Protests as Sudan Lifts Fuel Subsidy

23 September 2013

Khartoum — The Sudanese government abruptly implemented previously announced austerity measures on Sunday evening by raising the price of a gallon of petrol to SDG21 ($4.65) and diesel to SDG14 ($3.17).

Sources told Radio Dabanga that Khartoum has turned into a quasi-military barracks due to the tight security measures imposed in anticipation of the 'wrath of the streets'. Nevertheless, demonstrations broke out yesterday, at the Souq El Arabi and the Nilein University in central Khartoum, the neighborhood of El Deim in Khartoum, and in Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira state. At the same time leaders of political parties and activists were arrested.

The government also announced a substantial increase of the prices of a number of commodities, which led to the 'synchronization' of the rate of the Sudanese pound on the 'parallel market' as the black market is termed in the Sudanese media. The dollar jumped to SDG8.20.

In Wad Madani yesterday tens of thousands citizens and students went on the streets to protest against the raise of prices and demanding the 'fall of the regime' which led to the closure of shops and public transport. Three petrol stations and the branch of the French-Sudanese bank on the Soug El Kabir went up in flames, as also happened with a government administration unit at Soug El Malaja. The police reacted by shooting with rubber bullets and making heavy use of tear gas. Dozens of demonstrators were arrested.

One of the demonstrators in Wad Madani told Radio Dabanga that the heave use of tear gas caused injuries among the demonstrators had to go to hospital for treatment. She said that the protesters raised banners wording that "the Sudanese people demand the overthrow of the regime", and "Hey policemen, how much do you earn?"

The authorities in Wad Madany announced that the security services and the police on Monday managed to contain "the limited riots". According to the official news agency, Sudan News Agency (SUNA), the government accused a 'group of saboteurs' that had attracted a 'group of vagabonds' of pushing its way to the central bus station of the city. SUNA reported that they caused damage to a petrol station at the Soug El Jadid and that they tried to destroy the television station of Gezira state and a number of government service offices, but the situation came quickly under control and peace returned.

In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, where there were protests in El Deim, Soug El Arabi and El Nilein University, the police used tear gas and sticks to disperse the crowd. A number of activists of the Sudanese Party and of Girifna were arrested in Khartoum North. An activist informed Radio Dabanga that "thunderous demonstrations" started from El Deim popular neighborhood, led by women shouting "down with the regime". They were surrounded by the security men after Amarat Street was closed. Witnesses told Radio Dabanga that a number of the women were arrested.

At the Nilein University in Khartoum students went out to demonstrate but were quickly cordoned by a huge police force. The demonstrators then tried to restart their protests at the Soug El Arabi, which was also surrounded by police.

The Cabinet, under the chairmanship of President Omar El Bashir, approved on Monday the removal of subsidies on fuel, the consecutive adjustment of the rate of the Sudanese pound: 5.70 against one US dollar, as well as a raise in price of a gallon of petrol from SDG12.50 ($2.83) to SDG21 ($4.65) and a gallon of diesel from SDG8 ($1.81) to SDG14 ($3.17). The price of a cylinder of cooking gas went up to SDG25 ($5.66).

The Cabinet approved an increase in wages of civil servants, in accordance with the President's decision. The civil servants will receive 50 per cent of their October salary before the Feast of the Sacrifice. The President also announced that an amount of SDG150 ($34) million has been reserved for the support of "poor families", to be implemented as soon as possible, just as he directed "special and quick support" for the state of Khartoum in order to constrain the rise in prices of the public transport.

The governing National Congress Party stressed that there will be "no return" to the rise in prices and the removal of the subsidy on fuel implemented on Sunday evening. The President gave a press conference on Sunday evening, together with leading figures from the government and Ministers, that lasted more than two hours, during which he presented arguments for the 'required austerity measures'. El Bashir expects that the fear of the citizens will reside when they will witness an improvement of the economy following the austerity measures.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201309240632.html.

American jihadi slain in Somalia by rivals

September 12, 2013

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — An American who became one of Somalia's most visible Islamic rebels and was on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list with a $5 million bounty on his head was killed Thursday by rivals in the al-Qaida-linked extremist group al-Shabab, militants said.

The killing of Omar Hammami, an Alabama native known for his rap-filled propaganda videos, may discourage other would-be jihadis from the U.S. and elsewhere from traveling to Somalia, terrorism experts said.

Hammami, whose nom de guerre was Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, or "the American," was killed in an ambush in southern Somalia following months on the run after falling out with al-Shabab's top leader, the militants said.

Reports of Hammami's death have cropped up every few months in Somalia, only for him to resurface. But J.M. Berger, a U.S. terrorism expert who closely follows the inner workings of al-Shabab, said he thinks the current reports are accurate.

The rebels did not immediately present proof of Hammami's death. Hammami was highly critical of al-Shabab's leadership over the past year and freely shared his views in Internet videos and on Twitter, making him a marked man.

Somalia has long been an attractive destination for foreign fighters, and al-Shabab counts several hundred foreign fighters among its ranks, including about two dozen Somali-Americans from Minneapolis recruited over the past several years.

Hammami's death will hurt the group's recruitment efforts, said Abdirizak Bihi, an advocate for the Somali community in Minnesota and the uncle of a young man killed in Somalia in 2008. "We always knew the Somalis inside Somalia knew that al-Shabab was bad," Bihi said. "We were concerned about the Somalis in the diaspora ... who never really knew the facts on the ground and were always manipulated and misled."

"So that's why it's a victory. They now know exactly what al-Shabab is, as much as the Somalis inside." Terrorism expert Clint Watts wrote on his blog, Selectedwisdom.com, that Hammami's plight "probably soured recruitment pipelines from the West into Somalia."

Along with Adam Gadahn in Pakistan — a former Osama bin Laden spokesman — the 29-year-old Hammami was one of the two most notorious Americans in jihadi groups. He grew up in Daphne, Alabama, a community of 20,000 outside Mobile, the son of a Christian mother and a Syrian-born Muslim father.

His YouTube videos that featured him rapping and his presence on Twitter made him one of the most recognizable and studied U.S. foreign fighters. The FBI put Hammami on its Most Wanted Terrorist list in 2012 and offered a $5 million reward in March for information leading to his capture.

U.S. prosecutors had charged Hammami with providing material support to terrorists. In Alabama, Husam Omar, vice president of the Islamic Society in Mobile, a mosque Hammami once attended, said he had not heard of the reports of his death.

"I'm shocked," Omar said, declining further comment. A man who answered the door at Hammami's parent's home declined to identify himself and said, "I am sorry, I cannot talk about it right now." The home is in an upper-middle class neighborhood with manicured lawns where most houses fly American or Alabama University flags.

A member of al-Shabab who gave his name as Sheik Abu Mohammed told The Associated Press that Hammami was killed in an ambush in Somalia's southern Bay region. Some of Mohammed's associates carried out the killing, he said. Two other fighters with Hammami, including a Briton of Somali descent, were also killed, he said.

Hammami, an Arabic speaker, moved from Alabama to Somalia and joined al-Shabab in about 2006. He fought alongside al-Shabab until they had a falling out amid increasing tension between Somali and foreign fighters. He first expressed fear for his life in a March 2012 web video that publicized his rift with al-Shabab.

The first serious attempt on his life came in April, when al-Shabab's leader, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, also known as Godane, ordered the killings of several of Hammami's associates. "Just been shot in neck by shabab assassin. not critical yet," Hammami tweeted after the April attack.

