NORWAY + ISRAEL = Unfavourable Relations

Thirteenth Monkey

With the devestating attacks that have rocked Norway’s Oslo and the peacefull little Utoya, a tiny holiday island ..

Firstly we must give our thoughts and prayers to those who are suffering..

Then we turn our minds to those who would have the MEANS and THE MOTIVE and PAST FORM, to carry out such a DECEPTIVE ATTACK.

Some , have alluded that this is the work of the same “cabal” that is behind the nation of Israel.

There has to be mentioned the fact that Norway and Israeli relations were at a VERY low point at this time..

Plus, Norway was moving on from the Oslo Peace accord..

While more news, evidence and propaganda emerges, I would just like to take the time quickly to analyze “relations” between these two countries, and even very recent events of this past year alone, would lead one to believe that Israel was in fact in a position of acrimony towards Norway at the highest levels..

Norway Supports Palestine..

and Had JUST RECOGNISED THE PALESTINIAN STATE..

Norwegian  representatives, had met with Abbas JUST LAST WEEK

There is much information in the Israeli media about the ANTI SEMETISM in NORWAY…The Boycotting of Israeli Produce, Boycotting PRO Israel Professors at Universities etc etc..

Here are just some RECENT examples of Vitriol comming
FROM ISRAEL, Directed AT NORWAY

This ARTICLE ” Israel: Norway inciting against us“
dated 22-7-11 Sates..

“Serious diplomatic conflict: Israel is accusing the Norwegian government of funding and encouraging blatant anti-Israel incitement.”
According to reports received by the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the Trondheim Municipality is funding a trip to New York for students taking part in the “Gaza Monologues” play, which “deals with the suffering of children in Gaza as a result of the Israeli occupation.”

The play, written by a Palestinian from Gaza, will be presented at the United Nations headquarters. It joins an exhibition by a Norwegian artists displayed in Damascus, Beirut, and Amman, with the help of Norway’s embassies in Syria,Lebanon, and Jordan.

The exhibition shows killed Palestinian babies next to Israel Defense Forces helmets, which are reminiscent of Nazi soldiers’ helmets, and an Israeli flag drenched in blood.” (end snip)

So then, with the myriad of anti Norwegian sentiment eminating from Israel, we see that.

in an OP ed from Ynet Israel News
Something rotten in Norway

Op-ed: Norwegian elite dominated by anti-Israel haters obsessed with Jewish state

“People told me when I came to Norway that the country has a long tradition of anti-Semitism. They were wrong. It is not history. It is happening here and now.” Top Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz had excellent reasons to make this statement when he visited Norway last week. He had offered free lectures on Israel and international law to the universities of Oslo and Trondheim (NTNU). Both schools turned him down.

One should never focus on a single case of anti-Israelism or anti-Semitism in Norway, as one risks ignoring many others. They come to the fore with great regularity. The state owned TV NRK is highly biased against Israel. It has now announced that it will screen the movie “Tears over Gaza.”

Norway hurting Israel

“There are many examples of anti-Israel hate mongering, anti-Semitism and unethical journalism in Norway in recent years. The pioneering of anti-Semitism in Norway has a long tradition.”

Nowadays, Norway is also a leader in initiating anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic actions. One example among many: Norwegian trade union LO was, together with the Danish one, the first in Europe to propose a boycott of Israel in 2002.

Such boycotts have slow spillover effects elsewhere. A few weeks ago one major Norwegian member union of LO accepted the most far-reaching boycott resolution against Israel anywhere.

This neglectful attitude has already cost Israel dearly. In a global environment, even thinly populated Norway - a country with a far too favorable international public image – causes substantial damage to Israel.

While the overall atmosphere in Norway is hostile to Israel, it is not as if it has no allies there.

One finds them mainly in the Progress party, the smaller Christian Democrat party and among a certain number of Christians, mainly Christian Zionists.

Seeking ways to make their sympathy more effective in combating the elitist hate propagandists would be a very worthwhile effort for Israel.
(end snips)

Yes, Israel has their “christian” zionist friends there too…

AS we read in Washingtons blog, the “shooter/killer/terrorist” WAS a NATIONALIST CHRISTIAN

and a member of the MASONIC LODGE

AND a  supposedly a member of the FPU But more on this in a later post…

Back to the snips from MANY available articles that describe the Vitriol and anti Norwegian views the Israelis have..sounds more like Isreal hates Norway more than any Islamists and “al ciada” operatives..combined.

I will include more of this ANTI Norwegian DIATRIBE, Just so you can see there is CERTAINLY a MOTIVE, behind these insidious and deceptive actions against GOOD People who spoke out and Boycotted a rogue terror state..and THOSE who are behind it..

Back in FEBURARY this year we see that:

Ynet: ‘A new low in Israel-Norway relations’
“Oslo demands relocation of Israeli embassy “

The Israeli Embassy in Oslo, Norway was officially notified a few days ago that it must move to another location within a year, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Monday.

According to the Norwegians, the embassy poses a security threat to its surroundings and has had a negative impact on the residents’ quality of life.

A Foreign Ministry official said the affair is indicative of a new low in Israel-Norway relations.

“The authorities in Norway are capitulating to public opinion that is hostile to Israel,” he said. “They are doing everything they can to make things more difficult on the embassy.” ( end snip)

Even more strained is the relationship…especially with the support of NORWAY for Palestine..
and the FACT that  reported in DECEMBER 2010..

Norway upgrades Palestinian mission

Oslo says upgrade from ‘general delegation’ to ‘diplomatic mission’ in recognition of Palestinian Authority’s efforts to establish independent state.

Norway has raised the status of the Palestinian representation in the Scandinavian country in recognition of efforts to build a Palestinian state, the Foreign Ministry said.
Israel expressed its indignation over the development, and Naor Gilon, who heads the Western Europe division at the Foreign Ministry, summoned Vebjorn Dysvik, a senior official at the Norwegian embassy in Tel Aviv. (end snip)

There is much eveidence that in the past Israel has deceptively attacked nations and others for taking a stand against it’s criminal actions..

There is also the REAL evidence pointing to PAST Events which have been proven to be “deceptive attacks” by Israel and it’s supporters..

The test of time will see the truth come out , but for those of us who have seen the truth of past events and their involvement in these deceptive attacks.

We can clearly see the similarites and the MEANS and the Methods used…again WE ASK THE QUESTIONS ..WHO benefits (vengance and retribution) and Who is being “punished”…

Just do a quick search on Israel + Norway and you’ll see a treasure trove of
ANTI NORWEGIAN SENTIMENT EMINATING FROM ISRAEL.

Ah…but will the MSM ever point this out??

and notice how it is being reported as TWIN TERRORS ….reminiscent of anything??

More Updates to come…

A13

ISI Hounding Ex-Patriots

Pakistan’s spy agency keeping tabs on diaspora in US

By Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, and Mark Mazzetti

New York Times

WASHINGTON – FBI agents hunting for Pakistani spies in the United States last year began tracking Mohammed Tasleem, an attaché in Pakistan’s consulate in New York and a clandestine operative of Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

Tasleem, they found, had been posing as an FBI agent to extract information from Pakistanis in the United States and was issuing threats to keep them from speaking about Pakistan’s government.

His activities were part of what government officials in Washington, along with a range of Pakistani journalists and scholars, say is a systematic campaign to keep tabs on the Pakistani diaspora inside the United States.

The FBI brought Tasleem’s activities to Leon Panetta, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and last April, Panetta had a tense conversation with Pakistan’s spymaster, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

Within days, Tasleem was spirited from the United States, a quiet resolution typical of spy games among the world’s powers.

But some of the secrets of that hidden world became public last week when two Pakistani-Americans working for a charity that the FBI thinks is a front for Pakistan’s spy service were indicted. Only one was arrested; the other remains in Pakistan.

The investigation exposed part of what US officials say is a broader campaign by the Pakistani spy agency to exert influence over lawmakers, stifle public dialogue critical of Pakistan’s military, and blunt the influence of India, Pakistan’s longtime adversary.

US officials said that compared with powers such as China and Russia – whose spies have long tried to steal US government and business secrets – the operations by Pakistan’s spy agency in this country are less extensive and less sophisticated. And they are certainly far more limited than the CIA’s activities inside Pakistan.

Even so, officials and scholars say the campaign extends to issuing both tacit and overt threats against those who speak critically of the military.

The spy agency is widely feared in Pakistan because of these tactics. For example, US intelligence officials think that some of the agency’s operatives ordered the recent killing of a journalist there, Saleem Shahzad.

At the same time, the Pakistani spy agency remains a close ally of the CIA in the hunt for Al Qaeda operatives. It is a relationship that complicates the ability of the United States to pressure Pakistan to alter its tactics.

According to a US law enforcement official, the FBI had originally hoped to arrest two men working for the charity, the Kashmiri American Council, several times this year but was told each time by the State Department or the CIA that the arrests would aggravate the frayed US-Pakistan relations.

Last week’s arrests came as the CIA was trying to negotiate for the release of a Pakistani doctor jailed by Pakistan’s spy agency on accusations that he had helped the United States track down Osama bin Laden before his killing in May.

