http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/14/syrian-rebels-showdown-aleppo-hezbollah/print Syrian rebels, known as Martyr al-Abbas, rest in a safe house in Aleppo before the coming battle. Photograph: Muzaffar Salman/Reuters
Syrian rebels prepare for showdown in Aleppo
Rebels say regime troops and Hezbollah forces massing on outskirts, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia wait for US green light
In the middle distance, ahead of the fist-sized hole through which he pokes his rifle, there usually isn't much to see. The Syrian army troops on this part of Aleppo's jagged front line dug in long ago. Abu Firas says he can sometimes see his foes scampering between positions, but he has never seen them advance.
"This week things changed," he says. "There was more of them than before and they were up to something. They looked urgent."
Across Aleppo, rebel groups who have held roughly 60% of Syria's biggest city since last July sense that something is about to break. Positions on the other side that had long been only defensive are now much busier. Rebels who could go for weeks with out seeing a regime soldier now say they are sighting them regularly.
Even scenes of battles past that have long been barren rubble-strewn wastelands mow seem to have come to life, rebel fighters in the city's southwest say. In Salahedin – the first district the opposition fighters entered when they stormed the city last July – men stationed nearby say they can hear the distant rumble of tanks and the crunching of boots on masonry and glass.
The echoes of past battles clearly resonate loudly in the minds' eyes of Aleppo's rebels. So do the more recent reverberations of a stinging recent defeat at the hands of Hezbollah in Qusair almost 125 miles away. But even so, from ravaged urban areas to the city's outskirts, there are unmistakable signs that the full ferocity of war will soon return to the ancient stone city.
The coming showdown even has a name among the rebels. "We named the battle for Aleppo the 'Qusair echo'," said a sniper in the rural north of Aleppo, who calls himself Abu Abbas. "The regime is massing tanks and soldiers. This has been going on for 15 days now."
Buoyed by the Hezbollah-led victory in Qusair, a town of 30,000 on the border withLebanon, Syrian officials have over the past week pledged to retake Aleppo, a city that was once the engine room of its economy and for the last year has been a testament to its fatigued military's lack of success in most parts of the country.
The success that has revitalised the Syrian army has also motivated the opposition – and the US, which late on Thursday pledged to start arming some rebel groups, a move that overturns more than two years of reluctance to get directly involved in Syria's civil war.
The depth of Washington's commitment will be measured closely in the coming days, both on the planes of northern Syria, which are a short drive from warehouses holding weapons in Turkey and in the outgunned and desperate rebel posts in and around Aleppo.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the main suppliers of weapons to opposition groups, will be watching just as intently for a sign that the new US role is the green light they have been waiting for.
Until now both countries have been willing to supply the north with guns and ammunition that could sustain the battle, but not the larger firepower needed to win the war. "We simply cannot take the lead on this," said a senior Qatari official said in Doha late last month. "The Americans cannot walk away from the leadership role they have had in this part of the world for so long now. Without them, we can't get this done."
In Beirut, where one of the key protagonists, Hezbollah, is readying for the long journey to Aleppo, there is a clear sense that whatever takes place there will shape the fortunes of both cities. "They have rested for the past week, regrouped and prepared for the journey," said a Lebanese businessman with close connections to the powerful Shia militia on Thursday. "They will leave within 48 hours and there will be many, many thousands of them.
"This is a crossroads for Lebanon. And for Sunni, Shia relations in the region."
A senior official aligned to Lebanon's opposition, which is broadly supportive of the largely Sunni anti-regime forces in Syria, said Aleppo would be a much tougher proposition for both Hezbollah and the loyalist military.
"Qusair was a town of two kilometres by one kilometre and they sent say 1,500 troops and it took them three weeks," the official said. "Aleppo is much, much bigger and a far more powerful force awaits them. It will take many months, if not years, and they likely won't win."
Hezbollah's large-scale role in Qusair and its likely lead role in Aleppo sparked an urgent round of talks in Washington before the White House announcement on Thursday, which couched the decision to offer military support as a response to an assessment that Syrian forces had killed up to 150 people with chemical weapons.
In the Aleppo countryside, however, how people are being killed is now far less important than who is killing them.
