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Kelly Weill
BAD FRIENDS 12.14.15 1:01 AM ET
Teens Upload Brutal Video OfSleepover AttackA new lawsuit claims that four Alaska girls beat their 14yearold friendduring an alcoholfueled sleepover.
The video of the alleged attack is brutal. Four teenagers punch, kick, and drag14yearold Naomi Johnson by her hair during a sleepover, while anotherrecords the assault on a smartphone.
The 10minute video is now the basis of a new lawsuit filed by Johnson’s fatheragainst a mother who allegedly hosted the sleepover.
According to Wayne Johnson’s suit, Deanna Kirgis was at her Anchorage,Alaska, home while her daughter and her daughter’s friends allegedly assaultedNaomi in the garage. Not only did Kirgis fail to intervene, Wayne Johnson says,but she also provided the underage girls with alcohol before the attack.
Wayne Johnson is suing Kirgisfor $100,000 in damages, costshe says his family incurred afterpaying Naomi’s sizable medicalbills and pulling her out of high
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school after the alleged assault.
“Things are just different now,”Naomi told Your Alaska Link. “Idon’t go to school. I don’t hangout with my other friends.”
Naomi’s parents are now homeschooling her after her public school refused tosuspend the girls involved in the alleged attack—even after one of the girlsallegedly threatened to stab Naomi the next time she saw her, according to thelawsuit.
Law enforcement has also been slow to issue punishments. In the four monthssince the video was released, the Anchorage Police Department has not issuedany charges against the alleged attackers.
“The incident was first reported to APD on July 26, 2015, and an investigationwas initiated,” police said in a statement on Nov. 30. “The video of the incidentwas received by police approximately two weeks after the initial report. Thisincident has been investigated and final reports are being sent to the Divisionof Juvenile Justice (DJJ).”
Police say they will not release the names of the investigation’s subjects“because they are juveniles”—an indication that police are not investigatingKirgis’s alleged involvement in the attack.
For her part, Kirgis “admits a slumber party for a small number of 14 to 15 yearold girls occurred at her home on 7/26/15,” her lawyer wrote in a response toJohnson’s lawsuit. Kirgis denied the other accusations leveled at her, includingthat she failed to intervene in the alleged beating, and that she provided theteenagers with alcohol.
This may not be the first time Kirgis has been accused of placing a child at risk.
A Deanna Kirgis from the same town was arrested for driving under theinfluence and endangering the welfare of a minor in 2009, police records show.Her biography has been removed from the “Our Team” page on her employer’swebsite, where it was listed until at least October of this year. Kirgis did notrespond to an email sent to her work address.
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Social media profiles for the girls allegedly involved in the attack have alsogone dark. After a December Facebook post claimed to name the attackers, theaccused girls changed their Twitter handles or set their accounts to private.
Their video, meanwhile, remains online, reuploaded by a number of newsoutlets. The alleged attackers look like children, dressed in pink hoodies, Uggboots, and bedazzled jeans. They laugh as they stomp on Johnson’s face andstomach. The video goes on and on, and no one ever intervenes.
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GideonResnick
SCUMMY 12.15.15 1:00 AM ET
DOJ: Trump’s Early BusinessesBlocked BlacksA 1973 lawsuit against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization allegeda pattern of discrimination against blacks—and the Trumps respondedwith characteristic combativeness.
When an AfricanAmerican showed up to rent an apartment owned by a youngrealestate scion named Donald Trump and his family, the buildingsuperintendent did what he claimed he’d been told to do. He allegedly attacheda separate sheet of paper to the application, marked with the letter “C”.
“C” for “Colored.”
According to the Department of Justice, that was the crude code that ensuredthe rental would be denied.
Details of this secret system, as well as other practices that the Trumporganization allegedly used to exclude black residents from its buildings inBrooklyn, Queens, and Norfolk, Virginia in the 1970s, were recorded in alawsuit brought by the DOJ against Trump and his father, Fred, in 1973 foralleged violations of the Fair Housing Act.
The Trumps responded to the Department of Justice with characteristiccombativeness. They countersued the federal government for $100 million,while the family’s infamous lawyer—the Joe McCarthy aide turned mafiacounsel Roy Cohn—attacked a prosecutor for being an “hottempered whitefemale” while slamming the investigation as “Gestapolike.” Extensive courtdocuments, unearthed by The Daily Beast, provide a window not only intoalleged discriminatory practices at the heart of Trump’s early realestateempire, but also into the family’s attack mode, which echoes on in Trump’scurrent slashandburn campaign for the White House.
