Saudi Arabia and UAE to lend Egypt up to $8 billion
RT | July 9, 2013
The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will give Egypt money in the wake of its political and economic crisis. The UAE will provide Cairo with $1 billion and lend it a further $2 billion, while Saudi Arabia will give Egypt a $5 billion aid package.
The UAE loan would be in the form of a $2 billion interest free deposit in Egypt’s central bank, state news agency WAM reported on Tuesday. Abu Dhabi will also to give Egypt $1 billion.
The UAE delegation to Cairo included the Gulf country’s national security adviser, foreign minister and energy minister. The visit was to “show full support to the people of Egypt – political support, economic support,” Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty told Reuters.
The UAE was one of the first countries to congratulate Egypt following the army’s decision to oust the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi.
“The UAE stands by Egypt and its people at this stage and trusts the choices of its people. Egypt’s security and stability are the basis of Arab security,” WAM quoted UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Hazza bin Zayad as saying.
The UAE’s foreign minister also stated that the Egyptian army proved that it was a “strong shield” and “protector,” which guarantees that the country embraced all the components of the people.
Saudi Arabia also approved a $5 billion aid package to Egypt Tuesday, comprising of a $2 billion central bank deposit, $2 billion in energy products, and $1 billion in cash, Saudi finance minister Ibrahim Alassaf said. […]
Multi-billion-dollar aid from Saudi Arabia and the UAE is another sign that these two countries had a hand in the military coup which took place in Egypt, believes RT’s contributing analyst in London, Afshin Rattansi.
“We now realize it is much more a Saudi-backed military coup. And as for this General al-Sisi person, who is a former military attaché in Saudi Arabia, he is Saudi’s man… Saudi Arabia, they’ve taken over the largest country in the Arab world,” Rattansi said.
He also described the current interim leaders of Egypt – President Mansour and Prime Minister Beblawi, as “puppets of Saudi Arabia”, who will be ousted at once if they attempt to criticize Saudi Arabia or the UAE. … Full article
Foreign-backed Syrian opposition-assigned ‘prime minister’ resigns
Press TV – July 9, 2013
A foreign-backed Syrian opposition figure, Ghassan Hitto, who had been proclaimed by the divided Syrian National Coalition (SNC) as “prime minister” and tasked to form an “interim government,” has resigned.
On Monday, Hitto announced his resignation in a statement only four months after his appointment, citing his inability to form the “interim government,” amid the escalating divisions and the infighting within the SNC.
The foreign-backed opposition formed the SNC back in November 2012 with Moaz al-Khatib as its head.
Khatib also announced his resignation a few months after his appointment.
George Sabra became acting president of the SNC in April 2013, shortly after Khatib had resigned.
On Saturday, the SNC elected a Saudi-linked member, Ahmad Assi Jarba, as its new president during its latest meeting in the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Jarba received 55 votes, defeating Mustafa al-Sabbagh, Qatar’s point man in the opposition, in the second round of the election at the group’s meeting in Istanbul, where the foreign-backed Syrian opposition group is based.
Jarba is a tribal figure from the eastern Hasaka Province with connections to Saudi Arabia, which has been supporting the militants in Syria.
The divisions within the foreign-backed opposition comes as the Syrian army has been gaining further ground against the militants. Syrian forces drove out militants from Ghouta, Zamalka and Irbin neighborhoods, inflicting heavy losses on the armed groups.
On July 6, Syrian army restored security to the industrial area of al-Qaboun, east of the capital. The army also retook control of the northwestern part of the Sayyida Zeinab camp near Damascus.
The foreign-sponsored militancy in Syria has taken its toll on the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, since March 2011.
In an interview with Syrian daily Al-Thawra published on July 4, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the opposition and their foreign supporters have “exhausted all their tools” in a conspiracy against Syria.
Related article
- “Syrian Opposition Won’t Attend Geneva II unless It Becomes Militarily Strong” (alethonews.wordpress.com)
“Syrian Opposition Won’t Attend Geneva II unless It Becomes Militarily Strong”
Al-Manar | July 8, 2013
The new head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition said he expected advanced weapons supplied by Saudi Arabia to reach militant mercenaries soon, strengthening their currently weak military position.
Ahmad Jarba, who has close links to Saudi Arabia, told Reuters in his first interview since being elected president of the coalition on Saturday that the opposition would not go to a proposed peace conference in Geneva sponsored by the United States and Russia unless its military position improves.
“Geneva in these circumstances is not possible. If we are going to go to Geneva we have to be strong on the ground, unlike the situation now, which is weak,” Jarba said on Sunday after returning from the northern Syrian province of Idlib, where he met commanders of insurgents’ brigades.
Asked if shoulder-fired weapons that could blunt President Bashar al-Assad’s massive advantage in armor and air power would reach the militant groups after Saudi Arabia took a lead role in supporting the opposition in recent weeks, Jarba said: “We are pushing in this direction.”
“I think the situation is better than before. I think these weapons will arrive in Syria soon,” he stated.
