Headline News 15/02/2020

Headlines:

• Despite Talk of Conflict, Turkish Forces are Helping Smooth Assad’s Retake of Idlib

US Airstrikes Kills Eight after Announcing Reduction of Violence with Taliban

Nigerian Military Uses West-Inspired Tactics of Attacking Civilians to Impose Control

Details:

Despite Talk of Conflict, Turkish Forces are Helping Smooth Assad’s Retake of Idlib

The news media is reporting intensified conflict between Turkish and Syrian forces on the ground, with some Turkish soldiers recently killed by Syrian firing, but the reality of the conflict is that Turkey is continuing to play the role of enabler as Assad retakes his territory, creating an even smaller zone for Syrian revolutionaries to flee to. According to the New York Times:

Syrian government attacks on Turkish positions in northwest Syria are driving Turkey deeper into the country’s civil war, prompting it to send reinforcements to the region and press for a Turkish-controlled military zone there…

The surge in fighting, as the Syrian government tries to retake the country’s last rebel-held province, has created the largest displacement of people in the war’s nine-year history. About 700,000 people have fled their homes in Idlib since December, the United Nations said Tuesday. Many are living in tents near the Turkish border, and there have been recent reports of children freezing to death…

The Turkish deployments have yet to stop the Syrian government advance — Syrian troops seized control of the strategic Damascus-Aleppo highway on Tuesday — but they appear to be an attempt to carve out a zone of control in Idlib before the Syrian government advances too close to its border, analysts said…

Turkey has already established a so-called safe zone along its border in northeastern Syria, which it seized in October after the United States removed its forces there.

But Turkey’s options in the northwest are limited.

Russia controls the air there and without air support Turkey is in no position to push back Syrian forces, said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

So while Mr. Erdogan has talked tough, he has also sought accommodation where possible. He demanded that Syrian forces pull back to their previous positions but gave them until the end of the month to do so. And he has sought talks with Russia, the Syrian government’s main backer…

America usually employs our governments as a dagger against our own people but in this case America is crafting two blades of a pair of scissors, the Syrian regime cutting the revolution from one side and the Turkish government cutting from the other side. But with Allah’s permission, they are mistaken in thinking that the revolution is so easily crushed, and it shall rise again, with better leadership, independent of agent regimes, to retake Syria for Islam.

 US Airstrikes Kills Eight after Announcing Reduction of Violence with Taliban

America has no interest in peace but only in sustaining control over the lands that it has gained access to. Despite the constant American narrative that it is the Taliban who are reckless with civilian lives, it is actually the foreign disbelieving forces who have no care for what they call co-lateral damage. According to the Guardian:

An airstrike in Afghanistan has killed at least eight people – all believed to be civilians, residents said – hours after the US announced a breakthrough in peace talks with the Taliban.

Donald Trump said on Thursday there was a “good chance” of reaching an agreement with the Taliban on a reduction of US troops in Afghanistan.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said an important breakthrough had been made in peace talks with the Taliban in recent days, and the defence secretary, Mark Esper, said they had negotiated a proposal for a week-long reduction in violence.

But on Friday a vehicle carrying civilians was targeted in an airstrike in the eastern province of Nangarhar, according to residents, who added that among the eight killed was a child. Taliban insurgents have a strong presence in the region.

A spokesman for the provincial governor of Nangarhar confirmed the incident but did not say who the victims were.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said 11 civilians were killed in the incident.

Afghan, Taliban and US sources said over the last 48 hours that a deal to curb violence was on the verge of implementation. Details about when that was set to begin were not immediately clear but a Taliban official said it would be this week.

While US and Taliban negotiators pressed on with meetings in Doha, Qatar, the Taliban and the Afghan government also reported fighting on the ground over the last 24 hours.

An airstrike on Thursday evening killed a senior Taliban commander and eight others in northern Balkh province, the Afghan defence ministry said.

The Taliban’s Mujahid said the insurgents had killed six Afghan soldiers, including two officers, in an attack on a checkpoint in northern Kunduz province.

