THE mother of newly installed Commissioner of Police Dr Carl Williams wants Jamaicans to support her son in his new job.
“I’m asking the good Lord and you members of the public to give him your support,” Lynette Williams told the Jamaica Observer yesterday, following the change of command ceremony at the Police Officers’ Club in St Andrew.
Yesterday, Mrs Williams told the Observer that she was thankful for the success of her son and that the Lord had lifted him up.
“I feel I’ve done my best with him, and I feel Carl will do his very best,” she said.
During the ceremony, attended by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and other members of the Cabinet, Chief Justice Zaila McCalla and Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, among other officials, the symbolic baton of command was passed over by Acting Commissioner Glenmore Hinds to Williams.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton is publicly urging the Minnesota Vikings to suspend embattled running back Adrian Peterson until his ongoing child abuse allegations have been settled. Peterson was reinstated Monday just hours before allegations of a second incident with another one of his four-year-old sons came to light. “It is an awful situation,” Dayton said in a written statement issued from his office in St. Paul.
“Yes, Mr. Peterson is entitled to due process and should be ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ However, he is a public figure; and his actions, as described, are a public embarrassment to the Vikings organization and the State of Minnesota. Whipping a child to the extent of visible wounds, as has been alleged, should not be tolerated in our state. Therefore, I believe the team should suspend Mr. Peterson, until the accusations of child abuse have been resolved by the criminal justice system.”
What a flaming hypocrite, sure Adrian Peterson’s right to due process must be suspended to ensure that the Vikings Organization and the State of Minnesota be saved embarrassment. Never mind that Peterson has not yet gotten his day in court.
Where does Politicians get off telling private companies how to run their businesses anyway? Here’s a word of advise to the goodly Governor, take your scripted statement back . Re-word it then re-write it . Here’s what you should say ““Yes, Mr. Peterson is entitled to due process and should be ‘innocent until proven guilty.‘Signed: Mark Dayton.
You see Governor, after that line everything you said revealed you to be a meddling hypocrite.
Governor here is what you should hang your damn head about .This is what’s shameful , please remove the hood from your face for a minute and look at what your KKK members dressed as cops are doing while you meddle in what does not concern you .
Oh by the way this happened on your watch. So there are no excuses. You see Governor Dayton the higher you climb is the more you expose yourself. Look at the abusive KKK members you have on your payroll and leave the courts to do it’s job. You are not a King.…
By the way there are a lot more of these official abuse by your Thugs. Do your job and leave others to do theirs.
You hypocrite .….
UPDATE :::::
Since we went to publication the Minnesota Vikings have bowed to the pressure and once again benched Adrian Peterson for a second straight Game even though , like we said before, he has not had due process.
The take-away from this, is just how powerful the Governor’s pressure is. Yet these bastards never have a kind word for victims of police abuse. Neither do they ever want to stand up and demand that the thugs on the State’s payroll respect the rights of everyone young or old , black or white.
REGGIEBUSH
Reggie Bush
I most definitely discipline my daughter. I have a 1‑year-old daughter and I discipline her,” Bush said on WFAN’s “Boomer & Carton” show, via CBS New York. “Obviously every person is different. And I definitely will use my best judgment to discipline her, depending on the situation on what happens. I definitely will try to … obviously not leave bruises or anything like that on her. But I definitely will discipline her harshly depending on, again what the situation is.”
CHARLESBARKLEY
Charles Barkley
In a conversation with Jim Rome for CBS sports.
“I’m from the South. Whipping is … we do that all the time,” the former basketball star, who was born and raised in Leeds, Alabama, said. “Every black parent in the South is gonna be in jail under those circumstances. I think we have to be careful letting people dictate how they treat their children.” When Rome contended that it doesn’t matter where someone is from because “right is right and wrong is wrong,” Barkley disagreed. “I don’t believe that because, listen, we spank kids in the South,” he said. “I think the question about did Adrian Peterson go overboard. … But, listen, Jim, we all grow up in different environments. Every black parent in my neighborhood in the South would be in trouble or in jail under those circumstances. … As far as being from the South, we all spanked our kids. I got spanked, me and my two brothers.”
