The seriousness of the situation compelled the US and Russia to call for an urgent meeting of the 15-member UNSC.

IMSD’s statement has been endorsed by leading civil society organizations and prominent individuals supportive of the rights of minorities, irrespective of caste and creed. Included among them are important office bearers of the CPI and CPI(M).

While the Alawites (a sub-sect among Shia Muslims) are the main target of the Islamists, Christians and Shias too are being targeted in the Sunni majority country. It must emphasised that Sunnis who are offering protection to their compatriots too are being targeted. A protest called in Damascus by all sections of Syrian society, was dispersed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) gunmen.

The Islamist jihadists from the various factions of the HTS, Al Qaeda and ISIS ran amok as they killed the defenceless civilians in cold blood. Many of these jihadists are of non-Syrian origin; they come from Turkey, Albania, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Uyghurs from Xinjiang (China), and this has only worsened the dire situation.

IMSD calls for an independent inquiry into the pogroms, by the UNHRC, as the Jolani regime has extremely low credibility among the afflicted communities.

The killings by the Islamists are fuelled by an ideology of religious sectarianism and extremism. Slogans such as, “Alawite and Shia to the grave and Christians to Beirut”, are commonly heard in Wahhabi/Salafist mosques and in street protests.

Indian Muslims must speak out against the massacres being perpetrated by extremists in the name of Islam during this holy month of Ramzan. We also appeal to all Indians as well as the global community to speak out against the horrendous killings of religious minorities in Syria.

We call for a dialogue and reconciliation within Syrian society and for them to do the utmost to prevent the ‘Al Qaeda-isation’ or ‘ISIS-isation’ of Syria. It is our belief that the greater majority of the Syrian people are committed to an inclusive, pluralistic, secular democratic Syria. In these difficult times, the world stands with the Syrian nation.

Full statement with signatories here below or copy attached:

March 15, 2025

PRESS STATEMENT

Indian Muslims condemn the mass killings of Syrian minorities by extremist Islamists

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) condemns the mass killing of civilians in the latest clashes between loyalists of the toppled Bashar al-Assad and the security forces of the present regime allied with extremist Islamist forces in north-west Syria. One may have differing opinions on the former government of Bashar al-Assad, but we speak out unequivocally against the targeted pogroms and murder of the minority communities, namely the Alawites, Christians and Shiites.

IMSD’s statement has been endorsed by leading civil society organizations and prominent individuals supportive of the rights of minorities, irrespective of caste and creed. Included among them are important office bearers of the CPI and CPI(M).

The crisis is so stark that US and Russia had to call for an urgent closed door meeting of the 15-member UNSC. US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, strongly condemned “radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis” committing the massacres, and reaffirmed Washington’s support for Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including Christians, Druze, Alawites, and Kurds. Moreover, Rubio demanded accountability from Syria’s interim government.

Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said that both Moscow and Washington are in contact on the issue and that, “The council was united in what we discussed… everyone spoke out. I wouldn’t say with one voice, but everyone emphasized the same elements: the inadmissibility of what happened, the mass murders, and violence.”

The UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has condemned what he calls “extremely disturbing” reports of brutal “revenge killings”, in which “entire families, including women and children” have been savagely butchered. Of the more than 1,000 people who have reportedly been killed, more than 750 are civilians. Certain media reports mention figures up to 4,500 and more.

While the Alawites (a sub-sect among Shia Muslims) are the main target of the Islamists, Christians and Shias too are being targeted in the Sunni majority country. It must emphasised that Sunnis who are offering protection to their compatriots too are being targeted. A protest called in Damascus by all sections of Syrian society, was dispersed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) gunmen.

The Islamist jihadists from the various factions of the HTS, Al Qaeda and ISIS ran amok as they killed the defenceless civilians in cold blood. Many of these jihadists are of non-Syrian origin; they come from Turkey, Albania, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Uyghurs from Xinjiang (China), and this has only worsened the dire situation.

Following the international outcry, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly Jolani, leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a breakaway faction from Al Qaeda) announced the formation of an independent committee to “investigate the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them.” In a Reuters interview, Sharaa said mass killings of Alawites were a threat to his mission to unite the country, and promised to punish those responsible, including his own allies if necessary.

IMSD calls for an independent inquiry into the pogroms, by the UNHRC, as the Jolani regime has extremely low credibility among the afflicted communities.

The killings by the Islamists are fuelled by an ideology of religious sectarianism and extremism. Slogans such as, “Alawite and Shia to the grave and Christians to Beirut”, are commonly heard in Wahhabi/Salafist mosques and in street protests.

Indian Muslims must speak out against the massacres being perpetrated by extremist Muslims in the name of Islam during this holy month of Ramzan. We also appeal to all Indians as well as the global community to speak out against the horrendous killings of religious minorities in Syria.

We call for a dialogue and reconciliation within Syrian society and for them to do the utmost to prevent the ‘Al Qaeda-isation’ or ‘ISIS-isation’ of Syria. It is our belief that the greater majority of the Syrian people are committed to an inclusive, pluralistic, secular democratic Syria. In these difficult times, the world stands with the Syrian nation.

Signatories:

1)    Afaq Azad, Musician, IMSD, Mumbai

2)    Ahmad Rashid Sherwani, Managing Trustee, Bharat Sewa Trust, Hyderabad

3)    A. J. Jawad, Co-convener IMSD, Advocate, Hyderabad

4)    (Prof.) A. K. Pasha, JNU, Delhi

5)    Aishwarya R, Bengaluru for Justice and Peace, Bengaluru

6)    Akhilesh Yadav, Nav Bharat Nirman, Lucknow

7)    Ali Bhojani, Hum Bharat Ke Log, Parbhani

8)    Alok, Nav Bharat Nirman, Lucknow

9)    Akbar Shaikh, Bhartiya Muslimj Yuva Andolan, Solapur

10)  Amir Rizvi, IMSD, Designer, Mumbai

11)  Anand Patwardhan, IMSD, Documentary filmmaker, Mumbai

12)  (Dr.) Anand Prakash Tiwari, Editor, Bahujan Samvad, Varanasi

13)  (Fr.) Anand, Souhard Peace Centre, Varanasi

14)  (Dr.) Anil Hebbar, Trustee, Baba Amte Ekta Abhiyan, Mumbai

15)  Anjum Rajabali, IMSD, Filmwriter, Mumbai

16)  Annu Yadav, Social Activist, Lucknow

17)  Anvar Rajan, IMSD, Social Activist, Pune

18)  Aravind Unni, Urban practitioner and researcher, Delhi

19)  Arun Srivastava, Samajwadi Samagam, Delhi

20)  Arshad Alam, Co-convener IMSD, Columnist, Delhi

21)  Ashraf Zaidi, Editor, Leaders Magazine, Delhi

22)  Ashish Shukla, Nav Bharat Nirman, Lucknow 

23)  Askari Zaidi, IMSD, Senior journalist, Delhi

24)  Binu Mathew, Editor, countercurrents.org

25)  (Fr.) Cedric Prakash, PRASHANT, Initiative for Human Rights Justice & Peace, Ahmedabad,

26)  (Com.) Charul Joshi, Progressive Writers Association, Convener, Mumbai

27)  Dhananjay Shinde, IT expert, political activist, Mumbai

28)  Dolphy D’souza, Bombay Catholic Sabha, Mumbai

29)  (Sister) Dorothy Fernandes, Patna

30)  (Rev.) E. Immanuel Nehemiah, CSI KCD, Bengaluru

31)  Evita Das, Urban Rights Activist, Delhi

32)  Farouk Mapkar, Social Activist, Mumbai

33)  Feroz Abbas Khan, Theatre and film director, playwright and screenwriter, Mumbai

