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'The ultimate inspiration for such people is Wahhabism, the puritanical, fanatical and regressive type of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, whose ideology is close to that of al-Qaeda and Isis. This is an exclusive creed, intolerant of all who disagree with it such as secular liberals, members of other Muslim communities such as the Shia or women resisting their chattel-like status. What has been termed Salafi jihadism, the core beliefs of Isis and al-Qaeda, developed out of Wahhabism, and has carried out its prejudices to what it sees as a logical and violent conclusion. Shia and Yazidis were not just heretics in the eyes of this movement, which was a sort of Islamic Khmer Rouge, but sub-humans who should be massacred or enslaved. Any woman who transgressed against repressive social mores should be savagely punished. Faith should be demonstrated by a public death of the believer, slaughtering the unbelievers, be they the 86 Shia children being evacuated by bus from their homes in Syria on 15 April or the butchery of young fans at a pop concert in Manchester on Monday night. The real causes of “radicalisation” have long been known, but the government, the BBC and others seldom if ever refer to it because they do not want to offend the Saudis or be accused of anti-Islamic bias. It is much easier to say, piously but quite inaccurately, that Isis and al-Qaeda and their murderous foot soldiers “have nothing to do with Islam”. This has been the track record of US and UK governments since 9/11. They will look in any direction except Saudi Arabia when seeking the causes of terrorism. President Trump has been justly denounced and derided in the US for last Sunday accusing Iran and, in effect, the Shia community of responsibility for the wave of terrorism that has engulfed the region when it ultimately emanates from one small but immensely influential Sunni sect. One of the great cultural changes in the world over the last 50 years is the way in which Wahhabism, once an isolated splinter group, has become an increasingly dominant influence over mainstream Sunni Islam, thanks to Saudi financial support....The culpability of Western governments for terrorist attacks on their own citizens is glaring but is seldom even referred to. Leaders want to have a political and commercial alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil states. They have never held them to account for supporting a repressive and sectarian ideology which is likely to have inspired Salman Abedi. Details of his motivation may be lacking, but the target of his attack and the method of his death is classic al-Qaeda and Isis in its mode of operating. The reason these two demonic organisations were able to survive and expand despite the billions – perhaps trillions – of dollars spent on “the war on terror” after 9/11 is that those responsible for stopping them deliberately missed the target and have gone on doing so. After 9/11, President Bush portrayed Iraq not Saudi Arabia as the enemy; in a re-run of history President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East. This is the real 9/11 conspiracy, beloved of crackpots worldwide, but there is nothing secret about the deliberate blindness of British and American governments to the source of the beliefs that has inspired the massacres of which Manchester is only the latest – and certainly not the last – horrible example.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/man ... 54301.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Theresa May has been accused of burying a report about Saudi Arabian funding of Islamist extremism in the UK for fear it may damage relations with their ally.

The report, which was originally commissioned by David Cameron in January last year, was due to be completed by last Easter and is believed to have been in Ms May’s possession for at least six months.

The study, which began while Ms May was still Home Secretary, was designed to examine the origins and scale of funding of terror groups in the UK with an additional remit to follow international funding streams.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 22121.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Between 2008-09 and 2014 supply and demand remained fairly constant, at around 80 million barrels a day. But production started to escalate thereafter, and by late 2015 the average supply reached 97 million barrels a day, with no significant change in demand. This caused a sharp and continuing drop in the price.

Part of this increase in supply was from American shale oil, extracted through fracking, but mostly it was the result of the Saudis deliberately pumping large amounts of oil for political reasons. As the only oil-producing country with sufficient reserves to regulate the market in this way, Saudi Arabia is considered the “swing producer”. Even though US shale production has reduced some of Saudi’s swing power, the oil kingdom has still the capacity to produce more than it does currently and is therefore still very much capable of crashing the market.

It seems the Saudis are trying to achieve two aims. The first is to drive US shale producers out of business and consolidate the Gulf state’s leading role in global oil. Producing oil from shale via fracking is expensive, around $60 a barrel, while the cost of natural oil is no higher than $7 a barrel. Saudi Arabia hopes the drastic decrease in oil prices, to well below US$60 a barrel, will make it unprofitable for American shale producers to drill at their current rates.

The second aim is to destroy the economy of Iran, the Saudi kingdom’s main competitor in the Middle East. This would thus limit Tehran’s ability to continue funnelling hundreds of millions each year to the Syrian regime, and Shia militias in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ven ... 83846.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The politics of oil....

