From desert hideout, shadowy Ansar militants rattle Egypt

People and security officials look as smoke rises from a tourist bus in the Red Sea resort town of Taba in the south Sinai, in this February 16, 2014 file photo.

CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER/FILES

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(Reuters) - A shadowy Islamist militant group based in the remote Sinai desert is emerging as a major threat to Egypt's stability, and there are no signs that the army-backed government has devised an effective strategy to contain it.

With assassinations, suicide bombings and shootings, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has earned a spot on the global jihad map and its bloody campaign spreading across Egypt is cause for alarm in the West, which sees the biggest Arab nation as a strategic partner.

The group has stepped up attacks on policemen and soldiers since army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July. Hundreds have been killed.

Ansar doesn't have the firepower to defeat Egypt's army, the biggest in the Arab world. But it is proving to be media savvy with a new strategy of targeting foreigners, dealing a devastating blow to tourism, vital for the struggling economy.

"Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has rapidly become one of the most active jihadist groups in the world and there are strong indications that it is an al Qaeda franchise group," said global intelligence firm Stratfor in a report.

Ansar said it dispatched a suicide bomber who killed two South Koreans and an Egyptian near the town of Taba on Sunday.

The attack is likely to keep foreign tourists, already spooked by political upheaval following the army takeover, away from resorts and ancient sites that once brought in hard currency.

In a video released on YouTube in December, Ansar said its mission had evolved from missile attacks on Israel and blowing up gas pipelines to a bloody campaign against Egyptian security forces and intelligence officials after Mursi's fall.

On Monday, Ansar warned tourists to stay away from Egypt or face attack, part of an apparent tactical shift that could hit the government where it hurts most - the economy.

The stakes are high.

LONG BATTLE BETWEEN STATE AND MILITANTS

Egypt, the heart of the Arab world, has a peace treaty with Israel and contains the Suez Canal. Growing instability could impact the rest of a region already destabilized by the conflict in Syria.

Egyptian security forces have experience fighting militants dating back decades. Islamist-leaning soldiers assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981, mainly because of his treaty with Israel. Hosni Mubarak took years to end an Islamist militant insurgency in the 1990s, which left tourism in tatters.

This time, the picture is more complex, with Egypt's political turbulence offering militants opportunities.

Ansar has capitalized on a security vacuum which arose after the 2011 popular uprising that toppled Mubarak.

The group entrenched itself in the Sinai Peninsula's mountains and deserts, forging ties with smugglers, as well as bedouins who have long felt neglected by the central government.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which means supporters of Jerusalem, has also exploited the struggle between Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and the army-installed government.

Security forces have been busy with a crackdown against the Brotherhood, killing hundreds in the streets, arresting thousands and jailing its leaders.

That distracted the Interior Ministry from the threat brewing in the Sinai, a 61,000 square km (24,000 square mile) area located between Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal.

"They had the space and time to develop in the tumultuous post-Arab Spring period," said Kamran Bokhari, vice president for the Middle East at Stratfor and author of "Political Islam in the Age of Democratization."

While the Brotherhood has been driven underground, the government is still focused on the movement, stamping out protests and prosecuting Mursi and other leaders.

The army has told the public that victory over Ansar is imminent. But Ansar's extensive hit list is growing.

Aside from all the security force members Ansar has killed, it has also claimed responsibility for several high profile assassinations of senior security officials and said it was behind a failed suicide bombing attack on the interior minister in Cairo.

Security has been tightened since those operations and an army offensive has been raging for months in the Sinai, but the attacks keep coming.

Although the government publicly asserts the sheer firepower of the army will eradicate the problem, security officials are far more cautious in private.

"It will take time. We can't ever know if someone is going to blow themselves up. It is hard to prevent suicide attacks," said one.

PRESSURE TO ACT

The government, eager to show that a political road map unveiled by Sisi after Mursi's fall will succeed, does not have much time.

Sisi is expected to announce his candidacy for president soon. Elections, which he is expected to win in a landslide, are due in a few months.

The government wants the process to go smoothly without more Ansar attacks that could shake confidence in security forces.

Sisi's followers regard him as invincible but even they could become disillusioned if Ansar keeps challenging the army.

Some liberals who supported Mursi's overthrow have started to question the hardline tactics of the military and security forces. Some have been jailed.

"The Taba attack, combined with Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis' warning that tourists must leave the country is intended to frustrate economic recovery and to subsequently precipitate greater public opposition to the military establishment," said Anthony Skinner, Middle East and North Africa Director at risk analyst Maplecroft.

Bombs are not the only thing that make Ansar dangerous. Mystery surrounding the group, believed to have about 1,000 fighters, makes it hard to penetrate.

Security officials who monitor the Sinai speak in general terms about the group, saying it evolved from Islamists who established havens in the region after Mubarak's fall.

Weapons smuggled in from chaotic post-Gaddafi Libya, and Sudan, fell into the hands of Ansar fighters, who also convert landmines left in the desert since Egypt's past wars with Israel into roadside bombs, the security officials said.

The government makes no distinction between Ansar and the Brotherhood. But one security official said interrogations of captured Ansar members have not revealed any links.

One thing is clear; easy solutions remain elusive.

"There is no specific time set for ending military operations against the group. A number of its members are in rugged mountain areas. Most move around from one hiding place to another in small pickup trucks " said a military source.

"Many of these people are not known to security forces. We try to find out with interrogations."

Bokhari warned that groups like Ansar are likely to recruit Muslim Brotherhood members so infuriated by the security crackdown that they turn to violence.

"People are angry," said Bokhari. "Ansar will tap into this anger."

Julian Assange on Being Placed on NSA "Manhunting" List & Secret Targeting of WikiLeaks Supporters

Democracy Now!

