Is Turkey poised to invade Syria?

German weekly magazine Focus has said that last year's leaked audio of a high-level security meeting at the Turkish Foreign Ministry about possible military action in Syria via a false flag operation was recorded and then leaked by the US National Security Agency (NSA). The recording, which was posted online, featured a conversation between then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Güler. In the recording, the officials discussed how Turkey could start a war with Syria, what the legal grounds would be to do so and if it would be possible to create a pretext to deliberately drag Turkey into a war with Syria. They also discussed a false flag operation by having mortars firing into Turkey from Syria to create ostensibly legal grounds for a war. Only hours after the conversation was posted online, then-Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was quick to attribute the leak to the Hizmet movement, also known as the Gülen movement, without showing any evidence for his suspicions. Davutoğlu also accused Hizmet of leaking the recording and described the act as espionage. When he was later asked what evidence he had to lay the blame on Hizmet, Davutoğlu said he did not have any evidence but rather came to that conclusion based on his own convictions. The Turkish government immediately blocked access to YouTube in Turkey after the leak. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office then initiated an investigation into the leak but after more than a year had passed, no announcement was made on any conclusion. The opposition and legal experts called on Erdoğan to prove his claim and warned that the claim would otherwise remain slander against a civilian group with millions of followers and sympathizers and cast further doubt on the credibility of the government. Erdoğan used the leak as an opportunity to attack Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who is the inspiration behind the Hizmet movement and is also critical of corruption in the government. In an election rally in Diyarbakır before the March 30 local elections last year, Erdoğan said: “A meeting was held [between state officials] about the tomb of Süleyman Şah [in Syria]. They [Hizmet members] even leaked [the recording of] this meeting to YouTube. This is villainous; this is dishonest. Who are you serving by recording such an important meeting?” According to legal experts and observers, Erdoğan violated the basic principle of the presumption of innocence with his “quick conclusion” about Hizmet. It was not the first time he has linked Hizmet to some major unpleasant developments in the country without providing any proof. Many analysts have speculated that it is probably easiest for Erdoğan to find a “scapegoat” on whom to put the blame whenever he feels cornered by accusations of mismanagement, corruption or fraud. For example, when a major graft investigation became public on Dec. 17, 2014, Erdoğan quickly attributed the probe to the work of the “parallel state,” a reference he uses for the Hizmet movement. The Focus report confirmed last year's report by Der Spiegel, another German magazine, which claimed that the NSA was instructed by the US political leadership to gather information about the “intentions” of the Turkish leadership and to monitor Turkey's operations in 18 other key areas. The magazine examined documents from the archive of US whistleblower Edward Snowden. It stated that one NSA document calls Turkey “both a partner and target. … The very politicians, military officials and intelligence agency officials with whom US officials work closely when conducting actions against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are also considered legitimate spying targets by the NSA,” it read. According to the report, the US has two secret branch offices that operate Special Collection Service listening stations in İstanbul and Ankara. Turkey is also placed at the level of Venezuela, even ahead of Cuba, in terms of US interest in intelligence gathering, according to a US document that establishes US intelligence priorities called the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF). This document is updated and presented to the US president every six months and an April 2013 edition of it lists Turkey as one of the countries most frequently targeted by Washington for surveillance. According to the NIPF, information about the “intentions” of the Turkish government is given the second-highest priority while information about the military and its infrastructure, foreign policy goals and energy security are given the third-highest priority rating. Conducive to this aim, the NSA began a broad surveillance operation in 2006 called the “Turkish Surge Project Plan” to infiltrate the computers of Turkey's top political leaders. “It took six months for the team to achieve its goal. One document celebrates the discovery of the ‘winning combination' and reports that collection had begun: ‘They achieved their first-ever computer network exploitation success against Turkish leadership!',” according to the report. The Turkish Embassy in Washington and Turkey's UN representation in New York were also the target of spying. A classified document from 2010 states that the NSA monitored the Turkish