"Hezbollah are coming to fight us in a sectarian war," said Abu Jafar, a foot soldier in a unit that fights under the Free Syria Army umbrella. "This drops the mask once and for all on the sectarian nature of the regime."
In Cairo on Thursday, 70 senior Sunni scholars were present as a call was made by seven influential sheikhs to send "money and arms to Syria" and "pursue all forms of jihad". The rhetoric was unmistakably sectarian. And the fallout will likely pour more fuel on crisis in which the regional stakes are now growing daily.
On a plateau north of Aleppo, Abu Abbas said there is now constant activity in two Shia villages, Nubul and Zahra. Rebels suspect that Shias from outside Syria have arrived to protect locals. They say some are wearing garments that identify them as fighters.
"I saw soldiers with yellow head ribbons and others with black, they might be Hezbollah or an Iraqi militia," said Abbas. "I saw them 10 days ago. They were here at the same time the battle was going on in Qusair."
Salma Bashier, a teacher from the same area said: "People are talking about the regime reinforcements heading to the two Shia villages. People have seen Hezbollah and Syrian soldiers reach the area. You can tell [Hezbollah members] from their Lebanese accents, let alone their uniforms and cars."
Whenever the showdown takes place, those who fight it out seem convinced that the war will be won, or lost, in Aleppo. The promise of new weapons, while seen as levelling the playing field by those who need them, is also seen by others as a portent for widespread destruction and uncertainty.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/sunni-clerics-assad-syria/2013/06/13/id/509879
Sunni Clerics Call for Jihad Against Syria's Assad, Allies
13 Jun 2013
A congress of leading Sunni Muslim clerics issued a call to holy war on Thursday against the Damascus government and its Shi'ite allies, hardening sectarian confrontation across the Middle East over the Syrian conflict.
Alarmed by reverses for the mainly Sunni rebels since the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah threw its full weight behind President Bashar al-Assad last month, Sunni religious authorities have stepped up rhetoric that could fuel a wider regional conflict and communal bloodshed in Syria and elsewhere.
Concluding a conference in Cairo at which more than 70 Sunni scholarly organizations were represented, a leading Egyptian preacher made a televised statement accusing the rebels' enemies of waging "war on Islam." He urged the faithful to send money and arms to Syria and pursue "all forms of jihad."
Among those present was Youssef al-Qaradawi, a renowned, Qatari-based Egyptian preacher close to Cairo's ruling Muslim Brotherhood, but the statement did not explicitly repeat a call by him two weeks ago for Sunnis to go and fight in Syria.
The number and prominence of those represented, however, made this a significant reinforcement of sectarian rhetoric.
"Jihad is necessary for the victory of our brothers in Syria — jihad with mind, money, weapons; all forms of jihad," said preacher Mohamed Hassan, reading from the statement.
It called for "support, whatever will save the Syrian people from the grip of murder and crime by the sectarian regime."
"What is happening to our brothers on Syrian soil, in terms of violence stemming from the Iranian regime, Hezbollah and its sectarian allies, counts as a declaration of war on Islam and the Muslim community in general," Hassan said.
Shi'ite, non-Arab Iran has long sponsored the Assad administration, which is dominated by the president's fellow Alawites, a religious community that is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Sunni powers, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt, as well as Western states, have taken up the rebel cause.
The congress urged governments not to cooperate with not only Iran but also with Russia and China, which have blocked U.N. resolutions aimed at sanctioning Assad.
It urged the rebels, mostly drawn from Syria's majority Sunnis, to overcome their internal differences. And it criticized those governments which have labelled some Islamist rebels as "terrorists," a factor which the United States and others have used to justify their reluctance to arm the rebels.
The Sunni Islamist administration in Egypt, which rose to power in the same movement of Arab revolt that started the war in Syria two years ago, has condemned Assad and Hezbollah but has stopped short of urging Egyptians to join the rebel side.
A senior aide to President Mohamed Mursi said on Thursday, however, that Cairo was not preventing Egyptians, by far the most populous Arab nation, from going to Syria if they wished.
"The freedom of travel . . . is open for all Egyptians," Khaled al-Qazzaz, Mursi's foreign affairs adviser, told a news briefing. "But we did not call for Egyptians to go and fight in Syria."
