Showing posts with label Assad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assad. Show all posts

Monday, May 11, 2026

Syrian Citizens' Grumbling Reaching Today's President

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                      

                                            Ahmed al Sharaa, former Jolani

The citizens of Syria were still not happy with a terrorist taking over the President's seat even though the President was a very bad egg.  What appeared to take his place could be even worse!  

Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, former terrorist leader Jolani,  has announced a series of government changes, including replacing his brother as head of the presidential office, the state news agency SANA reports.             

                          Maher al Sharaa, brother to President

Al-Sharaa appointed former Homs Governor Abdul Rahman Badreddine al-Aama as secretary-general for the presidency. This appeared to be a response to accusations of nepotism, with the post previously held by al-Sharaa’s brother Maher.

Al-Sharaa inherited a country with little functioning state in December 2024 after decades of corrupt, authoritarian rule worsened by the 13-year war in Syria.

He has sought to build a government with figures known to him from the Syrian Salvation Government, which administered opposition Idlib province, in an effort to rebuild state structures and the economy.  

                            Khaled Zaarour  the new Information Minister

Let's look at the new government authorities:  According to the report, presidential decrees appointed Khaled Zaarour as information minister, replacing Hamza Mustafa, who was moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Bassel Sweidan (no show for pictures), who heads a committee tasked with reaching settlements with business tycoons linked to the Assad-era elite, as agriculture minister.  : Basel al-Suwaidan is described as an agricultural engineer who has previously held administrative and investment positions in the agricultural sector.: He replaced former Minister Amjad Badr. He is also noted for heading a committee tasked with reaching settlement agreements with business tycoons linked to the previous administration.: This appointment is part of the first major cabinet reshuffle following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, amidst a restructuring of state institutions during the ongoing transitional period.

                             

Now Sharaa's government is holding trials for Assad's people accusing Atef Najib, a security man who is a cousin of Assad,   and protesters of 2011 uprising which set off a war.  The 2011 Syrian uprising began in March as peaceful, pro-democracy protests inspired by the Arab Spring, with citizens demanding reform, an end to corruption, and the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad. The movement was driven by widespread popular discontent with the authoritarian Ba'athist regime, which responded with severe, lethal force, escalating the protests into an armed, years-long civil war.  (thought-did the Ba'ahist regime back Jolani?)  

Charges are against al-Assad and his brother, Maher.  They are accused of killing, torture, exortion and drug trafficking.  Really amazing, a man who has done all the crimes such as terrorist leader Jolani  is accusing another !  

Assad's family line:  Bashar al-Assad (born 1965) is the former President of Syria (2000–2024), taking over after his father, Hafez al-Assad, established a dynastic dictatorship. A member of the Alawite minority, Assad is married to Asma al-Assad and has three children: Hafez, Zein, and Karim. He was deposed in December 2024 following 13 years of civil war, subsequently residing in Russia.  Father: Hafez al-Assad, an air force officer who seized power in 1970 and ruled for 30 years. A living brother is Maher (an army commander) and sister Bushra.  Hafez (named after his grandfather).Hafez al-Assad's paternal grandfather was Sulayman al-Wahhish. He was known for his strength and earned the nickname al-Wahhish (the wild beast), belonging to the Alawite community in the mountainous region of Qardaha. Qardaha is in Syria. It is a town located in northwestern Syria, situated in the mountains overlooking the coastal city of Latakia. (Evidently their naming process differs from ours or his father was not an Assad.) Sulayman al-Wahhish’s father was Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Wahhish. He was part of the Alawite Kalbiyya tribe living in the mountainous region of Qardaha, which was then part of the Latakia Sanjak in the Ottoman Empire.  

The Kalbiyya are a major tribe (or tribal confederation) within the Alawite community of northwestern Syria, centered in the mountains around Qardaha. Historically part of four primary Alawite tribes, the Kalbiyya gained immense power as the tribal base of the Assad dynasty, ruling Syria from 1970 to 2024, and occupying key military and security positions.  

The Kalbiyya tribe, a major subgroup of the Alawites, solidified its power in Syria by taking advantage of French colonial policies, heavily infiltrating the military, and forming the backbone of the Hafez al-Assad regime. Their ascension resulted from creating a “sectarian stronghold” within the state apparatus rather than through a traditional political party. French Mandate Policies (1920-1946): The French recruited heavily from minorities, including Alawites, into their armed forces to combat Sunni-dominated nationalist movements, allowing the Kalbiyya to gain vital military experience.