A Secret Racist Code
The lawsuit—which Trump Management settled in 1975 with a consent decree,and which they noted at the time did not constitute an admission of
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He waspersonally
ordered to rentonly to “Jews
andexecutives”
and todiscourageblacks from
renting.
wrongdoing—detailed numerous instances of a racial code that Trumpownedbuildings allegedly used to mark if an applicant was black or otherwise“undesirable.”
A super who worked for the Trumps, Thomas Miranda, allegedly told the DOJthat Trump Management staffers had instructed him to “attach a separatesheet of paper to every application submitted by a prospective ‘colored’ renter.”
“Miranda was to write a ‘C’ in order to indicate to management that theprospective renter was ‘colored,’” the DOJ noted in court documents.
Elyse Goldweber, an attorney on the case, claimed Miranda had been reluctantto talk to her and have his name disclosed because “he was afraid that theTrumps would have him ‘knocked off.’” Miranda was also allegedly afraid toreveal to the Trumps that he was Puerto Rican and instead told them he wasSouth American because he thought they “did not want Puerto Ricans living orworking in the building,” according to Goldweber’s documentation.
Donald Trump, at City Hall announces 34th Street Convention Center. (Frank Russo/NY DailyNews Archive via Getty )
In another instance, Goldweber said, Miranda told another tenant thatTrump’s central office did not want him to rent to an Indian man—and thatthey only agreed to rent to the individual after they found out he had UnitedNations connections and that a rejection “might cause an unnecessaryconfrontation.”
Miranda later denied in sworntestimony that he’d said such things tothe DOJ. He testified that he went totalk to the Trumps after prosecutorspaid him a visit and told “Mr. Trump,”who was a “busy man,” that he wantedno part in the case.
But according to other court documentsfrom the suit, Thomas Miranda was notthe only staffer who claimed to know ofa secret racial code.
According to the DOJ, a former superat Trump’s Highlander complexclaimed that he would also attach acoded piece of paper to let the “central
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Trump said in aninterview with a
field investigatorfor the New York
secretary of statethat he
“supervise[d] andcontrol[led] the
renting of al lapartments owned
by the Trumporganization.”
office” know that an applicant was black. He added that a number of supers inQueens used a “phony lease” to enable them to refuse apartments to people ofcolor. The super’s assistant backed up his story about the code and said she wastold, “Trump Management tries not to rent to black persons.”
The DOJ claimed that a former rentalagent for the Trumps, Donald Herman,said he was told “that TrumpManagement believes that Jewishtenants are the best tenants” and whilesome black residents were allowed, itwas not preferred. Herman also said heknew of the code to identify blackapplicants.
The DOJ said that Allan Gross, anotherrental agent, claimed that he, too, wasaware of a code used “to designatewhich applicants were black orotherwise ‘undesirable.’”
The DOJ alleged that former stafferHarry Schefflin, who worked at
Trump’s Briarwick apartment complex in 1973, told government investigatorsthat he was personally ordered to rent only to “Jews and executives” and todiscourage blacks from renting. Schefflin said that Fred Trump and otheragents of the company would use a racial code to indicate when a renter wasblack, marking the applications with a “No. 9.”
In addition to the alleged code, the lawsuit claimed other Trump employeeshad spoken of a host of nasty tactics to keep blacks from renting apartments—from supers telling prospective black applicants that the rental rates weresubstantially higher than they actually were, to keeping “a sham lease andcheck to be shown to black applicants.”
One rental agent at Trump’s Tysens Park Apartments said that he’d been toldby Fred Trump himself not to rent to blacks.
Fred, he said, wished to “decrease the number of black tenants already residingat Tysens Park by encouraging black tenants to locate housing elsewhere.”
“No Vacancy” For Blacks
In its lawsuit, the DOJ listed more than a halfdozen cases in which a blackperson would try to rent an apartment at a Trumpowned building and wouldbe denied; but when a white person—often a “tester” from New York’s UrbanLeague—would inquire about vacancies, they would allegedly get offered anapartment in the same building.
Among the claims:
According to the DOJ, Alfred Hoyt, a black man, wastold that there were no twobedroom apartments atTrump’s Westminster apartment complex in Brooklyn.His white wife, Sheila, was offered a twobedroomapartment the very next day. They were admitted tothe building after filing a complaint with the New YorkCity Human Rights Commission.
