Video - Syria's White helmets, living next door to Al Qaeda in Aleppo.

This report is from French humanitarian Pierre Le Corf, based in Aleppo for one year:

Beware, the reality on the war on Syria and in Aleppo can really burn your eyes. Hospitals totally destroyed and White Helmets are heroes in Aleppo? An Oscar? A nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize? At what price will we continue to lie and kill, to justify this war to support terrorist groups, to keep another sovereign country on the brink of suffocation like so many before? I have compiled the following images to give you another perspective to the corporate media narrative.

As a French citizen, I refuse to support my country's criminal foreign policy. Please read my letter to the President of the French republic where I outline my objections very clearly. In less than two hours I have gathered images of two hospitals that are still operating, claimed to have been destroyed. I have walked past tonnes of medicines reserved for the various terrorist groups and prohibited for civilians. I have passed by the remains of the buildings under the control of Jabhat Al Nusra and the Free Syrian Army, next door to the White Helmets building, which as civilian testimony shows us, mainly helped terrorists not civilians.

We were told, the White Helmets only performed when the camera was ON. We were told they carried weapons, executed Syrian soldiers, participated in executions for the Islamic courts, stole from victims etc but a crucial point is quite simply, almost all members of the White Helmets were affiliated to the terrorist groups and swore allegiance to Nusra Front and Harakat Nour al Din Al Zinki. Watch the video of my friend Vanessa Beeley

Video - Germany: Berlin Pirate Party leader arrested after quoting 'Haram' Erdogan poem.

Video - What would be the impact of Putin’s partial disengagement?

HT And Source:

This is a good analysis on #Russia in #Syriahttps://t.co/mQrZOawbhT

— Elijah J. Magnier (@EjmAlrai) March 15, 2016

Video - Kuwaiti Writer Ahmad Sarraf: We Refuse to Acknowledge Our Crimes; ISIS Has Always Been Here.

Video - Kuwaiti Writer Ahmad Sarraf: We Refuse to Acknowledge Our Crimes; ISIS Has Always Been Here. (MEMRI).

In a recent TV interview, Kuwaiti writer and businessman Ahmad Sarraf said that the West had acknowledged its Colonialist crimes and had made reparations for the crimes of Nazism, and posed the question "whether we, as Arabs and Muslims, are also ready to acknowledge that we had committed atrocities."

"We call these atrocities 'conquests' or 'raids.' We give them a religious title," he said. In the Sky News Arabia interview, which aired on January 29,

Sarraf further said that while ISIS is "a new name on the scene, there have been dozens or hundreds of Islamic movements... All these groups were considered to be the ISIS of their times." He said that while he has "no sympathy whatsoever" for the Iranian regime, he did not think that the danger today lies in Shiite terrorism. "We have Sunni terrorism, and the Shiite terrorism is like the icing on the cake," he said.

Paris police station attacker lived in German refugee shelter.

Paris police station attacker lived in German refugee shelter. (Fr24).

German police on Saturday raided an asylum seeker shelter where they said the man who sought to attack a Paris police station on Thursday had lived.

Police found no indications that other attacks had been planned, they said in a statement following the search at the shelter in western Germany's Recklinghausen.

The police statement did not specify that he was an asylum seeker but a source close to the matter told AFP the man was indeed registered as one.

The man was shot dead by police after trying to storm a police station in northern Paris on Thursday, brandishing a meat cleaver and wearing a fake suicide vest. The attempted attack took place exactly one year since the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks that shook Paris.

French investigators said Friday the suspect appeared to have been identified by his family and was said to be a Tunisian named Tarek Belgacem.

His link to an asylum seeker shelter in Germany risks further inflaming a debate over the 1.1 million asylum seekers that the country took in last year.

The number of people who filed a complaint for aggression during New Year's Eve in Cologne has risen to 516. This has the Cologne police announced today. In 40 percent of the cases it involves sexual violence. Read the full story here.

Dozens Enter Germany With Fake Syrian Passports, Frontex chief warns 'Only limited Guarantee of validity of passports'

Dozens Enter Germany With Fake Syrian Passports, Frontex chief warns 'Only limited Guarantee of validity of passports'. (SP).

Dozens of alleged refugees have entered Germany on fake Syrian passports, which were produced using technology similar to that used to forge documents for some of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks, the German Bild newspaper reported Tuesday, citing government sources.

