Syrian Islamists demand that Christians pay them the Muslim "dhimma" in gold. In return Christians will be allowed to live, but they cannot display religious insignia outside of churches, ring church bells or pray in public.
An al Qaeda splinter group has demanded that Christians in a Syrian city it controls pay a levy in gold and curb displays of their faith in return for protection, according to a statement posted online on Wednesday.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), mainly composed of foreign fighters, is widely considered the most radical of the groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad, and is also engaged in a violent struggle with rival Islamist rebels.
Its directive to Christians in the eastern city of Raqqa is the latest evidence of the group’s ambition to establish a state in Syria founded on radical Islamist principles, a prospect that concerns Western and Arab backers of other rebel groups fighting Assad reports Reuters News.
ISIL said it would ensure Christians’ safety in exchange for the levy and their adherence to restrictions on their faith, citing the Islamic legal precept of ‘dhimma’.
It said Christians must not make renovations to churches or other religious buildings, display religious insignia outside of churches, ring church bells or pray in public.
It demanded every Christian man pay a tax of up to 17 grams of gold, a levy that was common in Muslim states centuries ago.
The directive also bans Christians from owning weapons and from selling pork or wine to Muslims or drinking wine in public.
The concept of dhimma, governing non-Muslims living under Islamic rule, dates back to the early Islamic era in the seventh century, but was largely abolished during the Ottoman reforms of the mid-19th century.
Comrade Obama is backing Islamist Saudi Arabia's arming of the Syrian Islamist rebels who are trying to overthrow the pro-Iran but secular pro-Russian Syrian government that protects the local Christians from Islamists.
Fuck it, I mean who wouldn't want to get involved?
Frustrated by the deadlock of the second round of Geneva 2 talks, Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered to supply the rebels with anti-aircraft missiles. Meanwhile Russia has accused the US of once again hijacking peace talks and pushing for regime change.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Russian-made antitank guided missiles and Chinese man-portable air-defense systems are up for grabs, already waiting in warehouses in Jordan and Turkey.
An Arab diplomat and several opposition figures with knowledge of the Saudi efforts have told WSJ that these supplies are likely to tip the battlefield scales, as the rebels will become capable of taking on the government’s air power and destroying heavy armored vehicles reports RT News.
“New stuff is arriving imminently,” a Western diplomat with knowledge of the planned weapons deliveries told the American publication. .
Leaders of the Syrian opposition said they don't yet know the total amount of military aid that will be shipped. The new weapons are expected to reach southern Syria from Jordan while the opposition in the north will get arms from Turkey, the Western diplomat said.
Raising fears that civilian aircraft may eventually become targets, last June several media outlets suggested that Saudi Arabia had already begun supplying anti-aircraft launchers and missiles to militants in Syria. But so far Saudi Arabia, as well as the US, has been officially opposed to arming the rebels with big guns and antiaircraft missiles as they could fall into extremist hands.
Mercenaries on US payroll?
The Wall Street Journal also reports that their rebel sources claimed the US government is paying their salaries to fight the Assad forces. The Southern Front brigades allegedly received $3 million in cash in salaries during the two meetings in Jordan, one held on January 30 and the other late last year.
Meanwhile, congressional aides told the WSJ about scheduled meetings with Syrian opposition leaders next week. The Syrian delegation will allegedly seek extra armaments in order to battle al-Qaeda and al-Nusra elements.
“We're trying to assure the international community that they can support moderates without the threat of arms falling into the hands of al-Qaeda,” said Oubai Shahbandar, a senior adviser to the Syrian opposition. Saudi Arabia and US have so far refused to comment.
Two British siblings, who were radicalized in UK mosques, died while fighting Kurdish rebels in Northern Syria. The Kurdish rebels, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims, have switched sides and allied themselves with the Syrian government out of hatred for the Saudi-backed foreign extremists entering their country. Read more: Madote.com
Great - The British Export Terrorists
British Muslims have carried out acts of torture and possibly executions in Syria, according to new video footage posted on social network sites.