"Top-secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden have revealed new details about how the United States and Britain targeted the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks after it published leaked documents about the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. According to a new article by The Intercept, Britain’s top spy agency, the Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, secretly monitored visitors to a WikiLeaks website by collecting their IP addresses in real time, as well as the search terms used to reach the site. One document from 2010 shows that the National Security Agency added WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to a “manhunting” target list, together with suspected members of al-Qaeda. We speak to Assange live from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has sought political asylum since 2012. Also joining us is his lawyer Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights....."

Colorful past behind Libyan 'coup maker'

By Ramzy Baroud
Asia Times

"A mass prison break in the Libyan town of Zliten on Friday, which saw 92 escape, seems an appropriate snapshot of the chaos which has descended since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in August 2011. 

On the same day, former military chief Major General Khalifa Hifter called for the parliament and government to be suspended, in an announcement some described as a coup attempt. "The national command of the Libyan Army is declaring a movement for a new road map [to rescue the country]", Hifter declared in a video post. 

Global media regularly uses cliches such as "security vacuum" or references a "lack of a true national identity" to explain away Libya's situation. Loyalty to tribe and region indeed may supersede other affiliation, but the root causes for the break down in state control are more complex. 

Hifter's announcement was met with by derision from government officials, with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan describing it as "ridiculous". Libya is stable, Zeidan told Reuters, adding that parliament was doing its work and so was the government. 

Zedian did not remark on the militias destabilizing the country, nor that he was himself kidnapped by one last October. The fact is that most of these militias are either directly or loosely affiliated with officials. In Libya, to have sway over a militia is to have influence over local, regional or national agendas. Unfortunate as it may be, this is the new Libya. 

There are convenient ways to justify the chaos: Libya is inherently unruly, observers say, usually adding that it took a strong leader like Gaddafi to maintain the national cohesion of a country made of tribes, not citizens. But the truth requires more than mere platitudes. 

Libya is in a state of chaos, and not because of an intrinsic tendency to shun order. Libyans, like people all over the world, seek security and stability. However, other Arab and Western forces are desperate to ensure that the "new Libya" is consistent with their own interests. 

The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick reported on the "coup attempt" from Cairo last week. In his report, "In Libya, a Coup. Or Perhaps Not", he drew similarities between Libya and Egypt. 

His analysis argued that in the case of Egypt, the military succeeded in consolidating its powers, while in Libya a strong military institution never existed in the first place. In order for Hifter to stage a coup, he would need to rely on more than a weak and splintered army. 

It is quite interesting that the newspaper chose to place Hifter's "ridiculous" coup in an Egyptian context. There is a more immediate and far more relevant context which the newspaper and its veteran correspondents should know very well. It is no secret that Hifter has had strong backing from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for nearly three decades. 

The man has been branded and rebranded throughout his colorful history. He fought as an officer in the Chad-Libya conflict in the late 1980s, where he was captured alongside his entire unit of 600 men. 

During his time in prison, Chad experienced a regime change (both the former and incoming regimes were backed by French and US intelligence) and Hifter and his men were released as per a request by Washington to another African country. While some chose to return home, others knew only death awaited them there, as the New York Times reported on May 17, 1991, in the article "350 Libyans Trained to Oust Qaddafi Are to Come to US". 

"For two years, United States officials have been shopping around for a home for about 350 Libyan soldiers who cannot return to their country because American intelligence officials had mobilized them into a commando force to overthrow the Libyan leader," the newspaper reported. "Now, the administration has given up trying to find another country that will accept the Libyans and has decided to bring them to the United States." 

Hifter was relocated in the early 1990s to a suburb in Vienna, Virginia, about five miles from CIA headquarters in Langley. There is scant information about his exact activities while living there, but it is clear he used the time to build up ties to Libyan opposition forces supported by the US, including The National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL). 

In a thorough report published in the Business Insider in April 2011, investigative journalist Russ Baker traces Hifter's activities since his split from Gaddafi. 

"A Congressional Research Service [CRS] report of December 1996 named Hifter as the head of the NFSL's military wing. After he joined the exile group, the CRS report added, Hifter began 'preparing an army to march on Libya'. The NFSL, the CSR said, is in exile 'with many of its members in the United States'." 

It took nearly 15 years for Hifter to march on Libya. It also took an North Atlantic Treaty Organization-backed air war purportedly supporting a popular uprising. Hifter, as Baker described, is the Libyan equivalent of Iraq's former interim oil minister Ahmed Chalabi. 

In the 1990s, Iraq exile Chalabi headed the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella opposition group that received considerable amounts of money from the American government as it attempted to bring about the downfall of the Saddam Hussain regime. Chalabi is credited as persuading Washington through the INC that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. 

Boasting strong allies in Washington, Chalabi was sent to post-Saddam Iraq to lead the "democratization" process. However, in early 2010 Chalabi was accused of using a supposed "de-Baathification" role to eliminate his political enemies, especially Sunnis. 

Hifter's return to Libya in 2011 was a major source of controversy at the time. While his CIA affiliation was no secret, his decision to join the rebels caused much confusion. 

A military spokesman initially announced that he would be the rebels' new commander, only for this to be dismissed by the National Transitional Council as false. The NTC was largely a composition of characters who had little presence in Libya's national consciousness. Hifter found himself as the third man in the military ladder, which he accepted grudgingly. 

Although officials deny this was a legitimate coup attempt, Arab and Western media continue to report that illegal shipments of weapons arriving into various Libyan airports. Meanwhile, militias are growing in size and the central government is growing irrelevant. 

