It is safe to say Egyptian TV host Ahmed Moussa is not a fan of Barack Obama.
In response to the December 2 San Bernardino terror attack, Moussa said that he suspected that Obama was “connected to the terrorists who carried out the attack,” and added: “They should take Obama and stick him on an impalement rod. This is what they would do in a respectful country.” Moussa’s rant aired on the Egyptian Sada Al-Balad TV channel on December 5.
Muslims throughout the Middle East, but especially Iraq and Syria – blame Obama for the rise of ISIS.
Egyptians have a special disdain for this president because of that – and because of his administration’s support for the reviled Muslim Brotherhood, which they threw out on their asses in June of 2013.
Obama’s ambassador to Egypt, Ann Patterson was especially reviledfor her support for ousted terrorists.
If one follows the Egyptian media, however, one discovers that the reasons Egyptians dislike Patterson are many and unambiguous.
Last week, for example, El Fagr reported that, during their most recent phone conversation, Patterson demanded that Egypt’s recently appointed Supreme Commander of the Egyptian Armed Forces, General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, release all Muslim Brotherhood members currently being held for questioning: “And when Sisi rejected this order, the American ambassador began threatening him that Egypt will turn into another Syria and live through a civil war, to which Sisi responded violently: ‘Neither you nor your country can overcome Egypt and its people.'”
Earlier, Patterson was reported as “trying to communicate with General Sisi, demanding dialogue with the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and concessions to them,” to which Sisi reportedly retorted: “Stop meddling in our affairs… the Egyptian people are capable of looking after their own welfare.”
These are just the latest samplings from Egypt concerning the ambassador’s attempts to reinstate the Brotherhood to power. The day before the fundamentalist Salafi “Nour” party withdrew from negotiations with Egypt’s interim government, Al Nahar reported that Patterson had “incited them [the Salafi Nour Party] to tamper with the political scene and the road map and to threaten to withdraw from political participation if Dr. Muhammad Baradei becomes elected as Prime Minister…”
There is also widespread belief that Patterson’s “meddling” in Egypt’s affairs is not limited to General Sisi and the Egyptian media. Several of Egypt’s revolutionary forces, including Tamarod, which played a pivotal role in the June 2013 revolution, are preparing to stage aprotest in front of the U.S. embassy in Cairo “calling for the ejection of ambassador Anne Patterson.”
Naturally, Obama was so pleased with her work in Egypt, she was promoted to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
Without any help from the United States, Egypt and Libya are making some progress rooting the ISIS/Daesh terrorists out of Libya’s borders.
According to the *ISIS Study group, Egyptian Special Forces executed a joint-raid with the forces of Libyan GEN Khalifah Haftar after the start of airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) positions inside Libya.
Unit 999 and GEN Haftar’s forces conducted a raid on a camp located in the Dernah-area (variant: Darna) resulting in the total destruction of the camp. This particular camp is said to have a heavy-foreign fighter presence consisting of Tunisian, Egyptian and Algerian fighters. This particular camp appears to be part of the facilitation ratlines sending weapons and fighters to Syria through Egypt and Gaza, which is probably why the Sisi regime chose to target this location. IS responded by targeting the GEN Haftar stronghold of Quba in a series of bombings.
The ratlines coming out of Libya are also fueling IS-affiliate Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) to continue moving forward in their campaign to secure the Sinai Peninsula to use as the gateway to Gaza, Jordan and Syria. If you suspect there’s a great sense of urgency on the part of Egypt to eradicate the IS presence in Libya and the Sinai, you would be correct. The reason for the increased operations in both areas has everything to do with ABM attempting to reach out to other jihadist groups in the country to bolster their ranks and create a “unified” command. Unconfirmed reporting has come out over the past few weeks about ABM allegedly reaching out to the Cairo-based group Ajnad Masr for the purpose of conducting joint-operations against the regime. This is significant since Ajnad Masr splintered from ABM in 2013 over their pro-IS leanings and regional agenda as opposed to just targeting the Egyptian government. If confirmed, then ABM will have an effective action-arm for conducting operations inside Cairo itself (ABM’s Cairo operations had been disrupted over the last 4 months due to security sweeps). Adding weight to this possibility are the reports that Ajnad Masr may be looking to target western embassies in the capital.
Meanwhile, instead of helping our allies, the president has infuriated them – receiving at the White House, the very groupthat spawned Hamas, al Qaeda, and the enemy they are currently fighting.
The governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have expressed outrage over the warm visit Muslim Brotherhood members allegedly received at the White House in January, which the State Department eventually admitted to only after the Muslim Brotherhood members boasted of their visit on social media.
