Like Mosul, Like Aleppo

by Eze Eluchie,

The humanitarian disaster that will unfold in Mosul in the coming days is projected to be unprecedented in modern history. With the over 2 million residents of Mosul in its firm grip, the Islamic State (ISIS), notorious for its brutality in treating its hostages, appears set to go down in a blaze of infamy, drowning itself in the blood of innocent civilians under its control. Already, the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations operating in the area, have confirmed reports of mass killings of civilians, dumping bodies of decapitated children and women in rivers and other bestial acts as the liberation forces continue the sure and steady march towards liberating Mosul.

As the progress towards liberating Mosul continues, more evidence of the crimes against humanity being committed by ISIS in Mosul will be unearthed. The situation is made more delicate with the discovery of huge stockpiles of bombs tipped with chemical weapon delivery devices in some of the liberated towns around Mosul – a clear indication that ISIS has chemical weapons in its arsenal and will surely use same with devastating consequences as its control of the city is directly threatened.

With the array of military jets and thousands of tanks and ground troops assembled for the final assault on Mosul, the landscape and skyline of what was previously the second largest city of Iraq will certainly bear a grim resemblance to what has become the Syrian city of Alepppo. The resemblance Mosul will have with Aleppo does not end with merely the physical; it also extends to the tactics adopted by the combating units, the make-up of the combating units and the overriding end result that must be achieved at all costs.  

Like in Mosul where ISIS terrorists are holding the civilian population hostage and using them as shield against attacks from legitimate efforts at liberation, Al Nusra front and other Al Qeida linked terrorist are preventing civilians from leaving Aleppo, using such innocent civilians as human shield and as further fodder to vilify legitimate efforts at liberating Aleppo. Also, like in Mosul, the AQ-linked terrorist organizations (ignorantly referred to as ‘rebels’ in some media outlets) have been shown, in a United Nations sanctioned report, to have deployed chemical weapons in their ongoing quest to oust the Al-Assad regime – deployment which caused much sufferings and loss of civilian lives and a mistaken accusation against the Syrian government for using such weapons against its own people.

Also like in Mosul, the battle for Aleppo pits extremist Islamist terror groups against internationally recognized governments, in a manner that the international community must never allow the terrorists to claim victory. Just as Mosul must be liberated at all costs, Aleppo must likewise be liberated at all costs. The world cannot afford one inch of territory in the control of terrorists.

Picture: Mosul, just before it becomes like Aleppo.

Release of Chibok 'Abductees' - The Great Cover-Up Begins

by Eze Eluchie,

According to Nigeria’s appropriately named Minister for Information, Mr. Lai (Lie) Mohammed, after holding several hundred school girls from Chibok for over 900 days, dreaded Boko Haram terrorists, after ‘extensive negotiations’ with Nigerian authorities simply dropped off 21 of the school girls they had in their custody somewhere near the border with Cameroun and informed state authorities where to pick the young ladies!

In his own version of what is fast turning out to be an avalanche of spurious suspect tales being churned out by officials of Nigeria’s current ruling junta, the Vice President, supposedly a Professor of Law, Yemi Osibajo, informed a Press Conference that there had been no swap of prisoners to effect the release of the girls and that “God truly helped us in the negotiations” – one will truly wonder what precise role(s) this god played in touching the heart of terrorists to unconditionally release girls they have held for over 2 years.

The ‘expertise’ being exhibited by those negotiating on behalf of Nigeria’s ruling junta in their negotiations with ISIS-linked Boko Haram will sure be required by the International Community as efforts are made to route out ISIS from Mosul. Perhaps the Nigerian negotiators, who ‘succeeded’ in pricing out 21 ‘abducted’ girls from ISIS-linked Boko Haram with no conditions attached, may consider organizing a crash-course for Iraqi and the United States-led Coalition Forces presently assembling around Mosul so that the world may be spared the ensuing bloodbath efforts to liberate Mosul will certainly turn out to be.

The really sad and worrisome aspect of the shambolic release of the 21 Chibok girls is the haste with which the Nigerian Government, in a bid to exploit what they must have reasoned was a PR opportunity, hurriedly transported the ‘released’ girls to Abuja for a photo-shoot event with the Presidency and thrust the vanquished and vulnerable girls before what was clearly a traumatizing array of journalists and flashlights. Less than 12 hours after the girls were supposedly ‘released’ from the hold of terrorists who held them for over 900 days, without any opportunity to be with their immediate families and or professional counselling, the girls were being aggressively showcased in a manner that left many of them in tears and visibly reclining deeper.

The release of 21 of the girls is obviously a kite being flown. International reaction to this initial phase will go a long way to determine if more will be released or whether the ensuing focus and attention will be considered too burdensome, thus necessitating the expiration of any of the remaining girls..

The world was shocked by the news of the Chibok abductions; the international community was made to carry posters with the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag; The Nigerian Government must thus be forthcoming with explanations when required of it over these releases, and over the entire Chibok 'abduction' fiasco for that matter.