As jail breaks are reported regularly and chaos spreads, Libyans find safety in holding on tighter to their tribal and clan affiliations. What future awaits Libya is hard to predict, but the meddling of Western and Arab intelligence organizations certainly aren't helping the situation. "

زمن البراميل

الياس خوري

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

يستطيع النظام السوري ان يفتخر ببراميله المتفجرة، التي تحولت الى سلاح فتّاك يقتل بالجملة، وعوضته عن اضطراره الى التخلي عن ترسانته الكيماوية! فلقد اثبتت البراميل انها اكثر فاعلية من الكيماوي، وانها سلاح لا يقاوم، في ظل عدم امتلاك مسلحي المعارضة أسلحة مضادة للطائرات.
صحيح ان المستبد في سورية لا يستطيع ان ينسب براءة اختراع البراميل الى نفسه، فالبراميل كانت السلاح الفتّاك الذي استخدمته الهاغانا (القوة العسكرية الصهيونية التي شكلت نواة الجيش الاسرائيلي) خلال حرب النكبة 1948، وكانت فاعليته مذهلة. لكنه يستطيع الادعاء انه قام بتطوير هذا السلاح وحوله الى اداة ابادة وتطويع.
في دراسته ‘عودة الى سقوط حيفا’ (مجلة الدراسات الفلسطينية العدد 96 خريف 2013) يروي المؤرخ الفلسطيني وليد الخالدي عن الدور الذي لعبته البراميل في سقوط المدينة في 23 نيسان/ابريل 1948: ‘ …واستغلت الهاغانا طوبوغرافيا حيفا الى اقصى حد، وخصوصاً الأدراج الطويلة المنحدرة من الأحياء اليهودية في الأعلى الى المدينة العربية في الأسفل، وتفتّق ذهنها عن ابتكار براميل مؤطرة باطارات سيارات مطاطية ومحشوة بخرق مبللة بالكيروسين (الكاز) وموصولة بجهاز اشعال. وكانت هذه الآلات الجهنمية الملتهبة تدحرج في اتجاه الأحياء العربية في الأسفل، مترافقة مع صليات الهاون’.
لعبت البراميل دورا حاسما في ترهيب سكان حيفا من اجل اخراجهم من بيوتهم الى الميناء حيث كانت تنتظرهم السفن البريطانية من اجل نقلهم الى عكا ولبنان.
البرملة الاسرائيلية لم تقتصر على حيفا، اذ يروي سكان الجليل ان البراميل الملتهبة لعبت دورا اساسيا في اجتياح قراهم، وفي التمهيد للمجازر التي ترافقت مع عمليات طردهم وترحيلهم، وتشكل قرية عين الزيتون مثالا صارخا على فاعلية البراميل في سحق حياة الفلاحين الفلسطينيين.
من جهة أخرى تقدم حيفا نموذجا لأسماء العمليات العسكرية الاسرائيلية. والمعروف ان الجيش الاسرائيلي كان ولا يزال حريصا على لعبة الأسماء الرمزية التي يطلقها على عملياته. اطلق في البداية على عملية احتلال المدينة اسم ‘ميسباريم’ اي المقص، لأن الهدف الأول كان تقطيع اوصال المدينة. وبعد الاتفاق مع القائد العسكري البريطاني الجنرال ستوكويل على تسليم المدينة الى الهاغانا في 18 نيسان/ابريل تغير اسم العملية الى ‘حميتس′ اي خميرة.
دلالة التغير لا تكمن فقط في كون تاريخ العملية تطابق في تلك السنة مع عيد الفصح اليهودي، بل في تحديد هدف العملية ايضا. فكما ان على اليهودي تطهير بيته من الخميرة في الفصح، فإن هدف الهاغانا كان تطهير المدينة من الفلسطينيين.
نسب الى الحاخام الاكبر الاسبق لاسرائيل مردخاي الياهو هذا القول: ‘اذا كان هناك نُتفة من خمير في المطبخ مختبئة في الزاوية فيجب ان تفعل كل شيء لازالتها واذا تطلّب الأمر يجب ان تتناول مطرقة وازميلا وتحطم الجدار الى ان تخرج النتفة’.
البراميل لم تكن هي وسيلة تهديم المدينة من اجل اخراج ‘الحميتس′ الفلسطيني منها، فالوسيلة الأساسية كانت ارتال المشاة التي اجتاحت المدينة، غير ان البراميل لعبت دوراً نفسياً كبيراً في تحقيق هذا الهدف.
صحيح ان الصهاينة كانوا اول من استخدم البراميل في المنطقة، لكن الصحيح ايضا ان البرملة لم تكن اختراعا صهيونيا، فلقد استخدمت منذ ايام القراصنة، كما قام البريطانيون في القرن الثالث عشر بحشو البراميل بالكلس واستخدامها في سلاح البحرية من اجل احراق السفن الفرنسية، وصولا الى الاستخدامات المختلفة في الحربين العالميتين.
لكن يبقى ان نسجل للهاغانا قدرتها على تحويل البراميل الى سلاح نفسي هدفه طرد الفلسطينيين من بلادهم.
السؤال اليوم هو لماذا يستخدم النظام السوري سلاح البراميل، التي يجري حشوها بقناني الغاز والمتفجرات وتلقى بشكل عشوائي على المدن، من حلب الى داريا الى آخره…
من الواضح ان البراميل لا تقتل سوى المدنيين، وان فعاليتها العسكرية محدودة جدا كي لا نقول انها نافلة، ولم يعد المرء في حاجة الى التبحّر في العلوم العسكرية كي يعرف ان سلاح الطيران لا يستطيع حسم اي معركة، وكان النموذج الأخير لهذا العجز هو الخزي الذي عاشه الجيش الاسرائيلي خلال حرب تموز/ يوليو 2006، حين اعتقد انه يستطيع تحقيق النصر بالقصف من الطائرات، ومن دون التورط في اشتباك بري حقيقي.
اذا ماذا يريد بشّار الأسد؟ ولماذا يتم ترهيب المدنيين في سورية بهذا الشكل الوحشي؟
من الواضح ان الجيش النظامي لا يملك خطة حميتسية شاملة، اي خطة تطهير عرقي، ربما كانت حمص استثناء لأنها حيوية لتحصين الساحل، اما في باقي الأماكن فإن البرملة بلا هدف عسكري واضح.
الا اذا كانت قيادة غرفة العمليات المشتركة السورية الايرانية بمشاركة حزب الله تخوض حرب حافة الابادة.
المقصود بحافة الإبادة هو الوصول الى تدمير وجودي للشعب السوري بأغلبيته الساحقة، بهدف سوقه مرة جديدة الى مرتبة الاستعباد التي عاش فيها طوال اكثر من أربعة عقود.
النظام يعرف وحلفاؤه يعرفون ان الانتصار الحاسم والنهائي في الحرب هو المحال بعينه. ولو تلقت المعارضة من ‘حلفائها’ ربع ما تلقاه من اسلحة، لكانت آلة النظام العسكرية قد تداعت.
اذا كان النصر مستحيلا فلماذا براميل النظام؟
هل يريد للأحزان والأحقاد ان تتراكم بحيث يصير اي بحث في التسوية محالاً؟
ام يسعى الى توريط حلفائه في معركة مفتوحة على المجهول؟
ام هو جنون القوة التي فقدت مصادر قواتها؟
وهل يستطيع الرأي العــــام العالمي ان يتـــابع موقفـــــه كمتفـــرج، في زمن تحولت فيه صور المأساة الى اداة تسلية وترفيه؟
البرملة التي بدأها الصهاينة وصلت الى اكتمالها الوحشي مع الديكتاتورية، فالاستبداد العربي هو الوجه الآخر للوحشية الصهيونية، كلاهما يتبرمل بدماء الأبرياء، ومصيرهما واحد مهما طالت بنا المآسي. 

