Gazette 090414

Thursday September 4th 2014

As Syrian Al Qaeda Fighters Get Closer, Israel Concerned It Is Next Target

MEROM GOLAN, Golan Heights (AP) — For the first time in the Syrian civil war, al-Qaida fighters are hunkered down on Israel's doorstep, and Israelis in the lush, hilly Golan Heights who have long considered Syrian President Bashar Assad their bitter foe are now worried about something more ominous — that they could become the militants' next target.
The push into the Golan by the Nusra Front, as al-Qaida's branch in Syria is known, comes just two weeks after Israel ended a 50-day war against Hamas on its southern border with the Gaza Strip, giving the conflict-weary nation another cause for concern.
Israelis in the Golan have grown accustomed to hearing the sound of distant battles between rival forces in Syria's civil war.

But last week's seizure of the strategic Quneitra border crossing by a mix of rebels — including the Nusra Front, fighters of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and others — has created an unprecedented situation that has brought the extremists to within just a few meters (yards) of Israeli positions.
The Syrian government is "not our cup of tea," said Gabi Kuniel, an Israeli who tends vineyards recently damaged by mortar shells when the violence spilled over to the Israeli-held side of the strategic Golan Heights.

Britain to arm Kurds fighting Isis in northern Iraq

Senior British officer dispatched to advise Kurdish forces, but no arms will be sent to Baghdad until it has formed government

David Cameron at the Nato summit near Newport, south Wales. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/Reuters

The UK is to directly arm Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and has sent a senior military officer to advise them, prior to what may be a larger Nato-led operation in the region.
Britain has so far been a conduit for transporting non-lethal military equipment and ammunition sent by other countries, notably Albania, but has not itself sent firearms or munitions. On Wednesday, Britain delivered 10 tonnes of body armour, helmets and equipment. Albanian ammunition is needed since the Kurdish fighters have largely Russian-made hardware.
Britain has been one of the last western countries to offer to arm the Kurds with similar decisions already taken by Italy, France, the US, Australia and some smaller countries. British hesitation may have been in deference to objections from Turkey. The UK has been sending Tornados on reconnaissance missions.
Downing Street also confirmed that Lt Gen Sir Simon Mayall, the Ministry of Defence's Middle East envoy, had arrived in Irbil to act as the direct representative of the prime minister.
No 10 will not be sending arms to Baghdad until it has formed a government, due to completed by 11 September.
The removal of the previous sectarian Iraqi leader, Nouri al-Maliki, and his replacement by Haider al-Abadi followed intense lobbying by the Americans, especially the vice-president, Joe Biden. A No 10 spokesman said the Iraqis had been working to the date of 11 September for the formation of a new administration, but talks in Baghdad have been stalled as Sunnis, Shias and Kurds wrangle over splitting up the ministries.Sunnis have been looking for as many as 40%.

British researchers 'missing' in Qatar

The UK Foreign Office is looking into reports that two British men in Qatar who were investigating the treatment of migrant workers have gone missing.

Krishna Upadhyaya, 52, and Gundev Ghimire, 36, have not been heard from since Sunday, the organisation they were working for said.
The Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) said it suspected the men had been detained.
But it said Qatari authorities had denied having any information.
The men, both of Nepalese origin, had been in Qatar since 27 August, GNRD, a Norway-based non-governmental organisation, said.
Mr Upadhyaya, a researcher, and photographer Mr Ghimire had been conducting research for a report on human rights in the country, which will host the World Cup in 2022.
Qatar has faced criticised over the conditions migrants are working in ahead of the football tournament.
'Deeply concerned' Mr Upadhyaya sent a text message to a friend in Norway on Saturday claiming the pair were being followed by the police, GNRD said.
The men were due to leave the country the following day, but the human rights organisation said it had not heard from them.
GNRD said the British embassy in Doha had told it Mr Upadhyaya had checked out of his hotel, but did not board his flight to Norway.

