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Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 19-71-Caliphate-Sunni-Shia-6

In The "War of the Cross, we seek a Strategy, our Enemy has one."How far did (do) we allow the Iranian influence sphere to grow?

Libya, Syria, Yemen: Sectarian conflict threatens entire Middle East, Tehran vs The Awakening Sunni Arab Camp

A coalition of 10 Sunni Arab states is on a military offensive against Shiite Houthi militants in Yemen, recently proclaimed by America’s president as a brilliant example of war on terror, but now catapulting the Middle East into the inferno of battle.

It doesn’t take an expert to realize that the global fight against terrorism is going badly. With ISIS spreading in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Yemen, al-Qaeda affiliates still operating throughout the region, and a growing foreign-fighter threat, it’s a matter not of if, but when, something is going to hit closer to U.S. and Western states soil

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has benefited from the chaos to embed its fighters with local tribes opposed to Houthi expansion. The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has also entered the fight, conducting five major suicide attacks on March 20 that killed upward of 140 people. The attacks, which targeted Zaydi Shia mosques, were likely an effort to inflame sectarian tensions — the same modus operandi ISIS has long used in Iraq.

The New Exodus: Christians Flee ISIS in the Middle East 

Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, was incensed enough over what was happening in Syria that in a 2013 press conference alongside Secretary of State John Kerry he declared, "I consider Syria an occupied land." The occupier, he said, was Iran, which had sent military forces to fight alongside of those of besieged Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. "How can a neighboring country that’s supposed to uphold good relationships get involved in a civil war and help one side over the other?" he asked.

The Saudi-Iranian rivalry is, at its core, a competition going back years for power and dominance across the Middle East. "The new Middle East cold war predates the Arab Spring by at least half a decade, but increased Iranian influence in the Arab world dates back even longer," F. Gregory Gause III, a professor of international affairs at Texas A&M, writes.

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"Until the American invasion of Iraq," Serwer says, "the door wasn't really open [for Iran to challenge the regional order], except in limited ways like supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. "What the United States did in Iraq, by opening the door to the Shia majority, is part of the story for the Saudis." Then the Arab Spring, by toppling governments or inspiring uprisings throughout the region, created a whole new set of openings in which Iran could seek to expand its influence — and Saudi Arabia would struggle to maintain the status quo - 1.

The internal Yemeni conflict has the potential to transform into a military standoff based on religious background between the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf on one side and Shiites of the region supported by Iran on the other

US President Barack Obama has authorized “logistical and intelligence support.” The meltdown in Yemen is causing embarrassment in Washington, editor of the Pan-

African News Wire, Abayomi Azikiwe, told RT. “It is a very dangerous situation. What it represents is a total collapse of the US foreign policy in Yemen,” Azikiwe said, stressing that it was “clearly miscalculation” on the part of the Obama administration, which underestimated power of Houthi groups. “It is clearly a failure of the US foreign policy in Yemen,” he said.

The key to the unwinding military conflict is going to be reaction of Iran, which has its finger in many ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the air strikes would lead only to greater loss of life. "Military action from outside of Yemen against its territorial integrity and its people will have no other result than more bloodshed and more deaths," he told

The United Arab Emirates is participating with 30 jets, Bahrain with eight, Morocco and Jordan both with six. Sudan reportedly offered three war planes to assist the operation, Al Arabiya reported.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Monday, March 31 on those interfering in Yemen to leave, saying he was watching developments there closely. Last Thursday, Erdogan accused Tehran of having its forces in Yemen adding that Turkey would not tolerate Iran’s attempts to dominate the Middle East. Political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul’s Suleyman Sah University said Erdogan’s comments herald a major policy change. "It's a very, very new policy now, Turkey pointing at Iran and directly taking Iran as an adversary," Aktar said. "It means that they are getting closer and closer to the Saudis and the Emirates and becoming a full-fledged member of the regional Sunni alliance. The policy of not intervening, or not pointing at Iran, is over and this is a policy which is older than the ruling party."