34)  Feroze Mithiborwala, Co-Convener, IMSD, Mumbai

35)  Gauhar Raza, ANHAD, Poet, Delhi

36)  Dr G. G. Parikh, Veteran freedom fighter, President, Yusuf Meherali Centre, Mumbai

37)  Guddi S.L., Yusuf Meherali Centre, Mumbai

38)  Gulab Pasha, Swaraj India, Bengaluru

39)  Hasan Ibrahim, Pasha, IMSD, Writer, Prayagraj

40)  Irfan Engineer, CSSS, Co-convener IMSD, Mumbai

41)  (Fr.) Jacob Peenikaparambil, Universal Solidarity Movement, Indore

42)  Jatin Desai, Senior journalist, Peace Activist, Mumbai

43)  Javed Anand, Convener, IMSD, CJP, Mumbai

44)  John D’Souza, CED, Mumbai

45)  (Fr.) Joseph Neetilal, Lok Chetna Samiti, Varanasi

46)  Kasim Sait, IMSD, Businessman, Chennai

47)  Khadija Farooqi, IMSD, Delhi

48)  Khatoon Sheikh, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Mumbai

49)  Kumar Prashant, Chairman, Gandhi Peace Foundation, Delhi

50)  Lara Jesani, National Secretary, PUCL, Advocate, Mumbai

51)  Mansoor Sardar, IMSD, Bhiwandi

52)  M. A. Khalid, Social Activist, Mumbai

53)  Medha Patkar, Writer, Environmental Activist, Bhopal

54)  (Dr.) Meenakshi Sharma, Samvad Prakriya, Moradabad

55)  (Com.) Milind Ranade, General Secretary, Mumbai CPI, Mumbai 

56)  Mihir Desai, Human Rights Lawyer, Mumbai

57)  Mohammad Imran, PIO, USA

58)  Mohammed Zakirulla Baig, concerned citizen, Bengaluru

59)  Najid Hussain, Oceanographer, PIO, USA

60)  Nasreen Fazelbhoy, IMSD, Mumbai

61)  Naazish Shah, Environmental Activist

62)  Noorjahan Safia Niyaz, Co-convenor, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan

63)  Pakeezeh (Padmini) Baruah, NLSIU, Bengaluru

64)  Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Journalist, Delhi

65)  (Com.) Prakash Reddy, political leader, CPI, Mumbai

66)  Prashant Bhushan, Advocate SC, Author, Public Interest Lawyer, Delhi

67)  (Sister) Prema Chwallur, Guwahati

68)  Putul Didi, Samvad Prakriya, Lucknow

69)  Qaisar Sultana, IMSD, Homemaker, Prayagraj

70)  Qutub Jahan, NEEDA, IMSD, Mumbai

71)  (Dr.) Radha Kumar, Academic, Feminist, Author, Chennai

72)  Rajkumari Asthana, Documentary Filmmaker, Dehradun

73)  (Prof) Rakesh Rafique, Author, Samvad Prakriya, Moradabad

74)  (Dr.) Ram Puniyani, Author, All India Secular Forum, Mumbai

75)  Rashida Tapadar, Writer, Educationist and Activist, Assam

76)  Ravi Nair, Investigative Journalist, Delhi

77)  (Sister) Roseline SCN, Gaya

78)  Sabah Khan, Parcham, Thane

79)  Sajjad Kargili, Political Activist, Ladakh

80)  (Dr.) Saif Mehmood, IMSD, SC Lawyer, Delhi

81)  (Com.) S. K. Rege, State Secretary, Mumbai

82)  Salim, Saboowala, Social Activist, Mumbai

83)  Salim Yusuf, IMSD, Lawyer, Bhiwandi

84)  Sandeep Pandey, Socialist Party of India, National President, Lucknow

85)  (Dr.) Sanjay M G, Member National Working Group (NWG), (NAPM)

86)  Santosh Ambekar, Mahatma Phule, OBC Vichar Manch, Mumbai

87)  Satyapal Malik, former Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, Goa & Meghalaya, Delhi

88)  (Dr) Satyavrat, Mairtee Ashram, Lucknow

89)  Shabana Dean, IMSD, Pune

90)  Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD, Delhi

91)  Shahid Pradhan, Educationist, Pune

92)  Shafaat Khan, IMSD, Playwright, Mumbai

93)  (Dr.) Shamsuddin Tamboli, President, Muslim Satyashodhak Mandal, Pune

94)  Shamsul Islam, Author, Activist, Delhi

95)  Shalini Dhawan, Designer, Mumbai

96)  Shama Zaidi, IMSD, Screenplay Writer, Documentary Filmmaker,, Mumbai

97)  Sharad Kadam, Hum Bharat Ke Log, Mumbai

98)  Shujaat Ali Quadri, India Palestine Solidarity Forum, Vice-President, Delhi

99)  Sukla Sen, Social Activist, Mumbai

100)       Sultan Shahin, Editor-in-Chief, New Age Islam, Delhi

101)       (Dr.) Sunilam, President, Kisan Sangarsh Samiti, Gwalior

102)       (Dr.) Suresh Khairnar, Writer, Nagpur

103)       Syed Muntazir Mehdi, PDP leader Kashmir

104)       Teesta Setalvad, Secretary CJP, IMSD, Mumbai

105)       Tushar Gandhi, Hum Bharat Ke Log, National President, Mumbai

106)       (Com.) Uday Narkar, Central Committee Member, CPI(M), Kolhapur

107)       Usha Vishwakarma, Nav Bharat Nirman, Lucknow

108)       Vibhuti Narain Rai, IMSD, IPS (retd), writer, Noida

109)       Vrijendra, Educationist, Social Activist, Mumbai

110)       Yashodhan Paranjpe, Hum Bharat Ke Log, Navi Mumbai

111)       Zakia Soman, Co-convenor, Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, Delhi

112)       Zulekha Jabeen, IMSD, Delhi

113)       Zeenat Shaukatali, Islamic Scholar, DG, Wisdom Foundation, IMSD, Mumbai

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In fact, no other country is as accountable as the United States for the Central American bedlam and resulting refugee crisis.

So why, despite the seemingly substantial ideological and political differences between right-wing Fox News and liberal CNN, both media outlets are working hard to safeguard their country’s dirty little secret?

In recent years, state and gang violence – coupled with extreme poverty – have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, among other countries in Central and South America.

US mainstream media, however, is rarely interested in the root cause of that reality.

Fox News is tirelessly peddling the offensive language used by President Donald Trump, which perceives the refugees as criminals and terrorists, who pose a threat to US national security.

At a press conference last October, Trump urged a reporter to take his camera into ”the middle” of a caravan of migrants on the treacherous journey through Mexico, to locate ”Middle Eastern” people that have infiltrated the crowd. In Trump’s thinking, ‘Middle Eastern people’ is synonymous with terrorists.

CNN has, on the other hand, labored to counter the growing anti-immigrant official and media sentiments that have plagued the US, a discourse that is constantly prodded and manipulated by Trump and his supporters.

However, few in the liberal media have the courage to probe the story beyond convenient political rivalry, persisting in their hypocritical and insincere humanitarianism that is divorced from any meaningful political context.

The fact is the Central American refugee crisis is similar to the plethora of Middle East and Central Asian refugee crises of recent years. Mass migration is almost always the direct outcome of political meddling and military interventions.

From Afghanistan, to Iraq, Libya, Syria, millions of refugees were forced, by circumstances beyond their control, to seek safety in some other country.

Millions of Iraqis and Syrians found themselves in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, while a far smaller number trickled to Europe, all seeking safety from the grinding wars.

