Islamists auction off cars to buy heat seeking missiles for Syrian rebels

[Sand Wind]

Source: FP

A group of hard-line Islamists in Kuwait raised enough cash to arm 12,000 Syrian rebels this week, according to statements by the group's leaders. The next step: flood the country with guided missiles, heat-seeking missiles and tandem warheads.

The United States is currently considering ways to provide small arms to moderate elements of the Syrian opposition. Washington officials swear they can keep those weapons from falling into extremists' hands. Perhaps that's so. But those CIA-led efforts may be eclipsed by a parallel push to give more powerful weapons -- capable of taking down commercial aircraft -- to the opposition. And these arms runners are far less concerned about the weapons winding up with the rebels' al qaeda-aligned Islamist wing.

This week, the Great Kuwait Campaign, a private organization of Kuwaiti clerics and politicians, announced a new phase of its fundraising campaign after successfully raising several millions of dollars from auctioning off cars, rounding up gold jewelry and soliciting donations.

The fundraising announcement came from the campaign's official Twitter account on Monday. The specifics about weaponry came from one of the campaign's organizers, Dr. Shafi Al-Ajmi, a hardline Salafi cleric who said the group already purchased anti-aircraft missiles, grenades and RPGs, and was planning to acquire heat-seeking and guided missiles.


Read more: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/27/islamists_auction_off_cars_to_buy_heat_seeking_missiles_for_syrian_rebels

[KamaAina]

1. Wasn't Kuwait occupied by Saddam Hussein?

Tell me again how they got him out of there?

[DesertFlower]

2. they were, but the U.S. stepped in

and got saddam out of kuwait.

[KamaAina]

3. That we did.

And this is the thanks we get.

[Posteritatis]

7. What did you want, a perpetual veto over anything Kuwaiti citizens do? (nt)

[KamaAina]

14. No, I'm just questioning the wisdom of going to war for them

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. naive application of an absurd premise

Kuwait and the other GCC dictatorships are fully in compliance with US directives when they are supporting the takfiri gangs in Syria. I don't see the disconnect here, except in terms of the false assumption that these client regimes are not acting in full concert with--rather than defiance of--US policy on the matter in situations such as this. The fact that it's an idiotic, myopic, and criminal policy for the US and its agents to support the head-choppers, car-bombers, and organ-eaters is a matter for another discussion.

[L0oniX]

10. Yea he reoccupied the land that was originally part of Iraq.

[Poll_Blind]

4. It says they already bought the anti-aircraft missiles. Wonder who they got them fr...

Whoops! Nevermind!

PB

[leveymg]

6. MANPADs coming to the Friendly Skies near you. Drop on in.

Who could have foreseen that our fiends and allies in the region would turn on us this way?

http://forum.keypublishing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=40247&stc=1&d=1093792289

[L0oniX]

11. Who you ask? Our wonderfull leaders who are smarter than we are of course.

Of course ...they have access to all that secret information so it's no wonder that they know what's good for us all.

[leveymg]

12. If access to information equated to intelligence, we wouldn't be losing the American Empire.

We are simply misled, and that permeates all strata of American elites in all institutions. More than anything else that is bringing this thing down, they actually believe their own disinformation and can't seem to remember that it is.

[ForeignandDomestic]

8. Rubbish.......

Propaganda and lies, the US and it's imperial brethren the French and Britain have already supplied those "rebels" with said weapons...

Since the Gulf monarchs like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait are in such a caring mood for the welfare of the Syrian people maybe they can stop chopping off the heads and hands of their own people now and stop stoning women to death who they feel have had extramarital affairs.

[Arctic Dave]

15. +1

[L0oniX]

9. Well then ...I sure am glad we are on the right side of this...

pffft!

[happyslug]

13. What about the Shiites?

Kuwait has a "Native" population of just over 1 million people, 30-40% of the native population is Shiite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Kuwait

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ku.html

The reason this is suspect are as follows:

1. The Shiites have a long history of denying they are Shiites, due to massive discrimination by the Sunni Moslems. Thus, except in areas where Shiites are in control (i.e. Iran) they are often counted as Sunni.