Several Pakistani journalists and scholars in the United States interviewed during the past week said that they were approached regularly by Pakistani officials, some of whom openly identified themselves as officials from the spy agency.

The journalists and scholars said the officials cautioned them against speaking out on politically delicate subjects such as the indigenous insurgency in Baluchistan or accusations of human rights abuses by Pakistani soldiers. The verbal pressure is often accompanied by veiled threats against family members in Pakistan, they said.

One Pakistani journalist recalled an episode in December 2006 in which a Pakistani man filmed a public discussion on Pakistan’s tribal areas at Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

The event’s organizers later learned the man was from the spy agency, the journalist said.

A second Pakistani author said that at several conferences and seminars in recent years, representatives from the Pakistani spy agency made their presence known by asking threatening questions.

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Mass-Transit In Pakistan

FRESH PICS

This should have been done long time ago.

Mostaque Ali

The UK is a pro-active middle ranking power which still touts itself a significant player in the international plain. “We are not Norway” as one British Diplomat in the Foreign Office noted.

The UK has troops fighting in Afghanistan, about 10,000….in Iraq and Libya.

The UK still celebrates the Commonwealth, a left-over heritage of its empire days. Clearly the empire game has not left their system…….as Salman Rushdie noted in his essay, “Outside the whale” (1984)

How prophetic he was.

What makes the UK especially dangerous is the presence of the Rothschild of London, who are the unofficial sovereigns of the Jewish race.

The Rothschild of London have financed a few “little” projects since the mid-19th century which reflect the family’s world view, and though they are Jewish their globalist policies are not necessarily carried out with the interests of the Jewish race in mind per se (Lessor Brethren……and Greater Brethren…Protocols 9 (2) …….further no true friend of Israel would have created the peculiar absurd boundaries that Israel has), but rather the interests and hegemony of the Rothschild clan, and in satisfying their particular prejudices and PECCADILLOES devoid of any RATIONALITY OR LOGIC. But surely when one is super rich, the wealthiest family on earth who can deny their little indulgences?

• The Rothschilds created the state of Israel. We do not need to go into detail what problems this little nation has created since 1948.
• The Rothschilds funded and backed the American civil war, and specifically the Confederates 1861-1865, from the South and of course through Canada. 600,000 died. Judah P Benjamin the Confederate War Minister was the direct Rothschild agent, and at wars end escaped to London working as a lawyer.
• The Rothschilds destabilized Imperial Russia 1881–1914, through Jewish revolutionary groups.
• The Rothschilds created and backed the Jewish Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire in 1908. As a result of the Young Turks rule, 1913-1918, The Ottoman Empire was destroyed, and 25% of all ethnic Turks died during the Great war. The 1.5 million Armenian massacre carried out by the Jewish Young Turk government so that the Jews of the Ottoman empire could become the dominant economic class in Turkey, which is the case to this day 2011, and is also the case with the Soviet Union (prior to that it was the better educated Armenians), and 500,000 Ottoman troops killed in the Great War unofficially.
• The Rothschilds initiated WWI, or the Great War which killed 9 million people. The objective of the Rothschild geo-strategy was to destroy Imperial Russia, Imperial Germany the Austro-Hungarian empire, The Ottoman empire….and increase their power over certain countries left from the ravages of war, as their obedient proxies.
• The Rothschilds created and backed the Fascist Movement in Italy under Mussolini 1922–1943. Mussolini was initially guided by a British spy before he became Il Duche.
• The Rothschilds created and backed the Fascist Movement in Germany under Hitler 1919–1945. Martin Bormann was the liaison agent between Hitler and his gang of secret Jews of the Third Reich, and the Jewish International bankers headed by the Rothschilds of London. This explains the Deputy Hess’s odd unannounced visit to the UK during the war, as if to meet his secret uncle…….and Hitler allowing 340,000 of the allied troops to escape to the UK. In a normal war no combatant would allow this, unless…….60 million killed in WWII.
• The Rothschilds created and backed the Soviet Bolshevik Movement in the Soviet Union between 1917–1991 under Lenin and his cabal of secret and not so secret Jews. 60 million people died in the Soviet Union between 1918–1991 (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)….the COLD WAR; Cuban missile crisis, and many proxy wars between the two superpowers.
• The Rothschilds play a very proactive role in the current wars in the Greater Middle East, through the UK and of course the USA.

The above makes the UK an extremely dangerous power, due to the presence of the Rothschilds family and the actions of the UK state around the world, and its closeness to Israel as its mother.

Prince William and Prince Harry through their mother are both Jewish, and are related to the Rothschilds via Frances RUTH Shand Kydd, and Lord Goldsmith (real parents of Princess Diana…..and both related to the Rothschild clan).

Looking at Iran UK relations more closely we see that for the last 110 years they have not been very happy.

1. The UK created the Anglo-Persian oil company, which took away virtually for free Iran’s oil for 50 years exploiting the weak monarchy in Iran between 1890–1921. A mere 16% of profits from total annual sale were given to the Persian government, and Persian oil workers lived like slaves in their cardboard city (Kaguzshahr???) next to the Abadan refinery, and paid next to nothing.

2. The Rothschilds through the UK installed Colonel Reza Khan into power in 1921, an illiterate man who could neither read or write, and possibly of Jewish background.

3. The UK invaded and occupied Iran in 1941–1945.

4. The UK installed the Shah of Iran in 1953 in a coup.

5. The UK installed the mullahs of Iran in a coup against the Shah in 1979.

Given the NEGATIVE involvement of the UK in Iran, and the presence of the Rothschild in the UK with their globalist world view……..it is strongly urged that the IRI should sever relationships with the UK. This should have been done before.

Tony Blair the crypto-JEW Rothschild agent as PM made threatening speeches against Iran, and has continued to do so where before the Iraq Inquiry he used the platform to argue for a military strike against Iran 2010–2011.

Gordon Brown as PM made threatening speeches against Iran.

David Cameron as the crypto-JEW Rothschild agent PM has made threatening speeches against Iran.

In International Law it is a crime to make threats against another nation.

It should not be a matter of surprise that the UK has a poor negative view of Iran dating back to the last century. Jew racial contempt. Mere appeal to good behavior and better relations towards Iran by the UK is futile and can’t change a bad habit developed over many decades…………….we should know this by now.

In addition careful surveillance of ALL UK tourists to Iran should be made, in addition to journalists and businessmen from the UK visiting Iran.

I assume no Western NGO’s operate in Iran…….they are usually always Intelligence fronts.

Obviously BP and Shell oil do not have any business operations in Iran, given the history? BP and Shell Oil are Rothschild business fronts.

Lordie Baron Evil-lyn De Rothschilds and his Jew YENTA princess from Noo Yawk….they marry within the tribe, but never hesitate to promote multiculturalism in the USA, UK and Europe…….BUT not in Israel. The Rothschild clan generally keep out of public view, and are rarely mentioned in the Western media. YET, but this is the richest family in the world which controls the UK governments be they Labour or Tory.

________________________

‘UK must change behavior toward Iran’

Presstv.com

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has called on the British government to seriously “reconsider” its diplomatic behavior toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“The British government is well aware of Iran’s significant role in the Middle East; and therefore, in order to establish ties with Tehran, it has no option but to reconsider its behavior toward the Islamic Republic,” Salehi told IRNA on Thursday.

The Iranian foreign minister also said that the current relationship between Tehran and London is not in satisfactory conditions, describing the “unacceptable” and “unjustified” behavior of the British statesmen regarding international developments as the main reason behind the low level of Tehran-London ties.

Salehi referred to the case of Nosratollah Tajik, an Iranian national arrested in the UK, and said that Britain can take a positive step in reconsidering its diplomatic ties with Iran by lifting the restrictions on Tajik.

The Iranian national, arrested in November 2006, is accused of allegedly trying to purchase night vision goggles for Iran from US mediators.

According to British media reports, undercover FBI agents who were acting as international military equipment dealers offered to sell Tajik night vision goggles valued over £50,000 while secretly filming him.

Tajik and his lawyers argue that the US agents planned to incriminate him from the beginning, as they were not following a legitimate lead.

In April 2008, the British High Court upheld a former ruling that Tajik should be sent to the US to face charges, forcing his legal team to launch an appeal.

Iran has considered breaking off relations with Britain several times due to London’s meddlesome and undiplomatic approach toward Tehran.

On June 11, British Foreign Secretary William Hague accused Iran of helping Syria quell anti-government protests, alleging that Tehran provides “equipment” and logistical support on how to crush the opposition in the Middle Eastern country.

His comments came after Britain’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran Jane Marriott was summoned to protest Hague’s false claims of Iran’s meddling in Syria.

The National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of Iran’s Majlis (parliament) has meanwhile drafted a bill to sever all diplomatic ties with Britain.

NATO Hands First Afghan Province Over To Northern Alliance Forces

[SEE:  The Afghan Areas Marked for Turnover First, Report They Are Far From Ready]

NATO hands model anti-Taliban province to Afghans

PANJSHIR VALLEY: NATO troops on Sunday handed control of the Panjshir valley, a fiercely anti-Taliban province, to Afghan forces in the latest of a series of security transitions.