In light of Iran's increasing physical presence and influence in Arab countries, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, there has been a proliferation of voices in the anti-Iranian Arab camp arguing that the Iranian presence in those four countries constitutes occupation and that action must be taken to prevent Iran from occupying additional countries. As evidence, the speakers pointed to a recent statement by Ali Younesi, advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said that Iran is an empire and Iraq is its capital (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5991, Advisor To Iranian President Rohani: Iran Is An Empire, Iraq Is Our Capital; We Will Defend All The Peoples Of The Region; Iranian Islam Is Pure Islam – Devoid Of Arabism, Racism, Nationalism, March 9, 2015).

March 31, 2015 Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No.1150 Tehran vs The Awakening Sunni Arab Camp: Significance And Implications

1 http://www.vox.com/2015/3/30/8314513/saudi-arabia-iran

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By: A. Savyon and Y. Carmon* Introduction The March 26, 2015 attack by the Saudi-led coalition on the strongholds of Iran's proxy in Yemen, the Houthi, sent shockwaves through Tehran. The rousing of the Sunni Arab camp, and the formation of a fighting coalition, as well as the backing of the entire Arab League – all within the short space of a few weeks – took the Iranian regime completely by surprise. In recent years, and especially in the last few months, Tehran has ratcheted up its direct involvement in several Arab countries, thanks to the silence on the part of the U.S.; this silence has been interpreted in the Arab world as support for Iran becoming a hegemonic military and political regional superpower. The Sunni Arab camp has appeared to be in a state of disintegration and division both politically and militarily, after nearly five years of internal erosion following the Arab Spring. In this situation, official Iranian spokesmen had stepped up their threats against Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states,[1] as well as against the U.S. military. These threats were backed up by maneuvers conducted by naval, ground, and missile forces, and by advanced weaponry development.[2] Several Iranian officials spoke of Iran's control of four Middle East capitals and four seas.[3] A senior advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rohani, Ali Younesi, even declared that the Persian Empire was now revived.[4]

The surprise Sunni Arab move blocked Iran in Yemen, and is a warning sign of Sunni camp intentions to cut Iran back down to size and to let it know that it is no empire, as Younesi said, but rather a mere 10% of the Islamic world – the vast majority of which is Sunni. The political and military echelons of Iran's leadership – Supreme Leader Khamenei, IRGC commander Jafari, and Basij commander Naqdi – from which many threats have emanated, have not yet responded. However, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif expressed willingness to cooperate and help promote comprehensive internal dialogue in Yemen, as his Houthi allies fell under Sunni coalition bombardment. However, there were threatening declarations from Iran's pragmatic camp, specifically Hashemi Rafsanjani, filling the vacuum left by Supreme Leader Khamenei's failure to respond.[5] Rafsanjani expressed his outrage at the Saudi-Arab operation, but his threats were vague, due perhaps to his wish to avoid impacting the nuclear talks that are currently underway.

Significance And Implications The Iran Nuclear Dossier; In light of the resurgence of the Sunni Arab camp, and its aim to set Iran back, Tehran can ill afford – now less than ever before – to sign away the deterrent of its military nuclear capabilities and global recognition of it as a threshold nuclear state.

Relations With The U.S. And The U.S.-Iran Nuclear Agreement The U.S.'s immediate and public show of support for the Sunni camp is a harsh blow for both Khamenei's ideological camp and for the pragmatic camp of Rafsanjani and Rohani. The ideological camp believes that it has successfully forced its position on the U.S., and Tehran seems to have dictated its demand for regional hegemony to it.[6] However, the American show of support for the Sunni coalition has reshuffled the Iranian deck, and could cement the Iranians' belief that the U.S. can never be trusted and that Tehran must obtain all of its demands, such as a complete lifting of the sanctions as a condition for its signing a nuclear agreement.

Two Models For Tehran's Political And Military Conduct Two distinct models characterize Tehran's geopolitical and military conduct vis-à-vis its rivals in the region and internationally:

1.  The "Intimidating Bully" model – Used vis-à-vis the U.S. The latter has been forgiving and sympathetic to the Iranian regime's demands and to its expansion in the region, in addition to

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seeing it as a partner in its strategic interests, such as the fight against ISIS – despite Iran's international terrorist activity. The U.S. has even shown willingness to grant Tehran limited nuclear status despite its violations of Security Council resolutions and IAEA regulations. Iran has continued its military and political expansion in the region alongside its ongoing issuing of threats, even against the U.S. military.[7] It has become clear that the U.S.'s sympathetic stance has neither softened nor curbed Iran's offensive activity in the region, but has only encouraged its hostile policy.