Time for accountability over the Chibok ‘abductions’ is nigh!

Picture: Nigeria’s Vice President, Mr. Osinbajo, addressing the ‘released’ Chibok girls shortly after they were flown for the photo-opportunity in Abuja.

Let Al-Assad Be, For Now.

by Eze Eluchie, 

Any objective observer of Arab and Middle Eastern affairs will affirm that foreign induced change of rulers in the region has always been a recipe for prolonged and violent pogroms. The very recent examples of the overthrow and murder of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qhadaffi and the continuing mayhem and destruction foisted on not only that region but with the blood spilling globally, should have ordinarily served as trite warning to outsiders who meddle in what they least know about - to desist therefrom.

From its very inception in the wake of the Arab Spring series of revolutions which engulfed Arabia and the Middle East some 5 years ago, sectarian and ethnically influenced efforts to oust the Al-Assad regime in Syria (which served, alongside the very shaky government in Lebanon, as liberal regimes in the Middle East where Muslims, Christians and persons of divers ethnic origins had access to high political offices with women accorded tangible freedoms and equal rights) elicited much greater interest from across the world than earlier episodes of the Arab Spring which in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya, which had largely been considered as internal affairs of those countries. With benefit of hindsight of the outcomes of what had been erroneously considered populist mass-led revolutions in other parts of the Middle East, particularly the revolutions in Iraq and Libya which had replaced stable, though authoritarian leaders, with mob-rule and territories largely ungovernable which now serve as breeding grounds for international terror syndicates, there was a felt need by some in the international community, particularly UN Security council veto-vote wielding countries Russia and China, to prevent a repeat of the ugly situations now existing across much of Arabia.

Fears that an ouster of the Al-Assad regime would have led to sectarian exterminations against Christians and other religious minorities, ethnic genocide against Alawite tribes and the enthronement of extremist Islamists in Syria, a whittling away of the erstwhile liberal society that had existed in Syria and retrogression of gender and people’s rights has been further brought to the fore by the reality that the so-called rebel forces striving to oust Al-Assad, inclusive of the Free Syrian Army, derives much of their fighting stamina from either the Al-Nusra Front and other Al Qeida linked terrorists organizations. The war in Syria long ceased to be a civil war as much of the so-called rebel fighting force is populated by foreign fighters from as far flung territories as Tunisia, the Russian caucuses and other areas where jihadist elements were imported to fight an extremist Islamist cause. In the event that the Al-Assad regime had been overthrown, Syria would certainly have gone the way of Libya, Iraq and Egypt (under the Brotherhood) – back into damnation and a period where women in accord with extremist Islamic philosophies, disappear from public view and become mere chattels of their menfolk.

It was, is and continues to be right and appropriate in the interest of the peoples of Syria and their neighbours and the international community in general, that for now and the foreseeable future to heal the wounds of the debilitating battles, the Al-Assad regime and its structures continue to superintend over Syria. The United States and its allies can for now forget their untenable insistence on ousting the current Syrian regime – previous regime change has left the Middle Eastern countries where such has occurred, and the Middle East region generally, far worse off.

Should the assertion in the foregoing paragraph be mistaken as an approval of all tactics used in prosecuting the war against the ‘rebels’, ‘moderate extremist Islamists’ and terrorists?  Certainly not! Wars by themselves are necessarily bloody, moreso when the war is being prosecuted against terror elements who adopt such unconventional tactics as suicide bombings, chemical weapon attacks, use civilians and civilian-structures as hostages and other quite lethal and effective means to gain whatever advantages they need to, without the slightest of reservations.

As the Syrian war crosses the 5 year mark with daily reports of heart rendering fatalities and battles and wastages to which entire communities and several millions have been subjected to, it has become pertinent in the interest of Syrians and overall humanity that an immediate or expedited end be put to the wars in Syria. The following steps are recommended:

1. A ceasefire to allow for safe and free passage of civilians from the war zones, particularly Aleppo and its adjacent territories into areas where they can be adequately protected and given much needed humanitarian assistance.

2. Armed combatants in Aleppo and other rebel held territories should be encouraged to lay down their weapons, surrender. The instrumentality of the United Nations can then be adopted to superintend over reconciliation and rebuilding efforts and other transitional arrangements.

3. Efforts will thereafter be focused to extinguish Islamist terrorists, ISIS and Al Qeida and their affiliates.

At an appropriate time, issues of who committed which war crime or crime against humanity against whom in the course of the ‘Arab Spring’ across Arabia and the Middle East, inclusive of crimes against the peoples of Libya, Iraq, Bahrain and Syria will then be objectively addressed – raising such issues now appears to be deliberate ploy to continue the sufferings of the peoples of Syria in particular and the Middle East whilst allowing extremist Islamist terror elements a crack through which to flourish and establish their horrendous strangle hold over that region.

Picture: Pictorial comparison of parts of Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, before and during the war.