Freedom Fighters? (08/07/14)
The Sunday Times published a chilling article the other week about the brutal killing of one Muslim by another with the murderers later posting their foul deed on YouTube and jihadist web sites.
If you ask me, no one should be comparing these cowards to the brave men and women who joined the International Brigades and fought to defend democracy against fascism during the Spanish Civil War.
‘Post their heads on Twitter’
The Islamist army Isis is fighting a new kind of war by placing evidence of its brutality on social networks — and sowing terror across the world
Toby Harnden, Washington; Hala Jaber, Baghdad - The Sunday Times
Isis fighters, renowned for their brutality, prepare to kill a man in Iraq
Sitting on the dusty ground in front of a group of men in balaclavas who are waving a black Islamist flag and chanting “There is no god but God”, the Iraqi officer, unshaven and dressed in a brown dishdasha, is resigned to his fate.
As one of the fighters shouts out jihadist slogans, the crowd begins to bay for blood and the officer, hands tied behind his back, sways nervously. Finally, the executioner lifts a foot-long knife.
The crowd shrieks as the officer’s head is cut off and held aloft. A youth in an Arsenal shirt and with a Kalashnikovwanders in front of the camera. Later the video is posted on YouTube and jihadist websites.
According to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), the victim was an Iraqi army commander who had been captured and condemned after a sharia trial.
On Thursday another Isis video appeared. This one was entitled There is No Life Without Jihad. In it, two friends from Cardiff are seen speaking in English. “We will go to Iraq in a few days and we will fight there, Allah permitting,” one of them vows.
Both videos — one designed to terrorise Iraqi soldiers into submission, the other to lure impressionable recruits — were shared widely via Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #AllEyesOnIsis.
A mobile phone app called Dawn of Glad Tidingshelps Isis to promote its Twitter feed and includes embedded advertising. Twitter is also used to supplement traditional fundraising methods, such as extortion, by encouraging Sunni donors in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to click on a link.
If Vietnam was the first television war, the conflict that has spread from Syria into Iraq is the first social media jihad.
Isis is using the internet as part of a sophisticated campaign that combines financial acumen, strategic patience and unspeakable brutality. When it declared last week that it had taken army prisoners, followers on Twitter hailed the achievement and called for them to be executed.
Glorifying Terrorists (25 June 2014)
The British jihadists in this ISIS video look and sound ridiculous as they make a rambling and incoherent case that There Is No Life Without Jihad - clearly their expensive education was wasted on them.
But I wonder if any of these young men were encouraged to think of themselves as noble 'freedom fighters' by irresponsible commentators who have been comparing them to the International Brigaders who went to Spain in the 1930s to defend democracy and fight fascism?
If so, the likes of George Monbiot should be ashamed of himself.
Syria Bound (3 May 2014)
Now it may well be that not all Syria-bound teems are a threat, but comparing them to the volunteers who fought against fascism is a tad overblown especially if their real motivation is to replace one religious tyranny with another.
By Joan Smith - The Independent
On a December evening in 1938, a large crowd gathered at London's Victoria station. They were joined by the future Labour prime minister, Clement Attlee, as they waited to welcome home 305 British volunteers from the Spanish Civil War. More than 500 of their comrades had been killed, fighting for the democratically elected government. Its defeat left the country in the hands of General Franco, a brutal dictator who stayed in power for decades.
The British Battalion of the International Brigades has been celebrated in books and poetry but the exodus of 2,500 men and women to fight in a foreign civil war alarmed the British government. Recently released files show MI5 kept a close eye on the volunteers. Ministers even considered using the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act to stop the flow, but no one was prosecuted.
The parallel with modern-day Syria is not exact, especially now that groups linked to al-Qa'ida are taking a prominent role in the battle against Bashar al-Assad. But I can understand why idealistic young people are once again being drawn into a foreign conflict. A handful of British citizens has already been killed in Syria, including Brighton student Abdullah Deghayes, 18, who died fighting in Homs. Abdul Waheed Majeed, 41, from West Sussex, appears to have become the conflict's first British suicide bomber; he blew himself up outside Aleppo prison in February.
It is easy to see why our government is alarmed by Majeed's "martyrdom". But I'm uneasy about the Home Office's underlying assumption, which seems to be that anyone who wants to fight against Assad is a threat to the UK.
