Gazette 062014

Friday June 20th 2014

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Iraq crisis: Fierce battles for Baiji and Tal Afar

Islamist-led militants and pro-government forces are engaged in fierce battles for the Baiji oil refinery and Tal Afar airport in northern Iraq.

Baiji, Iraq's biggest refinery, is surrounded by the rebels, who say they have seized most of Tal Afar airport.
The fighting comes a day after the US said it would send some 300 military advisers to help the fight against the insurgents.
President Barack Obama stressed that US troops would not fight in Iraq.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to travel to Iraq soon to press for a more representative cabinet, hoping this could ease tensions between the country's rival Muslim sects.
The country's highest Shia religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has called for a new government to be set up quickly now the results of recent elections have been ratified.
He said a new government needed to aim for "broad national acceptance" and to "remedy past mistakes".
Correspondents say that will be seen by many as criticism of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.
Mr Maliki has been accused of pursuing anti-Sunni policies, pushing some Sunni militants to join the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which has made rapid advances in recent days.
Related : Iraq Violence: Government Forces Prepare To Strike Back At Sunni Islamists After Obama Offers Military Advisers

Iraq's prime minister al-Maliki under pressure amid militant offensive

Iraq's Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, embattled by the militant offensive sweeping his country's north, faces growing calls for him to be forced out of office as Al-Qaeda inspired insurgents press closer to Baghdad.
Nouri al-Maliki, who rose from relative obscurity to the country's top political office in 2006, has seen his credibility challenged by the Sunni militants of the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The insurgents launched a stunning offensive last week that swallowed up a large chunk of northern Iraq, together with the nation's second-largest city, Mosul.

With the country now in turmoil, al-Maliki's rivals have mounted a campaign to force him out of office, with some angling for support from Western backers and regional heavyweights. On Thursday, their effort received a massive boost from President Barack Obama.
Obama stopped short of calling for Nouri al-Maliki to resign, saying "it's not our job to choose Iraq's leaders." But, his carefully worded comments did all but that.
"Only leaders that can govern with an inclusive agenda are going to be able to truly bring the Iraqi people together and help them through this crisis," Obama declared at the White House.

Syria crisis: Car bomb 'kills dozens' in Hama province

A car bomb has killed at least 34 people in a Syrian government-controlled village in central Hama province, state media say.

More than 50 people were reportedly hurt in the attack in Horra village.
The state news agency, Sana, blamed the bombing on rebels who have been fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
More than 160,000 people are estimated to have been killed in Syria's three-year-long uprising.
Another 9.5 million people, or almost half the population, have been driven from their homes.
The Syrian uprising began in 2011 with peaceful protests inspired by the Arab Spring.
It has become a civil war, pitting government forces against rebel factions, many of whom are inspired by Islamist and sectarian rhetoric.
The UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says the death toll in the Horra bombing is likely to rise as many of the injured are in a critical condition.
Separately on Friday, a suicide blast struck a police checkpoint leading into Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, on the main road between Beirut and Damascus. A member of the security forces died in the attack in Dahar al-Baidar.

Hundreds of Egyptian women and girls kidnapped, forced into Islam, claims report

Fifteen-year-old Amira Hafez Wahim slipped out of the Christian church in Luxor, Egypt, where she had attended services with her mother in February, promising to dash to a nearby store and return quickly.
Five months later, she has not been seen since, although her parents immediately suspected a 28-year-old Muslim man named Yasser Mahmoud, who had tried to kidnap her before, had succeeded this time.  When her father went to the Civil Status Authority for a copy of her birth certificate, his fears were confirmed: Her name had been changed and she was now listed as Muslim.

Amira is one of approximately 550 Coptic Christian girls and women who have disappeared in Egypt over the last three years, according to a report from the Egyptian Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearances.
Ebnar Louis, the Cairo activist who founded the association in 2010, said police are typically indifferent to reports of missing girls.
“We file an official police report, but it is often ignored,” Louis told the humanitarian think tank Atlantic Council.
The reasons behind this alleged police indifference are unclear. It could be individual sectarian bias, inadequate resources and funding, or plain incompetence.