Al-Shabab and al-Qaida announced formal merger in February 2012, but the Somali militant group maintained a reputation of being hostile to foreign fighters. Hammami accused al-Shabab's leaders of living extravagant lifestyles with the taxes fighters collect from Somali residents. Another grievance was that the militant leaders sideline foreign militants.

Hammami has been "a thorn in the side of al-Shabab" for more than two years and "one of the few surviving dissenters after Godane's bloody purge over the summer," said Berger, who runs the website Intelwire.com.

"Hammami brought a lot of unwelcome outside scrutiny on Shabab from the international jihadist community. His story will likely be a case study on what can go wrong when Westerners join jihadist movements," Berger said.

Before the falling out, Hammami made frequent appearances in combat videos, and in 2011 he released two rap songs, "Send Me a Cruise (missile)" and "Make Jihad With Me." In December, al-Shabab slapped Hammami publicly in an Internet statement, saying his video releases were the result of a "narcissistic pursuit of fame."

Last week, Voice of America interviewed the wanted American, who said he was unlikely to ever return to the U.S. "That is not an option unless it's in a body bag," Hammami said. Frequent Twitter postings over the last year alluded to the fact that Hammami's life was in danger.

"i'll be a mujahid till the day i die whether it's shabab who kills me or someone else," Hammami wrote in an April Twitter posting.

Straziuso reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Associated Press reporters Amy Forliti in Minneapolis, Melissa Nelson in Daphne, Alabama, and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed to this report.

Home Sweet Home - Changing Times Bring Somali Diaspora Back

by Chiara Francavilla
6 September 2013

With prospects improving in the country, some of the Somali diaspora are coming home.

"A cappuccino here is more expensive than any other coffee in the world," said Mohamed Ali as he addressed the audience of the second TEDx conference held in Somalia's capital.

"An espresso machine uses a lot of electricity and Mogadishu is the most expensive city in the world by kilowatt/hour," he said, introducing the story of Ahmed, a returning diaspora member who partnered with local engineer Isse to create a coal-powered coffee machine prototype. "Ahmed now has the cheapest espresso in Mogadishu and Isse has 100 machines that he rents for $100 dollars a month."

On August 31 a TEDx conference - the 'ideas worth spreading' event - was held in Mogadishu, the capital of a country that is still considered by some a 'failed state'. Despite this, spirits were high as the speakers, mostly returning diaspora members, articulated their hopeful visions of a new Somalia.

But this time optimism was accompanied by concrete examples of change in the wake of the installation of the country's first permanent government in over two decades. There is a definite feeling that something has changed or is changing and this is bringing back some of the 1.5 million Somalis living abroad, like Ahmed, or like Ali, a US-trained human rights lawyers returning to help aspirant business men and women, especially young Somalis.

"I'm passionate about entrepreneurship as a tool to fight poverty and unemployment," Ali told Think Africa Press. Somalia's unemployment rate is estimated to be 54%, up from 47% in 2002, according to a 2012 Somalia Human Development Report. The situation is worse for young people, as unemployment for 14- to 29-year-olds reaches 67% - one of the highest in the world.

Alongside speaking at the TEDx event, Ali inaugurated the first 'Youth Entrepreneurship Summit' in Mogadishu as director of the leadership and entrepreneurship organization Iftiin Foundation with Generation Change, a US-sponsored initiative active in several developing countries.

"Each new event is usually launched by the US embassy in each respective country," he explains. "However, because there is no US embassy in Somalia, my organization Iftiin Foundation launched the program in Mogadishu."

84 young Somalis joined the summit. All coming from different backgrounds, they had one thing in common: business ideas. Many had identified a service gap to fill. Ali is full of enthusiasm for the innovation of the group: "One young woman was telling me how she wanted to create an ambulance service. Another has a project for a microcredit group for women," he says.

As part of the youth leadership program, young Somalis will receive mentoring and will be supported in finding investors for their projects. Lack of capital and technical ability, such as forecasting and managing financial risks, are the main obstacles to young entrepreneurship. The diaspora can take care of the former, as in Ahmed and Isse's case, and programs like his can do the rest, said Ali.

A year on

It has been almost a year since Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was sworn in as the president of the Federal Government of Somalia, the first permanent authority since the collapse of all formal institutions in 1991.

"In the last year the environment has really changed," argues Ali. "Since the establishment of the permanent government there is greater security and a greater recognition of Somalia among the international community. This has the potential to attract more international investments."

One of the clearest signs of increased international recognition and improved perception of security has been the reopening of foreign embassies, such as those of the UK, Kenya, Iran and Uganda, with other countries having announced plans to do so, including the US, UAE, and China.

On August 27 Fowsia Yusuf Haji Adan, Somalia's foreign minister, met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on an official visit to China. Wang Yi said that his country was willing to gradually restore "high-level exchanges" with Somalia, including economic and trade cooperation and active participation in Somalia's reconstruction.

"Somalia is the first East African country that established diplomatic relationship with China... the friendship between the two peoples has never changed," he said.

Somalia's strengthening of international ties prompted the International Monetary Fund to recognize the Federal Government of Somalia in April 2013, paving the way to resumed relations after a 22-year break. "The decision is consistent with broad international support and recognition of the Federal Government, which allows the IMF to offer Somalia technical assistance and policy advice," said Ralph Chami, division chief at the IMF's Middle East department.

Increased international cooperation has also led to the improvement in one of the areas that has traditionally been in the focus of the international community: piracy. Adjoa Anyimadu, research associate for the Africa Program at Chatham House, noted a dramatic reduction in the number of piracy attacks emanating from the coast of Somalia in the last two years.

"The has not only been a reduction in successful hijackings, but also in the number of attempts that pirates are making, demonstrating that piracy has become a less attractive means of revenue generation for many young Somalis," she said. In 2011 there were 199 incidents, but by the end of 2012 this figure had dropped by almost two thirds to 70. In the first eight months of this year there have only been ten incidents, according to the ICC International Marine Bureau.

Shaky stability

Security might have improved, but Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda affiliated rebel group, remains an active threat, as testified by a recent ambush on the presidential convoy and a suicide attack on the UN office in Mogadishu in June, in which 15 people were killed, among other incidents.

The reduction in piracy attacks was also questioned by Anyimadu, who noted that the improvement was the result of "short-term" solutions such as increased international patrolling of the waters, more vessels following best practices to avoid attacks and increased presence and acceptance of private armed guards on board.

And whilst some return to Mogadishu, others leave. Médecins sans Frontiers (MSF) was forced to exit the country in August after working continuously in Somalia since 1991. The organization cited increasing violence against MSF staff and the apparent complacency of Somali authorities.

"Ultimately, civilians in Somalia will pay the highest cost," said Dr Unni Karunakara, MSF international president. "Much of the Somali population has never known the country without war or famine. Already receiving far less assistance than is needed, the armed groups' targeting of humanitarian aid and civilians leaders' tolerance of these abuses has effectively taken away what little access to medical care is available to the Somali people."

In 2012 MSF provided more than 624,000 medical consultations, admitted 41,100 patients to hospitals, cared for 30,090 malnourished children, vaccinated 58,620 people, and delivered 7,300 babies. Those services will not be replaced by funding from the IMF at least, as the fund is unable to support the country financially due to $352m arrears.

Old and new

Collaboration between returning diaspora and locals may not be as natural as it might seem. Mogadishu-based journalist Hamza Mohamed reported increasing intolerance of locals towards returning diaspora members occupying positions of leadership or heading business activities.

Ali acknowledges the tension. "That understandably happens, when you have lived for 20 years of civil war, stayed in Somalia despite it, and then someone comes in and opens his own business," he said. However, he argues that this change is more of an opportunity than an obstacle. His initiative received plenty of support from local businesses and associations, including Jazeera Palace Hotel, the Somali Tourism Association and the Somali Student Union.

