British State Terror

July 1, 2003

The idea that Britain promotes terrorism would be an oxymoron in the mainstream political culture. Yet state-sponsored terrorism is responsible for more deaths in more countries than the “private” terrorism practised by groups like al-Qaeda.

And many of the worst offenders are British allies like Turkey and Russia. Equally, British military policies are extending the promotion of state terrorism into new areas. The fact is, Britain is one of the leading supporters of terrorism in the world today.

First, let us briefly consider direct British involvement in acts of terrorism. One of the major terrorist acts of the 1980s was the Beirut car bombing in March 1985. The bomb was placed outside a mosque and timed to explode when worshippers left. The aim was to kill Hezbollah leader Mohammed Hussein Sheikh Fadlallah, who was accused of complicity in terrorism. Around 80 people were killed, and over 200 wounded. Fadlallah escaped. The bombing was organised by the CIA and Saudi agents with the assistance of Britain’s MI6.

Previously, Britain had set up pseudo-terrorist ‘counter gangs’ in Palestine in the 1940s and Aden in the 1960s. The gangs consisted of former terrorists and, in Aden, loyal tribesmen, and were led by British officers disguised as locals. They were sent out in twos and threes to target those suspected of terrorism against British targets. In Palestine the squads were given a free hand to kill Jewish terrorists seeking an end to British rule.

In the mid-1960s an MI6 officer noted that his organisation was helping local security services in the Middle East neutralise threats to their regimes. ‘Killer squads’ were also used in the colonial war in Malaya. In the 1980s a British private security firm conducted (with a probable nod and wink from Whitehall) sabotage operations in Nicaragua and took part in Oliver North’s gun-running operations.

Trying to assassinate foreign leaders is a British tradition. Various attempts were made to kill Egyptian president Nasser in the mid-1950s. In one attempt MI6 injected poison into chocolates. Nerve gas, an SAS hit squad and firing a poisoned dart from a cigarette packet were also considered. Evidence suggests that MI6 planned the assassinations of Albanian president Enver Hoxha in 1948, Cypriot guerrilla leader Colonel Grivas in the late 1950s, Indonesian president Sukarno in the 1950s and Ugandan president Milton Obote in 1969.

In 1998 archbishop Desmond Tutu revealed possible British involvement in the death of UN secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold in 1961. Hammarskjold’s plane exploded when it was about to land in Rhodesia; he was on his way to mediate a peace agreement between Congo and the breakaway province of Katanga. Documents described meetings between MI5, the CIA and a South African military front company, and plans to place TNT in the wheel bay of the aircraft.

In addition, former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson revealed that MI6 put forward a paper entitled ‘the need to assassinate president Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia’ in 1992. Subsequently, Nato aircraft specifically targeted Milosevic for assassination during the war against Yugoslavia in 1999.

And in 1998 MI5 whistleblower David Shayler alleged British funding and support for an assassination attempt against Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi. A leaked MI6 cable later stated that “one officer and 20 men were being trained especially for this attack” in February 1996. The coup plotters had obtained 250 British pistols; their leader was Abdal Muhaymeen, a former member of the Afghan mujahideen who was possibly trained by MI6 or the CIA. Gaddafi survived the coup attempt, but six innocent bystanders did not.

Let us now consider two examples of terrorism committed by favoured British allies, and the importance of the London connection.

During its war against Kurds in the southeast of Turkey, the Turkish government destroyed 3,500 Kurdish villages, made 1.5 million people homeless and killed thousands more. During the peak period of the atrocities, between 1994 and 1996, John Major’s government actually increased arms exports to Turkey – delivering £68m worth in 1994 (the year Ankara began major offensive operations). Export credits for arms and military equipment reached £265m in 1995.

Atrocities decreased by the late 1990s as the scorched earth policy succeeded in terrorising the population and pacifying the region. However, abuses against Kurds continue. Hundreds of thousands of people forced out of their homes are unable to return; government-appointed “village guards” occupy much of their land. Several displaced villagers were recently shot dead for attempting to return to their homes. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says: “Most abandoned settlements remain no-go areas.”

Since 2002 there have been major improvements in human rights elsewhere in Turkey. The Turkish parliament has lifted many restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language in broadcasting and education. Yet numerous human rights abuses continue: Turkish law continues to heavily constrain free expression; former Kurdish parliamentarians remain in jail after unfair trials; police torture is systematic.

Meanwhile, British arms exports to Turkey were worth £179m in 2001, and Turkish military officers and police (the latter being responsible for many of the worst human rights abuses) receive training in Britain. London also aids Ankara by labelling the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a “terrorist organisation”. While the PKK has certainly committed atrocities, the Turkish government has a much worse record. Britain also closed down the Kurdish TV station Med-TV in 1999.

The Labour government is also bending over backwards to support Turkey’s bid to join the EU. Former foreign secretary Robin Cook has said that “the question of rejection does not arise” – it being inconceivable that Britain would invoke human-rights atrocities to block Turkish entry. While its EU ambitions have forced Turkey to improve its human rights performance, London is more concerned with bringing a strategic ally into the Western orbit.

Another of Tony Blair’s greatest current allies is Russian president Vladimir Putin. The Blair-Putin relationship is one of the most extraordinary in recent British foreign policy, and is hailed by the Foreign Office as a great success. Ever since Moscow’s intervention in Chechnya in September 1999, Britain has been complicit in some of the worst horrors of our time.

Between November 1999 and February 2000 the Russians submitted the Chechnyan city of Grozny to a ferocious bombing campaign. Grozny was turned into a wasteland, and thousands of people died. The Guardian’s Maggie O’Kane wrote: “Usually in war there are some rules. But in Chechnya no one is saying sorry or even pretending that they are not dropping 1,000-pound bombs on houses, hospitals and schools.” While Grozny was being flattened, British defence minister Geoff Hoon said: “Engaging Russia in a constructive bilateral defence relationship is a high priority for the government… We wish to continue to develop an effective defence relationship with Russia.”

A week before Blair met Putin in March 2000, The Observer revealed the slaughter of 363 Chechens by Russian forces in the village of Katyr Yurt. Vladimir took Tony to the opera, prompting HRW to state: “this is absolutely the wrong signal to be sending… at a time when war crimes are being committed with impunity by Russian forces in Chechnya.” HRW accused the Russians of “mass executions of civilians, arbitrary detention of Chechen males, systematic beatings, torture and, on occasion, rape”.

After 11 September Britain, Nato and the EU abandoned all pretence of concern at continuing Russian atrocities in Chechnya. In Moscow the following month Blair said: “I would like to pay tribute to the strength and leadership of president Putin at this time.” He added that Britain and Russia were “working through problems in the spirit of friends and true partners”. This was Blair’s eighth meeting with Putin in under two years – “a very good indication”, Blair noted, “of the strengthening relationships” between Blair and Putin and Russia and Britain.

Thus Blair proposed creating a “Russia-North Atlantic Council” to bring Moscow closer to Nato. No wonder that in December 2001, Putin could say of Russia’s attempts to deal with terrorism (meaning Chechnya) that “we felt and we saw and we knew that our voice was being heard – that the UK wanted to hear us and to understand us and that, indeed, we were being understood”.

Late last year, Blair said that in view of the “terrorism coming from extremists operating out of Chechnya… I have always taken the view that it is important that we understand the Russian perspective on this”. He added: “I have always been more understanding of the Russian position, perhaps, than many others.” This came a week after a further (futile) attempt by HRW to urge Blair to press Putin on human rights abuses. HRW states that the human rights situation in Chechnya remains “abysmal”, with violations increasing and torture endemic. It recently reported on the highest rate of “disappearances” since the war began, but the hundreds of disappearances documented represent “only a fraction of the actual number”.

Whitehall claims it lacks levers to press the Russians to stop the worst abuses. In fact, Britain gives Moscow £30m in aid a year, as well as military assistance and training. In addition, British exports to Russia are worth £300m; the trade in the other direction is worth £700m. The truth is that Britain is the fifth largest foreign investor in the country; the two nations signed a trade and investment agreement in 1997. So, rather than pressing Moscow, London has been stepping up contacts – especially with the Russian military.

Yet British promotion of state terrorism goes even deeper; it now applies to its own basic military policy. The military attacks involving British forces on Afghanistan and Yugoslavia were justified in terms of Britain’s political objectives overseas. In recent years Britain’s armed forces have changed their ostensibly defensive role for an overtly offensive one. The military now has a “new focus on expeditionary warfare”, the all-party House of Commons Defence Committee comments approvingly.

This change was the major accomplishment of the government’s “strategic defence review” (SDR), which was concluded in 1998 (long before 11 September). The SDR stated: “In the post-cold war world we must be prepared to go to the crisis, rather than have the crisis come to us… Long-range air attack [is] an integral part of warfighting and a coercive instrument to support political objectives.” This “coercive instrument” is the modern version of imperial “gunboat diplomacy” – ie, the doctrine that Britain may threaten countries failing to do what “we” (or, more likely, the US) want. It is consistent with any reasonable definition of terrorism.

Britain is now using “the war against terrorism” to put its expeditionary aspirations into practice. The Foreign Office refers to “an effective doctrine of early warning and, where necessary, early intervention”. Foreign secretary Jack Straw has said: “Our aim must be to develop a clear strategy to head off threats to global order and to deal with the consequences within the evolving framework of international law.” (Britain will, in other words, conduct military interventions to preserve Western supremacy, while pressing for “evolution” in international law to make such intervention easier.)

The Defence Committee notes that Britain must “be free to rapidly deploy significant forces overseas”, and calls for “pre-emptive military action”. It says: “Operations in central Asia, East Africa, perhaps the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere will become necessary as part of an integrated political and military strategy to address terrorism.”

The new interventionism is backed by the most terrifying weapons. The Trident nuclear weapons system has a “sub-strategic” role intended for use on the battlefield as well as to deter all-out nuclear war. Like the Thatcher government, Blair’s administration says that “the credibility of deterrence… depends on retaining the option for a limited nuclear strike”. In March 2002 Geoff Hoon said: “I am absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.”

Current policies are seriously frightening. There is a much simpler way of countering some terrorism at least, and that is by changing policy closer to home. If we were honest, this is where the “war against terrorism” would begin.

This is an adapted extract from Mark Curtis’s new book, Web of Deceit: Britain’s real role in the world, (Vintage, £7.99).

French Press Echoes the Theme of Military “Ineptitude,” Instead of PURE EVIL

[(SEE:  “Britain’s military judgment is no more coherent than its political.”)   The blossoming war between Shia and Sunni is just the latest and most complicated application of the British science of chaos and destabilization that has been perfected within Imperial colonies over many decades of field research (SEE:  Mi6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service).  MI6 honed their spycraft over many years, struggling to keep their divided Empire from exploding, going from ‘extermination battalions’ and ‘pseudo gangs’ to the black art of pseudo-leadership (SEE: Khomeini – British Agent).  Further refining the concept of leadership development (both pseudo and real leaders), the spooks were able to control both sides in any conflict through infiltration and subversion of any group.  American spies adapted the concept to the West’s “terror war,” rebranding it as “conflict management,” enabling the CIA to market their skills worldwide, through a mixture of threats and bribery.  Smaller powers like Pakistan and India have copied the superpower’s strategy in dividing and conquering their own tribal populations.  Variations of this theme have enabled “The Powers That Be” to take over every political party in the world, as well as all important Enterprise.  Blowing the lid off MI6 and the CIA’s policies of purposely creating enemies for our military to fight is the only to end this war and set humanity on a sure path to survival.]

The Far-Reaching, Ever Fluid Shia v. Sunni Battle For The Soul Of Islam

Mirroring the Catholic-Protestant battles of the past, intra-Islamic violence has global reverberations far beyond faith. Right now, it’s coming to a head in Syria.

Praying in the night – (Muhammad Rehan)

By Christophe Ayad
LE MONDE/Worldcrunch

“By invading Iraq in 2003, and overthrowing the Arab ruler the most viscerally hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran, the United States has —

unwittingly

— re-activated the Shia-Sunni conflict in its modern form.”

The Syrian Terrorists McCain Met Were Also Kidnappers

[McCain claims to be able to tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys” in Syria.  Does he consider these kidnappers good guys?  (SEE:  Sen. McCain Violates International Borders To Shake Hands with Syrian Terrorists In Syria)]

McCain crosses paths with rebel kidnapper

By Lauren Williams

McCain stands in front of Nour, center, during his recent visit to Syria.(Razan Shalab AlSham/Syrian Emergency Task Force/HO)

BEIRUT: U.S. Senator John McCain was photographed with a known affiliate of the rebel group responsible for the kidnapping of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims one year ago, during a brief and highly publicized visit inside Syria this week. The U.S. senator became the highest-level American official to enter Syria since the uprising began. A former presidential candidate and staunch opponent of President Barack Obama’s Syria policy, he has been leading calls to better arm moderate opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad. During a brief visit to northern Syria from Turkey, confirmed by his office Monday, McCain met with rebel leaders calling for greater support in their fight against Assad. He was accompanied by the chief of staff of the rebel Supreme Military Council, Gen. Salim Idriss. The pilgrims were kidnapped by armed rebels in Azaz, in Syria’s Aleppo province, in May last year as they were making their way back to Lebanon from Iran. Two of the kidnapped, Anwar Ibrahim and Hussein Ali Omar were released in August and September but intense negotiations are still underway for the remaining nine, believed to be in the custody of the “Northern Storm” brigade, headed by rebel commander Ammar Al-Dadikhi, aka Abu Ibrahim. The Northern Storm Brigade also claimed responsibility for the kidnap of a Lebanese journalist in October. Head of Lebanon’s General Security Brig. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim was en route to Turkey Wednesday to continue negotiations for release of the remaining nine pilgrims. According to families of the remaining captives and one of the released men, Anwar Ibrahim, one of the men standing alongside McCain in photographs released by the senator’s office, is Mohammad Nour, the chief spokesman and photographer for the Northern Storm kidnappers. Nour appears in several shots where McCain is posing with different officials. Ibrahim and other members of the kidnapped family said they recognized Nour, and another man affiliated with the group, also identified as “Abu Ibrahim,” immediately after seeing the photos, widely circulated by international media following McCain’s visit. Ibrahim, who had seen Nour multiple times in person during his captivity, said he was a close affiliate of Dadikhi who had photographed him and his fellow captors during the media campaign surrounding his kidnap. Nour has also acted as the spokesman for the kidnappers. Photographs of Nour with the group of kidnapped pilgrims have been independently verified by The Daily Star. In the photographs released by McCain’s office, he is seen standing holding a camera, behind and in front of the senator as he poses alongside Idriss. “I recognized him immediately. He was the photographer who was brought in to take our photos [during captivity]. He works with the kidnappers. He knows them very well,” Ibrahim said. “I don’t know anything about why McCain was visiting, or what he wanted, but I was very surprised to see [Mohammad Nour] there.” A spokesman from McCain’s office said the senator had traveled to Syria with Idriss in coordination with the Syrian Emergency Task Force to meet with two Free Syrian Army commanders, but denied he had met with the two individuals identified by the kidnap victims. “A number of other Syrian commanders joined the meeting, but none of them identified himself as Mohammad Nour or Abu Ibrahim,” the spokesman for McCain, Brian Rogers, said. “Two members of our organization were present in the meeting, and no one called himself by either name.” Rogers said the photograph was “regrettable” but said Nour had not communicated with McCain. “A number of the Syrians who greeted Senator McCain upon his arrival in Syria asked to take pictures with him, and as always, the senator complied. If the individual photographed with Senator McCain is in fact Mohammad Nour that is regrettable. “But it would be ludicrous to suggest that the senator in any way condones the kidnapping of Lebanese Shiite pilgrims or has any communication with those responsible. Senator McCain condemns such heinous actions in the strongest possible terms.” Idriss, a U.S. favorite as a possible conduit for weapons to rebel forces, is tasked with uniting the various factions of the Free Syrian Army in the hope of bolstering a cohesive, moderate rebel front amid fears of a growing role of extreme Islamist fighters on the ground in Syria. During McCain’s visit, Idriss reportedly requested a no fly-zone be enforced, more weapons for the rebels and airstrikes against the Syrian regime and Hezbollah forces playing an increasing role in supporting Syrian government forces from Lebanon. While the Obama administration has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in nonlethal aid to the rebels, it has so far been reluctant to arm opposition forces, fearing weapons may fall in to the hands of extremists. McCain, who sits on the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations, has repeatedly called for the U.S. government to arm moderate groups. Last week the committee voted overwhelmingly to authorize a bill to provide small arms and training to opposition groups “that have been properly and fully vetted and share common values and interests with the United States.” McCain, however, according to comments reported in the Wall Street Journal, said more actions and heavier weapons were required “if we are going to reverse the tide that’s now taking place in favor of Bashar Assad.” Rogers reiterated the purpose of the visit was to encourage “critical” support for the rebels. “The senator believes his visit to Syria was critical to supporting the many brave Syrians who are fighting for their lives and the freedom of their country against a brutal regime and its foreign allies that are massacring Syrian citizens on Syrian territory,” he said.

“Britain’s military judgment is no more coherent than its political.”

[The following piece is an excellent British confession that the Western powers have destroyed the Middle East.  It is lacking in one major area—the author blames all of this on ineptitude and lack of foresight, rather than design.  Chaos and destabilization were the goals of US/British intervention from Asia to Africa, since the great war plan was hatched decades ago.  Only by sowing widespread chaos can the Western powers hope to establish their New Order.  American/British military policies for this time and place are not the “comedy of errors” that apologists for the Evil Empire want us to believe.  Our military leaders are masters of deceit, but they are lousy jugglers.  They have way too many psyops spinning around, not to drop a few of the balls, allowing us to see the masks of human depravity, hiding behind the smiling clown faces.]

Syria and the Middle East: our greatest miscalculation since the rise of fascism 

By helping to destroy secular politics in the Middle East, the west has unleashed the Shia/Sunni conflict now tearing it apart

• Email

• 
• • Simon Jenkins

Illustration by Satoshi Kambayashi

There could no more dreadful idea than to pour more armaments into the sectarian war now consuming Syria. Yet that is precisely what Britain’s coalition government wants to do. The foreign secretary, William Hague, seemed on Monday to parody his hero Pitt the Younger by demanding “how long must we go on allowing … ?” and “what we want to see is …”. Who is this we? But even Pitt would never be so stupid as to declare war on Syria, which is the only morally sound outcome of Hague’s rhetorical mission creep.

For two years pundits have proclaimed the imminent fall of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. High on Arab spring, they declared he would fall from the logic of history. Or he would fall because western sanctions would bring him down. Or he would fall because the media, as in the novel Scoop, were with the rebels and had decided they would win.

Assad has not fallen. He is still there, locked in the lethal Muslim schism that resurfaced with the demise of the region’s secularist dictators. These have now almost all gone: the shah in Iran, Najibullah in Afghanistan, Saddam in Iraq, Mubarak in Egypt, Gaddafi in Libya. They had faults in abundance, but they succeeded in suppressing religious discord, instilling rudimentary tolerance and keeping the region mostly in order. This was in the west’s interest, and the rulers, like those in the Gulf, were supported accordingly.

Turning turtle and abetting their downfall may yet prove the most disastrous miscalculation of western diplomacy since the rise of fascism. Prior to the Iraq war, Saddam persecuted the Shias, but their shrines were safe and intermarriage was common. After the war, Sunni and Shia are torn asunder, with a death toll of ghastly proportions. Similar agony may soon be visited on the Afghans. Libya’s Tripoli is more unstable now the west has toppled Gaddafi, its fundamentalist guerrillas spreading mayhem south across the Sahara to Algeria, Mali and Nigeria.

These upheavals might have occurred without western intervention. The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were largely self-starting. Islamist parties often came to power, because they offered an alternative discipline to the existing regimes. But the west’s sudden zest for “wars of choice”, its meddling in the politics of Pakistan and its sabre-rattling in Iran have created a cause on to which neoconservative Islamism could fasten.

Al-Qaida was in 2000 a tiny group of fanatics. America and Britain have portrayed it as an all-powerful enemy, apparently lurking in support of every anti-secularist rebellion. Cameron calls it “an existential terrorist threat… to inflict the biggest possible amount of damage to our interests and way of life”. Yet stabbings and bombings do not constitute an “existential threat”. The UK is a stronger culture than Cameron appears to believe. There is no threat to its existence, while the chief damage being done to its way of life comes from the incompetence of its government.

Syria is at present certainly a claim on the world’s humanitarian resources, to be honoured by supporting the refugee camps and aid agencies active in the area. Assad’s suppression of revolt has been appallingly brutal, but he was Britain’s friend, as was Saddam, long after his regime began its brutality. That is how things are in this part of the world. The west cannot stop them. To conclude that “we cannot allow this to happen” assumes a potency over other people’s affairs that “we” do not possess.

Pouring arms into Syria will no more topple Assad or “drive him to the negotiating table” than did two years of blood-curdling sanctions. Hague knows this perfectly well, as he knows there is no way arms can be sent to “good” rebels and not to bad ones. He knows that if you want one side to win a civil war, the only honest way is to fight on its side. We did that in Kosovo and Libya. In Syria, Hague has fallen back on Kipling’s “killing Kruger with your mouth”.

The differences between Sunni and Shia, now tearing at nations in the Middle East, are deeply embedded in Islam. As the scholar Malise Ruthven has pointed out, outsiders preaching tolerance are no use. These disputes are intractable “since the acceptance of pluralism relativises truth”. For Sunni to accept Shia and vice versa is for each to deny the faith.

Christianity, after centuries of similar bloodshed, has learned religious tolerance (though in Northern Ireland, Britain can hardly talk). Much of Islam has not. The one antidote lay in the rise of secular politics. This is the politics that Britain destroyed in Iraq and Libya, in the belief that it was bringing democracy and peace. It has brought chaos.

Britain’s military judgment is no more coherent than its political. It thinks it can conquer Syria – which is what toppling Assad would require – by proxy. But sending weapons cannot make a difference, and will merely entice Britain into promising troops, unless it wishes to desert the rebels. Like American backing for the Taliban in the 1990s, the idea that “my enemy’s enemy must be my friend” could yet see British special forces fighting alongside al-Qaida in Syria.

War holds a terrible appeal for democratic leaders. Most of Europe’s rulers have other matters on their hands, but Britain and France, two nations whose ancient empires carved up the Levant between them, cannot keep out of it. They see national interest and danger where none exists. They cannot relieve Syria’s agony, yet hope some vague belligerence might bring relief.

The reality is they hope that belligerence might draw attention from political troubles back home. That is the worst reason for going to war.

Turkish Police Grab 12 Al-Nusra Terrorists In Possession of Two Kilos of Sarin WMD

Adana al-Qaeda operation: 12 detention

28 May 2013 

Security General Directorate (EGM), terrorist organizations in Turkey not do any extensive security measures in a bomb and so is the action.

Some suspicious vehicles and people arriving and departing to cities being reviews. In this context, the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and Al Nusra Front militants connected with the organization of security units in preparation for some action, had pursued the fugitives. EGM Intelligence and Terrorism Department teams with whom they are connected by a recording of the suspects were followed step by step. Also possible action plans of the organization has been reached. After reaching this information, the addresses of 12 people were identified as being connected in Adana organization. In this context, the dawn of yesterday morning with the operation of the suspects were taken into custody and brought to Adana Security Directorate.

If staying in a large number of calls made from the suspects residence information, documents and digital data were seized. Also belonging to the suspects were taken to secure the weapons and bullets for review. In addition, the addresses of the suspects were seized two kilograms in the Sarin gas. As is known, Sarin gas, known as a kind of nerve gas. Is a colorless and odorless gas that is extremely difficult for the diagnosis of, a feature that is effective and lethal. In 1991, the United Nations (UN), the sarin gas in the category of weapons of mass stored by storing banned in 1993 by the Convention on Chemical Weapons. Anti-Terror Branch of Istanbul Police Department suspects the other hand, the Directorate continues to queries. Police accused, how to obtain Gazı’nı Sarin led to the question that they will use and for what purpose. The suspects, they’ll take their supplies to areas of conflict in Syria as a priority information they put forward. The police suspects that how they reached Gazı’na work deepens Sarin. Also on the subject of chemical immediate seizure of the property of a gas with the Interior Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office also reported.

Father of man FBI shot claims his son was executed

Father of man FBI shot claims his son was executed

Abdul-Baki Todashev holds a photo he claims is of his dead son Ibragim Todashev, during a

news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, May 30, 2013. The father of a Chechen immigrant killed in Florida while being interrogated by the FBI about his ties to a Boston Marathon bombings suspect says agents killed his son “execution style.” Abdul-Baki Todashev showed journalists 16 photographs on Thursday of his son, Ibragim, in the morgue with what he said were six gunshot wounds to his torso and one to the back of the head. He said the pictures were taken by his son’s friend Khusen Taramov. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

By MAX SEDDON

Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — The father of a Chechen immigrant killed in Florida while being interrogated by the FBI about his ties to a Boston Marathon bombings suspect said Thursday that the U.S. agents killed his son ‘‘execution-style.’’

At news conference in Moscow, Abdul-Baki Todashev showed journalists 16 photographs that he said were of his son, Ibragim, in a Florida morgue. He said his son had six gunshot wounds to his torso and one to the back of his head and the pictures were taken by his son’s friend, Khusen Taramov.

It was not immediately possible to authenticate the photographs.

The FBI says 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter Ibragim Todashev was killed last week during a violent confrontation in his Orlando home while an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state troopers questioned him about his ties to slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, as well as about a 2011 triple slaying in Massachusetts.

Three law enforcement officials said initially that Todashev had lunged at the FBI agent with a knife, although two of them later said it was no longer clear what had happened.

Greg Comcowich, a spokesman for the Boston FBI, declined to comment Thursday on the elder Todashev’s claim that his son was unarmed.

Abdul-Baki Todashev said the photos were emailed to him by Taramov, who apparently was at the morgue to identify the body. The father said Taramov was part of the Muslim community holding the body for the family until they could retrieve it.

The father said Taramov told him that U.S. agents interrogated him on the street while five officials interrogated Todashev in his Florida house for eight hours on May 22, the night he was shot. He said his son was ‘‘100 percent unarmed.’’

Todashev’s father said his son moved to the U.S. in 2008 on a study exchange program and met Tsarnaev at a boxing gym in Boston in 2011, about a year before he moved to Orlando. He said the two were ‘‘not particularly close friends.’’

Prior to last month’s bombings, Todashev underwent an operation for a sports injury and was on crutches, making it physically impossible for him to have been involved in the bombings, his father said. He added that Todashev had recently received a green card and was planning to return to Chechnya for the summer last Friday, two days after he was killed.

The father said he and his brother were interviewed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Thursday as they sought a visa to take his son’s body back to Chechnya.

FBI agents interrogated the younger Todashev twice before the night he was shot, his father said. Todashev told him that he thought Tsarnaev had been set up to take blame for the bombings.

‘‘I’d only seen and heard things like that in the movies — they shoot somebody and then a shot in the head to make sure,’’ Todashev said.

‘‘These just aren’t FBI agents, they’re bandits,’’ he added.

___

Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie in Boston contributed to the story.

The Buenos Aires Israeli False Flag Bombing Blamed On Hezbollah

The enigma of Israel embassy bombing, Argentina 1992

January 30, 2013

Nick Kollerstrom – Terror on the Tube March 8, 2010

The Phantom Truck

* 17 March 1992 In a busy street of Buenos Aires, in the early afternoon, a three-story Israeli embassy was entirely demolished: ‘a pickup truck driven by a suicide bomber and loaded with explosives smashed into the front of the Israeli Embassy located on the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha, and detonated. The embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building were destroyed.’ – or, that is Wikipedia’s story. In fact, we shall here argue, no trace of any such car-bomb has ever been found, or suicide bomber, nor has any witness testified to seeing it; nor were other buildings adjacent destroyed, they merely had windows broken. Quoting from a more reliable source:

although the shock wave broke glass windows and plaster of practically all the buildings across the street from the Embassy – even blowing in a vitreaux of a church across the street, which sadly fell on a priest and killed him – the only building structurally affected was the Embassy itself.

A car bomb soon became the official story, but do you really want to believe that its blast could have worked in so selective a manner? We quote further from this expert (Salbuchi), below.

* Two years later, a seven-story building nearby was reduced to rubble, belonging to AMIA, l’Association Mutelle Israélite Argentine. Again, a car-bomb was alleged as the cause, but a US explosives expert who was part of the investigation, Charles Hunter, identified “major discrepancies” between the car-bomb thesis put forward and the blast pattern recorded in photos. A report drafted two weeks later noted that, in the wake of the bombing, merchandise in a store immediately to the right of AMIA was tightly packed against its front windows and merchandise in another shop had been blown out onto the street—suggesting that the blast came from inside rather than outside. Hunter also could not understand how the building across the street could still be standing if the bomb had exploded in front of AMIA.

The AMIA building blew up killing 85 innocent Argentinean civilians and 230 wounded. Once again the casualties were mainly Argentineans and only a few Jews. Those killed were all Argentine citizens, and the whole tragedy fell strictly under Argentine jurisdiction. None of the Israeli personnel in charge of security were killed in either of the two terrorist attacks.

On the day the first explosion took place, President Carlos Menem officially requested the assistance of the FBI and CIA from the United States and the Mossad intelligence service and the armed forces of Israel. Why, how very thoughtful of the President. Years later, these same guys somehow turned up immediately after the Bali bomb in Jakarta to ‘investigate’ it – and that was without even having been invited.

Car bombs were alleged for both of these events, despite a complete absence of witness testimony. A court hearing in 2004 continued to insist on the car bomb thesis despite the testimony of at least a dozen witnesses, who swore blind that there was no car bomb. This was dealt with in a section of the report headed “Those who didn’t notice it”[i.e.the car bomb]. Eg, Gabriel Alberto Villalba: “He related that…..his glance being directed towards the police patrol car in front of AMIA, he saw suddenly an explosion which came out of the main entrance of the building, from the inside outwards, which covered everything,” and “a ball of fire which came from the building towards the street”.

Another witness, Juan Carlos Alvarez, was a street cleaner standing in front of the main entrance just where the car bomb was meant to have passed- he would have been knocked over by it – when the explosion happened. Miraculously, he survived, the doorman with whom he had been speaking only seconds before dying instantly. He also failed to “notice” the car bomb, laden with 300 kilos of explosive, turn at speed, its breaks screeching as it came straight at him. He paid a heavy price for his insistence: in an article which appeared in October 2006 he recounts how his treatment at the hands of the prosecutors nearly lead him to suicide. He suffered terrible after-effects from the bombing and now lives in poverty in Buenos Aires without the medical support that he needs. Effectively, the court claimed that the failure of these witnesses to see the car bomb was attributable to post-traumatic stress rather than to the more obvious explanation that it simply wasn’t there.

The investigation of the 1994 bombing by the Argentine judiciary, which had no political independence from the executive branch, has had little credibility with the public, because of a bribe by the lead judge to a key witness and a pattern of deceptive accounts based on false testimony (Source)

Security Staff Unhurt

1996: Towards the end of the year a document entitled “Buenos Aires police are being scapegoated” is circulated, presumed to come from within the Federal Police. It questioned, in an ironic manner, the car bomb thesis, listing all the witnesses who say that there was no car bomb. It mockingly questioned how the car bomb managed to make it to the fourth floor, the epicenter of the 1994 explosion, and points out the exceedingly suspicious circumstance that none of the Israeli personnel in charge of security were killed in either of the two terrorist attacks.

May, 1997 The report of the National Academy of Engineers, commissioned by the Supreme Court, is heard. On the insistence of Beraja and DAIA this was held behind closed doors. However, the 77-page document came into the possession of Libre Opinion, who published a summary on their web site. In their report, these experts expressed their absolute certainty that the explosions at the Israeli Embassy came from bombs within the building.

“The day after this session, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires deplored these conclusions and accused the Supreme Court of anti-semitism.” Absolutely no witness recalled seeing the Renault van. The Israeli army turned up after the event, planted a flag in the rubble, and then one soldier ‘found’ a twisted fragment of Renault van. The existence of this phantom van has become central to such arguments. The final death toll was 29 killed, and 242 wounded. Several Israelis died, but most of the victims were Argentine civilians, many children.

The Israeli military Shin Beth may have been the actual bombers. They held complete security at the embassy and a bomb that size could never have been brought in. The Shin Beth also refused to allow an independent investigation of the embassy, only allowing Mossad allowed access to the site. The 1994 destruction of the seven-story AMIA building had some similarities to the Oklahoma City bomb two years later.

False-Flag Terror

JF: What similarities do you find with other attacks in the US on 9/11, in the UK on 7/7, and in Madrid on 3/11?(interview by Jim Fetzer with Adrian Salbuchi on 13.10.09.)

AS: Well, they all seem to have the same “fingerprint” so to speak. As I say above:
• these false flag events all had near-perfect technical performance, where the buildings they wanted to be blown up and collapse, always did so – reflecting massive technological support and planning;
• but they left “loose ends” that were impossible to explain-away – their lies ended up showing glaringly;
• they all had episodes of planted evidence;
• the “right people” – common workers – died, while top brass – ambassadors, CEOs, governors, billionaires – were “luckily” out of the buildings at the time; and,
• finally, they all served to support the “Global War on Islamic Terror”.

See videos of Salbuchi.