“We are working on getting advanced and medium-range weapons to the Free Syrian army and the liberated areas,” he added referring to the regions occupied by the armed opposition groups of foreign mercenaries fighting the Syrian government and people.
Jarba offered Assad’s forces a truce for the duration of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Tuesday, to stop fighting in the city of Homs, where armed gangs face a ferocious ground and air onslaught by the Syrian army. There has been no indication that the government is ready to accept such a truce, probable to fears of more military support the opposition might receive from foreign actors.
Homs, 140 km (90 miles) north of Damascus, is situated at a strategic crossing linking the capital with army bases in coastal. The city also links Damascus and the coast with neighboring Lebanon.
“We are staring at a real humanitarian disaster in Homs. Assad, whose military machine was on the verge of defeat, has been propped up by Iran and its Hezbollah proxy,” Jarba said, denying all the massacres committed by his militant groups against the people of Aleppo, Homs, Idlib, Hama, Latakia and Deir Ezzor.
“I will not rest until I procure the advanced weapons needed to hit back at Assad and his allies. … I give myself one month to achieve what I am intent on doing,” Jarba said in an implicit hint at his intend to arm the opposition groups during month of Ramadan and exploit any possible truce period.
Jarba was speaking in Istanbul after a meeting of the so-called Syrian National Coalition, which has little physical presence in Syria and little influence over al-Nusra Front militant brigades that play a major role in the fight against President Assad’s forces.
Brzezinski: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, their western allies orchestrated Syria crisis
Press TV – June 29, 2013
The former US national security adviser says the ongoing crisis in Syria has been orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and their western allies.
“In late 2011 there are outbreaks in Syria produced by a drought and abetted by two well-known autocracies in the Middle East: Qatar and Saudi Arabia,” Zbigniew Brzezinski said in an interview with The National Interest on June 24.
He added that US President Barack Obama also supported the unrest in Syria and suddenly announced that President Bashar al-Assad “has to go — without, apparently, any real preparation for making that happen.”
“Then in the spring of 2012, the election year here, the CIA under General Petraeus, according to The New York Times of March 24th of this year, a very revealing article, mounts a large-scale effort to assist the Qataris and the Saudis and link them somehow with the Turks in that effort,” said Brzezinski, who was former White House national security adviser under Jimmy Carter and now a counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a senior research professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
Criticizing the Obama administration’s policies regarding Syria, he questioned, “Was this a strategic position? Why did we all of a sudden decide that Syria had to be destabilized and its government overthrown? Had it ever been explained to the American people? Then in the latter part of 2012, especially after the elections, the tide of conflict turns somewhat against the rebels. And it becomes clear that not all of those rebels are all that ‘democratic.’ And so the whole policy begins to be reconsidered.”
“I think these things need to be clarified so that one can have a more insightful understanding of what exactly US policy was aiming at,” Brzezinski added.
He also called on US officials to push much more urgently to draw in China, Russia and other regional powers to reach some kind of peaceful end to the Syrian crisis.
“I think if we tackle the issue alone with the Russians, which I think has to be done because they’re involved partially, and if we do it relying primarily on the former colonial powers in the region-France and Great Britain, who are really hated in the region-the chances of success are not as high as if we do engage in it, somehow, with China, India and Japan, which have a stake in a more stable Middle East,” Brzezinski said.
Brzezinski also warned again any US-led military intervention in Syria or arming the militants fighting government forces there.
“I’m afraid that we’re headed toward an ineffective American intervention, which is even worse. There are circumstances in which intervention is not the best but also not the worst of all outcomes. But what you are talking about means increasing our aid to the least effective of the forces opposing Assad. So at best, it’s simply damaging to our credibility. At worst, it hastens the victory of groups that are much more hostile to us than Assad ever was. I still do not understand why — and that refers to my first answer — why we concluded somewhere back in 2011 or 2012 — an election year, incidentally that Assad should go.”
Foreign-sponsored militancy in Syria, which erupted in March 2011, has claimed the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel.
The New York Times said in a recent report the CIA was cooperating with Turkey and a number of other regional governments to supply arms to militants fighting the government in Syria.
The report comes as the US has repeatedly voiced concern over weapons falling into the hands of al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups.
Al-Nusra Front was named a terrorist organization by Washington last December, even though it has been fighting with the US-backed so-called Free Syrian Army in its battle against Damascus.
~
Excerpt from TNI interview:
Heilbrunn: Are we, in fact, witnessing a delayed chain reaction? The dream of the neoconservatives, when they entered Iraq, was to create a domino effect in the Middle East, in which we would topple one regime after the other. Is this, in fact, a macabre realization of that aspiration?
Brzezinski: True, that might be the case. They hope that in a sense Syria would redeem what happened originally in Iraq. But I think what we have to bear in mind is that in this particular case the regional situation as a whole is more volatile than it was when they invaded Iraq, and perhaps their views are also infected by the notion, shared by some Israeli right-wingers, that Israel’s strategic prospects are best served if all of its adjoining neighbors are destabilized. I happen to think that is a long-term formula for disaster for Israel, because its byproduct, if it happens, is the elimination of American influence in the region, with Israel left ultimately on its own. I don’t think that’s good for Israel, and, to me, more importantly, because I look at the problems from the vantage point of American national interest, it’s not very good for us.