Political opportunists in Europe are no different from their American counterparts. While the former has seized on the tragedy of the refugees to sow seeds of fear and hate-mongering, Americans, too, have blamed the refugees for their own misery.

Blaming the victim is nothing new.

Iraqis were once blamed for failing to appreciate Western democracy, Libyans for their failed state, Syrians for taking the wrong side of a protracted war, and so on.

Yet, the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria are all, in varied degrees ,outcomes of military interventions, a truth that does not seem to register in the self-absorbed minds of both right-wing and liberal intellectuals.

The irony is that the hapless refugees, whether those escaping to Europe or to the United States, are perceived to be the aggressors, the invaders, as opposed to the US and allies that had, in fact, invaded these once stable and sovereign homelands.

Trump has often referred to the Central American migrants’ caravan as an ‘invasion’.  Fox News parroted that claim, and injected the possibility of having the refugees shot upon arrival.

If Fox News lacked the decency to treat refugees as human beings deserving of sympathy and respect, CNN lacked the courage to expand the discussion beyond Trump’s horrid language and inhumane policies.

To expand the parameters of the conversation would expose a policy that was not introduced by Trump, but by Bill Clinton and applied in earnest by George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Media grandstanding aside, both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the current refugee crisis.

In 1996, Democratic President Clinton unleashed a war on refugees when he passed two consecutive legislations: the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Millions of people – who had escaped US-instigated wars and military coups –were deported back to Central and South America. While 2 million people were deported during the Bush terms, 2.5 million were deported under Obama.

A terrible situation was exacerbated. Violence and want flared even more.

To rally his angry and radicalized constituency, Trump waved the migrant card once more, threatening to build a “great wall” and to close “loopholes” in the US immigration law.

Like his predecessors, he offered little by way of redressing an unjust reality that is constantly fomented by destructive US foreign policy, stretching decades.

But the refugees kept on coming, mostly from Central America’s Northern Triangle region. Without proper political context, they, too, were duly blamed for their hardship.

Considering Fox News and CNN’s lack of quality coverage, this is not surprising. Few Americans know of the sordid history of their country in that region, starting with the CIA-engineered coup d’état in Guatemala in 1954, or the US support of the coup against the democratically-elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in 2009, or of everything else that happened in between these dates.

The unhealthy relationship between the US and its southern neighbors goes back as early as 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt declared the ‘right’ of his country to hold “international police power” in Latin America. Since then, the entire region has been Washington’s business.
The free trade agreement (CAFTA-DR) signed between Central American countries and the US has done its own share of damage. It “restructured the region’s economy and guaranteed economic dependence on the United States through massive trade imbalances and the influx of American agricultural and industrial goods that weakened domestic industries,”wrote Mark Tseng-Putterman in Medium.

Acknowledging all of this is threatening. If US mainstream pundits accept their country’s destructive role in Central and South America, they will be forced to abandon the role of the victim (embraced by the right) or the savior (embraced by the left), which has served them well.
The same stifling political and intellectual routine is witnessed in Europe, too.

But this denial of moral responsibility will only contribute to the problem, not to its resolution. No amount of racism on the part of the right, or crocodile tears of the liberals, will ever rectify this skewed paradigm.

This is as true in Central America as it is in the Middle East.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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From macabre hide-and-seek exercises, in which children hunt and kill enemy prisoners in specially constructed mazes, to the mass execution and decapitation of adult soldiers, young people living under IS have been indoctrinated and encouraged to engage in violence.

Meanwhile, IS’s quasi-government instituted an education system explicitly aimed at indoctrinating and weaponising the children living under it.

Mathematics was practised by determining how many more fighters IS has than an opposing force. Chemistry was taught by discussion of methods of gas inhalation. And physical education focused on the correct body positions for firing various weapons.

Their education has been compounded by the retaliatory and sometimes excessive violence of the vast array of forces committed to destroying IS. Through this, children have been exposed to horrific violence on a daily basis – thus generating trauma and, undoubtedly, genuine long-term grievances.
 

How IS’s use of child soldiers differs

There is a fundamental difference between IS’s use of child soldiers and the practice elsewhere.

IS hasn’t just recruited child soldiers. It systematically militarised the education systems of captured Iraqi and Syrian territory to turn the region’s children into ideological timebombs.

These children, saturated in IS’s particular brand of violent and uncompromising “religious” instruction from about the age of five, were trained in the use of small arms before their teenage years. They constitute a new challenge for the international community.

IS’s state-building efforts appear to have been thwarted for now. But saving the children exposed and potentially indoctrinated in its ideology is key to avoiding further terror attacks in the West, tackling the root causes of regional upheaval, and working toward a future where children play instead of fight, and schools teach instead of drill.
 

What children have been taught

Military activity, superiority based on IS’s interpretation of Islam, and the need to defeat unbelievers are embedded in its school textbooks.

Various videos, produced both through journalistic investigation and by IS itself, show the more practical side of education under the group’s rule. Children are taught how to fire small arms and use hand grenades.

Although IS extensively forced children into its ranks, many joined voluntarily – with or without their families’ blessing. But, in the long term, it doesn’t matter whether a child is forcibly recruited or not. And this is the matter of gravest concern.

IS’s primary concern is building and maintaining the children’s loyalty. The phrase “cubs of the caliphate” is a microcosm of how it views them. Cubs are unruly, ill-disciplined and dependent on strong (sometimes violent) guidance from their elders.

However, with time, resources and patience they can turn into a generation of fighters and idealists who will foster IS’s ideology even if its current military setbacks prove terminal.
 

Programs need to take a new approach

Disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation programs designed to reintegrate child soldiers into post-conflict society have significantly progressed in recent years. This represents the continued evolution of military-civil partnerships in the quest for a conflict-free world.

But IS’s systematic and meticulous radicalisation of an entire region’s children presents new challenges.

It’s understandable to interpret IS’s rapid retreat as its death knell, and thereby view traditional rehabilitation techniques as an appropriate remedy for yet another region recovering from violence at the hands of a radical armed insurgency. However, this conflict has been highly unusual in its pace, tactics and impacts – both now and potentially in the future.

So, we must revisit the fundamental assumptions of what it means to inspire peace within a society. This starts with the children subjected to the ideological extremism of IS and other armed groups.

If there is to be sustainable peace in the areas liberated from IS control, rehabilitation programs must be viewed as a community-wide process. Even if children did not directly participate in IS activities, the group has moulded their worldview and underpinning life philosophies.

Such philosophies may be especially productive in a region where resentment of perceived foreign – Western – interference and exploitation is long-lasting and multifaceted.
 

What can be done

The regular processes of identifying child combatants, disarming and reintegrating them into their communities through rehabilitation (such as by ensuring they are physically and mentally capable of rejoining their communities) and reconciliation (developing peace, trust and justice among children and their communities) are all necessary. But they are vastly insufficient in this instance.

Rarely has there been such systematic youth radicalisation and militarisation. So, the international response must be equally far-reaching and methodical.

Rapid reimplementation and revisiting of pre-IS school curricula is of the highest priority. National and local governments should ensure children are shielded from further recruitment by instituting a curriculum drawn from principles of tolerance and inclusion.

It’s essential to develop locally run initiatives to measure the level of radicalisation among a community’s children and to construct child-friendly spaces for young people to socialise, reconnect with their wider community and “unlearn” what they adopted under IS.

Such practices will help to heal the wounds of IS occupation and ensure the potential for cyclical violence is removed. Done right, it will hinder IS’s ability to rise anew.

James S. Morris, PhD Student in International Security and Child Rights, The University of Queensland and Tristan Dunning, Lecturer in Modern Middle East History, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Protester mocking President al-Sisi. Alisdare Hickson, CC BY-SA

Al-Sisi’s grip on power may appear firm, but his country’s problems can’t be thrown into jail like his opponents. His predecessors Hosni Mubarak and Anwar Sadat learned this the hard way.

