World Threats

The U.S. has placed sanctions on three senior Syrian officials for their roles in the ongoing human rights abuses and the regime’s intelligence agency. The three were Maher Assad, Atif Nijab (Assad’s cousin) and Ali Mamluk, the director of intelligence. This is mostly symbolic as these officials don’t have significant assets in the U.S. but hopefully Europe will also begin enacting sanctions and freezing assets. The Quds Force of Iran was also targeted for its aid to the Assad regime.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has also approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning the Assad regime’s violence. The Council also agreed to launch an investigation into the crackdown, which could lead to indictments of Syrian officials. This is in addition to the U.N. Special Tribunal that is set to implicate Hezbollah and possibly Syrian officials in the 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri.

In a remarkable coincidence, the IAEA has confirmed that the site bombed by Israel in 2007 was indeed a secret nuclear reactor under construction. The next report will be released in June and could pave the way for stronger U.N. sanctions. The United Nations Development Program has suspended its activity in Syria.

Meanwhile, this week’s violence has not deterred the opposition. Al-Jazeera says at least 62 people were killed yesterday. At least six were killed in Daraa today. Nearly 10,000 marched in Damascus towards Ummayad Square.

The Republican Guard has been deployed in Damascus and protests are being dispersed in Latakia, Hama, Deir al-Zour, Jassem, Banias, Aleppo, Tabakah, Qamoshli, Idlib, Homs, Amouda and Hassakeh. The regime is claiming that cops and soldiers are being killed and kidnapped by “terrorists.” This could be made up altogether or a way of covering-up the execution of disloyal personnel. The regime claims that four soldiers in Daraa were murdered and two conscripts were kidnapped and released the names of the latter two.

The Reform Party of Syria reports that a siege is under way at Zabadani, with communications and electricity being cut off. This is the strategy also employed in Daraa and Homs, with a resident in the former telling Al-Jazeera that people are collecting rain for use as water. An eyewitness has told Reuters that 83 people were killed in Daraa yesterday. A similar story is being told in Jableh where citizens are being shot in the streets and no one has access to food, electricity or medicine. RPS says that at least 29 have been killed in Homs.

Al-Jazeera has reported that Syrians are fleeing to the Wadi Khalid area of Lebanon.

The Muslim Brotherhood has finally called on people to demonstrate but their delay will not be forgotten. Western analysts hostile to the idea of regime change will claim that this Friday’s escalation was due to Brotherhood participation but in reality, the protests have steadily grown each week.

As if the situation in Syria wasn’t difficult enough for the Assad regime, there is evidence that one of its staunchest allies is picking up and abandoning them.

The terrorist group Hamas has been consistently aided by the Ba’athist dictatorship and has been responsible for the deaths of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans. Now the group (which is the government in Gaza) is leaving Syria, according to Ha’aretz, an Israeli paper.

More than 15 members of Hamas’s Political Bureau have been operating in exile in Damascus since 1999.

According to the report, Hamas’ military echelon will relocate to the Gaza strip. There was no mention of a reason for the relocation, which will come just days after Hamas and the leading West Bank party Fatah signed an historic reconciliation deal.

Their destination? US ally Qatar, home to an American base!

According to internal government documents obtained by Wikileaks, the U.S. has sought to undermine the Assad dictatorship and promote democracy by secretly financing the Movement for Justice and Development — an opposition group described in a diplomatic cable as “liberal, moderate Islamists.”

At least $6 million was given to Syrian opposition groups, though one cable indicates the total was $12 million between 2005 and 2010, with financing earmarked as late as September of last year. The money came from the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative through the Democracy Council based in Los Angeles. Major funding was provided for the Movement for Justice and Development (MJD), a group which the cables say is made up of former Muslim Brotherhood members seeking regime change in Syria and consists of “liberal, moderate Islamists.” The U.S. was especially interested in sponsoring Barada TV, whose chief editor, Malik al-Abdeh, is also a co-founder of MJD. The chairman of MJD is Anas al-Abdeh, his brother.

