Militant Islamists

[scoundrel]

Sooner or later nemesis will catch up with the Saudis. Their royal family keeps power by feeding the crocadile with the country's oil wealth. But not only are rival sources of oil more available these days, also the world is slowly adapting to find other energy sources. I noted this week that Volvo have announced their strategic intention to phase out cars which rely solely on the internal combustion engine. They see their future in hybrid petrol-diesel/electric vehicles and ultimately in purely electric cars. Toyota and Honda have been making commercially successful hybrid cars for years now. Slowly but surely, the tide is going out for Saudi Arabia.

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

...al Qaida is on the list, has been since 1999. Its right there, plain as day, so your statement is plainly false.

I do not think so. I repeat, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham is the Syrian branch of al-Quaeda. This branch is not mentioned in the list, and therefore not classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization. This can no longer be excused by sheer stupidity, sluggishness or sloppiness.

Originally Posted by deepsepia

But if you're implication is that the US is somehow ignoring al Qaeda in Syria, whatever the name they're using today, the evidence is clear that they're not.

The State Department not only ignores them, they support them. The attacks on Syrian troops by US fighter jets, and the immediately following storm attack by Al-Quaeda muppets has been a well-known fact for some time.

Sorry, there's nothing more to say about that. The facts speak for themselves.

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I noted this week that Volvo have announced their strategic intention to phase out cars which rely solely on the internal combustion engine. They see their future in hybrid petrol-diesel/electric vehicles and ultimately in purely electric cars. Toyota and Honda have been making commercially successful hybrid cars for years now.

My favorite country Norway is a glimmer of hope In this regard. The magic word is subsidy politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE6yEP48anM

The irony of the story is, however, that they finance the electric boom with profits from their oil business.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Nobody1

I do not think so. I repeat, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham is the Syrian branch of al-Quaeda. This branch is not mentioned in the list, and therefore not classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization. This can no longer be excused by sheer stupidity, sluggishness or sloppiness.

The State Department not only ignores them, they support them. The attacks on Syrian troops by US fighter jets, and the immediately following storm attack by Al-Quaeda muppets has been a well-known fact for some times.

You're plainly wrong.

Al qaeda has been on the list since 1999.

As I've documented, these groups change names all the time. The group you speak of "Tahrir al Sham" is composed of the Nusra front and the Ansar al Dine, both of which are on this list.

You're trying to make a anti US point out of nothing.

If you follow the Syrian Islamist groups, you'll find that they change names every five minutes.

There is nothing to suggest that the US somehow has changed its position towards Ansar al-Dine and Nusra because they've changed their names, and ostensibly merged. Very broadly, the US recognizes two families of terrorist organizations in Syria: al Qaeda linked and ISIL linked (the State Department for linguistic accuracy, calls ISIS "ISIL" ). There appear to be a hundred or so groups that claim some activity in Syria, and they change names regularly merge and fission.

And so switch from AQ linked to ISIL linked . . . It's a very murky zone, but your suggestion that there's some malign intent from not following every twist and turn in nomenclature is unsupported by any evidence.

[BondJmsBond]

I've long thought there was something funny about the emergence of ISIL.
Without getting into detail, US involvement makes sense in the context of preventing Shia domination from Iran to Lebanon....also promoting Shia vs. Sunni strife is good for US - fighting each other instead of us. Some say the US - Obama - created ISIS.

But it's such a mess there I'm more likely to believe "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

Also I don't believe the US could hide something like that.

I'm certainly open to real evidence proving me wrong; I don't put anything past anybody.

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

You're plainly wrong.

Al qaeda has been on the list since 1999.

As I've documented, these groups change names all the time. The group you speak of "Tahrir al Sham" is composed of the Nusra front and the Ansar al Dine, both of which are on this list.

You're trying to make a anti US point out of nothing.

If you follow the Syrian Islamist groups, you'll find that they change names every five minutes.

There is nothing to suggest that the US somehow has changed its position towards Ansar al-Dine and Nusra because they've changed their names, and ostensibly merged. Very broadly, the US recognizes two families of terrorist organizations in Syria: al Qaeda linked and ISIL linked (the State Department for linguistic accuracy, calls ISIS "ISIL" ). There appear to be a hundred or so groups that claim some activity in Syria, and they change names regularly merge and fission.

And so switch from AQ linked to ISIL linked . . . It's a very murky zone, but your suggestion that there's some malign intent from not following every twist and turn in nomenclature is unsupported by any evidence.

You do not seem to understand. No offense.

