WHO Created the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS? — The Answers Might Shock You (Video)

Ibrahim al-Badri (Top: foreground on the left) with whom senator John McCain is talking. After his return from his surprise trip to Syria, McCain claimed that all those responsible for the Free Syrian Army were "moderates who can be trusted." Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Bottom Left) would later announce the formation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and installed himself as the "Caliph." Bottom Right: The "Inventor" of the Taliban, Zbigniew Brzezinski (President Jimmie Carter's National Security Adviser and author of The Grand Chessboard), speaks with one of his most famous protégées, Osama bin Laden, who he used to coordinate a proxy war against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan and who would become "leader" of Al Qaeda.—Ronald David Jackson

______________

The ISIS Conspiracy — Part 1: Origins

In the first part of a series, Brandon Martinez of Non-Aligned Media unravels the murky origins of ISIS and unveils how the group’s meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria is a continuation of US psychological warfare designed to facilitate the Zionist-Neocon agenda of toppling seven sovereign Middle Eastern and North African States.

______________

The ISIS Conspiracy — Part 2: US-Israeli-Saudi Intrigue

In part 2 of the “ISIS Conspiracy” series, Brandon Martinez of Non-Aligned Media unravels the intricate web of deceit and double-dealing that lies behind the manufactured ISIS phenomenon, and shows how the US and Israel have for decades plotted behind the scenes to implode the Middle East.

RELATED STORY: CONFIRMED -- US Predicted the Influx of Islamist Mercenaries into Syria Could Lead To ISIS and a 'Caliphate' — Document

The Islamic State: Created by the CIA's 'Strategy of Tension'

By Wayne MADSEN
It is becoming more and more apparent that the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or «Daesh» as it is known in Arabic, or ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham -- preferred by Israel supporters because of the uncomforting similarity between «Israel» and «ISIL» – is part of another Central Intelligence Agency operation to artificially create a new «strategy of tensions» for the Eurasian and African land masses.

Yet another example of ISIL’s non-Islamic nature has been witnessed in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra – the blowing up of the tomb of Mohammad Bin Ali, a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed's cousin Imam Ali, by the brigands and mercenaries of ISIL. ISIL’s true goal is to eradicate the Arab and pre-Arab history of the Middle East with one major exception. There have been virtually no reports of important antiquities sacred to the Zionists having been destroyed by ISIL in either Syria or Iraq. The major targets for the ISIL demolition teams have been Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Roman, Assyrian, Persian, Alawite, Druze, Turkmen, Yazidi, Parthian, Christian, Shi’a, and Sufi (the other major tomb destroyed in Palmyra was the tomb of Nizar Abu Bahaa Eddine, a Sufi scholar who lived 500 years ago). ISIL destroyed the Tomb of Yunus (Jonah) Mosque in Iraq not because it honored the Jewish patriarch Jonah but because it was a mosque.

RELATED STORY: GLADIO  The Documented History of Terrorism As Currently Practiced by CIA and British Intel

The alleged tomb of the Jewish prophet Daniel destroyed by ISIL in Mosul is but one of six Daniel tombs located in Iraq, Iran, and Uzbekistan. The Talmud, the Jewish book from which the Zionists obtain most of their geo-political inspiration, strictly prohibits any images of faces, but permits owning images of faces created by non-Jews. Although ISIL and Talmudists are on the same page on destroying sculptures, tiles, and paintings depicting people, the Talmud’s exception that allows Jews to own images created by non-Jews has resulted in a lucrative black market for antiquities stolen by ISIL and sold through brokers in Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, and Geneva.

It is becoming clear that ISIL, from the very beginning, was a construct of the CIA and its pro-Saudi and pro-Israeli director, John Brennan; Israel's Mossad, which has ensured that Israeli targets are exempt from ISIL attack; and Saudi Arabia, which actually permitted ISIL attacks against two Shi'a mosques, one in the village of al-Qadeeh and the other in Dammam, in the Eastern Province, where Shi'as have a majority over Wahhabist Sunnis. In Iraq and Syria, U.S. and Israeli weapons have been seen by eyewitnesses being transferred to ISIL and forces of its allies, including the Al Nusra Front in Syria. Saudi bank cash receipts have been found in abandoned ISIL headquarters in both Syria and Iraq. The ISIL attacks on the Shi'as of Saudi Arabia are believed by many to be warnings by the unholy alliance of Washington, Tel Aviv, and Riyadh against predominantly Shi'a Iran.

From the terrorist Gladio «stay behind» network of fascists, which carried out terrorist attacks in Europe in the 1970s and 80s that were blamed on leftist irregulars, to the grand alliance of terrorists from Angola’s UNITA, the Afghan mujaheddin, the Nicaraguan contras, Laotian Hmongs who, under American auspices, met in 1985 in Jamba, Angola, the CIA has historically found that terrorist groups make advantageous allies. The CIA clandestinely and illegally violated two U.S. laws, the Clark and Boland Amendments, respectively, to support Angolan and Nicaraguan terrorists.


ISIL now serves as an important CIA, Saudi, and Israeli asset against common foes like Iran. ISIL has made no secret of its desire to bring the death and destruction it has visited upon Syria and Iraq into the heart of Iran. The destabilization of Iran by sponsoring terrorist attacks in Iran and against Iranian targets abroad has long been the modus operandi of the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia, acting mostly through the anti-Tehran Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) and Baluchi separatists based in Pakistan. ISIL refers to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan as «Wilayat Khorasan» or Korasan State. An ISIL affiliate, known as the Khorasan Group, has been fighting in Syria and is believed to be made up of central Asian ISIL recruits and commanders.