2.  The "Paper Tiger" model – Faced with the empowered military and political Sunni Arab bloc, which is stronger than Iran, the Iranian regime could back down, revealing itself again as a paper tiger. This model has come into play twice, with Iran hesitating to implement its threats: first in 2003, when the U.S. besieged Iran from the south (Iraq) and the east (Afghanistan), and again in Bahrain in 2011, when a pro-Iranian Shi'ite coup was thwarted by a show of Saudi-Gulf military might.  * A. Savyon is Director of the MEMRI Iranian Media Project; Y. Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI.

 Endnotes:[1] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1144, Tehran Threatens Saudi Arabia; Khamenei: Iran Will Answer Saudi Arabia 'A Blow With A Blow', February 10, 2015; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5918, IRGC Weekly To Saudis: 'Iran Has Many Options For Harming Saudi Arabia... All [It] Needs To Do Is Use A Single One Of [Them] So That Nothing Remains Of The Entity Named The Aal-Saud Regime Or Of Saudi Arabia Itself', December 31, 2014; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5877, Iranian Campaign Touts IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani As 'Savior Of Iraq'; Soleimani: Iran Has Thousands Of Organizations Like Hizbullah; I Pray To Die A Martyr, November 10, 2014; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5858, Associates Of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei: Saudi Arabia Is The Source Of Scheming Against The Islamic World; The Al-Saud Family Is Of Jewish Origin – And Its Turn To Fall Has Come, October 14, 2014; and MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5848, Iranian Media Reports Deleted Following Publication (1): Senior IRGC Official Speaking On Iran's Military Involvement In Syria Says Iran Has Established 'Second Hizbullah' There, September 25, 2014.

[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6004, Iran Escalates Naval Threats Against U.S. In Persian Gulf, March 24, 2015; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5996, Iranian Leader Khamenei: A Society Steeped In The Spirit Of Martyrdom Is Unstoppable; Khamenei's Representative In IRGC Qods Force: We Shall Not Rest Until We Raise Flag Of Islam Over The White House, March 17, 2015; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5974, Revolution Day 2015 In Iran: A Regime-Organized Display Of Hatred For U.S., Obama, February 24, 2015; MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1135, Iranian IRGC Missile Unit Commanders: We've Developed 2,000-km Range Missiles And Equipped Hizbullah With 300-km Range Missiles; Fars News Agency: Israel's Illusions About Its Natural Gas Fields Will Be Buried In The Mediterranean, December 4, 2014; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5742, IRGC Naval Commander: Iran Can Destroy The U.S. Navy With Suicide Operations, Missiles, And Speedboats; 'When The Hoot Missile Hits The Americans, [They] Will See Which Units Fired It' , May 15, 2014; MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5674, Iranian Military Receives New Ballistic Missiles, Official Threatens The U.S., March 11, 2014; and MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5661, On Iranian Revolution Day 2014, Commander of IRGC Navy Says: The Americans Will Understand When Their Warships With Over 5,000 Crew Aboard Sink To The Depths Of The Sea And They Have To Search For Their Bodies, February 27, 2014. [3] See MEMRI TV Clip #4530 – Iranian Analyst Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini: Saudi Arabia Is on the Verge of Extinction; We Are the New Sultans of the Mediterranean, the Gulf, and the Red Sea , September 24, 2014. In a September 24, 2014 interview with Mayadeen TV, which is close to Hizbullah, Mohammad Sadeq Al-Hosseini said, "The Saudi ruler represents a tribe on the verge of extinction" and "a third world war has begun." He added, "We in Tehran, Damascus, [Hizbullah's] southern suburb of Beirut, Baghdad, and Sana'a will shape the map of the region." See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5858, Associates Of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei: Saudi Arabia Is The Source Of Scheming Against The Islamic World; The Al-Saud Family Is Of Jewish Origin – And Its Turn To Fall Has Come, October 14, 2014.[4] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5991, Advisor To Iranian President Rohani: Iran Is An Empire, Iraq Is Our Capital; We Will Defend All The Peoples Of The Region; Iranian Islam Is Pure Islam – Devoid Of Arabism, Racism, Nationalism, March 9, 2015.

