A fatwa from a Qatari-owned online portal has been widely circulated by Egyptian press this week after it called for the destruction of pharaonic monuments on the grounds that they are contrary to Islam.

The edict, issued by Islam Web, was picked up by several independent Egyptian news outlets, such as Youm 7 and Al-Fagr. It suggested the destruction of the historic monuments was a “religious duty” that Egyptians must fulfill.

But Egyptian newspapers carrying the story failed to notice the fatwa was first issued in December 2012. It has nevertheless sparked prime-time talk show discussions in Egypt.

The fatwa, which had been issued in response to a user’s question to the Islam Web’s administrator, had stated: “The demolition of the pyramids and the sphinx is a religious duty,” before referring to the monuments as “idols.”

Islam Web is affiliated to the Qatari ministry of endowments, with Doha’s government website advising users seeking online fatwas to “enter the official website of Fatwa Center on Islam Web.”

The portal has previously been under the radar following a fatwa issued in 2006 permitting the burning of people to death. The edict was titled: “The Burning of Ias bin Abdul Yalil by Abu Bakr” which visited a historic case study to conclude that burning people as a form of punishment is permissible.

But last month, the fatwa was reportedly removed from the site and retracted hours after Islamic State militants burned a Jordanian pilot alive.

Islam Web has also attracted controversy for issuing a fatwa that legitimizes insulting Christianity.

Source:  arabnews

An unnamed U.S. intelligence official confirmed that there are a dozen-plus ISIS jihadists from Iraq and Syria operating inside Libya, but the U.S. lacks the “targeting authority” to go after them, reported Catherine Herridge on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

Moreover, counterterrorism sources told Herridge, chief intelligence correspondent for Fox News, that a new ISIS support base near the port city of Derna in eastern Libya is providing “tangible assistance” through training camps.

The new support base is supplying ISIS with an increasing number of Libyan jihadists to use as fighters in Iraq and Syria, explained Herridge.

She identified one of the alleged ISIS leaders in the North African country as Abdelhakim Belhadj, an al-Qaeda-linked Libyan national who was considered by the Obama administration and some members of Congress as a “willing partner” in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

“Now, it’s alleged he is firmly aligned with ISIS and supports the training camps in eastern Libya,” revealed Herridge.

“Critics say Libya’s new position as a safe haven for ISIS reflects one of the most significant policy failures of the so-called Arab Spring,” she added.

U.S. officials have expressed concern over ISIS’s expansion into Libya.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Libya is a “magnet” for terrorism.

“From an intelligence perspective, we, I think, clearly need to step up our game from an ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] perspective, where we can operate,” Clapper told lawmakers. “I think there’s a lot of merit to partnering with the French, who have sort of staked out their claim in the Sahel region of North Africa.”

Libya has been engulfed in unrest since Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 with the support of the Obama administration. Various tribes, militias, and political factions are competing for power in the North African nation.

Some Libyan officials have warned that ISIS may use Libya to stage attacks against Europe, namely Italy.
The Italian Navy is patrolling the coast of Libya.

Two suicide bombers killed Houthi fighters in central Yemen on Tuesday, security sources said, highlighting volatility in a country torn by rivalries between political, tribal and sectarian groups.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but it resembled bombings conducted by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the most militant groups that has been battling the Shi’ite Houthis since they captured its central Yemen strongholds last year.

The sources said at least 15 other members of the group, officially known as Ansarullah, were wounded in the attack on a youth centre turned into a militia outpost in the city of al-Baydah in central Yemen.

They said one of the two suicide bombers was shot dead by the Houthis when he opened the gate of the youth centre for the second bomber, who drove his vehicle inside the compound killing two militiamen and wounding 15 other people.

Violence has spread and intensified in Yemen since the Iranian-backed Houthis captured the capital Sanaa on Sept. 21 and fanned out south and east seizing traditional Sunni areas.

Yemen plunged deeper into political turmoil in January after the Houthis seized the presidential palace and forced the Western-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government to resign.

Political factions have been in talks to try to find a way out of the crisis. The talks were complicated after Hadi fled the house arrest imposed on him by the Houthis in Sanaa and moved to the southern city of Aden, which is outside the group’s control, where he reclaimed the presidency.

