Saudi Arabia offers Germany 200 mosques – one for every 100 refugees who arrived last weekend
Source: .independent
Saudi Arabia has reportedly responded to the growing number of people fleeing the Middle East for western Europe – by offering to build 200 mosques in Germany.
Syria’s richer Gulf neighbours have been accused of not doing their fair share in the humanitarian crisis, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE also keeping their doors firmly shut to asylum-seekers.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Diyar, Saudi Arabia would build one mosque for every 100 refugees who entered Germany in extraordinary numbers last weekend.
It would be unfair to suggest that the Gulf Arab states have done nothing to help the estimated four million Syrians who have fled their country since the start of the conflict in 2011.
Just this week, the al Hayat newspaper reported that 500,000 Syrians had found homes in Saudi Arabia since the civil war began – as workers, not refugees.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/saudi-arabia-offers-germany-200-mosques--one-for-every-100-refugees-who-arrived-last-weekend-10495082.html
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The same groups from Darnah, Benghazi and Tobruk who had been shown to have supplied the highest percentage of Jihadist terrorists who were the most effective and fanatical al Qaeda foreign fighters in central Iraq during the US occupation.
A December 2007 West Point study examined the background of foreign guerrilla fighters — jihadis or mujahedin, including suicide bombers — crossing the Syrian border into Iraq during the 2006-2007, under the auspices of the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda. This study was based on about 600 Al Qaeda personnel files which were captured by US forces in the fall of 2007, and analyzed at West Point. The study probed mentality and belief structures of the northeastern Libyan population, which was the location US Ambassador Chris Stevens made his headquarters after his arrival in March 2011. See, Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Al Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighter in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,” (West Point, NY: Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center, Department of Social Sciences, US Military Academy, December 2007). Cited as West Point Study
Stevens was himself a principal expert in the State Department who assessed the basis for the rebellion, and the author of suppositions about the political nature of the anti-Qaddafi revolt in these areas. It is no accident that he located his headquarters in coastal Eastern Libya rather than than the western mountain region or Misrata, which is central Libya.
More on the West Point Study, here: http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2011/03/17/libyan-rebellion-has-radical-islamist-fervor-benghazi-link-islamic-militancyus-milit
The introduction of the report says:
In November 2007, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point received nearly 700 records of foreign nationals that entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007. The data compiled and analyzed in this report is drawn from these personnel records, which was collected by al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliates, first the Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC) and then the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The records contain varying levels of information on each fighter, but often include the fighter’s country of origin, hometown, age, occupation, the name of the fighter’s recruiter, and even the route the fighter took to Iraq. The records were captured by coalition forces in October 2007 in a raid near Sinjar, along Iraq’s Syrian border.
Libya_1.JPGAnti-Libyan regime fighters prepare for battle in Ajdabiya in eastern Libya
Although there is some ambiguity in the data, it is likely that all of the fighters listed in the Sinjar Records crossed into Iraq from Syria. (Un-Quote)
The Asian Tribune presents here the salient data, information and observations of the Combating Terrorism Center of West Point maintained in the U.S. Defense Department’s Harmony Data Base. The analysis gives an alarming picture of the political shade of the Libyan rebels of Benghazi and Darnah, the eastern stronghold of anti-Qaddafi movement. The observation in this Defense Department document is very revealing.
(Begin Report):
Initial Findings
Country of Origin
Saudi Arabia was by far the most common nationality of the fighters’ in this sample; 41% (244) of the 595 records that included the fighter’s nationality indicated they were of Saudi Arabian origin.
Libya was the next most common country of origin, with 18.8% (112) of the fighters listing their nationality stating they hailed from Libya. Syria, Yemen, and Algeria were the next most common origin countries with 8.2% (49), 8.1% (48), and 7.2% (43), respectively. Moroccans accounted for 6.1% (36) of the records and Jordanians 1.9% (11).
The obvious discrepancy between previous studies of Iraqi foreign fighters and the Sinjar Records is the percentage of Libyan fighters. (See Appendix 1 for a brief summary of previous foreign fighter studies.) No previous study has indicated that more than 4 percent of fighters were Libyan. Indeed, a June 2005 report by NBC quoted a U.S. government source indicating that Libya did not make a top ten list of origin nationalities for foreign fighters in Iraq.9 As late as July 15, 2007, the Los Angeles Times cited a U.S. Army source reporting that only 10 percent of all foreign fighters in Iraq hailed from North Africa.10 The Sinjar Records suggest that number is much higher. Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone. Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia.