CHRISCARTER
Cris Carter
“This goes across all racial lines, ethnicities, religious backgrounds. People in disciplining their children. People with any sort of Christian background, they really believe in disciplining their children,” Carter began. “My mom did the best job she could do raising seven kids by herself. But there are thousands of things that I have learned since then that my mom was wrong. This is the 21st century. My mom was wrong. She did the best she could, but she was wrong about some of that stuff she taught me. And I promised my kids that I won’t teach that mess to them. You can’t beat a kid to make him do what you want to do.”
Hmmmm. Eagles coach Buddy Ryan in 1989 cut Cris Carter following the pre-season. Carter later admitted that Ryan released him because of alcohol and drug abuse, including large amounts of ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana, and credits his former coach with helping him turn his life around as a result.
This Pharisee was allowed back into the NFL to play and is now in the Hall of Fame now here he is standing in Judgement of others. Let those without sin cast the first stone.
The FBI is investigating allegations of excessive force by a Missouri police officer during a traffic stop that left a teenage motorist in critical condition, authorities said on Monday.
The FBI said in a statement that it is investigating whether police officer Tim Runnels overstepped his authority and violated the civil rights of Bryce Masters when he pulled over the 17-year-old and used a stun gun on him on Sunday in Independence, Missouri, a Kansas City suburb.
The incident comes five weeks after a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri fatally shot an unarmed black teenager, sparking racial unrest and highlighting concern about the use of force by police.
Last week two Studio City police officers in Los Angeles detained and allegedly mistook “Django Unchained” star Daniele Watts for a prostitute after they saw her — reportedly fully clothed — kissing boyfriend and celebrity chef Brian James Lucas in a car.
SALTLAKECITY (AP) — A young black man who was fatally shot last
Susan Hunt
week by Utah police lunged at the officers with a real sword that had a 2.5‑foot steel blade, prosecutors said Monday. Reports from Darrien Hunt’s family that the 22-year-old was carrying a toy sword are not accurate, said Utah County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Taylor. “It wasn’t plastic, it wasn’t wood,” Taylor said. “It appears to be a real samurai sword.”“It wasn’t plastic, it wasn’t wood,” Taylor said. “It appears to be a real samurai sword.”.
Susan Hunt: Those stupid Cops , they though” they had to murder over a toy. This is my family and they have ruined it”
The Saratoga Springs Police Department is under fire over the fatal shooting of Hunt last Wednesday. The city removed a critical social media posting that accused the news media of reporting innuendo, opinion and rumor as fact with the police chief apologizing for the remarks. Hunt’s mother has accused police of shooting her son because he is black. Police say race played no role. An attorney for the family says an independent autopsy shows Hunt was shot six times while running away. Read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/darrien-hunt-shot-utah_n_5827298.html
Barack Obama will be criticized and disrespected by probably half of America irrespective of how well he does on any given subject. On September 11th 2001 planes crashed into the twin towers in lower Manhattan killing over 3,000 people. George Bush who was President at the time was alerted by his chief of staff Andy Card as he sat in a Florida class-room. Bush sat transfixed for a good five minutes as if unsure how to react.
Bush waged America’s longest war in Afghanistan. Not satisfied he waged an illegal war in Iraq killing that Country’s leader and splintering Iraq’s ethnic tribes the Sunnis, Shiite and other ethnic minorities leaving them to wage war against each other. Unable to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden whom they blamed for the attacks on the twin Towers Towers and the Pentagon , Bush shifted his reason for being in Iraq to Nation-building.
