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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>This would explain how ISIS is able to get their oil out of Syria and Iraq to sell on the international market.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Oh what a tangled and destructive web is weaved by Obama and U.S. neo-liberal / neo-con foreign policy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The Mystery Over the Surprise Release of 49 Turkish Diplomats<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:22.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Is Turkey Colluding with ISIS?<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>by PATRICK COCKBURN <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Mystery surrounds the surprise release of 49 Turkish diplomats and their families held captive for three months by Isis. The Turkish government is denying any deal with the hostage-takers, making it unclear why Isis, notorious for its cruelty and ruthlessness, should hand over its Turkish prisoners on Saturday without a quid pro quo.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Many Kurds are expressing bitterness towards the Turkish government, claiming that it is colluding with Isis to destroy the independent enclaves of the Syrian Kurds, who number 2.5 million, along the Turkish border. The pro-Kurdish Amed news agency asks “if Isis [is] the paramilitary wing of the of the neo-Ottomanism project of Turkey in the Middle East?” The Turkish government vehemently denies any collaboration with Isis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Nevertheless, the strange circumstances of both the capture of the 49 Turks and their release shows that Ankara has a different and more intimate relationship with Isis than other countries. Pro-Isis Turkish websites say that the Turks were released on the direct orders of “the caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They had been moved to Raqqa, the Syrian headquarters of Isis from Mosul, and both men and women were well-dressed and appeared to have suffered little harm from their imprisonment. This is in sharp contrast to the treatment of Alan Henning, the British taxi driver seized when taking aid to Syria, and of the journalists who have been ritually murdered by Isis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Patrick Cockburn’s</span></i></b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'> new book is <a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/jihadis-return/" target="_blank"><span style='color:blue'>The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising</span></a>.</span></i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><img border=0 width=300 height=370 id=featured-book-img src="cid:image001.jpg@01D04AE9.24940460" alt="Description: http://www.orbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ReturnOfAlQaida_CVR_3D_062614-e1403881761508.jpg"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:22.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The Jihadis Return<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:22.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>ISIS AND THE NEW SUNNI UPRISING</span></b><span style='font-size:22.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://www.orbooks.com/patrick-cockburn/"><span style='color:blue'>PATRICK COCKBURN</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>"Patrick Cockburn has produced the first history of the rise of the Islamic State or Isil. No one is better equipped for this task ... This short book does not suggest any solutions. Perhaps there aren’t any. Western interventions in the past few years—such as Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2010—have been disastrous. But it is indispensable for anybody wishing to understand a terrifying new phenomenon which is already showing signs of inspiring emulators from North Africa to Pakistan." —<i>The Daily Telegraph</i>, London</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>"One of the most accurate and intrepid journalists in Iraq." —Sidney Blumenthal</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>"Quite simply, the best Western journalist at work in Iraq today." —Seymour Hersh</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/jihadis-return/"><span style='color:blue'>About the Book</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Though capable of staging spectacular attacks like 9/11, jihadist organizations were not a significant force on the ground when they first became notorious in the shape of al-Qa‘ida at the turn of century. The West’s initial successes in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan weakened their support still further.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Today, as renowned Middle East commentator Patrick Cockburn sets out in this explosive new book, that’s all changed. Exploiting the missteps of the West’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, as well as its misjudgments in relation to Syria and the uprisings of the Arab Spring, jihadist organizations, of which ISIS is the most important, are swiftly expanding. They now control a geographical territory greater in size than Britain or Michigan, stretching from the Sunni heartlands in the north and west of Iraq through a broad swath of north-east Syria. On the back of their capture of Mosul and much of northern Iraq in June 2014, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been declared the head of a new caliphate that demands the allegiance of all Muslims.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The secular, democratic politics that were supposedly at the fore of the Arab Spring have been buried by the return of the jihadis. As the Islamic State announced by ISIS confronts its enemies, the West will once again become a target. Cockburn cites an observer in southern Turkey interviewing Syrian jihadi rebels early in 2014 and finding that “without exception they all expressed enthusiasm for the 9/11 attacks and hoped the same thing would happen in Europe as well as the US.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>How could things have gone so badly wrong? Writing in these pages with customary calmness and clarity, and drawing on unrivaled experience as a reporter in the region, Cockburn analyzes the unfolding of one of the West’s greatest foreign policy debacles and the rise of the new jihadis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Publication August 28, 2014 • 150 pages<br>Paperback ISBN 978-1-939293-59-6 • E-book ISBN 978-1-939293-60-2<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>