Stolen genuine documents were so intricately altered by counterfeiters that the forgery was not detected immediately, meaning those who entered the country on fake passports have not yet been found, according to the newspaper.

The majority of the forged passports originate in the Syrian city of Raqqa, one of the key Islamic State (IS, or Deash in Arabic) strongholds.

In September, the executive director of the EU border agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, said a new trend of using fake Syrian passports to increase a migrant's chances of being granted permission to remain in the European Union was gaining momentum.

The Frontex chief said, though his officials controlled very accurately whether refugees entered the country with possibly forged or stolen documents. "Nevertheless, the validity of refugee passports is in our view very limited," said Leggeri.

In a civil war the country such as Syria finally nobody could guarantee, "that the documents that look real, were actually issued by an official authority or be really carried by the rightful owner."

In March it was reported that the terrorist militia IS killed in East Syrian Al-Rakka around 3,800 Syrian blank passports in their hands. A report of the Bielefeld "Westfalen-sheet", the German Federal Criminal Police Office had confirmed this (BKA).

An imminent danger that terrorists could thus traveling to Europe stand, not because of the visa requirement, a spokeswoman said at the time yet. Meanwhile, refugees and migrants in large numbers are largely entered uncontrollably in the EU. Hmmm......Canada....'Let's bring in 50,000 Syrian refugeees' ....because we love playing Russian roulette'. 

Germany Says Overestimated refugees with Fake Syrian Passports, 'only' eight percent fake passports.

Germany Says Overestimated refugees with Fake Syrian Passports, 'only' eight percent fake passports. (naharnet).

The proportion of people entering Germany with fake Syrian passports is far less than the 30 percent announced by the interior minister in September, the government has said.

Germany has to date maintained an open-door policy for Syrians escaping their country's bloodshed, giving them "primary protection" -- the highest status for refugees.

Among other benefits, this status includes a three-year residence permit and family reunification. 

The policy has sparked controversy, heightened after Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in September that up to 30 percent of people were found coming into Germany with false Syrian passports and actually came from other nations.

He said the figures were based on estimates from people working on the ground.

But in response to a question from the left-wing Die Linke party, the government said in a written note obtained by Agence France Presse late Monday that only eight percent of the 6,822 Syrian passports examined by authorities between January and October were actually found to be fake.

Die Linke lawmaker Ulla Jelpke slammed the minister saying: "Instead of looking into a crystal ball... the minister should lean towards facts and reality."

Germany is Europe's top destination for refugees, most of whom travel through Turkey and the Balkans, and expects more than one million arrivals this year. Hmmm.....So if you take 25,000 refugees 2,000 have false passports.....i feel much safer now.

Syrian 'refugee': 'Allah is great, ISIS is even better'.

Syrian 'refugee': 'Allah is great, ISIS is greater'. (INN).

Italian police have arrested a Syrian "refugee" for being a member of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization, clapping him in cuffs shortly after he arrived by boat along with hundreds of migrants, media reports said Monday.

The man, reportedly in his 20s, was arrested by officers in Sicily after Italy's special operations division discovered incriminating material on his cell phone.

The suspect had videos and photographs which appeared to be of ISIS attacks along with a text message which read "Allah is great, but ISIS is even better," according to the reports.

The local Corriere di Ragusa daily said the images contained "corpses, wounds and lots of blood."

The Syrian arrived on December 4 on a wooden fishing boat carrying 500 people, and had been staying at the reception center in the southeastern Sicilian port before his arrest.

There have long been concerns in Italy and Europe of would-be jihadists entering the country and the rest of the continent on the rickety boats of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from northern Africa. Hmmm......How many passed without being caught? Read the full story here.

ODNI Confirms Terrorists Tried to Enter U.S. as Syrian Refugees.

ODNI Confirms Terrorists Tried to Enter U.S. as Syrian Refugees. HT: JudicialWatch.

