In Turkey, a late crackdown on Islamist fighters
| By Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet | August 12 at 7:33 PM |

REYHANLI, Turkey (Washington Post) – Before their blitz into Iraq earned them the title of the Middle East’s most feared insurgency, the jihadists of the Islamic State treated this Turkish town near the Syrian border as their own personal shopping mall.

And eager to aid any and all enemies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey rolled out the red carpet.

In dusty market stalls, among the baklava shops and kebab stands, locals talk of Islamist fighters openly stocking up on uniforms and the latest Samsung smartphones. Wounded jihadists from the Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front — an al-Qaeda offshoot also fighting the Syrian government — were treated at Turkish hospitals. Most important, the Turks winked as Reyhanli and other Turkish towns became way stations for moving foreign fighters and arms across the border.

“Turkey welcomed anyone against Assad, and now they are killing, spreading their disease, and we are all paying the price,” said Tamer Apis, a politician in Reyhanli, where two massive car bombs killed 52 people last year. In a nearby city, Turkish authorities seized another car packed with explosives in June, raising fears of an Islamic State-inspired campaign to export sectarian strife to Turkey.

“It was not just us,” Apis said. “But this is a mess of Turkey’s making.”

    The U.S. military is back in action over the skies of Iraq, launching airstrikes against the Islamist militants who have taken control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria. But for many months, the militants were able to grow in power partly by using the border region of a NATO member — Turkey — as a strategically vital supply route and entry point to wage their war.

A long read at The Washington Post …

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Limits of Airstrikes Hinder U.S. Policy in Iraq (WSJ)  

Turkey played part in Islamic State’s success, commander says

(Hürriyet) – The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), recently renamed has Turkey to thank for growing strong enough to conquer large swathes of Syria and Iraq, one of its commanders has suggested in an interview with the Washington Post published on Aug. 12.

The 27-year-old commander, identified as Abu Yusef, who traveled to the town of Reyhanlı in the southern province of Hatay for the interview, explained that they received most of their supplies from across the Turkish border until a recent crackdown against them.

“We used to have some fighters — even high-level members of the Islamic State — getting treated in Turkish hospitals. And also, most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies,” Yusef told the Washington Post.

Egypt’s el-Sisi avoids Turkish airspace with huge U-turn

(Hürriyet) – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s official plane has used an unusual flight route on its way back home from Russia as it avoided flying over Turkish airspace, the website airporthaber.com reported on Aug. 13. After meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Sochi, el-Sisi boarded the Airbus 340-200 owned by the Egyptian government, which was scheduled to fly to Cairo.

After the decision to avoid Turkish airspace, the pilot also had to avoid Ukrainian airspace due to the ongoing clashes that saw Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 shot down over Eastern Ukraine. As a result, the plan flew to Egypt via Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.

Success of Geert Wilders in The Netherlands, nation splits in two …

Continued below the fold …

Arrests by anti-ISIS demonstration in a Muslim neighborhood of The Hague

(De Telegraaf) – Between 150 and 200 protesters held a “March fo Freedom” last Sunday. The march started by The Hague Central Station and walked towards the “Schilderswijk” [an impoverished neighborhood listed at the bottom of income and employment in Holland]. The organizers of the march urge the government to get tough against the “supporters of the terror group ISIS” in The Netherlands. The march through the Dutch Capitol was coordinated bt a Facebook group named “Pro Patria” [For the Fatherland]. At 17 hrs the demonstration ended.

Geert Wilders of the one-man PVV party asked questions in Parliament due to the violence during the protest march. According to Wilders, the Dutch government has capitulated for the Islam and the reprehensible Sharia which is already manifest in The Hague.

Of course LiveLeak in support of the Geert Wilders mob.

Photoserie of counter anti-ISIS demonstration by neo-Nazi, Flemish bloc and Geert Wilders supporters

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Geert Wilders is riding high as fear of Muslims enters a new phase in Holland, the nation of "tolerance." (Photo credit RTL News)

    A civil servant tweeted: “ISIS is nothing to do with Islam … It’s pre-planned by zionists to damage Islam intentionally.” Yasmina Haifi has been put on paid leave of absence awaiting a decision by her employer the Dutch Ministery of Security and Justice. She worked at the National Cyber Security Center, which is part of Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV).

Letter of condolences to the people of Israel, Dear Avigdor … and Wilders’ weblog