Iraq's death knell

Iraqis carry a bombing victim in the city of Kirkuk in May.          (MARWAN IBRAHIM AFP/Getty Image)

 Almost daily, there is a deadly suicide bombing or attack in Iraq. The Agence France- Presse has counted only 16 days this year when one hasn't happened. Sixteen days.

There has been a particularly violent surge in the last two days, but it is estimated that  5,400 people have died this year alone. There were 700 deaths in October, according to AFP.

This week, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki left for Washington, the finger pointing about Iraq's decline began. An influential group of senators wrote U.S. President Barack Obama warning of al-Maliki's "mismanagement" of Iraq's politics and his unwillingness to share power with the country's Kurdish and Sunni minorities, the New York Times reported.

In Foreign Policy, retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus also argued "this was not a road that Iraqis had to travel" since the last American troops left at the end of 2011.

 Al-Maliki, who will meet with Obama on Friday, wrote a column in the New York Times urging patience and asking for help, noting that "Syria has become a magnet that attracts sectarian extremists and terrorists from various parts of the world and gathers them in our neighbourhood." As Syria's conflict began, the U.S. walked out of Iraq - nearly nine years after their invasion.

"Despite the terrorist threats we face, we are not asking for American boots on the ground," he writes. "Rather, we urgently want to equip our own forces with the weapons they need to fight terrorism, including helicopters and other military aircraft, so that we can secure our borders and protect our people. Hard as it is to believe, Iraq doesn’t have a single fighter jet to protect its airspace.

"Iraq has matured into a country with democratic institutions. But we are in need of more training, education, practice — and patience. We are on the road to security, democracy and prosperity. While we still have a long way to go, we want to walk that road together with the United States."

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Syria, Al Qaeda & the ISIS

Rebel fighters in Aleppo, Syria, use an interesting decoy. MUZAFFAR SALAM/REUTERS

 

What is the ISIS?

Expect to hear more about this organization as the horror in Syria continues. Although the group was formed in April, recent events are distinguishing the ISIS from other groups fighting forces loyal to the Assad regime.

ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (sometimes referred to as Syria or the Levant), and it is the newest and likely most-experienced Al Qaeda franchise in Syria.

Al Qaeda has been skilled in taking advantage of Syria's chaos and in some areas fighters were welcomed by rebels, who may not agree with the group's global ideology but appreciated the military support when opposing the well-equipped forces supporting President Bashar al Assad.

The ISIS even went on a "charm offensive," reaching out to war wearing neighbourhoods with street festivals instead of hardline doctrine. 

As U.S.-based analyst Aaron Zelin, author of a new in-depth analysis of the group for the Washington Institute For Near East Policy, told the Star's Mitch Potter: “It’s pretty clear that ISIS has learned hard lessons about not shoving a conservative interpretation of Sharia law down people’s throats."

“This is exactly the same organization that is Al Qaeda in Iraq, same leadership structure, everything,” he said. “But unlike Iraq, they are being much smarter about outreach, especially this past summer. Events like pie-eating contests, aimed at children, together with significant successes in battle against Assad forces, show a kind of soft-power outreach."

But the hearts-and-mind agenda seemed to change Wednesday, when the group took control of the Turkish border town of Azaz, fighting not Assad loyalists, but the Free Syrian Army rebels who held the region.

By Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, the ISIS and rebels had agreed to a truce, but tension remains.

What this recent division and reconciliation all means is still unclear, except for the obvious: if rebel groups are fighting each other they are not fighting the Assad regime.

But as the BBC's Paul Woods notes, in the long term this could work to the Free Syrian Army's advantage. If the U.S. and Western governments are able to see clearer distinctions between FSA rebels and Al Qaeda-linked groups, they may be more willing to support the FSA. (Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had recently warned his followers not to fight alongside secular rebels with ties to the West).

For more on this rebel vs. rebel debate, read The National's Hassan Hassan with his latest analysis in Foreign Policy Magazine: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/18/rebel_vs_rebel_syria_jihadists_groups?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full

 

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Hollywood stars silent as Syria sizzles

 Sean Penn (right)  joins Egyptian actor Khaled al-Nabawi and protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square in Sept. 2011.  Penn and other stars have been pilloried for silence on Syria. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

In its own way, Hollywood is a political platform – not to mention a springboard for celebs like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But Syria has tied some of the most prolific tongues in Tinseltown, in spite of an agonizing two years of murder and mayhem, much of it by the ruthless regime of Bashar Assad.

