bomb of urea nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced device under Tower one of the World Trade Centre in New York, United States. His intention was to destroy the tower, and hoped that it would fall onto the second tower thus destroying the World Trade Centre. He failed but events in September 11, 2001 sadly succeeded.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, an American citizen, used a Ryder truck to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma United States. The explosives consisted of several tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and a large quantity of fuel oil, which was detonated by McVeigh igniting a two minute fuse. The explosion resulted in the destruction of the entire north wall of the building along with other buildings in the area and causing many deaths.

Near the end of 2004, hostilities had died down in the Iraq war, but on December 25, 2004 terrorists found a new way of using a large vehicle to attack a target. A large fuel tanker was driven towards the Jordanian Embassy in the Mansour district of Baghdad. The vehicle failed to detonate with any truly destructive force and merely left an orange glow that lit the evening up. The vehicle split in half with one half of the tanker lodged in the gates of the Libyan Embassy and the other half landing in the small courtyard of a house approximately 75 metres away.

In Nice, France on July 14, 2016, Bastille Day, a 19 tonne lorry driven by lone wolf Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhel was driven into a celebrating crowd. He killed 84 people before being stopped. The Islamic State of the Levant, or Da’esh, had discovered a new way to use a large vehicle as a terrorist weapon.

For some time al-Qaeda and Da’esh had been using its online magazines Dabiq and Inspire to conduct lone attacks against the West using any method possible, but since the attack in Nice they have called for their followers to use large vehicles and encouraged them to drive them into large crowds. Certainly Anis Amri who drove the latest heavy vehicle in the Berlin attack listened to them.

The use of such vehicles to carry out this style of attack is likely to continue as they are easily obtained by either hijack, hired, stolen or simply purchased. The stopping of such a vehicle especially when fully laden would defy most barriers and although the small Jersey Barriers would not necessarily stop the vehicle it would certainly slow them down.

In Iraq after the 2003 invasion, and some years after, large vehicles were used to crash through various locations. In order to stop them Jersey barriers were put in place but the terrorists found that they could be breeched. In places where these barriers were in use, several suicide vehicles were used to gain entry to each level. For example on October 24, 2003 three suicide bombers in large vehicles were used to breech the barriers outside the Palestine and Sheridan Hotels in Baghdad, Iraq. This included a cement truck filled with explosives.

The first was used to breech the first layer of barriers; the second to do the same but was mistimed and missed the target. The third driver who was driving around the roundabout waiting his turn saw the explosion and drove his vehicle through the first level, thinking the second had been broken through. He was caught up and rather than being able to detonate his vehicle between the two hotels causing immense damage and death, the driver detonated the device where it had stopped causing little damage.

The lessons learnt from this were several; first where the metal handles were in the top of the barrier, a long thick ‘metal rope’ was placed and woven into all the barriers at that location. Any attempt to drive through them they would be stopped as it would be impossible to drag all the barriers. The second lesson was that where possible, a large wide trench should be dug to prevent access to the barriers.

Of course in a city these types of defence maybe impossible but it would be possible to have points of entry away from main roads and the barriers could be linked together. Another form of defence that could be used in cities is to educate the public by having some sort of air alarm that would be sounded at the start of an attack.

The types of vehicles used in recent attacks are easier to obtain than aircraft and the ability to cause mass casualties is still great but not on the same scale. Authorities are not able to do much in regards to spotting who would carry out such attacks. It is extremely important that all counter-terrorist organisations and Intelligence agencies share and pool knowledge in this area so as to limit those who are on the radar from escaping and eventually stopped before a terrorist act is carried out.

Europe is under siege at the moment and attacks of this type are likely to occur again. Strong measures must be taken to protect the public. Admitted the security forces are doing their best but with so many to watch someone somewhere will escape the net and be able to carry out another dreadful terrorist attack similar to those in Nice and Berlin. The next phase could be the use of plant vehicles such as a JCB which could scoop barriers out the way and drive through causing many fatalities.

Source: The Evolution of Vehicles as a Terrorist Weapon | Paul Ashley | Pulse | LinkedIn

ISIL ramps up fight with weaponised drones

In the past, ISIL has used drones in Iraq and Syria for general intelligence-gathering, as spotters for mortar firing, and even for filming propaganda videos [John Beck/Al Jazeera]
Mosul, Iraq – As fighting raged in eastern Mosul on a recent afternoon, a black Humvee arrived at an Iraqi army command post with a collection of plastics, electronics and rotor blades lashed to its back.

Soldiers leaped to unload the cargo, which comprised the remnants of the latest tool in ISIL’s armoury: drones.

The haul included a number of small devices of the kind favoured by filmmakers and hobbyists, costing a few hundred dollars apiece. But there were also larger, fixed-wing craft fashioned out of corrugated plastic and duct tape, apparently made by the fighters themselves.

Since mid-2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has held Mosul, after sweeping through northern Iraq in a shock offensive.

It is now their last urban stronghold in the country, and for more than two months, the Iraqi army’s operation to retake the city has met fierce resistance, including snipers, ambushes and suicide attacks using explosive-laden trucks. Drones have been used for reconnaissance and to relay instructions to suicide bombers, said General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi, a commander with the elite counterterrorism service in eastern Mosul.

“They use them to give directions to suicide car bombs coming towards us, as well as to take pictures of our forces,” Saadi told Al Jazeera.

In the past, ISIL has used drones in Iraq and Syria for general intelligence-gathering, as spotters for mortar firing, and even for filming propaganda videos. Soldiers have regularly spotted these drones over army positions on the outskirts of Mosul, prompting bursts of gunfire skywards.

But there is a fresh threat, Saadi said: ISIL has begun to use the drones themselves as weapons. “They also use a new tactic, where the drone itself has a bomb attached to it,” he explained.

This has already proven lethal. Last October, after Kurdish Peshmerga fighters downed an ISIL drone north of Mosul and began transporting it back to their base for examination, a small amount of explosive material inside the device detonated, killing two Kurdish fighters and injuring two French special forces soldiers with whom they had been working. These were the first reported casualties from one of ISIL’s weaponised drones.

