The U.S. Justice System to the Rescue!

Mohammed Khalifa, a Canadian citizen who was a leading figure in the Islamic State of Iraq, was recently transferred into FBI custody. In an interview with CBC's Fifth Estate, Khalifa admitted to playing an important role in producing and disseminating Islamic State propaganda to Western audiences    CBC

"As alleged, Mohammed Khalifa not only fought for ISIS on the battlefield in Syria, but he was also the voice behind the violence."

"Through his alleged leading role in translating, narrating, and advancing ISIS's online propaganda, Khalifa promoted the terrorist group, furthered its worldwide recruitment efforts, and expanded the reach of videos that glorified the horrific murders and indiscriminate cruelty of ISIS."

Raj Parekh, Acting U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia

"[Khalifa was] a deeply ideologically committed member of the Islamic State [until his capture]."

"The ISIS higher ups also saw value in him as a media personnel, and he travelled with much of the leadership to the final holdouts."

"One of the key things he mentioned during our interview was that ISIS, as it was losing territory, started to see consistent media releases as strategically important."

"Because of all the Canadian prisoners being held in Syria, Ridwan [Mohammed Khalifa, aka Abu Ridwan Ai-Kanadi] is probably the easiest to make a case against."

"There are literally hundreds of hours of ISIS audio that he put out there, and has also admitted to multiple reporters that this was his primary role with the Islamic State."

Amarnath Amarasingam, professor, terrorism, radicalization and extremism research, Queen's University

As an adherent of the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a Saudi-born Canadian citizen who travelled illegally from the country of his citizenship to Syria to pledge allegiance to then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he was assigned to the ISIL media bureau, where he excelled in the position, becoming one of the Islamist fundamentalist group's most prominent public relations stalwarts, actively producing and distributing videos for public consumption extolling the virtues of the group and demonstrating its virtuous loyalty to Islamist principles through heinous atrocities.

 

From 2013 to 2019 his outstanding work assisted hugely in the recruiting of dedicated new ISIL members. His role as a publicity director helped amplify the Islamic State's formidably fearful reputation and was without doubt useful in convincing opposing militaries in Syria and Iraq that they hadn't a chance in hell to defend the populations their professional position demanded of them, ensuring they would melt away at the first signs that Islamic State fighters approached, leaving defenceless civilians to fend for themselves. 

 

In the invasion of Sinjar when Islamic State viciously targeted the ancient Yazidi population, the merciless killing of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls exemplified the blood-curdling mission the Islamic State gave themselves in their jihad against minorities helpless before their onslaught. With Iraqi and Syrian military defence a pipe dream, it was left to the Kurdish militias to oppose and defend Christians and Yazidis and other groups fleeing the violent persecution and threats to annihilate them.

 

The US-led international coalition gave air cover to the Kurdish Peshmerga who alone demonstrated the capacity to give shelter to fleeing civilian populations, ethnic and religious minorities, in effectively countering the burgeoning presence of the Islamic State caliphate, but it was without doubt Kurdish valour and values and military acumen that destroyed the expansionary plans of the Islamic State. When the geographic gains of ISIL were destroyed, it was the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces that took upon itself the imprisonment of Islamic State fighters and their women and children, freeing the occupied towns and villages from their venomous presence.

 

A Syrian Democratic Forces fighter burns an ISIS flag on the front line on the western side of Raqqa, northeast Syria, Monday, July 17, 2017. (Hussein Malla/AP Photo)

Among those imprisoned by the SDF in the prison camp established for that purpose was Canadian ISIL member Mohammed Khalifa. The SDF has repeatedly requested that foreign governments repatriate their citizens who had joined ISIL to relieve their burden. Some have complied, others have not. Some have taken back only female ISIL members and their children. Some will stand trial for their offences against humanity. It is the fate of the children for the most part that exercises the compassionate mind.

 

There can be no compassion wasted on psychopaths like Khalifa, both male and female who were complicit in the atrocities committed by the Islamic State, from their staged and videoed beheadings, crucifixions, drownings, death-by-explosives and other malicious horrors they visited on their many victims. All of which they gloried in, celebrated, proudly exhibited. Which alternately gained them new recruits willing and eager to join the death-dealing, or further burnished the dread in peoples' minds of the terrorists.

 

It can be seen as the responsibility of the government of Canada to have taken the initiative to return this man and his ilk to Canada. Less famous, as in infamous members of ISIL with Canadian citizenship are known to have returned to Canada of their own volition, are not and have never been imprisoned, nor faced trials with the reason being given that evidence against them is too difficult to obtain, to mount a criminal investigation to bring them to justice, and so supposedly they are 'under observation' by intelligence services.

