Libyan armed factions accused each other on Monday of launching new attacks near the country’s largest oil port, Es Sider.

Two opposing governments – the internationally recognised authorities in the east and rivals who have seized the capital, Tripoli – are fighting for control of the country.

Troops loyal to the Tripoli government opened an offensive last month to try to take Es Sider and Ras Lanuf oil ports, which have had to shut down operations.

Both sides declared partial ceasefires in the past few days to give a U.N.-sponsored dialogue a chance after a month of clashes.

Ali al-Hassi, a spokesman for an oil-protection force in Es Sider allied to the recognised prime minister, Abdullah al-Thinni, said the rival force had launched an attack on Monday.

“We confronted them with planes,” he said.

Ahmed Hadiya, a spokesman for the other side, denied there had been clashes but said Thinni’s troops had killed one of his men by firing a tank grenade.

Last month, a rocket hit an oil storage tank at Es Sider, starting a fire which damaged seven tanks and destroyed up to 1.8 million barrels of oil.

The shutdown of the two ports is a blow to Libya’s already crippled public finances. The central bank has been using up its dollar reserves to keep the country afloat.

Oil output has slumped to less than 400,000 bpd, a fifth of what Libya used to pump before the 2011 uprising.

Last week, the United Nations started talks in Geneva aimed at ending the political struggle.

Both sides have troops made up of former rebel units which helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2012.

Source: Reuters

Tehran and Moscow signed an agreement to broaden their defensive cooperation and also resolve the problem with the delivery of Russia’s S300 missile defense systems to Iran.

We sometimes read about Russian concerns over the significant role Chechens play in the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al-Nusra.

But because of restrictions by the Chinese government on the media, we rarely hear about the turmoil closely linked to the jihadist war in Iraq and Syria that takes place in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest China.

However, according to the Uighurs of Turkic origin, the area where nomadic Turks first settled is called East Turkistan. In recent years, there has been constantly increasing tension in Xinjiang/East Turkistan, which has gone largely unnoticed because of media restrictions in China.

Interestingly, the IS flames in Syria and Iraq are felt thousands of miles away in Xingjian/East Turkistan.
For the Uighurs, Islam is an important part of their lives and identity.

Huseyin Rasit Yilmaz of the Ankara-based think tank Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey told Al-Monitor that the Uighurs’ interpretation of Islam is based on “the school of Imam Maturidi,” which is identified as the most moderate and tolerant of all Islamic schools of thought.

Maturidi was an Islamic scholar who lived in the ninth century in Samarqand and is considered by the Uighurs as their godfather. Yilmaz, known for his expertise on the Uighurs, said that in recent years because of China’s oppression and increasingly effective Salafism in the region, the Uighurs are deviating from Maturidi’s peaceful and tolerant school of thought and adopting radical trends.

According to the Chinese authorities, these radical trends are considered terrorism. Chinese officials claim street incidents in the last two months, which has killed more than 200 people, are the work of Islamist terrorists who want to cut Xinjiang from China to achieve ethnic separatism.

A recent surge in the number of Uighurs traveling to Syria and Iraq to join jihad has contributed to China considering the situation a question of terror.

The Chinese government’s strong reaction to street demonstrations and determination to combat terrorism signal an intention to reinforce military measures in Xinjiang/East Turkistan. In recent days, there has been a significant increase in reports of Chinese security forces using excessive force against civilian demonstrators, of executing demonstrators in the streets without trial and of opening fire randomly on demonstrators.

Reports have started emerging in the international media of China closing down mosques in the region on security grounds, banning women from wearing the headscarf and men from growing a beard.

Seyit Tumturk, the vice president of the World Uyghur Congress, told Al-Monitor: “China is consciously hardening its policies against Uighurs. Especially the harsh crackdown on religious values that the Uighurs respect has nothing to do with combating terror. It is ethnic and cultural genocide on pretext of combating terror …” Tumturk charges that what China wants in Xinjiang/East Turkistan is not only to eliminate Salafist trends but to launch a witch hunt to eradicate everything Islamic and assimilate the Uighurs.

How do the Uighurs respond to the Chinese military actions? Yilmaz said the Uighurs who manage are leaving, claiming that every month hundreds of Uighurs are fleeing without passports.

Yilmaz added, “Some of the Uighurs who flee hope to go to other countries, mostly Turkey, where they can enjoy religious and cultural freedom. There are also hundreds of young Uighurs in the age group of 15-35 who are influenced by Salafist ideology and who do everything conceivable to go to Syria and Iraq to join the armed groups.”