Hezbollah fighting in Syria to defend Lebanon from bloodbath
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya | RT | June 26, 2013
Mainstream media fail to mention that key anti-government forces in Syria swore to kill all the Shiite Muslims and to march straight into Lebanon after Syria.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, announced his party’s entry into the Syrian conflict on May 25, 2013. The Syrian National Coalition immediately denounced Hezbollah while the US Department of State reacted to Nasrallah’s announcement on May 29 by demanding an immediate withdrawal of Hezbollah’s fighters from Syria. The rubber stamp Arab League would eventually, and very predictability, condemn Hezbollah’s entry into the Syrian conflict, whereas it has ignored the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and their allies.
Qusayr, situated on the road between Damascus and the Mediterranean coastline of Syria in the northwestern portion of the Syrian Governate of Homs, would become a central focus of Hezbollah’s involvement inside Syria. After the victory in Qusayr, the war hawk Charles Krauthammer would embarrassingly proclaim that the US was hesitating too much while Russia and Iran were taking charge of the situation in Syria with Hezbollah.
The US had not hesitated in reality, but had failed to topple the government in Damascus. Most probably prompted by the pressure of their Saudi and Qatari paymasters, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government would react to the victory in Qusayr by cutting its ties with Syria, calling for a no-fly zone, and attacking Hezbollah for its involvement in the Syrian conflict. As an indicator of the failure of its regime change project, the Obama Administration would leak to the press that it was considering a no-fly zone too. Ironically, Egypt’s President Morsi and many of the same people that criticize Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia for their involvement in Syria refuse to criticize Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, British, French, Jordanian, Israeli, and American involvement.
Hezbollah is also a Target of the Syrian Conflict
Undoubtedly Hezbollah did discuss its intentions to enter the Syrian conflict with its patrons in Tehran and coordinated with Iran and then, to a lesser extent, with Russia through Iranian officials and through consultations with Aleksandr Zasypkin, Russia’s ambassador to Lebanon, and then Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov during his April 2013 visit to Beirut. The involvement of Hezbollah in Syria, however, is purely defensive. Moreover, Hezbollah is one of the last external players to be involved in Syria.
It is the same type of reports that constantly claim there is a substantial Iranian military presence in Syria, but can never manage to give solid proof or any form of confirmation about their claims, that are the ones that simplistically de-contextualize Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria. For example, rockets were launched into Dahiyeh, the working class southern suburb of Beirut that is the political stronghold of Hezbollah in Lebanon’s capital district, and the town of Hermel, in Bekaa, hours after Nasrallah announced his party would enter the Syrian conflict.
Most reports about this failed to recognize the nature of the rocket attacks. The rocket strikes were more than a mere warning from the anti-government forces inside Syria, in fact they were part of a steady stream of escalation that deliberately aimed at expanding the war into Lebanon and spreading the fires of sedition. Attacks were being conducted in areas inhabited by Hezbollah supporters much earlier and before Hezbollah even intervened in Syria. Whether it is done intentionally or unintentionally, this type of reporting conceals the fact that Hezbollah intervened in Syria mainly to protect itself and Lebanon’s diverse population, and it fails to identify who the real perpetrators of the violence are. The mainstream media in places like the US and UK also fails to mention that key divisions of the anti-government forces inside Syria have sworn to kill all the Shiite Muslims they get their hands on, and to march straight into Lebanon after Syria.
From the beginning of the Syrian conflict Hezbollah agreed that the Syrian people should have the democratic freedoms that Hezbollah itself enjoys in Lebanon and it has agreed that Syria is in need of political reforms. Its entry into the Syrian conflict is aimed at preventing the takfiri death squads that have amassed in Syria from marching against Lebanon and committing the same type of crimes in the towns and homes of the Lebanese people they have been committing against the Syrian people. Because the takfiris have announced that they will purge the Levant of the Shiite Muslims and all others that they do not accept, the conflict was unavoidable. Rather than wait, Hezbollah chose to act in a war that the anti-government forces in Syria deliberately initiated against Hezbollah through a stream of assaults on the Shiites living on the Lebanese-Syrian border. As a preview of what is in store for the Shiites, after their defeat in Qusayr, the anti-government militias marched into Hatla and massacred many of its residents, including old people and young children who all had their throats slit. One video of the massacre titled “The storming and cleansing of Hatla” surfaced with the man filming it stating that all the Shia Muslims would suffer the same fate. What happened in Hatla, including stories about vicious rapes and mutilations, has only strengthened the support in Lebanon for Hezbollah’s intervention.