Palestinian killed as hunt for Israeli youths continues

A Palestinian teenager has been killed during clashes with Israeli troops searching for three Israeli teenagers believed abducted in the West Bank.

Mohammed Dudin, 15, was shot after violence flared following an arrest raid in village of Dora.
Israel's military says its troops responded with live fire after being attacked with rocks and fire bombs.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested in the hunt for the teenagers, who went missing eight days ago.
Mohammed Dudin is the second Palestinian to have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces searching for the teenagers in the past week.
Israel has accused Hamas of abducting the teenagers. Its search operation has been accompanied by a crackdown on Palestinians linked to Hamas in the West Bank.
No group has claimed to have taken the students.

Palestinian foreign minister: Despite anger over IDF raids, Abbas won't permit intifada 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will prevent any uprising in the West Bank despite escalating tensions with Israel, his foreign minister said on Friday.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki told Reuters that a massive Israeli military sweep following the disappearance of three Jewish youths a week ago was unacceptable, but said Abbas would continue assisting Israel in an effort to end the crisis.

"We will do our utmost to help because if the situation continues as it is, this will end up (with) the destruction of what we have built in Palestine," Malki said.

Malki also warned that a recent reconciliation deal with the Islamist group Hamas would be threatened if, as Israel said, it was responsible for abducting the three youths as they hitchhiked near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

After seven years of feuding, Abbas's secular Fatah movement and its rival Hamas agreed earlier this month to the formation of a unity government, but the disappearance of the seminary students has put an immediate strain on their accord.

"If Hamas is behind it, and nobody knows up until now, then it will be a blow to the reconciliation process," Malki said. "If we reach that conclusion, then the president will take drastic decisions," he said, without elaborating.

Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, has not confirmed or denied accusations that it was behind the abduction.

Some Hamas officials have warned of an Intifada (uprising) if the Israeli raids continue. Two Palestinians have died in the military crackdown this week and violent clashes have broken out in various locations. Israel says it has arrested some 330 Palestinians, including 240 from Hamas.

Security chief escapes suicide bomb attack in Lebanon
 BEIRUT: A suicide bomber killed one person and wounded 37 in an attack at a security checkpoint in Lebanon on Friday that narrowly missed a top security official who said he had been told Islamist militants wanted to assassinate him.

The explosion occurred in the country's Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, an area where Lebanese Sunni Muslim militants opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been targeting his key Lebanese ally, the Shia Muslim Hezbollah movement.

The security official, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said he passed through the checkpoint on the main highway between Beirut and Damascus minutes before the bomber blew himself up, just 200 metres (yards) away from his convoy.

"We miraculously escaped," Ibrahim told Reuters, adding that many officials in Lebanon were being targeted by the reactivation of "terrorist sleeper cells".

"But the security services are ready and on alert to stop them and we won't become another Iraq," he said in reference to the fighting between Shia and Sunni factions in Iraq, where Sunni militants have seized wide swathes of territory.

Ibrahim, a Shia who heads Lebanon's Directorate of General Security (DGS), said security officials had information that Sunni militants were aiming to assassinate him.

"We were suspicious of the (bomber's) car when we were on our way and when the car stopped at the Dahr al-Baydar checkpoint, the explosion went off," he said.

The dead man was a police officer at the checkpoint. The wounded were mainly police, as well as civilians, in the area.

Iran convicts 2 men of spying for Britain, Israel; sentences them to 10 and 5 years in prison

TEHRAN, Iran –  An Iranian court has convicted two men on charges of spying for Britain and Israel and sentenced them to 10 and five years in prison, respectively.
State television on Friday quoted prosecutor Yadollah Movahhed in southeastern Kerman province, where both were tried, as saying that the man sentenced to 10 years had "exchanged information with four British intelligence operatives."