Once an obscure religious movement in Yemen’s north seeking greater autonomy, the Houthis have established themselves as power-brokers and have sent their militiamen into the west and centre of the country, far beyond their traditional redoubts.

In a separate attack, three government soldiers were killed and two were wounded on Tuesday when a bomb tore through their patrol in al-Qatan city in the eastern Hadramout province, another area where AQAP operates, local media reported citing provincial officials.

Last week, Iran held multi-day naval exercises in the Persian Gulf in which a mock US aircraft carrier was attacked using a variety of missiles and speed boats.

The drills, named the “Great Prophet 9,” in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, was not only covered by Iran’s print and online media but also received extensive coverage on national television.

The head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Mohammad Ali Jaffair praised the exercises, as did 220 members of parliament in a joint statement.

Thanking the national television, news agencies and newspapers for their coverage, Sharif claimed, “This is the first time in our exercises that a psychological and media operation was conducted within a military” context. 

He wrote that Iran has conducted a number of drills, exercises and training missions before without sharing them with the media in order to prevent their “battle techniques and new weapons” from being exposed to foreign countries. 

However, “under special conditions, with the request from the National Security Council and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the commanders of the IRGC,” information can be shared with the public.

According to Sharif, in two of the three days of the Great Prophet 9 drills, “parts of the naval, ground and air capabilities” of Iran were shown. Given the tensions in the Middle East between Iran and regional countries, particularly Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf, Sharif noted that the exercises was not aimed at them.

“The drill was designed on the likely scenario of the military behavior of non-regional countries and sworn enemies of Iran,” he wrote. At the moment, both the United States and France have aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

Addressing the regional concerns and tensions with neighboring countries, Sharif clarified, “so that American psychological warfare does not become active in creating Iran-phobia within regional countries,” the operation used a replica ​of the type of aircraft carrier that regional countries do not have access to and only countries outside of the region use.

According to Sharif, the exercises sent a “clear and strong message” to Iran’s enemies to not continue their insistence that all options stay on the table. Western officials have repeatedly said during the nuclear talks with Iran and the possible collapse of the talks that all options are on the table, meaning including the military option against Iran.

Sharif added that the Great Prophet 9 military exercises “warmed the hearts of the people and the officials of the country, especially the nuclear negotiators, to defend the country’s rights with strength.”

According to Fars News, new arms were introduced in these exercises. IRGC Navy Commander Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi said, “The entry of this new arm has a very determining role in increasing our naval power to confront threats against the Islamic Revolution and more specifically the Great Satan America.”

Source: Al Monitor

Russia and Egypt have agreed to hold a naval exercise in the Mediterranean and an anti-terrorist exercise of their rapid reaction forces, the Defense Ministry’s press service said, according to TASS.

As it has been explained, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and the Egyptian Minister of Defense and Military Production Sedki Sobhi reviewed the results of military cooperation last year and considered the outlook for cooperation this year.

“The parties agreed to go ahead with the practice of inviting Egyptian military to Russian military exercises in the capacity of observers and also to hold a naval exercise in the Mediterranean and an anti-terrorist exercise of rapid reaction forces,” the Defense Ministry’s press service has said.

Shoigu invited his counterpart to delegate Egyptian military to the international army sports games and the forum Army-2015, to be held in Russia.

“The two men also discussed international and regional security matters,” the Defense Ministry said.

Sobhi arrived in Russia on February 28. On Wednesday, March 4 he will meet with Shoigu again at the first meeting of the bilateral commission for military-technical cooperation.

Salafi members in Upper Maoca village in northeastern Bosnia have denied allegations that they are connected with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or  Daesh — the Arabic acronym for the militant group also known asISIL.

Upper Maoca, situated 25 kilometers from Brcko town and with a population of about 220 inhabitants, has become perceived by many Bosnians as a center for the recruitment of fighters seeking to fight on the battlefields in Iraq and Syria to support Daesh.

But many villagers told The Anadolu Agency they rejected the notion.

Villager Mersed Cekic said: “Anyone who knows Maoca is aware that we do not have an airport, bus station, railway station or port.

“What kind of miracle will fly people from Maoca to Syria?”

‘People misinformed’
Cekic criticized media in general for not adequately informing the public on current events.

