U.S Navy in Chinese Waters

US navy Spratly sail-by 'threatens China sovereignty'

The USS Lassen is a guided missile destroyer.

Beijing has strongly criticised the sailing of a US navy warship close to its man-made islands in the South China Sea, saying the move posed a "threat to China's sovereignty".

Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Tuesday that the USS Lassen, a guided missile destroyer, entered the waters near the islands "illegally" and "without receiving permission from the Chinese government".

The patrol by the USS Lassen was the most significant US challenge yet to a 22-nautical-kilometre zone China asserts around the Spratly archipelago, a disputed group of hundreds of reefs, islets, atolls and islands in the South China.

One US defence official said the US warship sailed within 22 nautical kilometres of Subi Reef. A second defence official said the mission, which lasted a few hours, also included a sail-by at Mischief Reef and would be the first in a series of freedom-of-navigation exercises aimed at testing China's territorial claims, Reuters news agency reported.

In an angry response, officials in Beijing said that "China will resolutely respond to any country's deliberate provocations.

"We will continue to closely monitor the relevant seas and airspace, and take all necessary steps in accordance with the need," the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement, without giving any details on precisely where the US ship sailed.

"China strongly urges the US side to conscientiously handle China's serious representations, immediately correct its mistake and not take any dangerous or provocative acts that threaten China's sovereignty and security interests," the statement continued.

Strategic waterway

Beijing insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the South China Sea, even waters close to the coasts of other states.

The sea is a strategically vital waterway with shipping lanes through which about a third of all the world's traded oil passes, and the dispute has raised fears of clashes.

The second US defence official told Reuters that more patrols would follow in the coming weeks and could also be conducted around features that Vietnam and the Philippines have built up in the Spratlys.

"This is something that will be a regular occurrence, not a one-off event," said the official. "It's not something that's unique to China."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest referred questions on any specific operations to the Pentagon but said the US had made clear to China the importance of free flow of commerce in the South China Sea.

Washington has repeatedly said it does not recognise Chinese claims to territorial waters around the artificial islands.

"We operate routinely in the South China Sea and we'll sail in international waters at a time of our choosing," an official told AFP news agency.

'Strong message'

The decision to go ahead with the patrol follows months of deliberation and risks upsetting the already strained US-China ties.

"By using a guided-missile destroyer, rather than smaller vessels ... they are sending a strong message," Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies, told Reuters.

"They have also said, significantly, that there will be more patrols - so it really now is up to China how it will respond."

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam - members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - also claim parts of the sea. Taiwan is a sixth claimant.

"U.S Navy Spratly sail by threatens Chinese sovereignty." Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera English.  27 October 2015. 27 October 1:23 PM 2015.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/navy-spratly-sail-threatens-china-sovereignty-151027062513637.html

This article was interesting because it is about a source of conflict between two of the worlds greatest super powers. There is little bias in the article, and it is not targeted at a specific audience. What is interesting is that the article seems to say that the American Navy was violating Chinese waters, an international offense. It seem to also say that this was done on purpose to test the integrity of the Chinese territorial claim. In my opinion this is wrong as they are making military provocation at another nation, the key to resolve conflicts and grudges ( of which there are many between the U.S and China) is respect and cooperation, this act shows neither. I think the correct approach would be for the United States to now remove their ships from Chinese territory and apologize. This is so diplomatic relations can be normalized and full cooperation on international affairs ensured.

Valley of Wahhabi

Why Georgians in a remote valley are joining ISIL

Wahhabi influence has grown in Georgia's Pankisi valley, where young men and women yearn to wage holy war in Syria.

Aminat, mother of the youngest ISIL recruit, says the radicalisation started about two years ago [Rabii Kalboussi/Al Jazeera]

Omalo, Georgia - Malika Kushtanashvili's 16-year-old brother made headlines for being the youngest Georgian to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to fight in war-torn Syria.

"He said to me on the phone that it is nice there," the 14-year-old schoolgirl told Al Jazeera.

Muslim Kushtanashvili crossed the Georgian border into Turkey on April 2 without the legally required permission from his parents because of a mistake by border police, the Georgian interior ministry says. From Turkey, he made his way south to Syria.

The young Kushtanashvili is not unique in his yearning to fight in Syria. "Both girls and boys at my school say they want to go to Syria," said Malika, an ethnic Chechen, sitting on a bench in front of her home.