“The Egyptian regime, outraged by the visit, accused the U.S. administration of not respecting the Egyptian law that defines the MB as a terrorist organization, and of discounting the will of the Egyptian people,” reports the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
President Sisi himself reacted to the State Department’s belated confirmation of the Muslim Brotherhood meeting by describing the Brotherhood as “the world’s most dangerous secret terrorist organization” and saying it “has clandestine wings and secret ideas and tools… which is why Egyptians rose up against it.” Other comments from Sisi’s government were even more pointed, as translated by MEMRI:
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry expressed outrage at the U.S. State Department’s hosting of the MB delegation. At the end of the African Union summit, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry addressed the State Department’s explanation, saying: “I do not understand [the State Department’s] claims. We do not understand the existence of such ties with elements that are involved in terrorist activists meant to terrify Egyptians.” He added: “The MB movement is not a political party. Egyptian law – which should be respected, just as we respect the laws of others – defines it as a terrorist organization, based on evidence and testimony we have that indicates their involvement in terrorist actions meant to harm the lives of Egyptians, terrorize them, and threaten their security.” Shoukry said further: “If we wanted to bury our heads in the sand so as not to face reality, that would be another matter. But we see very well.” According to him, “terrorism is not just ISIS or Boko Haram, but rather all terrorist groups, regardless of what name they use, since they [all] champion the same ideology and the same ideas leading to death and destruction…”
The administration’s behavior in this context runs completely counter to the reality illuminated by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukr. “Ultimately this extremist ideology is shared by all terrorist groups. We detect ties of cooperation between them and see a danger as it crosses borders,” he explained.
Part of that mix includes includes Hamas, also spawned by the MB. Writing for the Times of Israel, Ryan Mauro, National Security Analyst for the Clarion Project, wonders why the world agrees that ISIS is morally repugnant even as Hamas gets a pass. “Both implement sharia governance, deliberately target civilians, have genocidal beliefs and seek the establishment of a caliphate,” he writes. He further explains that ISIS’s determination to exterminate Iraq’s Yazidi population is “no more egregious” than Hamas’s determination to eliminate millions of Jews. And the only difference between the MB, Hamas and ISIS is in regard to their method of achieving the same goal. The MB and Hamas wish to establish a Muslim caliphate incrementally, while ISIS is willing to do anything and everything to bring one about as quickly as possible.
Walid Shoebat,(a former PLO terrorist) has a theory. And as outlandish as it seems, it’s worth hearing out because Obama’s actions vis a vis the war on terror is becoming increasing alarming and difficult to comprehend.
Shoebat asks, “why is Obama, like Erdogan, aiding only Syrian rebels while both policies of Turkey and the U.S. exclude training the Kurds?”
It was at the Battle of Marj Dābiq (Arabic: مرج دابق) as we all learned as children was the most decisive military clash in Middle Eastern history (1516 AD) near the town of Dabiq, 44 km north of Aleppo, Syria between the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate.
The mention of Dabiq to ISIS and Turkey reveals more than just history, but also eschatology of invading Egypt for a grand future victory for Erdogan’s ultimate dream to revive the sick man of Europe. Dabiq is reverting back the clock to when Sultan Selim I (King of the North) of the Ottomans had just pushed back and vanquished the Safavid Persians (The biblical Bear) at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514—and turned their full might against the Mamluks, who ruled in Syria and Egypt (The biblical kingdom of the south) to complete the Ottoman conquest of the Middle East and mark their Ottoman supremacy in history.
Can anyone deny that Erdogan and Obama are setting policies in their nations that is preparing all this by reversing Sykes Picot in supporting the Arab Spring which is crippling nationalism and advancing the caliphate agenda? No Middle East analyst can deny that the United States through Obama was the key player which advanced the demolision of nationalism and advanced a caliphate agenda throughout the entire Middle East.
Why would the United States throw away one of its closest Arab allies in the Middle East? This should no longer be a mystery which even White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki could not adequately answer.
Is it now becoming obvious that Obama’s policies will allow a caliphate control over Libya which will turn that entire region of North Africa into the next Somalia recreating even another Barbary Pirates which will move even further to the gates of Vienna to threaten Christendom?
This interview Shoebat did with radio host Michael Savage a year ago about Obama’s Muslim Brotherhood/Sudan Regime-connected half brother Malik Obama, is quite an eye opener.
Savage’s final question is one conservatives have been asking a lot, lately. “Where are the Republicans?”
One of the bright spots in the Middle East right now is Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who in an important speech on January 1, called for religious reformation of the Muslim faith.
