Gazette 06-13-14

Friday June 13th 2014

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Iraq cleric issues Shia call to arms

Iraq's most senior Shia cleric has issued a call to arms while Sunni-led insurgents seize more towns.

The call by a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani came during Friday prayers, as the militants widened their grip in the north and east, and threatened to march south.
The UN says hundreds have been killed - with militants carrying out summary executions of civilians in Mosul.
Both the US and Iran have promised to help the fight against the insurgency.
Led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the Sunni insurgents have threatened to push to the capital, Baghdad, and regions further south dominated by Iraq's Shia Muslim majority, whom they regard as "infidels".

Kerry says US sacrifices, partnership with Baghdad are why military action considered in Iraq

LONDON –  The U.S. is citing its years of fighting in Iraq as a reason for considering new military action to battle a growing insurgency there but not in neighboring Syria's civil war.
Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday also said Iraq has a legitimate government that has asked the U.S. for help as part of a longtime partnership.
Kerry was in London speaking at a conference on combating sexual violence in conflict zones. But how to quell the swift and violent insurgency in Iraq was a top topic in a meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Kerry said the Sunni insurgency is a threat not only to Iraq's majority Shiite population but also to U.S. interests and the Mideast.
He said the U.S. is laser focused on helping Iraq.

Ukrainian Forces Seize Port City Of Mariupol From Rebels

KIEV, June 13 (Reuters) - Ukrainian government forces reclaimed the port city of Mariupol from pro-Russian separatists in heavy fighting on Friday and said they had regained control of a long stretch of the border with Russia.

The advances are significant victories for the pro-European leadership in a military operation to crush the armed separatist rebellion that began in east Ukraine in April and hold the former Soviet republic of 45 million together.

"At 10:34 a.m. (0734 GMT) the Ukrainian flag was raised over City Hall in Mariupol," Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on Facebook, less than six hours after the attack began on the city of 500,000, Ukraine's biggest Azov Sea port.

A ministry aide said the government forces stormed the rebels after they were surrounded and given 10 minutes to surrender. At least five separatists and two servicemen were killed in the battle before many of the rebels fled.

Mariupol, which has changed hands several times in weeks of conflict, is strategically important because it lies on major roads from the southeastern border with Russia into the rest of Ukraine and steel is exported through the port.

Regaining control of the long and winding frontier is also vital for the government because it accuses Moscow of allowing the rebels to bring tanks, other armored vehicles and guns across the porous border.

Avakov said the government forces had won back control of a 120-km (75-mile) stretch of the border that had fallen to the rebels, but it is not clear who controls other parts of the about 2,000-km frontier.

The rebels, who have taken over several towns and cities and want east Ukraine to become part of Russia, confirmed five of their fighters were killed in the fighting for Mariupol.

Avakov said National Guard and Interior Ministry units were involved in the battle, as well as special forces.

Related Stories: Explosion Rocks Donetsk, Separatists Say Leader's Vehicle Hit

                        Iraq crisis: Shia volunteers confront Sunni insurgents in Samarra

 Sudan bombing South Kordofan civilians - US

The United States has accused Sudan of stepping up its attacks on civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

Samantha Power, the American ambassador to the UN, condemned the attacks in which she said schools and hospital had been deliberately targeted.
Ms Power said since April Sudanese aircraft had dropped hundreds of barrel bombs on towns and villages.
More than a million people are reported to have been displaced by fighting between government forces and rebels.
Sudan's ambassador to the UN did not respond to the comments.
Earlier this week aid agencies wrote to the UN Security Council, African Union and the Arab League demanding an end to attacks on civilians by the Sudanese government.

