Terrorist operations that have taken place in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries since the eighties and nineties have targeted both Sunnis and Shi’ites. In the same period, many extremist groups have emerged simultaneously with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and the unification of Egyptian Jihad groups in one organization, which was the first seed of extremism in the world.

Some observers and researchers have underestimated extremism, its repercussions, and its terrorist phenomenon because these groups have captured their fame from radical Sunni organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda despite that the “Jihad” concept exists among all sects. In fact, the diversity of each sect should not be neglected given that not each extremist speech is worth to be considered as a Jihadist rhetoric whether it was Sunni or Shi’ite.

Representatives of extremism in both sects form a small segment of their communities, which settled and adopted the concept of coexistence throughout history.

Terrorism that may be practiced by different religions and sects based on political ambitions uses Takfiri and religious arguments regardless of the sect it comes from; the disrespect for people’s rights, which has been encouraged by a guide or an Emir, are practiced by groups that belong to both Shi’ites and Sunnis.

*Classification of terrorism
The GCC countries have been the first in the Arab world in classifying extremist and terrorist groups; on March 7, 2014, Saudi Arabia blacklisted nine Sunni and Shi’ite groups and adopted a series of measures against their members.

Then, the UAE issued another list on November 25, 2014 that includes 86 groups; The Kingdom of Bahrain took the same step on April 11, 2016 by enlisting 68 organizations as terrorist groups; the GCC has also issued many decisions concerning specific organizations like the classification of the so-called Hezbollah as a terrorist group on March 2, 2016.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries, Egypt, and Jordan have initiated the call for an international war against ISIS; Saudi and Emirati armed forces have also announced their participation in the International Coalition to combat ISIS in 2014.

*Terrorism between ISIS and Iran
Cells of ISIS have increasingly spread in 2015-2016 in the Gulf; Al-Qaeda launched many attacks in Yemen and carried out an attack in Kuwait on June 26, 2016 that killed 27 people and wounded 227; on the 12th of January 2016, two members from Al-Abdali cell linked to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution were sentenced to death by a Kuwaiti court. The Kingdom of Bahrain succeeded in thwarting 12 terrorist plots and arms smuggling operations by Shi’ite extremist groups from 2011 till the 16th of January 2016; in September 2015, the Kingdom has suspended diplomatic relations with Iran and took the legal measures against it for its constant intervention in the Bahraini internal affairs.

In Saudi Arabia, ISIS-related terrorism killed 13 people and wounded 31 others between January and June 2016; on the 30th of April 2015, ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has also directed its supporters to target the Kingdom and described it as the source of evil. Over the two past years, Saudi Arabia witnessed around 15 suicide bombing attacks carried out by ISIS and Shi’ite extremists, in addition to a number of operations that targeted mosques for both Sunnis and Shi’ites in Jeddah and Qatif regions.

*Iran, an exception
Osama bin Laden considered Saudi Arabia his first enemy and the first target of his attacks, but he always recommended not to target Iran. He considered the Kingdom a home for disbelief and insisted on attacking it. Moreover, calls for terrorism have found a remarkable response from both Sunni and Shi’ite extremists, who have considered Saudi Arabia their main enemy.

It is worth noting that the Kingdom has been the first to kick al-Qaeda members out of its territories and to eradicate their presence since 2005, a move that has been ignored by Western observers and experts; members of the U.S. Congress have also neglected the Kingdom’s achievement in this field and blamed it for crimes committed by members who targeted the Saudi national security in the first place.

aawsat.com

A US air strike killed Abu Faraj al-Masri, leader of al Nusra Front, this week in Syria, BBC reports.

Al-Masri had been closely associated with al Qaeda, before al Nusra supposedly split with the larger terror organization in July of this year. The United States continues to classify al Nusra as a Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda.

The United States targeted a “prominent Al Qaeda member in Syria,” stated Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the Pentagon on Monday. However, the Department of Defense refused to confirm the details of the strike, including the identity of the target, until the full outcome of the mission has been assessed.

Shortly after the Pentagon released this statement, an al Nusra Front twitter account announced the death of the insurgent.

Al-Masri was reportedly killed in a strike in the Idlib province of Syria, near the border with Turkey.

Al Nusra attempted to rebrand this summer by changing their name to Fatah al-Sham and renouncing ties to al Qaeda. They did so in a video in which al-Masri appeared next to the group’s leader. The move was seen in the West as a ploy to avoid continued air strikes against their agents.

However, in a rare show of consensus, both Russia and the United States agreed to continue targeting the group. Al Nusra’s failure to shirk their al Qaeda image is considered to be due to the involvement of characters like al-Masri, who have been so closely related to the more famous terror organization.

dailycaller.com/

A radio station used by ISIS to spread extremist ideology in one of the cities it conquered has been bombed out of operation, officials said Monday.