Alawites are a secretive, esoteric ethnoreligious minority primarily residing in Syria, following a distinct branch of Shia Islam founded in the 9th century. While representing 12-15% of Syria's population, they have held dominant political and military power, particularly under the Assad dynasty (1971–2024). They are known for syncretic beliefs, including the veneration of Ali ibn Abi Talib as a manifestation of the divine.  Ali ibn Abi Talib was the fourth Rashidun caliph who ruled from 656 CE until his assassination in 661, as well as the first Shia Imam. He was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Shia and Sunni Muslims share core beliefs in the Quran, Allah, and Prophet Muhammad, but they differ significantly in the role of religious leadership, the authority of the Prophet's family, and aspects of religious law. The core difference lies in the Shia belief in Imamate—divinely appointed, sinless leaders from Muhammad's family—compared to the Sunni focus on the Caliphate, where leadership is chosen by the community

Resource:

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/5/10/syria-sees-first-government-reshuffle-since-al-assads-ouster-state-media



Sunday, June 26, 2022

Lapid Visited a Friendly Turkey Who Accommodated Him, a Change in Attitude

 Nadene Goldfoot                                    

                     Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey b: 26 February, 1954;  current president of Turkey since 2014;  In response to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, ErdoÄŸan accused Israel of conducting "state terrorism" and a "genocide attempt" against the Palestinians. He also stated that "If Israel continues with this attitude, it will definitely be tried at international courts."  ErdoÄŸan is co-founder of United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (AOC). The initiative seeks to galvanize international action against extremism through the forging of international, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.

A cold war has been going on that doesn't make the news.  Israel has warned Israelis in Turkey to return  home because of Iranian terrorism.  Evidently Erdogan is now on the bandwagon and is seeing to it that terrorists are not welcome anymore in his country.  Israel recently bombed the Damascus airport where ammunition to use against Israel was coming from.  Syria has not joined Turkey in this end to terrorists.  

Russia is complaining loudly about the strike, they who are aligned with all of Israel's enemies and who are breaking every human rights rule in Ukraine.  Israel is reacting defensively, protecting its citizens.  

Evidently, Turkey is not going to allow terrorist groups such as Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement)  anymore freedom.  They have made up with Israel. I commend the Abrahamic Accords to instigate an understanding of Israel in their midst and bring on a peace in the Middle East.                  

 The Palestinians have been producing many terrorist groups.  The fact remains that most Palestinian leaders have belonged or still belong to either the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)  or Hamas.            

                                  Ismail Haniyeh

                                                            Hassan Nasrallah


Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh conferred urgently with Hizballah’s/Hezbollah (Party of God) Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Thursday after Turkish intelligence detained a large group of Iranian agents and foiled a plot targeting Israelis visiting Istanbul, including a retired senior Israeli diplomat and his wife.     

    Their Turkish collaborators were recruited by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards agents –  all posing as tourists and students.

There are still about 2,000 Israelis living in Turkey who were advised by Israel to return but haven't.  This turn against terrorists is helping to safeguard their lives.  The Iranians have been rebuffed.   

                                               

Israel’s warm appreciation was conveyed by visiting caretaker PM Yair Lapid and signaled the recent thawing of relations between the two governments.  He had no idea he would be facing the PM position so quickly when he returned to Jerusalem.                     

Israel's Foreign Minister Yair Lapid with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at a joint press conference, Ankara, Turkey, June 23, 2022. - Boaz Oppenheim

Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu concluded a short while ago their joint press conference, ending the one-day visit of Lapid to Ankara. It was the first time in many years that an Israeli foreign minister made an official visit to the Turkish capital — a visit that highlighted the continuing rapprochement process between Ankara and Jerusalem. In March, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Turkey, and Cavusoglu visited Israel at the end of May.

                                                                                  

  
 Syria's Bashar al Assad, the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000

Fearing that the incident portended an order by President Recep Erdogan  to crack down on all anti-Israel terrorist activity from his country, including the hosting of Hamas bases, the Palestinian group is acting to restore its ties with Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hizballah/Hezbollah, as well as seeking reconciliation with Syria’s Bashar Assad.   Russia didn't like the Damascus airport to be bombed by Israel  as that's how they were getting weapons in for Iran to be used against Israel.                         

