Author: M Barbu

No victory picture for Israel in Gaza

The IDF success in destroying Gaza underground infrastructure cannot erase photos of Hamas rockets reaching Tel Aviv.

This operation was supposed to be the jewel in Israel’s crown, the result of impressive, painstaking intelligence collection mapping out the vast network of Hamas tunnels in the northern section of the Gaza Strip, including the fortified, fully equipped bomb shelter for the organization’s leadership. The Islamist group had little idea that everything it was digging underground over the years was being documented by Israeli intelligence in order to compile a bank of bombing targets for future use. Israel had also devised a series of sophisticated ruses designed to force Hamas commanders to flee underground into what the military was dubbing the “metro,” where they would be buried by heavy bombs bringing the tunnels crashing down on their heads.

Erdogan: Turkey won’t ‘remain silent’ over Israeli strikes in Gaza

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also called on the UN Security Council to address the worsening bloodshed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that Ankara is “furious” over Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and lashed out at countries that “remain silent” in the face of Israel’s operation.

“We are both saddened and furious at the cruelty of the terrorist state of Israel against Palestinians,” Erdogan told a virtual meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party.

Turkey’s Jewish minority takes the heat amid Israeli-Palestinian violence

A frenzy of anti-Israeli coverage in Turkish media has accompanied anti-Semitic attacks on the country’s small Jewish community.

Turkey’s tiny Jewish community is once again in the crosshairs of the ongoing violence between Israelis and Palestinians, with its community newspaper the target of a fresh wave of anti-Semitic attacks.

Individuals who identified themselves as disciples of Necip Fazıl Kisakurek, a Turkish nationalist poet and anti-Semite revered by Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hacked the website of Salom, the sole newspaper serving Turkey’s dwindling Jewish minority. They posted, “Our actions will continue until Palestine is free and independent.” They also posted a verse from one of Kisakurek’s poems evoking Palestinians responding to Israeli missiles with stones. The perpetrators have yet to be caught. Turkey’s Jews are on edge.

Nigeria: Religious Extremism Fueling Violence

Escalating bloodshed in Nigeria is fueled in part by religious extremism – and the United States must recognize this in order to achieve peace, says the former U.S. religious freedom ambassador.

“This thing’s going to blow up on us, as we would say, ‘bigger than Dallas,’ if we don’t get into there and really start taking this seriously at this point,” Sam Brownback, former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, told CNA on Wednesday of violence in Nigeria.

Ethnic Russian Converts To Islam Adding To Islamization Of Russian North – OpEd

Nearly four years ago, Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist Dmitry Steshin called attention to the growing number of Central Asian and Caucasian Muslims working in the oil and gas cities of the Russian North and warned that local officials are at a loss as to what to do

The influx of workers from Central Asia and the Caucasus to the Russian North has continued, and some of them have become radicalized via the Internet and the work of diasporas. But according to observers there, often those most radical Muslims are recent Russian converts to the faith.

Chinese Land-Grab In Bhutan And India: Timid Responses Won’t Work With Beijing – Analysis

The world is wiser with the emergence of documentary evidence that China discussed weaponizing the SARS virus since 2015, together with studying the effects of a biological strike including on the health-hospital infrastructure of the target country and put in place the propaganda to absolve itself of any blame before bombing the world with the “Wuhan Virus” in 2019. The installation of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as the Director-General of World Health Organization in July 2017 was part of the plan which paid off – terming the “Wuhan Virus” as Covid-19.

In Search of Peace for Afghanistan: Historical Perspectives

Last month’s announcement that all U.S and international troops will leave Afghanistan before September 11, 2021 has sparked intense debate over the country’s future after over four decades of near-continuous conflict. Deteriorating security conditions, uncertainty over the level of international engagement moving forward and political instability pose great risks to the fragile peace process and the prospects for a sustainable political settlement. Many analysts have compared the current moment to the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, an alarming parallel given the years of civil war and Taliban rule that followed.

Iran reveals its strategy advising Hamas on war against Israel

What is important here is that the conversation with Ghaani comes as Iranian media published a unique look at Israel’s air defense systems, asserting that Israel is showing new vulnerabilities.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force head Esmail Ghaani spoke with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh over the weekend and they discussed the latest developments in the situation and the conflict in Gaza. Tasnim news reported the discussion in Iran. It comes amid an Iranian regional push to support Hamas, including pro-Iran leader Hadi al-Amiri in Iraq indicating his support for Hamas. Turkey and Iranian-backed Houthis and Hezbollah also support the Hamas war against Israel. The press release about Ghaani being in touch with Hamas senior leadership comes days after Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal also spoke to Turkish media and was quoted in Iranian media about Hamas strategy.