Driving While Under the Influence...

"Unfortunately, the new drug-impaired driving law has proven to be very costly, time-consuming, and cumbersome to enforce and prosecute."
Traffic Injury Prevention journal article, Law professors Robert Solomon, Erika Chamberlain

"We're moving forward. We're not quite there yet."
"Any piece of technology will be challenged. And it will be challenged almost continuously."
Doug Beirness, impaired-driving research consultant

Under 2008 Criminal Code amendments, a police officer suspecting a driver may be impaired by drugs can lawfully demand the driver take part in a physical co-ordination test, called a Standardized Field Sobriety Test. Should the driver fail the test, the officer can then compel him/her to attend to a police station for a longer evaluation by a certified drug-recognition expert.

If the expert believes the driver is impaired by a particular drug at the evaluation's culmination, the expert can then order the driver to submit a blood, urine or saliva sample to enable confirmation of the presence of the drug in question.

However, the article from which the quote above appears, also claims that only 1,126 drug-impaired driving charges were laid in 2012 in Canada, representing less than two percent of the total impaired driving charges of that year. "Canadian courts remain skeptical about the link between the presence of drugs in a person's system and the actual impairment of his or her driving ability", also observed the article.

And this is precisely where a B.C. technology company comes in, producing what it claims will be the first commercial marijuana-detecting breathalyzer. A prototype remains a few months away from release and requires further testing, but it's on its way.

MADD Canada recently visited Parliament Hill  to emphasize the workability of random roadside saliva test.This is a protocol already in use in Australia and Europe.

Unlike the 0.08 percent blood alcohol concentration threshold, there is no scientific consensus regarding what level of consumption of certain drugs might cause impairment, throwing yet another spanner in the works of good intentions.

So, then, the Cannabix Breathalyzer, a hand-held device whose purpose is to detect marijuana, now in the last stages of development by B.C. technology company West Point Resources, is timely indeed. According to company officials their device will inform within minutes whether someone has consumed marijuana within the past two or three hours, supporting the observations of police.

"The likelihood of conviction goes up a lot more", company president Kal Malhi, a retired British Columbia RCMP officer said. He spent four years of his RCMP working life in the drug section. Not everyone is convinced, however.

"With all work that was done in Western Europe and Australia, if there was a reliable breath test for cannabis, I would've thought it would've (already) been pursued in the EU", commented Robert Solomon who also acts as legal adviser for MADD Canada.

Toronto's World Pride

"We are free here. We're able to express ourselves in a better and a more accepting environment -- something we cannot do back home."
"It's homely. It feels like the whole world is here."
Mojalifa Mokoele, 29, Zimbabwean

"I've seen so many people from every corner of the world, literally. [Canada] is a place that actually gets it, that stands up for human rights around the world and welcomes people in."
Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau

"Half my riding is in the parade, the other half is watching. Hanging out here is never a bad idea as an election strategy. But I'm actually here because this is about celebrating peoples' right to love."
Adam Vaughan Liberal candidate, Trinity-Spadina

Matthew Sherwood for National Post   The Toronto World Pride parade heads down Yonge Street in 

Toronto on Sunday, June 29, 2014. 

 

Over ten thousand people, inclusive of Canadian politicians, actors and Olympic athletes were present in Toronto, to march at the largest-ever pride parade on Sunday, after ten days of festivities celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. This was the first time a WorldPride festival has taken place in a North American city, and it was Toronto playing host, though it was also the 34th year such an event has taken place in the city.

Fittingly, perhaps, given that the province has just elected its first female, gay premier. Who was front and centre at the parade, herself proud of the event. "The energy is always up during this event but it's just on steroids this weekend", said one marcher. "It's been fantastic, absolutely fantastic."

An awful lot of people agreed, people who came as visitors to Canada from the Netherlands, Uganda, Texas, Australia, South Africa, Jamaica, to name a few.

People wore elaborate, colourful costumes and feather headdresses. Some marchers wore nothing. Bystanders wore rainbow colours, WorldPride T-shirts, and simply watched the proceedings, many with young children in tow.

Still, it remains a mystery to many other people why those who identify themselves as gay and other allied categories must flaunt their sexuality. Some see it as fun, others as in extremely poor juvenile taste. The latter, needless to say, stay away, while the former are there, cheering it all on.

To each their own. Sexuality however, is a private matter.

Laura Pedersen/National Post    Olivia Chow parades down Yonge Street during the WorldPride Parade 

in Toronto, Ontario on Sunday, June 29, 2014.

Why make such a show of it? On the other hand, there are worse things than bad taste. In other parts of the world contempt and violence reflect cultural mores that were once in evidence in Canada, including Toronto and any other city in the country. In that sense, we've come a long way.

Matthew Sherwood for National Post   The Toronto World Pride parade heads down Yonge Street in 

Toronto on Sunday, June 29, 2014.

And So Be It

"In the context of a pluralistic society, religious sensitivities, especially related to Islam as the religion of the federation, should be respected."
Malaysian king, Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'zdzam

Malaysia's new King Abdul Halim inspected an honor guard during the welcoming ceremony at Parliament Square in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. Mr. Halim, 84, the ruler of northern state of Kedah, took the oath of office to become Malaysia's 14th king, a largely ceremonial post  - The Wall Street Journal

In Malaysia, a 'secular' Islamic country, Muslims represent 61% of the population, Buddhists 20%, and Christians bring up the rear with 9% of its population. Abdullah Zaik, head of a Muslim-Malay rights organization feels Malaysian Christians should set aside their 'stubbornness' in the name of national unity. They must respect Islam, and it seems they do not do so sufficiently, in claiming their heritage right, though Christians, to refer to Allah as God in their scriptures.

A leading Islamic Malaysian scholar, Mohd Sani Badron, states that the use of "Allah" for "God" must be curtailed to absolute extinction. It is only Muslims and Muslims only who have the right to speak of Allah, to use that sacred name. Others doing so commit blasphemy. And in using Allah for God, the ages-old custom "erroneously represents the two religions as equal", and quite obviously, in so doing causes Islamic anger.

Another leading Malaysian cleric states that Christians in his country who resist a new ruling of the highest court of the land which issued a judgement denying Christians the use of the word "Allah", are deliberately "trying to cause chaos", and in so doing, raise the possibility of ... disharmony. And here we thought that it was only China that was transfixed by the need for social "harmony", abhorring "splittists".

