I KNEW ABOUT SULTAN SALADIN BFORE LIVING IN HOLY LAND!
I’VE ADMIRED KURDS & SULTAN SALADIN SINCE HIGH SCHOOL
I HAVEN’T MET MANY KURDS BUT I LIKED ALL I ENCOUNTERED!
PLEASE GIVE THE KURDS ANYTHING THEY NEED TO FIGHT ISIS.
THEY ARE THE ONLY MUSLIMS I TRUST IN ALLTHE MIDDLE EAST
I’D STAND TO FIGHT ALONGSIDE THEM AGAINST UNGODLY ISIS.
KURDISTAN SHOULD BE DECLARED TO BE A NATION BY THE UN
KURDS ARE FRIENDS OF BOTH THE UNITED STATES + ISRAELIS.
THEY NEED WEAPONS LIKE WE GAVE IRAQIS BEFORE WE LEFT
I APPLAUD ACTIONS OF PRIME MINISTER ON HAMAS JIHADISTS
AND AM HOPEFUL PRESIDENT OBAMA CONTINUES AIR STRIKES
August 9, 2014
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt from Wikipedia
SALADIN – A KURD BORN IN NORTH PART OF TODAY’S IRAQ
IN TIKRIT! IT WAS TAKEN BY UNGODLY ISIS IN LATE JULY
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (1137/1138 – March 4, 1193), better known in the Western world as Saladin, was the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim opposition to the European Crusaders in the Levant. At the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, Hejaz, Yemen, and other parts of North Africa.
Begin Excerpt from the UK History Learning Site
Saladin was appointed commander of the Syrian troops in Egypt and leader of the Fāṭimid caliph in 1169. He was now known as the Sultan. Saladin then became the Sole Master of Cairo and the first Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt in 1174, and although he occupied Damascus and other Syrian towns, Egypt continued to be the main base of his operations.
Saladin has been held up as a chivalrous historical figure who fought fairly – when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099 they carried out mass murder, whereas when Saladin re-took it in 1187 following the defeat of the King of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin near the Lake of Galilee, he allowed inhabitants to leave the city safely. He called this a ‘just war’ and said that his actions were out of respect for Jerusalem’s status as a holy city. Despite his fierce opposition to the Christian powers, Saladin also had a respectful relationship, if one built on rivalry, with King Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart). When Richard was wounded in battle against Saladin, the latter offered his personal doctor to Richard.
Saladin managed to unite and lead the Muslim world and the Christians of western Europe were stunned by his success. The pope, Gregory VIII, ordered another crusade immediately to regain the Holy City for the Christians. This was the start of the Third Crusade. It was led by Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany and King Philip II of France. These were possibly the three most important men in western Europe – such was the significance of this crusade. It was to last from 1189 to 1192.
Richard was determined to get to Jerusalem and he was prepared to take on Saladin. Both sides fought at the Battle of Arsur in September 1191. Richard won but he delayed his attack on Jerusalem as he knew that his army needed to rest. Richard marched on Jerusalem in June 1192. However, by now even Richard the Lionheart was suffering. He had a fever and appealed to his enemy Saladin to send him fresh water and fresh fruit. Saladin did just this – sending fresh fruit and frozen snow to the Crusaders to be used as water.
Why would Saladin do this? There are two reasons. First, Saladin was a strict Muslim. One of the main beliefs of Islam is that Muslims should help those in need. Secondly, Saladin could send his men into Richard’s camp with the supplies and spy on what he had in terms of soldiers and equipment. They found that Richard had a small force, which counted him out of taking Jerusalem. Saladin and Richard organised a truce – pilgrims from the west would once again be allowed to visit Jerusalem without being troubled by the Muslims. Neither Richard nor Saladin particularly liked the truce but both sides were worn out and in October 1192, Richard sailed for western Europe, never to return to the Holy Land.
Saladin was keen for Cairo to be a well-protected yet enjoyable city for its inhabitants, with a high level of commercial and cultural freedom – very different to the kind of city its residents had been used to in years gone by. Today, Saladin has been lauded for attempting to defend an entire country’s ideology as well as its territory, and he made best use of Cairo for his purposes – one of which was accumulating the money needed to fight against the crusaders.
One of the things that Saladin is best known for is the creation of the Cairo military fortress, the Citadel, which he built between 1176 and 1177, as well as the college-mosque, the madrassa, where religion and Islamic law was once again taught to residents. Keen to ramp up the city’s defences, Saladin ordered the construction of a wall which enclosed the entire city, stretching from Badr’s wall to the north, west to the Nile and the port of al Maks and to the east, under the Mukattam Hills. Little of the wall or his other buildings remain today, although the original perimeter of the Citadel still stands, while the rest has been rebuilt by others.
Saladin sold off the Fatimids’ treasure to pay his Turkish troops and, in doing so, went from strength to strength in his military efforts. Leaving Cairo in 1182, Saladin went to Syria to fight the crusaders and liberated the vast majority of Palestine from the English, French and other armies, and from the control of the Pope, by the time of his death in Damascus in 1193. He was succeeded by his brother, al Adil.