 

There is more than ample evidence available for any jury to reach a decision about Khalifa; his signature is on some of the most vile, vicious, violent of Islamic State's videos and other publicity instruments meant to enhance their reputation and create a lasting impression of sadistic barbarity in the name of Islamism. Yet Canada's government has chosen to do nothing. It has chosen to exhale a sigh of relief that the United States has taken it upon itself to exact justice on behalf of the victims of Islamic State's notorious inhumanity. 

 

Thousands of videos, graphics and other images have been collected together to form a growing propaganda archive   ISD

 

"It’s very interesting that the U.S. is going forward with this case and not Canada."

"Ridwan is probably our easiest case. There are literally hundreds of hours of his voice recorded in ISIS media. Cases against other prisoners are slightly more difficult."

"I suppose the U.S. sees him as important for reasons we probably don’t know yet."

 Queen’s University professor Amarnath Amarasingam

 

"Those who left Canada to support the terror organization need to be held accountable for their crimes before a court of law."

"I'm glad the U.S. had the political courage to do what the Canadian government did not. He is a Canadian, he left from Canada. It should be the responsibility of the Canadian government to hold him accountable for his crimes."

"[Khalifa is] calm, cold, and indifferent."

"He had no remorse for what he had done and felt his actions were justified."

Leah West, professor, national security law, Carleton University 

 

Assassin Unknown?

Opposition politician Alexei Navalny  Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

"It's essentially an attempt to remove him as a threat. They consider this with a classic KGB mentality: 'no man, no problem'."  "By removing him [Navalny] personally, they aim to kill the brand and end the team. ...[But] it's a grave mistake by the Kremlin to think that without him the movement stops." "Look at Belarus. It is a YouTube revolution. Tikhanovskaya is the Belarusian Navalny."                                                                         Vladimir Milov, former Russian deputy energy minister 

"[Navalny's reply to the question, 'Why do you think  you're not being killed and what happens if you are?' was: 'it's a dangerous place and that's why I'm talking to you -- in the hope you can work on our common cause']. So this was something he already had in mind."                                                                                           "He's the only threat the ruling party is facing."                                                          Sergei Gurlev, professor, Sciences Po, Paris

"He really got under the skin of people who have big country houses and lavish mansions, but I wouldn't say he was such a threat to the regime that it had to bump him off."                                                                                                                     "If there isn't a convincing public investigation the opposition will point the finger at the authorities. If they weren't involved, it shouldn't be hard to get to the bottom of it and find some sort of scapegoat, and that could be absolutely anyone. There are a fair number of crazy people sitting in the woods with grenade launchers."             "But it's definitely not Putin and it's definitely not the government.  At least I hope so. That would really be beyond the pale."                                                     Unidentified go-between with senior Kremlin officials

"We don't know for sure whether it was personally ordered by Putin. But we understand that he created the conditions where this can happen and the people responsible won't be punished or suffer any repercussions."                            Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director, Navalny's foundation

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny on a stretcher  Alexey Malgavko/Reuters

Once the howls from the international community and their leaders became sufficiently intense, bolstered by person-to-person persuasive arguments by telephone between the two most influential EU heads of state, and a personal intervention by Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, Russia's Vladimir Putin agreed to engage in a pursuit for the identity of whoever it was that was responsible for the attempted murder of Alexei Navalny, the irritating gadfly who was so rudely attempting to unseat Mr. Putin and his party from power.

Sergei Skripal, daughter Yulia, targeted with Novichok, 2018. Getty/Michael Howard

According to a public statement that followed from Russia's parliamentary speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, a separate investigation would be led by him to determine whether the poisoning was "an attempt by foreign powers to harm the health of a Russian citizen with the aims of creating tensions within Russia and making yet more accusations against our country". Progress can be seen in that Mr. Putin and his Kremlin allies no longer deny that Mr. Navalny was poisoned. Regression to the same old is recognized in Mr. Volodin's outrage that an 'outside entity' such as a "foreign power" would dare to harm a Russian citizen, much less purpose to wreak unrest within the country.

And though German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined with French President Emmanuel Macron to offer medical services and asylum to the victim of a poisoning attack, and Ms. Merkel whose Germany is now hosting Mr. Navalny at the Charite hospital in Berlin, has no intention of estranging Russia from Germany, intent on maintaining open diplomatic ties and with the diplomacy firm political ties in the belief that open lines must be required as a requisite for persuasive relations with Russia.

Emergency oxygen respiratory bed Charite Hospital  Michele Tantussi/Getty

Alexei Navalny, 44-year-old passionately committed political activist is so detested by Russia's presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov that he refers to him singularly not by name -- a curse that will not pass his lips -- but as 'the patient', a truly pejorative curse spat out in disgust. But then, Mr. Navalny is not only a political activist, but a socially moral one, outraged by the corruption of Russian oligarchs amassing great fortunes at the expense of the ordinary Russian citizen in a collaborative arrangement between themselves and government.