 Damascus is in the southern end across from Lebanon's name

They hope to recover their old bases of operation in Syria, that were lost when the Palestinians backed the losing side in Syria’s civil war.

Ebrahim Raisi, who is Sayyid Ebrahim Raisolsadati, commonly known as Ebrahim Raisi, is an Iranian hardline, Islamist, principlist politician, Muslim jurist, and the eighth and current president of Iran since 3 August 2021, having been elected to the presidency in the 2021 election.

The war in Syria presents a significant, even existential, threat to this strategic alliance by endangering one of its primary members and the chief conduit for Iranian support to Hezbollah. At the same time, Iran cannot afford to lose its most important foothold in the Levant, and Hezbollah cannot risk losing its access to critical Iranian and Syrian support. Maintaining the Axis of resistance is also a matter of great ideological importance for Iran and its commitment to exporting its Islamic revolutionary principles. For all of these reasons, Iran will go to great lengths to preserve its foothold in Syria.

The Axis of Resistance is an Iran-led alliance of state and non-state actors in the Middle East that seeks to confront Western interests in the region, namely those of the United States and Israel. Historically, this alliance has included the Assad regime in Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah. In recent years, Iran has also cultivated Iraqi Shi’a militants as the newest members of this alliance. Aside from shared regional objectives, another pillar of the axis is shared support

Iran provides extensive material, financial, training, and logistical assistance to its regional partners. For example, Iran has supplied Hezbollah with as much as $200 million each year. After Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel, Iran and Syria rearmed Hezbollah with vastly expanded and more sophisticated weaponry. Much of this support has flowed through Syria, making it the primary hub in Iran’s power projection in the Levant. 

A Britain-based watchdog said an alleged Israeli strike on Damascus airport Friday hit three arms depots connected to Iran-backed militia.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor of unclear funding, also said Saturday that the northern runway at the airport was damaged, as was the observation tower and lighting systems used for planes to navigate.

The group said that disused passenger halls at the airport were hit in the strike. It claimed that the arrival halls had been repurposed as areas for the unobserved arrival of senior figures from the Iranian military and Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.

Resource:

Debka files https://www.debka.com/mivzak/hamas-and-hizballah-fear-potential-turkish-crackdown-on-terror/

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Israel's Success Amid Former Ottoman Empire's Toppled States

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

The irony of the League of Nations' decisions on what to do with the Ottoman Empire's land and their decision to cut it into sections  has turned out 100% wrong.  They held back any help to the Jews in the creation of Israel and it has blossomed, while other states have fallen 100% flat. They managed to allow 80% of the Promised Jewish Homeland to be given to Abdullah for Jordan, and then split the 20% left of the Jewish section in half and gave that to the Palestinians.  

One of the countries was formerly known as Syria, and by 2015 was no more in reality.  Too much has happened to it since its outbreak of a Civil War in March 2011.  It had been a great threat to Israel with thousands of rockets pointed at her.  Syria as a state simply no longer exists and stopped in 2015.  Like they say, an egg made into an omelet will never be an egg again, and so, Syria hasn't become itself again.  We have a situation now between Syria and Iran, both against Israel.

Three other states  had  evaporated with Syria;  Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.  In their place are organizations and gangs with intervals and agendas that are sometimes contradictory and sometimes compatible.  Short-lived alliances have formed only to be soon dissolved.  

                                             

At the end of WWI, the allies won this terrible war of all wars, and inherited the Ottoman Empire, who were on the loser side. That was  held by Turkey for 400 years from 1517 to 1918.   The allies cut up the vast sections of the empire to keep it in manageable-sized states.

                                         

           Emir Feisal ibn Hussein (1885-1933)was their king assigned by the League of Nations.  He was the oldest son of Hussein, the Grand Emir and Sherif of Mecca,  and had led the Beduin Arabs against the Turks of the Ottoman Empire in WWI, and this was his payoff.  He was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad, as he belonged to the Hashemite family.  He was related to Abdullah, King of Jordan.  His agenda for his Arabs and the Arabs' agenda for themselves was not the same, so Feisal chose to run with them.  In 1933 he died from cancer.    