Non-Muslims labour under the misapprehension that the word Allah refers to a universal god. It clearly does not. It refers to the one true god of a transcendentally superior religion, one which has, through its perfection, superseded all others. And, despite that for centuries Arab and Malaysian Christians have been accustomed to reading in their Bibles the name of the deity whose son was Jesus, as Allah, they may no longer do so.

When the judgement came down on Monday, Muslims gathered before the court in a group waved signs and celebrated: "Unite in defending the word Allah. Fight to the last drop of blood." Admittedly, Muslims are very good in distinguishing themselves by fighting to the last drop of blood; theirs and everyone else's.

In Malaysia, government officials claimed that the word "Allah" in a Christian context might be capable of confusing good Muslims to the extent that it might cause them to become ... Christians. And though the Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia appealed to use the word, their activism caused arson and vandalism to take place, on both sides.

Malaysia does have a National Development Policy. That policy gives preferential treatment in schools, jobs and housing to the majority Malays and indigenous tribes, protecting them from the competition of non-native Malays, identified as Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indians. This is the Malaysian version of 'affirmative action'; enabling not the minority, but the majority.

The Caliphate Lives!

"The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas."
"Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day."
Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani

AP Photo, File   An al-Qaeda-inspired militant stands guard at a checkpoint captured from the Iraqi Army outside Beiji refinery, some 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, Iraq on June 19, 2014. The Al-Qaeda breakaway group that has seized much of northern Syria and huge tracks of neighbouring Iraq formally declared the creation of an Islamic state on Sunday, June 29, in the territory under its control.

And so, it is done; the al-Qaeda breakaway Islamists whose brutality seemed a tad too much for even al-Qaeda to stomach, has declared itself the state of all states, destined to be enlarged as it enters and occupies an ever broadening swath of Middle East territory. All Muslims have been gravely advised by Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani, to surrender completely to the invading Islamists liberating them from the oppressive administration of government, and to welcome and pay homage to their new tyrant.

Handout   Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the new caliph

Just as there is no god but Allah and the Prophet is his spokesman there is evidently no caliph like Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and he must be revered and above all obeyed. He is the new leader of leaders, the caliph of the Islamic State. For it is now the formal name of that state, shortened pithily from its current cumbersome two-name status to the far more emphatic and undeniable title of Islamic State. A state that runs, for the time being from northern Syria to the Iraqi province of Diyala.

"Now the insurgents in Iraq have no excuse for working with ISIS if they were hoping to share power with ISIS. The prospect of infighting in Iraq is increased for sure", observed Aymenn Al-Tamimi, an analyst specializing in Islamic militants and Iraq and Syria.

A brief thought of sympathy for al-Qaeda might be suitable at this juncture, as it fades into the sunset, having had its day in the sun, hoping that it would represent the mechanism through which the fabled caliphate would roar back to life. ISIS has done what its mentor group could never quite manage; carve out a huge swath of territory within the Arab world, with complete and utter control of it, their unspeakable brutality inspiring terror in those they threaten, and admiration in those eager to join them.

"This announcement poses a huge threat to al-Qaeda and its longtime position of leadership of the international jihadist cause. Taken globally, the younger generation of the jihadist community is becoming more and more supportive of ISIS, largely out of fealty to its slick and proven capacity for attaining rapid results through brutality."
Charles Lister, visiting fellow, Brookings Doha Center

The larger battle is joined, however. The United States has sent 300 advisers to Baghdad, and drones to protect its immensely expensive embassy in the capital, having drained it of most of its 5,000 staff for the time being; perhaps forever; that is yet to be seen. And Iran, of course, along with Russia have both become 'allies' of the United States in its fervent bid to shield Baghdad at the very least, from the Islamist horde.

A Russian SU-25 plane arriving in Baghdad.

REUTERS/Stringer

Russia, it seems, is contributing a dozen warplanes to the arsenal being assembled to aid the haplessly self-destructive Nouri Al-Maliki from losing the entire country to fanatics. What a triumphant triumvirate coming to the rescue; the Axis of Can-Do: America, Russia, Iran.

Terror Infrastructure

"Alongside the deep mourning, we remain determined to bring down an iron fist on the criminal terrorists. Our war against terror will only grow and not weaken so that the murderous terrorists will not dare to raise their heads. At this difficult hour, I warmly embrace and strengthen the hands of the mothers, the wonderful fathers and family members of Naftali, Gilad and Eyal."
"What we feared has come to pass. Our fear was deep but we carried in our hearts the hope that even murderous terrorists would spare the teens."
Israeli President Shimon Peres

"The kidnapping and murder of innocent boys under cover of night is a despicable and unforgivable crime. There is no justification or excuse, and I am convinced that the long arms of the security forces will reach the murderers."
Labour Party head Isaac Herzog

"If the occupiers carry out an escalation or a war, they will open the gates of hell on themselves."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri

A week ago Hamas declared they were embarking on the third intifada. Up until then, they had sought to deter other Islamist groups from launching rockets across the border from Gaza into Israel. Emboldened by the embrace of Fatah in a new unity government, Hamas may feel it has used its time well enough to stock sufficient arms to once again engage the IDF. After the last engagement brought forward by rocket-provocation, Qatar was kind enough to fund Hamas to replace its lost arms.

And while the abduction and murder of the three Israeli teens may not have been the result of a Hamas intrigue, it was two identified members of Hamas who carried out the crime. They fled directly after the kidnapping, but evidently not before the three teens were shot by them. Shortly after the abduction Hamas issued an official statement of congratulation to the kidnappers -- whose identity they claimed they were unaware of -- for a job well done.

And now that Israeli sorrow and rage have reached equal proportions Hamas leaders have gone underground.

An IDF ambulance was attacked as it transported the bodies of the three Israeli teens who were abducted and killed. Photo: Facebook.

Palestinian Arabs have been swift to demonstrate the level of their sympathy for the murder of the three Jewish teens. They attacked an Israeli Defence Forces ambulance humvee transporting the bodies of the three who had been discovered in a field, bound, and long dead, their lifeless bodies covered with stones. Palestinians excel at either throwing stones at Israeli Jews or covering their bodies with them in death.

The image of the damaged vehicle was posted on Facebook on the Muqata blog with the legend: "8:44pm IDF Ambulance humvee transporting the bodies of the boys attacked by arabs . . . . windows smashed." This is an incident which the IDF has chosen to neither confirm nor deny. What was confirmed beyond doubt was that the bodies of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frankel were found, following weeks of frantic searches for them in the hope, ever dimming, they would still be alive.

