Algeria on Sunday sent more anti- riot troops to the province of Ghardaia, vowing not to withdraw any units until calm has been restored

Algeria on Sunday sent more anti- riot troops to the province of Ghardaia, vowing not to withdraw any units until calm has been restored

    Monday, March 17, 2014   No comments

Interior Minister Tayeb Belaiz told reporters in downtown Ghardaia, 600 km south of Algiers, that local authorities and interim Prime Minister Youcef Yousfi agreed to open an investigation to determine the causes behind sectarian clashes between the Arab Chaamba community and the Mozabite Berbers of the Muslim Ibadi sect.

Belaiz added that interim prime minister pledged to bring to justice all people involved in the conflict that has been shaking Ghardaia for more than three months and has claimed the lives of more than 13 people, three of whom were killed late on Saturday.

The prime minister rushed to Ghardaia on late Saturday, as the government attempted to contain the growing violence in the desert city.

The clashes between Mozabite Berbers and Arabs started in December 2013 in different parts of the city and elsewhere in neighboring localities. After long weeks of violent clashes, the shaky truce established by the government and elders of the two parties broke.

Some 3,000 anti-riot troops were deployed in this city that is strategically located near the oil and gas rich regions in the Algeria's desert.

On Saturday, the governor of Ghardaia said that interior ministry decided to deploy more anti-riot troops in the city to cope with escalating sectarian violence.

So far, more than 13 people were killed during these clashes and around hundred were wounded, while many stores, farms and homes were set on fire.

In recent years, increasing reports of violence have emerged in different localities in this desert province of 200,000 inhabitants, which was previously known for as a quiet, tourist destination region.

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Source: Global Times

Syrian government forces and Hezbollah seize border town of Yabroud

Syrian government forces and Hezbollah seize border town of Yabroud

    Sunday, March 16, 2014   No comments

Syrian Armed Froces

Syria on Sunday said its army took control of a key town on the Lebanese border, the alleged source of several car bombs that have struck Beirut, racking up another strategic gain for the government as the conflict enters its fourth year.

However, some rebels denied that the Syrian government forces, backed in battle by fighters from the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, were in full control of Yabroud.

The Syrian state news agency, SANA, said the Syrian army seized Yabroud a little more than 24 hours after troops first stormed its eastern limits on Friday night. Government forces have been closing in on the town for months as they attempt to cut supply lines across Lebanon’s porous border.

SANA reported that “terrorist groups” in the town had been “devastated” and that government forces were combing the area for explosives. Activists said government forces were in control of the majority of the town, although there were still rebel-held pockets.

Hezbollah’s television channel, Al-Manar, broadcast footage from what it said was Yabroud’s town center Sunday. Men in fatigues raised a Syrian flag on a pole in the middle of the street, while another held aloft a portrait of Assad.

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Tutu explaining his support for Israeli Apartheid Week: Israel's humiliation of Palestinians 'familiar to black South Africans'

Tutu explaining his support for Israeli Apartheid Week: Israel's humiliation of Palestinians 'familiar to black South Africans'

    Monday, March 10, 2014   No comments

The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation has voiced its support for Israeli Apartheid Week, saying the successful boycotting of apartheid South Africa was indispensable in bringing about its downfall.

“People who are denied their dignity and rights deserve the solidarity of their fellow human beings,” Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Sunday night.

“Those who turn a blind eye to injustice perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

“I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing in the Holy Land that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under apartheid.

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A new (order) Ukraine? Assessing the relevance of Ukraine’s far right in an EU perspective

A new (order) Ukraine? Assessing the relevance of Ukraine’s far right in an EU perspective

    Friday, February 28, 2014   No comments

by Cas Mudde

The Euromaidan ‘revolution’ will undoubtedly remain one of the key political events of 2014. Most domestic and foreign observers were completely taken by surprise by the events that followed President Viktor Yanukovych’ decision not to sign an integration treaty with the European Union (EU) in November 2013. While the initial demonstrations in downtown Kiev were somewhat expected, few had ever thought that they could spiral so out of control that, just 3 months later, a democratically elected government with one of the most popular politicians in the country was forced out of power.

