The armed forces of Syria in the seventh year of the war, from the regular army to the volunteer corps
With the outbreak of civil war in Syria, the Assad regime undertook measures for the adaptation of his loyal armed forces to the conflict to which they were absolutely not ready.
Our esoterism is not to be defended but vindicated: Alawites do not follow a secret faith. It is solely based on the idea of worshiping God. Esoterism is with us and within us.
Senator Black reached Syria through Lebanon during a recent journey and met with political and military people of both countries during a series of informal but no less important meetings. It’s the opinion of the senator that it is time for the American people to know that United States started this war, about which in the West only the official version is knew. It was not a spontaneous uprising as the mainstream media try to make us believe, but a coward secret operation launched by the US government to subvert another, the Syrian, who was not enemy of the US.
1. Russia proposed to start a truce in Syria since March, 1st.
2. The United States demanded a truce to start immediately.
3. In the end, agreed on a compromise that the truce will begin on February 19-20. Assad has about a week to improve his positions in Latakia and Aleppo.
4. List of opposition organizations that need to negotiate with Assad never agreed, so there is a high probability that the 2nd series of talks will end as the 1st.
5. The truce does not extend to the Caliphate and Al-Nusra, so that the war will not end as such.
6. In a number of government and opposition enclaves to begin humanitarian aid delivery. supply control issue (under the guise of which can be pumped weapons) remained open.
7. Between the American and Russian coalition should be made more dense contacts. This question will be discussed today.
8. The role of Turkey and the Kurdish question to remain behind the scenes.
This is the best English language introduction to the branches of the Shiites referred to as “Ghulat”, particularly to the Alawites who were previously known as “Nusayris”. This is the “sect” from which Assad and his core supporters in Syria come from
The repeated calls for a new genocide of the Alawites and the importing of Wahhabi Uighur Turkish settlers into ethnically cleansed areas of Syria has inflamed ancient wounds few in the west understand. The project of establishing salafist Islamic law in Syria by latter day followers of Ibn Taymiyyah has the same ominous meaning to Syrian Shiites that the revival Nazism would to Jews and Slavs. Under salafist sharia they are all apostates to be slaughtered or sold into slavery. As the mass graves being uncovered in Sinjar demonstrate, the Wahhabists are deadly serious about this.
Perhaps the most important development to take place in the Aleppo Governorate during the month of November was the lifting of the Kuweires Military Airport’s two year long siege that was imposed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS).
In southern Aleppo, the Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Mechanized Division – in coordination with Hezbollah, Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi paramilitary), and the National Defense Forces (NDF) – captured the imperative towns of Tal Al-‘Eiss and Al-Hadher in a matter of 24 hours after a violent battle with Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham and Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki.
The month of November was bad for both the Islamist rebels and ISIS as they conceded several villages and large swathes of territory to the Syrian Arab Army.
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http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/sundaynights/201208/r994991_11013885.mp3
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/sundaynights/201209/r1000295_11124754.mp3
The question that arises is whether the Alawites are an offshoot of Shi’i Islam (specifically, with an origin in the Iraqi Shi’a ghulat sects that attributed divine qualities to Ali and his descendants who became the twelve Imams of Shi’ism[2]); or whether, ultimately, the Alawites are a religious group predating the advent of Islam to the Levant. The latter hypothesis is presented in popular form by Diana Darke in her travel guide on Syria. She describes them thusly:
The Alawis are heirs to a distinctive religious tradition, which is at the root of their dilemma in modern Syria. Beginning in the nineteenth century, scholars acquired and published some of the esoteric texts of the Alawis, and these texts still provide most of what is known about Alawi doctrine. The picture that emerged from these documents was of a highly eclectic creed, embracing elements of uncertain origin. Some of its features were indisputably Shi’ite, and included the veneration of Ali and the twelve Imams. But in the instance of Ali, this veneration carried over into actual deification, so that Ali was represented as an incarnation of God. Muhammad was his visible veil and prophet, and Muhammad’s companion, Salman al-Farisi, his proselytizer. The three formed a divine triad, but the deification of Ali represented the touchstone of Alawi belief. Astral gnosticism and metemspychosis (transmigration of souls) also figured in Alawi cosmology.
he origins of the religion is unclear. It is possible that the faith is rooted in pre-Islamic, Gnostic religion. According to Gisela Procházka-Eisl and Stephan Procházka (The Plain of Saints and Prophets: The Nusayri-Alawi Community of Cilicia (Southern Turkey) and its Sacred Places), “The Alawis are one of the last surviving Gnostic communities in the Middle East,” and has Islamic, neo-Platonic and Christian “features.”
That the Alawi faith has drawn in elements of other religions local to the region is beyond dispute. Alawites are, for example, believed to visit the shrines of Christian saints, and to celebrate certain Christian holidays, as well as the Zoroastrian New Year’s festival of Nowruz, and, unsurprisingly, Shi’a holidays. Incense, derived from Christian ritualism, is also used in Alawite ceremonies. Nevertheless, if the Alawite faith does originate in pre-Islamic Gnosticism, its absorbing of Islam effectively transformed it into a minor, if eclectic and highly esoteric form of Shi’ism.