Still, as Washington was loudly rattling sabers at Syria this week, we might have heard the odd outburst from TIFF celebs like George Clooney, a vocal critic of failure to staunch the suffering of Sudan. Susan Sarandon, a noted anti-war activist, was also silent.

The Hollywood Reporter, not known for its probing geopolitical analysis, went on the hunt for comments from more than a dozen red-carpeters and came up empty-handed. Sarandon was “unavailable for comment,” (though she told the Daily Beast Syria was "tricky.")  Likewise silent were libertarian comic Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller. And anti-war toughie Josh Brolin. And fellow Iraq protester Tim Robbins.

Many have been pilloried by the American right as un-American and unpatriotic for speaking out against George W. Bush’s war. Now they’re skewered again as “hypocrites” for keeping stum on Barack Obama’s threatened strikes on Syria.

The silence is suprising. From the McCarthy era Hollywood blacklists to the Vietnam protests, to the bare-knuckled rhetorical brawls over Iraq, famous Hollywood voices have been raised, and sometimes harshly silenced on volatile political issues.

But super-celebs like Barbara Streisand, “Hanoi Jane” Fonda and anti-poverty rock star Bono have stayed out of the Syrian fray. Even Martin Sheen, and Sean Penn -- who joined Egypt’s Tahrir Square protests -- have been uncharacteristically tight lipped.

Why the reticence?

Hollywood veteran Ed Asner – no stranger to protest and arrest --  puts it down to fear of racism against a black president, as well as sluggishness, disorganization and Obama's sudden rush to war, which caught the anti-war faction with its placards down.

“It’ll be a done deal before Hollywood is mobilized,” Asner grumbled to the Hollywood Reporter. “This country will either bomb the hell out of Syria or not, before Hollywood gets off its ass.”

And, he said, protest fatigue set in after Iraq, when Bush and his backers were never called to account. But Obama’s dismal record on inequality, corporate power and cyberspying has also alienated rather than energized his onetime Hollywood supporters.

“People aren’t getting active because ‘who gives a s---? ‘ is essentially the bottom line,” he said.

Not so Madonna, however. On her Instagram account she posted a graffiti-like message, “U.S. stay out of Syria.”

Rapper-songwriter Azealia Banks also broke ranks, and silence, on Twitter, saying that “America should mind it’s (sic) business this time.”  But she added later, if another world war is inevitable, “can’t we just wait until AFTER I drop my album in January?”

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, human rights and politics from the former Soviet Union to South Asia and the Middle East. She’s never been to Hollywood.








       

Military action in Syria: the Pinocchio effect

 President Barack Obama left for the G20 Summit after winning backing of key figures in the U.S. Congress for limited U.S. strikes on Syria.  So far American public opinion has not followed his lead. Photo: Reuters/Joshua Roberts.

British Prime Minister David Cameron climbed down from his war horse after losing a House of Commons vote on military intervention in Syria.

Meanwhile public opinion put three-quarters of Brits on the no-go side, according to a BBC poll.

Before France’s President Francois Hollande had a chance to saddle up, polls were running 59 per cent against military action.

And in the U.S., where President Barack Obama won backing from key members of Congress when he called for limited military strikes -- and hopes for a positive vote in the House and Senate -- some 59 per cent of Americans said they won’t answer the call.

 There are a variety of complicated arguments for staying out of a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people, led to the torture, rape and detention of thousands of others and sent 2 million into exile as refugees.

But the current casus belli – the Assad regime’s apparent use of chemical weapons to paralyse and suffocate hundreds of his “enemies” including children – has been met with more cynicism than sizzling rage.

It’s the Pinocchio effect.

The more Obama protests, the longer his metaphorical nose, in the minds of a public that was force-fed too much WMD truthiness by George W. Bush.

Iraq, Bush insisted, was awash in the stuff. And no American could sleep easily in his/her bed while Saddam Hussein was plotting a sneaky nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Voices to the contrary were quickly silenced and whistleblowers throttled.

Now a broker, more battered America is backing away from WMD claims, even ones far more credible than Bush could muster. Obama’s Red Line means little to those whose lives were flat lined by the economic crash and the massive debts of two recent wars.

But American doubt and cynicism goes back much farther: to the multi-fronted war on communism, to the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s leader Mohammad Mossadegh (which eventually gave us the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic) to Vietnam and Laos, to the American-funded Central American death squads to the Iran-Contra scandal. And so it went.

Now Americans and other Westerners are drawing their own lines in spite of their political leaders. It’s exactly the kind of scenario that Bush’s foes warned of when he was touting the false “evidence” for the Iraq invasion. Whatever the evidence, for better or worse, weary Americans are saying they want the country's nose out of other nations' wars.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and South Asia. She worked with director Shelley Saywell on the film Generation of Hate, on Iraq on the eve of the American invasion.