The Alternative is BDS!

By Haidar Eid – Gaza

As BDS activists, we are no longer interested in the sterile opposition to normalization generated by the Oslo Accords, but rather in formulating the kind of response that could actually defeat multiple forms of Zionist oppression, i.e. occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. The moment the entire international community – civil society and governments – decides to act the same way it did against the apartheid system of white South Africa, Israel would succumb to the voice of reason represented by the 2005 BDS call issued by more than 170 civil society organizations and endorsed by almost all influential political forces from right to left of the political spectrum in historic Palestine and the Diaspora.

The urgent question now is how long the world will tolerate blatant constitutional racism, since it is showing a growing disapproval of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its settlement policies there?

The latest BDS success triggered by the American Studies Association resolution to endorse boycott of Israeli academic institutions is, in fact, what we have been calling for since 2004 when the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was launched. But I, as a resident of Gaza and an academic, have been unable to fathom how it is that some reputable universities sign agreements with Israeli universities despite the policy of ethnic cleansing and the latest war crimes committed against the people of Gaza by Israel! Israeli academic institutions are known to be complicit in Israel’s policy of colonization and apartheid.

Is it not crystal clear, after all these years and thousands of reports by main-stream human rights organizations that millions of Palestinians are denied the full right to education in the occupied Palestinian territories and in the refugee camps? Think about it, our education is denied only because of more than 600 Israeli checkpoints, the medieval siege of Gaza and the apartheid-like discrimination faced by Palestinian students in Israel. In fact, we are discriminated against because we are not born to Jewish mothers!

Thousands of Palestinian students and lecturers are in Israeli dungeons often without trial or sentenced by military courts. All credible international human rights and humanitarian organizations have detailed how the Israeli military deliberately targets Palestinian students and schools, including UN schools. Shouldn’t academics and researchers be familiar with those reports?!

We believe it is our right to expect people of conscience, especially academics and students, to join us in our struggle against Israeli apartheid by boycotting this intransigent, racist and militarized Israeli regime and the institutions that keep it thriving!

ASA members must have found it unconscionable that their association remain complicit in Palestinian oppression by pretending to have “business as usual” with apartheid. We, Palestinians, are an oppressed people without a state. We increasingly rely on international law and solidarity for our very survival.

What we want is the implementation of international law; putting an end to the Israeli military occupation of Arab lands occupied in 1967, fighting against the policy of colonization and apartheid as practiced by Israel against the indigenous population of Palestine of 1948, and the return of Palestinian refugees who were ethnically cleaned in 1948. Now, is that a call for the end of the state of Israel?! Was the boycott of apartheid meant to end South Africa as a country, or to end racism in its ugliest from?

Israel is a settler colonialist, Apartheid state and the methods –or tools of struggle– used against Apartheid South Africa can be used as a model in our struggle against Apartheid Israel. Transforming of Israel from an ethno-religious Apartheid state into a democracy should be the objective of every single person believing in liberal democracy in general. But some “liberals” keep whining that one of the “scary aims of BDS” is equal rights and warns that the state of Israel might be in peril if BDS has its way.

With pressure imposed by the international community through a BDS campaign a la the anti-Apartheid campaign which brought Apartheid South Africa to an end, we believe that Israel itself can be pressured to end its multi-tiered system of oppression.

The BDS campaign is intended to lead to satisfying the democratic rights of the Palestinian people in its three components – including, of course, the Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel who experience Israel’s institutional racism first hand. That is why one of the major demands of the BDS campaign defended by all those who have endorsed the above mentioned BDS call in 2005 is the call for the end of the policy of Apartheid practiced against the Palestinians of 1948. We strongly believe that the struggles of the Palestinian people, whether in 1948 or in 1967, that is to say the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and even in the Diaspora, are inseparable. That is why we think that our alternative, which is rights-based, to Oslo’s facade of “peace” based on normalization, can provide ALL Palestinians with a solution that guarantees the right of return and equality for the 1948 inhabitants.

To echo Mahatma Ghandi, in 2005 they ignored the BDS call, then they laughed at us, now they are fighting us, then we will, certainly, win!

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Why is the World Turning a Blind Eye to US Drone Strikes?

Pity About the Civilians....

By Robert Fisk

"Karim Khan is a lucky man. When you’re picked up by 20 armed thugs, some in police uniform – aka the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – you can be “disappeared” forever. A mass grave in Balochistan, in the south-west of the country, has just been found, filled with the “missing” from previous arrests. But eight days after he was lifted and – by his own testimony, that of his lawyer Shasad Akbar and the marks still visible on his body – tortured, Mr Khan is back at his Pakistani home. His crime: complaining about US drone attacks – American missiles fired by pilotless aircraft – on civilians inside Pakistan in President Obama’s Strangelove-style operation against al-Qa’ida.

There are, as the cops would say, several facts “pertaining” to Mr Khan’s kidnapping. Firstly, his son Hafiz Zaenullah, his brother Asif Iqbal and another man – a stonemason called Khaliq Dad – were killed by a drone attack on Mr Khan’s home in December 2009. Secondly, he had filed a legal case in Pakistan against the American drone strikes, arguing that they constituted murder under domestic law. And thirdly – perhaps Mr Khan’s most serious crime – he was about to leave for Brussels to address European Union parliamentarians on the dangers of American drone strikes in Pakistan.

In Madiha Tahir’s recent documentary film Wounds of Waziristan, Mr Khan had talked about his family loss. His son Hafiz was a security guard at a local girls’ school, and also studying for Grade 10. Asif, who had a Master’s in English, was a government employee. Karim Khan saw what was left of their bodies, “covered in wounds”. He found some of their fingers in the rubble of his home.

Thanks to constant reports of his kidnapping in the courageous Pakistani media and to the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court who ordered the Pakistani government to produce Karim Khan by next Thursday, the anti-drone campaigner is safe. For the moment.

But this is going to set the world on fire. The “drone war”, as American journalists inevitably call it – after all, it’s not as if al-Qa’ida or the innocent victims are firing back with drones of their own – started under George W Bush, but most of the attacks, 384 of them since 2008, have been authorised by Mr Obama. The statistics of civilian deaths fluctuate wildly since most of the missiles are fired into the Pakistani frontier districts in which the government has little power. The minimum figure for civilian victims is almost 300 dead – some say almost 900 – out of a total of 2,500 killed. At least 50 people are believed to have been killed in follow-up strikes which slaughtered those going to the rescue of the wounded.

Of course, the drone syndrome has spread across the Middle East. The missiles rain down on al-Qa’ida and civilians alike in Yemen. The Israelis fired them into Lebanon in 2006; when a youth on a motorcycle fired at a night-time drone over Beirut, it fired back a missile that destroyed a downtown civilian apartment block. In Gaza, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported 825 deaths from Israeli drones during the 2008-09 war, a large percentage of them civilians.

Pakistani witnesses have told me that the missiles don’t just appear suddenly in the sky. The drones arrive in clusters – 10 or 12 at a time, circling villages for an hour or two – a looking for targets on behalf of their “pilots” in the United States. Until at least 2009, the Americans flew drones – the most impressive was called the Reaper – from air bases inside Pakistan. Hence the sensitivities of the boys from the ISI and their irritation with Karim Khan.

The ethical disgrace of the drone syndrome is not that Mr Obama – or some US officer near Las Vegas – decides on the basis of satellite pictures, mobile phone calls, numbers dialled and the speed of vehicles, who should live or die. The really shameful aspect is that the drone war has become normal. It has gone on so long – and been the subject of so much protest, so regularly – that it has become banal, boring, matter-of-fact.

It was just the same in the 1990s when the US and Brits went hunting for Iraqi targets over the so-called “no-fly zones” in Iraq. For years they bombed and missiled “military targets” that supposedly threatened them. In the eight months up to August 1999, US and British pilots had fired more than 1,100 missiles against 359 Iraqi targets, flying about two-thirds as many missions as Nato pilots conducted over Yugoslavia during the 78-day bombardment of the same year. As well as anti-aircraft batteries, oil pipelines were blown up, storage depots destroyed and dozens of civilians killed, including several in a Basra housing estate. But each air raid was merely “nibbed” in our newspapers – a nib is a single paragraph in an inside-page News in Brief column – so that an entire air campaign was effectively carried out behind the backs of the US and British public in the years before the 2003 invasion.

In southern Lebanon, the Israelis controlled for 28 years a torture prison at Khiam for insurgents and their families – women as well as men – and electricity was frequently used on inmates by Israel’s “South Lebanon Army” thugs. Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and the International Red Cross complained. But I will always remember the words of a Swiss Red Cross official when I asked him, within sight of Khiam, why the world did not condemn this dreadful place. “It has become normal,” he replied.

And that’s it. Kill or torture often enough, over a long enough time – not too many massacres, just a dribble of deaths over months and years – and you’ll get away with it. If you kill the bad guys, it’s OK. Pity about the rest. Just make sure that the war is sufficiently prosaic, and don’t listen to Karim Khan."

What's happening in Syria is an abomination

• • 
    Stephen Hawking
  • theguardian.com, Monday 17 February 2014 02.00 EST
  • Jump to comments (275)

'Today in Syria we see modern technology in the form of bombs, chemicals and other weapons being used to further so-called intelligent political ends. But it does not feel intelligent.' Photograph: Ahmad Aboud/AFP/Getty Images

We must use our human intelligence to end this war. As a father, I watch the suffering of Syria's children and say: no more

"The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that the universe had existed for ever. The reason humanity was not more developed, he believed, was that floods or other natural disasters repeatedly set civilisation back to the beginning.

Today, humans are developing ever faster. Our knowledge is growing exponentially and, with it, our technology. But humans still have the instincts, and in particular the aggressive impulses, that we had in caveman days. Aggression has had definite advantages for survival, but when modern technology meets ancient aggression the entire human race and much of the rest of life on Earth is at risk.

Today in Syria we see modern technology in the form of bombs, chemicals and other weapons being used to further so-called intelligent political ends. But it does not feel intelligent to watch as more than 100,000 people are killed or while children are targeted. It feels downright stupid, and worse, to prevent humanitarian supplies from reaching clinics where, as Save the Children will document in a forthcoming report, children are having limbs amputated for lack of basic facilities, and newborn babies are dying in incubators for lack of power.

What's happening in Syria is an abomination, one that the world is watching coldly from a distance. Where is our emotional intelligence, our sense of collective justice?

When I discuss intelligent life in the universe, I take this to include the human race, even though much of its behaviour throughout history appears not to have been calculated to aid the survival of the species. And while it is not clear that, unlike aggression, intelligence has any long-term survival value, our very human brand of intelligence denotes an ability to reason and plan for not only our own but also our collective futures.

We must work together to end this war and to protect the children of Syria. The international community has watched from the sidelines for three years as this conflict rages, engulfing all hope. As a father and grandfather I watch the suffering of Syria's children and must now say: no more.

I often wonder what we must look like to other beings watching from deep space. As we look out at the universe, we are looking back in time, because light leaving distant objects reaches us much, much later. What does the light emitting from Earth today show? When people see our past, will we be proud of what they are shown – how we, as brothers, treat each other? How we allow our brothers to treat our children?

We now know that Aristotle was wrong: the universe has not existed for ever. It began about 14bn years ago. But he was right that great disasters represent major steps backward for civilisation. The war in Syria may not represent the end of humanity, but every injustice committed is a chip in the facade of what holds us together. The universal principle of justice may not be rooted in physics but it is no less fundamental to our existence. For without it, before long, human beings will surely cease to exist."

Video: Chomsky: "US and Israel Don't Want To Overthrow Assad!"

Israel will be pretty happy to see Syrians kill each other.

مؤتمر جنيف 2: النجاح في اعادة تدوير الفشل

رأي القدس

FEBRUARY 14, 2014

ثمة اسئلة صعبة ينبغي التوقف عندها مع وصول مؤتمر جنيف الثاني الى نهاية الطريق المسدود، بعد ان اكد المبعوث الدولي الاخضر الابراهيمي بشكل واضح ان التوصل الى اتفاق قريب بشأن وقف المعارك او تشكيل هيئة للحكم الانتقالي امر مستبعد.
ولعل اهم تلك الاسئلة، الى متى يستمر الشعب السوري اسيرا لهذا النفق المظلم الذي تحدث عنه الابراهيمي؟ وهل علينا ان نستعد لثلاث سنوات اخرى من الفرجة على القتل والدمار الشامل في سوريا؟ وهل كان ذهاب المعارضة الى جنيف قرارا له ما يبرره في ظل المعطيات السياسية والعسكرية التي تصب جميعا في مصلحة النظام؟ ام انه اتخذ ايثارا لمصالح وولاءات اقليمية ودولية ما على المصلحة الوطنية؟
الم يذهب النظام الى جنيف فاقدا للمصداقية والاهلية دوليا، وعاد منها بعد ان اكتسب صفة ‘الشريك في صنع السلام’ الذي يفرش له السجاد الاحمر، ويحظى باعتراف دبلوماسي على المستوى الاممي بعد ان كان ينظر الى اركانه باعتبارهم مجرمي حرب، مكانهم الطبيعي امام المحكمة الجنائية الدولية في لاهاي؟
وهل حان للمعارضة السورية ان تنظر لنفسها في مرآة الحقيقة، وان تصارح نفسها وشعبها معا بنصيبها من المسؤولية عما وصلت اليه فصول هذه التراجيديا المأساوية التي يعيشها هذا البلد العريق؟ وهل مازال اسقاط النظام ممكنا قبل ان يمر قطار التغيير على المعارضة نفسها؟
وهل كان اصرار المعارضة ومن ورائه الولايات المتحدة على استبعاد ايران من المشاركة في مصلحة المؤتمر؟ ام في مصلحة النظام الذي لم يجد من يضغط عليه في الكواليس لتحقيق حد ادنى من التقدم؟
وما سبب بقاء الابراهيمي في منصبه بعد كل هذا الفشل المزمن؟ 
الواقع ان مؤتمر جنيف 2 لم يخيب توقعات اغلب المراقبين ففشل فشلا ذريعا. فشل في مجرد الاتفاق على جدول للاعمال. وحسب بشار الجعفري كبير مفاوضي وفد النظام، لم يجر بين وفدي النظام والمعارضة اي حوار او تفاوض حقيقي اصلا في ظل عدم وجود بنود واضحة للمناقشة. 
ربما نجح مؤتمر جنيف 2 في تعزيز المكانة الدولية للنظام والمعارضة معا، بأن ضمن استمرار الدعم الدولي والاقليمي الذي يشكل شريان الحياة لكل منهما، الا انه فشل في تقديم اي معونة حقيقية للشعب السوري، فاستمر القتل قصفا وذبحا وجوعا اثناء انعقاده. 
وبكلام اخر لم ينجح الا في اعادة تدوير الفشل، لينتج فشلا اخر اكبر، وليكرس شعورا عميقا بالاحباط واليأس لدى الكثيرين. فيا له من نجاح.
اما وفد النظام فيبدو انه كان مصمما منذ اللحظة الاولى على الالتزام الصارم باجندته. 
ومنذ فشل الامين العام للامم المتحدة بان كي مون في اسكات وزير الخارجية السوري وليد المعلم بعد ان تجاوز ضعفي الوقت المخصص لخطابه في الجلسة الافتتاحية في الثاني والعشرين من كانون الثاني/يناير الماضي. كان الفشل دائما ‘يلوح في الافق’ حسب تعبير الاخضر الابراهيمي.
رفض وفد النظام السوري ان يعترف بجنيف 1، او ان يقبل بادراج كلمة ‘التغيير’ في اي وثيقة رسمية او غير رسمية حتى لا تفسر على انها تعني ضمنيا تنحي بشار الاسد، ورفض ان يتحدث الا في مكافحة الارهاب.
في المقابل، وكأنه فوجئ بموقف النظام المعلن مسبقا، بدا وفد المعارضة مضطربا على خلفية الانقسامات والانسحابات عشية انعقاد المؤتمر، بل ومنفصلا عن الواقع، بدءا من الجلسة الافتتاحية التي حاول فيها، وعلى الهواء مباشرة، اقناع وليد المعلم بالانشقاق عن النظام ليكون الوفد السوري ‘موحدا’، وانتهاء برفضه مناقشة مكافحة الارهاب، ما بعث برسالة خاطئة في الوقت الخطأ مفادها انه مرتبط او عاجز عن الزام الجماعات الارهابية باي اتفاق، وهو ما يؤيد البروباغندا التي تبناها النظام منذ اندلاع المعارك.
وفي حين استفاد وفد النظام من خبرة المعلم كدبلوماسي مخضرم، بدا رئيس وفد المعارضة أحمد الجربا فاقدا للقدرة على التأثير او كسب التعاطف والتأييد لقضية عادلة. 
اما وزير الخارجية الروسي سيرغي لافروف فقال ان ‘البعض ظن انه يمكن ان يسقط النظام السوري من جنيف’، وهو تصريح لا يحاول اخفاء روح التهكم والسخرية من ذلك البعض. 
ولم تكن دعوة الولايات المتحدة الى البحث عن ‘خيارات جديدة’ بعد فشل جنيف اقل اثارة للسخرية، حيث ان الذهاب الى جنيف في حد ذاته كان تعبيرا عن نفاد الخيارات تجاه سوريا، حتى ان كثيرين كانوا اعتبروا ان ملف الازمة خرج بالفعل عن السيطرة.
اما بالنسبة للجامعة العربية فمن الصعب تصور انها مازالت تملك اي قدر من التأثير على هذا الوضع المعقد، بما في ذلك الدول العربية التي دعمت المعارضة السورية من اليوم الاول.
فشل جنيف 2 وضع الجميع امام لحظة نادرة للحقيقة، فهل يقتنصها احد ليكسر هذه الدائرة الجهنمية من الدماء؟