 Argentina here needs philosophers – not politicians, lawyers or journalists – who are able to tell the difference between what is real and what is not. The media sneer at these, as ‘conspiracy theorists.’ Media hacks have sold their souls to Corporate Untruth and so are annoyed to come across persons who have not done this. Analogies with the Oklahoma bombing of the Murray federal building, where the local FBI lived, are relevant: none were present in the building when it blew up, and the FBI received an increase in funding after the event. Those perpetrating false-flag terror normally get an increase in funding as a consequence of the event. This is partly to ensure that everyone stays loyal and quiet. Blame at Oklahoma was meant to fall upon some local Muslims, but this didn’t go according to plan. The judge at the enquiry insisted upon the ‘lone nut’ explanation, a certain Mr Timothy McVeigh, and all other testimony was ignored – and lost. Its up to Argentinians to try and prevent this from happening and rescue the true and relevant facts – before they vanish down the Memory Hole.

‘9/11 was an inside job’ is a slogan, a motto, that is relevant to both Argentine terror-events. The bomb(s) were placed inside, not outside. If the two events of 1992 and 1994 were both ‘inside jobs’, then the two buildings both completely destroyed were wrecked from within – not by an external cause, viz a Renault truck packed with explosives. If they were ‘inside jobs’, then the hypothesis would have to be, that Shin Beth the Israel army perpetrated the event and then (in 1994) planted the fragment of a Renault van.

The turning-point of the investigation has to be the publication in May 1997 of the National Academy of Engineers report, which determined that the Israeli embassy explosion had originated from within the building. It is important that the full text of this report be published and circulated around science departments.

There are analogies with the London Israel embassy bombing ten days after the 1994 event in Buenos Aires. Here the blame was assigned to Palestinian sources. These two embassy bombings were both successfully blamed upon enemies of Israel. The London embassy was blown up by a car bomb (without excluding the option of a bomb also having gone off within the embassy). If a mere ten days separated the these two events, in Buenos Aires and London, is it not likely that the same agency was involved? 85 were killed in one event, none in the other. The latter was phantom terror in the sense that no-one was badly hurt. Phantom terror is cheaper, but it has to ride on the back of real terror. It aims to produce fear and terror, by reawakening the memory of what happened earlier.

In this new millennium, what called itself the ‘Truth’ movement came into existence, in the wake of 9/11. This looks at the global extent of false-flag terror, by those who seek to control our world: the Vampire Elite. Argentine philosophers need to use the insights gained by this movement, to acquire a proper perspective on things, and remedy the ghastly mistake that their country has made, of blaming Iran. A Mexican viewpoint could be relevant…

 Atomic Collaboration

JF: These events appear to me to have been orchestrated with the objective of undermining technical and scientific cooperation between Argentina and Iran in relation to the development of peaceful atomic energy.

Background: IranCen in 1987–88 signed three agreements with Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission. The first Iranian-Argentine agreement involved help in converting the U.S. supplied Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) research reactor from highly enriched fuel to 19.75% low-enriched uranium, and to supply the low-enriched uranium to Iran. The uranium was delivered in 1993. The second and third agreements were for technical assistance, including components, for the building of pilot plants for uranium-dioxide conversion and fuel fabrication. Under US pressure, assistance under second and third agreements was reduced

In December 1991, according to the detailed account in the report, the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires informed Argentina’s foreign ministry that the United States could not accept the continuation of the contracts on nuclear cooperation with Iran. In January, Argentina announced the suspension of the shipments of nuclear materials to Iran.

Feb 1993: The IAEA confirms that a shipment of nearly 20 percent enriched uranium from Argentina will arrive in Iran within the year. 1989 Argentina replaces the core of Iran’s research reactor at TNRC. 1988 Nuclear Fuel reports that Argentina has contracts to supply 115.8 kg of nearly 20 percent enriched uranium to Iran, which must by filled by mid-1990. Argentina was continuing to provide Iran with low-grade enriched uranium and the two countries were in serious negotiations on broader nuclear cooperation when the bombing occurred.(2) 

2002: The arrest warrants for former Iranian president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and six other former top Iranian officials were issued only after the United States had applied diplomatic pressure, according to a Nov. 3 report by Marc Perelman in the Jewish daily Forward.Perelman also reported that the George W. Bush administration was going to cite the indictment as part of its campaign to get Russia and China to support a Security Council resolution on sanctions against Iran.

The main theory about Iran’s motive for ordering the bombing of the headquarters of the Jewish organisation AMIA on Jul. 18, 1994, is that Iran wanted to retaliate against Argentina for its decision to cut off exports of nuclear materials. That motive was asserted by former Iranian intelligence officer Abdolghassem Mesbahi in a 2002 deposition and repeated in a report by the Argentine intelligence service, SIDE, in September 2002.

Argentina has a Spanish ancestry, and so after 2004 some turned to the Madrid bombing, (Chapter 14 of ToT) to help make sense of the horror: ‘If you study the works of the Spanish investigator Del Pino, you can find out uncanny similarity to the attack in Atocha. Would you like to meet the twin sister of the false Ford truck used in the attack on the Embassy of Israel and the false Traffic used in the attack on AMIA? Meet the False Backpack that the “silly terrorists left behind” in the Spanish station Vallecas’.  item (5) In the early hours of the morning after terror struck the Madrid train stations, a planted rucksack was ‘found’ nearby and it had ‘clues’ that led the police straight to some hapless Muslims.

Why would Iran, thousands of miles away from Argentina, wish to cause this horror? Arrest warrants were issued in Argentina for top Iranian politicians with no scrap of real evidence, but instead only an allegation. The allegation concerned a supposed bitterness of Iran, over the cancellation of a civil nuclear-power program. In 1991 Argentina was instructed by America to cease this exchange program, after it had signed several binding contracts with Iran and was thereby put into a quite stressful situation. But, this program was evidently still ongoing, in that enriched-uranium was being exchanged, over the key period 1992-4. Iran was benefitting from this, it really needed that collaboration. No way could it have deliberately engineered such a bomb outrage, to terminate the collaboration. Is it not more likely that ve been

The US ambassador to Argentina at the time, James Cheek, commented in a 2008 article: “To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence of [Iranian responsibility]. They never came up with anything.” 

Voltaire Network commented: ‘While trying to provide grounds for the accusations against Muslims, the US are attempting to exploit the memory of the attacks perpetrated in 1992 and 1994 in the city of Buenos Aires. In fact, most encyclopedias continue to attribute those crimes to Hezbollah or Iran. Despite that, no one believes in those accusations anymore, and the Argentinean justice itself is currently turning towards an Israeli lead. Consequently, Washington is putting pressure to end an investigation that is becoming uncomfortable.’ T. Meyssane

The Fetzer – Salbuchi interview:

AS: ‘The case for a car bomb melted away when the State Prosecutor and the Court hearing on this case invited technical specialist surveyors from the Argentine National Engineers Academy to determine what caused the Israeli Embassy building to collapse. Their conclusion was that the explosion took place from inside the building and was not caused by an alleged car-bomb. To make matters worse for Zionist pressure groups, a passer-by had filmed from several blocks away the mushroom cloud that rose from that explosion, a characteristic effect that also pointed to an internal explosion….strong rumours surfaced that what actually blew up was an arsenal that the Israelis apparently had housed in the building’s basement.

AS: ‘The in-fighting among Zionists had as one of its bloody episodes the bombing of the Israeli Embassy and later the AMIA building in Argentina, which was perceived by theZionist Nazis at the time as a symbol of Labour’s stronghold. Why Buenos Aires, you might ask? Simple – because Argentine public security has always been, and still is, very weak, thus making both terror operations relatively easy with Argentine targets. … The problem with Argentina is that over the past forty years our Nation-State has eroded so badly that it has ceased being a Sovereign Institution and become a highly dependent Colonial Administration entity. Now, how can you expect a totally dependent nation like Argentina to have an “independent judiciary”? No way. Our judiciary does the bidding for those people who really control and run the country, where a global power network of think tanks, NGO’s, lobbies and pressure groups has the final say.

‘This network includes not just entities like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Conference, and Chatham House, but also embedded within it are The World Jewish Council, AIPAC, the B’Nai B’Rith Masonic Lodge, the World Zionist Organization, the ADL, and the American Jewish Congress, among many, many others. It is this power network that calls the shots and twists our government’s arms! … Naturally, the global think-tank network also drafts what the global media should report and say. They are those who decide who will appear as “good guys” and who as “bad guys” onCNN, Fox News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and so on. More still, they are the ones who decide what is and what isn’t news!

A Mexican Clue

The Congress Hall of Mexico, Mexico City, 11 October, 2001: Two Israelis sneak past security into the Chamber of Deputies, Mexico’s parliament, posing as cameramen. But they arouse suspicion, and security guards frisk them. It turns out, they were armed with: 9-mm plastic Glock pistols (undetectable by metal detectors) nine grenades, several sticks of explosives, three detonators and 58 cartridges. Two terrorists, Ben Zvi and Smecke, have been caught red-handed, so what is their punishment? This is Guy Fawkes, plotting to blow up Parliament! Guy Fawkes and his gang were hung, drawn and quartered, for attempting so heinous a crime. But these guys – just went back home! Let’s quote John Leonard – in what is arguably the sole English-language account published of this event: ‘In a flurry of damage control, the Israeli embassy interceded, Sharon sent a special envoy, strings were pulled, the story was spiked, and everyone went home.’ (1) This edifying tale seems to have completely disappeared not only from the media but also from the web. You can only find it today on Rense. Thank God for Rense!

What was the motive for this foiled attempt at false-flag terror? There was no personal or evidently- national motive, no revenge called for – only a global strategy. Mexicans, and South Americans in general were not reckoned to be keen on the forthcoming war with Iraq. In fact they saw it as totally pointless. This act of terror would supposedly have gotten them in the mood for it – according to the schemes of the Vampire Elite. It is an axiom of false-flag terror, that it always strengthens the position of the far-right – who devised the act in the first place. But, we ask, how could the tiny state of Israel have extended its hand as far as Mexico, plucking away the guilty culprits, and then have the influence to crush media debate? And, who could ever be so wicked, as to want to do such a thing?

The Zion Mafia

Does the Old Testament help us to answer these issues? ‘I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter.’ (Exodus 23:27) In the Book of Deuteronomy, somebody is explaining the tactics of deception to the Hebrews (20:10-13) ‘When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.’ Let’s refrain from quoting any further from these still-shocking texts…and just ask, does there exist a far-reaching ‘Zion Mafia’ in our modern world, inspired by such ethics? Here are some helpful attempts to describe it, by a colleague (I have made extracts):

* ‘Their ambition seems to go far beyond the desire for a Jewish homeland towards their own brand of world control. Their brand of world control does not seem to include the well-being of the existing world human population or the well-being of the world environment on which all our existence depends.

* ‘These people, who ever they are, have a lot of similarities with the Italian Mafia. They are secret, they are ruthless, they loan money to people, they kill people when necessary, even their own kind. Their success depends on the public not being aware of their activity and accepting the guilt of those publicly blamed.

* ‘In the early days of the Israeli State there was a lot of idealism and there was even socialism. The covert criminal militarism we see now was not part of the agenda.

* ‘The core of the Zion Mafia is probably a relatively small number of people, we can speculate as to who they are. At present they have the whole world under a spell.

* ‘To break a spell, it is recognised traditionally by magicians that one has to have a name, a word or group of words to focus on as a reference. Anyone can use the term ‘Zion Mafia’, and it refers to the inner circle of activists who are running, driving, coordinating the current global conspiracy.

* ‘The Zion Mafia have considerable influence on American foreign and military policy, in the banking system, in the security business and intelligence services, and in supply of fuel, and in Pharmaceuticals.’ Quotes from Here.

That notion of breaking a spell is important. Standard accounts of both of these Argentine events state matter-of-factly that a suicide driver blew up a truck etc., while those who doubt this are ‘anti-semitic.’ These trucks were nonexistent just like as the Boeing airplane alleged to have flown into the Pentagon on 9/11. People are made to believe in a phantom. It is indeed remarkable that they could pull off the same ploy, twice. (4)

Sources: http://inthesenewtimes.com/2008/05/16/timeline-israeli-embassy-and-amia-bombings1992-2006/  http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/11/09/false-flag-attacks-in-argentina-1992-and-1994/

1. John Paul Leonard, p.363 of The War on Freedom, How and Why America was attacked on September 11, 2001 Nafeez Ahmed, 2002.
2. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HK15Ak03.html
3. Zionist ideology was expressed by Yitzhak Shamir, former Israeli Prime Minister: “Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can be used to disallow terror as a means of war… We are very far from any moral hesitations when concerned with the national struggle. First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate for the circumstances of today…”
4. Meyssan commented, ‘Il est étrange qu’il faille une dizaine d’années pour se rendre compte qu’un attentat a été réalisé en plaçant un explosif dans un bâtiment et non avec un véhicule kamikaze’ which, roughly translated, means, how odd that it took them ten years to realize, there was no truck. Still today, Israel Shamir, whose geo-political views are generally sound, has a page on the topic which begins: ‘Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina was bombed on March 17, 1992, when a pickup truck, driven by a suicide bomber and loaded with explosives, smashed into the front of the Israeli Embassy and detonated destroying the embassy.’  To English-language readers, it will hopefully have become clear that no such truck existed, from Jim Fetzer’s interview with Adrian Salbuchi in October of 2009.

7.3.2010

Source

Argentina Prosecutor Alberto Nisman: operates as State Attorney of Israel in Argentina

Alberto Nisman: operates as State Attorney of Israel in Argentina

Dr. Juan Gabriel Labak is counsel of Messrs. Alberto Alberto Jacinto Kanoore Edul and Kanoore Edul, arbitrarily prosecuted by the Justice Argentina in the case of terrorist attack on the AMIA headquarters in July 1994.

After spending seven courts, generate bundles totaling over one million folios, with aberrations involving a Federal Judge (Juan Jose Galeano) paying u $ s 400.000 in bribes (a Telleldin) operators provided and coordinated by the State of Israel in Argentina (remarkably, DAIA today chaired by Ruben Beraja prisoner and his now bankrupt Banco Mayo) to assemble the lie of (nonexistent) van “Traffic” white allowing the Buenos Aires police blame and, by extension, Syria and, Hezbollah and by extension, by extension, Iran, Today we come to shame in the Executive Branch of the Kirchner and “Justice” deplorable and treacherous (Corral Canicota judge and prosecutors Nisman / Martinez Burgos), impose all the arbitrary measures to promote immoral interests and objectives in our country of a foreign power: The State of Israel.

In any decent country, this is what called “Treason”. This Argentina Cologne, is called “Justice” and “Memory”..

All around lie concocted the bombing of the AMIA, which has placed Argentina in a weak position and committed to international level – besides that the Kirchner government has assaulted a defiantly free country with which we maintained good relations (the Islamic Republic of Iran) – is based on the existence of an alleged Renault “Traffic” was to be used white as a car bomb. Since the existence of that vehicle is key to validate the official thesis, in early August, Dr.. Labaka Nisman asked the Prosecutor will take steps to verify its pre-existence to the terrible attack of July 1994.

In this “Traffic” white was not found virtually nothing except for some pieces and the engine block (conveniently found by an Israeli officer in the rubble of Pasteur Street 633, than (very conveniently) the number of home manufacture!!!).

Dr. Labak said / Nisman asked, inter alia:

1. That there is ample suspicion that never existed that “Traffic” that the prosecutor Nisman said the terrorists used as a car bomb;

2. That bold statement that the attack was made with the car bomb is the basis of the charge against the defendants, Gentlemen Kanoore Edul;

3. than, Also, Republic of Iran has rejected pleas in which requested the extradition of 8 his diplomats and rulers, among other reasons, considering that there is no evidence of the existence of the “Traffic” or another car bomb in the attack;

4. So, Dr. Labaka Nisman asked to proceed to dig up 4 meters at the site where it is alleged car bomb exploded, as the expert on behalf Commander (R) Osvaldo Laborda, states that the Traffic remains were buried there by the explosion effect; and

5. As did the Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico with great success, in the case of the Embassy of Israel, requesting the National Academy of Engineering designated three of its best specialists in explosives to carrying out the scientific expertise to determine where the explosion actually occurred in the AMIA: if outside with a car bomb, or inside the building.

This application is vital to the AMIA bombing. If you dig into the scene and found no remnants of the “Traffic”, NO would then verified the existence of the alleged car bomb, thus also no records would vanish the “Iranian Connection” armed by the SIDE, Attorney Nisman and Kirchner government based on “intelligence” provided in October 2006 by U.S. intelligence services (CIA) and the State of Israel (Mossad), and that both want to “test drive” the state of Israel itself, AMIA, DAIA, CIA, The U.S. State Dept., Zionist organizations local and foreign, Kirchner and the large local multimedia.

Charged, then renewed strength in the far more plausible ISRAELI CONNECTION. or, that the bombing of the AMIA (and the Embassy in 1992), takes on a whole new dimension and credible when it is inserted into the internal struggles within the State of Israel itself in the years 90, culminating less than 16 months after the AMIA bombing to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, at the hands of a terrorist right-wing Jewish Zionist (Amir Ygal).

Thereafter, displacement was more moderate Labor Party in the Israeli government, which has since been firmly in the hands of extremist elements in the ultra-right fundamentalist, racist and violent the Likud (Netanyahu) and Kadima (Sharon – Olmert), among others.

Now, We learned that the prosecutor Nisman rejects the request of Dr. Labaké.

Against all evidence, Prosecutor Alberto Nisman decided by decree that the AMIA bombing occurred outside the building, y con un coche-bomba “Traffic”. Thus, Alberto Nisman had to return to the dogmatic obscurantism and Torquemada to safeguard the “official story” …

Below we reproduce the response of Dr. John Labaka prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

REVER repeated requests for the “official story” – AVAILABLE EXPERTISE AND EXCAVATION TO DETERMINE IF YOU REALLY EXISTED CAR BOMB – ADVICE IS REQUESTED TO CSJN

Mr. Hammer:

Juan Gabriel Labaka, lawyer CSJN T.7 F.311, in his capacity as defender of Mr. Alberto Kanoore edule and Alberto Jacinto Kanoore Edul, established up in File 8566/96 “COPPE, Juan Carlos and other s/ conspiracy and other crimes, the AMIA bombing and CS “bundle 129, Mr. fiscal respectfully say:

I read with amazement the decision of the district attorney why my order refuses to thoroughly investigate whether there was the car bomb Traffic, and whether the explosion was inside or outside the building of the AMIA. My amazement stems from the fact that she offered in my letter so abundant and strong evidence on the lack of traffic and that the explosion occurred inside the AMIA, which can only be rejected or ignored my submission that if there is a grim determination to hide something, or to avoid “surprises” for those who put together this research undeniable rigged.

I so serious allegation because it is not the first time that the district attorney is refusing to investigate leads very important and visible. One was with the case of a proven agent belonging to Argentina’s SIDE (at least to the SIDE of Antonio Stiusso, with whom the district attorney has a suggestive empathy) and both the U.S. DEA. The double agent openly lied in a smear blaming a doctor Neuquen offspring of Arab and Muslim, creating a false evidence against my client Edul son. Despite evidence that so gross an agent of the SIDE and the DEA was trying to falsely incriminate my client, creating false evidence, Mr. fiscal twice rejected my request for quote to declare such an agent of “misunderstanding” Argentine-American, subordinate Stiusso. This valuable clue died at the hands … and at the express decision of the district attorney.

A second and very suggestive of the Attorney refusal to follow tracks was very serious because of the stubborn disobedience and illegal SIDE (of the Stiusso, of course) interventions ever sent two Edul phones during 1994, as he had requested the prosecutor in April 2005. At my insistence, the prosecutor said that these recordings were the last investigation that was pending before the Edul terminate. I asked three times to require the sending of such SIDE recordings, and three times the district attorney refused to do so, and still do not, after four and a half years of disobedience manifested in the SIDE of Stiusso.

There were many other examples of bias almost bordering on autistic and dereliction of duty of public servant (and other more serious criminal offenses) with the district attorney refused, stubbornly and without giving reasons, to investigate tracks “politically incorrect”. But now filled the measure with its rejection of my request to investigate whether there really was the traffic and if the explosion was outside or inside the AMIA.

The suspicion is inescapable: Does the district attorney is pursuing and to discriminate against my clients because they descendants of Arabs and Muslims? I do not know the religion professed by the district attorney, but there are two very major data, which are public knowledge and understanding about other suggestive: and 2007 attended the district attorney as “special guest” at the Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee ” (of active militancy and pro-Zionist Israel) to report on the progress of the investigation of this case; and 2008 traveled to Tel Aviv (Israel) to account for research as much as the president of the Supreme Court of that foreign State.

It is worth remembering that the State of Israel has nothing to see or do in the judicial investigation of the AMIA bombing, it is an entity that mutual Argentina, incorporated and registered under the law Argentina, all killed in the attack were from Argentina and the offense occurred in Argentine territory. Faced with this incontrovertible evidence, Explains how the district attorney his two trips abroad mentioned, and the two reports submitted to politicians and foreign officials? and, moreover, This test is not very strong and, both, clear explanation of the anti-Arab bias and anti-Muslim that the Honorable Prosecutor is acting?

The above shows that the district attorney suffers from very strong likes and dislikes, which lead to Tyre and Trojans measured with different standards. In all forgiven SIDE, to the extent of lawlessness and dereliction of duty and concealment.

The American Jewish Committee and the Court of Israel pays homage. As to my clients, Argentines are descendants of Arab and Muslim, denied even the most elementary research. Do you act or not guided by his personal likes and phobias, ideological, Ethnic, religious and / or policies, the prosecutor in this case Mr?

ultimately, The Office has rejected my request to investigate facts (Insist, facts) arguing that “all the measures required (for me) tends to confirm circumstances duly refuted and discarded in the ruling after oral and public debate before the Court oral Federal Criminal No. 3, ends which were then validated by the National Chamber of Criminal Appeal and the Supreme Court of Justice in The Nation “.

The prosecution can not be bothered, Well, when I say that my order was rejected only because it goes against the “official history”, ritually sacred dogma spread “urbi et orbi”, which can not even hesitate, and less to investigate its authenticity despite the evidence that is false, without falling into judicial anathema.

Do not offend the intelligence and legal skills of Mr. fiscal reminding that in terms of facts and research, at least in criminal court proceedings and at this stage (but also in the trial as such), nothing is ever judged. And you can always and should be back on research and interpretation of the facts, whenever there is a sufficient ground for, or even the slightest suspicion. The opposite is to fall into the most abject obscurity, Criminal Law and this is an arbitrary uppercase.

Fortunately, el TOF3, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court also did not establish by decree that the sun revolves around earth, because in that case the district attorney and would have condemned Galileo Galilei again to die in the fire of religious discrimination and / or ethnic.

Given the above, ask that you review the refusal of the district attorney and make the necessary and sensible investigations mentioned. I request, actually, fill only a formality, because I do not think anything in the world does Mr. fiscal act according to logic, reason and the law, as to be accountable for their conduct to the American Jewish Committee and the Supreme Court of Israel.

The district attorney knows, like everyone else, than those not forgive, and less to their own.

JUSTICE WILL provide under.

Clearly, by Trojan Horses to which we have crossed the blindness and ignorance income, our afflicted Argentina today is not only a financial settlement of international usury, but a political colony of Zionism and the State of Israel itself.

Hamas Reportedly Helping Terrorists Build Damascus Invasion Tunnel–Hezbollah Asks Fatah To Leave Lebanon

Hezbollah urges Hamas members and officials to ‘leave Lebanon immediately’

Lebanese Shiite movement’s decision comes as response to Hamas’ role in ongoing war against Assad regime in Syria.

End of a love affair

BEIRUT – The powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah called on Hamas members and officials who are still present in Lebanon to leave the country ‘immediately and within hours.’ The decision comes as a response to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s role in the ongoing war in Syria against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Media sources close to the Palestinian national liberation movement Fatah in Lebanon said a Hezbollah senior security official informed Hamas representative in Lebanon, Ali Baraka, that all of those related to Hamas on the Lebanese territory became have become unwelcome.

The military unit of Hamas has broken ties with former ally Syrian President Bashar Assad and has begun training members of the opposition’s Free Syrian Army in Damascus, according to a report by The Times of London.

Anonymous diplomatic sources told the Times, earlier this month, that members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades were training Free Syrian Army units in the rebel-held neighborhoods of Yalda, Jaramana and Babbila in the Syrian capital.

“The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades have been training units very close to Damascus. These are specialists. They are really good,” a Western diplomat with contacts in both the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition told the London daily newspaper.

According to the Times, Hamas has been helping the rebels in digging a tunnel beneath Damascus in preparation for an attack on the city, a skill that Hamas has honed by constructing tunnels to smuggle supplies from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian source from Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp reportedly said that Hamas’s aid to the rebels is common knowledge, however Hamas officials have denied any affiliation with Syrian rebels.

The political bureau of Hamas was situated in Damascus. The organization’s leaders enjoyed the protective patronage of the Syrian regime and aid from Hezbollah.

By late December 2011, when the Syrian uprising started shifting into high gear, Khaled Mashaal, Hamas’s top political leader, quietly left Damascus in February last year and relocated to Qatar.

That same month, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh allegedly declared the movement’s support for the Syrian opposition.

Syrian state-run media accused Mashaal of being “ungrateful and treacherous.”

As far as Khaled Meshaal is concerned, the underlying logic is simple: His movement’s new patron and funder, the Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, is a vocal opponent of Assad’s regime.

Anatomy of An Arabian Tragedy—Slanted UN Human Rights Resolution On Al Qusayr

[The following documentation on the Qatari-crafted resolution  laid-out below (after very extensive searching) reveals a level of duplicity usually reserved for desert kingdom camel-trading, hardly something worthy of the adjective, statesmanship.—

FIRST, we have an intentionally slanted BBC article mentioning only Hezbollah, as a source of “foreign fighters” within Syria. 

NEXT, we have the poisonous UN Human Rights Council resolution, condemning ONLY the Syrian government.

LAST, is the original, balanced opening statement of Ms. Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights.  She sought a statement calling for an end to ALL outside meddling in Syria and the supply of arms to both sides.  US Ambassador Rice is to blame for twisting this honest attempt at real diplomacy in the last refuge of human hope into a depraved instrument for an international invasion of Syria, exactly like the rape of Libya. 

Government such as this is criminal and must be brought to its knees. 

REVOLUTION NOW, for the sake of the entire human race.] 

 

UN human rights body condemns foreign fighters in Syria

Funerals have been held in Lebanon for Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria

 

“The deteriorating situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the recent killings in Al Qusayr”

 

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Human Rights Council’s resolution on Syria/ Qusayr

at 12:23 PM

Human Rights Council

Twenty-third session

Agenda item 1

Organizational and procedural 

Qatar, Turkey*, United States of America: draft resolution

23/…  The deteriorating situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab      Republic, and the recent killings in Al Qusayr

The Human Rights Council,

Guided by the Charter of the United Nations,

Having held an urgent debate to discuss the deteriorating situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the recent killings in Al Qusayr, which is currently under siege by the Syrian regime,

Recalling General Assembly resolutions 66/176 of 19 December 2011, 66/253 of 16 February 2012, 66/253B of 3 August 2012, 67/183 of 20 December 2012  and 67/262 of 15 May 2013, Human Rights Council resolutions S-16/1 of 29 April 2011, S-17/1 of 22 August 2011, S-18/1 of 2 December 2011, 19/1 of 1 March 2012, 19/22 of 23 March 2012, 20/22 of 6 July 2012, 21/26 of 28 September 2012 and 22/24 of 22 March 2013, and Security Council resolutions 2042 (2012) of 14 April 2012 and 2043 (2012) of 21 April 2012,

Recalling the press release by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 10 May 2013, in which she expressed alarm at reports of major military build-up around the western Syrian town of Al Qusayr, and stated that she feared further atrocities and increasing displacement of the local civilian population,

Reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and to the principles of the Charter,

1. Strongly condemns all violations of international humanitarian law and the widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities and the Government-affiliated militias, such as those violations involving the regime’s use of ballistic missiles and other heavy weapons against civilians in the Syrian Arab Republic, including against the people of Al Qusayr;

 2. Condemns all violence in the Syrian Arab Republic, irrespective of where it comes from, and calls upon all parties to immediately put an end to all forms of violence, including terrorist acts and acts of violence or intimidation that may foment sectarian tensions, further condemns all human rights violations and abuses and calls upon all parties to comply strictly with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

3. Calls upon the Syrian authorities to meet their responsibility to protect the Syrian population and to put an immediate end to all attacks against the civilians of Al Qusayr;

4. Stresses the need to ensure accountability for those responsible for the massacre in Al Qusayr, and further stresses that those responsible for the serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the Syrian Arab Republic must be held to account; reaffirms that the Syrian people, on the basis of broad, inclusive and credible consultations should determine, within the framework provided by international law, the process and mechanisms to achieve justice, reconciliation, truth and accountability for gross violations, as well as reparations and effective remedies for victims, while underlining the relevance of referrals to the appropriate international criminal justice mechanism under appropriate circumstances;

5. Condemns the intervention of foreign combatants fighting on behalf of the Syrian regime in Al Qusayr, and expresses deep concern that their involvement further exacerbates the deteriorating human rights and humanitarian situation, which has a serious negative impact on its region;

6. Demands that the Syrian authorities allow free and unimpeded access by the United Nations and humanitarian agencies to all civilians affected by the violence, especially in Al Qusayr, through all effective routes, including by providing authorization for cross-border humanitarian operations as an urgent priority; and urges all parties to protect medical personnel, facilities, and transport as such;

6. Requests the Commission of Inquiry to urgently conduct a comprehensive, independent and unfettered l inquiry into the events in Al Qusayr and also requests the Commission to include  the finding of the inquiry  in its report to the  Human Rights Council at its 24^th session.

7. Decides to remain seized of the matter and to take further action on the situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Follow me on Twitter @NabilAbiSaab

 

Urgent debate on the human rights situation in Syria – Opening Statement by Ms. Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights

Geneva, 29 May 2013

Mr. President,
Distinguished Members of the Human Rights Council,
Excellencies,

The situation in Syria reflects a colossal failure to protect civilians. Day after day, children, women and men suffer the brutality of unbridled violence and gross human rights violations by all parties. The increasing number of foreign fighters crossing Syria’s borders to support one side or the other, is further fueling the sectarian violence, and the situation is beginning to show worrying signs of destabilizing the region as a whole.

General situation

Credible reports from my monitoring teams indicate that government forces continue to carry out indiscriminate and disproportionate shelling and aerial attacks resulting in civilian deaths and injuries throughout the country, including in Al-Qusayr.

Government forces and affiliated militias have reportedly carried out acts of collective punishment against civilian populations perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition. The reported massacres in Al Bayda and Ras Al-Nabaa in Baniyas, following similar mass killings in other parts of Syria, show a pattern of extreme acts of collective punishment. Arbitrary arrests and detention, as well as torture, ill-treatment and extra-judicial executions by Government forces have continued unabated.

The flagrant disregard of international law is not limited to the Government side. Many anti-Government armed groups are reportedly engaging in military operations within civilian-populated areas. Some of these groups continue to carry out executions of captured members of pro-Government forces and affiliated militias. The abduction of civilians by anti-Government armed groups, as well as killings, violence and threats of reprisals against civilian populations perceived to be supportive of the Government are also believed to be escalating.

Both parties to the conflict have targeted cultural property and places of worship, including mosques and churches, as part of a wider context of large-scale destruction of housing and other buildings and infrastructure throughout Syria.

Al-Qusayr

Since anti-Government armed groups took control of the city of Al-Qusayr and the surrounding area in 2012, a year-long Government-imposed siege, accompanied by frequent shelling, has resulted in a deteriorating humanitarian situation, with shortages of food, water, electricity, fuel and medical supplies. The situation has greatly worsened over the last month, as efforts to capture Al-Qusayr have intensified, with hundreds more desperate families fleeing the area.

I am deeply concerned about the safety of the civilians still trapped in and around Al-Qusayr. Intense shelling, and clashes between Government forces and supporting militias and anti-Government armed groups have reportedly resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries.

I am also concerned about reports suggesting that some anti-Government armed groups are operating in populated areas and have failed to clearly distinguish themselves from civilians in Al-Qusayr.

I urge both sides to protect civilians from the ongoing violence and to allow safe passage to those who wish to flee. Under international law, all parties are called upon to distinguish themselves from civilians during hostilities and to take all feasible precautions to limit their suffering.

International dimension

Mr. President, the conflict in Syria is spinning out of control.

Immediate action to stop further bloodshed and suffering is needed, and this urgent debate provides an opportunity for the international community to review its approach. It is also an opportunity for individual States and other actors to do some soul-searching. States with influence on both sides must pull together to stop this conflict, instead of pursuing opposing paths that have so far simply contributed to the spiraling devastation of Syria.

The solution must be political. It will not be military. Outside forces, including some States, are reported to be actively fueling the conflict by providing weapons and ammunition to one side or the other. This emboldens the belligerents.

Large-scale forced displacement, including across borders, on the basis of religious or other affiliations, is no longer a prospect we can ignore. If the current situation persists, or deteriorates further, increased inter-communal massacres are a certainty, rather than a risk. Recent virulent instances of incitement to violence on grounds of religion or ethnicity, and the increasing involvement of a variety of extremist foreign fighters, are ominous signs of more violence to come.

Syria has long had a reputation for tolerance, with Sunnis, Shia, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Druze and many other communities living side-by-side in relative harmony.

The international community must drive home an uncompromising message that all Syrians are entitled to live in their own country, in safety and without fear, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or political affiliation.

