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Sunday, November 16, 2014
Excerpts: Saudi re IS organized crime. Netanyahu re US on IS, Iran. U.S. Sec,Defense re Hizbullah weapons,technologies. West-backed Syrian rebels threatened November 16, 2014

Excerpts: Saudi re IS organized crime. Netanyahu re US on IS, Iran. U.S. Sec,Defense
re Hizbullah weapons,technologies. West-backed Syrian rebels threatened
November 16, 2014


+++SOURCE: Saudi Gazette 16 Nov.’14:”IS and organized crime”, Editorial

SUBJECT: Saudi re IS ‘organized crime’

QUOTE: terrorism has evolved into an industry, replete with design and
planning which must be dismantled and shut down.”

FOR the second time in as many months, the United Nations has revealed what
exactly the so-called Islamic State is and what it is doing.

It is committing war crimes and imposing a "rule of terror" in areas it
controls in Syria; denies food and medicine to hundreds of thousands of
people; hides its fighters among civilians and uses public brutality and
indoctrination to ensure the submission of communities under its control.

This comes from a UN panel, Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on Syria, and is based on more than 300 interviews with people who fled or
are living in IS-controlled areas and on video and photographic evidence.

The report comes on the heels of an initial, damning UN account in October,
produced jointly by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and the
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, that found that IS had
been committing a “staggering array" of human rights abuses that may amount
to war crimes or crimes against humanity that demand prosecution.

For all the brutality evinced by IS and recorded by the UN, signs are
emerging that IS is not the force it was just last summer.

A combination of coalition airstrikes and more assertive Iraqi and Kurdish
forces are inflicting serious losses on IS in terms of both territory and
fighters. One example was the major defeat handed IS on Friday when Iraqi
forces drove IS out of the strategic oil refinery town of Baiji.

But this war against IS is just beginning, for this is a new kind of war.
The clash is not between nations but between nations that have formed
coalitions and an organization that is not a state or a political player.
Which is why, despite the allied war effort, IS is extremely hard to fight
against. It is a very close cousin of organized crime.

Like organized criminal gangs, it knows no recognizable boundaries as it
moves from one country to the next to traffic in drugs, human beings and
other illicit activities.

What IS and its peers have brought to these activities is that they
perpetrate them in the name of Islam. But behind that subterfuge they still
fund themselves through larceny and theft, and they still terrorize and
massacre innocent civilians because, in fact, they have no values and hold
nothing sacred.

IS has added a new and unfamiliar dimension to the general run of terrorist
crimes and activities. It has seized control of and established a base on
the ground, thus setting itself apart from, for example, Al-Qaeda.

A large alliance of terrorists has coalesced across quite a few national
boundaries, all part of the great terrorist army that is plaguing the entire
region.

If an international and regional coalition has come together in order to
degrade and eliminate IS, the latter is forming a counter-coalition
consisting of many terrorist forces spread across a number of Arab and
Islamic countries. Its cells take root and proliferate in every area where
extremism and fanaticism prevail. In fact, perhaps this is the crux of the
strategic challenge.

Almost every religion in the world has had its share of extremists and
fanatics, some of whom turn into terrorists who pillage, kidnap, behead
foreign journalists, target religious minorities and instill terror within
the general civilian population where its terrorist thugs operate.

A trademark of this industry is its focus on soft targets, namely innocent
civilians and defenseless human beings.

The current situation suggests that terrorism has evolved into an industry,
replete with design and planning, which must be dismantled and shut down.

+++SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 16 Nov.’14:”Netanyahu Supports Obama in IS
Fight, But Cautions on Iran”, Agence France Presse

SUBJECT:Netanyahu re US on IS, Iran

QUOTE:”Netanyahu expressed support Sunday {16 Nov.] for the U.S. fight
against Islamic State militants, but cautioned against any softening toward
Iran”

FULL TEXT:Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support
Sunday[16 Nov.] for the U.S. fight against Islamic State militants, but
cautioned against any softening toward Iran.

"We want them both to lose. The last thing we want is to have any one of
them get weapons of mass destruction," Netanyahu said in an interview with
CBS Face the Nation.

His comments came shortly after IS claimed the beheading of another Western
hostage, U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, along with that of 18 men described
as Syrian soldiers.

In an undated video, a masked black-clad jihadist seen standing above a
severed head says: "This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen of your
country."

Netanyahu expressed support for U.S. President Barack Obama's leadership of
a coalition against IS and said "we're with all the American people who
understand the savagery that we're all up against."

IS "has to be defeated and it can be defeated," he said.

But Netanyahu portrayed the situation as a "global conflict" against
militant Islam, not just Sunni-based IS and al-Qaida but also Shiite
Iran-backed Hezbollah.