The files describe a split between the Brotherhood and MJD, particularly after the Brotherhood took Hamas’ side during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead and announced it would “suspend its activities against the Syrian regime” in response. The files say that MJD sought to “marginalize it [Muslim Brotherhood] abroad” and the division became public in June 2009 when the Brotherhood publicly lashed out at the external parts of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change, which MJD is a part of.

Click here to read the rest of my PJM article.

The Syrian Revolution of 2011 isn’t going away. As a matter of fact, it may even be growing, This comes as there is word of inter-army fighting as well as over 400 civilians slaughtered by the Ba’athist dictatorship. Still, the protests keep coming against the Assad regime.

The protests are spreading into the major population centers:

Syrian security forces opened fire on demonstrations in the capital of Damascus and the coastal city of Latakia — the heartland of the ruling elite — wounding at least five people. State-run television said a military post in Daraa was stormed by armed men who killed four soldiers and captured two.

Other demonstrations were reported in the central city of Homs, the coastal cities of Banias and Latakia, the northern cities of Raqqa and Hama, and the northeastern town of Qamishli.

Unfortunately, there was firing into the crowd with an unknown number of casualties.

Worse still, is word that the Muslim Brotherhood is calling for further protests.

The banned Muslim Brotherhood has called on Syrians to take to the streets to protest against the regime ahead of Friday prayers.

The declaration is the first time that the Brotherhood, whose leadership is in exile, have called directly for demonstrations since pro-democracy demonstrations against President Bashar al Assad’s autocratic rule erupted six weeks ago.

I’m wondering about the Brotherhood’s angle here. The Assad regime is definitely not pro-Israel or Western. Perhaps they just see a falling camel, and are drawing their knives.

On March 31, the Obama Administration gave command over military operations in Libya to NATO over French objections. The U.S. combat role officially ended but, like in Iraq, this declaration is nearly meaningless as American pilots continue to risk their lives. The U.S. is now engaged in military operations that are hamstrung by unreliable alliance members for the sake of preserving a stalemate.

The Obama Administration delayed action in Libya until it received the approval of the Arab League, the United Nations and NATO. It was eager to make sure the war was fought under an international banner, even though the U.S. would bear the brunt of the burden. The French government staunchly opposed giving command over to NATO, leading to fierce arguments between officials. France felt that it, along with the U.S. and U.K., should have political leadership over the war with NATO playing a supporting role. The French caved under American and British pressure.

It didn’t take long for fractures in NATO to appear after the handover. The French Foreign Minister and the British Foreign Secretary openly criticized other alliance members for not committing to the effort. Half of NATO’s members officially participated in the war, as did some other non-NATO countries, but only six were willing to actually carry out bombing raids with the other four being Norway, Canada, Denmark and Belgium. Many of the countries placed heavy restrictions on their military’s participation, forbidding bombing raids and attack missions and refusing to destroy certain types of targets like trucks. The end of the U.S. combat role decreased the amount of American aircraft available, such as the A-10 Warthog close-support aircraft.

Click here to read the rest of my FPM article.

From CAN:

The Al-Qaeda terrorist organization seeks to destroy airline flights departing from Pakistan to the U.K. by smuggling liquid explosives onboard, The Nation in Pakistan reports. The newspaper says that the plans for the attacks have already been drawn up and have been detected by an unnamed intelligence service.

According to The Nation, Al-Qaeda is trying to assemble an explosive with no metal components in order to evade airport security. The terrorist group remains fixated on targeting airliners and airports. Last year, operatives in Europe were arrested for allegedly planning shooting attacks on airports and in October, a plot to blow up two UPS cargo planes using modified ink cartridges was foiled.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, claimed credit for the bomb plots and said that it was still a success even if they did not detonate because of the cost to the Western economies. The group claimed it only cost them $4,200 and took three months to prepare. Al-Qaeda’s enemies would now have to undertake expensive security measures in response to the new tactic, the group explained.