It was recently announced that Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, the one-time head of the Tajikistan elite anti-terrorism police force, known as OMON, defected to ISIL and is now one its top field commanders in Syria. Khalimov, who was trained by U.S. Special Operations, Blackwater, and CIA officers during a number of official visits to the United States, has vowed to return to the Tajikistan to «slaughter» Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov, recruit Tajiks working in Russia to launch terrorist attacks inside Russia itself and Tajiks in Tajikistan to attack Russian military troops stationed in Tajikistan (which makes Khalimov an ally of NATO top military commander General Philip Breedlove and U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who want to increase military pressure on Russia to Cold War levels). ISIL guerrillas, mostly Chechens, fresh from combat in Syria and Iraq, have been discovered fighting for Ihor Kolomoisky's Israeli- and neo-Nazi-led mercenary battalions against the pro-Russian forces of Donetsk and Lugansk in Eastern Ukraine.

ISIL has, conveniently for the West, attacked Taliban forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban declared ISIL's self-declared caliphate as illegitimate, and its caliph leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who may be an artificial product of the CIA's and Mossad's psychological warfare units, to be a fraud. The Taliban became alarmed as some of its members broke ranks with the jihadist movement and joined ISIL in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, ISIL declared the Taliban to be «kafirs», or unbelievers of Islam. In April, Al-Baghadi declared the Taliban's Mullah Omar to be «a fool and illiterate warlord.» It is no coincidence that ISIL's rhetoric about the enigmatic Taliban leader matches nicely with that issued forth by the U.S. military psy-ops units in Afghanistan at the height of the U.S. military intervention in that country. In mid-June, ISIL released a video tape showing its forces decapitating a Taliban prisoner in Afghanistan.

ISIL has, also, in concert with increasing U.S. military pressure on China and North Korea, declared jihad or holy war on the two Asian nations. In May, a North Korean couple, who worked as doctors at the local hospital in Zallah, Libya, were taken captive by ISIL in Libya. No word has been received on the fate of the North Korean husband and wife medical duo. In January, ISIL computer hackers, known as the «Cyber Caliphate», claimed credit for altering the Facebook page of Air Koryo, North Korea's state-owned airline. ISIL's black and white flag was pasted on the Facebook page with a statement calling North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un «a crying pig.» The ISIL hackers also had a warning for both North Korea and China: «North Korea, the communist thug nation, and the Chinese communist thugs will pay a price for their collaboration with the enemies of the mujahideen».

ISIL propaganda rhetoric about China and North Korea also coincide with pronouncements emanating from the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii about the military threats posed by Beijing and Pyongyang. North Korea has responded to the ISIL threats by providing the Type 73 machine gun, manufactured by the First Machine Industry Bureau of North Korea to Iraqi government and Kurdish forces fighting against ISIL in Iraq. North Korean military advisers are also believed to be assisting Syrian government and Lebanese Hezbollah forces battling ISIL in Syria. South Korea, which never misses an opportunity to confront North Korea militarily, permitted a South Korean citizen, known only by the very common Korean name «Kim», to join ISIL ranks in Syria in February. It is more likely that «Kim» is a South Korean intelligence agent who is responsible for coordinating ISIL attacks on North Korean assets in the region, including the North Korean medical couple in Libya.

Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro, who the CIA is busy trying to overthrow, called ISIL a «Frankenstein, a monster nursed by the West itself» in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2014. Not coincidentally, as President Barack Obama declared that Venezuela posed a «national security threat» to the United States in March, there were reports of nascent ISIL activity in Venezuela. The U.S. Army War College, including Professor Robert Bunker, began issuing statements that increased ISIL activity in Venezuela would be good for U.S. national security because ISIL is the natural enemy of Hezbollah, which the U.S. neocons are claiming has gained a strategic toehold in Venezuela. The links between ISIL and the West in Latin America have not been lost on the Western Hemisphere's sage senior statesman, former Cuban president Fidel Castro. In September 2014, Castro accused Israel's Mossad, in league with Senator McCain, of helping to create ISIL.

The ultimate perpetrators of ISIL's ravaging of the Middle East are not to be found in the deserts of the Middle East and the mountains of Afghanistan but in the seventh floor director's suite at CIA headquarters in Langley. In 1985, the same year the CIA sponsored the summit of right-wing terrorist groups in Jamba, Angola, the CIA tried to kill Lebanon’s Shi’a Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadl-Allah with a car bomb in Beirut. The CIA missed the ayatollah but killed 80 innocent people and wounded 256. Today, the CIA allows ISIL to get its fingers dirty in carrying out such terrorist attacks from Iraq and Syria to Yemen and Libya. ISIL cannot be brought to its knees without dealing harshly with Mr. Brennan and his top advisers.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture

The Shia Crescent: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy — Chickens 'Come Home to Roost' After Years of Bad Treatment by Arab Governments

King Abdullah of Jordan, 2004. Wikicommons/Remi Stinger.
Some rights reserved.

By Ranj Alaaldin
The “Shia Crescent” has been a self-serving and self-fulfilling prophecy. Since its inception in 1979, never has the Islamic Republic of Iran had such influence and control over a range of state and non-state actors. In Iraq, Iran has unparalleled control over the Shia-dominated state and the country’s range of Shia militias currently fighting so-called Islamic State (IS). Elsewhere, Iranian influence over Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria’s al-Assad regime has been reinforced since the outbreak of conflict in Syria and its transformation into a regionalised sectarian proxy war.

