Iraqi Kurdistan Isupports Syrian Kurdistann

In your face, Erdoğan!

Lahur Talabani, the head Kurdish Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) of Iraqi Kurdistan meeting Syrian Kurdish officials in Kobane. Photo: ARA News

QAMISHLI – Lahur Talabani, director of the Kurdish Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) in Iraqi Kurdistan, said that they have delivered 25 tonnes of medical aid and food to Syria’s Kurdish region–Rojava.

“Rojava continues to fight ISIS and we must support their efforts and ensure they have access to medicine and humanitarian aid,” he said on Tuesday.

“There is a humanitarian crisis in Rojava and we have a duty to help our brothers and sisters there. I pledge to do all I can to ease the burden,” he tweeted on his official account.

“We know what it’s like to be in need. I’m happy we were able to send 25 tonnes of medical supplies and food to Rojava,” he said.

The Kurdish Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD) and the Iraqi Kurdistan’s Patriotic Union Party (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani have built good relations over the years, as a result of their mutual bad relations with Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

The PYD has backed a agreement between Gorran and the PUK reached in May, that is seen by the Barzani-backed Syrian Kurdish National Council (KNC) as an attempt to undermine the independence referendum of Iraqi Kurdistan–initiated by Masoud Barzani.

On 7 June, Lahur Talabani visited the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane and called on the Iraqi Kurdish authorities to open the border between Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan.

The border was opened on 8 June for medical aid and trade only.

Reporting by: Wladimir van Wilgenburg

Source: ARA News 

Bahrain, a microcosmsm of Middle East contradictions

Bahrain is torn asunder, ripped apart by "friends" in the Gulf Cooperation Council and by the United States and  Great Britain, by its own arrogant mistreatment of human beings who worship in ways distasteful to Saudi, to religious zealots who worship the way the Islamic State worships (and the way Saudi Arabia warships).

Bahrain is a majority Shiite country, and some of  its Sunni people pent many years in Iran.  None gives allegiance to the Iranian Ayatollah, yet the West's propaganda machine persists in blaming Iran for all problems of its own making.

The Royal Family  --

-- stiff, out of touch 

(though staunch football supporters) --

Bahrain itself is a tiny island in the Persian Gulf, with Saudi Arabia to the east an Qatar to the southwest:

Bahrain Map, Flag. Capital Manama

This map is accompanied by this text,

which seems accurate:

The Kingdom of Bahrain is an independent Arab nation in western Asia, part of the region known as the Middle East. It is made up of 36 islands on the western side of the Persian Gulf, between Saudi Arabia to the east and Qatar to the west. The main island, also known as Bahrain, is home to the country’s capital and largest city, Manama.
More than 60 percent of Bahrain’s population is native-born, in contrast to the populations of other Persian Gulf states such as Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where foreign-born inhabitants outnumber the native population. Bahrain also differs from its neighbors in that the number of followers of Shia Islam in the country is more than double that of the adherents of Sunni Islam, which is the largest group of Muslims worldwide. The Sunnis control the country’s government, however.
In the 1930s Bahrain became the first Arab state in the Persian Gulf region to develop an oil-based economy, but by the early 1980s its oil fields were mostly depleted. However, the country had prepared for this change by investing in other industries, and its economy continues to prosper.

The many contradictory forces tearing at Bahrain are detailed in the nAl Monitor news article below.  The article is not easy to follow if you are not familiar with the names, and is worth the trouble of reading with care, if you would see a part of the many contradictory forces at work today in the Middle East, and understand Obama's courageous, reasonable restraint (assuming that  is, for unstated reasons, that it is good to befriend Saudi Arabia).

gulf PULSEنبض الخليج

Shiite Bahraini men sit on a wall with graffiti that reads ''People want self-determination" as they attend a rally held by the Al-Wefaq opposition party, in the village of Boori, south of Manama, Oct. 14, 2011, to mark the eight-month anniversary of the February 14 uprising.  (photo by REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed)

What Bahrain’s opposition crackdown means for country’s Brotherhood

On the heels of a Bahraini court suspending Al-Wefaq for the Shiite society’s alleged role in creating "an environment for terrorism, extremism and violence,” Bahrain’s rulers delivered a powerful message June 20 by annulling Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim’s Bahraini citizenship.

Author Giorgio CafieroPosted June 27, 2016

Following five years of stalemate, the Bahraini leadership sees no purpose in engaging the Shiite opposition and instead favors eliminating Shiites who call for the government’s dissolution from political life in the island. By excluding popular political groups from Bahrain’s political arena amid a wider crackdown, however, there are risks of militancy gaining broader power and appeal within the Shiite opposition.

Throughout the past five years, Manama has grown increasingly reliant on Gulf Arab and Western allies. The Shiite-led Arab Spring uprising unsettled Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders fearful of Bahrain aligning with Tehran following a popular Shiite revolution. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were quick to deploy ground forces to the island by March 2011 to help Bahrain's rulers quash the uprising.

Manama’s participation in the US-led military campaign against the Islamic State (IS) and the kingdom’s “pricey PR push” on K Street seem to have further consolidated Bahrain’s alliance with Washington, despite some diplomatic spats over the past five years. Despite the Department of Defense’s congressionally mandated contingency plans for relocating the Navy’s 5th Fleet, Washington is unlikely to undergo the massive undertaking of moving the Persian Gulf’s most powerful naval force to another facility. The United Kingdom’s plans for a permanent base in Mina Salman, Bahrain, announced in 2014, underscore Manama’s important role in London’s strategic return “East of Suez” 40 years after the Royal Navy’s official departure from the Gulf. 