The group also said in its online English-language magazine that their strategy had changed. Now, they would focus on “attacking the enemy with smaller, but more frequent operations is what some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts. The aim is to bleed the enemy to death.”

On September 22, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said that “[Plots against the homeland] have surpassed the number and pace of attacks during any year since 9/11.” He also said that capability of terrorists to carry out attacks in the homeland is increasing.

In Egypt, the military regime has responded to Muslim protests against having a Christian governor who was a senior police officer under Mubarak by suspending him from ruling for three months. There are two dynamics at play: Muslim resistance to being governed by a non-Muslim and the backlash against anyone associated with Mubarak. It is important to realize that Christians also participated in these protests.

In some disappointing news, a new Pew poll shows only 36% of Egyptians want to preserve the peace treaty with Israel and 54 percent want it gone. This contradicts another poll that shows 60 percent want to keep the treaty. The latter one includes the caveat that the treaty is supported if it guarantees the creation of a separate Palestinian state, so that may account for the discrepancy.

The United Arab Emirates have been mostly spared from the Arab Spring so far, except for some vocal demands for democratic reform. The government seems worried still, as it has arrested five pro-reform activists for promoting “acts that threaten state security and public order.”

The Arab Spring has settled down Morocco for now, but protests continued on Sunday. Thousands  demonstrated for the release of political prisoners, anti-corruption measures, an independent judicial system, and other improvements but not regime change. The report says that organizers claimed there were 20,000 participants in Casablanca but a reporter put it at half of that. The government has reacted by agreeing to spend $5.4 billion over three years to raise the pay of public sector employees and raising the minimum wage for those in the private sector.

In Bahrain, the crisis with Iran continues to escalate. The Royal Family has expelled an Iranian diplomat for allegedly being linked to a spy cell in Kuwait.

In Saudi Arabia, the Royal Family is still dealing with low but consistent levels of unrest in the Shiite-majority Eastern Province. Two Shiite bloggers have been  arrested for their role in protests.

In Yemen, the opposition is warning the Saleh regime that the nearly-finished deal could be scrapped in the wake of renewed violence against protesters. On Wednesday, 12 were killed by gunfire in Sanaa. President Saleh is now refusing to sign the agreement if representatives from Qatar are present at the event but the deal is still expected to be finalized on Saturday.

Al-Jazeera has confirmed that members of the 5^th Division have clashed with the 4^th Division led by Maher Assad in Daraa. The news agency says three witnesses and an activist verified the reports, but that it does not indicate that a decisive split has formed yet. An opposition spokesman said battalions from the 5^th intervened to protect the people and were fired upon by the 4^th and returned fire. One witness said the clashes lasted for several hours in front of the Bilal mosque in central Daraa.

The Reform Party of Syria says that a pro-Assad Syrian named Bassam Abu Abdullah admitted on Al-Jazeera that 850 Syrian soldiers in the 4^th Army died in the clashes. This should be considered a rumor right now since we do not know who this person is or where he got the information. An Army lieutenant from the Okaidat tribe told the opposition that 1,000 soldiers have been executed for disobeying orders.

The RPS also reports that tanks are now entering Homs and heavy fire is being heard.

Al-Jazeera is reporting that at least 50 people in Daraa have been killed since Monday and “People are not able to move outside their homes because snipers shoot everything that moves.” The main hospital has been seized by the regime and residents are suffering without food, electricity or medicine.

Tanks have been seen entering Madaya, 40 kilometers northwest of Damascus and phone lines, Internet and electricity have been cut off. The story is the same in Douma, where citizens are being smothered with a heavy security presence.

The Reform Party of Syria has sent out the link to a video allegedly showing a little girl that was shot in the eye by a sniper in Barzah. Here is another video taken in Hawleh yesterday showing the regime’s brutal attacks on protesters. These are very difficult to watch.

