Icarius/Iakos of Sparta Found In Today's Syria

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                        

    Laconia is a prefecture and region in the southeastern Peloponnese peninsula of Greece, with the city of Sparta serving as its capital. Situated in the Eurotas River valley, ancient Sparta was geographically defined by the Taygetus Mountains to the west and the Parnon range to the east.                                                              

                                                                           

      Omran Alhalabi is fighting like Iakos to change the reign in Syria of

 

Jolani. Now, we don't know about Omran, but his father, Mohammad, was a dairy cattle buyer and went out into the country for his business.  His father was also an Arab Mason .  In the 1940s, Freemasonry in Syria was a prominent, lawful, and elite social institution, with lodges often composed of Arab nationalists, intellectuals, and politicians, such as Prime Minister Ata al-Ayyubi. 

                                         Omran's father

•  Lodges included high-ranking politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals. Key figures included Ata al-Ayyubi (Prime Minister) and Hanna Malek (Secretary-General of the Syrian Premiership). : Contrary to being secret, lodges were officially registered with the government, paid taxes to the Ministry of Finance, and required a clean judicial record from the Ministry of Justice for membership.
•  Meetings often incorporated the Syrian national anthem, Humat ad-Diyar, and the three-star independence flag.  Lodges in the 1940s were often connected to the National Grand Lodge of Egypt or French Grand Orients. The influential role of these, often Christian or elite Muslim, members faded as the political landscape shifted, leading to an official ban by the Ba'athist government in 1965.  By that time, Omran couldn't join him as he was only 15.  
• These registered lodges, frequently linked to French Grand Orients, supported independence, displayed the flag with three stars, and included influential figures, functioning as a "who's who" of Damascus society until they were banned in 1965.  

Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, and now goes by his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa (or Ahmed al-Shaar).   He began using this name in official communiqués in December 2024 to rebrand himself and bolster his legitimacy as he took control of the country.                         

 Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has worked for years to rebrand himself, but has he truly broken from his extremist past?  Omran says Jolani is still Jolani and hasn't changed;  only his methods have.

The leader of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—has worked for years to distance himself from his al-Qaeda roots, but establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the international community will be an uphill battle. There’s also a major question about whether Syria’s instability could cause it to once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State to flourish.

                                         Dr. Aaron Zelin

Zelin’s research focuses on Syrian politics in the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime; he studied the group that took over the country for a decade and a half prior to Assad's departure. He also explores Sunni jihadi groups in the Levant, North Africa, the Sahel, and Afghanistan as well as the trends of jihadi governance, online mobilization, and foreign fighting. He has conducted field research in Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel. Zelin has also testified and served as an expert witness in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and with the Department of Justice in federal judicial terrorism trials.

Dr. Aaron Y. Zelin is the Gloria and Ken Levy Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he also directs the Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map project. Zelin is also a Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University, founder of the widely acclaimed website Jihadology, and a contributing writer for War on the Rock’s Adversarial newsletter. He is author of the book Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad (Columbia University Press), which was nominated for the Neave Memorial Book Prize in 2020. His second book, The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was published in 2022 by Rowman & Littlefield. Zelin is currently working on a third book tentatively titled Heartland of the Believers: A History of Syrian Jihadism.

Foreign Policy reporter John Haltiwanger spoke with Washington Institute expert Aaron Zelin, who wrote a book on HTS, to find out more about Jolani’s origins, his efforts to rebrand, and what’s potentially in store for Syria now that he’s the country’s de facto ruler.

Foreign Policy: Bashar al-Assad is gone, and HTS has taken over in Syria. Can you talk about the evolution of Jolani and HTS and how we got to this point?  Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war.

Zelin: Jolani was originally a foreign fighter in the Iraq War. He went from Syria to Iraq and joined up with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and [his organization] al Qaeda in Iraq. He spent some time in the infamous Camp Bucca prison. And then he became the emir or leader of the Nineveh region in western Iraq for the Islamic State of Iraq, which was essentially the predecessor group to what we now call the Islamic State. 

After the Syrian uprising began, Jolani talked to [Islamic State leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a project in Syria. By summer 2011, Jolani went to Syria to build a new organization called Jabhat al-Nusra. It was essentially an official branch of the Islamic State of Iraq... 

  Omran  must feel like Iakos of Sparta in trying to take down a terrorist President. Sparta was the  ancient capital of the Laconia district of the southeastern Peloponnese, southwestern Greece.  Archidamus V, a 3rd-century BCE Eurypontid Spartan king, is a notable example of a leader perceived as weak who was removed by another. After fleeing following his brother Agis IV's murder in 241 BCE, he was recalled by Cleomenes III in 227 BC but was assassinated shortly after his return, with historian Polybius accusing Cleomenes of the murder.   Archidamus V was part of a turbulent era where Spartan leadership was often unstable, frequently involving internal power struggles and assassinations rather than external defeat.