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The DOJ claimed that Henrietta Davis, a black woman,tried to rent an apartment at the Fontainebleau inBrooklyn in 1972. She said she was told by the superthat he had no authority to accept rental applications.And yet when Muriel Salzman, a white Urban Leaguetester, went to the Fontainebleu directly after Davis,she was told that two apartments were free and shecould rent either of them.
According to the DOJ, just a week later, in 1972,Godfrey Jacobs—a black tester for the Urban League—was told there were no vacancies at the BeachavenApartments in Sheepshead Bay. Yet George SimJohnston, a white tester, was offered a rental at thatbuilding on the very same day.
The DOJ alleged that Muriel Silberberg, a blackemployee of the New York Human Rights Commission,says she was told by a man named Paul Ziselman onMarch 10, 1973 that there were no onebedroomapartments available in Trump’s Beachaven complex.Ziselman, who identified himself to Silberberg as arental agent, allegedly later told Phyllis Spiro, a whiteemployee of the Urban League, that he “followed aracially discriminatory rental policy at the direction ofhis superiors” and that very few “colored” people livedthere.
According to government investigators, Beverly Best,a black woman, tried to rent at the Beachaven complexin December of 1972. She says was told by phone thatan apartment was available but when she showed upin person the next day to fill out an application, shewas told there were no vacancies. She was onlyadmitted to the building after she, too, filed acomplaint with the New York City Human RightsCommission.
By the summer of 1974, after a new lead attorney, Donna Goldstein, had takenover the case, the government detailed a series of tests conducted by the NewYork Urban League in which a black employee would try to rent an apartmentat a Trump property and would often be denied, while a white employee wasoften allegedly granted the same apartment.
In court documents, Goldstein alleged that she had talked to a super namedPeter Connan at the Trumps’ Westminster apartment complex. Connan said hewas advised that the Trump office staff wanted to know the race of applicants,and that he’d overheard a Trump staffer tell another super that he should havetold a black applicant there were no vacancies.
Goldstein also noted that a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Laitman, wereallegedly denied the opportunity to sublet their apartment in 1973 because thesubleasee was black.
The Laitmans had written a letter to the Trumps in August 1973—which waslater introduced in court—claiming that a neighbor had complained that “if the
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apartment were rented to a Negro she would break her lease and encourageothers in the building to do likewise” and stating their belief that the building’smanager “refused to rent the apt to [the potential subleasee] because he is
Negro.”
“Racial prejudice,” they exhorted the Trumps, “should not be tolerated in yourorganization.”
The Trumps Hit Back
When the DOJ filed the lawsuit on October 15 of 1973—which included explicitreference to Donald Trump, the president of Trump Management—the Trumpsimmediately cried foul.
On October 16, Donald Trump denied all of the accusations to the press, sayingto The New York Times that the charges were “flatly ridiculous.”
“We have never discriminated and we never would,” he said.
“There have been a number of local actions against us and we’ve won them all.”
On December 12, 1973, after the court had given the Trumps no fewer thanthree extensions (beyond the initially allotted 20 days), the Trumps’ lawyer,Roy Cohn, filed a motion to dismiss the case. Cohn also launched acounterclaim against the U.S. seeking $100 million in damages.
On the same day, Donald Trump was quoted in the New York Post saying thatthe prosecution was trying to force the Trumps to rent to welfare recipients“who do not otherwise qualify for our apartments in our buildings.”
This now familiar Trumpstyle incendiary hyperbole had already surfacedinside the courtroom. In an earlier affidavit, Cohn had claimed that the realpurpose of the DOJ’s lawsuit was to serve as a press release “announcing thecapitulation of the defendants and the substitution of the Welfare Departmentfor the management corporation.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump claimed in an affidavit that the government hadonly informed him of the lawsuit via the press, and that he’d first heard aboutthe allegations against him on his car radio on the morning of October 15. Laterthat day, Trump claimed, he heard the same news of the lawsuit on televisionand in The New York Times, where he was quoted.
“We have always maintained the respect and admiration of not only ourtenants but the community as a whole,” Trump wrote in his affidavit at thetime. “Our organization has never discriminated and does not nowdiscriminate.”
The DOJ lawyers sought to dismiss the Trumps’ counterclaim on January 8,1974 with information indicating that Donald Trump had, in fact, beenspecifically informed of the case before it was reported in the press.