“The corpus of texts and ideas that we have made sacred over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world, al Sisis said. You cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You must step outside yourselves and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.”
So we have a strong potential ally in al Sisi, launching a military operation against (one would think) our common enemy ISIS/Daesh in Libya to avenge the deaths of 21 Egyptians who were not Muslims – but Coptic Christians. You would think that the United States would be embracing this important ally in the war against Islamic Terror.
The United States does not support Egyptian and Emirati airstrikes against Islamist militias in Libya because the U.S. believes the crisis in Libya must be resolved politically and without outside interference, a Department of Defense spokesman said Tuesday.
Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrying out airstrikes in Libya was different from U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant forces in Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby told a briefing, because the U.S. was acting in Iraq, in a “very targeted” manner, at the request of its government.
“This wasn’t some unilateral decision by the United States to strike targets inside Iraq.”
“We discourage other nations from taking a part in Libya’s issues through violence,” Kirby said. “We want the issues solved in Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics and not violence.”
Libya’s “issues” of course have become Egypt’s issues in the form of 21 decapitated Egyptian heads.
Joe Klein on Morning Joe this morning said the Obama administration is “slow-walking aid to the al-Sisi government.”
The reason why the Regime is stiffing our ally in the fight against ISIS, Klein explained, is because the al Sisi government came to power by overthrowing the Obama favored Muslim Brotherhood.
“I think it comes from the NSC – which is pretty weak – and also there are a group of people both at the State Dept and the NSC who are – um – who are…*humanitarians and human rights advocates,” Klein explained.
“Why wouldn’t they be the most mad?” Nicolle Wallace interjected.
“They’re mad at General Sisi because he staged a coup and got rid of the Muslim Brotherhood – and the Muslim Brotherhood is a milder form of the same kind of Salafist philosophy that ISIS has,” he answered.
An appalled Scarborough said, “so are you telling me that we have Egypt bombing ISIS, fighting ISIS, going to the UN against ISIS… fighting Hamas, and we’re not supporting them because we don’t like how he got in power?”
In an appearance on On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Monday night, Lt. Col Oliver North (Ret.) claimed that the Egyptian government asked the US for targeting intelligence on ISIS targets in Libya after ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, but the Obama Administration refused the request. North went on to claim that the Regime also refused to give Jordan intelligence on ISIS targets in Syria after their pilot was burned alive in a cage.
“President El Sisi asked for American intelligence targeting intelligence before today’s strikes and didn’t get it. King Abdullah of Jordan asked for Intelligence data on targets to respond to the murder of a Jordanian aircraft pilot. The Kurds are begging for arms and ammo from the United States, not one bullet has been delivered by the United States.”
According to the ISIS Study Group,the operation may have been launched without the US government’s knowledge.
This will also be the second time that the Sisi regime has conducted military operations in Libya, the first being the operation that we discussed in late-AUG 14 that used a combination of Egyptian and UAE airpower in addition to the deployment of Egyptian SOF teams. The operation in AUG was done to bolster the forces of Libyan GEN Khalifa Haftar (who we’ve written about extensively on our site), who is the only real moderate in Libya who has the strength to challenge the al-Qaida (AQ/AQIM) and IS presence in the country. More importantly, the operation was launched without the US government’s knowledge. We strongly suspect it remains the case in this latest series of bombings. Furthermore, we assess that Sisi will deploy additional SOF teams in Libya like he did before, although the ground portion will likely be limited to target identification and to coordinate operations with Haftar’s forces (he has his own air assets).
Obama’s hostility to the moderate Muslim leader of Libya GEN Haftar, has reportedly led him to form a stronger alliance with Russia. His refusal to help Jordan adequately has led King Abdullah to strengthen his relationships with GEN Sisi and Israel’s Bibi Netanhayhu.
It wouldn’t surprise me if al Sisi got intelligence help from the Israelis.
Debkais in fact reporting that the Egyptian Army and IDF are now fighting the Islamists together.
For the first time Israel joins an Arab power fighting ISIS terror – from Libya to Sinai and Suez.