In his inaugural State of Homeland Security Address, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul brought to light new concerns regarding refugees with ties to terrorist groups in Syria who might try to enter the United States. This year, Chairman McCaul wrote to intelligence officials regarding possible terrorist exploitation of Syrian refugee flows, and today he released unclassified excerpts from a response letter provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence earlier this year, which informed the Chairman that:

• The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has identified “…individuals with ties to terrorist groups in Syria attempting to gain entry to the U.S. through the U.S. refugee program.”
• In the same response letter, NCTC also offered that: “The refugee system, like all immigration programs, is vulnerable to exploitation from extremist groups seeking to send operatives to the West. U.S. and Canadian authorities in 2011 arrested several refugees linked to what is now ISIL. Early in 2011, Canadian authorities arrested dual Iraqi-Canadian citizen Faruq ‘Isa who is accused of vetting individuals on the internet for suicide operations in Iraq. The FBI, in May of the same year, arrested Kentucky-based Iraqi refugees Wa’ad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi for attempting to send weapons and explosives from Kentucky to Iraq and conspiring to commit terrorism while in Iraq. Alwan pled guilty to the charges against him in December 2011, and Hammadi pled guilty in August 2012.”

Chairman McCaul made the following statement in response to these revelations: “ I have deep concerns with what I have heard from the intelligence community regarding the vulnerability of the U.S.-bound Syrian refugee pipeline, and these revelations reaffirm my belief that we need tighter security to keep terrorists from slipping into the United States. I call on the Senate to take up our refugee security bill and the President to sign it.”

Read the full story here.

US Intel: ISIS may have passport printing machine and blank passports. https://t.co/Q7q6ByaHNs pic.twitter.com/pK7SOpGuUs

— ABC News (@ABC) December 11, 2015

Two Alleged Ex-ISIS Fighters Detained in Austria posing as refugees.

Two Alleged Ex-ISIS Fighters Detained in Austria posing as refugees. (NBC).

 MAINZ, Germany — Two Syrians who were registered as refugees after making their way to Austria have been detained amid claims they previously fought for ISIS.


A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Salzburg confirmed to NBC News today that two separate investigations were ongoing against "two Syrian men in their 20s."

The two men were reported to authorities by other migrants who were concerned by both their behavior and background stories. Authorities say they reportedly had discussed their involvement in ISIS combat.

"There is no evidence that the men planned terror attacks in Europe and there is no evidence of a connection to recent attacks," the prosecutor's office spokesman added.


Both men were being held in so-called "investigative custody" in Austria. The probe is ongoing. Hmmmm.......yup they were just planning some sight seeing in the EU. Thank God for the other refugees as screening obviously doesn't work. Read the full story here.

Syrian Grand Mufti: 'They want to divide us into several quasi-states'.

Syrian Grand Mufti: 'They want to divide us into several quasi-states'. (RBTH).

The civil war in Syria is witnessing the participation of representatives of the most varied faiths and from all sides. Some of the conflicting sides are using religious slogans for mobilizing their adherents. Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun speaks about how to stop the bloodshed and why the root of the conflict lies not only in religious antagonisms.

There is a common narrative that the civil war taking place in Syria is an interreligious conflict. Is this so?

It is true that in the four years of the war it has always been depicted as an interreligious war. But it's not so. Everyone is running from the places controlled by the Islamic State (IS) or the al-Nusra Front: Christians, Sunnis and Alawites. And they are running to places where the Syrian army is established. The provinces of Al-Raqqah and Idlib are regions where only Sunnis live, yet for some reason those same Sunnis are running away from the al-Nusra Front, which positions itself as the "protector of the Sunnis."


Syria is a secular state and 70 years ago we even had a Christian prime minister. We are currently the only country in the Middle East where children in school have only one subject on religion. In the universities Christians and Muslims study together. In order to enter the government it is not necessary to represent one faith or another.

How would you then characterize this conflict?

The war is now being fought between religious terrorism and the secular government. The war in Syria is not an interreligious war and not a war to topple Assad. It is a war to destroy Syria as the last secular government in the Middle East. All the other Middle Eastern countries became states with a defined religious order a long time ago. This is the case even for Lebanon. It is clearly divided according to religion in several parts: the former president was a Maronite Christian, the speaker of parliament is a Shiite and it is only this balance that helps maintain peace there.

In Jordan the king must be a Hashemite. In Saudi Arabia the ruling dynasty is Sunni and must be composed of members of the Saudi family. In Iraq the president must be a Sunni and the prime minister a Shiite. In Turkey the president must only be a Muslim.

Syria remains the only country where the president and the prime minister can be Christians or Shiites or Alawites or Sunnis or even atheists. They want to divide us into several religious quasi-states.