Euromaidan has also been interesting in terms of the propaganda battle that has been fought in the traditional and social media. As is now standard for ‘revolutions’ in the twenty first century, activists were quick to set up several Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and other websites to provide their own positive view of the ‘revolution,’ countering the negative reports from the official Ukrainian media and, particularly, the largely Kremlin-controlled Russian media. They were very successful in disseminating their message, in part through networks of sympathizers in the west (including Ukrainian émigré communities in North America and post-Soviet scholars across the globe).

One of the main struggles has been over the importance of ‘fascists’ in the Euromaidan. Almost from the beginning the pro-Kremlin media emphasized the importance of ‘Ukrainian fascists’ among the anti-government demonstrators, and within days the whole uprising was to be portrayed as ‘fascist.’ This was to be expected, as both Soviet and post-Soviet Russian elites have tended to equate Ukrainian nationalism with fascism, linking any and every anti-Soviet or anti-Russian movement to the infamous Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) of Stepan Bandera, which (temporarily) collaborated with Nazi Germany in a misguided attempt to gain Ukrainian independence from Stalin’s brutal Soviet regime.

At the same time, most domestic and foreign sympathizers of ‘Euromaidan’ have minimalized the importance of the far right, arguing that Euromaidan was a genuine democratic and pro-European uprising in which far right elements were insignificant.

Euromaidan became the latest cause of western celebrities, from Archbishop of New York Cardinal Dolan to actor George Clooney, and academics, from Andrew Arato to the inevitable Slavoj Žižek. Much more surprising, however, was that some of the same scholars who had been warning us against the rise of the far right in pre-Euromaidan Ukraine, were now scolding us for exaggerating the importance of the far right in Euromaidan.

Even worse, any specific emphasis on far right elements within Euromaidan would lead to “Russian imperialism-serving effects.” Arguing by and large that they should be the only ones to judge the situation in Ukraine, given that they were the (only) “experts on Ukrainian nationalism,” these scholars declared Euromaidan “a liberationist and not extremist mass action of civil disobedience.”

Now that the ‘revolution’ is supposedly won, and the EU is ready to embrace the new Ukrainian government, and invest at least one billion euros in the ‘revolutionized’ country, it is time to reinvestigate the question of far right influence in Ukraine. After all, the EU has always been an outspoken critic of far right parties and politicians. In fact, only last month EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström declared publically: “The biggest threat [for the EU] right now comes from violent right-wing extremism.”

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Sunni monarchs back YouTube hate preachers: Anti-Shia propaganda threatens a sectarian civil war which will engulf the entire Muslim world

Sunni monarchs back YouTube hate preachers: Anti-Shia propaganda threatens a sectarian civil war which will engulf the entire Muslim world

    Tuesday, December 31, 2013   No comments

Anti-Shia hate propaganda spread by Sunni religious figures sponsored by, or based in, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, is creating the ingredients for a sectarian civil war engulfing the entire Muslim world. Iraq and Syria have seen the most violence, with the majority of the 766 civilian fatalities in Iraq this month being Shia pilgrims killed by suicide bombers from the al-Qa'ida umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis). The anti-Shia hostility of this organisation, now operating from Baghdad to Beirut, is so extreme that last month it had to apologise for beheading one of its own wounded fighters in Aleppo – because he was mistakenly believed to have muttered the name of Shia saints as he lay on a stretcher.

At the beginning of December, al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula killed 53 doctors and nurses and wounded 162 in an attack on a hospital in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which had been threatened for not taking care of wounded militants by a commentator on an extreme Sunni satellite TV station. Days before the attack, he announced that armies and tribes would assault the hospital "to take revenge for our brothers. We say this and, by the grace of Allah, we will do it".

Skilled use of the internet and access to satellite television funded by or based in Sunni states has been central to the resurgence of al-Qa'ida across the Middle East, to a degree that Western politicians have so far failed to grasp. In the last year, Isis has become the most powerful single rebel military force in Iraq and Syria, partly because of its ability to recruit suicide bombers and fanatical fighters through the social media. Western intelligence agencies, such as the NSA in the US, much criticised for spying on the internet communications of their own citizens, have paid much less attention to open and instantly accessible calls for sectarian murder that are in plain view. Critics say that this is in keeping with a tradition since 9/11 of Western governments not wishing to hold Saudi Arabia or the Gulf monarchies responsible for funding extreme Sunni jihadi groups and propagandists supporting them through private donations.