Another report that gives credence to Yilmaz’s remarks is the story of more than 300 Uighurs who are detained in rough conditions in a camp in Thailand on charges of illegal entry into that country.

The words of an Uighur fighter in Syria helps further explain the situation: “Living conditions in East Turkistan are more difficult and suffocating than a war zone. When we had restrictions on speaking our own language in our land, when we couldn’t go to mosques, while our daughters are compelled to work in foreign lands far away from home, when our intelligentsia and politicians who express their opinions are tortured, we had no choice but to immigrate to Syria to be with our brothers here and live freely. Moreover, while fighting the [Bashar al-] Assad regime, we are also fighting China, which is his key supporter.”

It’s not only young unmarried Uighurs who want to join the radical groups. An Uighur man, trying to survive the winter in Kayseri in central Anatolia in Turkey with his wife and two children and with the help of his compatriots, spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He said he had gone to Raqqa under IS control, but then realized what he was told was drastically different from the reality and so he fled back to Turkey with his family.

About 6,000 Uighurs face an uncertain future, primarily in Turkey’s Konya, Kayseri and Bursa provinces.
The Uighurs’ status is followed closely in Turkey both by nationalists and Islamists, and is often the subject of harsh debates.

Is the approach of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to the Uighur question based on emotion or strategy?

The Uighur issue provides substantial ammunition for the AKP’s ever increasing nationalist narratives. It’s not unusual for the pro-government media to call for the AKP decision makers not to keep silent about the Uighur issue and to extend assistance to them.

But in the AKP there are also those who do not agree. They say Turkey has to adopt a strategic approach to the Uighur question so as not to endanger the close relations achieved with China. For columnist Ergun Diler of the pro-government daily Takvim, the Uighur issue is an instrument used by the United States that does not want to cultivate relations between China and Turkey. The United States must not be allowed to meddle in the Uighur issue and damage Turkey’s strategic relations with China.

It must be because of this confusion that the AKP government is persistently rejecting a Turkish visa to the president of the World Uyghur Congress, Rabia Kadir, who lives in the United States and is called “the mother of Uighurs.”

In an interview with daily Hurriyet Dec. 22, Kadir said the Uighur region is now subjected to intensive Salafist propaganda and there has been no reaction to illegal human trafficking networks to smuggle Uighurs to Syria and Iraq via Turkey. “Most of these traffickers are now in Turkey,” she said. “We know them all. There are at least 10 of them in Turkey today. Altough, we reported them to the Turkish government, they are still freely moving around in Turkey. We are surprised why the Turkish government is not apprehending these smugglers.”

Kadir’s remarks angered AKP officials and Turkey’s Islamic circles. The Islamist press followed up with comments labeling Kadir “an infidel” and ”an American agent for sale.”

Despite a lack of reliable information, the oppressive and security-oriented approach of China and the extremist Salafist trends clearly are on a collision course. The result: the increasing number of radicalized Uighurs, which naturally means it’s not only the West that should fear the return home of the armed Salafists who have been fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Bahram Doski, a Peshmerga commander in Sinjar, told BasNews that Kurdish forces were able to push back the insurgents.

He said that IS insurgents attacked in droves, using Humvees and military vehicles.

According to Doski, the Peshmerga suffered no casualties.

U.S. Senator John McCain urged to deploy international ground forces to combat the ISIS organization in Iraq and Syria.

McCain said in a statement quoted by the French news agency, and followed by IraqiNews.com, “For months, we have been bombing the Syrian border town of Kobani and we still have not expelled ISIS yet.”

“We actually need more troops on the ground, and we are in need for intelligence and special forces, but we cannot address Iraq and Syria as zones of different battles because the enemy is one.”

Noteworthy, McCain is leading a delegation of senators on a tour in the Middle East, including Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Source:  iraqinews.com

Israel has moved several Iron Dome missile defense system batteries to its northern border with Lebanon, amid concerns of possible attacks from Hezbollah, according to media reports.

The Israeli army spokesman did not reveal any details on the number and location of the batteries deployed.
The move came after six members of Hezbollah, a Shiite Lebanese militia, were killed in southwestern Syria on Sunday when they were attacked by an Israeli military helicopter.

The security measure is believed to have been taken in the face of a possible Hezbollah retaliation for the Israeli strike that killed their militants.