Hundreds of British citizens have travelled to Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Many are believed to have joined Islamist rebel groups linked to al-Qaeda, notably Jabhat al-Nusra.
One man from London posted a video on Facebook showing a prisoner being flogged with an iron bar. The victim is apparently from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a rival rebel movement. He is assaulted with such force that the bar breaks in half. The prisoner endures this while lashed to a car tire reports the UK Telegraph. .
The accompanying message on Facebook posted by the British man reads: “This FSA scum never thought we wud [sic] jump out at them and pick them up after saying some abusive words to our brothers.”
He added: “Two then got ahead of themselves and swore at Allah, at this point there was no stopping us LOL although we where [sic] told to jus [sic] leave them.”
This particular Facebook account has been verified as belonging to a British fighter from London.
Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, said there was no doubt about its authenticity, but he was unable to name the individual involved. “When I contact them, they’ll talk about the situation on the ground in Syria, but they won’t give anything like biographical details,” said Maher.
Another man, who is also from London, tweeted a photograph showing three blindfolded prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs. “Got these criminals today. Insha’Allah they will be killed tomorrow. can’t wait for that feeling when you just killed someone”, reads the accompanying tweet.
Some days later, the same man posted a photograph of a bloodied hand on Facebook. “My first time!” reads the caption.
This image has been picked up by numerous social media pages used by radical Islamists. Maher said there was no doubt this Twitter account belonged to a British fighter from London.
Counter-terrorism officials believe that British fighters in Syria pose a significant threat to national security. If they return to Britain, hardened by the experience of close combat, the fear is that they might carry out attacks at home.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress lock arms and secretly voted to send U.S. weapons to the Syrian rebels to overthrow the government.
This goes right along with our secret FISA courts issuing secret warrants so the secret military run NSA can secretly spy on every American.
The Republic is dead. Hail Caesar!
(Reuters News) - Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to so-called "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials.
The weapons, most of which are moving to non-Islamist Syrian rebels via Jordan, include a variety of small arms, as well as some more powerful weapons, such as anti-tank rockets.
The deliveries do not include weapons such as shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADs, which could shoot down military or civilian aircraft, the officials said.
The weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on September 30, two officials said. . The apparently steady weapons flow contrasts with the situation last summer, when lethal U.S. aid to the Syrian rebels dried up for a time due to congressional reservations.
Congress approved funding for weapons deliveries to the Syrian rebels in classified sections of defense appropriations legislation, two sources familiar with the matter said. It was not clear when the funding was approved, but unclassified defense funding passed Congress in late December.
A White House spokeswoman had no comment. Other U.S. agencies did not respond to requests for comment.
McCain marched into the Senate committee room yelling and quickly stormed out. “He was incredibly rude,” the source told Judicial Watch “because he didn’t think the Syrian church leaders should even be allowed in the room.”
The darkest day of my political life was when I voted for this fucking bastard in November, 2008. I should have cast a protest vote for the Libertarians.
Hell-bent on arming opposition forces in Syria—despite strong evidence that they’re run by Islamic terrorists—John McCain displayed behavior unbecoming of a United States Senator during a recent meeting with Syrian Christian leaders touring Capitol Hill.
The delegation of Syrian clergy came to Washington to raise awareness among lawmakers of the growing crisis among the region’s minority Christian community. Christians make up about 10% of the Syrian population and they are being targeted and ruthlessly murdered by radical elements of the rebel forces, according to the visiting church officials. They say the media and human rights groups in the west have been largely silent on the ordeal of the Christians in Syria reports Judicial Watch.
A number of churches have been destroyed or burned, children were killed when rebels fired mortar rockets at an Armenian Christian school in Damascus and countless others have been abducted by Islamic fighters, the Syrian delegation reveals in a statement published by the research group, Westminster Institute, that brought them to Washington. Eleven nuns have also been abducted and are still in captivity and two bishops are still missing after getting kidnapped during a humanitarian mission.
Aleppo's last remaining Christians
A must see video.