Israeli soldiers are seen in the Palestinian village of Halhul where the bodies of three Jewish teenagers — Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaar — were found in a nearby field, June 30, 2014. (Nati Shohat/Flash 90)

Even while the army carried out its search for the three abducted teens, it was carrying out a wide-ranging operation against Hamas in response to its increase in rockets launched from Gaza. A dozen locations in Gaza were targeted on Sunday and they included concealed rocket launchers, weapons manufacturing sites, and "terror activity" sites; those airstrikes retaliatory for the six rockets that struck the night before, two of which hit a paint factory in the town of Sderot.

An Israeli airstrike on Friday killed two Palestinian Tawhid Brigades members, according to Palestinian security officials and group members. Over 60 rockets have been launched from Gaza toward Israel in the month of June. Battling Islamists wherever they pose a threat, Israeli Prime Minister Benamin Netanyah has sought authority to outlaw a Muslim group within Israel which had issued calls for the abduction of Israeli soldiers during a demonstration in an Arab-Israeli town.

"In many cases, those behind such calls and demonstrations are from the northern branch of the Islamic Movement. It constantly preaches against the State of Israel and its people publicly identify with terrorist organization such as Hamas", stated the prime minister. The movement's leader, Raed Salah, has been arrested previously, was banned from Jerusalem, and has been accused of incitement. The man has called for a third intifada against Israel.

A Jewish tourist from Germany covers her face as she walks in a paint factory damaged by Saturday's rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, Sunday, June 29, 2014. Israel carried out airstrikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip early Sunday after a rocket attack, the military said, as the country's foreign minister suggested it consider reoccupying the Hamas-ruled territory to stop the increasing rocket fire. The airstrikes were in retaliation for six rockets from Gaza that struck Israel the previous evening. Two of the rockets hit the factory in Sderot, setting it ablaze. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Regaining Confidence...?

"Tikrit has become a ghost town because a lot of people left over the past 72 hours, fearing random aerial bombardment and possible clashes as the army advances toward the city."
"The few people who remain are afraid of possible revenge acts by Shiite militiamen who are accompanying the army. We are peaceful civilians and we do not want to be victims of this struggle."
Muhanad Saif al-Din, Tikrit resident

Iraqi security forces take part in an intensive security deployment on the outskirts of the city of Samarra, June 24, 2014. (REUTERS/Stringer)

In full anticipation of a government assault, many residents of Tikrit fled the city beforehand.  Muhanad Saif al-Din said the city had been without power or water since Friday night. The Iraqi military carried out three airstrikes as well on the ISIS-held city of Mosul early on Saturday. South of Baghdad, clashes between security forces and ISIS along with Iraqi Sunni insurgents in the town of Sunni-majority Jurf al-Aakhar located 50 kilometres outside the capital killed 21 troops and dozens of militants, according to police and hospital officials.

Iraqi security officials confirmed the arrival of five Russian Suohoi jets, purchased second-hand from Russia. The previously-ordered U.S.-manufactured planes the government of Iraq had ordered were delayed in their delivery until early fall; not much help in the current desperate situation. But the big news was that Iraqi soldiers backed by tanks and helicopter gunships started their offensive Saturday to retake Tikrit. Conflicting reports belying government claims it had retaken Tikrit have been going the rounds, with the Islamists claiming the city remained in their hands.

Residents of Tikrit reported that the militants still retained control of the city, even while Iraqi officials claimed troops had reached the outskirts, then pressed deep into Tikrit itself. The picture the regime is desperately trying to paint is the reverse of the reality that saw Iraq's large American-trained and -equipped military fading away when faced with the terrorist presence. Public confidence in the military is at a deep ebb. Should the Tikrit operation succeed, a degree of faith could be restored both in the security forces and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"He gave a fatwa the Shiites never had for 90 years of more. He will not retreat. He wants to have a role. It would be seen as irresponsible for him to pull back after issuing such a fatwa", commented a Western diplomat of the country's clerical establishment leading the hugely revered 83-year-old Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to demand that politicians select a new government without delay; implicitly stating Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's disastrous administration come to an end.

The Grand Ayatollah called on Iraqis to take up arms against the Sunni insurgency, a call representing the first fatwa of its kind in a century; motivated, insisted other clerics, by his fear that the country faced collapse. Tens of thousands of Iraqi men have responded to the call, in support of the army that has seemed to be teetering on implosion. Ayatollah Sistani's appeal for an inclusive government is interpreted as a rebuke of Mr. al-Maliki, a situation difficult to ignore.

According to Iraqi military spokesman Lt.Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, helicopter gunships carried out airstrikes before dawn on Islamist militias who were attacking troops at a university campus on Tikrit's northern outskirts. A bridgehead had been established by government forces on the sprawling grounds of the university after being airlifted into the city the day before. Clashes continued sporadically throughout the day at the university. 

Simultaneously, several columns of troops pushed north from Samarra, a city along the Tigris River banks, home to an important Shiite shrine, heading toward Tikrit. By sundown, Lt.Gen Ahmed Abu Ragheef, commander in the Salahuddin Operational Command, said as well that a column of troops had reached the edge of Tikrit, and another had secured an airbase known as Camp Speicher, used as an American military facility previously.

This, while residents reached by telephone on Saturday evening described militants as being still in control of the city, a Sunni-predominant city of over 200,000. While confirming the clashes around the university and fighting between ISIS and Iraqi forces to the southeast of the city as well, they described black smoke rising from a presidential palace complex located at the edge of the Tigris River after army helicopters opened fire on the compound.

The next few days will demonstrate whether the government's plan to restore confidence by portraying itself responding finally to the forward momentum of the Islamists has a true basis in describing what is occurring. After two weeks of demoralizing defeats at the hands of a conquest-seeking horde of Islamists for whom no atrocities are too vicious to send the message that nothing will stop them, it was time for Iraq to begin defending itself.

Wot?! Gay Pride In Turkey!

Participants wave a huge rainbow flag during a Gay Pride Parade in central Istanbul. REUTERS Photo / Osman Orsal

Istanbul is the capital of an Islamist government in Turkey. Where the Justice and Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan must surely be squirming with discomfort. Not only because of all the protests that have been taking place in the country this year, and the popular secular outrage of Turks over their prime minister's autocratic dictates and the revelations of corruption within the government, but because homosexuality is not yet illegal in Turkey.

