Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said that radical Sunni Islamists were likely behind a car bomb attack that killed dozens of people in the Lebanese group's stronghold in southern Beirut

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has said that radical Sunni Islamists were likely behind a car bomb attack that killed dozens of people in the Lebanese group's stronghold in southern Beirut

    Saturday, August 17, 2013   No comments

The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah on Friday blamed Sunni extremists for a string of attacks targeting the group’s strongholds over the past few months, including a car bombing that killed 22 people and wounded more than 300 a day earlier.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said all preliminary investigations showed Takfiri groups - a term for Sunni radicals - were likely behind the bombing in a predominantly Shiite southern suburb of Beirut, as well as other recent attacks.

He also pledged to double the number of Hezbollah fighters in neighboring Syria, who have travelled there to support the regime of President Bashar Assad.

“If you think that by killing our women and children ... and destroying our neighborhoods, villages and cities we will retreat or back away from our position, you are wrong,” he said in a speech to supporters marking the end of the 2006 monthlong war with Israel.

“If the battle with these terrorist Takfiris requires for me personally and all of Hezbollah to go to Syria, we will go to Syria,” he said, drawing thunderous applause from thousands of supporters gathered in a village in south Lebanon bordering Israel. The crowd watched him speak on a large screen via satellite link.

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Murdering the Wretched of the Earth

Murdering the Wretched of the Earth

    Saturday, August 17, 2013   No comments

Radical Islam is the last refuge of the Muslim poor. The mandated five prayers a day give the only real structure to the lives of impoverished believers. The careful rituals of washing before prayers in the mosque, the strict moral code, along with the understanding that life has an ultimate purpose and meaning, keep hundreds of millions of destitute Muslims from despair. The fundamentalist ideology that rises from oppression is rigid and unforgiving. It radically splits the world into black and white, good and evil, apostates and believers. It is bigoted and cruel to women, Jews, Christians and secularists, along with gays and lesbians. But at the same time it offers to those on the very bottom of society a final refuge and hope. The massacres of hundreds of believers in the streets of Cairo signal not only an assault against a religious ideology, not only a return to the brutal police state of Hosni Mubarak, but the start of a holy war that will turn Egypt and other poor regions of the globe into a caldron of blood and suffering.

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Commander Haji Ahmad told Firat News that his fighters killed two members of the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) in the last two days of clashes in the region of Sad Shahab where the Kurdish villages are located

Commander Haji Ahmad told Firat News that his fighters killed two members of the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) in the last two days of clashes in the region of Sad Shahab where the Kurdish villages are located

    Friday, August 16, 2013   No comments

The general commander of Jabhat al-Akrad said 117 Kurdish villages in the Aleppo / Bab / Azzaz triangle are under attack by al-Qaeda-linked groups and several brigades of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The attacks came as a result of  a meeting attended by more 70 commanders of the FSA in Turkey last July.

Commander Haji Ahmad told Firat News that his fighters killed two members of the Turkish Intelligence Service (MIT) in the last two days of clashes in the region of Sad Shahab where the Kurdish villages are located.

The names of two members of the MIT will be announced in the coming days, said the al-Akrad commander, noting that the presence of these people is proof of Turkey's role in the attacks on Kurds.

Many villages in the region of Sad Shahab, including the villages of "Kafar Zikhir", "Narabiya", "Kubbessini", "Kul Suruch", "Jabal Assi" and "Tall Maden" were surrounded 14 August by armed groups affiliated to al-Qaeda. Groups hiding behind the cover of Islam to commit horrendous crimes.

About 500 people were kidnapped in the villages of Kafar Zikhir and Narabiya, Kurdish sources said. Nearly 1,500 families were forced to flee their homes.