"I was educated in the West, and I'm coming back to help out my fellow Somalis," said Ali. "I know they have been here all their lives, they know the challenges, they know the problems. I want to be their partner and give them access to the resources and networks that I developed in the US."

And with him, many others return, such as Zainab Hassan, former fellow at the University of Minnesota, who is now leading the restoration of Somalia's national library, with the vision of giving young Somalis a place to hang out other than the street.

Zahra Mustaf, an Australian architect, has gone back with two daughters to help rebuild Somalia's education infrastructure, with the aim of sending 1 million children to school in three years. 21-year-old Canadian Iman Elman has taken the return a step further by becoming the first female commander in the Somali Army. "[After that] I was no longer a Canadian in Somalia. I was a soldier serving my country," she says.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201309090357.html?viewall=1.

Bosnia privatization protests reach other cities

February 06, 2014

TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Violent protests by thousands of unpaid workers in a northern Bosnian city spread to other parts of the country Thursday and have morphed into widespread discontent in an election year about unemployment and rampant corruption.

Police used tear gas to temporarily disperse the protesters in Tuzla who threw stones at a local government building. The protesters returned after the tear gas volley, surrounded the empty government building and set tires and trash on fire. Police were reinforced with special dog units.

The protests in Tuzla, which began Tuesday, are about an ongoing dispute involving four former state-owned companies that were privatized and later filed for bankruptcy. Thousands gathered in four other cities in solidarity with the Tuzla workers, but also to protest against Bosnia's nearly 40-percent unemployment rate and politicians whom they accuse of being disconnected from citizens' needs.

More than two dozen people sought medical help in Tuzla, mostly from the effects of tear gas. The majority of those injured were police officers, including one who was hospitalized with a chest injury from a thrown object. A police spokesman initially said the officer was fighting for his life, but a hospital later said his injuries were no longer life-threatening.

The demonstrations have reached Sarajevo, Zenica, Mostar and Bihac. The protesters in Sarajevo, the capital, threw eggs at the local government building. One of them, Nihad Alickovic, called for more citizens to join the protest.

"Take your problems out on the street," he urged. Residents of buildings in Tuzla yelled insults and threw buckets of water at the officers who passed by in full riot gear. Elderly neighbors were seen banging cooking pots on their windows and balconies.

The four former state-owned companies, which included furniture and washing powder factories, employed most of the population of Tuzla. After they were privatized, contracts obliged them to invest in them and make them profitable. But the owners sold the assets, stopped paying workers and filed for bankruptcy between 2000 and 2008.

The leader of the Tuzla region, Sead Causevic, told Bosnian state TV that the "rip-off privatization" was already concluded when his government took power and that the workers' demands are legitimate. He blamed the courts for obstructing justice, saying the workers have turned to them years ago, but no judgment has ever been passed.

Bosnians have many reasons to be unhappy as general elections approach in October. Besides the unemployment rate, the privatization that followed the end of communism and the 1992-95 war produced a handful of tycoons, almost wiped out the middle class and sent the working class into poverty. Corruption is widespread and high taxes to fund a bloated public sector eat away at paychecks.

Al-Qaida breaks ties with group in Syria

February 03, 2014

CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaida broke off ties with one of its purported branches in Syria and distanced itself from the rebel infighting in that country's civil war, according to a statement Monday.

The announcement appeared to be an attempt by al-Qaida to put its house in order and reassert influence among rival Islamic groups that have turned against one another in Syria. Signed by the al-Qaida "general command," the statement said the leadership has cut off the affiliate known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after it disobeyed orders from the terror network's leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Al-Zawahri last May ordered the Islamic State to operate independently from a rival al-Qaida branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, led by Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Al-Baghdadi rejected al-Zawahri's orders and unsuccessfully sought to merge the two branches.

In Monday's statement, al-Qaida said it "did not approve of the creation of nor did it control" the Islamic State, and therefore has "no organizational ties with it." "We distance ourselves from the sedition taking place among the mujahedeen factions (in Syria) and of the forbidden blood shed by any faction," the statement said of the infighting among Islamic extremists.

The jihadis, or holy warriors, it said, should realize the "enormity of the catastrophe" and the implications "this sedition" can have on the holy war in Syria. The authenticity of the statement could not independently be verified but it was posted on websites commonly used by al-Qaida.

The rebel-on-rebel fighting has added another bloody dimension to the Syrian crisis, which erupted in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule but later evolved into an armed insurgency and civil war.

The war provided fertile ground for militant Islamic groups and over time, the Islamic State and the Nusra Front emerged as the two main al-Qaida-linked groups until their falling out last spring. The Islamic State, meanwhile, largely eclipsed the Nusra Front in many parts of northern Syria.

Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center said the al-Qaida statement reflected its "attempt to definitively re-assert some level of authority over the jihad in Syria." It also showed al-Qaida leadership's failure to take a genuinely commanding line in the rivalry between the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, and made it inevitable that al-Zawahri had to issue a decisive ruling with permanent consequences, said Lister.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

17,000 could have been tortured to death in Al-Assad's prisons

Wednesday, 05 February 2014

Some 17,000 Syrians held in Al-Assad's prisons are feared dead as news of the torture of a further 11,000 detains also emerges, a Syrian human rights organization said.

The death of a Syrian dissident in prison raised concerns about the possibility of the deaths after a photo released by a former member of the regime revealed that around 11,000 prisoners were tortured to death while in the regime's custody.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the death of Wissam Sara, who is the son of the well-known Opposition figure Fayez Sara. Wissam, a father of two, was killed on Monday as a result of the torture he was subjected to inside the military prison in Damascus. The group expressed fears that the fate of more than 17,000 detainees, who are missing inside the regime's prisons, could be the same as Wissam's.

The opposition human rights group based in London called on the international community and the UN Envoy in Syria Al-Akhdar Al-Ibrahimi to pressure Al-Assad's regime to release more than 100,000 detainees currently held in basements and prisons. It said it had already sent the names of 10,000 detainees to Al-Ibrahimi's office.

In an Arabic statement obtained by CNN, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it considered last month to be the worst in terms of the number of deaths since the beginning of the Syrian revolution on the March 18, 2011. The observatory documented 5,794 deaths that occurred in January alone.

The statement also pointed out that the number of civilian deaths in the first months of 2014 had reached 3,013 including 358 children, 225 women, in addition to the death of 1,281 opposition fighters. The number of unidentified victims reached 30, in addition to another 14 deaths from the regime's dissidents.

They said the number of deaths of fighters from the Islamic Brigades, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and Al-Nusra Front has reached 1,251 deaths, adding that most of the dead don't hold Syrian nationality and some of them are unknown.

As for the regime's troops, the number of deaths reached 923, in addition to 502 deaths from the "people's committees", the National Defense Force, Shabiha and informants loyal to the regime. There were also deaths from Hezbollah and 52 among non-Syrian and Shia fighters who are loyal to Al-Assad's regime.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/9592-17000-could-have-been-tortured-to-death-in-al-assads-prisons.

Syrian forces hit mosque with crude bomb, kill 11

February 04, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — Men pull a girl from the rubble and haul her onto a dirty sheet of plastic, while another child, coated in white dust save for a red streak of blood from his nose, lies with his crushed leg dangling off a gurney — the grisly aftermath from the dropping of a crude "barrel bomb" by Syrian forces on the city of Aleppo.

The bombing — one of at least seven such attacks in Aleppo on Tuesday — struck a mosque that was being used as a school, killing at least 11 people, activists said. A video supplied by activists contained scenes of the carnage.