Which has empowered the country's LGBT (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender) community to appear in their colourful thousands on Istanbul's main pedestrian street, Istiklal Avenue. Which is where this year's gay pride parade took place. Nothing untoward occurred, which was nice for the LGBT crowd, though police were there to intervene 'in the event of violence'; the march, however, was a peaceful, celebratory one.

Where those present waved rainbow flags and holding signage for an end to homophobia. "Love knows no gender", read one; "Another kind of family is possible", read another, and "Stop homophobia" read yet another sign. "In Turkey, we all have difficulty exercising our rights. This is why we must fight and why we all walk together today", stated Aykut Yanak, one of the participants of the homophobia that remains firmly entrenched among the conservative population.

Islamists took issue both with the fact that the government permitted the LGBT community to hold the event, and that the parade happened to coincide with the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The violent government crackdown last year sparked by a controversy over popular Gezi park destined to become a commercial venue began the public's backlash against the government, when protesters took to the streets in protest against heavy-handed rule.

"Where are you my love?" chanted part of the marching crowd. Others within the crowd responded: "I am here my love." "Put your legs on your shoulders against fascism", "We are the soldiers of Freddy Mercury", "AKP go away, the queers are here", and "The earth would shake if queers were free", represented additional popular slogans appearing on banners.

There was some tension when police blocked entry to Taksim Square in a deliberate action to prevent the march from entering the symbolic area of Gezi Park, cordoned off an hour before the march began. Some of the activists painted the infamous water cannons omnipresent on Istiklal Avenue with rebellious messages. It's called getting the message through to the authorities. Seemed they did a quite creditable job of it, too.

Reuters

The New, Transformed Libya

"He's [Muammar Gaddafi] dead now. His sons and the other people who were doing the dirty work for him are either out of the country or in jail. They have to face the consequences of what they did. And that's good enough."
It is my country [Libya], as Canada is my country. I was always proud to be a Libyan but I was ashamed to say such a man was our president."
"People were dying for nothing, just for speaking. The guy was killing, killing, killing."
"We resisted them. We fought back, we fought back, we fought back. But they had more power than we did. We couldn't keep them away."
Tarek Ben-Kura, Libyan-Canadian Montrealer

Courtesy of First to Fall   The documentary film First to Fall with Canadian Tarek Ben-Kura, above, shows how Canadians of Libyan heritage went to fight the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

"You could tell there was some naivete as far as what they would experience but they also were so idealistic, as were many people in Libya at the beginning. For them, this was their chance to make a difference."
"Once you're telling the story, you have this feeling that 'I can't leave until I have the full story'. That was the hardest thing."
Rachel Beth Anderson, filmmaker

Tarek Ben-Kura was born in Canada, lived part of his life in Libya, but came back to Canada with his family. Now 25 years old, he is trying to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. He also copes with life in a wheelchair. Three years ago he decided he would depart Canada when the Libyan uprising against the Libyan dictator began. He most surely was an idealist, certainly not what one might consider to be fighting material, as a business student at Bishop's University in Montreal.

On arrival in Benghazi, he began basic weapons training, determined to help Libyan rebels remove Muammar Gaddafi from power. Though there are no figures on how many Libyan-Canadians fought alongside the rebels backed by NATO during Libya's 2011 conflict, where Canadian air power helped to destroy the regime's ground troops and kept their planes out of the air by bombing them into uselessness, Mr. Ben-Kura states he met other students from Canada prepared to fight in Libya.

They were motivated, he said, by Libyan nationalism, by hatred of their tyrant, and by the promise they interpreted was taking place as a result of the 'Arab Spring'. Libya's North African 'King of Kings' was said to have plotted the assassination of other Arab leaders; claims being made he had once claimed he intended to "behead them one by one". He was a notorious supporter of terrorism, inciting terrorists to wreak havoc within the continent and in the greater world at large.

He helped to arm the IRA. He permitted terrorists to camp in the Libyan desert. His agents were responsible for bombing a Berlin disco. They brought down a Pan-Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing hundreds aboard. He invited the leaders of Canada's neo-Nazi movement to visit with him in his capital of Tripoli. He had more latterly, after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, agreed to surrender his drive toward nuclear weaponry.

Olivier Laban Mattei for The New York Times  Fliers urging support for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya make the rounds in Bamako, Mali.

Other North African nations like Mali and Liberia were highly dependent on Gaddafi's generosity, funding them and the African Union with billions in support of their impoverished condition, thanks to the abundant treasury he amassed due to the oil riches that Libya possessed. Libya's vast oil reserves enabled Gaddafi to spread billions around sub-Saharan Africa, investing in governments, rebel groups, luxury hotels, Islamic organizations, rubber factories, rice paddies, diamond mines, supermarkets and OiLibya gas stations.

Within Libya itself there are 100 different tribes, many of which, like his own, jockeyed constantly to position themselves for superior recognition, dominance and profit. Gaddafi was resourceful and relentlessly brutal in ensuring that they all knuckled under to his iron grip of the country. Mr. Ben-Kura had gone to Libya with a friend, another Montreal student, Hamid Fawzi Elfaghi. Eventually Hamid went to the Misrata front, and Mr. Ben-Kura went to Zawiyah.

And there it was, when confronting a Libyan military unit, that he was shot first in the thigh, and once again in the stomach, the bullet passing through his spine, leaving him paralyzed below the waist. He was sped to a hospital in Zintan, then on to Tunisia, spending months in hospital there before returning to Canada in October 2011 and admitted to Montreal General Hospital where he spent another 2-1/2 months at the rehabilitation institute.

He nurses his hopes; both for himself that he will some day walk again, and also for Libya where he feels a new era of promise has surfaced for the country. That, despite the very fact that competing, violent tribal forces have kept the country from forming a government capable of administering the affairs of the country by refusing to surrender their arms to a national military presence. And the fact that Islamists associated with al-Qaeda have continued to gain ground there.

"Most importantly", said Mr. Ben-Kura, in a show of bravura, "I don't regret it [his decision to travel to the country of his birth and sacrifice the quality of his life for the greater good of Libya becoming a 'normal' country with peace and security prevailing]." 

What's done is done, but Libya looks a far way from the kind of country that can present security to its population; Islamism continues on its relentless march.

Jordanian Bedouin hoist Al Qaeda flag in Ma’an - 104 km from Eilat. US, Israeli forces on the ready

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 29, 2014, 8:44 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Jordan,  ISIS,  Al Qaeda,  US military action,  Israel,

Ma'an raises ISIS flag of revolt

“Ma’an is the Falluja of Jordan!” shouted thousands of Bedouin Saturday, June 28, in the southern Jordanian town of Ma’an. This legend was inscribed on the placards and flags they bore aloft with one hand in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). In the other, they waved automatic rifles. 