Hezbollah is protecting Lebanon and the Levant’s minority groups
On July 14, Nasrallah went on Lebanese television to say that Hezbollah was fighting to defend both the people of Lebanon and Syria from the abominations of “an American, Israeli and takfiri project to destroy not only Syria but the entire region.” Speaking on Al-Manar, he told his supporters and allies that the entire world had gone to Syria to fight in one way or another using their money or shipping weapons or through media warfare. It was only natural for Hezbollah as one of the main targets of the war to get involved. He added that the Lebanese government had unfortunately failed to protect the 30,000 Lebanese Christians and Muslims that have been attacked by the Syrian anti-government forces on their borders. Hezbollah acted to protect them.
Nasrallah’s sentiments are widely shared inside and outside Lebanon. According to Mohsen Saleh, a professor of political philosophy at the Lebanese University and an expert on Hezbollah, the threat of “takfirism” is now working to terminate all diversity in the region in league with Israel and the US. The Muslim Brotherhood is tied to this project too, but “it is now collapsing and in a state of decay” according to Saleh. “The Brotherhood came into power a hundred years too late,” he told me. While visiting him at his office, he explained that all of Lebanon’s different communities are afraid of the takfiris as they have witnessed their crimes in Syria. This is why the Maronite Catholic Church and the multitude of Christian denominations in Lebanon are increasingly standing behind Hezbollah. He confidently said that all of Lebanon’s different sects will improve their relations with Hezbollah due to the mutual threat they all face. When I asked Saleh about Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate, who is linked to Hezbollah’s rivals in Lebanon, he pointed out that Tamman Saeb Salam is not a puppet. In a discreet gesture of support distinguishing him from the Hariri camp, Tamman has said that Hezbollah will remain a resistance group no matter what happens due to its intervention in Syria.
The Druze community, which is the Lebanese group that is the most vulnerable to a takfiri attack in the country, is reconsidering its relationship with Hezbollah. The Druze community is also unhappy about the statements of Walid Jumblatt, its prime chieftain, which have been supportive of anti-government activities in Syria. Trying to please his Saudi paymaster in Riyadh, Jumblatt has gone as far as to say that he personally supports the Saudi-backed Jubhat Al-Nusra. Well aware of the dangers to their community, the Druze of Syria have shunned Jumblatt and continued to support the Syrian government.
Russian officials have also supported Hezbollah’s stance, Moscow views Hezbollah’s position as one that aims to protect the different people of Lebanon and Syria. Moscow does not want the takfiri brigades to enter the North Caucasus or to attack any of its sister-republics and allies in Central Asia. As opposed to the United States and its allies, Russian foreign policy in the Middle East openly promotes diversity and the protection of Christians and minority groups.
Unlike Hezbollah, the US Does Not Give a Damn about Arab Christians
Dr. Naji Hayek, a Lebanese Christian, sums it all up by stating: “Hezbollah is fighting for us, for me!” He made the statement after we watched Michel Aoun live on Orange TV declaring that he supported Hezbollah after fighting erupted in the Lebanese city of Sidon. If the takfiris make inroads into Lebanon, he assured me that he would pick up his gun and fight too. Hayek, a surgeon, a professor at the Lebanese American University, and an advisor to Michel Aoun—the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, the largest Christian political party in Lebanon—helped draft the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act and used to submit intelligence reports about Syrian activities in Lebanon to the US Senate. He was once a member of Lebanon’s National Liberal Party and a close friend of Samir Geagea, the Christian warlord extraordinaire allied to the US and Saudi Arabia. Hayek was even injured while fighting against the Syrians for Michel Aoun.
Things have changed since then and new alliances have formed. Syria is an enemy no longer and Samir Geagea is no longer a friend. Hayek told me bitterly that the US has never hesitated to manipulate and then drop the Christians in Lebanon. He even showed me a heated email exchange between him and Jeffrey Feltman, while Feltman was serving as a US assistant-secretary in the US State Department, where Feltman in reference to Hezbollah accused the Free Patriotic Movement of being aligned with “evil.” In retrospect, Hayek realizes that the US had different motives when the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act was drafted. Furiously, he talked about “the twenty-five year old kids working at the Lebanon Desk in the [US] State Department with [Bachelor of Arts] in history” that are disconnected from reality in the Middle East which he has had to deal with.
“I am not a fan of Bashar Al-Assad, but I support him one hundred percent, because the alternative in Syria is an extremist government,” Hayek emphasized. Should the Syrian government fall, Hayek’s fear was that the corrupt Hariri family and the March 14 Alliance would invite a Muslim Brotherhood government in Damascus to invade and occupy Lebanon. As a key interlocutor between Michel Aoun and the United States, he explained to me that the Hariri family had no problem with the Syrian presence in Lebanon and in fact they were opposed to a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and would obstruct his work in the United States. He explained that the reason for this was that the Hariris used the Syrian military to enforce their hegemony in Lebanon. “Hariri corrupted the Syrians,” he explained. The Hariri clan would bribe all the high ranking Syrian officers in Lebanon by paying them millions of dollars. The problems between the Hariris and Syria began when Bashar Al-Assad wanted to put an end to corruption in Syria and refused to let the Hariris continue with their game.