Embassy in Washington under a program codenamed "Powder." A similar project for monitoring Turkey's representation to the United Nations carried the name "Blackhawk,” according to Der Spiegel. “Analysts had access to the telephone system in the Turkish Embassy and could tap content directly from computers. In addition, they infected computer systems used by the diplomats with spyware. The NSA also installed Trojan software at Turkey's UN representation in New York. According to the NSA document, it even has the capability of copying entire hard drives at the UN mission,” read the report. Focus's attribution of secret recording of high-level security meeting at the Turkish Foreign Ministry to the NSA was made within the report, which also unveiled how MİT set up a network of spies in Germany. It covered the indictment of Turkish national Muhammet Taha Gergerlioğlu, one of three Turks against whom the Federal Attorney General of Germany filed spying charges in May. Gergerlioğlu, an adviser of Erdoğan, ran the other defendants as agents. The three reportedly collected information on people of Turkish origin living in Germany who were critical of the Turkish government. Turkish spies in Germany are said to have been ordered to spy on Erdoğan's opponents in Germany, including members of the Kurdish minority, the Gülen movement and other Turkish nationals in Germany who were critical of the Turkish leadership. According to court documents, the goal of the espionage group was to track and spy on Turkish and Kurdish dissidents who were then to be detained upon their return to Turkey. In late April 2014, defendant Ahmet Duran Y. told Gergerlioğlu that one of the "instigators" against Erdoğan would soon go to Turkey. Gergerlioğlu, who was always referred to as "big brother" or "governor," pledged to "finish him immediately" after entering Turkey. Gergerlioğlu and his team were allegedly sent to Germany by MİT head Fidan. In 2011, Gergerlioğlu was reportedly sent by Fidan with a fund of 25,000 euros to launch a consulting company for German-Turkish companies in the city of Bad Dürkheim with Göksel G. ===== In his first public statement following the June 7 general elections that dashed his hopes of becoming Turkey’s sole leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the Syrian Kurds, and their nominal allies the United States, after they defeated the Islamic State (IS) in the northern Syrian town of Tell Abyad. Summary⎙ Print The Turkish military is concerned a military engagement in northern Syria has no international support. AuthorSemih IdizPosted July 1, 2015 “Look at the West that is striking Arabs and Turkmens in Tell Abyad and regretfully placing the terrorist groups PYD [Democratic Union Party] and PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] in their place. … How can we consider this West to be honest?” Erdogan said, referring to the air support the United States was giving to the Syrian Kurdish PYD fighting against IS. The PKK has been waging a long-standing armed campaign for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey, for which it has been designated as a terrorist group by Ankara and Washington. It is also fighting against IS in northern Syria. Erdogan upped the ante June 27 and said Turkey would not allow any attempts to establish a Kurdish entity in northern Syria. “We will never allow a state to be established in northern Syria and in the south of our country. No matter what the cost, we will continue our struggle in this regard,” Erdogan said. He added that Turkey would allow attempts to change the region’s demography, a reference to claims that the PYD is ethnically cleansing Tell Abyad, and other areas captured from IS, of Arabs and Turkmens. Erdogan’s remarks were followed by a slew of reports in the media indicating that the Turkish military acting on orders from the government had prepared contingency plans to enter Syria and establish a buffer zone along the Turkish border of 100 kilometers (62 miles) long and 10-15 kilometers (6-9 miles) wide. These reports cited officials who argue that this will not only meet Turkey’s security requirements, but also establish a safe haven for Syrian refugees who continue to flood into Turkey. They also say it will enable Turkey to contribute more effectively to the fight against IS, thus belying claims in the Western media that Ankara is aiding such groups. Given Erdogan’s angry remarks, many believe this intervention’s main purpose is to prevent Syrian Kurds from establishing a contiguous zone in the region. Turkey’s buffer zone would fall between the Kurdish town of Kobani and Jarablus to its west, which the Kurds want to capture from IS. Although it is opposed to any Kurdish entity along Turkey’s borders, the Turkish military is said to be wary of being dragged by the government into a military adventure in Syria. Reports from the Chief of General Staff’s office leaked to the media indicate that the top brass wants Ankara to consider the international ramifications of an engagement in a complex and multilayered conflict. Serpil Cevikcan, a journalist for Milliyet who is in close contact with the military, has cited military sources who say they are ready to carry out any order from the government, but express concern about the diplomatic consequences. “The