Movahhed says the other man passed on intelligence to a security officer at the Israeli embassy in Thailand. He was arrested last August.
Both men are believed to be Iranians but Movahhed did not provide their names. It was not known if the suspects had defense lawyers or who they were.
Iran occasionally says it has dismantled Western spying networks in the country and announces arrests of individuals on espionage charges.

Iranian child bride faces execution for killing the man she was forced to marry

Iran's judiciary urged to halt Razieh Ebrahimi's execution as international law prohibits execution for crimes by juveniles

Razieh Ebrahimi was forced to marry at the age of 14, became a mother at 15, and killed her husband at 17. Now at 21, she is on Iran's death row.
Ebrahimi, who shot dead her husband while he was sleeping, faces imminent execution, despite international laws prohibiting execution for crimes committed by juveniles.
Human Rights Watch, has urged Iran's judiciary to halt the execution. Earlier this week, Ebrahimi's lawyer also asked judges to consider a retrial, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
"I married our neighbour's son when I was only 14 because my dad insisted," Ebrahimi was quoted as telling officials working on her case, according to Mehr. "My dad insisted I should marry him because he was educated and was working as a teacher. I was 15 when I gave birth to my child." Her child is believed to be now six years old.
"I didn't know who I am or what is life all about," she said soon after being arrested. "My husband mistreated me. He used any excuse to insult me, even attacking me physically."
Ebrahimi is said to have admitted to killing her husband with his own gun before burying him in the garden. Ebrahimi initially told the police her husband was missing but her own father found the dead body and gave her in to the police.
Iran is signatory to the international convenant of civil and political rights (ICCPR) which prohibits death penalty for convicts if their act of crime is committed while they were under the age of 18.
HRW called on the judiciary, which is independent of the Iranian government, to reverse its decision.

7 Soldiers Killed In East Ukraine

Seven Ukrainian troops were killed in overnight fighting in the restive east, an official said Friday, as clashes between government forces and pro-Russia rebels flared ahead of the publication of a presidential peace plan that includes a unilateral cease-fire.

Separatists who want to split from the government in Kiev were operating tanks in the region, a particular sore point for Ukraine, which accuses Russia of letting the vehicles and other heavy weaponry cross the border.
Vladislav Seleznev, spokesman for Ukrainian forces in the east, said in addition to the deaths, 30 troops were injured in fighting near the village of Yampil in the Donetsk region. He said 300 rebels were killed, but that could not be immediately verified.
An Associated Press reporter saw pro-Russia fighters moving in a column with two tanks and three armored personnel carriers near the town of Yanakiyeve in the direction of Horlivka in the separatist Donetsk region. The tanks flew small flags of a pro-Russia militia but otherwise had no markings. The fighters declined to say what they were doing, other than it was a "secret operation."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced concern about the Ukrainian military operation against the rebels but has resisted both the rebels' pleas to join Russia and repeated calls from Russian nationalists for Putin to send troops into Ukraine.
NATO, however, reported Thursday that Russia was resuming a military buildup at the Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed the details of his peace plan on the phone Thursday with Putin. Poroshenko's office said he emphasized the need for introducing effective border controls and quickly releasing hostages seized by the rebels.
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US to send 'military advisers' 

President Barack Obama says the US will send 300 military advisers to Iraq to help fight Islamist-led insurgents.

Mr Obama said the US was prepared for "targeted and precise military action, if and when" required, but added that US troops would not fight in Iraq.
He insisted there was "no military solution" and urged the Shia-led Iraqi government to be "inclusive".
US Secretary of State Kerry is expected to travel to Iraq soon to press for a more representative cabinet.
Iraq has asked the US for air strikes against the Sunni militants - spearheaded by the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) - who have made major territorial gains in the past 10 days.

'I don't believe you!': Paul Ryan levels blistering attack against IRS boss over 'lost' emails explanation

WASHINGTON –  Incredulous lawmakers tore into IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over the agency's claims that subpoenaed emails of ex-official Lois Lerner and other employees are gone forever because a hard drive was destroyed. 
“This is unbelievable," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., angrily told Koskinen. That’s your problem. Nobody believes you.”