In its court documents, the DOJ noted that the suit had been filed at 10 am onOctober 15. Shortly thereafter, they said, departmental attorney Judith Wolfcalled “defendant Donald Trump and advised that the suit had been filed. Thiswas accomplished no later than 10:30, well in advance of dissemination of thenews by the media.”
The lawyers wrote that the press release was not issued until after the case wasfiled. “Mr. Trump expressed no awareness of the suit when Miss Wolf spoke tohim.”
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Cohn’s counterclaim and motion to dismiss the case were formally denied onFebruary 5, 1974. But he wasn’t done contesting the legitimacy of the suit.
In May 1974, Donna Goldstein, another attorney with the DOJ, was assigned tothe case, taking over from Elyse Goldweber. In July, Cohn tried to haveGoldstein held in contempt of court, claiming her work had turned the case“into a Gestapolike investigation.”
It was classic Roy Cohn, living to infuriate. He called the Urban League testers“undercover agents,” and compared the FBI to storm troopers. Even before hetook issue with Goldstein, Cohn had written a letter (which was later submittedin court) to her predecessor, Elyse Goldweber, in April of 1974, saying, “I neverknew you were such a hottempered white female.” It’s hard not to read thelawsuit and think of such statements coming from the mouth of moderndayDonald Trump.
In his attempt to take down Goldstein, Cohn presented at least four formeremployees whom he said had been harassed by the DOJ. They included PaulZiselman, a clerk for the Trumps named Carol Falcone, and Thomas Miranda,the superintendent who had initially claimed he’d been instructed to mark therental applications of AfricanAmericans with a “C” for “Colored.” Theemployees claimed that Goldstein and the FBI had visited them at odd hoursand scared them with talk of “higher authorities” and jail time for perjury.(Goldstein denied all the allegations against her.)
On July 26, Cohn filed the motion to have Goldstein held in contempt. OnAugust 5, the United States denied any improper conduct from Goldstein.
The magistrate who heard the case, Vincent Catoggio, dismissed Cohn’sallegations against Goldstein and slammed Cohn for trying to smear the FBI.(In one of the lawsuit’s most choice quotes, Cohn responded, "As far as the FBIis concerned, nobody has been a better friend of the FBI than I have.")
In a hearing on October 24, 1974, Catoggio said he he “found no evidence in therecord to sustain such a charge.”
“I think the charge is utterly without foundation,” he added. Brushed back,Cohn abandoned this line of attack.
Ongoing Discrimination?
At the time of the lawsuit, Donald Trump tried to distance himself from thealleged discriminatory practices.
Under oath in court during a March 1974 deposition, he was asked: “Do youever have anything to do with rental decisions in individual cases?”
“No, I really don’t,” Trump responded.
But afterwards, Trump said in an interview with a field investigator for theNew York secretary of state—involving an unrelated matter having to do withhis brokerage license—that he “supervise[d] and control[led] the renting of allapartments owned by the Trump organization.”
“During my interview with applicant he showed me hundreds of files,” theinvestigator noted. “Each contained numerous leases both for commercial andresidential tenants...and rental records, all of which contained applicant'ssignature and handwriting."
According to Wayne Barrett’s 1991 book, Trump: The Deals and The Downfall,Trump was asked during his March 1974 deposition when the first black
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resident moved onto one of his properties. He replied, “I don’t care and I don’tknow.”
Trump also disclosed that his company had “a practice of destroying companyrecords to save space” and that he wasn’t sure if this practice had beendiscontinued since the litigation began.
When given the opportunity to respond about the allegations of a secret codefor black applicants, Cohn claimed in a February 1974 deposition, “we wouldhave no way in the world of knowing” about the race or religion of applicants.
In 1975, Trump Management settled the case with a consent decree. TheTrumps agreed to bring a list of vacancies to the Urban League every week fortwo years. They also agreed to let the League present one qualified candidatefor every five vacancies in buildings where less than 10 percent of residentswere black.
But less than three years later, the DOJ and the Trumps were back in courtagain, with the government charging that the real estate company wasn’tcomplying with the agreed terms in the consent decree. In 1978, the DOJcharged that “racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents has occurredwith such frequency that it has created a substantial impediment to the fullenjoyment of equal opportunity.”
The DOJ filed a motion for supplemental relief which entailed a “substantialextension” of the consent decree, additional affirmative action and arequirement that Trump continue to report to the court and the United States.