Mr. President,

In the run-up to the proposed International Conference on Syria in Geneva, States — especially those with influence on the combatants — must act collectively to stop this dreadful conflict from getting even worse. The collapse of the State of Syria would have devastating consequences, not just for Syrians, but also for the region and the whole world.

The message from all of us should be the same: we will not support this conflict with arms, ammunition, politics or religion.

We must put our differences aside, and States with influence should use it to apply strong pressure to halt all further use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardment of civilian areas. States with influence must make it clear they are unified in not tolerating any further killings, destruction or sectarian incitement, by anti- or pro-Government elements.

States with influence must insist – and ensure – that the Government and opposition groups permit humanitarian agencies to operate without restrictions in order to provide the massive assistance that is so urgently needed across this devastated land.

Mr. President, the Syrian conflict will end one day, one way or another. We must plan for that ending in the hope that it is in a month, not in five, ten or twenty years.

There will be many daunting post-conflict challenges that need to be tackled, and which we need to start reflecting on now.

The urgent needs of Syrians for humanitarian relief and for economic and social reconstruction will require the maintenance or restoration and reform of functional State institutions, including the army, police, judiciary and civil administration.

We must also put our differences aside in respect of upholding international laws and standards. Syria must be referred to the International Criminal Court to ensure accountability for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. War crimes and crimes against humanity are being routinely committed and the prevalent culture of impunity is helping to prolong the conflict.

A referral to the ICC is likely to have a deterrent effect that may help to protect lives. Would-be perpetrators should be under no illusion that they will escape justice.  Referral to the ICC will give an incentive to the many people on both sides, who are not responsible for serious crimes, to distance themselves from the extremists driving the country to destruction. It will demonstrate clearly that the only viable future is to hold discussions, seek reconciliation, find solutions and stop the carnage.

Proposed Geneva Conference
Mr President, for all the above reasons, I welcome the efforts to hold the long-awaited international conference in Geneva to find a political solution to the conflict. I call on all involved States to place respect for human rights firmly on its agenda.

This is an extremely important opportunity for States with influence to pull the parties back from the brink of catastrophe. Reflecting on the immense human and economic cost of previous protracted conflicts, we should do our utmost to avoid allowing another one to develop in the heart of such a particularly volatile region.

This Council should send a clear message to all parties to the conflict, and the external actors wittingly and unwittingly fuelling it: the conflict must cease, with an immediate cease-fire as a confidence-building measure leading up to the Geneva conference; the flow of arms must stop; and the process of national dialogue must begin now.

Thank you.

ENDS

For more information or media requests, please contact Rupert Colville (+41 22 917 9767 / rcolville@ohchr.org); Liz Throssell (+41 22 917 9434 / ethrossell@ohchr.org) or Cécile Pouilly (+ 41 22 917 9310 /cpouilly@ohchr.org)

UN Human Rights, follow us on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unitednationshumanrights
Twitter: http://twitter.com/UNrightswire
Google+ gplus.to/unitednationshumanrights
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/UNOHCHR
Storify: http://storify.com/UNrightswire

Check the Universal Human Rights Index: http://uhri.ohchr.org/en

SC Order Sought Against Individuals Negotiating Truces and Ceasefires with Private Armies

SC order sought against talks with militants

The Supreme Court of Pakistan.—File Photo

Published 29th May, 2013, 7:00 AM

ISLAMABAD: A petition filed in the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a declaration against negotiations by any person, civilian or military, with a private army forbidden under article 225 of the constitution.

In his petition moved under the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on the enforcement of the fundamental rights, Shahid Orakzai asked how could the armed forces propose a truce/ceasefire/end of hostilities to the rebels on the territory of Pakistan?

The petitioner also asked whether a citizen was empowered by the constitution to negotiate peace with a private army waging war on Pakistan.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) through its chairman and Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam have been made respondents in the petition.

Mr Orakzai requested the court to order the JCSC chairman to pre-empt any contact/dialogue/negotiations on the territory of Pakistan between the enemy and any politico-religious person/party advocating peace with the enemy. The ISI chief should also be directed to identify people who were in contact with the Taliban as well as their mode of communication. The petitioner requested the court to direct the JCSC chairman to call a meeting of the committee to identify the areas from where the rebels were threatening the security of Pakistan and report the action taken against them.

He said he intended to seek an instant halt to the double-crossing move of some politico-religious elements to impose a disgraceful armistice, call it semi-surrender, on the bleeding armed forces of the country. These elements were in fact seeking religious and moral victory for the Taliban rebels, he contended.

“This court this hour is duty bound to ask why the armed forces are being compelled to raise a white flag. Why is the national flag being pulled down only a few steps from victory?” he asked.

Mr Orakzai argued that members of the armed forces could not engage themselves in any political activity. “And that means both individually and collectively. The so-called peace talks are nothing but politics and seek a reversal of the state policy under the two previous political governments,” he said.

“The armed forces have not lost any ground or territory to the revels nor have they lost the will to fight,” the petition said, adding that the court could seek their opinion from the JCSC chairman. It said the court also needed to discover how the Taliban suddenly thought of peace talks just a few days before the elections and nominated three guarantors to bridge the credibility gap with the government and the armed forces. “Even thereafter the rebels have shown no respite and tried their utmost to disrupt the elections through bloodshed,” the petition said.

The Planned Collapse of America–Part 1 and Part 2

[This 2007 article has been read by a lot of people lately, so I thought that I would post it here once again.  I have also included “Part Two,” which has only been posted before on Rense.com, evidently.]

The planned collapse of America

By Peter Chamberlin

Global Research, December 09, 2007 — – There is no shortage of speculation about “why” our leaders are still adamantly planning for the destruction of Iran, in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, even though everyone except the neocons and their allies believes that America would not survive our own actions. An irrational attack is planned and apparently the decision has been chiseled in stone. It may be for Israel. It may be for oil. Maybe it is for world domination?

We are launching a nuclear world war to save us from ourselves. “We have found the enemy and he is us.” –Pogo. We risk blowing the world apart, to avoid watching America slowly choke on its own excesses.

The government has known for decades that America is on a countdown to self-destruction. Among the elite it is common knowledge that our “global economy” must one day collapse from its own dead weight. In 1974 an intensive research project was undertaken by the Stanford Research Institute and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation for the Dept. of Education. Their final report was released as the Changing Images of Man. It was compiled by the SRI Center for the Study of Social Policy, Director Willis Harmon. This is a far-reaching investigation into how the basic nature of man might be changed. The Aquarian Conspiracy describes the implementation of their work in the real world..

The most reassuring part of “Images” is that it confirms my own conclusions about our crisis, but it is also the most disturbing part, for it confirms my worst reservations about this time.

The object of the research was the development of a plausible vision of the future in which democratic methods survive, major problems are managed successfully if not resolved, and the unfolding of the human potential continues to expand. In other words, the postulation of a “desirable future” including feasible paths to its realization . . .

The government was looking forward to a very troubling future, trying to figure out the best path through it. The plan was to find ways to shape and mold mankind into a new cultural image, complete with new ideas and ideologies, even religious ones. The root of the problem was human nature, and solution was to reshape the competing forces of daily life, in order to forge a new image of a new human nature. The researchers were brutally honest in seeking all available knowledge pertaining to their research, and in assessing the current common image of man-on-earth.

The research revealed that there were a multitude of crises that were about to intersect in America’s near future. Not the least of these converging catastrophes was a rapidly approaching breakdown of both American capitalism and democracy. The collapse was a natural result of globalism and monopoly capitalism. The basic greed that powers the system eroded the American political and economic structures, exposing the foundation of immorality and unfairness that amplifies the social unrest. The Stanford researchers clearly predicted that the American economy was destined to collapse from its own dead weight. The data also showed that that economic collapse was to be accompanied by disastrous social repercussions, such as rioting and upheaval, which would lead us into a “garrison state.”

The thing about this research is that this work has confirmed that our economy, based on parasitic capitalism, where the small elite sits atop the heap of men and gorges on their lifeblood, is destroying the social fabric of America. This system is based on a stacked deck, where the top elite always reap the profits that are made to rise to the top through the corporate profits-based system. The research confirmed that the growing inequities of such a system were ever increasing and with them, elevated social tensions. A system based on usury and putting everyone in the “poor house” is an economic order that is guaranteed to produce a democratic revolution, whenever the misery index of the armed populace exceeds the limits that they are willing to peacefully bear, without striking back at the source of their misery.

Changing Images of Man predicts an American economic collapse and a “garrison” (police) state,” if the overwhelming inequities of our economic system are not corrected by powerful multinationals making more humane decisions. Alternatives to this doomsday scenario are discussed, all of which point to the need to devote all available resources towards transforming the image of man, changing man’s nature, instead of altering the corrupted economic system which has brought America to this dire state. In this government study it was inappropriate to denounce the evil culprits behind all our troubles (who pull the strings on government itself), even though the task was to document and remedy the damage that they have done. Instead, they are cited as the hopeful “saviors,” that we should look to for help and leadership. The hypocrisy of the hegemons! The authors admit that it is “utopian in 1974 to think of the multinational corporations as potentially among our most effective mechanisms for husbanding the earth’s resources and optimizing their use for human benefit — the current popular image of the corporation tends to be more that of the spoiler and the exploiter.”

Instead of charging the people who are responsible for our situation (such as men like David Rockefeller), for manipulating our economy and our democracy to maximize their profits, the multi-national corporations and their owners were exalted as the potential saviors of mankind. Rockefeller and the elite have consistently taken steps to dominate the world by controlling people through “humanitarian” projects which, in the end, turn out to be profit mechanisms. The “green revolution” to spread corporate farming to the Third World has been the key to globalization’s destabilizing of world labor markets, in order to create populations of “refugee workers,” who are willing to go anywhere to find work for slave wages. This is the cause of the wave of illegal immigration into the US from Mexico. This is part of the proof that there are powerful individuals who are using their economic power to undermine nations in a long-term scheme to gain control of nations and multiply their profits.

Here David Rockefeller admits media collusion with his one world plans: “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the light of publicity during those years. But now the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

Rockefeller writes on page 405 of his memoirs: “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” (Activists Go Face to Face With Evil As Rockefeller Confronted)

Everything that “Images” suggested to remedy shortcomings in the economic system was based on the assumption that men like this would acquire a new corporate benevolence, with CEOs gaining basic humanity. According to Rockefeller himself (who freely admits his efforts to replace America with a “one world” order), he has been working for the greater good of man, all along.

Their conclusions on American political shortcomings were that these would be tended to by the new improved humane politicians, sort of like Bush’s “compassionate conservatives.” Step 4 of their six-part strategy to “Bring About a Non-Catostrophic Transformation” — “Encourage a politics of righteousness and a heightened sense of public responsibilities of the private sector . . . A politics of righteousness might have been laudable in any generation; it may be indispensable for safe passage through the times just ahead.”

The report authors recognize the inevitability of the rising new image of man, describing it as a quasi-religious awakening within the collective mind of man, man’s new human nature, relating it to the actual process of spiritual learning that has been going on within religions for thousands of years. They praise Freemasonry and the skills and disciplines inculcated within its members, speculating that their ways might be the key to shoring-up our free enterprise democratic society.

They developed a strategy to revitalize America’s motivational images, symbols and institutions, outlining five separate approaches to the problem, describing the pluses and the pitfalls of each, according to their effects upon society. These approaches are defined as “restorative, simulative, manipulative, persuasive and facilitative.” Restoration of crumbling icons works best in the early stages of societal transformation (revitalization cycle). The simulative strategy introduces new ideas, whenever the collapse of the old order becomes apparent. The manipulative strategy seeks to limit individual freedoms. Persuasive propaganda phase is to be coupled with proven mind control techniques, to keep down the social upheaval and shape the emerging image.

“No doubt existing consciousness-changing, behavior-shaping, subliminal persuasion, and other conditioning techniques could be used to accomplish some sort of transformation of sobering proportions (we ought to be able to be more effective than Nazi Germany). After previously citing Nazi reinvigoration of the Germanic icons and ideals.”

The transforming revitalization process mirrors the psychiatric process of leading a patient through a psychotic break and the restructuring of his life, but on a national scale.

Once the transformation becomes apparent, social stability will become a problem, especially when society feels pushed by overextending the simulative stage. Actions taken to increase the polarization between “transformation enthusiasts and the conservatives” are called “constructive,” except when it is desirable to take actions that “contribute to social cohesion.” They were searching for the best path to bring about a controlled deconstruction of everything that “America” means and the reconstruction of a new improved vision of America. They are midwifes to the delivery of the “New World Order,” as they go about the dirty business of guiding society through that predicted period of “friendly fascism.”

The great anomaly is given as the great chasm between an efficiently functioning profit-driven capitalist society and the human needs and desires of that society which go unmet, so that “profits” can be taken. In fact, the “profit” really amounts to the bread that is taken from the poor. The inequities and the unfairness of the corporate system are causing the breakdown of American capitalism and American democracy. The American catastrophe is causing the breakdown of the world economy for the same reason, the basic inability of monopoly capitalism to meet the basic needs demanded by the world’s people.

Bush’s appointed task is to bully America through this turbulent period of upheaval, with as little disruption of corporate activity as possible. Government has taken the words of this study to heart, preparing a manipulative transformation, to divert or preempt the coming collapse of our nation with a massive war today. This is also one of the primary reasons for the coming world war, to serve as a prelude to American martial law. Instead of calling out the troops after the insurrection has begun, they plan to call out the troops first. If the American military is to forcefully control the homeland, including their own relatives, then the troops must first be convinced that the nation’s survival depends upon their patriotic actions. This is why the world war against Iran has not started yet, because our National Guard must first be convinced that its duty is to put down the American rebellion which will surely accompany the bombing of Iran. The timing for their great takeover is crucial, if they want to move America past (through) the social unrest as quickly as possible.

Here are the “Elements of a Strategy for a Non-catastrophic Transition”:

1. Promote awareness of the unavoidability of the transformation.
2. Foster construction of a guiding vision of a workable society built around the new image of man and new social paradigm.
3. Foster a period of experimentation and tolerance for diverse alternatives.
4. Encourage a politics of righteousness and a heightened sense of public responsibilities of the private sector . . . A politics of righteousness might have been laudable in any generation; it may be indispensable for safe passage through the times just ahead.
5. Promote systematic exploration of and foster education regarding man’s inner life, his subjective experience.
6. Plan adequate social controls for the transition period while safeguarding against longer-term losses of freedom . . . Regulation and restraint of behavior will be necessary in order to hold the society together while it goes around a difficult corner.

There must be a new economics to deal with the “new scarcities.” Arguing for corporate America to adopt a humanitarian aspect, the argument is made for an alternative “new socialism,” where important sectors like energy might be nationalized for the good of the country, and greater pressure put upon corporations to mandate a sort of social awareness of employee needs, as much as shareholder profits.

“The appropriate question may be not so much how to bring about a transformation . . . but rather how to facilitate a non-catastrophic transformation.” [page 195]

“Construct a guiding version of a workable society, built around a new positive image of humankind and corresponding vision of a suitable social paradigm. As the old order shows increasing signs of falling apart, some adequate vision of what may be simultaneously building is urgently needed for mobilization of constructive effort. The guiding vision has to include some way of providing for full and valued participation in the economic and social affairs of the community and society, especially for those who are physically and mentally able to contribute but find themselves in a state of unwilling idleness and deterioration of spirit.”

Despite all the report’s shortcomings and its hypocrisy, it does make some sound observations about what is needed for our immediate survival. We should take it as a guide to what our government knows about the coming mega-crisis and a template to help us see what changes we could make if there were truly a new economy, a new social contract, a new American state. For it is obvious to all those who take the time to look, that we are headed into period of national freefall, when American society plunges head first, into a dark abyss of uncertainty, as the old order passes away, and the New World Order rushes in to fill the void.

We are seeing the planned collapse of America, coming down the road we are on. What are we going to do to get our nation off that highway to hell?

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

The Planned Collapse Of America – Part Two

By Peter Chamberlin
Morty’sCabin.com
12-15-7

Just because the collapse is planned doesn’t mean that it can’t be resisted. In resistance, perhaps we can hone-off the roughest edges of the unfolding transformation. The argument made, that “resistance is futile,” ignores the human potential in a battle situation, where everyone is fighting for their freedom and their lives. We have no duty to mankind to lie down before those who would trample over us. I’d prefer that this Nation not continue to submit to the corporate “gang rape” that we have been getting for so many decades. To surrender to the evil men who were instrumental to the ongoing collapse of the global systems misses the point, that it is time for a real political fight in this country. Everything depends upon our ability to shake loose the perverting forces of ultimate capital from government, where they manipulate everything American, causing the failure of democracy. “We have to fight a war of ideas to take back that which has been stolen from us. We the People must be the ones to set the foreign policy of this country.”

American monopoly capitalists have effectively gained “controlling interest” in this country. They have made the decision to destroy America’s economic base to obtain greater profits. We have been written off. Studies like “Changing Images of Man” document the common knowledge of the ruling class, that there will be social upheaval in reaction to the collapse. It is our duty in the resistance to thwart their plans, to shape the social critical mass so that it has a direct negative impact on the masters of the universe. Our task is to take measures before the collapse that will ensure that the upheaval will destroy the elite’s ability to control the changed world. We are the patriot radicals (with the extremist beliefs about conspiracies allayed against our nation) who intend to prevent the bringing about of a “dark age” of oppression in America.

The government has planned for the coming period of collapse and social upheaval in this country, but it has done nothing to prevent them from happening. If economic pain and dislocation are allowed to cause insurrection in this country, they will justify police state actions to maintain order. Why would government try to avoid the one catastrophic event that will make dictatorship possible? The catastrophic is essential to the long-term plan, just as the neocon Project for a New American Century war plans needed the catastrophic “event” of 9/11 to set the “war on terrorism” plot against freedom into motion.

The American patriotic forces of freedom must likewise prepare for the coming disastrous event that will justify all radical changes. The attack upon Iran will be the event of justification. When the attack comes, those of us who dare to speak out will be silenced in the repercussions at the beginning of the counter-revolution. If we want to ensure that the government returns to the hands of the American people after the dust settles, then we will set in motion now, the political forces that will motivate the leaderless masses in the direction of freedom. All our efforts to prevent the world war from erupting must clearly identify the elite perpetrators of the plot to undermine national security for internationalist goals. Using their own words, we must expose their intentions for America and the world. We must guarantee that the coming democratic revolution which they plan to capitalize on is a patriotic revolution to save democracy.

The intentional de-industrialization of America has amounted to a war of economic terrorism, waged upon the people of this country. The globalist plot to “offshore” all of America’s good jobs and to exploit Third World slave labor conditions, has purposely destroyed the industrial base of this country. Globalism is a plot against American workers (and all workers), just as neoconservatism is a plot against all Americans.

Instead of stimulating our industry to use our economy as a powerhouse, to drive the world economy and to provide the basic necessities needed in developing countries, the “masters of the universe” instead decided to destroy the American economy, in order to “level the playing field” with the rest of the world. Instead of strengthening America by making our foreign policy an engine of humane change, vulture capitalists have intensified the corporate American rape of the world and harnessed us to a violent Zionist policy, intent on remaking the Middle East, as a first step into the New World Order. It is high time that we began to “wage peace” on the world, instead of war.

In order to implement their violent plans and to shape the “second American revolution,” the corporate media has consistently bombarded the people with psychological warfare, to convince us of the hopelessness of our situation. Our minds are poisoned with false beliefs in the inevitability of our fates, that we are, in fact, witnessing the “end of the world.” Even though most available evidence suggests that the entire world is collapsing (not just America and Western civilization), there is also ample proof that this is an engineered event, made to seem like Armegeddon.

We have been duped into accepting their terms, even using their terminology, by focusing on “global” issues, instead of American issues. America may be the source of most of the world’s troubles today, but it is also the world’s only hope. If not for American leadership, there would be no world leaders. What the world needs now is the end of American “misleadership” and a return to the real thing. Meeting the needs of our crowded planet and repairing the centuries of industrialization run amok will calm most of the earth’s turmoil, while helping us to prepare for the next phase in human development. Once we begin to turn the planet around, we can focus on expanding mankind’s horizons and ending the era of hydrocarbon fuels.

Americans must save themselves from the worst and the most powerful men among them. We must revitalize our moral center, the part that made us a light unto the nations. If America can remember its basic concern for all human life that led to the creation of the world’s largest human aid programs and its environmental concerns that made us signatories to countless international treaties, it can foster international recognition of universal human rights and a reverential respect for all life. This would honor one of the stipulations from the Images of Man study, to foster a national spirit that embraces the growing “religion of life” that is emerging within man.

A morally transformed national spirit will be necessary for the political fight to reclaim America. We must restore the people’s government by removing the corruption within it. It is time to really “clean” the people’s house. We have no other choice but to establish a “politics of righteousness” in American politics. We have to end the age of the politics of money right now, not after Bush or the next election.

It is high time that we all fought for what we believed in. What do you believe in?

 

peter.chamberlin@hotmal.com

Obama Conducts Demonstration Drone Murder for Nawaz Sharif

[This is the second or third time that this particular militant leader has been reported killed by drone.  If this report proves to be true, then it can clearly be written-off as Obama’s lame attempt to prove the utility of the “right” terrorist drone strikes.  This attack is the first Pakistani drone murder by the United States since Pakistan’s election.  Obviously Obama is hoping to deceive soon-to-be Prime Minister Sharif about the usefulness of murder by drone, the same way that Bush deceived Musharraf.  If this effort had been serious about changing the American objective in Pakistan, abandoning the American project for the total destabilization of Pakistan (just as in Libya and Yemen ), then Obama would have eliminated the CIA’s primary asset in the Pakistani Taliban—Hakeemullah Mehsud.  But that will never happen, unless the ISI manages to pull another “switcheroo” on their CIA overlords, just like they did to kill Baitullah.]

US drone strike kills TTP number two Waliur Rehman: security officials

Reuters

In this photo taken on October 4, 2009, new Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, is seen with Waliur Rehman during his meeting with media in South Waziristan’s Sararogha area. — Photo by AP/File

Updated 29th May, 2013, 3:32 PM

PESHAWAR: A US drone strike killed Waliur Rehman, the number two of the Pakistani Taliban, in the northwestern tribal region of North Waziristan region on Wednesday, three security officials said.

Rehman had been poised to succeed Hakimullah Mehsud as leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, a senior army official based in the South Waziristan tribal region, the group’s stronghold, said in December.

The Pakistani Taliban were not immediately available for comment.

The Pakistani Taliban are a separate entity allied to the Afghan Taliban. The banned group has launched devastating attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians.

The officials’ claim comes hours after at least four people were killed and four others were injured early Wednesday in a suspected US drone strike in North Waziristan.

According to initial reports, a US drone fired two missiles at a house in Miramshah’s area of Chashma Village, killing four and injuring four others.

The wounded were shifted to a nearby hospital where they were stated to be in critical condition.

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry official condemned the strike as a breach of sovereignty.

“Any drone strike is against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan and we condemn it,” the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

Wednesday’s was the first reported drone strike in Pakistan since the May 11 general elections won by Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz.

Drone casualties are difficult to verify. Foreign journalists must have permission from the military to visit the tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Taliban fighters also often seal off the sites of drone strikes immediately so Pakistani journalists cannot see the victims. — Reuters

Zionist Press Taunts British Spooks for Letting Their “Islamist” Slips Show

[This Jewish piece would be ironic if it was not meant as a Zionist upbraiding of their royal patrons for sloppy spywork.  The JPost author finishes his criticism of British mentors by highlighting some of the more well-known examples of previous British foul-ups, most notable among them, “Sheikh Omar,” the butcher of Daniel Pearl who also killed the real bin Laden, according to Benazir Bhutto right before her own assassination (SEE:  Benazir Bhutto Says Osama Bin Laden murdered by Omar Sheikh). 

Anytime that your spy works leave a visible trail back to the source, there is now a danger that civilians like us will see through the smokescreen, revealing the British hand in countless terrorist operations, because of the Internet.  Now we can see the patterns clearly emerging, like spider webs, all leading back to London.  In many ways, Lyndon Larouche has been spot-on in some of his assessments of the shameless schemes of London and those carried-out in concert with foreign royals.  It seems that there is still a web of trust between the royal blood lines, especially when it comes to secret operations.  It is no wonder that London and Riyadh work so smoothly together.  Both thrones are historically bloodthirsty, with ambitions that far exceed their small populations or geographical areas. 

Normally the British are more circumspect about leaving blood trails leading back to MI5 or MI6.  They have repeatedly blown their covers in this terror war, starting in Basra (SEE:  So what were two undercover British soldiers up to in Basra?) and in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province (SEE: What exactly were Mervyn Patterson and Michael Semple doing in Helmand?), be it soldiers getting captured by local police, or militant operatives revealing themselves to the targeted governments. 

Manufacturing terrorists from radicalized Muslim males is the cheapest way concocted to raise an army since the days of organized slavery.  It is high time that this process of waging war on the cheap, using mercenaries and brainwashed cadres of Wahhabiized “Islamists,” is brought to an end. 

It seems that the back story of V for Vendetta was all true.

  

 Britain, will you wait until the 5th of November to bring the evil plot to an end?]

UK’s Islamist problem

By JPOST EDITORIAL

It should come as no surprise that random terrorist attacks have been, and will remain for the foreseeable future, MI5’s greatest security threat.

A police forensics officer investigates a crime scene where one man was killed in Woolwich, London Photo: REUTERS

Since 9/11, the West’s perception of violence perpetrated in the name of a warped interpretation of Islam has changed. No longer can this violence be seen as an exclusively external threat faced by countries located in the Middle East such as Israel. Rather, it is a domestic threat as well.This lesson was driven home yet again for Brits on Wednesday when Michael “Mujaheed” Adebolajo and an accomplice brutally murdered a man in broad daylight on a London street while shouting “Allahu akbar.”

The victim, a British soldier, was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Help-the Heroes,” which is also the name of an organization that supports British forces fighting in Afghanistan and Mali.

The vast majority of Muslims in Britain and in other European countries are law-abiding, upright citizens who are undoubtedly appalled that the two men have claimed to be acting in the name of Islam. The Muslim Council of Britain was quick to denounce the atrocity.

Nevertheless, Britain and other European countries do have a problem with radical Islamists. And they have for some time now.

“Londonistan” apparently originated as an appellation used in the 1990s by French security officials frustrated at British leaders’ failure to confront in their capital the dangers of radical Islam, which, the officials feared, would spill over into France. Steven Simon, a former White House counterterrorism official, referred to London as “the Star Wars bar scene,” that caters to all kinds of Islamist recruiters and fund-raisers for, and practitioners of, holy war.

Abu Hamza al-Masri, the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in central London, provided shelter to Richard Reid, a.k.a. “the Shoe Bomber,” and Zacarias Moussaoui, a member of the team that carried out the 9/11 attacks, and other terrorists.

The 2002 video butchering in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was organized by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, another Brit and a former student at the London School of Economics. A year later, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, both born in England, took part in a suicide attack on Mike’s Place, a Tel Aviv bar.

British authorities have taken steps to crack down on extremists. Abu Hamza was eventually jailed on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. In March of this year, Jamaican-born Abdullah El-Faisal, a supporter of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, was sentenced to nine years in jail for urging his followers to kill nonbelievers in a holy war.

Some radical Muslim clerics have managed to manipulate Britain’s democratic system. At the end of March, police said they were unable to prosecute Anjem Choudary for saying that British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama should be killed. After the British daily The Sun provided authorities with secretly filmed footage, Choudary claimed he had been “joking,” though he maintained that bin Laden was his “hero.”

In the wake of the brutal murder on Wednesday, Choudary said he was acquainted with Adebolajo, who converted to Islam in 2003. According to The Telegraph, Adebolajo appeared publicly alongside other radical members of Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun, the banned forerunner to 4 UK, which was headed by Choudary.

Commenting on Adebolajo’s act of terrorism, Choudary said: “What he did was unusual and it’s not the kind of view that I propagate and I do not condone the use of violence, but those views are out there. Some members of the Muslim community struggle to express themselves and he is making his voice heard in blood.”

Clerics such as Choudary walk a thin line between criminal incitement and freedom of expression. And his messages enjoy a remarkably receptive audience in a country where the fastest growing religion is Islam. In a 2006 survey commissioned by Channel 4, a quarter of British Muslims said the July 7, 2005, bombings in London that left 52 dead were justified because of the British government’s support for the war on terror. Muslims under 24 were twice as likely to agree.

There is no evidence that these sorts of sentiments among some Muslims have significantly changed. In an atmosphere in which murderous terrorist attacks are see as justified, the sort of seemingly random lone wolf attack perpetrated by Adebolajo and his accomplice becomes all the more likely. It should come as no surprise that random terrorist attacks have been, and will remain for the foreseeable future, MI5’s greatest security threat.

The Pre-Revolutionary Release of Terrorist Idealogues In Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, etc.

[Like releasing the fox before the hounds, the US has consistently supplied the terrorist ideologues, for the purpose of generating future conflicts.  The terrorist ideologues are first fully indoctrinated and brainwashed either in prisons, or in friendly “Islamist” countries (Saudi Arabia), before they are released into targeted areas.  After the target zone suffers from a full cycle of Wahhabi radicalization, turning them into hotbeds of militant terror, US “concerns” and terrorist warnings are validated.  At that time, US military operations become justified, to hunt-down the Western-trained “Islamists,” allowing the hunters to run-down and murder an Islamist “fox.”  This is also the solution for covering the fox’s tracks, leading back to the CIA.]  

The Master Terrorist We Gave Away

One of Al Qaeda’s top people, who’s strategy continues to inspire attacks, was in CIA custody. Then he was handed over to Syria and set free.

By Christopher Dickey

It has been a while since we heard directly from “the architect of global jihad,” “the mufti of murder,” the apostle of “individualized terror” known by his nom de guerre Abu Musab al-Suri. Indeed, most people outside jihadist circles have never heard of him at all.

Bogdan Maran/AP

But thanks to the shadowy practices of the Bush administration in its global war on terror, this Syrian-born former adviser to Osama bin Laden is now at large— and an inspiration to a whole new generation of killers, including, it would seem, those in Boston and London.

And these attacks do not look as if they are likely to stop any time soon. Over the weekend, a French soldier on anti-terrorist patrol at the La Defense transport hub and shopping center on the outskirts of Paris had his neck slashed by a tall, bearded assailant who has yet to be apprehended.

Al-Suri, a continuing inspiration to terrorist far and wide, had a core strategy which was detailed in a 1,600 page treatise, The Call for an International Islamic Resistance. He encouraged opportunistic and improvised terrorist acts in the West, sapping the public’s morale and undermining the ability of the American, British, French or other armies to fight on Muslim soil. But it is such a thorough guide to the philosophy and techniques of terror that crazies far outside the realm of Islam have adopted it. Anders Behring Breivik, the Muslim-hating “lone wolf” who murdered 69 people in Norway in July 2011, studied Al-Suri’s lessons closely.

I wrote about Al-Suri in detail in 2007, after an interview with Al-Suri biographer Brynjar Lia, author of Architect of Global Jihad. Yet after the proliferation of “lone wolf” attacks in recent years, and indeed in recent weeks, it all seems much more relevant.

Al-Suri was not a big advocate of suicide bombings. He was unimpressed by huge spectaculars. He wanted to substitute quantity for quality in the terror business. He mistrusted empty-eyed religious fanatics whose suicidal goal was to get to Paradise. “What is important,” said Lia, “is the impact in terms of confusing, paralyzing and terrorizing the enemy.”

One of his most cherished goals, he said, was to see the United States attacked using explosives laced with radioactive materials: “A dirty bomb for a dirty nation,” as he put it.

In 2005, the Pakistanis captured Al-Suri and reportedly turned him over to the Central Intelligence Agency. How long and where the Agency held him is not known to the public, but eventually he was “renditioned” to the tender mercies of the Syrian security forces serving President Bashar al-Assad. Yes, that Bashar al-Assad.

At the time, the CIA was trying to maneuver a delicate relationship with Damascus, which involved the kind of cynical commerce in lives that John Le Carré often writes about. The Syrians were a problem. They were facilitating the flow of radical jihadists into Iraq who were blowing up Americans and their allies by the hundreds. But it was assumed the Syrians didn’t really like Al Qaeda; they just wanted to use its minions to stir up trouble for their enemies. At the same time, Washington was looking to enhance its own cooperation with Damascus. Throwing the skin and bones of Al-Suri to Assad’s minions would be one way to do that. What the deal was precisely we may never know, but if Congress wants to investigate a critical mistake in the fight against Al Qaeda, the Al-Suri case would be a good starting point.

According to intelligence officers serving in the region at the time, the CIA had a fairly extensive liaison relationship with some of the Syrian services, of which there are many. (Much of their work is to watch each other.) As often happens, storms could break over the diplomatic ties without breaking the clandestine ones. Agreements were reached, information garnered.

But after the Arab Spring revolts at the beginning of 2011 led to a popular uprising in Syria, all bets were off. Assad’s thugs tortured and mutilated little boys and called them terrorists. They insisted their enemy was Al Qaeda and similar jihadists, which struck many experienced intelligence officers as ironic considering the games Assad played with them a few years earlier.

The Obama administration, after first hoping that Assad could maneuver himself into the position of a reformer, finally gave up and started calling for him to step down. But Assad continued with the global-war-on-terror mantra that had served his duplicitous ends with the Bush administration. Apparently to fulfill his own prophecy – and signal Washington he would no longer play ball, even in the shadows – in January 2012 Assad let Al-Suri and one of his top aides walk free.

Now, for the conspiracy-minded – and who in the world of Mideast intelligence services is not conspiracy minded? – this is where things get really interesting. (Le Carré, take note.)

Remy de la Mauviniere/AP

“It’s a mystery where Al-Suri is, but I wonder if he could be trusted by his former comrades,” says French scholar Gilles Kepel, author of Beyond Terror and Martyrdom. Al-Suri had been held for seven years in some of the cruelest prisons in the world: the Pakistanis’, the CIA’s and the Syrians’. Among their technicians are expert manipulators of fear and hope. Conceivably, Al Suri could have been sent back into the ranks of the jihadists the way the soldier-hero of the television series “Homeland” was sent back to America: programmed to betray. Indeed, Al-Suri may be more useful to Al Qaeda at this point as a legend than as a living ideologue. But there is no question that his ideas are gaining ground in places such as Indonesia, France, Britain and the United States. And it is conceivable that he is playing a more direct role in the spreading incidents of supposed lone-wolf terror.

As President Barack Obama made abundantly clear in his national security speech on Thursday, much thought and lawyering went into the hunt for American-born Al Qaeda propagandist and terror plotter Anwar al-Awlaki, terminated on the president’s orders in a death-from-the skies fireball two years ago. Another U.S. citizen killed with Awlaki was Samir Khan, editor of the online magazine ‘Inspire,’ a DIY guide to bomb-building and mayhem-making which might as well be called Terrorism for Dummies. Among its readers? The Tsarnaev brothers, who allegedly attacked the Boston Marathon.

Awlaki and Khan “would not have been able to accomplish what they did without Suri’s body of work,” wrote Jarret Brachman, a former director of West Point’s Center for Combating Terrorism, shortly after Al-Suri’s release. “Awlaki was never the arch nemesis that we painted him to be. Yes, he was compelling for the global media to hype … But he was painting by number on a worksheet that had been already drafted by Suri. Samir Khan just helped to translate that image into digital pixels.”

Born Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmarian Nasar in 1958 to a prosperous family in Aleppo, al-Suri (the Syrian) was educated as a mechanical engineer but quickly fell in with the revolutionary elements of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1980, before Assad’s father and uncle crushed that organization’s uprising in the 1982 devastation of Hama, al-Suri had gone into exile. He traveled widely and blended in easily, especially in Europe, where his red hair, fair skin and blue-green eyes gave no hint of an Arab background.

In the 1980s and ’90s, Al-Suri spent time in Jordan and Iraq, Spain (where he married and became a citizen), Afghanistan (where he trained fighters and worked his way up in the councils of Bin Laden as, not least, a media adviser), France, and “Londonistan” in Great Britain, where he worked closely with Algerian revolutionaries.

By 1998, Al-Suri was back in Afghanistan collaborating with the Taliban. After their defeat in 2001, he fled to Iran, where he was briefly arrested, then went to northern Iraq for a while, apparently hanging out with the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, famous for a series of suicide bombings and beheadings. Al-Suri denied any role in 9/11, the Madrid bombings of 2004 or the London subway bombings of 2005. But he applauded them all. One of his most cherished goals, he said, was to see the United States attacked using explosives laced with radioactive materials: “A dirty bomb for a dirty nation,” as he put it.

The French soldier attacked over the weekend has been released from hospital, but the box cutter slash on his neck could have been fatal. It only missed his carotid artery by an inch. It appears that a similar attack took place in Roussillon, in southeast France, on May 7, when a man shouting “Allah is Great” burst attacked gendarmes, also with a box cutter, and injured one before being shot and wounded. At the time, the incident barely made the regional press. The French government has been careful not to pre-judge the identity of the assailants or their motives. But Interior Minister Manuel Valls did say this week that France faces a growing threat from an “enemy within.” If so, the teachings of Abu Musab al-Suri share part of the blame. What the man himself is up to, sadly, remains to be seen.

 

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Christopher Dickey is the Paris bureau chief and Middle East editor for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is the author of six books, including Summer of Deliverance and, most recently, Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

English Defence League supporters clash with police in London

AP

London, May 28: Clashes broke out between police and the the far-right group, the English Defence League (EDL), who marched through central London on Monday.

The demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Muslim killers off our streets” and “There’s only one Lee Rigby”, according to Britain’s Press Association.

Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered in an apparent Islamic extremist attack in south-east London last week.

On Monday, a public holiday in the UK, the demonstrators broke through a police barrier as they made their way to Trafalgar Square, scuffling with police as well as clashing with a smaller group of anti-fascist demonstrators.

Police said three arrests were made during the protest and counter-protest, and that several more arrests were made after the protesters made their way to Downing Street before being dispersed by police.

Meanwhile police said they arrested a 10th suspect in the killing of the 25 year-old off-duty soldier.

London police say a 50-year-old man was arrested east of London on Monday on suspicion of conspiring to murder Rigby.

Police didn’t provide further details about the suspect’s identity.

Rigby was walking near his barracks in southeast London’s Woolwich area last Wednesday when he was run over by a vehicle and repeatedly stabbed with knives and meat cleavers.

Police have already arrested nine others, including two main suspects shot by officers at the scene of the killing who are hospitalised under armed guard.

Idiotic EU Decision To Lift Arms Embargo On Syrian Terrorists Sabotages Planned US Peace Conference

End of EU’s Syria arms embargo “directly harms” peace prospects: Russia

Russia said on Tuesday that the European Union’s decision to lift its embargo against arming Syrian rebels but not the regime will “directly harm” the prospects of holding a peace conference on the crisis.

File photo: Syrian government soldiers advancing in the village of Dahret Abed Rabbo in Aleppo province. (AFP/SANA)

MOSCOW: Russia said on Tuesday that the European Union’s decision to lift its embargo against arming Syrian rebels but not the regime will “directly harm” the prospects of holding a peace conference on the crisis.

“This directly harms the prospects of convening an international conference,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

The European Union agreed to lift its embargo on arming the opposition after much debate and a strong push for the measure by France and Britain.

A French official in Paris stressed that this was a “theoretical” lifting of the embargo that would not go into effect until August 1 at the earliest because the EU did not want to hurt the peace talks promoted by Moscow and Washington.

The proposed “Geneva 2” meeting is expected to happen sometime next month after US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov agreed in May to try and bring the warring sides together at conference.

Ryabkov said that Russia was “disappointed” by the European Union’s decision.

“We are disappointed that decisions are being reached that not only fail to promote a political solution… but which contradict the policies conducted by the European Union itself,” he was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS.

He further accused the 27-nation bloc of setting “double standards” by lifting the embargo against the opposition but not Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops.

– AFP/xq

Sen. McCain Violates International Borders To Shake Hands with Syrian Terrorists In Syria

[Retelling his violation of Syria to Western reporters, McCain celebrates his own support for three failed American interventions that should have never taken place (Bosnia, Libya, Syria).  John McCain is part of the hardcore American War Party, who have supported the creation of radical Islamist terrorist armies to fight these interventions, as steps in a diabolical plan for a thirty-year war, hatched long before 911.  McCain’s support for the same radical “Islamists” that the rest of the world calls “al-Qaeda,” carves him off a little piece of the responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks which they have been blamed for.  Everyone else who believes that America should conquer the world also shares in the guilt and responsibility for helping to start this war, or the entirely separate war on Iraq, both of which the Pentagon has planned to fight all along.

Captain John McCain has fully supported the Pentagon policy of creating a large secret paramilitary force of radical Islamists, smugglers, gangsters, spies and private security personnel.  He has supported the very operations which have taught dangerous terrorist skills to thousands of Muslim terrorists, the same people who have trained every bomber known to Western media.  They have refined the operation over the years so that it is now a smoothly operating terrorist manufacturing industry, stretching from the Pacific rim to Europe, then south into Central Africa.  This is a fully self-contained criminal Enterprise, financed by the most powerful governments and individuals on the planet. 

McCain is small fish, but he is a highly visible fish—an extremely mouthy little fat guy, who commands the public spotlight.  This is his worth and the real danger that he represents to all decent human beings.  The American War Party is out to kill everyone who refuses to submit to their criminal demands, and officials like McCain are their cheerleaders.  American leaders must awaken to the knowledge that many of the American people already share—Our government is Fascist and it is fighting a war of aggression against the human race.]

Senator McCain met with rebels in Syria on Monday: spokesman

 

 

McCain: Threats to Assad must have “teeth”

 

 

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON | Mon May 27, 2013 3:20pm EDT

(Reuters) – Republican Senator John McCain, a former presidential candidate and one of the loudest voices calling for military aid to the Syrian opposition, met with some of the rebels during a surprise visit to the war-torn country on Monday, his spokesman said.

Spokesman Brian Rogers confirmed McCain’s meeting with the rebels, but declined to give any details about the visit, which came a week after a U.S. Senate panel voted overwhelmingly to send weapons to forces fighting the Syrian government.

General Salem Idris, who leads the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, told the Daily Beast in an interview that McCain’s visit came at a critical time for the rebels, who have stepped up their calls for U.S. support, including heavy weapons, creation of a no-fly zone and air strikes.

“The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,” the publication quoted Idris as saying. “We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.”

McCain entered Syria from the country’s border with Turkey and stayed there for several hours before returning to Turkey, according to the report. It said McCain met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units in both Turkey and Syria.

McCain, who made a similar visit to Libya early in that conflict, called for U.S. military aid to the forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a Time magazine column earlier this month, arguing that the cost of inaction outweighed the cost of intervention.

“The U.S. does not have to act alone, put boots on the ground or destroy every Syrian air-defense system to make a difference,” McCain wrote, arguing that training for the rebels, targeted air strikes and the stationing of Patriot missiles just across the border would help change the current dynamic.

McCain recalled his support for a U.S.-led effort under then President Bill Clinton to stop mass atrocities in Bosnia two decades ago and said the United States was uniquely positioned to help in Syria as well.

“Taking these steps would save innocent lives, give the moderate opposition a better chance to succeed and eventually provide security and responsible governance in Syria after Assad,” he wrote in the Time magazine article. “However, the longer we wait, the worse the situation gets.”

The Obama administration has increased humanitarian aid, but has stopped short of providing lethal assistance to Syrian opposition forces. President Barack Obama has resisted pressure to deepen U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war, wary of getting U.S. forces embroiled in another ground war just as American troops are preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The Pentagon remains concerned about Assad’s ability to shoot down enemy aircraft with surface-to-air missiles, particularly in a sustained campaign.

The Pentagon estimates than Syria has five times more air defenses than those that existed in Libya, where the United States helped establish a no-fly zone in 2011. They are also far more densely packed and sophisticated.

In Libya, there were no Western casualties. But the risks are higher in Syria and it’s unclear whether the war-weary American public – exhausted by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – would tolerate U.S. casualties.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Michael Adebolajo , a.k.a., “Mr Michael Olemindis Ndemolajo”–Brit Destabilization of Horn of Africa

Nine terror suspects remanded, November 23  2010

[By the time the offenders were processed in court, their number had been reduced to six.]

Police admit al-Shabaab recruiting Kenyan youth, November 28  2010

“Six youths among them two secondary school students from Mombasa and a Nigerian with a British passport, were arrested last week in Kizingitini, Lamu….The five, Mohammed Adam, Juma Khan, Hassan Mohammed, Swaleh Abdul and Mbwana Mohammed….Chief Magistrate Rosemelle Mutoka will rule on the matter on December 1. The  Nigerian, Mr Michael Olemindis Ndemolajo…”

Witness recounts how British terror suspect faked identity

British terror suspect Jermain John Grant alias Ali MOhammed Ali (left) with his Kenyan co-accused Fuad Abubakar Manswab alias Hassan (right) at the Mombasa law courts on May 11, 2012. Photo/Gideon Maundu,  Mr Hassan Mohamed

Aboud Rogo Mohammed + five other radical imams implicated in al-Shabaab recruitment network —killed in drive-by, 27 Aug 2012

 

Nine terror suspects remanded

Posted  Tuesday, November 23  2010

Gideon Maundu | NATION Some of the youths from Mombasa’s Majengo area allegedly arrested heading to Somalia to join a terror group on Monday when they appeared before Mombasa Principal magistrate Richard Kirui on Tuesday. Police successfully sought orders to have them remain in custody to allow for investigations to be completed.  

By PHILIP MUYANGA and GALGALO BOCHA newsdesk@ke.nationmedia.com

Six youths arrested in Lamu while allegedly going to Somalia to join a terror group on Tuesday appeared in court but no charges were preferred against them.

Also in court were a couple who runs a guest house where the youths spent a night and their employee.

The prosecution applied to have the nine held in custody to enable police conduct further investigations.

The prosecution argued there had been no time to complete investigations after the youths were arrested on Faza Island.

Principal magistrate Richard Kirui ordered that they be remanded at the Port Police Station until Friday.

“You have not been charged with any offence,” said Mr Kirui, adding that if no charges are preferred on them next time they appear in court, they will be discharged.

One of the suspects claimed that they had not eaten for two days and that they were denied an opportunity to talk to their lawyers.

The court directed that they be allowed to talk to their relatives some of whom were in the courtroom.

The youths were alleged to have been recruited to join the Somali rebel group al Shabaab, which is fighting to topple the government in Mogadishu.

The group has also threatened to attack Kenya in the past, accusing Nairobi of shoring up the weak Transitional Federal Government.

Two of the youths arrested on Monday were students of a Mombasa secondary school. They had allegedly been travelling with a Nigerian who had a British passport. He was identified as Michael Olemindis Ndemolajo.

The Immigration department was asked on Tuesday to supply detectives with detailed information regarding the Nigerian who was estimated to be aged between 18-22 years.

The Faza couple and their employee were picked up at the guesthouse they own in Faza Village, where the youths spent a night before being arrested in the neighbouring Kizingitini Village.

On Tuesday, Lamu nominated councillor Famau Ahmed Famau led some relatives of the three in demanding that they be released.

They held a meeting with the Coast provincial police boss, Mr Leo Nyongesa.

Mr Famau told reporters outside the PPO’s office that the couple and their worker were innocent, saying they received the youths just like any other customers.

British Public Waking-Up To Fact That ALL RADICAL ISLAMIST Groups Are Intelligence Agency Creations

[SEE:  “Metropolitan police entered BBC studios and arrested Mr Nusaybah….His arrest was not directly linked to…Adebolajo”]

Britain should prosecute terrorist suspects, not play shady games of geopolitics

Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

The initial reaction to the brutal killing of Lee Rigby, a 25-year-old off-duty British soldier, in Woolwich last week was to renew the debate over apparent “lone wolf” acts of terrorism. There are those who believe the attack was the latest in a series of terror acts that have a common denominator – the al-Qa’ida-linked group formerly known as al-Muhajiroun.

Founded by the Syrian cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed before being taken over by Anjem Choudary, it was banned in 2010. But it has been linked to one in five terrorists convicted in Britain over more than a decade.

It is little surprise that the Woolwich suspects have been on Whitehall’s radar for years. Mr Choudary has already admitted knowing Michael “Mujahid” Adebolajo, as someone who “attended our meetings and my lectures”.

Al-Muhajiroun has continued to function with impunity, most recently under the banner of Izhar Ud-Deen-il-Haq. According to a former US Army intelligence officer, John Loftus, three senior al-Muhajiroun figures – Mr Bakri Mohammed, Abu Hamza and Haroon Rashid Aswat – were recruited by MI6 in 1996 to influence Islamist activities in the Balkans.

In 2000, Mr Bakri Mohammed admitted training British Muslims to fight as jihadists abroad. That same year, he boasted: “The British government knows who we are. MI5 has interrogated us many times. I think now we have something called public immunity.”

A year later, the private security firm set up by Mr Bakri Mohammed in cohorts with Abu Hamza – Sakina Security Services – was raided by police and eventually shut down. Speaking in Parliament at the time, Andrew Dismore MP claimed the firm sent Britons “overseas for jihad training with live arms and ammunition”. Yet Mr Bakri Mohammed and Abu Hamza were not even arrested, let alone charged or prosecuted over this.

Proscription and extradition have failed. What we need is a willingness to prosecute. The failure to do so is influenced by narrow geopolitical interests resulting from Britain’s subservience to US strategy in the Muslim world. According to the former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke, the Saudis, in pursuit of benefiting mutual US-Saudi interests, have played the role of proxy to the Americans, mobilising Islamist extremists to destabilise parts of the Middle East.

As David Cameron renews Britain’s commitment to supporting the rebels in Syria, who include al-Qa’ida-affiliated Islamists, questions must be asked whether Britain’s secret services have been compromised by short-sighted geopolitical interests.

Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of ‘The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry’

 

 

Kurdish Town Afrin In Western Syria Beseiged By Islamist Terrorists–(google trans.)

Kurds in Syria are coming to attack on all fronts ..

Afrin in Western Kurdistan, an affiliate of the attack on the village on Saturday, some of the groups behind the decision that turned out to be a war. Radical Islamist groups participated in the attacks and some Kurdish groups learned.

Free Syrian Army on May 25 (SAR), acting under the umbrella of a multi-armed group attacked the village of today AKİB Afrin. To respond to the forces of violent clashes took place on YPG. During the day, the loss of at least 17 armed groups, YPG forces also destroyed two tanks and three were reportedly DOCKA weapon.

Taken the initiative of a group named al Tawhid Afrin’daki Liva attack is the result of a decision of the learned war. Liva conflicts el Fatih, with radical Islamist groups like Islamiye Devlul Liva Liva Yusuf-ul-mache is Saladin and joined groups. These last two groups residing in the Federal Kurdistan Region is known as Mustafa groups affiliated with Friday’s Azadi Party.

Mustafa was seriously wounded in clashes Afrin’daki retrieving information from Saladin’s commanders Bawer, attacks on Western Kurdistan border between South Kurdistan occur after the closure of the gate on May 19, he noted.

Liva Tewhid group participated in a meeting held in Turkey in the direction of a short time ago have information. Fatih group by Turkey against the Kurds is still directly supported, and even claims that it was established for this purpose in question. With Saladin, particularly in the field of Aleppo before the bloody attacks had taken place in the West, for the people of Kurdistan.

A PLAN difficult to achieve

So what’s the point? Afrin at a meeting on May 25 for the armed groups reportedly decided to attack. Some groups have refused to fight the Kurds, the attack is intended to remove the learned find in the hands of the Kurds in Afrin groups. Afrin is a strict embargo after discontinuation of roads are planned. Kurdish sources however, is betting that it’s almost impossible to achieve records. Because one of these groups live in the times of the weakest.

However, the Kurdish army is growing every day. Next Saturday morning from people living in the villages of Şerava’ya positioning of YPG’nin this indicator. Fighters, fighting alongside the people into YPG There are reports that in some places. About two hundred people in the evening Bilbil township center Afrin went to fight where there is conflict. There are almost a mobilization of the city.

ANF

Iraq Sends 20,000 Troops To Secure Western Anbar from “Al-CIA-da” Terrorists

Iraqi Forces Launch Operation against Militants near Syria

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iraqi forces started a military operation to improve the security of the country’s Western desert and the border provinces of Anbar and Nineveh as concerns were voiced about using these areas as strongholds and passages for the militants heading to fight in Syria.

Around 20,000 soldiers were sent to the 600-kilometer border with Syria to start attacking the hideouts of the militants who belong to terrorist groups including al-Qaeda, AFP reported Saturday.

Also the Iraqi troops are looking to secure a key road that lead to Syria.

“The operation is large and backed up by the air force,” said Staff General Ali Ghaidan Majeed.

Dozens of the terrorist militants have been killed and others have been arrested since the beginning of the military operation that has also left several militants’ households damaged.

Two Rockets Slam Into Hezbollah Neighborhood In S. Beirut

Residents inspect the remain of one of two rockets that hit their residential area in Beirut’s southern suburbs Sunday, May, 26, 2013. (The Daily Star/Mohammad Azakir)

Two rockets hit Beirut’s southern suburb, wound 4

BEIRUT: Two rockets slammed into a southern Beirut suburb Sunday, wounding four people, the Lebanese Army said in a statement.

The military said one of the rockets hit a car dealership located near Mar Mikhael church while the other was in the neighborhood of Maroun Misk.

Witnesses said the second rocket hit the balcony of a residential building in the Shiyyah area shortly before 7 a.m. local time.

They said the four wounded were Syrian workers sleeping at the dealership who were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Security sources said 107-mm rockets were used in the rare attack on the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital. Hezbollah maintains its main offices in the Shiyyah neighborhood.

The incident came 12 hours after Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed the group’s participation in the fighting in Syria.

It was not immediately clear who fired the rockets.

Asked whether the Free Syria Army may have been involved, caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said: “This is mere speculation.”

Charbel, who arrived at the scene of the incident at 8 a.m., told reporters that authorities knew where the rockets had been fired from and said he believed the attack was an “act of sabotage.”

“I believe this was an act of sabotage,” he said, when asked about the motive of the attack. “I hope what is happening in Syria will not happen in Lebanon,” he added.

A spate of security incidents linked to the crisis in Syria has edged Lebanon toward further instability.

Speaking in Abu Dhabi, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told journalists France “very strongly condemns” the incident in Beirut, reported Agence France Presse. He also stressed it was crucial to “avoid the war in Syria becoming a war in Lebanon.”

The Army, in a separate statement later in the day, identified Aitat, Mount Lebanon, as the location of the launch sites. It said two launch sites were found in the woods on the outskirts on Aitat, southeast of the southern suburb.

The National News Agency said security forces were searching for a third rocket that failed to explode that had landed between Bsaaba and Aitat.

Abu Ali Qbeisi, described by local media as the owner of a car dealership in the area, said the attack was clearly linked to Nasrallah’s speech a day earlier.

“This is a message, a reply to Nasrallah,” Qbeisi told a local television station.

“Just as Hasan Nasrallah vowed victory, we will not be frightened by them,” he said.  “Whatever they do, we are not afraid and long live Nasrallah,” Qbeis said.

Nasrallah revealed Friday the large-scale involvement of his party in the war in neighboring Syria, saying his party’s fighting against Syrian rebels aimed at protecting the resistance group.

During his one-hour speech, Nasrallah also urged that Lebanon be spared any armed confrontation that could spill over from Syria.

“We are fighting in Syria, you are fighting in Syria, let us continue to fight there,” he said. “Put Lebanon aside.”

The military cordoned off the area soon after the incident.

The NNA said Military Tribunal Judge Saqr Saqr tasked the Military Police with conducting preliminary investigations to uncover the circumstances surrounding the rocket attacks and their source.

 

 

Nasrallah Warns Against Allowing US, Israel and Takfiris (Wahhabis) Warfare Into Lebanon

Nasrallah Says Will Win Battle against U.S., Israel and Takfiris: We Won’t Allow Breaking Resistance’s Backbone

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah stated Saturday that the resistance will win the battle against the “United States, Israel and the Takfiris just like it emerged victorious in previous wars,” assuring that he will not allow the “breaking of its backbone.”

“I say to all the honourable people, to the mujahedeen, to the heroes: I have always promised you a victory and now I pledge to you a new one in Syria,” he said in a speech he gave at a ceremony marking the 13th anniversary of Israel’s military withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Nasrallah considered that what is happening in the neighboring country is very crucial for Lebanon, explaining that through the stand his party is taking, it is defending Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.

The Shiite leader warned against the implementation of an American-lead project in the region through the war in Syria.

“The events in the last couple of years have proved that there is an axis lead by the United States while the rest are working under its orders. Everyone knows this axis is supported by Israel while al-Qaida and other Takfiri organizations from around the world were paid to take part in it,” he detailed.

Nasrallah remarked: “The Takfiris are the most prevailing group in the Syrian opposition.”

“If Syria falls in the hands of the Takfiris and the U.S., the resistance will become under a siege and Israel will enter Lebanon. If Syria falls, the Palestinian cause will be lost.”

The Hizbullah chief announced that many efforts were made to draw an end to Syria’s war: “Several suggestions and settlements that were accepted by the Syrian regime were rejected by regional countries because they do not want (Syrian President Bashar) Assad’s regime to stay in power.”

He pointed out: “Since the beginning of Syria’s war we have said Assad’s regime has its positives and negatives. Reform is required and the only way to reach this is through political dialogue.”

Nasrallah revealed getting in contact with both Assad and members of the opposition to reach a settlement.

“But I swear Assad said yes, whereas the opposition rejected the suggestion,” he stated. “Part of the Syrian opposition abroad has a vision and is ready for dialogue whereas others work under the Pentagon’s orders.”

On his party’s involvement in the battles alongside Assad’s forces, he said: “A political and economic world war was launched against Syria and thousands of fighters were sent without anyone complaining.”

“Meanwhile, Hizbullah’s involvement was considered a foreign interference,” he noted.

Nasrallah explained that Syria is the resistance’s backbone: “We cannot stand still and let them break the resistance’s main supporter.”

He said Hizbullah fighters joining the war in Syria “go willingly and aspire to take part in the resistance.”

“You will find tens of thousands of fighters that are ready to take all fronts and participate in the battles. No one is forced into the war,” he assured.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced on Thursday that 104 Hizbullah members had been killed in Syria since last autumn.

Hizbullah combatants have become increasingly involved in Syria’s conflict, fighting alongside President Assad’s forces.

Initially Hizbullah said it wanted only to defend 13 Syrian villages along the border where Lebanese Shiites live, and the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine, revered by Shiites around the world.

However its elite fighters later encircled the rebel-held central town of Qusayr with regime troops before the launch on Sunday of a withering assault on the strategic border town that is home to 25,000 people.

Hizbullah denied its involvement in Syria for some time, quietly burying fighters killed in the fighting there.

But the movement stopped hiding its dead when its leader Sayyed Nasrallah on April 30 paid homage to fighters killed across the border.

“Syria has true friends in the region who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of the United States, Israel and Takfiri groups,” he said in a televised address.

Before tackling the Syrian matter, Nasrallah began Saturday’s speech by criticizing the Lebanese state’s stance towards arming and strengthening the army to face Israel, saying that everything done in Lebanon to confront Israeli threats and attacks was established by the resistance.

“By the resistance, I do not mean Hizbullah only, but everyone who made an effort,” he clarified.

Nasrallah elaborated: “Since July 2006, Israel has been preparing and setting plans for wars. They realized their weaknesses and say they are ready for war.”

“Israel threatens Lebanon on a daily basis and has been mobilizing its forces on the border for months. It is bombing Syria and threatening it. Israel is ready for war,” he added.

He asked, however: “What did the Lebanese state do regarding being prepared to face what happens in the region?”

“We do not have shelters or safe accommodations in Lebanon. Is it also required from the resistance to take care of matters of civil aspects?”

“If directions, political cover and armaments were granted to the army, it could fight against Israel similarly to the resistance,” he pointed out.

“Israel fears the resistance whereas many in Lebanon are wondering how to get rid of it.”

Commenting on the clashes in Tripoli, Nasrallah urged the end of the “absurd battle.”

“Those rooting for the victory of the Syrian regime or the opposition’s rebels must go fight in Syria instead. Leave Tripoli neutral from Syria’s conflict,” he stressed.

“We must agree that the only guarantee for civil peace and for our coexistence is the army and the state.”

The Hizbullah chief explained that his party submitted its nominations for the parliamentary elections, even before the March 14 alliance, because it rejects vacuum.

“We are in front of two options that are either an elections based on the 1960’s law or extending the parliament’s term, or a miracle that would lead to reaching consensus over a new law,” he elaborated.

“But we are against vacuum.”

Several officials submitted on Friday their candidacies to the upcoming parliamentary polls, including the Free Patriotic Movement, the AMAL movement, the March 14 Independent MPs, the Lebanese Forces and Hizbullah, despite strong objections over the adoption of the 1960 electoral law at the polls to avoid uncontested victories.

In its eighth round of talks, the parliamentary electoral subcommittee failed again on Monday to reach an agreement over a new electoral law as Speaker Nabih Berri did not set a date for a new session.

This failure has raised fears of a political vacuum in Lebanon or that the parliamentary elections will be held according to the 1960 law or that the term of the current parliament will be extended.

Monday is the deadline for candidates to file their requests to run for the elections according to the 1960 law.

Pakistan Chafes Over Afghanistan Asking for Heavy Weapons from India

Pakistan urges Afghanistan to consider regional implications of arms deal with India

Islamabad, May 25 (ANI): The Foreign Office in Pakistan has urged Afghanistan to consider the regional security situation while pursuing an arms purchase deal with India.

At a media briefing on Friday, Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jillani said as a sovereign country Afghanistan can pursue its own policies, but it should mind the overall peace and security situation in the region.

According to Dawn News, Jillani was responding to reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, during a visit to India earlier this week, had asked the Indian leadership to provide arms to Afghan army.

Karzai’s wish list is not yet known but, according to media reports, he has sought 105mm artillery, medium-lift aircraft, bridge-laying equipment and trucks.

Kabul made the request under its strategic partnership agreement, signed by the two countries in 2011, with New Delhi, which provides for training of troops and supply of military hardware.

India has already been providing training and small arms to Afghan troops, but has rarely publicly acknowledged it because of regional sensitivities.

According to the report, it was expected that the demand by Afghanistan would cause anxiety in Islamabad, which has always remained opposed to Indian engagement with Afghan security forces. (ANI)

Latest Russian Bombing In Dagestan By Another Deadly “Black Widow” Islamist’s Wife

Female suicide bomber and widow of two Islamist radicals injures 12 in Dagestan region of Russia 

A female suicide bomber identified as a widow of two killed Islamists blew herself up in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Saturday injuring at least 12, including two children and five police officers, police said.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Getty Images/Getty Images

A female suicide bomber identified as a widow of two killed Islamists blew herself up in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Saturday injuring at least 12, including two children and five police officers, police said.

Related Stories

• Blast in car believed to be ferrying explosives kills two in Russia’s North Caucus
• Bomb kills two teenagers in Russia’s Dagestan 
• The radicalization of Tamerlan Tsarnaev – Profile slowly emerges of Boston Marathon bomber
• Russian woman attacked by wolf, axes it to death

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — A female suicide bomber identified as a widow of two killed Islamists blew herself up in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Saturday injuring at least 12, including two children and five police officers, police said.

The bomber detonated an explosives-laden belt in the central square in the provincial capital, Makhachkala, Dagestan’s police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov said.

RELATED: FBI UNDER FIRE FOR NOT KEEPING TABS ON BOSTON MARATHON BOMBER TAMERLAN TSARNAEV

The bomber was identified as Madina Alieva, who married an Islamist who was killed in 2009 and then wedded another Islamic radical who was gunned down last year, police spokeswoman Fatina Ubaidatova said.

Since 2000, at least two dozen women, most of them from the Caucasus, have carried out suicide bombings in Russian cities and aboard trains and planes. All were linked to an Islamic insurgency that spread throughout Dagestan and the predominantly Muslim Caucasus region after two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.

RELATED: U.S. DIPLOMAT DETAINED IN MOSCOW FOR SPYING

The bombers are often called “black widows” in Russia because many are the widows, or other relatives, of militants killed by security forces. Islamic militants are believed to convince “black widows” that a suicide bombing will reunite them with their dead relatives beyond the grave.

Police said two of the people injured in the attack were in a critical condition. There were no details about the injured children.

RELATED: SECOND U.S. SPY WAS EXPELLED FROM RUSSIA, OFFICIAL CLAIMS

The Tsarnaev brothers suspected of carrying out last month’s Boston marathon bombings, are ethnic Chechens who lived in Dagestan before moving to the United States. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder brother who was killed a shootout with police days after the April 15 bombings, spent six months in Dagestan in 2012.

Dagestan remains an epicenter of violence in the confrontation between radical Islamists and federal forces.

RELATED: BOMB KILLS TWO IN RUSSIA’S DAGESTAN

This week, a double explosion in Makhachkala killed four civilians and left 44 injured, while three security officers and three suspected militants have been killed in other incidents.

Islamists strive to create an independent Muslim state, or “emirate,” in the Caucasus and parts of southern Russia with a sizable Muslim population.

Although Chechen separatists were battered almost a decade ago, Islamists continue to move through the region’s mountains and forests with comparative ease despite security sweeps by federal forces and police under the control of local leaders loyal to the Kremlin.

Human rights groups say that abductions, torture and extrajudicial killings of young men suspected of militant links by Russian security forces have helped swell the rebels’ ranks. Caucasus experts say that Islamists routinely extort money from government officials and businessmen and attack or kill those who refuse to pay.

The Reason YouTube Is Banned In Tajikistan Today

Tajik President dancing at his son’s wedding.

BBC Interview with Suspect’s Friend Who Outs MI5 Connection To London Head-Chopper

US, Turkey, Qatar Beg for UN Intervention To Preserve Terrorist Smuggler’s Operation In Al Qusayr

A handout photograph released by Syria’s national news agency SANA on March 7, 2012, shows weapons found by Syrian security in Homs

US, Turkey, Qatar seek urgent UN rights debate on Syria 

The United States, Turkey and Qatar called Friday for an urgent debate on Syria at the UN’s top human 

GENEVA: The United States, Turkey and Qatar called Friday for an urgent debate on Syria at the UN’s top human rights body next week, citing the escalating conflict and the regime’s assault on the central town of Qusayr.

“We … request the Human Rights Council to hold an urgent debate on the deteriorating situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the recent killings in Al Qusayr,” the ambassadors of the three countries wrote in their request to council president Remigiusz Henczel.

The UN human rights council is due to open its next three-week session on Monday, and the three countries called for the urgent debate to be held during the first week, lamenting “the escalating grave human rights violations” in Syria.

Council spokesman Rolando Gomez told AFP that president Henczel and other administrators would now examine a possible date for the debate, adding that Tuesday or Wednesday looked likely.

This would not be the first time the UN’s top rights body meets to discuss the spiralling violence in Syria.

The council has previously held one urgent debate on Syria and four special sessions outside its usual four annual meetings and is already set to hear, during the coming session, a report from UN investigators into the human rights situation in the war-torn country.

That report will be presented on June 3.

The request for an urgent debate on the situation in Syria comes after the Friends of Syria group of governments that back the rebels met in Amman this week as part of the diplomatic efforts to convene a peace conference in Geneva next month.

The conference, dubbed Geneva 2, is intended to build on a never-implemented deal agreed in the Swiss city last year that called for a halt to the violence and a transitional government.

Since then, the conflict has spiralled ever more out of control.

More than 90,000 people have been killed and over 1.5 million Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries since the conflict began in March 2011.

Another 6.8 million people are in need of assistance inside Syria, including nearly 4.3 million people who have been displaced from their homes.

Overall, around 38 per cent of the country’s pre-war population of 22.5 million is in need of humanitarian assistance.

The regime assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr, in central Homs province, that began Sunday has meanwhile left more than 100 people dead, while thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in the town.

The town, which lies near the border with Lebanon, is a key prize for the rebels, a conduit through which weapons and fighters can be channelled from Lebanon.

Qusayr is also important for Assad’s forces because of its strategic location between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, the rear base for the regime.

The UN refugee agency said Friday it was hearing reports that all civilians left in the city, that used to count around 25,000 inhabitants, had been moved into one section of the town.

They “are pretty much trapped,” said the UNHCR.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the UN agency was bracing for a possible flood of people from the town across the border into Lebanon.

But she added that so far many of those who had fled appeared to be having difficulty making it to the border due to “very high security risks”.

She also said heavy fighting near the Jordanian border was likely the main reason why the number of refugees flooding into that country had plummeted from an average of 2,000 a day to basically zero in the past seven days.

“UNHCR is concerned about reports that many Syrians trying to flee may be backed up at the borders in areas that are extremely dangerous,” she told reporters in Geneva.

– AFP/jc

World Awareness Grows of Massive American War Crime Formerly Known As “Iraq”

[When will American leaders admit the absolute truth about Iraq?

The United States HAD NO REASON TO INVADE IRAQ,

neither did it offer a valid excuse which wasn’t entirely fabricated on premeditated lies.  The war against Saddam Hussein had NOTHING to do with the “war on terror,” yet Republican Neocons convinced the rest of us to allow them the pleasure of this little side war, even squeezing it until it (somehow) fit within the parameters of the original 911 AUMF war resolution.   The invasion and occupation of Iraq was 100% REVENGE for Saddam Hussein’s arrogant refusal to lie-down and die, but mostly, for threatening to kill Bush’s father.  All the rest is 100% BULLSHIT, invented either by the Republicans to justify the criminal war of aggression, or by the Democrats, to justify continuing the war.

Until American leaders take the simple first-step of admitting that Iraq was a crime, we can expect all of our wars to continue to fall apart, as more and more people awaken to the Nazi nature of the American regime and join resistance forces which offer some kind of fight against US global tyranny.

The criminal policies of Bush and Cheney and the Republicans have been compounded by the criminal neglect of Obama and Biden and the Democrats.  May the war crimes of America’s criminal two-headed war party continue to follow this Nation until the end of our days, or until we confess about our evil war crimes against all of humanity and beg our fellow man for forgiveness for the monstrous divisions that we have unleashed upon the Earth.]

In Syria’s shadow, Iraq violence presents new test for U.S. 

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (L) and U.S. President Barack Obama (R) hold a joint news conference in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, December 12, 2011.

Credit: Reuters Jonathan Ernst

By Warren Strobel

WASHINGTON

(Reuters) – Saddled with Middle East problems ranging from Iran to Syria and beyond, President Barack Obama now faces one that is both old and new: Iraq.

Unresolved sectarian tensions, inflamed by the raging civil war in neighboring Syria, have combined to send violence in Iraq to its highest level since Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops in December 2011, U.S. officials and Middle East analysts say.

A Sunni Muslim insurgency against the Shi’ite-led Baghdad government has also been reawakened. The insurgents’ defeat had been a major outcome of then-President George W. Bush’s troop “surge” in 2007.

The deteriorating situation – largely overshadowed by a Syrian civil war that has killed 80,000 people – has prompted what U.S. officials describe as an intense, mostly behind-the-scenes effort to curb the violence and get Iraqis back to political negotiations.

The United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars and lost nearly 4,500 soldiers during an eight-year war to try to bring a semblance of democracy to strategically placed, energy-rich Iraq.

But Iraqis have failed to agree on a permanent power-sharing agreement, threatening the country’s long-term stability.

Vice President Joe Biden, who has been Obama’s point man on Iraq, called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and Osama Nujayfi, the head of Iraq’s parliament, in a round of calls on Thursday and Friday, the White House said.

To Maliki, the vice president “expressed concern about the security situation” and “spoke about the importance of outreach to leaders across the political spectrum,” Biden’s office said in a statement on Friday.

U.S. diplomacy is aimed in part at persuading Maliki, a Shi’ite, and his security forces not to overreact to provocations. Maliki’s opponents accuse him of advancing a sectarian agenda aimed at marginalizing Iraq’s minorities and cementing Shi’ite rule.

The latest uptick in violence began in late April at a Sunni protest camp in Hawija, near the disputed city of Kirkuk, where a clash between gunmen and Iraqi security forces killed more than 40 people.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration was “very actively engaged” after the Hawija clash in preventing a further escalation, when Iraqi forces surrounded insurgents who had seized control of a nearby town. Washington urged the Iraqi forces not to go in with massive firepower, and the stand-off was settled through a deal with local tribal leaders.

“I don’t want to exaggerate our influence, but this is the kind of stuff we do behind the scenes,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “When there is a real crisis, they all run to us. … We’re a neutral party.”

Others say Washington’s influence in Iraq, which began waning even when U.S. troops were still there, has plummeted.

“What is lacking is the lack of confidence of trust among the politicians,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN on Tuesday. “And we have lost the service of an honest broker. Before, it used to be the United States.”

‘ZOMBIE INSURGENCY’

Most worrying to U.S. officials and analysts who follow Iraq closely is the rebirth of the Sunni insurgency and of groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, thought to be behind lethal suicide bombings aimed at reigniting civil conflict.

“What you’re really looking at here is a kind of zombie insurgency – it’s been brought back to life,” said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who has studied Iraq for years and travels there frequently.

By his count, violent incidents have escalated to about 1,100 a month from 300 monthly at the end of 2010.

After the Hawija clashes, the U.S. official said, “For the first time really in a few years, we saw people with their faces covered and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and heavy weapons, coming into the streets in a very visible way.”

The official called the increase in suicide bombings by al Qaeda in Iraq “very concerning,” adding that such sophisticated insurgent groups could “wreak havoc” on political efforts to solve the conflict.

“I wouldn’t call it a strategically significant increase, yet,” the official said of the violence. “We’re in this post-civil war, pre-reconciliation interregnum, gap, period, in which Iraq can tilt either way.”

The setbacks in Iraq have revived criticism from those who opposed Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country, rather than leave behind a residual force. The White House has said it could not secure political agreement from Iraq’s Sunni, Shia and Kurds for a law allowing a continued troop presence.

At a Senate hearing last month, Senator John McCain, who opposed the troop withdrawal, asked Assistant Secretary of Defense Derek Chollet how things turned out in Iraq. McCain, an Arizona Republican, cited Obama’s dictum that “the tide of war is receding.”

“I think Iraq is more stable today than many thought several years ago,” Chollet replied.

“Really? You really think that?” McCain pressed. When Chollet said he did, the senator shot back, “Then you’re uninformed.”

The violence, which includes confrontations stemming from the Sunni protest movement, near-daily car bombings and attacks on mosques, is nowhere near the level of Iraq’s 2006-2008 civil war.

Still, Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA and White House official now at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy said: “I think we’re going to see great sectarian violence. The question is, how bad does it get?”

SYRIA IS ‘AN ACCELERANT’

Syria’s increasingly sectarian civil war, pitting mostly Sunni rebels against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is not the prime cause of Iraq’s troubles, officials and analysts said.

Iraq’s failure to find a stable power-sharing deal among the country’s ethnic and sectarian groups is to blame, they said. Iraq’s Sunnis, ascendant during dictator Saddam Hussein’s rule, feel excluded and threatened, and started staging protests in December.

But Syria’s war “is an accelerant” in Iraq, Pollack said.

“We’re seeing both Shia and Sunnis going over to fight” in Syria, the U.S. official said. “It’s kind of encouraging this sectarian polarization in a way.”

Iraqis often experience the Syrian conflict via YouTube video clips, he said.

Sunnis see the violence perpetrated by Assad’s government, dominated by members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, he said. Iraq’s Shia see often gruesome excesses perpetrated by the rebels.

“They’re seeing two entirely different parallel universes,” the official said.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

“Metropolitan police entered BBC studios and arrested Mr Nusaybah….His arrest was not directly linked to…Adebolajo”

“Metropolitan police entered BBC studios and arrested Mr Nusaybah….His arrest was not directly linked to his 28-year-old friend Adebolajo’s alleged murder of soldier Lee Rigby.”

[Is there anybody in all of Britain who believes this denial?  If it had truly been unrelated to the testimony that he was in the process of giving in the BBC interview, then why was the session disrupted by the police, just as he was testifying to the involvement of British secret services in the pre-attack life of Mr. Adebolajo?  The BBC was inadvertantly stepping on MI5/6 toes, probably causing news bosses to freak-out over what their minions were up to, forcing them to request the emergency shut-down of the dangerous interview by intelligence officials.

England is about to burn, and all of Europe with it, but probably for the exact wrong reasons.  Continent-wide civil war will not help the struggle of the common man, but will merely strengthen the hand of the State (SEE:  Camp of the Saints).]

Woolwich attack: Michael Adebolajo’s friend tells the BBC MI5 tried to recruit his friend

• Charles Miranda in London
• News Limited Network

Michael Adebolajo, front, shouts slogans as Muslims march in London in a protest against the arrest of six people in anti-terror raids in April 2007. Picture: AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

A FRIEND of one of the Woolwich fanatics has been arrested by counter terrorism police moments after he told BBC that M15 attempted to recruit his friend to work for them.

The alleged Woolwich attackers, identified as Michael Adebolajo and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, are currently both being held by heavily armed police in separate hospitals where they have been recovering from gunshot wounds.

The pair was shot by police on Wednesday after they allegedly hacked to death 25-year-old Lee Rigby and then, armed with knives and a hand gun, charged at police.

In other developments:

• Drummer Lee Rigby’s family have given a heart-wrenching press conference paying tribute to the slain soldier.
• A former girlfriend of Michael Adebolajo says he was just a ‘normal bloke’.
• Britain is bracing for clashes with right-wing extremists and possible copycat terror attacks and has added some 1200 police to potential trouble spots.
• A British newspaper publishes shocking video of the moment the two men accused of killing Drummer Rigby were shot by police following the barbaric attack.
• Gemini Donnelly-Martin and her mother Amanda Donnelly called the ‘Angels of Woolwich’ after it was revealed that they sat with Drummer Rigby in his final moments, comforted him and prayed for him.
• Metropolitan Police said they had made two further arrests – a man and woman, both aged 29 – on suspicion of conspiracy to murder in relation to the Woolwich killing.
• Links are revealed between accused killer Michael Adebolajo and radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, who is accused of having “blood on his hands”.

Abu Nusaybah gave an interview to the BBC at their premises in central London about his childhood friend murder suspect Michael Adebolajo .He said Adebolajo had undergone a “change” after he was detained by security forces in Kenya last year and underwent physical and sexual abused during interrogation.

He said when he returned to the UK M15 asked if he would work for them as an informer. They allegedly harassed him for some months.

“His wording was, “They are bugging me – they won’t leave me alone”,” Mr Nusaybah said.

“He mentioned initially they wanted to ask him if he knew certain individuals. But after him saying that he didn’t know these individuals, what he said was they asked him if he would be interested in working for them. He was explicit in that he refused to work for them, but he did confirm he didn’t know the individuals.”

Then in a twist, Metropolitan police entered BBC studios and arrested Mr Nusaybah in relation to terrorism offences. They also raided his home and another in East London. Police have confirmed the 31-year-old was being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism at a south London police station.

His arrest was not directly linked to his 28-year-old friend Adebolajo’s alleged murder of soldier Lee Rigby.

The British Government has yet to comment on the claims made by Mr Nusaybah about Adebolajo or on his own arrest.

It is understood Mr Nusaybah had once been linked to an extremist Islamic group in Britain led by self styled “sheik of east London” and hate preacher Anjew Choudary although claims he moved away from the group sometime ago.

Claims Adebolajo was tortured by Kenyan authorities last year after refusing to speak with them could also not be verified. Mr Nusaybah said however his friends’ experiences in Kenya and alleged “harassment” by M15 changed his personality, made him withdrawn and less talkative.

“His mind was somewhere else but his presence was there,” he said, adding that tears welled in his friend’s eyes when he spoke about Kenya although he was not exactly sure what happened.

“He said ‘ I feel shy to describe what that did to me’,” Mr Nusaybah said of his friends experiences which he suggested was sexual abuse.

Flowers and tributes mount at the place outside Woolwich Barracks where British soldier Lee Rigby was murdered yesterday.

He said Adebolajo had wished to live in a Muslim country with Sharia law and had visited Kenya for this reason.

It has been previously claimed the Adebolajo may have been attempting to make his way to Somalia to join a terrorist group to make jihad.

Attack pair set to be grilled

THE two men accused of a frenzied murder of a soldier in south east London are expected to be interviewed this weekend.

Police shot the pair. Despite their injuries they have been deemed fit to be interviewed.

Woolwich machete hacking attack against soldier Lee Rigby. Both attack suspects were known to MI5 security forces from previous security services investigations.

Investigators from the counter terrorist police unit are particularly keen to establish whether they acted alone or whether the attack was part of a broader orchestrated campaign involving others.

It has been established at least one belonging to an extremist Islamic group and influenced by a banned imam who has since been booted out of the UK.

Two women arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder Drummer Rigby have now been released without charge.

A 29-year-old was arrested yesterday in connection with the killing while a 31 year-old, had been held by police at a home in south London last night and later released.

Detectives are still questioning a 29-year-old man also on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

Fears of more lone wolf style attacks

Meanwhile, Britain potentially faces more “individualist jihad” style killings similar to the attack Drummer Rigby as anti-Muslim sentiments are stirred to dangerous levels.

That’s the view of a number of terrorism experts in Britain as they fear certain radical magazines and social media can remotely spark extremist converts into attacks.

Reading University international terrorism and al Qaeda expert Dr Christina Hellmich said while al Qaeda’s capabilities are largely destroyed individual terrorism could flourish.

“The fear right now is that we have a wave of individual terror ahead of us,” she said.

“The term al-Qaeda always comes up as if it is al-Qaeda that is propagating these attacks. But that gives us the illusion that there is still some monolithic group behind this pulling the strings. This is not the case. We are dealing with individualist jihadist everywhere but they are the fragment of the organisation.”

The concepts of individual attacks are being promoted by radical Islamists, including through the Inspire magazine produced by al-Qaeda, largely blamed for promoting the attack on the Boston Marathon earlier this month.

“Inspire has been trying to propagate the individual jihad as a strategy since 2010 in their magazine but it hasn’t really paid off. If these are the only attacks then it’s not very much.”

Jeffrey DeMarco, lecturer and researcher in criminology at Kingston University, agrees the attack demonstrates an increase in “lone wolf” terrorism which could pose a risk for security services to manage.

“We have been seeing slowly but really most noticeably with Mumbai in 2008, this escalation and this frequent recurrence of the lone wolves who aren’t part of the intricate terrorist cells or organisations,” he said.

According to DeMarco the purpose is to invoke widespread fear. “Mass casualties are not necessarily the endgame, the epidemic of fear can be just as damaging.”

Matthew Henman, senior analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre (JTIC), said: “The fact that the attackers made no attempt to flee the scene, combined with their interaction with bystanders, may indicate an effort to maximise publicity of the attack and to ensure that their message was recorded and publicised.”

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/woolwich-attack-michael-adebolajo-michael-adebowale-to-be-quizzed-over-lee-rigby-murder/story-fndir2ev-1226650349675#ixzz2UIX6jEuu

Obama To Make All Wars Covert Wars—He’s Running Scared

[Obama’s speech and the following report about it are total bullshit…disinformation at best.  Nobody has any intention of ever ending this war, no matter how many times Obama claims to be doing it.  He has no more intention of closing Guantanamo Bay today than he did the last time he promised to close it.  The very fact that Team Obama has made this public speech about ending America’s “perpetual wartime footing,” is proof that the Establishment is running scared over anti-war and anti-police state sentiments.  Perpetual, or “persistent war” are descriptions of the American terror war that have come straight from the Pentagon itself.  The fact that Obama felt it necessary to disassociate his administration from this idea of a “perpetual” war or a thirty-year war, is proof positive that this is a very touchy issue. 

We the People are slowly starting to catch-on to the schemes of the American ruling class, worrying all of them that we will figure-out what they have been doing to us before they get finished fucking us.  This is why Obama is giving this speech (SEE: Obama Trying To Make Rape Look Like Seduction ).  It is good to know that the idea of an American awakening gives the Big Bosses a little trouble sleeping.  It is way past time to repeal the completely worn-out AUMF (authorization to use military force) from the 911 attacks:

“To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.”

Since we are no longer engaged anywhere with any of the “al-Qaeda” factions which have been blamed for the attacks, and because we are now allied with some of those same “al-CIA-da” groups in Syria and in Africa, the government should be forced into producing a brand new “authorization for military force,” defining precisely who we are fighting against into the forseeable future, and even more important, why we are waging war against them.]

Should President Obama end the war on terror?

He came to talk about the future, but the past keeps pulling him back.

President Obama outlined his vision for a revised American counterterrorism policy during Thursday’s speech at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., renewing his call to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and announcing new guidelines to govern the use of targeted drone strikes on foreign soil.

Animating many of the president’s proposals was a stated desire to “discipline our thinking and our actions” and to move America away from a “perpetual wartime footing” that has held sway for nearly 12 years, since Congress passed an Authorization to Use Military Force [AUMF] in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The president pledged to “work with Congress” to “refine and ultimately repeal” the AUMF, warning that a strategy of “perpetual war – through drones or special forces or troop deployments – will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.”

Simply put: While “our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue,” the president said, “This war, like all wars, must end.”

While Mr. Obama has spoken before about the need for a return to normalcy of sorts in how America views and responds to terrorist threats, rarely has he expressed that point so baldly and called for an outright “end” to the nearly-12-year old conflict.

But should the “war on terror,” as we know it today, be drawn to a conclusion, given the continued threat posed by terrorists? And with the hypersensitivity attending public discussion on the issue, is it politically realistic to expect a declared end to the “war on terror” any time soon?

• Obama: America at a “crossroads” in fighting terrorism
• Drones, Guantanamo part of broad Obama counterterrorism speech

The “big question here is whether the president’s words translate into real policy or operational practice,” said CBS News senior national security analyst Juan Zarate. “Ultimately, the threats, as they continue to morph, will dictate how willing we are to constrain [counterterrorism] power.”

And the “political realities” of zero tolerance for terrorist attacks on the homeland will jeopardize “any attempts to limit our [counterterrorism] actions,” added Zarate, also a former deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

“The most important advance in the speech was the acknowledgement that the war will end at a foreseeable point in the future,” former assistant secretary of state for public affairs P.J. Crowley told CBSNews.com. “This will require an unwinding of policies, authorities and tactics that have accumulated over the past dozen years.”

But if the immediate reaction to Mr. Obama’s speech is any indication, some in Congress are not so keen on abandoning America’s post-9/11 counterterrorism policies, with several Republican senators blasting the president for what they fear is a premature pivot.

The president’s speech “will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said in a statement. “Rather than continuing successful counterterrorism activities, we are changing course with no clear operational benefit.”

Play Video

GOP Sens. slam Obama’s suggestion that war on terror “must end”

“To somehow argue that al Qaeda is quote, ‘on the run,’ comes from a degree of unreality that is really incredible,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said after the president’s speech Thursday afternoon, arguing that the terrorist syndicate is expanding, not contracting. “To somehow think we can bring the authorization of the use of military force to closure conflicts with the reality of the facts on the ground.”

Crowley knocked Republicans for pushing a strategically and legally “unsustainable” policy, explaining, “We have invested significant powers in the president in a time of war, but to suggest that we will be engaged in war indefinitely fundamentally changes the Constitution, and I don’t know that the American people want that and I’m not sure that the congress wants that either.”

“Wars have beginnings, wars have endings, and wars have defined boundaries,” he said. “Without specifics, then it’s impossible to define success.”

And a failure to augment America’s counterterrorism posture, Crowley warned, could present dangers separate from the concerns voiced by GOP senators. “The concept of indefinite war plays into the al Qaeda narrative,” he explained, noting the grievances that foreign populations have voiced about America’s aggressively militarized counterterrorism policies. “When you project the prospect of indefinite war, that continues to suggest that the military will always be the primary instrument, and we have said many times that we can’t kill our way out of this problem.”

He added that the president “signaled very clearly that the challenge of terrorism is not going away,” and that he is only striving to combat that terrorism in different ways as the threat evolves.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, echoed Crowley on that point, telling CBSNews.com in an email that the president’s speech was “hopeful…in intent in aspiration, but also conservative in not abandoning any existing tools of warfare prematurely.”

So where do we go from here? If the existing tools in the war on terror are increasingly difficult to situate within the 2001 authorization of military force, as Crowley and others argued, can Congress be expected to revise – or repeal outright – that authorization to accommodate evolving realities?

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., offered at least a glimmer of an opening to the president in a statement released before the speech, arguing that that the 2001 AUMF is “increasingly unrelated to current terrorist threats,” and welcoming discussions with the administration and bipartisan members of congress on “how best to pursue necessary updates to the authorization for use of military force.”

“I hope that Congress is open to a revision of the AUMF for a variety of reasons,” Crowley said, “but if we’re still at war, the American people need to know that we’re still at war and they need to be assured that what we continue to do in various places around the world is consistent with both domestic and international law.”

“The immediate response from members of Congress” on revising the AUMF “is not surprising but disappointing,” Crowley said.

Zarate added that, while the president’s “promise of eventual repeal is quite significant,” it “will never be done in this term.”

And as the promise of a long, hard slog awaits the president and those who support his push to pull Americans back from the fever pitch of a perpetual “war on terror,” some argued that an abundance of patience might be in order.

“The president suggested that at a point, the war against al Qaeda or the war on terror will end just like all wars eventually end,” Crowley said. “He didn’t say it would be tomorrow.”

• prev
• no next page

2/2

© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Immigrant Rioting In Stockholm for 5 Consecutive Days

Schools burn on fifth night of Stockholm riots

At least two schools, a police station, and 15 cars were set ablaze in Stockholm on Thursday night as riots in the suburbs of the Swedish capital continued for the fifth straight night.

• Minister: Stockholm riots ‘not youth versus society’ (23 May 13)
• Stockholm riots spread south on fourth night (23 May 13)
• Stockholm riots: a view from the street in Husby (22 May 13)

In Rinkeby a predominantly immigrant district in northern Stockholm, firefighters rushed to put out flames that engulfed six cars parked alongside each other. Five cars were totally gutted, and one sustained more moderate damage, according to an AFP photographer on the scene.

The continued vandalism left local residents irate, with hundreds gathering at the scene to express their frustration.

“People are furious; they think Rinkeby is better than this,” Scanpix photographer Fredrik Sandberg told the TT news agency from the scene.

Three more cars were torched in the southern suburb of Norsborg, and a police station in Älvsjö, also on the city’s south side, was set on fire but quickly extinguished, police said.

Eight people were arrested in Älvsjö, while four arrests were made in Norsborg.

IN PICTURES: See what people in Husby told The Local about the riots

Firefighters also reported a school in Tensta, another north Stockholm suburb, was set ablaze but quickly extinguished, while a Montessori school in the neighbouring Kista suburb was also on fire.

“This makes me extra angry. Are things going to get better if people set schools on fire?” Kista resident Aleks Sakala, a father with two children enrolled at the school, told the Expressen newspaper.

“This is as far from good sense as you can get. This is madness. Where will my kids go to school tomorrow? They probably won’t be able to finish out the term.”

Meanwhile, police in Södertälje, a town south of Stockholm, said rioters threw stones at them as they responded to reports of cars set alight.

Car fires were reported in the suburb of Sollentuna, while a car fire in Jordbro had spread to a nearby shopping centre before being brought under control, police told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“It still feels like things have been calmer tonight, at least that’s our impression. There are a lot of volunteers out on night patrols and that may have helped,” police spokeswoman Towe Hägg told the newspaper.

The previous night, the fire brigade had been called to some 90 different blazes, most of them caused by rioters.

The unrest that has plagued Stockholm throughout the week began Sunday in Husby, with many believing they were triggered by the fatal police shooting of a 69-year-old Husby resident last week after the man wielded a machete in public.

IN PICTURES: See the damage from the Husby fires

The man had fled to his apartment, where police have said they tried to mediate but ended up shooting him dead in what they claimed was self-defence.

Local activists said the shooting sparked anger among youths who claim to have suffered from police brutality. During the first night of rioting, they said police had called them “tramps, monkeys and negroes.”

Police meanwhile have downplayed the scale of the events.

“Every injured person is a tragedy, every torched car is a failure for society… but Stockholm is not burning. Let’s have a level-headed view of the situation,” Ulf Johansson, deputy police chief for Stockholm county, said Thursday.

AFP/TT/The Local/dl

Israel is fighting a regional war in Syria

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is sociologist, award-winning author, and noted geopolitical analyst.

Free Syrian Army fighters return fire after what they say was during clashes with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Deir al-Zor May 13, 2013. Picture taken May 13, 2013.(Reuters / Khalil Ashawi)

 

The changing internal situation in Syria is putting a new set of plans into motion, which involve Israeli aggression against Syria.

Not only have the US and its allies been trying to militarily buttress the retreating anti-government militias, but now they aim to create a new phase in the conflict where states start asserting leverage against Syria in place of the weakening anti-government forces. In other words, external pressure is being applied to replace the declining internal pressure.

The entry of Israeli troops and the Mossad security service into Syria with repeated Israeli air strikes via illegal use of Lebanese airspace, on the Syrian military research facility in the town of Jamraya clarifies Israel’s role in destabilizing Syria. Israel has also admitted that “intense intelligence activity” is being maintained in Syria by Israeli forces and that it is even thinking of occupying more Syrian territory as a new “buffer zone.” Fox News, which is openly biased in favour of Israel, has released a video of Israeli troops illegally crossing the Syrian border. Reports have also come out of Syria that an Israeli military vehicle was seized during fighting with anti-government forces in the town of Qusair, inside Syrian territory.

Free Syrian Army fighters prepare to raid a house in Daraa May 16, 2013. Picture taken May 16, 2013.(Reuters / Thaer Abdallah)

Epicentre of a Regional War?

The events involving Israel are part of the trend to expand and internationalize the Syrian conflict by creating violent spillovers. In the words of one British newspaper: “If anyone had doubts that Syria’s gruesome [conflict] is already spinning into a wider Middle East conflict, [Israeli attacks in] the past few days should have laid them to rest.” Turkey and Israel, like the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, are themselves undeniably involved in the fighting as aggressors against Syria. Turkey has conducted reconnaissance work for NATO in Syria, it hosts NATO Patriot missiles aimed at Syria (with the possibility of deployment against Iran and Russia), and openly aids the anti-government forces. Israel has been the more discreet of the two, but it has sent the Mossad into Syria and built facilities in the Golan Heights to aid the insurgency. Both countries have continuously threatened Syria and pushed for NATO intervention and no-fly zones. All the while, the US has been prodding Ankara and Tel Aviv to continue with the war footing and has even examined selling Turkey natural gas from the US to economically de-link the Turks from Syria’s allies Russia and Iran and the leverage they have over Turkey.

In reality, Syria is merely one front in a broader hegemonic struggle that spans from NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan and Iraq to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Lebanese Republic looks like the next target for destabilization in the broader struggle that Syria is a front in. There are fears that there may be a parliamentary and governmental vacuum in Beirut as a result of the spillover from Syria that could be capitalized to ignite another Lebanese internal conflict. Tensions between the pro-Syrian Hezbollah-led March 8 Alliance and the anti-Syrian Hariri-led March 14 Alliance have been building as a result of the conflict in Syria. Both sides in Lebanon are involved in the Syrian conflict.

Lebanon has been dragged into the conflict, because Syria is being used as an arena for striking and crippling Hezbollah and the March 8 Alliance with the aim of turning Lebanon into a colony controlled by Washington and its allies that will be run by the corrupt Hariri-led March 12 Alliance. Hezbollah has begun fighting on the Syrian side of the Lebanese-Syrian border whereas the March 12 Alliance began sending weapons and funding to the insurgents from the very start of the upheaval in 2011. After months of lying, the Hariri camp in Lebanon was exposed in November 2012 when evidence was provided that proved Hariri’s Future Party member Okab Sakr was behind weapons shipments destined for the Syrian insurgents in coordination with Turkish and Qatari intelligence officers.

In regards to Hezbollah, its members began fighting on the Syrian side of the border under their own initiative. Then the insurgents in Syria began launching attacks on Shiite Muslim villages on both sides of the Lebanese-Syrian border. The anti-government forces in Syria began doing everything they could to provoke Hezbollah into retaliating, including kidnapping Lebanese travellers and, in 2012, deliberately attacking Shiite Muslim shrines in Syria. After the mosque where Hujr ibn Adi Al-Kindi and his son were buried in Syria was desecrated by the insurgents, Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia Muslims were drawn further into the Syrian conflict to protect the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque.

Israeli soldiers stand guard as Syrian residents (unseen) approach the Syria-Israel border in the Israeli annexed Golan Heights, near the southern Syrian village of Ar Rafide, on May 7, 2013.(AFP Photo / Menahem Kahana)

Not only have sacrosanct buildings revered by Shiite Muslims been targeted, Sunni Muslim leaders have been murdered and Christian churches have also been desecrated in Syria. Christian spiritual leaders have also been targeted. Iranian officials have pointed the finger at the US, Israel, and the Saudis for the desecration of these Syrian holy sites and the targeting of minorities.

While the majority of Syria’s Arab population and Sunni Muslim population support the Syrian government against the insurgents and their foreign backers, there is a real push to draw the Syria conflict along the sectarian lines of Arabs versus non-Arabs and Sunni Muslims versus Alawites and the Shiite Muslim community. Various minority groups have been systematically targeted. The Druze, Maronite Catholic Christians, Melkite Greek Catholic Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Armenian Orthodox Christians, Syriac Orthodox Christians, Alawites, and Twelver (Jaffari) Shiite Muslims all have all been targeted as religious minorities. Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, and Turkoman have been targeted as ethnic minorities.

Iraq knows all too well about the nightmare that Syria is facing. Many of the insurgents in Syria are from Iraq and linked to sectors of Al-Anbar’s Awakening Movement (or the Sons of Iraq Movement), which was tied to Al-Qaeda and began to collaborate and receive funding from the United States during the Anglo-American occupation. If these militants succeed in Syria, they will eventually return to Iraq and ignite an insurgency against the federal government in Baghdad too.

On the other hand, the conflict in Syria has been the catalyst for a strengthening Russia position in the Middle East and the forging of new ties between Hezbollah and Moscow. In October 2011, Hezbollah sent a delegation to Russia to discuss the fighting in Syria. It is clear now that Moscow is coordinating with the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” or Resistance Bloc that includes Syria, Hezbollah, Michel Aoun, and the Palestinians. After holding discussions about Syria in Tehran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov’s April 26 visit to Beirut, during the absence of a formal Lebanese government, embodies this strategic cooperation. Bogdanov’s trip to Lebanon is important, because it was a clear indicator that Russia has forged direct strategic ties with Hezbollah and recognizes the Resistance Bloc as an extension of its own security sphere.

Like Hezbollah, Iran is also a target of the conflict in Syria. This is one of the reasons that Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, made a rare visit to Tehran on April 29 (after meeting with Mikhail Bogdanov) to discuss a common front with the Iranians. The same group of countries targeting Syria and Hezbollah are also targeting Iran. It has been reported that “Israel is preparing to agree a defence co-operation deal with Turkey and three Arab states aimed at setting up an early warning system to detect Iranian ballistic missiles.” Uzi Mahnaimi has explained that this “proposal, referred to by the diplomats involved as ‘4+1’, may eventually lead to technicians from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan working alongside Israelis in joint command-and-control centres.”

The damage caused by an Israeli strike” according to SANA. Israel carried out a pre-dawn air strike near Damascus on May 5, targeting Iranian missiles destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the second such raid on Syria in three days, a senior Israeli source said.(AFP Photo / SANA)

Just as Hezbollah has confirmed that it is involved in the fighting in Syria and promised that Syria’s “real friends”—meaning Iran, Russia, China, and the March 8 Alliance in Lebanon—will not let Syria fall into the hands of the US and its allies, Tehran has told Washington and its allies several times that Syria is the Iranian “redline.” Iranian military commanders have said that Syria is an extension of Iran’s own security parameters. What’s more, the Iranians have openly admitted that they are aiding their Syrian allies and willing to provide further training and assistance to Damascus, as well as intervene militarily to help Syria if the US and its allies attack.

Syria and the Project for the “New Middle East”

What happens in Syria will have major regional and global repercussions. Attempts to create a sectarian war are part of the logic of divide and conquer. This is part of the US and Israel “constructive chaos” strategy to fragment and re-sculpt the entire Middle East along the lines of the Yinon Plan and rehashed versions of it. Iran’s Foreign Minister Salehi has warned that if the conflict in Syria is not ended that it will result in the partition of Syria and the spreading of the conflict throughout the Middle East. The same warnings have been echoing from Russia, Syria, and other places. While the Chinese have kept mostly silent, they realize that the siege of Syria is part of the Pentagon’s roadmap against China. Days before Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to arrive in Beijing, CNN even reported that “China’s foreign ministry spokesman suggested Netanyahu may get a tough, unwelcome message from his Chinese hosts” due to the Israeli strikes on Jamraya.

The situation in Syria is akin to the situation that was created in Iraq during the Anglo-American occupation. It is a continuation of the same process of destabilization that wants to tear the pluralistic fabric of the ancient societies of the Middle East. It is this project that has driven the Christians out of Iraq and destroyed the mixed neighbourhoods of Shiites and Sunnis and Arabs and Kurds.

Contemporary Iraq suffers from the virtual realization of both the Yinon Plan and the Biden Plan, which say Iraq should be divided into three sectors. The Kurdistan Regional Government, which is openly working against the sovereignty of Iraq and aligned with Turkey and Israel, is at loggerheads with the federal government Baghdad and has de facto independence. The corrupt leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government have prevented the Iraqi military from manning certain Iraqi-Syrian border crossings in the north used by the insurgents in Syria and they have allowed the Israelis to use Iraqi Kurdistan as a base of operations against Syria and Iran.

Like they did in Iraq during the chaos, the US and its allies are using money and sectarianism. The insurgency in Syria is being financed by the US and members of its anti-Syrian coalition, such as the Saudis and Qataris. In addition, groups opposed to the Syrian government are being financially co-opted by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood with the foreign funding it has been receiving to topple the Syrian government. One Damascene opposition figure has admitted that the Muslim Brotherhood “just asked us how much we needed, we told them, and they immediately sent that amount.” Moreover, foreign funds were not only used to pay what he needed, but the Muslim Brotherhood told activists and government opponents that “they should take one per cent of the funding for their personal salaries.”

Israeli infantry soldiers of the Golani brigade take part in exercises during their deployment in the Israeli annexed Golan Heights, near the border with Syria, on May 6, 2013.(AFP Photo / Menahem Kahana)

There should be no doubt that the insurgents in Syria and Israel are on the same side. The anti-government forces in Syria have even thanked Israel on several occasions and were jubilant about the Israeli attacks on Jamraya. As a result of the embarrassing attention they received for being aligned with Israel, the insurgents in Syria have changed gears and tried to save face by ridiculously claiming that Israel is secretly aligned with Bashar Al-Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah.

It says something of significance when Israeli officials say that they do not see an Al-Qaeda takeover of Syria as a threat to Tel Aviv. Amos Gilad, an Israeli military official, has stated very frankly Al-Qaeda is no concern for Israel and “although [its] elements are gaining a foothold in Syria amidst the chaos of the country’s civil war, the Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis which preceded it [is] far more threatening” for Israel.

In reality, the governments of Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States are in league with the supposed terrorists that some of them say they oppose or are fighting. They have been using the groups that have been designated as branches of Al-Qaeda as foot soldiers on the ground in Syria and Libya. If successful, they will eventually try to use the same militants to ignite insurgencies in places like the Russia’s North Caucasian Federal District.

While Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinians are being targeted through the destabilization of Syria, the countries targeting Syria are also preparing the flames that they themselves will also burn in if America’s “New Middle East” comes into fruition through a baptism of fire and blood. Syrian instability and a possible partition of Syria could ignite a civil war in Turkey and even result in the partition of Turkey itself. Jordan too will be consumed by the flames that are burning Syria. If Syria collapses, the Iranians have delivered an unequivocal warning to King Abdullah II of Jordan about his future. Tehran’s message to Abdullah II, a despot who has foreigners arrested merely for talking negatively about him, but is invited to the White House to talk about democracy in Syria, is simple: “You must be aware that if the US decides to go to war with Syria, your kingdom will go in the process.” Nor will Saudi Arabia and Qatar be spared from the flames that the House of Saud and the rival House of Al-Thani are stoking for the Obama Administration and Israel in their Syrian gambit that could eventually ignite a major all-out war in the Middle East and beyond.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Reckless Qatari Syria Policies Causing Division Within Pig of Qatar’s Family

Qatari princess says Doha’s support for Syria militants ‘scandalous’

Sheikha Hind and Pig Father

Thu May 23, 2013

Turmoil has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

The daughter of Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has censured Doha’s support for the militants in Syria.

In a message she posted on Twitter, Sheikha Hind bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani stated that the backing of the militants was a ‘scandal in the history of Qatar.’

She also denounced the atrocities committed by the militants and said the armed groups had committed crimes against the Syrian people – an apparent reference to a gruesome video recently published on the Internet.

The video shows a cannibal militant in Syria cutting an organ of a Syrian soldier out of his chest and biting into it.

The Qatari princess also slammed the intervention of militants from Saudi Arabia in Syria and their ‘execution of Syrian citizens.’

Turmoil has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on May 18 that militants from 29 different countries were fighting against the government in different parts of the country.

In January, Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi spy chief, called for sending heavy weaponry to the militants in Syria.

INTERNMENT AND RESETTLEMENT OPERATIONS—US ARMY FM 3-39.40

“Destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document.”

USArmy-InternmentResettlement

Civilian Internees

1-10. A CI is a civilian who is interned during armed conflict, occupation, or other military operation for security reasons, for protection, or because he or she committed an offense against the detaining power. (JP 3-63) CIs, unless they have committed acts for which they are considered unlawful combatants, generally qualify for protected status according to the GC, which also establishes procedures that must be observedwhen depriving such civilians of their liberty. CIs are to be accommodated separately from EPWs and persons deprived of liberty for any other reason.

“…in our lands, our women have to see the same…”

[These heartless monsters just stood on the street, talking casually to passersby…One of them is all smiles.]

Warning: Graphic images. British Prime Minister David Cameron calls a meeting of his government’s emergency Cobra security committee after …

Woolwich attack reaction: Riots and two arrested over mosque attacks as al Qaeda gloats

• AAP

• Soldier beheaded on London street
• Scout leader mum who confronted killers
• Pics: The Woolwich attack | How the papers reacted

 

TWO men have been arrested after separate attacks on mosques after the sickening Woolwich attack in which a man was decapitated on a London street.

British police have boosted their presence after a man, believed to be a soldier, was butchered in broad daylight on the streets of southeast London.

The two men – believed to be Islamic fundamentalists – who killed him ranted at shocked onlookers and waited for police to arrive before they were shot by marksmen.

As Muslim leaders and British leaders condemned the attack and al-Qaeda gloated on ts website, about 100 supporters of the English Defence League, a right-wing organisation, gathered near the attack site and rioted.

In a possible attempt at reprisal, a 43-year-old man was arrested suspicion of attempted arson after reportedly walking into a mosque with a knife in Braintree, Essex.

Local MP Brooks Newmark on Wednesday night tweeted: “Local mosque in Braintree attacked by man with knives and incendiary device. Man arrested. No one injured”.

“Just met with leaders of local mosque in Braintree which was attacked this evening. Thanked local police for their swift response,” he added.

Members of the English Defence League (EDL) wear balaclavas as they gather outside a pub in Woolwich to protest after a man believed to be a serving British soldier was hacked to death by two men in the middle of a street nearby. AFP / Justin Tallis

Essex Police confirmed a 43-year-old man from Braintree had been arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and attempted arson after the incident at 7.15pm local time (5.15am AEST).

And police in Kent were called to reports of criminal damage at a mosque in Gillingham about an hour later.

A spokesman said a man is in custody on suspicion of racially-aggravated criminal damage.

The terrorist attack on a soldier had occurred in broad daylight about 200 metres from the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London.

This prompted supporters of the English Defence League (EDL) to gather at Woolwich Arsenal train station near the scene and they threw bottles at police.

EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who was among a group of about 250 men, said: “They’re chopping our soldiers’ heads off. This is Islam. That’s what we’ve seen today.”

Britain calls emergency meeting after man killed in London

“They’ve cut off one of our army’s heads off on the streets of London,” he said.

“Our next generation are being taught through schools that Islam is a religion of peace.

“It’s not. It never has been. What you saw today is Islam.

“Everyone’s had enough. There has to be a reaction, for the government to listen, for the police to listen, to understand how angry this British public are.”

The men engaged in brief skirmishes with police across the large public square opposite the station.

The secretary of the mosque in Braintree, Sikander Saleemy, told Channel 4 News that he felt like it was a “revenge attack”.

Members of the English Defence League (EDL) wear balaclavas as they gather outside a pub in Woolwich in London after a man believed to be a serving British soldier was brutally murdered nearby. AFP / Justin Tallis

“The police said it’s too early to try and link it to what happened in Woolwich, but those of us who were here feel that it was some sort of revenge attack,” he said.

Mr Saleemy said he absolutely condemned the Woolwich stabbing.

“But it had nothing to do with us,” he said.

“It was an appalling act of terror, but it wasn’t ‘Islamic’ in any way. I wish it wasn’t described like that, because sadly people will now start to blame Muslims.”

 

 

Police clash with people in Woolwich in London after a man believed to be a serving British soldier was brutally murdered nearby in what Prime Minister David Cameron said appeared to be a terrorist attack. AFP / Justin Tallis

 

American Terminator Drone Pilot Quits Service Ridden with Remorse Over Multiple Murders

‘Did we just kill a kid?’: The moment drone operator who assassinated Afghans with the push of a button on a computer in the U.S. realized he had vaporized a child… and could not go on

By Helen Pow

A former U.S. drone operator has opened up about the toll of killing scores of innocent people by pressing a button from a control room in New Mexico.

Brandon Bryant, 27, from Missoula, Montana, spent six years in the Air Force operating Predator drones from inside a dark container.

But, after following orders to shoot and kill a child in Afghanistan, he knew he couldn’t keep doing what he was doing and quit the military.

Scroll down for video

Too much: Brandon Bryant, 27, pictured, from Missoula, Montana, spent six years in the Air Force operating Predator drones from inside a dark container

‘I saw men, women and children die during that time,’ he told Spiegel Online. ‘I never thought I would kill that many people. In fact, I thought I couldn’t kill anyone at all.’

Bryant joined the military by accident when he accompanied a friend who was enlisting in the army and heard that he could go to university for free if he signed up to the Air Force.

He excelled in his course and was assigned to an intelligence collection unit where he soon learned how to control the cameras and lasers on a drone, to analyse ground images, maps and weather data.

He was made a sensor operator, the equivalent of co-pilot, and at just 20 flew his first mission over Iraq – seated in the safety of a control room in Nevada.

Drone operators: A drone pilot, left, and a drone sensor operator practice on a simulator at Holloman Air Force base in New Mexico

But it began to take its toll immediately.

The first time he fired a missile, he killed two men instantly and cried on his way home.

‘I felt disconnected from humanity for almost a week,’ he said.

But it was an incident when a Predator drone was circling above a flat-roofed house made of mud in Afghanistan, more than 6,250 miles away, that really sticks in his mind.

Horrific: ‘I saw men, women and children die,’ said Brandon Bryant, pictured

The hut had a shed used to hold goats and when he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser.

The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.

‘These moments are like in slow motion,’ he told the website.

As the countdown reached seven seconds, there was no sign of anyone on the ground.

Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point.

But when it was down to three seconds, a child suddenly walked around the corner.

The next thing he saw was a flash on the screen – the explosion. The building collapsed, and the child disappeared.

Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach, he told the website.

‘Did we just kill a kid?’ he asked the pilot next to him.

‘Yeah, I guess that was a kid,’ the man replied.

Thoughts jotted in his diary on uneventful days clearly show the heavy burden his job was placing on him.

‘On the battlefield there are no sides, just bloodshed. Total war. Every horror witnessed. I wish my eyes would rot,’ he wrote on one occasion.

He began to shut himself off from his friends, and his girlfriend complained about his bad moods.

‘I can’t just switch and go back to normal life,’ he said to her. He stopped sleeping and began to exercise instead.

Drones: Bryant worked as a sensor operator, the equivalent of a drone co-pilot (stock photo)

One day he collapsed at work, doubling over and spitting blood. The doctor ordered him to stay home, and not to return to work until he could sleep more than four hours a night for two weeks in a row.

‘Half a year later, I was back in the cockpit, flying drones,’ Bryant told Spiegel Online.

But he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now Bryant has left the military and is living back at home in Montana where he feels he is slowly recuperating.

‘I haven’t been dreaming in infrared for four months,’ he said with a smile.

Rise Up or Die

“It is time to build radical mass movements that defy all formal centers of power and make concessions to none. It is time to employ the harsh language of open rebellion and class warfare. It is time to march to the beat of our own drum…. Revolt will see us branded as criminals. Revolt will push us into the shadows. And yet, if we do not revolt we can no longer use the word “hope.”

By Chris Hedges (about the author)
OpEdNews

Illustration by Mr. Fish

Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.” We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones” — the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace — to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion no longer have external impediments. We wanted to illustrate what unrestrained corporate exploitation does to families, communities and the natural world. We wanted to challenge the reigning ideology of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism to illustrate what life becomes when human beings and the ecosystem are ruthlessly turned into commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. And we wanted to expose as impotent the formal liberal and governmental institutions that once made reform possible, institutions no longer equipped with enough authority to check the assault of corporate power.

What has taken place in these sacrifice zones — in post-industrial cities such as Camden, N.J., and Detroit, in coalfields of southern West Virginia where mining companies blast off mountaintops, in Indian reservations where the demented project of limitless economic expansion and exploitation worked some of its earliest evil, and in produce fields where laborers often endure conditions that replicate slavery — is now happening to much of the rest of the country. These sacrifice zones succumbed first. You and I are next.

Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform–the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions–we are left defenseless against corporate power.

The Department of Justice seizure of two months of records of phone calls to and from editors and reporters at The Associated Press is the latest in a series of dramatic assaults against our civil liberties. The DOJ move is part of an effort to hunt down the government official or officials who leaked information to the AP about the foiling of a plot to blow up a passenger jet. Information concerning phones of Associated Press bureaus in New York, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Conn., as well as the home and mobile phones of editors and reporters, was secretly confiscated. This, along with measures such as the use of the Espionage Act against whistle-blowers, will put a deep freeze on all independent investigations into abuses of government and corporate power.

Seizing the AP phone logs is part of the corporate state’s broader efforts to silence all voices that defy the official narrative, the state’s Newspeak, and hide from public view the inner workings, lies and crimes of empire. The person or persons who provided the classified information to the AP will, if arrested, most likely be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. That law was never intended when it was instituted in 1917 to silence whistle-blowers. And from 1917 until Barack Obama took office in 2009 it was employed against whistle-blowers only three times, the first time against Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The Espionage Act has been used six times by the Obama administration against government whistle-blowers, including Thomas Drake.

The government’s fierce persecution of the press — an attack pressed by many of the governmental agencies that are arrayed against WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and activists such as Jeremy Hammond — dovetails with the government’s use of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force to carry out the assassination of U.S. citizens; of the FISA Amendments Act, which retroactively makes legal what under our Constitution was once illegal — the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of tens of millions of U.S. citizens; and of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits the government to have the military seize U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them in indefinite detention. These measures, taken together, mean there are almost no civil liberties left.

A handful of corporate oligarchs around the globe have everything — wealth, power and privilege — and the rest of us struggle as part of a vast underclass, increasingly impoverished and ruthlessly repressed. There is one set of laws and regulations for us; there is another set of laws and regulations for a power elite that functions as a global mafia.

We stand helpless before the corporate onslaught. There is no way to vote against corporate power. Citizens have no way to bring about the prosecution of Wall Street bankers and financiers for fraud, military and intelligence officials for torture and war crimes, or security and surveillance officers for human rights abuses. The Federal Reserve is reduced to printing money for banks and financiers and lending it to them at almost zero percent interest; corporate officers then lend it to us at usurious rates as high as 30 percent. I do not know what to call this system. It is certainly not capitalism. Extortion might be a better word. The fossil fuel industry, meanwhile, relentlessly trashes the ecosystem for profit. The melting of 40 percent of the summer Arctic sea ice is, to corporations, a business opportunity. Companies rush to the Arctic and extract the last vestiges of oil, natural gas, minerals and fish stocks, indifferent to the death pangs of the planet. The same corporate forces that give us endless soap operas that pass for news, from the latest court proceedings surrounding O.J. Simpson to the tawdry details of the Jodi Arias murder trial, also give us atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide that surpass 400 parts per million. They entrance us with their electronic hallucinations as we waiver, as paralyzed with fear as Odysseus’ sailors, between Scylla and Charybdis.

There is nothing in 5,000 years of economic history to justify the belief that human societies should structure their behavior around the demands of the marketplace. This is an absurd, utopian ideology. The airy promises of the market economy have, by now, all been exposed as lies. The ability of corporations to migrate overseas has decimated our manufacturing base. It has driven down wages, impoverishing our working class and ravaging our middle class. It has forced huge segments of the population — including those burdened by student loans — into decades of debt peonage. It has also opened the way to massive tax shelters that allow companies such as General Electric to pay no income tax. Corporations employ virtual slave labor in Bangladesh and China, making obscene profits. As corporations suck the last resources from communities and the natural world, they leave behind, as Joe Sacco and I saw in the sacrifice zones we wrote about, horrific human suffering and dead landscapes. The greater the destruction, the greater the apparatus crushes dissent.

More than 100 million Americans — one-third of the population — live in poverty or a category called “near poverty.” Yet the stories of the poor and the near poor, the hardships they endure, are rarely told by a media that is owned by a handful of corporations — Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Clear Channel and Disney. The suffering of the underclass, like the crimes of the power elite, has been rendered invisible.

In the Lakota Indian reservation at Pine Ridge, S.D., in the United States’ second poorest county, the average life expectancy for a male is 48. This is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere outside of Haiti. About 60 percent of the Pine Ridge dwellings, many of which are sod huts, lack electricity, running water, adequate insulation or sewage systems. In the old coal camps of southern West Virginia, amid poisoned air, soil and water, cancer is an epidemic. There are few jobs. And the Appalachian Mountains, which provide the headwaters for much of the Eastern Seaboard, are dotted with enormous impoundment ponds filled with heavy metals and toxic sludge. In order to breathe, children go to school in southern West Virginia clutching inhalers. Residents trapped in the internal colonies of our blighted cities endure levels of poverty and violence, as well as mass incarceration, that leave them psychologically and emotionally shattered. And the nation’s agricultural workers, denied legal protection, are often forced to labor in conditions of unpaid bondage. This is the terrible algebra of corporate domination. This is where we are all headed. And in this accelerated race to the bottom we will end up as serfs or slaves.

Rebel. Even if you fail, even if we all fail, we will have asserted against the corporate forces of exploitation and death our ultimate dignity as human beings. We will have defended what is sacred. Rebellion means steadfast defiance. It means resisting just as have Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, just as has Mumia Abu-Jamal, the radical journalist whom Cornel West, James Cone                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   and I visited in prison last week in Frackville, Pa. It means refusing to succumb to fear. It means refusing to surrender, even if you find yourself, like Manning and Abu-Jamal, caged like an animal. It means saying no. To remain safe, to remain “innocent” in the eyes of the law in this moment in history is to be complicit in a monstrous evil. In his poem of resistance, “If We Must Die,” Claude McKay knew that the odds were stacked against African-Americans who resisted white supremacy. But he also knew that resistance to tyranny saves our souls. McKay wrote:

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

It is time to build radical mass movements that defy all formal centers of power and make concessions to none. It is time to employ the harsh language of open rebellion and class warfare. It is time to march to the beat of our own drum. The law historically has been a very imperfect tool for justice, as African-Americans know, but now it is exclusively the handmaiden of our corporate oppressors; now it is a mechanism of injustice. It was our corporate overlords who launched this war. Not us. Revolt will see us branded as criminals. Revolt will push us into the shadows. And yet, if we do not revolt we can no longer use the word “hope.”

Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” grasps the dark soul of global capitalism. We are all aboard the doomed ship Pequod, a name connected to an Indian tribe eradicated by genocide, and Ahab is in charge. “All my means are sane,” Ahab says, “my motive and my object mad.” We are sailing on a maniacal voyage of self-destruction, and no one in a position of authority, even if he or she sees what lies ahead, is willing or able to stop it. Those on the Pequod who had a conscience, including Starbuck, did not have the courage to defy Ahab. The ship and its crew were doomed by habit, cowardice and hubris. Melville’s warning must become ours. Rise up or die.

 

Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The (more…)

Saudis Behead 5 Yemenis, Put Their Headless Corpses On Display Near Yemen Border

(WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS)SAUDI ARABIA BEHEADS 5 YEMENIS DISPLAYS BODIES IN PUBLIC FOR HOURS

IN THIS PHOTO YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE HEADLESS BODIES,THE WHITE SACKS CONTAIN THE SEVERED HEADS

Saudi Arabia has executed five Yemenis convicted of murder and committing a series of robberies.

Their bodies were left hanging in public following the execution in the south-western town of Jizan, near the Yemen border.

READ MORE    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22609051

 

A local Saudi news website published a photograph of the five bodies hanging from a bar suspended between two cranes. The picture appeared to show the men’s severed heads in separate sacks.

READ MORE http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/saudis-execute-five-men-and-put-corpses-on-display-29285046.html

FYI BODIES WERE DISPLAYED NEAR UNIVERSITY AND REMOVED AFTER FEW HOURS.

Syrian Terrorists Holed-Up In Qusayr Issue Urgent Plea for Reinforcements or Relief

Syria’s Opposition Urges Rebels to Join Qusayr Battle

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية

Syria’s opposition urged fighters across the country Wednesday to “rush to the rescue” of rebel stronghold Qusayr, while appealing to the international community to set up a humanitarian corridor to the embattled town.

Syria’s acting National Coalition opposition chief George Sabra issued the call for rebel reinforcements to the town as Syrian troops backed by fighters Hizbullah battled for control of Qusayr.

“Revolutionary battalions and Free Syrian Army, rush to the rescue of Qusayr and Homs,” Sabra said in a statement, urging brigades around the country to send forces and weapons, “however small.”

“We call on the international community to open a humanitarian corridor to rescue the wounded and take in medicine and assistance to 50,000 besieged people,” he added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog estimates around 25,000 civilians are trapped inside Qusayr, with thousands more still in villages around the town in central Homs province bordering Lebanon.

Sabra also urged the U.N. Security Council “to convene an emergency meeting and go beyond expressing concern to action.”

“Our country’s borders and sovereignty and the lives of its citizens are being violated. We call on the Security Council to take a position equal to the seriousness of this situation,” he said.

The Syrian army backed by Hizbullah fighters launched a long-expected assault against Qusayr on Sunday, reportedly entering the town and seizing several municipal buildings.

The fighting has since left more than 100 people dead, the Observatory said on Tuesday, most of them rebel fighters and Hizbullah members.

The regime has made recapturing Qusayr a key objective due to the town’s strategic location between the capital Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, and near the border with Lebanon.

SourceAgence France Presse

Saudi princes may face UK court over claim they laundered money for Hizbollah

“the Beirut transaction” (laundered money for  Hezbollah) and “the Nairobi transaction” (smuggling gold ore and precious stones from conflict zone, Congo).

From the Democratic Republic of the Congo “to export 5,000kg of ore nuggets worth $140m, plus another export of 5,000kg ore nuggets, 4,000kg of ruby gemstones, 3,000kg of green garnet, 7,000kg of malakis stone and 1,000kg of blue sapphire”.

“We deal with whoever we want, whether it’s Hizbollah, the Mafia or even the Jews.”

GLOBAL TORCH LIMITED
– and –
APEX GLOBAL MANAGEMENT LIMITED

LONDON // Two Saudi princes will hear this week if they are successful in extricating themselves from answering to accusations in a UK court case linking them, and companies in which they are shareholders, with money laundering for Hizbollah and smuggling gems out of Africa.nThe challenge is the latest development in a case brought by Global Torch, a company linked to the two princes, in 2011 against a business partner. The Saudis, who argue the allegations made against them in a countersuit could endanger their lives and damage UK-Saudi relations, last week failed in their attempt to have the evidence heard in secret.nAnd, in March, a court ruled that Mishaal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a former Saudi defence minister, and his son, Abdulaziz bin Mishaal bin Al Saud, could not claim diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution.nThis week, a court in central London’s Rolls Centre, the world’s largest centre for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation, will rule on whether UK courts have jurisdiction over the counterclaims.nIf the court rules against Global Torch, the trial proper will resume in January 2014.nThe suit was originally brought by Global Torch Ltd, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands linked to the two princes, against an Jordanian business partner, Faisal Almhairat, whom they accused of fraud.nThe two sides fell out over a joint venture in a London-registered telecommunications company, Fi Call Ltd. The Saudi princes are understood to own shares through Global Torch, while Mr Almhairat apparently owns part through a Seychelles-based firm, Apex Global Management.nFi Call was understood to be developing a smartphone application to allow people to make free calls.nThe initial litigation involved the alleged misappropriation of funds and illegal sale of US$6.7 million (Dh24.6m) worth of shares by Mr Almhairat. But it prompted Mr Almhairat to bring a counter claim in 2012.nWith it came what a judge presiding over an early stage of the trial described as a “nuclear mushroom cloud” of litigation.nMr Almhairat has brought a wide range of allegations, according to court documents obtained by two British papers, The Guardian and the Financial Times, which brought a suit to ensure that evidence would not be heard in secret.nHis lawyers claim that the princes used their influence with the Saudi police to lodge a warrant with Interpol for Mr Almhairat’s arrest to secure his extradition to Saudi Arabia.nThey also allege that the princes were involved in smuggling precious stones out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, paid bribes to UN officials to ensure an illicit air cargo worth $2 billion – it is not clear of what – into Nairobi, and were involved with money laundering for Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement that is designated a terrorist organisation by the US.nPrince Mishaal, 86, is a brother to King Abdullah and the head of the Allegiance Council that will eventually determine succession to the Saudi throne. Any suggestion that the prominent Saudis have been dealing with Hizbollah, which is supported by Iran, could undermine assumptions about Saudi-Iranian enmity, and put Riyadh on a collision course with Washington.nBut according to transcripts of court documents obtained by the Financial Times, Prince Abdulaziz is alleged to have told Mr Almhairat that “we deal with whoever we want”.n”I need to show Hizbollah that we can transfer money to them smoothly. They have potentially billions that they want to be transferred,” the younger prince is alleged to have said. “We deal with whoever we want, whether it’s Hizbollah, the Mafia or even the Jews.”nFor their part, lawyers for Global Torch have labelled Mr Almhairat a “dishonest man” who has a “history of failing to comply” with his business obligations.nNone of the factual issues of the case have yet been resolved. The case is also raising questions about the British legal system’s ability to maintain transparency as it tries to attract litigation cases from around the world.nokarmi@thenational.aentwitter: For breaking news from the Gulf, the Middle East and around the globe follow The National World. Follow us

Chechens To Be Next “Al-CIA-da”—Major Propaganda Offensive Underway from Helmand, Afghanistan To Moscow

Taliban Horde

[Here we have a joint psyop, carried-out by unidentified international elements, with the clear intention of painting “Chechnya/Caucasus” as the next “Al-Qaeda” outpost.  In Moscow, the Russian FSB claimed to have disrupted a Chechen terror plot by individuals who had recently arrived from the “Afghan-Pakistan region,” where they had allegedly trained for this plot.  On the same day, in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, another bit of psychological warfare concerning itinerent Chechens was delivered to the unsuspecting American masses and to the general world audience. 

According to an Helmand Provincial spokesman and an alleged “Taliban spokesman” (some unknown quantity named Qari Yusuf Ahmadi who is the favorite pseudo-Taliban “spokesman” for Al-Jazeera and CNN.), while the attacks were unfolding in Russia, Helmand was allegedly, simultaneously, being overrun by “1,000 attackers,” many of which were reported as Chechens and Arabs (i.e., “Al-CIA-da”). Two unrelated attacks in one day, both of which accentuated the dangers of Chechen “Al-Qaeda.”  What are the odds of that?  A billion to one?

American and ISAF spokesmen are squirming on their hotseats, trying to disavow knowledge of any Taliban offensive, claiming that any attack that size would have automatically generated a call for air support.  Coalition spokesman Col. Thomas Collins described the incident as–

“Ten groups of between 8 and 10 Taliban fighters…doing drive-by shootings against five police checkpoints.”—Coalition Plays Down Afghan Reports of Major Battle in Helmand

All of this circumstantial evidence that “Chechens are the new Al-Qaeda” comes after America has suddenly been sensitized to the Chechen danger because of the Boston bombing, which allegedly implicated Russian immigrants, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  Not yet fully understanding the purpose of this latest psyop tangent, we must throw into the mix the arrest and deportation of the alleged CIA spy, Ryan Fogle, who was reportedly trying to bribe FSB specialists on the region, hoping to turn them into CIA moles.

Coincidence?   The dangerous, imaginary connections linking militant training camps in FATA, Chechen terrorists, Russia and the Marathon bombing suddenly popping-up as Obama is desperately looking to Central Asia, trying to find a reason to make it the next major conflict zone for his perpetual war. 

This is Obama, Putin, Karzai and the Taliban all working together, as one unit. 

Watch Putin to see how all of this is going to play-out.]

Pakistani and Chechen rebels attack police check post in Helmand

By Mirwais Adeel

At least 23 Taliban militants including Pakistani and Chechen fighters were killed after attacking a police check post in southern Helmand province of Afghanistan.

Local officials in Helmand province said the incident took place in Sangin district, leaving four Afghan police officers dead.

Provincial governor spokesman Omar Zwak said the attack was carried out jointly by Pakistani and Chechen militants.

He said clashes started late Monday and the two sides are still exchanging fire.

In the meantime Taliban militants group claimed around 10 police officers along with thier commander were killed.

This comes as Afghan defense ministry on Monday announced that hundreds of Pakistani and foreign militants were deployed to Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

Defense ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said several religious Madrasas teaching Taliban militants were closed and the fighters were deployed in Afghanistan.

Follow Khaama Press (KP)

Fat Pig of Qatar Slams American Failure To Finish the War He Started In Syria

[[How is it that this piece of shit can conduct his own international foreign policy, employing the very terrorists that we are fighting a perpetual war against?]

Qatar emir slams ‘international inaction’ over Syria

The international community’s inaction on Syria is “no longer acceptable,” Qatari emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, said.

• 

AFP, Doha –

The emir of Qatar, a strong supporter of the Syrian rebels, on Monday slammed what he called inaction by the international community over the conflict there, lamenting the failure to reach a political solution.

“It is no longer acceptable that influential states in the international community do not act to end the horrific tragedy and escalating humanitarian catastrophe” in Syria, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani told the Doha Forum.

He appeared to allude to Western countries, which have failed to agree to arm Syrian rebels, as the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime entered its third year in March.

Activists say more than 94,000 people have been killed.

He said that those countries, which he did not name, “want to decide themselves who should be the defender of the Syrian people,” in an apparent reference to concerns about the presence of radical Islamists among Syrian rebels.

Sheikh Hamad lamented the “failure of all international and Arab initiatives to get the Syrian regime to listen to the sound of reason.”

He expressed “sorrow at seeing the revolution of the Syrian people enter its third year without the clear perspective of an end to the bloodshed… because of the regime’s insistence on a military solution.”

The United States and Russia, a strong Assad ally, have proposed a peace conference for June, bringing together representatives of the regime and its opponents, with the aim of reaching a political solution.

It Is Time for America To “Back-Off” and Let the Arab and Turk Vultures Fight It Out In the Middle East

[Col. Ralph Peters is the infamous author of the divisive 2006 article, Blood Borders, on the Balkanization plan for the Greater Middle East and the map included below.  He makes great sense in his new article below, where he suggests that America “back-off in Syria,” letting all the crazy Arabs and Turks just “fight it out” amongst themselves.]

The Arab collapse

Middle East a vulture’s feast

• By RALPH PETERS

Ralph Peters

The Arab Spring has unleashed the Arab Collapse. Everybody still standing in the region is picking the flesh of the helpless. The Islamist cancer proved more virulent than Arabs themselves expected, while dying regimes behave with unrestrained ruthlessness.

And our diplomats still think everyone can be cajoled into harmony.

We’re witnessing a titanic event, the crack-up of a long-tottering civilization. Arab societies grew so corrupt and stagnant that violent upheaval became inevitable. That’s what we’re seeing in Syria and Iraq — two names, one struggle — and will find elsewhere tomorrow.

ZUMAPRESS.com

The next country to go: Rescuers working at the site of a car bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq, last week. Violence is rising rapidly across the country.

We can’t stop it, we can’t fix it, and we don’t understand it. But we can stay out of it.

When the US is in the Middle East, the Arabs want us out. When we’re out, they want us in. But our purported Arab (and Turkish) allies consistently agree that Uncle Sam should pay the party bill, while they take home all the presents.

Yes, Syria’s humanitarian crisis is appalling. And no, I don’t like to see innocents dying or suffering. But the calls from the region for American action are nakedly cynical.

Turkey has the largest military in NATO after our own, but cries “helpless” crocodile tears over Syrian refugees — while dreaming of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire upon their ruined lives. Our Saudi “friends” spent decades building the most-sophisticated military arsenal in the Middle East, apart from Israel. Now the Saudis wring their hands over Syria’s misery — but won’t intervene directly to stop the killing.

The Saudi position is always “You and him fight!” As long ago as Desert Storm, Saudis joked about renting the American army and our bumpkin gullibility. (Try to find one US officer who’s worked with the Saudis and doesn’t hate their guts. . .) Now they want Washington to spend our blood and treasure to open the mosques of Damascus to their Wahhabi cult.

Well, the Assad regime is horrible, but not al Qaeda horrible. Better poison gas than poisoned religion, as far as our own security’s concerned. This is an Arab struggle (with Turkish and Iranian vultures overhead). This time, we need to let them fight it out.

The region’s outdated order is disintegrating. But Washington’s still mesmerized by the artificial boundaries on the map.

Nine decades ago, the diplomats at Versailles ignored the region’s natural fault lines as they carved up the Middle East, forcing enemies together and driving kin apart (while Woodrow Wilson turned his back on the Kurds). Only brute force and dictators kept up the fiction that these were countries. Now the grim charade has reached its end.

Iraq was carved out for British interests, while Syria was France’s consolation prize. Now Syria’s collapsing in a too-many-factions-to-count civil war. And Iraq’s in the early stages of its own dissolution; even a would-be dictator — another of our one-time “friends,” Nouri al-Maliki — can’t keep the “country” together.

We don’t even know how many new states will emerge from the old order’s wreckage. But the Scramble for the Sand is on, with Iran, Turkey, treacherous Arab oil sheikdoms and terrorists Sunni and Shia alike all determined to dictate the future, no matter the cost in other people’s blood.

We had our chance to extend the peace and keep both Iran and Wahhabi crazies at bay after we defeated Iraq’s insurgencies. But a new American president, elevating politics over strategy, walked away from Baghdad, handing Iraq to Iran. Now it’s too late. If George W. Bush helped trigger the Arab Spring, Barack Obama made this Arab Winter inevitable.

We must not be lured into the current fighting — centered, for now, on Syria — by cries of humanitarian necessity. The local powers could step in to stop the killing. But they won’t. Once again, they want us to pay the bill. (It’s time for the Saudis, especially, to give their own blood.)

We’ve paid enough. Rhetoric and red lines notwithstanding, we need to back off from Syria, if for no other reason than a strategist’s golden rule: If you don’t understand what a fight’s about, stay out.

Ralph Peters is the author of the new Civil War novel “Hell or Richmond.”

TODAY’S SCORE IN IRAQ: Shiites 61, Sunnis 18

[Was this Bush’s intention for Iraq, to turn the entire country into some macabre, midieval “Ball Game,” where the daily score is kept in lost human lives?  It clearly WAS the intention of American Special Forces, to create a permanent state of civil war within Iraq, with the false flag demolition of the golden dome in Samarra.  This is what happened when we followed Cheney into “the Dark Side.”  We sat idly by, while his evil little minions weaponized religion itself and used it against the Muslim people of the entire world, NOT just in Iraq.  This puts us right up there with the Nazi Germans of the previous global war of ambition.   Face It….WE are evil.]

Wave of attacks hits Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq, killing at least 79 people

Associated Press |

Baghdad: A wave of attacks killed at least 79 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 200 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.

The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and brutality of the dark days of 2006-2007, when Sunni and Shiite militias carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood. Still, Monday’s attacks, some of which hit markets and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, have heightened fears that the country could be turning back down the path toward civil war.

Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq’s minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. The mass demonstrations, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.

Iraq’s Shiite majority, which was oppressed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now holds the levers of power in the country. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.

But the renewed violence in both Shiite and Sunni areas since late last month has fueled concerns of a return to sectarian warfare. Since last Wednesday alone, at least 224 people have been killed in attacks, according to an AP count.

The worst of Monday’s violence took place in Baghdad, where ten car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 47 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said. In the bloodiest attack, a parked car bomb blew up in a busy market in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, killing 14 and wounding 24, police and health officials said.

The surge in bloodshed has exasperated Iraqis, who have lived for years with the fear and uncertainty bred of random violence.

“How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?” asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim. “Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before.”

“We’re fed up with them and we can’t tolerate this anymore,” he added.

The predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq was also hit Monday, with two car bombs there – one outside a restaurant and another at the city’s main bus station – killing at least 13 and wounded 40, according to provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul-Karim al-Zaidi and the head of city’s health directorate, Riadh Abdul-Amir.

In the town of Balad, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing six Iranians and one Iraq and wounding nine people, a police officer said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but the fact that they all occurred in Shiite areas raised the suspicion that Sunni militants were involved. Also, Sunni insurgents, particularly al-Qaida in Iraq, are known to employ such large-scale bombings bear.

Monday’s violence also struck Sunni areas, hitting the city of Samarra north of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold and the birthplace of the protest movement.

A parked car bomb in Samarra went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni militia who were waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13, while in Anbar gunmen ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight policemen, police and army officials said.

Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 dead bodies in a remote desert area, officials said. The bodies, which included eight policemen who were kidnapped by gunmen on Friday, had been killed with a gunshot to the head.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Two Car Bombs Kill 3 In Makhachkala, Dagestan

Two Consecutive Blasts Kill 3, Injure Over 40 in Dagestan

MAKHACHKALA, May 20 (RIA Novosti) – Twin blasts rocked Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, on Monday, killing three and injuring over 40 people, the republic’s Interior Ministry said.

The blasts took place about 15 minutes apart, near the Bailiff Service building, local authorities say.

No one was reported killed in the first explosion. Two policemen and one Bailiff Service employee were killed by the second blast, the Interior Ministry said.

A three-year-old child is among those reported injured, local Health Ministry officials told RIA Novosti.

“We were working as usual, at our desks. Panic broke out when we heard two explosions,” said Magomed Buttayev, who works as a press officer for the local Bailiff Service.

Earlier on Monday, the local Investigative Committee issued a statement saying that at least eight people had been killed and an as yet unknown number injured in the explosions.

The local Investigative Committee also suggested that both explosions, which are reported to have been car bombs, could have been detonated remotely.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blasts.

An Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to the republic of Chechnya, has spread across the North Caucasus in recent years. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Bashar al-Assad Complete Interview In Argentinian News, CLARIN

Bashar al-Assad, Syrian leader: “Quitting would flee the people decide if I stay, not U.S.”

By Marcelo Cantelmi

In the interview with Clarin refused to step down to end the crisis. He denied using chemical weapons is repression and questioned the figure of 70,000 dead giving the UN.

VIDEO LINK

Bashar Al Assad, President of Syria, interviewed by Clarin in Damascus. By Marcelo Cantelmi

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s strongman, has a calm look that clashes with the site that he has had in history. Or maybe not calm it also seems that look trapped in amazement continues. In this extensive interview, the first since the start of the war with half Hispanic, Assad looked that way to negate any possibility of resigning, reports of use of chemical weapons and to the figure of 70,000 dead UN complaint. The story was made ​​into a library of his palace in Damascus while listening to the distance the muffled sound of exchange of artillery and mortars shot.
– Why the Syrian crisis has spread and deepened as happened in another Arab country?
-Multiple internal and external elements have contributed to the crisis, the most important is external intervention, then, because the calculations of the countries who wanted to intervene in Syria were miscalculations. Those states believed the plan could end in a matter of weeks or months, but this did not happen, what has happened is that the Syrian people have endured and continue to do so. For us it comes to defending our country.

– Do you know that according to the UN this war has caused more than 70,000 deaths?
-Would have to ask those who raise these figures the credibility of their sources. All death is horrible, but many of the dead are speaking foreigners who came to kill the Syrian people. Nor can we forget that there are many Syrians missing. What is the number of Syrians killed, and which of foreigners? How many are missing? We can not give a precise figure. Of course this changes constantly because terrorists and sometimes kill their victims buried in mass graves.

– Discard there may have been excessive force disproportionately, by their troops in the repression?
– How could you determine whether there has been excessive force or not? What is the formula? It is not objective to talk about it. One responds by type of terrorism facing. At the beginning it was domestic terrorism and then came outside which led to the sophistication of the weapons they brought. The debate here is not the amount of force used or the type of weapon but the volume of terrorism we suffer with the consequent duty to replicate.

– Was not there at the start of the crisis the possibility of achieving a dialogue to avoid this outcome?
-At the start were reformist demands, but that approach was apparent, it was a facade a camouflage to make it happen as a matter of reform. We have made reforms … we changed the Constitution … change the laws … we canceled the state of emergency and announced a dialogue with the opposition forces, but at every step we took was increased terrorism. The logical question here is: what is the relationship between terrorism and reformism?

– How do you respond?
-Terrorism can not be the way of reform. How does a terrorist Chechen with reforms in Syria? How does a terrorist came from Iraq, Lebanon or Afghanistan with the reforms in Syria? Lately there have been about 29 nationalities fighting in Syria … What is the relationship between them and internal reformism? This is illogical. As for us, I say we have done renovations and now we have a policy initiative that includes dialogue. The basis of any political solution is what the Syrian people want, and this will govern the polls. No other way. On terrorism, nobody wants to talk with a terrorist. Terrorism hit U.S. and Europe, but no government spoke with the terrorists. One dialogue with political forces, but not with a terrorist beheads, kills and uses chemical gases.

-You claim the foreign military presence in Syria, but also ensures that no Hezbollah fighters and Iran.
-Syria, with its 23 million inhabitants, does not need human support of the country it is. We have military and security forces. We do not need Iran or Hezbollah for that. We have fighters from outside Syria. There are other people here but from Hezbollah and Iran before the crisis they have come to Syria.

-Among those reforms of the Constitution which says, are contemplated unrestricted freedom of the press?
-Maybe you know that a new press law that was enacted a package of laws …

-No
-We have a title match is bigger than dialogue with political forces. This dialogue would lead to a Constitution that requires a referendum of the people. This Constitution will give greater freedoms. The laws are based on the new constitution and it is obvious that political and media freedoms collected. But one can not speak of freedom of the press with no political freedom in general.

– How does the conference on Syria scheduled for later this month by Russia and the U.S.. States?
-We received good Russian-American rapprochement, and we hope to set an international meeting to help the Syrians. But do not think that many Western countries actually want a solution in Syria. We do not believe that many of the forces that support terrorists want a solution. We support and applaud this effort, but we must be realistic. There can be no unilateral solution in Syria, it takes two sides at least.

– Are the forces that oppose or great powers who do not want a solution?
-In practice these opposing forces are linked to foreign countries and therefore have no choice. They live on what comes from outside, receive funds and do what they choose those countries. Both are the same thing and it is they who said they do not want dialogue with the Syrian state, the last time last week.

-When dialog speaks to whom concerns of the other side?
-We chose to talk with anyone who wants to talk, without exception. As long as Syria has free and sovereign decision. But this does not include terrorists, no state dialogues with terrorists. When they lay down their arms and go to the dialogue we have no problems. Believing that a political conference stop terrorism on the ground, is unreal.

– What is the likelihood that dialogue includes those external forces such as the U.S., for example, that supposedly support these people (terrorists)?
-We have said from the start that dialogue with any force in the country or abroad, provided they do not wield weapons. This is the only condition. We have not put conditions for dialogue. Even there are forces that are looked for justice, but we have not taken any action against anyone to leave room for the dialogue and to listen to everyone. The Syrian people will decide who is patriotic and who is not. We never said we wanted a solution that best suits the government, do not expose what we think it would be better. We have made the solution to the Syrian people.

-With regard to the international conference …
-For us the basic aspect to be addressed in any international conference is to stop the flow of money and weapons to Syria and stop sending terrorists who come from Turkey and funded Qatari and other Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia. While there are countries like Qatar and Turkey who have no interest in stopping the violence in Syria or in a political solution, terrorism will continue.

– Where puts Israel in this crisis?
-Israel supports two-way directly and terrorist groups, given logistical and instructs them on how and which sites to attack. For example they attacked a radar air defense system that detects any aircraft that comes from abroad, especially Israel.

-If shifted forward in dialogue, do you foresee a schedule of delivery of arms by the opposition?
-They are not a single entity, are groups and bands, not tens but hundreds. They are a mix, each group has its local leader. There are thousands who can unite thousands of people? This is the question. We can not talk of a calendar with a part we do not know who he is. When they have a unified structure then give you an answer to this question.

– Would you give a step back for a final solution? Are you willing to give up?
-My stay or not depends on the Syrian people. Not my personal choice to stay or go. It’s the people. If you want you stay, if you leave. The issue depends on the constitution of the polls. In the 2014 elections the people will decide.

He has raised the alternative that you resign as a condition of closing the conflict.
‘I’m an elected president and is the people who choose my stay. Now, someone says that the Syrian president must leave because the U.S. want it or because the terrorists asked, is inadmissible.

-Barack Obama has signaled that his country considers intervene but his chancellor, John Kerry has said that any progress should include you exit from office.
-I do not know if Kerry or another have received a mandate from the Syrian people to speak on behalf of this people, about who should go and who should stay. We have said that any decision regarding reforms in Syria or Syrian political action are decisions and is not permitted or U.S. or any other state to intervene in them. We are an independent, not accept that no one define what we need to do, nor the U.S. or anyone. Thus this probability is determined by the Syrian people. You go to elections, is a candidate and is a chance to win or not. Then you can not go to that conference and decide on something that the people have not decided. Another aspect: the country is in crisis and when the ship is in the midst of the storm, give it away, then the captain does not flee. The first is to deal with the storm, return the boat to the right place and then decide things. I’m not a person who shuns responsibility.

-France, Britain and Kerry himself claimed that his army used chemical weapons, sarin, against the civilian population …
‘We must not waste our time with these statements. Chemical weapons are weapons of mass destruction. They say the use in residential areas. If a nuclear bomb was dropped on a city, and the balance was ten or twenty people, do you believe me? The use of chemical weapons in residential areas means killing thousands or tens of thousands in minutes. Who could hide such a thing?

– What do you attribute this complaint then?
-When raised the issue of chemical weapons did when terrorist groups used them in Aleppo in Khan al-Assal about two months ago. We have collected the evidence: the missile and chemicals used. We analyze these substances and send a letter to the Security Council to send a verification mission. U.S., France and Britain were in an embarrassing situation and said they wanted to send a mission to investigate chemical weapons in other areas where allege they were used. They did not to investigate where actual event occurred. A member of the commission, Carla del Ponte, announced that terrorists are those who use chemical weapons but neither the UN paid attention to that statement.

– Do you think that this claim could pave the way for militiar intervention in Syria?
-If this matter is used as a prelude to a war against Syria is likely. We do not forget what happened in Iraq where were the WMD of Saddam Hussein? West lies and falsifies to unleash wars, is his wont. Of course any war against Syria will not be easy, there will be an excursion. But we can not rule out the possibility to launch a war.

– On what basis?
-This was already part of Israel (the bombing). Force is likely especially after we hit that armed groups in many parts of Syria. Then these countries asked Israel to do this to boost the morale of terrorist groups. We assume that at some point there will be some kind of even limited intervention.

-You say that control the situation but as we speak, hear the roar of artillery on the outskirts of the city.
-The term control or not control is used when there is a war with a foreign army. But the situation is totally different. Terrorists penetrate scattered areas, and fleeing from one place to another. There are vast areas where they move and it is obvious that no army in the world can be on every corner.

– Do you really think the Americans cooperate with Qatar and Saudi Arabia to seize power ultraislámico Wahhabi regime in Syria?
-The West only cares about governments that are loyal. They want a government subservient to do what they want regardless of form. But what happened in Afghanistan refutes that. They supported the Taliban and 11-S paid a high price. The danger of this is that states want to spread Wahhabi extremist thought in the whole population and in Syria we have a moderate Islam and will resist it by all means.

-In the 2014 presidential election will there be international observers and allow free access to the world’s press to cover the event?
-To be honest, the issue of observers is a decision of the country as a part of the people can not tolerate the idea that this monitoring is a matter of national sovereignty. And we have no confidence in the West for the task. If observers agree that there will be such friendly countries as Russia or China for example.

– China?
– …
-In the interview made ​​Clarin in Buenos Aires, said firmly rejecting the idea of denying the Holocaust as Iran claims, do you keep that position?
-I wonder why not talk about the Holocaust and what is happening in Palestine, the million and a half Iraqis killed. The Holocaust is a historical question that needs a comprehensive vision and not be used as a political issue. I’m not a researcher to determine the exact history of this subject. The historical questions depend on who writes them, so the story is distorted at times.

– Excuse me, but there is some criticism that you make?
-It is illogical to be self-critical when it comes to events integers. If you see a film criticism before the end. When the frame is complete will do or not to criticize.

-Finally, do you have information on the whereabouts of journalists James Foley, an American missing for six months here, and Italian Domenico Quirico of La Stampa, lost about a month ago?
-There are journalists who entered Syria illegally in areas where terrorists are active. There have been cases where military troops have been able to release journalists who were kidnapped. In any case where we have information on any journalist who entered illegally, we will pass on to the country concerned. And so far we have no information about the two men vides journalists you.

MOSSAD Site Reports Rebel Smuggling Center Falls To Govt. Forces, Wall St. Claims Battle for Qusayr Ongoing

[SEE: Syrian-Hizballah’s capture of Qusayr opens direct weapons route to Lebanon–DEBKA)  The fall of Qusayr would open the border between the Syrian government and the Lebanese resistance, turning a Sunni terrorist asset into a pro-govt. Shiite asset.  I guess that the coming days will reveal who has control at this key junction.]

Syria Sweeps Into Rebel Stronghold

By SAM DAGHER

Associated Press

Syrian rebel fighters on Sunday gather in Qusayr, near Homs, in an image provided by Qusair Lens and authenticated by the Associated Press.

DAMASCUS—Syrian government forces, backed by members of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, launched a sweeping operation Sunday to capture a rebel stronghold near the Lebanese border, according to Syrian state media and activists opposed to the regime.

Taking the town of Qusayr, southwest of the city of Homs, would bolster recent gains by regime forces in central Syria and around the capital, Damascus. It also could further embolden Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who told an Argentine newspaper over the weekend that his fate would be decided in elections scheduled for next year.

Mr. Assad’s remarks complicate the renewed U.S.-Russian push for a political settlement to end the more-than-two-year civil war in Syria. Rebels and their Western and Arab backers insist any settlement must be predicated on Mr. Assad relinquishing power.

Underscoring the depth of the rift in Syria, regime supporters cheered the military operation in Qusayr, with some Assad loyalists openly calling for the government to storm rebel enclaves around the country, even if that means killing large numbers of civilians.

Mr. Assad’s opponents accused the regime of carrying out a sectarian agenda in Qusayr.

Government forces had cordoned off Qusayr on Sunday and were waging street battles against rebels on multiple fronts, Syrian state television reported. Syrian army officers in Qusayr told state TV that soldiers had taken over several government buildings in the town’s southern half, including the local municipal building, where the rebel flag was brought down and the Syrian flag hoisted in its place. That couldn’t be independently verified.

“We have crushed more than 70 terrorists,” said one army officer. “God willing, Qusayr will be liberated in the coming hours or days.”

The rebels in Qusayr, who are estimated by Hezbollah to number about 5,000 and whose ranks include foreign fighters and extremists, denied the government’s claims.

However, rebels said the town was being subjected to one of the most intensive bombardments by regime forces to date.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that at least 52 people—all but four of them rebel fighters—have been killed so far in the offensive, which started late Saturday night with several airstrikes and a barrage of artillery and rocket fire.

Syrian government forces and Hezbollah fighters have been tightening their siege of Qusayr since mid-April. About 10 days ago, the Syrian regime dropped leaflets on the town telling fighters to surrender and civilians to evacuate.

An activist identified by the channel as Abu al-Hoda al-Homsi, speaking from Qusayr, told the Al Jazeera TV channel that about 40,000 civilians remained in Qusayr. Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar, a principal backer of the Syrian rebels.

Al Jazeera broadcast what it said was footage from inside Qusayr showing the body of a fighter wearing an ammunition vest in the back of a truck and the bodies of bearded military-age men at a field hospital, shrouded in white sheets and being readied for burial in accordance with Islamic traditions. The footage showed parts of the town engulfed in black smoke, as explosions and gunfire are heard in the background.

It is unclear how many civilians remain in Qusayr and whether the figure given by opposition activists is accurate. Before the start of the conflict, Qusayr was home to about 60,000 people, mostly Sunni Muslims and Christians. Almost all the Christians, who numbered about 10,000, fled in early 2012 after rebels belonging to the country’s Sunni majority clashed with Christian families supporting the regime. Hundreds of Sunni families also left the town, many going to neighboring Lebanon, said international aid workers in Lebanon.

Last year, Sunni rebels started attacking Alawites and Shiite minorities inhabiting the farming villages around Qusayr, and this year, rebels openly vowed to “cleanse” the area of the two groups. Alawites, who belong to an offshoot of Shia Islam, dominate the Assad regime.

In April, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah took over at least 14 villages around Qusayr and said it would defend Mr. Assad against what it called a conspiracy by Israel, the U.S. and Sunni Arab dynasties in the Persian Gulf.

Hezbollah has said nothing about its role in the current battle in Qusayr. A senior fighter with the group and residents of border towns and villages in Lebanon told The Wall Street Journal at the end of April that Hezbollah had been instrumental in planning for Qusayr’s takeover. U.S. officials estimate there are 2,000 to 2,500 Hezbollah fighters in Syria.

Sectarian animosities in places like Qusayr have significantly added to the brutality of the conflict in Syria.

Some regime loyalists are urging government forces to replicate what they did this month when they swiftly stormed pro-rebel enclaves on the country’s Alawite-dominated west coast. The government said it had targeted terrorists. Activists said they documented the executions of at least 205 people, many of them civilians.

In his interview with Argentine daily Clarín, published on the newspaper’s website Saturday, Mr. Assad likened Syria to a ship adrift in a stormy sea and himself to a captain steering it to safety. Mr. Assad, who still enjoys popular support, particularly among Syria’s minorities, said his fate wouldn’t be decided at peace talks the U.S. and Russia are trying to convene in Geneva between the regime and the opposition.

“I am not a person who abandons responsibility,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview released by the Syrian Ministry of Information.

“I am a president elected by the people, and only the Syrian people will decide whether I stay or leave, and the ballot box is the referee,” said Mr. Assad.

He warned against foreign intervention in Syria by countries backing the rebels, including the U.S. “They know it won’t be a picnic,” he said.

Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com

Qusair Lens/Associated Press

Syrians inspected the rubble of damaged buildings due to government airstrikes in Qusayr.

“We have crushed more than 70 terrorists,” said one army officer. “God willing, Qusayr will be liberated in the coming hours or days.”

The rebels in Qusayr, who are estimated by Hezbollah to number about 5,000 and whose ranks include foreign fighters and extremists, denied the government’s claims.

However, rebels said the town was being subjected to one of the most intensive bombardments by regime forces to date.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that at least 52 people—all but four of them rebel fighters—have been killed so far in the offensive, which started late Saturday night with several airstrikes and a barrage of artillery and rocket fire.

Syrian government forces and Hezbollah fighters have been tightening their siege of Qusayr since mid-April. About 10 days ago, the Syrian regime dropped leaflets on the town telling fighters to surrender and civilians to evacuate.

An activist identified by the channel as Abu al-Hoda al-Homsi, speaking from Qusayr, told the Al Jazeera TV channel that about 40,000 civilians remained in Qusayr. Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar, a principal backer of the Syrian rebels.

Al Jazeera broadcast what it said was footage from inside Qusayr showing the body of a fighter wearing an ammunition vest in the back of a truck and the bodies of bearded military-age men at a field hospital, shrouded in white sheets and being readied for burial in accordance with Islamic traditions. The footage showed parts of the town engulfed in black smoke, as explosions and gunfire are heard in the background.

It is unclear how many civilians remain in Qusayr and whether the figure given by opposition activists is accurate. Before the start of the conflict, Qusayr was home to about 60,000 people, mostly Sunni Muslims and Christians. Almost all the Christians, who numbered about 10,000, fled in early 2012 after rebels belonging to the country’s Sunni majority clashed with Christian families supporting the regime. Hundreds of Sunni families also left the town, many going to neighboring Lebanon, said international aid workers in Lebanon.

Last year, Sunni rebels started attacking Alawites and Shiite minorities inhabiting the farming villages around Qusayr, and this year, rebels openly vowed to “cleanse” the area of the two groups. Alawites, who belong to an offshoot of Shia Islam, dominate the Assad regime.

Related

• Kerry Trip to Focus On Syria, Peace Process

In April, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah took over at least 14 villages around Qusayr and said it would defend Mr. Assad against what it called a conspiracy by Israel, the U.S. and Sunni Arab dynasties in the Persian Gulf.

Hezbollah has said nothing about its role in the current battle in Qusayr. A senior fighter with the group and residents of border towns and villages in Lebanon told The Wall Street Journal at the end of April that Hezbollah had been instrumental in planning for Qusayr’s takeover. U.S. officials estimate there are 2,000 to 2,500 Hezbollah fighters in Syria.

Sectarian animosities in places like Qusayr have significantly added to the brutality of the conflict in Syria.

Related

• Hezbollah Steps Up in Syria as Israel Tries to Ease Tension (5/6/13)
• Syrian Conflict Draws In Christians (07/23/12)

Some regime loyalists are urging government forces to replicate what they did this month when they swiftly stormed pro-rebel enclaves on the country’s Alawite-dominated west coast. The government said it had targeted terrorists. Activists said they documented the executions of at least 205 people, many of them civilians.

In his interview with Argentine daily Clarín, published on the newspaper’s website Saturday, Mr. Assad likened Syria to a ship adrift in a stormy sea and himself to a captain steering it to safety. Mr. Assad, who still enjoys popular support, particularly among Syria’s minorities, said his fate wouldn’t be decided at peace talks the U.S. and Russia are trying to convene in Geneva between the regime and the opposition.

“I am not a person who abandons responsibility,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview released by the Syrian Ministry of Information.

“I am a president elected by the people, and only the Syrian people will decide whether I stay or leave, and the ballot box is the referee,” said Mr. Assad.

He warned against foreign intervention in Syria by countries backing the rebels, including the U.S. “They know it won’t be a picnic,” he said.

Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com

Non-Islamist Afghans Are Wary of Nawaz Sharif – Probably with Good Reason

Afghans are wary of Nawaz Sharif – but should they be?

By Dawood Azami BBC World Service

 

 

Nawaz Sharif’s victory in Pakistan’s general elections is being seen with some alarm in Afghanistan, where some fear it may mean more instability.

 

The fact that the Pakistani Taliban held off attacking Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N), and the comments he made during the election campaign, reinforced the perception in Afghanistan that Nawaz Sharif is a “representative of the Pakistani establishment” which Afghans blame for most of their troubles.

 

Nawaz Sharif has suggested that Pakistan should end its support for the international alliance against terrorism and says he would talk to Pakistani militant groups.

 

Many Afghans fear he will make peace with the Pakistani Taliban, who will then stop carrying out attacks in Pakistan and focus solely on Afghanistan.

 

“Nawaz Sharif wants peace in Pakistan at the expense of stability in Afghanistan,” says Rahmatullah, a resident of the western Afghan province of Herat.

 

“He doesn’t want a stable and strong Afghanistan.”

History lesson

The roots of these concerns lie in the past.

 

Mr Sharif was very close to Pakistan’s former military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq, who was behind organising Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Both Gen Zia and Mr Sharif had close links with all seven Afghan mujahideen factions based in Pakistan.

 

This policy resulted in the fall of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul in 1992.

 

As prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif was instrumental in forming the mujahideen government in Peshawar, before sending it over the border to take power in Kabul.

 

General Zia-ul-Haq (right) was behind organising Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation in the 1980s

 

Mr Sharif went to Kabul just a day after the mujahideen victory on 28 April 1992, the first and only foreign leader to visit.

 

Many in Afghanistan blame him for dismantling the Afghan security forces and fulfilling the mission of bringing Afghanistan into “Pakistan’s sphere of influence”.

 

In the run-up to Pakistani elections in October 1993, Nawaz Sharif’s party occasionally taunted its rival, the PPP of Benazir Bhutto, by using the slogan “you gave up Dhaka, we took Kabul”.

 

This was a reference to the PPP governing Pakistan when Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) seceded in 1971, while it was under the PML that the Pakistan-based mujahideen leaders were installed in Kabul.

 

The Taliban emerged in Afghanistan when Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan’s prime minister. But it was Nawaz Sharif’s government that officially recognised the Taliban government in Kabul on 25 May 1997.

 

In addition, as prime minister Mr Sharif openly praised the Taliban and its policies in Afghanistan during his failed attempts to introduce Sharia law in Pakistan through a constitutional amendment in 1998.

 

Although the party was out of power for 14 years, it has kept the relationship alive with some Afghan stakeholders, including the Hezb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a powerful mujahideen faction that is now part of the Afghan insurgency and whose representatives are engaged in on-off talks with the government in Kabul.

Future hopes

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the first foreign leader to welcome Mr Sharif’s election. He praised Pakistan for holding general elections despite the violence.

 

In a phone conversation with Mr Sharif, President Karzai expressed his hope that relations between the two countries would improve with the sincere co-operation of Pakistan in the war on terrorism.

 

Nawaz Sharif met Afghan warlords and religious leaders at his residence during Afghan peace talks in 1993

 

Although the two leaders don’t have a personal relationship, they have a few things in common. Both are devout Muslims and both had a shared goal of ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

 

Afghan officials generally accuse Pakistan of sponsoring the Taliban in Afghanistan and have frequently asked Pakistan to dismantle what they call militant sanctuaries on its soil.

 

The Afghan government wants the new administration in Pakistan to formulate a clear policy towards brokering peace in Afghanistan by pressurising or convincing Taliban leaders, who Kabul says are all based in Pakistan.

 

Leaders of the PML (N) reject the pro-militant accusations made against the party.

 

“Afghanistan will feel the change that Pakistan now has a strong and popular government,” Sartaj Aziz, a member of the PML (N)’s powerful central executive committee and a former foreign minister during Mr Sharif’s second term, told the BBC.

 

“Bilateral relations will improve because we both have the same goal of achieving peace and the formation of a stable government [in Afghanistan] as a result of reaching some sort of reconciliation following the withdrawal of the US.”

Saudi role

Unlike President Asif Ali Zardari’s outgoing PPP government, which was trusted by neither the Pakistani army nor the Taliban, Nawaz Sharif has the potential to become a guarantor and mediator for peace talks.

 

He has already reached out to Pakistan’s arch-rival India and indicated that he wants to revive the peace process he undertook with Delhi when he was last in power.

 

Good relations between India and Pakistan will have a positive impact on the situation in Afghanistan, where India’s growing influence is viewed with concern in Islamabad.

 

Nawaz Sharif now has a mandate from the people of Pakistan and is respected and possibly feared by both the army and Afghan and Pakistani militant and religious groups.

 

In addition, he is also close to Saudi Arabia, one of only three countries (the other two being Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates) that recognised the Taliban when they were in power.

 

Saudi Arabia is still an important regional player and can influence Pakistan’s Afghan policy and play an effective role in brokering peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

 

All this puts Nawaz Sharif in a much better position than his predecessors to help curb militancy and bring long-awaited peace to both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

 

He says his top priority is the economy – for Pakistan to prosper he needs peace and stability not only in his own country but also in the neighbourhood.

 

But don’t expect change overnight – Pakistan’s powerful military is unlikely to cede Afghan policy easily to the new civilian administration.

Qatar’s Devious Plan To Purchase Legitimacy for Radical Islamists

Qatar aid breeds sceptism

Critics allege Doha’s short-term goal is to prop up Brotherhood ahead of elections

• Zawya
• 

Cairo: Qatar, a tiny country which has wielded oversize influence in revolutions across the Middle East, is now at the centre of a battle for clout in the region’s traditional military and political juggernaut, Egypt.

On May 9, Qatar released $3 billion (Dh11.01 billion) in low-interest loans to Egypt, the latest in a total of $8 billion in assistance it has provided in the past two years to Cairo’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government.

The move, which the government didn’t announce, was confirmed by a central bank official.

While many Egyptians are grateful for the cash, some worry that Qatar’s support of Egypt’s Islamist-leaning government marks Qatar’s latest attempt to gain influence in the region. Such suspicions have fuelled Qatar flag-burnings in Egypt in recent weeks — protests echoed by rallies in Libya, Tunisia and the Palestinian territories against Qatari meddling.

Humanitarian dimension ‘key
element of foreign policy’

“HE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah said yesterday that the “humanitarian dimension” represented “an important and essential aspect” in Qatar’s foreign policy….Qatar’s foreign policy had emerged from “the visions of the wise leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and HH the Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad

He pointed out that Qatar’s foreign policy formed from the basic principles “of the State of Qatar through its national heritage pursuant to the national values” and principles of the Islamic religion.”

Qatar National Vision 2030

Qatar National Research Strategy 2012   http://www.qf-research-division.org/QNRS_2012.pdf

‘Qatar needs 7,000 researchers to achieve its goals’

Karzai Makes Another Pilgrimage To India In Search of Stronger Defense Ties

Hamid Karzai to visit India; Afghanistan looks for enhanced defence ties

Press Trust of India

Hamid Karzai

New Delhi: Ahead of its President Hamid Karzai’s visit to New Delhi from May 20, Afghanistan today said it was looking for enhanced defence cooperation with India, from where it was expecting supply of lethal and non-lethal military equipment.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai will visit India on May 20-22 during which he will apprise the Indian leadership of the recent developments in the war-torn country, Afghanistan Ambassador to India Shaida M Abdali told reporters in New Delhi.

The two sides will discuss a range of issues of mutual concern and interest and will discuss cooperation at a “critical time” for Afghanistan, from where NATO combat troops are withdrawing, the envoy said.

The attempt will also be to think ahead with a shared vision, to meet the common challenges and achieve the common goals, Abdali said, adding “It is a critical time for all of us and we need to do more than what we are doing right now.”

Asserting that “India is dispositioned to play a leading role in the entire region for peace and economic development,” the envoy made a strong pitch for enhanced defence cooperation between the two countries.

“Training is most welcome. Other assistance in small stages is most welcome…..but we would like to go beyond the current trend of co-operation between the two countries in the defence sector,” he said.

Asked as to what kind of defence assistance Afghanistan was looking at from India, the Ambassador said, “The partnership agreement does not distinguish between lethal and non-lethal. We have talked about security and defence cooperation, this does not exclude lethal and non-lethal assistance to Afghanistan.

“So, we would like to have both lethal and non-lethal assistance to our defence forces in Afghanistan.”

The Afghan envoy also welcomed the recent commitment of upgrading strategically important Chabahar port in Iran which would help India get access to the land-locked and resource- rich countries. An estimated USD 100 million is required for the modernisation of the port.

“We would like to see the conclusion of the agreement on the Chabahar port. We are very happy that this is gathering momentum. We hope that we sign the trilateral trade agreement among India, Afghanistan and Iran as quickly as possible. We are optimistic after Indian minister Salman Khurshid’s visit to Iran,” the Afghanistan envoy said.

Abdali also noted that 90 per cent of the transition process in Afghanistan was complete and in a few months’ time, the entire process will be over.

“But that does not mean that Afghanistan will be totally on its own. Afghanistan will carry on within its institutional capacity but the supporting role will be there from our international allies, more important from the region and from India,” he said.

Asserting that India was “critically important” to Afghanistan, he said it needs to be apprised of the situation in Afghanistan.

“Investment in the security of Afghanistan is in India’s interest to prevent spillover effects of terrorism on Afghanistan,” he said.

“We are happy that India is playing a fundamental role in connecting the region and we would like India to adapt a more result-oriented role,” Abdali said.

During the visit, President Karzai will be conferred with an honorary doctorate degree from the Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar and will address the graduating students of the University, the statement said.

“The visit of a head of a state (twice) within six months signifies the importance of the relationship between the two countries…he was here last year in November and again next week that means that the relationship is very strong and very, very deep,” Abdali said.

Afghanistan and India signed a comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) in October 2011. The SPA serves as the foundation of the two nations expanding bilateral relationship in multiple sectors, including security and defence cooperation, as well as cultural and people-to people cooperation.

Abdali said the agreement with India was also the basis of agreements with other countries.

Karzai’s visit was an integral part of regular bilateral consultations, reviewing the achievements of the two countries so far and prioritising issues of top interest and concern to the two sides, in light of the impending withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, he said, asserting that Afghanistan’s relationship with India should not be looked from Pakistan angle.

“We are two independent nations and are independent in the pursuit of our common goals,” he said.

No use of terrorism as a means, adhering to Afghanistan’s constitution and renouncing violence are a prerequisite for the Taliban to join the political process, Abdali said, replying to a question on the possibility of the Taliban joining the mainstream.

Talking about America’s role after 2014, the envoy said, “Afghanistan will require assistance for years. We are not concerned about the number of US troops that will stay back post-2014, but with the substance of America’s assistance.”

“The framework of partnership agreement (with the US) is there. We need their sustainable assistance to the national security forces,” he said.

About the role of Russia and China in Afghanistan, the envoy said, the region as a whole is very important.

“Both China and Russia are big powers and we are happy that India is taking the lead in engaging with them,” Abdali said.

To a question on regional players, who may bring their rivalries to Afghanistan, the envoy said, “We are looking at the positive side of the engagements.”

Coming together can create a win-win situation for the regional countries from a zero-sum game they have been engaged in over the years, he said.

“It is high time for the region to wake up and take up the fate in its own hands,” Abdali said.

“We are concerned with the border situation and maintaining of status quo is essential,” the envoy said when asked if Afghanistan was concerned over Nawaz Sharif’s win and the rise of Imran Khan’s party in Kyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan polls, as both were considered close to extremist parties.

“The visit has no relation to any other country,” Abdali added.

“We are concerned about the continuance of terrorism as a means. Afghanistan has come out of 12 years of reconstruction.

It will have a different relationship with all nations,” Abdali said.

“Biggest challenge for us is security. In the context of partnership agreement with India, we have done a lot. The training of army and police is a necessity. But given the time we are in right now, we are required to go beyond, we are required to sit down and look at the common cause which is self-defence,” he said.

“It is critically important that the two countries cooperate on deeper and more substantial issues beyond training,” he added.

“We are very happy with the assistance from India in the last few years, but still there is scope to do more for a common cause of a peaceful and secure Afghanistan and a peaceful and secure India beyond 2014,” he said.

Asked about Sharif’s statement that he will allow transit trade route from Afghanistan to India, the envoy said, “This is exactly what we have desired all these years. We are happy that positive statements have been made in this regard.”

“We need to have a conducive environment for trading. We hope this will be realised in future,” he said.

Putin’s “Red-Line”–Defended With “Carrier-Killers” For Syria and A Dozen Russian Warships Permanently Stationed Along the Coast

[SEE:  Syria crisis: Russia ‘sends sophisticated weapons’]

“Russia has sent sophisticated anti-ship missiles to Syria, US media report.

The New York Times quotes unnamed US officials as saying the missiles could be used to counter any potential future foreign military intervention in Syria.”

  Russia signed the deal to supply Syria with Yakhont missiles in 2007

VIDEO FOOTAGE OF YAKHONT LAUNCH

[SEE: The Indian/Russian Mach 3 Carrier-Killer Missile]

VIDEO FOOTAGE OF BRAHMOS LAUNCH

Yakhont…   ..Brahmos

Russia Raises Stakes in Syria

Assad Ally Bolsters Warships in Region; U.S. Sees Warning

By ADAM ENTOUS and JULIAN E. BARNES in Washington and GREGORY L. WHITE in Moscow

Russia expands its naval presence near a key base in Syria in a build-up that U.S. and European officials say appears aimed at deterring intervention in the country’s increasingly bloody civil war. Photo: Getty Images.

Russia has sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that U.S. and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene in Syria’s bloody civil war.

Russia’s expanded presence in the eastern Mediterranean, which began attracting U.S. officials’ notice three months ago, represents one of its largest sustained naval deployments since the Cold War. While Western officials say they don’t fear an impending conflict with Russia’s aged fleet, the presence adds a new source of potential danger for miscalculation in an increasingly combustible region.

“It is a show of force. It’s muscle flexing,” a senior U.S. defense official said of the Russian deployments. “It is about demonstrating their commitment to their interests.”

The buildup is seen as Moscow’s way of trying to strengthen its hand in any talks over Syria’s future and buttress its influence in the Middle East. It also provides options for evacuating tens of thousands of Russians still in Syria.

The deployments come at a time of heightened tensions. U.S. officials said Thursday that another round of Israeli airstrikes could target a new transfer of advanced missiles, anti-ship weapons known as Yakhont missiles, in the near future. Israeli and Western intelligence services believe the missiles, which have been sold by Russia to Syria in recent years, could be transferred to the militant Hezbollah group within days. Russia has strongly protested previous Israeli strikes in Syria.

Yakhont missiles are an offensive system. Moscow has told Western diplomats it will supply only defensive weaponry to the Syrian regime. But U.S. and Israeli officials have long been worried about Syria’s existing stocks of the weapon. If transferred to Hezbollah or other militant groups, they could provide a serious threat to both Israeli and U.S. warships in the region.

Russian Navy and foreign ministry officials didn’t respond to requests for comment about the deployments of the warships.

Russia supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the U.S. has called for his removal. Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled this week that he is pushing ahead with the sale of an advanced air-defense system to Syria, according to U.S. intelligence reports, over Israeli and U.S. objections.

Hezbollah and its chief sponsor, Iran, also have rallied around Mr. Assad, sharing Russia’s interest in keeping the regime in place. Recent Israeli airstrikes inside Syria have targeted missiles believed to be bound from Tehran to Hezbollah, Western intelligence officials have alleged.

Moscow and Washington have worked publicly in recent days to assemble an international conference involving Damascus. But expectations are low that the meeting could lead to a political transition, as tensions have heightened around the region, and with the U.S. and Russia backing opposing camps.

Amid the strategic turmoil, U.S. and European defense officials say Russia appears to be trying to project power to deter outside intervention in Syria, which it sees as its foothold in the Middle East.

U.S. and European officials believe Mr. Putin wants to prevent the West from contemplating a Libya-style military operation inside Syria. President Barack Obama doesn’t want to intervene militarily, but he has said the calculation could be changed by suspected use of chemical weapons by Mr. Assad’s forces. Likewise, the Pentagon has stepped up military contingency planning in the event of spillover of fighting into neighboring Turkey and Jordan, both close U.S. allies.

Moscow’s deployments appeared designed to show that Russia intends to keep Tartus, its only remaining military outpost outside the former Soviet Union, senior U.S. officials said. Though spare by Western military standards—it consists of a pair of piers staffed by about 50 people, according to Russian data—the base provides a toehold in the region that has grown in strategic and symbolic importance for Moscow.

“It’s not really a base,” said Andrei Frolov, an analyst at CAST, a Moscow military think tank. “It’s more like a service station” that can do limited resupply and very modest repairs.

U.S. officials say, however, that Russia has drawn up plans to expand the base, which it negotiated with Mr. Assad.

Washington’s interest in the base has likewise grown—not because the U.S. sees it as a threat, but because U.S. officials believe that by assuring Russia that the base will remain under Moscow’s control in a post-Assad Syria, the U.S. has a better chance of convincing Mr. Putin to break with Mr. Assad.

Mr. Obama held out some hope Thursday that the coming conference with Russia would help the major powers reach a consensus on how to end the bloodshed in Syria.

“There’s no magic formula for dealing with an extraordinarily violent and difficult situation like Syria’s,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Washington with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “I do think that the prospect of talks in Geneva involving the Russians…may yield results.”

Moscow’s diplomacy notwithstanding, U.S. officials believe that in addition to the naval deployments, Russia is moving more quickly than previously thought to deliver S-300 surface-to-air defense systems to Syria.

U.S. officials say the S-300 system, which is capable of shooting down guided missiles and could make it more risky for any warplanes to enter Syrian airspace, could leave Russia for the port of Tartus by the end of May.

Russia’s delivery of such missiles could create a new dilemma for Israel, which has carried out what Western intelligence officials say are at least three airstrikes inside Syria in recent months against suspected weapons shipments to Hezbollah. Israel has yet to target Syrian forces directly, seeking to avoid direct conflict with Mr. Assad, say U.S. and Israeli officials.

Russian officials first announced the navy was deploying ships to the eastern Mediterranean near Syria starting in late 2012, but few details about the deployments have been made public.

In January, the Russian navy used these and other ships to conduct what it billed as some of the largest exercises in recent years in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea for a force that has had relatively low international presence since the Cold War. State media reported that as many as 21 ships and three submarines were involved, as well as planes and other forces.

Before the start of the Syrian civil war, Russian ships stopped at the port only irregularly. But in the last three months, 10 to 15 Russian ships have been near the Syrian port at any one time, U.S. and European officials say. They say Russia currently has 11 ships in the eastern Mediterranean, organized into three task forces, that include destroyers, frigates, support vessels and intelligence-collecting ships. Another three-ship group of amphibious vessels is headed to the region. But U.S. officials said they expect that group to replace one of the groups currently in the region.

“You have more and more warships” concentrated between Cyprus, Lebanon and Turkey, a senior European defense official said, adding that Russia is protecting its sphere of influence in the Middle East and “staking its claim” to Tartus.

Many of the Russian ships in the eastern Mediterranean have stopped in Syria, conducted exercises, port visits or training in the area, and then moved on to the Gulf of Aden to conduct counterpiracy missions, U.S. and European officials said. Others in the aging fleet have returned to Black Sea ports for repairs and resupply in recent weeks, Russian state media reported.

The stops in Syria, according to a U.S. official, signal that Russia wants to show it remains a naval power, even though its strength is diminished from the Soviet era and no longer matches Western capabilities.

“They are stretching their legs,” the official said. “They are very much interested in letting people know they are a blue-water navy.”

The Soviets had ships in the Mediterranean during the Cold War whose mission was to counter the U.S. Navy’s 6th Fleet. The Russians ended that mission in 1992. But in the last few months, the Russian navy has talked about reviving a similar mission to signal Russia’s influence in the region.

For now, senior U.S. officials said the Russian buildup “is not seen as threatening” to the U.S. Navy, which has two destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean and an aircraft carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf.

“Nobody is forecasting the battle of Midway in the eastern Med,” the senior defense official said.

Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com, Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com and Gregory L. White at greg.white@wsj.com

“Al-Qaeda” Is Anybody the President Chooses To Call Al-Qaeda

Obama War Powers Under 2001 Law ‘Astoundingly Disturbing,’ Senators Say

 

WASHINGTON — The war authorization that Congress passed after 9/11 will be needed for at least 10 to 20 more years, and can be used to put the United States military on the ground anywhere, from Syria to the Congo to Boston, military officials argued Thursday.

 

The revelations came during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee and surprised even experts in America’s use of force stemming from the terrorist attacks in 2001.

 

“This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I’ve been to since I’ve been here. You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution today,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) told four senior U.S. military officials who testified about the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force and what it allows the White House to do.

 

King and others were stunned by answers to specific questions about where President Barack Obama could use force under the key provision of the AUMF — a 60-word paragraph that targeted those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

 

“I learned more in this hearing about the scope of the AUMF than in all of my study in the last four or five years,” said Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith, who was called by the committee to offer independent comments on the issue. “I thought I knew what the application [of the AUMF] meant, but I’m less confident now,” he added later.

 

Concerns emerged largely from questions by senators who approve of an aggressive strategy to combat terrorism, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who asked if the AUMF gave Obama the authority to put “boots on the ground” in Yemen or the Congo.

 

 
Robert Taylor, the acting general counsel for the Department of Defense said yes, as long as the purpose was targeting a group associated with al Qaeda that intended to harm the United States or its coalition partners.

 

“Would you agree with me, the battlefield is anywhere the enemy chooses to make it?” asked Graham.

 

“Yes sir, from Boston to FATA [Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas],” answered Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense who oversees special operations.

 

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) later raised the specter of the AUMF being used to intervene in Syria, where the group Al Nusra, believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda, is active. Al Nusra has not been linked to 9/11.

 

Sheehan said yes, if defense officials determined the group was becoming a threat. The same criteria applied to other groups, even if they were locally focused and operating in other nations. Taylor confirmed that AUMF also would cover individuals, even those who had not been born by 9/11, if, as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) asked, they someday were to “become associated with a group that associates with Al Qaeda.”

 

When asked about an expiration date for the war authorization, Sheehan said it would be when al Qaeda had been consigned to the “ash heap of history.” “I think it’s at least 10 to 20 years.”

 

While none of the senators suggested dialing back efforts to stop terrorists, they were clearly disturbed at the power being asserted by the military.

 

“I’m just a little old lawyer from Brunswick, Maine, but I don’t see how you can possibly read this to be in comport with the Constitution,” King said, arguing that the defense officials’ interpretation of the AUMF makes the war power of Congress “a nullity.” “Under your reading, we’ve granted unbelievable powers to the president and it’s a very dangerous precedent.”

 

Kaine found the suggestion that the AUMF could be used to go into Syria especially disturbing. “The testimony I hear today suggests the administration believes that they would have the authority to do that,” Kaine said. “But I don’t want us to walk out of the room leaving an impression that members of Congress also share the understanding that that would be acceptable.”

 

The DOD officials repeatedly defended the authority they’ve claimed, noting that al Qaeda is not a traditional enemy, and that it shifts locations and changes its tactics. The broad interpretation of the AUMF, they argued, gives them the flexibility to deal with the changing threat in a lawful, effective manner.

 

But even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who generally agrees with Graham in pursuing a vigorous war on terror, said the AUMF has been stretched past the breaking point.

 

“This authority … has grown way out of proportion and is no longer applicable to the conditions that prevailed, that motivated the United States Congress to pass the authorization for the use of military force that we did in 2001,” McCain said.

 

“For you to come here and say we don’t need to change it or revise or update it, I think is, well, disturbing,” McCain said, noting that the AUMF also is used to justify things like drone strikes that were never contemplated by Congress. “I don’t blame you because basically you’ve got carte blanche as to what you are doing around the world.”

 

No one suggested specific solutions, but did say the Senate will deal with the problem later this year when the committee takes on the National Defense Authorization Act for 2014.

 

The broad assertion of authority by the military is likely to disturb civil libertarians on the left and right who have complained that the AUMF and a previous version of the NDAA give the military power to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens. Obama has issued orders banning such practices, but DOD officials apparently believe the law grants them the power to act anywhere.

Vice and virtue police rule Syria rebel-held region

This undated image posted on a militant website purports to show militants in the al-Jazeera region on the Iraqi sid

Mona Alami, Special for USA TODAY

Religious police units enforce a strict form of Islamic rule, such banning alcohol sales and requiring conservative dress for women.

BEIRUT — Radical Syrian opposition groups now in control of Aleppo and much of its surroundings are forming increasing numbers of religious police units to enforce a strict form of Islamic rule, such as banning alcohol sales and making prayer compulsory.

The actions of these groups, many of which comprise foreign fighters, are gaining in reach in a country that has been largely secular and free of Islamic jihadist radicalism.

“Rebels have brutally imposed a conservative dress code for women and crushed any ( secular) opposition in these areas,” Syrian author Talal al-Atrache says.

Known as vice and virtue police, these squads are enforcing the edicts of courts put in place by rebels in the various Syrian regions where the Syrian government has been pushed out.

The main purpose of the courts is to adjudicate criminal allegations and issue rulings against members of regime forces or undisciplined members of the armed factions, says Mourad al Chami, spokesperson for the Syrian Military Council in Damascus.

“However, like in any other war, there have been reports of excessive behavior on the part of these religious courts and police squads,” al Chami admits.

Much of the spread of Islamic courts has been in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria and scene of nearly two years of battles between rebels and government forces. Fighters aligned with radical groups in Iraq and elsewhere have made their way there to fight the regime of Bashar Assad and at the same time have slowly been imposing their laws on villages and neighborhoods they control.

In some towns, Islamist militants patrol the streets and warn men to not shave and refrain from alcohol, and tell women to wear the abaya, a long black garment that comes with a veil.

“There have been several reports of liquor stores forced to close down,” says al Chami, who adds that most demands are limited to pockets of terrain and not widespread.

Mouaz al-Khatib, former head of the Syrian National Coalition, which is a group of opposition forces, has said he is aware of cases where women were executed for alleged sexual misbehavior, says Thomas Pierret, a specialist of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Videos circulating on the Internet depict punishments imposed by vice and virtue squads in Syria, though the footage can not be verified as accurate.

One video shows a demonstrator being arrested because he had thrown away a banner inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith associated with radical Salafi movements. Author al-Atrache says the demonstrator, identified as Wael Ibrahim Abu Mariam, is punished by 10 strokes of metal pipe by the Sharia Authority in Aleppo.

Another video shows secular activist Abdallah Yassine being charged for inciting unrest by Shariah Tribunals in Saraqeb, in the province of Idlib.

Pierret says he has seen no evidence of wide-scale and systematic enforcement of “Islamic virtue” in liberated areas. He says some of the vice and virtue committees were formed to establish dominance over rival Islamist groups rather than impose Islamic law on residents.

And the enforcement of Islamic law, or sharia, differs widely because of Syria’s diverse societies, says al Chami.

He says Islamist groups such Jabhat al-Nusra have been able to impose strict Islamic laws in some areas but not in others. They were unable to enforce a stricter interpretation of Islam in the suburbs of Damascus, such as in Reef Demashk, because of the population’s relative liberal views, he said.

In the areas where they have been successful, residents may have been swayed by the groups’ charitable help and offers of religious instruction rather than a genuine movement toward radicalism, al Chami says.

Moaz al Khatib, himself an Islamic scholar, has criticized al-Nusra for enforcing an uncompromising version of Islam. The Syrian National Council announced recently it intended to establish a more moderate version of sharia law, but what that means is not known.

“The reference to sharia ( by the council) means very little without further specification,” Pierret says.

The Rise of the Fourth Reich—(download)

The Rise of the Fourth Reich

Jim-Marrs

THE NO SUNGLASSES LIBRARY – BOOKS ONLINE

 

The Root of All Saudi Anti-Women Violence Is the Belief That Women Are “Property”

“There is not one law in Saudi Arabia that regards violence toward women as an illegal activity”: what’s really behind Saudi’s domestic abuse problem?

via SyndiGate.info

Poster from Saudi Arabia’s first anti-domestic violence campaign

Saudi Arabia has introduced a campaign aimed at tackling domestic violence against women in the kingdom. The King Khalid Foundation funds the campaign, which is a royal, family-run organization with clear ties to the Saudi government.

The campaign ad portrays a face-covered woman with only her eyes showing, one of which is bruised. The translation of the Arabic message of the ad reads: “What is hidden underneath is much bigger.” However, the sentence should refer to what is hidden deep inside the laws of the kingdom and not under the facial covers.

The campaign is disconnected from the main reason behind domestic violence. Domestic violence in Saudi Arabia, unlike in other parts of the world, goes far deeper than just a social issue, it is the problem with the law itself. In Saudi Arabia, men grow up knowing that abusing your wife, sister or mother is protected by law. In terms of religion, men in Saudi Arabia, and some other parts of the Muslim world, are being taught in school that hitting your wife is one solution to her disobedience. Clerics are also outspoken about such rulings on TV.

The famous Saudi preacher Mohamad Alarefe, said on LBC channel:

“Allah created women with these soft and fragile bodies because they use their emotions more than their bodies and that’s why you find men discipline their wives with beating while women discipline their husbands with crying.”

He continued, “the point of the husband hitting his wife is not to cause pain but to get obedience.”

Clerics emphasize the fact the women have to obey their fathers, brothers and husbands as part of their religious duty.

On another occasion, when asked about women leaving the house, Mohamad Alarefe said:

“There are two cases for women leaving the house, the first case is if the husband told his wife not to go somewhere, like the market because he ‘hates’ her doing that and she leaves to that place then leaving is forbidden and not allowed. The second case is if she leaves to a place that her husband does not hate and approves of and that it was difficult for her to take his permission because he is in prison, or a captive, etc. then leaving is permitted.”

In terms of law, there is not one law in Saudi Arabia that regards violence toward women as an illegal activity. As a matter of fact, women in Saudi Arabia are minors under law until their death, making it impossible for a woman to make any decision on her own without the permission of her guardian.

This means that even if a woman is “radical” enough to disobey her guardian or reject his abuse or decisions, she has got nowhere to go. She cannot file a complaint or leave the country or do practically anything without her guardian’s permission, which in most cases, ironically, is the abuser himself.

Therefore there is no reason for a man to restrain himself from abusing women in his family. He knows that he has the power to abuse her, hit her, stop her from working and stop her from getting educated while having the law and religion right there behind him.

The ad in the new campaign is meant to define domestic violence in Saudi Arabia as being a social issue and divert attention from the government’s lack of laws that protect women. This campaign takes the responsibility away from the government and puts it in the hands of individuals themselves; women have to step up and talk about abuse and go to shelters, and men have to restrain themselves from abusing women.

This campaign tries to limit the cause to only being the women’s lack of knowledge of laws and regulations. It advocates the notion that the solution can only come by the participation of the women themselves. A comment by princess Ameerah al-Taweel’s, the vice chairwoman of the Board of the Alwaleed Bin Talal foundation, follows on a similar path:

“The main issue when it comes to abused women in Saudi is lack of knowledge. Some women who accept being abused don’t know their rights in Islam, and a lot of women who are suffering from abuse, don’t know their rights in our legal system. That they can report their case and they will be protected by the government.”

This notion presents the government as the “good guy” because supposedly they are promoting such campaigns and willing to help the women who suffer from abuse: a government that has “a legal system” that protects women from abuse and domestic violence.  The fact is under the legal system in Saudi, men can get away with their abuse, as the punishment for domestic violence is very minimal. Human Rights Watch World Report 2013 reported:

“In May, Jeddah’s Summary Court convicted a man for physically abusing his wife to the point of hospitalization, but sentenced him to learning by heart five parts of the Quran and 100 sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.”

The legal system in Saudi Arabia does not have the sufficient tools and laws that would deter men from domestic violence. In case of drugs and murder, the punishment is death penalty, which makes people think twice before committing such crimes because of the consequences.  Yet, when it comes to domestic violence the punishment is learning parts of the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Such campaigns are ahead of their time because first concrete laws must be put in place. Then and only then can we start equating domestic violence to other social issues, such as drug use or child abuse or animal rights, that take place in the society despite the presence of related laws and regulations. How can we educate people about the harms of a social issue when the government itself is not considering these harms?

Women should refuse to be victimized into believing that such actions are part of their religion and instead ask for real changes in the law itself as opposed to superficially trying to solve such essential issues. They should hold their government accountable for this abuse. The solution to such problems can only be achieved with the kind of spirit and power that the Arab Spring had; by demanding change, protesting oppression and getting hurt for the sake of the cause.

 

By Mohamed Hemish

Israel Preparing New Syrian Airstrikes, Warns Assad Against Retaliation of Any Kind

[If, after all the stink that has been raised over the previous Israeli aggressions upon Syria in the midst of the US/Saudi war to destroy Syria, Israeli bombers attack again, and Assad fails to retaliate again, then it will prove some level of Israeli control over Assad (SEE: When the Hummus Hits the Fan, Israel Will Choose Bashar al-Assad Over Radical Islamists).  Such a Zionist revelation, coupled with recent news of an Israeli/Saudi alliance, will also reveal the true Patron/Client relationship between the Fascist Shit-hole and the Arab royal dictatorships, who have been the traditional alleged “protectors” of the rights of the Palestinian people.  The Mideast monarchies have given hope that one day they would avenge the “Nakba” ethnic-cleansing of Palestine by returning millions of refugees back to their rightful homes. 

Such is the nature of the “Bizarro world” that we live in. 

Good always turns-out to be evil in the end.  The power of weakness is a Christian delusion.  When we are meek before the enemies of the human race, then the most bloodthirsty criminals will determine the vile nature of the next step in the spiritual/psychological evolution of mankind.]

 

Report: Israel warns Assad not to retaliate to airstrikes

Israeli senior official tells New York Times Israel considering further military strikes on Syria to stop transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. ‘If Assad reacts, he will risk forfeiting his regime,’ he says

A senior Israeli official signaled on Wednesday that Israel was considering further military strikes on Syria to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Islamic militants, and warned Syrian president Bashar Assad, that his government would face crippling consequences if it retaliated against Israel, the New York Times reported.

“Israel is determined to continue to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah . The transfer of such weapons to Hezbollah will destabilize and endanger the entire region,” the official said in an interview.

“If Syrian President Assad reacts by attacking Israel, or tries to strike Israel through his terrorist proxies,” the official said, “he will risk forfeiting his regime, for Israel will retaliate.”

The newspaper noted that the Israeli official has been briefed by high-level officials on the Syria situation in the past two days and had contacted The New York Times on Wednesday.

The paper considered the timing of the statements. “The precise motives for Israel’s warning were uncertain: Israel could be trying to restrain Syria’s behavior without undertaking further military action, or alerting other countries to another strike. That would ratchet up the tension in an already fraught situation in Syria,” the report said.

Foreign reports claim Israel carried out a total of three airstrikes in Syria since the civil war there began two years ago. The first allegedly took place in January when a convoy was bombed near the Syria-Lebanon border.

The target was reported to have been an arms shipment to Hezbollah that included Russian-made SA-17 missiles – possibly “game changing” weapons in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Damascus later conceded there had been an attack claiming the target was a military research center in Jamraya.

The second airstrike allegedly occurred in early May and was reported by US media. The target was an arms shipment from Iran to Hezbollah. Another strike was reported 48 hours later. According to Syria, the Jamraya military center had been bombed again.

Israel did not comment on the reports.

Thousands of Mehsud Tribesmen Kicked-Out of Army’s S. Waziristan Showcase, Now Demanding Their Right To Vote

[The entire Mehsud tribe was made to pay the price, because of Baitullah and Hakeemullah (SEE: 1000 Mehsud Refugees Run-Out of Wana ; Pak Army Uses US Money To Build Road for Ahmadzai Wazirs To Run Mehsuds Out of Wana On).  This is true “ethnic cleansing” on a grand scale.  The Army took over the Mehsud S. Waziristan area and ran out the Mehsuds, before implementing their grand plan to create a model community for the Mehsuds’ adversaries, (the Wazirs), teaching locals (non-Mehsud) farming and carpentry skills, building new highways to connect the model community without people with the rest of the world.  The Mehsud refugees now want to vote.  It seems like they would be more interested in going back home.]

Elders of Waziristan demand rescheduling of polls

APP

SOUTH WAZIRISTAN – Elders of Waziristan on Wednesday urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to reschedule elections in NA-42 in South Waziristan Agency.
In a press briefing, the elders of Waziristan, including Malik Jamal Mehsud, Malik Sher Bahadar Mehsud, Malik Bismal Khan Mehsud, Malik Ghausudding Muhsud, Malik Sher Muhammad Mehsud and Malik Javed Mehsud said that thousands of tribesmen have been deprived from exercising of their voting rights inadequate polling stations in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan. They said that there were only three polling stations for a population of 100,000 and 8,000 voters.
They said the Mehsud tribesmen have not exercised their right of franchise due to insufficient polling stations in their respective areas.
The elections were not held at the constituency in 2008 owing to operation against militants in the area.

– See more at: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2013/05/15/news/national/elders-of-waziristan-demand-rescheduling-of-polls/#sthash.7wDdihR5.dpuf

Zionist/Chinese Union Raises Its Ugly Head—China To Build Rail Line for Israel

[China is evidently just another power working to install the Jews on the world throne, leaving the rest of us to serve as their footstool.  If all things shall truly “flow from Jerusalem,” then they will be the most corrupt, evil things imaginable.  And all this time we thought that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a God of goodness.  All we have seen “God’s Chosen” do so far is to sow hatred and divisioin throughout the earth.  It is a sad reality we must live in when the outcome of all things is to be that good is bad, black is white, humanitarianism is war 

I am really getting sick of reporting this shit!]

China’s President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with their delegates during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 9, 2013. (AFP PHOTO/POOL)

Israel’s railway plan set to boost China’s trade in Middle East, Europe

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited China last week, one of the items on his agenda was a railway line that could turn Israel into a land and sea bridge for Chinese exports to Europe.

TEL AVIV: When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited China last week, one of the items on his agenda was a railway line that could turn Israel into a land and sea bridge for Chinese exports to Europe.

The China-Israel initiative holds the potential to change the face of trade in the Middle East.

Dr Gedaliah Afterman, Fellow at Jewish People Policy Institute, said: “As far as expertise goes, the Chinese have been involved in many similar projects around the world.”

The plan is to build a 180-kilometre railway from Israel’s southern port in Eilat in the Red Sea to its Mediterranean ports in Ashdod and Haifa. From there, cargo can travel onwards to Europe.

Dr Afterman added: “As far as the Chinese interests in such a project, I think it’s both economic, but also strategic. I mean having a connection between the port of Eilat in the Red Sea and the port of Ashdod in the Mediterranean gives  them access to both directions where they can move both energy resources and other cargo.”

The route will be far faster than boats reaching the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. Now they will be able to by-pass the Suez Canal completely and dock in Eilat.

The railway is expected to increase trade from China, India and other Asian countries to Israel, while also reducing Tel Aviv’s dependence on a waterway controlled by her increasingly hostile neighbour.

One of the big concerns for Israelis is the deterioration in relations between Tel Aviv and Cairo, but by by-passing the Egyptian-controlled Suez Canal, Israelis no longer have to fear that if Cairo ever blocked the canal their economy would come to a standstill.

Dr Shalom Wald, Senior Fellow of the Jewish People Policy Institute, said: “Egypt is a mess. How long will it take for the mess to spill over into the Suez Canal? If the Suez Canal ever closes, it will be a catastrophe to trade and a blow to China also. A lot of Chinese trade goes through the Suez Canal also.”

The idea is not only for a cargo train, but also for one that transports people.

Ms Sivan Shahar lives in Eilat, but works in Tel Aviv. The lengthy commute sees her spending many hours on the road.

“It will be a great relief, it will be a great assistance for me because it will take about two and a half hours each way instead of four hours in a bus ot taking a flight which is always harder,” she said.

The proposed railway line is along a route used in ancient times by caravans from Arabia and India to Europe.

But it’s not without its problems

Dr Asaf Tsoer, ecologist at Southern District Nature and Park Authority of Israel, said: “We need to understand that this train passes through one of our biggest nature reserves in an area that we are protecting and fighting to protect for a very long time. It goes near the natural equators which can only be found in Israel  and in Sinai, and they pass through a lot of archaeological sites.”

Construction is expected to take about five years to complete and will cost about US$4 billion.

There are plans to extend the railway to Jordan’s Aqaba port later.

This is all part of a plan for China to fast track trade into the Middle East and beyond.

– CNA/de