Unquestionably, allies in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Washington and London have prevented the Al Khalifa rulers from being pressured into negotiating a resolution to the kingdom’s crisis.

The king’s Sunni Islamist support networks

The ruling family’s ties with the Bahraini Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, Minbar, and the more conservative Salafi society, Asala, to counterbalance the Shiite opposition has been another pillar of the regime’s strategy for standing strong since 2011.

Formed in 1984, Minbar’s platform reflects Bahrain’s liberal (by GCC standards) social environment, particularly with respect to women’s rights, although the group has close connections with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Kuwaiti branch. Many of Minbar’s members belong to the Hawala tribe, Sunni Arabs who migrated to Persia before returning to the Arabian Peninsula’s eastern shore. The Bahraini Muslim Brothers are middle-class professionals, many of whom are teachers and police officers.

Despite pressure from other GCC states, Manama has not designated Minbar a “terrorist” organization. The Sunni Islamist society not only continues operating publicly, but Bahrain’s Royal Court and Islamic banking sector reportedly fund Minbar. In exchange, Bahrain’s Muslim Brothers have backed the government’s post-2011 crackdown. In February 2013, for example, Minbar boycotted the national dialogue to protest what the island’s Muslim Brothers saw as unacceptable Shiite “silence” on violence plaguing the uprising’s two-year anniversary. At times, Minbar has even criticized the ruling family for responding too softly to Shiite dissent.

Despite Bahrain’s politically active Sunni Islamists supporting the regime during 2011, a growing number have made their own demands since that crisis erupted. In fact, Shiite protesters shared some of these demands such as releasing political prisoners and liberalizing Bahrain politically. Concerned about the possibility of Sunni opposition materializing, the state implemented electoral reforms to redraw boundaries before the 2014 elections. Consequently, Minbar and Asala only retained a combined three seats in the National Assembly’s Council of Representatives — down from five. Additionally, although Al-Wefaq was the main target of legislation passed last month to ban mixing religion with politics, the law also bodes poorly for Minbar and Asala — Bahrain’s second- and third-largest Islamist factions, respectively, after Al-Wefaq.

The influence of extremist ideologies in the kingdom’s Sunni communities is unsettling, particularly in light of numerous Bahraini Sunnis pledging allegiance to IS. As of January 2015, at least a dozen Bahrainis had joined Sunni militant organizations in Syria and Iraq. After King Hamad revoked Omar Bozboun’s Bahraini citizenship for joining IS, he responded by threatening to “enter Bahrain with blazing guns and behead the king.”

Turki al-Binali, a Salafi cleric hailing from a wealthy Sunni family allied with the Al Khalifas, is now IS’ leading preacher. Prior to leaving Bahrain in 2013, he held a rally in front of the US Embassy in Manama with his followers holding pictures of Osama bin Laden while waving al-Qaeda flags. Two and a half years after Binali left the kingdom, a Bahraini court tried him in absentia and nearly two dozen other Bahrainis on charges of seeking to topple the Manama regime and create an IS branch in the island. One family member, Mohamed Isa al-Binali, was an officer in the Interior Ministry overseeing Shiite inmates in Jaw Prison before defecting to IS in 2014.

There are several other reasons why Bahrain appears to be a logical destination for the group’s agenda. These include IS offshoots waging acts of terrorism in neighboring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the presence of many Shiite Muslims and non-Muslim expatriates, the 5th Fleet being stationed in Bahrain, Manama’s role in the Washington-led military campaign against the group in Syria and the island’s reputation as the “brothel of the Gulf.”

Another threat to the nation’s stability stems from Manama granting Bahraini citizenship to Jordanian, Pakistani and Yemeni Sunnis to alter the country’s sectarian balance. Opposition voices in Bahrain maintain that these "naturalized Bahrainis" are Sunni “fundamentalists” who harbor anti-Shiite sentiments. As these non-Bahrainis earn their citizenship through service in Bahrain’s security apparatus, IS infiltration into the state’s military and police is a risk.

As underscored by the past several months of violent attacks targeting Bahrain’s security forces with improvised explosive devices and Molotov cocktails, the crackdown is failing to resolve the kingdom’s crisis. If the cancellation of Qassim’s citizenship and the court’s suspension of Al-Wefaq lead to the exacerbation of violence, the government will be forced to address an increasingly dire security crisis on top of managing social risks stemming from austerity measures amid an era of cheap oil — itself a contributing factor to the island’s sectarian issues.

As sectarian temperatures rise in the Gulf with Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah officials harshly condemning Manama’s annulment of Qassim’s citizenship and Iraqi Shiite forces retaking Fallujah from IS, the regime’s relationship with Minbar will be an important variable to observe as the Saudi-aligned monarchy seeks to maintain Sunni rule in a Shiite-majority island.

Looking ahead, will Minbar remain loyal to the Al Khalifas and continue viewing the crackdown as a safeguard against a Shiite takeover? Or will discontent over the Sunni Islamist society’s declining political influence cost the regime a key domestic ally? Will the regime continue seeing Minbar as a domestic ally against the Shiite opposition or as a gateway to IS? 