Yet don’t expect much hand-wringing from the West about Egypt’s stability in the coming days – despite its having been through a revolution and a coup already this decade. Governments and other strategists only appear to worry about countries in this region once discontent turns “hot” – like in Syria, Yemen, Libya or Iraq.

Our research shows that this may be a serious and costly mistake. The whole region is suffering from exactly the same deep-seated problems as before the Arab Spring of 2010-11. In Egypt and various other apparently stable countries, there are very high levels of discontent that could easily boil over.

Then and now

The uprisings earlier in the decade were not simply demands for Western-style democracy. Protesters may have been disillusioned by all the election rhetoric from these authoritarian regimes in democratic clothing, but they were primarily disgusted by corruption, abuse of power and economic inequality. They wanted governments that would address these concerns rather than lining their own pockets and those of their cronies.

Unfortunately little has changed, as newly released opinion polls show for Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia – with upwards of 1,000 people surveyed in each country. While citizens worry about issues their governments prioritise, such as security, terrorism and religious extremism, their main concerns are the same as in 2010 – decent jobs, inflation, inequality and corruption.

Top two challenges by country

Arab Barometer, 2016.

People don’t believe their governments are responsive to their priorities. Fewer than one third of Egyptians think so, while in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Jordan that figure drops to a quarter or less. In Lebanon it is a mere 7%.

Across all six countries an astonishing 85% or more think their governments are not making a serious effort to tackle corruption. Meanwhile, 75% or more are not satisfied with their governments’ efforts to create jobs or fight inflation.

Views on economy, corruption and terrorism

Arab Barometer, 2016.

The discontent is worst in Lebanon, where fewer than 5% of people approve of the government’s work. Even the performance on internal security – the one area where citizens in the other five countries are relatively satisfied – was considered adequate by only a quarter of Lebanese respondents.

This region-wide disenchantment translates into low confidence in parliaments and political parties, the key institutions which ought to be representing citizens’ interests. Confidence varies from country to country: Lebanon again scores poorly. Egypt fares better than others, but this owes more to intense government propaganda than any real effectiveness.

Trust in state institutions

Arab Barometer, 2016.

Citizens also don’t feel they have the civil and political rights necessary to legitimately express their grievances and push their governments for reforms. When people are unable to adequately express their unhappiness, it inevitably increases the potential for radicalisation.

Views on civil rights

Arab Barometer, 2016.

Little changed

As a result of the Arab uprisings, governments fell in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and eventually Libya, while there were more limited political changes in Jordan and Kuwait. Governments in other countries announced political concessions, including Morocco, Algeria, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Yet since the issues which drove many of these protesters to the streets have not been addressed, their governments remain vulnerable both to mass mobilisation and to less obvious forms of radicalisation – as recent protests in Tunisia show.

Western policymakers and academics concerned with security are at risk of missing this. They do not seem to have learned the lessons of the Arab uprisings. Absent armed conflict, they still tend to dismiss the importance to stability of social cohesion, inequality and poor political representation.

Sisi or Sisiphus? Wikimedia

We must therefore reassess the stability of countries like Egypt. We must stop assuming their leaders will forever be able to simply repress dissent, and stop assuming that such repression doesn’t come with costs and risks, both human and political.

These countries are in fact security “sinkholes”: regimes whose foundations erode while apparently seeming stable, often to the point of collapse. Far from being a sign of strength or stability, remaining deaf to the needs of the people make things worse in the long run.

As al-Sisi makes his inevitable victory speech, we would be wise not to ignore these warning signs. Until we learn that conflict must be dealt with at its roots, history is liable to just keep repeating itself.

Pamela Abbott, Director of the Centre for Global Development and Professor in the School of Education, University of Aberdeen and Andrea Teti, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Aberdeen

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Until the jihadist rebel groups are wiped out, there will be more civilian casualties, like this man and young boy in Eastern Ghouta. Reuters/Bassam Khabieh

It seems conditions in Syria are getting worse, and there is no end to the conflict.

The end to any violent conflict comes when either the warring sides realise the devastation they cause and make peace; outside intervention sways the warring parties to end the conflict; or there are clear winners delivering a crushing defeat to their enemies.

None of the warring factions seem to care about the devastation of the seven-year civil war. Almost the entire country is rubble – more than 400,000 people have died, there are 5 million Syrian refugees and more than 6 million displaced. Unfortunately, the peace option seems highly unlikely.

There had been international intervention through peace initiatives since 2013, when the then US secretary of state, John Kerry, lamented that Syria “heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos”. It was a chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta that prompted the United Nations to pass a resolution in 2013 demanding the destruction of chemical stockpiles and giving impetus to peace talks in Geneva. All efforts to make progress on these talks were continually stalled. The parties failed to meet even as late as 2017, painfully expediting Kerry’s apocalyptic prediction.

The Geneva talks were paralleled by a Russian-led peace initiative in Kazakhstan and later in Sochi. These talks could not have been expected to succeed, given that Russia’s unconditional and active support of the Assad regime hampered any attempt at brokering a peace deal.

Apart from the vested interests and insincerity, the biggest stumbling block has been disagreement over who to include in the peace process. The US does not want Assad or Iran involved; Turkey does not want the Kurdish People’s Defence Unit (YPG); and Russia does not want any of the jihadist rebel groups.

The sheer number of rebel groups is another issue. In the relatively small area of Eastern Ghouta alone, there are three rebel groups, which often bicker with one another.

Since the conflict began in 2011, nearly 200 separate rebel groups have sporadically emerged. Although most of these later merged into larger entities, there are still too many groups. Their inclusion in any peace process has been problematic, because it is unclear who actually represents the Syrian opposition, not to mention the groups’ refusal to sit at the same table.

Then there is the thorny issue of ideological and religious differences. Shiite Syrians and a segment of secular Sunni Muslims support the Assad regime, whereas the largest chunk of the rebel groups are Salafi jihadists. The exceptions are the Kurdish YPG and the largely weakened Free Syrian Army.

All along, Assad’s regime has been claiming it is fighting IS, Al-Qaeda and other Salafi jihadist groups to keep Syria a modern secular state. Putin is pushing Assad to wipe out these groups, spurred by the deep fear they could mobilise radical Muslim groups within Russia’s borders.

The US and Europe are in the cognitive dissonance of wanting neither Assad nor jihadist groups to gain control in Syria. They don’t want Assad, but they like his argument of protecting a modern secular Syria. The unspoken preference is for Assad over any Jihadi rebel group.

So, the lack of an effective peace intervention and the impossibility of parties sitting down to negotiate leaves only the option of fighting it out until clear victors emerge.

This leaves the Assad regime with a free run to assert itself as the only feasible and legitimate government in Syria, a possibility that may indeed eventuate.

This is the strategic line the Assad regime has drawn thick on the ground. It explains why Assad forces have ignored the UN’s 30-day ceasefire resolution. Putin’s disregard for the resolution, by reducing it to a farcical five-hour window, shows that neither Assad nor Putin wants the rebels to regroup
and gain strength. They want a quick and absolute victory, even if it is a bloodbath.

Just as it is almost certain that the rebels of Eastern Ghouta will fall, it is equally certain Assad forces will next intensify the siege of Idlib, a northeastern city held by the Salafi jihadist rebel group Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). This pattern will continue until all rebel groups are wiped out.

