Brooklyn Middleton: How did ISIS obtain mustard agent in fight against Kurds/Ali Ibrahim: The Qatari Offer to Mediate between Cairo and the Muslim Brotherhood

How did ISIS obtain mustard agent in fight against Kurds?
Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/August 16/15

Mounting evidence indicates ISIS militants targeted Kurdish fighters with mustard agent in northern Iraq earlier this week. While Kurdish sources have claimed that ISIS cadres have carried out at least several other chemical weapon attacks in both Syria and Iraq, injuring dozens of Kurds, since July 2014, this is the first time the international community has immediately responded to such claims. The United States publicly confirmed that it is currently assessing credible intelligence involving the assault, noting that, “U.S. intelligence agencies thought ISIS had at least a small supply of mustard agent even before this week’s clash with Iraqi Kurdish fighters.” Most crucially, the WSJ also noted that this report, “hadn’t been made public.” There was no indication U.S. officials had shared this piece of intelligence with Kurdish fighters prior to the latest CW attack. If this knowledge was in fact not shared, it would represent the USA’s latest failure in dealings with the Kurds. Meanwhile, Rudaw has since published photographs, reportedly showing blisters on fighters’ bodies that are apparently consistent with injuries sustained in a mustard gas attack.

Continued chemical weapon attacks in the region were not an inevitable product of the ongoing, bloody Syrian conflict.A myriad of questions regarding how ISIS obtained mustard agent abound; amid widespread scepticism regarding the Russia-U.S. backed Assad regime chemical weapons ”deal” – that egregiously and absurdly allowed the Assad regime to self-report their inventory – it cannot be ruled out that such agents were seized from unsecured CW sites in Syria. In yet more unparalleled reporting from the WSJ in late July, an article noted that chemical weapon inspectors were, “…suspicious of Syria’s claim to have only 20 tons of ready-to-use mustard agent…U.S. intelligence agencies expected the Syrians to have hundreds of tons.”

Syrian regime’s use of chlorine gas
At the same time, failures of the chemical weapons deal – which completely excluded chlorine gas, a favourite of the Assad regime – continue to wreak havoc on Syrian civilians. In the newest reports, Syria’s true heroes, The White Helmets” posted photographs of an unidentified gel-like substance, that was packed into barrel bombs and dropped onto the town of Daraya. At least one UK-based analyst assessed that the substance was very likely napalm.

Continued chemical weapon attacks in the region were not an inevitable product of the ongoing, bloody Syrian conflict; the international community’s failure to seriously address the Assad regime’s massive Sarin attack nearly two years ago set a new level of acceptance for such brutality. Every chlorine attack carried out by the regime with impunity since has reinforced the notion that low-level chemical weapon attacks are now an acceptable method of warfare. At the same time, the ramifications of the disastrous plan to allow the Assad regime to self-report its own chemical weapons inventory are likely to continue indefinitely.

Perhaps it is worth noting that other features of the Syrian conflict, widespread, systematic torture and indiscriminate barrel bombings, are no less barbaric than chemical weapon attacks. But the chemical weapons initiative was one of the only ways the West, specifically the U.S., has ever actually confronted the Assad regime over its continued massacres.
Moreover, the West has mostly abandoned Syrian refugees, has repeatedly allowed the Syrian regime to treat humanitarian issues as bargaining chips and in the latest representation of a failure to communicate with sources on the ground, may have killed at least five Syrian children. As the chemical weapons deal continues unravelling, the U.S. should be pressured to revisit the deals shortcomings; in the meantime, there are few reasons to assess the region will not see continued chemical weapon attacks – by both ISIS and the Assad regime.

The Qatari Offer to Mediate between Cairo and the Muslim Brotherhood
Ali Ibrahim/Asharq Al Awsat/August 16/15

In August 2013 Egypt was in a state of alert: supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were protesting at Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square in Cairo and at Al-Nahda Square in Giza while the rest of the Egyptians were deeply angered by the Islamist group and its violent methods. At the time, Adly Mansour was Egypt’s interim President and his government was struggling to restore stability to Egypt as it faced a surge of Islamist-inspired violence and criticism from several western countries who claimed that toppling the Brotherhood amounted to a coup.

Amid this heated atmosphere, the Egyptian street was split between a remarkable majority, who sharply opposed the Brotherhood and wanted to see their rallies dispersed at any cost, and a pro-Brotherhood minority, who feared they lost their second chance of ruling Egypt, given that their first one came in 1954 when they failed to assassinate President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Cairo was swarming with Western delegations who visited Egypt in an attempt to reach a political settlement between the military-backed government and the ousted Brotherhood on the grounds that it was still possible to involve the Islamist group in the country’s political process if they accepted the political roadmap. Egyptian officials at the time said they would not mind welcoming the Brotherhood if it renounced violence.

The Egyptians were not happy with foreign delegations arriving at the presidential Heliopolis Palace to mediate between the interim government and the Brotherhood. In fact, the smartly dressed members of those delegations could not feel what Egyptians in cafes and homes really felt. People in Egypt were pessimistic about the presence of those delegations and wanted them to leave the country. For the Egyptian people, what was happening in Egypt was a domestic crisis and they wanted their government to remain strong in the face of outside pressures.
Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Al-Attiyah has recently announced his readiness to mediate between the government and the Brotherhood, saying the Islamist group is one of Egypt’s political components. In fact, one cannot but question the timing of the Qatari offer which came just after Egypt celebrated the inauguration of its new Suez Canal, an achievement which has been the subject of a childish propaganda campaign by the Brotherhood supporters who mocked it as insignificant.

There is no chance for mediation or dialogue between the government and the Brotherhood. No future government will accept that as it will face fierce opposition from the public. It would be illogical to bring up the issue now that Egypt has proved it is on the right track towards stability and development.

If they have a genuine desire to ensure greater stability in the region, those who sponsor the Brotherhood should realize that the Islamist group has lost everything and therefore needs to change politically and ideologically if it wants to have a place in the future of Egypt.