Obama addresses marines at camp Lejeune
There was no talk of Nation Building when he illegally invaded a Sovereign Iraq. The lie then was that Saddam Hussein had what was coined as weapons of mass destruction. Never mind that America, it’s European Allies and Israel possess enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy the Earth several times over. Bush’s Cowboy attitude with America’s military power, the Neocons world view and Donald Rumsfeld’s incompetence in handling the Iraq war created a smoldering cauldron of Militancy in the Middle East. At the center of Middle East animosity toward the west is the Palestinian people’s continued oppression at the hands of Israel , aided and abetted by America and some western nations.
Bound at the hip in Military muscle-flexing with America was Britain, which was still acting like a world power. Recent events including the newest Militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS emerged from the hornets nest Bush and his Neocon friends stirred up. Between the wars and incompetence Bush wrecked the Economy causing millions their jobs and homes. The crash of the American Economy in 2008 was rivaled only by the great depression.
Obama talks Immigration
THEECONOMY
Under Obama, the economy has added 9.425 million jobs and lost 4.887, for a net gain of 4.538 million jobs. That’s a 3 million advantage over Bush. according to the Daily beast Michael Tomasky.
WARS
Obama has wound down the Iraq war which he opposed from the start. In fact some argue he was elected President primarily because of his opposition to that illegal, illogical war. The Afghan war is in it’s final throes. Obama did as he promised he would.
IMMIGRATION
on the green
Many Liberals are miffed at Obama for the number of people deported on his watch. Every week thousands of people are deported from the United States for the flimsiest of reasons. This process rips families apart, usually it’s the parents who have breached US laws. Notwithstanding the children are made to suffer. The entire notion surrounding the statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”,now a colossal lie. Republicans have steadfastly blocked Immigration reform claiming that Immigrants are Democratic voters. Every attempt at reform is labeled an Amnesty. Of course their Conservative Hero Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to people in the shadows during his presidency.
OSAMABIN-LADEN
This speaks for itself, Bush couldn’t get him, Obama did.
President Barack Obama was rejected by several New York golf courses over Labor Day weekend
HEALTHCARE
Affordable Care Act the law of the land
Obama has out performed George Bush by every metric in less than 6 years , compared to Bush’s two terms. So there is no logical claim to be made against Obama as it relates to competence, as it has been during Bush’s tenure. I won’t bother to talk about the fact that despite Government lock-downs and across the board disruption of the economy, Republicans, are slated to retake the senate and make further gains in the House. You decide on what that says about the voters.
Recently President Obama was excoriated for going back to play Golf after addressing the Nation on the execution of an American Journalist by ISIS. The verbal assault is nothing new from those on the right. Their hatred for this President because of his
Donnie the clown
race is palpable . It also makes them irrelevant as serious objectors. In response the president said he should have been more aware of the optics! You think?
Which leads me ask this of the President. Why would you want to play Golf at a Country Club owned by the Racist smut Donald Trump? Mister President there is an old Jamaican proverb which says “you lie with dogs you rise with fleas“No disrespect to my Lab “Bud”. President Obama did not catch fleas from this Mutt. He ended up having to contend with the snide remark attributed to him below.
Mister President you are a smart man but I believe the fact that you were raised on the Hawaiian Islands have totally created a false sense of America in you. On learning that major Clubs in Westchester New York have rebuffed the President’s attempt to play Golf on their courses, I was embarrassed for him, but mostly I was embarrassed for America, just not surprised
This is the kind of thing one would expect from states such as Mississippi Alabama Texas and others where intelligence is a rarity, and where ignorance flourishes. Obviously the backlash against Barack Obama is far deeper than just the KKK members who now don Police Uniforms under the guise of law enforcement officers. The chickens are indeed coming home to roost.
President Obama was turned down at several top golf courses in Westchester while he was visiting the area over Labor Day weekend, sources tell NBC 4 New York.
The Trump National Golf Club, the Winged Foot and Willow Ridge were among some of the élite courses that rebuffed the president’s request to tee off there, according to several sources who were told about the president’s advance team’s calls to the club managers.
Club managers apparently did not want to inconvenience their high-powered and high-paying members over Labor Day weekend by shutting down their courses to accommodate the president.