"We want them both to lose," he said, insisting: "Iran is not your ally.
Iran is not your friend. Iran is your enemy."

The United States and other Western powers have been negotiating with Iran
to limit its nuclear program, with a November 24 deadline for a deal fast
approaching.

Netanyahu reiterated Israel's opposition to any agreement that leaves Iran
with a residual capacity to enrich uranium, and urged tougher sanctions on
Tehran as an alternative to a deal.

"The alternative to a bad deal is not war. The alternative to a bad deal are
more sanctions, tougher sanctions, that will make Iran dismantle its
capacity to make nuclear bombs," he said.


+++SUBJECT: Hagel Concerned over Technologies,Weapons Obtained by Hizbullah”,
Agence France Presse

SUBJECT: U.S.Sec.Defense re Hizbullah weapons, technologies

QUOTE:”U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a technological
innovation plan to ensure America's military superiority in the 21st
century, expressing concern over technologies and arms obtained by
Hizbullah.”

FULL TEXT:“Technologies and weapons that were once the exclusive province of
advanced nations have become available to a broad range of militaries and
non-state actors, from dangerously provocative North Korea to terrorist
organizations like Hizbullah,” Hagel said at a national defense conference
at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in Simi Valley, California.

In a memo to Pentagon leaders in which be outlined the initiative, Hagel
said the U.S. must not lose its commanding edge in military technology.

"The plan will put resources behind innovations," Hagel noted.

He did not indicate how much the Pentagon would spend on the initiative.

The push will identify new approaches to warfare for the U.S. military that
include miniaturization, big data, autonomous robotic systems and 3-D
printing.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work was named to lead a group including
other senior defense officials focused on the push.

Hagel said he expects the working group to propose important changes to how
the agency identifies and responds to military challenges.


+++SOURCE: Jordan Times 16 Nov.’14:”West-backed Syrian rebels shaken on
multiple fronts”, Associated Press

SUBJECT: West-backed Syrian rebels threatened

QUOTE: Some surrendered their weapons. Others outright defected to the
militants”

EXCERPTS:BEIRUT — During a key battle in the rugged mountains of a northern
province earlier this month, US-backed Syrian rebels collapsed before an
assault by Al Qaeda fighters. Some surrendered their weapons. Others
outright defected to the militants.

A detailed account of the battle in Idlib, from a series of interviews with
opposition activists by The Associated Press, underscores how the moderate
rebels that Washington is trying to boost to fight the Islamic State group
are instead hemorrhaging on multiple fronts.

They face an escalated assault by Islamic extremists, which activists say
are increasingly working together to eliminate them. At the same time, a
string of assassinations has targeted some of their most powerful
commanders.

"This is the end of the Free Syrian Army," said Alaa Al Deen, an opposition
activist in Idlib, referring to Western-backed rebel groups. "It's the
beginning of an Islamic emirate."

Thousands of rebels have died fighting the Islamic State (IS) this year, a
war that has overshadowed and undermined the struggle to topple President
Bashar Assad.

Now Al Nusra Front — Al Qaeda branch in Syria, which previously was also
fighting against IS — has turned on more moderate factions. Two opposition
figures told AP last week that Al Nusra Front and IS have gone so far as to
agree to work together against their opponents, though so far their forces
have not been seen together on the ground.

Al Nusra’s pivot in part is in response to US air strikes, which have
targeted the Al Qaeda branch in addition to IS militants, several activists
said. Al Nusra Front has been hit three times in strikes the US has said
were aimed at a secret cell of high-ranking Al Qaeda militants plotting
attacks against the West. The strikes have ignited tensions between
Western-backed groups and more extreme factions, who feel that the Americans
are hitting everyone except Assad’s forces.

In the fighting earlier this month, Al Nusra Front drove US-backed factions
almost completely out of the northwestern province of Idlib, where they had
been the predominant force. During the battles, two of the strongest
Western-backed forces — the Hazm Movement and the Syrian Revolutionay
Front — were defeated and several other allied groups simply vanished.

The Syrian Revolutionary Front, headed by commander Jamal Maarouf, oversaw
groups ranging from village-based militias to factions with hundreds of men.
Around 10,000 to 20,000 fighters are estimated by activists to have been
under his command.

The fighting began when a group of men in the Idlib village of Bara defected
from a faction loyal to Maarouf and joined Ahrar Al Sham, an
ultraconservative Islamist force.

Western-backed groups are also being eroded in other ways. There has been a
series of mysterious slayings targeting powerful rebel leaders fighting the
Islamic State group

………..

Now many rebel commanders are laying low, Saeed said. “We don’t know where
they live or where they go or where they sleep.”

=================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA

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