 

Ma’an (pop: 50,000) is in a sensitive location:  218 km south of Amman, it also lies 104 km from the Israeli port town of Eilat and some 60 km from the main artery cutting south from northern Israel to the south.

But although pro-Al Qaeda riots have been going on for days in Ma’an, capital of the southern province of the Kingdom of Jordan, military and security personnel have not been seen in its vicinity.
The town has a history of violent unrest. It has in the past suffered curfew and was even, when the rioting got out of hand, stormed by soldiers firing live rounds and leaving dozens dead.

For now, King Abdullah is conferring urgently with his army and intelligence chiefs on how to suppress the Islamist revolt in Ma’an without it spilling over into other Jordanian towns, especially Salt, Irbid and Zerka, which have large clusters of Al Qaeda followers.

There was anxious talk in Washington Sunday about the prospect of Abdullah’s throne being rocked by an Islamist revolt, in which case the Obama administration would have no option but to approve the intervention of American and Israeli special operations forces to defend the king,  and push back against an Al Qaeda-ISIS invasion. However the domestic Islamist peril may be more immediate and acute than the external one.

A US military source consulted by debkafile revealed that the Jordanian army is now concentrated in three sectors: The Syrian border in the north, the Iraqi border in the east and the capital.
In the first case, Jordanian troops are ranged to head off a possible incursion by ISIS forces concentrated in eastern Syria. They are also prepared to withstand a possible Syrian army assault to dampen Jordan’s military support for the Syrian rebels operating in southern Syria in defense of the Jordanian and Israeli borders.

In the second case, the Jordanian army is deployed directly opposite the ISIS forces which have seized control of most of Iraq’s Anbar province adjacent to the Jordanian border.

The army’s third sector is the capital, Amman, where it acts as the guardian of the royal regime.
Should the Islamist conflagration spread from Ma’an to other corners of the kingdom, its army will be short of fighting manpower for simultaneous defense against internal and external threats.

Our Washington sources report that Brig. Gen. Dennis McKean, commander of the joint US-Jordanian-Israeli underground Centcom-Forward war room established near Amman, has already received instructions to place the 12,000 US soldiers and USAF F-16 fighter squadron positioned in Jordan on the ready.

They also disclose that Brig. McKean is in direct communication with Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the commander of Israel’s Deep Operations command, Maj. Gen. Shay Avital and Israel Air Force chief Maj. Gen. .Amir Eshel.

The Deep Operations command was established in case it was necessary to launch operations against Iran or the Lebanese Hizballah in alien territory. This unit may find itself operating against Al Qaeda’s ISIS in Jordan instead

Washington, Jerusalem and Amman are mulling over whether to wait for the trouble in Jordan to escalate further before intervening, or to act preemptively before matters get out of hand by punching hard at ISIS forces concentrated along the Iraqi-Jordanian border. In the latter case, there would have to be a second decision as to which army would inflict the punch, its location and a forward estimate of the potential repercussions on Jordan’s internal security.

« Breaking News »

Sunni Islamists push Iraqi forces back from Tikrit

DEBKAfile June 29, 2014, 6:00 PM (IDT)

Iraqi government forces trying to retake the town of Tikrit from ISIS and Sunni rebels were pushed back Sunday to a nearby town. They launched their counter-offensive Saturday against the Islamist State of IRaq and the Levant with tanks, armored vehicles and helicopter gunships. Heavy fighting led to casualties on both side. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has counted on recovering Sunni Tikrit 120km north of Baghdad to boost his struggle to remain in power against rising demands for him to step down.

Tangled Webs

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gets around, they really do. They obviously believe in getting things done expeditiously without too much fuss. Capture a thousand or so military of an opposition and dispatch them to the nether world and then there's no concern about having to guard them. They've marched from Iraq into Syria to oppose the Syrian Shia-Alawite regime, then turned about and marched right back into Iraq to unseat the Iraqi Shia-led regime with disaffected Sunnis aiding them at every turn.

Saudi Arabia has not only armed and financed the Sunni insurgents in both Syria and Iraq, but it has assembled its forces to protect its own borders; ISIS is like those army ants that stride imperviously through miles and miles of crops and forests to ravenously swallow everything in their path, to stifle and smother whatever cannot move swiftly enough out of their way. In Jordan ISIL/ISIS, the terrorist Islamist group with a double name; Al-Sham/Levant, strides toward Amman.

It appears to be pre-established within Ma'an, a tranquil southern Jordanian city where bearded men in military camouflage jackets and other men wearing long black tunics, the colour of choice for Islamists, shout "Allahu akbar!", unfurling the black flag bearing the symbol of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Members of the Al-Abbas brigades, who volunteered to protect the Shiite Muslim holy sites in Karbala against Sunni militants fighting the Baghdad government, parade in the streets of the Shrine city on June 26, 2014. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki conceded that political measures are needed alongside military action to repel a Sunni insurgent offensive that is threatening to tear Iraq apart. AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED SAWAF MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this week Jordanian troops rushed to the border with Iraq to reinforce defences with convoys of tanks, troops and rocket launchers just as the Sunni ISIL militias took control of the official border post on the Iraq side. Radical factions within Jordan's largely Sunni society sympathizing with ISIL's push to depose Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Shiite oppressor of Iraq's Sunnis are prepared to join the disintegration of the Middle East.

That disintegration has been brought to the fore courtesy of many circumstances, none more responsible than the flowering of the "Arab Spring", which the West so applauded, believing it to herald in a new era of democracy and civil rights and freedoms that countries of the Muslim Middle East's citizens so eagerly clamoured for, believing that it would being them wealth and security, as it appeared to when watching U.S. television.

What it did was free sectarian tensions on a low boil to intensify to immensely fiery proportions igniting old resentments and antagonisms that nothing could forestall, thanks to some interventions removing old tyrants whose firm grasp of their societies held them together in mutual fear and traditional loathing. Learning to share never was a high priority in tribal societies for whom the 'other' presented as a provocation and potential risk to their own advantage.

The minority Shiite populations within majority Sunni countries will always be disadvantaged as lesser creatures within the Islamic scale of justice and balance. They simply chose the wrong heir to back and back then, as right now that was rigorously recognized as blasphemy leading to apostasy. The Sunnis who live as minority populations within majority Shiite regimes will never be granted equal citizenship, for they are undeserving, following the wrong Islamic path.