Panjshir, around 130 kilometres (80 miles) northeast of the capital Kabul, is one of Afghanistan’s most peaceful regions and is the sixth of seven areas to be put under local forces’ control over the past week.

Although the transition timetable has been roundly criticised as politically motivated amid scepticism over the ability of Afghan forces to ward off theTaliban rebels, Panjshir is cited as ripe for the handover.

Panjshiris, mainly ethnic Tajiks, pride themselves on having kept out the Taliban and repelled the Soviet Union after its 1979 invasion, and the beautiful valley is now a favoured picnicking spot for visitors from Kabul.

“Transition in Panjshir is very symbolic because in the last 10 years the security of Panjshir has been taken by its own people. It’s an example for other provinces,” said defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, speaking at the official transition ceremony.

“Defending one’s own land is the role and responsibility of every Afghan.”

“The enemy cannot harm anyone in this province. We all have to learn from the people of Panjshir,” he said.

The area was the home of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the country’s much loved anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander who was assassinated by al-Qaida suicide bombers two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Dominated by the snow-capped mountains of the Hindu Kush and a fast-flowing river in steep valleys, rusting hulks of Soviet tanks line Panjshir’s roads — symbols of the Russians’ failure to win the area despite 10 attempts.

US and Afghan officials hope this history and natural beauty will in future bring tourists to Panjshir and boost the nation’s economy as foreign forces pull out and as aid money falls in the years ahead.

Massoud’s tomb in the province is being developed into a $10 million attraction complete with mosque, library and conference centre.

Officials expect Massoud’s legacy to act as a focal point for tourism, along with adventure activities such as mountain trekking and kayaking.

But tourists may be scarce for many years due to record levels of violence in the country-wide insurgency against the Western-backed government.

To complete the first stage of transitions, most of Kabul province will be handed over to local forces shortly in a process focused on the withdrawal of 150,000 NATO-led troops by the end of 2014.

Kabul city has been under Afghan security since 2008.

Violent, Unseen Forces Intensifying the International Struggle

Iran: Nuclear scientist ‘shot dead’ in Tehran

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes

An Iranian nuclear scientist has been shot dead outside his home in Tehran, Iranian media sources say.

The Isna news agency named him as Daryoush Rezaei, 35, adding that his wife was wounded. His identity has not been officially confirmed.

In 2010, nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi was killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran.

Iran blamed that attack on Israeli secret service Mossad. Israel has long warned about Iran’s nuclear programme.

Some reports said the latest attack involved assailants on a motorcycle, but this has not been confirmed.

Isna said that Mr Rezaei was an expert with links to the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran.

‘New provocation’

The US, Israel and many Western nations have opposed Iran’s atomic programme, fearing it may be a front to creating a nuclear bomb.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes.

This week, Iran said it was installing newer and faster centrifuges at its nuclear plants, with the goal of speeding up its uranium enrichment process.

Enriched uranium can be used for civilian nuclear purposes, but also to build atomic bombs.

The French government condemned the move as a “new provocation”.

Life Goes On In Wana

Life Goes On In Wana , posted with vodpod

Norway gunman fired for 1.5 hours on island

BY IAN MACDOUGALL AND LOUISE NORDSTROM

ASSOCIATED PRESS

OSLO, Norway – A gunman who opened fire on an island teeming with young people kept shooting for 1.5 hours before surrendering to a SWAT team, which arrived 40 minutes after they were called, police said Saturday.

Survivors of the shooting spree have described hiding and fleeing into the water to escape the gunman, but a police briefing Saturday detailed for the first time how long the terror lasted – and how long victims waited for help.

When the SWAT team did arrive, the gunman, who had two firearms, surrendered, said Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim.

“There were problems with transport to Utoya,” where the youth-wing of Norway’s left-leaning Labor Party was holding a retreat, Sponheim said. “It was difficult to get a hold of boats, but that problem was solved when the SWAT team arrived.”

At least 85 people were killed on the island, but police said four or five people were still missing. Divers have been searching the surrounding waters. Police earlier said there was still an unexploded device on the island, but it later turned out to be fake.

The attack followed a car bomb outside a government building in Oslo, where another seven people were killed. Police are still digging through rubble there, and Sponheim said there are still body parts in the building.

Police have not identified the suspect, but Norwegian national broadcaster NRK say he is 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik.

Authorities have not given a motive for the attacks, but both were in areas connected to the Labor Party, which leads a coalition government.

Officials have said the suspect visited Christian fundamentalist websites and had links to a rightist party. Mazyar Keshvari, a spokesman for Norway’s Progress Party – which is conservative but within the political mainstream – said that the suspect was a paying member of the party’s youth wing from 1999 to 2004.

Police said he is talking to them and has admitted to firing weapons on the island. It was not clear if he had confessed to anything else he is accused of. Police said he retained a lawyer, but the attorney did not want to be named.

“He has had a dialogue with the police the whole time, but he’s a very demanding suspect,” Sponheim said.

Earlier in the day, a farm supply store said they had alerted police that he bought six tons of fertilizer, which is highly explosive and can be used in homemade bombs.

In all, 92 people have been killed in what Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said was peacetime Norway’s deadliest day. The Oslo University hospital said it has so far received 11 wounded from the bombing and 19 people from the camp shooting.

“This is beyond comprehension. It’s a nightmare. It’s a nightmare for those who have been killed, for their mothers and fathers, family and friends,” Stoltenberg told reporters Saturday.

Gun violence is rare in Norway, where the average policeman patrolling in the streets doesn’t carry a firearm. Reports that the assailant was motivated by political ideology were shocking to many Norwegians, who pride themselves on the openness of their society. Indeed, Norway is almost synonymous with the kind of free expression being exercised by the youth at the political retreat.

Stoltenberg vowed that the attack would not change those fundamental values.

“It’s a society where young people can … have controversial opinions without being afraid,” he told reporters.

Norway’s royal family and prime minister led the nation in mourning, visiting grieving relatives of the scores of youth gunned down. Buildings around the capital lowered their flags to half-staff. People streamed to Oslo Cathedral to light candles and lay flowers; outside, mourners began building a makeshift altar from dug-up cobblestones. The Army patrolled the streets of the capital, a highly unusual sight for this normally placid country.

The city center was a sea of roadblocks Saturday, with groups of people peering over the barricades wherever they sprang up, as the shell-shocked Nordic nation was gripped by reports that the gunman may not have acted alone. Police have not confirmed a second assailant but said they are investigating witness reports.

The queen and the prime minister hugged when they arrived at the hotel where families are waiting to identify the bodies. Both king and queen shook hands with mourners, while the prime minister, his voice trembling, told reporters of the harrowing stories survivors had recounted to him.

On the island of Utoya, panicked teens attending a Labour Party youth wing summer camp plunged into the water or played dead to avoid the assailant in the assault. A picture sent out on Twitter showed a blurry figure in dark clothing pointing a gun into the water, with bodies all around him.

The carnage began Friday afternoon in Oslo, when a bomb rocked the heart of Norway. About two hours later, the shootings began at the youth retreat, according to a police official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that information had not been officially released by Norway’s police.

The blast in Oslo, Norway’s capital and the city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, left a square covered in twisted metal, shattered glass and documents expelled from surrounding buildings.

The dust-clogged scene after the blast reminded one visitor from New York of Sept. 11. People were “just covered in rubble,” walking through “a fog of debris,” said Ian Dutton, who was in a nearby hotel.

Asked whether all victims at Utoya died from gunshot wounds or if some had drowned, Stoere, the foreign minister, said “you will likely see a combination.”

A 15-year-old camper named Elise who was on Utoya said she heard gunshots, but then saw a police officer and thought she was safe. Then he started shooting people right before her eyes.

“I saw many dead people,” said Elise, whose father, Vidar Myhre, didn’t want her to disclose her last name. “He first shot people on the island. Afterward he started shooting people in the water.”

Elise said she hid behind the same rock that the killer was standing on. “I could hear his breathing from the top of the rock,” she said.

She said it was impossible to say how many minutes passed while she was waiting for him to stop.

At a hotel in the village of Sundvollen, where survivors of the shooting were taken, 21-year-old Dana Berzingi wore pants stained with blood. He said the fake police officer ordered people to come closer, then pulled weapons and ammunition from a bag and started shooting.

Several victims “had pretended they were dead to survive,” Berzingi said. But after shooting the victims with one gun, the gunman shot them again in the head with a shotgun, he said.

“I lost several friends,” said Berzingi, who used the cell phone of one of those friends to call police.

An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attack “is probably more Norway’s Oklahoma City than it is Norway’s World Trade Center.” Domestic terrorists carried out the 1995 attack on a federal building in Oklahoma City, while foreign terrorists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Aerial images broadcast by Norway’s TV2 showed members of a SWAT team dressed in black arriving at the island in boats and running up the dock. People who had stripped down to their underwear moved in the opposite direction, swimming away from the island toward the mainland, some using flotation devices.

The United States, European Union, NATO and the U.K., all quickly condemned the bombing, which Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague called “horrific” and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen deemed a “heinous act.”

“It’s a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring,” President Barack Obama said.