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- Hezbollah’s role in al-Qusayr ~ (DOC) (syrianfreepress.wordpress.com)
- Lebanese fear Gulf expulsion (arabtimesonline.com)
US Gulf allies crack down on Internet freedoms
RT | June 10, 2013
Gulf Arab allies of the US have come under fire for introducing a series of draconian measures that limit Internet freedoms. The measures restrict content on social media sites, making “offending” posts punishable by extensive jail sentences.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have tightened controls on Internet freedoms recently, targeting social media and phone applications alike in their communications crackdown.
Across the Gulf, dozens of journalists and social media users have been arrested since the beginning of the year for being in violation of the uncompromising national laws.
Punishments include deportation and lengthy prison sentences for crimes such as making derogatory comments about the government “in bad faith,” and offending religion and family values. In Saudi Arabia last month, top cleric Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh warned citizens against using Twitter, stating that those who use social media sites “have lost this world and the afterlife.”
Saudi Arabia
After threatening to ban messaging applications like Skype and WhatsApp, Saudi Arabia’s telecom regulator has chosen a new target: The web-based communication app Viber. The instant messaging application has been blocked since June 5.
“The Viber application has been suspended… and the [regulator] affirms it will take appropriate action against any other applications or services if they fail to comply with regulatory requirements and rules in force in the kingdom,” the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) said in a statement.
Viber allows its users to text, call and send photos and video messages worldwide using a 3G or Wifi connection, and boasts over 200 million subscribers worldwide.
In March, the CITC warned mobile providers in the Kingdom that if they could not find ways to monitor encrypted messaging and VOIP applications, then they would be blocked, according to local media. The commission then issued a statement saying that “it would take suitable measures against these apps and services,” in its push for greater control over the Internet.
The Saudi government has also begun arresting Twitter users for posts to their accounts. Local media reports that the government is looking into ending anonymity for Twitter users in the country by making users register their identification documents.
Qatar
Despite its status as a regional media hub, the emirate state is considering a new cybercrime law that would widen government control over news websites and online commentaries.
If passed, the law would enable the government to punish websites or social media users for violating “the social principles or values,” or for publishing “news, photos, audio or visual recordings related to the sanctity of the private and familial life of persons, even if they were true, or infringes on others by libel or slander via the Internet or other information technology means,” Qatar News agency reported.
United Arab Emirates
At the end of 2012, the UAE passed a sweeping new cybercrime law: Anyone found guilty of criticizing the country’s rulers or institutions online may be jailed or deported. The law attracted widespread opposition, with legal consultants warning it is broad enough to penalize anyone caught posting allegedly offensive comments against the state.
This law has been used to jail citizens for Twitter posts over the past few months. In May, the UAE appeals court sentenced Abdullah Al-Hadidi to 10 months in jail for tweeting details of the trial of his father.
He was arrested on March 22 on charges of disseminating information on Twitter “in bad faith.” The court ruled that he wrote false details of a public hearing that, along with his father, involved 93 other people accused of plotting to seize power in the Gulf Arab state.
Kuwait
The government has arrested dozens of activists and at least six journalists in 2013 in the constitutional emirate, often described as the most liberal country in the region.
In March, Twitter user Hamed Al-Khaledi was sentenced to two years in prison for allegedly insulting the ruler of the Gulf nation. Others have been accused of “threatening state security” or “offending religion.”
In April, a Kuwaiti court sentenced former parliamentarian and opposition leader Mussallam al-Barrak to five years in prison for remarks deemed critical of the ruler of the state, which he made last year at a public rally.
Kuwait has been a member of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) since 1996, which protects the right to freedom of expression, including peaceful criticism of public officials.
Bahrain
The Bahraini government has been trying to suppress an ongoing uprising by introducing stricter penalties. In April, the government passed a law making it illegal to insult the Gulf state’s King Hamad bin Issa al Khalifa, or its national symbols.
Recently, Bahraini blogger and activist Ali Abduleman was granted asylum in the UK after two years in hiding. Adbuleman claims he was persecuted by the government “for exercising the right to express his opinions” on his website. The Bahraini government claims he was tried for “inciting and encouraging continuous violent attacks against police officers” and conspired to spread “false and inflammatory rumors.”
In May, 62-year-old Bahraini protester Abdulla Sayegh was sentenced to three months in prison for hanging a national flag from his truck during a 2011 rally. The same month, six Twitter users were jailed for allegedly offensive comments about the country’s ruler deemed to be ‘abusing freedom of expression.’ According to prosecutors, they posted comments that undermined “the values and traditions of Bahrain’s society towards the king.”
One of the best-known human rights abuse cases in Bahrain is that of activist Nabeel Rajab, who was sentenced to three years in jail in August 2012 on charges of ‘participating in an illegal assembly’ and ‘calling for a march without prior notification.’ He openly criticized the country’s regime on RT for Julian Assange’s show The World Tomorrow.
The country has witnessed mass protests led by the kingdom’s majority Shiites against the minority Sunni-led government for two years. The Shiite demonstrators call for a transfer to a democratic system, and complain of discrimination in jobs and government. Their loyalty is in turn questioned by the ruling Al Khalifa monarchy, which has been in power for decades.