And see Bahrain: Analyzing Inequities Between Sunnis and Shiites

ahrain is again in the news this week. The country and Saudi Arabia are discussing acloser political union—with the obvious aim of safeguarding Sunni control in a Shiite majority country. Meanwhile, Shiite activists burned tires and blocked roads in a protest against detention policies.

Bahrain’s crisis has many causes: the Middle East’s wider Shiite-Sunni rivalry; the region’s longstanding Persian-Arab rivalry; ideas released during the Arab Spring; rising political aspirations from years of watching satellite television.

But the key driver is the horizontal inequities (i.e. inequalities between culturally formed groups) that exacerbate the fault line between the Shiites and Sunnis within the kingdom. Shiite demands may not all be reasonable, but their relative disadvantage in economic, social, and political spheres feed dissatisfaction, and promote instability. Reducing at least some of these inequities is crucial to reducing the instability, which otherwise is likely to fester for years to come.

Bahrain is a very tiny place—600,000 citizens (and about a million people in all) live on one archipelago of thirty-three islands. Shiites are in the majority, but no one really knows by how much. Although it is generally assumed (not least by the media) that the Shiites make up 65 to 75 percent of the population, one recent independent studyconcludes that they now make up less than 60 percent—and the share is dropping steadily. The government’s decade-long program of naturalizing Arab and non-Arab Sunnis from Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Pakistan, mostly for work in the police and military, is adding as many as 100,000 Sunnis citizens to the populace. The below map shows where each group lives.

Beneath this simple division lies a much more complex society comprised of groups and subgroups with different interests and agendas. There are Shiite Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula who have traditionally worked as farmers, pearl divers, and tradesmen; Shiites with Iranian roots who tend to be professionals and intellectuals; Sunnis from Arabia, from Iran, and “tribals” who have distant links to the region’s royal families. And then there are the more recent Sunni arrivals. Recent events, however, have polarized the country into a more rigid sectarian split.

Sunnis—especially those linked to the royal family—hold a disproportionate share of political power and have gained disproportionately from the country’s natural resource wealth. . . . 

Random images of official response to Shiite protests

NO US WAR WITH ASSAD; VIGOROUS US SUPPORT FOR SYRIAN KURDS

Some state department experts want the administration to go to war with the Syrian Government.

Vice President Biden and President Obama disagree, preferring that the United States continue to focus its ire on theIslamic State, with a provision of arms to Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) an the related Democratic Union Party [Kurdish:Partiya Yekîtiya Democrat‎, or PYD ] and its military arm, the  People's Protection Units (YPG).

Some senators and representatives and some Republican candidates for president have demanded war with Syria, but so far Republican congresspersons have refused to even hold hearings on a Declaration of War, so I discount their demand as shameful political posturing.

I can think of a number of reasons to support the president’s position:

1.  War is to be avoided if possible.

2.  United States’s war is dependent on a congressional resolution, which is lacking.

3. Salafi Jihadists, funded primarily by billionaires in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia ,and Qatar, are Wahhabi fanatics, just as the Islamic State is, religiously bound to spread Wahhabism to all non-believers, by killing them if necessary; they  are as harmful to the Syria people as the Assad regime is. See, e.g., Salafi armed groups increase attacks in Syria, Al-Monitor, April 24, 2016.  We cannot successfully fight them because of our decade-old subservience to Saudi Oil.

4.  There is no Syria civil war.  After the Arab Spring, Syrian middle-class businessmen and others in the middle class demonstrated for reforms.  Assad responded by killing many.  The Salafi Jihadists, all from outside Syria,  saw an opening to create a Wahhabi government in Syria and swarmed in.  At the same time, the Islamic State declared a caliphate in Northern Syrian  and prepared to move through Anbar Province in Iraq to conquer Mecca and Medina, the holiest of Muslim sites and a prerequisite for the caliphate claim to be realized.  The United States, to protect Saudi Arabia from the Islamic State, began bombing the Islamic State.  The Syrian Kurds saw an opportunity long longed-for , for independence and formed an autonomous region in northernSyria,  always intending to be an autonomous province of Syria.  Going to war with Syria makes no more sense than going to wear with Saudi Arabia.

5.  Going to war with Syria would complicate the Great Powers interests in Syria.  Iran wants a pipeline through Syria to the coast to pipe its natural gas to Europe and doesn’t want Qatar to have one, since they both draw natural gas from the Pars Field, the largest natural gas deposit in the wold; Qatar naturally wants an exclusive pipeline.  Russia doesn't want Qatar to have the pipeline because it would drive down Russia’s gas prices to Europe, a catastrophe to the Russian economy.  Russia is less concerned with Iranian gas to Europe, thinking it can work out accommodations with Iran over price.  Saudi Arabia naturally supports Qatar.  Assad supports the Iranian pipeline, but mainly doesn’t want to be killed.  Russia doesn’t give a damn about Assad;  it cares only about stopping the Qatar pipeline.  Thee is no apparent way to resolve the conflict and if the United States goes to war in Syria that would merely ad anther complication to the insolvable puzzle.

6.  Whatever else happens, the West has a moral duty to support Kurdish independence. In the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, England and France agreed with the Kurds to create an independent Kurdistan, the Kurds being one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world.  Under pressure from the Turkey, England and French instead assigned Kurds to four countries that did n’t want them, an into which they did not fit.  Assad treated  Kurds assigned to Syria badly. 