Several of Iraq’s allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have long flown drones in the country for both attacks and observation. Even Saadi’s own men use small craft for reconnaissance, he said.

But American forces leading the anti-ISIL coalition have been slow to realise the threat posed by the armed group’s drone use, said PW Singer, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and an expert in robotic warfare. “We’ve known of non-state actors … using drones for years,” he told Al Jazeera. “We’ve also known that the commercial spread of the technology made it possible for anyone to buy [them],” yet the rush towards countermeasures began only recently, he added.

The defence department last July asked Congress for an extra $20m to help tackle the threat posed by ISIL’s use of unmanned aircraft, and Lieutenant General Michael Shields, director of the US Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, told reporters in October that there was “a sense of urgency” in equipping US troops with anti-drone technology.

New countermeasures have been implemented, including Battelle’s Drone Defender, a hand-held directed-energy device that can knock drones out of the sky at a distance of 400 metres. The device has already been deployed with US troops in Iraq.

Saadi, meanwhile, says that his soldiers are usually able to disable ISIL’s drones by using sniper rifles or machine guns.

“We don’t think that it is very dangerous. ISIL collects information about our forces, and we destroy the drones before they come to us,” he said.

Although ISIL’s drone fleet so far appears relatively basic, it could be developed further in the months ahead. Researchers from the UK-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group documented an ISIL “drone workshop” in Ramadi last February, where fighters had been attempting to build larger drones with potent explosive payloads crafted from the warheads of anti-aircraft missiles.

This suggests that commercially available drones are not fitting ISIL’s tactical needs, said CAR’s managing director, Marcus Wilson.

“The other models they’re trying to build are predominantly fixed-wing craft, which might allow for increased range or provide the ability to add a payload rather than just surveillance abilities, which is what we’ve observed in [our] report,” Wilson told Al Jazeera.

He said that further development seems likely, especially given ISIL’s history of designing complex components for weapons such as improvised explosive devices and producing them on an industrial scale.

“If they continue along this path, then we should be worried, because they still have a strong research and development capacity, have advanced their production abilities in the past, and still have the workshops capable of building sophisticated devices,” Wilson said.

Still, even with further development, ISIL would likely be unable to produce more than what Singer describes as “small aerial IEDs” – unlikely to cause mass casualties or alter the balance of power.

Source: ISIL ramps up fight with weaponised drones

RADICALISATION: IS THIS THE RIGHT PATH TO BE FOLLOWED OR SHOULD WE DO MORE?  France’s challenges for working out a coherent strategy against violent radicalization and terrorism. A broad (and incomplete) outline. | sicherheitspolitik-blog.de

by Milena Uhlmann

Terrorism isn’t new to the country; in its history, France has experienced a significant number of attacks. In 1995, the GIA-affiliated terrorist network of which Khaled Kelkal was part conducted several attacks, as did the Al Qaida-affiliated gang de Roubaix one year later; but until Mohammed Merah’s murders in 2012 in Toulouse and Montauban, terrorist attacks were treated as political violence in the context of anti-colonial struggles or connected to other kinds of violent conflicts abroad, such as the Bosnian War, rather than as religiously inspired or connected to social, societal and/or political issues within the country, or as some sort of atypical pathology.

Terrorist perpetrators, their networks and milieus were met with repressive instruments – a wider angle of analysis which would have allowed to tackle the threat from a more holistic perspective had not been incorporated in a counter-terrorism policy design.

FIRST STEPS – THE “ACTION PLAN AGAINST TERRORIST NETWORKS AND VIOLENT RADICALIZATION“ (2014) AND THE FIRST STRUCTURED EFFORT TO PROVIDE STATE ASSISTANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF RADICALIZATION.

With some vague kind of sense of urgency developing after an increasing number of young French men and some women started to leave for Syria to join jihadist groups there in 2012/13, the French government put together the “Plan de lutte contre les filières terroristes et la radicalisation violente“ (Action Plan against Terrorist Networks and Violent Radicalization), comprised of 22 measures. This plan dating from April 2014 put priorities on impeding travel to Syria, preventing online jihadist propaganda, the hesitant start of diffusion of so called „counter narratives“, strengthening judicial instruments against jihadist networks and implementing prevention and reintegration strategies.In April the same year, the government created a national hotline (“numéro vert“) as part of a new structure called „Centre national d’assistance et de prévention de la radicalisation“ (National Assistance and Radicalization Prevention Center, CNAPR). Persons believed to be wanting to leave to the region, or to have radicalized / be on the path to radicalization, can since be reported to the CNAPR. The calls are taken by police officers from the “Unité de coordination de la lutte antiterroriste” (Coordination Unit for the Fight Against Terrorism, UCLAT), who are assisted by a psychologist. It receives on average between 60 and 80 calls every day. From the end of April 2014 until end of September 2016, 12.265 alerts had been processed either by the CNAPR or the Security Staff in the prefectures (4.015 of them had been signaled until March 2015, 8.250 until January 2016). In total, 15.000 persons have been signaled through UCLAT, the prefectures or different intelligence services; 80 percent of them are adults, 70 percent of those are males, whilst females make up for the biggest part of the minors. 36 percent are converts. Seven percent of those signaled left to the SYRAQ region, and 20 per cent of them died there. Of the total number of persons, UCLAT is monitoring about 2.000 which are deemed potentially dangerous.

The information gathered and analyzed is forwarded to the prefecture responsible for the region the signaled person lives in as well as to the internal intelligence service (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure, DGSI). The prefect then notifies the relevant public prosecutor. If the reported case concerns a minor, the prosecutor can then strive for the implementation of educational assistance measures with regard to the family concerned. With the prosecutor’s consent, the prefect also notifies the mayor of the municipality the person concerned lives in. In conjunction with the prosecutor, the prefect orders stings the relevant local follow-up unit into action, which each département (county) was ordered to create in February 2015. Critics argue that this system relies too heavily on state and security services, which is partially keeping people from calling the hotline and working together with the units.

