|
In this mailing:
Al-Qaeda-linked
New Terrorists, DAESH, in Gaza Strip
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
"This group is much more
dangerous and radical than Hamas." — Palestinian journalist, Gaza
City
Palestinians are worried that
DAESH terrorists will perpetrate atrocities against those who oppose
their ideology and activities.
U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas need to take into
consideration the possibility that Palestinian unity on the pre-1967
lines would pave the way for DAESH terrorists to move into the West Bank.
It's official: Al-Qaeda has begun operating in the Gaza Strip.
A video posted on YouTube this week showed terrorists
belonging to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant, known colloquially by its Arabic acronym, DAESH, announcing plans
to wage jihad [holy war] against the "infidels, traitors and
Crusaders."
This is the first time that a group linked to Al-Qaeda announces its
presence in the Gaza Strip.
|
Members of the
Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DAESH] in
Gaza. (Image source: DAESH YouTube video)
|
The announcement is seen as a challenge to the Palestinian Islamist
movement Hamas, which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since July
2007.
Palestinian Authority security officials in Ramallah expressed fear
that the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group would try to establish terrorist cells
also in the West Bank.
The video features 10 heavily-armed masked terrorists declaring
allegiance to DAESH, whose men are responsible for most of the atrocities
in Syria and Iraq over the past few years.
In the video, a spokesman for the group announces that in addition to
Syria and Iraq, DAESH now has "lions and armies in the environs of
Jerusalem."
The spokesman says that the group's goal is to restore the dignity of
Muslims who have been "humiliated" by their enemies. He urges
Muslims to rally behind his group and support its members in their jihad
against the enemies of Islam and "Arab tyrants."
Palestinians have reacted
with panic to the emergence of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in the Gaza
Strip.
According to reports from the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are worried
that the DAESH terrorists will perpetrate atrocities against those who
oppose their ideology and activities.
"This group is much more dangerous and radical than Hamas,"
said a Palestinian journalist from Gaza City. "The presence of
Al-Qaeda in the Gaza Strip is bad news not only for Hamas, but for all
Palestinians. Palestinians see the crimes and massacres perpetrated by
Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria and fear that they could be repeated in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip."
Hamas leaders, for their part, have reacted with skepticism to the announcement
by DAESH, describing it as another attempt to "distort" Hamas's
image and "resistance."
Salah Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said
that the Gaza Strip was a "small area with no room for
Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups."
Hamas has not hesitated in the past to confront tiny jihadi groups
whose members had openly challenged its rule. Like DAESH, these groups
believe that Hamas is too "moderate" and is no longer committed
to the "armed struggle" against Israel.
In one of the deadliest confrontations, Hamas security forces killed
and arrested a number of jihadi terrorists who found shelter in a mosque
in the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. At least 28 jihadi terrorists
were killed and 120 wounded during the 2009
raid on members of a group called Jund Allah [Soldiers of God].
It now remains to be seen whether Hamas will be able to crush the new
Al-Qaeda-affiliated group, whose members are also operating in the
neighboring Sinai Peninsula.
Those who are talking about "reuniting" the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank can no longer ignore the presence of the Al-Qaeda
terrorists on the streets of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continues to talk about
the need for Palestinian unity to pave the way for the establishment of
an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east
Jerusalem. Last week, he even dispatched a senior Fatah delegation to the
Gaza Strip to discuss ways of ending the dispute between his party and
Hamas.
Now that Al-Qaeda has begun operating in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas needs to consider the possibility that
Palestinian unity would pave the way for the DAESH terrorists to move
into the West Bank – an outcome U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and
his team need to take into consideration when they talk about the
establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and east Jerusalem on the pre-1967 lines.
Dagestan:
New Epicenter of Muslim Terrorism in Russia
|
|
|
|
Share:
|
Be the first of
your friends to like this.
According to a survey with 6,000
respondents, the ranks of the jihad are being filled by ever-younger
Dagestanis. Dagestan is eclipsing Chechnya as the seat of the most
violent insurgency against Russia.
The extremist leaders have
targeted their fellow Muslim leaders thought to be too mild.