Last year, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, used her powers to strip British passports from 20 individuals who had dual Syrian-British nationality. Presumably she had reason to believe they posed a danger, but now the authorities' rhetoric has changed.
In a new campaign spearheaded by the police, Muslim women are being asked to take a bigger role in preventing young men from going to Syria to fight. Inevitably, this has been denounced in some quarters as tantamount to spying for the government, but the initiative has the support of some prominent Muslims. The brilliant Sara Khan, director and co-founder of the Muslim women's organisation, Inspire, points out that work to explain the sectarian nature of the war, and to counter the influence of extremist videos, has been going on behind the scenes for ages.
Every generation throws up a conflict which horrifies decent people. The rest of Europe left Franco to murder his way to power, supported by Hitler and Mussolini. Assad is just as ruthless, and he's supported by Russia, China and Iran. Of course I don't want to see more British teenagers dying in Syria. But we need to think about how to keep them safe, instead of treating them all as potential terrorists.
Freedom Fighters? (24 April 2014)
The death of a young British man has prompted further silly comparisons about the volunteers who fought in with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, but this ridiculous rewriting of history should not be allowed to go unchallenged.
Because Spain's civil war was a battle for democracy which was sadly lost and ushered in four decades of fascist rule under General Franco, whereas it's far from clear that any of the combatants in Syria actually support the concept of democracy and the need to protect essential freedoms including minority rights.
Al-Qaeda link to British teen killed in Syria
Dipesh Gadher and Robin Henry - The Sunday Times
Abdullah Deghayes is thought to have been killed by a sniper
A BRITISH teenager killed fighting alongside his brothers in Syria had “most probably” joined the ranks of al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in the country, according to his father.
Abdullah Deghayes, 18, is thought to have been killed by a sniper in a battle involving extremists from Jabhat al-Nusra and the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader.
The fighting, which took place close to the Turkish border, was so fierce that it took five days to recover Abdullah’s body.
As new details emerged of Abdullah’s death, The Sunday Times has discovered that his father, Abubaker, had travelled to Syria several times.
When he returned to Britain from overseas last week, he was stopped by police at Gatwick airport and had his mobile phones taken away. They were not returned until three days later.
Abubaker Deghayes, of Brighton, East Sussex, described his son as a “martyr” and believes he died fighting for a “just cause”.
However, he insisted that Abdullah and his younger brother Jaffar, 16, had travelled to Syria in February without his consent and that he had tried to dissuade them from getting involved in armed conflict.
Their older brother, Amer, 20, had already entered the country to fight and was shot in the stomach during the same battle in which Abdullah was killed.
Yesterday Jaffar, who was unharmed and is believed to be the youngest British jihadist in Syria, changed his Facebook profile photo to an image of Abdullah’s corpse.
Asked which rebel faction his sons had joined, Deghayes said: “I’m not sure, but most probably Jabhat al-Nusra.”
The group, also known as al-Nusra Front, was involved in heavy clashes with Assad’s troops in late March at Kasab, a border crossing in northeast Syria, where Deghayes said his son had died.
Another Briton, Abdul Majid, 41, from Crawley, West Sussex, had carried out a suicide attack on a Syrian jail this year for al-Nusra Front.
On Friday Deghayes, 45, whose brother, Omar, was held as a terror suspect in Guantanamo Bay for five years and was then released without charge, posted a video on Facebook as a tribute to his son which appeared to celebrate the jihadists opposing Assad.
Deghayes denied that he was encouraging others to take up arms, claiming people were free to make a “personal choice” over whether to fight in Syria.
The grieving father is no stranger to the country and said he had travelled there “several times” since 2012 to deliver aid. “We have warehouses out there and have established a school,” he said.
Deghayes is a trustee of the Al-Quds mosque in Brighton where in 2006 he told an undercover Sunday Times reporter that Tony Blair was “a legitimate target”.
Deghayes said he had meant the former prime minister was a target to be brought down from government after taking Britain to war in Iraq. The Press Complaints Commission, the industry regulator, had rejected his complaint against the newspaper.
Last week Deghayes said he had flown to Turkey in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Abdullah from joining the fight in Syria. He later travelled to Libya, the country from which his family originally fled as refugees.