It is unlikely there will be any fighting between Assad forces and the Kurdish YPG, as that would mean an open confrontation between Russia and the US. After the US supported the YPG, it successfully ended Islamic State’s presence in eastern Syria. The US has made it clear it is there to stay, establishing a 30,000-strong border security force as a deterrent against IS regrouping, but more importantly to stop Assad attacking Kurdish regions once he clears the ground of rebel groups in his territory.

The wild card in Syria is Turkey’s unpredictable president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He aims to establish Turkey in northeastern Syria as a third major player along with Russia and the US, by fighting alongside elements of the Free Syrian Army to capture the Kurdish-controlled district of Afrin.
Whether Russia and the US will allow Erdogan to realise his objectives remains to be seen. He may find he is out of his league when things get tough on the ground, forcing him out of Syria.

The Syrian conflict will end only if the Russian-supported Assad regime wipes out all Salafi jihadist rebel groups and regains control of western Syria and its most important cities. This may be before the end of 2018. In the meantime, the international community should be prepared to lament more civilian casualties.

Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Meen Zawjk. Public Domain.

At the beginning of 2013, the term ‘muhajir’, or migrants, became widely used in Syria in reference to foreign fighters who had entered the country to join armed Islamist groups.

Studies indicate that their numbers exceed 80,000 immigrants of different nationalities, mostly from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Turkistan, Germany, Britain and France.

Most of the men joined Daesh after its founding in April 2013, while others joined the ranks of rival militant groups such as Al Nusra Front, currently known as Tahrir Al Sham [Liberation of the Levant], and the Islamic Turkistan Party.

After arriving in Syria, the first step a muhajir usually takes is to find a woman to marry before heading to the frontlines; and for several reasons that will be explained in this investigation, Syrian women agree to such marriages.
 

The local reality

Shagan
Shagan, who preferred to use a pseudonym for this story, is a university graduate who, unmarried at the age of 28, had suffered many sleepless nights hearing her family complain that she was past the age of marriage and would become an old spinster. Then an Egyptian muhajir from Al Nusra Front proposed to her.

Shagan accepted his offer of marriage for many reasons: her family’s deteriorating finances due to the ongoing war in Syria, the loss of her job – her only source of income – as well as her belief that this was her one chance to prove to her family that she was no longer a spinster.

One week later, in 2016, she found herself married and sharing a bed with a complete stranger that she knew nothing about; not even his real name. He gave himself a Jihadist name: Abi […] the Egyptian – Shagan has preferred to omit this title.

“Being married to a jihadist was extremely difficult as it was, and even more so as he was a muhajir!” she said.

When asked about her husband’s characteristics, she said: “He was a mean man, a fanatic and stubbornly opinionated, with no capacity for debate or conversation. Also, he forced me to wear the niqab and abaya, which I had never worn before marriage.”

Shagan wasn’t raised in a religiously conservative family to adapt easily to such extremisms, but she fell victim to the customs and traditions of the society that she lives in, as well as to her ignorance of the true nature of such foreign fighters and their political beliefs.

One of the reasons why she agreed to marry him, she said, was that she hoped for a comfortable life outside of Syria if he ever decided to return to his native Egypt.  

By the second week of their marriage, their problems had become clearer, and Shagan found her new life bereft of any conversation or understanding. She told her family that she wanted a divorce, but before she could tell her husband, he was killed in a battle against the Syrian regime.

“My marriage to a foreign fighter was the biggest mistake of my life, and his death was my greatest mercy,” she said.

Umm Walid
It was strange to hear Umm Walid [Walid’s mother], from the southern countryside of Aleppo, speak to her three-year-old son in classical Arabic when we met in Idlib, mid-2017. When we asked her why, she explained that his father had instructed her to do so before he’d returned to his home country.

Her husband is of British origin but also holds a Turkish passport. He fought among Tahrir Al Sham’s ranks in Idlib, northern Syria. A few months after marrying Umm Walid, he returned to the UK, leaving her alone and heavily pregnant with a child that would one day struggle to find his father.

Nonetheless, she feels confident that her husband will return to Syria one day or send for her to join him in Britain. However, a few months after our meeting, we were told by close relations that she had left for Raqaa on her husband’s orders.

Meen Zawjk. Public Domain.

Umm Saleh
In contrast to Umm Walid, Umm Saleh [Saleh’s mother] from rural Idlib, worries about the great risk of her son having no identity and not being listed at the civil register. She recognises that a child’s life in a society such as Syria is dependent on his origin and parentage. 

In late 2016, her dire finances and her father’s chronic illness forced her to marry Abi Abdel Aziz, a muhajir from Turkistan fighting with the Turkistan Islamic Party. He was thirty five, while she was barely eighteen.

Using similar terms to Shagan’s, she described as her husband as “miserly, he beat me a lot and he was always suspicious.”

She claims that he harassed her when she refused to take abortion bills as he didn’t want to have children in Syria. She wouldn’t take the pills as she wanted to comply with Islamic sharia law, so he left her and divorced her. 

Umm Saleh considers herself to blame for the marriage, and told us that marriage to a foreigner is not favoured in Syrian society, and that she initially wasn’t happy with him before she became persuaded by his “strong faith and closeness to God”, a common factor cited by all the aforementioned women.
 

Finding wives for muhajirin

According to an exclusive interview with the Syrian Network for Human Rights, foreign jihadists ‘muhajirin’ find their wives via two methods: the first is the traditional approach, whereby the jihadist asks the woman’s family for her hand in marriage. The women are found through different ways, such as, for example, a fighting comrade telling him about a female relative suitable for marriage, or through local people connected to the jihadist.

The second method is to find a wife through the Sharia institutes of the Islamist organisations to which the fighter belongs, where the jihadist announces his intention to marry, and then interested women propose to him, and he selects his pick from the lot; after which he proposes to her family.

As for their motives, the Syrian Network states: “In Idlib we noticed that there are generally no forced marriages, but what usually happens is the migrant fighter takes advantage of the woman’s conditions, such as her being from a poor family; so he pays her dowry to the family to help improve their lives. 

If the woman is divorced or widowed, she’s normally considered a financial and social burden on her family, so she is married off. We have also noticed marriages motivated by religious reasons, where the family marries their daughter off to a foreign muhajir in the belief that they will be rewarded by God for such an act.

Some marriages are also arranged for protection: the family is forced to accept the muhajir’s proposal as he has the power and authority to protect the wife and her family, and to give them some power in their community. As for the woman, she accepts such an offer so as not to clash with her family, and so as to have a better financial and social status through her marriage.”
 

Statistics and civil reactions

Due to the sensitivity of the issue, there are no accurate statistics on the number of marriages between Syrian women and foreign fighters, but research by the Syrian Human Rights Network in Idlib shows that over 836 women were married to jihadist migrants, bearing 93 children. 

Meanwhile, figures from the ‘Who is Your Husband’ campaign show over 1,750 marriages in Idlib, of which over 1,100 bore children. There are more than 1,800 children born of these marriages in Idlib alone.

This campaign was launched in Idlib and its surrounding areas in mid-January 2018 to raise awareness among women, parents, local decision-makers, religious clerks and men of the law on how such marriages are organised.

According to Assem Zidan, the campaign’s main coordinator, such marriages have the worst impact on the children in terms of their identities and futures.

“Legally, these children are denied their basic civil Syrian rights, the most important of which are their identity and access to education, in addition to their being connected to their fathers” unsound legacies.

Zidan also spoke about the wives’ mental, health and family status; especially since a large number of foreign fighters had left their wives either to return to their home countries, to fight elsewhere in their Islamist groups or to be killed in battle. As a result, the wives are usually left without a breadwinner and alone to face several psychological, social and familial challenges.

The Syrian network believes that 52 percent of these marriages ended in different ways; and the figures cited are only for Idlib. However, any attempt to investigate the same matter in Deir Ezzour or Raqaa would be futile as discussing the topic of marriage would be considered crossing the line given tribal notions of honour that prevent such conversations.