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
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RELATED PLEASE :
Muslim vs Muslim in Middle East
Sreeram Chaulia
Jun 12, 2013
The recent declaration of a fatwa (a binding religious decree) by the Sunni Egyptian cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, against the Shia militant movement, Hezbollah, and Iran as enemies of Islam who are “more infidel than Jews and Christians” is a dangerous turn portending endless war among Muslims on sectarian lines.
Qaradawi’s poisonous rhetoric, which is influencing tens of millions of Sunnis globally via the Qatari television channel, Al Jazeera, is exacerbating the fratricide in Syria, where violence between Sunnis and Shiites is bringing back memories of historic battles and grudges between the two main sects of Islam.
As Hezbollah and Iran hunker down in Syria to defend the regime of president Bashar al-Assad (a secular government dominated by Alawite Shias), leading Sunni hate-mongers like Qaradawi and Sheikh Ahmad Assir of Lebanon are rallying sectarian passions to converge in Syria and overcome “pain from the Iranian domination”. The outcome of this religious bigotry by Sunni Salafists is visible in the extreme barbarities in the war in Syria, where the Sunni rebels ranged against president Assad have been brainwashed into believing that Shias are hizb ash-Shaytan (party of the devil).
Despite the religious overtones of this bitter sectarian divide, politics and the pursuit of power have been central to the Sunni-Shia rivalry since its very inception after the death of Prophet Muhammad. The two sects have not often seen eye to eye on the issue of political succession and legitimacy of rulers. Different forms of oppression and discrimination have been deployed against Sunnis and Shias by sultans and emperors of yore and by modern-day governments dominated by one sect or the other.
The current geopolitical context for the Sunni-Shia war sundering Syria and its neighbourhood lies in the long-term contest for supremacy between the orthodox Sunni monarchies of the Gulf Co-operation Council (its members deliberately call it “Arabian Gulf” as opposed to the Persian Gulf) and Iran. It is a contemporary iteration of medieval era wars between the Sunni Ottoman empire and the Shia Safavid empire for control over Arab territories. With present-day Turkey joining hands with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan to fuel the Sunni insurgency against Assad, there is a lingering symbolism of the bloody past that pitted Muslim against Muslim.
The sectarian myths circulating in the Middle East today are millennial in nature. In the world view of the hardline Sunnis — most of who belong to the Saudi-funded Wahhabi and Salafi schools of thought — it is the obligation of their sectarian brethren to unite and fight what they term as the “spreading of the Safawi project”, i.e. the erstwhile Shia empire centred in Persia. By labelling the war in Syria as an existential one, the Sunni regimes and their fiery mullahs are trying to leave no room for reconciliation and co-existence within Islam. Even so-called moderate Sunni elites like King Abdullah of Jordan are guilty of stoking phobia about the perils of a “Shia crescent” that could upset the traditional balance of power in the Middle East.
On the Shia side, too, centuries-old are being reinvented to defend Assad’s regime. In Shia-majority Iraq, the bugbear of ‘Sufyani’— an apocryphal tyrant who is predicted to arise in Syria and decimate the descendants of Prophet Muhammad (the most revered family branch for Shias) — is being likened to the Sunni jihadist machine that has been armed and funded by the Saudis and Qataris to topple Assad.
The cruelty and daredevilry of Sunni jihadist rebel outfits like the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria have convinced ordinary Iraqi Shias that they must rush to rescue the Assad regime or face prophesied extermination. The sight of armed Shias from outside Syria flooding in to protect haloed Shia memorials like the mosque of Sayyidah Zainab (the Prophet’s granddaughter) in Damascus reveals how elevated the sectarian anxieties are in the Levant region.
Owing to emotional religious baggage, the Salafi versus Safawi war is overshadowing other fault lines which mark conflict in the Middle East. The fact that the Assad dynasty has been ruling Syria with an iron fist for far too long, and the genuine desire among Sunnis and Shias alike to seek political self-determination and democracy throughout the region, have been swept aside by the sectarian frenzy.
Even the classic Arab versus Israeli antipathy has been sidelined due to the Sunni-Shia bloodletting, which is not only laying waste to Syria but also resurging alarmingly in neighbouring Iraq. More than one thousand people have been killed in sectarian clashes in Iraq last month, the deadliest since the gory Sunni-Shia civil war there during 2006-07. The sectarian fire lit by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has not only not subsided there, but also taken a more advanced and destructive avatar in Syria.