The Al-Bayan radio station was “one of the strongest” propaganda tools for the militants inside Mosul, a spokesman at Iraq’s Joint Operation Command told NBC News.

Broadcasting stopped Sunday after the station was bombed by Iraqi jets, the spokesman said.

Backed by U.S. forces, the country’s military is poised for an attempt to retake the city of 1.2 million, which was overrun by ISIS fighters in June 2014.

“They used to broadcast Islamic anthems that encouraged people to join them,” the Iraqi military spokesman said.

The ISIS radio station urged people “to stand against the government and encouraged people to be terrorists under the name of jihad,” he added.

The airstrike came days after the radio station’s director, Abu Yaman Al-Iraqi, went missing with his family, the spokesman said. This prompted ISIS fighters to post his picture all over Mosul and ask its residents to come forward with any information leading to his detention.

When Hezbollah en­gaged in the Syria war, it was in a bat­tle for its own exist­ence. The collapse of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would result in Hez­bollah losing a major ally that se­cured a much-needed supply route from its sponsor, Iran.

More than five years later, Assad is still in power due to Russia’s di­rect military intervention in the war but Iran’s influence in Syria — like that of all the other regional players — seems in decline, with Moscow and Washington emerging as the major actors.

A political settlement will be needed to end the war in Syria. Al­though it is premature to speculate how and when it will be implement­ed, the day will come for Hezbollah to pull its fighters back to Lebanon and this is a major concern.

“If Hezbollah, which awaits a dra­matic change in Syria in its favor, thinks that it will have an influen­tial role in [a] future Syria in a way it will benefit from to later have great­er influence in Lebanon, it would be gravely mistaken,” said Amin Kam­mourieh, a political analyst. “The maximum it can achieve is to have an ally or rather a non-hostile re­gime in Syria that could somehow protect it… but it won’t be like it was in the past” when Syria had a free hand in Lebanon.

The heavily armed Shia Hezbol­lah is the most powerful group in Lebanon, with a strong military structure, well-established social institutions and representatives in the parliament and Cabinet. It has become a key power broker in Lebanon’s political system, with its critics accusing it of controlling the country.

However, Hezbollah’s formida­ble strength proved to be limited in Lebanon’s delicate confessional system, made up of 18 religious sects, with many political and so­cial agendas as well as regional af­filiations. The group has failed to impose the election of its favor­ite candidate for president, Michel Aoun, to formulate a new electoral law that would strip its Sunni ri­val of majority in parliament or to change the constitution.

“These are all signs of weakness and not strength. Hezbollah proved that it can obstruct but cannot im­pose,” Kammourieh said.

Riad Tabbarah, a political ana­lyst and head of the Beirut-based Centre for Development Studies and Projects research institute, said Lebanon is like the U.N. Security Council in which Hezbollah and other major political groups “have the veto power but not the power of decision.”

“Although Hezbollah is the most powerful, it is not allowed to use its weapons in any internal civil war in Lebanon because billions of dollars were spent to acquire these weap­ons, including missiles, for the sake of confronting Israel and deter it from striking Iran,” Tabbarah said.

On May 7, 2008, Hezbollah fighters, along with other pro-Syri­an militiamen, took control of Bei­rut’s largely Sunni areas and tried to expand their reach to Druze-con­trolled Mount Lebanon, triggering fierce clashes and almost plunging the country into another civil war. The Hezbollah coup came two days after the government declared a private telecommunications net­work set up by the militant group illegal.

“Hezbollah used its weapons dur­ing the May 7 events to frighten its [Sunni-Druze] rivals and it was a mistake,” Tabbarah said.

Now heavily engaged in the Syria war, Hezbollah appears more cau­tious and keen to avoid any internal strife that could degenerate into a Sunni-Shia war in Lebanon.

“The Syria war has created new realities and introduced new fac­tors… The presence in Lebanon of 1.5 million Syrian refugees, the majority of whom are Sunni and support the opposition, is a ma­jor concern for Hezbollah,” said Kammourieh. “Many of those refu­gees, who are already trained to carry weapons from their military service time, could be armed and engage in a war here if provoked” to support the Lebanese Sunnis.

Hezbollah is facing solid resist­ance from its mainly Sunni rivals, who are refusing to bow to its de­mands and pressures to secure more political gains for the Shias in Lebanon at their own expense.

“If Hezbollah returns from Syria weakened, some call for embracing it. If it comes back strong, it will not be able to exercise such a strength because of the existing balance in the country,” Kammourieh said.

Hezbollah’s fate is undoubtedly linked to a settlement that would end the war in Syria and define Iran’s future posture in the region. This is related to the yet-to-be-achieved successful implementa­tion of Iran’s nuclear deal.