Obama extended his condolences to Norway’s people and offered U.S. assistance with the investigation. He said he remembered how warmly Norwegians treated him in Oslo when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II wrote to Norway’s King Harald to offer her condolences and express her shock and sadness at the shooting attacks in his country.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said the United States knew of no links to terrorist groups and early indications were the attack was domestic. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was being handled by Norway.

Nordstrom reported from Stockholm. Associated Press reporters Bjoern H. Amland in Spundvollen, Norway, Nils Myklebost Oslo, Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Rita Foley in Washington, Paisley Dodds in London, and Paul Schemm in Tripoli, Libya, contributed to this report.

Russia and Uzbekistan: oil and gas cooperation

Russia and Uzbekistan: oil and gas cooperation

© AFP/ Osman Karimov

This story by Vladimir Paramonov, Oleg Stolpovsky, Alexey Strokov, political scientists (Uzbekistan), Strategic Culture Foundation experts, was published in International Affairs magazine.

Since Uzbekistan had always been known for having plenty of natural gas deposits and well-developed pipeline infrastructure, already in Soviet times the country actively cooperated with Russia as part of a single oil and gas complex providing gas supplies to industrial centers in the Urals and to the European part of the USSR. Apart from this, Uzbekistan was a transit country for the Turkmen gas. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and Uzbekistan experienced dramatic changes in oil and gas cooperation, living through both decline and rise.

In 1990s, that was a period of decline, when Uzbekistan did not supply much of its natural gas to Russia. On the other hand, as Uzbekistan boosted its own crude production capacity and reduced exports of the Russian oil and oil products. Such decline was mainly linked to a general crisis-in Russia and in its relations with Uzbekistan, as well as to a lack of new legal basis for oil and gas cooperation.

After Vladimir Putin had come to power in Russia in 2000, and an agreement on oil and gas cooperation between Gazprom and Uzbekneftegaz was signed in 2002, the two countries saw a revival of their energy partnership. The year 2004 marked the beginning of active investment activity for the Russian oil and gas giants, Gazprom and Lukoil, in Uzbekistan. Noteworthily, in comparison to other countries, Russia managed to take the leading positions in the Uzbek energy market.

Since the republic is rich in natural gas deposits and thus has good export opportunities, exploring its gas fields is a matter of economic priority for Russia. The country already shows dynamic growth and strategic perspectives in the republic`s oil and gas sector. However, this cooperation is first of all aimed at boosting oil output, preprocessing and exports of hydrocarbons to   external markets but not focuses on deep processing of hydrocarbon raw materials. It appears that the current format of cooperation fails to ensure stable and full-fledged economic cooperation between Moscow and Tashkent.

The Soviet period
In Soviet times, oil and gas cooperation between the two countries mainly focused on gas deliveries from Uzbekistan, coordination of measures to ensure functioning of a unified gas transportation system and supplies of oil and oil products to the republic. When in ealry 1960s Uzbekistan opened Gazly gas deposit, the Soviet Union started receiving natural gas for its industries in the Urals and in the European part of the country. The Bukhara-Urals pipeline was built to deliver gas. And when new gas fields were discovered in south-western Uzbekistan, they offered additional resources for the Central Asia-Center gas pipe. In 1990, Russia received about 10.8 billion cubic meters of gas out of 46 billion produced in the republic at the time. Besides, Uzbekistan as well as Kazakhstan allowed the transit of natural gas produced in Turkmenistan. In 1990 over 54 billion cubic metersof Turkmen gas were delivered through the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline.

Amid such productive gas cooperation, oil partnerships were not that active. Though in Soviet times Uzbekistan was one of the oil producing republics, its oil production capacity (some 4 million tons in 1990) did not fulfil its needs, that is the fuel was also imported. In Soviet times, Uzbekistan received the Russian oil mainly from western Siberia. When delivered, the oil was sent for processing at the Ferghana and Altyarykskiy plants via the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent oil pipeline, and by railways through Kazakhstan. As of 1990, Uzbekistan received from Russia about 6.5 million tons of oil.

The post-Soviet period
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, oil and gas cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan weakened. There were both decline and rise in their cooperation.
Gas deliveries
When the Russian-Uzbek oil and gas cooperation was in decline in 1990s-in the beginning of the 21st century, natural gas supplies from Uzbekistan to Russia reduced significantly. And before 2003 Russia had not received more than 1 billion cubicmeters of the Uzbek gas per year. The international group of companies ITERA working jointly with Gazprom was the main gas supplier at the time. In 1996-2003 ITERA exported only 8.9 billion cubic meters of gas from Uzbekistan.
Such decline was mainly linked to a general crisis in Russia-Uzbekistan economic partnership, as well as to a lack of new legal basis for oil and gas cooperation. Above all this, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to closure of most industrial facilities in the Urals (and they were key consumers of the Uzbek gas). At the same time, Uzbekistan boosted domestic gas consumption as part of a national program to bring gas to rural areas.

The situation started to change after in December 2002 Gazprom and Uzbekneftegaz had signed an agreement on strategic gas cooperation. Apart from other issues, the deal stipulatedlong-term purchasing of the Uzbek gas in 2003-2012. The year 2004 marked a real breakthrough in energy cooperation when Gazprom took control of all issues related with purchasing and transportation of the Uzbek gas. And if in 2003, when ITERA was buying gas from Uzbekistan, the amount was only 1.3 billion cubic meters, in 2004 Gazprom exported from Uzbekistan 7 billion. In consecutive years (2005-2009) these figures changed from 8 billion to 15.4 billion cubic meters. Russia had used to buy gas from Uzbekistan at special prices, in accordance with annual contracts, but starting from January 1, 2009, the sides agreed on a new form of pricing which relied on the European average gas prices, and this could not but improve the bilateral cooperation.
Transit of gas
After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1990 and through 2003 the transit of Turkmen gas to Russia via Uzbekistan was sharply reduced (in 2003, Russia received only 5.2 billion cubic meters, many times less than in 1990). And the deliveries were more of sporadic character due to difficulties in cooperation between Moscow and Ashgabat. In 1997-1999 Russia did not receive gas from Turkmenistan at all.

After relations between Russia and Turkmenistan improved, gas delivery and transit rates increased. What was also important is that gas supplies from Turkmenistan were resumed on regular basis. In February 2005, Gazprom and Uztransgaz (sub holding for Uzbekneftegaz) signed a long-term agreement on the natural gas transportation in 2006-2010 via Uzbekistan. In 2008 about 47 billion cubic meters of gas were pumped through the Uzbek territory, but in 2009 transit rates reduced because of differences between Moscow and Ashgabat over pricing amid a sharp decline in gas demand in Europe.

Oil& oil products deliveries
In the post-Soviet period Russia supplied little oil to Uzbekistan. Mainly it was because Tashkent sought energy independence. Enjoying growing oil production, the republic no longer had to import crude from abroad, first of all from Russia. Since 1997, when Uzbekistan was producing 8 million tons of oil per year, it stopped importing crude.

But for some reasons, including those of technological character, in the beginning of the 21st century, oil production rates slowed down, while demand remained as high as before. In 2005 this tendency reached the peak after oil production rates in Uzbekistan dropped. As a result, starting from 2006, Uzbekistan had to resume imports of oil and oil products from Russia and Kazakhstan. Currently, oil is being delivered to the republic by the Russian Lukoil company from the Kumkol deposit in the Kyzylordinsk region of Kazakhstan.

New fields of cooperation
After Gazprom and Uzbekneftegaz signed an agreement on oil and gas cooperation in 2002, the two countries saw a revival of their energy partnership. Equally with agreements on long-term gas purchase deals, Russia was invited to join exploration of new deposits and develop the republican infrastructure.

In 2004 Gazprom and Lukoil launched their investment activity in Uzbekistan. Gazprom focused on  the development of old and exploration of new deposits in the Ustyurtsk plateau, while Lukoil was dealing with new fields in the Bukhara-Khivin region and in the Uzbek part of the Aral Sea. Apart  from the aforementioned companies, some other Russian companies have been actively operating in Uzbekistan as part of various less significant projects.

Since Uzbekistan is rich in natural gas and thus has good export opportunities, exploring its gas fields is a matter of economic priority for Russia. The country already shows dynamic growth and strategic perspectives in the republic`s oil and gas sector. If in 1990s Russia`s investments in the Uzbek oil and gas sector were harldy noticeable, as of early 2010 they exceeded $1.25 billion. This year Lukoil expects to invest in the local deposits more than $470 million, while the total amount of money Russia plans to spend on exploration and modernization of the Uzbek energy sector by 2012 is approximately estimated between $4.7 and $ 6.2 billion.

***
In comparison to other foreign companies operating in Uzbekistan, Russia manages to regain the leading position in the Uzbek energy market,which however in no way guarnatees that things will unfold this way further.

On the one hand, the Russian companies yet have not joined Uzbekistan in its projects aimed at deep processing of hydrocarbon raw material, relying mainly on geological exploration, production and transportation of gas. Such approach, however, does not meet Uzbekistan`s economic goals since the republic has been focusing on innovative approach and ways to get substantial added value through modernization of the national gas transit system.