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The Home Secretary: revoked the British citizenship of 20 people this year to prevent the return of dual-nationals who have gone to fight in Syria

The Home Secretary: revoked the British citizenship of 20 people this year to prevent the return of dual-nationals who have gone to fight in Syria

    Monday, December 23, 2013   No comments

Secret use of citizenship-stripping powers has been dramatically stepped up as Theresa May moves to prevent the return of dual-nationals who have gone to fight in Syria.

The Home Secretary has so far revoked the British citizenship of 20 people this year – more than in her previous two- and-a-half years combined.

She has removed the citizenship of 37 people since May 2010, according to figures collated by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Critics warned the practice could leave individuals at risk of torture and ill-treatment in their home countries.

Security sources are particularly alarmed because Syria’s proximity to Europe makes it easier for violent UK-based extremists to travel to and from the country.

A former senior Foreign Office official said it was an “open secret” that British nationals fighting in the Syrian civil war were increasingly losing their citizenship.

He told the Bureau: “This [deprivation of citizenship] is happening. There are somewhere between 40 and 240 Brits in Syria, and we are probably not as quick as we should be to strip their citizenship.”

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Zarqawi’s Cubs: Extremist Syrian faction touts training camp for boys

Zarqawi’s Cubs: Extremist Syrian faction touts training camp for boys

    Tuesday, December 17, 2013   No comments

By Joby Warrick

At first glance, the training camp appears no different from the many others shown in propaganda videos posted by al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. Hooded recruits in camouflage shoot at targets or march in formation under the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

But look closer and the “fighters” appear quite small. The tallest are barely chest-high to their instructors, and the shorter ones wear ill-fitting uniforms and appear to struggle under the weight of their weapons. A photo of the recruits without their hoods confirms that all of them are young boys.

They are “Zarqawi’s Cubs,” the youth brigade of Syria’s most fearsome Islamist rebel group and one of the newest manifestations of al-Qaeda’s deepening roots in rebel-controlled sections of the country. Building on earlier efforts to expand their influence in Syrian schools, radical Islamists appear to be stepping up efforts to indoctrinate and train children, some as young as 10, according to independent experts who have studied the phenomenon.

The establishment of the Zarqawi’s Cubs camp — revealed in a video posted last month by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS — is viewed as particularly worrisome because of the similarities to Iraq’s “Birds of Paradise.” That brigade was created a decade ago by the same terrorist group, in its earlier incarnation as al-Qaeda in Iraq, to train children for military missions, including suicide bombings.

“This is the future threat,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington nonprofit organization that has tracked the exploitation of children by Syrian fighting groups over the past two years. “These are the children of al-Qaeda.”

U.N. agencies and human rights groups have accused multiple Syrian factions — including secularist rebels and pro-government militias — of recruiting children for military roles ranging from scouting to actual combat.

Researchers from Human Rights Watch interviewed boys as young as 14 who were used to transport weapons or serve as lookouts. Even younger children were put to work loading bullets into magazines for assault rifles, said Sarah Margon, acting director of the group’s Washington office.

“It’s something that children often do because their fingers are smaller,” Margon said. But such practical considerations aside, “for those looking to indoctrinate, it is a ripe setting for indoctrination,” she added.

The Obama administration last year imposed restrictions on some of its nonmilitary aid to Syria in part because of concerns about the use of child soldiers. Invoking a 2008 law forbidding assistance to countries that use child soldiers, the administration approved restrictions on certain types of nonmilitary aid to Syria as well as the Central African Republic, Burma, Sudan and six other countries, according to State Department documents.

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With Iran, Obama can end America’s long war for the Middle East

With Iran, Obama can end America’s long war for the Middle East

    Sunday, December 08, 2013   No comments

President Obama calling President Rouhani

By Andrew J. Bacevich, Boston University

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and the author of “Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country.”

What Jimmy Carter began, Barack Obama is ending. Washington is bringing down the curtain on its 30-plus-year military effort to pull the Islamic world into conformity with American interests and expectations. It’s about time.