The First Family
The president was in town Aug. 29, a Friday, for fundraising events in New York and Rhode Island. He had been scheduled to stay overnight in Westchester County in order to attend the Saturday evening wedding of MSNBC host Alex Wagner and White House chef Sam Kass at Blue
President Obama
Hill Farms
The sources said the White House advance team was giving the clubs just a day or two notice to fill the president’s open Saturday morning in New York. Of several courses contacted in New York and Connecticut, a spokesman for Fairview Country Club in Greenwich said it would have accommodated the president if he had asked. That was the only club that said it would.
Labor Day weekend is one of the busiest times of year for golf courses, and with membership at some area clubs exceeding $100,000, many courses may not have wanted to displace its members on a weekend when they would have wanted to play.
Adrian Paterson indicted for disciplining his own son.
Adrian Peterson
Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Petersonturned himself in to Montgomery County, Texas, authorities early Saturday morning. He was booked into the Montgomery County jail at 1:06 a.m. CT and released at 1:35 a.m. CT after posting the $15,000 bond. Peterson had been indicted by a grand jury on charges of reckless or negligent injury to a child and a warrant had been issued for his arrest. He flew back early Saturday morning to Minnesota, where he has been deactivated for the Vikings’ home game against the Patriots on Sunday. At a news conference on Saturday afternoon, Montgomery County first assistant district attorney Phil Grant said Peterson was charged with one count of injury to a child and could be sentenced to as many as two years in state jail, as well as a $10,000 fine. Probation is an option, Grant said, for defendants with no prior criminal record. Grant said only one grand jury reviewed Peterson’s case, refuting a report that an initial grand jury rejected the case and it took a second grand jury to indict Peterson. He said the grand jury “was provided lots of evidence over a significant number of week.
Obviously a Parent is not allowed to discipline his child. So says the Government! Never mind that Adrian Peterson was raisedRobert Muller
using those same standards. Texas authorities allege the boy was spanked with a switch from a tree and marks were visible on him. I’m no expert on discipline, yet it seem ironic that the Government is in the business of telling loving parents how, when and even if, they may discipline their own children, yet cops are given a free hand to assault and even kill without consequence. If this is not tyranny , what is?
The Government hauls a caring father before the courts who takes the necessary steps to correct his own child, yet the Government refuses to hold killer cops who abuse and murder innocent civilians accountable. In fact the Government shields and protects them. Robert Muller former head of the FBI reportedly will conduct Investigations into the NFL as it regards domestic violence. If this wasn’t so insulting I would laugh. Where is Muller , where is the National outrage for the almost daily killing and assault visited on innocent people by police? Absolute Tyranny !!!
Ray Rice is welcomed with open arms by the fans of his hometown in New Rochelle.
New Rochelle Welcomes Home Ray Rice.
New Rochelle welcomed home it’s native son on Saturday. Ray turned up at his old High School with Wife Janay.Several hundred fans watched the game and many of them expressed support for Rice. Dozens of fans wore Rice’s No. 27 Ravens jersey and some held signs, including one that read: ‘We love you Ray,’ and ‘New RO loves you.’
Rice former High School Coach had this to say. “He made a mistake in his life but New Rochelle is a very proud program, and once you’re a member, you’re a member for life,” DiRienzo said. “Even though Ray made a mistake doesn’t mean we throw him out of the house. Ray’s one of my sons in my football family and we’d never throw him out of the house.”
The maelstrom which has ensued since this incident came fully to light has had the opposite effect on me, compared to most . The ferocity of the attacks on Ray and even Jenay Rice, tells me this has nothing to do with the Rices. Every ultra-liberal feminist has crawled out from under their rock to condemn Rice. As I wrote earlier the NFL is rolling over so that Robert Muller can conduct a top to bottom review . Where is Muller regarding the cops who beat the crap out of their wives after they finish beating the people they come in contact with?
The woefully incompetent Media is incapable of investigating Voter Suppression. Corruption in Government, and the tyrannical Police state in which people are being abused daily. They loop endless cycle of garbage reporting ‚featuring every man-hating feminist they can find. In addition to the many self hating blacks who are too stupid to see through the charade.