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[5] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6008, Immediate Iranian Reaction To Sunni Arab Military Campaign To Push Back Shi'ite Expansion: Calls For Houthis To Attack Saudi Oil Wells And Tankers, Operate In Saudi Territory And Straits Of Bab Al-Mandeb And Hormuz, March 26, 2015.[6] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5996, Iranian Leader Khamenei: A Society Steeped In The Spirit Of Martyrdom Is Unstoppable; Khamenei's Representative In IRGC Qods Force: We Shall Not Rest Until We Raise Flag Of Islam Over The White House, March 17, 2015; and MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1127, Iran's Pragmatic Camp Calls For Exploiting Obama's Weakness To Attain Comprehensive Nuclear Agreement On Tehran's Terms, October 26, 2014.[7] See MEMRI TV Clip #4838 – Iranian Leader Khamenei: Death to America; Obama Is Trying to Turn Our People against the Regime, March 21, 2015; MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1132, Khamenei Camp In Indirect Response To Obama Letter, On Anniversary Of U.S. Embassy Takeover: 'America Is Still The Great Satan And The No. 1 Enemy' Of Iran, November 16, 2014; and MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5728, Tehran Friday Sermon: The Iranian President Should Punch Obama In The Mouth When He Talks Nonsense , May 2, 2014.

Libya, Syria, Yemen: Sectarian conflict threatens entire Middle EastPublished time: March 26, 2015 A coalition of 10 Sunni Arab states is on a military offensive against Shiite Houthi militants in Yemen, recently proclaimed by America’s president as a brilliant example of war on terror, but now catapulting the Middle East into the inferno of battle. Saudi Arabia has initiated an international military operation in Yemen that many experts are already calling a proxy war against Iran, since Houthi fighters are believed to have strategic backup from Tehran.

The internal Yemeni conflict has the potential to transform into a military standoff based on religious background between the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf on one side and Shiites of the region supported by Iran on the other.

US President Barack Obama has authorized “logistical and intelligence support.” The coalition is bombing a country that used to have heavy American presence for years, since Washington used to station a fleet of assault UAVs in Yemen, waging drone warfare against militants of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the frontlines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” said Obama as recently as September 10, 2014.

This longstanding fruitful cooperation between Sanaa and Washington has had a bitter ending, as Houthi fighters captured Yemen’s major cities and are offering a reward for US-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, while the US were forced to evacuate its embassy from Yemen along with diplomatic missions of other western countries in early February. Yemen's territory has become increasingly fragmented, with Sunni militant groups operating in the south of the country and AQAP becoming active again. The base with deployed US killer drones remained operable until last week, when it was abandoned like all other US installations in the country.

The developments in Yemen have drawn attention to Obama's policy of dealing with terrorism hot-beds around the world from Republican Senators John Mc Cain and Lindsey Graham. They rebuked the Obama administration over Yemen's descent into a regional proxy war threatening to engulf the Middle East, calling it “another tragic case of leading from behind.”

Yemen now in many ways resembles Libya, disintegrating after foreign intervention, or Syria, devastated by years of civil war, as fighter jets of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition are pouncing Yemeni military installations and infrastructure facilities.

The meltdown in Yemen is causing embarrassment in Washington, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, Abayomi Azikiwe, told RT. “It is a very dangerous situation. What it represents is a total collapse of the US foreign policy in Yemen,” Azikiwe said, stressing that it was “clearly miscalculation” on the part of the Obama administration, which underestimated power of Houthi groups. “It is clearly a failure of the US foreign policy in

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Yemen,” he said. The US withdrawal from Yemen has revealed a massive property lost, as the US government is believed to have lost track of about $500 million worth of military aid provided to Yemen in recent years, beginning in 2007. Officials acknowledge that they’re unable to account for more than a million rounds of ammunition, 160 Humvees (HMMWV) vehicles, 200 M-4 assault rifles and 250 body armor suits – and this is far from being the full inventory of lost property.