Syrian Kurds, when the had a chance, have respond with a political ideology which, according to Wikipedia includes these attributed:

Democratic socialism,

Libertarian socialism,

Kurdish nationalism,

Feminism,

Eco-socialism,

Social ecology,

Democratic Confederalism (more on this later),

Communalism 

You may not agree with all of these aims, but compare them to the surrounding theocratic despots!  Kurds are creating an island of sanity a sea of religious and dictatorial mania.  The United States and the European Union should give them full support. 

Contrary opinions are welcomed.  Syria is a long way from the middle of the Pacific Ocean an I know only what I read win various publications.  I am surely missing important matters.

The New York Times

Kerry Meets With State Dept. Dissenters Urging Action on Syria

By DAVID E. SANGERJUNE 21, 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry was careful not to differ from President Obama’s strategy at a meeting with dissenting Foreign Service officers, participants said.

WASHINGTON — The eight midlevel Foreign Service officers stepped into John Kerry’s formal outer office at the State Department on Tuesday — a room that few of them had ever entered before — to tell him that he was pursuing a path in Syria that would never bring an end to a gruesome civil war.

The argument was not new to Mr. Kerry — he, in fact, has offered versions of it himself in the Situation Room and the Oval Office. But for half an hour, according to several participants, the secretary of state and the eight officials engaged in a surprisingly cordial conversation about whether there was a way, in the last six months of the Obama presidency, to use American military force to help end a conflict that by some estimates has claimed 500,000 lives.

The eight were among 51 State Department employees who signed a “dissent channel” cable to Mr. Kerry last week, a letter that was leaked so quickly that it appeared clearly intended to send a message to President Obama that his own diplomats could not back his cautious policy.

Mr. Kerry, several participants said, was careful to never explicitly agree with their critique, or let on that he, too, has argued that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria will continue to bomb, starve and blockade his own people unless negotiations are backed by some form of military pressure.

But Mr. Kerry also gently pushed and probed, seeming to imply that many of the dissenters’ concerns had been considered many times before and rejected because they were more complicated than they appeared.

Hours before the meeting, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. seemed annoyed at a mention of the dissent cable, sounding a similar note on “CBS This Morning” that all the ideas proposed by the young diplomats had been looked at long ago.

“There is not a single, solitary recommendation that I saw that has a single, solitary answer attached to it — how to do what they’re talking about,” Mr. Biden said.

“The president’s been fastidious,” Mr. Biden told Charlie Rose. “Calls the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the intelligence community, the director of central intelligence, the C.I.A., et cetera. ‘Tell me what will work. Will this work?’ And the answer has repeatedly been, ‘No.’”

With only two of his aides in the room (and his Labrador retriever, Ben, who has attended delicate diplomatic meetings more than many assistant secretaries of state), Mr. Kerry raised a series of questions about what might happen if the dissenters won the day. What would be the legal basis for bombing Mr. Assad’s forces, in the absence of resolutions by the United Nations or even NATO? What would happen if American forces came into an accidental confrontation with the Russian Air Force, which has defended Mr. Assad? What if American pilots were shot down? How would the effort affect the American battle with the Islamic State?

The session was an unusual one. Only four or five dissent channel cables are written each year, and most stay confidential.

But the very public nature of this one has left Mr. Kerry in an awkward position. He does not want to appear to differ from the president’s strategy, and he kept his own counsel Tuesday about what he tells Mr. Obama in private. (Mr. Kerry’s aides insist that there is a common strategy, one that starts with trying to get Russia to press for enforcement of a much-violated cease-fire.)

At the same time, it is Mr. Kerry who first burst into public awareness when, as a just-returned naval officer in Vietnam, he issued his own famous dissent in 1971 by demanding before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the meeting was that five years into the Syrian civil war — after Mr. Obama declared that Mr. Assad must go, the unenforced “red lines” and a series of failed cease-fire accords — even some of the people who ran Syria diplomacy day-to-day had not heard the rationale for the administration’s caution.

The Pentagon remains cautious about entering another Middle East war when it cannot control the outcome. And the passage of time has precluded some options.

Earlier in the conflict, some of Mr. Kerry’s own diplomats have said in recent months, it would have been possible to “crater” the runways used by Mr. Assad’s air force, making it impossible for planes to take off and drop barrel bombs. The United States has used that tactic since World War II, and it is unclear why it has not been employed in Syria.

Hillary Clinton, when she held Mr. Kerry’s post, argued for arming the Syrian rebels, a position joined by the C.I.A. director at the time, David H. Petraeus. But Mr. Obama was concerned — rightly, many others in the room at the time said — that there was no assurance that those rebels would not use the weapons for other purposes.

And as Mr. Kerry implicitly noted to his visitors on Tuesday, Russia’s entry into the conflict greatly complicates any American military intervention. The chances of accidental encounters that may turn deadly are considerable.

Mr. Kerry spoke again on Tuesday to his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, to find a way to enforce the cease-fire that the two men first announced in February. Russia wants a degree of coordination with United States forces, including shared use of intelligence, that gives the Pentagon chills.

Mr. Kerry knows he is in a race against time. Not only are more Syrians dying every day, but his own leverage in the negotiations is also waning. Mr. Assad may well be betting that he can wait out the end of the Obama administration.