Iakos or Agis I (flourished 11th century bc?) was an early Spartan king, traditionally held to be the son of Eurysthenes (in legend, one of the twins who founded Sparta). Because the Agiad line of kings was named after him, Agis was perhaps a historical figure. The 4th-century-bc Greek historian Ephorus attributes to Agis the capture of the city of Helos in Laconia and the reduction of its people to helot (serf) status.

Eurysthenes was a semi-mythical, 11th-century BCE founder and first king of the Agiad dynasty in Sparta, ruling alongside his twin brother, Procles, to establish Sparta's unique dual-monarchy system. As a Heracleid descendant of Heracles, he led the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnese and was considered the elder twin.

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 Resource:

About the Authors

Aaron Y. Zelin

Aaron Y. Zelin is the Gloria and Ken Levy Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where his research focuses on Sunni Arab jihadist groups in North Africa and Syria, foreign fighting, and online jihadism.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/what-know-about-man-who-toppled-assad

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/experts/aaron-y-zelin

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Archidamus-V

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurysthenes#:~:text=Eurysthenes%20(Greek:%20%CE%95%E1%BD%90%CF%81%CF%85%CF%83%CE%B8%CE%AD%CE%BD%CE%B7%CF%82%2C%20%22,of%20the%20Kings%20of%20Sparta.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry_in_Syria#:~:text=Freemasons%20had%20to%20kiss%20the,some%20content%20of%20the%20meetings.

•      

Hamas Terrorists Now Preventing Partner PIJ Terrorists To Fire Rockets Into Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

     Rocket being fired from Gaza towards Israel, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 12, 2023.  Israel confirmed that one rocket was fired from Gaza on Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours following an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.  In response to that, IDF strikes Hamas posts in Gaza (8-7-23)  

During the May 2021 conflict in Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired over 4,300 rockets at Israeli civilians. In August 2022, Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired over 1,100 rockets at Israelis during the three-day escalation, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

An odd report came out Monday of Hamas thwarting a PIJ rocket fire

 from Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, better known as

 PIJ..  Why?    

As of Saturday night in May 2023, Hamas, which has controlled the 

Gaza Strip since 2007, had not been actively 

involved in the fighting. Its absence 

indicates that the fighting has not widened to include regional players.

 Earlier Saturday a senior Israeli official called on

 Hamas to seize control  of the situation and end Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) rocket  fire into   Israel.     The Palestinian Islamic 

Jihad (PIJ)'s history started in 1979 with 3 men.                             

       Fathi Shaqaqi  Died October 26,, 1995  He was 

assassinated by Mossad agents in Malta in 1995, leading to a 

weakening of the PIJ until its resurgence after the Arab Spring.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad are terrorists. This group started in 1979 founded by 3 men;  Fathi "Abd al-Aziz al-Shqaqi (1979-1995), or Fathi Ibrahim Abdulaziz Shaqaqi  4 January 1951 – 26 October 1995) was the founder and Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.  Fathi Shaqaqi was born in the Gaza Strip to a refugee family and received his early education at a United Nations school. He studied physics and mathematics at Bir Zeit University and later medicine at Mansoura University in Egypt. Shaqaqi became a follower of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sayyid Qutb. Influenced by the Iranian Revolution, he wrote a book praising Ayatollah Khomeini's approach to an Islamic state. 

                                                 

The 2nd man was Sheikh "Abd al-aziz Odah.   The Iranian Revolution was a major influence on Awda's political outlook and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's ideology, serving as proof that violent revolt was the key to expelling Western influence and establishing an Islamic state.  Awda eventually departed Egypt, returning to Gaza in 1981. In Gaza, Awda worked as a professor of Sharia at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) and as an imam at the al-Qassam Mosque,^located in the Nuseirat Camp. The FBI states that Awda was born on 20 December 1950 in Jabalia, a village just south of the city of Beit Lahia, in the Gaza Strip. However, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lists 1946 as his year of birth. Awda's family was originally from the Beersheba district in southern Mandatory Palestine, and came to Gaza in 1948, living in the Jabalia refugee camp.

Awda obtained a bachelor's degree in Arab and Islamic studies at Dar al-Ulum, part of Cairo University in Egypt, and a master's degree in Sharia law at Zagazig University in Zagazig, a city north of Cairo, where he met future PIJ co-founder Fathi Shaqaqi. Awda and Shaqaqi's time in Zagazig, a hotspot of radical Islamism, particularly Qutbism, proved to be influential on their beliefs.  So we find the two were radical bosom buddies.

                                            

            Died June 6, 2020  Shalah died on 6 June 2020 in Lebanon after a long illness, possible stroke, that included two years in a coma. His funeral was held in Damascus and was attended by, among others the head of the PIJ movement who replaced him, Ziyad al-Nakhalah.

