Category: Syria

Five reasons to be cautious over Syria air strikes

Roula Khalaf | Sep 23 11:46

Syrians pleas for western military help to stop the Assad regime have gone unanswered for the past three years, no matter how brutal the governmentb’s methods of repression.

More than 200,000 deaths later, the US has entered the Syrian fray with the first air strikes as it also prepares to begin training and equipping a rebel force in Syria. The goal, in this case, is not to take on the regime, but to confront a jihadi menace that has spread spectacularly to Iraq, and has begun to pose a broader threat to the region.

But if fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the group known as Isis, might just prevent Iraq from breaking up, the chances of this campaign bringing peace to Syria are more remote than ever.

To be sure, the US could not ignore Syria while it pursued Isis in Iraq. The Sunni extremist jihadis chased out of one country would simply regroup across the border and plot their comeback. But as Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies noted lat week, while a combination of air power and Iraqi ground forces operations has an uncertain possibility in Iraq, Syria will remain ban enduring mess.b

That the US persuaded a group of Arab countries to take part in the strikes against Syria is an achievement b it provides local cover to a controversial move.

At least at this stage, the US has also neutralised Syrian regime protestations about the legality of its action, with the government claiming that it had been informed of the planned bombing. Tactically, the US has handled the first series of air strikes well.

But there are several factors, both military and political, that underline the scepticism over the outcome in Syria.

1. In Iraq, air strikes are designed to pave the way for local forces to retake territory occupied by Isis since its August sweep through the north. Compare that with Syria, where US policy is to promote a transition away from the Assad regime. The governmentbs violence helped hasten the radicalisation of the rebels and the US would lose its Arab partners the moment government forces appear to benefit from the air strikes. Informing the government of air strikes is one thing; co-operating with it is another, and one that the US has ruled out.

2. The US still has to create a partner on the ground. It will take at least a year to train the 5,000-strong US-backed force that will be charged with fighting Isis. Western diplomats say a well-funded and equipped group will become a magnet for other rebels to join. Perhaps. But it is also possible that an apparent American creation at this stage in the war will be seen by other rebel groups as an enemy rather than a friend.

3. Pitting the US-trained rebels against Isis introduces another force into a chaotic rebel movement whose rivalries and divisions have undermined its own cause. Already a multi-pronged war, with rebels fighting each other as well as the regime, the American-trained rebel force could open up new fronts of confrontation.

In its air strikes, moreover, the US has targeted other al-Qaeda linked cells that are seen by its Arab allies, and by a majority of rebel groups, as far less threatening than Isis. The strikes against the Nusrah Front that activists reported on Tuesday could drive other radical groups on the Syrian battlefield to co-operate with Isis.

“Who stands to benefit the most from the US strikes is still unclear,b says Emile Hokayem, Syria expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. bThe rebels fighting Isis may find short term relief but face the possibility of a domestic backlash if Isis propaganda is successful.b

4. The US and Iran are on the same side in Iraq, even if they are acting without deliberate co-ordination. In Syria, both want to destroy Isis but Iran is trying to prop up the regime while the US is hoping to undermine it. The dilemma for the US is that there is no guarantee the struggle against Isis will not create a vacuum that the regime and its Iranian-backed allies will be better positioned to fill than the rebels.

5. The military campaign is only one element in the broader fight against Isis. The politics are hugely important. But while in Iraq US air strikes have been accompanied by a change of government and an attempt to regain the trust of the Sunni community, in Syria there is no talk of a political transition and no political levers to force the regime into any concessions. Talks sponsored by the US and Russia have collapsed with no prospect of revival.

September 25, 2014
Syria’s refugees: fears of abuse grow as Turkish men snap up wives
Increasing number of women who have fled conflict are opting to marry Turks, many as second, third or even fourth wives
- Constanze Letsch in Reyhanli, Kilis and Gaziantep
- The Guardian,
Wedding gowns in a shop window in Reyhanli near the main border crossing into Syria. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Sundays usually mean brisk business for Turkish hairdressers. In the town of Reyhanli, on the Syrian border, a small shop is bustling with excited future brides and their relatives waiting to be styled for weddings and engagement parties.

The owner, Hatice Utku, is perming the hair of a woman who looks unusually sombre. Unlike the other customers, she is not accompanied by family members. “A Syrian bride,” Utku explains, sounding slightly disgruntled. “We are getting a lot of those now.” One of her colleagues chips in: “They are stealing our husbands.”