Taliban kill 12 in attack on Afghan government compound

KABUL, Afghanistan –  The Taliban struck a government compound in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday in a dawn attack that included two suicide truck bombings and left at least 12 people dead, including 10 policemen asleep in their quarters nearby.
The assault followed a stark message from the Taliban to world leaders gathered at a NATO summit in Wales, which will also discuss the drawdown of the alliance's mission in Afghanistan.

The exit of all foreign combat troops at the end of the year is proof that "no nation is able to subdue a free nation, especially a nation proud and free such as Afghanistan," the Taliban note said.
Thursday's attack started at sunrise, with the Taliban setting off two massive suicide truck bombs outside the government compound in the provincial capital of Ghazni, followed by an assault by nearly a dozen gunmen.
The assault triggered a gunbattle with policemen and security forces at the compound and all 21 assailants were subsequently killed, including the two suicide bombers, the Interior Ministry said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message sent to media.
The bombs blew out many windows across the city, and left about 200 people injured, mostly from flying glass, said Ghazni Gov. Musa Khan Akbarzada. He said one truck carved a 10-yard hole into the ground. The Interior Ministry put the number of wounded at 130.

UN: 250,000 Have Fled Militia Fighting In Libya

CAIRO (AP) — A United Nations report says four months of fighting by militias in Libya's two biggest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi, has forced some 250,000 people to flee, including 100,000 who have been internally displaced.
The report released Thursday by the U.N. Support Mission in Libya and the U.N. Human Rights Office estimated that some 150,000 people, including migrant workers, have fled the country. The report says a "climate of fear" has made citizens reluctant to speak about militia abuses.
The last four months have seen a renegade general battle Islamic militants in the eastern city of Benghazi -- cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled Moammar Gadhafi -- and powerful regional militias fight for control of the international airport in Tripoli. Islamist-allied militias have seized virtually all of the capital.

Russia criticised at Nato talks

Western leaders have criticised Russia for its "destabilising" influence on the crisis in eastern Ukraine, as they opened a Nato summit in Wales.

They said pressure on Russia would be increased if it did not change course. Russia denies claims that it arms rebels and has troops in Ukraine.
Separately, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and rebel leaders said a ceasefire could be agreed on Friday.
Some 2,600 people have died in fighting between Ukrainian troops and rebels.
Ukraine's military said 837 its soldiers have died since the conflict erupted in April.
The conflict has forced more than a million people from their homes in eastern Ukraine, according to the UN.
Ukrainian government forces have recently suffered several losses of territory, after rebels launched offensives in both the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and further south around the city of Mariupol on the Azov Sea.
Reports are emerging that the separatists have begun shelling the outer defences of Mariupol. At least two military vehicles were seen on fire in the area, and eyewitnesses spoke of gunfire.
Meanwhile, President Poroshenko said "the implementation" of a peace plan - which includes a bilateral ceasefire - could start on Friday.
He said this depended on planned talks in Minsk between representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the pro-Russian rebels and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Rebel leaders were later quoted as saying they would order a ceasefire at 11:00 GMT on Friday if the peace plan was agreed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier he hope a deal could be agreed on Friday.

Russia: Ukraine's desire to join NATO threatens peace talks

MOSCOW –  Russia's foreign minister warned Thursday that Ukraine's NATO ambitions are threatening to derail peace talks in eastern Ukraine. Undeterred, Ukraine's president began a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama and other top NATO leaders in Wales.
Russia and Ukraine said Wednesday they are working on a deal to halt months of fighting in eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin spelled out a seven-point plan for ending hostilities and expressed hope for a breakthrough at talks in Minsk, Belarus, on Friday.

But Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks Thursday that statements by senior government officials in Kiev that Ukraine will be seeking to join NATO are "a blatant attempt to derail all the efforts" to seek a peaceful solution in Ukraine.
NATO leaders are meeting this week for a summit at a golf resort in southern Wales. Before official proceedings began, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended a meeting with Obama and leaders of four major European powers in the alliance: British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi
Poroshenko was to meet later in the day with heads of state and government from all 28 NATO member states. NATO officials have made clear that membership for Ukraine isn't in the cards anytime soon, but the alliance is expected to express solid support for Poroshenko's government and announce an increase in nonlethal aid for Ukraine's military,

France halts delivery of warship to Russia

French officials say they will not deliver the first Mistral-class amphibious warship that Russia has ordered from Paris as part of a $US1.7 billion ($1.83 billion) weapons sale, a strong rebuke after months of aggressive actions by Russia in eastern Ukraine.
French officials said in a statement they assessed the situation in Ukraine to be "serious" and believed Russia's actions undermined security in Europe. The statement did not say whether France will would deliver the ship in the future, but said the conditions for it to do so "have so far not been met," despite the possibility of a cease-fire in Ukraine.
"The recent actions by Russia in eastern Ukraine are contrary to the basic notions of security in Europe," the statement said.
The decision marks a turnaround for France, which had signalled as recently as Monday that it intended to complete the sale. Pressure had been building on Paris to hold the ship back, however, especially after NATO said it had determined that Russia had sent troops and military equipment into Ukraine.
French officials have spent years defending the arms sale, in which France beat rival nations such as Germany and Spain to sell ships to the Russians. US officials and nations in Eastern Europe had warned long before Russia's recent actions in Ukraine that bolstering Russia's navy was a bad idea, and the criticism reached a peak in recent days.
The deal in question dates to January 2011 and would have provided four of France's Mistral warships to Russia, whose navy is relatively weak. The first two ships would be built by French contractor DCNS, and the second two would be built in Russia and then delivered to the Russian navy.
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'Al-Qaida leader announces formation of Indian branch

Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims across Indian subcontinent to join 'caravan of jihad'

Link to video: Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls for Islamist resurgence in India Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, has announced the formation of an Indian branch of the extremist organisation, calling on Muslims across the subcontinent to join the "caravan of jihad".
In a 56-minute video posted online on Wednesday, Zawahiri also renewed a longstanding vow of loyalty to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, and sniped at Islamic State (Isis), the Syria- and Iraq-based group, which has challenged al-Qaida's increasingly shaky leadership of transnational Islamic militancy in recent months.
Zawahiri, who has led al-Qaida since the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, said the new "al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent" would be "the standard bearer" of Bin Laden's "global message, which aimed to unite the [world's Muslims] in jihad against [the] enemy, liberate occupied lands and establish the caliphate".
It would fight on behalf of Muslims suffering "injustice and oppression … in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujarat, Ahmedabad and Kashmir", Zawahiri said.
Al-Qaida has struggled to respond to the challenge to its authority posed by Isis, which has seized huge areas of strategically vital territory in the centre of the Middle East, including cities, weapons dumps and oilfields.

One al-Qaida strategy to counter its decline appears to be an effort to build support among the nearly half a billion Muslims who live in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
The video calls for the establishment of an "Islamic state in the Indian subcontinent" and emphasises al-Qaida's traditional role of unifying disparate militant groups. The reference to the caliphate, in an edited speech by Bin Laden, also appears in part directed at the group's new rivals.

Iran, U.S. meet as search for nuclear deal intensifies

Iran and the United States met in Geneva for bilateral talks on Thursday as international diplomacy intensifies to end a decade-old dispute over Tehran’s atomic activities by a new deadline in late November.
The office of European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton confirmed Iran and six world powers would hold their first negotiating round since they failed to meet a July 20 target date for an agreement in New York on Sept. 18.
The deadline was extended until Nov. 24 after six months of talks because wide gaps persisted over the future scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which can have both civilian and military applications.
The six powers - the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain - aim to persuade Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for phasing out sanctions that have severely hurt its oil-dependent economy.
The election last year of President Hassan Rouhani, widely seen as a pragmatist, raised hopes of a settlement of the standoff after years of soaring tension and fears of a new Middle East war, and an interim accord was reached between Iran and the six powers in Geneva late last year.
But Western diplomats say the sides remain far apart on what a final deal should look like - especially on the issue of how many enrichment centrifuges Iran can operate - and that a successful outcome in the negotiations is far from guaranteed.
Western countries suspect Iran’s program is aimed at seeking the capability to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran says it is a peaceful project to generate electricity.
Thursday’s meeting in Geneva between senior Iranian and U.S. officials was the second time they held talks in the Swiss city in the past month.
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Barack Obama looks to Muslim countries for help in crushing Isis