As a result, he is detested not only by the Kremlin and Russia's president, but by powerful men whose intimate contacts where they count, and whose uncountable wealth is under attack by this painfully annoying upstart. Alexei Navalny's activism and direct appeal to ordinary Russians to expect more from their political leaders - than to build up arms, contest the West, interfere with other nations' civil wars and insurrections, and enrich themselves and their allies at the expense of the general public when they should be governing justly with fair outcomes, lifting the population into security -- has gained him the support of the public.

Litvinenko met with former KGB contacts, London, 2006 Getty Images

In the past five years six violent attacks have taken place against Russian dissidents. The international notoriety that Russia gained when the eyes of the world swivelled to Britain at the attempted murder by poisoning in Britain of former double agent Sergei Skripal with the nerve agent novichok, following on the earlier murder of Alexander Litvinenko with the use of polonium-210, left no doubt that Russian government hardball against those the Kremlin considers traitors is real and it is deadly.

Mr Nemtsov shot on a bridge in view of St Basil's Cathedral & the Kremlin AP

And of course, in 2015 opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was put out of contention as a potential threat to Vladimir Putin's plans to govern uninterrupted for the rest of his life when he was shot four times in the back ensuring he would never again contest Russia's presidential reign in perpetuity by a man who brooks no criticism. In this bold and shocking killing by an unidentified gunman, President Putin took personal control of the investigation to discover who might have been behind the dastardly plot to remove a formidable political opponent of the president. Still under investigation.

State efforts to silence Mr. Navalny grew in lock-step with his popularity, when over the course of the years he was jailed on thirteen occasions for protests directed against Mr. Putin, and finally sentenced to six years in prison on embezzlement charges (!) in 2013; whatever it would take. He was subjected to violent attacks; a chemical substance thrown at him, blinding him in one eye. He also  believes that when he took ill during one of his jail sentences an attempt had been made to poison him.

 Anna Politkovskaya shot dead in Moscow. Getty/Michael Howard

According to the Levada Center, an independent pollster, a June survey found that Mr. Navalny was viewed as Russia's second most "inspirational" leader following directly after the number-one candidate, Vladimir Putin. In Belarus over two weeks of mass protests followed the corrupt re-election of Alexander Lukashenko who has ruled the country for the past 26 years, backed by the Kremlin. There, blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky built a YouTube following modelled on Navalny's modus operandi.

Germany has offered asylum to the combative, but now still-comatose Navalny whom the Kremlin continues to deny having had any intention to harm. For an example of the kind of courage that Navalny possess, one only need look to the example of the man whose campaign against corruption reflected Navalny's own. Sergei Tikhanovsky was arrested in Belarus, leading his wife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya to run in the election for her husband, becoming the focal point of the protests.

"I can give you 120 percent that he will never do that [accept Berlin's officer of asylum]. He will stay in Russia and continue to do what he does. The biggest gift we could give to those people in the Kremlin is if we got up and ran", stated activist Vladimir Kara-Murza another Navalny colleague who had survived two attempts on his own life.

Alexei Navalny, pictured here at the centre of a 2018 rally, is expected to survive the poisoning but remains unconscious in a serious condition. Anti-Putin protesters in the far east of Russia now chant Navalny's name, demanding justice.  Credit:AP

Cleansing the Nineveh Plain and Mosul

"Daesh is still inside the villages, and they are going to resist more."
"They don’t have large numbers, but they are an ideological group and they aim to explode themselves and die. That’s our problem."
Kurdish Peshmerga Brig. Gen. Ismail Kamal

"Coalition air power is certainly in demand, and we try to provide fires in a timely fashion when called upon." 
"Given the size and scope of the operation to liberate Mosul, there may be times when we are unable to fully meet the demand as quickly as forces on the ground would like."
Col. John I. Dorrian, spokesman, United States-led military coalition

CNN -- A Kurdish Peshmerga convoy drives toward the Khazer front line, October 17, about 30 km from Mosul

Intercepted communications from Islamic State commanders, according to Iraqi Kurds, indicate that ISIL fighters are being exhorted to 'resist' the coalition ambitions to roust the terrorists from the areas they captured in 2014, then declared an integral part of their caliphate's territory. That appears to be just what the battle-hardened, Islamist 'martyrs' plan on doing in any event, and it seems increasingly to the Peshmerga that as they enter towns close to Mosul the Islamic State fighters appear suddenly as though out of nowhere to confront them with their lethal tactics.

The Kurds enter a town seeing no Islamic State fighters, then they suddenly surface as though emerging from tunnel sanctuaries, attacking the Kurdish advance with gunfire and explosive belts. The initial confidence expressed by many of the Kurdish soldiers has given way to a pensive state of insecurity, and some have complained that the promised U.S.-coalition air support hasn't materialized when it should, where it should, leaving the Kurds entirely exposed. ISIL fighters' propensity to appear out of nowhere has lent credence to the circulating rumours that tunnels have been dug, connecting villages.

Troops marching toward Mosul move initially into surrounding towns on the Nineveh plain. Those approaching and entering Al-Hud had declared it to be liberated somewhat prematurely it appears, for it was not 'liberated' by the entering troops but by the residents themselves. Who had gathered in a force of several hundred in response to Islamic State fighters in the town shooting to death one of the residents who had lofted an Iraqi flag defiantly flaunting his allegiance. The gathered mob turned on the ISIL fighters, killing them in turn.

So that when the troops arrived the town actually had been liberated. What greeted the eyes of the Iraqi troops was a gruesome scene, the mutilated bodies of the ISIL fighters that the village mob had descended upon. Where else in the world but in the Middle East and Africa where tribalism has so great a focus on human lives is such moral depravity and bloody barbarism endemic? Where tribal or sectarian vengeance expresses itself in barbaric atrocities.

There are times when the advancing Iraqi-led coalition of Iraqi security personnel, Kurds, Shiite militias and their Sunni counterparts, come across towns they mean to cleanse of the presence of Islamic State jihadis, only to find none there. And other times when, entering the towns and villages on the plains lining the Tigris River leading to Mosul, they discover resistance by ISIL is fierce and deadly, where roof-top snipers and suicide bombers play out the ISIL handbook.

Iraqi Lt.-Gen. Talib Shaghati, situated near al-Hud, at the Qayyarah airbase informed reporters that up to six thousand Islamic State fighters are in the city of Mosul, defending it from the advancing Iraqis. He called upon the ISIL fighters to surrender. Suddenly the military that fled in panic from the advance of ISIL in 2014, now with backup from the U.S.-led air coalition and the Iranian-faithful Shiite militias has gained some spine and acts out a play where they represent the top dog expecting the inflated numbers of jihadis to quake in fear at their presence.

On the third day of fighting approaching Mosul, Islamic State militants dispatched a dozen car bombs toward Iraqi troops, all of which the Iraqis claim were blown up well before their targets were reached, that a small number of casualties from the mortar rounds resulted. As Peshmerga advanced into the village of Tiskharab they set up positions in the first houses they came to, just as an ISIL car bomb drove toward them, detonating it. Watching from a position overlooking the village Peshmerga and reporters witnessed a huge explosion scattering troops. Trucks carrying the injured and the dead raced away from the village.

A Kurdish fighter watches for Islamic State militants as Iraqi and Kurdish forces advanced near the town of Bashiqa, about 12 miles northeast of Mosul. Photo: Andrea DiCenzo for The Wall Street Journal

Speaking by video link to diplomats in Paris discussing the future of Mosul, Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi informed them that the assault force of Iraqi security, Shiite and Sunni militias and Kurdish forces were pushing "more quickly then we thought and more quickly than we had programmed", toward Mosul. Out front, facing the Islamic State jihadis, Kurdish casualties remain the result of improvised explosive devices.

The Kurds had dug an entry in the huge sand berm they had constructed as their fortified border with Islamic State territory over the past two years, allowing a column of Peshmerga tanks, armoured vehicles and sport utility vehicles to move forward. Kurds raised the Kurdish flag in Nawaran, the first village they advanced to, while resistance in Borima, the next town, was stiffer by far.

A number of firefights ensued and finally the Kurds called in an artillery barrage to ease them forward. And then from another town, Kurdish fighters from Fazeliya fired to disable a few suicide car bombs hurtling toward them, disabling one, but another managed to close in sufficiently so that as it exploded several Peshmerga were wounded, with one losing his legs.

CNN -- A Sunni police officer prays at the Qayyara air base on October 16

To describe these military-guerrilla encounters as brutal is to fail to do justice to the domination instinct that propels tribal cultures to advance their own interests to terrorize and conquer those whom they calculate are weaker, less motivated ideologically, and unprepared to risk all, welcoming death as the ultimate gift to their maker, and in the doing of it, being elevated in social and religious esteem as a courageous warrior for Islam deserving of his place in Paradise.

Of all the ethnic/religious and social groups living in the area it seems that only the Kurds have no dire grievance against other minority groups, choosing the generosity of spirit to give haven to and protect Christians and Yazidis among others, while doggedly continuing to pursue their dream of final recognition by the international community that this largest and ancient ethnic group of the region is deserving of its own sovereign territory, motivating them to fight on to destroy the presence of a terrorist group defying all human decency.

And facing at the same time, a fierce nationalist enemy in Turkey, fixated on denying Turkish and Syrian Kurds of any legitimacy in their claims for autonomous sovereignty. Like Syria's Bashar al-Assad, claiming that Syrian Sunnis are terrorists for protesting the inequalities imposed upon them by the Shiite Alawite leader, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan denies that the millions of Turkish Kurds have any existential right to a geography of their own, and he is the agent to violently deny them. He does have company in that denial; Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Murderous African Despots

"Hissene Habre, this court finds you guilty of crimes against humanity, rape, forced slavery, and kidnapping [as well as war crimes]."
"The court condemns you to life in prison."

Gberdao Gustave Kam, Burkinabe president of the Extraordinary African Chambers (CAE) court

Habre raises his hand in defiance following the court proceedings in Dakar on Monday [AP]

"For many years, as Souleymane and his colleagues hit one obstacle after another on their path to justice, the common refrain was that they would never succeed. But in a case that looked dead so many times, the victims made it clear that they would never go away."
"[Hissene] Habre's conviction for these horrific crimes after 25 years is a huge victory for his Chadian victims, without whose tenacity this trial never would have happened. This verdict sends a powerful message that the days when tyrants could brutalize their people, pillage their treasury and escape abroad to a life of luxury are coming to an end."
"Habre's conviction signals that no leader is above the law, and that no woman or girl is below it ... This is the first time in history that a former head of state  has been convicted in an international trial of personally committing rape."
Reed Brody, lawyer, Human Rights Watch

Guilty as charged. Chad's former dictator was responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, deliberately murdered under his regime, with tens of thousands more Chadians taken from the streets, imprisoned and tortured. Among those many who experienced imprisonment and torture was Souleymane Guengueng, a civil servant and accountant tortured under the regime. And it was this man's experience that hardened his resolve to bring Habre to justice.

There was also the Chadian lawyer Jacqueline Moudeina whom a 2001 grenade attack from a henchman of Habre failed to kill and who took the initiative to lead the former dictator's victims in a battle for justice. And another Chadian, Clement Abaifouta, called the "gravedigger" who had been forced to bury in mass graves other detainees who had been murdered. Mr. Abaifouta had stepped in to fill the role that Mr. Guengueng was forced to abandon when he was forced into exile by death threats.

Monday's conviction held Hissene Habre responsible for thousands of deaths and torture in prisons during the 1982 to 1990 period when he ruled the country. A Chadian Truth Commission in 1992 had accused his government of systematic torture, that while he was in power 40,000 people were murdered by his political police force. Guilty: of crimes against humanity; guilty: of war crimes, torture and sex crimes; sentenced: to life in prison.

The Extraordinary African Chambers in Dakar, Senegal, a creation of Senegal and the African Union was where Habre was tried and convicted, the first trial where the courts of one country successfully prosecuted the former ruler of another for human rights crimes. In essence, it is a reflection of the United Nations' 'responsibility to protect' provision whereby a government that abuses and torments its population can expect the international community to intervene on behalf of the population.

That the African Union has finally taken such a step is an enormous advance for human rights entitlements on the Continent where murderous regimes proliftrerate. The successful prosecution and punishment of Sudan's president who has already been tried and found guilty in absentia by the International Criminal Court might be another step in that same right direction.

Victims drew pictures of torture techniques Some of his victims were subjected to "supplice des baguettes" (torture by sticks), when the victim's head is put between sticks joined by rope which is then twisted.  BBC

Souleymane Guengueng had formed an association of victims after his 1990 release from prison. As part of his campaign he had gathered testimony of former prisoners and in the process collected over 800 accounts presented as evidence that would ultimately prove the case at trial against Habre. Despite his crimes, however, Habre was surrounded by supporters in court, cheering him as their champion.

As for Mr. Guengueng, he has finally been able to savour the sweet taste of justice not only for himself personally, but for his country and for the countless families of people who were murdered by the regime, let alone the thousands who had been imprisoned and tortured, yet lived to see another day bring them vindication.

"It's truly a great example for all the other victims around the world, particularly in Africa, to no longer remain silent. It's the people in charge who must now be afraid", said Mr. Guengueng.

If only.

The Cruelty of Scarcity and Tyranny

"[The boats] are made of wood and are old and heavy. They can't travel very fast and the engines are not powerful enough to turn the ships against the currents."
Yoshihiko Yamada, maritime expert

"What we do know is that for those people living outside of [North Korean capital] Pyongyang ... life remains extraordinarily hard, and it may be an economic necessity as much as a desire for political freedom [that is] encouraging some people in the North to try and leave the country."
"There's no doubt that these boats are North Korean."
John Nilsson-Wright, head, Asia program, Chatham House policy institute

  A ship found in mid-November off Noto Peninsula, towed to shore
What could be more heartbreaking than to come across vestiges of human despair, symptomatic of people living without hope in desperate circumstances and undertaking a voyage of escape only to discover that they have voyaged into the realm of death. It was death that delivered them from the human bondage that their lives had become. The grisly sight of drifting wooden boats holding decomposing bodies has become a routine sight on the northwestern coast of Japan.

A ghastly occurrence with an air of mystery, but the mystery does not entirely relate to the desperation that informs people they must leave their country, setting out on a journey they feel may lead somewhere with the impression that anywhere else would represent an improvement over the inhuman conditions in which they have been forced to live, of privation, starvation, illness and state oppression. These are hapless migrants from North Korea.

These are people whom stark reality has persuaded that their great and adorable leader is anything but. Wrecked ghost ships keep washing ashore or drafting past Japan. With the remains of human beings on their decks that indicate the length of time they have been on the sea, their corpses in such a state of decomposition that autopsies are simply unfeasible. Ten bodies lying in three boats were discovered on November 20.

Another wooden boat was discovered in yet another prefecture of Japan two days later, with six skulls and an assortment of bones and other identifiable human remains. These are old, ruined fishing boats, eleven of them arriving since late October, most with equipment, nets and signs printed in Korean; one a sign reading Korean People's Army [Republic of North Korea]. Yet because Japanese officials say the 20- to 22-metre-long boats are untypical of South Kora or Japan, mystery persists.

Evidently, dozens of wrecked boats make their way toward Japan annually, with 2015 seeing 34 of the mystery boats. In 2013 there were 80 such boats and their gruesome cargoes, and a year later 65. Fall and winter appear to represent the seasons those boats tend to be discovered, the result of north-west prevailing winds.

When fishermen from North Korea have been seen in Japanese waters hunting squid the Japanese coast guard orders them away. If such ships are disabled, the vessels are rescued and with their crews intact, sent back to North Korea. The quite stark and startling reality appears to be that historically such drifting boats have been seen for centuries, verified by historical accounts.

Junior Atrocities

"Our goal is not only Palmyra or Homs or Damascus, rather our goal is to conquer Bayt al- Maqdes [Jerusalem] and Rome, God willing."
Jihadist, from video The Capture and Assassination of the Nusayri Captain 

There is a scenario in the recently released video from Islamic State where a Syrian pilot delivers a short description of his career in the Syrian air force, as a captain with President Bashar al-Assad's forces. He is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit, kneeling, awaiting the inevitable. And death comes to him at the hands of a young boy who looks around ten years of age. The boy has obviously been carefully tutored to accomplish a dreadful act of murder.


Islamic State is proud of their 'cubs of the Caliphate'. Infamously, photographs emerged showing children of Islamic State terrorists holding aloft the heads of people whom the jihadists murdered in their inimitable way. Now they've gone beyond that. The use of children to shoot captured Syrian soldiers in Palmyra in a staged mass execution is one thing. Now those children appear to have graduated to carrying out beheadings on their own initiative, albeit guided.

Screenshot from the video just before the beheading.

"Then they taught me how to hold the sword, and they told me how to hit. They told me it was the head of the infidels."
"[The trainer] said if I didn't do it, he'd shoot me."
"They ... told us it would make us tougher. They beat us everywhere. I was scared when I saw that [videos of beheadings IS trainers exposed the boys to] I knew I wouldn't be able to behead someone like that. Even as an adult."
Yahya, Yazidi boy captured by Islamic State

Islamic State butchered Yazidi men, enslaving thousands of women and girls when they overran towns in northern Iraq last year. They abducted dozens of young Yazidi boys to convert them to Islam and to transform them into jihadi fighters. In the interests of building a new generation of Islamic State fighters residents who fled their lives under Islamic State in Syria and Iraq describe the process in interviews with Associated Press.

There have been other descriptions of young boys living with their families in towns controlled by Islamic State being conscripted into the ISIS militant ideology as Islamist faithful consecrated to the glories of the past when militant Islam spread its crescent moon message with the aid of the sword. Now boys are being turned into killers and suicide bombers. The most recent ISIL video of last week illustrating the completion of the process when a boy proceeded to behead a Syrian soldier.

An earlier ISIL video released last month showed 25 children impassively performing the function they were taught as junior jihadists: shooting 25 Syrian soldiers who had been captured, aiming for their heads. A match made in hell. Yahya, his younger brother and their mother along with hundreds of Yazidis had been captured when ISIL took the Iraqi town of Sulagh last August. They arrived in Raqqa where Yazidi boys from age 8 to 15 were placed in the Farouq training camp.

Their names were changed to those of Muslim Arabs in place of the Kurdish names they were given at birth. Yahya spend five months at the camp engaged eight to ten hours a day in training before he escaped ISIS along with his brother and his mother. Exercises, weapons drills and Quranic studies were the order of his days at the camp. He was taught that "dirty" Yazidis deserve to be killed and he was shown how to shoot someone at close range.