It is three days since Aminah, 27, from Idlib in Syria, first met her 43-year-old Turkish husband-to-be through a matchmaker. “He divorced his first wife and wanted to marry again,” Aminah says timidly. “He has a house and a job in Ankara. My family in Syria has nothing left. He will provide for me.”

Her fiance, a businessman from Ankara, paid about 3,000 Turkish lira (£828) for the introduction to his bride, plus 5,000TL for expenses. The couple communicate through a translator. “He will learn Arabic,” Aminah says. Is she looking forward to her new home in the Turkish capital? She shrugs. “I am happy, I guess. I don’t know.”

Aminah is one of an increasing number of Syrian refugees who opt to marry Turkish men. Women’s rights groups are worried: “A lot of women agree to these marriages out of sheer desperation. All they think about is how to feed their family, how to make ends meet. These arrangements might seem like the only way out, and men exploit this,” says one activist from Gaziantep, who wished to remain anonymous. “At the same time, local women feel helpless and anxious about their own families breaking apart. Women on both sides of the border become victims this way.”

In Kilis, a town where Syrian refugees outnumber local people, a 43-year-old Syrian woman says aid workers from a faith-based charity pressured her to marry her daughter to a Turkish government official, arguing that the man was charitable, had “donated many biscuits” and that “she should be grateful for such a good offer”.

Dr Mohamed Assaf, who works at a Syrian-run medical centre in Kilis, says almost 4,000 Syrian women have married Turkish men in the town since he arrived in 2012. Dr Reemah Nana, a gynaecologist at the clinic, says patients with Turkish husbands sometimes complain about domestic violence, but in general, marriages are happy. Asked about sexual abuse, she concedes: “We hear of cases, but most women don’t want to talk about it.”

Turkish authorities put the number of Syrian refugees in the country at nearly 1 million, a figure projected to rise by the end of the year to 1.4 million. According to the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), women and children constitute 75% of refugees in Turkey, with under-18s accounting for 50%. In a 2013 report, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency stated that roughly a fifth of heads of household – inside and outside of refugee camps – were women. Human rights groups have repeatedly pointed out that women refugees from Syria are especially vulnerable, and that many face rape, sexual abuse and harassment. A recent UNHCR report also underlined the dangers facing lone women refugees.

Like many Syrian refugees, Aminah entered Turkey illegally and without a valid passport, making it impossible to register her marriage. The ceremony will be a religious one, performed by an imam, thus leaving her without any protection or rights in the event of a separation or her spouse’s death. According to Kemal Dilsiz, a matchmaker in a village close to the Syrian border, most Syrian women who marry Turks do so without legal registration. “None of these weddings are official since none of the women have passports,” he says.

The Syrian women that Dilsiz “introduces” to his Turkish customers usually come across the river Orontes, on floats, at 100TL a ride. “I married off around 60 Syrian girls,” he says, not without pride. “Men from all over Turkey call me, looking for a wife from Syria. They say Syrian women are more loyal, more obedient, that they don’t talk back.”

Paid matchmaking, illegal in Turkey, is a thriving business in the provinces bordering Syria. According to one hotel employee in Antakya, marriage tourism is common. “We have male Turkish guests from all over the country,” he says. “They come to look for a Syrian wife.”

“Human trafficking and all problems associated with it – abuse, rape and exploitation – have increased since 2012,” says the women’s rights activist from Gaziantep. “We hear of more and more cases of ‘temporary marriages’, basically sex work, but women are afraid to talk about this openly. It is worrying that the idea of temporary marriages is now being normalised in Turkey. It puts the veneer of respectability and religious approval on sexual abuse and exploitation.”

Dilsiz introduces girls to any man who can pay: “It costs 4,000TL for me to arrange a meeting. Then there are the men on the Syrian side, the wedding, the car – all in all it would cost you around 10,000TL to get married to a Syrian girl.” He claims that Syrian marriage impostors have damaged his reputation, and that he has been hesitant to suggest a “serious bride” for a while. “But if you don’t mind running that risk, I can get you a Syrian woman right now,” he says. “You can marry her for a few months, if that’s what you want.”