Mr. Kerry publicly insists that is not the case. Asked last month in Vienna if Mr. Assad doubted that there was a “Plan B” for military action, Mr. Kerry said, “If you know that he’s come to a conclusion there’s no Plan B, then he’s come to a conclusion that is totally without any foundation whatsoever and even dangerous. Dangerous.”

Perhaps so, but Mr. Assad, by now, has most likely both read the dissent channel cable and heard Mr. Biden’s argument that the Joint Chiefs do not believe there are viable military options to force him into negotiating a peace.

As the eight dissenters left Mr. Kerry’s office, nothing seemed resolved. They all agreed to keep the details of their conversation private. But they also agreed that this was not the last word about a strategy that has left everyone — dissenters, the secretary of state and the president alike — frustrated that nothing has worked

Qamishlo, Syrian Kurdistan: freedom grows encircled by the angry unfree

A quotation in the following article by the father of a Syrian Kurd who's son was killed fighting the bastard child of Saudi Arabia, the Islamic State:

“My son protected his own region, but foreign fighters protected humanity,” he added.

War only makes sense when undertaken to protect one own soil, or humanity.

The extraordinary people of the Federation of Northern Syria – Rojava (also known as West Kurdistan), was carved out not much more than a determination to be free.

Rojava is based on principles of direct democracy, gender equality, and sustainability.  The people are are multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, nonsectarian, and feminist.  JudgingThey f\it the American ideal way more than the presumptive nominee of the unfortunate RepublicanParty (RIP).

Encourage Mrs. Clinton, when she becomes president, to support Rojava with all the power and might of the United States.   They are routinely shelled by the Turkish dictatorship, and are more worthy of support than Turkey.

The newly erected monument in Qamishlo dedicated to the foreign fighters of YPG

Syrian Kurds erect monument in memory of foreign fighters fallen in war against ISIS

Qamishlo – This week a monument was finalized in Syria’s northeastern Kurdish city of Qamishl0 [Qamishli] to commemorate foreign fighters who have been killed in the war against ISIS.

The monument includes the names of foreign fighters Gunter Helsten from Germany, the former Royal Marine Konstandinos Erik Scurfield from the UK, and Reece Harding from Australia, who all died fighting against the extremist Islamic State group. It also includes the names of fighters from Turkey that fought with the Kurds against ISIS.

Speaking to ARA News, Chris Scurfield, the father of Erik Scurfield, said that the monument was supposed to be finished in March, but he is happy that it is finally ready.

The local self-administration in in Jazira canton of Rojava announced last year that they would build a monument for the foreign fighters who gave up their lives to fight ISIS.

“It is fantastic, a beautiful tribute to all foreign heals [fellow fighters] alive and shehids [martyrs],” Mr Scurfield said. “We would also like to thank the Rojavaian people for their love and respect for our son, it has been a great comfort,” he said.

Syrian Kurds are very appreciative of the foreign fighters that joined the People’s Protection Units (YPG). “They are brave people,” a YPG fighter who served with foreign fighters told ARA News. “They were coming to help us, and when they help it’s enough,” he said.

 Bave Shehid Mazlum (51), the father of a killed YPG fighter, told ARA News that foreign volunteers joining the YPG are not foreigners. “We call them our brothers who fight for humanity,” he said. “They are sons of this soil and I offer my condolence to these martyrs.” 

He even said that foreign fighters that sacrifice their lives are more important than his own son that died.

“My son protected his own region, but foreign fighters protected humanity,” he added.

Reporting by: Wladimir van Wilgenburg

∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼

 Per Wikipedia:

The Syrian government remains in control of the [Qamishli] airport, the border crossing, and several government buildings and Arab neighborhoods, but most of the city is in the hands of Kurdish and Assyrian militias.

Population 184,231

History

Al-Qamishli streets during Christmas days

Al-Qamishli is situated at the base of theTaurus Mountains, located near the area of ancient Hurrian city of Urkesh which was founded during the fourth millennium BC.

The city dates back to the 1920s, when a sizable amount of Assyrians escaping the Assyrian genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire fled from northwestern Iran and southern Turkey built a small town which they initially called Bet-Zalin. One of the most important funders of the early development projects in the city was Masoud Asfar, an Assyrian who survived the Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895) as a young child. Masoud, along with stepbrother, whose last name was Najjar, established the Asfar & Najjar Corporation, a company that produced wheat in Al-Qamishli. Throughout the 1920s-1940s, the Asfar & Najjar Corporation funded hospitals, Assyrian schools, and churches throughout the city. However, in the 1960s and until the late 1970s, when Assyrians constituted two-thirds of the city's population, the government of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region actively confiscated Assyrian farms, lands, and areas, causing an Assyrian exodus. At this same time, many Kurds, fleeing persecution from Iraq and Turkey, moved in to the region.[7]

The city itself (not the Assyrian Bet Zain) was officially founded as Al-Qamishli in 1926 as a railway station on the Taurus railway.[8]

Al-Qamishli is the second largest city in al-Hasakah Governorate and since 2013 it is regarded as the capital of Rojava, the Assyrians also claim it to be a community capital.