The US has no intention of stabilizing other nations, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski told RT. “What the US government is focused on is putting arms out there and creating bias for those arms. The US taxpayer subsidizes foreign weapon sales. So we’re always out there, our government is always out there looking for places to market our weapons,” Kwiatkowski said. US foreign policy is aimed at creating markets for the US weaponry and is good at it, not at solving crises, promoting good governments etc. “That’s not our expertise. We don’t spend time and money on that. We spend time and money on creating consumers for our weapons,” she said.

Meantime Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Pakistan, Morocco, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain are bombing Yemeni territory using mostly US-made weapons and hardware, with a proclaimed objective to prevent President Hadi from losing power. “We will do whatever it takes in order to protect the legitimate government of Yemen from falling,” Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, told a news conference while announcing the operation.

After the Iran’s advances in Iraq – which borders Saudi Arabia to the north – the kingdom is worried that Yemen, on its southern frontier, is going to become a proxy for Iran as well. “In the absence of the Americans, who have temporarily quit the field, the Saudi’s will think they have no choice but to go in pretty hard. We are going to see redesign of the region,” President of the Australia Institute of International Affairs John McCarthy told Reuters. The key to the unwinding military conflict is going to be reaction of Iran, which has its finger in many ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. If Tehran decides to play big, oil exports from the region - crucial to the world economy - could fall victim to the regional conflict. That in turn will threaten energy supplies of many countries, particularly China, Japan and South Korea.

Iran warns of bloodshed as Saudi-led forces bomb Yemen Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the air strikes would lead only to greater loss of life. "Military action from outside of Yemen against its territorial integrity and its people will have no other result than more bloodshed and more deaths," he told the Iranian-owned Al-Alam television channel. "We have always warned countries from the region and the West to be careful and not enter shortsighted games and not go in the same direction as al-Qaeda and Daesh," he added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. The comments from Zarif, who is in the Swiss city Lausanne for talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Iran's contested nuclear programme, echoed condemnation of the Saudi-led strikes by officials in Tehran. Speaking to Al Jazeera from Sanaa, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Al Bukhaiti called the military action a declaration of war on Yemen, adding that reports alleging a Houthi leader, Mohamed Ali Al Houthi, had been injured were false. 

The Yemen Mess Is Sparking a Full-Fledged Regional WarBy Alexis Knutsen Originally published in National Review Online March 26, 2015 Southern People's Resistance militants loyal to Yemen's President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi move a tank from the al Anad air base in the country's southern province of Lahij March 24, 2015. (Reuters) Originally published at National Review Online: 

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Just when Yemen looked like it couldn’t get any worse, this week the Houthis, a Zaydi Shia rebel group from northern Yemen that already controls much of the country’s capital, advanced toward the southern port city of Aden, reportedly forcing the U.S.-recognized Yemeni president Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee and prompting Saudi Arabia to begin military operations. The Houthis’ advance comes a few days after the U.S. withdrew the hundred or so Special Forces stationed at al-Anad airbase, lying 24 miles north of Aden, in Yemen’s southern governorate of Lahij. It’s possible, though in no way confirmed, that our withdrawal of forces emboldened the Houthis to make their moves. Had our forces remained, the Houthis might not have advanced at all or, at least, not as quickly, to avoid encountering U.S. troops. So, not only has our Yemen model — er, “template” — utterly failed, but our rapid exit may actually have contributed to Yemen’s rapid unraveling and the expansion of this conflict into a regional war. Yemen has been marching on a path toward civil war for some time now. The country has fractured into two rival governments: The Iranian-backed Houthis, who control much of north-central Yemen since a late January coup, started sending forces southward earlier this week, while Hadi, who has established a rival government in Aden, the former capital of South Yemen, sent forces north to confront the Houthis. Hadi’s departure leaves only the Houthis in Yemen now.Meanwhile, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has benefited from the chaos to embed its fighters with local tribes opposed to Houthi expansion. The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has also entered the fight, conducting five major suicide attacks on March 20 that killed upward of 140 people. The attacks, which targeted Zaydi Shia mosques, were likely an effort to inflame sectarian tensions — the same modus operandi ISIS has long used in Iraq.  Yemen’s fracturing is also giving some newly minted ISIS cells room to emerge. ISIS’s presence in Yemen is still murky: Some supporters claimed that ISIS fighters temporarily seized a city south of al-Anad airbase and executed 29 Yemeni soldiers the same day as the mosque attacks. Pro-ISIS Twitter accounts also recently started announcing the establishment of a wilayat (province) in Lahij. Maybe a coincidence? Doubtful.It doesn’t take an expert to realize that the global fight against terrorism is going badly. With ISIS spreading in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Yemen, al-Qaeda affiliates still operating throughout the region, and a growing foreign-fighter threat, it’s a matter not of if, but when, something is going to hit closer to U.S. soil. In the meantime, the start of Saudi military operations in Yemen raises the specter of wider regional conflict and is yet another major distraction from efforts against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Twin suicide bombings kill dozens at Kurdish new year celebrationsPublished time: March 21, 2015 04:41