He said: “Maybe people have been misinformed by media — where is coverage about the Croats who are traveling to Ukrainian battlefields or Serbs who are supporting the Russian army, or that of a Jew from Brcko who boasted on his website about killing Palestinian children?

“The media does not report much about all that.”

A force of special police raided the village on Feb. 5 after Federal TV published a video showing the Daesh flag and insignia flying from one of the houses in the village.

Villager Edis Bosni told AA: “We have no links with Syria and Iraq, except that they are our brothers in Islam and that we pray God to resolve their situation in the best, painless way.”

‘Great support’
Bosnic said the phenomenon of people traveling to foreign battlefields had been topical for centuries — not just now.

Bosnic stated: “It would be unfair to reduce it to one region or one nation. When Bosnia was at war, people were coming here supporting some ideology or what they thought was right.

“Serbs also had great support from Russians, Greeks, Bulgarians and other nations and Croats had support in Bosnia.”

Hajrudin Ribic from Upper Maoca said he had no information about those who had allegedly travelled to Syria and Iraq.

“I do not have any information of happenings in Syria and Iraq. Information available in the media, for me, is not credible because I do not trust the reports at all, nor those published on television or online,” said Ribic.

‘Devil in the house’
Cekic said Upper Maoca villagers did not have television sets in their homes.

He said: “That is why I do not have TV. Our opinion, according to Islam, is that it is the devil in the house.
“Why? Because children and adults will find immoral content on it.”

“Basically, Islam forbids ugly life. It prohibits vulgar life. It is known in Shariah what Allah has forbidden, and we preserve it. We try to stick to it in our homes with our families. And one of these devils is television,” said Cekic.

Other village inhabitant, Elvis Nukic, said the flag that was shown on TV had been deliberately planted.

“We do not represent extreme views. I think it was planted by those who do not live with us. They planted insignia and the flag. We have nothing to do with that,” said Nukic.

Source:  aa.com.tr

Mediated by a member of the opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the talks between al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front (ANF) and Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt were successful, culminating in an agreement regarding the Druze community in the Syrian city of Idlib. The agreement reportedly requires the local Druze to convert to Sunni Islam and demolish their shrines, in return for ANF suspending Sharia-sanctioned punishments against them.

Walid Jumblatt’s declaration that ANF is not a terrorist group has not helped protect the Druze community in Syria and Lebanon, just as the support voiced by some Syrians for Daesh’s “other face” has not helped protect them from the ANF’s brutality, murder, and displacement. Indeed, Sunni Muslims have been targeted and tormented by the radical jihadi groups as much as — if not more than — other religious communities and tribes in Syria and Iraq.

Though Jumblatt has so far succeeded in averting the execution of the kidnapped Lebanese soldiers (the Druze soldiers) by exonerating ANF — which is proving adept at exploiting internal Lebanese political dynamics — the efforts of the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) have failed to dissuade the group from trying to forcibly convert the Druze in Jabal al-Summaq, northern Syria, to the Wahhabi brand of Islam.

Jumblatt previously called on the Druze to “return to Islam.” He has spared no occasion to proclaim that ANF is part of the fabric of the Syrian society, while PSP minister Wael Abu Faour said two weeks ago in a television that the al-Qaeda affiliate “includes doctors and engineers” in its ranks. Similarly, Walid Jumblatt has jumped at every opportunity over the past two weeks to try to dissuade Druze religious leaders in Lebanon from speaking out about the plight of their coreligionists.

A month and a half ago, Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Tunisi, ANF’s emir to Jabal al-Summaq, gave 14 Druze villages until February 1 to demolish their shrines and renounce their faith, or face the consequences. The residents of the villages complied, and forged an agreement with ANF representatives to that effect. The people of these 14 villages proceeded to demolish their shrines, and agreed to let ANF imams lead them in prayers in their temples, which were converted to mosques. But ANF was not satisfied. A number of its fighters ransacked the Druze shrines, while al-Tunisi vowed to enforce full-blown Sharia provisions in their villages.

Only Sheikh Ali Zine al-Din, the head of the Druze Irfan Foundation in Lebanon, denounced what happened publicly. This outrage among the ranks of Druze clerics put pressure on Jumblatt. This, in addition to the issue of the kidnapped Druze soldiers, whose families threatened to escalate their protests and to react fiercely if something happens to their relatives, compelled the head of the PSP to act.