In March 2004, during a chaotic soccer match, a 2004 al-Qamishli riots began when some people started praising Saddam Hussein, turning the match into political conflict against the Kurds. The riot expanded out of the stadium and weapons were used against people of Kurdish background. In the aftermath, at least 30 Kurds were killed as the Syrian security services took over the city.[9] The event became known the "al-Qamishli massacre".

In June 2005, thousands of Kurds demonstrated in Al-Qamishli to protest the assassination of Sheikh Khaznawi, a Kurdish cleric in Syria, resulting in the death of one policeman and injury to four Kurds.[10][11] In March 2008, according to Human Rights Watch,[12] Kurds were also killed when Syrian security forces opened fire on the Kurds when celebrating the spring festival of Newroz and purportedly gathering to revive the 2004 riot in Al-Qamishli. The shooting left three people dead.

The city is renowned for throwing a large Christmas parade every year in December, and celebrating Newroz festival by a large crowd every year in March. 

Google reports no news for June from Qamishli.  This April 24 report is the latest:

Vice News

Qamishli Ceasefire Gives Kurds More Territory in Northern Syria

By Tess Owen

April 24, 2016 | 7:35 am

Both Kurdish and Syrian government forces agreed to a ceasefire after a three-day eruption of heavy fighting left more than 26 civilians dead.

According to the truce document, Kurdish forces can keep the territory they captured in Qamishli during those days of violence. Both sides will release prisoners taken during the clashes.

The fighting which erupted last week between Kurdish and Syrian forces was reportedly the biggest since the Syrian uprisings and subsequent civil war began in 2011. During the clashes, Kurdish security forces seized control of a number of key government controlled positions in Qamishli, including its main prison.

Canaan Barakat, Syria's Kurdish regional interior minister, announced the terms of the truce on Sunday, and said that 17 civilians and 10 Kurdish military personnel were killed last week.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that 22 members of Syrian government forces died and 80 were taken prisoner. SOHR also reported that 23 civilians died during government shelling of Kurdish-controlled areas.

A copy of the truce agreement seen by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "each side will keep the territory under its control." Kurdish authorities and media said this meant territory taken from government control would not be returned.

Clinton should disavow the Syrian No-Fly Zone and support Syrian Kurdistan

From a New York Times article today:

In October, Mrs. Clinton announced that she favored a no-fly zone to create “humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air.” She has said little about the proposal in recent months, and there is no sign that it has gained any traction in the administration.

The proposed “no-fly zone” would cover territory now occupied and governed by Syrian Kurds and territory the Kurds intend to conquer from the Islamic State, creating a contiguous stretch of land in Syria that would form a basis for a Syria Kurdistan, or at least a self-governing autonomous province within Syria.  

A no-fly zone administered by Turkey or NATO would decrease Kurdish chances of a independence.  Syrian Kurdish independence is the one thing of value that might come out of the ShrineHorror.  I would object to it and hope Ms. Clinton comes to rethink the project, once the she becomes president.  

A “realist” view supports the no-fly zone.  See The Realist Case for a No-Fly Zone in Syria | Foreign Affairs.  Perhaps Ms. Clinton is a "realist".  I hope she is not.  Obama is not.   The "realist" approach to foreign affairs is not realistic.

Rettegnek a nőktől az Iszlám Állam terroristái | iszlám állam | Külföld | faktor.hu

ما الهدف من دعوة موسكو إلى تعاون إقليمي لمواجهة الإرهاب؟ | جريدة البناء | Al-binaa Newspaper

The Syrian Women Warriors are especially effective against the Islamic State, whose treatment of women prisoners is especially inhumane.

The Warriors are multiethnic, nonsectarian, feminist, democratic,and do not discrimination the base of race, gender, or religion.  The are by far the most effective ground troops against the Islamic State and deserve America's full-throated support, even to the point of risking war with Turkey.  They are the one good thing about war.

In short, they hold political positions now cherished by Americans except by the now-notorious Republican Party since it has chosen to be headed by bloviating Donald Trump.  The Warriors

Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates take inconsistant positions

Here is some mildly encouraging new out of Yemen.

Headlines in area newspapers today, e.g.:

UAE: 'War is over' for Emirati troops in Yemen'

Saudi Arabia has made no such announcement, and deadly bombing continues.

Deutsche Welle has a more somber and nuanced view of the United Arab Emirates position:

"Our standpoint today is clear - war is over for our troops, we're monitoring political arrangements [and] empowering Yemenis in liberated areas," [the United Arab Emirates minister for foreign affairs, Anwar] Gargash said.

But an Arabic version of his comments was worded slightly differently than the English one, saying the war is "practically" over and that there was a likelihood that some Emirati troops would remain in Yemen, where they operate in the southern province of Hadramaw

Withdrawal of troops by the United Arab Emirates  is especially welcomed news:  "their" troops are Columbian mercenaries especially trained in excessive brutality.

Deutsche Welle's report has two useful videos, one heart-wrenching.  It, however, omits former president Abdullah Saleh's part in the war and implies that he is not a part of the peace talks.  If so, that is an important omission. The article is nevertheless highly recommended.

Yemen under Saudi Rule

A short, partial explanation why I am so angry with Saudi Arabia  and with its most important ally, the United States.  Aden was once a jewel of a city, multicultural, civil, egalitarian, where women were free:  no more, no more.   Alas!