It is unclear if the Trump organization’s practices were significantly altered.But in 1983, the Metropolitan Action Institute, a nonprofit fairhousing group,released a report in which two Trump properties were specifically named asbeing at least 95 percent majority white.
The Fair Housing Act requires that employers be responsible for the actions oftheir subordinates. In its 1973 suit, the DOJ charged that, “stripped to itsessentials, the claim of the United States is that the defendants have failed andneglected to exercise their affirmative and nondelegable duty under the FairHousing Act to assure compliance by their subordinates.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on this article.But the ugly details of this early clash with the Department of Justice shed lighton alleged systemic discrimination at the heart of the Trump real estateempire. If there is any truth to these allegations, these court documents mayprovide insight into the early business practices of the candidate who is nowcommitted to blocking all Muslims entry into our nation, and who claims to be“the least racist person on Earth.”
—Additional reporting by Michael Daly
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The Rebel Commander of DamascusZahran Alloush, head of the Army of Islam, talks to The Daily Beastabout a fouryear siege, the future of Syria, accusations that he’s justanother dictator in Islamic garb.
In early 2011, I was a part of a group that staunchly believed in the necessityand urgency to change the status quo in Syria. As a 19yearold Christianstudent, full of hopes and dreams, nothing was going to stop me back thenfrom taking the risk of wandering the streets of Aleppo on March 10, 2011, on avery cold night, to distribute flyers calling on the people to protest. I was jailedand tortured by Bashar alAssad’s forces, not once, but three times. I was laterforced into exile, to leave my home, family, friends, and hopes back home.
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Alloush’s conservatism isn’t foreign to the region he controls, alGhouta, butnor has it impinged upon competing traditions of liberalism in the surroundingareas. There are Christian towns in alGhouta where churches have been keptunmolested for decades. Muslims and Christians have lived harmoniously inthe area, too. Also somewhat distinct from other rebel organizations in Syria,Alloush’s Army of Islam is purely Syrian in composition. There are no foreignfighters in its ranks, no veterans of mujahidin campaigns in Iraq orAfghanistan.
Whatever heroic status he may enjoy among opposition forces, Alloush isalso a deeply controversial figure. He stands accused by many of havingabducted a great icon of the Syrian uprising, the humanrights campaigner
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Razan Zaitouneh.
I first thought that interviewing him would be an incredibly hard task, givenmy politics and religious background. I was wrong. I interviewed Alloush forThe Daily Beast recently while he was at his compound in alGhouta.
The Daily Beast: How did the Army of Islam emerge? Is it a Syrian army oran Islamic one? What is its banner? And what are your priorities?
Zahran Alloush: Jaysh alIslam, like other revolutionary forces, emergedafter the regime crackdown of the Syrian peaceful protests. It was a must atthat time to have tools to protect the population from the regime atrocities bycarrying arms and defending them.
As for the identity—we are Syrians with a revolutionary project. That is why wehave always chosen our allies and enemies depending only on their positionfrom the revolution and the regime.
As for the banner, we have a distinct banner as a faction but it is not areplacement of the Syrian independence flag. It is just a banner that carries ourname.
Our priorities are those initial priorities of the revolution. We want to rid ourcountry of all dictatorial and terrorist projects.
TDB: In one of your prior interviews, you said that you do not have anydifferences with Jabhat al Nusra, the al Qaeda franchise in Syria? You said thatyour sharia adviser does not disagree with the sharia adviser of al Nusra. Doesthat mean that you have no ideological differences with al Qaeda?
ZA: Back then, I was referring to Abu Maria alQahtani, one of [al Nusra’s]sharia advisers. We saw that Qahtani was showing a moderate face and wewanted to encourage those efforts. Now al Nusra has different sharia advisersand ours have many disagreements with them, ideologically and intellectually.
TDB: How is your relationship with Ahrar alSham, the powerful Salafist rebelgroup in Syria? Why were you excluded from its new coalition against Assadcalled the Army of Conquest?
ZA: Jaysh alIslam stands alongside Ahrar alSham and all revolutionaryforces that fight Assad and refuses ISIS’s takfiri mentality. You should askthem this question. We have heard that one component of the army which hasties with ISIS is the one that lobbied against us.
TDB: Why does Jaysh alIslam have many enemies on opposite sides such asISIS, al Qaeda, and secular opposition figures?
