Turkish Forum

Category: Regions

  • Obama says ISIS is “Contained” – ISIS Issues Terrifying Manifesto to Prove Otherwise

    Obama says ISIS is “Contained” – ISIS Issues Terrifying Manifesto to Prove Otherwise

    It’s not just the Obama administration that seems confused about Obama’s rhetoric on the state of ISIS and our War on Terror. While many of Obama’s own lackeys have consistently contradicted their President’s own version of what is happening in the Muslim world, now information from ISIS seems to be contradicting President Obama as well. ISIS has just released their latest manifesto, which they’ve called “Black Flags from the Islamic State,” and what it reveals is terrifying. ISIS has plans to spread their particular brand of evil Islamic terror into Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India.

    This news is particularly worrisome for India, the second most populous nation in the world, but is also home to the world’s third largest Muslim population. (India has almost 1.3 Billion people, but almost 140 million of them are Muslim.) If ISIS can succeed in radicalizing a portion of the Indian Muslim population, the already struggling nation could descend into chaos and violence.

    From the Indian Express:

    The Islamic State has vowed to expand its fight to India, citing prophecies that refer to a global war. The threat is made in a new manifesto — Black Flags from the Islamic State — released online on jihadist platforms Tuesday.
    “The Islamic State would now expand beyond Iraq and Syria,” states the manifesto. “It would now expand into… India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan (and several other countries)”…

    The Islamic State’s strategy, the manifesto states, is to “do hit and run tactics and then go into hiding so (the world) can waste millions or billions of Euros on 100,000-plus police, investigators, and it can shut down its major cities and lose its money”…

    Future attacks, it states, “will make groups in the West attack Islam and Muslims in Europe, forcing Muslims in the West to pick up weapons and start a fight to defend themselves”.

    The key to building successful covert cells, it states, is recruiting individuals whose commitment can be vouched for, and not using electronic devices.

    Fugitive Paris attack mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, it states, did not use phones or e-mail to communicate with other members of the cell, which carried out the plot.

    To add to the concerns of our security specialists comes the news that ISIS jihadists have stolen tens of thousands of blank passports from Syria, Iraq and Libya. The passports will now make it virtually impossible to detect terrorists travelling into Europe (and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India). With the passports, ISIS has secured the easiest and safest route to sneaking their jihadists into unsuspecting nations around the world.

    The revelation that they now have access to tens of thousands of LEGAL travel documents puts a new and stressful spin on the idea that we should suspend Muslim migration from Syria, Iraq and Libya. If we suspend travel from these countries, then it would mitigate any danger that we might accidentally accept ISIS terrorists as “refugees.”

  • Congress Launches 3 Separate Investigations Of Obama For Helping ISIS

    Congress Launches 3 Separate Investigations Of Obama For Helping ISIS

    Posted by Bob Amoroso /

    Why it has taken this long to begin a formal investigation into this president’s handling of Muslim extremists is beyond reasoning, in that there’s enough preponderance of evidence to file charges of criminal malfeasance that quite frankly borders on treason.

    And although it’s welcomed news that finally three committees in the House of Representatives have announced they were finally launching concurrent investigations into allegations that President Obama deliberately manipulated intelligence reports from Syria and Iraq helping ISIS to thrive.

    Anyone that actually follows events on “the war on terrorism” has known for at least the last 5-years of Obama’s presidency that he has been purposely giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy, everyone that is, except those on  the Armed Services Committee.

    It seems that Reps. Ken Calvert of California, Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Brad Wenstrup of Ohio have all awaken suddenly from their slumber to finally lead the investigations for the Armed Services Committee, Intelligence Committee and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, respectively.

    “In addition to looking into the specific allegations, the Joint Task Force will examine whether these allegations reflect systemic problems across the intelligence enterprise in CENTCOM or any other pertinent intelligence organizations,” read a joint statement from Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Freylinghuysen, R-N.J.

