Who Blew Up the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Deir el-Zour?

Sam Hardy

 

Fifty days after the destruction of the Armenian Genocide Martyrs’ Memorial Church in Deir el-Zour, Robert Fisk has reported it in the Independent, but his article is riddled with peculiarities, mistakes, and historical inconsistencies.

Peculiarities and mistakes

For one thing, the report feels strangely timed. It declares that the “act of sacrilege will cause huge pain” to Armenians around the world — seven weeks after the attack was lamented by political and religious representatives of the aggrieved community.

Our Non-Ally in Ankara

Was it only a week ago that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel listed a "core coalition" of 10 countries willing to join the U.S. effort to destroy the Islamic State? Since then Britain has categorically ruled out military strikes in Syria, while Germany has ruled out any use of force. Now Turkey is bugging out.

The Turkish abdication goes a step further than the Brits or Germans. Not only will Ankara take no military action, it will also forbid the U.S. from using the U.S. air base in Incirlik—located fewer than 100 miles from the Syrian border—to conduct air strikes against the terrorists. That will complicate the Pentagon's logistical and reconnaissance challenges, especially for a campaign that's supposed to take years.

Turkish Government Co-operated with al-Qaeda in Syria, Says Former US Ambassador

Richard Spencer

Raf Sanchez

Turkey has directly supported al-Qaeda's wing in Syria in defiance of the United States, the former American ambassador to Ankara has said.

The Turkish authorities thought they could work with extremist Islamist groups in the Syrian civil war and at the same time push them to become more moderate, Francis Ricciardone, who was until late June the US ambassador to Ankara, told journalists in a briefing.

That led them to work with Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda's branch, as well as hardline Salafi Islamist groups like Ahrar al-Sham. Mr Ricciardone said that he tried to persuade the Turkish government to close its borders to the groups, but to no avail.

After Opening Way to Rebels, Turkey Is Paying Heavy Price

Ben Hubbard

Ceylan Yeginsu

 

HABUR BORDER GATE, Turkey — In normal times, hauling 50,000 pounds of frozen chicken into Iraq is a routine job for Turfan Aydin, a Turkish trucker who has been working the route for years. But the cross-border trade has suddenly all but halted, locked up by the insurgent offensive in Iraq and the kidnapping of 80 Turkish citizens.

Once this border was wide open, as Turkey allowed rebel groups of any stripe easy access to the battlefields in Syria in an effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad. But that created fertile ground in Syria for the development of the Sunni militant group that launched a blitzkrieg in Iraq this month, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Syrian government forces retake Kesab

Government forces flushed opposition fighters from their last strongholds in northwestern Syria near the Turkish frontier Sunday, seizing the Armenian town of Kasab and restoring government control over a nearby border crossing, activists and state media said.

The developments came as regime airstrikes pounded bases in eastern Syria belonging to the Al-Qaeda splinter group ISIS in coordination with the Baghdad government, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The military’s advances fully reversed the gains rebels had made during their three-month campaign in Latakia province, the rugged coastal region that is the ancestral heartland of President Bashar Assad.

The counteroffensive’s success is the latest blow to the rebels, who have suffered a string of recent setbacks.

US, Turkey Reject Hersh Article on Sarin Gas Attack in Syria

The White House and the Turkish government have both dismissed a report suggesting that the Turkish government was behind a sarin gas attack in Syria last summer in cooperation with the al-Qaeda-affiliated organization al-Nusra Front.

American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and intelligence issues, reported the controversial story on Sunday. The story appeared in the British literary publication “The London Review of Books” with the title of “The red line and the rat line.”

Was Turkey Behind Syrian Sarin Attack?

Robert Parry

 

Last August, the Obama administration lurched to the brink of invading Syria after blaming a Sarin gas attack outside Damascus on President Bashar al-Assad’s government, but new evidence – reported by investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh – implicates Turkish intelligence and extremist Syrian rebels instead.

The Red Line and the Rat Line

Seymour M. Hersh

 

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons. Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.

An Appeal to All Armenians Throughout the World from the Armenians in Kessab

On Mother's Day, March 21, 2014, our beautiful town was brutally attacked by Al-Qaeda extremists and Al-Nusra front that is linked to Al Qaeda,  with the blessings and full military and logistical support of the Turkish government.