Jabhat al-Akrad (the Kurdish Front), consists of members of all ethnic groups in Syria and are allied of the People's Defense Forces (YPG).  This organisation has forty battalions, especially in the areas of Bab Azzaz and Aleppo. It is part of the military council of the "real" Free Syrian Army (FLA).
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A leading member of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has accused Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of being engaged in efforts to aid armed groups in Syria that have been clashing with Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD)

A leading member of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has accused Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of being engaged in efforts to aid armed groups in Syria that have been clashing with Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD)

    Friday, August 16, 2013   No comments

A leading member of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has accused Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu of being engaged in efforts to aid armed groups in Syria that have been clashing with Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the PKK, the Taraf daily claimed on Friday.
“I'm well informed that Mr. Davutoğlu has been giving special attention to these forces for more than a year,” said Murat Karayılan, a member of the executive council of the Kurdistan Communities' Union (KCK), an umbrella group for the PKK, according to Taraf.

Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority, led by the PYD, gave signals about a month ago that in the absence of a central government in war-torn Syria it was planning to establish an autonomous administration to cater to the needs of locals in the northern part of the country. Now, some of the Islamist groups fighting the Syrian regime, such as the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, have turned their weapons against the Kurds. Fighting between the PYD and the Islamist groups has continued since then.

Karayılan, who is also the head of the PKK's armed wing, the People's Defense Forces (HPG), said that the policy he attributed to Davutoğlu only makes sense if Kurds are seen as the enemy. He added that the attacks on Kurds in northern Syria are part of a plan to stop Kurds from getting stronger and obtaining power. The HPG, Karayılan said, has been reorganized to respond to the new situation. Reports say the HPG is now in a position to cooperate militarily with Peshmerga forces under Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, and to Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Iraq's Kurdish president. Karayılan said the PKK is preparing to establish a professional army.

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A protester attacked Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ and was immediately stopped by security forces at a ceremony he attended today to commemorate Alevi - Bektaşi figure Hacı Bektaş Veli in Nevşehir

A protester attacked Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ and was immediately stopped by security forces at a ceremony he attended today to commemorate Alevi - Bektaşi figure Hacı Bektaş Veli in Nevşehir

    Friday, August 16, 2013   No comments

The protester, who hit Bozdağ in the chest, was identified as Hüseyin Satı, a local journalist. Satı was detained by police after his attempted move failed.

“How dare you to come here,” Satı shouted before trying to punch Bozdağ.

...

Before the incident, Bozdağ delivered a speech about Alevi culture and Hacı Bektaş Veli, but was continually protested by many of the attendees, some of whom carried Turkish flags and posters of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

The crowd also chanted “everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance,” one of the main slogans from the Gezi Park protests, which began May 31.

A three-day festival to honor Hacı Bektaş Veli is hosted in the town that bears his name, Hacıbektaş, every year in mid-August.

“The Hacı Bektaş Veli commemoration activities help us understand him better and aid our walk on his enlightened way, which started centuries ago,” Bozdağ said amid boos.

Bozdağ also said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was working to meet the demands of Alevis, which were set to be announced soon.
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The reaction to this week's massacre in Cairo will be key to the reputations of the United States and Europe in Arab states and the Muslim world in general for years to come. Its credibility and influence are at stake

The reaction to this week's massacre in Cairo will be key to the reputations of the United States and Europe in Arab states and the Muslim world in general for years to come. Its credibility and influence are at stake

    Thursday, August 15, 2013   No comments

When historical turning points present themselves, there's no avoiding the need for decisive action. Now that the Egyptian armed forces -- with the backing and the approval of a subservient civil government -- has brutally clamped down on protests by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Western world is at a crossroads. It is irrelevant if the number of casualties is 500 or over 1,000, depending on which source is to be believed. The reaction to this week's massacre in Cairo will be key to the reputations of the United States and Europe in Arab states and the Muslim world in general for years to come. Its credibility and influence are at stake.

As is often the case, the issue is not how much outrage and sympathy is triggered by shocking images of seriously injured men, helpless elderly women and crying children. The issue is how to balance realpolitik with human rights.
Do we want to issue stern diplomatic warnings and return to dialogue with a strongman at the top of the Egyptian government with blood on his hands but the clout to bring a modicum of stability to the country and the region, and a foreign policy stance that dovetails with ours?

Or do we want to issue stern diplomatic warnings against pushing the Muslim Brotherhood underground, thereby turning them into martyrs, and instead call for them to be supported in their rights -- even though the fundamentalist ideology of these bearded men is so alien to us and undoubtedly at least partly responsible for the current political turmoil?