Jumblatt visited Turkey two weeks ago. It is no longer a secret that Turkish intelligence services coordinate with ANF in northern Syria, just as the Israeli intelligence services do in southern Syria. Jumblatt, who failed in the past to obtain guarantees from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the West, to protect the Druze, heard the same thing this time, and was told that there could be no guarantees.

The head of the PSP contacted the SNC for help. According to reports from Jabal al-Summaq, Abu Udai, an SNC member residing in the UAE, became involved in the affair as a mediator. Abu Udai visited Jabal al-Summaq with an ANF sharia judge from Saramda (north of Jabal al-Summaq), and had lunch in the town of Kaftin with village leaders. Abu Udai carried an acceptance by Jumblatt that the Druze convert and demolish their shrines, in return for ANF protection.

Jumblatt, meanwhile, was keen to omit the issue of the Druze community in Idlib from all discussions. Jumblatt met with members of the Druze Spiritual Council, in Beirut, to tell them to stop speaking out about the plight of the Druze in Idlib. Jumblatt told the Druze leaders that the community in Idlib would solve its problems on its own, as one participant told Al-Akhbar.

In addition, Jumblatt tasked his son Timor and a number of PSP ministers to visit Druze religious leaders in Lebanon including Sheikh Amin al-Aridi, to brief them on the developments and the agreement reached with ANF. Naturally, the Druze and their leaders want the “agreement” to succeed.

However, al-Tunisi did not want to break the rule established in the past few years, namely, that terrorist groups do not keep their promises, as one source in March 8-affiliated Druze groups put it. Indeed, reports indicate a meeting was held between al-Tunisi and village leaders in which the former said he would continue to seek to force comprehensive Sharia provisions on the Druze. The residents fear things could deteriorate further with al-Tunisi asking their men to shave their moustaches and leave their beards, or worse, to offer their women for marriage to ANF fighters.

South Lebanon and South Syria
Jumblatt’s overtures to ANF are not just about these issues. A friend of the PSP leader from March 8 believes Jumblatt and his team are convinced ANF is going to take full control of the Syrian south by the end of 2015. At a lunch attended by Wael Abu Faour and security leaders in Rashaya in mid-December 2014, Abu Faour reportedly said, “Our information indicates ANF will control the Syrian south and Mount Hermon with the end of 2015, bringing them to the border with the central and western Bekaa, as well as Rashaya and Hasbaya.”

Instead of preparing to fight ANF, Jumblatt gave PSP members in Rashaya and the “Popular Committees” in the southwest Damascus countryside orders to conceal their weapons because there was no cause for concern, according to both PSP and March 8 sources in Rashaya.

Moreover, Lebanese security sources say that Mohammad al-Numani, a leader in the Ahrah al-Sham Movement who was kidnapped by Baathists in December 2014 in the Bekaa, and handed over to Syrian intelligence services, was assisted by PSP members in Rashaya in his efforts to enter Lebanon. Security sources, however, deny that this was done at the orders of the PSP.

According to Syrian security sources that spoke to Al-Akhbar, Numani confessed that he was trying to establish cells for his group in the central and western Bekaa, to operate in coordination with ANF fighters in Kfir Yaboos, Yaboos, and Zabadani and open a gap from the Lebanese side, as well as to attack Syrian and Lebanese army positions on both sides of the borders and link the battlefronts from the Damascus road to Mount Hermon.

Israel, Jordan, and Al-Nusra
The Israeli and Jordanian intelligence services are not absent from the general Druze landscape. While Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah alluded to the alliance between ANF and Israel in Quneitra and Daraa in a recent speech, Speaker Nabih Berri went beyond that in a parliamentary meeting held a month ago.

Berri told MPs present at the meeting that Israel was working hard to coax the Druze into an alliance, and establish a buffer zone in northern Golan. Israel, Berri said, claimed this would protect the Druze from ANF terrorists, who, the speaker said, are also backed by Israel. Berri reportedly told the MPs he had contacted Jumblatt, who said he would visit Jordan to inquire about these reports.