Whilst for Iran it is mostly geostrategic interests that are at stake, for the others it is their survival. IS and its backers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf have made clear their intent to reverse the Shia ascent in the region and eliminate the Shia community altogether. In other words, Iranian influence in the region has as much to do with the policies and reactions of the Arab world as it does Iran’s own maneuverings. Iran does not have influence over the region’s various Shia actors by default, but is helped by the way the Arab world regimes have historically treated Shia actors in the region.

Traditionally, they have afforded little political and human rights to their Shia constituents. They have also treated their Shia communities as part of broader regional problems, particularly because of the religious and political ties that exist between the region’s different Shia communities. These ties do not necessarily mean that they are conducive to some form of pan-regional Shia alliance but, rather, that the Arab world has identified the region’s Shia communities as threats to their authority.

Iran’s influence in the region today is nothing new. Under the Shah, Iran was also proactive, often embroiled in conflict or disputes with the Arab world and often supporting rebel or revolutionary forces, like the Kurds in Iraq. When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ousted the Shah regime and came to power, he called upon the Islamic world to rise up against their autocratic leaders. Whilst some Arab governments, like Syria, Libya and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation sent their congratulations to him, there was unease among the autocratic governments and monarchies of the broader region. Khomeini’s Iran permitted the notion that change and revolution was possible. The emergence of the Islamic Republic and the ousting of the Shah showed that the rule and power of despots in the region was not impregnable.

Similarly, the over-arching and generally simplistic narrative emphasising the link between Shia actors in the region and Iran that we see today pre-dates not only the Syria conflict and the 2003 Iraq war but also the Islamic Republic of Iran itself. Arab world states have historically played on divisions and sensitivities toward Iranian influence; divisions between Arabs and Persians and divisions in Islam between Sunnis and Shias. Anti-government opposition figures, and Shia political movements more generally, have often, if not always, been charged with accusations of being Iranian agents. Under Saddam Hussein and his predecessors, the Iraqi state regularly accused its Shia community of being an Iranian fifth column.

Like the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 2003 invasion of Iraq had an instant impact on the sectarian polarisation of the region. In perception, the empowerment of Iraq’s Shia community after 2003 was seen as the empowerment of the Arab world’s other marginalised Shia communities. In much the same way as the Iranian revolution had done in 1979 (although for both Shia and Sunni Arabs), the removal of the Baath regime and the fall of Saddam Hussein seemed to promise the deliverance of the Shia as a whole.

The Shias’ dominance in the new Iraq also concerned the rest of the region because of the considerable extent to which they were organized and mobilized on the basis of their Shia identity. Arab world regimes have historically sought to project, through both coercive and non-coercive means, a vision and image of unity in their effort to legitimize their rule and contain internal dissent. Iraq after 2003, like the Iranian revolution in 1979, has undermined this projection. Further, Iraq’s Shia actors entered the new Iraq with extensive links to Iran, which gave Iraq’s Shia opposition groups, as well as Kurdish groups, extensive support in their effort to overthrow the Baath regime.

The toppling of the Baath regime could have triggered the same sentiments, moreover, as the 1979 Iranian revolution, for the region as a whole, and indeed echo those sentiments triggered by the Arab Spring protests, among a population yearning for democratic and human rights. However, the toxic circumstances that followed the toppling of the Baath regime; the backdrop against which the war took place and the Arab world’s immediate mobilisation against the new Iraq, before it was given a chance to repair and rebuild, as well as the narrative that came from Sunni Arab actors in Iraq and beyond, ensured that the fall of Saddam Hussein was seen as the fall of the Sunnis and the rise of the Shia and Iran.

When King Abdullah of Jordan referred to the dangers of a “Shia crescent” in December 2004, one stretching from Damascus to Tehran, passing through Baghdad, the definition of the Iraqi state was still unclear at the time and it was equally unclear whether Iraq would come to be ruled by a Shia alliance. Yet, Iraq’s neighbours in the Arab world had already decided to characterize the new Iraq as an Iranian client-state; its Shia parties, Iranian proxies. In other words, the post-2003 Iraq did not have to exacerbate sectarianism and polarise the region further along sectarian lines. But in response to this characterisation, a flood of jihadists used the Arab world states as a transit point to enter Iraq and wreak carnage, with the acquiescence of the governments of those states. Militants received active support from either Arab world governments or wealthy individuals from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

As the trajectory of the post-2003 Iraq shows, it was in response to the Sunni mobilisation against the new Iraq that the Shias contested elections as a unified bloc, despite their ideological, political and social divisions. This came in 2005, when Grand Ayatollah Sistani brought Iraq’s Shia parties and movements together in order to ensure that a resilient Sunni insurgency, backed by the Arab world, did not take them back under Baathist or Sunni Arab dictatorial rule, which cross-sections of Iraq’s Shia community feared at the time. As one Iraqi Shia noted to me in 2007: “I would much rather live in a jungle than a Baathist prison”, referring to the chaos and the civil war that had engulfed the country at the time.

Shunned by the Arab world, Iraq’s Shia-dominated state was effectively pushed into Iran’s orbit of influence after 2003. More recently, Iran was the only outside power that deployed advisors and special-forces in the country in June 2014, when IS took control of Mosul. While the west dithered as Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, was being targeted by IS, Iran responded almost immediately to a threat that threatened the Iraqi state and the Shia community itself. Iranian support has manifested itself in the form of arms and funds; organisational and technical assistance. That, inevitably, translates into some form of influence and control.