REUTERS, 14/06 16:07 CET

Power cuts, violence fuel Yemen separatists’ dreams

By Mohammed Mukhashaf

ADEN (Reuters) – Deprived of sleep by temperatures of over 40 degrees (104 F), Azal Mohammed was among dozens of young men burning tyres last month to protest against persistent power cuts in Aden, a port city that was the capital of South Yemen.

Over the past 14 months, Aden’s one million inhabitants have endured war and gang violence. The collapse of even basic public services has fuelled demands for the restoration of the southern state that merged with northern Yemen in 1990.

“We want the world, our neighbours, to help us win back our old state,” said Azal, a 20-year-old student. “The south joined this union voluntarily and we don’t want to be part of it any more.”

South Yemen, a former British colony and the only Communist Arab state, united with the pro-Western north after a brief 1986 war. The collapse of South Yemen’s financial patron, the Soviet Union, around the same time encouraged the unification process.

It was never a happy marriage: President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s north Yemen dominated from the start and when the south tried to break away four years after unification, Saleh’s army quickly crushed the separatists, cementing Sanaa’s rule and Aden’s decline, feeding southern resentment.

The current southern separatist movement grew out of a 2007 campaign demanding financial benefits for army officers and civil servants. Emboldened by 2011 anti-government Arab Spring protests that had forced Saleh to step down, southern separatists now want full independence.

SEPARATISTS CONTROL

Their demands gained momentum after Iran-allied Houthi forces invaded the capital Sanaa in 2014 and forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to Aden in February last year.

That precipitated a civil war that has sucked a Saudi-led Arab alliance into the crisis, in which thousands of air strikes had been launched against the Houthis.

The fighting – which has killed more than 6,400 people and displaced 2.5 million – has also allowed al Qaeda to consolidate its presence in the country.

The conflict has hit access to basic supplies like food, fuel and medicine amid the coalition’s near-blockade on ports.

Having played a key role in facing the Houthi offensive on southern Yemen, separatists now control most levers of power in Aden, where Hadi’s government is currently based.

“The current situation shows the failure of the state to make any movement towards providing even basic services,” said Khaled Murshed, a 40 year old employee at a state company.

“This reinforces the demands of regaining the southern state.”

QUEUES AND VIOLENCE

Many Yemenis accuse Hadi and his government, which until this month had operated from Saudi Arabia, of paying only lip service to improving living conditions.

“Aden lives its worst days,” said Azal, while the government of enjoys “air-conditioned accommodation in Saudi Arabia.”

Stung by growing criticism, Hadi’s government rebased to Aden earlier this month promising to get down to business on improving living conditions in the city.

But residents poked fun at the government, after reports that Prime Minister Ahmed bin Daghr protested at a meeting with city officials that the flag of the former South Yemen was flying over state buildings instead of the national colours.

The Yemeni government, which controls only parts of the country outside areas of northern Yemen held by the Houthis and its Saleh ally, acknowledges it has few sources of revenue to bring about major change.

Officials promised some relief following a deal with the United Arab Emirates – a main member of the Saudi-led coalition that has shouldered much reconstruction in Aden – to supply spare parts for the power plants and fuel supplies, according to the state-run Saba news agency.

But residents say Aden still receives about six hours of power every day, with the main power stations in the Khor Maksar and al-Mansoura districts out of service while the third one in al-Hiswah produces a quarter of its original capacity.

The power shortages have hit water supplies, hospitals and factories. Car owners often queue for three or four days to fill up, while bottled gas is so scarce many people use firewood.

Local hospitals say that at least nine elderly patients died in recent weeks due to the power cuts, and hospital managers say more are at risk due to a shortage of oxygen supplies. The only oxygen-producing plant is at a standstill due to lack of fuel.

“People are dying from the lack of electricity,” said Umm Alaa Aleiwah, a mother of 10 children. “You should resign (Hadi) and leave it to others. May the lord of the world grace us with those who can fix the country.”

(Writing by Sami Aboudi, editing by Anna Willard)

UN coerced into removing Saud name from an ignoble list of armies that kill and maim children

Here is one of the reasons why the Saudi link to United States' foreign policy hurts the United States' sanding in the world.

Saudi Arabia is ceaselessly bombing helpless Yemeni.  Bombs crash down in homes, hospitals, schools, places of business until Yemen has almost no economy left and many of its people are starving.

Saudi Arabia is not justified in its destructive campaign. And many of he bombs dropped are made in the United States and  Great Britain.

Both the United States sand Great Britain provide Saudi Arabia with political and diplomatic cover; they get, in return, a reliable supply of oil and the deposit, in their national bank accounts, of lots of money.  In addition, their legislative and executive branches get lots of money as campaign contributions:  1.4 trillion dollars (the estimated net wealth of the Saud royal family) warrant lots of favors in a money-driven world economy.

The UN blacklisted  Saudi Arabia of crimes against the children of  Yemen.  The listing was tentatively withdrawn  within a week.

Respected international organizations, including  Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, and Amnesty International, applauded thee listing; bemoaned he withdrawal.  The world press has covered the UN's withdrawal from a variety of perspectives.  Check out google news, UN chief took Saudis off blacklist... for citations to some of them.

Become amazed at the different ways the same event is reported, dependent on the national interest the news outlet  seems to represent.  Wonder how you can ever get the truth of any matter reported in the press.

And don't sink into hopeless despair.  Remain diligent. Figure it out for yourself.