Abdullah Deghayes was probably fighting with Jabhat al-NusraOn his return to Britain last Monday he was stopped at the airport. “I was questioned by police and my phones were taken to be checked,” he said.
When asked to elaborate, Deghayes said: “Is this a police investigation or [do] you want a story?” Sussex police refused to comment.
Abdullah was one of six siblings — five boys and a girl — who grew up in the UK. He was interested in engineering and was due to go to university next year. Friends said he had never mentioned Syria or shown signs of extremism.
Both Abdullah and his twin brother, Abdul, had been in trouble with police in the past although Deghayes said this was for “petty things”.
The Facebook musings of their younger brother, Jaffar, switch from those of a typical teenager — in one post he describes someone as a “tight ginger fat scav” — to the more political. One entry that he shared with friends states: “It seems the word ‘terrorism’ is only reserved for Muslims.”
A BRITISH teenager killed fighting alongside his brothers in Syria had “most probably” joined the ranks of al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in the country, according to his father.
Abdullah Deghayes, 18, is thought to have been killed by a sniper in a battle involving extremists from Jabhat al-Nusra and the forces of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader.
The fighting, which took place close to the Turkish border, was so fierce that it took five days to recover Abdullah’s body.
As new details emerged of Abdullah’s death, The Sunday Times has discovered that his father, Abubaker, had travelled to Syria several times.
When he returned to Britain from overseas last week, he was stopped by police at Gatwick airport and had his mobile phones taken away. They were not returned until three days later.
Abubaker Deghayes, of Brighton, East Sussex, described his son as a “martyr” and believes he died fighting for a “just cause”.
However, he insisted that Abdullah and his younger brother Jaffar, 16, had travelled to Syria in February without his consent and that he had tried to dissuade them from getting involved in armed conflict.
Their older brother, Amer, 20, had already entered the country to fight and was shot in the stomach during the same battle in which Abdullah was killed.
Yesterday Jaffar, who was unharmed and is believed to be the youngest British jihadist in Syria, changed his Facebook profile photo to an image of Abdullah’s corpse.
Asked which rebel faction his sons had joined, Deghayes said: “I’m not sure, but most probably Jabhat al-Nusra.”
The group, also known as al-Nusra Front, was involved in heavy clashes with Assad’s troops in late March at Kasab, a border crossing in northeast Syria, where Deghayes said his son had died.
Another Briton, Abdul Majid, 41, from Crawley, West Sussex, had carried out a suicide attack on a Syrian jail this year for al-Nusra Front.
On Friday Deghayes, 45, whose brother, Omar, was held as a terror suspect in Guantanamo Bay for five years and was then released without charge, posted a video on Facebook as a tribute to his son which appeared to celebrate the jihadists opposing Assad.
Deghayes denied that he was encouraging others to take up arms, claiming people were free to make a “personal choice” over whether to fight in Syria.
The grieving father is no stranger to the country and said he had travelled there “several times” since 2012 to deliver aid. “We have warehouses out there and have established a school,” he said.
Deghayes is a trustee of the Al-Quds mosque in Brighton where in 2006 he told an undercover Sunday Times reporter that Tony Blair was “a legitimate target”.
Deghayes said he had meant the former prime minister was a target to be brought down from government after taking Britain to war in Iraq. The Press Complaints Commission, the industry regulator, had rejected his complaint against the newspaper.
Last week Deghayes said he had flown to Turkey in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Abdullah from joining the fight in Syria. He later travelled to Libya, the country from which his family originally fled as refugees.
Abdullah Deghayes was probably fighting with Jabhat al-NusraOn his return to Britain last Monday he was stopped at the airport. “I was questioned by police and my phones were taken to be checked,” he said.When asked to elaborate, Deghayes said: “Is this a police investigation or [do] you want a story?” Sussex police refused to comment.
Abdullah was one of six siblings — five boys and a girl — who grew up in the UK. He was interested in engineering and was due to go to university next year. Friends said he had never mentioned Syria or shown signs of extremism.
Both Abdullah and his twin brother, Abdul, had been in trouble with police in the past although Deghayes said this was for “petty things”.
The Facebook musings of their younger brother, Jaffar, switch from those of a typical teenager — in one post he describes someone as a “tight ginger fat scav” — to the more political. One entry that he shared with friends states: “It seems the word ‘terrorism’ is only reserved for Muslims.”