Iraq, was Mesopotamia before the war, and before that, called Babylonia.  How did it receive the name Iraq out of Mesopotamia?  On the 23, 1921, the British installed Feisal as king of Mesopotamia, permanently,  changing the official name of the country at that time to Iraq, an Arabic word which, Fromkin says, means “well-rooted country. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are largely set in Mesopotamia. Eden is a Sumerian word meaning “steppe," and was a district in Sumer.  The Tower of Babel was in Babylon. The Hanging Gardens may have inspired the story of the Garden of Eden. According to Genesis Abraham and Cain and Abel and numerous other Biblical figures were born in Mesopotamia and the first cities founded after the flood were Babel (Babylon), Erech (Uruk), and Accad (Akkad) there.  It became a state on October 3, 1932. Emir Feisal ben Hussein was selected to be their king by the League of Nations from August 23,1921 to 1933. 

Syria was called Aram in the bible.  During the Seleucid period (312-64 BCE), the term Syria was introduced as Hellenistic designation for this region, but the native name (Aram) persisted in use among Arameans, up to the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE.  It became a state on October 24, 1945 when France's mandate from WWI was finished, and they were on their own by April 17, 1946.  Feisal was proclaimed King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920.  

Libya : Prior to its independence in December 241951, the territory comprising present-day Libya (Tripoli) had been a semi-independent province of the Ottoman Empire from 1711 to 1835, an Italian colony from 1912 until 1947, and was under British and French occupation from 1943 to 1951.  The Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 (ILSA) was a 1996 act of the United States Congress that imposed economic sanctions on firms doing business with Iran and Libya....

Yemen:  This country is the name of SW Arabia.  It became an independent state on May 22, 1990.  Five years of negotiations ensued, and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Daan on 9 October 1911, which led to Yemen becoming a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.Dubai, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy said it seized a large cache of assault rifles and ammunition being smuggled by a fishing ship from Iran likely bound for war-ravaged Yemen.

                                              

        Jerusalem in December's rain

Israel: Became a state on May 14, 1948.  David Ben-Gurion, leader of Mapai and head of the Jewish Agency, became Israel's first prime minister. The position became permanent on 8 March 1949, when the first government was formed.  Israel is a going concern.  While England allowed Arabs in, they kept Jews out, especially ones fleeing from Nazis.  It was a shameful act and England's bad. The Jewish history was born in ancient Israel, and the people have wanted to return for over 2,000 years.  Their destiny is to all return.  They have more reason than anyone to need their 2nd Israel.  Like Golda Meir has commented, "Israel has a secret weapon.  We have nowhere else to go".     

The League of Nations broke up the Ottoman Empire with the Sykes-Picot Agreement:

  • The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret 1916 agreement between Great Britain and France, with Russia assenting, that defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in Southwestern Asia, under control of the declining Ottoman Empire.
  • The agreement allocated to Britain control of areas between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan, Jordan, and southern Iraq;  France got control of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; and Russia received Istanbul, the Turkish Straits, and Armenia.
  • The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations, still mentioned when considering the region and its present-day conflicts.
  • Many historians consider the borders created by the Sykes-Picot Agreement “artificial” and argue they have given rise to many conflicts in the region.  We can't argue with that, they have dissolved and are taken over by terrible people.  
The territory of the Syrian Arab Republic had extended over 185,000 square kilometers which is some 9 times more than Israel in the pre-June 1967 borders.  Half of it is desert. 
                                                      
President Bashar Assad is a member of an Alawite clan, supported in 2015 by Iran and Hezbollah. Also, the Lebanese Shi'ite Movement, supported by Iran, who is a Shi'ite country, controlled 20% of the territory, now, probably all of it.  Assad does have control of the capital, Damascus, the coastal strip which is predominantly populated by Alawites.  Alawites as and ethnic sect of Shi'ite Islam.  Asad in 2015 still held onto a small strip in the south adjoining the border with Jordan.  Assad's territory is called "Little Syria." 

Bringing Syria down has been "Islamic State-ISIS." They controlled 80,000 square kilometers (over 40%) of Assad's territory and its 7 million people, about 1/3 of the former total population.  However, lots of the land under ISIS now is just desert with Raqqa in the NE, their capital.                                     
                      ISIS in the act of beheading dissidents

Until 2011, ISIS was the  Iraqi branch of al-Qaida led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  He had sent jihadi volunteers to Syria to fight the Assad regime when the civil war broke out. The war started in 2011, when Syrians, enraged by corruption and emboldened by a wave of "Arab Spring" protests across the region, took to the streets to demand democratic accountability for their leaders. ... The chaos of the war allowed ISIS, al Qaeda and other terror groups to seize more than 70% of Syria's territory.  The fighters were local Syrians, called the Nusra Front and put Syrian Islamist Abu Muhammad al-Julani in charge.  Al-Baghdadi'ss barbarism was too much for even al-Qaida's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri,  who had replaced Osama bin Laden and gave himself the title of caliph, successor to the Prophet  Muhammad. 