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham was already on the list. It was then deleted from the list and explicitly classified as a non-terrorist organization. This was officially confirmed by the US State Department.

https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/2017/...is-told-tahrir

Money quote :

'The State Department did issue a statement in March, in Arabic only, branding Hay'at Tahrir Al Sham a terrorist group. But the State Department's Nicole Thompson (Senior Vice President of Press Relations, US Department of State) told CBC that was a mistake.

'Thought closely affiliated with Al Nusra, Hay'at Tahrir Al Sham is not a designated terrorist organization.' she said in an email. The statement you found should have said al-Nusra Front and has been corrected.

Al-Nusra, however, no longer exists.'

[gordian_knot]

re: Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham

There is something in what everyone is saying in this thread. They are an umbrella organisation incorporating a rebranded al-Nusra Front, which represents the vast majority of its adherents.

The US may not specifically mention Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham by name but they have verbally made it clear (by the same Nichole Thompson) that they still regard it as a terrorist organisation.

As to whether the US targets them, the answer on the whole is 'no'. The US has taken out some of the leaders with drone strikes but there has been no effort to degrade the group as a whole. They are too useful as a counterweight to the Syrian Arab Army. They have many heavy weapons taken from groups supplied by the US. Leaving HTS off the list officially allows the US to ignore them. Though I'd also add the following, from wikipedia:

"A CBC News report suggested one reason Tahrir al-Sham has not been listed may be because one of its members, the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, was supplied with U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles. Hence to designate the group now would mean acknowledgement that the U.S. has supplied sophisticated military hardware to terrorists."

re: the White Helmets.

The film was indeed a fraud, but they are not specifically al-qaeda. They were created in Turkey and are basically a propaganda organisation for the rebels backed by Turkey. Which doesn't preclude them working with the more extreme factions.

[Devius]

Originally Posted by Devius

Ministers are under pressure to publish a report on UK-based Islamist groups.

The Home Office report into the existence and influence of Jihadist organisations, commissioned by former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015, has reportedly yet to be completed amid questions as to whether it will ever be published.

Details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40496778

Over to you, Mrs. May...

What a surprise...NOT

Government criticised over 'suppressed' extremist report

A government refusal to publish a report on the funding of UK Islamist extremist groups has been criticised.

The home secretary has issued a two-page summary which concluded most organisations were funded via small, anonymous British-based donations.

Amber Rudd said she had decided to do so for national security reasons.

Opposition parties claimed the internal review was being "suppressed" to protect Saudi Arabia which has been accused of being a source of funding.

The Home Office has been under pressure for months to publish its investigation into the "nature, scale and origin of the funding".

Ms Rudd said another reason for not making the report public was because of the personal information it contained.

Some MPs will be allowed to view the report in private but without revealing its contents.

The summary of the report concluded that most extremist organisations got their money, often hundreds of thousands of pounds, from individual donors in the UK.

But it also confirmed that a small minority did get significant funds from overseas. These, it said, taught "deeply conservative forms of Islam" to individuals who became "of extremist concern".

From now on, charities will have to declare any overseas funding to the Charity Commission.

The summary said: "The most common source of support for Islamist extremist organisations in the UK is from small, anonymous public donations, with the majority of these donations most likely coming from UK-based individuals.

"In some cases these organisations receive hundreds of thousands of pounds a year."

It added: "For a small number of organisations with which there are extremism concerns, overseas funding is a significant source of income.

"However, for the vast majority of extremist groups in the UK, overseas funding is not a significant source. Overseas support has allowed individuals to study at institutions that teach deeply conservative forms of Islam and provide highly socially conservative literature and preachers to the UK's Islamic institutions.

"Some of these individuals have since become of extremist concern."

Details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40581819
http://www.parliament.uk/business/pu...-07-12/HCWS39/

[CARLTON BROWN]

Originally Posted by Devius

What a surprise...NOT

[i]Government criticised over 'suppressed' extremist report

A government refusal to publish a report on the funding of UK Islamist extremist groups has been criticised. The home secretary has issued a two-page summary which concluded most organisations were funded via small, anonymous British-based donations.

It's hard to imagine HMG responding in any other way to this report. The Saudis make a significant contribution to the UK economy and as a consequence, nobody want to rock the boat, no matter how backward their ghastly regime might be.

In reality, the Saudis can (and may well) distribute millions of dollars in cash throughout European nations without the slightest difficulty and they could undoubtedly take things much further if they wanted to.

[BondJmsBond]

Maybe walls aren't so bad after all

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40713742

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37421525