The post-2003 Sunni Arab rejection of the new Iraq; followed by the sectarian proxy war in Syria and the anti-Shia basis on which IS functions and on which the Arab world states legitimise and strengthen their rule, has created a unifying thread that mobilizes and unites the Shia, despite their own internal divisions. In other words, any Shia dependence on Iran, whether this occurs in Iraq, or Syria – where the Shia Allawite sect is traditionally seen as heretic by most Shias – or in Yemen – where the Houthis belong to a sect of Shia Islam (Zaydism) that is in fact closer to Sunni Islam – is not necessarily a matter of choice or of default, but one of necessity.

This has proved pivotal in bridging the divide that has existed between different sections of the Shia community both within Iraq and in the region. It has also transformed the Shia identity into a powerful galvanising force, particularly since the rise of IS and the outbreak of conflict in Syria.

Shias throughout the region retain a strong sense of their national identity and seldom will you meet a Shia that rejects his or her national identity. But what recent conflict in Syria, the rise of IS and the anti-Shia sectarian narrative from the Arab world has done is to coalesce the region’s Shia community around the Shia identity, despite their political, social and ideological differences. In other words, the notion of a Shia Crescent might be a greater reality today than it was before when first asserted by King Abdullah in 2004. But it has been both a self-serving and a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Reprinted with permission from openDemocracy.

Debunking Media Myths About the Houthis in War-Torn Yemen

The logo of Ansar Allah commonly known as Houthis. Image taken from their official
Twitter account, which includes the Quranic verse, ”O ye who believe! Be ye helpers
of Allah (ansar allah).” The flag says, “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel,
Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

By Thalia Rahme
For more than 10 years, the Houthis have been grabbing headlines since they launched a mass uprising against Yemen's government. Since 2004, government forces have fought against the tribal militia from the north, who say they are defending themselves against oppression.

The decade-long conflict escalated in recent months when the Houthis didn't respect their part in an agreement called the ”Peace and National Partnership Agreement” and entered the country's capital, Sana'a, took over key buildings and institutions, and placed current President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi under house arrest.

Now, as Saudi Arabia carries out a military operation on Yemen to drive the Houthis out, even more media outlets are turning their attention to the situation.

But with Shia Muslim-majority Iran supporting the Houthis and Sunni Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia dropping bombs on them, the press has pushed a simplistic narrative that the conflict boils down to the religious divides between the two largest denominations of Islam. Even Al Jazeera's video channel AJ+ reported the Houthis to be Shia.

However, the reality is more complex than these 42 seconds make it seem.

Not all Houthis are Shia Muslims

Houthi was originally the name of a family or a clan in Yemen, not a sect or a religious group. Later, a movement of rebel fighters called Ansar Allah (meaning God Helpers or God Supporters) adopted it as their name, after their founder and main leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi was killed in 2004, which in a way sparked the so-called Houthis insurgency. There is a controversy over the current number of members and the people who are fighting with them.

Yemeni blogger Atiaf Al Wazir in a post entitled “It's not a Sunni-Shi’a Conflict, dummy” pointed out that not all people who belong to the Houthis are of the Zaidi sect, a school of Shia Islam, as has been reported:

While no statistics have been collected on the composition of Ansarullah, commonly known as Houthis; it is believed that many of their members are Zaydi but also come from various religious schools of thought in Shi’a and Sunni Islam, including Ismaili, Shafiʿi, and Ja’afari. Many Sunni tribesmen and soldiers have also joined the Houthis and fight along their side. In fact, prominent Shafi’i leaders like Saad Bin Aqeel, a Mufti of Ta’iz, are amongst Houthis’ leaders and in fact presented a Friday sermon at one of the sit-ins prior to their advance into the capital.

Badreddin al-Houthi belonged to the Zaidi sect. So does former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was in power when the Houthis originally rebelled in 2004.

Al Wazir also argues that “not all Zaidis are Houthis. Well-known Zaidi scholars and religious centers have been divided on their stance towards the Houthis.”

British-Yemeni journalist Abubakr al-Shamahi explains the Zaidi sect more in depth:

Zaydism (Zaydiyyah) is a school of thought within Shia Islam. It is named after Imam Zaydi Bin Ali, who was killed in an uprising against the Ummayyads. Although it was once found in places such as Iran and North Africa, Zaydis are now only found in significant numbers in Yemen. A Zaydi Imamate ruled many parts of northern Yemen for 1000 years, up until the last Imam was overthrown in 1962. Traditionally, places like Sana’a, Dhamar, Hajja and Amran are Zaydi, and the heartland is Sa’dah. A common saying referring to the Zaydis is that they are “the Sunnis of the Shia, and the Shia of the Sunnis”, indicating that there is not a huge difference doctrinally between Zaydis and Sunnis (or at least it has been perceived that way).

And Arab News Blog gives even more context, highlighting how close the Zaidi sect is to Sunnism:

While they are called “Fivers” because they accept the first four Imams recognized by Twelvers and Isma‘ilis (“Seveners”) and recognize Zayd ibn ‘Ali as the rightful successor to his father ‘Ali Zayn al-‘Abidin while other groups recognize his brother Muhammad al-Baqir, they do not then insist that all rightful imams must descend from Zayd. In fact, the Zaydi doctrine of the Imamate differs enormously from other Shi‘a. The Zaydi legal school is very similar to that of Abu Hanifa in Sunnism, and some have listed Zaydi law as a “fifth school” of Sunnism, except for the doctrine of the Imamate.

Zaidis make up about one-third of the population of Yemen.

Mass demonstration in the province of Dali in the south of Yemen, calling for disengagement from the
north on February 19, 2010. Photo by rashad1. Copyright Demotix

Tribes or Sects ?

