Syrian women recruits (Washington Post)*
Women are more and more involved in armed forces also in Syria like we can read in a work of Liz Sly for Washington Post in the begining of 2013*
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/25/the-all-female-militias-of-syria/):«The trainer explains that the women are trained to use Kalashnikovs, heavy machine guns and grenades, and taught to storm and control checkpoints. “I'm an employee, but I think it's good to learn how to carry weapons and protect my country,” one of the recruits tells the camera.
The formation of the force comes amid speculation that the regular Syrian army, depleted by defections, desertions and thousands of casualties, is becoming stretched by the effort to suppress Syria’s 22-month-old uprising. According to a report in Britain’s Independent newspaper, the all-female force, named the “Lionesses for National Defence,” is part of an effort to supplement the army with a National Defense Force militia made up of civilian volunteers.
The women have already been deployed on the streets, and though their duties seem confined to checkpoint control, the frequency of rebel attacks against government checkpoints effectively puts them on the front line.»
Later in October 1, Liz Sly wrote (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-01/world/42574503_1_foreign-fighters-latakia-syria):
«Foreign fighters from across the Arab world and beyond are playing an increasingly dominant role in the battle for control of Syria, which has emerged as an even more powerful magnet for jihadist volunteers than Iraq and Afghanistan were in the past decade.
The number of Syrians battling to overthrow the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad outstrips by a large margin the thousands of Arabs and other non-Syrian Muslims who have streamed into Syria over the past two years to join in the fight.
But the flow of jihadist volunteers has accelerated, and non-Syrians have begun taking the lead in a variety of roles as the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attempts to assert control over large areas of the rebel-held north.
Foreign fighters man checkpoints, serve as commanders on the battlefield and have become the de facto rulers of towns and cities in areas under rebel control, giving them a visible and much-feared presence across large swaths of territory, according to Syrians living in the north as well as analysts.
Saudis,
Tunisians and Libyans are among the most frequently encountered
nationalities, the residents and analysts say, but men from Chechnya,
Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates also are present. The
Pakistani Taliban announced in August that it had established a presence
in Syria. Among those killed in recent battles was a Moroccan commander
who had spent years as a prisoner of the U.S. government at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba (...)
Conservative estimates put the number of foreign fighters who have entered Syria in the past two years at 6,000 to 10,000, a range that exceeds the number who volunteered to fight U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, said Brian Fishman, a former counterterrorism official who served in Iraq with West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation.
The biggest influx of foreign fighters into Iraq occurred in 2006-2007, when more than 600 crossed in, he said. Many were recruited as suicide bombers and swiftly removed from the battlefield.
“There’s a lot more foreigners than we ever saw in Iraq, and there’s going to be a lot more,” Fishman said of the situation in Syria. “They control territory, they’ve established governance . . . and you see these foreigners playing more dynamic roles. They’re getting trained and leading people and illustrating a level of ability we didn’t see in Iraq.”
The implications for the United States and its Western allies are
evident, said Nada Bakos, who tracked al-Qaeda for the U.S. government
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jihadists have secured more territory in Syria
than they were able to do in Iraq or Afghanistan, and “anywhere they set
up anything remotely resembling a safe haven, it’s a problem for the
West,” she said.Conservative estimates put the number of foreign fighters who have entered Syria in the past two years at 6,000 to 10,000, a range that exceeds the number who volunteered to fight U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, said Brian Fishman, a former counterterrorism official who served in Iraq with West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation.
The biggest influx of foreign fighters into Iraq occurred in 2006-2007, when more than 600 crossed in, he said. Many were recruited as suicide bombers and swiftly removed from the battlefield.
“There’s a lot more foreigners than we ever saw in Iraq, and there’s going to be a lot more,” Fishman said of the situation in Syria. “They control territory, they’ve established governance . . . and you see these foreigners playing more dynamic roles. They’re getting trained and leading people and illustrating a level of ability we didn’t see in Iraq.”
The influx of foreigners has inevitably stirred tensions with local residents, who resent the intrusion as well as the rigid interpretation of Islam that the al-Qaeda-influenced fighters have sought to impose on Syria, which has traditionally been conservative but far from extreme.
Clashes have erupted with increasing regularity in recent weeks between units largely loyal to the umbrella Free Syrian Army, which states that the overthrow of Assad’s regime is its main goal, and the Islamists, who have made it clear that their chief ambition is the establishment of an Islamic state across the Muslim world.
The most serious of the recent fights occurred in the town of Azaz in northern Aleppo province, near the Turkish border. The town was briefly overrun by fighters from the Islamic State late last month. A truce — signed on behalf of the ISIS by a Chechen and a Kuwaiti — has brought about a tenuous calm.
In recent days, the ISIS has further antagonized local populations in northern Syria by announcing bans on the use of tobacco. Moderate Free Syrian Army groups have been driven out of the city of Raqqah in battles that residents say were led by a Libyan commander.
An Iraqi who appears to be young and short and uses the name Abu Hamza wields overall control over the city and moves around with convoys of expensive cars and bodyguards, said Aram al-Shami, 24, an activist who travels regularly between Raqqah and Turkey and uses a pseudonym because he fears the Islamists.
Along the route, checkpoints manned by ISIS fighters, mostly from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Tunisia, stop travelers, search their cars and ask questions with unsmiling severity. “Who the hell are these guys to come to another country and tell us what to do? It really makes us mad,” Shami said.