The reason IS has been allowed to expand throughout North Africa and the Middle East is directly tied to the foreign policy failures of the Obama administration when it decided to support known jihadist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded entities during the Arab Spring. The EU is just as guilty, perhaps more so with their flaccid policies in targeting jihadists operating within their own borders. One word sums up the Obama foreign policy: Schizophrenic. The administration contradicts itself two or three times in a single day everyday. A case in point is all the talk about the need to support the moderate Muslims in the Middle East. Well, GEN Haftar, GEN Sisi and King Abdullah are all moderate Muslims who are taking the fight to IS – but the US government is either not doing enough or in some cases doing nothing at all. If anything, the Obama administration has been quite antagonistic towards both Haftar and Sisi, which is why we’re seeing Egypt moving closer to Russia and launching their own unilateral operations. Jordan is the only one of the three to receive support, but its the bare-minimum. This has prompted King Abdullah to strengthen relationships with GEN Sisi and Israel’s Bibi Netanhayhu. Perhaps the most important thing about all this is the fact that we have a moderate Muslim in GEN Sisi who launched this latest military operation to avenge the deaths of 21 Egyptians who were Coptic Christians and not Muslims. Sisi had previously told imams in Egypt they needed to change their rhetoric that Islam destroyed by the Islamic State. (President al-Sisi’s speech:http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189700#.VOJmIi78OyE)Think about that for a minute. This is a man that the Obama administration should be maintaining a strong relationship. Instead, the relationship with Egypt has soured considerably over the decision to support the wrong people. This fight needs more people like GEN Sisi, GEN Haftar, King Abdullah. The leaders in the US and Europe need to strongly back these leaders and quickly with the logistics and other requirements they need. These men are not asking for US combat troops, they are asking for logistics, weapons, intelligence support and similar assistance. The longer delays in supporting these leaders the more difficult it will be to combat this problem. Delaying action will ultimately allow an even more dangerous enemy to grow dragging the entire world into the conflict on an epic scale. The Islamic State has already grown exponentially from delays in action from the lack of American leadership.
There are reports that at least 35 Egyptians have been kidnapped in what appears to be a round-up at various locations in areas controlled by Ansar Al-Sharia and IS.
The Libya Herald has been told that starting this morning, in the wake of the attack on Derna by warplanes from Egypt, Egyptian nationals, many of them it seems farm workers, have been picked up by gunmen. The first reports were that seven men had been seized, but by mid-afternoon, it was being said that at least 35 had been reported missing.
In the wake of the gruesome ISIS (Daesh) video showing 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being beheaded in Libya, the Obama White House Sunday put out a statement condemning the atrocity. The statement was noteworthy for what it refused to acknowledge – the Coptic Christian faith of the victims – suggesting an attempt to minimize the religious aspect of the threat of Islamic terrorism.
The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens.
ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.
Keith Koffler, who is Jewish, finds the omission to be profoundly offensive:
President Obama’s determination to portray Islamist terrorism as merely “extremism” untethered from any religious motivation has now crossed the line from absurdity into profound offensiveness. These people died, horrifyingly, because of their religion. They are martyrs. But not, apparently, in the view of the White House.
Koffler also notes that the killings did not rate a “presidential” statement.
The statement above was issued by the press secretary, a determination that is calculated based on what the White House perceives as its importance.
Fox News’ Todd Starnes was also offended by the statement, noticing that the White House not only refuses to name the enemy – he refuses to name their victims.
“The White House denounced what they called ‘the murder of Egyptian citizens.’ Not Christians – citizens. The president couldn’t even summon the moral courage to speak the truth. They’re called Christians, sir.”
The piece is the size of a novelette – but well worth your time.
Western officials would probably do best to refrain from weighing in on matters of Islamic theological debate altogether. Barack Obama himself drifted into takfiri waters when he claimed that the Islamic State was “not Islamic”—the irony being that he, as the non-Muslim son of a Muslim, may himself be classified as an apostate, and yet is now practicing takfiragainst Muslims. Non-Muslims’ practicing takfir elicits chuckles from jihadists (“Like a pig covered in feces giving hygiene advice to others,” one tweeted).
I suspect that most Muslims appreciated Obama’s sentiment: the president was standing with them against both Baghdadi and non-Muslim chauvinists trying to implicate them in crimes. But most Muslims aren’tsusceptible to joining jihad. The ones who are susceptible will only have had their suspicions confirmed: the United States lies about religion to serve its purposes.
Make no mistake about the seriousness of the threat posed by the Islamic State, says Charles Krauthammer. In the wake of the murders of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, “[ISIS] is not just Islamic radicalism anymore, or Islamic terrorism, which is only a tactic. This is really Islamist supremacy. And in that sense, it is akin to Nazism. That was racial supremacy; here it’s Islamist.”
“The ideology of ISIS is clearly supremacist,” said Krauthammer on Monday’s Special Report, “in the sense that anybody who is not Islamic in their understanding is to be either enslaved or eradicated. This is a genocidal movement. You kill Christians, you kill Jews, you kill Yazidis (but you may in certain circumstances enslave them). That’s what we’re up against, and we have an administration that will not even admit that there’s a religious basis underlying what’s going on.”
Nice Deb 