Former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, against whom the Houthi rebel movement began, belongs to a tribe called Al Ahmar. The Al Ahmar tribe counts among its members Shia and Sunni Muslims. That said, both the late Houthi leader Badreddin al-Houthi and Saleh are technically Shia.

That means tribal divisions have just as much to do with the conflict. Michael Collins Dunn, editor of the Middle East Journal, explains on his blog:

President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih is himself a Zaydi, as is a considerable part of his power base. He comes from a small tribe in the larger Hashid tribal confederation. The Hashid and the other big Zaydi confederation, the Bakil, used to be referred to as the “wings of the Imamate” when Zaydi Imams still ruled in what was then North Yemen.

Al-Shamahi seems to agree with that opinion:

For one, the al-Ahmars are traditionally Zaydi, just like the Houthis. I can’t vouch for the religious identification of each individual Ahmar, but I’d say that many of their tribal fighters will still, at least loosely, identify as Zaydi. Ali Abdullah Saleh, who fought 6 wars against the Houthis, was also Zaydi. So is this Zaydi on Zaydi fighting? A Zaydi civil war?

And so as Al Wazir explains:

[...] if this was a sectarian issue, Saleh (who is technically Zaydi) would not have engaged in six wars with the Houthis from 2004 – 2010. It appears that today’s former enemies have formed a temporary alliance. This indicates that these conflicts are political in nature.

Al Wazir was referring to the fact that ex-President Saleh, who was ousted after more than three decades years in power, during the 2011 Yemen revolution, is alleged to be helping his former adversaries in their quest to topple the government.

RELATED STORY: The Upheaval in Yemen is Threatening the US-Backed Old Kleptocratic Order — Gulf Dictators Attack to 'Restore Democracy'

It also happened to be that al-Houthi had personal connections with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has also added a sectarian angle to the Yemeni conflict.

Bottom line

Here's the takeaway. Part of the conflict in Yemen is between Houthis, a tribe and not a religious sect, and the Ahmar tribe. Both have Sunni and Shia members and allies. Two of the prominent leaders of these tribes are both Shia, with the difference being that one has close ties to Iran while the other has close ties to Saudi Arabia. Ideologically, Yemen's Shia are closer to Saudi Sunnism than to Iranian Shiism.

Now Saleh and the Houthis currently headed by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi seem to be singing the same song, making it look like tribes and sects are uniting for the time being. And for the time being, Yemeni blood, from all sects and tribes, will keep flowing.

Reprinted with permission from Global Voices.

When the Jihadists Turn on Their Masters: Saudi Arabian Royalty Nurtured a Frankenstein for Four Decades

The filthy rich hereditary rulers of the Gulf wage war on secularists and Shia. But, the greatest danger to Saudi Arabian royalty is the Frankenstein they have nurtured for nearly four decades: Islamic jihadists. “The prospect of physical annihilation by Sunni jihadists hangs over the House of Saud and all its royal brethren.” The scourge they let loose on the world will destroy them.

“Should the Saudi-led aggression in Yemen succeed in crushing the Houthis, al Qaida would be the clear winner.”

By Glenn Ford, BAR executive editor
In Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya, the decades-long U.S.-Saudi strategy to deploy Islamic jihadists as foot soldiers of imperialism is disintegrating – in flames. Although western and royal Arab media depict this week’s murderous Saudi assault on Yemen and the formation of a combined Arab military force as a counterweight to both Iran and Islamist “extremism,” it is not Shiite Tehran, but Sunni Muslim jihadists that represent an existential threat to the oil-rich rulers of the Gulf. The leader of Shiite Hizbullah movement put it best, in a televised speech from Lebanon, last weekend. “Your intelligence...financed and armed ISIL,” said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, directing his remarks to the Saudi regime. “Then, tables were turned. You were terrified by ISIL, which escaped your grasp and control as Al Qaeda did before.”

The jihadist genie has been definitively out of the bottle since ISIS declared war on all rival “emirates, groups, states and organizations” within range of its fighters, last summer, lumping Saudi Arabia and the neighborhood’s other hereditary regimes into the same heretic-infidel camp as American “defenders of the cross” and “the dirty French.” Al Qaida, from which ISIS sprang, will almost certainly arrive at a similar theological-political juncture at a time of its own choosing, pulling with it most of the remainder of the armed Islamist spectrum. Not just a crisis of legitimacy, but the prospect of physical annihilation by Sunni jihadists, hangs over the House of Saud and all its royal brethren. What goes around, comes around. The swords of the Sunni faithful are a far greater danger to royal Arab necks than Persian Shiite mullahs.

“Egypt’s army is to be rented out as a mercenary force.”

The jihadist storm troopers’ declaration of independence – an inevitability that we at Black Agenda Report predicted four years ago – necessitates a circling of conventional Arab armies around the filthy-rich potentates of the Gulf. Egypt’s army, the largest in the Arab world, is to be rented out as a mercenary force in lieu of the tens of billions gifted to dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for toppling the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government, in 2013. El-Sisi has agreed, in principle, to send troops to fight on the ground in Yemen. It would not be the first time. Half a century ago, pan-Arab socialist president Gamal Abdel Nasser sent 26,000 Egyptian soldiers to their deaths in an attempt to crush royalist Shiite Houthi fighters in northern Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Jordan took the Shiite Imam’s side against his secular rivals – proof that the Saudis are much more concerned about royal privileges than “heresy.”