Emad Hajjaj's Cartoon

انتخابات عربية!














"Elections"......
Arab Style!

Real News Video: Saudi Arabia and Iran Share A Common Goal in Syria

Hamid Dabashi: All foreign nations involved in Syria are attempting to quell the revolutionary uprisings for economic and strategic interests, but the Syrian people will ultimately decide their own future
A GOOD VIDEO!

UN Security Council must not fail Syria’s besieged civilians again

Desperate crowd awaits relief aid at Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.

© UNRWA Archives

“

Time and again, the Security Council has squandered the opportunity to tackle the human rights and humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded during nearly three years of unrest in Syria. The Council, including Russia and China, must adopt a strong resolution on access and not fail Syria’s besieged civilians now.

”

José Luis Díaz, Head of Amnesty International’s UN office in New York

Thu, 13/02/2014

As many as a quarter of a million civilians in areas under siege around Syria need the UN Security Council to push for unfettered humanitarian access to alleviate their suffering, Amnesty International said today, as the world body considers a draft resolution submitted by Australia, Luxembourg and Jordan. 

In one location alone – the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees south of Damascus, in which Syrian nationals also live – the organization has received the names of more than 100 men, women and children who have died during a siege imposed by the Syrian armed forces last July following clashes with armed opposition groups. Starvation, lack of adequate medical care and sniper fire have been the main causes of death.

“The situation for civilians trapped and under siege in a number of locations around Syria is truly dire, with vital food and medical supplies either in short supply or completely lacking,” said José Luis Díaz, Head of Amnesty International’s UN office in New York. 

“Time and again, the Security Council has squandered the opportunity to tackle the human rights and humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded during nearly three years of unrest in Syria.

“Its non-binding ‘Presidential Statement’ on humanitarian access, seen as a small step forward when adopted on 2 October last year, has remained essentially a dead letter. The Council, including Russia and China, must adopt a strong resolution on access and not fail Syria’s besieged civilians now.”

Russia – which along with China has vetoed three Security Council resolutions on Syria in the past two and a half years – has already voiced its opposition to the draft resolution. 

As negotiations continue on the draft, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos will brief the Security Council today on developments in implementing the Presidential Statement. 

There has been limited progress in allowing the delivery of humanitarian aid to some besieged areas, and amid negotiations to end the siege of Yarmouk hundreds of individuals have been evacuated to hospitals elsewhere in Damascus. 

But serious obstacles remain. Even the brief ceasefire allowing the evacuation of civilians from Old Homs collapsed as a UN aid convoy came under attack earlier this week, although it has since been extended.

Yarmouk residents have told Amnesty International that they have had no electricity for a year, are forced to forage under sniper fire for grass to eat and some have resorted to eating cat meat. Local activists have published the names of tens of individuals, including relief workers, who were arrested in the last two weeks when they went to the camp’s main northern checkpoint to assist in the distribution of a small aid delivery. Health workers in the camp have told Amnesty International that only one of Yarmouk’s hospitals continues to partially function but that it has no doctors. 

Blockades by Syrian government forces on Moadamiya, Eastern Ghouta and other areas have also left desperate civilians trapped and facing extreme food and medical shortages. Two predominantly Shi’a towns in the Aleppo governorate, Zahraa and Nubl, have also been besieged by armed opposition groups in recent months.

“The increased humanitarian access in a limited number of areas is just a drop in the ocean when compared with the massive civilian suffering across Syria today,” said José Luis Díaz. 

“Civilians have been caught in the crossfire and cut off from humanitarian aid for too long. With the Geneva talks between the Syrian government and armed groups faltering, the UN Security Council has no time to lose to ensure adequate humanitarian access is allowed to reach all civilians in need.” 