The masking effect of the sectarian war is a reason why little is being done to end it either in Syria, Iraq or Lebanon. As the Sunni-Shia dimension shifts the focus away from the Arab Spring and the popular push for democracy, and deviates from the Palestinian statehood topic, it helps status quo-minded elites in the Gulf nations to keep their people’s aspirations for political freedom under control.
A permanent Sunni-Shia war dynamic also works to the advantage of Western powers, intent on using any means to pressurise Iran. For Iran itself, its life-or-death struggle on behalf of the Shia regime in Syria is probably a good diversion from its own internal economic and political tumult.
The only constituencies of hope amidst the escalating Sunni-Shia war are the Sufis, who are mostly Sunni by origin but whose practices have much in common with Shias.
The Persian Sufi poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, preached “no division” in the spiritual realm. He was above petty politics and sectarian venom. Although Sufis are heavily persecuted by theocratic regimes in the Middle East, average Sunnis and Shias must strive for Rumi’s mystical condition or at least draw inspiration from it to foster peace.
Ordinary Sunnis and Shias gel well, but rebuilding trust and avoiding traps set by rabble-rousers like Qaradawi is arduous in the middle of a polarising war. Middle Eastern masses have to yet again make history by rejecting elite-imposed bifurcations. The alternative is self-destruction of Islamic civilisation.
Sreeram Chaulia is a Professor and Dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs
Copyright © 2012 The New Indian Express. All rights reserved.
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The Qaradawi Fatwas
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2004, [pp. 78-80]
Editors' preface: In July 2004, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi visited the United Kingdom, to address several conferences, including a conference against restrictions on the hijab, or Muslim women's head-covering. (Such restrictions have already been introduced in France.) Qaradawi is a 78-year-old Egyptian cleric and preacher, with a history of activism in the Muslim Brethren. He was forced from Egypt for his views, and he lives in Qatar, where he has become a media star by virtue of his immensely popular television show on Al-Jazeera television. Qaradawi has sometimes been portrayed as a moderate, who favors a tolerant Islam and who would reconcile Islam with modernity. For example, he condemned the September 11, 2001 attacks. On these grounds, Britain issued him a visa, and the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone (Labor), strongly endorsed him.
However, Qaradawi's visit intensified interest in his legal rulings, or fatwas.[1] In particular, two rulings have contradicted the image of moderation purveyed by his supporters.
The first is Qaradawi's endorsement of Palestinian suicide bombings. These attacks have been sanctioned by numerous clerics,[2] but it was on Qaradawi's authority that the Palestinian Hamas began to deploy women to carry them out.[3]
The second is his strident condemnation of homosexuality, in which he has indicated his support for drastic "punishment."[4]
As a result of these rulings, Qaradawi's visit to London stirred strong feelings among those appalled by suicide bombings in Israel and by violent homophobia.
Since 1999, the United States has refused to issue Qaradawi a visa, although, in earlier years, he was an occasional visitor. But in Qatar, he has appeared as a speaker in two U.S.-Islamic dialogues. Livingstone has also invited Qaradawi to return to London for the European Social Forum, scheduled to meet in mid-October 2004. In the wake of Qaradawi's London visit, it seems likely that his American supporters will renew efforts to have him admitted to the United States.
The following are the texts of the two most controversial of his fatwas, as they appear in IslamOnline.net, a website supervised by a committee headed by Qaradawi. The site presently includes nearly 150 of his fatwas, on a wide range of subjects.
Women Martyrs
Question: I would like to ask about the ruling of Palestinian women carrying out martyr operations. Fulfilling this mission may demand that they travel alone, without a mahram,[5] and they may need to take off their hijab, the matter which may expose part of their 'awrah.[6] Would you please comment on this? I'd prefer Dr. Qaradawi to answer this urgent question, if you please.