"The al-Qaeda-linked movement, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which used to be called Jabhat al-Nusra, has long been the most powerful rebel group in western Syria. After the capture of east Aleppo by the Syrian army last December, it moved to eliminate its rivals in Idlib, including its powerful former Turkish-backed ally Ahrar al-Sham. HTS is estimated to have 30,000 experienced fighters whose numbers will grow as it integrates brigades from other defeated rebel groups and recruits young men from the camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who have sought refuge in Idlib from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Al-Qaeda is growing in strength in and around Idlib province just as Isis is suffering defeat after defeat in eastern Syria and Iraq."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 32881.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, defeating Islamic State is just creating more terrorists...surely, the answer is to target the source of the funding for terrorism:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 47776.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'Survivors of the 9/11 attacks have written to Prime Minister Theresa May – urging her to make public a British government report into the extent of Saudi Arabia’s funding of Islamist extremism in the UK. The report into the significance of the financing of Islamic extremists in Britain by Saudi Arabia and other nations was commissioned by Ms May’s predecessor, David Cameron, as part of a deal to obtain political support for a parliamentary vote on UK airstrikes on Syria. Last week, British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said the report was not being published “because of the volume of personal information it contains and for national security reasons”. Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas suggested the refusal to make public the report was linked to a reluctance to criticise the kingdom, with which Britain has long had close strategic and economic ties.'

I guess not!

"Yet when Jeremy Corbyn suggested after the Manchester bomb that a government policy that had helped produce anarchy in Iraq, Libya and Syria, enabling al-Qaeda-type terrorists to flourish, had much to answer for, he was howled down and execrated as somehow lessening the guilt of the Manchester and London attackers."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isi ... 49336.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

'“You come to our hospital here in Afrin to find out what happened,” Dr Jawan Palot, director of the Afrin Hospital, remarked to me with cynicism, well aware that The Independent was the first Western news organisation to visit Afrin since the Turkish attack. “You should see the dead when they come in – and the state of the wounded with the blood on them.” And there came forth the usual photographs of ferociously broken corpses.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 82266.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As Turkey bombs the Syrian Kurds to oblivion, the US and the UK are silent about the actions of their allies....

The alleged Finsbury Park attacker has claimed he originally wanted to kill Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan among victims at a pro-Palestinian march in London.

Darren Osborne, 48, took the stand at Woolwich Crown Court to claim he concocted the original plan at a Welsh pub with two men called Dave and Terry Jones.

He denies charges of murder and attempted murder after a van rammed Muslims leaving Ramadan prayers on 19 June, killing one man and injuring nine other victims.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 86061.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Rakem Khafre, The first *blackman to be prosecuted as an identity extremist.

" On December 12, 2017 in Dallas, Christopher Daniels, also known as Rakem Balogun, was arrested during a raid on his home and charged with the unlawful possession of a firearm, the result of more than two years of FBI surveillance, as Foreign Policy reported.


http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/02/05/ ... e-talking/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents ... acted.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Kurds were key allies of the West in the fight against Islamic State. But when the Kurds declared independence, the West dropped them like a hot potato. When Turkey started bombing the Kurds, the West did not want to know. So, who do the Kurds turn to for support against Turkey?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 18061.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The conflict in Syria may escalate significantly after the Assad regime declared that it will send troops to help Kurdish fighters defending the town of Afrin against Turkish forces.

The deployment, which may also include Iranian-controlled militiamen, will take place, said Damascus, after an agreement was reached with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) group, which has set up a Kurdish enclave across the Turkish border.

“Popular forces will arrive in Afrin within a few hours to support its people’s stand against the Turkish regime’s attack on the area and its people,” announced Sana, the Syrian state news agency. The forces, continued Sana, will position themselves at the frontier – a move that opens up the possibility of direct clashes with the Turks and allied Syrian Arab militias.

But in our desire to concentrate minds on Syria, we’re not mentioning the Iran gassings – Iran being another one of our present-day enemies, of course – and this may be because of our lack of official memory.

More likely it’s because of what happened: the institutionalisation of chemical warfare, the use of chemicals by Saddam who was then an ally of the West and of all the Gulf Sunni states, our frontline Sunni hero. The thousands of Iranian soldiers who were to die were referred to on Iraqi radio after they crossed the frontier. The “Persian insects” had crossed the border, it announced. And that’s how they were treated.

For the precursors for the Iraqi gas came largely from the United States – one from New Jersey – and US military personnel later visited the battlefront without making any comments about the chemicals which were sold to the Iraqi regime, of course, for “agricultural” purposes. That’s how to deal with insects, is it not?

Yet not a soul today is mentioning this terrible war, which was fought with our total acquiescence. It’s almost an “exclusive” to mention the conflict at all, so religiously have we forgotten it. That was the real “normalisation”, and we allowed it to happen. Religious indeed, for it was the first great battle of the Sunni-Shia war of our time. But it was real.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/th ... 00881.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;