Outside a non-governmental organisation in Kilis, several women wait for the daily distribution of nappies and food, discussing wedding plans for their daughters. Hanan, 45, says her 23-year-old daughter will become the second wife of a 35-year-old Turk. “He promised to do the house and his car in her name. She will be better off that way.”

Amina, 60, disagrees. “Don’t marry your daughter to a Turk. I know a family who was promised the same thing, and their daughter was sent away after two months.” Hanan says she has little choice. “He will take care of her, she will be provided for.”

Turkish human rights groups warn that polygamy, outlawed in Turkey almost a century ago but still practised in conservative rural areas in south-eastern Anatolia, is on the rise. Second, third, or even fourth wives – called kuma in Turkish – lack legal protection and are especially vulnerable to abuse.

Fatma, 28, from Aleppo province, married her Turkish husband, a farmer, three months ago. She is his second wife. “His first wife is ill and does not want to have any more children,” she says. Fatma is pregnant with her husband’s seventh child. “I am very happy. His first wife is nice to me, she says she is glad that I am here to help her. We share all the housework.” She pauses. “Though it’s hard to share the man you love with another woman, but what can I do? It’s fate.”

Resentment is growing. Women in border towns and cities accuse Syrian women of luring away their husbands, saying their spouses routinely threaten them with taking a Syrian wife.

At the hairdressers in Reyhanli, several local women express their anger. “Syrian women have broken up many families here,” says Kadriye, 36, who owns a bridal wear business nearby. “Our husbands have become real beasts since the Syrians came. The men now make all kinds of excuses to bring in a second wife. They threaten us because of the smallest things: the food, the housekeeping, anything. Some take wives the age of their daughters.”

Hatice Utku nods. “Domestic violence has increased, too. Women put up with anything nowadays, just to hang on to their husbands. ”

The women’s rights activist explains a worrying trend: “Local women are anxious. The constant fear of losing their husbands puts a lot of pressure on them. Domestic violence, threats, psychological pressure and abuse from their spouses have increased. We notice a rise in mental illness, especially depression, but the topic is not being addressed by the authorities.”

She says her organisation tries to assist Turkish and Syrian women: “We do house visits where we discuss this issue with the women here. We try to convince them to put the blame where it belongs. In order to counter this male opportunism, women from both sides of the border need to stick together.”

Some names have been changed.
September 9, 2014
LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

Satan’s Army, Gustav Doré

So numberless were those bad angels

Hovering on wing under the cope of hell

John Milton, Paradise Lost

LAUGHING MY HEAD OFF

22 August 2014

“I suppose the pain of parting will be red and loud.”

Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

Yesterday President Obama announced that “the entire world is appalled” by the beheading of an American photojournalist. Marie Harf, a spokesperson for the US State Department stressed that nothing whatsoever will change and that the bombings will continue. “We don’t make concessions to terrorists,” she said.

Exceptional America! Please excuse me, dear reader. I’ll be back in a few minutes——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Okay, I’m back. Thank you for your patience. I feel much worse.

“I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being,” said the president of the United States a few months ago at West Point. And for the past five minutes I have been laughing my head off at the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s “exceptional America.”

And Ms. Harf’s words really cracked me up. Let me describe my out-of-head experience:

I was sitting on a chair in the kitchen. Early morning, still dark. Now, all the mornings and days are dark. I think about how Obama and Clinton and Kerry and Erdoğan and Davutoğlu cooked up this outrageous crime against humanity to destroy Libya and Syria. They would use Turkey as a staging area for their proxy army, their Satanic army of well-paid mercenaries. What geniuses! Exceptional America did the same thing decades ago in Afghanistan funding Bin Laden’s mujahideen that later became al-Qaeda. Wow! How smart these dopes are! Very humorous. And they all wear expensive suits and ride in black, shiny, sad limousines. And again they drive over the terror cliff, this time with the arrogant assistance of the treacherous Turkish government. They say you can’t tell the same joke twice. But not America, not “exceptional” America. Do you remember the song lyric? But where are the clowns?/Quick, send in the clowns/ Don’t bother, they’re here. If you remember, you get the idea.