These units consist of state institutions (such as the police, the justice sector and the employment agency), regional and local authorities (such as social services) and local associative networks. Through these different actors, the units are meant to aim at providing tailored measures to assist the families of the individual in question as well as the individual him/herself. A social worker is supposed to be assigned to each case to keep track of the process. Whilst the prefect initiates this action, the role of the mayor is to assure comprehensive and coherent action taking into account the individual situation of the individual in question. Local and intercommunal councils on security and crime prevention (Conseils locaux et intercommunaux de sécurité et de prévention de la délinquance, CLISPD) should be implicated as well. Via the CLISPD, the prefect can entrust a deputy prefect with the mission to take up preventive measures and to create fallow-up units in the counties.

Apart from the fact that CLISPD are only created for municipalities with a population of more than 10.000 inhabitants and consequently this instrument cannot be used in certain rural areas, other structural problems persist: the division of tasks is not always clear, and the phenomenon of radicalization is complex. There is thus some confusion about who can or should do what, and those who find themselves confronted with the phenomenon all too often lack specific knowledge and expertise, as has amongst others been pointed out to by the Association of the Mayors of France (Association des maires de France, AMF).

Furthermore, it is proving difficult to find trained specialists who are capable of working with radicalized persons, and some families are not willing to cooperate with the follow-up unit designed for changing the path of one of their kin. This is stated by the Inter-ministerial Guide for Prevention of Radicalization dating from March 2016, provided by the Inter-ministerial Committee for Prevention of Crime and Radicalization (Comité interministériel de prévention de la délinquance et la radicalisation, CIPDR), the institution in charge of the non-repressive pillar of the French prevention efforts which is also responsible for the monitoring and quality assurance of the work of the follow-up units. In its report to the parliament for the year 2015, the CIPDR is stating that the follow-up units are not being handled coherently, with confusion over the the roles of the different partners, affecting the efficiency of the work of the units.

This is aggravated by the large and steadily growing number of those being followed-up upon with the goal of disengaging them from violence, posing a problem to proper monitoring in general: by 13th October 2016, 2.240 persons had been directed into programs monitored by local units, as well as 972 families (1.600 persons / 800 families in May 2016). Furthermore, a large number of the individuals concerned are at the same time being followed-up upon by the police, implying a heightened level of radicalization of these individuals.

THE FIRST NON-STATE PARTNER OF THE GOVERNMENT IN THE FIGHT AGAINST RADICALIZATION – THE “CENTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF SECTARIAN ABERRATIONS LINKED TO ISLAM“ (CPDSI)

The first actor that had been commissioned with the work of disengagement simultaneously to the creation of the national hotline in April 2014 was the Center for the Prevention of Sectarian Aberrations Linked to Islam (Centre de prévention des dérives sectaires liées à l’Islam, CPDSI). … …  

… KEEP READING AT 

France’s challenges for working out a coherent strategy against violent radicalization and terrorism. A broad (and incomplete) outline. | sicherheitspolitik-blog.de

 

Milena Uhlmann is Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) in London and the author of various publications on conversion to Islam in Western Europe, radicalization processes and deradicalization approaches. (Latest publication: “Radicalisation et déradicalisation”, co-authored chapter with Asiem El Difraoui in his recent book “Le djihadisme”, Presses Universitaires de France, 2016) Since the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks until after the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015, she has mainly worked in France on issues related to these phenomena. The views expressed are solely those of the author.

SONO LE NOSTRE SOCIETÀ SICURE? …  Turchia: strage in night club a Istanbul, 39 morti e 69 feriti. Tra le vittime 15 stranieri – Medio Oriente – ANSA.it

 

Il terrorismo colpisce la Turchia nella notte di Capodanno:

è di almeno 39 morti e 69 feriti l’ultimo bilancio ufficiale di un attacco avvenuto in una famosa e affollatissima discoteca di Istanbul, non ancora rivendicato ma le cui caratteristiche fanno pensare a un attentato a firma Isis. Al momento identificate 21 vittime, di cui 15 straniere.

IL VIDEO, TERRORISTA RIPRESO DURANTE L’ATTACCO

L’attentatore del nightclub Reina di Istanbul non indossava il costume di Babbo Natale, come riferito finora da alcune testimonianze, e ha lasciato la pistola prima di fuggire. Lo ha detto il premier turco, Binali Yildirim.

E nel pomeriggio un uomo armato ha sparato davanti ad una moschea di Istanbul ferendo almeno due persone prima di fuggire. Lo riferiscono i media locali. La sparatoria è avvenuta nel quartiere di Sariyer.

LA STRAGE – Non ci sono italiani coinvolti nel sanguinoso attacco di stanotte alla celebre discoteca ‘Reina’ del centralissimo quartiere Besiktas di Istanbul. Ne ha dato notizia il ministro degli Esteri, Angelino Alfano. E queste sembrano essere finora fra le poche certezze che emergono dopo 15 ore dall’attacco, che è ancora largamente avvolto nella confusione e ancora non è stato rivendicato: non si sa con certezza se il terrorista abbia agito effettivamente da solo.

Di lui si sa che è entrato vestito di nero e incappucciato con un fucile automatico in braccio con cui ha sparato ad un agente di guardia al locale, che all’interno era vestito di bianco con un cappello a pon-pon bianco, che si è cambiato dopo aver massacrato le persone all’interno del locale, “sparando ovunque, come un pazzo”, ed è riuscito a fuggire nella notte, scatenando stamani una gigantesca caccia all’uomo estesa a tutta la Turchia alla quale partecipano almeno 17.000 agenti. Le poche certezze sono quelle suggerite dalle immagini catturate dalle telecamere di sicurezza, ma alcuni testimoni sopravissuti alla strage hanno raccontato di aver sentito sparare più di una persona, forse due o tre terroristi.

                  …CONTINUA A LEGGERE A: 

Turchia: strage in night club a Istanbul, 39 morti e 69 feriti. Tra le vittime 15 stranieri – Medio Oriente – ANSA.it

A new wild card in Afghanistan war: Russia – CSMonitor.com

An Afghan soldier inspects the site of a Taliban suicide attack in Kabul in September. Russia has reportedly reached out to the Taliban to stem the spread of ISIS in Afghanistan.