Dr. Qaradawi answers: The martyr operation is the greatest of all sorts of jihad in the cause of Allah. A martyr operation is carried out by a person who sacrifices himself, deeming his life [of] less value than striving in the cause of Allah, in the cause of restoring the land and preserving the dignity. To such a valorous attitude applies the following Qur'anic verse: "And of mankind is he who would sell himself, seeking the pleasure of Allah; and Allah hath compassion on (His) bondmen." (Qur'an, 2: 207)
But a clear distinction has to be made here between martyrdom and suicide. Suicide is an act or instance of killing oneself intentionally out of despair, and finding no outlet except putting an end to one's life. On the other hand, martyrdom is a heroic act of choosing to suffer death in the cause of Allah, and that's why it's considered by most Muslim scholars as one of the greatest forms of jihad.
When jihad becomes an individual duty, as when the enemy seizes the Muslim territory, a woman becomes entitled to take part in it alongside men. Jurists maintained that when the enemy assaults a given Muslim territory, it becomes incumbent upon all its residents to fight against them to the extent that a woman should go out even without the consent of her husband, a son can go too without the permission of his parent, a slave without the approval of his master, and the employee without the leave of his employer. This is a case where obedience should not be given to anyone in something that involves disobedience to Allah, according to a famous juristic rule.
In the same vein, the public welfare should be given priority to the personal one, in the sense that if there is a contradiction between the private right and the public one, the latter must be given first priority, for it concerns the interest of the whole ummah [Muslim community]. Given all this, I believe a woman can participate in this form of jihad according to her own means and condition. Also, the organizers of these martyr operations can benefit from some, believing women as they may do, in some cases, what is impossible for men to do.
As for the point that carrying out this operation may involve woman's travel from [one] place to another without a mahram, we say that a woman can travel to perform Hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca] in the company of other trustworthy women and without the presence of any mahram as long as the road is safe and secured. Travel, nowadays, is no longer done through deserts or wilderness; instead, women can travel safely in trains or by air.
Concerning the point on hijab, a woman can put on a hat or anything else to cover her hair. Even when necessary, she may take off her hijab in order to carry out the operation, for she is going to die in the cause of Allah and not to show off her beauty or uncover her hair. I don't see any problem in her taking off hijab in this case.
To conclude, I think the committed Muslim women in Palestine have the right to participate and have their own role in jihad and to attain martyrdom.
Homosexuality
Question: Please, could you tell me the ruling on homosexuality: sodomy and lesbianism. And if it is haram [prohibited], what is the punishment for it in Islam?
Dr. Qaradawi answers: We must be aware that in regulating the sexual drive Islam has prohibited not only illicit sexual relations and all what leads to them, but also the sexual deviation known as homosexuality. This perverted act is a reversal of the natural order, a corruption of man's sexuality, and a crime against the rights of females. (The same applies equally to the case of lesbianism.)
The spread of this depraved practice in a society disrupts its natural life pattern and makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, depriving them of decent taste, decent morals, and a decent manner of living. The story of the people of Prophet Lut (Lot), peace be upon him, as narrated in the Qur'an should be sufficient for us. Prophet Lut's people were addicted to this shameless depravity, abandoning natural, pure, lawful relations with women in the pursuit of this unnatural, foul and illicit practice. That is why their Prophet Lut, peace be on him, told them, "What! Of all creatures, do you approach males and leave the spouses whom your Lord has created for you? Indeed, you are people transgressing (all limits)!" (Qur'an, 26: 165-166)
The strangest expression of these peoples' perversity of nature, lack of guidance, depravity of morals, and aberration of taste was their attitude toward the guests of Prophet Lut, peace be upon him. [Here follows a digression on the story of Lot as related in the Qur'an.—Eds.]
Muslim jurists have held differing opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice. Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.
[1] A fatwa is a Muslim jurist's authoritative answer to an Islamic legal question posed by a believer. –Eds.
[2] See Haim Malka, "Must Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate over Suicide Attacks," Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2003, pp. 19-28.
[3] This ruling is dated Mar. 22, 2004, at http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/english/FatwaDisplay.asp?hFatwaID=68511.
[4] This ruling is dated Mar. 24, 2001, at http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/english/FatwaDisplay.asp?hFatwaID=30519.
[5] A mahram is a close male relative in whose presence a woman need not veil and who should accompany a woman whenever she leaves the house or may be in the presence of a non-related male.—Eds.
[6] The 'awrah is that part of the body that must be covered for the sake of decency. In regard to females, most jurists define this as the entire body, except for the face, hands, and (perhaps) feet.—Eds.