The Houthis are al Qaida’s fiercest opponents in Yemen, having been marked for extermination by the jihadists – a rough replica of the situation in Syria, where the secular government and the Shiite population are the bulwark against ISIS/al Qaida. Should the Saudi-led aggression in Yemen succeed in crushing the Houthis, al Qaida would seem to be the clear winner. However, in the new jihadist environment, such an outcome can no longer be counted as a plus for the Saudis, who will also face the wrath of every genuine Yemeni nationalist. If the war devolves into a quagmire, it will likely destabilize Saudi Arabia, itself. Many Yemenis live and work in the Kingdom, and Saudi Shiites, who make up 15 to 25 percent of the population and are concentrated near the eastern oil fields, suffer cruel persecution. Wahhabist war hysteria will further alienate the Shiite minority, while fueling sectarian passions among jihad-prone Sunni youth in the Kingdom and the region – chickens that will, sooner rather than later, come home to abolish the throne.

“The ‘rebellion’ in Syria is firmly in the hands of Osama bin Laden’s heirs.”

The jihadist cancer is metastasizing in the body politic of its royal hosts – a catastrophe for the United States, which depends on the royals to project power in the region. The U.S. is so universally hated in the Arab world that a sustained American “boots on the ground” strategy is unthinkable. In Iraq, the U.S. is reduced to withholding air support for the fight to dislodge ISIS from the city of Tikrit. The Americans brag that they insisted the Iraqi government withdraw its militias and, presumably, their Iranian advisers, from the battlefront before resuming air reconnaissance and bombing. The fit of imperial bullying may have made Washington feel “indispensable,” but the ability to withhold assistance is not the same as the power to project decisive force. The episode only served to demonstrate that Washington is only interested in turning Iraq’s perils to U.S. advantage. Rather than limiting Iran’s influence with Iraq, the incident showed Iraqis that the U.S. is incapable of behaving being like an ally, under any circumstances.

In Syria, al-Nusra, the al Qaida affiliate, led a coalition of jihadist groups in the capture of Idlib, the second provincial capital to be lost by the government. The other capital, Raqqa, is held by ISIS. Before taking Idlib, the al Qaida fighters had routed and disarmed two American-supported rebel groups. Thus, the “rebellion” in Syria is firmly in the hands of Osama bin Laden’s heirs. Al-Nusra has not yet cut the umbilical to the U.S. and its allies, but it is only a matter of time and battlefield conditions.

In Libya, the Misurata brigades that sodomized and murdered Muammar Gaddafi and wiped out the Black Libyan town of Tawerga, refused for weeks to dislodge fighters loyal to ISIS in the city Sirte. It turns out the ISIS troops were actually defectors from Misurata. Just as in Syria, ISIS in Libya grows by absorbing other jihadist outfits – somewhat like the “borg” on StarTrek. In the end, the process will bring down the houses of the filthy hereditary rich of the region, who tried to save their feudal privileges through the jihadification of political life. And the United States will lose much of its capacity to project power on the ground in energy basin of the planet.


___________
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

 Reprinted with permission from Black Agenda Report.

The Upheaval in Yemen is Threatening the US-Backed Old Kleptocratic Order — Gulf Dictators Attack to 'Restore Democracy'

For the past three years, the US-Saudi process of transition has been nothing but a cynical rearguard action to retrench the old order, in which the majority of Yemen’s 24 million population are shut out from democratic control of the country’s politics and economics. The old kleptocratic order would thereby persist in its disenfranchisement of the Yemeni population while serving the geopolitical interests of Washington and its client Arab monarchies—Finian Cunningham

Yemenis burn a replica of a fighter jet draped with an American flag.

By Finian Cunningham
The crisis in Yemen is the latest manifestation of the old order desperately trying to cling on to a dwindling power base. That old order has been backed by the United States and its allies among the Persian Gulf Arab dictatorships as a bulwark against a popular uprising that could lead to democratization in the poorest Middle Eastern country. If such an outcome were to succeed, the repercussions for the autocratic Gulf monarchies would be deeply destabilizing. Saudi Arabia, which shares a southern border with Yemen, is the primary concern for this spreading «instability».

That is why the House of Saud is now issuing all sorts of grave warnings of "foreign interferenc" and blaming Iran for «aggression». Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal this week said that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is ready to send in a military force to «protect Yemen’s sovereignty». The GCC comprises the six monarchical states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. All are stalwart American client regimes.

Meanwhile, Washington is urging Yemeni rival factions to «return to the United Nations-mediated peace talks». Samantha Power, the US representative on the UN Security Council, said: "To preserve Yemen's security, stability and unity, all parties must refrain from any further unilateral and offensive military actions."

UN envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, amid warnings of all-out civil war, said this week that imminent talks were scheduled to take place in the Qatari capital, Doha. Al Jazeera reported that "any agreement reached would be signed in [Saudi capital] Riyadh".

The venues of Doha and Riyadh are hardly neutral places to conduct peace talks. The rebels in Yemen, led by the northern Houthi movement, have accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the US, of repeatedly interfering in the country’s strife to support the old order and to offset any democratic change. Seen from this point of view, the UN-mediated talks are thus being capped with a veto wielded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. That would explain why Washington is so keen to push the talks, knowing that they will not produce anything substantive in terms of democratic progress in Yemen.

Indeed, Samantha Power has taken to discredit the Houthi movement by alleging that it is responsible for all the recent violence in the country. Power told the UN Security Council this week that the Houthi rebels have "consistently undermined Yemen’s transition". Amazingly, or perhaps not, she did not make mention of Saudi-backed extremists who last week killed more than 130 people in two mosque bombings in the capital, Sanaa. Ironically, it is the US and Saudi Arabia and their unswerving support in sustaining the old regime that is undermining «transition» to a more democratic and peaceful polity in Yemen.