 

Syria: What the Human Exodus of War Looks Like

All Photos Courtesy of UNHCR/G.Gubaeva

 

War in Syria is not news. Nor is the steady stream of people fleeing the bloody civil war.

But when a photographer from the UNCHR, the UN’s refugee agency, captured the images of thousands of people crossing a newly-built bridge into northern Iraq late last week, it provided a stunning look at the exodus of war.

 

UNHCR field officers first reported about 750 Syrians crossed over the pontoon bridge across theTigris River, but within hours a much larger group of 5,000 to 7,000 people followed.

The vast majority of the new arrivals are families -- women, children and elderly -- mainly from  the devastated Syrian cities of Aleppo, Efrin, Hassake and Qamishly.

 UNHCR Field Officer, Galiya Gubaeva, was on the ground with her camera and took these pictures.

 "The factors allowing this sudden movement are not fully clear to us at this stage," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said.

 Some of the Syrians had reportedly been waiting near the Tigris River for two to three days. UNHCR officials saw scores of buses arriving on the Syrian side dropping off more people seeking to cross.

 Relief workers scrambled to accommodate the human tide. 

 

At Erbil, about 2,000 of the new arrivals are  encamped at an emergency transit site in Kawergost town. Some new arrivals are sheltered under tents, others are  staying in mosques or with family and friends.

"As of today 1,916,387 Syrians have fled the war and registered as refugees or applied for registration. Two-thirds of these have arrived this year," Edwards said.

 

The UNHCR says there are now more than 684,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon, 516,000 in Jordan, 434,000 in Turkey, 154,000 in Iraq and 107,000 in Egypt.

________

 Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter for the Star and can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @juliansher.

Has military suppression of political Islam ever worked?

A friend shouts "Allah is the greatest" during a burial service for Ammar Badie in Cairo on Sunday, Aug. 18, 2013.(AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

As the death toll in the Egyptian military’s bloody crackdown nears 1,000, aside from any criticisms of human rights violations and the crushing of civil liberties, questions are being raised on a more pragmatic level: Has military suppression of political Islam ever worked?

That’s the provocative issue raised by Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, whose Informed Consent blog is one of the most widely read Internet sources for comment and insight on the Middle East.

“It doesn’t work in the long run,” Cole concludes.

He notes that Saddam Hussein in Iraq attempted to crush Shiite religous parties such as the Islamic Call (Da’wa) Party, including making membership in the party punishable by death and executing thousands. Now the prime minister is from Da’wa and he in turn is fighting a bloody resurgence of  Sunni fundamentalists. 

In Tunisia, dictator Zine El Abidin Ben Ali tried to crush the Renaissance (al-Nahda) Party but it surged to power in the 2011 elections.

The Baath Party in Syria tried to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood back in the 1980s – but now, a civil war in that country sees radical Islamists tightening their grip in the parts of the country.

In Iran, Cole points the despotic Shah for decades tried to repress political Islam  -- but the Ayatollah came to power in 1979 and his followers still rule.

In Turkey too despite attempts to “forcibly secularize” the country, what Cole describes as the “Islamically tinged” Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002 and has ruled ever since. 

“Algeria’s generals did in the 1990s to The Islamic Salvation Front exactly what [Egypt’s] Gen al-Sisi plans to do to the Muslim Brotherhood. 150,000 or more died, and the generals largely prevailed,” Cole says – but Islamist forces remain present, as recent terror attacks have shown.

Of course, in Egypt itself, the government banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 1948. But despite decades of jailings, repression and assassinations, “it always came back.”

“It seems to me that the preponderance of the evidence suggests that religiously based political movements are almost impossible to eradicate by force,” Cole writes. 

“So the Egyptian generals are likely trying something that can’t be done in the long term, and can only be accomplished in the short term by genocidal techniques.”

___________

Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and investigatuive reporter with the Star and can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @juliansher.

Al Qaeda's Breaking Bad

 Guards stand inside Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Photo by MOHAMMED AMEEN / REUTERS

 

There are about 250 prisoners in Pakistan who are no longer in prison today, thanks to a brazen jailbreak before midnight Monday. Reports say up to 150 heavily-armed Taliban fighters shot their way into a Dera Ismail Khan prison, in Pakistan's northwest. The Associated Press reported that militants used megaphones to call out the names of the specific prisoners. 

On Saturday, near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, more than 1,000 inmates were freed following attacks on the Koyfiya prison.