And these clowns had their military and intelligence and diplomatic agents assemble in Adana, Turkey about three years ago. Everything was secret, except everyone with half a brain knew what was going on, except the American press and the lame, obedient Turkish media. Oh, Petraeus, the boy wonder, was involved, too. So was Fidan, the chief Turk spook. It’s funny how time flies when you are having fun, isn’t it? Ha! Ha! Ha! They had donors come too. Rich, treacherous folks like the obese Saudis and the tennis-tournament-sponsoring-but-non-tennis playing Qataris. They have money, oil money, and lots of it, and not much else, except duplicity.

They also met in Istanbul. At fancy hotels. What better conditions to assemble Satan’s army? But you knew this, didn’t you? No? You mean the New York Times didn’t cover the story? Aydınlık newspaper broke the story in Turkey. Too bad the American correspondents missed it. Not that it really mattered. But how sad. How hilariously tragic. I am now laughing out loud at the empty remarks of Ms. Harf. Marie Harf, spokesperson! Exceptional America certainly does not make concessions to terrorists. How silly of me to think so. Instead of mere concessions, it sponsors, feeds, arms, outfits and pays outrageous salaries to them. Ha, ha, ha, I keep laughing, catching the ironic humor in Harf’s weasel words.

Now I am positively giddy thinking about Turkey. What a funny country! How can two Turkish war criminals become America’s favorite foreign friends. So well did they destroy their own country that America suggested that they both be promoted. And they were! Wow, how funny is that? One, the destroyer of Gezi Park youth, is president, the other, the “zero-problems-with-neighbors” genius, will be prime minister. This genius who wears a perpetual smirk beneath his scruffy moustache wrote a book on foreign policy called Strategic Depth. The destruction that is Turkish foreign policy resides in a deep, deep strategic cesspool. For that, and other miscues, mishaps and misdeeds, he will lead the nation. The ever consistent Erdoğan’s first act as president-elect was to knowingly violate the Turkish constitution. Since the position of the Turkish president is supposed to be above politics—HA! HA! HA!—Erdoğan must immediately resign as prime minister and as head of his political party. He refuses to do this. Why? Because he would lose his immunity from prosecution for a few days. And in case you haven’t heard, Erdoğan has a problem in this regard. But surely the political opposition, the “bread boys,” are pressuring him. Well, ha! ha! ha! not exactly.

Even funnier is how just about everyone in Turkey who can help America is paid off to make it happen. How else to explain this amazing comedy of errors and stupidities. I mean, bribes, big bribes. Big, CIA level unaccountable bribes. How else can one explain a media that only prints pro-government propaganda? Why else would a media fire any and all columnists who dissent? How else can one explain a political opposition that helps their opposition, the opposition that they are supposed to oppose? What a weird sentence that was…but not as weird as the political opposition leaders Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Devlet Bahçeli. These two should have a comedy act on one of the brainless Turkish TV channels. Slapstick would be appropriate—they can beat each other with loaves of bread reminding the electorate of their pathetically inept choice of a presidential candidate.

Just thinking of these two walking laugh-riots makes what’s left of my brain spin. In fact my head is now spinning faster and faster and faster and—whoops!— there it goes, bouncing along the floor—tak! tak! tak!— into the corner by the refrigerator. My left eye sees the wall, the other, the dark space between the floor and the front of the refrigerator. The rest of myself remains on the chair. How humorous this is. I laugh and blow dust. I sneeze and blink my eyes so rapidly that my head rolls back an inch and I can see myself out of the corner of my right eye. There I sit, headless, my arms crossed, stupidly waiting. My head by the refrigerator thinks how it must be for the hundreds that have been beheaded by the evil breed of the American scheme, the devilish Free Libya Army, changing to the diabolical Free Syrian Army, changing now to the fiends of ISID.

I am now hysterical. Like me, even babies, mostly Christian babies, have also been beheaded. But I did it willingly through laughter. They had it done by America and Turkey, by the so-called “leaders” and by their ignoramus makers of foreign policy. How humorous was Ignoramus Clinton to revel in the barbarous disembowelment and anal rape of MuammarKhadafy? “We came, we saw, he died…Ha! Ha! Ha!” chuckled the ignoramus American Secretary of State. Is Kerry, and his litany of lies about Syria, any less amusing? Any less of an ignoramus clown? Ha! Ha! Ha! No. He is just another monstrously “exceptional” American. And speaking of monsters…

How does the president of the United States explain to the American taxpayers that their dollars are financing the beheading of Christian babies…and so much more? The president announced that “the entire world” is appalled by the beheading of an American journalist. But is he, Obama, appalled? If he is, how does he explain that he has assembled Satan’s Army? And why does it take a bestial slaughtering of an innocent journalist to get Obama’s attention to the horror that his policies have created? The world knows this. There are no more cover stories. He has made a devil’s bargain with the “strategic depth” incompetent ignoramuses in Turkey. This is the horrible truth. It is a horrible mistake. Now what?