2. Yes, Saddam invaded Kuwait, but their big fear is Iran. Given that Iran is Shiite they is a tendency to discriminate against Shiites and to under count them.

3. The nearest Areas around Kuwait, Basra and Southern Iraq, the Arab populated areas of Iran, and even that part of Saudi Arabia around Kuwait, are all Shiite Majority areas. The Historical rule is Urban areas sooner or later reflect the rural areas around them, but someone Kuwait has officially avoided this.

4. The official estimate of a 70-30% breakdown of Sunni and Shiite among the Moslems is said to cover all residents of Kuwait, but officially only about 1/2 of the population are Citizens, the rest was just imported labor.

5. The rest of the Persian Gulf counties (other then Iran and Saudi Arabia) are believed to have Majority Shiite Populations, ruled by Sunni ruling Clique/Family (These are extended families, not nuclear families i.e not only brothers and sisters, but cousins and second and third cousins, please note outside the "Christian West" most people marry their Cousins so these extended families can thus look to themselves. I use the term "Christian West" for the reason we do NOT marry our cousins was the Medieval Catholic Church outlawed for it kept to much money in to few hands and that tradition has survived in nations that had been Christian to this day).


I mention the above, for this appears to be a Sunni Moslem Group that has support from the Ruling Family of Kuwait. The Shiites appear to support Iran and its support for the Alawites, but being on the outs in Kuwait keep quite. Just a comment to keep this is prospective.

Side note: Assad and his family are Alawites, which is a branch of Shiite Islam, but one that also celebrates Certain Christian Holy days (Easter and Palm Sunday being two of them). Many Sunni call them "Christian" thus you read reports of some fighter returning home from fighting "Christians".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites

[Alamuti Lotus]

16. well, it's safe to assume that they weren't part of the fundraising troope

a couple points on the present events and historical context to certain things you write here.

The wahhabi dictators in the oil & gas dictatorships have feared their Shiite populations before the advent of the Islamic Republic.

Repeating old Seljuk (and new Saudi-Qatari) smears of the Alawites as being "Christians" is not advised. Look at that Wikipedia article you are citing, the next sentence mentions a recent refutation of these claims. That the current takfiri gangs are calling them bad names before and after the massacres is not actual evidence of such traditions, it is only proof that the old smears of Seljuk (and later Ayyubid) heresiologist claims of Shiite collaboration with the Christians, Satan, Martians, and any other enemy de jure have survived to this day in some form.

The present wahhabi (Saudi-Qatari) demonization of all Shiites (Alawites included) is rooted in this old tradition. In a faith that stridently preaches a single unity, they are always the resistant opposition and thus must be eliminated; the present campaign in Syria should be interpreted in that light. The recent massacre of Shiites in Egypt by salafi thugs represents a good example of the culmination of this well-funded demonization campaign; the recent Saudi-inspired coup in Qatar indicates that such matters will only be ramped up further under the new leadership in that wahhabi dictatorship.

[happyslug]

19. I mentioned the term "Christian" for it is a term I have seen used among the fighters in Syria.

And thus I was NOT calling the Alawites Christian, but that the Sunni resistance are calling them Christians. I was trying to make sure that when people read some of these reports that they understand what the terms used meant to the writers not you and I.

The same word can have different meaning for different groups. The Classic example is the use of the term "Law and Order" in the 1960s, outside the American South, it sound like you wanted to go after criminals, in the South it was heard to be that you were going after African-Americas.

The Nazis were good practitioners of this, for example in the Stoop Report on the Jewish Warsaw Uprising, the Jews are called "Bandits" not fighters, for that is what the Nazi High Command wanted to hear (The word "Terrorist" was not yet popular, but would have be used if it was as popular then as it is now).

Thus my statement, which was to try to put the term in prospective of what the user meant when he used the term, not what other people would mean by the same term.

[bluedeathray]

17. What could go wrong? nt

[Marrah_G]

18. Are there any other topics you would like to discuss?

Marriage equality, women's reproductive rights, education, healthcare, immigration?