More than 500 militants - now sought by Interpol at a "major threat" to global security - escaped in Iraq last week after an attack by the local Al Qaeda group (AQI). It was reportedly a sophisticated operation with teams of suicide and car bombers, hitting the Taji prison first before attacking the notorious Abu Ghraib where most of the captured AQI members were held.

Worrying, of course, for the three countries and surrounding regions, as militants are likely to spill over into conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Al Qaeda's members in Iraq and Syria already merged in April into what they are calling "The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant." Iraq's Al Qaeda leader warned a year ago that they would free inmates.

Prison breaks in the past have been significant for Al Qaeda, most notably in Yemen, where Al Qaeda was relatively subdued, until February 2006, where 23 militants managed a spectacular escape (with potential inside help). Two of the freed men, Qasim al-Raimi and Nasser al-Wahishi, who had fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, went on to build Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP is regarded today by the U.S. administration as the number one threat to domestic safety.

But aside from fears of where the released militants may end up if not recaptured, the jailbreaks are worrying for what they signify. As the New York Time's Declan Walsh noted, the attack in Pakistan happened on the same day as lawmakers elected the country's 12th president - a stark reminder of the country's inability to fight militant violence, or as Walsh writes, shows "the troubling gap between politics and governance"

Former Pentagon intelligence analyst Joshua Foust, wrote Monday that prison breaks in Iraq are "deeply worrying for Iraq's long-term political prospects," and point to "an institutional hollowness."

Similar concerns in Libya, which has struggled in the aftermath of revolutions that swept the region in 2011 and 2012.

There may be no connection between the three, but there is little doubt this is a win for Al Qaeda, both in logistical terms and for the credibility boost of an amorphous group that has all too often been declared dead by counterterrorism analysts.

An audio recording reportedly by Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri posted online Wednesday made no mention of the recent jailbreaks, but did refer to another well-known prison, according to Reuters.

Zawahiri said the hunger strikes by detainees at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," unmasks the true, ugly face of America."

"We pledge to God that we will spare no effort to free all our prisoners."

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

 

Journalists an endangered species correspondent tells UN

 Richard Engel, NBC News chief foreign correspondent, at the UN Security Council last week in New York.  Kathleen Carroll (R), executive editor of the Associated Press. AFP Photo/Stan Hondastan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

More than 600 journalists have been killed in the past decade – some in spectacular terrorist bombings, others covertly assassinated by people they have named and shamed.

So last week the UN Security Council – the most powerful organ of the world body – held its first meeting on protecting the media in conflict, an increasingly difficult task in a world that has long since thrown rules of war out of the window.

One reason for that, said NBC correspondent Richard Engel – famously kidnapped by a pro-Syrian militia in 2012 – is that we’ve reached a time when, in combat zones, “we’re all bloggers and punks and rebels with cameras. There is absolutely no respect for career journalists any more.”

While that may bring a sneer to the lips of the aforementioned bloggers and punks, it was not just an elitist mainstream media rant.

In an Internet-dominated age when websites, print media and TV are inundated with 24-hour reports from known and unknown sources, it’s often difficult to tell reliable reports from partisan rhetoric from regime members or rebels with a cause.

“Now, there are bloggers,” said Engel. “There are tweeters. There are freelancers who see themselves as activists. There are freelancers who join rebel groups and carry guns.

“So if the discussion today is about protecting journalists, you have to decide who gets protection. Who deserves it? And who forfeits it?”

In Syria, says Engel, who has spent a decade in the world’s worst war zones, rebels have taken up cameras as well as guns, and state media are, unsurprisingly, propagandists for the regime. Engel has a simple rule to tell them apart.

“If you cannot or will not write an article that goes against your cause you’re not a journalist and don’t deserve to be treated like one,” he told the Security Council.
 
“I’m not saying either one – the rebels with the camera or the state broadcaster – should be mistreated, but they are fundamentally different from journalists.”

The lines are blurred, and getting hazier – and not just in the eyes of rebels and dictators.

 During the 1999 Kosovo war, NATO bombed state-run Radio Television of Serbia, killing 16 of its staff. During the Iraq war an American rocket struck the al Jazeera office in Baghdad, killing correspondent Tareq Ayoub. The U.S. earlier attacked al Jazeera’s office in Kabul. Emmy-winning British cameraman James Miller was shot by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2003. 

In these and other cases, countries waging war deny they are targeting journalists. But they are also anxious to win their propaganda wars, whether or not journalists are collateral damage.

Today it is even more difficult to draw the line. Jihadists and autocrats are as attuned to the social and “informal” media as to the mainstream, and lump them together conveniently, to the peril of those who are trying to do comprehensive reporting. 