The West have rejected the high values of the well-known historical Muslim chivalry and ethics in war and now conduct military operations without any concern for the death or destruction to non-combatants. With Allah’s permission, Muslims shall re-establish their state, the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) on the method of the Prophet (saw) and the world shall see once more that it is quite possible to pursue material values in combination with ethical, humanitarian and spiritual values if the goal of one’s actions is not worldly gain but the pleasure of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.

 Nigerian Military Uses West-Inspired Tactics of Attacking Civilians to Impose Control

And when the West has shown the way, then it is natural for their agents in Muslim countries to also practice the same, the latest example of military operations against civilians occurring in Nigeria, according to Reuters:

Nigeria’s military burned down villages and forcibly displaced hundreds of people in its fight against Islamist insurgents in the country’s northeast, rights group Amnesty International alleged on Friday.

Nigeria’s military, which has frequently been accused of human rights abuses in its decade-long fight against Boko Haram and more recently Islamic State’s West African branch, said in a statement that Amnesty’s report had been falsified.

Three residents interviewed by Reuters confirmed Amnesty’s findings.

Previous allegations have sparked investigations by the International Criminal Court in the Hague and hampered Nigeria’s ability to purchase arms, a source of frustration for its military’s leaders. However, convictions of soldiers have been rare and the military has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

In the latest allegations, Amnesty said Nigerian soldiers razed three villages after forcing hundreds of men and women to leave their homes in the northeastern state of Borno in January.

The human rights group said it interviewed 12 victims and reviewed satellite images that showed several large fires in the area and almost every structure razed.

Residents described soldiers going house to house and rounding people up, then making them walk to a main road and board trucks, it said.

“We saw our houses go into flames,” a woman of around 70 told Amnesty. “We all started crying.”

The trucks took more than 400 people to a camp for people displaced by the conflict in Maiduguri, the main city in the region.

“These brazen acts of razing entire villages, deliberately destroying civilian homes and forcibly displacing their inhabitants with no imperative military grounds, should be investigated as possible war crimes,” said Osai Ojigho, director for Amnesty International Nigeria, in Friday’s statement detailing the group’s investigation.

Soldiers also detained six men, beating some of them, and held them for almost a month before releasing them without charge on Jan. 30, Amnesty said.

It cited Nigerian Army statements from the time that said six Boko Haram suspects had been captured and hundreds of captives freed from the militants.

“They say they saved us from Boko Haram, but it’s a lie,” said one man aged roughly 65, according to Amnesty. “Boko Haram isn’t coming to our village.”

A military spokesman denied the allegations in a statement on Friday, saying Amnesty had launched “a campaign of calumny targeting the Nigerian military” and accused the group of supporting the insurgents, who it blamed for burning villages.

Civilians were evacuated from the line of fire during combat, the spokesman said.

Three residents from two of the affected villages, now living in Maiduguri, described to Reuters the same events as in the rights group’s report.

“The soldiers called us Boko Haram and set our houses ablaze, before evacuating all of us,” one of the residents said.

Amnesty’s report was published as the military struggles to contain the insurgencies, particularly Islamic State. Last July, troops began to withdraw to larger garrisons, dubbed “super camps”, from smaller bases that were frequently overrun with heavy loss of lives.

That has left the military on the defensive and the insurgents able to roam across large swathes of territory and carry out attacks, often on civilians, with few repercussions.

It is incumbent upon the Muslim Ummah to reject the agent ruling class that serves only the interests of the foreign disbeliever and instead pledge their loyalty to sincere, indigenous leadership committed to obedience to Allah (swt) and His Messenger (saw), who will restore the implementation of Islam, unify Muslim lands and carry the light of Islam to the entire world. Allah (swt) says in the Noble Qur’an:

[وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مِنكُمْ وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ لَيَسْتَخْلِفَنَّهُم فِي الْأَرْضِ كَمَا اسْتَخْلَفَ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ وَلَيُمَكِّنَنَّ لَهُمْ دِينَهُمُ الَّذِي ارْتَضَى لَهُمْ وَلَيُبَدِّلَنَّهُم مِّن بَعْدِ خَوْفِهِمْ أَمْنًا يَعْبُدُونَنِي لَا يُشْرِكُونَ بِي شَيْئًا وَمَن كَفَرَ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ]

“Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me. But whoever disbelieves after that - then those are the defiantly disobedient.” [an-Nur: 55]