It was the latest example of the heightened use of barrel bombs, devices packed with fuel, explosives and scrap metal that are hurled from helicopters, often indiscriminately. Since Thursday, around 80 people have been killed by barrel bombs used by Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces to try to dislodge rebels from Aleppo, according to figures provided by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground.

The video uploaded from the rebel-held Masaken Hanano district showed the aftermath of the explosion at or near the Uthman Bin Affan mosque, where adults were teaching children the Quran, said activist Hassoun Abu Faisal of the Aleppo Media Center.

The video, excerpts of which are at http://apne.ws/1c0t9yt , was consistent with what reporting by The Associated Press found. A cameraman films from inside a vehicle as it speeds toward a place where dust is drifting into a clear blue sky. The camera swivels to men and boys running around a building that has been torn in half by an explosion.

"Are there martyrs?" the narrator asks. His camera focuses on a lump of red flesh in a vehicle. It is the beginning of a grim litany of death, as seen from the jerking camera. A child, his legs missing, lies on the ground, partially covered by a blanket.

"Are there anybody's children here?" cries one man. "Bashar, you lowlife!" cries another, referring to the Syrian ruler, raising his hands angrily to the sky. Another man shakes a blackened body inside a vehicle.

A man carries a lifeless boy, lifting him partly by his clothes, and leaves him on the sidewalk near two other mangled corpses. An older man with a bloodied face stumbles toward the child, weeping, "Oh, God, your grace, oh, God."

The cameraman also captures scenes of the boy with the crushed leg and the girl pulled from the ruins. The Observatory said at least five of the dead in Masaken Hanano were children. The use of barrel bombs across Syria has been widely condemned by human rights groups because of the weapons' indiscriminate nature. They have been a key part of a government strategy to wrest back parts of Aleppo seized by rebels in mid-2012.

Far from the battlegrounds in Syria, Assad's chief ally, Russia, expressed confidence that the government would return to the U.N.-hosted peace talks in Geneva that began in January after three years of war.

"We have no doubts that the government representatives will take place in a second round of talks between the Syrian sides in Geneva," Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian deputy foreign minister and Moscow's special envoy to the Middle East, said in comments carried on Russian news agencies.

Assad's government has not committed to attending the next round of talks, expected on Feb. 10. "We hope that both sides will continue a patient, constructive discussion," Bogdanov said.

Associated Press writers Laura Mills in Moscow and Ryan Lucas in Beirut contributed to this report.

Syrian aircraft pound rebel-held areas of Aleppo

February 02, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government aircraft unleashed a wave of airstrikes on more than a dozen rebel-held neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, as President Bashar Assad's forces inched into areas controlled by opposition fighters for more than a year, activists said.

Aleppo has been a key battleground in Syria's civil war since rebels swept into the city in mid-2012 and wrested most of the eastern and southern neighborhoods from the government. Assad's air force for weeks has pounded those areas with barrel bombs — crude containers packed with explosives, fuel and scraps of metal — that cause massive damage on impact.

On Sunday alone, Syrian military helicopters and warplanes targeted 15 opposition-held neighborhoods, said an activist who goes by the name of Abu al-Hassan Marea. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the Tariq al-Bab district alone was hit at least eight times on Sunday. Marea said one of the airstrikes in the neighborhood struck a vegetable market and another landed near a mosque.

The Aleppo Media Center activist group said the strike near the Abdullah bin Masoud Mosque killed more than 10 people. Neither the Aleppo Media Center nor the Observatory had a total death toll for the day's carnage, but Marea said that more than 50 people were killed in the airstrikes across the city, although he did not have an exact count.

An amateur video posted online shows a helicopter circling in the blue sky, and then a barrel plummeting from the aircraft until it slams into buildings on the horizon, sending a pillar of smoke and dust into the air. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting of the events depicted.

This is not the first time that government aircraft has waged an intense aerial campaign on Aleppo. In December, military helicopters pounded rebel-held districts of Aleppo with barrel bombs for days, leveling buildings, burying people under the rubble and killing more than 500 people over a two-week stretch.

The misery in Aleppo was then compounded in early January by an outburst of rebel-on-rebel fighting, which has weakened the opposition's grip on parts of the city. Over the past two weeks, Assad's forces have slowly chipped away at the rebels' hold on neighborhoods in southeastern Aleppo. While the advances have been small, they still mark the most significant government gains in the divided city since opposition fighters seized the areas in mid-2012.

As intense as the airstrikes have been, the rebels' position in Aleppo and across northern Syria has been undermined to a greater degree by a bloody bout of infighting that pits the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant against an array of ultraconservative brigades and more moderate factions.

The rebel infighting has killed more than 1,400 people since it began a month ago, and it shows little sign of coming to an immediate close. On Saturday, a twin suicide bombing killed 26 people, including a senior military commander of the Tawhid Brigade, a prominent rebel group opposed to the Islamic State.

The attack, widely blamed by both pro- and anti-al-Qaida activists on the Islamic State, targeted the base of its rivals in the Tawhid Brigade and killed senior leader Adnan Bakkour, said Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman.

The Islamic State also killed another prominent commander, Abu Hussein al-Dik of Suqour al-Sham, on Saturday near the central city of Hama, the Observatory said. Abdurrahman said al-Dik was killed in an ambush outside of Hama, where he was traveling to try to help rebels encircled by Islamic State fighters.

Both the Tawhid Brigade and Suqour al-Sham are part of the Islamic Front, a powerful alliance of seven Islamist rebel factions that united in November. The Islamic Front has emerged as a heavy weight in northern Syria, and has been a driving force in the fight against the Islamic State.

Analyst Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center said the Islamic State "appears to be targeting particularly strategic locales and individuals in its continuing operations against perceived enemy rebels."

Associated Press writers Diaa Hadid and Yasmine Saker contributed to this report.

ISIL fighters in Syria murder fellow rebel Muslim leader

February 02, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — ISIL fighters killed the leader of a fellow rebel Islamic brigade in a twin car bombing near Syria's northern city of Aleppo, an attack likely to further exacerbate rebel infighting even as government forces continued their intense shelling of opposition-held areas of the city on Sunday.

Syrian aircraft bombed buildings, burying people underneath rubble in the Bab Neirab area, said the Aleppo Media Center. It wasn't immediately clear how many casualties there were. The bombings came after military aircraft dropped barrels packed with explosives over rebel-held areas on Saturday, killing dozens, including an attack that killed 34 people in the rebel-held neighborhood of al-Bab, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The group collates the country's war death toll.

Syrian forces have inched into eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo in recent weeks, their most important advance there since rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad seized the areas in mid-2012.

Activists say the troops' advance has been mostly been propelled by military aircraft heavily bombing residential areas, smashing buildings into rubble, forcing civilians and rebels to flee. They've also been assisted by weeks of rebel infighting that has pitted a loose alliance of Syrian fighters against al-Qaida linked extremists of the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant.

Fighting was likely to be exacerbated further after Islamic State fighters undertook a twin suicide bombing that killed 26 people on Saturday, including the military leader of a rebel group. The attack targeted the base of rivals, the Tawheed Brigades, and killed commander Adnan Bakkour, said Rami Abdurrahman of the Observatory.

The Islamic State also killed another prominent commander of another rebel brigade, said analyst Charles Lister of the Brookings Doha Center. Lister said the extremists killed Abu Hussein al-Dik of the powerful Suqour al-Sham, showing that the Islamic State was targeting key headquarters, "strategic checkpoints and senior influential commanders."