On the other hand, taking into consideration some technical and financial restrictions in terms of the Russian energy business, Uzbekistan has been seeking cooperation with China, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore and Japan for these countries can boast modern technology as well as vast financial resources. It is also important to mention here that Russia has lost its monopoly on gas exports from the region. Although Uzbekistan yet has not officially announced its plans for diversification of gas export routes, some experts believe that the republic could start exporting small amounts of gas to China.

In other words, Moscow and Tashkent will hardly advance to a brand new level of economic and political cooperation unless they revise their energy partnership based only on raw materials.

 

(Views expressed in this article reflect the author’s opinion and do not necessarily reflect those of RIA Novosti news agency. RIA Novosti does not  vouch for facts and quotes mentioned in the story)

US Public Diplomacy Deploying Homosexual Activism As Destabilization of Religious Societies

[The American embassy in el Salvador, just like the American embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is forcing the issue of "gay rights" to the forefront of  the national conversation, in order to stimulate right-wing reactions.  In Pakistan, they had a gay rights parade down the middle of Islamabad's streets, knowing that it would spark widespread conservative reactions, hoping that those reactions would be violent.  In both cases, religious societies are confronted with the Imperial demand that they create special rights for individuals who are violating fundamental religious laws shared by the indigenous culture.   The result is predictable; it is intentional, and it harmful to real attempts to foster democratic rights within those countries.  Criminal American foreign policy, such as this, which is intended to destabilize entire nations will one day be on the list of war crimes that we will be called to account for one day, to a power  greater than the US military.]

U.S. ambassador fuels gay rights debate in El Salvador

By Will Ferguson

An editorial by the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, promoting gay rights, has set off a debate between “pro-family” activists and gay rights groups in El Salvador.

U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Mari Carmen Aponte published a letter in the La Prensa Grafica newspaper on June 28, strongly supporting the rights of lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgenders in El Salvador. The article received strong backlash from conservative Salvadorans.

“We have seen some arguments back and forth between different groups in the country after the article’s publication, however our position remains the same,” said Robert McInturff, a representative from the U.S. embassy in El Salvador. “The editorial speaks for itself.”

Almost two dozen self-described “pro-family” organizations in El Salvador responded with their own editorial, accusing Aponte of trying to force an agenda that doesn’t mix with the country’s Christian beliefs. The groups also sent a letter of protest to the U.S. senate, asking for Aponte to be removed from her position.

Aponte was appointed to her current position by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2010 during a congressional recess. She drew heavily from Obama’s agenda in her editorial and quoted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying, “Gay rights are human rights” in the editorial. In addition, she called for an end to discrimination against members of the gay community in the workplace.

Her letter references a United Nations declaration from March 2010 to eliminate violence directed against the LGBT community. During a meeting of the UN Council of Human Rights, 83 countries including the United States and El Salvador signed a declaration to eliminate violence directed against the LGBT community. In May of 2010, El Salvadorian president Mauricio Funes signed decree 56, which prohibits the Salvadorian government from discriminating against people based on their sexual preference.

Despite the political agreements to stem negative sentiments against the LGBT community, a coalition of some 22 human rights groups and pro-family organizations in El Salvador have accused Aponte of seeking to impose a homosexual political agenda on a heavily Christian country.

The coalition responded to Aponte’s letter with its own publication in El Diaro de Hoy. The letter states the ambassador is ignoring one of the first rules of diplomacy, respecting the culture and customs of the country you are in.

“Mrs. Aponte, in clear violation of the rules of diplomacy and international law, you seek to impose on Salvadorans, belittling our fundamentally Christian values, rooted in the natural law, a new vision of foreign values, totally alien to our way of thinking, disguising them as supposed human rights,” the coalition wrote on July 7, 2011.

Aponte’s post as ambassador to El Salvador has never been approved by the U.S. Senate due to ongoing allegations about her suspected association with suspected Cuban intelligence agents during the 1980s and 1990s.

Aponte’s appointment was given the green light after an investigation by the FBI yielded no suspicious activity. However, her position has yet to be officially confirmed.

Aponte’s letter:

http://www.laprensagrafica.com/opinion/editorial/201657-por-la-eliminacion-de-prejuicios-dondequiera-que-existan.html

Response by coalition:

http://www.elsalvador.com/mwedh/epaper/20110706/EDH20110706NAC025P.PDF

Has State Dept. Identified the Weakest Link, or the Toughest Nut To Crack In the Stans?

US Entrenchment in Uzbekistan

Aleksandr SHUSTOV

The hypothesis that the US is planning a partial relocation of its military infrastructures from Afghanistan to Central Asia appears increasingly realistic, the countries of key interest to Washington being Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Tashkent’s current preferences are illustrated with utmost clarity by the contrast between the heightened intensity of its diplomatic transactions with the US and the sluggish pace of its dealings with Moscow. US diplomats seem to be touring Uzbekistan in a continuous mode. NATO Secretary General’s special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai showed up in the country on May 11 to meet with the republic’s parliamentarians, diplomats, and defense ministry officers. On May 12, a US Department of State team led by coordinator of the Nuclear Smuggling Outreach Initiative (NSOI) program Michael Stafford visited the Uzbek foreign ministry to discuss joint non-proliferation efforts. On May 20, Uzbek diplomats held talks with a US delegation headed by US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman. On May 30, the Uzbek foreign ministry hosted a meeting with US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia Susan Elliott. On May 31, Uzbek president I. Karimov received US Deputy National Security Advisor Denis R. McDonough. The US Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Duane Butcher came to Uzbekistan on June 3. On July 1, Laurie Bristow, Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the UK’s Foreign Office, visited the Uzbek foreign ministry, where, the same day, new US ambassador to Uzbekistan George Krol handed over his credentials. George Krol paid another visit to the Uzbek foreign ministry on July 4, and on July 5 Uzbekistan welcomed a US  delegation headed by US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Kurt Amend. On July 7, a US diplomatic contingent with senior Republican aide on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee for foreign operations Paul Grove at the helm landed Tashkent. In the meantime, Russian president D. Medvedev’s June visit to Uzbekistan drew surprisingly scarce coverage. On June 10, the site of the Uzbek foreign ministry featured a line saying that president Medvedev would be in Uzbekistan on June 13-14 on president Karimov’s invitation. The two presidents met briefly at the Tashkent airport and president Medvedev headed back for Moscow, with no information about the talks released. Uzbekistan traditionally plays the key role in implementing a series of US infrastructural projects related to Afghanistan. A recent example was the opening of the Uzbek-built Khairaton – Mazar-i-Sharif railroad. Backed by a $165m loan from the Asian Development Bank, the route is going to be used to supply the Western coalition in Afghanistan. The current chill between the US and Pakistan and the tide of Talib activity can’t but tell on the functioning of NATO’s southern supply route, forcing the alliance to increasingly switch to the alternative northern one which traverses Russia and Central Asia. US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake expressed a view at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy early in 2011 that the US should take control over Central Asia, a strategic region bordering Afghanistan, China, Russia, and Iran. Uzbekistan’s centrality to the region was, in fact, stressed in Z. Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard, which makes it clear why the Central Asian republic is as of today at the focus of the US foreign policy. The deepening US-Uzbek diplomatic engagement is paralleled by an evident decline in the relations between Tashkent and Moscow. Russia’s Regnum media outlet quoted an unnamed foreign ministry source as saying that the Uzbek president asked twice during phone talks with D. Medvedev to be received in Moscow, but no reaction followed. Several major Russian companies – for example, Wimm Bill Dann, one of Europe’s largest dairy products suppliers, and the Knizhny Mir bookstore chain – withdrew from Uzbekistan recently. Last June, Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation announced axing its cooperation with the V.P. Chkalov Tashkent aircraft company which used to be the manufacturer of IL-76 military airlifters back in the Soviet era. At the moment, some success in the Russian-Uzbek cooperation can be credited only to the oil and gas sector which, along with cotton export, is the main cash earner for the Uzbek economy. Russia’s irreversible split with Uzbekistan – likely to be followed by those with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – would leave the republics entirely under US protectorate and would cut a new divisive line across Eurasia along the southern frontier of Kazakhstan, opening a gap between the post-Soviet Central Asian republics and the Customs Union comprising Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus.

Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq

• By Spencer Ackerman  

By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside State knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

And for months, the State Department’s management chief, former Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, has given Bowen a clear response: That’s not your jurisdiction. You just deal with reconstruction, not security. Never mind that Bowen has audited over $1.2 billion worth of security contracts over seven years.

“Apparently, Ambassador Kennedy doesn’t want us doing the oversight that we believe is necessary and properly within our jurisdiction,” Bowen says. “That hard truth is holding up work on important programs and contracts at a critical moment in the Iraq transition.”

This isn’t an idle concern or a typical bureaucratic tussle. The State Department has hired private security for its diplomats in war zones for the better part of a decade. Poor control of them caused one of the biggest debacles of the Iraq war: the September 2007 shooting incident in Nisour Square, where Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Now roughly double those guards from the forces on duty now, and you’ll understand the scope of what State is planning once the U.S. military withdraws from Iraq at the end of this year.

 

“They have no experience running a private army,” says Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War who just returned from a weeks-long trip to Iraq. “I don’t think the State Department even has a good sense of what it’s taking on. The U.S. military is concerned about it as well.”