Although Georgia is a Christian-majority country, the Kushtanashvili family lives in the village of Omalo, in Georgia's Pankisi Valley, where most of the population is Muslim.

Malika said she would also go to Syria if she could, just like the nearly 200 Pankisi residents who local community leaders estimate have joined ISIL.

Kushtanashvili's mother, 34-year-old Aminat, said radicalisation in Pankisi started about two years ago, but she cannot understand how it all came about. She did not even know her children were affected until she was told by police that her son was in Syria among ISIL fighters.

"We didn't know. We have never discussed it at home. Maybe he knew that we wouldn't allow it," said Aminat.

"It seems that he used to meet up with Wahhabis secretly in this village, and in [the nearby village of] Jokolo… They were all locals. One of them [Ayup Borchashvili] was arrested shortly after the incident, but his brother Giorgi is still free for some reason. I think that both were involved in sending my son to Syria," she said.

Muslims in Pankisi are increasingly under the influence of the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam [Rabii Kalboussi/Al Jazeera]

The Pankisi Valley is near the border with the Russian republic of Chechnya, and 160km away from the Georgian capital Tbilisi. 

The valley is part of Georgia's eastern Kakheti region, famous for its wine-making traditions.

In the Chechen villages of Pankisi Valley, residents say prominent local leaders - influenced by Wahhabi teachings of Islam - have imposed rules banning music in public places, although music and dance are an integral part of Chechen culture.

Most women wear a veil and conservative clothes that reach their wrists and ankles. Recently, some women have started wearing the niqab - the full veil that leaves only their eyes visible.

Groups of young men chatting idly on the side of the road mostly wear long beards, and some have their long sweatpants tucked into their socks  - another sign of Wahhabi influence.
"All of those influenced by them have ISIL nasheed [Islamic music] playing in their cars and phones," Kushtanashvili's mother Aminat said.

Temur Batirashvili is the father of ISIL's most famous Pankisi recruit, Tarkhan, a military commander with the group who is also known as Omar al-Shishani - "the Chechen".

Batirashvili, a Christian who is married to a Muslim woman, said Wahhabism was brought by Arabs to Russia's volatile regions in the North Caucasus. When Chechen guerrillas escaped to Georgia's Pankisi Valley for shelter during the second Russian-Chechen war in the 1990s, they brought radical Islam with them.

He claimed Wahhabism has become a trend in the area recently.

"Now 90 percent of the young men are Wahhabis. I don't know what brought this trend here. Maybe poverty. I don't know," he said. "If you cut off lifelines to a person, I guess that's when he decides to go [to Syria]."

Temur Batirashvili is the father of ISIL's most famous Pankisi recruit, Tarkhan, better known as Omar al-Shishani [Rabii Kalboussi/Al Jazeera]

As for Tarkhan, his father said he decided to go to Syria because of what he perceived as injustice.

Tarkhan was a United States-trained sergeant in the Georgian army from 2006 until 2010, before he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was arrested for illegal possession of weapons the same year, and left Georgia shortly after being released from prison in 2012.

"He called me only once, asking me whether I was praying," said his father. "I said, 'Of course I am. It was St George's day recently and I lit a candle to him, begging him to protect you and bring you back.'"

Batirashvili said Tarkhan hung up and has not called him since.

Abo, who declined to give his last name, is in his 30s and is a resident of Jokolo village. He spent three months at a rebel training camp in Syria in 2012. He told Al Jazeera that 96 percent of Chechens go to Syria for the religious duty of protecting fellow Muslims from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government.

"No Muslim would ever go to Syria for money," Abo said, responding to a suggestion that foreign fighters might have financial interests in joining the fight. Some of the valley's residents, in trying to explain the trend, note there are few employment opportunities for young people in the area.

Abo refused to elaborate on his experience in Syria, but said he would return if he could, especially since Russia - which fought two wars against Chechen separatists - recently joined the war on Assad's side. 

Yet, Abo is reluctant to do so since Georgian authorities made it a criminal offence to fight abroad, tightened controls at the country's border with Turkey, and arrested Ayup Borchashvili, a suspected ISIL middleman.

Meanwhile, Aminat sits on a bench outside her house, hoping and praying for her son to return safely.  "I hope that he will change his mind. I do have hope. We are waiting for him."