Screenshot from YouTube user Press HaberOver 50 people have been killed in twin attacks by suicide bombers who detonated explosive-laden cars in the Kurdish crowds in northern Syria during a celebration of the Persian New Year, Newroz. More than 100 were injured, according to Kurdish sources. The numbers of deaths seems to diverge. While the official government news agency SANA is reporting 37 deaths, Kurdish outlets in the region place the death toll closer to 56 people. Many of the injured were rushed to local hospitals, many in a critical condition. The car blasts took place at al-Shuhadaa Square in a residential neighborhood of Hasaka city, SANA reports. According to ARA News, the two explosions happened two minutes apart and within 50 meters of each other as huge crowds gathered for Newroz celebrations, a day intended to promote peace and which marks the first day of spring in several cultures across the Middle

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East. The director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman placed the blame on “kamikaze bombers.” According to Rudaw news, the first explosion occurred at around 6:00pm local time in front of the Kurdish Democratic group office. The second blast allegedly targeted people next to the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (PDKS). The attacks caused significant damage to the buildings, cars, and shops in the area.

Regards Cees: The New Exodus: Christians Flee ISIS in the Middle EastBY JANINE DI GIOVANNI AND CONOR GAFFEY / MARCH 26Before jihadists overran this mountain town in 2013, Maaloula was one of the oldest Christian communities in Syria, where Western Aramaic—the language of Jesus Christ—is still spoken. It was also a place of profound peace, where Sunni and Shiite Muslim residents, along with their Christian neighbors, forged a pact early in the war to avoid the sectarian conflict ripping their country apart. “We decided that even if the mountains around us were exploding with fighting, we would not go to war,” Mahmoud Diab, a Sunni imam, told Newsweek in 2012. “It’s a sectarian war, but the fact is, there is no war here in Maaloula. In this town, we are not defined by religion. We all know each other. Everyone is a Christian, and everyone is Muslim.” Tolerance had been a tradition in Maaloula since St. Takla—the daughter of a pagan prince and an early disciple (and possibly wife) of St. Paul—fled to these mountains in the first century. She was escaping soldiers sent by her father, who was threatening to kill her for her ardent faith in her adopted religion. St. Takla was exhausted and, finding her way blocked by the sharp, rocky sides of a mountain, fell on her knees in desperate prayer. Legend has it the mountains parted, and she escaped. Maaloula means entrance in Aramaic. For centuries, Christians and Muslims have come here to pray for miracles, but the residents of Maaloula weren’t blind to the dangers that swirled around them when I visited on several occasions in 2012 and 2013. “I am afraid of the kind of people who will come here,” said Antoinette Nasrallah, a Syrian-American, originally from Miami, who owned a café in the center of town. “I am afraid of Salafists.” Still, an ancient way of life prevailed in the convents and monasteries of Maaloula, set amid apricot trees that attracted songbirds.