“If Iran gets enough of what it wants and is rewarded in exchange for stopping its interference in the region, it would disband Hezbollah and the other Shia militias operat­ing in the region,” said Tabbarah.

One scenario, he said, is Hezbol­lah becoming a political party en­gaging in a “democratic debate” to secure a larger share in the political system.

“But really, we don’t know what will happen when Hezbollah re­turns from Syria,” he added. “I don’t think they [Hezbollah and Iran] have plans or can say what will happen five years from now. They are playing that by ear now.”

Lebanon’s experiences have re­vealed that no party, no matter how strong it might become, could ever eliminate the other constituents in the country.

“We all reached this conclusion. I think Hezbollah understands this equation and knows that despite all its strength and its ability to stretch beyond the border, it cannot touch the co-existence formula; other­wise, Lebanon will sink into more rounds of violence, which would be in no one’s interest,” said Rami Rayess, spokesman for the Progres­sive Socialist Party, one of the main armed groups during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

upi.com

At the top of the hour, Murad bends over his printed script and begins to speak into the microphone.

The news bulletins he reads out in a state-of-the-art studio are broadcast into the city of Mosul by powerful radio transmitters set up near the city, a valuable source of information to residents almost completely cut off from the outside world. The 37-year-old is a veteran radio presenter, but never has his job mattered so much.

“Speaking to the people of Mosul over the radio is like providing them with oxygen for their daily lives, and helping them believe that there is hope and there is a future,” says Murad. Appropriately, the station he works for is called Al Ghad FM, “ghad” being Arabic for “future”, or “hope”.

Al Ghad FM has been on air for more than a year, defying the ISIL militants that took control of Iraq’s second largest city in 2014. From humble beginnings, the station has evolved into an impressive outfit with a total of 16 shows, all tailored to its Mosul audience.

Under ISIL’s tyrannical regime, the internet has been almost completely cut off and mobile phone reception is sketchy at best. Radio, an older form of mass communication, proved more difficult to disrupt.

“Radio is the perfect tool in these circumstances,” says Mohammed Al Mawsily, the man behind Al Ghad.

The 28-year-old founder and director of the station declines to give his real name for security reasons, instead opting for an alias that reflects his origin. ‘Al Mawsily’ means ‘from Mosul’ in Arabic. The National cannot disclose even the Iraqi Kurdish city in which his studios are located.

A computer engineering graduate at Mosul University who spent some time as a teaching assistant at the University of Denver, Mr Al Mawsily speaks English fluently and eloquently. He had been in Mosul for just four months after returning from the US when ISIL stormed into his home city, forcing him to flee to the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq.

Distraught to see Mosul fall into the hands of extremists, he thought of ways to help the people who remained inside the city. When he and a couple of friends came up with the idea of Al Ghad FM, Mr Al Mawsily jumped at the chance to make a difference.

“I felt that was something I had to do to contribute,” he says.

While he had no experience in radio, he had already set up a media production company which he still runs. In March 2015, nine months after Mosul fell to ISIL, the station went on air, helped by donations from NGOs and exiled Mosul politicians.

ISIL jammed it almost immediately. As the station at first relied on only one transmitter, the insurgents were able to find the frequency and drown it out. Al Ghad FM had to switch frequencies every few days to avoid being jammed. The game of cat and mouse continued for several months until Mr Al Mawsily was able to buy stronger transmitters that ISIL was not able to interrupt.

The militants have good reason to try to block out Al Ghad FM. In everything it does, the station chips away at the authority of the self-proclaimed caliphate.

Aided by a network of sources in the city, its news programmes give an honest account of what is going on there, untainted by ISIL propaganda and censorship.

In one show, a well-known Islamic cleric questions ISIL’s legitimacy in an attempt to undermine the insurgents’ recruitment efforts in Mosul. In another, called “The Islamic State is going to vanish and disappear”, a play on ISIL’s own slogan of “The Islamic State is going to stay and expand”, listeners call in to give their views of the terrorist group, which sometimes provokes ISIL members into ringing in to hit back.

“Sometimes you get a senior member of Daesh. They will have a debate, a question and have an argument. The presenter challenges Daesh themselves,” explains Mr Al Mawsily.

Other programmes are lighthearted or practical. A cooking show gives housewives advice on how to feed the family with limited resources. ‘Hello DJ’ asks listeners to phone in to request a song and then sing along to it. Even such harmless fun is a challenge to ISIL, whose extremist interpretation of Islam forbids music.

Through the airwaves, Al Ghad FM offers distraction from ISIL’s bleak rule, and a glimpse of a lost normality. Former residents of Mosul phone in from around the world to express their support for the people in the city. Within Mosul, the station has come to be referred to as the “Sixth Bridge”, a reference to the city’s five bridges that span the Tigris, Mr Al Mawsily says proudly.