As for my own beheading through hysterical laughter? My head continues to gather dust by the refrigerator. I can still see my other part on the sitting on the chair like two sacks of onions. Can I stop laughing long enough at this darkest of all tragicomedies to pull myself together? Is it really worth the effort?

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

22 August 2014

August 22, 2014
Syrian rebel commander says he collaborated with Israel

Syrian rebel commander says he collaborated with Israel

Syrian opposition commander Sharif As-Safouri confesses to collaborating with Israel (photo credit: YouTube screen capture)

Sharif as-Safouri, abducted by Al-Nusra Front in July, confesses to receiving antitank weapons in return for protecting the border

By Elhanan Miller
A Free Syrian Army commander, arrested last month by the Islamist militia Al-Nusra Front, told his captors he collaborated with Israel in return for medical and military support, in a video released this week.

In a video uploaded to YouTube Monday by the Executive Sharia Council in the eastern Daraa Region, an Islamic court established by Al-Nusra in southern Syria, Sharif As-Safouri, the commander of the Free Syrian Army’s Al-Haramein Battalion, admitted to having entered Israel five times to meet with Israeli officers who later provided him with Soviet anti-tank weapons and light arms. Safouri was abducted by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in the Quneitra area, near the Israeli border, on July 22.

“The [opposition] factions would receive support and send the injured in [to Israel] on condition that the Israeli fence area is secured. No person was allowed to come near the fence without prior coordination with Israel authorities,” Safouri said in the video.

Israel has never admitted to arming moderate Syrian rebels, who have been engaged in battle against the Assad regime and its allies since March 2011. In June, Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, head of Military Intelligence research, told the Herzliya Conference that 80 percent of Syria’s oppositionists are Islamists of various shades, indicating that Israel was reluctant to collaborate with them.

Al-Nusra Front activist wave their brigade flag atop a Syrian air force helicopter, at Taftanaz air base, captured by the rebels in Idlib province, northern Syria, January 2013 (photo credit: AP/Edlib News Network ENN, File)

Thousands of al-Qaeda-linked rebels reached southern Syria over the past month, fleeing the Islamic State which had captured large swaths of land in northern and northeastern Syria. While Al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army have collaborated in the battlefield against the Assad regime, friction has intensified as the Islamists began to implement their stringent version of Islam in the area, establishing local Sharia courts.

In the edited confession video, in which Safouri seems physically unharmed, he says that at first he met with an Israeli officer named Ashraf at the border and was given an Israeli cellular phone. He later met with another officer named Younis and with the two men’s commander, Abu Daoud. In total, Safouri said he entered Israel five times for meetings that took place in Tiberias.

Following the meetings, Israel began providing Safouri and his men with “basic medical support and clothes” as well as weapons, which included 30 Russian [rifles], 10 RPG launchers with 47 rockets, and 48,000 5.56 millimeter bullets.

While opposition websites denied that Safouri was a collaborator, claiming his entries into Israel were for medical purposes alone, regime media celebrated Safouri’s confession as proof of the Free Syrian Army’s treachery. On August 1, dozens of demonstrators took to the streets of the village of Hayt, Safouri’s hometown near Syria’s borders with Jordan and Israel, to protest his abduction, condemning Al-Nusra Front for the act.

No Israeli comment was available at time of publication.

Elhanan Miller is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel

timesofisrael.com, August 13, 2014

August 21, 2014
That’s a Black Flag Associated With Islamic Terror Groups — and Just Guess Where Police Confirmed the Picture Was Taken

Jason Howerton

People across the U.S. expressed outrage on social media after a flag associated with radical Islamic terror groups was found flying outside a Garwood, New Jersey, home. The militant flag, a symbol routinely used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has since been taken down “voluntarily,” according to a police spokesperson.

Garwood Police Chief Bruce D. Underhill confirmed in an email to the Washington Free Beacon that his officers are “aware of the situation” and “have taken the appropriate steps.” However, he denied that police “ordered” the resident to take down the flag.