As I said in a previous Article they don’t care about Jenay Rice their objective is to destroy their family. The blood-lust piling on is in furtherance of breaking the black family and replacing it with their degenerate far left feminist agenda. It is great to see Rice’s old high school football coach stand up despite the noise and embrace Ray Rice.
There is a lot worse crap happening in America worthy of attention. Worthy of round the clock media spotlight. Worthy of top-tier investigations, yet nothing is being done. Leave Ray and Jenay Rice alone .
In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached.
First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican political bankroller.
Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least partially control which faculty members Florida State University hired.
And third, Bruce Benson, a prominent libertarian economic theorist and Florida State University economics department chairman, must stay on another three years as department chairman — even though he told his wife he’d step down in 2009 after a single three-year term.
The parents of Reeva Steenkamp say “justice was not served” after South African athlete Oscar Pistorius was acquitted of murdering their daughter.
June and Barry Steenkamp told NBC News of their “disbelief” that the court had believed Pistorius’s version of events.
Judge Thokozile Masipa found him guilty of the lesser charge of culpable homicide, saying the state had failed to prove he intended to kill.
Pistorius has been allowed bail ahead of sentencing on 13 October.
Judge Masipa said the athlete had acted “negligently” when he shot his girlfriend through a toilet door, but in the “belief that there was an intruder”.
Rush Limbaugh obviously disgusted with House Republicans for their plan to vote on the construction of a National Women’s
Rush Limbaugh
History Museum, an undertaking Limbaugh considered totally unnecessary.
“There isn’t going to be a National Men’s [Museum],” Limbaugh complained. “[A]ll those war museums and memorials, those are museums to men. We’ve left the women out, that’s right.”The lack of an accompanying National Men’s Museum wasn’t Limbaugh’s only beef with the plan, though. He also said it was redundant. “We already have, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know how many museums for women all over the country,” Limbaugh argued. “They are called malls.”
There is no victory in death, it would be reprobate of me to use the death of someone to Score political points. However, I believe it is perfectly proper to use someone’s death to Underscore a critical failure.
For reasons above my pay-grade, Jamaicans have elected to give the People’s National Party the Lion’s share of handling their affairs since 1962 when the Nation gained independence.
Over the last 40 years the Jamaica Labor Party has held office only 12 years of those four decades. The PNP has mostly formed the Government, With one continuous stretch of 181⁄2 years.
Starting with Michael Manley’s pseudo Democratic Socialism in 1972 Jamaica, has been battered and bruised by every metric, with only a dozen years of respite in between the tumultuous bouts of People’s National Party incompetence and graft.
PNP leadership has brought the once pearl of the Caribbean total and comprehensive ruination . Starting 1972’s to present. Massive brain-drain. Capital flight. Runaway inflation A decimated business sector. Poverty untold. Worthless currency. Astronomically high crime rate. Broken down and or nonexistent infrastructure. Moral decay. Sell-off, of our National treasures. Decadence. Immorality and a total overall decay. Some Jamaicans still trumpet our Nation’s superiority in the Caribbean, I do not share in that fantasy.
Roger Clarke
Roger Clarke spent most of his adult life in politics as part of the PNP. Clarke recently passed away of an apparent heart attack, suffered at a Florida Airport. Clarke, 74, had been at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida since mid-July where he had undergone surgery for a back problem and was returning to Jamaica when he died at the airport.
Roger Clarke was a Minister of Government . A member of the Governing People’s National Party, which has dominated the Political landscape over the last 4 decades. Yet when Clarke needed back surgery for what is characterized as a pinched nerve, he headed to Florida.
If this does not awaken the sensitivities of Jamaicans, what will ? If an esteemed member of the Political Oligarchy cannot source elective surgery in his own country, what does it say about the leadership of his party? We pray for the family of Roger Clarke at this time of bereavement. We are all Jamaicans, we should find no solace in the demise of others. Death is in the cards for all of us. In the end we are neither PNP nor JLP we are people.