Chief of General Staff’s office has conveyed its view that for such a directive to be successful, the political, military and diplomatic infrastructure has to be established in such a way as to allay all risks that may emerge,” Cevikcan wrote in her column. She said the military wants the matter to be discussed not just with the United States, but also with Russia and Iran and the regime in Damascus, which seems unlikely given that Ankara has burned all its bridges with the Syrian regime. It is also a foregone conclusion that Moscow and Tehran would oppose a buffer zone established by Turkey in Syria, having expressed their opposition to this in the past. Retired Ambassador Umit Pamir, a member of the Global Relations Forum, also believes that entering Syria without approval from the United Nations, or the approval of a strong coalition of countries, is risky. He nevertheless believes that Moscow and Tehran can be convinced of the merits of such an operation if it is mounted against IS. But this requires Ankara to prioritize the fight against IS, which it has not done to date. “Turkey has to work with an international coalition, otherwise it will result in serious complications,” Pamir told Al-Monitor. Washington, for its part, appears unenthusiastic about a step by Turkey that many believe would be against the Kurds. Asked about the buffer zone Turkey is said to be planning in Syria, Mark Toner, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told reporters June 29 that Washington’s position had not changed. “The creation and enforcement of a no-fly zone or any other military enforced zone presents significant challenges. … They include military, financial, but also humanitarian challenges that we need to obviously consider in the broader context,” Toner said. He added that they “don’t have any ground truth” on the reported plans by Turkey. “All we’ve seen, frankly, are press reports,” he said. Deniz Zeyrek, a veteran journalist who works for Hurriyet, indicates that the military is also concerned about mounting an operation on the orders of a caretaker government that lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 elections. “The armed forces say that when the government’s directive is carried out there will have to be responsibility for the negative situations and risks that may emerge, and expect this to rest with the new government,” Zeyrek wrote June 27. Retired Brig. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu, a commentator on military matters, is among those who see no advantages to an operation in Syria. “Three objectives are mentioned for such an operation: to prevent IS or the PYD from gaining control of areas bordering Turkey, and to establish a safe haven for refugees. But we have multiple enemies here, and it is not clear who we are supposed to fight,” Kuloglu told Al-Monitor. He also pointed to complications if international support for this operation is not obtained. These considerations appear to have little sway on Erdogan and journalists who act as his unofficial spokesmen. Ibrahim Karagul, the editor-in-chief of Yeni Safak, who believes that the PYD is more dangerous than IS, said there is a grand design to establish a Kurdish corridor to carry oil from Kurdish northern Iraq to the Mediterranean over Syria. “The aim is to make a lasting change to the map of the entire region and to restrict countries like Turkey that have an extraordinary power to influence developments. … If successful, this will be the biggest trap set for Turkey since the invasion of Iraq,” Karagul claimed, arguing this must be prevented at all costs. Meanwhile, there are those who say Erdogan does not have the authority to declare what amounts to a “casus belli,” and point out that this authority rests with the parliament. Ibrahim Kaboglu, a professor of constitutional law, says that under the present constitution the president can only give such a directive if parliament is not sitting and there is a sudden attack on the country. “This is not the case today and so the power to give such orders rests with the Grand National Assembly,” Kaboglu told daily Cumhuriyet. The June 7 elections produced a hung parliament that is unlikely to authorize such an invasion given that opposition parties are opposed to this. Opinion polls have also shown consistently that a large portion of the Turkish public is opposed to any entanglement in Syria. There are also those who claim that Erdogan wants an intervention in Syria to divert attention away from the Justice and Development Party’s election losses and to engineer a situation suited to his political ambitions. Such speculations aside, the National Security Council — an advisory board headed by the president and comprising the prime minister, relevant ministers and senior military officials — made a statement after it met June 29 that Turkey is not on the verge of any immediate action with regard to Syria. It merely indicated Turkey was “following developments in Syria with concern.” Given the confusing and seemingly intractable situation in Syria, this appears to be all that Ankara can do at the moment if it does not want to enter a fray from which it is unlikely to extricate itself unscarred. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/turkey-syria-military-intervention-no-international-support.html#ixzz3f1CtdXQO