Courtesy: Open Democracy
 

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Shaikh Ahmad Badruddin Hassoun

 “I am Sunni in practice, Shiite in allegiance. My roots are Salafi [righteous], and my purity is Sufi [saintly]”, he said, as reported in an Arabic media outlet (1).

However, in his recent visit to India on September 25, the Grand Mufti of the Syrian Arab Republic has warned against the radical Islamist creed—Wahhabism. He cautioned Indian Muslims, particularly the madrasa students, about the “external calls of Jihad from Wahhabis”. Expressing crucial concerns over the ‘sectarian terrorism’ playing havoc across the Muslim world, Shaikh Hassoun averred that it would endanger even India’s secular and pluralistic social fabric.

Notably, the Grand Syrian Mufti was on a two-day visit to the capital of India, Delhi, along with Syrian ambassador to India, Riyadh Abbas and his political adviser Mazen Nasri. Extolling India for its ‘multicultural polity’, Shaikh Hassoun tried to draw a parallel and a close resemblance between India and Syria. He has pointed out that Syria is being targeted as it is “much like the Indian republic”. “The only country in the Arab region which has 25 different sects” and which is the “first secular country in the Middle East”, he said in an exclusive interview with India Today.

One of the significant appeals Shaikh Hassoun made to Indians was to ‘steer clear of mercenaries and infiltrators’ and ‘stay unified against the Wahhabi extremism’. This was also endorsed in the statement of the Syrian ambassador to India, Riyadh Abbas, when he said, “Wahabism is the enemy of people and Islam and Indians should not take calls of Wahabis”.

Tellingly, the Syrian Grand Mufti’s advice to the Indian government to act cautiously while dealing with the ‘ideological onslaught of Wahhabism’ came at a critical juncture. But it appears that many analysts have overlooked its significant ideological dynamics. They failed to assess as to why the topmost Islamic authority in Syria cautioned the Indian Muslims and their madrassa not to pay heed to ‘external calls of Jihad from Wahhabis’ and why there should be a serious deliberation of all religious heads on this issue to safeguard India.

In fact, Wahhabism is not a mainstream Islamic sect like Sunni or Shia. Rather, it is an extremist ideology based on an exclusivist takfirist theology propounded by the medieval theologian, Sheikh Ibn Taimiyah and promulgated by the 18th century orthodox Islamist ideologue, Sheikh Ibn Abdul Wahhab Najdi. In his celebrated work in Arabic, “Kitab al-Tawhid’ (book on Monotheism), Najdi wrote: “Islam of a man can never be accepted, even if he abandons polytheism, unless he shows hostility towards the disbelievers and infidels, not only in his/her words but also in actions”……. “Kufr and Islam are opposed to each other. The progress of one is possible only at the expense of the other and co-existences between these two contradictory faiths is unthinkable”……“The honour of Islam lies in insulting Kufr (disbelief) and Kafir (disbeliever). One who respects the Kafirs, dishonours the Muslims. To respect them does not merely mean honouring them and assigning them a seat of honour in any assembly, but it also implies keeping company with them or showing considerations to them. They should be kept at an arm’s length like dogs………”

Such exclusivist writings created the virulent theology of takfirism— declaring a Muslim apostate or beyond the pale of Islam—and thus justifying the wanton killings of innocent civilians across the world. An objective reading of Islamic history unravels this widespread global and historical phenomenon.

The 14th century radical Islamist jurist Ibn Taimiyah’s famous Fatwa of Mardin, which is mentioned in 28th part of his book, Majmu’a al-Fatawa, justified the massacre of the non-combatant civilians of Mardin—a town located on the border between Syria and Turkey. The ISIS’ mouthpiece Dabiq (Issue 6, page 40) has also quoted this pernicious fatwa of Ibn Taymiyyah as theological justification for assassination of the moderate Muslim scholars and civilians declared ‘apostates’ in its view.

But in a sharp rebuttal to this ferocious fatwa of Mardin, the mainstream Muslim scholars, particularly the Hanafi and Sufi scholars of his time refuted Ibn Taimiyah. They countered one more fatwa issued by Ibn Taymiyyah which encouraged those engaged in “jihad ma’alkuffar” (war against the infidels).

Now, contrast Ibn Taimiyah with the present-day chief Islamist jurist and the ideological icon of the Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood)—whose fatwas are authoritative for the global Wahhabi-Salafi community—the Qatar-based Salafist cleric, Shaikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi. In fact, Taimiyah’s fatwa of Mardin is synonymous with Qaradawi’s clerical call to kill the Syrian armed forces, civilians, religious clerics and even the common citizens which he calls ‘ignorants’ and “illiterates”. He blatantly states that it is permitted [in religion] to target “anyone who supports the Syrian regime” (2).

Interestingly, Qaradawi is the first contemporary Islamist jurist who justified suicide bombing as a war tactic in ‘certain circumstances’. He gave this fatwa in his worldwide exposure via Al-Jazeera television through his weekly program “Sharia and Life” (al-Shari’awal-Hayat). Qaradawi’s fatwas justifying the violent jihad and suicide bombing provided theological legitimacy to those fighting the Kuffar (infidels) and Murtaddin (apostates). His fatwas also promoted and legitimized martyrdom operations referring to them as “a higher form of jihad for the sake of Allah”, as Al Arabiya reported (3).

Notably, the Qatar-based Salafist jurist, Qardawi opined that “he was not alone in believing suicide bombings as legitimate form of self-defence for people who have no aircraft or tanks”. “Hundreds of other Islamic scholars are of the same opinion”, he said.

The equivalent of Al-Qardawi in Turkey Sheikh Hayrettin Karaman, an Islamic jurist also known as ‘Erdoğan’s chief fatwa-supporter’, has approved of the torture, abuse and the mass purge of the innocent civilians in Turkey. Karaman has issued several religious edicts (fatwas) endorsing the wrongdoings of the Turkish President and absolving his responsibilities. He wrote several articles in the Erdoğanist newspaper, Yeni Şafak declaring the purge and persecution of the Turkish civilians as “lesser crimes” (4).

Much like Yusuf al-Qardawi in Qatar and Sheikh Karaman in Turkey, the political theologians and Takfirist-Wahhabi preachers in India have also provided untenable theological underpinnings justifying certain acts of terror. They have long been calling for ‘jihad-e-Kashmir’ and ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ (jihadist expedition against India) through the religious sermons. The staunch Wahhabi preacher in Kashmir, Maulana Mushtaq Veeri regularly delivers sermons filled with an extremist provocation in the Valley’s Salafi mosques. Scores of his hate speeches are catching the imagination of the young Kashmiris towards Islamic State. Similar to his exclusivist underpinnings, the popular Salafist cleric in Malappuram, Shaikh Shamsudheen Fareed has also promulgated an extremist religious rhetoric in Kerala. They are on the path of Zakir Naik, the controversial Islamist preacher banned in India, who is reported to have made several notorious speeches justifying suicide bombing ‘a war tactic’ (5).

Given the Grand Syrian Mufti’s word of warning about the “external calls of Jihad from Wahhabis”, Indian government should act cautiously to safeguard the internal security. As an urgent task in this context, political Islamist outfits in South India pledging an allegiance to the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood must be scrutinised. The Kerala-based radical Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) is a fresh case in point. PFI, which claims to be an NGO, pledges an allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan-ul-Muslimin). It has also alleged links with terror activities like chopping of a Christian professor’s hand in Kerala’s Idukki and running the ‘Islamic State Al-Hindi Module’. A case was busted in which PFI planned to target prominent people and places in South India by involving the outfit Islamic State Al-Hindi, as the NIA report on government table revealed (6).