Why then did the war begin and why are government opposition so strong?
In this sense, what is happening in our country has a non-Syrian nature. It is enough to say that from the first day of the war there were two bases: one in Jordan and another in Turkey. For three years Syria had resisted all these forces rather successfully. Then they provoked the entry of the IS into our country. Now there are 30,000 Uyghur Muslims from China and militants from Chechnya, the UK and a series of European countries fighting against us. They are all killing people regardless of the faiths that the victims adhere to. By the way, these terrorists have killed more Sunnis during the war than anyone else.


When representatives of Saudi Arabia said that Russia is supporting the Shiites against the Sunnis, Putin correctly responded that Russia is just supporting the Syrians in their war against terrorists and not the government of the country or the Shiites or anyone else. Read the full story here.

Canada: Trudeau 'Admin' working day and night to get 25,000 Syrians in to Canada in next 7 weeks.

Source picture

Canada: Trudeau 'Admin' working day and night to get 25,000 Syrians in to Canada in next 7 weeks. (RRW).

From CBC News:

The Liberal government intends to honour its promise to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada over the course of the next seven weeks, says newly-appointed Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship John McCallum.

“It certainly remains our objective to get them here by the end of the year,” said McCallum during an interview on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics Friday.

“Military bases are a possibility… air transport… even naval transport has not been ruled out.”

“It’s a large amount of work to do in a very short time,” he said.

There is more, here.  By the way, the previous government (Harper) had said Canada would take 10,000 over the course of the next year.

Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion signaled that Canada’s foreign policy on the Middle East would change — if not in action, at least in tone.

“The main difference is that we will stop to make it a partisan issue,” he said. “Mr. Harper wanted to embarrass the party of the opposition, but in doing so he damaged the strength of the relationship between Canada and Israel. Israel is a friend. It is an ally. But for us to be an effective ally, we need also to strengthen our relationship with [other] legitimate partners in the region. We need to, for example, strengthen our relationship with Lebanon.” Hmmm......Dion seems to have a soft spot for Lebanon in his heart. 

RELATED:

Video - Senior DHS - USCIS Official Admits & Confirms: No Way to Vet Syrian Refugees.

Under questioning from Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, Emrich admits that there is no reliable way to assure that individuals coming from Syria are properly checked. The exchange lasts about seven minutes and Emrich sounds desperate when he says “we check everything that we are aware of” and that “we are in the process of overturning every stone.”

The bottom line is that there is no way to verify the identity of Syrians so the defeated Homeland Security official proceeds to say that “in many countries of the world from which we have traditionally accepted refugees over the years the United States government did not have extensive data holdings.”

Emrich’s testimony before the Senate panel comes on the heels of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Assistant Director Michael Steinbach’s revelation that the U.S. government has no system to properly screen Syrian refugees. Hmmmm........Somehow the Trudeau 'admin' is better equiped then the U.S. to screen Syrian 'refugees'.

Liberals to expand refugee health-care to include vision & dental care https://t.co/3rRsAVZ4eV I'm CDN & don't have that coverage.#cdnpoli

— Monica Henry (@chevymo) November 8, 2015

Video - ISIS launches bizarre Hot Air balloons over the skies of Idlib As Defense against Russian jets?

More about this can be read here.

Iraqi Army Makes a Huge Push in the strategic Baiji area in Western Iraq.

Iraqi Army Makes a Huge Push in the strategic Baiji area in Western Iraq.(AM).

Iraqi forces defused booby traps and hunted down holdout jihadists in the strategic Baiji area Friday as part of their biggest advance against the Terrorist group, ISIL, in months.

Baiji lies at a crossroads between several frontlines and control of the area is seen as the key to progress in other regions, including Anbar province where forces were also closing in on ISIL strongholds.

Iraq’s army, police and counter-terrorism services, as well as thousands of fighters from the Popular Mobilization (Hashed al-Shaabi), continued to gain significant ground in and around Baiji, officers said.

“Iraqi forces are moving deep into Baiji, they have retaken the industrial area and several other neighborhoods,” an army colonel told AFP.

“We control about 60 percent of the city, there are not so many Daesh fighters left and they are trapped,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.

After retaking most of the refinery to the north of the city, security forces were sweeping the sprawling complex for bombs and die-hard Takfiris.

“Inside the refinery, our forces are defusing booby traps and looking for the last Daesh terrorists we believe are still holed up in some buildings,” he said.