ISIS/ISIL is on the rampage, eager to behead as many Shiites as they can before their scimitars become too dulled to cut through human flesh, sinew and bone. Of course there is always the potential for the United States to intervene, to attempt to halt the slaughter that will continue regardless of what outsiders do or say or threaten. Should outside intervention favour either sect, the terrorist jihadis representing either sect will see it as an invitation to heap their scorn and lethal attacks where it will hurt the intervenors most, at home.

In Pakistan, senior Al-Qaeda would be delighted to disabuse the United States of the notion that they will successfully apprehend all the terrorists that attempt to enter North America and reprise 9/11. In Iran, the Ayatollahs will give additional thought and instruction to Hezbollah and Hamas who have both proven their mettle in infiltrating North American and European society, enabling them to strike should they so desire, anywhere.

So, go ahead make their day; choose carefully, either Sunni or Shiite, and remember the choosing was a matter of free will, and for every action there will be reaction. Caution: wring hands, stay home, send treasure.

Bountiful Indeed

"Student grades should be recorded at the time the student completes the course and entered on the student's 1704 (permanent student record) accordingly -- not written on a Post-it Note to be entered the following academic year."
British Columbia Office of the Inspector of Independent Schools

Photo of recess time at Mormon Hills School in Bountiful.   Photograph by: Ian Smith , Vancouver Sun

The B.C. Department of Education is concerned over the level of education young people receive at the Mormon Hill School in Bountiful, B.C. They should be. The province also financially supports the school and expects it to have a curriculum that will be of educational value to the fundamentalist sect's schoolchildren. Fond hope that is.  Yet, according to school records they're all A-grade students receiving high marks. So what's the problem?

Plenty of problems when students write provincial exams. A "significant discrepancy" that troubles authorities. The children are taught the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in fact, not the provincial curriculum of the three Rs. It is religious doctrine based on Mormonism as it was practised 100 years ago. No matter, millions continue to flow from the provincial government to this little community.

Where nearly everyone with the school is related; the 182 students, the 11 teachers, the staff and the directors of the school; Mr. Blackmore, his brother and one of his sons being directors. Six teachers are surnamed Blackmore; one is Winston's daughter and the school secretary one of his celestial wives. Five of the teachers have no accreditation as teachers the health and career program is based on a Web-based version, though none of the school's computers is connected to the Internet. Details.

God, according to Bountiful's social values, determines who will marry whom and delivers that information personally as a kindly interventionist indulgence to the church's prophet/president, none other than Mr. Blackmore. Girls as young as 12 are forced by church leaders into "celestial" or "plural" marriages. Marriages, somewhat unsurprisingly reserved only for the most influential and powerful men within the community.

The Mormon Church has disavowed the offshoot Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and is in the process of suing it for misappropriating its copyrighted name, giving its reputation a surly smudge of moral social offense. But that hasn't stopped its leader Winston Blackmore. And Mr. Blackmore's black reputation within British Columbia, as the immoral leader of a polygamist offshoot of Mormon hasn't stopped him from victimizing the children born under his rule.

Mr. Blackmore, in fact, is himself the father of over 115 children living at Bountiful, born to his 26 wives. In fact, there are so many familial interconnections within the community of incestuous libidos that his blood runs in some distant, watered-down way through a huge swathe of the community. And, this situation, in Canada, is permitted to fester. Canada and Canadian law upholding freedom of religion.

Not so with Lev Tahor, yet another idiotic community of people following a self-appointed Messiah whom the gullible believe will lead them into righteousness and the favour of the Almighty. The followers of Lev Tahor were accused by child welfare authorities of child neglect, of failing to teach their children proper Canadian formulaic three Rs convention that are the fundamentals of a modern education, rather than instilling in them the precepts of a Medieval-era Judaism.

And because child welfare authorities were breathing down the necks of this fundamentalist sect and threatening to take their children into welfare custody, the sect elders moved their community holus-bolus from Quebec to small-town Ontario and since the concerned authorities continued their scrutiny which the sect took as oppressive interference in their religious community, they have fled to sanctuary in Guatemala.

That problem solved; the future welfare of those children living within an impoverished society where no authority much cares about the welfare of children leaving in their tens of thousands to find haven elsewhere, is not Canada's concern now.

"Victor[y] Or Martyrdom!"

"Canadian Muslims are law-abiding citizens and no one should get involved in international wars on the belief and excuse that they are helping their Muslim brothers. Canadian Muslims who might do this are promoting disloyalty to their government."
"Any Canadian individuals taking up arms and fighting foreign governments are actually breaking the laws of their own country. We believe that any Canadian citizen who takes up arms should do so only in the legal context of the Canadian law and government."
"[The] narrow bigoted dogmatic distortions of the purveyors of violence and terror] do not speak for Calgary Muslims."
"[Canada's imams are prepared to take part in] meaningful discussions, to engage in preventative strategies and to find meaningful solutions to this growing threat in our country."
Decree, Canadian Council of Imams

AP Photo/Militant Website, File    ISIS fighters marching in Raqqa, Syria in January 2014. The country's conflict has been a magnet for foreign jihadists.

"But of course it is a kind of Islamic opinion about this issue [radicalization of Calgary Muslim youth]."
"If we are not able to approach them or to guide them in the right way they may be tripped up by someone. And it affects the whole community."
"The community needs direction in such a situation."
Calgary Imam Mohammad Iqbal Nadvi

Not only are Calgary's Muslim populations perturbed by the revelations that a number of young Muslim Calgarians have been radicalized and recruited as jihadists but the community of Canadian imams have also involved themselves in decrying the activities of young Muslims like Damian Clairmont, Salman Ashrafi and others who have left Canada to engage in the conflicts that are wracking the Middle East and North Africa.

At a meeting that took place several weeks earlier, a decree was drafted and then issued proclaiming that anyone who takes part in overseas wars is breaking the laws of Canada and in the process also violating Islamic principles. Western jihadists from all over Europe and North America have flocked to the battlefields that Syria, Somalia, Libya and Iraq have become. Joining up with Islamist militias like Al Shabab, ISIS and Boko Haram, young Canadian Muslims have committed themselves to jihad and martyrdom.