The old regime in Yemen is headed up by Mansour Hadi, who is openly backed by the US and Saudi Arabia. For nearly 30 years he served as the vice president under the strong-arm dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was also backed to the hilt by Washington and Riyadh.

Saleh was notorious for his kleptocracy, siphoning of huge wealth for his family and entourage from Yemen’s modest oil industry. His son was made commander of the Republican Guard and was being groomed for succession until the Arab region’s popular protests in 2011 threatened to upset the family-run apple cart. Despite a brutal crackdown against largely peaceful protests, in which hundreds were gunned down on the streets of the capital, the American and Saudi sponsors of Saleh managed to stave off his overthrow by spinning out "talks" and eventually coming up with a "deal" that afforded the dictator and his ruling clique lifetime immunity from prosecution. As part of that US-Saudi-brokered "compromise", Saleh’s long-time deputy, Mansour Hadi, was made president in February 2012 after a non-contested "election". His presidency was only supposed to be a transitional position until the advent of full elections and the reconstitution of a representative parliament.

For the past three years, the US-Saudi process of transition has been nothing but a cynical rearguard action to retrench the old order, in which the majority of Yemen’s 24 million population are shut out from democratic control of the country’s politics and economics. The old kleptocratic order would thereby persist in its disenfranchisement of the Yemeni population while serving the geopolitical interests of Washington and its client Arab monarchies. Prime among those interests is the deterrence of democratic change in the region, as American political analyst Noam Chomsky has consistently argued.

The northern-based Houthis are adherents to a Shia sect of Islam. They have received political support from Shia Iran, but Saudi claims of Iranian fifth columnists are wildly overblown. Also, in the Houthis’ recent push for democratic change in Yemen their political vision has been notably inclusive of all religions and tribes. The Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, have spearheaded the ouster of the old regime simply because they have felt the most grievances of exclusion under the old Western, Saudi-backed order.

Last September, Houthi frustration over continual delay in the promised political transition boiled over when they took over the capital Sanaa by force of arms. One of its leaders Mohammed Abdulsalam said then: "This is a strategic victory for all Yemenis. But it is only the beginning of a long campaign to defeat corruption endemic in Yemen’s governing system. Today is the beginning of an age different from the past as the voice of all of the nation is being heard".

The Houthi movement can therefore be rightly seen as much more than just a narrow Shia sect, and one that seems to be genuinely agitating for a more democratic, inclusive Yemen.

When the Western-Saudi puppet president Hadi was forced last September to speed up the overdue transition, it is notable that Saudi Arabia began issuing dire warnings of Yemen’s collapse and Iranian foreign aggression, as it has once again cited this week. Meantime, Riyadh began to step up its support for Al Qaeda-linked groups in Yemen, who embarked on a campaign of car bombings and shootings in the capital and other towns loyal to the pro-democracy movement. Warnings of chaos had a self-fulfilling quality because of covert Saudi sponsoring of chaos. One month after the Houthis took over Sanaa in September last year, a car bomb claimed by Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (which is linked to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) killed more than 50. Last week, saw another atrocity when two Shia mosques were bombed by the same group, killing more than 130. In between those atrocities there have been numerous other massacres carried out by the Al Qaeda-linked extremists, mainly directed at the Houthi community.

The systemic link between Saudi rulers and Islamist terror groups is not a matter of contention. It has been well documented elsewhere, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Syria. So too are the links between US and NATO allies and the same terror groups who function as proxies for regime change or pretexts for foreign military intervention. There are contradictions, of course, such as Saudi Arabia (and Qatar) claiming to be allies in the US-led so-called war on terrorism against Al Qaeda. Washington and Riyadh claim to be waging a counterinsurgency campaign in Yemen against Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, which the US has targeted with its aerial drones for the past decade.

Western powers, including the US, Britain, France and Germany, followed moves by the Persian Gulf monarchies to shut down embassies in Yemen earlier this year. This had the effect of heightening tensions and destabilising the country. The rush to evacuate Yemen had the unmistakable air of a forced abandonment to contrive a state of emergency, which would undermine the Houthi push for political transition. This puts Samantha Power’s recent accusations against the Houthis in a more enlightening context.

Now the deposed puppet-president Mansour Hadi has set up a base in the southern port city of Aden – the old British colonial «Protectorate». Hadi and his clique are calling for foreign military intervention from the Saudi-led GCC states to "restore order" – a phrase that reveals more than intended. It is patent that the Aden remnant is speaking according to a US-Saudi script aimed at giving a legal fig leaf for justifying foreign interference, whose real intent is to roll back a popular uprising.

In this Yemeni development there is an unerring analogy with the Bahrain pro-democracy movement. In mid-March 2011 when a Bahraini popular uprising was threatening to overthrow the kleptocratic regime of the Al Khalifa monarchy, the Saudis led a GCC military force into the Gulf island-state to crush that pro-democracy movement. Again, as with Yemen, the Saudis invented the pretext of Iranian aggression as a political cover for its actions. The Americans and the British, too, went fully along with the Saudi ruse in Bahrain to crush a democratic opening and to shore up the old order.