The previous reports may have collectively understated the Libyan contribution to the fight in Iraq, but the relative synchronization of earlier analyses suggests that the pattern of immigration to Iraq has simply shifted over time. In an admittedly small sample, 76.9% (30) of the 39 Libyans that listed their arrival date in Iraq entered the country between May and July 2007, which may indicate a spring “surge” of Libyan recruits to Iraq. If the numbers cited by the Los Angeles Times in July 2007 are any indication, even the U.S. Army may have underestimated the Libyan contingent in Iraq.
The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qaeda, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda on November 3, 2007.
City/Town of Origin
Of 591 records that included the country of origin of the fighters, 440 also contained information on the home city/town the fighters hailed from. The most common cities that the fighters called home were Darnah, Libya and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 52 and 51 fighters respectively. Darnah, with a population just over 80,000 compared to Riaydh’s 4.3 million, has far and away the largest per capita number of fighters in the Sinjar records. The next most common hometowns? in real terms? listed in the Sinjar records were Mecca (43), Beghazi (21), and Casablanca (17). City/town of origin for Saudi Arabia, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, and Syria are broken out in greater detail below.
Libyan Hometowns
The vast majority of Libyan fighters that included their hometown in the Sinjar Records resided in the country’s Northeast, particularly the coastal cities of Darnah 60.2% (53) and Benghazi 23.9% (21).
Both Darnah and Benghazi have long been associated with Islamic militancy in Libya, in particular for an uprising by Islamist organizations in the mid?1990s. The Libyan government blamed the uprising on “infiltrators from the Sudan and Egypt” and one group—the Libyan Fighting Group (jama?ah al?libiyah al?muqatilah)—claimed to have Afghan veterans in its ranks.14 The Libyan uprisings became extraordinarily violent. Qaddafi used helicopter gunships in Benghazi, cut telephone, electricity, and water supplies to Darnah and famously claimed that the militants “deserve to die without trial, like dogs.”
Abu Layth al?Libi, LIFG’s Emir, reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s importance to Libyan jihadis in his announcement that LIFG had joined al?Qa’ida, saying:
‘It is with the grace of God that we were hoisting the banner of jihad against this apostate regime under the leadership of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sacrificed the elite of its sons and commanders in combating this regime whose blood was spilled on the mountains of Darnah, the streets of Benghazi, the outskirts of Tripoli, the desert of Sabha, and the sands of the beach.’
Like other governments in the region, Libya appears concerned about the possibility of jihadi violence within its borders. In May 2007, the Libyan government arrested several Libyans on the grounds that they were planning a car bomb attack similar to an April attack in Algeria.17 And in July 2007, a group calling itself al-Qaeda in Eastern Libya announced a suicide attack in Darnah.18 Libya’s leader Muammar Qaddafi has taken measures to mitigate the threat from such groups, and has reportedly released over 80 Muslim Brotherhood activists in the hope that they will moderate the views of more violent Islamist activists.
If LIFG is funneling Libyans into Iraq, it may exacerbate rumored tensions between LIFG elements over whether or not to concentrate on militant activity within Libya’s borders.20 Such debates are common among national jihadi movements shifting focus to global issues. This sort of debate disrupted both Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Islamic Group in the 1990s.21 Reports suggesting that LIFG’s decision to join al-Qaeda was controversial may be exaggerated, but they probably reflect a contentious debate over LIFG’s future.22 LIFG’s support for al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate has probably increased its stature in al-Qaeda’s leadership, but complicated its internal dynamics.
Recent political developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the prevalence of Libyan fighters in Iraq, and evidence of a well?established smuggling route for Libyans through Egypt, suggests that Libyan factions (primarily the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) are increasingly important in al-Qaeda. The Sinjar Records offer some evidence that Libyans began surging into Iraq in larger numbers beginning in May 2007. Most of the Libyan recruits came from cities in North?East Libya, an area long known for jihadi?linked militancy. Libyan fighters were much more likely than other nationalities to be listed as suicide bombers (85% for Libyans, 56% for all others).
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s unification with al-Qaeda and its apparent decision to prioritize providing logistical support to the Islamic State of Iraq is likely controversial within the organization. It is likely that some LIFG factions still want to prioritize the fight against the Libyan regime, rather than the fight in Iraq. It may be possible to exacerbate schisms within LIFG, and between LIFG’s leaders and al-Qaeda’s traditional Egyptian and Saudi power?base. (End Report)
- Asian Tribune -
They must be winning. 
Imagine my surprise. 
