Weekend Gazette - LABOR DAY 090213

LABOR DAY SPECIAL

Monday September 2nd 2013

--------------------------------

Syrian rebels pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda

BEIRUT — A Syrian rebel group's April pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda's replacement for Osama bin Laden suggests that the terrorist group's influence is not waning and that it may take a greater role in the Western-backed fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The pledge of allegiance by Syrian Jabhat al Nusra Front chief Abou Mohamad al-Joulani to al-Qaeda leader Sheik Ayman al-Zawahri was coupled with an announcement by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, that it would work with al Nusra as well.
Lebanese Sheik Omar Bakri, a Salafist who says states must be governed by Muslim religious law, says al-Qaeda has assisted al Nusra for some time.
"They provided them early on with technical, military and financial support , especially when it came to setting up networks of foreign jihadis who were brought into Syria," Bakri says. "There will certainly be greater coordination between the two groups."

Taliban bombers attack US base in Afghanistan

Taliban militants have attacked a US base in eastern Afghanistan, sparking a lengthy gun battle in which three insurgents were killed.

Reports say the attack on Torkham base in Nangarhar province unfolded after militants torched Nato supply trucks on the highway leading to the base.
Officials said that no Afghan or US soldiers died in the raid. The attackers did not enter the base.
But officials say the financial cost of the attack is likely to be immense.
Many Nato supply vehicles on the road to the base were left badly burned on the highway. Officials closed the Jalalabad-Torkham road - a key route for these vehicles - after the attack.
A Taliban spokesman told the BBC that the group was behind the raid.
Isaf said the attack was unsuccessful: "Our initial assessment of this morning's events, which occurred in the vicinity of a forward operating base located in Nangarhar province, is that it was an attempted but unsuccessful co-ordinated attack by enemy forces."
The base is home to some of the 66,000 US troops serving in Afghanistan along with forces from other countries. Officials say the base was also an important stopping point for Nato vehicles.

Anti-al-Qaida leader escapes assassination in Iraq

BAGHDAD — A prominent leader of a militia opposed to al-Qaida escaped an assassination attempt Monday that killed six of his body guards and one civilian and wounded eight people, authorities said. Seven more people were killed and 15 wounded in separate violence in Baghdad and another Iraqi city as the country reels from waves of sectarian attacks.
Two suicide bombers attacked the motorcade of Wisam al-Hardan near his house in Baghdad's western Harthiyah neighborhood, but the Sunni tribal sheik was not hurt, said Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan.
Al-Hardan was recently appointed by the Iraqi prime minister to lead the Sunni militia known as Sahwa, which joined U.S. troops in the war against al-Qaida at the height of Iraq war. Ever since, it has been a target for Sunni insurgents who consider them traitors.
Later in the day, a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a security checkpoint near the city of Baqouba, killing four people and wounding 12, said police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Baqouba, a former al-Qaida stronghold, is 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad.
In southeastern Baghdad, police gunmen using weapons fitted with silencers opened fire on a commercial street, killing two people and wounding three, said a different police official who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media. It was not immediately clear why the officers opened fire.

Egypt's former president Morsi to be tried for inciting violence, top prosecutor says

Egypt's top prosecutor referred Sunday ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to trial on charges of inciting the killing of opponents protesting outside his palace while he was in office, the state news agency said.
The military ousted Morsi on July 3 after millions took to the street demanding he step down. He's been held incommunicado since. Despite other accusations by prosecutors, Sunday's decision is his first referral to trial. No date was announced for the trial.
Morsi will be tried, along with 14 members of his Muslim Brotherhood, in a criminal court for allegedly committing acts of violence, and inciting the killing of at least 10 people.
The case dates back to one of the deadliest bouts of violence during Morsi's one year in office. At least 100,000 protesters gathered outside his presidential palace on Dec. 4, protesting a decree he issued to protect his decisions from judicial oversight and a highly disputed draft constitution that was hurriedly adopted in the Islamist-dominated parliament.

