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ROTTERDAM, November 29 -- Mainstream Muslim scholars must engage with reinterpreting passages of the Qur'an that seem to support ISIS' treatment of women. From where we are positioned, the refugee camp appears enormous. Big, heated tents are situated next to each other in rows. Bread is made in a traditional earth oven, several metres beneath the ground. The dough is stuck to the clay walls and baked with the lid attached to the top of the oven. When the bread is done, it plunges downwards and hits a grate placed inside the oven. We run into girls on their way to school. A girl wearing a pink sweater and leopard-patterned corduroys plays football with a tin can. Two girls sit behind a tent, one of them combing the other's hair. Next to a man who sells clothing, children in army sweatpants play. They smile and fool about while I take their pictures, and they communicate with signals, which, for a split second, recall the sign gesticulated by ISIS fighters pointing towards the sky and Allah. The impression I get is similar to that of a visit to a Christian refugee camp in Erbil, a few hours south of the Yezidi camp in Dohuk. Tens of thousands of Christians fled the village of Qaragosh, which was seized by ISIS in August 2014. The residents ran out of water and electricity supplies following the arrival of ISIS in the province capital of Mosul. Still, the 50,000 Christians believed they were safe. Women and men reveal the sense of horror that proliferated as ISIS drew closer to their village. One of the refugees recounts: “ISIS approached the town and laid out the options: to die, to convert, to flee or to pay a Christian tax to continue to live under their regime. So we left all our possessions, for we had heard what happened to the Yezidis in Sinjar. Some old men did not leave, either because their health did not allow them to, or because the news reached them too late. They stayed behind. I do not know what happened to them.” This camp, too, is characterised by its placidity. Some girls sit on a bench and do their homework. Another one is seated on the ground. A woman, who wears sweatpants embroidered with characters from the Disney movie Frost, prepares tomatoes and eggs in a frying pan. Nissar Potnus, 58, says: "They pillaged our homes, robbed them of valuables. They broke into houses and took everything. Even refrigerators. They took our livestock. Everything. My car was left behind. Everything we built over the whole course of our lives is gone. Nonetheless, we fear nothing but the loss of our women. We are aware of what happened to the Mosul women. Many young, Christian women were kidnapped from their families, and the Christian families received life threats when attempting to retrieve the women...Before Daesh arrived, we co-existed peacefully with Muslims. Then, everything changed.” “ISIS fighters are sexually frustrated losers.” Those were the words of London mayor Boris Johnson. It is a simplistic and banal statement, although there is no doubt that ISIS wields women and sex as draw cards to recruit western men. This assertion is also reflected in the numerous stories about western men who have travelled to IS occupied areas. One of them, Raphael Hostey, 22, who travelled to Syria from Manchester in 2013, is part of ISIS’ recruitment team, which assists newly arrived fighters from the west across the border. He was believed to be an ordinary chap from the UK who attended John Moores University in Liverpool prior to his departure to Syria, where he gained the nickname “Al Britani Afro”. Raphael left both his wife and children in Manchester. Now he is accused of “stealing” girls from fellow fighters, and of demanding from prospective female travellers to Syria, with whom he chats online, to remove their hijab and niqab so he can determine which of them are the prettiest. Where Boris Johnson is right is that ISIS is a state established by men, for men, in order to cater to men obsessed with weapons, murder and torture, and who have an urge to rape and abuse women and children. The regime provides them with a religious legitimacy with no basis in Islam. They misuse religion to fulfil sadistic fantasies involving children and women. They exploit the fact that imams and Muslim theologians lag behind in efforts to answer important questions concerning women and gender equality in a modern world. The imams not only fall short of providing answers on the position of women in society, but also on the issue of homosexuality. Out of fear of discomfort, and due to uncertainty in tackling these kinds of universal debates, they remain silent. It yields mullahs the power to define these issues. ISIS throws living people off tall buildings in Raqqa, just because they are gay, and does so in the name of Islam. They abuse children and women while appealing to the Qur'an. Western Muslims feel stripped of explanations when these issues are up for debate, because their alleged fellow believers have nothing in common with their religion.
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Salah Abdesalam, a Belgian national, is suspected to be hiding in the Brussels area and carrying what might be an explosive device. Charles Michel, Belgium's prime minister, moved to increase the state of alert in Brussels to the highest level early on Saturday in response to the threat. Metro services and major events have since been suspended as hundreds of police officers and soldiers fanned out across the city. Residents have been asked to stay indoors and avoid crowded areas amid the alert, which is in force only in Brussels. Emergency phone lines have been set up to report suspicious activity, as well as sightings of Abdesalam. Ongoing threat Belgium has been at the forefront of efforts to track down those involved in helping execute the November 13 attacks in Paris, which targeted a concert hall, football stadium, cafe and shopping mall. On Thursday, the country's security services launched raids in the Molenbeek and Jette neighbourhoods of Brussels and made further arrests on Saturday. The attacks were blamed on the Islamic State (IS) group, and several of the attackers are believed to have received training in Syria. The apparent ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was a Belgian national who fought with IS and is suspected of helping to inspire or direct previous attacks targeting France. Since the start of October, IS has launched a number of attacks against targets outside the territory it primarily operates in, including in France, Lebanon, and Turkey. The group has also claimed credit for bringing down on October 31 a Russian airliner in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula by smuggling a bomb on board. PARIS, November 16 -- The French presidency on Thursday said it would deploy its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to boost its operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The presence of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the flagship of the French navy, will add to the six Rafale jets stationed in the United Arab Emirates and the six Mirages flying out of Jordan. The Charles de Gaulle did a two-month stint in the Gulf from February, from where strikes against IS in Iraq were carried out, before returning to its base in the French port of Toulon. During this time about 20 aircraft carried out 10-15 combat sorties a day, according to the army. France launched air strikes against the jihadists in Syria in October, after a year of bombing IS in Iraq, saying it was acting in self defense. France was hit by a jihadist attack in January that left 17 dead and has foiled several other attempted attacks. The country fears hundreds of citizens that have left to fight with IS in Iraq and Syria will return to launch attacks on home soil. Since beginning operations in Iraq, French fighter jets have carried out 1,285 aerial missions, resulting in 271 strikes and the destruction of 459 targets. Only two known strikes have so far been carried out in Syria. |
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