"Why Georgians in a remote valley are joining ISIS." Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera English. 20 Oct 2015. 20 Oct 2015. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/georgians-remote-valley-joining-isil-151020082321188.html

I found this article interesting because it deals with the issue of ISIS global recruitment. This is obviously an important problem because the group is acquiring dozens of new recruits every day. The bias of the media publisher is pro-Muslim. This is seen as they make a clear distinction between extremist Wahhabi Muslims and nominal Muslims. The article itself is quite objective, portraying information in a straightforward fashion. This article seems to be aimed at middle aged adults, giving news from their standpoint. 

ISIL Recruitment

Jordanian MP Mazen Dalaeen's son, Mohamed, left his life as a medical student in Ukraine to join armed group in Iraq.

Ali Younes | 05 Oct 2015 06:11 GMT | War & Conflict, Middle East, Syria, Jordan

The father of a Jordanian youth, who blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Iraq last week, has told Al Jazeera that his son joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group after he was brainwashed by recruiters.

Iraq's Sunni tribes join fight against ISIL

Jordanian Member of Parliament Mazen Dalaeen said on Sunday that his son, Mohamed, was recruited by an Azerbaijani couple living in the northeastern Ukrainian town of Kharkov.

The couple was actively recruiting young impressionable Muslim students to join the ranks of ISIL in Syria and Iraq, he said.

The bereaved father said that the active network that brainwashed his son consisted of a man who went by the name of "Ibrahim" and his wife, who recruited women and went by the name of "Sumayah".

Mohamed and his Ukrainian wife joined ISIL along with a Chechen and Tunisian couple.

Dalaeen insisted that ISIL has active recruiters around the world who take advantage of young Muslims and brainwash them into thinking that they are fighting for a "higher cause". 

The father said that his son, who was 23, was in his third year of medical school and married to a Ukrainian woman, who also traveled with him to Iraq last February.

Mohamed and his wife left Ukraine for Turkey in June, and from there, they crossed the borders into Iraq.

Dalaeen, who was in Ukraine at the time, was unaware of Mohamed's plans to leave Ukraine to join the ranks of ISIL.

"I only found out that he was in Turkey a day after he got there. Had I known that he was travelling there, I would have stopped him," he said.

'Un-Islamic life'

The father also said that he travelled to Ukraine often to check up on his son and has had numerous discussions with him about ISIL, trying to convince him that he should first focus on his studies and return to Jordan, but it was of no avail. 

"My son was here in Jordan last January, and I did not notice any extremist behaviour or religious views on his part up until he left Jordan to be back in Ukraine to resume his studies."

Ironically the suicide bomber was from the same tribe as the Jordanian pilot Muath Kassasbeh, who was burned alive by ISIL earlier this year.

Dalaeen said that he tried on three occasions to bring his son back to Jordan using governmental and non-governmental channels, but each time, his son rebuffed his efforts - telling him through text messaging that he was convinced of his choice to join ISIL. Instead, he asked his parents to leave the un-Islamic life in Jordan behind and join him in the "Islamic state".

Dalaeen said that he was accepting condolences from the community not because he endorsed his son's choices, but because he "felt as a father first" and had lost a part him when his son left and killed himself in the suicide bombing last week. "I lost the dearest thing to me, a part of me is now gone."

Other ISIL recruits

Raqi Rawashdeh, the president of the Jordanian community in Kharkov, told Al Jazeera that he knew Mohamed ever since he came to Ukraine to study four years ago.

Rawashdeh said that young Mohamed was never religious or harboured any extremist views or ideology.

However, things changed in the last four months when Mohamed decided to sport a beard and started exhibiting ultra-religious views.

Another young Jordanian, Abdallah Kafaween, who hailed from the same town of Kerak as Mohamed, has joined the ranks of ISIL along with is Ukrainian wife, Rawashdeh also told Al Jazeera.

Kafaween is presumably living in Iraq and his fate is unknown at this point.

Ukraine is home to nearly 5,000 Jordanian students, out of which approximately 1,500 students live in Kharkov.

"Younes, Ali" Al-Jazeera English. 05/6/15. Al-Jazeera. 10/6/15

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/isil-suicide-bomber-father-son-brainwashed-151004180110212.html

This article was telling about the recruitment of the son of a Jordanian to ISIL. The article is international news because it is highlighting the issue of  ISIL recruitment across borders and across social levels. What is interesting is that this man who was recruited to carry out a suicide bombing was born and raised to be a moderate Muslim. This is something that the article emphasizes very much because of the pro-Muslim bias of the news media AL-Jazeera. I would agree with them that this is a problem that must be stopped in order to finally defeat ISIL.

Measure

Measure