Russia is worried that terrorists could be fleeing from Syria to Afghanistan and is moving to counter. It has many of the same goals as the US in Afghanistan, but different motivations.

Next month, Donald Trump will inherit the nation’s longest war – the war in Afghanistan. More than 8,000 United States troops remain there, 15 years on, primarily to support Afghan forces in their battle against the Taliban, while the Islamic State, or ISIS, has also gained a foothold.

For a president-elect who abhors nation-building – and castigated President Obama for prematurely pulling out of Iraq – Afghanistan presents few good options.

Peace talks with the Taliban, hosted by Pakistan, have gone nowhere. Afghan troops are more effective, but still reliant on US air power. The Taliban’s territorial control is at its greatest extent since it lost power in 2001.

One wild card is Russia. This week Russia hosted talks on Afghanistan’s security with Pakistani and Chinese envoys, the third such meeting and a sign, say analysts, of rising Russian concern over instability and Islamic extremism on the borders of its sphere of influence.

Could Moscow be a useful partner in Afghanistan? Or will it only add to the regional rivalries that perpetuate the conflict?

On one hand, Afghanistan is not Syria. There, Russia supports a regime that the US opposes. In Afghanistan, both powers want to see the Kabul government deny sanctuary to ISIS and Al Qaeda. That could present a common agenda.

“The Russians have been content to see the US tied down in Afghanistan and watch from afar. Now ISIS is making inroads in Afghanistan … I think Russia is starting to get worried,” says Lisa Curtis, an expert on South Asia at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

But Russia, which still bears the memory of the disastrous 1979 Soviet invasion, has a narrower agenda than the US has had in Afghanistan.

“Russia’s interests are not so much in Afghanistan itself but in preventing any instability spilling over into Central Asia,” says Paul Stronksi, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Russia’s pursuit of that agenda has made its role hard to pin down. For instance, Russia has warned that ISIS fighters from Syria are flowing into Afghanistan, giving them a rear base to attack Russia. In response, it is deepening its ties to the Taliban, seeking to root out ISIS from its Afghan sanctuaries, say analysts.

That could be useful for brokering political talks with Kabul – a US goal. But any material support for the Taliban would undermine US efforts to build Afghan forces capable of defeating all militants. Russia has denied helping the Taliban and said its goal is to promote peace talks.

“What we see from Moscow is a short-term tactical approach that could backfire on them,” says Ms. Curtis, a former US diplomat and adviser to the State Department.

Russia’s diplomacy has also raised hackles in Kabul. The Afghan government complained this week that it had been excluded from the Moscow talks. In a joint statement, China, Pakistan, and Russia said they would invite Afghanistan to the next meeting.

They also said that China and Russia would work with the United Nations to promote peace talks by removing Afghans from sanctions lists, a reference to Taliban leaders who are barred from international travel.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump gave few clues about his views on Afghanistan, a war that had largely fallen from public view. Given his claims that Mr. Obama “founded” ISIS because he yanked US troops from Iraq, US military deployment in Afghanistan is unlikely to end anytime soon, say analysts.

Trump might want to step up the pace of counterterrorism missions, in addition to the training and support for Afghan troops, says Curtis. “It’s safe to assume we’ll remain engaged in Afghanistan.”

One difference between Iraq and Afghanistan, says Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, is that political leaders in Afghanistan want US troops there, unlike former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Mr. Korb says he expects Trump to continue a policy of trying to nudge the warring parties toward negotiations while supporting Afghan military and civilian forces – roughly in line with Obama’s current policy.

“We’re in a situation where the costs are relatively low. We may not be winning but we’re not losing dramatically, and the hope is that we could get some sort of settlement,” he says.

By Simon Montlake

Source: A new wild card in Afghanistan war: Russia – CSMonitor.com

Why the Resilience of Islamist Militants Will Threaten Security Across Africa in 2017

The violence of ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliates threatens to spread far beyond Nigeria and Somalia.

BY  ON 12/30/16 AT 9:00 AM

On December 23 the Nigerian army achieved a significant milestone in its long war against Boko Haram, capturing what was described as the Islamist militant group’s last stronghold in the remote Sambisa Forest in the country’s northeast near the border with Cameroon. On Christmas Eve, President Muhammadu Buhari triumphantly tweeted that it was the “final crushing of the Boko Haram terrorists” who were “on the run and no longer have a place to hide.” The remarkable turnaround of the conflict in less than two years deserves to be applauded, but the latest victory is unlikely to put an end to terrorist attacks in Africa’s most populous country, much less extinguish the flame of militancy and violence that presents one of the biggest obstacles to the otherwise the buoyant economic prospects for the continent, with 2016’s moderate average growth expected to accelerate to 4.5 percent in 2017. Nigeria’s struggle against Boko Haram illustrates both the resilience of the threat and what might be done to counter it.

After years of ceding ground to Boko Haram, so much so that by 2014 the group had consolidated its hold over a territory larger than Belgium and proclaimed a self-styled “emirate,” the Nigerian armed forces adopted a new strategy and began fighting back. While the counterattack began in the waning days of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, things began to change after Buhari, a retired major-general, won a historic (and decisive) election victory over the incumbent in March 2015, in part by promising to defeat the militants.

Cashiering his predecessor’s military chiefs shortly after taking office, Buhari installed new commanders, including a chief of army staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, who is a native of Borno, the epicenter of the insurgency. He also moved command headquarters close to the fighting. Since then, in concert with a multinational force from neighboring countries, the Nigerian military has pursued an aggressive strategy, combining an intensive air campaign with a surge of troops on the ground, gradually pushing Boko Haram out of the towns it occupied and, increasingly, in remote hideouts like “Camp Zero,” the base that fell on December 23.

Along the way, as I had the opportunity to witness firsthand in November when I toured the battlefront, the Nigerian army also took on the task of not only providing security to the populations it liberated, but also, until aid groups and development organizations returned, providing humanitarian relief, medical assistance, and even education and livelihood training. For example, the civil-military operations carried out by the battalion I spent time with in Pulka, just a few kilometers from what were at the time Boko Haram positions in the Sambisa Forest, were critical to the wellbeing of the community and served to rally the population to support the government’s push against the militant group.

