Al Qaeda forces Druze of Idlib Syria to destroy their shrines and convert
hey’ve forced us to comply with a number of orders and decrees, including the destruction of our shrines. They dug up the tombs of a number of our saints, however we didn’t protest. They forced our women to wear strict orthodox Islamic garb, and to give up their traditional Druze clothing.
They’ve also threatened us saying that if the al-Hisbeh (sharia law) police found anyone on the street during prayer time, that that person be punished. Same for women who don’t follow the mandatory clothing requirements.
The worst is what they’ve done in schools. On Monday, they arrived in our village and separated all the male and female students, insisting that they be taught separately, and only by teachers of the same gender.
This has caused problems as we don’t have enough teachers to effectively accommodate these changes. For example we only had one math teacher, who was a female. There was no qualified male teacher that could replace her, so now the boys don’t study math. The opposite occurred with English classes. Our only English teacher is male, so now the girls don’t study English.
News Source on Sarin Gas in Syria
NYT ignored the conclusions of MIT professor Theodore Postol, who determined at least some of the shells used in the attack were locally manufactured and had a much shorter range than publicly described.
Ultimately, though, Hersh’s biggest piece of news describes how someone — he doesn’t say who, but this part of his story relies on a senior intelligence consultant of unidentified nationality — sent Deputy DIA Director David Shedd a report on June 20 concluding that a former Iraqi CW expert with the capability of manufacturing sarin was operating in Eastern Ghouta.
An intelligence document issued in mid-summer dealt extensively with Ziyaad Tariq Ahmed, a chemical weapons expert formerly of the Iraqi military, who was said to have moved into Syria and to be operating in Eastern Ghouta. The consultant told me that Tariq had been identified ‘as an al-Nusra guy with a track record of making mustard gas in Iraq and someone who is implicated in making and using sarin’. He is regarded as a high-profile target by the American military.
On 20 June a four-page top secret cable summarising what had been learned about al-Nusra’s nerve gas capabilities was forwarded to David R. Shedd, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. ‘What Shedd was briefed on was extensive and comprehensive,’ the consultant said. ‘It was not a bunch of “we believes”.’ He told me that the cable made no assessment as to whether the rebels or the Syrian army had initiated the attacks in March and April, but it did confirm previous reports that al-Nusra had the ability to acquire and use sarin.
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