Terror attacks in Paris on Friday night left France and the entire international community in shock following the deaths of at least 129 people.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Obama arrives in Turkey for G-20
President Barack Obama's talks with world leaders in Turkey this week have taken on new urgency following a series of horrific attacks in Paris carried out by the Islamic State group, sparking global anxiety about the militant group's reach.
The crisis in Syria, where the Islamic State group has taken root, was already high on the agenda at the meeting of 20 leading industrialized and emerging-market nations. But the violence in Paris that killed at least 129 people and injured 352 will dramatically change the dynamic of the talks in Antalya, Turkey, a seaside resort city just a few hundred miles from the Syrian border.
Obama arrived in Turkey Sunday morning after an overnight flight from Washington, and was greeted on the tarmac by Turkish officials and the U.S. ambassador. He was scheduled to discuss the terror attacks in a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before beginning broader discussions with Group of 20 leaders.
French President Francois Hollande said Islamic State militants were behind the attacks and the extremist group claimed responsibility Saturday. The White House said it had "no information to contradict the initial French assessment."
Obama's itinerary, which also includes stops in the Philippines and Malaysia, was not expected to be impacted by the terror attacks. There were also no immediate changes in his plans to travel to Paris in two weeks for a high-stakes climate conference, a meeting of world leaders that will require an enormous security presence.
Security is expected be extremely tight in Turkey as leaders gather for two days of talks in Antalya, where several suspected Islamic State militants were recently detained.
Ahead of Obama's talks in Turkey, Secretary of State John Kerry met in Vienna with his counterparts from Russia, Turkey and other nations with a stake in Syria. The diplomats agreed on a timeline for a political transition in Syria that is aimed at ending the country's 4 ½ year civil war, though key details — including the status of Syrian President Bashar Assad — remain unresolved.
France: Eiffel Tower goes dark
The Eiffel Tower stood dark in a symbol of mourning Saturday night as France struggled to absorb the deadliest violence on its soil since World War II: coordinated gun-and-suicide bombing attacks across Paris that left at least 129 people dead and 352 injured.
President Francois Hollande vowed that France would wage "merciless" war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which claimed responsibility for the mayhem, as investigators raced to track down their accomplices and uncovered possible links to networks in Belgium and Syria.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said three groups of attackers, including seven suicide bombers, carried out the "act of barbarism" that shattered a Parisian Friday night.
He said the attackers in the Bataclan concert hall, where 89 people died, mentioned Syria and Iraq during their rampage. Of the hundreds wounded in the six attacks, 99 were in critical condition.
Seven attackers launched gun attacks at Paris cafes, detonated suicide bombs near France's national stadium and killed hostages inside the concert venue during a show by an American rock band -- an attack on the heart of the pulsing City of Light.
Ahsan Naeem, a 39-year-old filmmaker, said he's been to many of the places that were attacked Friday.
"I've seen dozens of gigs at the Bataclan. Eaten at the Petit Cambodge. Sat outside Le Carillon on so many nights," said Naeem, who has lived in Paris for seven years. "All those places will have been full of my people. My friends. My acquaintances."
Late Saturday, a crowd of up to 250 people gathered for an impromptu candlelight vigil at the Place de la Republique, the site of a massive demonstration in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings earlier this year. Adrien Chambel, a 27-year-old law student, said the crowd was much sparser than in January. "You feel that people are petrified," Chambel said.
Hollande, who declared three days of national mourning and raised the nation's security to its highest level, called the carnage "an act of war that was prepared, organized, planned from abroad with internal help."
The president said France would increase its military efforts to crush ISIS. He said France - which is part of a U.S.-led coalition bombing suspected ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq and also has troops fighting Islamic militants in Africa -- "will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group."
ISIS claimed responsibility in an online statement in Arabic and French circulated by supporters. It was not immediately possible to confirm the authenticity of the claim, which bore the group's logo and resembled previous verified statements from the group.
The statement called Paris "the capital of prostitution and obscenity" and mocked France's air attacks in Syria and Iraq, saying France's air power was "of no use to them in the streets and rotten alleys of Paris."
A U.S. intelligence source told Milton investigators have so far seen no insider knowledge in the chatter or communications that is being intercepted to verify who was involved. While there have been people saying glowing things about the Paris attack, no one has revealed information about the attack that only the attackers would have knowledge of, the source said.
In New York, the Empire State Building went dark for a second night in sympathy for people of Paris, while One World Trade Center was lit with the colors of the French flag.