Syria's war, which began as a peaceful uprising in March 2011, has slowly spread to neighboring Lebanon in a myriad of ways. Late Saturday, a shadowy Lebanese extremist group claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing in a Shiite town that killed at least three people, in an attack linked to the war in Syria.

The Nusra Front in Lebanon said on Twitter that the bombing in the northeast town of Hermel on Saturday was to punish the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which fights alongside forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It is the third bombing that the Nusra Front in Lebanon claimed responsibility for in the country. A series of bombings have targeted Shiite Muslims in Lebanon as Hezbollah's participation in the Syrian war exacerbates sectarian tensions at home. Extremist Lebanese Sunni Muslims now view their Shiite brethren as legitimate targets because they support Hezbollah. The bombing occurred Saturday evening.

The war has also become increasingly sectarian, with extremist groups blamed for attacks against Syria's many minority faiths. Also Sunday, a group that supports militants posted a video to social networks showing a Sunni fighter beheading another man as adults and children gathered to watch.

In the video, adults cheer as the fighter cuts the other man's head off with a small knife. The beheaded man's hands are tied, and it isn't clear if he was alive while he was being beheaded. The men's accents and languages suggest the fighters are a mix of Russian-speakers, foreign Arabs and Syrians.

Abdurrahman of the Observatory said Sunday that the video was likely filmed in the central Syrian province of Homs last week. Photos of the body and severed head were also posted to a separate Instagram account by a supporter of the al-Qaida linked Islamic State. The photograph showed another decapitated body nearby.

The video underscores why many among Syria's Christian and Muslim minorities support Assad in the three-year uprising against his rule, fearing extremist militants will ultimately prevail should Assad fall.

Real Madrid to play friendly in Algeria during Ramadan

2013-06-30

Real Madrid will travel to Algeria for a friendly in July, Tout sur l'Algerie reported on Saturday (June 29th). Team assistant manager Zinedine Zidane will accompany the La Liga team. The friendly will be organised by Mobilis as part of festivities for the 50th anniversary of Algeria's independence. The exact date and the venue will be announced soon. Real will face either the national or a League team.

The last time Real Madrid played a friendly in Algeria was on May 1st, 1982. The Greens won the game 2-1 thanks to goals by Rabah Madjer and Nacer Bouiche.

Source: Magharebia.com.
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/newsbriefs/sports/2013/06/30/newsbrief-04.

Saudi king orders punishing jihadi fighters

February 03, 2014

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah issued a royal decree on Monday that punishes citizens who fight in conflicts outside the kingdom, with prison sentences ranging from three to 20 years in jail.

The statement issued by the Saudi Royal Court also says that any Saudi citizen who joins extremist terrorist groups or supports them materially or through incitement would face an even harsher punishment ranging from five to 30 years in jail.

The decree appeared aimed at stemming the flow of Saudi fighters going to Syria. The region's civil war is believed to have drawn hundreds of young Saudis, worrying some in the kingdom that fighters could return radicalized and turn their weapons on the monarchy.

The statement said it is the Saudi government's duty to block actions and language that harm public security and stability by exposing the nation to danger and "damaging the status of the kingdom" Islamically, internationally and among Arabs. Saudi Arabia is home to two of Islam's holiest sites.

Many young Saudi men appear to have been encouraged to join the fight in Syria by influential Saudi clerics who follow the kingdom's ultraconservative religious Wahhabi doctrine and view the war as a struggle between Syria's Sunni majority and President Bashar Assad's Alawite, Shiite-backed minority.

The uprising against Assad has transformed into a regional proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which support opposing sides. Foreign fighters and Islamic extremists have infiltrated the opposition, triggering infighting that has undermined the rebellion.

Saudi officials and key high-level clerics have largely spoken out against young Saudis joining the fight. While the Saudi government backs some rebel opposition groups in Syria with weapons and aid, officials say Riyadh does not fund al-Qaida-linked groups.

A key Saudi opposition group, Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights, known in Arabic by its acronym HASEM, said in a statement last week that Saudi rulers are responsible for encouraging extremist ideology in the kingdom in exchange for retaining power and support from the religious establishment. The group said the kingdom secretly tolerates citizens fighting abroad to keep them from carrying out attacks in Saudi Arabia.

The decree comes after a sweeping new counterterrorism law came into effect in the kingdom Sunday that activists say targets virtually any criticism of the government. "This disturbing new law confirms our worst fears - that the Saudi Arabian authorities are seeking legal cover to entrench their ability to crack down on peaceful dissent and silence human rights defenders," said Said Boumedouha, Middle East Deputy Director at Amnesty International, in a statement.

Aya Batrawy contributed from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

New Saudi counterterrorism law alarms activists

February 02, 2014

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia put into effect a sweeping new counterterrorism law Sunday that human rights activists say allows the kingdom to prosecute as a terrorist anyone who demands reform, exposes corruption or otherwise engages in dissent.

The law states that any act that "undermines" the state or society, including calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia, can be tried as an act of terrorism. It also grants security services broad powers to raid homes and track phone calls and Internet activity.

Human rights activists were alarmed by the law and said it is clearly aimed at keeping the kingdom's ruling Al Saud family firmly in control amid the demands for democratic reform that have grown louder since the Arab Spring protests that shook the region in 2011 and toppled longtime autocrats.

Saudi activist Abdulaziz al-Shubaily described the law as a "catastrophe." And Human Rights Watch researcher Adam Coogle warned: "The new law is draconian in spirit and letter, and there is every reason to fear that the authorities will easily and eagerly use it against peaceful dissidents."

The measure was approved by the Cabinet on Dec. 16 and ratified by King Abdullah. It was published in its entirety for the first time on Friday in the government's official gazette Um Al-Qura. In defense of the law, the Saudi minister of culture and information, Abdel Aziz Khoja, was quoted in December as saying that the legislation strikes a balance between prevention of crimes and protection of human rights according to Islamic law.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's last absolute monarchies. All decisions are centered in the hands of 89-year-old King Abdullah. There is no parliament. There is little written law, and judges — implementing the country's strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam — have broad leeway to impose verdicts and sentences.

An attempt to pass a similar counterterrorism law in 2011 was shelved after rights groups in Saudi Arabia and abroad leaked a copy online. Since then, dozens of activists have been detained, a prominent rights organization was shut down, and authorities more aggressively monitor social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, where jokes about the aging monarchy are rife and anger over corruption, poverty and unemployment is palpable.

The new law defines terrorism as any criminal act that "destabilizes the society's security or the state's stability or exposes its national unity to harm." It also states that terrorist acts include disabling the ruling system or "offending the nation's reputation or its position."

Activists said that simply exposing corruption could be seen as a violation of the law. Some also warned that Saudi women who get behind the wheel of a car in violation of the ban on female drivers could be tried under the new anti-terror law.

The law also gives the interior minister the power to end sentences and drop charges. It says only the interior minister can order the release of a person on trial. Judges would have no say. Other worrying aspects, activists said, include an article that says police can raid homes and offices on suspicion of anti-government activity without prior approval from a judge or even a superior. Suspects can also be held incommunicado for 90 days, and lawyers are not required to be present during the initial interrogation.

Coogle said the law "enshrines some of the unlawful practices that Saudi authorities were already committing," such as detention of suspects for many years without trial. He said it also does not specify the punishment for crimes committed under the new law.

However, he said the measure does not include some of the most controversial language of the 2011 draft, which went further by criminalizing insults against Islam and protests as acts of terrorism. Al-Shubaily is among 12 activists in the country who founded the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights, known in Arabic by its acronym HASEM. The group was shut down, eight of its founding members were imprisoned, and he is facing trial.