    The report that 50 intelligence officials at CENTCOM had signed a letter claiming intelligence on the Islamic State group had been doctored apparently prompted these politicians to move.

    However most thinking Americans can sum up the reason the Intelligence Committee has not investigated sooner…a lack of backbone!

    Source: Washington Examiner

  • America’s Leading Soldier says “We have NOT Contained ISIS”

    America’s Leading Soldier says “We have NOT Contained ISIS”

    By Onan Coca /

    Hey! Remember this?

    I don’t think they’re gaining strength. What is true is that, from the start our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq. And in Syria it — they’ll come in, they’ll leave. But you don’t see this systematic march by ISIL across the terrain. What we have not yet been able to do is to completely decapitate their command and control structures. We’ve made some progress in trying to reduce the flow of foreign fighters and part of our goal has to be to recruit more effective Sunni partners in Iraq to really go on offense rather than simply engage in defense.

    Sadly for Democrats, on Tuesday the nation’s most important soldier, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, absolutely destroyed President Obama’s ISIS narrative when he told Congress that “We have not contained ISIS…”!

    “We have NOT contained ISIL… Strategically they have spread since 2010…”

    Oh. My. Goodness. Here’s what we learned from General Dunford on Tuesday:

    1. ISIS is not contained.
    2. We are at war. No, we’re not.
    3. For much of our fight against ISIS we did not have a strategy to defeat them.
    4. The current military approved strategy is a recent development.
    5. We are in deep doo-doo.

    (That last one is my own personal summary of General Dunford’s answers.)

    Twitter was, of course, abuzz in the aftermath of Dunford’s damning testimony.

    Everything the Obama administration touches falls apart – so our failing efforts against ISIS shouldn’t surprise us. Whether it’s the economy, our healthcare or our foreign policy… Obama and the Democrats have a knack for screwing things up.

  • Russian military reveals new details of ISIS funding

    Russian military reveals new details of ISIS funding

    The Russian Defense Ministry is giving a major media briefing to outline measures to combat international terrorism. The military operation in Syria is expected to dominate the event.

    • 02 December 2015 16:37 GMT Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia and the Russian Council of Muftis, has called for calm in the assessment of Russian-Turkish relations, and said he has instructed the employees of both organizations to refrain from sharp comments on the relationship between the two countries. “We are religious figures who are of no relation to politics,” the mufti said. “We believe that today we all need to calm down, be rational and think of people’s well-being. But we think that we have not passed the point of no return as of yet. A compromise can still be found – negotiations and diplomacy can help settle any conflict,” he added.
    • 16:00 GMT Watch the full video of the Defense Ministry briefing:  
    • 15:18 GMT Responding to the Russian allegations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that nobody had a right to “slander” Turkey by accusing it of buying oil from Islamic State. Speaking at a university in the Qatar’s capital of Doha on Wednesday, Erdogan once again claimed that he would resign if such accusations were proven to be true and stressed he did not want Turkey’s relations with Russia to deteriorate further.
    • 12:59 GMT The photos and footage used in the media briefing have been published on the Defense Ministry’s website.
    • 12:56 GMT Russia is to provide evidence of Turkey’s role in training, arming and smuggling foreign fighters into Syria next week.
    • 12:42 GMT Footage of a Russian airstrike on an oil storage facility controlled by IS has been provided by the Defense Ministry.  
    • 12:35 GMT Russia doesn’t expect Turkish President Erdogan to resign in the face of the new evidence, even though he had promised to do so. His resignation is not Russia’s goal and is a matter for the Turkish people.
    • 12:31 GMT Russia cannot comprehend that such a large-scale business as oil smuggling could not have been noticed by the Turkish authorities. Russia concludes that the Turkish leadership is directly involved in the smuggling.
    • 12:26 GMT The US-led coalition has failed to intensify strikes on oil tankers and other IS oil infrastructure. Russia will send intelligence on potential targets to coalition members, assuming that a lack of intelligence may be the reason for their hesitance. Russia, for its part, will continue attacking the oil business of the terrorists and expects the US-led coalition to do the same.
  • Putin: Turkey Will Regret Downing Plane

    Putin: Turkey Will Regret Downing Plane

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday vowed Turkey’s leadership would be made to regret the downing of one of Moscow’s warplanes as the top diplomats from both countries held their first high-level meeting since the incident.