Back in 1980, when his promulgation of the Carter Doctrine launched that effort, Carter acted with only a vague understanding of what might follow. Yet circumstance — the overthrow of the shah in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — compelled him to act. Or more accurately, the domestic political uproar triggered by those events compelled the president, facing a tough reelection campaign, to make a show of doing something. What ensued was the long-term militarization of U.S. policy throughout the region.

Now, without fanfare, President Obama is effectively revoking Carter’s doctrine. The U.S. military presence in the region is receding. When Obama posited in his second inaugural address that “enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war,” he was not only recycling a platitude; he was also acknowledging the folly and futility of the enterprise in which U.S. forces had been engaged. Having consumed vast quantities of blood and treasure while giving Americans little to show in return, that enterprise is now ending.

Like Carter in 1980, Obama finds himself with few alternatives. At home, widespread anger, angst and mortification obliged Carter to begin girding the nation to fight for the greater Middle East. To his successors, Carter bequeathed a Pentagon preoccupied with ramping up its ability to flex its muscles anywhere from Egypt to Pakistan. The bequest proved a mixed blessing, fostering the illusion that military muscle, dexterously employed, might put things right. Today, widespread disenchantment with the resulting wars and quasi-wars prohibits Obama from starting new ones.

Successive military disappointments, not all of Obama’s making, have curbed his prerogatives as commander in chief. Rather than being the decider, he ratifies decisions effectively made elsewhere. In calling off a threatened U.S. attack on Syria, for example, the president was acknowledging what opinion polls and Congress (not to mention the British Parliament ) had already made plain: Support for any further military adventures to liberate or pacify Muslims has evaporated. Americans still profess to love the troops. But they’ve lost their appetite for war.

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Declassified NSA files show agency spied on Muhammad Ali and MLK; Operation Minaret set up in 1960s to monitor anti-Vietnam critics, branded 'disreputable if not outright illegal' by NSA itself

Declassified NSA files show agency spied on Muhammad Ali and MLK; Operation Minaret set up in 1960s to monitor anti-Vietnam critics, branded 'disreputable if not outright illegal' by NSA itself

    Wednesday, September 25, 2013   No comments

The National Security Agency secretly tapped into the overseas phone calls of prominent critics of the Vietnam War, including Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and two actively serving US senators, newly declassified material has revealed.

The NSA has been forced to disclose previously secret passages in its own official four-volume history of its Cold War snooping activities. The newly-released material reveals the breathtaking – and probably illegal – lengths the agency went to in the late 1960s and 70s, in an attempt to try to hold back the rising tide of anti-Vietnam war sentiment.

That included tapping into the phone calls and cable communications of two serving senators – the Idaho Democrat Frank Church and Howard Baker, a Republican from Tennessee who, puzzlingly, was a firm supporter of the war effort in Vietnam. The NSA also intercepted the foreign communications of prominent journalists such as Tom Wicker of the New York Times and the popular satirical writer for the Washington Post, Art Buchwald.

Alongside King, a second leading civil rights figure, Whitney Young of the National Urban League, was also surreptitiously monitored. The heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali, was put on the watch list in about 1967 after he spoke out about Vietnam – he was jailed having refused to be drafted into the army, was stripped of his title, and banned from fighting – and is thought to have remained a target of surveillance for the next six years.

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Syrian American Woman tells McCain "do not bomb Syria"

Syrian American Woman tells McCain "do not bomb Syria"

    Wednesday, September 11, 2013   No comments

Syrian American Woman tells McCain "do not bomb Syria; minorities are not collateral damage."

The administration’s proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) for Syria

The administration’s proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) for Syria

    Monday, September 02, 2013   No comments

 The Obama Administration has released the text of its proposed congressional resolution for Authorization to Use Military Force in Syria, here is the text:

Whereas, on August 21, 2013, the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus, Syria, killing more than 1,000 innocent Syrians; Whereas these flagrant actions were in violation of international norms and the laws of war; Whereas the United States and 188 other countries comprising 98 percent of the world's population are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons; Whereas, in the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, Congress found that Syria's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction threatens the security of the Middle East and the national security interests of the United States; Whereas the United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 1540 (2004), affirmed that the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons constitutes a threat to international peace and security; Whereas, the objective of the United States' use of military force in connection with this authorization should be to deter, disrupt, prevent, and degrade the potential for, future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction; Whereas, the conflict in Syria will only be resolved through a negotiated political settlement, and Congress calls on all parties to the conflict in Syria to participate urgently and constructively in the Geneva process; and Whereas, unified action by the legislative and executive branches will send a clear signal of American resolve.