Simpson Miller and others grieve Clarke’s passing
Let’s hope Jamaicans will see this as a reason to demand a greater degree of accountability from those whom they entrust to administer to their affairs. We cannot continue to lower the bar to accommodate and rationalize away the systematic and continued failures and incompetence of our leaders. It is all up to us to decide the leadership we get.
What’s Worse Than Vladimir Putin? Thanks to the sanctions, the West could be about to find out. By EUGENERUMER
All of this may seem far-fetched and a product of Russian paranoia, but truth is beside the point. If the idea of U.S.-backed régime change in Russia becomes an article of faith in Moscow, the negative reaction could last far longer than Putin’s régime, with dire long-term consequences for relations between the West and Russia. If Washington and Brussels continue to raise the stakes with new sanctions, they could by themselves escalate the crisis far beyond Ukraine.
The Police Service Commission selected Dr Carl Williams the Nations’s new Police Commissioner. We wish the new Commissioner much success. Having exited the JCF after only a few years service I have never met the new chief. I understand Williams joined the Department in 1984 , I joined two years prior, though we served together I never met him. The 50 year old Williams having spent 30 years in the Department was appropriately rewarded with the top spot.
Carl-Williams
Amid the noise surrounding the selection process, many argued that the Commission should look overseas for a new commissioner. I voiced my disapproval then. I believe the Commission acted in good faith in selecting Carl Williams the tiny nation’s 28 police commissioner. It would have been a travesty to pick someone from overseas while the department have these supremely educated and competent leaders to move the department forward.
Williams holds a PhD in criminal justice. He is the founding director of the (Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency) and is the brain responsible for developing the Anti-Lottery Scam Task Force. He led Jamaica’s anti-narcotics campaign from 2000 to 2004 which saw major players convicted and some even extradited for their crimes.
The new Commissioner comes to the top spot at a time when the Police continue to be a contentious issue. Despite the creation and implementation of the new Agency (INDECOM the image of the agency continue to evoke negative reviews.
The challenge for Williams is how to manage those concerns in an ever changing environment without alienating the men and women under his command. He must find a way to manage crime as a business, giving citizens what they pay for, while keeping the people under his command motivated. No easy task in a country which does not honor the rule of law.
For years the Elitist mentality in the Island Nation was that the police were ineffective because top down they were unintelligent morons. Owen Ellington was educated , Carl Williams is superbly educated. The department has more members with undergraduate and graduate degrees per capita, than most departments around the world. Lets now get to the task of seriously eradicating crime.
Cruz said the crowd showed ‘a shameful display of bigotry and hatred.’
Sen. Ted Cruz walked off the stage and left an event hosted by a Christian organization mid-speech after being booed on Wednesday night following comments praising Israel. The Texas Republican senator and tea party icon was a keynote speaker at a Washington summit hosted by In Defense of Christians, a group that focuses on persecuted Christian and minority communities in the Middle East.
According to several reports and a video taken by EWTN News Nightly and obtained The Daily Caller, Cruz upset many in the crowd by offering strong support for Israel, saying at one point: “Christians have no greater ally than Israel” — a comment that drew boos.
In a subsequent statement to Breitbart News, Cruz said the crowd showed “a shameful display of bigotry and hatred.”
The video appears to catch the moments just before Cruz left the stage.
“I will say this: I’m saddened to see that some here, not everyone, are so consumed with hate,” he said at the outset of the video, his comments prompting continued booing and yelling out from some members of the crowd. “I will say this: If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you. Thank you, and God bless you,” he said, walking off stage to scattered applause and boos.
Cruz told Breitbart that he intended to show how the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as well as other terrorist groups, threatened both Jews and Christians in the region.
“I told the attendees that those who hate Israel also hate America,” he said. “That those who hate Jews also hate Christians. And that anyone who hates Israel and the Jewish people is not following the teachings of Christ. These statements were met with angry boos.”
