Weekend Gazette 083113

Saturday August 31st 2013

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Putin challenges US on Syria claims

Russian President Vladimir Putin has challenged the US to present to the UN evidence that Syria attacked rebels with chemical weapons near Damascus.

Mr Putin said it would be "utter nonsense" for Syria's government to provoke opponents with such attacks.
US President Barack Obama says he is considering military action against Syria after intelligence reports that 1,429 people were killed on 21 August.
UN weapons inspectors have left Syria after gathering evidence for four days.
They are taking their samples to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, in The Hague.
The samples are thought to include soil, swabs from munitions, blood and hair from the victims and, experts say, possibly even flesh from dead bodies.
The US says hundreds of children were among those killed in the suspected chemical weapons attacks, which the US says was carried out by the Syrian government.
Syria said the US claim was "full of lies", blaming rebels for the attacks.
US President Barack Obama Obama said on Friday the US was planning a "limited, narrow" military response that would not involve "boots on the ground". 

U.N. Chemical Weapons Inspectors Leave Damascus, Syria

WASHINGTON/PARIS, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The United States made clear on Friday that it would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the "brutal and flagrant" chemical weapons attack that it says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus last week.
"We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale," President Barack Obama told reporters at the White House.
He said the United States was still in the planning process for a "limited, narrow" military response that would not involve "boots on the ground" or be open-ended. He set no timetable for action.
In a sign the United States may be preparing to act, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on Friday to the foreign ministers of Britain, Egypt, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as to the secretary general of the Arab League.
The White House will brief Republican senators on Syria in a conference call on Saturday at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a spokesman for the senator said.
The timing of the attack, most likely with cruise missiles from five U.S. Navy destroyers already stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, was uncertain, but it had been considered unlikely before U.N. weapons experts probing evidence from the Aug. 21 attack, left Syria on Saturday.
The inspectors left their Damascus hotel early on Saturday, a Reuters witness said, with their convoy of vehicles heading onto a highway that leads to neighbouring Lebanon.

Sheikhs charged over Lebanon bombs

Lebanon has charged two religious clerics over bombings which killed at least 42 people at two mosques in the northern city of Tripoli last week.

Sheikhs Hashem Minkara and Ahmad Gharib, along with three other men, are suspected of forming an armed cell to attack government institutions.
The clerics are thought to have close ties to a Sunni group linked to Syria.
The Tripoli blasts are considered the deadliest attack in Lebanon since the end of the civil war in 1990.
More than 400 people were injured in the explosions, which took place shortly after Friday prayers ended on 23 August.
War in neighbouring Syria has raised sectarian tensions between the city's Sunni Muslim and Alawite communities.
'Terrorist acts' Military prosecutors accuse Sheikh Gharib and another Lebanese man of setting up a cell "to carry out terrorist acts in Lebanon, with the aim of killing political and religious figures".

Syrian Opposition Has Mixed Feelings About U.S. Strike

BEIRUT -- As the U.S. continues to ramp up its plans to target the Syrian military with cruise missile strikes, Syrian citizens and opposition figures have voiced a mix of optimism and deep concern about what may happen aftermath of a bombing raid.
The Obama administration has indicated that it is in the final stages of planning a limited strike, using cruise missiles, against a series of Syrian military targets in response to last Wednesday's apparent chemical weapons attack that the U.S. says left more than a thousand civilians dead. On Friday, the administration released an intelligence report that it said pointed to proof that chemical weapons had been deployed, and that the regime was culpable.
It is exactly the sort of intervention that many Syrian opposition groups have called for, but not everyone is so enthusiastic about the consequences.
Abdulkader al Dhon, a Syrian human rights activist who now lives in Turkey but travels regularly to his home country, said on Friday that many people he speaks with are worried that the U.S. war plan could spiral into a larger conflict.
"They are afraid," he told The Huffington Post by Skype. "They say that if this attack will be just for a few places in Damascus, maybe the big military bases, that's OK. But we don't want to open a new war for the next year. That would be terrible."
It's a view matched by a number of news reports in recent days, including a Tuesday Wall Street Journal article that quoted several skeptical rebel leaders along the Turkey-Syria border. 

Six people dead in Afghanistan suicide attack

Another 12 people were killed in an ambush involving a roadside bomb in Sangin district in Helmand province on Friday evening

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a police checkpoint and a bank in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, one of two attacks in the heartland of the insurgency that killed 18 people over 24 hours. Separately, a Nato service member was killed by insurgents in the country's east, according to a military statement.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for any of the attacks, but Taliban fighters have escalated their activity as US-led foreign forces reduce their presence in the country, having handed over primary responsibility for security to Afghan troops.
Javed Faisal, a spokesman for the provincial governor, initially said the suicide bomber was in a car that was being searched by police, but later said new information indicated the bomber had been on foot. Along with the branch building of the New Kabul Bank, several small shops and vehicles were damaged.
Witness Shah Wali had just stepped out of a taxi to go to the bank when the attacker struck. "I saw a man and a vehicle on the road, and while I was fixing my shoelaces I heard a loud explosion. I don't know if it was the vehicle which exploded or the man standing there," Wali said.
Faisal said at least six people died four of them civilians, one police officer and one private security guard. Another 24 people were wounded, most of them civilians.
Taliban spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The militant group is especially strong in southern Afghanistan, which is dominated by the ethnic Pashtun community whose members form the bulk of the insurgency in the country.

Al-Qaida in Iraq calls on Egyptians to fight army
 
CAIRO: A leader of al-Qaida's Iraqi branch on Saturday called on Egyptians to fight their army and derided the Muslim Brotherhood as "evil" for seeking power through democracy.

The audio message by Abu Mohammed al-Adnani highlights the militant movement's attempt to use Egypt's July 3 coup, which toppled the country's first freely elected president, to bolster a hard-line ideology favoring armed struggle over peaceful politics.

In the 32-minute audio, al-Adnani derided the Brotherhood, from which ousted President Mohammed Morsi hails, as "a secular party with an Islamic cloak, worshipping power and parliaments, and their jihad is for democracy and not for God's sake."

It is "more evil and malevolent than the secularists, and if seizing power necessitates bowing to the devil, they will bow without hesitation", he said.

Al-Adnani is official spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which is battling Baghdad's Shia-led government. The audio could not be independently verified but appeared on a website commonly used by militants.

The Egyptian army overthrew Morsi after millions took to the streets demanding his removal. On August 14, the military-backed government moved to break up sit-ins of his supporters, leaving hundreds dead.

Syria crisis: Tensions rise on Turkish border

From the shade of a small hut on the Turkey-Syria border, Hussein Mahmeddin keeps an eye on the grey border gates at the end of the road.

He has been waiting since 6am for his parents and three sisters to cross over and join him in Turkey.
Mahmeddin is a fighter with the opposition Free Syrian Army. Two weeks ago, he was wounded inside Syria. He came to Turkey to recover.
Now his immediate family has decided to leave Idlib in Syria and join him in Turkey. They plan to move to the nearby town of Reyhanli.
They will join more than 450,000 Syrians who have already taken refuge in this country.
Hussein Mahmeddin supports the idea of a US-led air strike against the Assad government. "I've lost three of my cousins in this war. They were all younger than me," he says. "I want this air strike." 
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Obama to make case for Syria military strikes to Senate

US President Barack Obama's top advisers were to make their case for limited military strikes against Syria to the full Senate on Saturday, presenting evidence of a chemical weapons attack last week that the White House says killed more than 1,400 people.
Syria anticipates a US military attack "at any moment," a security official was quoted as telling AFP on Saturday, just hours after UN investigators probing an alleged chemical weapons attack by pro-government forces left the country.

"We are expecting an attack at any moment. We are ready to retaliate at any moment," said the Syrian security official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Obama has broad legal powers to take military action. While he has said he has not made a final decision, he has made it clear that he believes the United States must do something to hold the Syrian government accountable for the attack.

Indian Mujahideen leader Yasin Bhatkal captured by security forces

One of India's most wanted Islamist terrorists arrested after international manhunt ends on border with Nepal

One of India's most wanted Islamists has been arrested in a security forces operation on the border with Nepal.
Yasin Bhatkal is accused of involvement in a string of recent attacks including a 2010 blast at a bakery patronised by international tourists in the city of Pune that killed nine and injured 60.
The 30-year-old is said to be one of the founders of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) militant organisation. "Yasin Bhatkal has been traced and detained ... His interrogation is going on," Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters in Delhi on Thursday morning.
India has been hit by a series of high-profile attacks involving both local and overseas-based militants. The most spectacular recent strike was launched by Pakistan-based extremists against hotels and other targets in Mumbai, the country's commercial capital, in 2008. However, there have been dozens of smaller-scale operations which do not attract international attention.
Indian counter-terrorist officials said the detention of Bhatkal was their biggest success for several years. Experts say Bhatkal, who has been pursued for a decade, would rank among the top five wanted Indian Islamists.
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Ginsburg to perform gay wedding

US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is poised to become the first judge on the country's highest court to perform a same-sex marriage.

Justice Ginsburg, 80, officiates this weekend at the wedding of Michael Kaiser, 59, president of the Kennedy Center performing arts space, and economist John Roberts, 32.
Mr Kaiser is a personal friend of hers.
In June, the Supreme Court overturned a law that banned recognition of same-sex marriages by the US government.
The ruling granted legally married gay men and women access to the same federal entitlements available to opposite-sex married couples.
Justice Ginsburg, who was appointed to the nine-member high court in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, voted in the majority in that case.
Same-sex marriage is now legal in 13 states and Washington DC, and since the court's decision, the federal government under President Barack Obama has taken several steps to grant same-sex marriage couples the same legal status as opposite-sex couples.

New boss at ICE ineligible for job, says critic

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—who oversees the nation's second-largest federal investigative agency—may not be eligible for the permanent position under laws set up to keep politics out of the agency, according to one former high-level employee.
When John Sandweg, a former Arizona criminal defense attorney and associate of outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was named acting director of ICE, several critics questioned his credentials. Some told FoxNews.com his appointment seemed to be political, and others said the agency needed a leader who had come up through the ranks.
“Given that there are literally dozens of people within ICE who have more experience in management/law enforcement and meet these qualifications, there is no excuse for placing Mr. Sandweg as acting director of ICE,” said Anthony Ho, who was assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s San Francisco division before retiring in December.
Ho noted that the 2002 law which established the agency, then known as Bureau of Border Security, explicitly requires that the director “shall have a minimum of 5 years professional experience in law enforcement, and a minimum of 5 years of management experience.” The law was designed specifically to prevent the agency from becoming politicized, Ho said.

President takes step to assure federal pay raise on Jan. 1

President Obama told congressional leaders late Friday that he intends to give federal employees a 1 percent pay raise starting Jan. 1 because Congress has taken no action on the issue.

Obama had announced in his budget plan in April that he wanted to end a nearly three-year pay freeze for the federal workforce. But since Congress has not passed a spending plan for fiscal 2014, the president is required by the end of August to come up with an “alternative pay plan” to avoid a legal trigger that would automatically raise federal pay in line with private-sector salaries. That trigger could, in theory, give federal workers a raise of about 34 percent.

Delay in strike giving Assad time to move military hardware, sources say

Syrian President Bashar Assad has benefited from the United States' delay in launching any military strike on his regime, Defense sources told Fox News, amid reports that his forces have been moving military hardware off-base potentially as a precautionary measure. 
"(Assad) does this all the time," one military source told Fox News. "All he has to do is watch the news to know what our tactics are." 
According to one senior U.S. Defense official, it would have been better to strike Syria a few days ago, before the regime had time to move around its military hardware from bases likely to be targeted in any strike. 
Quoting opposition sources, Reuters reported on Friday that the regime is doing exactly that. Sources claimed they spotted Assad's forces removing Scud missiles and dozens of launchers from a base near the capital city of Damascus. 
According to the report, rebel scouts saw the equipment being moved out early Thursday. The missiles were reportedly draped in tarpaulins as they were shipped out. Most of the military staff apparently have also been ordered to stay home, in anticipation of a strike. 
The reports reflect a scenario that U.S. lawmakers have been warning about. After details of a possible strike were widely reported, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- an advocate of military action in Syria -- said Assad should just declare a "snow day" and keep everyone from work and out of harm's way. 

War Powers and the Use of Force in Syria

If President Obama follows the practice of post-WWII presidents, he may use military force without consultation or authorization from Congress. If President Obama follows the letter of the War Powers Resolution, he may use military force for 60 to 90 days without congressional authorization. If President Obama follows the Constitution, he must secure congressional authorization before using military force. Presidents of both parties have not been held to constitutional standards for several decades. Authorization has shifted from Congress to the president, as presidents since Truman have commenced military operations virtually at will, and some have claimed that authority flowed from commander-in-chief responsibilities or from the UN or NATO.

The Constitution. Very little in the Constitution is as clear as the delegation of war powers. Only Congress has the authority to declare war, and only the president commands in war. Even Alexander Hamilton, who favored a strong president, proposed that the Senate "have the sole power of declaring war" and that the executive "have the direction of war when authorized or begun." But presidents were expected to repel invasions without consultation or authorization. Repelling invasions included preemptive war, but preemptive war requires an imminent threat of attack with existing capability and all other options exhausted -- e.g., troops on the border to attack at dawn.
In the language contemporary to the constitutional debate, general war and perfect war were expressions used to describe the condition when opposing states were mobilized for war. But there was also common language -- limited war, imperfect war, or partial war -- used to describe military force used to pursue limited objectives. Declarations of war were associated with the former, and authorizations for the use of force were for the latter. Both were the exclusive domain of Congress.
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