SEC. ___ AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES

(a) Authorization. -- The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in connection with the use of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in the conflict in Syria in order to –

(1) prevent or deter the use or proliferation (including the transfer to terrorist groups or other state or non-state actors), within, to or from Syria, of any weapons of mass destruction, including chemical or biological weapons or components of or materials used in such weapons; or

(2) protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements. --

(1) Specific Statutory Authorization. -- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) Applicability of other requirements. -- Nothing in this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

Not even a year ago, German intelligence predicted Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad's regime would soon collapse. Now, the agency instead believes the rebels are in trouble. Government troops are set to make significant advances, it predicts

Not even a year ago, German intelligence predicted Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad's regime would soon collapse. Now, the agency instead believes the rebels are in trouble. Government troops are set to make significant advances, it predicts

    Friday, July 26, 2013   No comments

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has fundamentally changed its view of the ongoing civil war in Syria. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that the BND now believes the Syrian military of autocrat Bashar Assad is more stable than it has been in a long time and is capable of undertaking successful operations against rebel units at will. BND head Gerhard Schindler informed select politicians of the agency's new assessment in a secret meeting.

It is a notable about-face. As recently as last summer, Schindler reported to government officials and parliamentarians that he felt the Assad regime would collapse early in 2013. He repeated the view in interviews with the media.
At the time, the BND pointed to the Syrian military's precarious supply situation and large numbers of desertions that included members of the officer core. German intelligence spoke of the "end phase of the regime."

Since then, however, the situation has changed dramatically, the BND believes. Schindler used graphics and maps to demonstrate that Assad's troops once again possess effective supply lines to ensure sufficient quantities of weapons and other materiel. Fuel supplies for tanks and military aircraft, which had proved troublesome, are once again available, Schindler reported. The new situation allows Assad's troops to combat spontaneous rebel attacks and even retake positions that were previously lost. The BND does not believe that Assad's military is strong enough to defeat the rebels, but it can do enough to improve its position in the current stalemate.

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David Shedd, No. 2 in the Defense Intelligence Agency, said yesterday that the Syrian civil war is now likely to continue for years, whatever Assad’s fate. The country faces the prospect of “unfathomable violence” and growing power there by Islamic radicals, including those allied with al-Qaeda, he said.

“My concern is that it can go on for a long time, as in many, many months to multiple years,” he said, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado. “And the civilian casualties, the enormous flow of refugees and the dislocation and so forth and the human suffering associated with it will only increase in time.’‘

The United Nations estimates that more than 93,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011. The fighting has sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Jordan.

read article 2>>

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It was a only a few weeks ago, at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, that David Cameron was demanding the removal of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, claiming that he had “blood on his hands” and that it was “unthinkable” that he could play any part in Syria’s future. Yet it now seems increasingly likely that, far from being forced from office, President Assad will retain control of much of the country. Certainly the recent successes recorded by pro-Assad forces appear to have had a disastrous impact on the morale of rebel fighters, with hundreds deciding to take advantage of an amnesty offered by Damascus to surrender their weapons and give up the fight.
This remarkable turnaround is in part due to the unstinting backing Damascus has received from its allies, Russia and Iran, both in terms of military support and diplomatic cover – especially Moscow’s refusal to sanction any UN resolution authorising intervention. The rebels’ cause, meanwhile, has been undermined by constant infighting and attempts by Islamist militants to hijack the opposition agenda; the presence of fighters with links to al-Qaeda has been one of the main reasons why those who wanted to arm the rebels have grown more cautious.
Faced with the awful complexities of the Syrian insurrection, the West collectively decided that the costs of intervention were too high. That may well have been the right decision. But inaction has its costs, too. With President Assad and his backers in Moscow and Tehran looking increasingly confident, those powers that demanded his overthrow – such as Britain, France and the US – look impotent and weak. Rather than convening international conferences to consider Syria’s future, they must now start thinking about how to deal with a regime clinging tenaciously to power.