Control, Halt, Delete: Gulf States -Crack Down on Online Critics-PRISM surveillance program

Control, Halt, Delete: Gulf States Crack Down on Online Critics The Facebook logo is seen in front of an escalator at the venue of a news conference announcing the opening of Facebook offices in Dubai, May 30, 2012. (photo by REUTERS/Jumana El Heloueh) By: Nicholas McGeehan for Al-Monitor Posted on August 8. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus warned of the dangers of casually bad-mouthing the ruler in ancient Rome: “A soldier, dressed like a civilian, sits down by your side, and begins to speak ill of Caesar, and then you too, just as though you had received from him some guarantee of good faith in the fact he began the abuse, tell likewise everything you think, and the next thing is you are led off to prison in chains.” About This Article Summary : The Gulf states’ heavy-handed response to online criticism was entirely predictable and shows no signs of abating. Author: Nicholas McGeehan Posted on: August 8 2013 Categories : Originals Security History has a knack of repeating itself. The Internet and the social media it spawned initially offered safe spaces for citizens in closed societies to express their views. Yet authoritarian rulers unaccustomed to criticism were quick to monitor and infiltrate those virtual spaces and whisk critics and malcontents off to the physical confines of a jail cell. Nowhere is this more evident than in the hereditary monarchies of the six Gulf states, where rulers are struggling to come to terms with the concurrent rise of social media and increasing desire of emboldened citizens to speak their minds. A recent spate of convictions for bloggers, tweeters and Facebook users across the region is part of an emerging trend that reflects the Gulf rulers’ fear of free speech and open debate. On July 24, the government-linked Emirati television channel 24.ae aired a piece analyzing in detail the Twitter account of Khalifa Rabia, whom authorities had arrested the day before. The segment accused Rabia of “affiliation with secret cells” — a reference to his support for members of a peaceful Islamist group convicted on July 2 of plotting to overthrow the government after a manifestly unfair trial. The segment repeatedly referred to Rabia’s use of hashtags, such as #UAE_freemen, as evidence of his sedition. Authorities have yet to charge Rabia, and his whereabouts in detention, unlike the contents of his Twitter feed, are unknown. On July 17, the Kuwaiti court of appeals confirmed a 20-month sentence for a teacher, Sara al-Drees, on charges of offending Kuwait’s emir via tweets sent from her mobile phone. In one of her tweets, al-Drees called the emir “a great placid actor before the cameras, and tyrant behind the scenes.” On June 24, Saudi Arabia sentenced seven government critics to prison, convicting them of joining Facebook pages to “incite protests, illegal gathering, and breaking allegiance with the King.” In April, Bahrain amended its penal code to provide for harsher sentences for insulting the king, and officials have taken steps to unmask anonymous [Internet] users. On Jan. 25, Lt. Faisal Al Sumaim of the Interior Ministry’s Cyber Crime Unit said on state television, "People think that they are unreachable using anonymous accounts, ... but it has never been easier finding them." An investigation by the rights group Bahrainwatch concluded that the Bahraini government had been targeting anonymous social media accounts using IP spy links, a technique that Bahrainwatch analysts describe as “unreliable.” On Feb. 9, nine Omani activists began a hunger strike to protest sentences handed down in 2012 on charges including “defaming the sultan” and violating Oman’s cybercrimes law through their Facebook posts and Twitter accounts. Qatar, unlike the other Gulf states, has not had domestic unrest, but it has taken pre-emptive measures to dissuade its citizens from following the example of their neighbors. On May 30, the Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to the emir to express concerns over a new cybercrime bill that “would restrict online expression on news websites and social media.” The Qatari authorities have not released the content of the draft law, but a glance at the restrictive way Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have interpreted “cybercrime” causes concern. Human Rights Watch described the UAE’s cybercrime decree as the act of a government that was “out of step and out of touch” with international norms on free speech. Since international law unequivocally requires political figures to tolerate a greater degree of criticism than ordinary citizens, this assessment can be applied to all six of the Gulf monarchies, each of which criminalizes criticism of its respective rulers. The political scientist Marc Lynch has described the heavy-handed response of the Gulf states to this marked increase in online criticism as “a desperate rearguard action with zero chance of actually purging the new public sphere of dissent.” The Gulf rulers will continue to dig in their heels and aggressively declare that they are acting in defense of national security or religious propriety. Their allies in London, Washington, and Brussels will continue