Koskinen responded, “I have a long career. That’s the first time anyone’s said I don’t believe you.”
"I don't believe you," Ryan shot back again.
Koskinen set a defiant tone during his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, telling lawmakers he felt no need for the agency to apologize amid accusations of a cover-up in the targeting scandal of conservative groups. Republican lawmakers had demanded the emails between Lerner and other government officials - including at the White House - be turned over to determine whether there was a coordinated effort to stymie conservative groups prior to the 2012 elections.
“I don’t think an apology is owed,” he said. “We haven’t lost an email since the start of this investigation.”

President Obama took credit in 2012 for withdrawing all troops from Iraq. Today he said something different.

President Obama surprised a few people during a news conference Thursday by claiming that the 2011 decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, a politically popular move on the eve of an election year, was made entirely by his Iraqi counterpart. The implication ran counter to a number of claims that Obama has made in the past, most notably during a tight campaign season two years ago, when he suggested that it was his decision to leave Iraq and end an unpopular war.

His remarks, coming as an Islamist insurgency seizes territory across northern Iraq and threatens the central government, recalled key moments in his reelection race when he called his opponent hopelessly out of step with Middle East realities for wanting to keep U.S. forces in the still-fragile country America had invaded nearly a decade earlier.

In the 2012 campaign’s stretch, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney met inside the performing arts center of Lynn University for the last of three presidential debates. The race remained close, and in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA-run annex in Benghazi, Libya, the Romney team saw foreign policy as an area of potential vulnerability for the incumbent. The debate focused on the issue.-
Senators call for 12-cent gas-tax increase to replenish highway fund 

As Congress works to approve a short-term infusion of cash to prevent a halt in highway and road construction projects this summer, a pair of senators called Wednesday for raising national fuel taxes by 12 cents a gallon over the next two years as part of a plan to ensure the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund.
Conceding that it might not be an easy political sell, especially in an election year, Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut called their proposal the most straightforward solution to address shortfalls in what was designed to be a self-sustaining fund for infrastructure projects.
The 18.4-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline has not been raised for more than two decades, and an increase in vehicle fuel efficiency has led to shrinking revenue for the fund.
The previous two-year transportation bill tapped the Treasury to make up for a projected gap, but the trust fund ran dry faster than anticipated.
The senators' plan would raise the gas tax 6 cents in 2015 and again in 2016, and then provide for future annual increases at the rate of inflation.

Texas governor: I stepped in it

Gov. Rick Perry admitted he fumbled the ball when he recently compared homosexuality to alcoholism.

"I stepped right in it," the Texas Republican said Thursday at an event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, which also aired on C-SPAN.
The potential presidential candidate, who was unsuccessful in his 2012 White House bid, didn't necessarily distance himself from the comments or apologize, but said he'd rather be talking about other issues.
"We need to be a really respectful and tolerant country to everybody...Whether you're gay or straight, you need to be having a job, and those are the focuses that I want to be involved with," he said.
"We're an incredibly diverse mosaic of a country," Perry continued. "A lot of these issues need to be decided at the state level."
Christie: Perry is 'wrong' on homosexuality-alcoholism comparison
The day before, on Wednesday, Perry stood by the comments on CNN's "Crossfire" when he was asked by co-host Stephanie Cutter whether he believes homosexuality is a disease.
"I think my position has been fairly clear on that for a substantial period of time," Perry said, pivoting quickly to the economy.
The focus should be on American jobs, Perry said, "and that is not on these social issues."
"I think the social issues should be decided state-by-state rather than being something in Washington, D.C. to try to make one-size-fits-all."
At a speech last week in San Francisco, the longtime Republican governor – who ran for the White House in 2012 and is considering another bid in 2016 – was asked whether he thought homosexuality was a disorder.
"I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that – and I look at the homosexual issue the same way," Perry said during that event, immediately sparking backlash from Democrats and gay rights organizations.
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