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ISDA: Iran’s major foreign policy challenge is to improve its relations with the West and its neighbours and overcome its isolation; from this point of view, Rohani provides a ray of hope

ISDA: Iran’s major foreign policy challenge is to improve its relations with the West and its neighbours and overcome its isolation; from this point of view, Rohani provides a ray of hope

    Thursday, July 25, 2013   No comments

The victory of moderate cleric Hassan Rohani as the President of Iran in many ways is a clear indication of continuity with some change in Iran’s foreign policy in future. In the light of new developments in the region, Iran’s major foreign policy challenge is to improve its relations with the West and its neighbours and overcome its isolation. From this point of view, Rohani provides a ray of hope in terms of some departure in Iran’s foreign policy. This was well articulated by President Rohani in his first press conference as well. The Issue Brief is divided into two parts. The first part looks at the internal political dynamics leading to the victory of Rohani and the second part examines implications change in Iranian leadership post Ahmedinejad for the region and India. The Issue Brief argues that Iran’s foreign policy is likely to witness some remodelling but no major departure from the past.

Rohani’s Victory and Internal Dynamics
After eight years of hardliners’ rule, moderate cleric and reformist candidate Hassan Rohani was elected as Iran’s 11th President on June 14, 2013. The election results came as a surprise not only for the world but also for the Iranians. Rohani secured 50.7 percent (18,613,329) votes and defeated the principlist candidate Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who secured only 16 percent (6,077,292) votes. Nearly 50.5 million Iranians were eligible to participate in the elections, and Iran’s Interior Ministry announced that the voter turnout was 72.7 percent.1

There are some internal electoral factors which went in favour of Rohani. First, the reformist candidate Mohammad Reza Aref withdrew his candidature and extended his support to Rohani. Second, the endorsement by former Iranian presidents and powerful reformist politicians like Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami and their appeal to the people to vote for Rohani strengthened his position. Third, there was division of votes among the principlist candidates like Qalibaf, Jalili and Velayati. Despite appeal by the powerful cleric Ayatollah Khatami, principlists did not unite and agree for a single candidate to avoid the division of votes. Fourth, more than 1.6 million first-time voters who are young, modern in their outlook and seek changes in their society have chosen to vote in favour of Rohani. Lastly, all the candidates promised for economic reforms but no one made statements regarding easing of tensions with the West and allowing for greater freedom of the press and avoiding unnecessary interference in public life of the he people except Rohani. In addition, Rohani made commitments to to improve relations with the neighbouring countries, end international sanctions and, most importantly, improve Iran’s economic condition. Iran’s currency, the rial, has dropped by more than 50 percent since last year due to sanctions and the inflation rate has also gone up by more than 32 percent.2

Rohani is an experienced cleric and politician who presently represents the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei in the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), and is a member of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. He is also the director of the Expediency Council's Centre for Strategic Research. In his first press conference on June 17, 2013, Rohani expressed “constructive interaction” with the world through a moderate policy and his administration of “Prudence and Hope” in serving the national objectives. He also said his administration will take steps to ease the “brutal sanctions imposed against Iran over its nuclear programme...”3

Rohani was the head of SNSC and chief negotiator of Iran nuclear programme during 2003 and 2005 under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami. It was during this time that Iran’s covert nuclear programme was discovered in 2003 and the subsequent negotiations led to the famous “Tehran Declaration”4 signed between Iran and the E-3 (UK, France and Germany) leading to Iran freezing its nuclear enrichment programme and offering additional protocols to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Rohani was the architect from the Iranian side.

In the present context, nuclear issue and its resolution holds the key to Iran’s most acute problem; the economic crisis. Crippling sanctions have had an adverse effect on the economy which is slowly emerging as a serious issue of public discontent. The Supreme leader and the President would be hoping that fresh talks under the new leadership could ensure movement forward on the nuclear issue and easing of some economic pressures on Iran.