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Syria’s Fake Sectarian War
By Shamus Cooke | Worker’s Action | June 7, 2013
The fate of Syria and the broader Middle East balances on a razor’s edge. The western media is giving dire warnings of an impending sectarian war between Sunni and Shia Muslims, a war that could drown the Middle East in a flood of blood.
Such a war would be completely artificial, and is being manufactured for geo-political reasons. When the most influential Sunni figures in Saudi Arabia and Qatar — both U.S. allies — recently called for Jihad against the Syrian government and Hezbollah, their obvious intentions were to boost the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia and its closest ally, the United States, by destroying Iran’s key ally in the region.
Will Sunni Muslims in Syria — who are the majority — suddenly begin attacking their Shia countrymen and the Syrian government? Unlikely. A compilation of data from humanitarian workers in and around Syria compiled by NATO suggests that:
…70 percent of Syrians support the Assad regime. Another 20 percent were deemed neutral and the remaining 10 percent expressed support for the rebels.”
The pro-Assad 70 percent is mostly Sunni. This data flies in the face of the constant barrage of western media distortion about what’s happening in Syria. Previous polling compiled last year by Qatar had similar results, and was likewise ignored by the western media.
The above article quoted a source familiar with the data:
The Sunnis have no love for Assad, but the great majority of the community is withdrawing from the revolt… what is left is the foreign fighters who are sponsored by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They are seen by the Sunnis as far worse than Assad.
Syrian Sunnis are likely disgusted by the behavior of the foreign extremists, which include a laundry list of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, as well as the terrorist bombing of a Sunni Mosque that killed the top Sunni cleric in Syria — along with 41 worshipers and 84 others injured. The Sunni cleric was killed because he was pro-Assad.
The recent calls for Jihad by the Saudi and Qatari Sunni leaders are likely in response to the Syrian government scoring major victories against the rebels. The rebels are now badly losing the war, in large part because they’ve completely lost their base of community support.
There are other key rebel supporters now taking urgent action to bolster the flagging rebel war effort. The leader of al-Qaeda, for example, made a recent plea for Sunnis to support the rebels against the Syrian government, while U.S. politician John McCain journeyed into Syria to meet with rebels — later identified as terrorists — to further commit the U.S. to the rebel side.
Meanwhile, The New York Times confirmed that the CIA had increased its already-massive arms trafficking program into Syria, while the European union agreed to drop the Syrian arms embargo, so that even more arms could be funneled to the rebels.
And to top it off, France now says it has proof that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against the rebels — a UN representative has suggested that just the opposite is the case — while the rebels are desperately trying to incite war between Syria and Israel by attacking the Syrian government on the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Also relevant is that the pro-Jihad religious leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are taking a giant gamble in their recent anti-Hezbollah proclamations, and risk triggering political instability to these already-shaky regimes, which are hugely dependent on the religious leaders for support.
Hezbollah is still revered throughout the Muslim world for its military defeat of Israel in 2006; and most Muslims will likely be uninterested in waging Jihad in Muslim majority Syria. Also, attacking the Syrian government and Hezbollah would mean allying with Israel and the United States, not an ideal situation for most jihadists.
It’s very possible that the Syrian tinderbox could drag the surrounding Middle Eastern countries into a massive regional war, with Russia and the United States easily within the gravitational pull.
The Syrian conflict could end very quickly if President Obama rejected U.S. support for the rebels and demanded his U.S. allies in the region do the same. Obama should acknowledge the situation in Syria as it exists, and respect the wishes of the Syrian people, who do not want their country destroyed.
Instead, the U.S. is considering arming the rebels even more.
U.S. Senator John McCain revealed the unofficial U.S. government policy for Syria when he said that he would tolerate an extremist takeover of Syria if it weakened Iran.
At this point an extremist takeover of Syria will cost tens of thousands of more lives, millions more refugees, while exploding the region into a multi-country orgy of violence.
The media will blame such genocide on Islamic sectarian violence, and ignore the obvious political motives.
Hopefully, the social movement in Turkey will force the Turkish government out of the western-controlled anti-Syrian alliance, while empowering other Middle Eastern countries to do the same.
Israel prepared to launch war on Syria: Israeli commander
Press TV – May 23, 2013
An Israeli military commander says Tel Aviv is prepared to carry out an attack on Syria if the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad collapses.
On Wednesday, Israeli Major General Amir Eshel said the Tel Aviv regime might launch a sudden war on Syria should Damascus fall.
“We have to be ready for any scenario, at a few hours’ notice,” Eshel stated.
He also said that the Israeli regime would even prepare for a “protracted” war with a “post-Assad Syria.”
The recent Israeli threat is seen as part of the Western-backed efforts to set up the scene for a military intervention in Syria.
The Tel Aviv regime has already carried out three air strikes on Syria.