So far, the Department has awarded three security contracts for Iraq worth nearly $2.9 billion over five years. Bowen can’t even say for sure how much the department actually intends to spend on mercs in total. State won’t let it see those totals.

About as much information as the department has disclosed about its incipient private army comes from a little-noticed Senate hearing in February. There, the top U.S. military and civilian officials in Iraq said that they’d station the hired guard force at Basra, Irbil, Mosul and Kirkuk, with the majority — over 3,000 — protecting the mega-embassy in Baghdad. They’ll ferry diplomats around in armored convoys and a State-run helicopter fleet, the first in the department’s history.

But there are signs of even deeper confusion as State prepares to take the lead in Iraq. An internal State Department audit from June faulted top officials for “a lack of senior level participation” (.pdf) in an “unprecedented” transition to civilian control. The result is that “several key decisions remain unresolved, some plans cannot be finalized, and progress in a number of areas is slipping,” the audit concluded. It raises the prospect that the U.S. military will leave Iraq the same way it entered it — without any planning worthy of the name.

Bowen has minimal visibility into State’s planning process. His teams of auditors are in Iraq, reviewing reconstruction contracts for waste, fraud and abuse, as they have since the early days of the war. They just can’t see anything about the guard force. As far as Bowen is concerned, even though there’s been a nearly 90 percent drop in violence since the surge, State’s hired army still acts like Iraq is a killing field, with death squads and insurgents around every corner.

“Have the standards for convoy travel changed at all from the worst moments of Iraq civil war? The answer’s no,” Bowen says. Diplomats are allowed an hour for meetings outside secured U.S. fortresses. Then it’s time to hit the road, in armored cars full of men armed to the teeth and wearing black sunglasses.

The State Department says it’s learned its lessons from Nisour Square and now places stricter rules on contractors, like putting cameras in contractor vehicles and revising “mission firearms policies,” as Kennedy told a congressional panel last month. (.pdf) It’s an issue Kennedy’s well-versed in handling: He ran the department’s internal investigation into Nisour Square in 2007. Now, according to Bowen, he’s shielding State’s plans from scrutiny.

State wouldn’t comment for this story, saying it would be “inappropriate” to discuss an internal matter concerning Bowen. A department official who wouldn’t speak on the record merely said that it provides him with “extensive materials in response to their audit requests for documents and information falling within its statutory responsibilities.”

But Congress is showing signs of restiveness over State’s stonewalling. A bill that the House Foreign Affairs Committee crafted this week includes a provision specifically instructing State to let Bowen’s office to do its job: “SIGIR should audit military, security, and economic assistance to Iraq during the term of SIGIR’s existence,” the language reads, inserted at the behest of the panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

But it’ll take months for that bill to pass. Until then, Bowen is shut out of State’s ad hoc foray into generalship. “From my conversations with State Department people,” Mardini says, “they really don’t have a sense of how difficult this is going to be.” And it doesn’t look like they want to know.

Photo: DoD

London’s Long History with the Militants/Terrorists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group

Exiled Islamists Fuel Libyan Revolution

OnIslam & Newspapers

Some of exiled commanders shuttle between London and Benghazi to strategize and share donations collected from the Libyan expatriates.

CAIRO – Hiding for years from tyrant Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, members of Islamic groups are coming to light from their forced exile as real patriots to map out freedom fighters’ strategy against the current authoritarian rule.

“We are part of the Libyan people and we just want to help our country,” Abu Sohaib, not his real name, a senior commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, told the New York Times on Tuesday, July 19.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel Qaddafi.

Daring to protest against Gaddafi in the 1990s, members of the Islamic group were captured and died in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli.

Ever since, they hid from Qaddafi security forces in the caves in Darnah until the Libyan revolution, giving them opportunity to come out to be celebrated as patriots.

Exiled for years in London away from his homeland, Abu Sohaib and a dozen or so former commanders make up a rear-guard headquarters for revolution fighters.

Some of those commanders even shuttle between London and Benghazi to strategize and share donations collected from the Libyan expatriate community in Britain.

Yet, Abu Sohaib, banned from Libya and its neighbors, could not join those shuttle missions to his home country.

He spends most of his time online to keep in contact with friends on the ground there and follow Libya news.

“I would like to be there myself; I tried to go,” he said, pausing to look at the car keys in front of him.

“But Tunisia and Egypt wouldn’t let me in even after their revolution.”

Scrambled to save his 42-year regime, Gaddafi has launched a deadly crackdown on protestors who demand an end to his rule of the oil-rich Arab country.

Estimates say that at least 10,000 people have been killed in the bloody crackdown.

Five months into the revolt against his rule, Gaddafi is still holding doggedly onto power despite weeks of NATO strikes on his military and command structures.

The conflict has now reached a stalemate, with Gaddafi in control of most of the west of the country, while the opposition is hemmed in to their stronghold in the east and a few pockets in the west.

Distrust

Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the group’s members were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces.

“We wanted to live in a country in which we can live and promote Islam the way it should be,” said Abu Sohaib.

“We are sure Islam is good for everyone.”

A soft-spoken man in his mid-40s, Abu Sohaib recalls times when Britain wanted to hand him over to Gaddafi.

“There was a time when the British wanted to hand us over to Muammar el-Qaddafi, though they knew we would be tortured,” he said, staring at his hands.

Though cooperating with them, American intelligence officials are still worried about members of the group, who received training in Pakistan tribal region.

Abu Sohaib insists that he and his brethren have severed ties with Al Qaeda and have warned the terrorist group it is not welcome in Libya.

“It has been made very clear to them, that it is better for them to stay out of the country,” he said.

That distrust was shared by Libyan fighters, who still question the motive behind the NATO operation into Libya.

“We start to question the true intentions of the West in Libya,” a 36-year-old Libyan associated with the fighting group who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Salah and who travels between Europe and Libya said.

“If they would have wanted to kill Muammar el-Qaddafi, they could have done it several times,” Abu Salah added.

“I guess this is about making as much money with oil and weapons deals as possible.”

Abu Sohaib recalls the cooperation between the US and Libyan authorities to combat terrorism after Libya disbanded its unconventional weapons program in 2003.

“Isn’t it interesting how they were hunting us for years and were working with Muammar el-Qaddafi?” said

“Now we are cooperating with NATO and the West, those who used to put us in jail.”

MacDill Reservist’s Indiscretions Rattle Psywar Commanders

[SEE:  Looking for Trouble In the Data Mine–Suspicious Spending]

Reservist’s top-secret clearance worrisome

By HOWARD ALTMAN | The Tampa Tribune

In Courtroom 14 B Thursday, U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington asked a question about the man who had just been convicted of lying to obtain housing at MacDill Air Force Base.

How could Army Reserve 2nd Lt. Scott Allan Bennett, 40, obtain a top-secret clearance despite a previous misdemeanor conviction in 2008 for lying to government officials?

Prosecutors had the same questions and were unable to get answers, but former intelligence officers and those who currently deal with security clearance issues contacted by The Tampa Tribune say that Bennett should probably have never gotten clearance and that somebody somewhere “dropped the ball.”

In December 2006, Bennett told U.S. government officials that he was working with the office of President George W. Bush and the State Department. In that role, he was helping a woman from South Africa obtain a visa to visit the country. He said she would be working for the president.

It turned out that the woman was someone he had met over the Internet and that he created a job “out of whole cloth” to get her into the country, according to federal documents.

Two years later, Bennett was convicted of the misdemeanor crime of lying to government officials. Bennett obtained TS/SCI clearance, top-secret/sensitive compartmentalized information, the highest level of security clearance available, in October 2008, according to Army Lt. Col. Gerald Ostlund.

There are at least three “adjudicative guidelines” used by the government to determine whether someone should be given security clearance that should have raised red flags about Bennett, according to Evan Lesser, founder and managing director of Clearancejobs.com, an employment website for people with security clearance.

“Guideline B, which deals with foreign influence, says if you have contact or connections with a foreigner, you are at a heightened risk of exploitation,” Lesser said.

“There are two other guidelines that more than a few things here would have called out this individual as being a problem.” Lesser said. “Guideline E, personal conduct, looks at any conduct involving questionable judgment or dishonesty and Guideline J, criminal activity, says that any criminal activity brings into doubt that person’s judgment or trustworthiness.”

 

* * * * *To obtain a TS/SCI clearance, an individual has to submit to a background check that delves into the previous 10 years of personal history, according to the Defense Security Service. The information is then presented to an adjudicator, who looks at the guidelines and determines whether there are any circumstances that would allow, for instance, someone with a conviction to still obtain clearance.Depending on how much information was known about Bennett, adjudicators “would have most likely denied this person clearance,” Lesser said.

The timeline, he said, is critical.

Bennett was convicted in August 2008. He was hired sometime that year by Booz Allen Hamilton as a contractor, although the company won’t say when.

Booz Allen Hamilton spokesman James Fisher would not comment on whether Bennett obtained clearance to work for the company, although it was required for the job he was hired to perform at MacDill in 2010, working as a counter-threat finance analyst at U.S. Central Command’s Joint Intelligence Operation Center.

