British man and American woman killed in Syria, reports say
(The Guardian) – A British man named as Ali Almanasfi has been killed while fighting in Syria, together with two other foreigners including an American woman, Syrian TV has reported.
The three are believed to have been killed in Idlib province in the north of Syria. Syrian TV broadcast footage of the dead Briton’s passport which appeared to identify him as 22-year-old Ali Almanasfi, born in London in June 1990. The Foreign Office could not confirm any details about the Briton and his identity could not immediately be verified.
Syrian TV also identified the dead American woman as Nicole Mansfield, 33, from Michigan. The American woman’s family said she had died while apparently fighting with the rebels against government forces. “I’m just devastated,” her aunt, Monica Mansfield Speelman, told Reuters. “Evidently, she was fighting with opposition forces.” Speelman said the FBI had informed the family on Thursday afternoon.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the trio had been ambushed in Idlib province, which is largely controlled by Syria’s opposition. The Syrian government controls Idlib city. He told the Guardian: “These people got too close to some military bases near Idlib and were killed.”
Abdul-Rahman said he did not know the nationality of the third foreigner. He also said it was unclear if the group was affiliated with the moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) or a more radical opposition Islamist militia such as the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.
Syrian militants al-Nusra Front to be added to UN sanctions list
- Outside Intervention or War by Any Means in Syria my diary July 2012
- Syrian Rebels Sidetracked by Scramble for Spoils of War – Dec. 28, 2012
- Kerry Distances Himself from Clinton on Syria
More below the fold …
Cross-posted from BooMan’s fp story – Know What You Are Getting Into
Always a Biased View
Why vilify the Shia religion and thereby the Iranian people? That’s the problem wilh all DC insiders, you can’t get over the defeat of the Shah and the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Khomeiny had an uphill battle to earn the hearts and minds of the Iranians … until the Sunni led regime of Saddam Houssein invaded their territory and the brave Iranian people “resisted” the butcher from Baghdad. A short review of history would place the blame for agression with the Sunni religion. Same for Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, all Al-Qaeda affiliates, terror in the streets of Amsterdam-Paris-Madrid-London, north-African nations and the scourge of AQIM-AQAP-Boko Haram.
Just last night on Dutch television a discussion over the (Dutch) nationals traveling to Syria for Jihad. A spokesperson of salafimedia.nl particpated. Within 15 minutes you heard all the arguments of the Wahhabist-Salafist sects of Sunni religion. The decapacitated body of British soldier Lee Rigby wasn’t outright condemned because it’s the individual right of Sunni muslims te revenge the British murdering of Afghan and Iraqi Muslims. The soldier had Muslim blood on his hands. As far as going into Syria and killing fellow Muslims … that’s not so. The Alawites and Shia are heretics and worse than christians. There is only one true religion … haven’t we heard this so often? One gets a full recital from Koran scriptures why that is so and Jihad is the cleansing of one’s soul to get into paradise.
Dream on BooMan … don’t point your cruise missiles towards Teheran and Damascus. The real culprits of Al Qaeda come from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, to be specific the Wahhabist center in Najd.
Perhaps You Have Noticed … A turning Point In Syria
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 Wahhabi Sheikh Calls On Iraq’s Jihadists to Kill Shiites
Re: Always a Biased View (4.00 / 6)
The problem is, as Oui pointed out, we chose sides in 1980. That’s why Rummy was hanging out with and helping to arm Saddam in the 1980s. Then the whole cabal of neo-cons seriously miscalculated in their obsession to take down Saddam. Don’t know what they expected but seriously doubt that it was to leave a Shia dominated government with religious ties to Iran behind.
by Marie2 on Wed May 29th, 2013 at 01:38:28 PM EST
From the developments in the Middle-East since 2001, the Syrian uprising wasn’t about the Assad regime, except perhaps the first few weeks. See this article from 2010. The push for regime change in Syria was part of Neocon policy, even senator Kerry was caught off-guard trying to persuade Assad for quicker reforms in his administration.
A major breakthrough came when Maliki was elected to run the government in Baghdad, Iraq and divison with the Sunni population and the Kurds became evident. Saudi Arabia would not accept the new axis Teheran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut and joined the old colonial powers, Israel, Turkey and the US to overthrow Assad once the “uprising” took place. A bad choice, but it was a choice the Obama administration ran away with. Bullying of Russia and China in the UNSC failed miserably and there was never a united opposition front.
Reality has come to John Kerry and hopefully the parties involved in the conflict can come together for a political solution of transition to presidential and parliamentary elections by 2014.