ZA: In general, Jaysh alIslam does not have objections or sensitivity tocriticism. On the contrary, we reach out to all those who have the expertise andcomprehensive vision to evaluate us and offer advice. However, we are alwayssubject to distortion by some people simply because we cannot satisfyeverybody. There are always people who hate what we do and feel that theirpersonal interests are not served and they will continue to criticize us anyway.We think that we have to continue work rather than waste time on propagandaand antipropaganda.
TDB: Do you think you have been wrongly accused of kidnapping RazanZaytouneh and have you arrested those who kidnapped her?
ZA: The case of Razan Zaytouneh has been used to demonize Jaysh alIslam bymany sides. Most people do not know that Jaysh alIslam facilitated
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Zaytouneh’s entrance into Eastern Ghouta through the martyr Mohamed Adas,manager of the office of [Syrian regime] defectors in Jaysh alIslam. We offeredto protect Zaytouneh because many sides might be upset by her work, but shepreferred to work independently. Why would we bring her in and then kidnapher? It is illogical. As for the arrest of those who kidnapped her, this is also nottrue. When we figure out who the kidnappers are, they will immediately appearin court.
TDB: Do you apply Sharia law in the areas you control? What are your viewson democracy and the future of Syria?
ZA: Jaysh alIslam does not intervene in the judiciary body in our areas. Wehave representatives in the judiciary councils. The judiciary councils includemany sheikhs and jurists who represent the diversity of our community. Webelieve in the rule of institutions.
When I criticized democracy, I was referring to the manipulation of peoplethrough lies covered by attractive colors. The democracy of Assad, thepluralism of the Baath, and the Islamism of ISIS are a few examples. TheWestern double standards are also applied to democracy. While democracy isused to serve people’s interests in the West, democracy is manipulated in ourcountries to bring villains to rule as agents for outside powers. We believe thatthe future of Syria after Assad should be governed by a technocratic bodywhich has the skills and the qualifications. We do not believe that Syria shouldbe ruled by sectarian or partisan rule, but by a technocratic body that representthe diversity of the Syrian people. We do not see ourselves as Islamic. We areMuslims.
TDB: Erbin, a town in Ghouta, includes many Christians. How do you treat theChristians in your area? Is it true that the Christians prefer Assad to the rule ofthe opposition?
ZA: The Christians have been living in Syria for hundreds of years and theyhave contributed to the enlightenment of Syria. The Syrian revolution core wasthe freedom and equality of all Syrian regardless to their religion. The regimeof Assad is the main contributor to the misery of the Christians. The regime ofAssad has enforced many restrictions on the Syrian Christians, and forcedmany of them to leave and to close their businesses due to Assad’s socalledsocial economic policy.
TDB: You’ve been under siege for around 4 years. How are you providingservices to people in your areas?
ZA: Assad uses starvation and siege because he thinks he’ll win the war thisway. We have in Ghouta some resources like water and agriculture; we haveprofessionals in many fields from the citizens of Ghouta. We try to be creativein terms of providing the main needs for the people and this is not the effort ofour army by itself but the efforts of the Ghouta people in general. Our peoplestill suffer from a severe lack of very basic needs due to the tough siege. Thistakes place, unfortunately, before the eyes of the world’s institutions that carryhumanitarian logos.
TDB: Why do many people call you a dictator? And what is the reason behindthe demonstrations against you?
ZA: Dictatorship indicates that I am forcing people to accept and applysomeone’s ideas. In Ghouta we witness a lot of social and political activities.People protest, write, and meet freely. We also protect the demonstrationsagainst Jaysh alIslam and accept the other point of view. East Ghouta is by far
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the most secure liberated area for activists and ordinary people. Media arealways welcome to cover the situation in our area. Many people criticize meand they live safely in Eastern Ghouta. Many people suffer from therepercussions of war and siege and they protest against the groups that controlthe smuggling tunnels, yet everyone knows that we do not control any.
Some demonstrations against Jaysh alIslam were organized by familymembers of ISIS prisoners demanding their release. No country in the worldwould release criminals under the pressure of protests.
TDB: Unlike many areas of Syria, ISIS was not able to recruit or control anyarea in Ghouta. Why is that?
ZA: Although most of the people in our area are conservative, they aren’tradical. We have many Muslim scholars who belongs to civic and moderateschools of religion. People of Ghouta are fortified from radicalization due tothese facts.
When we liberated Ghouta from the criminal regime of Assad, and the peoplewere mourning their loved ones who were killed by Assad, radicalization wascontained by Jaysh alIslam because we have local Islamic scholars whorelentlessly educated our young men and women and told them that this is notthe answer for Assad’s brutality.