Dagestan, the largest republic of the north Caucasus, can best be
described in negative superlatives. It is probably the most violent spot
in the entire Russian Federation.[1]
The administrative bureaucracy of the republic's capital, Makhachkala, is
among the most corrupt.[2]
The ethnic and linguistic diversity of Dagestan is the most complex among
Russia's Republics.[3]
Its topography is arguably the most forbidding in the Russian Eurasian
landmass. Religiously, it is also the most radical Muslim entity in the
Russian state. Moreover, in part, because of Dagestan's difficult terrain
and the fabled fighting ability of Dagestani mountain peoples, Moscow has
found that suppressing jihadists in Dagestan is even more difficult than
in their campaigns in Chechnya.
The February 6, 2014 raid of a terrorist hideout in the Dagestani town
of Izerbash by Russian Security Police -- resulting in the deaths of
suspects who were allegedly planning an attack on the Sochi Olympics --
underscores that the Republic of Dagestan has become the epicenter of
extremist-Muslim terrorism in Russia.
Russia is not the only empire chastised by Dagestan's warrior culture.
The Persian invading forces of Nadir Shah in 1744 experienced their most
devastating among several defeats by Dagestan's mountain militants. There
is a bitter Persian saying that recounts these catastrophes:
"Whenever Allah wants to punish a Shah, He inculcates into his head
the idea of invading Dagestan." Coastal Dagestan faces the former
provinces of Persia's empire in Asia Minor; and Dagestan was once
governed by Persian officialdom of the Safavid Dynasty.[4] Although almost all Dagestanis
are Sunni Muslim, there are pockets of Shia Muslims who trace their
spiritual origins to the Iranian version. During the last couple of
decades, however, Dagestan's relatively tolerant Sufi brand of Sunni
Islam Muslim has been giving ground to a more fierce Sunni Salafist
orientation.[5]
|
William
Plotnikov, left, with another Islamist militant in Dagestan. Plotnikov
was previously a boxer and college student in Canada, and was killed
fighting Russian security forces in 2012. When arrested and
interrogated in 2010, he named Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev
as an associate. (Image source: Dagestan Federal Security Service)
|
This Salafist ascendency has been fueled, allegedly, by Arabian Gulf
states' financial support for mosque construction and the hiring of
fundamentalist imams as preachers throughout the Caucasian republics.
However, the scholarships for Dagestani youth to study in Saudi Arabia
have been particularly effective in the Wahabbization of Islam in
Dagestan.[6]
Riyadh's largesse has helped accelerate the radicalization of the
republic's Muslims. Moscow's draconian policies in Dagestan have also
contributed to the radicalization process. Still another reason for
growing Salafist influence in Dagestan is that their clergy are attentive
to the people's medical, educational, social, and economic needs such as
sponsoring health clinics, schools, orphanages and charitable
foundations.
Dagestan also has a stellar, ancient tradition of theological
erudition, producing some of the brightest Muslim scholars of Eurasian
Islam.[7] This
tradition helps unite the multiethnic and varied linguistic disciplines
of Dagestan's citizens. The Grand Mufti of Dagestan Akhmad Abdulaev, a
Sufi Sunni, has worked closely with Kamil Sultana Khmedov, the Salafist
Muslim leader of the republic, in an effort to halt internecine
bloodletting. The two factions have established an Association of Islamic
Scholars Board to negotiate their theological and political differences.
A key objective of the Salafists is apparently to increase their role
in decision-making in the republic's Islamic institutions to ensure that
it is commensurate with their growing influence among Dagestan's Muslims.
For certain, an increasing percentage of Dagestan's young people are
being drawn away from the traditional quietist Sufi relationship with
Russian political authorities. According to a survey conducted in
Dagestan with 6,000 respondents, the ranks of the jihad are being filled
with ever-younger Dagestanis.[8]
Underscoring the growing radicalization of Dagestan's youth is the
presence of hundreds of Dagestani volunteers fighting alongside Muslim
extremist groups against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.[9]
Dagestan also has eclipsed Chechnya as the seat of the most violent
insurgency against the Russian state. The Muslim insurgents of the
Shari'ah Jamaat have divided Dagestan into four sectors.[10] Anti-state activities occur on
a daily basis on Dagestani territory. Not all of the extremist activity
by the radical Islamists is directed against symbols of Moscow's rule.