“Anti-Semitism is a corrosive evil, and it reared its ugly head tonight,” he added later.
In a statement released Wednesday evening, IDC President Toufic Baaklini blamed a select “few politically motivated opportunists” for the incident.
“[A] few politically motivated opportunists chose to divide a room that for more than 48 hours sought unity in opposing the shared threat of genocide,” he said in the statement.
Mike Tyson, a convicted rapist, was asked whether Rob Ford’s candidacy for re-election as Toronto mayor might be affected by hanging out with a convicted rapist (Tyson). Mike Tyson then flipped out and cursed a lot on live TV.
After the outburst, you can sort of see Mike level out, like he realized that he probably shouldn’t have said all those curse words, but no! When the host throws it back to Tyson, he just calls the host a piece of shit some more.
Russia has warned that US air strikes against militants in Syria would be a “gross violation” of international law. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman said any such action, without the backing of the UN, would be “an act of aggression”. It comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry meets Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia to try to build a coalition against Islamic State (IS) militants. President Obama has threatened action against IS in Syria as well as Iraq. IS controls large parts of Syria and Iraq after a rapid military advance. In a speech outlining his strategy, Mr Obama said any group that threatened America would “find no safe haven”. He also announced that 475 US military personnel would be sent to Iraq but said they would not have a combat role.
John Kerry is meeting leaders from several Arab countries as well as Turkey
But the statement brought a strong reaction from Russia, which has been an ally of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“The US president has spoken directly about the possibility of strikes by the US armed forces against Isil (IS) positions in Syria without the consent of the legitimate government,” ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich was quoted as saying. “This step, in the absence of a UN Security Council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international law.”
Syria also repeated its warning that the US had to co-ordinate with the Syrian government before launching air strikes on its territory. “Any action of any kind without the consent of the Syrian government would be an attack on Syria,” National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said on Thursday. Last month Syria offered to help the US fight Islamic State, however the US ruled that out. The US has launched more than 150 air strikes against the group in Iraq and has provided arms to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting against IS. The jihadist group has become notorious for its brutality, recording their beheadings of enemy soldiers and Western journalists.
ISIS fighters on the march in the western Iraqi desert.
Rebel training
Mr Kerry, who arrived in the Red Sea port of Jeddah on Thursday, will hold talks with representatives of Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Gulf states as well as Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Nato member Turkey. Reports say that among the issues to be discussed are training for Syrian rebels on Saudi soil and broader permission from regional states to use their airspace in order to increase the capacity of US aircraft.
In a 15-minute speech shown at peak time in the US on Wednesday, President Obama vowed that America would lead “a broad coalition to roll back” ISIS.
“Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting Isil targets as Iraqi forces go on the offense,” he said. President Obama was elected in part because of fervent opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and presided over the US troop pullout from the country.
For the first time, Islamic State targets on the ground in Syria will be in the crosshairs of American pilots. The president told the American people: “I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country, wherever they are.” But he was equally emphatic that the combat on the ground would happen without US troops. Instead the US will ramp up its military assistance to the Syrian opposition. But the president was also at pains to express what this wasn’t. “We will not get dragged into another ground war,” he insisted. He
said that America would lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat and would not be acting alone. There were two cautionary notes — the first on timescale and also that this would not be risk-free to American servicemen and women. Action is going to start: who knows when it will be mission accomplished.
Last year, President Obama abandoned plans to launch airstrikes in Syria against government forces after congressional opposition. In his speech, he ruled out working with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, despite the fact that his forces are also engaged in fighting IS. Instead, he said, the US would seek to strengthen the non-IS Syrian opposition, which fights against both IS and President Assad. Syria’s Western-backed National Coalition welcomed Mr Obama’s plan, and urged Congress to approve it. However, the BBC’s Jim Muir in northern Iraq says the Syrian opposition is fragmented and dominated by Islamists, who may be opposed to IS but are seeking Islamic rule rather than democracy.
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