                                                                                                                                            Photos >>

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army claims the supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi were armed and it has broadcast footage in a bid to prove it

army claims the supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi were armed and it has broadcast footage in a bid to prove it

    Thursday, August 15, 2013   No comments

The death toll continues to rise in Egypt, a day after the presidency declared a month-long state of emergency in most of the country. Egypt’s new leaders justify this exceptional measure on the grounds that armed Muslim Brotherhood supporters allegedly fired at the security forces. Videos doing the rounds on the internet are supposed proof of such allegations.

Many online videos and photos bear witness to the fierce violence on the streets of Cairo and across the country. Dozens appear to show the security forces shooting live ammunition. But the army claims the supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi were armed and it has broadcast footage in a bid to prove it. But besides the army’s images, only one bit of footage appears to add weight to this claim.

The video was filmed by journalists from Youm7, a newspaper highly critical of the Muslim Brothers. They filmed on the roof of the publication’s offices on Battal Ahmed Abdel-Aziz Road, not far from Arab League Road in Cairo’s Mohandissen neighbourhood.

In the first video in the series, two civilians armed with AK-47s (kalashnikovs) are clearly visible. One of them is wearing a bullet-proof vest. Both men fire, but it is not clear what their target is.

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industry sources: Iraq’s Kurdistan region is exporting crude oil by truck to an Iranian port for shipping to Asia

industry sources: Iraq’s Kurdistan region is exporting crude oil by truck to an Iranian port for shipping to Asia

    Wednesday, August 07, 2013   No comments

In a dispute largely over revenue sharing, Kurdistan’s crude exports through a pipeline controlled by the Iraqi central government dried up last year. However, it is transporting about 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and condensates by road from the landlocked region through Turkey. 

Now the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has approved a second route for crude through Iran used previously only for petroleum products, the sources said. For the past two months, crude has been trucked from Kurdish fields over the border to Iran’s Bandar Imam Khomeini (BIK) terminal, 900 km (560 miles) to the south on the Gulf. Amounts are unclear but could be as much as 30,000 bpd, they said.

One industry source in Kurdistan said the regional government in Arbil was anxious not to put out either of the region’s powerful neighbors, Turkey and Iran, in transporting the crude. “It’s a political compromise,” said the source, who declined to be identified. “They cannot ignore the Iranians and go all the way ... with the Turks. They have to balance.”

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Obama cancels meeting with Putin over Snowden asylum tensions

Obama cancels meeting with Putin over Snowden asylum tensions

    Wednesday, August 07, 2013   No comments

Relations between the United States and Russia deteriorated further on Wednesday when Barack Obama abandoned a presidential summit with Vladimir Putin that was due to be held next month, amid fury in Washington over Moscow's decision to grant asylum to the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The White House confirmed that it had decided to snub the Russian leader by pulling out of the planned bilateral meeting in Moscow, but is expected to take part in the broader G20 meeting of international leaders in St Petersburg.

Moscow reacted coolly to the decision, which had been widely expected after Putin infuriated the Obama administration by granting temporary sanctuary to Snowden, who fled to Moscow after the Chinese government allowed him to leave Hong Kong, rather than heed US calls for his arrest.

In a statement, the White House said that it had concluded there was "not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda" to hold a US-Russia summit. It cited a lack of progress on arms control, trade, missile defence and human rights, and added: "Russia's disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor that we considered in assessing the current state of our bilateral relationship. Our co-operation on these issues remains a priority for the United States."

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'No coups, yes to elections!': Massive pro-govt rally held in Tunis

'No coups, yes to elections!': Massive pro-govt rally held in Tunis

    Sunday, August 04, 2013   No comments

Thousands of Tunisians flooded the capital in support of their Islamist-led government amid calls for its ouster. Members of the secular opposition have alleged the ruling Ennahda party orchestrated the murder of a prominent leftist politician.

Over 150,000 people flocked to Tunis’ central Kasbah Square, brandishing Tunisian flags and shouting pro-government slogans.

The throng chanted “No to coups, yes to elections!” referencing the untimely ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on July 3 by the army.
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