TDB: You fought ISIS in Ghouta, Qalamoun [a southern district in theDamascus region], and in northern Syria. You lost many of your men in the waragainst ISIS. But Western countries still do not back you or include you in anyarming project. Why?
ZA: ISIS does not belong to the Syrian revolution. Assad has exploited thisorganization at the most critical time when it was about to fall. Despite theinvolvement of foreign Shia militias, Assad was in a very weak condition whenISIS appeared to save his regime. It started assassinating revolutionarycommanders and attacking Free Syrian Army groups rather than fightingAssad. ISIS accused the Syrian people of being infidels and created big troubleinside liberated areas. A few months later, they waged an allout war againstrevolutionary forces.
We think that the West was happy to see ISIS in the region, especially thosewho evaded the moral obligations to stand by the Syrian people after Assadcrossed all the redlines and used chemical weapons.
The West intervened after ISIS took control of Mosul in Iraq. We fought ISISearly on when we discovered their deviation from Islam and the danger theypose to our revolution and people. The West knows well that Jaysh alIslamand other revolutionary forces are not terrorist, but the wish to reproduce theregime may affect its designation policy.
TDB: What do you think of the United States? Do you believe that it can helpsolve the Syria crisis?
ZA: America is a powerful country and it can play a major role to end theSyrian conflict if it wants. But the current administration refuses to play thisrole and acts with cold blood when it comes to Syria. It has failed to respondeffectively to Assad’s massacres and we saw that obviously when Assad crossedthe “redline” on the use of chemical weapons. America was able to stop thechemical attacks, but it didn’t care.
When America demanded Assad to pull his army out of Lebanon, Assad had todo that in few days, though being in Lebanon was very essential and important
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for his regime. Even if the administration didn’t want to intervene directly, it isstill able to support the real revolutionary groups which are capable of topplingAssad and at the same time defeating ISIS. Instead, it is promoting weakgroups and supporting them just to say, ‘We are doing something for Syria.’
TDB: Are you concerned about the Russian intervention in Syria?
ZA: Russia has always supported Assad politically and supplied him withweapons. The intervention now will cause more destruction and death for theSyrian people but we know from history that foreign occupations always lose atthe end.
We think that this intervention is the result of the regime’s failure in the warwith the revolution despite all the regional support. Shortly before theintervention the regime suffered huge losses in Idlib and Damascus. Thesedefeats caused a collapse in morale among the regime’s supporters, and itprompted the Russians to get involved.
TDB: Is the Russian Air Force targeting Jaysh alIslam? And will youcooperate with Russia if it restricts its targets to ISIS?
ZA: Russia bombed Jaysh alIslam positions for a time, and then stopped. Wedo not need their help in the fight against ISIS.
TDB: You control areas near the Israeli border. Do you have any agendaregarding Israel or the IsraelPalestine conflict?
ZA: These issues along with other foreign policy issues should be tackled bythe future Syrian government, which has to be formed after the removal of theAssad regime and has to stick to our people’s principled stances.
TBD: Do you support the exportation of jihad and acts of violence in the West?
ZA: We were forced to take up arms to defend ourselves after the regimecommitted atrocities against us before the eyes of the world, which did notintervene to save our people. We condemn acts of violence all over the worldregardless of who commits them and who are the victims.
TDB: We have seen you going to Turkey though Ghouta is under siege. Is ittrue that you arrange that with the regime?
ZA: If I and other revolutionary factions leaders arrange our movements withthe regime when we get in and out of besieged areas, then who is fighting theregime on the ground? Who is defending the liberated territories? Who iskilling the regime’s soldiers every day? If we are coordinating with the regime,why is it besieging our areas and bombing us?
These rumors are released by ISIS to defame Jaysh alIslam, but it isunacceptable to hear them from sane people. Of course, we won’t tell anybodyabout the secret routes we take to get out of besieged areas because this is whatthey want. We can’t reveal how we move from the north to the south of thecountry to get captured and killed by ISIS. Our fight on the ground and ourmartyred fighters and commanders as well as the death of thousands of regimemercenaries at the walls of Ghouta are the strongest proofs of our sincerity.
TDB: Ghouta has lost the biggest numbers of people because of regimeattacks. You eliminated ISIS there and prevented Assad from regaining it andyour fighters are all Syrians. Do you think that Ghouta can be a safe zone forpeople and refugees to come back to? And what do you need to achieve that?