Notwithstanding the success of the military operations, Boko Haram remains a force to be reckoned with. In response to defeats, the militants shifted tactics, expanding their use of suicide bombings, most of which have targeted the civilian population. Just days before the capture of its forest bastion, Boko Haram staged a pair of attacks on a busy market in the town of Madagali that left 56 people dead and more than 120 wounded. Nor does its most recent setback seem to be having much effect on the terrorists’ operational tempo: two suicide bombers struck in northern Cameroon on Christmas Day and another attacked a busy cattle market in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, the next day. Moreover, Boko Haram’s elusive longtime leader Abubakar Shekau surfaced this week in a new video in which he claimed that he and his followers were “safe” and would continue their fight “to establish an Islamic Caliphate” separate from Nigeria. Alongside the strengths of Boko Haram, the Nigerian military faced its own frustration in its attempts to purchase aircraft and other military platforms from the United States; it recently turned to Russia and Pakistan to obtain warplanes after a proposal to buy American-made A-29 Super Tucano attack planes stalled.

Meanwhile, the schism within Boko Haram may be contributing to the intensification, rather than diminution, of violence as both factions try to outdo each other in staging attacks. In early 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and formally rebranded itself as the “Islamic State West Africa Province;” however, the group split between those loyal to Shekau and those now following Abu Musab al-Barnawi, whom ISIS appointed as the new “governor” (wali) of its “province” in August. Even if the group was weakened in Nigeria, militants still spilled into neighboring countries, causing Cameroon and Niger, for example, to rise in the 2016 edition of the Global Terrorism Index to 13th place and 16th place, respectively.

Resilience is a characteristic shared not only by ISIS-aligned groups in Africa like Boko Haram, but also al-Qaeda affiliates such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Somalia’s al-Shabaab. Despite being mauled by the French-led intervention in Mali in 2013, AQIM has bounced back to stage a series of deadly attacks in 2016, including hits on luxury hotels in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, countries that had not previously not been hit by terrorism.

In Somalia, despite punishing U.S. airstrikes, al-Shabab appears far from finished. Notwithstanding the presence of a 20,000-strong African Union force in the country to prop up the weak but internationally backed government, al-Shabab continues to be able to regularly seize control of towns like Mahadaay, a strategic crossroads the militants took over on December 19 after driving out regime soldiers. This came just days after the militants briefly overran El Wak, a town near the border with Kenya, a country that has repeatedly suffered attacks by al-Shabab in the last year.

The continuing threat posed by these varied militant groups is the result of their exploitation of local conflicts and social, economic, and political marginalization, as well as the fragile condition of many of the states affected. This weakness often manifests in a low capacity to resist militants overall and a tendency towards ham-fisted responses that aggravate grievances. In some cases, defeat spurs the extremists to adapt new strategies that result in renewed vigor—an example is the fragmentation of AQIM’s organization in the Sahel in the wake of the Mali intervention. The multiplication of factions along ethnic lines facilitated both the members’ blending into local populations and their making inroads among them; one splinter group, the ethnic-Fulani jihadist Macina Liberation Front, freed 93 suspected militants in a jailbreak in early December.

In other instances, the manifest failure to achieve political settlements propels the resurgence of otherwise weakened militant groups—in Somalia, the utter fiasco of the process for selecting a new government in Somalia, including the sale of electoral seats for up to $1.3 million and the recent postponement for the fourth time of the presidential vote, serves as an example. New instability, such as the crisis now underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo thanks to President Joseph Kabila’s decision to hold on to power despite his term of office expiring on December 19, presents armed movements with additional opportunities, underscored by the recent massacre of civilians in the country’s east.

Even where they do not pose an existential threat to the states affected, the various militant jihadists currently active across Africa can have a disproportionate impact on their fortunes. Counterinsurgency campaigns are expensive affairs that divert resources from the investments in infrastructure, education, and health, which Africa’s emerging economies need to make if they are position themselves to take advantage of the current growth opportunities. Ivory Coast may be Africa’s new economic powerhouse, with a diversified economy and growth in 2016 expected to hit 8.5 percent, the second-highest in the world, but more attacks such as the one in March by AQIM can still scare off foreign investors who are just beginning to discover its potential. The stakes are even higher for country like Nigeria: Africa’s biggest economy slipped into recession this year and continued insecurity—not just from Boko Haram, but also militant groups in the oil-producing southeast such as the Niger Delta Avengers —doesn’t help.

            …CONTINUE READING AT

Why the Resilience of Islamist Militants Will Threaten Security Across Africa in 2017

“Nothing to do with Islam”?

 

It is my personal opinion that the following article opens an important perspective on the Islamic world and how it is perceived or “misperceived” from us “Westerners.”

Personally, I do not 100% agree with the vision described, also because I know many Muslims that have nothing to do with this “interpretation” of the Muslim religion, but It remain the fact that we should all stop to always try to justify and disconnect the extremist part of Islam from the “general Islam”.

The most important thing that we should all understand is that “terrorism” triggered on religion cannot be treated like any other form of Terrorism.  In fact, if with “general terroristic groups” (thus not triggered by faith) there is always the possibility to “find an exit”, with religious terrorism there is no chance.

How could you say to a person who acts in the name of a god, that god has changed his mind? 

I live to you all any further consideration on this article, and more generally on the “big issue”.

Danilo Amelotti

 

Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.” — The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.”

The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs… Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world. Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate. Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches… Al Azhar teaches stoning people. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?” — Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr, a scholar of Islamic law and graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University.

The jihadists who carry out terrorist attacks in the service of ISIS, for example, are merely following the commands in the Quran, both 9:5, “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them…” and Quran 8:39, “So fight them until there is no more fitna [strife] and all submit to the religion of Allah.

“Archbishop Welby — and Egypt’s extraordinary President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — has finally had the courage to say in public that if one insists on remaining “religiously illiterate,” it is impossible to solve the problem of religiously motivated violence.