The Syrian government must allow the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Syria access to investigate all human rights violations and abuses, including those amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes, being committed by all parties to the conflict. It should also allow access to Amnesty International and other human rights organizations.

The organization continues to call for the release of peaceful activists in government detention and civilian hostages being held by armed groups. 

Cartoon for Israeli Apartheid Week 2014, by Carlos Latuff

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Such A Deal

Palestinians Should Walk Away

By Philip Giraldi

Australian-American former Ambassador Martin Indyk is the lead negotiator for Secretary of State John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. He heads a nearly all-Jewish American negotiating team, including David Makovsky, a “mapping expert” from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spin-off Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Indyk iscurrently briefing an array of Jewish leaders in the US about his plans while keeping them secret from everyone else. Scott McConnell has observed that the Israelis are characteristically screaming about being forced into an agreement even though they will get nearly everything they want.

As if to demonstrate that no good deed goes unrewarded, Israeli politicians have reviled Kerry in personal terms, leading to a rare rebuke by the White House, while a group of conservative rabbis haswarned that God will destroy him. Meanwhile the corrupt Palestinian leaders will likely cave to US pressure in anticipation of the personal rewards they will receive when the donor cash begins to flow after an agreement is signed. The Palestinian people will get the sharp end of the stick.

Make no mistake, Kerry’s objective from the start has been to get the maximum possible for Israel while enticing the Palestinians to accept the barest minimum that will get them to agree to sign on to something. Even if Kerry wanted to be an honest broker he knows he can’t go that route because the Israel Lobby is so powerful and pro-Palestinian sentiment means nothing in terms of American elections. Kerry’s boss President Obama is looking at congressional elections later this year and would be extremely reluctant to antagonize Israel’s friends. So it is better to let the process limp along until the end of the year. If Kerry is very fortunate he might be able to give Israel a lopsided deal that would at least limit the incessant settlement expansion and just might create a modus vivendi that would not threaten to explode every couple of years. But more probably the peace process will again die a natural death, linked inexorably to the US two year election cycle.

There have been some suggestions regarding what the Kerry “framework” proposal might look like. In his secret talks with Jewish American leaders, Martin Indyk has indicated that three quarters of Israeli settlers would be able to stay on the West Bank, which is, in rough terms, 400,000 people. There would be swaps of land to accommodate the settlements by giving the Palestinians parcels of land that are currently regarded as part of Israel. The transfer of population would take place over a period of from three to five years.

Another key feature of the Kerry plan is to give money to Palestinians who were displaced by the Israelis in 1948 and 1967 in exchange for their giving up their right to return to their homes at some future point. Interestingly, money would also be given to Jews who fled their homes in Arab countries, not because they are now lacking homes, but to build political support inside Israel for some kind of agreement. Likewise settlers who are forced to leave their homes on the West Bank will be compensated. The possibly tens of billions of dollars needed will presumably come from Washington.

The Israelis are also insisting that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” a demand which Kerry and the president, at least rhetorically, appear to be supporting. They are also demanding that they exercise military control of the Jordan River Valley in any future arrangement, which is surely a deal breaker, but which might be parlayed into a joint US-NATO force providing security.

If it all sounds like a reasonable enough tit-for-tat arrangement that would serve as a jumping off point for further discussions, that is clearly the intention, but the devil is in the details. If Israel is a Jewish state then Muslims and Christians are only citizens or residents by sufferance, meaning that they have only limited rights in obtaining redress for actions undertaken by the Israeli government, including eventual expulsion if Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has his way. Ongoing negotiations from the “framework” would also prevent the Palestinians from going to the UN in September, an option feared by both Tel Aviv and Washington as overwhelming worldwide support for the Palestinian cause would be evident, fueling new demands for divestment and boycotts of Israel.

The Palestinians would also in principle be conceding control over the major settlement blocs that together cut them off from Jerusalem and also divide the West Bank nearly in quarters, bisecting the West Bank both to the north and south and also to the east and west. The Israeli intention to tighten its grip by expanding the key settlements was made clear last week when it announced approval for 558 new housing units in East Jerusalem, a sharp rebuff for Kerry and the Palestinians even as a framework agreement appears to be imminent.

If the Palestinians are allowed to declare part of East Jerusalem as their capital, it will be surrounded by Israel and possibly only accessible by Israeli military controlled roads. The settlements outside Jerusalem itself are largely built on good, arable land which is why they are located as they are, with access to water. In return the Palestinians will get unproductive land that that the Israelis do not want, carefully mapped out by David Makovsky.

Other possible details to be resolved along the way demonstrate that a Palestinian state would only have limited sovereignty. They include Israeli demands for the complete demilitarization of Palestine and possible control of its borders, Israeli management of scarce water resources, and Tel Aviv’s refusal to permit a Palestinian controlled airport. Jewish-only roads might also survive to link the settlements.

So it is a very bad deal for the Palestinians, but given the lack of effective leadership they have few options apart from a new resort to violence, and Kerry just might be able to convince them to take what they can get. I should think that if I were a Palestinian I would be throwing rocks and graduating up to hand grenades, if I could get hold of any. Living under any government requires an abridgement of freedom, something which we Americans have learned to our chagrin over the past thirteen years as we have watched our constitution shredded and our rights curtailed. But I think the measure of a tolerable arrangement between rulers and ruled is a situation in which there is at least a modicum of democratic self-determination. If you can push back against the government or vote to throw the bums out, even if you know it won’t change anything, it at least permits some self-respect.

Palestinians have nothing like that to fall back on. They are helpless in a confrontation with a ruthless and powerful enemy backed by the world’s only superpower. They have become the victims of the Israeli occupiers and also of their own leaders and an essentially indifferent United States. As an American I am ashamed of Washington’s role in the suppression of the Palestinian people. We too should be throwing rocks, but directed at Congress, the White House and the mainstream media, which have together caused our country to become a true heart of darkness.