ZA: Ghouta rebels, like other Syrian rebels, need the international community
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to first impose a nofly zone to prevent Assad’s warplanes and helicopters fromstriking populations; second, it needs to break the siege of Ghouta and allowfood and medicine into the area.
We are not deluded into thinking that this will happen tomorrow. It ratherrequires efforts from different sides and an international cover. These are thetwo things that the world can offer today to atone for its silence.
TDB: The ISIS attacks in Paris reflected the group’s ability to threaten aninternationally powerful country. You have warned of ISIS’s threat earlierwhen it was attacking only the Syrian people. Are you ready to cooperate withFrance and Arab countries against ISIS?
ZA: We have fought ISIS and were able to wipe it out in areas like Ghouta andBarzeh. We also cooperated with other revolutionary forces to fight ISIS inQalamoun and in the north without any outside support. Nonetheless, we areready to cooperate with any party ready to help our people in its struggle fortheir rights.
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Andy Cross/Pool/Reuters
SamanthaAllen
FANATICS 12.09.15 8:55 PM ET
Planned Parenthood Killer: ‘I Am aWarrior for the Babies’Robert Lewis Dear ’s bizarre courtroom outbursts left l itt le doubt thathis alleged Planned Parenthood shooting spree was connected toabortion.
In a bizarre court hearing on Wednesday, Robert Lewis Dear left little doubt asto whether or not his murder of three people at a Colorado Springs PlannedParenthood killing late last month was connected to abortion.
CNN reported that Dear loudly proclaimed himself “guilty” and had nearly 20other outbursts in the courtroom as he was charged with 179 felony charges,including eight options of firstdegree murder and 131 counts of attemptedfirstdegree murder. His outbursts included: “I am a warrior for the babies,”“Protect the babies,” and “You’ll never know what I saw in that clinic.Atrocities, that’s what they want to seal.”
Dear also asked, “Could you add the babies that were to be aborted that day?”
in response to a courtroom discussion of a list of the shooting’s victims. “Couldyou add that to the list?”
Rick Sallinger, a local CBS reporter, relayed more of Dear’s interruptions onTwitter: “You’ll never know the amount of blood I saw in that place” and “Sealthe truth, kill the babies, that’s what Planned Parenthood does.”
The CBS affiliate also recorded video of Dear saying, “I want the truth tocome out. There’s a lot more to this than for me to go silently into the grave.There’s a lot of things that they don’t want to be known. Planned Parenthoodand my lawyer are in cahoots to shut me up.”
Dear “yelled” several other times and a bailiff repeatedly tried to calm him.
The victims Dear is now charged with killing are University of Colorado—Colorado Springs officer Garrett Swasey, and two civilians, Ke’Arre Stewart andJennifer Markovsky. Nine more people were wounded, including five police
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officers.
Although law enforcement sources told NBC News shortly after the shootingthat Dear said, “No more baby parts” when he was taken in for questioning—anapparent allusion to the Center for Medical Progress’s unproven allegation thatPlanned Parenthood profited illegally from fetal tissue donation—none ofDear’s reported outbursts on Wednesday made explicit reference to theundercover videos released by the antiabortion organization this summer.
Dear reportedly urged that his preliminary hearing and arraignment take place“as soon as possible” and even lashed out at his lawyer, Daniel King, whorepresented Aurora, Colorado mass murderer James Holmes, saying, “You arenot my lawyer.”
King suggested that Dear may not be competent to stand trial, and as NBCreports, a hearing to be held on Dec. 23 will decide his competency. Ifconvicted, Dear could be executed, with District Attorney Dan May saying thata decision will be made about what sentence to seek within two months ofDear’s arraignment.
Dear, who moved to the small town of Hartsel, Colorado last year with awoman named Stephanie Bragg, has a long history of alleged violence againstwomen. In 1992, he was charged with raping a woman who said she repeatedlyrefused his advances, but the charges were later dismissed. In 1997, Dear’sthenwife Pamela Ross filed a police report accusing him of locking her out ofthe house and pushing her out of a window.
Dear also allegedly has history with Planned Parenthood. His acquaintancesdescribed him as holding antiabortion views and another exwife, BarbaraMescher Michaux, who was married to Dear from 1985 to 1993, told NBC Newsthat Dear put glue in the locks of a Planned Parenthood center nearly 20 yearsago.
Said Michaux, “For him to plan this and go there, he meant to go there. Thereis no doubt in my mind.”
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