Kerry visit to Putin and challenge to focus on a diplomatic solution to Syrian Civil War with sectarian massacres.
Hezbollah fighters intervening through Bekaa Valley and oust rebels from key city Qusair.
Russians supplying heavy arms to Syrian regime to further enhance port city of Taurus
Flow of arms to Syrian rebels diminished via Turkey and Jordan border, giving edge to Assad”s military.
Political opposition group as divided as it has been during Hillary Clinton’s two year failed campaign, meet in Jordan.
Grisly Execution Videos Show Growing Brutality in Syria
(ABC News) – The camera pans up from three blindfolded men with their hands bound to a rebel fighter speaking into a megaphone. He stands by a white pickup truck, his face covered with a white and red checkered scarf.
In classical Arabic, the man reads out the death sentence of the three men. It lasts one minute and 45 seconds before the man proclaims “God is great” and two of his comrades – wearing black ski masks – fire single bullets into each of the three captives’ heads. As they slump over, a crowd erupts in cheers and celebratory gunfire.
In the two years since the war in Syria started, there have been innumerable videos of summary executions, beheadings and the aftermath of massacres. But in recent days, the videos posted online from Syria have highlighted a deepening sectarianism and a brutality never before seen in this conflict.
The execution of the three men, who were officers of the Syrian government, took place in a public square in Raqqa, a northern city controlled by the Sunni, al Qaeda-linked extremist rebel group, Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The slain men were Alawites, the sect of Shia Islam that President Bashar al-Assad and his most loyal forces belong to.
“We respond to the criminal Bashar who is killing Sunnis everywhere,” the man with the megaphone said. “Now we decided to come close to God by killing those Alawites…”
The speaker in the Raqqa video said the executions were in revenge for – among other things – recent massacres in and around the majority Alawite coastal city of Baniyas in early May. There, regime forces are reported to have carried out “cleansing” operations of Sunni areas, slaughtering hundreds of men, women and children. Videos showed rows of dead bodies, shot or stabbed, as well as the charred remains of bodies burned in a building. Many more remain missing, feared dead.
“The fear of ethnic cleansing has increased among all populations of Syria and with good reason,” writes Syria analyst Joshua Landis at the University of Oklahoma. “Sunnis claim today that the regime is effectively trying to clear many areas of its Sunni inhabitants.”
“Stop Wahhabi Indoctrination of Syrian Youth” (2010) by Elie Elhadj
Islamist groups in Syria have succeeded in controlling most private elementary schools (up to sixth grade), estimated to be around 200 schools (presumably in Damascus) with approximately 25% to 30% of all elementary schools enrolment. The article revealed that teachers are all women, don the Niqab (black covering of face and body), and belong to Islamist proselytizing groups, typically led and controlled by women. ALL4SYRIA added that classroom teaching material contravenes Ministry of Education curriculum and textbooks, that young children are instructed to insist that their mothers must wear the Niqab so that they avoid burning in hell’s fire, that large amounts of money have been paid by Islamist organizers to purchase secular private schools from their owners; for example, Dar Al-Faraj, Dar Al-Na’eem, Omar bin Al-Khattab, The Arab Islamic College, Ummat Al-Majd, Al-Yaqzah…).
More below the fold …
Significance of the article
Such a development is disconcerting. Syria must be vigilant. At the core of Islamist teaching, just like Wahhabi teaching, is indoctrination and brainwashing in fanaticism. Sunni Islamists, Syria’s included, embrace Wahhabi extremism with all their being. Their speech and actions are akin to being members of a religious cult.
It should be noted that the word “Islamist” refers only to the tiny minority among individual Muslims who are extremists in their religious fervor and beliefs; specifically, the Hanbalite Wahhabis. The word “Islamist” does not apply to the 95% of Sunnis who follow the other three schools of jurisprudence (Hanafites, Maliktes, and Shafiates). This great majority is moderate, enlightened, and tolerant. On a macro level, the word “Islamist” refers to extremist Islamic states, not to moderate Islamic countries. While Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Syria, and Turkey, for example, are Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia is an Islamist country.
If allowed to go unchecked, such a development would cause irreparable damage to Syria’s way of life and to its multi-ethnic multi-religion harmony, including discrimination against and persecution of the country’s many religious minorities and sects, particularly the ruling Alawite minority, which orthodox Muslims regard as heretics.
To appreciate the consequences of Islamist teaching one need not look beyond the Saudi educational curriculum to see its effects on Saudi youth and Muslim youth in Islamist/ Wahhabi sponsored schools elsewhere. While Saudi textbooks might not be seen in Syria’s classrooms, the dogma, dictums, values, attitudes, and beliefs imparted through the words, mannerism, dress, and personal behavior of Islamist teachers would, nonetheless, mold impressionable young children with Arabia’s seventh century culture.
h/t Syria Comment
Saudi Wahhabi Sheikh Calls On Iraq’s Jihadists to Kill Shiites
(Al Monitor) – On April 23, Saad al-Durihim, a Saudi Wahhabi sheikh, posted a tweet on Twitter in which he said that jihadist fighters in Iraq should adopt a “heavy-handed” approach and kill any Shiites they can get their hands own, including children and women. This is so that the “rawafid” — a term used by Wahhabi Salafists to refer to Shiites — will fear them.
This tweet sparked sharp criticism on Twitter. Many considered it to be incitement to murder and contrary to the tolerance of Islam, which forbids the killing of women and children in battle, even those of infidels and polytheists.
Sheikh Durihim had previously posted a tweet in which he said that the people of Najd [in central Saudi Arabia] were the “saved group”, meaning they alone were the only ones who would enter Paradise on Judgment Day among all humans, including other Muslims. Najd is the region of Saudi Arabia where Wahhabism originated.
Daraihim’s statements denouncing the Shiites as apostates — in accordance with Wahhabi Salafist doctrine — are not the first of their kind. Takfir (the idea of Muslims renouncing other Muslims as nonbelievers) goes back to fatwas issued by Sheikh Taqi ad-Din bin Taymiyyah, a Syrian sheikh from the Hanbali school of jurisprudence born in 1283 A.D. in Harran, a city near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Saudi cleric calls for Muslim fatwa to take out Bashar Assad
Saudi Mufti calls jihad in Syria is a “betrayal” of state and homeland
(Kavkaz Center) – In his Friday sermon last week, which took place in the mosque of Imam Turki bin Abd al-Aziz, Aal ash-Shaikh spoke about all kinds of “treasons” and “betrayals”.
Touching the issue of commercial and banking transactions, the “mufti” drew attention to Syria. According to him, the desire of young people to enter the jihad may be regarded as a “treason” to the Saudi regime.
“Yesterday, in his Friday sermon in the mosque of Imam Turki ibn Abd-al-Aziz in Riyadh, the mufti said that among there were those who betrayed their community and country by inciting people to take action that leads to humiliation and difficulties for their own country. He explained that these were the people who incite the youth to join the Jihad, and that they did not know the consequences and dangers awaiting”, writes Al-Eqtisadiah”.
For its part, Al-Watan adds that, according to Aal ash-Shaikh, the calls for Jihad separate the “pastor” (i.e., the king) from the “flock”, and this, they say, is a real “betrayal”.
It is to be recalled that a few weeks ago, most prominent palace scholars, including “mufti” Abdul-Azeez Salih Fevzan, visited the palace of king Abdullah in Riyadh, where they met senior Saudi officials. The meeting was filmed on a video and photographed. At the meeting, the king offered to execute those calling Muslims to Jihad in neighboring Arab countries.
Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh is the current Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia
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