At present, the Iraqi military and the US-led international coalition fighting ISIL is preparing its assault on Mosul to clear the insurgents from its last major stronghold in Iraq. As the noose tightens around the city, resistance is fermenting within, which has led to savage reprisals

Mr Al Mawsily believes Al Ghad FM can help weaken the militants’ grip on Mosul by strengthening the solidarity of the beleaguered population.

“One of the things we focused on a lot was the “Helping Each Other Campaign”, ” he says. “If those in need find support in the community, they don’t have to go to Daesh and they will not be recruited.”

During the battle for Mosul, the station will do what it can to help avoid civilian casualties. While it is impossible to know how many tune in to Al Ghad FM, it is likely the station can help direct civilians away from the worst dangers. While the fighting is continuing, the station will cooperate with the military to try to keep collateral damage as low as possible.

“We stood with the people of Mosul during the hard times, we will stand with them during the harder times,” says Mr Al Mawsily.

thenational.ae

alalam.ir

Turkey’s military presence in Iraq has been compared to that of Daesh by the spokesperson of a Shia militia group with ties to Iran.

In an interview with Al Mayadeen Badr Brigade spokesman Karim Al-Nuri he described Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s military interventions in Iraq, without the approval of Baghdad, as a violation of international norms.

Turkish forces in Iraq are part of an international mission to defeat Daesh. Last weekend the Turkish parliament approved a one-year extension of an existing mandate to use Turkish troops abroad in Syria and Iraq. It allows military action in Turkey’s two southern neighbours against Daesh and other groups deemed by Ankara to be terror organisations.

Al-Nuri stressed that Iraq is a sovereign country and it will decide who should be involved in operations to liberate Mosul. “We will participate in the liberation of Mosul and all of Iraq and we do not require Erdogan to fix our problem,” he said.

His comments come as the Iraqi Foreign Ministry rejected statements issued by Erdogan regarding the battle to liberate Mosul. The ministry said it should Turkey was interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs and were violations of the principles of the bilateral relations and actions of good neighbours.

In a statement, ministry spokesperson Ahmed Gamal stressed that the Iraqi people will liberate Mosul and defeat Daesh.

Warning that Turkey’s interference would affect mutual relations between Baghdad and Ankara, calling on Erodgan to withdraw his troops from Iraq.

middleeastmonitor.com

Syrian rebels aim to reach the ISIS-held town of Dabiq within 48 hours if all goes to plan, one of their commanders said on Monday, as a Turkey-backed operation in northern Syria targets an area of great religious significance to the group.

Ahmed Osman of the Sultan Murad rebel group also said that advances near Dabiq had been slowed because ISIS had heavily mined the area. “If matters proceed as planned, within 48 hours we will be in Dabiq,” Osman told Reuters.

He said 15 rebel fighters killed on Sunday had been killed by landmines and a mortar attack in the village of Turkman Bareh, which the Turkey-backed fighters had seized from ISIS.

ynetnews.com

The United States began notifying lawmakers that it has approved more than $1 billion in long-stalled sales of Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) jets to Bahrain, sources familiar with the decision said recently. It has also approved $7 billion in the sales of Boeing Co (BA.N) fighter jets to Kuwait and Qatar.

The sales had been pending for more than two years. Quoting the sources, a report by Reuters said that the US officials began notifying lawmakers informally about the plans to sell 17 Lockheed F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain, plus upgrades of up to 20 additional aircraft.

“They also told lawmakers about the sale of 36 Boeing F-15 fighter jets to Qatar valued at around $4 billion, and 28 F/A- 18E/F Super Hornets, plus options for 12 more, to Kuwait for around $3 billion,” the sources said.

The deals will be formally announced once the 40-day informal notification process has ended. Then lawmakers will have 30 days to block the sales, although such action is rare. Reuters reported earlier this month that the US Government was poised to approve the long-delayed sales to Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

The State Department said it could not comment on any ongoing government-to-government arms sales.

Delays in the process had caused frustration among US defence officials and industry executives, who warned that Washington’s foot-dragging could cost them billions of dollars of business if buyers grew impatient and sought other suppliers.

The approval of the fighter jet sales comes as the White House tries to bolster relations with Gulf Arab allies.

Boeing’s F-15 line is set to close in 2019 after Boeing completes work on a large order for Saudi Arabia, unless a follow-on order is approved.

“As orders slow, Boeing is increasingly relying on technology upgrades and services sales to maintain its revenue stream from fighter jets,” Shelley Lavender, President of Boeing’s military aircraft division, said.

“The company is adding new technology to the F-15 and F/A-18 and other aircraft, and is refurbishing them on the same assembly lines use to build new aircraft,” she added.

newsofbahrain.com

alalam.ir