“The response will be firm and decisive.” This, in short, was the Iranian reaction to the Israeli attack in the Syrian province of Quneitra, which killed a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), among others.

The Iranian reaction indicates the possibility of opening the Golan front, where work is underway to build the necessary infrastructure. Preparations began after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s announcement that the response to Israeli attacks on Syria would come from the Golan Heights.

In a statement, the IRG’s public relations department announced the “martyrdom of Brigadier General Mohammed Ali Allah-Dadi” in the airstrike on Quneitra, saying that “Brigadier General Mohammed Ali Allah-Dadi was martyred within the territories of the Islamic Resistance, and in defense of the holy sites and the oppressed Syrian people.”

“This devout commander was on an advisory mission to support the Syrian government and people against the extremist Salafi groups. He provided crucial advice to stop the crimes and conspiracies resulting from terrorist Zionist sedition in Syria,” the statement added.

“The Zionist crime, through the violation of Syrian airspace, showed once again that the terrorist acts of sedition perpetrated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the takfiri groups are part of the policies and agendas pursued by the authoritarian order and international Zionism, in coordination with the leaders of the White House and the Zionist entity, against the Islamic nation.”

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, in a meeting with Iraqi Interior Minister Mohammed Salem Ghaban, said that “the latest Zionist attack proves the continued military cooperation between the Zionists and the terrorist takfiri groups, and complements the efforts of the leaders of Tel Aviv, who seek to take advantage of the terrorists to create a buffer zone along the borders of the occupying entity.”

For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif condemned the attack. The Iranian Foreign Ministry released a statement extending “condolences to the families of the martyrs and the Hezbollah leadership for this brutal criminal act committed by the occupying entity.”

The incident “proved once again that the battle in Syria is part of the confrontation with the Zionist entity, and Hezbollah remains steadfast and firm in the path of jihad and martyrdom against the occupation and foreign interference in the affairs of the peoples of the region.”

In a letter to Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of Iran’s national security and foreign policy parliamentary committee, said that “the response by the Hezbollah mujahideen against the Zionists will be harsh.”

“These heinous and odious crimes are being repeatedly committed by the Zionist entity, with blatant disregard to international law and resolutions, to weaken the axis of resistance in the face of terrorism and occupation in the region.”

Islamic Shura Council head Hussein Sheikh al-Islam said that “the resistance will open the Golan front in response to the Zionist aggression, which was a grave miscalculation by this entity.”

“Without intelligence assistance from terrorist groups in Syria, the Zionist entity would not have managed to execute this operation,” the aim of which is “to please the extremist groups in the Zionist entity and serve electoral objectives.”

Source:  al-akhbar.com

Nigeria’s notorious Boko Haram insurgents are using weapons that were looted from Libyan arms depots during the 2011 uprising, a South African diplomat has said.

“There were a lot of arms that were looted during the war,” Mohammed Dangor, South Africa’s former Ambassador to Libya told The Anadolu Agency on Monday night after delivering an address at the opening of a major conference on political Islam held in Pretoria.

He said some of weapons looted during and since a 2011 uprising that ousted long-serving ruler Muammar Gaddafi were later smuggled into Niger, Chad, Mali and Nigeria, among other African countries.

“Looted arms have created a cycle of instability in the region,” Dangor, who has just returned to South Africa after serving as ambassador to Libya from 2009 to Dec. 2014, told AA.

He asserted that the African Union’s stabilization force needs to intervene and deal with the Boko Haram insurgency otherwise the militants will continue to wreak havoc in Nigeria and the region.

Asked if it would be a good idea for South Africa to deploy troops to help Nigeria fight Boko Haram militants, Dangor said there is an AU meeting taking place this week.

“We shouldn’t pre-empty. They will come up with ways to deal with the situation,” he told AA.

For the last five years, Nigeria has fought the Boko Haram insurgency, which has ravaged the country’s volatile northeast and claimed thousands of lives.

The year 2014 proved to be the insurgency’s bloodiest year yet, with increasingly frequent attacks, higher death tolls and a deluge of displaced persons.

A seemingly emboldened Boko Haram recently stepped up its militant activity, seizing several areas of Nigeria’s Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, where it has since declared a self-styled “Islamic caliphate.”

According to Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, 981,416 people had been displaced by recent militant activity while as many as nine million had been “directly or indirectly affected” by the violence.

Source: Anadolu