Rohani, in his first televised speech on June 17, 2013 said, "The sanctions are unfair, the Iranian people are suffering, and our (nuclear) activities are legal. These sanctions are illegal and only benefit Israel", adding that the period of international demands for an end to the nuclear enrichment is over and that the idea is to engage in more active negotiations with the 5+1, as the nuclear issue cannot be resolved without negotiations.5 Rohani with his experience and deliverance on nuclear issue in the past offers hope for some flexibility. Thus, there is strong likelihood on renewed engagement on nuclear talks in the near future. While it may not result in closing down of Iran’s nuclear programme, it might result in some additional concessions from Iran in return for some economic sanction ease by the West – a ‘face saving exit’ for all parties.

Constitutionally, Iran's president does not have the authority to set major policies such as the direction of the nuclear programme or Iran’s relations with the West. All such decisions are taken by the Supreme Leader. Under the current constitutional system, the President can, at best, use his office and his proximity to Khamenei, Rafsanjani and Khatami to influence policies. Rohani will serve as Iran’s main international representative and is likely to present a different tone than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Rohani can take inspirations from the reformist president Khatami who despite certain disagreements with Khamenei still managed to carry out his policies particularly towards Saudi Arabia and the European countries. The only policy area where Khatami could not impress Khamenei was in his approach to the US. Khamenei remained rigid and cynical about any diplomatic relations with the US but understood that Iranian national interests require furthering relationship with its neighbours as well as its European trading partners. However, during that time Iran supported the US indirectly by helping the former in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rohani can take cue from the past and follow the reformist policy of 1997-2005.

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A senior US intelligence official has warned that Syria's civil war could rage for several years and that the conflict is reviving al-Qaeda in Iraq

A senior US intelligence official has warned that Syria's civil war could rage for several years and that the conflict is reviving al-Qaeda in Iraq

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

David Shedd, deputy director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, delivered one of the grimmest US public assessments of the Syrian conflict as he described the increasing strength of Islamic radicals there.
His sobering analysis was echoed by David Cameron yesterday. Syria "is a very depressing picture and it is a picture which is on the wrong trajectory," the Prime Minister said on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.
"There is too much extremism among the rebels. There is also still appalling behaviour from this dreadful regime using chemical weapons. There is an enormous overspill of problems into neighbouring countries.
"I think he [President Bashar al-Assad] may be stronger than he was a few months ago but I'd still describe the situation as a stalemate."
Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Mr Shedd outlined equally bloody outcomes whether the Syrian dictator was toppled or not.

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The beginning of internal wars among Syrian rebels: When Islamists killed A Free Syrian Army leader

The beginning of internal wars among Syrian rebels: When Islamists killed A Free Syrian Army leader

    Friday, July 12, 2013   No comments

Syrian rebels said on Friday the assassination of one of their top commanders by al Qaeda-linked militants was tantamount to a declaration of war, opening a new front for the Western-backed fighters struggling against President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Rivalries have been growing between the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Islamists, whose smaller but more effective forces control most of the rebel-held parts of northern Syria more than two years after pro-democracy protests became an uprising.

"We will not let them get away with it because they want to target us," a senior FSA commander said on condition of anonymity after members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant killed Kamal Hamami on Thursday.

"We are going to wipe the floor with them," he said.

Hamami, also known by his nom de guerre, Abu Bassir al-Ladkani, is one of the top 30 figures on the FSA's Supreme Military Command.

His killing highlights how the West's vision of a future, democratic Syria is unraveling.

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Palestinian refugees suffer as Syria crisis drags on

Palestinian refugees suffer as Syria crisis drags on

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013   No comments

The issue of Palestinian refugees has been a constant issue in politics of the Middle-East for 65 years. It’s a core issue of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Earlier, we spoke to Richard Wright, the Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency Representative Office in New York. He told us the Palestinian refugees’ situation in Syria is getting worse due to the continuing crisis in the country.

White House defends NSA phone records collection as 'critical tool'

White House defends NSA phone records collection as 'critical tool'

    Thursday, June 06, 2013   No comments

The White House has sought to justify its surveillance of millions of Americans' phone records as anger grows over revelations that a secret court order gives the National Security Agency blanket authority to collect call data from a major phone carrier.

Politicians and civil liberties campaigners described the disclosures, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as the most sweeping intrusion into private data they had ever seen by the US government.