Begin Excerpt from World Socialist Web Site
Published by ICFI
By Rose Shahnazarin
US-backed Iraqi regime fails to retake Tikrit from Al Qaeda-linked ISIS forces
By Rosa Shahnazarian
23 July 2014
The US-backed Iraqi regime has failed to retake the parts of the country that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured in an offensive that started last month. Instead, the Al Qaeda-linked ISIS militia is seizing large amounts of weaponry and oil infrastructure as it consolidates its hold over much of Syria and Iraq.
The Iraqi regime’s attempt to retake the city of Tikrit, which fell to ISIS forces last month, ended in bitter defeat last week. Iraqi troops and allied militia and volunteer forces entered the city on Tuesday, attacking ISIS forces with bombs.
ISIS appeared to be on the retreat and Iraqi troops and their allies were preparing to raise flags over several government buildings when ISIS counterattacked, a surviving soldier told the New York Times. “The bullets rained on our heads from everywhere, the suicide bombers were throwing themselves from the windows and detonated themselves in the air,” he said. Iraqi forces who were able to get away had to retreat to the edge of the city.
US efforts over the past eight months to manipulate alliances on the ground to take down ISIS and save the Iraqi puppet regime—while maintaining the pressure on the Assad regime—have failed to hold the group’s expanding power in check.
ISIS has captured areas of Syria and Iraq the size of Belgium, seizing control of large areas of northern and western Iraq as well as the Trabil crossing on the Jordan–Iraq border and much of eastern Syria. ISIS holds territory about 76 miles (122 kilometers) from Iraq’s capital and largest city, Baghdad.
A key victory for ISIS in Iraq last month was its capture of the northern city of Mosul, the second largest city in the country. ISIS took control of the city’s military and commercial resources and continued expanding to the south along the Tigris River. The capture of Tikrit, the capital of the Salahuddin province, was a part of this southward expansion.
Over the last week, ISIS forces have proceeded to expel Christians from Mosul, demanding that they either convert, flee, or face execution. Over one thousand Christians are reportedly fleeing the city.
In addition to capturing much of the region’s strategic oil industry, ISIS is also seizing large amounts of US weaponry abandoned in the country after the US withdrawal from Iraq three years ago. They have captured 1,500 Humvees, 4,000 PKC machine guns, and 52 M198 155-millimeter howitzers. This heavy artillery allows them to bombard Iraqi cities, including potentially Baghdad.
While they might not be able to aim the weapons effectively, “they shouldn’t have too much trouble shelling large-area targets like a city if they have sufficient ammo,” Jeremy Binnie of British military consultancy IHS Jane’s told McClatchy News.
The disintegration of Iraq represents an unprecedented debacle for US foreign policy. It is a disaster created above all by the policies of US imperialism, including the devastating 2003-2011 US occupation of Iraq and the ongoing proxy war waged by US-backed, Al Qaeda-linked Sunni Islamist militias in Syria. This has produced escalating sectarian war across the region and consolidated the power of ISIS, which has now spread from Syria to Iraq.
Over the past two and a half years, the US has recklessly encouraged the growth of Al Qaeda-linked forces in Syria, pouring weapons and money into the country to strengthen Sunni terrorist forces opposed to the Assad regime. This led to a civil war that has spilled into Iraq, with ISIS taking progressively larger territories there in alliance with other Sunni forces.
ISIS now controls more than 60 percent of Syria’s oil with a total production rate of 180, 0000 barrels per day and is thought to have plans to seize even more. There are frequent reports of ISIS and other militant groups smuggling crude oil out from the region.
Last week, inside Syria, ISIS launched an attack on the Shaar gas field east of Homs and captured it from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They are also reportedly assaulting Deir ez-Zor airport, one of the last key strategic locations along the Syria-Iraq border not currently held by ISIS.
The greatest danger posed by this situation is that the imperialist powers will use the civil war in Iraq inflamed by their intervention in Syria as a pretext for a stepped up intervention in Iraq.
On June 12, Obama declared that he did not “rule anything out” with regard to US assistance to the Iraqi regime. In other words, after carrying out a war that took the lives of over a million people in the 2003-2011 Iraq war, a section of the US ruling class is weighing the possibility of a new war.
Such a war would face deep opposition in the American working class, which overwhelmingly and correctly views US intervention in Iraq as a bloody and futile disaster.
As ISIS forces advanced in June, the US rushed six teams of American Special Forces to assess the fighting capacity of the Iraqi Army. The US invested over $25 billion in building and training this army before US occupation troops left Iraq in 2011. The Special Forces in Iraq concluded, however, that the Iraqi army built by the US occupation forces is completely unreliable.
According to the classified assessment, the New York Times reports, “many units are so deeply infiltrated by either Sunni extremist informants or Shiite personnel backed by Iran that any Americans assigned to advise Baghdad’s forces could face risks to their safety.”
The assessment also warns that though Iraqi forces would be able to defend Baghdad in the event of a major attack, some parts of the city could be lost. The feared attack on Baghdad did not materialize last month. However, Sunni militias allied with ISIS targeted the city with a series of car bombs last week.
The main Baghdad airport, which serves as the US hub for sending and withdrawing troops and diplomats, was found to be vulnerable to attack by ISIS forces. Two hundred troops and six Apache helicopter gunships as well as Shadow surveillance drones were sent to the main airport, which serves as the US hub for sending and withdrawing troops and diplomats, to buy time in case such an attack takes place.
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