Ostlund said Bennett’s clearance was requested by the defense contractor. Bennett did not enter the Army Reserve, where he served as a personnel officer with the 11th Psychological Operations Battalion, until four months after he obtained his clearance, Ostlund said.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA employee who also worked at the State Department’s Counterterrorism Office, offered a blunt assessment of how Bennett obtained clearance.

“One of two things happened,” said Johnson, currently a military contractor with TS/SCI clearance who frequently visits MacDill. “Either the folks who conducted the background investigation failed, or the adjudicator was negligent. There is no in between. There are no mitigating factors” that would allow Bennett clearance.

Pat Lang, a retired senior U.S. military intelligence officer who later served in the Pentagon in the Defense Senior Executive Service and at the Defense Intelligence Agency as defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, has a similar view.

Giving Bennett security clearance, he said, was “a bad call. It is a judgment call, but I have a very hard time imagining someone being convicted for lying about immigration status being cleared. I wouldn’t have cleared them, if it were up to me.”

In January 2010, Bennett moved onto MacDill housing by claiming he was an aide to Special Operations Command chief Adm. Eric Olson and lying about his status as an active duty officer. Investigators later found Bennett had 10 guns and more than 9,000 rounds of ammunition without authorization.

On Thursday, Bennett was convicted of one count of making a false statement, one count of wearing his uniform without authorization and two counts of violating a security agreement by bringing concealed weapons on base and storing weapons and ammunition in his apartment without permission.

Bennett, who faces up to seven years and six months in prison, will be sentenced Oct. 25.

* * * * *Even before Thursday’s convictions, Bennett’s job in the Joint Intelligence Operation Center made him a threat to security, according to Lesser, Lang and Johnson.”If you already have a track record of lying to the government, what guarantee is there that you will not commit that behavior again?” Johnson asked.

“This is the type of person who could be coerced easily,” Lesser said. “The criminal activity he has done puts him at risk of being exploited or manipulated. That is something the government is always worried about.”

Lesser said that government agencies need to investigate how Bennett got his clearance, what information he had access to and what, if anything, he did with that information.

“It seems really difficult to believe that he did not have red flags from past behavior,” Lesser said. “Should somebody be concerned about this person? I would say most definitely. He had high level clearance and access to a fair amount of classified information at a very high level. It seems like somebody dropped the ball on this particular person.”

haltman@tampatrib.com (813) 259-7629

Norwegian Terror Bombing Suspect Reportedly Purchased Six Tons of Ammonium Nitrate

Norway bomb suspect bought 6 tons of fertilizer

BY BJOERN H. AMLAND AND LOUISE NORDSTROM

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SUNDVOLLEN, Norway – The 32-year-old man suspected in bomb and shooting attacks that killed at least 91 people in Norway bought six tons of fertilizer before the massacres, the supplier said Saturday as police investigated witness accounts of a second shooter.

Norway’s prime minister and royal family visited grieving relatives of the scores of youth gunned down in a horrific killing spree on an idyllic island retreat. A man who said he was carrying a knife was detained by police officers outside the hotel, as the shell-shocked Nordic nation was gripped by reports that Norwegian gunman may not have acted alone.

The suspect in police custody – a blonde blue-eyed Norwegian with reported Christian fundamentalist, anti-Muslim views – is suspected in both the shootings at Utoya island and a massive explosion that ripped through an Oslo high-rise building housing the prime minister’s office two hours earlier, killing seven people. He has been preliminarily charged with acts of terrorism.

Oddny Estenstad, a spokeswoman for agricultural material supplier Felleskjopet, confirmed Saturday that the suspect in custody purchased six tons of fertilizer 10 weeks ago. Artificial fertilizer is highly explosive and can be used in homemade bombs.

Estenstad said police were alerted to the purchase after it emerged the man was suspected of the deadly attacks.

On the island of Utoya, panicked teens attending a Labour Party youth wing summer camp plunged into the water or played dead to avoid the assailant in the assault that may have lasted 30 minutes before a SWAT team arrived, police said.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said the twin attacks made Friday peacetime Norway’s deadliest day.

He was visibly shaken as he described his meeting with surviving victims of the shooting spree and families of children who had been on the island.

“This is very difficult for me because it’s a very, very demanding situation to meet so many people that are hurting so much,” he said, his voice trembling as he recited tales he had heard of how people had tried to hide from the killer to survive.

The toll in both attacks reached 91 Saturday, and police said that could still rise as they search the waters around the island for more bodies. Acting Police Chief Roger Andresen said he did not how many people were still missing. The Oslo University hospital said it has so far received 11 wounded from the bombing and 16 people from the camp shooting.

Nordstrom reported from Stockholm. Associated Press reporters Nils Myklebost Oslo, Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Matthew Lee and Rita Foley in Washington, Paisley Dodds in London, and Paul Schemm in Tripoli, Libya, contributed to this report.

Waging War Against Anti-Mehsud Militias In S. Waziristan, Once Again

[The groups hit in these attacks were remnants of the Abdullah Mehsud group, associated with Turkestan Bhitani and Qari Zainullah Mehsud (SEE:  Army Convoy Bombed On “Abdullah Mehsud” Group Home Turf).]

Suicide bombing: Mehsud repatriation halted

The displaced people stopped returning after an attack in South Waziristan. PHOTO: AFP/ FILE

ISLAMABAD: The repatriation of Mehsud tribesmen to South Waziristan Agency was reported to have temporarily halted on Friday after Taliban militants attacked a Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) vehicle in Kot-kai village, the home town of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fugitive chief Hakimullah Mehsud, which military claims is under its complete control.

The attack is said to have occurred on Thursday in which two local contractors associated with the FWO were injured and their vehicles were extensively damaged.

Also on Friday, militants killed two members of pro-military Bhittani group in what appeared to be early signs of a Taliban comeback in anarea which had been under army control since 2009.

Sources in Tank and South Waziristan told The Express Tribune that FWO contractors Hazrat Ali Ishangai and Umar Hayat were injured when a suicide bomber struck their vehicle.

But the men survived because the teenage suicide bomber’s vest is said to have exploded prematurely.

Hazrat Ali was a pro-military tribesman, while one of his sons was part of the TTP suicide bombing squad, who later joined the Qari Zainuddin Mehsud group, a cluster of militants behind the killing of several of Hakimullah’s commanders in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan.

Local sources said the attack might have been motivated by a ‘personal enmity’ but the mere fact that the Taliban were able to send a suicide bomber into an area tightly controlled by the military had sent a worrying signal to those  wishing to repatriate to their hometown.

The killing of two Bhittani tribesmen in the Surgarh area, just 10 kilometres from Kot-kai, the very next morning had intensified fears, prompting the displaced Mehsud tribesmen to stay away.

TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud had warned his fellow tribesmen against returning to the South Waziristan in an interview recently telecast by a Norwegian television and Flashpoint Partners website.

“I urge them not to return to the war zone…we are in the middle of the fighting, the one for which there look to be no end,” said Mehsud.

A military source here said the repatriation was slow but insisted it was more due to the civil administration’s incapability rather than the presence of Taliban militants.

He denied there was any attack on the FWO convoy.

According to a handout, Chief of the Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani discussed the issue of army offensive in the country’s tribal areas and sources said the repatriation to South Waziristan also came under discussion.

 

Published in The Express Tribune

Blaming non-state actors for terror no excuse: Chidambaram

PTI

PTI– Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik during the fourth meeting of SAARC Home/Interior Ministers in Thimphu on Saturday.

Terming South Asia as the most troubled and vulnerable region, the Home Minister said, “Terrorist groups… have flourished because of the support they have found from state and non-state actors.”

In a veiled attack on Pakistan, India on Saturday said that no country can escape its responsibility by blaming non-state actors for terrorist activities emanating from its soil.

As long as the territory of a country is used by non-state actors to prepare for terror attacks, that country owes a legal and moral responsibility to its neighbours and to the world to suppress those non-state actors and bring them to justice, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said.

“Sometimes, I think that the distinction between state actors and non-state actors is misplaced and intended to misdirect our efforts to deal with terrorist groups at the very source — the recruitment centres, the training camps and their safe havens and sanctuaries,” he said addressing the 4th meeting of the SAARC Interior/ Home Ministers here.

Describing terrorism as the biggest existentialist challenge in South Asia, Mr. Chidambaram said the menace in the region can be best tackled through effective cooperation among the SAARC nations.

“We have no alternative but to deploy the best instruments and resources at our disposal in our fight against terrorism,” he said.

The Home Minister emphasised the need for examining the existing mechanisms for countering terrorism, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, arms smuggling and counterfeiting, including organised production and distribution of fake Indian currency notes.

Mr. Chidambaram said South Asia was perhaps the most troubled and vulnerable region in the world as the vast majority of terrorist incidents this year — as well as last year — occurred there.

“Terrorist groups in this region have flourished because of the support they have found from state and non-state actors,” he said.

The Home Minister said that terrorism is the most significant existential challenge to peace and security in South Asia and it is the single largest hindrance to socio-economic development in the region.

“The lives and safety of our people continue to remain at significant risk from targeted, deliberate and cowardly terrorist outrages,” he said.

Mr. Chidambaram also expressed India’s continuing commitment to discharge its responsibilities in SAARC in an effective manner, saying it would do its best to ensure that the grouping evolves into a vibrant regional economic organisation.

“Here, I would like to recall the fruitful meeting that we had during the Conference of the Interior/Home Ministers of SAARC countries in Islamabad in June 2010 where we last met.

We agreed, inter alia, on the broad contours of cooperation to combat terrorism.

“I am sure that all of us are equally committed to our common endeavour in eliminating the menace of terrorism,” he said.

The Home Minister said the process of taking forward a proactive agenda on cooperation in our neighbourhood was integrally connected with the shared ability to cooperate in eliminating the threats posed by terrorists, drug traffickers, arms smugglers and others whose activities affect the safety and security of our people.

“On the positive side, I may note that our leaders have agreed on the need for greater regional connectivity, better transport infrastructure, enhanced flow of material and goods, effective border control regimes, and taking further steps to facilitate integration,” Mr. Chidambaram said.

He said the threat of terrorism, which is a common challenge in the region, can be tackled only with the fullest cooperation amongst the member nations of the SAARC.

“We have no alternative but to deploy the best instruments and resources at our disposal in our fight against terrorism. What we need now is to be more proactive in implementing our resolutions in letter and spirit,” he said.

For instance, he said, much more can be done by sharing information on real-time basis on terrorism and all forms of organised criminal activity.

Referring to the existing Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed nearly three years ago at the 15th Summit of the grouping, Chidambaram said if SAARC acts on the provisions of the Convention, it will facilitate evidence-sharing and the seizure and confiscation of criminal and terrorist funds.

“Cooperation in our region should lead us to enhancing our cooperation in international fora as well. The proposed UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism is long overdue. As a region with the highest incidence of terror, we need to press for such a Convention soon.

“For our part, insofar as sharing information and capacity is concerned, India is committed to doing so in a reciprocal manner. We remain open to offering support and cooperation through training programmes in areas of criminal investigation, narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, cyber crime, economic offences and bank fraud cases,” he said.

The Home Minister also announced that New Delhi will host the ‘Meeting of SAARC Eminent Experts to Strengthen Anti-Terrorism Mechanism’ sometime in October 2011.

ISI-Linked Militant Group MQM-Haqiqi and the Revival of Near Civil War In Karachi

“When the MQM went out of the control of the ISI during the first term of Benazir as Prime Minister (1988-90), the late Gen. Asif Nawaz Janjua, as the then Corps Commander at Karachi, tried to weaken Altaf Hussain’s popularity amongst the Mohajirs by trying to create a divide between the Sunni and Shia migrants from UP and Bihar. When he did not succeed, he created a split between the migrants from UP, who remained solidly behind Altaf, and some sections of those from Bihar. Allured by the ISI and Asif Nawaz, these sections formed a splinter group called the MQM (Haqiqi–Real). The MQM (H), trained, armed and instigated by the ISI, indulged in widespread acts of violence against the followers of Altaf as well as against the Sindhi nationalists.”

KARACHI: Bloodshed made its way back into Karachi on Friday with 13 killings as the city, reeling from ethnic and political conflicts that had killed over 100 people earlier this month, saw a new twist in its violent history when the Muhajir Qaumi Movement, better known as Haqiqi, attempted to stage a comeback in strongholds of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Haqiqi tries to stage comeback; Karachi party feud claims 13 lives

By Imran Ayub

Police armored personnel carrier (APC) and vehicles patrol to avoid any untoward incident during violence after a clash between two rival groups at Malir area in Karachi on Friday, July 22, 2011. – Photo by PPI

City police chief Saud Mirza said the violence was sparked when “some men of a group entered Khokhrapar area of Malir and targeted their opponents”.

The area remained under siege for over three hours and gunmen were seen strutting about without facing any resistance from police and Rangers.

As the city’s south zone remained under tight security due to the presence of President Ali Asif Ali Zardari at Bilawal House, the law enforcers appeared helpless in controlling the situation in the east district.

“We have arrested at least six suspects and are currently engaged in a major intelligence gathering action in the strife-hit
areas. We have also requested the high-ups to politically engage the parties concerned for restoration of peace,” Mr Mirza said.

The assurances from the security administration, however, fell short of easing the MQM’s fears as its legislators staged a walkout from the Sindh Assembly.

The Muttahida’s leaders blamed ‘politically patronised groups’ with support of ‘a few ministers’ for the deadly episode.

“The way our workers and sympathisers are being targeted in Malir and Landhi makes it obvious that this unleashing of
terrorism is calculated and being patronised by someone,” MQM’s deputy parliamentary leader Syed Faisal Ali Subzwari said
before leading the walkout.

However, the opposition party assured the members on the treasury benches of its cooperation in every effort for peace in Karachi.

The concerns also echoed in MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s statement issued from London.  He, however, also appealed to his party’s workers to stay calm, calling upon the government for action against terrorists.

“The MQM believes in harmony and brotherhood. It’s making all effort for peace and stability in the city, but criminals through their moves are attempting to foil its efforts,” he said.

A spokesman for the MQM-H claimed that the party had lost five senior activists who were returning to their homes in Malir early in the morning when they were attacked. According to sources, they had left their homes almost a decade ago.

The shooting sent shockwaves through the presidential camp office and President Zardari summoned Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Hussain Wasan to discuss the situation.

The meeting, which lasted almost an hour, ended with a resolve to meet the challenge and take indiscriminate action against terrorists.

“It would not be justified to blame anyone for recent violence as I don’t believe in politics of blame game,” the minister said.

Talking to reporters, he said: “It may take time to bring the situation under control in entire Karachi, but we are moving fast and in the right direction.

“The situation in Malir and Landhi is now under control except for random incident of firing.”

The violence offered another opportunity to the Awami National Party, which is now considered a ‘stakeholder’ in the city’s politics, to repeat its demand for an army operation.

Scenes from Norwegian Youth Camp Murders–91 dead

VG Nett ved Utøya Ligger døde kropper langs vannkanten

Scenes from Norwegian Youth Camp Murders–91 dead, posted with vodpod

Saudi Arabia Most Undemocratic Middle Eastern Regime

Saudi Arabia’s new law would make political dissent a crime

Kingdom’s ‘anti-terror’ legislation follows wave of upheavals across the Arab world

By Patrick Cockburn

REUTERS

Arab Spring protests

The Saudi authorities have drafted new anti-terrorism legislation that makes political dissent a criminal offence and would enable the government to jail anyone who questioned the integrity of the King or Crown Prince for a minimum of 10 years.

A draft copy smuggled from the kingdom and obtained by Amnesty International shows that the definition of “terrorist crimes” under the proposed new law is so broad as to enable the authorities to detain anybody for as long as they want on such wide-ranging charges as “endangering… national unity” or “harming the reputation of the state or its position”.

The Draconian draft legislation is a sign of the deep sense of threat felt by King Abdullah and the Saudi royal family because of the Arab Spring pro-democracy movement, the emergence of a Shia Iraq in the aftermath of the US invasion, and the collapse of the status quo across

Wherever the ageing Saudi rulers look, old friends are disappearing or are under pressure, and new rivals of uncertain strength are emerging.

The Saudis are known to have been particularly shocked by the fall of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the failure of the US to support him.

Yemen, in the south of the Arabian peninsula, teeters on the edge of civil war, and a Saudi-led military force has helped crush the mainly Shia pro-democracy movement in Bahrain.

The Saudi authorities were particularly worried that the open protests of the Shia majority in Bahrain would spread to the Shia population in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

In addition, they have always been suspicious, to the point of paranoia, of an Iranian-orchestrated Shia conspiracy to overthrow the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf.

Amnesty International obtained copies of of the Draft Penal Law for Terrorism for Terrorism Crimes and Financing of Terrorism, which is still to be passed, and is currently being examined by a Saudi government security committee.

“This draft law poses a serious threat to freedom of expression in the kingdom in the name of preventing terrorism,” says Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa deputy director Philip Luther.

“If passed it would pave the way for even the smallest acts of peaceful dissent to be branded terrorism.”

Detainees’ rights – which have never been substantial in Saudi – would be effectively abolished. Suspects can be held for 120 days or longer if a special court so decides.

The proposed law also gives the authorities the power to arbitrarily detain somebody for up to a year or longer, and there is no right of appeal or access to a lawyer. Torture is not outlawed. The death penalty is to be applied to anybody taking up arms against the state.

Saudi officials have confirmed that the draft is authentic, but are quoted as saying that it may still be amended.

To a degree the law will institutionalise existing practice under which some 5,000 “terror” suspects are being tried or have already been sentenced. A further 33 people have been beheaded in the kingdom this year.

Though the draft law is nominally directed against “terrorism”, the Saudi authorities have proved largely successful in crushing or driving abroad al-Qa’ida.

Its surviving leaders are mostly in Yemen as part of the Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula organisation which has about 300 members according to Yemeni officials. The precise letter of Saudi law is unlikely to impress them.

The ferocity of the crackdown by the Saudi-backed al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain after demonstrations in February and March is an indication of the seriousness with which Saudi Arabia fears them spreading to the kingdom.

The draft law is evidently a pre-emptive strike against any future demand for change.