Former Calgarian Farah Mohamed Shirdon, posing under Abu Usama wrote on Twitter several weeks back: "Beheading Shias is a beautiful thing". On another occasion he had triumphantly tweeted: "Victor or martyrdom!". It is estimated that approximately one hundred Canadians are serving abroad with Islamist extremists, according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Canadians took part in the siege of January 2013 at an Algerian gas plant, as well as November 2013's suicide bombing in Iraq, killing 19.

The imams decided  to issue their Islamic ruling, hoping to educate Muslims and to unequivocally affirm their commitment to countering terrorism. On the other hand, while some Muslim men may have been recruited within Mosques by radicals bent to that purpose, many of those who have converted to fundamentalist Islamism shun established mosques. Radicalized Muslims have not been shy about publicly disclosing their loyalties. They have set up large, well-publicized conferences where radical, or at the very least, fundamentalist Islamism has been celebrated.

No overtures from the collective Islamic clerical authorities condemning such overt instances of political Islam that dominates the attention of the young, rendering them ripe for going a little further toward committing to violent jihad appears to have taken place, other than by anti-Islamist activists such as outspoken and constantly threatened Tarek Fatah has come to the notice of observant bystanders to the situation unfolding within the Muslim community, however.

Just as a struggle has surfaced in North Africa and the Middle East between mainstream Islam and extremists using social media to recruit impressionable young Muslims to jihad, successfully recruiting an endless stream of new jihadis, in Canada a similar contest appears to have resulted from within the broad Muslim community. Social media contacts confronting Muslim men looking for meaning in their Islamic approach to life have been hugely instrumental in affirming their sinister choices.

Police and Security agencies do their best to identify and track radicalized Canadians hoping to interrupt their plans to travel abroad to join jihad. Mohamed Hersi, arrested in 2011 in the ct of leaving Canada for Somalia was the first person to be convicted of the effort of leaving Canada with the intention of joining a terrorist militia in Somalia, the infamous Al-Shabab. From the following of young Somali men giving him moral support, it doesn't appear that his arrest and trial has been taken seriously.

In a morally forgiving and seemingly generous interpretation of what leads young men to leave the comfort and security of home for the battlefields of Islamist purity reflecting the Medieval era in its brutal disregard for human life and security, Imam Madvi stated his opinion that those drawn to extremist groups were 'saddened' by 'injustices' in the Muslim world, angry at the lack of response they perceive by the West.

An interpretation directly at odds, in fact, with realities that even the most removed bystander recognizes as actually occurring, which the recruits themselves clarify when they state their hatred of all things smacking of liberal democracy, in favour of the hardline oppression of Islamism, forcing its ideology, politics, and social structure on the wider world which has opened its welcome mat to Muslims fleeing the very human rights abuses they are newly prepared to impose upon others.

Student Rights versus Government Vigilance

"Campus security steps in when there is an issue of safety and work directly with Calgary police. To ensure the fastest action, we also encourage anyone with concerns regarding illegal or terrorist activity to contact Calgary police or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service directly. These agencies are in the best position to assess and act on any perceived risks to public safety."
University of Calgary statement

"I would have to go teach this class as a victim staring my aggressor in the face."
"Ultimately, the reason I left the University of Calgary is because my colleagues gave me no support."
Professor Aaron Hughes

Handout / Postmedia News   Aaron Hughes, a prolific author on religion who holds a PhD on Islamic studies, said he once found a message scrawled in Arabic across his classroom’s chalkboard endorsing Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

"It could be classroom, it could be a private room where a bunch of people misinform the other groups about Islam and teachings."
"They are brainwashing our youth and taking their steps toward terrorism, which is against Islam itself."
"[The government] should be vigilant about what's happening inside of Canada."
Riyaz Khawaja, Calgary Muslim leader

Dr. Hughes formerly taught at the University of Calgary, but chose to leave his tenured position when he became convinced that his academic colleagues and the university administration had made a deliberate decision to do nothing to respond to his concerns relating to University of Calgary students spreading radical Muslim views.

Although Dr. Hughes, who holds a doctorate in Islamic studies and has written extensively on religion, knew of a certainty who among his students was reponsible for scrawling an Arabic message endorsing Islamic Jihad and Hamas on his classroom's chalkboard, the university chose not to respond by removing the student from his class.

Dr. Hughes now feels his personal well-being is no longer compromised, while teaching instead at the University of Rochester. He spoke to the media after reading of reports of Calgarians leaving Canada to fight with extremist groups abroad. That kind of activity, he feels, fit right in with what he had experienced, and he muses about the influences on university campuses fuelling the situation.

He had witnessed a young Muslim student standing during a University of Calgary memorial service for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, proclaiming: "Islam will always stand up for those who are dispossessed". The same student was later seen by Dr. Hughes wearing a distinguishing Hamas headband. Clearly the lines have dimmed between free speech and hate speech.

In its defence, the University of Calgary states its student code of conduct together with a new office of diversity and protected disclosure have been designed to aid people believing they are being harassed or threatened. Dr. Hughes is less than convinced that the university is on the right track citing the hostile environment that prevailed in 2009 at the university before he felt compelled to leave.

Students, according to the conservative views he overheard in his Islamic studies classes, advanced a fundamentalist view of Islam. Speaking of scholars as heretics, and characterizing certain fields of study as non-Muslim. When he had asked his department to permit him to teach another subject, his request had been denied.

According to Riyaz Khawaja, a Muslim leader in Calgary and president of the Hussaini Association of Calgary, the message that Professor Hughes found on his blackboard backing Hamas is not reflective of the tenets of his religion. He has himself, he said, become troubled with reports of Calgarian youth fighting alongside extremists The result of a gross misinterpretation of his religion.

Last Saturday several hundred Calgary Muslims came out to protest opposing the Taliban, al-
Qaeda and ISIS, the protest organized by the Hussaini Association of Calgary. Another similar rally organized by local Iraqi community groups came out on Sunday for a similar purpose. On Saturday, about 200 people protested with signs opposing the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

"One day the terrorists will come to Calgary. We need to stand together now", said organizer Fatima Albarli.

CBC News

Mid East is sizzling: Armed US drones over Baghdad, Saudi, Jordanian tanks deploy

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis June 28, 2014, 8:23 PM (IDT)

Tags:  US drone,  Baghdad,  ISIS,  Gen. Martin Dempsey,  Jordan,  Saudi Arabia,  Israel,

The Obama administration announced Friday, June 27, that unmanned aerial vehicles flying over Baghdad would henceforth be armed in order to defend the US Embassy in the Green Zone. The embassy was originally assigned the tasks of guardian of Iraq’s central government and symbol of post-Saddam national unity. These roles have remained out of reach ever since the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003. Today, the armed drones overhead are reduced to holding back the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and its local Sunni allies from overrunning the Green Zone and seizing the embassy, most of whose 5,000 staff were evacuated as a precaution.