What should you call the terrifying organisation?
The Islamic State-Isis is a scary and much-discussed phenomenon, erasing borders, conquering vast areas of Iraq and Syria, massacring its enemies and beheading hostages in slick snuff and propaganda videos. Barack Obama calls it Isil. David Cameron loyally follows suit. Others refer to Isis or IS. Now Francois Hollande has renamed it Daesh. Confused as to how to negotiate this linguistic and political minefield? You might well be.
This terminological conflict has deep historic and cultural roots. The group originated in 1999 as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad – quite a mouthful. It got simpler in 2004 when its founder, a Jordanian called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged an oath to al-Qaida, then still being run by Osama bin Laden from his Pakistani hideout. Its Arabic name became Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (don’t ask!) – though that was shortened in English to al-Qaida in Iraq. But then it got more complicated.
In 2006, under a man who now calls himself Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it morphed into the Islamic State in Iraq (Isi). In April 2013, two years into the uprising against Bashar al-Assad, Isi bigged itself up as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham) and declared a Caliphate – a state for all Muslims. Al-Sham is the historic Arabic name for Syria, Lebanon, and (according to some authorities) Jordan and Palestine. This area is known in English (thanks to the antiquated French phrase for the “lands of the rising sun”) as the Levant. Isis is the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Isil is the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant: thus the moniker in Obama’s and Cameron’s briefing books. It’s the same transatlantic solidarity that had London and Washington referring to UBL (Usama Bin Laden) when everyone else used the more familiar OBL (Osama).
This terminological conflict has deep historic and cultural roots. The group originated in 1999 as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad – quite a mouthful. It got simpler in 2004 when its founder, a Jordanian called Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged an oath to al-Qaida, then still being run by Osama bin Laden from his Pakistani hideout. Its Arabic name became Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (don’t ask!) – though that was shortened in English to al-Qaida in Iraq. But then it got more complicated.
In 2006, under a man who now calls himself Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it morphed into the Islamic State in Iraq (Isi). In April 2013, two years into the uprising against Bashar al-Assad, Isi bigged itself up as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham) and declared a Caliphate – a state for all Muslims. Al-Sham is the historic Arabic name for Syria, Lebanon, and (according to some authorities) Jordan and Palestine. This area is known in English (thanks to the antiquated French phrase for the “lands of the rising sun”) as the Levant. Isis is the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Isil is the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant: thus the moniker in Obama’s and Cameron’s briefing books. It’s the same transatlantic solidarity that had London and Washington referring to UBL (Usama Bin Laden) when everyone else used the more familiar OBL (Osama).
Opponents of the term Islamic State say it is neither Islamic nor a state: thus the suggestion of a group of British imams to Cameron that he use the expression “Un-Islamic State.” In a similar legitimacy-undermining vein Egypt’s leading Islamic authority, Dar al-Ifta, urged the media to use the rather heavy-handed QSIS: “Al-Qaida Separatists in Iraq and Syria.”
Daesh, now officially adopted by the French government, is the Arabic acronym for Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham, (though it should, to be precise, really be rendered as Da’ish). But why the change? It was never golng to be easy for the French EIIL (l’Etat islamique de l’Irak et du Levant) to supplant the more widely used English ISIL or ISIS (cf Nato vs Otan, EU vs UE). And it may, suggested one French blogger, have been chosen for its “sonorité péjorative” (dèche, douche, tache – to be broke, shower, spot). Hollande said he would be using the phrase “Daesh cutthroats”.
IS supporters, in any case, dislike the term Daesh as it does not spell out the crucial Islamic component. In the words of Simon Collis, the British Ambassador to Iraq: “Arabic speakers spit out the name Da’ish with different mixtures of contempt, ridicule and hostility. Da’ish is always negative.” It’s certainly entered the ever-adaptive Arabic language big time: in the plural form – “daw’aish” – it means bigots who impose their views on others.
Miners Sue South Africa's Deputy President
Miners injured and arrested during a 2012 strike in which at least 44 people were killed, most of them by police, are suing South Africa's deputy president, their lawyer said.
The 330 miners are suing Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa for 1 billion rand (about $70 million), said their lawyer Andries Nkome. Ramaphosa's characterization of the wage strike as a criminal act rather than a labor dispute contributed to police shooting the miners, he said.
"We believe that he should be held responsible," Nkome told The Associated Press. The suing miners asked lawyers to review the findings of a government-appointed commission that exonerated Ramaphosa, who was a non-executive director and shareholder of the Lonmin platinum mine at the time, Nkome said.