to bite their tongues in public and restrict human rights issues to private diplomacy. Yet the greatest threat to the monarchs of the Gulf is their own failure to adapt to evolving technology and changing demographics in a digitized, globalized age. Nicholas McGeehan is a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. On Twitter: @Ncgeehan Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/gulf-states-online-critics-crackdown-cybercrime-social-media.html#ixzz2bX7B3fix ================ Will it work? German email companies adopt new encryption to foil NSA Published time: August 09, 2013 22:21 Get short URL A general view of the large former monitoring base of the U.S. intelligence organization National Security Agency (NSA) during break of dawn in Bad Aibling south of Munich (Reuters / Michael Dalder) Germany, Intelligence, Internet, Security, USA Communications sent between Germany’s two leading email providers will now be encrypted to provide better security against potential NSA surveillance. Experts say the move will do little to thwart well-equipped snoopers. The "E-mail made in Germany" project has been set up in the wake of US surveillance revelations made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. National Security Agency documents show that the agency intercepts 500 million phone calls, texts, and emails in Germany each month. "Germans are deeply unsettled by the latest reports on the potential interception of communication data," said Rene Obermann, head of Deutsche Telekom, the country’s largest email provider. “Now, they can bank on the fact that their personal data online is as secure as it possibly can be.” Deutsche Telekom and United Internet, which operate about two-thirds of Germany’s primary email accounts, said that from now on they will use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) – a modern, industry-standard form of encryption that scrambles signals as they are sent through cables, which is the point at which the NSA often intercepts communication. The companies will also employ exclusively German servers and internal cables when sending messages between each other. AFP Photo / John Macdougall Obermann told the media that no access to users’ email will now be possible without a warrant. However, experts claim the impact of the measure is likely to be mostly psychological and symbolic. "This initiative helps to tackle the-day-to-day sniffing around on the communication lines but it still doesn't prevent governments from getting information," Stefan Frei, a research director at information security company NSS Labs, told Reuters. As Snowden’s files revealed, the NSA specifically focuses on foreign servers - often with backing from the country that hosts them - when intercepting communication. The agency is also able to crack the SSL code, with and without help from the email operator. However, it is much harder to do so without an operator-issued “key." It is notable that Google and other leading companies implicated as willing participants in the PRISM surveillance program also offer SSL encoding with their email service. "Of course the NSA could still break in if they wanted to, but the mass encryption of emails would make it harder and more expensive for them to do so," said Sandro Gaycken, a professor of cyber security at Berlin's Free University. ====================== Bahrain says deports U.S. teacher for writing articles on radical websites Sun, Aug 11 02:59 AM EDT ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Bahrain has deported a U.S. nursery school teacher it says wrote articles on social media sites linked to radical groups and for violating the terms of her work permit as the kingdom intensifies its crackdown on dissent. The Ministry of State for Communications did not identify the woman but said she wrote under a pen name and had broken the law by working as an unaccredited journalist. The teacher wrote articles for online publications including As-Safir newspaper, which is linked to Lebanon's Iran-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah, and the outlawed Bahrain Center for Human Rights newsletter, the state news agency said on Saturday. No one at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights was available for comment. The ministry had received a complaint about the woman who used Twitter and other social media to write articles "deemed to incite hatred against the government and members of the Royal family, as well as spreading misinformation and encouraging divisions in Bahraini society based on religious sect", it said. Bahrain, a majority Shi'ite country ruled by the Sunni al Khalifa family, has been buffeted by unrest since the start of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, with mostly Shi'ite Bahrainis agitating for democratic reforms and more say in government. The island, which is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and sits between top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and Iran, has expelled several foreigners for involvement in documenting unrest. In February 2012, two American rights activists were deported for trying to report on events marking the first anniversary of demonstrations for democratic reforms. (Reporting by Maha El Dahan; Editing by Louise Ireland) ==================