The Times is cautiously recommended, but not when  Saudi Arabia does something bad.  Saudi Arabia does something bad often.

 New York Times 

MIDDLE EAST
United Nations Chief Exposes Limits to His Authority by Citing Saudi Threat

By SOMINI SENGUPTAJUNE 9, 2016


UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations secretary general is supposed to answer to every nation on earth — and no nation at all.
So the unusually frank admission by the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on Thursday that he had essentially been coerced into removing a Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen from an ignoble list of armies that kill and maim children was a rare window into the limits of his moral and political authority — and an object lesson for whoever succeeds Mr. Ban next year. 

On Thursday, Mr. Ban told reporters that he had been threatened with the loss of financing for humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, South Sudan and Syria if he did not temporarily delete the Saudi-led coalition from the list. 

The coalition has been accused of indiscriminately bombing civilian and nonmilitary targets in its battle against Houthi rebels in Yemen for more than a year. The coalition, which is backed by the United States, has consistently denied the accusations. 

Mr. Ban’s office issued a report last week on violations of children’s rights in war zones, and it cited deadly coalition attacks that had hit schools and hospitals. By Monday, however, the coalition was taken off the list, after lobbying by Saudi Arabia and some of its wealthiest allies who help finance United Nations humanitarian operations.
Mr. Ban offered his explanation Thursday, saying, “I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many U.N. programs.”

By the standards of mild-mannered diplomat-speak, he went on to issue an uncustomarily direct rebuke. “It is unacceptable for member states to exert undue pressure,” he said. The Saudi ambassador promptly asserted that there had been no undue pressure. 

Mr. Ban is wrapping up his 10-year tenure, and world powers are beginning to bargain over who his successor will be and just how independent she or he ought to be. 

Secretaries general have frequently faced intense political pressure from countries large and small, and Mr. Ban’s time in charge has been punctuated with a number of awkward compromises.
Last summer, Mr. Ban reversed course on his list of armies and guerrilla groups that violated child rights in war. In that instance, his special representative for children and armed conflict, Leila Zerrougui, recommended that the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas be included on the list for their role in bombing schools and hospitals and otherwise breaking international law during the 50-day war in the Gaza Strip in 2014.
Israel was consulted before the release of the report, Mr. Ban’s aides said at the time, and both Israeli and American diplomats lobbied intensely against the listing. In the end, both Israel and Hamas were kept off the list. Mr. Ban declined to address reporters’ questions on the matter at the time, leaving it to his envoy, Ms. Zerrougui, to explain the redaction. 

The generally risk-averse Mr. Ban has tried to step out a bit more during his last year, but he has also repeatedly had to step back. 

In March, on a rare visit to a camp that houses refugees from Western Sahara, Mr. Ban used the term “occupation” to refer to Morocco’s 1975 annexation of territory that the Sahrawis claim as theirs. The Moroccan government responded by ejecting dozens of United Nations staff members, effectively kneecapping the peacekeeping mission there. 

Morocco has a powerful ally in France, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, which helps explain why the Security Council said nothing to persuade Morocco to reverse its decision. That left Mr. Ban on his own, and within days, his spokesman was compelled to swallow his words. 

“We regret the misunderstandings and consequences that this personal expression of solicitude provoked,” said the spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric. 

Perhaps Mr. Ban’s most awkward moment came when he sought to act independently of the United States. In January 2014, he invited Iran to United Nations-brokered political negotiations over Syria, only to be advised by American officials to rescind the invitation, according to interviews with diplomats at the time. 

A day after he publicly announced the invitation, he appeared before reporters and said Iran could not attend. The State Department made its opposition clear, and demanded that Iran first accept certain conditions that it knew Tehran would find unacceptable. One of Mr. Ban’s aides said he felt betrayed. 

Asked at a news briefing on Thursday about Mr. Ban’s admission of Saudi pressure, a State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, said, “We agree with the secretary general that the U.N. should be permitted to carry out its mandate, carry out its responsibilities, without fear of money being cut off.” 

Pressed about American threats to cut off funding, Mr. Toner said, “I’m aware of our own track record.” 

Eleven people have so far declared their candidacy to succeed Mr. Ban when his term expires at the end of this year. A few others are expected to throw their names into the race in the next few weeks. 

The president of the General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, who has held the first-ever public hearings for the candidates, has used the terms “independent” and “courageous” to describe his ideal future secretary general.
That may be unrealistic. It is really up to the five permanent members of the Security Council to choose the next head of the organization, and while many of them have said they want a strong secretary general, they have also avoided calling for one who is independent. 

As for the Saudi-led coalition, Mr. Ban said he would jointly review the claims made by his special representative, who accused the coalition of indiscriminate attacks against children. Privately, diplomats say such a review could drag on until it vanishes from public memory.

Saudi Arabia flatly denied that it had exerted any pressure. “No, of course not,” the ambassador, Abdullah al-Mouallami, said in a telephone interview. “It is not our style. It is not our culture. It is not our spirit to use threats or intimidation.”
He did say that he had met with Mr. Ban’s deputy, Jan Eliasson, a Swedish diplomat, on Monday and expressed his concerns about the listing. He said he told him that “it would have an adverse impact on relations between Saudi Arabia and the United Nations.” 

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting.

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Four images from google images, from Yemen, posted this last week: