RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15048/turkey-free-syrian-army

“In the outskirts of Aleppo, the FSA [Free Syrian Army] has implemented a Sharia law enforcement police force that is a replica of the Wahhabi police in Saudi Arabia — forcing ordinary citizens to abide by the Sharia code…” — HuffPost, December 31, 2012.

Trained and funded by Turkey since 2016 and with a reputation for violence and looting, the fighters of the Syrian National Army (SNA, formerly the Free Syrian Army) resemble very much the Ottoman bashibazouks.

“Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute who has interviewed dozens of the fighters and said they appear to be driven by a desire for power and money rather than by any specific ideology… ‘Hatred of Kurds, a sense of Arab chauvinism, complete intolerance for any dissent, and just a desire to make a profit is what’s driving most of the abuses.'” — Associated Press, October 15, 2019.

During Turkey’s most recent, ongoing, military incursion into Syria, launched on October 9, SNA militias captured a major highway that runs across northern Syria. According to Associated Press, “The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the Turkey-backed fighters shot and killed six civilians along the road, including Hevreen Khalaf, a woman who led a Kurdish political party.”

Bashibazouks (“corrupted heads” in Turkish) first appeared in the Ottoman army at the end of the 18th century and fought in Egypt against Napoleon’s army. These irregular mercenary soldiers, often made up of homeless beggars and thugs, were notorious for their lack of discipline, plundering and brutality. During the Crimean War (1853-1856) the allied generals made futile attempts to discipline them. The bashibazouks’ excesses during the Russian-Ottoman war of 1877-78 finally forced the Istanbul government to abandon using them.

More than two centuries after their Ottoman ancestors had used bashibazouks, the Turks found their Arab reincarnation in Syria.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15029/argentina-designates-hezbollah

Editor’s note: Argentina made history this year as the first Latin American country to designate Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization. This is an important step forward for the region and Argentina is poised to become a leader and role model with their registry (RePET) acting as a roadmap for other Latin American countries seeking to make the same designation of Hezbollah. Less than one month after Argentina, on August 9, 2019, Paraguay designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, as well, giving the region and U.S. allies in Latin America more momentum than ever in the fight against terrorism.

This past July… President Macri published Argentina’s first public registry (RePET) of those tied to terrorism. He made a clear commitment to the fight against international terrorism. The public registry is a historical landmark containing over 1,000 entries of individuals and entities tied to terrorism in Argentina, including Hezbollah.

The registry will function under the Ministry of Justice, but the Ministry of Security and our Financial Intelligence Unit or UIF-AR will have the power to designate terror groups by requesting to freeze the assets of known terrorist actors. This whole-of-government approach ensures that the country can use a variety of tools when targeting terrorists.

Previously, the only people in Argentina labeled as terrorists were those considered terrorists by the U.N. Security Council. This [new] registry works to target all terrorist organizations in the international arena, as well as persons or entities under investigation in Argentina.

The following is an edited and translated transcript of a speech given by Argentine Congressman Luis Petri on July 25, 2019 at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington D.C. during an event hosted by the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS) in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the AMIA attack in Argentina. This speech has been slightly modified and reorganized for clarity by the editors, with the approval from Congressman Petri.

There is a before and after when you consider the effects of September 11th in the world. But in Argentina, this “before and after” began a lot earlier. In 1992, the Embassy of Israel was bombed [in Buenos Aires], followed two years later [on July 18, 1994] by one of the worst terrorist attacks in Argentina against the AMIA Jewish community center, and causing 85 casualties and wounded many more.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brexit-and-britains-broken-parliament-11571696172

Is Britain broken? That’s the question a bemused world has been asking since the unexpected result of Remainer David Cameron’s Brexit referendum plunged the U.K. into a three-year political crisis.

Two things are striking about this period of national agony and debate. The first is how sensible and peaceful the British people have remained. The Brexit referendum carried by 52% to 48% (a margin of roughly 1.3 million out of more than 33.5 million votes cast) and the consequences are unpredictable and large. Will the United Kingdom even stay united as Scotland and Northern Ireland react to Brexit? Will Britain’s economy flourish as it opens to the world or wither without privileged access to European markets? From the City of London’s financial sector to the Sunderland Nissan factory, hundreds of thousands, even millions of jobs may be at stake.

Faced with all that, the British kept calm and carried on. Across a country of 66 million, Brexit has generated less political violence than a modestly sized Antifa march can gin up on a good afternoon in Portland, Ore. Scotland may be looking for an exit from the U.K. even as the U.K. looks to exit the European Union, but there are no Barcelona-style separatist riots in Edinburgh or anywhere else. This is an extraordinary testimony to the depth of Britain’s democratic culture.

https://www.criticalthreats.org/briefs/iran-file/iran-file-october-21-2019?

Iran highlighted its willingness to target opposition figures abroad. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization *announced that it arrested exiled anti-regime activist Ruhollah Zam on October 14. Zam had been living in Paris, France, where he operated anti-regime outlet Amad News. The IRGC stated that the arrest involved deception and surprise. Iranian officials *have celebrated the IRGC and its operation in recent days.

The IRGC likely coaxed Zam to travel to Iraq, where pro-Iran agents detained him. An unidentified individual reportedly lured Zam to travel to Iraq under the false pretense that he would meet with prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Ali al Sistani. A source from Sistani’s office *denied any plans for a meeting. The French Interior Ministry confirmed that Zam left France for Iraq. The regime has boasted of its ability to feed Zam false information before when it published a *documentary on the matter in March 2019. An unidentified Iraqi source claimed that Iraqi intelligence agents arrested Zam when he arrived in Baghdad at Iran’s request and transferred him to Iranian interrogators. The IRGC then moved Zam to Iran and arrested him.