Greek authorities seize record 1.1 tons of heroin near Athens, arrest 11 suspected traffickers

ATHENS, Greece –  Greek authorities say they have seized a record 1.1 metric tons of heroin, worth more than 30 million euros ($40 million), near Athens and arrested 11 suspected traffickers.
A coastguard statement Friday said the operation, which followed a tip-off, was carried out in coordination with the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
The suspects, who were arrested late Thursday, were identified as six Greeks and five foreign nationals. The coastguard wouldn't specify the nationalities further and it wasn't immediately clear where the heroin had come from.
It said the drug ring had operated from a warehouse east of Athens and distributed the heroin in trucks to Greece and other European countries.
Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said it was the largest quantity of heroin ever seized in Greece.

Libyan army checkpoint targeted by blast in Benghazi

A big explosion at an army checkpoint some 50km (30 miles) outside the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi has wounded six people, army officials say.

A suspected suicide car bomber was the only fatality in the attack, they add.
The same checkpoint was targeted in an attack last year that killed 13 troops.
Benghazi, like most of Libya, has been plagued with violence and instability since Muammar Gaddafi was forced from power in 2011.
The city, which was at the heart of the anti-Gaddafi uprising, has seen clashes between a paramilitary force and Islamist militants in recent weeks.
Officials say three soldiers and three civilians were wounded in Wednesday's attack.
The number was revised down from initial reports which indicated that two people had died in the attack.
"There are body parts spread all over ...so we first thought two people had been killed," Reuters quotes an army official as saying.
Libyan media reports suggest the checkpoint was run by forces belonging to renegade General Khalifa Haftar, who is currently waging a military campaign against Benghazi's Islamist militia brigades.
The groups being targeted by Gen Haftar's forces are the Ansar al-Sharia Islamist militia and the February 17 brigade, which fought against Gaddafi in 2011.
Gen Haftar's campaign has been condemned by the Libyan authorities, who have called it an "attempted coup".

Thai Junta Lifts Nationide Curfew

BANGKOK, June 13 (Reuters) - Thailand's military government lifted a curfew nationwide on Friday, citing the absence of any violence and the need to support the country's tourism sector.

"As the situation has improved and there have been no incidents that can lead to violence ... and in order to improve tourism, the curfew will be lifted in all remaining provinces," the ruling military council said in a televised announcement.

The curfew had been in place from midnight to 4 a.m. in 47 provinces including the capital Bangkok. It had lifted the curfew in 30 provinces, which include the country's main tourist hotspots, over the past week.

Pakistan: 13 killed as US resumes drone strike campaign

The foreign ministry of Pakistan has condemned the strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty

US drones have fired missiles at militant hideouts in north-western Pakistan, killing 13 suspected insurgents and marking the resumption of the CIA-led programme after a nearly six-month break, officials said on Thursday.
The Pakistani foreign ministry condemned the strikes as a violation of sovereignty. The attacks came days after a five-hour siege of Karachi airport left 36 people, including 10 militants, dead which raised concerns over Pakistan's ability to deal with the Pakistani Taliban, who said they had carried out the assault along with an Uzbek militant group. It was not immediately clear if the drone strikes were connected to the airport attack. Pakistan had asked the US to halt drone strikes while it was trying to negotiate a peace deal with the militants, but even before the airport siege those talks had largely collapsed.
The focus has shifted to whether Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, will authorise a large-scale military offensive against the North Waziristan tribal areas where the militants are headquartered. In the first strike, late on Wednesday, a suspected US drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout in North Waziristan near the Afghan border, killing three people.
Then, early on Thursday, another suspected US missile strike targeted a separate militant compound in North Waziristan, killing at least 10 people, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Pakistan's north-west, particularly North Waziristan, is home to numerous militant groups – both local and al-Qaida-linked foreign groups – which often work together, sharing fighters, money or expertise.
There was no immediate information on the identities of those killed in the operation but the two intelligence officials who gave information about the strikes said both were in areas dominated by the Haqqani network, and most of those killed are believed to have belonged to the organisation.

Israel launches massive manhunt for three youths feared kidnapped in West Bank 

Police along with Shin Bet, IDF scanning vicinity near West Bank city for youths missing since late Thursday; families say they have no reason to believe the boys decided to leave home on their own.

Security forces fear three teenage yeshiva boys, all 16 years of age, were kidnapped in the West Bank after they went missing from a hitchhiking spot in the Gush Etzion area Thursday night. 

The youths, all of whom are yeshiva students, went missing during the course of Thursday night and security forces are conducting sweeping searches of the area.
Israel says it holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the well-being of the missing youths.
The army said on Friday that it was seeking intelligence leads that could shed light on the fate of the missing youths. The IDF said that it was holding routine situational assessments with other security arms in order to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing yeshiva students.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been briefed on the latest developments of the search. Netanyahu has convened an emergency security cabinet session with his top defense chiefs at the Kirya Defense Ministry compound in Tel Aviv.
While they do strongly fear the boys were kidnapped, security forces have not yet been able to rule out all other possibilities police said.
According to reports, the IDF and the Shin Bet security service are in touch with their counterparts in the Palestinian Authority security apparatus in an effort to advance the search.

A torched car that was found alongside a highway in the vicinity of the search. Investigators towed away the car and will begin examining the remains in an effort to determine whether there is any connection to the missing students search.
Police were in touch with the families and said that they have no reason to believe that the teenagers decided to go missing on their own, or run away from home or their yeshiva.

Rift between Pak PM Sharif, interior minister Nisar Ali Khan ?

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has developed differences with his powerful interior minister Nisar Ali Khan over issues including the military's spat with Jang media group and talks with the Taliban, media reported on Friday.

The Dawn reported that Khan has stopped giving his weekly press briefing and also has vanished from TV screens.

Khan was not even seen on channels on the night of Karachi airport attack. He has also stopped accompanying Sharif when he attends parliament session and also been missing the parliamentary activities.

He even did not turn up on the day the budget was presented in the National Assembly.

"Since then, the prime minister came to the house twice but Mr Khan was missing each time; earlier, he was always there, by Nawaz Sharif's side as the latter walked in," the paper reported.

One of the two PML-N leaders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, explained how Sharif's cagey way of working had put off many of the party's key leaders including Khan.

The discontentment has worsened with the budget session as the senior leadership had not been provided any information beforehand of the budget.

Khan and many others within the party are not happy that finance minister Ishaq Dar, a relative of Sharif, had not sought their suggestions or shared any information with them about the 2014-15 budget.

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Sgt Bowe Bergdahl arrives back in US

A US soldier held by the Taliban for five years has arrived in Texas to continue his treatment after spending some time recovering in Germany.

Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, 28, is being taken to a military medical centre for the next part of what the military calls a "reintegration mission".
Officials previously said he would be reunited with his family there.
Sgt Bergdahl was freed in a hugely controversial exchange for five Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo Bay.
The US soldier left Ramstein Air Base earlier on Thursday aboard a US military aircraft and arrived in San Antonio early on Friday morning.
A US Army statement said a review into the circumstances of his disappearance from a military base in Afghanistan in 2009 would take place after his treatment had finished. Fellow soldiers accuse him of desertion.
"Our first priority is making sure that Sgt Bergdahl continues to get the care and support he needs," Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm John Kirby said in an earlier statement.
He had been recuperating at a military hospital in Germany since his release.

Sources: DOD memo sent after Benghazi attack listed suspects with Al Qaeda ties

A targeting memo sent to the State Department by the Defense Department’s Africa Command two days after the Benghazi attack listed 11 suspects with ties to Al Qaeda and other groups, counter-terrorism and congressional sources confirmed to Fox News.
This is significant because it arrived two days before then-UN ambassador Susan Rice appeared on television shows blaming the assault on an inflammatory video. It also came nearly a day before presidential aide Ben Rhodes sent an email also suggesting the video – and not a policy failure – was to blame for the Sep, 11, 2012 attack that claimed four American lives.
The memo, which was referred to in passing during recent congressional testimony, was drawn up by the Defense Department's Africa command, known as Africom, and was sent to the State Department as the best available intelligence in the early morning hours of September 14, 2012.
It included the names of 11 suspects, four connected to the Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa known as AQIM, and seven connected to Ansar al-Sharia, a group with ties to the terrorist network.
"They knew from the get-go that Al Qaeda was involved in the attack so the idea that the Obama administration didn't know that early on or they suspected it was something else entirely basically is willful blindness,"said counter-terrorism analyst Thomas Joscelyn of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"You have to look at the facts and what the intelligence says and that intelligence was clear that known Al Qaeda personalities were involved in this attack."

Iraq conflict: All options open to fight insurgents - Obama

US President Barack Obama says his government is looking at "all options", including military action, to help Iraq fight Islamist militants.

But the White House also insisted it had no intention of sending ground troops.
The remarks came after the cities of Mosul and Tikrit fell to Sunni Islamist insurgents during a lightning advance.
The US has begun moving defence contractors working with the Iraqi military to safer areas.
"We can confirm that US citizens, under contract to the government of Iraq, in support of the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme in Iraq, are being temporarily relocated by their companies due to security concerns in the area," state department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.
Several hundred were being evacuated from Balad air base to Baghdad, a US defence official told AFP.
Led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the insurgents are believed to be planning to push further south to the capital, Baghdad, and regions dominated by Iraq's Shia Muslim majority, whom they regard as "infidels".

Romney: US in 'very difficult position' on Iraq

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on "Your World with Neil Cavuto" Thursday that President Obama's past foreign policy decisions have left the U.S. in a "very difficult position" now that it is faced with the crisis in Iraq.
"Unfortunately, the president has not taken the action necessary, has not had the foreign policy necessary, to protect our interests overseas or in various parts of the world," Romney told Cavuto. "All of the decisions made in the past put us in very difficult position now, frankly, with very poor options. This is a consequence of a president who did not take the right actions at the time opportunity presented itself.”
The crisis in Iraq continued to spiral Thursday, as the U.S. evacuated three planeloads of contractors and civilians from a major air base. Fox News also has learned that Iran, a longtime nemesis of Iraq, is sending some 150 elite fighters to the strife-torn nation.
Although the United States reportedly is considering air strikes against Al Qaeda-aligned militants, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday the administration is not contemplating sending ground troops back to the nation it withdrew from three years ago.
“The sad thing is, the limited options we have are the result of poor decisions made in the past," Romney said. "You've got to act at the right time, at the time when opportunity is presented and this president hasn't done that. His foreign policy is what has led to these crises all over the world.”
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Fresh off victory, Wynne eyes ambitious Ontario budget

The morning after winning an unexpected majority government, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne wasted no time using her newfound mandate.
She scheduled a mid-morning meeting with Lieutenant-Governor David Onley to ask him to bring the legislature back, and convened a sit-down with her staff in the premier’s office. Her plan is to reintroduce the budget whose rejection by the opposition last month triggered the election.
Arriving at Queen’s Park around 9:30 a.m., Ms. Wynne was mobbed by a cheering crowd of Liberal staffers as her SUV rolled up to the front steps of the legislature.
“It’s thrilling to be here under these circumstances, I have to say – it’s a great morning,” she told reporters as staff chanted her name. “It feels clearer in some way. We know what we’re going to do, we’ve put out our plan and I’m thrilled to be here and I’m really eager to get on with it.”
With the election done, Ms. Wynne now faces the difficulty of implementing her ambitious agenda, spelled out in the budget. It includes a new provincial pension system designed to double the Canada Pension Plan’s benefits for retirees, $29-billion for transit and highways over a decade and jacked up spending on social programs.
She also faces a sluggish economy and a massive deficit. The Liberals have promised to erase the red ink in three years, in large part by constraining spending, meaning they will have to make difficult decisions in the coming months.
Her majority, however, makes everything much easier politically for the Liberals. Not only will they be able to pass the budget, but the opposition will have a harder time investigating government scandals.
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