Al-Julani, the Syrian rebels, remained loyal to al-Qaida and al-Zawahari. The 2 groups have joined to fight against Assad and other moderate Islamic groups and at times, each other!  The scene becomes a free-for-all.                                       
       ISIS Leader:  Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

ISIS terrorizes people and enacts staged killings of its rivals in a whole gamut of barbaric practices, but has started to govern over people, too, by establishing courts of the 7th century style.  

The Nusra Front of Syria doesn't deal in governing. They and al-Qaida use terror attacks to wreak havoc whenever possible.   ISIS, the violent caliphate, has toppled the regimes of Syria, Libya and Iraq.
                                                  

Hezbollah, backed by Iran, was ingrained in the Golan's some 20,000 Druze who are still supporters of Assad in 2015. Iran's al-Quds Force was led by  General Qasem Soleimani who established a small "forward command" on the Syrian side of the border.  They've been attacking Israel from their vantage point.  Earlier, they had hired proxies to do this job from the Druse village of Hader.  In August 2015 Iran sponsored the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group (PIJ).They are in the West Bank and Gaza. They are committed to the creation of an Islamaic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel through holy war.  The oppose pro-Western  Arab governments.    Israel has had to fight groups who have fired rockets at Israel from them.  Israel has had to kill a senior Iranian General and a few Hezbollah  senior operatives like Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Hezbollah's Defense Minister, Imad, who was assassinated in 2008 in Damascus in a joint Mossad-CIA operation.  He was involved in terror plots against Israel.

Fast forward to the present day.  Iran's Ayatolla has Persian expansionist goals again, and finds that power will come if they topple Israel. Following Islamic Law, Iran has told the world of their intentions to destroy Israel, and they're already past the point of stopping their nuclear goals.  Now Israel has to concentrate on ending their method of delivering such a missile on Israel's soil. 
      Iran has 11 million soldiers.  In 2011, they had 545,000.  
 
The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy war between Iran and Israel. The conflict involves threats and hostility by Iran's leaders against Israel, and their declared objective to dissolve the Jewish state by a popular referendum . Iran has provided funding, weapons and training to groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) both in the Gaza Strip, which have vowed and carried out attacks on Israel, and which have been designated terrorist organizations by many countries. Because of Iran’s hostility to Israel, Israel is also concerned by Iran's nuclear weapons program and missile program, and is seeking to downgrade Iran's allies and proxies, as well as preventing Iranian entrenchment in Syria, another sworn enemy of Israel.                                    

Strains emerged during talks this week after a short period of strong relations between a new Israeli government and new American one.  Golly, what timing!

  American negotiators have signaled that Iranians’ advancements in their nuclear program and their recent hard line in Vienna mean Tehran is not serious about a diplomatic agreement.
  But the tougher line was also aimed at calming increasingly frustrated Israeli officials. Though they will not criticize the American president in public the way former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did during the Obama administration, Israeli officials in private argue that the Iranians are advancing their nuclear program while betting that the United States, eager to diminish American commitments in the Middle East, will not abandon the Vienna talks for more forceful action. Israel expects a more direct stance.  
Update 4pmPTAsked about a possible Israeli to attack Iran, the US official commented that he would not speak for Israel. which is “a sovereign state.”  The Biden administration clearly remains committed to diplomacy, while Israel maintains that Iran is playing for time to weaponize its nuclear program

Sullivan also travelled to Ramallah to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

https://www.debka.com/mivzak/us-israel-gaps-on-iran-smaller-after-sullivan-visit-but-remain/

 

Resource:

The Jerusalem Report, September 21, 2015, p 14-15.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Syria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq_and_Syria

https://history.state.gov/countries/libya

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/partition-of-the-ottoman-empire/

https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub402/entry-6059.html

atimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-09-02-bk-1977-story.html#:~:text=23%2C%201921%2C%20the%20British%20installed,“well-rooted%20country.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_proxy_conflict

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_Libya_Sanctions_Act