In parallel, the Jordanian intelligence is said to have invited a number of Druze religious leaders from Syria and Lebanon to visit Amman routinely, to meet with Palestinian Druze collaborating with Israel. The purpose is to encourage the Druze in south Syria to collaborate with Israel and abandon the Syrian state and the new resistance movement emerging in Mount Hermon.

Source:  Al-Akhbar

Iraqi forces closed in on Tikrit Tuesday, their progress slowed by jihadist snipers and booby traps, on the second day of Baghdad’s largest operation yet against the Islamic State group.

The government has mobilised a 30,000-strong force for the push to retake Tikrit made up of Shiite militiamen and Sunni tribesmen as well as troops and police.

Outnumbered and outgunned, the jihadists who have held Tikrit since June 2014 have been resorting to guerrilla tactics to disrupt the government’s three-pronged advance.

“They are using urban warfare and snipers, so we are advancing in a cautious and delicate way, and we need more time,” a lieutenant general on the ground told AFP.

Iraqi forces are moving on Tikrit from three directions, with units targeting the towns of Al-Alam and Ad-Dawr to the north and south, while another large contingent drives on the city from the east.

The jihadist group announced in a radio bulletin Tuesday that a US national from its ranks had carried out a suicide attack against Iraqi forces near Samarra, the other main city in Salaheddin province.

The attacker was referred to by his nom de guerre, Abu Dawud al-Amriki, but the claim could not be immediately verified.

The operation, the government’s largest since it started attempting to regain the ground it lost to jihadists last summer, was announced on Sunday by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Both Iraqi and Iranian media said Qassem Soleimani — the commander of the Al-Quds Force covert operations unit of Tehran’s elite Revolutionary Guards — was in Salaheddin province to help coordinate operations.

The recapture of Tikrit is of both strategic and symbolic importance.

Military commanders have said Tikrit is a stepping stone for an even more ambitious operation aimed at retaking Mosul, the large northern city which has been the main Iraq hub of IS.

Analysts said the battle for Tikrit, which the government has already attempted and failed to retake several times, would be a test of how effectively such diverse fighting units work together.

“The battle for Tikrit and other towns in Salaheddin province will provide a mini-preview of what awaits further to the north in Mosul,” the Soufan Group intelligence consultancy said in a brief.

Tikrit and its surroundings are Sunni and some local tribes have been accused of involvement in the massacre of hundreds of new, mostly Shiite, recruits at a nearby base called Speicher in June.

The UN warned that operations “must be conducted with the utmost care to avoid civilian casualties, and with full respect for fundamental human rights principles and humanitarian law.”

A senior US defence official had suggested last month that the Mosul offensive should begin in April or May, a move that irked Iraqi commanders who argued the timing was theirs to decide.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama’s envoy for the fight against IS stressed there was no timeline.
“The point about Mosul, or the point about any aspect of the counter-offensive, is less about the timing than about the preparation,” John Allen said.

Australia announced Tuesday it will send another 300 troops to Iraq in a joint mission with New Zealand to help prepare Iraqi forces for the fightback.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says the Kurdistan Region’s stability and security is essential to Italy.

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and his delegates visited Rome on Monday, where they were welcomed by Renzi.

Barzani thanked Italy for sending humanitarian and military aid to the Kurdistan Region and said that Renzi’s visit in 2014 showed the world that global leaders support the region.

They discussed the current situation in the Kurdistan Region, advances of the Peshmerga and the conditions for refugees and IDPs – a challenge that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is finding ever more difficult to address, with a requirement that the international community provide more aid.

Renzi reasserted that they will continue to donate military and humanitarian aid to the region.

The Italian PM joined other world leaders in thanking the Peshmerga for their actions and sacrifices in fighting Islamic State (IS). He said that Italy considers itself a friend of the Kurdish people, and recognises the region as strategically vital.

By increasing consular representation in Erbil, Renzi announced Italy is confirming the importance of the Kurdistan Region, which should be seen as becoming more stable and secure by the entire world.

Elsewhere on the agenda, the leaders discussed the relationship between Erbil and Baghdad, Mosul, how to tackle IS, and the importance of developing a more inclusive political environment in Iraq.

In addressing the situation in Syria and its impact on Iraq, it was agreed that a political solution needs to be pursued.

Source: BasNews