The idyll was shattered on September 4, 2013, when a Jordanian suicide bomber exploded a truck at a Syrian army checkpoint at the entrance of the town. Eight soldiers were killed. Rebel opposition soldiers and jihadists fighting against Syrian President Bashar Assad attacked, and the battle of Maaloula, a UNESCO-protected town, had begun. The Syrian army led a counterattack two days later, regaining control, but the fighting continued. The rebels again took the town and this time burned down churches and began to drive out Christian residents. At that point, nearly the entire population of Maaloula fled. Some went to Beirut, an unfortunate reminder of the gruesome slogan chanted by opposition members at rallies from the beginning of the conflict: “Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the coffin.”The Syrian government eventually took back Maaloula, but in November 2013 more opposition forces—including the jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra (the Al-Qaeda franchise in Syria)—attacked. They kidnapped 12 nuns from the monastery to exchange for their captured fighters. For nearly six months, the ancient town was again under siege until April 14, 2014, when the Syrian army—with the help of Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia—once more took control of Maaloula.  Recalling the assault by jihadists, 62-year-old Adnan Nasrallah told the Arabic daily newspaper Al Akbar: “I saw people wearing al-Nusra headbands who started shooting at crosses," adding that one of them “put a pistol to the head of my neighbor and forced him to convert to Islam by obliging him to repeat, 'There is no God but God.’ "Afterwards they joked, 'He's one of ours now.'”

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The Syrian army still controls most of Maaloula, but only around 150 Christian families have returned. Many houses have been gutted by fires, and the churches and monasteries are damaged from the fighting. As the season of Lent and abstinence leading up to Easter began in Maaloula in February, the faithful few gathered to pray. But they are no longer praying for cures for ailments or for a profitable harvest from their fields. Now they are praying for survival, because they know hundreds of their fellow Christians have been kidnapped and murdered by ISIS. Despite this, they refuse to flee, because Syria is their country, their home. Mahmoud Diab, the imam, has left the town, but Antoinette Nasrallah is still in Maaloula. When I spoke to her by telephone a few weeks before Easter, she said the reason was simple: “It has to do with history.”

IN THE NAME OF GOD; Christians are only one of the many religious groups in Iraq and Syria that have suffered atrocities at the hands of ISIS, other armed groups and the Assad regime. Many more Muslims have been killed or driven from their homes, but ISIS has repeatedly trumpeted its attacks on Christians, whom it often refers to as “crusaders,” as part of a holy war it claims to be fighting in the name of Islam. These latest horrors build on the prejudice, discrimination and oppression that over the past few decades have steadily reduced the proportion of Christians in the Middle East from around 20 percent at the start of the 20th century to around 5 percent now. Less than 1 percent of the world’s more than 2 billion Christians live in the Middle East, and there are fears that number could dwindle even further.

“Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are disappearing in the very lands where their faith was born and first took root,” says the Center for American Progress in a report published in March. After the recent atrocities by ISIS, it says, “Christians have migrated from the region in increasing numbers, which is part of a longer-term exodus related to violence, persecution, and lack of economic opportunities stretching back decades.”Solid numbers on population shifts in Iraq and Syria and on Christian casualties are hard to get because of the chaos in the region. Millions of people of various religions have fled, including nearly 4 million Syrian refugees now living in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. Another 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced—meaning half of the country’s pre-war population of around 20 million has been forced from their homes.

A European Parliament resolution in March condemning attacks on Christians and other minorities said more than 700,000 Syrian Christians were among those who have fled the country. Before 2011, the Christian population there was estimated to be around 1.1 million.In Iraq, this latest round of Christian persecution started with the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and the sectarian violence that followed. The pre-2003 Christian population may have been as high as 1.4 million. Now estimates put it between 260,000 and 350,000. Many Iraqi Christians moved to safer regions in the north under Kurdish control, but now ISIS is threatening them there too.

Reports of atrocities against Christians, as well as the ransacking of shrines such as the tomb of Jonah in Mosul last July, have sparked dire predictions from the likes of Britain’s Prince Charles, who said in February he feared there would be “very, very few” Christians left in the Middle East, according to The New York Times. A few Westerners have even joined Christian militias to defend their faith.

The plight of Christians in the Middle East varies greatly from country to country, but the news is mostly bad. In Lebanon, for example, Christians make up around 38 percent of the population and play a powerful role in politics (though many fled during the 1975-1990 civil war). In Jordan, there are not many Christians, but they are guaranteed some seats in Parliament and generally live in safety, and the country has become a relatively safe haven for Christian refugees. In Israel and the Palestinian territories, the small Christian populations are

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By Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence

generally not targeted for violence, but they endure the same hardships as their neighbors who are also caught in the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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