But the Obama administration, while declining to comment on the specific order, said the practice was "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States".

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The Death of Fatah and the Future of Palestine

The Death of Fatah and the Future of Palestine

    Saturday, January 19, 2013   No comments

RAMALLAH -- After nearly a half-century of existence, Fatah has left many loyalists and critics alike pondering its accomplishments. On New Year's Eve, the Palestinian political party -- which has led the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) for decades and currently holds the presidency of the Palestianian Authority (PA) -- celebrated its 48th anniversary. In Ramallah, a few thousand mostly young men marched across the West Bank city to the Muqata', the headquarters of the PA president and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas. The streets were lined with the party's younger supporters, some elderly veterans clad in military fatigues and several high-ranking members of the group's leadership who are based in the West Bank.

As the marchers converged upon the headquarters -- once a ravaged icon of the second Intifada, today it stands a revamped modern military compound -- many started to trickle away. Addressing the enthusiastic group that remained, Abbas, looking every day of his 77 years, spoke of Palestinian leaders of years past. He started with Yasser Arafat, a Palestinian figure unrivaled in his persona, then moved on to Abu Jihad and Abu Eyad -- both icons of Palestinian resistance -- and Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas's late spiritual leader, whose group Fatah has been at loggerheads with since it wrested control of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Abbas recited the litany of names as if lamenting his party's failure to deliver a unifying leader since Arafat to guide Palestinians through exceptionally troubling times: a moribund peace process, dire economic circumstances brought about by dwindling international aid, mushrooming Israeli settlements, and a political and geographical rift with the Gaza Strip.

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In militias we trust: Libya's conundrum

In militias we trust: Libya's conundrum

    Friday, January 18, 2013   No comments

Libya

Uthman Mleghta, commander of the powerful al Qaaqa brigade from the Nafusa Mountains town of Zintan, rejects being described as a qatiba (militia). On a recent foreign NGO’s visit to his heavily guarded headquarters in Tripoli, Mleghta presented his “group’s” activities, including a newly launched print newspaper and an education programme for Libyan youth.

But his visitors were more interested in al Qaaqa’s security role. Al Qaaqa is responsible for, among others, controlling the border pass with Tunisia, guarding certain oil fields and the protection of some high profile Libyan politicians. When asked about al Qaaqa’s well-armed fighters, Mleghta matter-of-factly answered  “we are the army”.

The rapid disintegration of Muammar al Gaddafi’s armed forces and police meant that the militias born out of the revolution were the only ones equipped to fill the security vacuum left behind. This scenario led to a number of the cities or towns seeing their militias play key roles in the revolution, gaining significant influence.

Zintan, the small town in the Nafusa mountains where al Qaaqa hails from and where Saif al Islam Gaddafi is being held, went from being politically insignificant to being awarded the Defence ministry portfolio of the last transitional government, assigned to Zintani commander Osama al-Juwali

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Turkey’s Energy Challenges

Turkey’s Energy Challenges

    Friday, January 04, 2013   No comments

By Daniel Wagner and Giorgio Cafiero

Turkey has managed to maintain impressive growth rates over the past decade in spite of a lack of indigenous sources of energy. Ankara has pursued a foreign policy aimed at diversifying the country’s energy imports while simultaneously positioning itself as a major energy hub. Turkey’s geostrategic position makes achieving this dual objective challenging, but it has managed to strike a balance between being assertive and deferential in acquiring and managing its energy supply. While the Turkish government’s power to influence events in the region is of course limited, it will be compelled to make some difficult foreign policy decisions in the near term that could substantially impact its long-term energy interests.

Turkey

Turkey imports 91 percent of its oil and 98 percent of its natural gas. In 2011, approximately 51 percent of its oil came from Iran and 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Iraq’s resurrection as a major oil and gas exporter to the world offers Turkey an opportunity to become an increasingly influential energy hub between the Arabian Gulf and European markets. However, the tense triangular relationship between Turkey, Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government has greatly complicated the energy trade with Iraq. This has also cast doubt about the long-term reliability of the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline that exports nearly 400,000 barrels per day to the important port of Ceyhan in southern Turkey. Turkey’s perennial battle with Kurdish separatists has served to ensure that the relationship with Iraq remains problematic and uncertain.

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