"You can't go after ISIS. You've got the wrong people and the wrong country"
Obama
Condemns Egypt Bombing ISIS in Retaliation for Slaughter of
Christians...
18
February, 2015
The
United States does not support Egyptian and Emirati airstrikes
against Islamist militias in Libya because the U.S. believes the
crisis in Libya must be resolved politically and without outside
interference, a Department of Defense spokesman said Tuesday.
Egypt
and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrying out airstrikes in Libya
was different from U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant forces in Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John
Kirby told a briefing, because the U.S. was acting in Iraq, in a
“very targeted” manner, at the request of its government.
“This
wasn’t some unilateral decision by the United States to strike
targets inside Iraq.”
“We
discourage other nations from taking a part in Libya’s issues
through violence,” Kirby said. “We want the issues solved in
Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics
and not violence.”
He
declined to “get into the specifics of our diplomatic discussions”
with Egypt and the UAE over the airstrikes in Libya in recent days.
Keep
reading...
TRANSLATION:
US and Turkey to train tomorrow’s ISIS troops
US
& Turkey Sign Deal to
Train Syrian Rebels
Amid
reports that the US and Turkey were planning to aid Syrian opposition
fighters, the two countries have now formally signed an agreement to
provide both training and equipment to rebels fighting both the
Syrian government and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
18
February, 2015
According
to a Turkish foreign ministry official speaking to Reuters, the deal
has been signed on Thursday.
The
US military has said it is sending over 400 troops to train so-called
"moderate" rebels just outside of the country's borders.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar also might host training sites alongside with
Turkey. According to the plan, some 5,000 Syrian fighters should be
trained each year for three years.
The
Wall Street Journal reported that under the plan the US considers not
only supplying Syrian opposition fighters with machine gun-equipped
pick-up trucks, but also might grant them powers to call in US-led
coalition airstrikes.
Several
US officials have expressed concern over arming the Syrian rebels,
including former Syrian ambassador Robert Ford. He cites the fact
that the US can't be sure that the Syrian opposition is entirely
opposed to al-Qaeda associates in the area, and that the rebels lack
cohesiveness and may be quickly moving toward losing the Syrian civil
war.
At
the same time as signing an agreement with Washington on training
Syrian rebels, Turkey is also considering a $3.4 billion defense deal
with China, despite concerns from Turkey's NATO allies. This deal
would install a new missile defense system which would operate
separate from existing NATO infrastructure, raising Western security
concerns.
"The
system in question will be integrated with the national system for
Turkey's defense and will be used without integrating with NATO,"
Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said in a written statement.
If
approved, that deal will go through China Precision Machinery Import
and Export Co., a company which the US has already suspected of
selling sensitive technologies to Iran and North Korea, as well as
Syria.
3,000
ISIS infiltrators may
enter Turkey, plan to attack
diplomatic targets
– report
Up
to 3,000 trained jihadists are seeking to cross into Turkey from
Syria and Iraq, with intentions of striking diplomatic targets
belonging to anti-ISIS coalition partners, the Turkish intelligence
service told the police in an internal memo.
18
February, 2015
"The
jihadist militants could be working on armed or bombing attacks in
Ankara and Istanbul against the diplomatic missions of the countries
involved in the US-led anti-ISIL [ISIS] coalition,” said
the Hurriyet newspaper, citing the
Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT).
The
agency, which refused to provide additional information when
contacted by Reuters, warned the police that Islamic State (IS,
formerly ISIS/ISIL) jihadists repelled from the predominantly Kurdish
town of Kobani in Syria, are now looking for ways to cross the
border. Hurriyet said that MIT sent a warning as far back as February
3 to local police departments, in an attempt to intercept the flow of
terrorists.
It
was unclear how many of the jihadists have already penetrated the
Turkish border, but MIT said that some have already been sheltered in
safe houses in the south of the country. MIT reports that some of the
terrorists – a group of men from 17 to 25 from Palestine and Syria
- intend to cross into Bulgaria, and from there into the rest of the
EU.
Last
month, Turkey declared that 3,000 people – a figure that does not
include the potential new influx - inside the country have
connections with the radical Sunni movement. Moreover, the Turkish
foreign ministry says there are between 700 and 1,000 Turkish
fighters in the group, whose potential return concerns Ankara. The
country has already deported over a thousand people and slapped an
entry ban on 7,800 others.
Jihadists
reportedly control many points on the Syria-Turkish border. Ankara
has repeatedly been accused of not taking action to stop the flow of
extremists seeking to join the Islamic State in Syria.
Moreover,
Damascus accused Turkey of providing logistic support to Islamic
radicals fighting in Syria.
"Is
it Turkey's fault it has borders with Syria?" Turkish
Prime Minister Davutoglu recently said, responding to calls by
Germany’s domestic intelligence chief Hans-Georg Maassen to take
more action to prevent jihadists from entering Syria and Iraq via
Turkey. "We
need to receive intelligence first so we can track people.”
The
Islamic State, which has set itself the goal of creating a Sunni
caliphate stretching across the Middle East and beyond, has recently
indicated a greater focus on targets outside the conflict zone in
Iraq and Syria.
There
have been several suspected terrorist attacks in Turkish border
regions in recent months, the last one just last week, when a car
bomb exploded at a police checkpoint.
A
recent pamphlet distributed by ISIS sources, and translated into
English earlier this week, states the organization should create
“pandemonium” in
Europe, through infiltrating the outflow of refugees crossing from
Libya into southern Europe.
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