The refinery, which once produced 300,000 barrels per day of refined products meeting half of Iraq’s needs, is said to have been damaged beyond repair and to no longer be of huge strategic interest.

The same officer also said that Iraqi forces had completely surrounded Sinniya, a town west of Baiji on the road leading to Anbar.

“We are firing large numbers of rockets and missiles, while Iraqi warplanes are also striking. This will prepare the ground for an operation to cleanse Sinniya,” he said.

Video - ISIS Feeds Starving Yazidi Mother Her own 3-Y-O Child; Yazidis Blame Obama 'Admin's Inaction for Ongoing Atrocities

 Video - ISIS Feeds Starving Mother Her own 3-Y-O Child; Yazidis Blame Obama 'Admin's Inaction for Ongoing Atrocities. ChristianPost.

Vian Dakhil spoke with Politico on Wednesday and explained that as many as 2,200 Yazidi women and girls have been kidnapped by IS and are being used a sex slaves. Another 420,000 Yazidis are living in refugee camps, which includes thousands of orphans who have no home.

Dakhil shared one particularly horrifying story, where IS fighters forced a starving mother to eat the meat of her own child, or at least told her so.

"One of the mothers calls me … she said 'for two days the ISIS doesn't give me any food' and they separated her children. One of them is 3 years and another is 5 years, after two days they give her rice with meat. After she's eating, she tell her this is your boy — 3 years," Dakhil said.

"She tells me please, I can't, I don't know what can I do — I'm eating my son. This is what happened with those woman under ISIS control and nobody cares."

Another mother was forced to watch her 9-year-old daughter being raped to death, Dakhil shared in a separate account.

Yazidis, Christians, and other minorities have suffered greatly under the rule of the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate, which has captured signification territory across Iraq and Syria.

Hmmmm.....This is why Canadians should vote for PM Harper, he knows who is in the greatest need, while others only care about Muslims this man cares about Christians and Yazidi! Read the full story here.

Video - Senior DHS - USCIS Official Admits & Confirms: No Way to Vet Syrian Refugees.

Video - Senior DHS - USCIS Official Admits & Confirms: No Way to Vet Syrian Refugees. HT: JudicialWatch.

As the Obama administration prepares to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees, a second high-ranking Homeland Security official admits there’s no way to screen the new arrivals from the war-torn Muslim nation that’s a hotbed of terrorism.

During a recent congressional hearing a director with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Emrich confirmed that the U.S. has no method of vetting the new refugees because the Syrian government doesn’t have an intelligence database to run checks against.

Under questioning from Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, Emrich admits that there is no reliable way to assure that individuals coming from Syria are properly checked. The exchange lasts about seven minutes and Emrich sounds desperate when he says “we check everything that we are aware of” and that “we are in the process of overturning every stone.”

The bottom line is that there is no way to verify the identity of Syrians so the defeated Homeland Security official proceeds to say that “in many countries of the world from which we have traditionally accepted refugees over the years the United States government did not have extensive data holdings.”

Emrich’s testimony before the Senate panel comes on the heels of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Assistant Director Michael Steinbach’s revelation that the U.S. government has no system to properly screen Syrian refugees.

National security has never stopped the Obama administration from assisting potential terrorists to settle in the U.S. Hmmm.....'If you see or hear something suspicious...SAY SOMETHING!' Read the full story here.

HRW: EU Summit aims to shift refugee burden back to neighbors, close EU doors the refugees.

EU Summit aims to shift refugee burden back to neighbors, close EU doors the refugees. (HRW).

A European Union migration meeting set for October 8, 2015, looks set to focus yet again on shifting the EU governments' responsibilities toward refugees and asylum seekers to their neighbors, Human Rights Watch said today.

The October 8 High Level Conference on the Eastern Mediterranean-Western Balkans route is to include interior and foreign ministers from the EU member states, and Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. The stated aim of the meeting is to “increase solidarity with those bearing the brunt of refugee flows from Syria” and ensure “an orderly management of refugee and migration flows along the route.”

The meeting comes amid growing concern that the EU wants to shift responsibility for asylum seekers to the Western Balkans and Turkey. A draft EU-Turkey Action Plan published on October 6 includes, “preventing uncontrolled migratory flows from Turkey to the EU” as a core objective. Hungary has already designated Serbia a safe third country and has begun summarily returning asylum seekers there.