    Moscow announced a halt to talks on a major gas pipeline with NATO member Ankara as Putin fired another salvo in their war of words, while Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan shot back by claiming he had “proof” Russia was involved in illegal oil trading with the Islamic State group.

    Turkey has become Moscow’s prime international sparring partner after it shot down a Russian jet on its border with Syria on November 24 — sparking fury and economic sanctions from the Kremlin.

    Erdogan’s claims of Russian complicity with IS mirror allegations made by Moscow against Turkey and its leader in recent days.

    “We will not forget this complicity with terrorists. We always considered and will always consider treachery to be the ultimate and lowest act. Let those in Turkey who shot our pilots in the back know this,” Putin told lawmakers in his annual state of the nation speech, which also focused on Russia’s air strikes in Syria.

    Russia has accused Erdogan and his family of personally profiting from the oil trade with IS, which controls a large chunk of Syrian territory including many oil fields.

    “We know for example who in Turkey fills their pockets and allows terrorists to make money from the stolen oil in Syria,” Putin said.

    “It is precisely with this money that the bandits recruit mercenaries, buy arms and organise inhuman terrorist acts aimed against our citizens, the citizens of France, Lebanon, Mali and other countries.”

    Erdogan has furiously denied the accusations against him and his family and said Turkey had proof that Russia was, in fact, involved in trading oil with IS.

    “We have the proof in our hands. We will reveal it to the world,” the Turkish leader said in a televised speech in Ankara.

    Putin, whose administration has already announced sanctions against Ankara including a ban on the import of some Turkish foods, and reintroduced visas for visitors from the country, insisted Turkey would be made to regret its actions.

    “We will not rattle our sabres. But if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with (an embargo on) tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields then they are deeply mistaken,” Putin said.”We will not stop reminding them of what they did and they will not stop regretting their actions.”

    Immediately after the speech Russia’s energy minister Alexander Novak announced the suspension of talks between Ankara and Moscow over the major TurkStream pipeline project.

    Negotiations over the project to pipe Russian gas to Turkey under the Black Sea have been floundering since Moscow launched air strikes in Syria in late September in support of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, which Ankara fiercely opposes.

    But the official announcement of the break-off in the talks dealt another blow to floundering Russian-Turkish ties, as Putin lamented the damage to a relationship that he has spent years nurturing.

    “Only Allah, most likely, knows why they did this. And evidently Allah decided to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by depriving them of their intelligence and reason,” he said.

    The latest furious exchange comes as the two countries’ top diplomats met for the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since the plane incident.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed to talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on the sidelines of a conference in Belgrade after Putin on Monday snubbed Erdogan at the UN climate summit in Paris.

    There appears, however, little chance that the two sides will lower the tone as the two strongmen insist the other should apologise over the incident.

    Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday accused Moscow of running a “Soviet propaganda machine”.

    “There was a Soviet propaganda machine in the Cold War era,” Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara.

    “They were called Pravda lies,” he said, referring to the daily newspaper that was the mouthpiece of the Communist Party.

    © AFP 2015

  • State Department Warns Americans: ‘Likelihood of Terror Attacks

    State Department Warns Americans: ‘Likelihood of Terror Attacks

    As millions of Americans prepare to travel for the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, the State Department warned that potential attackers could target private or government interests.

    “Current information suggests that (Islamic State), al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions,” the State Department said in a warning posted on its website.

    Although it did not mention the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed by Islamic State (ISIS) in which 130 died, the department noted that militants had carried out attacks in France, Nigeria, Denmark, Turkey, and Mali during the past year.