With UK and other western nations arming Kurds, US seeks allies in Middle East and Gulf to 'destroy cancer' of Islamic State

Barack Obama has called for a "broad-based international coalition" to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State (Isis) after the beheading of the American journalist Steven Sotloff. But it is not clear which countries would take part in such a grouping and, crucially, whether its mission would be limited to Iraq or include fighting the jihadis in their Syrian strongholds.
In Washington and London, government officials say they had long known that their nationals were being held hostage by the extremist group, so the latest killing, plus the now explicit threat to murder a UK captive, will not change their fundamental calculations.
Talk of building a coalition to tackle Isis has been in the diplomatic air for the past two weeks, but Obama gave deeper insight into his thinking on Wednesday: "The question is going to be making sure we have the right strategy but also making sure that we have got the international will to do it," the president said. "What we have got to make sure is that we are organising the Arab world, the Middle East, the Muslim world, along with the international community to isolate this cancer."
UK participation in air strikes looks closer than before given David Cameron's comments about working with the Iraqi government as well as "allies and neighbours" – echoing Obama's language and assumptions. Britain, France, Germany and Italy have all been arming Kurdish forces fighting Isis. Outside Nato, Australia has been keen. With formal requests from the Kurdish regional government in Erbil as well as the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, a new "coalition of the willing" looks likely to come together.

Justice department inquiry to focus on practices of police in Ferguson

WASHINGTON: The justice department will open a broad civil rights investigation into police practices in Ferguson, Mo., where a white police officer killed an unarmed black teenager last month and set off days of racially charged unrest, the city's police chief and other officials said on Wednesday.

The inquiry is in addition to the FBI civil rights investigation that is looking specifically into the shooting of the teenager, Michael Brown, on August 9. The new investigation is expected to be announced soon, according to two federal government officials who were briefed on the plans.

The broader Justice Department inquiry will cover whether the police in Ferguson have a history of discrimination or misuse of force beyond the Brown case, but the Justice Department has not ruled out expanding it to other St. Louis County departments, one of the federal officials said. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation had not been formally announced.

Attorney General Eric H Holder Jr and his aides first discussed such an investigation weeks ago, immediately after the death of Brown, 18, when reports surfaced that the Ferguson police force had previously been accused of abuse.

Fast food strikes: Arrests across country as workers ask for $15 minimum wage

• Protests planned Thursday in more than 100 cities
• Arrests in New York, Chicago, Detroit, St Louis, Las Vegas, elsewhere
• Service industry workers’ union throws weight behind movement
• McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut among affected chains
• Fast food workers plan biggest US strike over minimum wage

US ground troops to train in Ukraine next week

The Pentagon says 200 U.S. soldiers will participate in an exercise in western Ukraine starting next week. It would be the first presence of American ground troops in Ukraine since the crisis with Russian-backed separatists began.
The annual exercise, called Rapid Trident, involves forces from 15 nations and will not involve live firing of weapons. A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said it will be a peacekeeping exercise with training through Sept. 26 in convoy operations, patrolling and methods of countering improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Warren said the U.S. troops are from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy.
The Pentagon also announced it has delivered more non-lethal aid to the Ukrainian military, including helmets, explosive ordnance disposal robots, sleeping mats, jackets, radios, body armor and first-aid kits.

Sotloff beheading: Murdered reporter's family speaks

The family of US journalist Steven Sotloff have spoken publicly for the first time since a video of his beheading was released by militants.

They said that the reporter gave his life to covering the suffering of people in war zones, but was "no hero".
Mr Sotloff "tried to find good concealed in a world of darkness".
Vice President Joe Biden said that Islamic State militants who killed him and another US man, James Foley, would be pursued "to the gates of hell".
'Emerge stronger' Speaking at a press conference in Florida, Sotloff family spokesman Barak Barfi said that Steven "wanted to give voice to those who had none".
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