For the first time, a European establishment figure from the Church has spoken out against an argument exonerating ISIS and frequently peddled by Western political and cultural elites. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, speaking in France on November 17, said that dealing with the religiously-motivated violence in Europe”

requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that ISIS is ‘nothing to do with Islam’… Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.

“Archbishop Welby also said that, “It’s very difficult to understand the things that impel people to some of the dreadful actions that we have seen over the last few years unless you have some sense of religious literacy”.

“Religious literacy” has indeed been in short supply, especially on the European continent. Nevertheless, all over the West, people with little-to-no knowledge of Islam, including political leaders, journalists and opinion makers, have all suddenly become “experts” on Islam and the Quran, assuring everybody that ISIS and other similarly genocidal terrorist groups have nothing to do with the purported “religion of peace,” Islam.

It is therefore striking finally to hear a voice from the establishment, especially a man of the Church, oppose, however cautiously, this curiously uniform (and stupefyingly uninformed) view of Islam. Until now, establishment Churches, despite the atrocities committed against Christians by Muslims, have been exceedingly busy only with so-called “inter-faith dialogue.” Pope Francis has even castigated Europeans for not being even more accommodating towards the migrants who have overwhelmed the continent, asking Europeans:

“What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom?… the mother of great men and women who upheld, and even sacrificed their lives for, the dignity of their brothers and sisters?

“(Perhaps the Pope, before rhetorically asking Europeans to sacrifice their lives for their migrant “brothers and sisters” should ask himself whether many of the Muslim migrants in Europe consider Europeans their “brothers and sisters”?)

A statement on Islam is especially significant coming from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the senior bishop and principal leader of the Anglican Church and the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, which stands at around 85 million members worldwide, the third-largest communion in the world.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (left), recently said that dealing with the religiously-motivated violence in Europe “requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that ISIS is ‘nothing to do with Islam’… Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.” (Image source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

Only a year ago, commenting on the Paris massacres, the Archbishop followed conventional politically correct orthodoxy, pontificating that, “The perversion of faith is one of the most desperate aspects of our world today.” He explained that Islamic State terrorists have distorted their faith to the extent that they believe they are glorifying their God. Since then, he has clearly changed his mind.

Can one expect other Church leaders and political figures to heed Archbishop Welby’s words, or will they be conveniently overlooked? Western leaders have noticeably practiced selective hearing for many years and ignored truths that did not fit the “narrative” politicians apparently wished to imagine, especially when spoken by actual experts on Islam. When, in November 2015, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah Nasr, a scholar of Islamic law and graduate of Egypt’s Al Azhar University, explained why the prestigious institution, which educates mainstream Islamic scholars, refused to denounce ISIS as un-Islamic, none of them was listening:

“The Islamic State is a byproduct of Al Azhar’s programs. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic? Al Azhar says there must be a caliphate and that it is an obligation for the Muslim world. Al Azhar teaches the law of apostasy and killing the apostate. Al Azhar is hostile towards religious minorities, and teaches things like not building churches, etc. Al Azhar upholds the institution of jizya [extracting tribute from non-Muslims]. Al Azhar teaches stoning people. So can Al Azhar denounce itself as un-Islamic?”

Nor did Western leaders listen when The Atlantic, hardly an anti-establishment periodical, published a study by Graeme Wood, who researched the Islamic State and its ideology in depth. He spoke to members of the Islamic State and Islamic State recruiters and concluded:

“The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam”.

In the United States, another establishment figure, Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump’s incoming White House Chief of Staff, recently made statements to the same effect as the Archbishop of Canterbury. “Clearly there are some aspects of that faith that are problematic and we know them; we’ve seen it,” Priebus said when asked to comment on incoming National Security Adviser former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s view that Islam is a political ideology that hides behind being a religion.

In much of American society, Flynn’s view that Islam is a political ideology is considered controversial, despite the fact that the political and military doctrines of Islam, succinctly summarized in the concept of jihad, are codified in Islamic law, sharia, as found in the Quran and the hadiths. The jihadists who carry out terrorist attacks in the service of ISIS, for example, are merely following the commands in the Quran, both 9:5, “Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them…” and Quran 8:39, “So fight them until there is no more fitna [strife] and all submit to the religion of Allah.”

The question becomes, then, whether other establishment figures will also acknowledge what someone like Archbishop Welby — and Egypt’s extraordinary President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — has finally had the courage to say in public: that if one insists on remaining “religiously illiterate,” it is impossible to solve the problem of religiously motivated violence.

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Source: “Nothing to do with Islam”?

Fate of ‘Jihadi John’ Is Unknown After Airstrike, Kerry and Cameron Say – The New York Times

LONDON — Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said on Friday that they did not yet know the outcome of an airstrike the American military launched on Thursday to kill Mohammed Emwazi, the Islamic State’s most notorious executioner.

The two officials spoke, in separate briefings in Tunis and London, the morning after the Pentagon confirmed that the airstrike, near the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, had targeted Mr. Emwazi, a 27-year-old British citizen who became known as Jihadi John.On Friday, a senior official with the United States military said it had used a Reaper drone armed with Hellfire missiles to attack a car in which Mr. Emwazi and another militant were thought to be traveling.

“We think we got him,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, adding that it could take a few days to get solid confirmation.

Calling the Islamic State an “evil terrorist death cult,” Mr. Cameron defended the decision to target Mr. Emwazi, who was born in Kuwait and is a naturalized British citizen, as “an act of self-defense” and “the right thing to do.

“We have been working, with the United States, literally around the clock to track him down,” Mr. Cameron said. “This was a combined effort, and the contribution of both our countries was essential. Emwazi is a barbaric murderer.”

Using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS, Mr. Cameron added, “He was ISIL’s lead executioner, and let us never forget that he killed many, many Muslims, too.”

At a news conference in Tunis, Mr. Kerry confirmed that the outcome of the airstrike was not yet known but said that it should serve as a warning.

“We are still assessing the results of this strike, but the terrorists associated with Daesh need to know this: Your days are numbered, and you will be defeated,” Mr. Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “There is no future, no path forward for Daesh, which does not lead ultimately to its elimination, to its destruction.”