    “Authorities believe the likelihood of terror attacks will continue as members of (Islamic State) return from Syria and Iraq,” it said. “Additionally, there is a continuing threat from unaffiliated persons planning attacks inspired by major terrorist organizations but conducted on an individual basis.

     

    France and Belgium have launched a manhunt following the attacks in Paris, with a focus on Brussels barkeeper Salah Abdeslam, 26, who returned to the city from Paris hours after the attacks and is still at large.

    Abdeslam’s mobile phone was detected after the attacks in the 18th district in the north of Paris, near an abandoned car that he had rented, and then later in Chatillon in the south, a source close to the investigation said.

    Detectives were examining what appeared to be an explosive belt found in a litter bin in the town of Montrouge, south of the capital and not far from Chatillon.

    The source said it was too soon to say whether the belt had been in contact with Abdeslam, whose elder brother blew himself during the gun and suicide bomb attacks.

    One theory was that Abdeslam had intended to blow himself up in the 18th district but had abandoned the plan, although it was not clear why.

    “Maybe he had a technical problem with his explosive belt,” a police source said.

    Fearing an imminent threat of a Paris-style attack, Belgium extended a maximum security alert in Brussels for a week but said the metro system and schools could reopen on Wednesday.

    “We are still confronted with the threat we were facing yesterday,” Prime Minister Charles Michel said. Potential targets remained shopping areas and public transport.

    Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the Paris attacks since French law enforcement bodies said two of the suicide bombers had lived there. Three people have been charged in Belgium with terrorist offences, including two who travelled back with Abdeslam from Brussels.

    SOLDIERS PATROL BRUSSELS

    As authorities tried to establish Abdeslam’s movements and whereabouts, a source said he travelled through Italy in August with a companion, but his presence caused no alarm because he was not a wanted man at the time.

    His companion was Ahmet Dahmani, a Belgian man of Moroccan origin who was arrested in Turkey last week on suspicion of involvement in the Paris attacks, the investigative source said.

    In Belgium, prosecutors said they had charged a fourth person with terrorist offences linked to the Paris attacks.

    They released all 15 others detained in police raids on Sunday. Two of five people detained on Monday were also released while the other three had their custody prolonged.

    Soldiers patrolled the streets of Brussels, the bustling European Union capital, which has been in lockdown since Saturday.

    On the Grand Place, a historic central square that usually draws crowds of tourists, an armoured military vehicle was parked under an illuminated Christmas tree.

    NATO, which raised its alert level after the Paris attacks, said its headquarters in the city were open, but some staff had been asked to work from home. EU institutions were also open with soldiers patrolling outside.

    Interior Minister Jan Jambon told RTL radio, however, that the capital was still operating. “Apart from the closed metro and schools, life goes on in Brussels,” he said.

    Workers were also setting up stalls for the city centre Christmas market, which is due to open on Friday, and organisers of the Davis Cup tennis final between Belgium and Britain in the city of Ghent, 55 km (35 miles) from the capital, said it would go ahead this weekend.

     

     

    AIRCRAFT CARRIER

    French jets from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier struck Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria on Monday, while Britain offered France the use of an air base in Cyprus to hit the militants behind the Paris attacks.

    French President Francois Hollande met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Paris as part of efforts to rally support for the fight against Islamic State. Hollande is also due to visit Washington and Moscow this week. The French president and U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a joint news conference on Tuesday morning, the White House said.

    Cameron offered air-to-air refuelling services and said he was convinced Britain should carry out air strikes alongside France and would be recommending that Britain’s parliament vote through such measures.

    French jets taking off from the country’s flagship in the eastern Mediterranean destroyed targets in Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq on Monday in support of Iraqi forces on the ground, the French armed forces said in a statement.

    In the evening, a raid was carried out on Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, where the French armed forces said planes destroyed several facilities including a command centre.