President Barack Obama has again decreed that no US soldiers will take part in combat in Iraq. Therefore, American military personnel on the ground will be there to guide the drones to their targets.

Those targets were defined Saturday, June 28, by Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, as striking at ISIS leaders and defending Iraq’s strategic facilities. He did not elaborate.

debkafile reports that he was referring to the Haditha dam on the Euphrates. ISIS fighters have been battering the town of Haditha on and off for some days.

Its dam is the key to the water supply of most of Iraq, including Baghdad. With its capture, Al Qaeda’s affiliates will have gained control of northern Iraq’s oil refineries and pipeline networks.
US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jordan Friday laid out another piece of the Iraq-Syria imbroglio. He estimated that the Syrian rebel recruits enlisted from among the nearly one million Syrian refugees sheltering in Jordan could be deployed in Iraq for fighting ISIS.

His words were accompanied by the Obama administration’s application to Congress for half a billion dollars to arm and train such a force.

President Obama is therefore in the midst of yet another U-turn on the Syrian-Iraqi war scene – this one involving Israel too.

Until now, the Syrian rebels undergoing training by US instructors in Jordan were sent into southern Syria to hold a line up to the outskirts of Damascus and act as a buffer between the Syrian, Iranian, Hizballah and Iraqi Shiite militia units and the Israeli and Jordanian borders.

Their presence in this sector of the Syrian warfront was to have provided Washington with a bargaining chip against the Assad regime.

This operation was run from an underground US-Jordanian-Israeli war room situated not far from the Jordanian capital of Amman.

Kerry’s latest statement gave this bunker-command a new war focus and diverted Jordan-based Syrian rebel forces from their mission south of Damascus to contesting the rapidly-advancing Sunni Islamists in Iraq.

Our military sources note that these forces – albeit with full US-Jordanian-Israeli intelligence and logistical back-up - were not an outstanding success in their Syrian mission and should not be expected to do much better in Iraq.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Lebanese army and Hizballah militia are bracing against the latest round of ISIS-engineered suicide bombing attacks, which was in fact launched last week with two explosions in Beirut – one by a female bomber.

To the south of Lebanon, Israel’s unusually mild military retaliation against “terrorist targets” in Gaza for the swelling hail of rockets aimed day by day at Ashkelon, Hof Ashkelon and the Eshkol District , points to a decision by Israel’s government military leaders to avoid being dragged into the cauldron boiling up around its borders.

Israel’s armed forces and three intelligence services, the Shin Bet, Mossad and AMAN,  are in fact nursing the blow to their prestige from the failure of their massive, all-out hunt of two weeks discover the three teenagers abducted on June 10.

Some serious soul-searching is taking place about the wisdom of throwing all of the IDF’s deterrent strength against the kidnappers, who have since been identified as a pair of Hamas operatives, who outsmarted Israel’s mightiest resources and vanished off the face of the earth with their captives.
Israel’s conduct in this episode appears in retrospect to have been ruled less by sense than by emotions.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was sidetracked by his fixed desire for a reckoning with Hamas and with the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas for dealing with this extremist group – notwithstanding their near-irrelevance to the main stream of events in the region.

Three months after Israel’s National Intelligence Estimate judged the prospect of a conventional war close to nil, Al Qaeda’s cohorts are grabbing wide stretches of Iraq and knocking on the doors of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Iran, Hizballah - and now ISIS - must be wondering what makes Israel tick in view of this behavior.  Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s jihadis are fighting under the flag of the Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant. For them, the Levant is not just Syria and Lebanon and Jordan, but also “Palestine” i.e. Israel.
Jerusalem had better wake up fast. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have deployed tank divisions on their borders against ISIS encroachments. The two kingdoms are Israel’s eastern and southern next door neighbors.

Counter-Attack in Tikrit

"I saw one of the helicopters land opposite the university with my own eyes and I saw clashes between dozens of militants and government forces."
Ahmed Al-Jubbour, professor, Tikrit University, College of Agriculture

The Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of captured Iraqis have been executed by ISIS. (Photo: AP)

An Iraqi counterattack has finally taken place against the jihadist advance, with the intention of returning Tikrit to government rule. An airborne assault with three helicopters loaded with commandos landed in Tikrit stadium, resulting in clashes with members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham. Even taking into account the Sunni Iraqis fighting for the time being alongside ISIS terrorists against Shiite Iraqi rule, the numbers don't quite compute.

There are so many more Shiites in Iraq than there are Sunnis, logic would have it that the Iraqi military should have no problems in their conflict with the thousands of ISIS militias, even if the Kurdish Peshmerga has deigned not to fight alongside the Shiite military. Yet ISIS, aided by Iraqi Sunnis, has managed to take over a huge swathe of the country with little resistance, the regime's forces melting away in terror at their approach.

Witnesses in Tikrit now say that battles are raging in the city, the result of the lightning offensive by government forces. Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has confirmed that Syrian warplanes have targeted ISIS terrorists inside Iraq. The Iranian al-Quds force is well represented within Baghdad; there is little risk that the capital will fall to the Sunni Islamists. Saudi Arabia is provisioning the Iraqi Sunnis contesting their Shia Iraqi regime, and Iran is equipping the Shias.

"We believe the urgent priority must be to form an inclusive government ... that can command the support of all Iraqis and work to stop terrorists and their terrible crimes", stated Britain's foreign Minister William Hague, visiting Baghdad. A clear enough message calling for Prime Minister Al-Maliki to step down, in echo of the Obama administration; a message that Mr. Al-Maliki has characterized as an interfering, Western malicious "coup" attempt.

The country is in danger of disengaging into fiefdoms controlled by different sects and militant factions, according to Mr. Hague. More likely there will result three divisions, one each for the Kurds, Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis. As the only feasible prospect to stem the murderous millennial hatred the latter two harbour for one another.

The U.S. administration is counting on Jordan and Saudi Arabia to use their cross-border tribal networks to aid the Sunni militias to eventually do battle with the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham, through financing or weapons-provision. Twelve people were killed in a bombing in a Shiite neighbourhood in Baghdad with another eight bullet-riddled bodies discovered south of the capital; an increasingly familiar sight in Baghdad.