Civil liberties advocates have criticized any official British attempt to kill Mr. Emwazi as possibly unlawful, in a debate that paralleled the criticism over the Obama administration’s decision to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and a United States citizen, in Yemen in 2011.

 

Mr. Emwazi, who was first known only as an unidentified, masked man with a British accent, first came to prominence in August 2014, when the Islamic State released a video in which the journalist James Foley was shown reading a statement criticizing President Obama and the American military operation against the Islamic State in Iraq. His captor then beheaded him off camera and then threatened to behead another journalist, Steven J. Sotloff, if his demands were not met.

Two weeks later, the Islamic State released a video showing the masked man beheading Mr. Sotloff.

The Washington Post revealed Mr. Emwazi’s identity in February, reporting that he grew up in a well-off family that moved to Britain when he was a child, and that he had studied computer science at the University of Westminster. The revelation touched off intense examination of the causes of radicalization among Muslim immigrants in Europe.

Mr. Emwazi was part of a group of network of friends, called the “North London Boys” by some intelligence analysts, who prayed at the same mosque and became captivated by an Egyptian-born cleric, Hani al-Sibai. Mr. Sibai is thought to have close links to the Tunisian branch of Ansar al-Shariah, a Salafist group that has been linked to a deadly attack in June on tourists in Tunisia.

The leader of this network was Bilal al-Berjawi, who was stripped of his British citizenship in 2011 after he went to Somalia to join the Islamist group known as the Shabab, and was killed by an American drone strike the next year. That same year, Mohamed Sakr, another friend, was also killed by a drone strike in Somalia.

Continue reading the main story Fate of ‘Jihadi John’ Is Unknown After Airstrike, Kerry and Cameron Say – The New York Times

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Why are the naive politicos making Guantanamo Shaker Aamer a martyr? asks LEO MCKINSTRY | Leo McKinstry | Columnists | Comment | Daily Express

The release of detainee Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo Bay has driven our political class and parts of the media to new depths of selfabasement.

From the orchestrated explosion of rejoicing across the airwaves, you would have thought that Aamer was a nationally cherished prisoner of conscience, Britain’s answer to Nelson Mandela.

As politicians, lawyers and campaigners lined up to celebrate and wallow in sentimentality, broadcasters provided a breathless commentary on his arrival in Britain at Biggin Hill airport, courtesy of a Gulfstream private jet with the £50,000 cost met, inevitably, by the taxpayer.

The adulation continued long after the aircraft landed. A doctor who examined him declared that Aamer “has got a fantastic sense of humour and a beaming smile”. It should be little wonder that the former Guantanamo detainee was grinning.

Like several others released to Britain by the US, he is in line for no less than £1million in compensation from the Government. That lavish payout is as sickening as the hysterical coverage.

Both show an elite that has lost its moral compass for Shaker Aamer’s story is much darker than the sanitised version fed to the public. He has constantly been described as a “British resident” or even just “a Briton”. But he is nothing of the sort.

Born in 1968 he is actually a Saudi national who only came to Britain in the mid- 1990s. He gained indefinite leave to remain in 1996 through his marriage to British Muslim Zin Siddique, whom he met through a Battersea mosque.

But he soon showed his real contempt for this country in the summer of 2001 by taking his young family to Afghanistan, then under the barbaric rule of the Taliban. According to one Left-wing journalist who later interviewed his wife, Aamer “wanted to be part of building a pure Islamic state, leaving Britain and western culture behind for ever.”

After 9/11 he took Zin and his children to Pakistan but, damningly, he returned alone to Afghanistan where he was soon taken prisoner by American forces. His supporters deny that he was a terrorist, claiming that he was working for an Islamic charity though no details of this organisation have ever been revealed.

Moreover, they say he was subject to torture and degradation in contravention of his basic human rights. His lawyers say that despite being held for more than 13 years no charges were brought.

On the other hand the Americans claimed to have powerful evidence to support his detention at Guantanamo. It is often said that Aamer was “cleared” by the US authorities in 2007 but that is typical of the distortions which riddle this saga.

He was not “cleared” in the sense of being declared innocent but merely accepted by the Pentagon for transfer to his native Saudi Arabia. Amid the political wrangling, Aamer eventually insisted on being returned to soft-touch Britain.

Why does he have nothing to fear from the British legal system? The main reasons are: Britain has no jurisdiction over offences committed in Afghanistan; evidence collected by US interrogators would probably be inadmissible in court; and eye-witness statements and forensic material would be hard to find.

After all, a battlefield is a combat zone not a crime scene. The metropolitan elite never want to learn from their past errors. In 2004 Jamal Al Harith, a resident of Manchester, was released from Guantanamo and awarded £1million in compensation.

The Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett said that he and other freed detainees “posed no threat” to Britain. Yet now Harith is reported to be fighting for Islamic State in Syria. That case just shows how badly our rulers have failed us in the fight against jihadism.

A supporter welcomes Shaker Aamer to the UK

Only a supine bunch of metropolitan chatterers, devoid of patriotism and common sense, would think that Britain has any obligation to a Saudi Arabian dogmatist. What seems to motivate the politicians is a pathetic mix of cowardice and vanity.

They simultaneously want to appease our enemies while signalling their own magnanimity. Yet the idea that Islamists will be impressed by Britain’s conduct over the Shaker Aamer case is idiocy.

They will be laughing at a self-inflicted humiliation. And they would be right. The eagerness to shower Aamer with praise and cash comes from the same treacherous impulse to destroy our borders, impose multi-culturalism, cling to the EU and squander a fortune in foreign aid.

We are governed by politicians who plan to give Aamer £1million, yet – as this paper reported on Saturday – want to wrench a seriously ill 91-year-old, Myrtle Cothill, from her devout Catholic family in Dorset and deport her to South Africa because she did not fill in the correct immigration form.