"If I call for the release of someone from jail for being held longer than their sentence, I can be tried for 'asking the state to take action,'" al-Shubaily said. "When I call for a constitutional monarchy, I can now be charged with terrorism."

"They characterize you as a terrorist because you ask the kingdom to do something it does not want to do" he added.

UAE summons Qatar envoy to protest Islamist cleric

February 02, 2014

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates summoned Qatar's ambassador to formally protest the comments of an outspoken pro-Muslim Brotherhood cleric who criticized the Gulf country's policies toward Islamist groups, the UAE's official news agency reported Sunday.

WAM news agency said the UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, told Qatari ambassador Fares el-Naimi that Egyptian-born Youssef el-Qaradawi should be stopped and condemned by Doha's leadership for expressing comments critical of the UAE.

It was a rare public display of the growing rift between Gulf Arab nations and Qatar, which was a staunch supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the region until the military in Cairo ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Following the coup, which came after less than a million demonstrated for Morsi to leave office, Qatar found its influence in the Middle East diminishing. Meanwhile other Gulf Cooperation Council nations such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait stepped in with billions of dollars in aid to help the military-backed regime in Egypt wade through its volatile transition.

The UAE claims Islamist groups backed by the Muslim Brotherhood have sought to topple its Western-backed ruling system. It has jailed Islamists and shut down the Brotherhood's branch in the UAE. El-Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar's capital city of Doha, often uses his Friday sermons that are broadcast on state television to criticize Egypt and the UAE's clampdown on the Brotherhood.

"The Emirates stands against all Islamic rule, and punishes its followers and detains them," el-Qaradawi said in his sermon from the week before last. Gargash was quoted as saying it was shameful that the cleric is allowed to continue to insult the UAE from a fellow Gulf Arab nation. He was quoted in WAM saying the oil-rich Emirates will not accept "insults" of its leaders and its people, or abusive language directed at its values.

"We waited for our neighbor to express clear rejection of this encroachment and to provide adequate explanation and guarantees that this distortion and incitement does not occur again," Gargash was quoted in WAM as saying.

He said the UAE rejects all forms of speech that encourage violence, but "unfortunately", despite attempts to talk to Qatari officials in private, the UAE "did not achieve the desired response from its brotherly nation in Qatar."

Two days earlier, Qatar's Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah said the UAE's security is important to his country. Speaking to Qatar's state television, he sought to distance his country's politics from el-Qaradawi, saying Qatar's official police are represented by official state channels only.

"We have full respect for our brothers in the United Arab Emirates ... and the security of the UAE is part of our security," he said. Egyptian officials in the past summoned Qatar's ambassador to Cairo to express concerns about the Gulf state's criticism of Egypt's decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The Islamist group denies it is involved in violence.

High-speed rail: Spain appetite grows for more lucrative contracts

2013-07-23

By Katell Abiven – MADRID

Encouraged by a multi-billion euro contract to build a high-speed rail in Saudi Arabia, recession-hit Spain is fighting to win more lucrative train contracts abroad.

The country's next target is Brazil which in September will award a contract worth $16.4 billion (12.7 billion euros) for a high-speed rail network linking the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Campinas.

Spain is bidding for the contract through a consortium of 11 public and private companies.

"It is important because it is Latin America and ties between Spain and Latin America are especially intense," Spanish secretary of state for transport, Rafael Catala, said in an interview.

"It's also important because it is high-speed rail and we want to show that we are world leaders in this area."

Spain is one of few countries with expertise in high-speed railway technology. Its main competitors are France, Germany and Japan.

It has built the second-largest high-speed rail network in the world since it opened its first high-speed line between Madrid and the southern city of Seville in 1992.

The country's high-speed network -- dubbed Alta Velocidad Espanola, or AVE which means "bird" in Spanish -- spans 3,100 kilometers. Only China's is larger.

Beyond its technological expertise, Spain now has an additional interest in exporting its know-how.

With the government slashing spending as it seeks to rein in a ballooning public deficit, Spanish firms "have no choice" than to look for contracts abroad, said Alejandro Lago, a logistics professor at the Iese business school in Barcelona.

And Spain is hoping to bank on its recent deal with Saudi Arabia to obtain other similar projects.

In 2011, a Spanish consortium won a 6.7-billion-euro contract to build and operate a 450-kilometer (280-mile) high speed rail link in the desert between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

The consortium beat out a strong French bid for the deal, in the biggest international contract won by Spain.

"A contract like this puts you in a showcase," said Pedro Fortea, the head of Spanish railway company association Mafex, which promotes 73 firms abroad.

"It helps to get you known in many places, it positions you as a reference country in the sector."

Spain, whose experts in this area include train manufacturer Talgo and information technology firm Indra, has already convinced Turkey, having built the high-speed rail link linking Ankara and Istanbul which was inaugurated in 2009.

Now it has set its sights on Brazil and the United States which are planning new rail links.

"There are also a series of projects planned in the medium term in Russia, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates," said Catala.

But Lago cautioned that the market for high-speed rail "is not enormous".

"It is not so clear that many other nations will do what France or Spain have done, which is to pursue a political policy based on a national model of mobility which favors high-speed rail over others methods of transportation," he said.

"High-speed rail is difficult to justify on a cost-benefit analysis, unless it is in the very long term."

Only two high-speed links in the world have managed to recover the investments made to build them - the Paris-Lyon in France and the Tokyo-Osaka link in Japan, said Germa Bel, economist and transportation expert at the University of Barcelona.

Despite the popularity of high-speed rail in Spain the number of passengers in the country remains low in terms of the number of passengers per kilometer, she added.

"France has six times more, Japan 15 times more," she said.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60294.

Muslims flee capital of Central African Republic

February 07, 2014

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Thousands of Muslims fled for their lives from the capital of Central African Republic on Friday, climbing aboard trucks guarded by heavily armed Chadian forces. One man who fell off a truck was subsequently killed and his body mutilated, highlighting the savagery faced by those Muslims who stayed behind.

The convoy of some 500 cars, trucks and motorcycles made its way toward Chad, a predominantly Muslim neighboring country. Crowds of Christians cheered as the convoy passed out of town. The exodus witnessed by Associated Press journalists comes after two months of sectarian violence in the capital that has targeted Muslims accused of collaborating with the now-sidelined rebel government.

In recent weeks, angry mobs have set fire to mosques and have brutally killed and mutilated Muslims. On Wednesday, one Muslim suspected of having aided last year's rebellion was attacked for 15 minutes with knives, bricks and feet. Uniformed soldiers then paraded his body through the streets before it was dismembered and set ablaze.

"It really is a horrific situation. All over Bangui, entire Muslim neighborhoods are being destroyed and emptied," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, who has gotten trapped Muslims to safety under the guard of peacekeepers.

"Their buildings are being destroyed and being taken apart, brick by brick, roof by roof, to wipe out any sign of their once existence in this country," he added. Some trucks broke down even before they could leave Bangui and had to be abandoned. The passengers jumped aboard other trucks, facing constant jeering, threats and stone throwing from the watching crowd.

"The Christians say the Muslims must go back where they came from, that's why we are going home," said Osmani Benui as she fled Bangui. "We had no possibility to stay on because we had no protection."

Central African Republic is a predominantly Christian country, with a sizeable Muslim population in its north near the borders with Sudan and Chad. An alliance of Muslim rebel groups from the north united to overthrow the president of a decade last March, though their grievances were political and economic — not religious.

The rebels known as Seleka quickly became bitterly despised by Christians in the capital after the fighters went on looting sprees, raping and killing civilians at random. An armed Christian movement known as the anti-Balaka, aided by loyalists of ousted President Francois Bozize, began retaliating several months later.

Christian fighters attempted to overthrow the Muslim rebel government in early December, sparking unprecedented bloodshed that left more than 1,000 people dead in a matter of days. An untold number have died in the weeks that followed, with most of the attacks in Bangui targeting Muslims.

The Muslim rebel leader who took power last March has stepped aside, and the country is currently being led by former Bangui mayor Catherine Samba-Panza as interim president. The United States, France and the United Nations all have condemned Wednesday's grisly slaying by armed soldiers, which took place just moments after the interim president left the scene. No one was detained in connection with the slaying, which took place in the presence of African regional peacekeepers.

"It is very unfortunate that that happened, that we were not able to quickly intervene and then save him, but things happened so quickly that we couldn't," said Eloi Yao, spokesman for the African mission known as MISCA.

Babacar Gaye, the U.N. special representative to Central African Republic, called for an investigation and said those responsible "should be made an example of."

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press journalist Andrew Drake in Bangui, Central African Republic contributed to this report.

Israeli army report reveals intelligence and security relations with several Arab and Muslim countries

Wednesday, 05 February 2014

The official website of the Israeli army released an unprecedented report on Tuesday claiming that Israel's Mossad intelligence agency has been cooperating closely with a number of Arab and Muslim countries on issues of security, intelligence and military exports. The collaborating countries include: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan.

According to the report, Bahrain has been providing Israel with intelligence on Iran and Palestinian organizations. The report also highlights the growing secret cooperation between Israel and Saudi Arabia, claiming that the Mossad has been in direct contact with Saudi intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. Indeed the Mossad's former chief, Meir Dagan, is reported to have visited Saudi Arabia to meet with Saudi officials to discuss this matter. The report notes that the Saudi authorities had agreed in 1982 to allow dozens of Israeli soldiers, upon the request of the US administration, to operate within its regional waters to search for the wreck of a rocket carrier, which had exploded after passing above a mine in the Red Sea.

The report emphasized that the Saudi government allowed the Israeli navy to search its regional waters at the same time when Israeli forces were invading Lebanon and waging a relentless war against the Palestinian resistance movement, before allowing armed groups to commit the Sabra and Shatila massacres against the Palestinian refugees in Beirut.

The New York Times reported in 2011 that Israel had approved an arms deal where Germany provided Saudi Arabia with 200 tanks, signaling the strengthening cooperation between the two states.

According to the Israeli army report, Israel has also sold the UAE various military supplies, including: developed pilot helmets, drone equipment, devices to refuel airplanes while airborne, ground radar, developed systems to improve fighter aircrafts and defensive devices to jam hostile missiles.

The report claims that Morocco bought Heron drones from Israel too; however, the aircrafts were shipped to the North African monarchy via France. The intelligence cooperation between the two countries reportedly reached its peak in 1973 at the same time Morocco was sending its troops to fight Israel. The report claims that the Mossad helped the Moroccan intelligence assassinate Mahdi Ben Baraka, an opposition leader to the regime of former King Hassan II, who had agreed to allow tens of thousands of Moroccan Jews to immigrate to Israel in exchange for Israel's accepting to consult on developing Morocco's security and intelligence devices.

Israel has also supplied Algeria, Morocco's neighboring rival, with sophisticated air traffic control systems, pilot helmets, radars, communication systems and military air navigation systems.

Israel has sold weapons to several other Muslim majority countries, namely Azerbaijan and Afghanistan, which have been shipped through Pakistan. According to the report, through its military exports Israel aims to improve its economic status as well as to achieve its strategic security interests. For example, Israel is reported to have exploited its relations with Azerbaijan to spy on neighboring Iran.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/9593-israeli-army-report-reveals-intelligence-and-security-relations-with-several-arab-and-muslim-countries.

Sochi's opening show: Let Putin's games begin

February 06, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — It's designed to celebrate a millennium of Russian might and this country's modern rebound, and kick off two weeks of extraordinary human endeavors and planetary sportsmanship. But the ceremony opening the Sochi Olympics on Friday, more than anything, will be about one man: Vladimir Putin.

He charmed and strong-armed his way to hosting the games at a summer beach resort that he envisioned as a winter paradise. He stared down terrorist threats and worldwide wrath at a scarcely veiled campaign against gays. He has shrugged off critiques that construction of the most costly games in Olympic history was both shoddy and corrupt.

Ballet, man-made snow and avant-garde art will make an appearance at Sochi's opening ceremonies, though as with all past opening ceremonies, the details are under wraps. They can't really compete with the cinematic splendor of the London Olympics or the pyrotechnic extravaganza of Beijing, but then again, the Winter Games are usually more low-key.

No matter. All Putin needs is an event that tells the world "Russia is back." It's a message meant for millions around the world who will watch the show — and meant for his countrymen, too. Russians will form the bulk of the spectators in Sochi for the Olympics, a people whose forebears endured centuries of oppression, a revolution that changed the world, a Soviet experiment that built rockets and nuclear missiles but struggled to feed its people. Russians who sometimes embrace Putin's heavy hand because they fear uncertainty more than they crave freedom, and who, despite inhabiting the largest country in the world, feel insecure about their place in it.

They're pinning especially high hopes on their athletes, once a force to be reckoned with and the pride of the nation. They were an embarrassment at the Vancouver Games in 2010, with just three gold medals and a string of doping busts.

This year, Russia has cleaned up its game and is presenting hundreds of skaters, skiers and other champions in the arenas on Sochi's seashore and in the nearby Caucasus Mountains slopes of Krasnaya Polyana.

While the United States, Norway and Germany are seen as leading medal contenders, Russia will be pushing hard to bring home a bundle for the home crowd. Putin put on the pressure even as he tried to motivate them this week: "We are all counting on you."

If there was any doubt, it was erased on the first evening of competition, as a booming crowd of Russian shouted "heroes" at world champion pairs Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov as they, along with men's skater Evgeni Plushenko, pushed Russia into the early lead in the new competition of team figure skating.

"It's pressure, but this pressure helps us," Volosozhar said. "They push us very hard," Trankov added. It was a night on which competition and the athletes finally took a back seat to thoughts about terrorism, but they remain not far from anyone's mind.

A few hundred miles (kilometers) away lies Chechnya, the site of two wars in the past two decades. And Dagestan, childhood home to the two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings and where militants regularly mount attacks. And Volgograd, where two suicide bombs killed 34 people in December.

A decade ago, extremists hid a bomb in a stadium in Chechnya during construction. Then when the Kremlin-backed Chechen president showed up for a ceremony, the bomb went off, killing him and several others.

Fear of terrorism have clouded the run-up, fueled Putin's strict security agenda and brought U.S. warships to the region. And about 40,000 Russian security forces are working to prevent an attack on the games, and they stand watch in all corners of Sochi and its Olympic Park on the sea and built-from-scratch mountain ski resort.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security rekindled the fears this week, warning that terrorists may try to smuggle explosives into Russia in toothpaste tubes. Yet some air travelers heading to Sochi have defied a temporary Russian ban on all liquids in carry-on luggage, and brought toothpaste and other toiletries on board unnoticed.

The world will be watching the entire Olympic machine in Sochi, and much as it did when Soviet-era Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics in 1980, it will use what it sees to sit in judgment of Putin's Russia, where he has suffocated political opposition and ruled overtly or covertly for 15 years.

Is it a has-been superpower that can't keep the electricity on during a hockey game? Or a driver of the 21st century global economy? A diplomatic middleweight with ties to despots that wields influence only via its veto at the United Nations? Or a fairy tale of prosperous resurrection from the communist collapse and its brutal aftermath?

Who sits next to Putin on the VIP balcony may provide some clue. President Barack Obama and some other Western leaders are staying away, upset at a law that he championed barring homosexual "propaganda" aimed at minors that has been used to more widely discriminate against gays.

But organizers say some 66 leaders — including heads of state and international organizations — are joining the games, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The opening ceremonies will gloss over these ugly bits as they hand over the games to the men and women who will spend the next two weeks challenging records and the limits of human ability.

Some 3,000 athletes, a record for the Winter Olympics, will come for 98 events, including the new slopestyle extreme skiing competition that began Thursday. More women will compete than ever before. Among Americans, Shaun White is skipping slopestyle to focus on winning a third-straight snowboarding gold in halfpipe. Gracie Gold and Ashley Wagner will try to out-skate South Korea's Yuna Kim.

The pros of the NHL won't arrive until Monday, taking a special break in their season to hop on charter flights to Sochi and splitting off to compete against each other on behalf of their homelands. Legions of small business owners, political leaders and residents of this region are also hoping that Putin wins his gamble the games will turn Sochi into a year-round resort zone. Glitches with not-quite-ready hotels and a run of last-minute construction have seeded doubts.

The opening ceremony provides a moment of inspiration. Who will light the Olympic cauldron? Russian hockey great Vladislav Tretiak — among the best to ever play the game — has said he'll take part, and some speculate he'll be Putin's choice for the high honor of the opening ceremony.

It may be too much for Putin to hope that three hours of an opening ceremony will reshape his global image. But in a country that embraces superlatives and spectacle and set a world standard for classical dance, he can count on them to provide a good show.

AP sports writer John Krawczynski contributed to this report.

Early start Thursday for Sochi Olympics events

February 06, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Competition at the Sochi Olympics has begun, 32 hours before the opening ceremony.

Early starts are needed because of 12 men's and women's medal events added since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Men's snowboard slopestyle qualifying runs — without American star Shaun White, who withdrew Wednesday — got underway Thursday 10 a.m. (0600 GMT) at X-Treme Park in the mountains above Sochi.

Women's qualifying runs were following in the afternoon, and women's moguls qualifying was scheduled to start freestyle skiing events at 6 p.m. (1400 GMT). Men's slopestyle and women's moguls are among the first medals to be awarded Saturday.

Down in Sochi, the new team figure skating competition begins 7.30 p.m. (1530 GMT) at the Iceberg Skating Palace. The men's short program is to be followed by the pairs.

SOCHI SCENE: Welcome, world; where are you?

February 06, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Olympic fans of the world, where are you?

Sochi is (more or less) ready for you to come to its Winter Games. Thousands of athletes, soldiers, journalists and herds of smiley volunteers are in place, eager to help. So far, though, it seems like the only spectators milling about are Russian.

Dina Kobolenko is waiting for you at her tourist information stand near the Sochi train station, armed with maps of this subtropical resort on the Black Sea. She says that as of two days before the Games, she'd seen only a single foreigner — a South Korean. They couldn't understand each other, though, so had to communicate in sign language.

Fears about terrorism and the hassle of reaching Sochi from points abroad may be keeping some foreigners away — and undermining Vladimir Putin's plans to transform Sochi into a magnet for international tourism.

A train traveling between Olympic sites and downtown Sochi cheerily announces to visitors in English: "We wish you a pleasant journey!" But on a recent ride, its seats were half empty. And a sweep through four train cars found ... not a single foreign fan.

Associated Press reporters will be filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games.

Sochi says 65 world leaders coming to Olympics

February 06, 2014

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — A record number of world dignitaries are coming to the Sochi Olympics, triple the amount that attended the 2010 Vancouver Games, Russian organizers said Thursday on the eve of the opening ceremony.

Dmitry Chernyshenko, head of the Sochi organizing committee, told the IOC that 65 heads of state and government and international organizations are expected to attend Russia's first Winter Olympics. "This is a record for Winter Games, three times the number in Vancouver," he said in his final update to the International Olympic Committee general assembly.

The IOC said Wednesday it was aware of 44 world leaders coming to the games. Chernyshenko's figures could be higher because of the inclusion of international organizations. Sochi organizers have declined to provide the names of the leaders coming to the opening ceremony or the countries they represent.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon are among those attending and meeting with President Vladimir Putin. A number of top world leaders are skipping the games, however. They include President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German President Joachim Gauck.

The Olympics come amid Western criticism of Russia's record on human rights and its law banning gay "propaganda" among minors. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who ran in the Olympic torch relay in Sochi, labeled as "nonsense" the talk of how many foreign leaders are coming to the games.

"No one has ever counted," he said, as quoted by Russian agency RIA Novosti. "They started counting when they decided that they should spoil things for Russia so that Russia would feel uncomfortable."

On Tuesday, IOC President Thomas Bach denounced politicians who used the Sochi Olympics for their own purposes "on the backs of the athletes," including leaders who publicly snubbed the games without having been invited.

Meanwhile, the IOC praised Sochi organizers for the seven-year project in preparing the game but warned them not to rest yet. "We have and you have all reasons to be very, very confident but there is no reason to be complacent," Bach said. "Now the real work starts. We are sure it will be a success, but we have to make it work."

Jean-Claude Killy, the French ski great who headed the IOC coordination commission for Sochi, said Sochi had undergone an "astounding" transformation in the seven years since it was awarded the games.

Russia has used the games to try to develop a decaying Black Sea summer resort into a year-round tourist destination and winter sports complex. It has spent $51 billion overall to rebuild the area, including long-term investments in roads, railways, hotels and other infrastructure.

"All of the promises made in 2007 have been kept and spectacularly so," Killy said. "It's a new city that's going to organize these games and show itself to the world — a city that is reflecting the new Russia."

Chernyshenko told the IOC: "Thank you for your bravery and courage that day. We didn't let you down." Chernyshenko said a record 2,860 athletes from 88 countries had registered for the games so far, and offered further assurances that Russian security will "deliver safe games."

Tens of thousands of police and military personnel have been deployed to guard the Olympics, which face threats of terror attacks by Islamic insurgents from the North Caucasus region. In a light moment, Chernyshenko claimed the birth rate had tripled in Sochi in the years leading to the games.

"I don't know why," he said.

Rare white lion triplets born in Poland

February 04, 2014

BORYSEW, Poland (AP) — The owner of a private zoo in central Poland said Tuesday he feels three times lucky with the birth of white lion triplets who are getting loving care from their mother.

Andrzej Pabich, head of the zoo in Borysew, said white lions often have defects that prevent giving birth, or mothers may reject the cubs. Triplets are rare. The white lion is a rare color mutation of the Kruger subspecies of African lion found in some wildlife reserves in South Africa and in zoos around the world. Pabich says about 90 of them are now in existence.

He told The Associated Press that his 2 ½ -year-old white lioness Azira has been patiently feeding and caring for the cubs, which were born Jan. 28. Their father, 3 ½-year old Sahim, who is also white, is kept in a neighboring cage and roars at anyone who comes too close to his family.

"Luckily the birth went all smoothly," Pabich said. "We had doubts whether it would be all OK: won't (she) reject them, will she have milk? But all went luckily well in the end. The mother accepted (the cubs), is feeding them and is very caring."

The zoo will name the cubs after they grow a little more and can be weighed and identified as either male or female, Pabich said. They will be allowed on an outdoor run in April. Opened in 2008, the zoo has animals of 80 species, including white tigers and white camels, and drew 160,000 visitors last year.

Pabich is a machinery mechanic who loves animals and his son, Dariusz, and a team of veterinarians work at the zoo.