Over the past few years, the Muslim Brotherhood’s movement, inspired by Sheikh al-Qaradawi, has been massively funded and supported in India’s Salafist circles particularly in Kerala and the Malabar coastline. This has systematically been pursued in a bid to indoctrinate the gullible Keralite Muslim youths into the theocracy of the two political Islamist ideologues: (1) Syed Qutub, the Egyptian theologian and the leading member of the Ikhwan who conceptualised other insurgent Islamist outfits in Egypt and (2) Maulana Abul A’ala Maudoodi whose writings politicized the Islamic doctrines and practices to an extent that he viewed every spiritual belief and act of Islam with a political outlook. Such an extremist ideology which turned Islam from being a peace-based spiritual faith into a religion of political dominion has created chaos in the West Asia. But more deplorably, now it appears to play havoc in India at the behest of Qatar.

Regrettably, the Muslim Brotherhood continues to woo the gullible Muslim youths in South India. But while the radical thoughts of the Ikhwan are spawning across the South Asia, the mainstream Indian Muslims are worried about the vulnerable pluralistic ethos they pride themselves in. Given this, it is the pressing need of the time that India strengthens the spiritual Muslim centers like Khanqahs and Dargahs (Sufi shrines) as quality education centres, so they can rescue the young and impressionable Muslim minds from being misguided. Given the meagre resources they have, they cannot undertake this gigantic task. But do they have the option to do nothing, just stand and stare?

(1)    Source: alarabiya.net/articles/2007/11/08/41413.html)
(2)    Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-06GMB8Fbs)
(3)    Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2017/06/09/The-reasons-Qaradawi-on-the-top-of-Egypt-s-most-wanted-list.html)
(4)    Source: stockholmcf.org/erdogans-spiritual-guide-approved-torture-and-abuse-in-turkey/
(5)    Source: indiatoday.intoday.in/story/zakir-naik-suicide-bombing-islamic-preacher/1/716209.html
(6)    Source: indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/nia-report-on-popular-front-of-indias-terror-links-on-government-table-4839296/

Regular columnist with New Age Islam, Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a scholar of Classical Arabic and Islamic sciences, cultural analyst and researcher in Media and Communication Studies. He can be reached at grdehlavi@gmail.com

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

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(Photo: Jordi Bernabeu Farrús / Flickr)

The Middle East today is enduring a replay of World War II — with the Islamic State in the role of Nazi Germany.

Having seized much of Europe and parts of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany reached the peak of its expansion by the fall of 1942. Then, stopped at Stalingrad and unable to overwhelm Britain, the Nazis began to fall back, and the war turned into a race between the Soviet troops marching from the east and the Allied soldiers surging from the west. After the war, as a result of the competition between these two sets of armed forces, Europe would remain divided for the next half century.

The Islamic State likewise reached its peak expansion in mid-2014 when it controlled large chunks of Iraq and Syria. It has experienced a rise and fall even more precipitous than the Nazis’. By mid-2016, a mere two years later, it had already lost 45 percent of its territory in Syria and 20 percent of its territory in Iraq.

Today, with the fall of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the Islamic State has dwindled to a swath of land around the border of the two countries. Once a “state” of 11 million people with an economy worth about $1 billion a year — the size of Great Britain, the population of Greece, the economic output of Gambia — ISIS is now little more than the several thousand fighters desperately fending off attacks from all sides. From the west, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad is attempting to retake as much of Syria as it can. From the east, Iraqi forces and Kurdish peshmerga operating under the cover of U.S. air support have been steadily ejecting the would-be caliphate from Iraqi territory.

In both Iraq and Syria, significant divisions exist among the anti-ISIS fighters. Indeed, the lands encompassing Iraq and Syria would be lucky to experience the frozen hatreds of a Cold War in the wake of the fall of the house of ISIS. The shrinking of the caliphate will more likely lead to a new level of fighting — over the future structure of both Iraq and Syria and, more ominously, the dispensation of the region as a whole.

In Syria
It not only feels like 1945 in Syria, it looks that way as well. After months of saturation bombing, the cities that ISIS once controlled look like Germany after it had been reduced to rubble in the final months of World War II, as the Allies and the Soviets tightened their vise grip on the Nazis.

Thanks to the help of both Russia and Iran and to its ruthless aerial campaign, the Syrian government has managed to regain 60 percent of the country. Syrian forces have continuously bombed civilian targets, such as hospitals. Of the 1,373 attacks on civilian infrastructure in 2016, for instance, Syrian and Russian forces were responsible for 1,198. Last month, September, registered the largest number of casualties for 2017, with nearly 1,000 civilians killed, including over 200 children, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Assad regime has specialized in the comparatively low-tech barrel bombs, which maximize civilian casualties, dropping nearly 13,000 of them in 2016.

The U.S.-led coalition, meanwhile, has been equally brutal in its effort to dislodge the Islamic State from its capital of Raqqa. The city now looks like Dresden after the firebombing of World War II, as the Russian government has rightly pointed out. According to Syrian activists, over 1,000 civilians died in the bombing.

The third leg of brutality in Syria is Sunni extremism. True, ISIS is on the decline. But other militant forces aspire to kick Assad aside, keep the Kurds down, and beat back the Americans, Russians, and Iranians. After several name changes, the latest collection of al-Qaeda-like factions in Syria — which may or may not maintain a link to al-Qaeda itself — is the Levant Liberation Committee (Tahrir al-Sham or HTS). With its ISIS rival shrinking daily, HTS could emerge as the insurgency of choice for those who hate Assad as well as anything associated with the Americans.

Large tracts of ISIS territory in Syria were thinly populated desert, but the caliphate possessed some jewels in their crown. This weekend, on the heels of the liberation of Raqqa, U.S.-backed militias took over the Islamic State’s largest oil field. Syrian government forces were reportedly within a few miles of the strategic asset, but were pushed back by ISIS fighters. The Syrian Democratic Forces that took over the Omar oil field are led by Kurds, but some of the soldiers are also Arab. Although the SDF as a whole is putatively fighting for a secular democratic Syria, the Kurds are more pragmatically trying to gain leverage to safeguard their gains in the north where they have established the de facto autonomous region of Rojava.

Hatred of ISIS has been the lowest common denominator for a broad range of actors in Syria, from American neocons and Syrian generals to Kurdish militias and al-Qaeda sympathizers to Kremlin geopoliticians and Hezbollah. ISIS has been a knife stuck deep into Syria. There’s no argument that the knife is life threatening. But remove it, and Syria risks bleeding out.

In Iraq
On his recent swing through the Persian Gulf, where he failed to get Qatar and Saudi Arabia to kiss and make up, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also made some especially ill-conceived comments about Iraq.

“Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against Daesh and ISIS is coming to a close, those militias need to go home,” he said.

There aren’t any Iranian militias in Iraq. The Popular Mobilization Forces that have played a major role in pushing the Islamic State out of Iraq are largely Shiite, but they also contain Sunnis and Christians. Many of the brigades in this coalition force have links to Iran, but at least one major unit so far has been incorporated into the Iraqi army. In other words, the so-called “Iranian militias” are already home. They’re Iraqis, after all.

Tillerson also said, “Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home, and allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their lives with the help of their neighbors.” Was Tillerson announcing that all U.S. soldiers currently in Iraq — 5,262 according to the Pentagon, but possibly as high as 7,000 — are about to go home? If so, everyone in the media and the U.S. government seems to have missed this second “mission accomplished” announcement.

Thanks largely to the United States and its earlier decision to invade and occupy the country, Iraq faces the same kind of fragmentation problem as Syria. Iraqis have divided loyalties. Now that the acute threat of ISIS has passed, the fissures in Iraqi society are once again widening.