Supporters of Shaker Aamer pose for the cameras

Similarly, while Aamer walks free, decorated Royal Marine Sergeant Alexander Blackman is languishing in prison having been convicted of the murder of a Taliban insurgent in 2011. Last week there was a large rally, led by uniformed troops, in central London in support of Sergeant Blackman and addressed by Express columnist Frederick Forsyth.

Tellingly, the BBC gave it little coverage. It was too busy fixating on Aamer, ignoring the real British injustice. That says everything about the warped values of our rulers and their media cheerleaders.

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Source: Why are the naive politicos making Guantanamo Shaker Aamer a martyr? asks LEO MCKINSTRY | Leo McKinstry | Columnists | Comment | Daily Express

Putin avverte: guerra mondiale sempre più probabile!

Tra i molti articoli riguardanti Putin e le sue discussioni sui recenti fatti che coinvolgono la Russia nella guerra al terrorismo in Siria, l’articolo che segue da una buona visuale sui problemi che tutto il mondo potrebbe presto dover affrontare.

Non si può negare che, nell’immobilismo generale, Putin sia al momento l’unico Leader “occidentale” a contrastare con mano ferma la predominanza terroristica nella regione.  Non solo, spesso le sue allocuzioni palesano e ripercorrono pensieri comuni letti nei vari commenti a fatti recenti in tutte le piattaforme di social media, ovvero, la dove a parlare non sono testate giornalistiche strumentalizzate o politici che mirano a conquistare una o un’altra fazione, ma sono “la gente qualunque”, che vedendo ciò che succede nel mondo esprime il suo “semplice ed ingenuo” pensiero!

Si potrebbe pensare che anche il Presidente Putin legga i Social media, e nel tentativo (per il momento di successo) di conquistare l’opinione pubblica, segua semplicemente il desiderio del popolo.  Ma bisogna comunque fare attenzione;  non bisogna infatti credere che “il lupo” sia improvvisamente diventato buono, bensì capire che comunque la si voglia mettere e guardare, quel lupo sta facendo il suo interesse, e che quando esso cesserà, probabilmente, ritornerà ad essere quel lupo che tutti conoscevamo.

In virtù di questa mia considerazione allora, sarebbe bene che le nostre forze politiche smettessero di tergiversare su ogni decisione (quasi come se il tempo possa realmente risolvere i problemi la dove ormai sono diventati fatti), ed iniziassero ad attuare delle reali politiche estere difensive dei nostri e degli altrui diritti e territori!

Come sempre vi lascio all’articolo dal quale ho preso spunto, con la certezza che molti di voi non potranno far altro che pensare: “cavolo, Putin ha proprio ragione”!

Danilo Amelotti

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L’ARTICOLO:

Agli Usa: “perchè fare distinzione tra i terroristi in moderati e non moderati? Le armi fornite alla cosiddetta opposizione ‘moderata’ in Siria sono finite direttamente nelle mani dei terroristi”.

ROMA (WSI) – L’avvento di una guerra mondiale sta diventando ogni giorno più probabile. A lanciare l’allarme – o la minaccia? – è Vladimir Putin, presidente della Russia, che non ha assolutamente intenzione di fare un passo indietro nelle strategie ben chiare di politica estera, e che accusa piuttosto gli Stati Uniti: “loro e solo loro sarebbero responsabili dell’escalation delle tensioni in Medio Oriente e nel mondo”… Anche perchè poi, sul fronte del disarmo nucleare – sottolinea – non c’è stato alcun progresso. Avevamo il diritto di aspettarci che lo sviluppo del sistema missilistico di difesa degli Usa si sarebbe fermato. Ma non è accaduto nulla del genere, dal momento che invece continua. Questo è uno scenario molto pericoloso, che arreca danni a tutti, inclusi gli Stati Uniti stessi. (…)

Alcuni hanno anche l’illusione che una vera vittoria di una delle varie controparti possa essere raggiunta in un conflitto globale, senza conseguenze irreversibili per lo stesso vincitore – sempre se ce ne sarà mai uno”, è quanto ha detto Putin, in occasione del forum di Valdai, che si è tenuto a Sochi.

LEGGI:  IL PARTITO DEMOCRATICO AUTORIZZA L’EMBARGO ALLA RUSSIA SPINGENDO PMI ITALIANE AL FALLIMENTO E ONESTI LAVORATORI IN MEZZO ALLA STRADA

Putin ha confermato la sua volontà di abbattere il terrorismo, tornando a giustificare la strategia militare e di geopolitica che lo ha portato a intervenire in Siria.

“Noi continueremo a fornire assistenza a tutti i paesi minacciati dai terroristi”.

Una critica aperta verso la politica estera degli Stati Uniti è arrivata nel momento in cui ha affermato che non esiste alcun bisogno di fare distinzioni tra i terroristi moderati e non.

“Perchè fare questo gioco di parole e dividere i terroristi in moderati e non moderati. Qual è la differenza?”, ha detto il presidente russo. “Il successo nella lotta ai terroristi non può essere raggiunto usando alcuni di loro per rovesciare regimi che non piacciono, perchè poi è solo un’illusione quella di poterli gestire in un momento successivo”.D’altronde, “le armi che sono state fornite alla cosiddetta opposizione ‘moderata’ in Siria sono finite direttamente nelle mani dei terroristi”.

Secondo Putin, il pericolo è proprio nella convinzione degli Usa di avere la capacità di vincere una guerra contro quelle nazioni che fanno parte della loro lista nera (come appunto la Russia, l’Iran e la Cina).

“Washington crede che l’America possa vincere senza rischiare conseguenze simili ai danni che infliggono ai loro nemici. Ma questo, ha ripetuto Putin, è un calcolo sbagliato e pericoloso che potrebbe finire con il mettere in pericolo gli stessi cittadini Usa”.

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“Vorrei sottolineare ancora una volta che gli interventi della Russia in Siria sono completamente legittimi, e hanno come solo scopo quello di ripristinare la pace”; “noi dobbiamo unire gli eserciti siriani e iracheni e le fazioni curde per sradicare il terrorismo e siamo pronti a coordinare le nostre azioni militari con i partner occidentali”. (Lna)

Source: Putin avverte: guerra mondiale sempre più probabile | StopEuro.org