On May 5, Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out an airstrike targeting a research center in a suburb of Damascus, following heavy losses inflicted upon al-Qaeda-affiliated groups by the Syrian army. According to Syrian media reports, the strike hit the Jamraya Research Center. The Jamraya facility had been targeted in another Israeli airstrike in January.
The May 5 Israeli aggression was Tel Aviv’s second strike on Syria in three days.
Turmoil has gripped Syria for over two years, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the foreign-sponsored militancy.
Western powers and their regional allies including the Israeli regime, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are partners in supporting the militant groups in Syria.
Related article
The Syrian Crisis: The Option
By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | May 18 2013
Ankara – While all options are said to be still on the table, Barack Obama is clearly backing away from any deeper involvement in Syria now that it is clear that nothing but direct intervention is going to bring down the government in Damascus. In the past few months alone the armed groups have lost thousands of men. Although the conflict will grind on for some time yet, the Syrian military is steadily closing down the insurgency.
The sponsors of this adventure are in complete disarray. Like the Syrian National Council before it, the Syrian National Coalition has imploded. Muadh al Khatib is now a voice from the margins. Ghassan Hittu is the only person in the world who is the prime minister of a committee. These people are a completely lost cause.
In the real world and not the world of delusions there is horror at the video showing a ‘rebel’ commander cutting the heart out of the body of a dead soldier and biting into it. Perhaps it was the lungs or the liver. The media seems to be uncertain but somehow getting the organ right seems to be important. Far from denying this gory act, its perpetrator owned up to it before boasting of how he had sawed the bodies of captured shabiha into pieces.
Cannibalism appears to be a first but otherwise there is not much that the psychopaths inside the armed groups have not done in Syria. Or are people who can do such things not to be called psychopaths? They are the best people, after all, to fight such a vicious conflict. The self-styled Free Syrian Army says it will hunt down the man who cut out the soldier’s heart. Good. It can also hunt down the throat-cutters and the ‘rebels’ who have cut people’s heads off. It can hunt down the men who killed public servants before flinging their bodies from the top of the post office building in Al Bab. It can hunt down their comrades in arms who deliberately target civilians with car bombs. It can hunt down the murderers of the imam and 50 worshipers in the Damascus mosque and it can hunt down all the rapists and kidnappers, including the Chechens who abducted the two bishops still being held in Aleppo while the Christian leaders of western governments look the other way. In its hunting for all the individuals who have tainted its glorious reputation, the FSA won’t have to look far because many come from its own ranks. There is no shortage of evidence. The media is awash with gory mobile phone and video footage of the handiwork of these men because they take pride in their bravery and want the world to see. These are the people Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been arming and funding to take over Syria.
This is the reality behind the false narrative spun by the media for the past two years. It has regurgitated every lie and exaggeration of ‘activists’ and the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, according to which the Syrian ‘regime’ was about to fall any minute and every atrocity was actually the work of the Syrian military. With the exception of a few reports filed recently by Robert Fisk, virtually no one in the media mainstream has reported the fighting from the perspective of the Syrian government and army. Reporters were moved across borders by the armed groups and reported only their version of events. This is like relying on reporters embedded with the US army for an accurate account of what was happening in Iraq. And, again like Iraq, the same propaganda is being repeated about chemical weapons.
Finally, reality has had to take hold. It is not the ‘regime’ or the army which is on the point of collapse but the insurgency. Only direct armed intervention is going to save it and against the successes of the Syrian army and solid Russian support for the Syrian government this is extremely unlikely. Obama is being pushed to ‘do more’ but is showing no inclination to be sucked any deeper into this mess. The others will do nothing without the US taking the lead. Germany is against involvement and Austria has said that supplying arms to the ‘rebels’, which Britain has wanted to do, when the EU embargo ends on May 31 would be a violation of international law.
This week the spotlight has been on Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his trip to Washington to discuss Syria with Barack Obama. Turkey’s role in the unfolding of the Syrian conflict has been central. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya supplied the money and arms but it was Turkey whose territory was opened up to the mobilization of armed men crossing the border to bring down the ‘regime.’ Erdogan has not stepped back an inch from the position he took against Bashar al Assad more than two years ago. The only clear case of a chemical weapons attack has been the chlorine-based compound packed into a warhead and fired at a Syrian army checkpoint at Khan al Assal, killing a number of soldiers and civilians. Erdogan, however, is maintaining that it is the Syrian army that has used chemical weapons and by doing so has crossed Obama’s ‘red line. ’ Asked shortly before he left for Washington whether he would support a no-fly zone he replied: ‘Right from the beginning we would say yes.’
Last week cars packed with more than one ton of C4 and TNT were exploded in the Hatay province border town of Reyhanli. At least 51 people were killed. The destruction was massive. The municipality building and dozens of shops were obliterated. In the aftermath, cars with Syrian number plates were smashed and Syrian refugees attacked by enraged local people. As they milled around the destruction they cursed Erdogan. The atrocity followed a pattern that is familiar to Syrians: one bomb going off and then others exploding after people had gathered around the site of the first one, maximizing the death toll.