The extremists have targeted their fellow Muslim leaders thought to be
too mild in their opposition to continued occupation of the north
Caucasus Republics by Russia. On July 1, 2012, for instance, Muslim
terrorists assassinated Dagestan's most esteemed Sufi Sheikh, Said
Afendi.
Dagestani jihadists are increasingly crossing the republic's
boundaries to assist in anti-regime operations in other nearby Muslim
republics. They have assassinated many Moscow-appointed judicial figures
who had been condemned as apostates for having ignored the demands of the
Sharia law and for having chosen man's atheistic legal system over that
of Allah.[11]
The Kremlin, for its part, appears to have decided to support the
current President of the Republic, Ramazan Abdulatipov, to be their
pro-Moscow strongman in Dagestan. Moreover, state security authorities
have been complicit in the ouster and arrest of several of Abdulatipov's
competitors, usually on corruption charges.[12] There have also been a series
of extra-judicial killings of those suspected of passively aiding the
jihadist insurgency, including journalists deemed sympathetic to the
guerrillas. Despite these authoritarian actions and killings of key
jihadist personalities,[13]
the Kremlin has had little effect on the Dagestani insurgent movement's
ability to carry out terrorist operations. Derbent, in southern Dagestan,
seems to have become an epicenter of the jihadist "holy war"
against the Russian state.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) several years ago
translated a video, "Dar Al-Harb Dagestan," posted on an
Islamic website. The film featured stirring musical themes while depicting
the slaughter of captives by jihadists. Coincidentally, the video opens
with the same Koranic passages reportedly quoted by the 9/11 hijackers
who may have employed this very scripture to communicate the date of the
attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon:[14]
"…Verily Allah has purchased of the Believers their lives
and their properties, and for this price, theirs shall
be Paradise. They fight in Allah's cause so
they kill others and they themselves are killed…then
rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded
(with Allah), that is the supreme success."[15]
[1] Alexander
Bortnikov, Director of the Federal Security Service and Chairman of the
Russian National Anti-Terrorist Committee stated on 1 October 2013 that
120 of the 144 terrorist acts in the North
Caucasus in 2012 were on Dagestani territory.
[2] Dagestani specialist Ruslan
Gereyev and Rinat Mukhametov, an expert on the North Caucasus with the
Moscow-influenced Russian Muftis' Council, allege that rampant official
corruption in the republic among other factors leave radicalization as
the only attractive option for some youth.
[3] BBC News Report. "North
Caucasus: Guide to a Volatile Region" 25 January 2011.
[4] When Dagestan was a Persian
satrapy, it was called Kohestan (Mountain Land). In Persian epic
mythology, Dagestan is a habitat of mystical literary figures.
[5] Mairbek Vatchagaev,
"Developments in the North Caucasusin 2011: Moscow Has Little to
Cheer About"
8 January 2012. Dagestan at the turn of the century was almost 100% Sufi.
[6] Military Jama'ats in the North
Caucasus: A Continuing Threat. DR. Andrew McGregor. Jamestown
Foundation. Washington D.C.
[7] Encyclopedia of Islam, p.484.
[8] Ruslan Gereyev. Kavkaz Uzel
(Caucasan Knot). 9 December 2013.
[9] FSB Director Borotnikov contends
that many Dagestani youth have taken the bi-weekly flight from
Makhachkala to Istanbul and then make their way across the Turkish-Syrian
border.
[10] The Sharia Jamaat (Association)
in Dagestan is divided into four sectors: the Central District (the
capital region around Makhachkala) to include the Levashi and Izerbash
ethnic groups the Mountainous Region including the Untsukul, Gimry,
Balakhani, Buinaksk,Kadar, Andi, Echedi, and Kvanada peoples, the
Northern Division embracing the Khasavyurt, Kizilyurt and Babayurt clans
and the Southern Sector encompassing the Derbert and Tabasaran groups.