The 3rd and last was  Dr. Ramadan Shalah.   Ramadan Abdullah Mohammed Shalah  (1 January 1958 – 6 June 2020) was the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) between 27 October 1995 and 2018.  PIJ has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States,^[2] the European Union,^[3] the United Kingdom,^[4] Japan,^[5] Canada,^[6] Australia,^[7] New Zealand^[8][9] and Israel. On becoming secretary-general of PIJ, Shalah was designated a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) by the United States on 27 November 1995.^[10] In 2006, he was placed on the United States FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.^{[11]  It looks like by the time he came along, the FBI was organized}

^{and ready to follow the PIJ terrorists.}  Shalah was born in Shuja'iyya, also called Gaza Sejaiya district, a neighborhood in eastern Gaza City.

Shalah earned a Ph.D. in banking and economics from the University of Durham, England. His 1989-thesis was entitled Islamic banking in an interest-based economy : a case study of Jordan.

Professor Sami Al-Arian helped bring Shalah to Al-Arian's university, the University of South Florida, in Tampa, Florida, where Shalah taught as an adjunct professor, and where he was appointed by Al-Arian as head of WISE. Shalah left in 1995 to head PIJ.  Al-Arian would later plead guilty to helping PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison. Al-Arian said he was shocked to learn Shalah was "anything other than a scholar."

                                      

Ziyad al-Nakhalah was born on 6 April 1953 in Khan Yunis, Gaza, then under Egyptian occupation.

In 1971, al-Nakhalah was sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel because of his militant activities with the Arab Liberation Front. He was one of the 1,150 security prisoners released by Israel on 21 May 1985 in a prisoner swap under the Jibril Agreement.

After his release from Israeli prison, then-PIJ secretary-general Fathi Shikaki tasked al-Nakhalah with establishing in the Gaza Strip the group’s military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades.^[16] Al-Nakhalah was detained again by Israel in April 1988 for his role in the first Intifada, and was exiled to Lebanon in August 1988 with other PIJ leaders.

Al-Nakhalah became deputy secretary general of PIJ in 1995.

He became a 4th head, a replacement of the 3rd.   Ziyad al-Nakhalah  was born in 1953 in Gaza. He was elected secretary general of Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in September 2018, succeeding Ramadan Shalah who suffered a stroke in April 2018. He was re-elected for a second term in February 2023.  In January 2014, the United States Department of State designated him as a Global Terrorist under Executive Order (E.O.), freezing his property and interests in the United States. He has been detained by Israel a number of times since 1971.  Al-Nakhala served as deputy secretary general of the movement between 1995 and 2018.

PIJ is sponsored by Iran and Syria.  They are radical Islamists and nationalists, meaning they don't have the law on their side-only irrational ideology.  Their goal is to create an Islamic Palestinian state and of course, the destruction of Israel by using a "Holy War."  They are against pro-Western and Arab governments.  

Nothing is beneath them to use to achieve their goals: They have already:

1. 1,000 terrorist attacks from 2000 to 2004. with 950 Israelis wounded and 150 killed.

2. 39 suicide bombings from 2000 to 2005.

3. Battle in Jenin in 2002, the Palestinian terrorist"suicide capital."

4.  They recruit in mosques and universities.  

 The IDF, under the Israeli Ministry of Defense, is responsible for the West Bank, but PA security forces were granted security control of 17.5 percent (called Area A) under the 1993 Oslo Accords.  The PA has administrative control over Area B (about 22 percent of the West Bank), but security control is shared with Israeli authorities.  Israel maintains all administrative and security control of Area C, which comprises 61 percent of the West Bank.  PA security forces and the IDF continued counterterrorism and law enforcement efforts in parts of the West Bank, where U.S.-designated FTOs such as Hamas, PIJ, and the PFLP operated.  PA security forces constrained the ability of those organizations to conduct attacks, including arresting Hamas members.  PA security forces continue to proactively arrest individuals planning attacks against Israeli targets or those suspected of supporting terrorist organizations, and continue to arrest Palestinians wanted for weapons smuggling or illegal weapons possession.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Public Security, “the West Bank saw 39 terror attacks in 2021, down from the IDF’s reported figure of 60 in 2020.”  

Hamas, a U.S.-designated FTO and Specially Designated Global Terrorist, maintained de facto control over Gaza in 2021.  Hamas and several militant groups, including Sunni violent extremist groups such as PIJ, launched an estimated 4,400 rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza.  Hamas and its affiliates launched incendiary balloons and devices toward Israel, damaging farms and nature preserves.  Hamas and PIJ tunneling activities continued.  Live ammunition from Hamas’s anti-aircraft weapons struck buildings in Israel.

Resource:

Magazine: ISRAEL 101, 2010/StandWithUs.  p. 26

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-742947

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-753906

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

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

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

https://ecfr.eu/special/mapping_palestinian_politics/ziyad_al_nakhalah/