Syrian Christians' Deadly Battle With Islamist Persecution
"They said they'd chop our heads off if we stayed. They said we were supporting the regime and they burnt one of my cousins." Mohammed Jelloud, a local Arab man, says of the oppression of rebel groups with ties to Al Qaeda.
But Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican, evidently doesn’t want to hear negative stories about the rebels he’s working to arm. So he stormed out of a closed-door meeting with the Syrian clergy officials last week. Held in the Senate Arms Services Committee meeting room, the reunion also included senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Graham is a Republican and the rest are Democrats.
McCain marched into the committee room yelling, according to a high-level source that attended the meeting, and quickly stormed out. “He was incredibly rude,” the source told Judicial Watch “because he didn’t think the Syrian church leaders should even be allowed in the room.” Following the shameful tantrum McCain reentered the room and sat briefly but refused to make eye contact with the participants, instead ignoring them by looking down at what appeared to be random papers.
The outburst was so embarrassing that Senator Graham, also an advocate of U.S. military intervention in Syria, apologized for McCain’s disturbing outburst. “Graham actually apologized to the group for McCain’s behavior,” according to the source, who sat through the entire meeting. “It was truly unbelievable.”
The GOP bastard McCain wants Syrian Christians to just shut up so he can get on with running guns to Islamists.
Not really, for those familiar with McCain’s history on this matter. The veteran lawmaker is enamored with a controversial young “Syria expert,” Elizabeth O’Bagy, who has managed to convince him as well as the president and secretary of state that Syrian rebels are mostly moderate and not terrorists. While persuading the U.S. of this, O’Bagy concealed that she was a political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates for Syria’s rebels from Washington D.C.
Before getting exposed by conservative media outlets, O’Bagy claimed to be an objective analyst at a Washington D.C. think-tank that studies military affairs when in fact she had a “reputation as the leading expert on the armed opposition in the Syrian revolution,” according to SETF. In September O’Bagy was abruptly fired from the think-tank for padding her resume and McCain graciously hired her. “Elizabeth is a talented researcher, and I have been very impressed by her knowledge and analysis in multiple briefings over the last year,” McCain said in a statement to the political news publication that broke the story in late September.
Besides the fact that a Syrian Islamist group is essentially steering U.S. policy, a number of domestic and international media outlets have confirmed that terrorists—mainly Al Qaeda—are running opposition forces in Syria.
For instance the New York Times published a piece that reveals Islamist rebels—including the most extreme groups in the notorious Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-aligned force—are running the show in Syria. “The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion,” the story says. “Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”
Incredibly, last month an international news agency reported that Congress secretly approved U.S. weapons flow to what officials describe as “moderate” Syrian rebel factions. The White House refused to comment on the back-door operation, but the story cites U.S. and European officials who say the weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014.
If you thought Comrade Obama was crying in his pillow at night over the little children refugees in Syria then you are a fool.
In this interesting column the author exposes the real reason for Middle Eastern wars and terrorism - oil.
When you "follow the money" you need to ask how do these freedom fighters or terrorists manage to obtain very, very expensive weapons and an endless supply of expensive ammo? The corrupt big shots pony up billions in weapons and cash and then put a "public face" on their war with film of families driven from their homes by the war the elite created.
The wars for control of Syria, and actually there is more than one going on simultaneously, have a strong background in an undeclared war over who will control the region’s gigantic and newly-discovered oil and gas reserves.
Now, Russia has just secured a major contract with the Syrian government. This comes after they brilliantly handed President Obama a face-saving way out of unwanted direct military action in Syria by brokering a deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad to remove the country’s stock of chemical weapons. Regardless of whether Assad remains president, Russia holds exploration and development rights to a major part of Syria’s offshore waters.
On December 25, Syrian Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas on behalf of the Syrian government signed a 25-year deal with the Russian SoyuzNefteGaz company to explore for oil in the Middle Eastern country's territorial waters off the Mediterranean coast. SoyuzNefteGaz is headed by Russia's former energy minister, Yuri Shafranik, and its main shareholder is the Central Bank of Russia. It was founded in 2000 "to enhance economic cooperation with former Soviet countries, the Middle East and North Africa," according to RIA Novosti, the state Russian news agency. It also has projects in Iraq and Uzbekistan.
The Syrian deal is part of Putin’s long-term strategy in the region, in other words.
The new agreement covers an 845-square-mile [2,188 square kilometers] area stretching southward from the government-controlled city of Tartus, where Russia also has its only Naval base in the Mediterranean. The rights extend to Banias, and about 45 miles into the Mediterranean in the Syrian Exclusive Economic Zone. The Russian company has been involved for a number of years in onshore oil projects in Syria.
With the move to develop Syria’s offshore energy potential, Russia is stepping into a hot and rapidly developing scramble for what are estimated to be oil and gas reserves comparable to one or more new Saudi Arabia-size regions.A look at the offshore map of the region would be revealing.
Since it discovered significant gas in its offshore waters in 2010, Israel has become a major player in the development of oil and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, including in Cyprus which has confirmed significant gas fields of its own. Lebanon’s offshore exploration has been disrupted (perhaps conveniently for some rivals) by the war in Syria, as has Syria’s own oil and gas exploration.
In March 2011, Assad signed another gas pipeline deal: this time with arch-Qatar enemy, Iran. Qatar is fundamentalist Sunni and home to the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Iran is fundamentalist Shiite Muslim and Iraq is ruled by a Shiite Prime Minister. Both Iran and Iraq back Assad in the current war for control of Syria. The Iranian gas pipeline would extend from its Persian Gulf field through Iraq and through Syria. No sooner was the ink dry on the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline when a full-scale terror war, financed by Qatar to the tune of billions of dollars, exploded across Syria.
Now Russia has stepped in, after the failure of Qatar, the Saudis and Turkey to topple the Assad regime and replace it, either with a fundamentalist Wahabite Saudi regime or a fundamentalist Salafist Muslim Brotherhood, one that would do business with them and not with Russia.
Follow the Money
Smedley Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. . During his 34-year career as a Marine, he participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I. Butler is well known for having later become an outspoken critic of U.S. wars and their consequences. . By the end of his career, Butler had received 16 medals, five for heroism. He is one of 19 men to twice receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, one of three to be awarded both the Marine Corps Brevet Medal and the Medal of Honor, and the only Marine to be awarded the Brevet Medal and two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions. . See more at General Smedley Butler
Bashar and first lady Asma al-Assad. A first lady without a burqa. No wonder the Islamists are angry.
Syria says Saudi Arabia is the Enemy
Figuring out the Middle East cast of characters is like trying to organize 100 rattle snakes in a pit into groups of "good" and "bad" snakes.
One element of truth - On 9-11 we were attacked by the citizens of Saudi Arabia. Not the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned during a meeting in Damascus with Iran's foreign minister that Saudi Arabia's political and religious ideology is "a threat to the world," state television reported.
He was referring to Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim tradition which is predominant in Saudi Arabia, a key backer of Syria's revolt against Assad reports AFP News.
"President Assad warns during his meeting with Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of the threat posed by Wahhabi thinking to all the world, not just to the region," the report said.
"The Syrian people and some peoples in the region know how serious the threat posed by Wahhabism is, and everyone must contribute to the confrontation against it and to eradicating it from the root," said Assad, who belongs to the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Indigenous Christians living in fear in Syria as Muslims
take their homes and property. West silent
Syrian Christians are living in fear as Muslims take their homes and property. Muslim extremist have taken homes of the indigenous Christian community and use them as their own personal homes and bases. Just like the Nazis did during World War II, they took the homes and property of Jews and Jewish people.
"Supporting Jihadists in Syria also gives the Saudis an opportunity to ship their own radicals to Syria, where they can fight & possibly die " . With a large number of unemployed, underemployed and radicalized young men, the Jihad in Syria provides a pressure valve similar to the past struggles in Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The Saudis are not only trying to winnow down their own troubled youth; we have received reports from a credible source that the Saudis are also facilitating the travel of Yemeni men to training camps in Turkey, where they are trained and equipped before being sent to Syria to fight. . The reports also indicate that the young men are traveling for free and receiving a stipend for their service. These young radicals from Saudi Arabia and Yemen will even further strengthen the Jihadist groups in Syria by providing them with fresh troops. (Uprooted Palestinians.blogspot)
Our brain-dead dear "leaders" are now looking for ways to import Muslim Syrians. What could possibly go wrong?
A Senate hearing on Tuesday revealed growing bipartisan support for allowing more Syrian refugees into the U.S.
Lawmakers on the Judiciary human-rights panel pressed the Obama administration to relax standards that reject applicants who have supported armed factions, even ones the U.S. government itself supports. Members of both parties also urged passage of provisions of the stalled immigration reform bill that could help Syrians reports The Hill.
“I don't see a comprehensive immigration bill passing anytime soon, so when it comes to changes in our laws, extensions, if you need something beyond the ability that you have [now], please let us know,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told State and Homeland Security officials. “Because I think a lot of us may have different views about immigration but may be willing to accommodate some legal changes that would help expedite this process.”
Those provisions include removing the one-year filing deadline for asylum seekers, along with other changes to refugee program.
The hearing comes amid rising criticism that the U.S. isn't doing enough after allowing only 90 Syrians to resettle in the United States over the past three years, out of more than 2 million refugees who have been straining the resources of neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Jordan. The administration says it has done its part by offering $1.4 billion in humanitarian aid — more than any other country.
Panel chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told the panelists that the U.S. “also should accept more vulnerable Syrian refugees who have no way of getting to the United States.”
“One issue that needs to be addressed is the overly broad prohibition in our immigration law that excludes any refugee who has provided any kind of support to any armed rebel group, even a group supported by the United States,” he said. “This would prevent a Syrian who gave a cigarette or a sandwich to a Free Syrian Army solider from receiving refugee status, despite the fact that the United States is providing assistance to the FSA.”
How about Syrian Christians? Sorry, but screw the Muslims. Let the Muslim nations take care of their own people. But the US should warmly welcome Syrian Christians into the US who have been the targets of Islamic terrorism.
Dr. Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini, as pictured on his Twitter feed. Banners commonly used by al Qaeda-affiliated groups are on the wall behind him.
"Pro-U.S." Saudis Backing al Qaeda
Let's mind our own business and allow
Darwinism to work its magic in Syria.
Dr. Abdallah Muhammad al Muhaysini, a popular Saudi cleric who has relocated to Syria, has used his highly trafficked social media presence to endorse the new Islamic Front formed by some of the leading Syrian insurgent groups. He has also called for the Islamist coalition to cooperate with al Qaeda’s two official branches inside Syria.
Al Muhaysini’s messages have been released on his official Twitter feed and YouTube page. As of this writing, his Twitter page has more than 240,000 followers, while his videos posted on YouTube regularly receive thousands of views. Al Muhaysini’s Facebook page has received more than 30,000 likes.
Another Twitter feed established by al Muhaysini (@us_4_all) is billed as the best place for news about Syria and currently has more than 224,000 followers reports the Long War Journal.
Al Muhaysini announced his relocation to Syria in early October. The Saudi claimed he was banned from traveling abroad, but made the trip anyway. Upon his arrival in the Levant, al Muhaysini sought to play a conciliatory role.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, or Levant (ISIS), one of two official al Qaeda branches in Syria, has quarreled with other jihadist groups, including the Al Nusrah Front (the other formal al Qaeda branch) and Ahrar al Sham, which is a leading member in the new Islamic Front. These groups frequently coordinate their operations, but ISIS has often proven to be a problematic partner. The disagreements have even boiled over into occasional skirmishes.
Al Muhaysini swiftly proposed that a common sharia court be established, with each of the leading jihadist groups contributing two judges. The court would adjudicate disputes between its members. Al Muhaysini even said that the new court’s rulings should be made public such that Muslims worldwide could read the decisions for themselves.
(Reuters News) - Syrian rebels from an Islamist alliance formed last month have occupied bases and warehouses belonging to a Western-backed rebel group on the Turkish border, rebels and activists said on Saturday.
Fighters from the Islamic Front, a union of six major rebel groups, took control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) bases at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the northwestern border with Turkey late on Friday night, the opposition sources said.
Louay Meqdad, an FSA spokesman, said the Islamic Front fighters had entered the bases after saying they wanted to help to secure them. They then asked officers and employees to leave and replaced an FSA flag with one of their own, he said.
"We believe that those brigades are our brothers, that they know that we are not the enemy," Meqdad said.
Infighting among Syria's rebel groups has undermined their fight against President Bashar al-Assad in the 2-1/2-year-old civil war and made Western governments hesitant to back them.
The rise of hardline Islamist groups among the rebels, including some linked to al Qaeda, has also unsettled powers such as the United States, who fear that if the militants came to power, they would eventually turn their weapons on Western targets.
On Tuesday the Islamic Front said it had withdrawn from the military command of the FSA, notionally charged with coordinating the war, and criticized its leadership.
While the Islamic Front does not include either of Syria's two al Qaeda-affiliated units - the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - it does include radical Islamists who have coordinated with them.
And the Beheadings Begin
(Reuters) – Armed with machine guns, black-clad al Qaeda fighters drove their pick-ups calmly into the northern Syrian town and took over its imposing agriculture ministry building.
They beheaded a sniper from a rival rebel unit, displayed his head in the main square and put roadblocks on major routes.
Not a shot was fired in the takeover, in which informants, including a preacher from a local mosque, played key roles.
The scene in Termanin, recounted by an activist who witnessed it last week, is being repeated in towns along the border with Turkey and at road junctions further inside Syria that have fallen out of President Bashar al-Assad’s control.
Whether through weakness or a desire to focus on Assad, rebel units are making way for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda affiliate led by foreigners hardened by guerrilla warfare in Iraq, Chechnya and Libya.
Lessons From Libya
Asked about the group's goals, an ISIL commander in the town of Armanaz in northern Syria who had fought in Libya said it is fighting for "the downfall of the tyrant Bashar" but also seeking to impose Islamic law.
Learning lessons from the 2011 war in Libya, he said ISIL was more determined to hold on to territory under its control.
"Our mistake as mujahideen is that we were preoccupied with fighting Gaddafi and did not pay enough attention to how to hold on territory," said the commander, who goes by the nickname al-Jazaeri, or the Algerian.
Islamic men destroy liquor truck and break bottles
Just released... Indications the video is from Syria. Muslim rebels capture a truck transporting liquor. The truck driver is blindfolded and kneeling while the executioner denounces alcohol and proposes his sentence.
This tree is 150 years old in Aleppo, Syria and a lot people go there thinking it is blessed. So the tree was removed by radical Islamist terrorists because, according to them people are worshiping idols and only god should be worshiped.
What the Fuck! - Call me crazy, but what the hell are we doing importing Muslims into the US to start with? Don't we have enough home-grown loons?
A North Carolina man has been indicted on a charge of trying to provide support to the Iraqi arm of al-Qaida by fighting in Syria’s civil war.
Basit Javed Sheikh, 29, was arrested at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Nov. 2 shortly before boarding a plane to Canada, with a final destination of Lebanon, according to federal court documents.
An indictment against him was unsealed three days later.
Sheikh, a Pakistan native who also goes by the name Abdul Basit, is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization reports WRAL News.
According to the indictment, between April and the time of his arrest, he was arranging to provide personnel to al-Nusrah Front, an Iraqi group affiliated with al-Qaida that has claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks in Syria in the last two years.
An affidavit of an FBI agent states that Sheikh repeatedly posted on his Facebook page links to news stories and videos backing a jihad in Syria. He also discussed with a government informant going to Syria to fight in that country’s civil war and that he was ready to be a “martyr,” according to the affidavit.
Believing the government informant could help smuggle him from Lebanon to Syria, authorities say, he purchased a one-way ticket to Lebanon.
An arrest report indicates Sheikh works at a local post office, but more information wasn't available Monday.
If convicted, Sheikh faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.
VICE NEWS exclusive footage and interviews with British nationals fighting with al Qaeda in Syria.
Yesterday, MI5 Director-General Andrew Parker announced that hundreds of British Muslims have travelled to Syria to take part in "terrorist tourism". Today, we present exclusive video footage and interviews with British nationals fighting with al Qaeda in Syria. In the film, two young men with British accents echo the sentiments expressed by Lee Rigby's killer Michael Adebolajo and declare jihad against the UK and United States.
"I say to the United States that your time will come," says one of the men, who gives his age as 26, "and we will bleed you to death and, Inshallah, shall raise a flag in the White House."
The second jihadist calls on the British public to rise up against the government: "Like the guy in Woolwich, he explained that David Cameron would never walk on the street, and he'll never get shot in the face, whereas you guys who are soldiers, or just normal folk, will take the blame for the crimes that are committed worldwide, by Britain itself, so we have to fight."
The film also shines a light on the communication difficulties that arise when radicalised extremists from Britain, France, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey, among other countries, get together to fight on the front line.
Libyan Fighters in Aleppo City Syria ثوار ليبيا في حلب
Let's try to understand this. Islamist Saudi Arabia (that chops off people's hands) claims they want to train a "moderate" Army of Islam in Syria by using trainers from the Pakistani Army - a nation that hid Osama bin Laden and supports the Taliban.
Yes it is true - we are indeed totally fucked.
Saudi Arabia, having largely abandoned hope that the United States will spearhead international efforts to topple the Assad regime, is embarking on a major new effort to train Syrian rebel forces. And according to three sources with knowledge of the program, Riyadh has enlisted the help of Pakistani instructors to do it.
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, along with the CIA, also supported the Afghan rebels against the Soviet-backed government during the 1980s. That collaboration contains a cautionary note for the current day: The fractured Afghan rebels were unable to govern after the old regime fell, paving the way for chaos and the rise of the Taliban. Some of the insurgents, meanwhile, transformed into al Qaeda and eventually turned their weapons against their former patrons reports Foreign Policy Magazine.
The Religion of Peace™ "I can't wait for my new Saudi weapons."
While the risk of blowback has been discussed in Riyadh, Saudis with knowledge of the training program describe it as an antidote to extremism, not a potential cause of it. They have described the kingdom’s effort as having two goals — toppling the Assad regime, and weakening al Qaeda-linked groups in the country.
Prince Turki, the former Saudi intelligence chief and envoy to Washington, said in a recent interview that the mainstream opposition must be strengthened so that it could protect itself “these extremists who are coming from all over the place” to impose their own ideologies on Syria.
The ramped up Saudi effort has been spurred by the kingdom’s disillusionment with the United States. A Saudi insider with knowledge of the program described how Riyadh had determined to move ahead with its plans after coming to the conclusion that President Barack Obama was simply not prepared to move aggressively to oust Assad. “We didn’t know if the Americans would give [support] or not, but nothing ever came through,” the source said. “Now we know the president just didn’t want it.” [...]
As Sayigh laid out in his Carnegie paper, Saudi Arabia is attempting to build “a new national army” for the rebels — a force with an “avowedly Sunni ideology” that could seize influence from mainstream Syrian opposition groups.
In addition to its training program in Jordan, Saudi Arabia also helped organize the unification of roughly 50 rebel brigades into “the Army of Islam” under the leadership of Zahran Alloush, a Salafist commander whose father is a cleric based in the kingdom.
Saudi nuclear weapons 'on order' from Pakistan
Ain't life just fucking grand! It is stories like this that make me dig my mountain cave even deeper and lay in more food and ammo supplies.
.
Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight.
. While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.
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