[11] Mairbek Vatchagaev, "Moscow
Strives to Break Resistance of Dagestani Militants." Assassinations
of judicial personnel in Dagestan have included Supreme Court and Federal
Judges as well as investigative personnel.
[12] Dagestan's President succeeded in
removing his most powerful rival the Mayor of Dagestan's capital city
Makhachkala, Said Amirov. It is rumored that state security services
helped provide evidence which sustained charges of massive corruption
during Amirov's tenure as Mayor.
[13] While state security personnel
and police heralded the killing of Yusup Magomedov in December 2012, the
leader of the Khasavyurt terrorist organization (Dagestan's third largest
city), there was no decrease in the level of insurgent activity in the
republic.
[14] MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series
#38. 21 December 2006. Koran Part 11, Sura 9, Verses 109-111.
[15] The Noble Koran. Dr. Muhammad
Taqi-ud-Din and Dr Muhammad Muhsin Khan Islamic University Darussalam
Publishers and Distributors Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Part 11 Sura Nine
At-Taubah (Repentance) Verse 111.
Stop
the Executions by the Islamic Republic of Iran
by Shadi Paveh
and Shabnam Assadollahi
February 14, 2014 at 3:00 am
|
|
|
|
Share:
|
Be the first of
your friends to like this.
There have been three reports by
UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Ahmad Shaheed on the situation of human rights
in Iran: March 2012, October 2012 and February 2013.
Furthermore, The Boroumand
Foundation has documented executions of the Islamic Republic.
The International Committee
Against Execution and Stoning, and the Campaign to Free Political
Prisoners in Iran, have detailed reports.
Amnesty International also has
numerous reports which are readily available.
Petition
The Islamic Republic of Iran currently ranks first for per capita
executions in the world. In a time where the world is naively rejoicing
in the election of a "moderate" new Iranian president; Iran has
stepped up its executions dramatically since the elections of June 2013.
It is estimated, that on average, Iran hangs someone every seven
hours, inhumanely from cranes, for some 131 capital offences which
include a wide range of crimes such as murder, adultery, drug
trafficking, rape, homosexuality, apostasy and vaguely worded offences
such as "enemy of God" and "corrupters on earth".
The majority of the 131 capital offences are non-lethal acts and
should not be criminalized according to international human rights
standards.
Unlike the execution of those killed for criminal offences mentioned
above (which are often announced by the regime in national newspapers),
the executions of political prisoners, however, are very rarely reported.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the slightest act of dissidence or
criticism of the government is met with arrest, imprisonment, unspeakable
torture and usually execution.
Journalists, bloggers, human rights activists, women's rights
advocates, lawyers, pro-union activists, religious minorities, and
Iranian expatriates have all become targets of the regime as political prisoners.
Additionally, the regime has devised a clever, new method of executing
political prisoners silently by withholding urgently needed medical care
required for either injuries sustained during torture or pre-existing
medical conditions such as diabetes. The regime then simply announces
that the prisoner died from natural causes in prison, thus avoiding
reporting the death as an execution.
The actual number of executions is a state secret and the authorities
permit only a proportion of death sentences and executions to be reported
to the public. Furthermore, Iran remains one of few countries that has
executed juveniles as young as 12 by firing squad.
Today, Iran claims they no longer execute juveniles, which is due to
the fact that the minor in question is kept in prison until he reaches
the age of majority at which time he/she can be executed as an adult.
Iran continues to carry out large number of hangings in public where
children as young as three have been seen among the crowd of onlookers.
It is also worth emphasizing that the accused are rarely granted the
right to a lawyer in trials that last only minutes in absence of a jury
or evidence; with the majority of presiding judges usually trained only
in Islamic law making each and every sentence handed down by the Islamic
Republic illegal under international law.
Iran remains one of the few countries that practices stoning of both
men and women for adultery. There are currently 12 individuals in Iran
awaiting this horrific and grotesque form of execution. It is believed
that 200 individuals have been stoned in Iran thus far; the majority of
whom are young women. Adulterers are bound and buried to the chest or
waist and are slowly stoned to death which can take many hours. In recent
years, Iran has been carrying out stonings in secret in order to avoid
strong international criticism.
Help us stop the executions in Iran by signing
this petition.
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment