[Libya Herald] The Moslem Brüderbund in Libya has attacked the Egyptian government's decision to classify the Brotherhood there as a terrorist organization.
A front man for the Libyan Brotherhood, Bashir Al-Kubti, said the decision was a manoeuvre to put pressure on the group and keep it out of power.
The Brotherhood rejected terrorism in form and substance, Kubti insisted. Far from being involved in it, it was itself the victim of terrorism in Egypt, he claimed.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/29/2013 10:51 ||
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It operates in the principle of partnership not domination, he said.
As the White House, significant parts of the USG, and certain politicians can attest...
Bangladesh opposition protesters were set to march on Dhaka on Sunday in a bid to derail controversial January 5 elections, despite a police ban amid fears of widespread violence.
Oh goodie, another hartal...
The opposition, which is boycotting the polls, has been predicting that up to a million people will descend on the capital in an effort to pressurise Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to halt what it describes as a "farcical" election.
Police have banned the so-called "March for Democracy" amid fears that the rally would become a focal point for more unrest after what has already been the deadliest year for political violence in the country's history.
Police have detained more than 1,000 opposition supporters as a "preventive measure", while authorities have suspended Dhaka-bound bus, ferry and train services, virtually cutting off the city from the rest of the country.
"It seems the government has imposed an undeclared shutdown in the country," Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, a leading opposition figure, said late Saturday.
Alamgir urged supporters to defy the ban and march to central Dhaka where Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was expected to address a mass rally on Sunday afternoon. It was unclear whether Zia would herself make it to the rally, with supporters accusing authorities of keeping her under de facto house arrest since Wednesday.
She might enjoy Mauritania this time of year...
Five sand-laden trucks have been parked in front of the gate of Zia's residence, apparently in a bid to prevent her leaving, an AFP photographer at the scene said.
Police and security forces have conducted nationwide raids, searching trains and buses to arrest opposition supporters. They have also set up check posts for passengers and commuters at the entry points to Dhaka. Security has been tight in the city with around 11,000 officers and the elite Rapid Action Battalion patrolling the streets and key flashpoints, Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman told AFP.
The opposition headquarters at Nayapaltan neighbourhood in central Dhaka has been sealed by a barbed wire barricade manned by police and elite forces.
Rahman said the arrests were made ahead of the protests "to prevent acts of violence and sabotages".
"We've not approved the BNP protests. So anyone trying to gather outside BNP office can face arrest," he said.
Around 100 passengers were taken off a Dhaka-bound train in northern Tangail district as police searched the carriages for accused of launching attacks against police in recent months.
Bus operators, meanwhile, said they had halted their services to the capital while ferries remained moored at river stations.
"We suspended our services following government orders," Mohammad Faruq Talukder, owner of the country's largest inter-city bus operator, Sohag Motors, said.
Zia's party has organised a series of crippling national strikes and transport blockades in recent weeks in a bid to halt the elections. The strikes have done further damage to an economy already reeling from the impact on the crucial garment sector from a factory collapse in April which sparked widespread industrial unrest.
The opposition has been demanding that Hasina stand down and allow a neutral caretaker government to oversee the polls as in previous elections, but she has refused to yield.
The credibility of the polls has been further undermined by the refusal of foreign countries and organisations to send observers.
Violence triggered by the election protests and war crime trials of opposition leaders have left at least 273 people dead in 2013 -- the deadliest year of political upheaval since the country's independence in 1971.
With Hasina's Awami League certain of victory, the elections are seen as likely to further widen the political divide in a country which has endured nearly two dozen coups in its short history.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2013 00:20 ||
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Secretary of State John Kerry will return to the Middle East next week to continue prodding Israel and the Palestinians toward a long-elusive peace deal.
Kerry plans to leave on New Year's Day for Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he will discuss ongoing negotiations with leaders from both sides, the State Department said in a statement Saturday.
The parties re-launched direct talks over the summer with the goal of forging an accord within nine months. The target date expires at the end of April, and there has been little if any tangible sign of progress so far.
Kerry's latest trip comes as peace efforts faced a new problem: An Israeli plan to build hundreds of additional homes in settlements led Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to appeal to the US to block the project. The announcement of the new units in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is expected next week as Israel prepared to release 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners as part of a pledge it made last summer at the outset of peace talks.
What are the Paleos offering to give up in the peace process?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2013 00:10 ||
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Wasted AVGAS. Let them build as many houses as they want. Framers, roofers, cabinet makers..... why does he hate them ?
WASHINGTON -- The United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Miss us yet?
The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who met with President Obama in Washington last month.
So Mr. Maliki needs us after all. That's not what he was saying in 2011...
But some military experts question whether the patchwork response will be sufficient to reverse the sharp downturn in security that already led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis this year, 952 of them Iraqi security force members, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence since 2008.
What works is whacking all the al-Qaeda hard boyz and all the Shi'a militia thugs. You need a functioning government, a reasonable economy, and a military force that's good at getting the bad guys while keeping the support of the innocents. I seem to recall something like that in Iraq a while back...
Al Qaeda's regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has become a potent force again in northern and western Iraq. Riding in armed convoys, the group has intimidated towns, assassinated local officials, and in an episode last week, used suicide bombers and hidden explosives to kill the commander of the Iraqi Army's Seventh Division and more than a dozen of his officers and soldiers as they raided a Qaeda training camp near Rutbah.
Bombings on Christmas in Christian areas of Baghdad, which killed more than two dozen people, bore the hallmarks of a Qaeda operation.
The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier lies assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of American and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of United States forces to remain in Iraq.
In a March 2012 speech, Antony J. Blinken, who is currently Mr. Obama's deputy national security adviser, asserted that "Iraq today is less violent" than "at any time in recent history."
Nice going Tony. What kind of advice are you giving Champ today?
In contrast, after a recent spate of especially violent attacks against Iraqi forces, elected officials and civilians, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, issued a strongly worded statement on Sunday warning that the Qaeda affiliate is "seeking to gain control of territory inside the borders of Iraq."
Pledging to take steps to strengthen Iraqi forces, Ms. Psaki noted that the Qaeda affiliate was a "common enemy of the United States and the Republic of Iraq, and a threat to the greater Middle East region."
But the counterterrorism effort the United States is undertaking with Iraq has its limits.
Iraq's foreign minister has floated the idea of having American-operated, armed Predator or Reaper drones respond to the expanding militant network. But Mr. Maliki, who is positioning himself to run for a third term as prime minister and who is sensitive to nationalist sentiment at home, has not formally requested such intervention.
The idea of carrying out such drone attacks, which might prompt the question of whether the Obama administration succeeded in bringing the Iraq war to what the president has called a "responsible end," also appears to have no support in the White House.
Drone zaps won't get the job done. They haven't snuffed out Qaeda operatives in Yemen. They haven't snuffed out Talibunnies in Pakistan. Drone zaps are a tool, not a cure-all. Boot on the ground are the answer, be those boots American or Iraqi. This is where leaving an American training force in 2011 would have helped substantially.
"We have not received a formal request for U.S.-operated armed drones operating over Iraq, nor are we planning to divert armed I.S.R. over Iraq," said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. For now, the new lethal aid from the United States, which Iraq is buying, includes a shipment of 75 Hellfire missiles, delivered to Iraq last week. The weapons are strapped beneath the wings of small Cessna turboprop planes, and fired at militant camps with the C.I.A. secretly providing targeting assistance.
Thanks once again to the New York Times we have one less secret...
In addition, 10 ScanEagle reconnaissance drones are expected to be delivered to Iraq by March. They are smaller cousins of the larger, more capable Predators that used to fly over Iraq.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials say they have effectively mapped the locations and origins of the Qaeda network in Iraq and are sharing this information with the Iraqis.
Administration officials said the aid was significant because the Iraqis had virtually run out of Hellfire missiles. The Iraqi military, with no air force to speak of and limited reconnaissance of its own, has a very limited ability to locate and quickly strike Qaeda militants as they maneuver in western and northern Iraq. The combination of American-supplied Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, tactical drones and intelligence, supplied by the United States, is intended to augment that limited Iraqi ability.
Too bad we don't have a USAF training program. That and some Hawk trainer jets would be an effective counter-insurgency tool...
The Obama administration has given three sensor-laden Aerostat balloons to the Iraqi government, provided three additional reconnaissance helicopters to the Iraqi military and is planning to send 48 Raven reconnaissance drones before the end of 2014. And the United States is planning to deliver next fall the first of the F-16 fighters Iraq has bought.
The lack of armed drones, some experts assert, will hamper efforts to dismantle the Qaeda threat in Iraq over the coming weeks and months.
"Giving them some ScanEagle drones is great," said Michael Knights, an expert on Iraqi security at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "But is it really going to make much difference? Their range is tiny."
"The real requirement today is for a long-range, high-endurance armed drone capability," added Mr. Knights, who frequently travels to Iraq. "There is one place in the world where Al Qaeda can run a major affiliate without fear of a U.S. drone or air attack, and that is in Iraq and Syria."
As I said above, drone zaps are a tool. Qaeda will adapt. It has where we use drones...
In an effort to buttress the Iraqi military's abilities, the Obama administration has sought congressional approval to lease and eventually sell Apache helicopter gunships. But some lawmakers have been hesitant, fearing that they might be used by Mr. Maliki to intimidate his political opponents.
A plan to lease six Apaches to the Iraqi government is now pending in the Senate. Frustrated by the United States' reluctance to sell Apaches, the Iraqis have turned to Russia, which delivered four MI-35 attack helicopters last month and planned to provide more than two dozen more. Meanwhile, cities and towns like Mosul, Haditha and Baquba that American forces fought to control during the 2007 and 2008 surge of American troops in Iraq have been the scene of bloody Qaeda attacks.
Using extortion and playing on Sunni grievances against Mr. Maliki's Shiite-dominated government, the Qaeda affiliate is largely self-financing. One Iraqi politician, who asked not to be named to avoid retaliation, said Qaeda militants had even begun to extort money from shopkeepers in Ramadi, Anbar's provincial capital.
A number of factors are helping the Qaeda affiliate. The terrorist group took advantage of the departure of American forces to rebuild its operations in Iraq and push into Syria. Now that it has established a strong foothold in Syria, it is in turn using its base there to send suicide bombers into Iraq at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control.
The brutal tactics, some experts say, may expose Al Qaeda to a Sunni backlash, much as in 2006 and 2007 when Sunni tribes aligned themselves with American forces against the Qaeda extremists.
But Mr. Maliki's failure to share power with Sunni leaders, some Iraqis say, has also provided a fertile recruiting ground.
Maliki is a typical Arab pol. He's afraid to share power because he perceives that as trying to dismount the tiger.
Haitham Abdullah al-Jubouri, a 40-year-old government employee in Baquba, said that "the policy of the sectarian government" had "contributed to the influx of desperate young elements from the Sunni community to the ranks of Al Qaeda."
In Mosul, most of the security force members who are not from the area have left the city, and Al Qaeda controls whole sections of territory.
"In the morning, we have some control, but at night, this is when we hide and the armed groups make their movements," said an Iraqi security official.
Ayad Shaker, a police officer in Anbar, said that Al Qaeda had replenished its ranks with a series of prison breakouts, and that the group had also grown stronger because of the limited abilities of Iraqi forces, the conflict in Syria and tensions between Mr. Maliki and the Sunnis.
Mr. Shaker said that three close relatives had been killed by Al Qaeda and that he had been wounded by bombs the group had planted.
"I fought Al Qaeda," he said. "I am sad today when I see them have the highest authority in Anbar, moving and working under the sun without deterrent."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/29/2013 00:00 ||
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he won't go after Shia militia thugs. That's his base
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2013 9:46 Comments ||
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the Iraqis have turned to Russia, which delivered four MI-35 attack helicopters last month and planned to provide more than two dozen more
One would think that would be a good thing, as the Iraqis would be more familiar with the Russian models.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Bangladesh opposition protesters were set to march on Dhaka on Sunday in a bid to derail controversial January 5 elections, despite a police ban amid fears of widespread violence.
Alamgir urged supporters to defy the ban and march to central Dhaka where Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was expected to address a mass rally on Sunday afternoon. It was unclear whether Zia would herself make it to the rally, with supporters accusing authorities of keeping her under de facto house arrest since Wednesday.
Secretary of State John Kerry will return to the Middle East next week to continue prodding Israel and the Palestinians toward a long-elusive peace deal.