(Twitter/Marc Leibowitz)

“At this time, the flag in question has been voluntarily taken down. No further comments,” Underhill added.

The flag garnered national attention after a Twitter user posted a photo of the ISIS-associated flag outside the home as well as the resident’s address.

A Turkish flag remains displayed outside the home, but the black militant flag has been replaced with a new flag “that appears to resemble the blue-and-white-stripped flag of Greece,” according to the Free Beacon.

The Islamic militants of ISIS, or ISIL, have been advancing across northern Iraq, leaving a bloody trail in its wake. The radicals ultimately hope to overthrow the Iraqi government, bringing them one step closer to establishing an Islamic caliphate.

ISIS supporters in Jordan waved black flags and chanted: “The caliphate is coming to Jordan.” (Image source: YouTube)

Since June, Iraq has been facing an onslaught by the Islamic State group and allied Sunni militants across much of the country’s north and west. In recent weeks, the crisis has worsened as the militant fighters swept over new towns in the north, displacing members of the minority Christian and Yazidi religious communities, and threatening the neighboring Iraqi Kurdish autonomy zone.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

www.theblaze.com, Aug. 13, 2014

August 14, 2014
Armenian Australian church leader ‘was a KGB spy’

Phillip Dorling

A highly respected Australian church leader was a KGB spy, according to newly released Russian intelligence archives.

Archbishop Aghan Baliozian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of Australia and New Zealand, was listed as a KGB agent, codenamed “Zorik” in the papers of former KGB archivist and defector Vasili Mitrokhin, which were released by the UK’s Churchill College Archive last month.

Born in Syria in 1946, the late Archbishop Baliozian arrived in Australia in 1975 to serve as Vicar General of the diocese of the Armenian Church before being appointed as Primate of Australia and New Zealand in 1982.

A highly respected religious leader and a well-known figure in Chatswood, Sydney, Archbishop Baliozian was strongly committed to ecumenism, working for cooperation and greater unity between Christian churches.

He was the first president of the National Council of Churches in Australia from 1994 to 1997 and president of the NSW Ecumenical Council from 2005 to 2007. He represented the Armenian Church at the World Council of Churches.

Archbishop Baliozian was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1995 “in recognition of service to the Armenian community” and the Centenary Medal in 2001, again for community service.

However, Mitrokhin’s papers on KGB espionage operations in Australia allege Archbishop Baliozian was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1973 while undertaking theological studies in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union.

According to Mitrokhin’s notes of Soviet state security files, Aghan Baliozian went on to work as a KGB agent while studying and teaching in Jerusalem in 1974, and maintained “ongoing communications in three countries”. He continued contact with the KGB after he transferred to the Armenian Church in Australia, according to the papers.

However, Mitrokhin’s papers also suggest that his performance in Australia was considered unsatisfactory. The third department of the KGB’s foreign intelligence directorate, responsible for operations in Australia, concluded Archbishop Baliozian had “insufficient operational training” and eventually discontinued his employment.

The precise terms of Archbishop Baliozian’s separation from the KGB are not recorded in Mitrokhin’s notes and it is not known whether he had any further dealings with Soviet intelligence in the 1980s.

Mitrokhin’s notes of KGB files record Soviet state security’s extensive efforts to recruit clergy as agents and informants, especially in churches with a significant presence in the former Soviet Union.

British intelligence historian Christopher Andrew, who collaborated with Mitrokhin on two books, claims that, during the Cold War the KGB recruited a number of representatives on the World Council of Churches, mainly from the Russian Orthodox Church but from other denominations as well, in successful efforts to influence the Council’s policies.

Archbishop Baliozian died in September 2012. More than 600 people attended his funeral at the Armenian Apostolic Church in Chatswood, including three archbishops from Jerusalem, India and Armenia.

Many NSW political figures paid tribute to the archbishop, with Liberal MP Jonathan O’Dea applauding his commitment to inter-religious dialogue as well as his abilities as an orator.

“Always approachable and gregarious, the archbishop was captivating as a speaker… He would simply speak from the heart, capturing the attention of young and old in his congregation and developing a strong and loyal following,” Mr O’Dea told the NSW Parliament.

m.smh.com.au, August 12, 2014

August 13, 2014