Consider the ongoing conflict between Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad. The residents of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq went to the polls last month and overwhelmingly endorsed independence. The central government immediately went on the offensive, putting economic pressure on the wayward province and sending army units to seize the disputed oil-rich region around the city of Kirkuk. With ISIS on the decline, anti-Kurdish sentiment can unite the rest of Iraq. As Juan Cole points out, the Kurdish move brought out Iraqi nationalism even in the Shiite militias that helped the Iraqi army retake Kirkuk.

In retrospect, Kurdistan President Mahmoud Barzani’s bid to use the independence referendum to boost his own political fortunes was, according to veteran Kurdish politician Mahmoud Osman, a “miscalculation.” It may revive Iraqi nationalism and thwart Kurdish aspirations. Or it could trigger more centrifugal forces. With ISIS on its way out and the U.S. military presence relatively modest, Iraqis may well turn back to their post-invasion preoccupation of fighting each other to the point of the country’s dissolution.

After ISIS
The war against ISIS is like a matryoshka “nesting doll” from hell. The campaign against the caliphate is inset in the larger Syrian civil war and the Iraqi federal conflict. These are in turn nested within a larger confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And this regional tug-of-war is itself part of an even larger competition for influence between the United States and Russia.

Now, imagine giving this matryoshka doll to a six-year-old child prone to tantrums. Enter Donald Trump. He has done just about everything he can to make a bad situation worse short of destroying the doll with nuclear weapons. He has antagonized the Iranians at every turn, encouraged the worst tendencies of the Saudis, done little to keep Iraq together, made no effort to push the warring sides in Syria back to the negotiating table, and pursued a woefully inconsistent policy toward Russia.

Yes, the looming defeat of ISIS is to be cheered, but the costs have been huge. There’s the enormous loss of civilian life and the destruction of ancient cities. There’s the uptick in ISIS attacks abroad. Iraq remains fragile, though the Kurds have offered to freeze their independence vote. Syria is no closer to an end to its civil war, though more rounds of peace talks are set to begin shortly. Human rights violations by the Assad government continue, though the first trials have taken place in Europe to hold those responsible for those violations.

Most importantly, no one is tackling the nested conflicts in the region. The first step is to take the matryoshka doll out of Donald Trump’s hands. Give him something else to play with, perhaps another tour of his favorite campaign stops in the United States. Then let some real adults — the UN, the EU, Jimmy Carter? — grapple with the post-ISIS realities of the Middle East.
 

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‘Why’? Is the one question that is uppermost in one’s heart and mind? Why the violence and war? the death and destruction that has ravaged Syria for more than six years now? A conflict which has left millions displaced, desperately seeking security in safer parts of the country or fleeing as refugees to neighbouring countries after braving many odds. Why? Why? Why?  Why is Syria in the doldrums today? Why have millions of children become a lost generation? Why is the economy in a shambles? And numerous without a livelihood? There are no easy, black-and-white answers. Most are aware that there are powerful vested interests who would like the conflict to continue. The tragedy however, is that the ordinary Syrian citizen is the one who continues to suffer. But as one journeys in the midst of devastation, one cannot but pinpoint some other dimensions:
 
Beauty
Syria is a country of amazing beauty! As one traverses the hilly slopes of the Al-Khafroun one is struck by the sheer grandeur of the region. At a distance is the picturesque and historic town of Safita: a city on a hill. Beautiful orchards with fruit-laden orange and apricot trees and vast expanses of olive trees dot the country-side. The road to Damascus from Homs has a world of difference: rugged, barren hills, with large tracts of desert-land. Syria is rich in flora: flowers everywhere are in full bloom. The Syrians consider the Jasmine as their national flower; but there are a variety of others including rare orchids. Syria has it all: just beautiful!
 
Faith
Faith is palpable among the Syrians. The muezzin’s call to pray is loud and clear. Most cars and taxis have either a masbaha or a rosary dangling from the front rear-view mirrors. It is quite normal to find a Syrian fingering a masbaha whilst doing business or just walking down the street. Old Damascus has several Churches and mosques alongside. The main street displays several vinyl banners welcoming the new Melkite Catholic Patriarch. At the House of Ananias (where St Paul was converted and baptized) on Straight Street a group of people are in deep prayer. On the Feast of St. Thomas, the Apostle of India at Bab Tuma (the Gate of Thomas) one cannot help but feel an aura of the place, from where it is believed that St. Thomas left for the shores of India.
                                                                  
Inspiration
Fr. Frans Van der Lugt, the Dutch Jesuit was killed in Homs on April 7th 2014.An iconic figure he was a source of inspiration and strength to many. Today he continues to live on, in their hearts and lives. He was deeply spiritual; a real bridge between persons, touching and impacting on their lives in a very profound way Frans loved nature; his hikes are still very much talked about. 

He ensured that everyone: Muslim and Christian; old and young were welcome at the Jesuit Centre in Homs. This continues today. He lived among his people; took a visible and vocal stand for them and ultimately he had to pay the price! At his graveside one only experiences a serene peace and the inspiration to do much more.
 
 
Resilience
Sunday 2^nd July was one of those violent days in Syria. The people woke up to three explosions that rocked Damascus City; the one in the Tahrir Square area of the city was particularly severe: leaving about 19 dead, several others injured and with much destruction in the vicinity. It was the first working day after the holidays for the Eid festival. By early afternoon however, there was an apparent air of ‘normalcy’ in several parts of the city. The well-known Shaalan Street was bustling with activity late evening: with the eateries rather crowded and the shoppers on a spree. People from all walks of life: children, women and men; young and old, visibly from different cultural and religious backgrounds thronged the street. The resilience of the people is remarkable, inspite of a reality which make their lives consistently insecure and unsafe.
 
Hope
There are numerous stories of hope in Syria. Ordinary people who want to live in peace and harmony; who want the war and violence to stop immediately. The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Syria is one such organisation that enkindles hope in the lives of thousands who are affected.JRS does phenomenal work especially in education, child protection, livelihood training, medical support and being in the midst of the most affected. The field kitchen in Aleppo provides nutritional food to thousands of the most needy. The JRS team reaches out to those affected at great risk. The Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa’s Sisters) care for the destitute: those who have nowhere to go. Beacons of hope everywhere!
 
Joy
The children who frequent the JRS Centre in Homs have brought their parents along for an afternoon of fun and games! It is a delight to watch the expressions of joy on their faces. At another JRS Centre ninth graders celebrate their accomplishment. An elderly lady, who has suffered from the trauma of displacement, insists that we listen to her reading and to see that she can now write. She is effusive about the programme which has been providing her the necessary literacy skills. A ten year girl comes running up just to say how happy she is to come to a place (the Albert Hurtado Centre in Jaramana, Rural Damascus) which is like a second home for her.
 
Rebuild
To ‘rebuild’ is like a catch word in Syria today- and urgently needed. As one leaves the country towards Lebanon, the billboards along the way speak about the need to rebuild Syria and of a forthcoming Exhibition to be held in September (www.re-buildsyria.com) the regularization of commercial activity is perhaps an important step in helping restore Syria’s multi-cultural and pluralistic society.
 
So as the world still pursues the elusive answer to the tragedy of Syria today and the lack of political will to ensure peace and stability in the region, one can certainly take consolation from the fact that there is a wealth of values that still thrive in the hearts and lives of the people.
                                                                                                                               
* (Fr Cedric Prakash sj is a human rights activist and is currently based in Lebanon and engaged with the Jesuit Refugee Service(JRS) in the Middle East on advocacy and   communications. He can be contacted on cedricprakash@gmail.com)             
 

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