Rifts have also emerged between the more radical Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, the original Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate that has since sought to cast itself as the more moderate — and Syrian — of the two. But although an alliance announced last week between Jabhat al-Nusra and more-secular rebel groups was cast by some as an attempt to create a front against the ISIS, an organized effort would need a far greater influx of money, support and enthusiasm from fighters on the ground, most observers say.»
«There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters» said BBC in October, 19, 2013 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24403003)
Much of them don´t want peace conversations, they want war to win power over Syrian Persons interests, not defended in a great vicious circle.
«More than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011, according to the UN.
Earlier this month, the UN estimated that more than eight million Syrians could have been forced from their homes by the country's civil war by the end of 2014.
No date has been fixed for peace talks, but they are expected in the middle of next month.» said also BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24513538)
One more time problems are inflameted, not solved. Libya was a recent example. The political options of former Government of France and actual Government of United Kingdom are a great disaster in that country.
Extremists, negative forces, win power with options of occidental powers. Why?
Let we read a work of Maria João Tomás, published in Diário de Notícias:
«O Terrorismo na Líbia» por Maria João Tomás, Diário de Notícias, 18-10-2013 (http://www.dn.pt/inicio/opiniao/interior.aspx?content_id=3483554&page=-1):«No passado dia 10 de outubro, em Trípoli, 150 homens armados sequestraram o primeiro-ministro Ali Zidan, no hotel onde morava, o Corinthia Hotel. Acabou por ser libertado seis horas depois, surgindo logo a seguir, na página do Facebook dos Libya"s Revolucionaries, a reivindicação do ataque.
Também no passado dia 11 de setembro, em jeito de celebração pelos atentados de Nova Iorque e pela morte do embaixador americano em 2012, em Benghazi, um carro explodiu junto da embaixada americana.
Muitos já chamam à Líbia um "estado falhado", prevendo-lhe um futuro parecido com o da Somália ou do Mali, onde os terroristas, neste caso os jihadistas, são os verdadeiros donos e senhores do país.
A reconstrução da Líbia depois de Kadhafi não está a ser tarefa fácil. Há muitas milícias armadas que controlam o país e que estão unidas numa espécie de sindicato, o tal Libya"s Revolucionaries, que, por sua vez, tem membros a trabalhar em todos os departamentos do Estado. Assim se compreende este verdadeiro golpe palaciano que aconteceu ao primeiro-ministro líbio.
Se o sequestro do primeiro-ministro foi uma retaliação pelo ataque dos EUA na Líbia, durante a qual um dos supostos líderes da Al-Qaeda, Nazih Abdul Hamed Al- Ruqai, foi capturado, nunca viremos a saber. Mas este episódio mostra a vulnerabilidade de segurança em que a Líbia se encontra, um país que tem todas as hipóteses de ser uma grande potência do Norte de África, não só pelas riquezas energéticas mas também pela dimensão e localização geoestratégica.
As armas fornecidas aos rebeldes na luta contra Kadhafi estão agora nas mãos de jovens que ganham subsídio de desemprego e que não têm rigorosamente nada para fazer. Além disso, pertencem a diversas etnias que rivalizam entre si, e isso vê-se frequentemente pelas rixas e atentados, como o do jogador de futebol Ashraf Abdul Wahab que, no passado dia 14 de outubro, foi baleado em Trípoli.
Também o fornecedor de eletricidade do país, a GECOL, alerta para a possibilidade de continuação dos cortes de energia durante o inverno, devido à falta de segurança que existe para assegurar o trabalho das empresas estrangeiras que fazem a manutenção das centrais. As explorações de petróleo estão também muito abaixo da sua capacidade de produção, pelas mesmas razões e, em Trípoli, há também quebras no abastecimento de água.
As milícias tornaram-se a força todo-poderosa da Líbia, um estado dentro do Estado, que ameaçam desintegrar e fragmentar o país. Livrar-se de Kadhafi foi a parte fácil, reconstruir a Líbia será sempre a parte mais difícil.
Mas espero que sirva de lição para o que querem fazer na Síria. As muitas sucursais da Al-Qaeda que estão a operar no terreno já controlam mais território do que os próprios rebeldes. A continuar assim, quem irá tomar conta deste país será a grande multinacional do terrorismo jihadista, a Al-Qaeda, que, por sua vez, também controla uma boa parte da África subsariana, parte do Afeganistão e do Paquistão, bem como as rotas marítimas que passam pela Somália. É, sem dúvida alguma, a grande potência emergente neste século XXI, aquela que controla grande parte do fluxo de comércio internacional de armas, pessoas e drogas.
Utilizar os terroristas para jogar interesses de poder, como aconteceu na Líbia, e está a suceder na Síria, é um jogo muito perigoso. Achar que se consegue manipulá-los mostra uma grande ingenuidade, porque eles têm uma agenda e interesses próprios. Provavelmente, são os terroristas jihadistas que controlam quem acham que os está a comandar.»
Libyan block stamp of 1983 («14th aniversary of revolution» of 1969): women army was manipulated and abused and after victims of the «rebels» and them support
United States of America and Russia seems created together, better ways to Syria now ... we hope that peace will arrive and Syrian women, men and childreen are deeply respected!