Al-Jazeera is also saying that reports of a split in Assad’s military are exaggerated. There are about 20 officers in Daraa who intervened on the side of the people. A video has surfaced of wounded soldiers that are said to have refused orders to kill people in Daraa.

Yesterday, funerals will held for 5 to 6 security officers killed by “armed extremist groups” the day prior. This is likely an attempt by the regime to cover up the execution of disobedient officers.

The Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian opposition group, says it has received information that some officers in the 5^th Division are disobeying orders and are trying to stop Maher Assad’s 4^th Division from entering Daraa.

The RPS also said that Al-Arabiya had reported fighting between the 4^th and 5^th Divisions but could not independently confirm.

At least 203 members of the Baath Party from the region that includes Daraa have resigned, bringing the total number of resignations to 233. This number includes 30 from Baniyas who resigned.

The total death toll since the uprising began is believed to have now surpassed 500.

On Wednesday, Hamas and Fatah reached a reconciliation agreement that includes the formation of a unity government that will last until general elections are held within one year. The groups claimed that all areas of disagreement had been settled, including with security arrangements. It is being hailed as an achievement, but it ends the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and is bound to ultimately fail.

The Arab Spring motivated Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to pressure their governments to come together. In mid-March, thousands of Palestinians protested in favor of reconciliation in both Palestinian Territories. In Gaza, dozens of protesters went further and demanded the release of political prisoners and greater freedoms and were forcibly dispersed and threatened with arrest.

Click here to read the rest of my FPM article.

I cannot really say that I expected this, but it appears that at least some in the Iranian Majlis,  or Parliament, are calling for the ouster of “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So what’s the call stemming from? Corruption, blackmail, murder? Of course not. It mainly is stemming from charges that Ahmadinejad is not radical enough– that he had the gall to apparently disagree with the country’s ruling Mullah, Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad has not been seen of late and now there is word of impeachment proceedings.

Since the first signs of split emerged, several members of the Iranian parliament have called on Ahmadinejad to publicly support Khamenei’s decision over Moslehi, a request he has so far declined. Some prominent figures in the powerful revolutionary guards have also asked the president to comply with the supreme leader.

On Tuesday, Parliament News, a website run by Iranian MPs reported that “the plan to impeach Ahmadinejad has begun” in the parliament, with 12 MPs asking for him to be summoned before them.

Conservatives believe that the increasing tension between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei stems from the growing influence of Mashaei, who is being groomed by Ahmadinejad as his possible successor.

This could be big.

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President Obama made a sensible speech late last month justifying his Administration’s Libya policy. At the crux of the issue, the American leader stated that the NATO action in Libya took place not to depose dictator Muommar Qaddafi but instead protect Libyan civilians from a massacre. According to the President, any more inaction would lead Qaddafi to basically raze the center of resistance– Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi:

“There will be times when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and values are,” the President said. “Wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States.”

In Libya, Obama said that allowing Khadafy to wipe out Benghazi – which he noted was the size of Charlotte – would have “been a betrayal of who we are.”

“As President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,” he said.

President Obama’s assertions could have definitely occurred. A power mad dictator whose family has been in charge for 40 years could (and probably would) slaughter civilians to both retain power and punish those that would dare challenge him.

Fast forward to late April.

Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces are massacring civilians on a larger scale than Qaddafi was last month. His troops are receiving basically open aid from Iranian Revolutionary Guards– the same people (along with the Basij) that crushed the June 2009 cries for freedom.

And by all accounts, it’s becoming a bloodbath.

But residents described the onslaught as collective punishment, and activists cited witness accounts of more tanks and armor being sent south from Damascus. Reached by satellite phone, they said electricity and phone lines had been cut and had still not been restored. Soldiers fired at water tanks atop houses and apartment buildings, emptying them. Snipers took up positions across the town, and checkpoints were set up on many streets.

“No one’s allowed to walk more than 100 meters,” said another resident who fled across the border with his children.

The town’s sole hospital is closed, and residents said they were afraid to take the wounded there anyway because they would probably be arrested. Abdullah Abazid, one of the few residents to give his name, said that 39 people had been killed in the past two days, and that bodies were still strewn in the street.

The siege of Deraa basically is that massacre that Obama stated would happen in Benghazi if Allied forces waited “one more day.”

How many more days will he wait in Syria?

A blast has hit a cafe in Morocco, but it was not immediately clear if this was a suicide blast. Casablanca was hit by a string of high-profile bombings in 2003 that killed over 40.

While the monarchy hasn’t stated if they believe the act to be one of Islamists– it sure looks that way. Morocco has so far avoided most of the tumult that its Mideast neighbors have. It’s other members of the Maghreb, Algeria and Tunisia, have both seen more demonstrations.

The bombing took place in a cafe popular with tourists. However, the government is pointing at an accident:

The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying the explosion killed 14 people, including an undisclosed number of foreigners, and injured another 20 people.

“Early evidence collected at the site (of the explosion) indicates that it was a criminal act,” the ministry said in the statement carried by the official MAP news agency.

An official source had earlier told Reuters it appeared the blast was caused by gas canisters in the cafe catching fire.

Suspicious.

From CAN:

The Iranian official overseeing the country’s cyber warfare programs has said that the U.S. power grid should be a top target for a potential cyber attack, reports “Reza Kahlili” at Pajamas Media. Kahlili used to spy for the CIA when he was a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the security force most loyal to the government.

“Reports from Iran indicate that during a recent meeting among Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commanders and Iranian scientists, America’s vulnerabilities for a cyber attack were discussed. They concluded that the U.S. power grids represent the best opportunity for such attacks, as more U.S. utilities are moving their control systems to the Internet and using smart-grid technology,” Kahlili wrote.

The Iranian government, which is described by the U.S. as the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, has blamed the U.S. and Israel for malfunctions in its nuclear program that are widely reported to have come from a cyber attack. FoxNews.com reported in September that Iran may seek to retaliate for the attack but experts have downplayed the country’s cyber warfare capabilities.

However, Iran officially launched its cyber warfare unit in March and the official leading it, Brigadier-General Gholamreza Jalali, publicly said that the government would soon launch a campaign to “fight our enemies with abundant power in cyberspace and Internet warfare.”

Experts have warned that important facilities in the U.S. are at risk of cyber attacks. Richard Clarke, a former top counter-terrorism advisor to Presidents Clinton and Bush, has been warning of an “electronic Pearl Harbor” that disables the power grid in less than a half hour. Then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair also said last year that the U.S. is currently experiencing cyber attacks on an “unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication.”

From CAN:

STLToday.com reports that the Missouri House has voted in favor of legislation banning the state’s courts from making rulings based on foreign or legal code. The bill does not single out Islamic Sharia law but it was specifically designed to prevent its implementation as law in Missouri.

Rep. Paul Curtman, the sponsor of the bill, said that “This bill is not all about Sharia Law. It’s Sharia Law, it’s French law, Dutch law or anything else.”

Rep. Jamilah Nasheed opposed the bill and offered to educate Rep. Curtman about Sharia law. She also predicted that the bill will be ruled unconstitutional. She also challenged him to name a case where international law was used to decide a domestic case.

“This bill will go to court and you are wasting your ink on this paper. Because this will not be upheld in court…You’re wasting your time, gentlemen. You’re wasting your time in this body,” CBS St. Louis reported her as saying.

The bill still has to be introduced into the state senate and passed to become official law.

Anti-Sharia bills have been presented in at least 13 states. The effort began in Oklahoma, where a large majority of voters approved a ballot measure in November. A judge later issued a restraining order against its implementation.

The bills were written due to concerns that Sharia courts will come to the U.S. as they have in Europe. In the United Kingdom, there are dozens of Sharia courts where Muslims can settle their arbitrary disputes if it is mutually agreed upon.