AP

In this photo released on April 25, 2015, by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, young boys known as the "lion cubs" hold rifles and Islamic State group flags as they exercise at a training camp in Tal Afar, near Mosul, northern Iraq.

A Farouq camp video has surfaced of boys in camouflage performing calisthenics and shouting ISIL slogans. In the video, an ISIL fighter states that the boys have been inducted into jihad so that "in the coming days God Almighty can put them in the front lines to battle the infidels."

Less spoken of is the Hamas Iran-proxy militia recognized as a terrorist group, which has been ruling Gaza and the Palestinians living there, with its Iranian-approved charter calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. Hamas as well, like any good terrorist group inculcates in its young dependents a hatred for Israel and Jews, infusing them with the passion of revenge that propels them into future action. This is their very specific jihad.

Hamas has set up 'summer camps' to augment the lessons learned through the Palestinian school curricula used by both Gaza and the West Bank that 'Palestine', which was always a Jewish homeland, was in the reality recognized by Arabs, an homeland for the Palestinians which have been, in the imagination of Arabs, Arab, not Jewish, despite historical inaccuracy. In those summer camps Palestinian Gazan youth are taught the use of combat arms and pledged to join the battle.

Lest anyone forget, it might be useful to recall that in the last years of the 8-year Iran-Iraq war, the Ayatollahs ordered young Iranian boys to martyr themselves, sending them into the field of battle to clear the way by setting off the improvised explosive devices so the armed and seasoned mature Iranian fighters could proceed in attacking the Iraqi fighters.

They chant ‘Allahu Akbar’ and they keep coming, and we keep shooting, sweeping our machine guns around like sickles. My men are eighteen, nineteen, just a few years older than these kids. I’ve seen them crying, and at times the officers have had to kick them back to their guns. Once we had Iranian kids on bikes cycling towards us, and my men all started laughing, and then these kids started lobbing their hand grenades and we stopped laughing and started shooting.
Iraqi officer

 It's estimated that 100,000 Iranian children from age 8 up went into battle, a plastic key to paradise around their necks, Ayatollah Khomeini personally having assured them that their death would result in honour for their country, their names forever in blessed memory, and their after-life pleasures in paradise well earned. But only if they volunteered themselves as mine-clearers. Nothing so illustrates the indomitable will of the ayatollahs as their betrayal of Iranian children.

In which case, we can take our pick from among the Islamic State's ideological conquest resulting in their caliphate, using atrocities to gain 'respect' and 'honour' in the world of fanatical Islam, or the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its inexorable push toward nuclear arms, convincing the international community that peace, and only peace absorbs their interests; all else is slanderous misinterpretation courtesy of the Zionist invaders.

Islamic State recruits from among teens and children with the use of gifts, by threats and through brainwashing. In schools and mosques the militants enthuse children instilling extremist doctrine to turn them against their own parents. In the streets, fighters befriend children, giving them toys. And the process begins and ends with ISIL training camps turning out child fighters for the "caliphate".

AP

In this photo released on Jan. 14, 2015, by a militant website, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, Syrian boys, left, follow an Islamic State militant, right, holding his group's flag, during a street preaching session in al-Tabqa in Raqqa province, northeast Syria.

The Islamic Republic of Iran used pride and persuasion to pressure Iranian boys that they would bring glory to the country and honour to their families by choosing voluntarily to offer themselves as martyrs. Their reward would not be the paltry gifts that Islamic State hands to Yazidi children to elicit their juvenile cooperation, but their elevation to paradise where, like the mature men who preceded them all honour would be accorded them, along with nubile virgins' ministrations.

Which is the more demonstrably barbaric? It's a match.

Obama: We're No Better than Islamic State

by Raymond Ibrahim
FrontPage Magazine
February 6, 2015

^{Originally published under the title, "Obama: Christianity No Different Than the Islamic State."}

President Obama, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5

As the world reacts with shock and horror at the increasingly savage deeds of the Islamic State (IS)—most recently the immolation of a captive—U.S. President Obama's response has been one of nonjudgmental relativism.
Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, Obama counseled Americans to get off their "high horse" and remember that Christians have been equally guilty of such atrocities:

Unless we get on our high horse and think this [beheadings, sex-slavery, crucifixion, roasting humans] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

There is so much to be said here. First, the obvious: the wide gulf between violence and hate "justified in the name of Christ" and violence and hate "justified in the name of Muhammad" is that Christ never justified it, while Muhammad continuously did.

This is not just a theoretic point; it is the very reason that Muslims are still committing savage atrocities. Every evil act IS commits—whether beheading, crucifying, raping, enslaving, or immolating humans—has precedents in the deeds of Muhammad, that most "perfect" and "moral" man, per Koran 33:21 and 68:4 (see "The Islamic State and Islam" for parallels).

The wide gulf between violence "justified in the name of Christ" and violence "justified in the name of Muhammad" is that Christ never justified it, while Muhammad continuously did.