The draft EU-Turkey Action Plan includes a series of measures aimed at, “Prevent[ing] further arrivals of irregular migrants to Turkey and irregular departures of refugees and migrants from Turkey to the EU.” This would be achieved through combating smuggling and increased border enforcement cooperation with EU member states Greece and Bulgaria, among other measures. The plan also includes much-needed assistance to Turkey to support its hosting of Syrian and Iraqi refugees and intensified search-and-rescue operations at sea.

“The Action Plan call to prevent arrivals of irregular migrants to Turkey could easily be interpreted as a signal that the EU would be willing to look the other way as Turkey prevents Syrians and Iraqis from crossing its border to seek asylum, so long as Turkey cooperates to stem the flow of asylum seekers into the EU,” said Benjamin Ward, deputy Europe and Central Asia division director at Human Rights Watch.

A draft EU-Turkey Action Plan published on October 6 includes, “preventing uncontrolled migratory flows from Turkey to the EU” as a core objective. Hungary has already designated Serbia a safe third country and has begun summarily returning asylum seekers there.

“While increasing aid to Turkey is much needed, any EU plans to turn Turkey, Serbia, and Macedonia into dumping grounds for asylum seekers would be deeply misguided and could put lives at risk,” Ward said.

“There’s a lot the EU can do to help Turkey and the Western Balkans bring their asylum systems and reception conditions in line with international standards, but those improvements need to be made before they can be expected to take on more responsibility for asylum seekers.” Read the full story here.

'Sometimes NATO Ally' Erdogan: 'Russia could lose Turkey’s friendship'

'Sometimes NATO Ally' Erdogan: 'Russia could lose Turkey’s friendship'. (AA)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday warned Russia against losing Ankara’s friendship, after Russian warplanes twice violated its airspace near the Syrian border.

“If Russia loses a friend like Turkey with whom it has a lot of cooperation it is going to lose a lot of things. It needs to know this,” Erdogan said in Belgium at a press conference alongside Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel broadcast on Turkish television.

In his toughest remarks yet against Russia in the current crisis, Erdogan accused Moscow and its ally Iran of working to maintain the “state terror” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

His comments came after Russian warplanes twice violated Turkish airspace at the weekend during Moscow’s bombing campaign in Syria aimed at bolstering the Assad regime.

“It is of course not possible to remain patient about this,” said Erdogan, referring to the incursions into Turkish air space. Hmmm.....Feeling the end is near for his career the 'dictator' is prepared to put the whole ME And the world on fire. Cooler heads should intervene and let democracy and justice take its course in Turkey. Read the full story here.

'Jihad doesn't mean war' - 52 Saudi clerics, scholars call for jihad on Russian forces in Syria.

'Jihad doesn't mean war' - 52 Saudi clerics, scholars call for jihad on Russian forces in Syria. (AA).

Fifty two Saudi inciters, both academics and clerics, have called on the public to “hurry” to Syria where they should be fighting Russian forces.

The clerics, some of which are members of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, called on “all those who are able, and outside of Saudi Arabia, to answer the calls of jihad” and to fight alongside one of the extremist groups facing Russian forces.

According to experts, by issuing this statement, inciters seek to implicate Saudi, Gulf, and Muslim youths in the fight against Russian forces, mirroring Al-Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s recruitment of young fighters during the Afghan-Soviet war.

The statement also called for Syrian opposition fighters to “unify their front” and urged those with capabilities to fight and expertise to remain in Syria and not leave.

The statement comes after the Saudi Ministry of Interior raided a house where its residents manufactures bombs in a residential area in Riyadh. The house was run by a Syrian man with the help of a Filipina woman who prepared and sowed explosive belts.

The statement also comes days after authorities found and detained Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) cells, mostly comprised of militants who returned from areas of conflict.

The invitation to join the conflict conflicts with a Saudi decree announced in March 2014 which listed ISIS and the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Saudi Hezbollah, the Houthi group, AQIP, and Al-Qaeda in Yemen and Iraq.

The decree also criminalizes taking part in combat outside of Saudi Arabia, or belonging to extremist groups or groups designated as such by the regional or international arena.

Some of the clerics who signed the statement previously issued fatwas on the events in Syria and providing guidance to fighters under extremist groups in the embattled country. Read the full story here.

Video - Egypt’s president on fighting Islamic State, U.S. relations