A police operation during the strike led to the shooting of 112 miners, killing 34 on Aug. 16 2012. At least 10 more people died in the weeks before, including policemen and security guards.
During the labor unrest in Marikana, a town in South Africa's North West province, Ramaphosa sent an email to executives describing the violence in the weeks before the shooting as "dastardly criminal acts" that required "concomitant action." In a statement, Ramaphosa said his email was taken out of context and that he urged officials to end the unrest that had resulted from the wage dispute.
The Deputy President instructed his lawyers to defend the action against him, Ramaphosa's spokesman said in a statement this week.
Ramaphosa is also the deputy president of the ruling African National Congress. He rose to prominence as a unionist and became a key figure during negotiations to end apartheid, according to the ruling party's website. Ramaphosa left politics to pursue private business, becoming one of South Africa's wealthiest black businessmen, with wide ranging investments, including McDonalds South Africa, according to Ramaphosa's company's website.
France Pays Price for Front-Line Role
France, which has been hit by deadly terror attacks twice this year, is paying the price for its front-line role in combating Islamic militants.
French special forces have been tracking Islamist militants in the Sahara since 2013. France was the first European country to join the U.S. air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq last year and is the only European country to join the U.S. in air strikes in Syria.
“This attack is linked to our engagement in Syria and Iraq, to our engagement in the Sahel,” Louis Caprioli, the ex-head of DST, France’s former anti-terrorism unit, and now an adviser to Paris-based security consultants Groupe GEOS, said in a telephone interview.
Last night, 127 people in Paris were killed and more than 200 wounded in coordinated assaults on cafes, a soccer match and a concert hall. It’s the largest number of deaths in a terrorist attack on a Western country since the 2004 bombings at train stations in Madrid that killed 191. The attacks follow 17 murders the French suffered at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a kosher supermarket in January.
“It was an act of war that was prepared and organized abroad, and with complicity” from individuals in France, French President Francois Hollande said Saturday. Islamic State said in a posting on Twitter that eight of its suicide bombers carried out the attacks.
Mali, Iraq
France sent troops to Mali in January 2013 to prevent the country falling to an al-Qaeda affiliate based in the Sahel, as the southern rim of the Sahara is called. That intervention has now been transformed into a mission covering Niger and Chad to prevent Islamic militants based in southern Libya from destabilizing the area. French forces work closely with the U.S. which flies drones over the region from a shared based in Niger.
France joined U.S. air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq in September 2014, before any other European country. A year later, France extended its air strikes to Syria and has bombed an Islamic State training camp and oil facilities. France has nine Rafale jets based in Abu Dhabi and has sent six Mirage 2000’s to Jordan. The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is scheduled to leave this week for a second tour of duty in the region.
“Contemporary activity by France makes them a tier-one target,” said Thomas M. Sanderson, director of Washington D.C.-based Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They’re not the primary actor from the air, we are, but they are much more reachable than the U.S. is.”
Hollande said that France will combat Islamic State “in all ways” at home and abroad.
Algerians 1995
In an Odaxa poll published Sept. 7 in Le Parisien, 61 percent of the French said they favor an intervention by ground troops in Syria.
“France will probably deepen its involvement in anti-Islamic State operations in Syria and Iraq at a time when the Syrian battlefield in particular is becoming crowded and complicated,” risk analysts Stratfor said in a note to clients.
The identities of the eight attackers who died in last night’s attack aren’t known. But there are 571 French residents with radical Islamic Groups in Syria now and 141 have died there, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Nov. 12. Another 370 have been arrested upon their return and domestic security forces are following 11,000 people, he said.
This isn’t the first time France’s involvement abroad has led to terrorism at home. In 1995, Algerian Islamists set off eight bombing attacks that killed eight people and wounded 200 in Paris to punish France for supporting the government in that country’s civil war. And European settlers who wanted to keep Algeria part of France carried out attacks in the early 1960’s, including attempts to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.
“For 20 years we have fought this Salafist doctrine,” Caprioli said.
England-France friendly to go ahead
The soccer friendly between England and France in London will go ahead as planned on Tuesday, despite major concerns over safety following the deadly attacks in Paris.
The match was confirmed by the French and English federations on Saturday after they consulted with the British government.
“We will use the opportunity to pay our respects to all affected, and also to express our solidarity with the people of France,” FA chairman Greg Dyke said.
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