Does Obama know something about Christ—who eschewed violence and told people to love and forgive their enemies—that we don't? Perhaps he's clinging to that solitary verse that academics like Philip Jenkins habitually highlight, that Christ—who "spoke to the multitudes in parables and without a parable spoke not" once said, "I come not to bring peace but a sword." (Matt. 10:34, 13:34).

Jesus was not commanding violence against non-Christians but rather predicting that Christians will be persecuted, including by family members (as, for example, when a Muslim family slaughters their child for "apostatizing" to Christianity as happens frequently).

Conversely, in its fatwa justifying the burning of the Jordanian captive, the Islamic State cites Muhammad putting out the eyes of some with "heated irons" (he also cut their hands and feet off). The fatwa also cites Khalid bin al-Walid—the heroic "Sword of Allah"—who burned apostates to death, including one man whose head he set on fire to cook his dinner on.

Nor is the Islamic State alone in burning people. Recently a "mob accused of burning alive a Christian couple in an industrial kiln in Pakistan allegedly wrapped a pregnant mother in cotton so she would catch fire more easily."

As for the Islamic "authorities," Al Azhar—the Islamic world's oldest and most prestigious university which cohosted Obama's 2009 "New Beginning" speech—still assigns books that justify every barbarity IS commits, including burning people alive. Moreover, Al Azhar—a religious institution concerned with what is and is not Islamic—has called for the cutting off of the hands and feet of IS members, thereby legitimizing such acts according to Islamic law.

Pope Urban II ordered the first crusade in response to the same kinds of atrocities being committed by the Islamic State today.

On the other hand, does Obama know of some secret document in the halls of the Vatican that calls for amputating, beheading or immolating enemies of Christ to support his religious relativism?

As for the much maligned Crusades, Obama naturally follows the mainstream academic narrative that anachronistically portrays the crusaders as greedy, white, Christian imperialists who decided to conquer peace-loving Muslims in the Middle East.

Again, familiarity with the true sources and causes behind the Crusades shows that they were a response to the very same atrocities being committed by the Islamic State today.

Consider the words of Pope Urban II, spoken almost a millennium ago, and note how well the portions in italics perfectly mirror IS behavior:

From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians [i.e., Muslim Turks] … has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country [as slaves], and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion …. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent…. On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you? You, upon whom above other nations God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great courage, bodily activity, and strength…

If the crusaders left their own lands and families to come to the aid of persecuted Christians and to liberate Jerusalem, here is Obama portraying them as no better than the Islamic State—which isn't surprising considering that, far from helping persecuted Christians, Obama's policies have significantly worsened their plight.

The true lesson of the Crusades is that Islamic violence has been remarkably consistent, down to its very patterns of persecution. And, according to primary historical texts—not modern day fantasies peddled by the likes of Karen Armstrong—Muslim persecution of Christians was indeed a primary impetus for the Crusades.

As for the Inquisition, this too took place in the context of Christendom's struggle with Islam. (Isn't it curious that the European nation most associated with the Inquisition, Spain, was also the one ruled longest by, and heavily populated with, Muslims?) After the Christian reconquest of Spain, Muslims, seen as untrustworthy, were ordered either to convert to Christianity or go back to Africa whence they came. Countless Muslims feigned conversion by practicing taqiyya and living as moles, always trying to subvert Spain back to Islam. Hence the extreme measures of the Inquisition—which, either way, find no support in the teachings of Christ.

Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, called for the murder of his enemies, incited his followers to conquer and plunder non-believers, and kept sex slaves.

Conversely, after one of his jihads, Muhammad had a man tortured to death with fire in order to reveal his tribe's hidden treasure and "married" the same man's wife hours later. Unsurprisingly, the woman, Safiya, later confessed that "Of all men, I hated the prophet the most—for he killed my husband, my brother, and my father," before "marrying" her.

In short, Obama's claim that there will always be people willing to "hijack religion for their own murderous ends" is patently false when applied to the Islamic State and like organizations and individuals.

Muhammad himself called for the murder of his enemies; he permitted Muslims to feign friendship to his enemies in order to assassinate them; he incited his followers to conquer and plunder non-believers, promising them a sexual paradise if they were martyred; he kept sex slaves and practiced pedophilia with his "child-bride," Aisha.

He, the prophet of Islam, did everything the Islamic State is doing.

If Muslims are supposed to follow the sunna, or example, of Muhammad, and if Muhammad engaged in and justified every barbarity being committed by the Islamic State and other Muslims—how, exactly, are they "hijacking" Islam?

Such is the simple logic Obama fails to grasp. Or else he does grasp it—but hopes most Americans don't.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).

Related Topics:  Anti-Christianism, History, Islam, US policy  |  Raymond Ibrahim