Egyptian judges call for Muslim Brotherhood to be dissolved

Non-binding ruling another setback for Islamist group that has suffered army-led crackdown since Mohamed Morsi's overthrow

An Egyptian judicial panel has recommended the legal dissolution of Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, the latest setback for the Islamist group that was Egypt's most powerful civil organisation until Morsi's overthrow in July, and which has since been driven all but underground by an army-led crackdown.
The group is in its worst crisis since a similar attempt to suppress it in the 1950s, with the turmoil even destabilising the Brotherhood's affiliate organisations in other countries across the Middle East.
On Monday a panel of Egyptian judges recommended the Brotherhood's dissolution as a legally registered non-governmental organisation. It was a non-binding decision but one that – with the new prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, already considering a possible ban on the group – will further hinder the organisation's fight to remain anything more than a clandestine organisation. Hundreds of its members have been killed by state officials during protests since July, and thousands arrested.
All but two of the Brotherhood's most senior officials are now either in hiding or under arrest and its command structures are severely curbed. In news emblematic of the group's predicament, the Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Mohamed Badie, has suffered a heart attack in prison, while Morsi himself – prosecutors announced on Sunday – will now face charges for allegedly inciting murder during his presidency.

Revealed: Britain sold nerve gas chemicals to Syria 10 months after war began 

FURIOUS politicians have demanded Prime Minister David Cameron explain why chemical export licences were granted to firms last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.

BRITAIN allowed firms to sell chemicals to Syria capable of being used to make nerve gas, the Sunday Mail can reveal today.
Export licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride were granted months after the bloody civil war in the Middle East began.
The chemical is capable of being used to make weapons such as sarin, thought to be the nerve gas used in the attack on a rebel-held Damascus suburb which killed nearly 1500 people, including 426 children, 10 days ago.
President Bashar Assad’s forces have been blamed for the attack, leading to calls for an armed response from the West.
British MPs voted against joining America in a strike. But last night, President Barack Obama said he will seek the approval of Congress to take military action.
The chemical export licences were granted by Business Secretary Vince Cable’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills last January – 10 months after the Syrian uprising began.
They were only revoked six months later, when the European Union imposed tough sanctions on Assad’s regime.
Yesterday, politicians and anti-arms trade campaigners urged Prime Minister David Cameron to explain why the licences were granted.
Dunfermline and West Fife Labour MP Thomas Docherty, who sits on the House of Commons’ Committees on Arms Export Controls, plans to lodge Parliamentary questions tomorrow and write to Cable.
He said: “At best it has been negligent and at worst reckless to export material that could have been used to create chemical weapons.
“MPs will be horrified and furious that the UK Government has been allowing the sale of these ingredients to Syria.
“What the hell were they doing granting a licence in the first place?
“I would like to know what investigations have been carried out to establish if any of this
material exported to Syria was subsequently used in the attacks on its own people.”

Report: Russia Sends Spy Ship To Mediterranean

Russia is sending a reconnaissance ship to the eastern Mediterranean, Interfax news agency reported on Monday, as the United States prepares for a possible military strike in Syria.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said he will seek congressional authorisation for punitive action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after what Washington said was a sarin gas attack that killed over 1,400 people. Russia is a staunch backer of Assad in his war with rebels trying to topple him.
The reconnaissance ship left Russia's naval base in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol late on Sunday on a mission "to gather current information in the area of the escalating conflict", the Interfax report quoted an unidentified military source as saying.
The Defence Ministry declined immediate comment but Interfax said the vessel, the SSV-201 Priazovye, would operate separately from a Russian navy unit already stationed in the Mediterranean.
Last week, the ministry said new warships were being sent to the Mediterranean but described this as a routine rotation of ships under a permanent deployment which Moscow says is needed to protect national security interests.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said at the time that Moscow did not intend to be dragged into any military conflict over Syria.
Russia reiterated on Monday that the United States had not proved its allegations and that the chemical attack may have been staged by Syrian rebels to provoke outside intervention in the more than two-year-old civil war.

Intelligence in Syria suggests US saw attack coming, didn't act

Questions are being raised about why the United States didn't act in advance of last week's chemical weapons attack in Syria, amid indications that U.S. intelligence was picking up warning signs that an attack was imminent in the days leading up to the strike.
That would have been the time to fire a “shot across the bow” at the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who allegedly ordered the attacks, a senior U.S. official familiar with the intelligence told Fox News.
 U.S. officials have said the intelligence they gathered prior to the Aug. 21 chemical attack that killed more than 1,400 people didn’t create a clear picture until after the fact.
Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that the U.S. had "human, signals and geo-spatial intelligence" in the days before the attack that could later be used to link it to the regime.
The Washington Post reports that three days before the chemical-packed rockets fell outside of Damascus, a team of Syrian specialists gathered in the northern suburb of Adra to fill the warheads.
However, U.S. officials have described such activity as having become routine during the past two years of Syria’s civil war.
The Post also reports that U.S. spy agencies recorded each step in the alleged chemical attack, from the preparations of the rockets, to the launchings to Syrian officials conducting the damage assessment.

Deadly violence hits Iran exiles' Camp Ashraf in Iraq

Violence has erupted at a camp in Iraq for dissident Iranians, who say dozens of residents have lost their lives.

The Mujahideen-e Khalq group accused Iraqi forces of attacking Camp Ashraf north-east of Baghdad, killing at least 52 of its members - some shot in the head at close range.
However Iraqi officials said no soldiers entered the camp.
UN representatives have condemned the bloodshed and urged Iraq swiftly to establish the facts.
A statement from the UN mission in Iraq also called on Iraqi officials to ensure security for residents at the camp and urged an end to the violence so medical help could reach the wounded.
"The only thing we can confirm is there are a lot of casualties,'' Eliana Nabaa, a spokeswoman for the UN mission to Iraq was quoted as saying.
The population of Camp Ashraf, once home to more than 3,000 members of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), was believed to have dwindled to about 100 before the violence.

Egypt accused of jamming al-Jazeera

Broadcaster says it has pinpointed four different sources of jamming after commissioning an interference detection company

The Egyptian government has been accused of jamming the signal of al-Jazeera, the pan-Arabic news channel, for the past seven weeks.
It has also been blamed for blocking the broadcaster from sending out raw TV feeds on the Egyptian crisis to other broadcasters.
The Qatar-based channel's head of teleport, Ibrahim Nassar, told MediaGuardian it has pinpointed four different locations for the source of jamming after commissioning an interference detection company, Integral Systems Europe, to investigate the problem. Three of these were east of Cairo and one was in the desert west of the capital.
Nassar said its Egyptian service, al-Jazeera Mubasher, had been subjected to jamming every day between the hours of 7am and midnight since 5 July. It broadcasts on the Egyptian-owned Nilesat satellite.
The second operation, providing broadcasters with TV feeds, is fed through a satellite owned by the Arab League countries, Arabsat, and has also been subjected to interference, although the last record of jamming was on 7 August.
"There is a big campaign against us even in the Egyptian media," said Nassar. He said the broadcaster will appeal to the Egyptian authorities to stop blocking its TV feeds on Arabsat through the International Telecommunications Union but that usually this process is not enough.
Al-Jazeera believes the blocking of its signal in Egypt is part of a concerted campaign to close it down, which includes the arrest of reporters and cameraman working for the broadcaster in Cairo.

Al-Qaeda operatives applied for NSA jobs, say new Snowden files

Washington: The US government suspects that individuals with connections to al-Qaeda and other hostile groups have repeatedly sought to obtain jobs in the intelligence community, and it reinvestigates thousands of employees a year to reduce the threat that one of its own may be trying to compromise closely held secrets, according to a classified budget document.
The CIA found that among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds raised questions, roughly one out of every five had "significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections," according to the document, which was provided to The Washington Post by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Among a subset of job seekers whose backgrounds raised questions, roughly one out of every five had significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections 

The groups cited most often were Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaida and its affiliates, but the nature of the connections was not described in the document.

Obama faces renewed international opposition on Syria, while trying to win US support

President Obama, in his efforts to win America’s support for a punitive strike on Syria, faces the similar-yet-larger challenge of gaining international support, with Russia and China on Monday leading the international opposition.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said the information the U.S. showed Moscow trying to prove that the Syrian regime was behind an Aug. 21 chemical-weapons attack is "absolutely unconvincing."
Moscow is Syrian President Bashar Assad's key ally, weapons supplier and protector at the United Nations.
The Obama administration insists Assad's troops were behind the recent chemical attack that killed more than 1,400 people and will resume efforts Monday to win congressional support, including Obama holding a conference call with House members and meeting with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Ahead of the scheduled meeting, China said it opposes the U.S. acting alone and that any response must conform to the United Nations Charter and the basic principles underlying international relations.
"China is highly concerned about the relevant country's plan on taking unilateral military action," said Hong Lei, a spokesman for the country’s Foreign Ministry.

Syria resolution will be ‘a very tough sell’ 

Leading lawmakers dealt bipartisan rejection Sunday to President Obama’s request to strike Syrian military targets, saying the best hope for congressional approval would be to narrow the scope of the resolution.

From the Democratic dean of the Senate to tea party Republicans in their second terms, lawmakers said the White House’s initial request to use force against Syria will be rewritten in the coming days to try to shore up support in a skeptical Congress. But some veteran lawmakers expressed doubt that even the new use-of-force resolution would win approval, particularly in the House.

McKeon: Obama put 'prestige of US on the line' with Syria threat

President Obama has threatened U.S. prestige by possibly boxing the nation in on Syria, House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said Monday. 

McKeon, who said he remained "open" to a military strike on Syria, complained Obama risked the U.S. reputation by delaring Syria's use of chemical weaopns was a 'red line.'

It's unclear whether that red line will be backed up with force. Obama has asked Congress for authorization to attack Syria. 

"I think that when the president said he shouldn't cross a red line, he should have put a little more thought into it before he said it," McKeon told CNN. "That's why we're in this position now — it's because of his statement and, frankly, I think that this scurrying around trying to reach Congress now is a little bit late."

The California Republican said Obama should have consulted with lawmakers "before he ever made the comment" abuot the red lne.

"I think the prestige of the United States is on the line," McKeon said. "It's something that we're going to have to look at very carefully."

British newspaper calls Obama “ineffectual, invisible, the weakest president in history

Pip, pip, cheerio, chaps. Blimey, guv-nah! (Sorry, but that’s the best we can do at faking that language they speak in the United Kingdom).
The Express UK says what American newspapers are so hesitant to say, in an article entitled, “BARACK OBAMA: THE WEAKEST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY?”:
When the Brits said, “It’s tea time,” President Obama said, “Let’s play 18.”
INEFFECTUAL, invisible, unable to honour pledges and now blamed for letting Gaddafi off the hook. Why Obama’s gone from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Er, maybe we shouldn’t’
Let us cast our minds back to those remarkable days in November 2008 when the son of a Kenyan goatherd was elected to the White House. It was a bright new dawn – even brighter than the coming of the Kennedys and their new Camelot. JFK may be considered as being from an ethnic and religious minority – Irish and Catholic – but he was still very rich and very white. Barack Obama, by contrast, was a true breakthrough president. The world would change because obviously America had changed.
Obama’s campaign slogan was mesmerisingly simple and brimming with self-belief: “Yes we can.” His presidency, however, is turning out to be more about “no we won’t.” Even more worryingly, it seems to be very much about: “Maybe we can… do what, exactly?“ The world feels like a dangerous place when leaders are seen to lack certitude but the only thing President Obama seems decisive about is his indecision. What should the US do about Libya? What should the US do about the Middle East in general? What about the country’s crippling debts? What is the US going to do about Afghanistan, about Iran?
-