Notwithstanding the accusations of the Turkish government that this was the work of a terrorist group collaborating with the Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence), only the armed groups or one of the governments backing them would have a clear reason for setting up this outrage. The Syrian army is rolling up the insurgency, the ‘traitors’ council’ based in Doha has imploded and the Americans and Russians are sitting down to talk. The attack was very clearly designed to pull Turkey directly into the conflict across the border.
The attack on Reyhanli came a week after Israel launched a series of savage air attacks on Syria. This was not a one-off missile strike. Two attacks in three days, lasting for hours and with massive ordinance being dropped around Damascus, suggest that the aim was to provoke a Syrian response, opening the door to a general war in which Iran could be attacked. Israel claimed that the target was a shipment of missiles bound for Hizbullah but while a research station and a military food production plant were hit there was no evidence of any missiles being destroyed. The attacks appear to have been a strategic and political failure. In the aftermath Putin gave Netanyahu a dressing down and punished him either by supplying or threatening to supply Syria with advanced S300 anti-aircraft missiles. It is a measure of Israel’s arrogance that it insisted that it would launch further attacks if necessary and would destroy the Syrian government if it dared to retaliate.
Obama is now under pressure at home to ‘do more’. In Washington the same people who called for war on Iraq are now calling for widening the conflict in Syria. Senator Bob Menendez, a strong supporter of Israel, like virtually all congressmen and women, has introduced a bill calling on the administration to supply the ‘rebels’ with arms (as if it were not already doing that covertly or through support for arms being supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar). Former New York Times editor Bill Keller supported the war on Iraq and also wants the US to arm the ‘rebels’ and ‘defend the civilians being slaughtered in their homes’ in Syria. He is not talking about the civilians who have been slaughtered by the armed groups, of course.
The Washington Post has been forced to admit that the Syrian army is winning this conflict but is still nonplussed at the unfavorable turns of events. ‘What if the US doesn’t intervene in Syria?’ it asks, before providing the answers. Syria will fracture along sectarian lines, with Jabhat al Nusra taking over the north and ‘remnants of the regime’ taking strips of the west. Sectarian warfare will spread to Iraq – as if it has not already as a consequence of US intervention – and Lebanon. Chemical weapons would be up for grabs, ‘probably forcing further interventions by Israel in order to prevent their acquisition by Hizbullah or Al Qaida’. If the US does not intervene to prevent all of this Turkey and Saudi Arabia ‘could conclude that the United States is no longer a reliable ally.’
There are other more likely answers to ‘what will happen’. This is that the Syrian army will eventually drive the surviving ‘rebels’ out of the country and Bashar will come out of this more popular than ever because he saw off the greatest challenge to the Syrian state in its history. Elections will be held in 2014 and he will be elected president with 75 per cent of the vote. This at least is what the CIA is predicting.
Erdogan came to Washington also wanting Obama to ‘do more’, but clearly the US president does not want to do much if anything more. The Turkish media reported that Obama said Assad ‘must’ go but this was not what he said. He chose his words carefully. In his press conference with Erdogan he did not say that said Assad ‘must’ go but that he ‘needs’ to go and ‘needs’ to transfer power to a transitional body. The difference is all-important. Personally, Obama will not want to end his presidency stuck in an unwinnable and unpopular war, one, furthermore, that could quickly shift from regional to global crisis. A recent Pew poll shows that the American people have had enough of wars in the Middle East and the talks between Kerry and Lavrov indicate that this time, having allowed the Geneva agreement of July, 2012, to fall flat, the US is serious about reaching a negotiated end to this crisis even if others aren’t. If there is any danger of the US position being derailed, it will mostly likely arise within the ranks of its friends and allies.
– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
Over 70 states refuse to say yes to anti-Syria resolution
Press TV – May 16, 2013
More than 70 countries have refused to say yes to an Arab-backed resolution against Syria at the United Nations General Assembly.
Russia, China and Iran were among the 12 countries that opposed the resolution on Wednesday.
Russia called the resolution, co-sponsored by the United States, “counterproductive and irresponsible.”
The resolution was adopted by a vote of 107-12 with 59 abstentions. Argentina, Brazil, and more than a dozen other Latin American and Caribbean countries abstained from voting.
Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Alexander Pankin called the resolution “very harmful and destructive,” saying it disregards “illegal actions of the armed opposition.” He also accused the resolution’s Arab sponsors of attempting to replace the Syrian government instead of trying to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.
Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari also stated that the resolution “seeks to escalate the crisis and fuel violence in Syria.”
The non-binding resolution, which was drafted by a number of Arab states, calls for a “political transition” and refers to the foreign-backed militants in Syria as “effective representative interlocutors” needed for the transition.
The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
Damascus says the West and its regional allies, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the militants.
In an interview recently broadcast on Turkish television, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that if the militants take power in Syria, they could destabilize the entire Middle East region for decades.
“If the unrest in Syria leads to the partitioning of the country, or if the terrorist forces take control… the situation will inevitably spill over into neighboring countries and create a domino effect throughout the Middle East and beyond,” he stated.
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