Engel pleaded for governments to make distinctions that would protect professional journalists from attack as partisans. “We’re arrested. We’re detained. We’re harassed. We’re kidnapped and we’re killed,” he said. “Like you in the diplomatic community, we need protection to be objective.”

And objectivity, clearly, is no longer a fig leaf of protection.

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East and South Asia. She is a founder of the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists, now Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.


   

The Arab uprisings? We're feeling good about it, survey says

Arabs are feeling good about their revolutions, they believe in democracy and would like to keep religion separate from politics.

Those are the surprising results of a new public opinion survey of 20,350 Arab citizens conducted in countries that have seen change and upheaval which, transmitted half a world away to us, seem overwhelmingly negative. The uncertainty in Egypt, carnage in Syria and militias dominating Libya, to name a few.

But in 14 countries including Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, people are much more optimistic, according to the report by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, a think tank in Qatar.

A resounding 61 per cent of respondents described the Arab Spring as “positive” or “positive to some extent.”

When asked if the revolutions have been successful in achieving goals of securing human rights, laying the foundations for democracy and public liberties, 20 per cent said it has already achieved its aims. (Which admittedly may be a little too optimistic.) Another 26 per cent said these changes will be achieved in the next 1 to 3 years.

Syrians were not included in this survey - their responses would certainly skew the results - but 66 per cent of their brethren in the region were in favour of regime change in Syria. 

There has been a lot of concern about the rising tide of political Islam in places such as Egypt and Tunisia. However, 82 per cent of respondents said a democratic political system, not Sharia-based system, is appropriate for their home countries. When asked whether they supported the statement "It would be better if religion were separated from politics" 46 per cent agreed. 

Which goes to show there is a vast gap between what ordinary people in the Arab world want and expect, what their rulers say, and what we in the English-speaking democracies believe them to want. 

Some fine print: Respondents were selected through a randomized, sampling process and interviewed face to face from July 2012 to March 2013. Margins of error ranged between two per cent and three per cent. 

READ MORE: The Toronto Star's Middle East coverage

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at The Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour

Syria's war, King Abdullah's problem whether he likes it or not

It's not possible for Jordan's King Abdullah to remain neutral as Syria's war continues on his country's border. AFP PHOTO/KHALIL MAZRAAWI

The United States military's proposal for a limited no-fly zone inside Syria near the Jordan border will have major implications for the small kingdom which can ill afford to be destabilized by its neighbour’s civil war.

The Wall Street Journal reports American officials as saying the Jordanians have offered the use of their bases to help set up a “no fighting zone” along the border. This would be a 40-kilometre stretch of territory inside Syria to prevent the regime from attacking rebels and refugees arriving into Jordan.

The area would be enforced with aircraft flown from Jordan’s airbases, the Journal reported.  What is not clear is how the U.S. could go ahead with a no-fly zone without authorization from the UN Security Council of which Russia, a staunch Syrian ally, is a permanent veto-wielding member.

What is clear is that Jordan’s role in Syria’s civil war will take on a larger military dimension.

Even though America has Patriot air defense batteries and F-16 fighter planes stationed there, hitherto Jordan’s role has mostly been confined to taking in refugees – half a million and counting.  

Once again, Jordan is being pulled into its neighbours’ troubles – whether it wants to or not and with the consequences in the far future completely unknown.  During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, King Abdullah’s father, the late King Hussein, refused to support America in its war against Iraq or take Saddam Hussein’s side.

The attempt at neutrality earned him the wrath of Washington, which cut off aid, and the UN, which imposed devastating sanctions of $5 billion –nearly $1 billion more than Jordan’s GDP in 1990. The opprobrium of Arab countries who hated Saddam was also fierce.    

But King Hussein warned at the time: “With or without war, nothing will return to what it was. This will be an area of turmoil unless people face up to the need to create new dreams and new realities.”

They are words as prescient today as they were in 1990 when he spoke them. The First Gulf War worsened the region's troubles and eventually led to a second one in 2003 which sent a mass of of Iraqi refugees into Jordan and terrorist attacks in the country. 

Neutrality in the Syrian war is not an option for King Abdullah. The 378-kilometre border is porous in many parts and he has expressed worry about a “jihadist state” emerging out of the conflict. 

Should that happen, it would also be Jordan’s problem. 

READ MORE: Hamida Ghafour in Amman reports on King Abdullah's high wire act

Hamida Ghafour is a foreign affairs reporter at The Star. She has lived and worked in the Middle East and Asia for more than 10 years and is the author of a book on Afghanistan. Follow her on Twitter @HamidaGhafour