The old order of autocratic, despotic rule in the Arab region is sacrosanct, as far as Washington and its petrodollar allies are concerned. Democracy, or even the mere possibility of democracy, cannot be tolerated. For that would threaten the fascist order that underpins American global hegemony. Yemen is now entering dangerous political territory. It is threatening the Washington-ordained order, not just in the country, but in the entire oil-rich region. A US-backed Saudi-led military intervention to «restore order» is therefore on the way. That could take the form of an overt invasion, as in Bahrain, or a ramped-up covert terror campaign to drown the country in blood.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture

There Is No Such Thing As A Moderate Syrian Opposition

The Syrian Arab Army has multiple charities that go house to house looking after its men in uniform.

Ahmed Chalabi of Iraq with Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer, 2008. James Bowman/Wikicommons.
Some rights reserved.

By Kamal Alam
David Cameron has recently announced that British military trainers will soon begin assisting the Syrian rebels. This could be a colossal mistake given a now four-year failure to vet the so called moderate Syrian opposition. It seems that Cameron has not learnt from the experiences of Libya, Iraq & Yemen. However the most costly blunder that the west has made is the complete misunderstanding of the Syrian state and the will of its military to fight on.

Despite the brutal ravages of this war, it is only the Syrian Arab Republic that is providing not just salaries to over 100,000 soldiers but also looking after its injured troops, their families and giving the semblance of normality to the areas it controls. The Syrian Arab Army has multiple charities that go house to house looking after its men in uniform. Whilst the ‘moderate rebels’ beg the west for military intervention their leaders spend time in luxury hotels in Turkey, Qatar and western capitals. Leaders of men are most needed on the ground, yet the Syrian moderate opposition is nowhere to be seen. They have successfully to their credit at least convinced the corridors of power in Washington DC and London to support them with weapons. But so had Ahmad Chalabi of Iraq, and look where that got Iraq.

Members of the Syrian Arab Army sing a patriotic song. (Screen capture from YouTube video)

In the light of the attacks in Paris and the shooting exchange in Belgium now is the time to make decisions based on realism and without a dose of the aspiration to bring a benevolent democracy to the Arab world. Egypt is a perfect example of how the policy makers in London got schooled by the Egyptian military on how not to meddle in their affairs of State. The military is the pillar of any strong state and should have the only say in the monopoly of violence. Of course history has proved from Latin America to Europe to Asia that often militaries take undue advantage and commit excesses. But states that have survived the brutality of civil wars invariably emerge with triumphant militaries. The Syrian military was directly and indirectly part of both the civil wars of Lebanon and Iraq in addition to the conventional battles it fought with Israel.

U.S. Operations in Yemen Fail Miserably: Shiite Rebels Announce Takeover of Country

Houthis issue "constitutional declaration" amid continuing unrest

Houthi rebels announced they were assuming country of Yemen on Friday.  (Image:  Google maps)

By Andrea Germanos
Unrest continues in Yemen on Friday as Shiite Houthi rebels announced a "constitutional declaration" and that they were assuming control of the country.

The group issued the statement in a televised address from the Sunni majority country's capital of Sana'a.

A 551-member Transitional National Council would be formed to replace the parliament, and that body would appoint a 5-member council to assume the presidential role during a "transitional period," according to their statement.

President Abed Mansour Hadi, Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, and members of the Yemeni cabinet resigned last month after the rebels had reportedly seized the presidential palace.

The Houthis' announcement follows a Wednesday deadline set by the rebels for political parties to "to reach a solution and fill the vacuum."

That power vacuum, however, did not appear to prevent U.S. drone strikes on the impoverished country.

From the New York Times:

“The revolutionary movement has always been quick, it won’t take that long,” said Ali al-Imad, a member of the Houthi political bureau. “It’s not important when, so much as it is that we now have a political road map.”

Independent journalist Iona Craig, who was based in Yemen or four years until December, tweeted Friday that the Houthi's action was essentially formalizing a coup:

The Houthis have basically just formalised the coup. Their own 'revolutionary committee' will 'approve and guide' everything. #Yemen

— Iona Craigأيونا كريج (@ionacraig) February 6, 2015


Another two years of transition? It's already been 12 years since Yemenis last got to vote for their parliamentary.

— Iona Craigأيونا كريج (@ionacraig) February 6, 2015

The Houthis have been described in media reports as being backed by Iran, but Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College, dismisses this claim. As Inter Press Service reported last month:

On the one side, [Prashad] said, the government of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and then Hadi, suggested to the U.S. [the Houthis] were anti al-Qaeda.

But, on the other hand, they used the fact of al-Qaeda to go after their adversaries, including the Zaydis (Houthis).

“This double game was well known to the Americans. They went along with it. It is what allowed AQAP to take Jar and other regions of Yemen and hold them with some ease,” Prashad said.

He dismissed as “ridiculous” the allegation the Zaydis are “proxies of Iran”. He said they are a tribal confederacy that has faced the edge of the Saleh-Hadi sword.

Journalist and co-founder of the The Intercept Jeremy Scahill has stated that U.S.-backed former President Ali Abdullah Saleh "is sort of the not-so-hidden hand behind some of the power grab efforts of the Houthis."

Meanwhile, a humanitarian crisis continues to grip the lives of many Yemenis.

Anti-poverty organization Oxfam warned last month that over half the population was in need of aid, and that millions of Yemenis did not have enough to eat or have clean drinking water or basic healthcare services.

"It is simply unacceptable that the real story of 16 million Yemenis in need of help keeps going unnoticed," Grace Ommer, Oxfam’s Country Director in Yemen said. "Despite the challenges, we continue to deliver desperately needed aid to Yemenis in some of the poorest areas outside the capital. But if the international community continues to stand by and watch while Yemen risks going from a fragile to a failed state we will find it even harder to maintain this lifesaving support."

Reprinted with permission from Common Dreams.