New videos show more rebel groups in Syria have U.S.-made anti-tank missiles

New videos show more rebel groups in Syria have U.S.-made anti-tank missiles

    Wednesday, May 07, 2014   No comments

Advanced American-made anti-tank missiles can be seen in numerous videos posted by Syrian rebel groups over the weekend, an indication that what experts thought was a limited trial program to arm moderate pro-Western units recently has been expanded.

The trial program was revealed early last month when videos posted by the Hazem Movement, a rebel group with ties to the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army, showed a small number of TOW anti-tank missiles being fired at Syrian government targets. Experts who examined the videos concluded that the missiles likely had been supplied by Saudi Arabia after the United States approved transfer of the advanced weapons.

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American officials have expressed concern for years that any weapons given to rebel allies not fall into the hands of Syria’s increasingly powerful Islamist rebel groups, many of which have significant ties to al Qaida and subscribe to its ideology. In January, the U.S. stopped deliveries of nonlethal aid and equipment to the Free Syrian Army after units affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an al Qaida-inspired group noted for its brutality, seized control of an FSA base that held American equipment.

Adding to the concerns is the close working relationship that so-called moderate rebels have developed with the Islamists. For example, Jamal Marouf, who commands the Syrian Revolutionary Front, which received a TOW system, told the British newspaper The Independent that he had no problem coordinating with the Nusra Front, al Qaida’s official Syrian franchise, and had even sent weapons to the group in the past.

“It’s clear that I’m not fighting against al Qaida,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “This is a problem outside of Syria’s border, so it’s not our problem. I don’t have a problem with anyone who fights against the regime inside Syria.”

Marouf told the paper that he had dispatched “a lot of weapons” to rebels fighting in Yabroud, where Nusra battled government troops before abandoning the city in March

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Death Stalks Muslims as Myanmar Cuts Off Aid

Death Stalks Muslims as Myanmar Cuts Off Aid

    Tuesday, May 06, 2014   No comments

SITTWE, Myanmar — By the time the baby girl was brought to the makeshift pharmacy, her chest was heaving, her temperature soaring. The supply of oxygen that might have helped was now off limits, in a Doctors Without Borders clinic shut down by the government in February.

A hospital visit was out of the question; admission for Rohingya Muslims, a long-persecuted minority, always requires a lengthy approval process — time that the baby, named Parmin, did not have. In desperation, the pharmacy owner sent the family to the rarely staffed Dapaing clinic, the only government emergency health center for the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims herded into displaced people’s camps. Although it was just 4 p.m., the doors were shuttered.

“We became like crazy people, running everywhere,” the child’s grandmother, Daw Mu Mu Lwin, said. With no good choices left, the family returned to the pharmacy, where Parmin died, untreated, three and a half hours later, cradled in her grandmother’s arms.

The baby’s death was part of a rapidly expanding death toll and humanitarian crisis among the Rohingya, a Muslim minority that Myanmar’s Buddhist-led government has increasingly deprived of the most basic liberties and aid even as it trumpets its latest democratic reforms.

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al-Qaeda infighting shows that even if Assad is removed, Sunnis will countinue to suffer: 60,000 civilians forced to leave Islamist controlled areas

al-Qaeda infighting shows that even if Assad is removed, Sunnis will countinue to suffer: 60,000 civilians forced to leave Islamist controlled areas

    Monday, May 05, 2014   No comments

The British-based Observatory said the Nusra Front had taken over control of the town of Abreeha from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a former al Qaeda affiliate formally disowned by the group this year.

At least 62 fighters had been killed in around four days of clashes in the area, which have emptied Abreeha and the towns of al-Busayrah and al-Zir, whose populations total over 60,000, the Observatory said.

The Observatory, an anti-Assad group which monitors violence in Syria through a network of sources, said Islamist fighters had burned houses and a young girl had been killed by mortar fire during the fighting.

ISIL and the Nusra Front have clashed repeatedly over oilfields and strategic positions in Deir al-Zor, a desert province bordering Iraq.

Al Qaeda's global leader Ayman al-Zawhri has called ISIL's entry into Syria's civil war a "political disaster" for Islamist militants there and urged the group to redouble its efforts in Iraq instead.

In the southern Deraa province, the Nusra Front arrested rebel commander Ahmed al-Neamah late on Saturday, accusing him of delivering the town of Kherbat Ghazalah to government forces, the Observatory said.

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Tunisian National Constituent Assembly approves new electoral law

Tunisian National Constituent Assembly approves new electoral law

    Saturday, May 03, 2014   No comments

Tunisian members members of the Constituency Assembly  have adopted a sweeping new electoral law that paves the way for general elections later this year and is a milestone in this country's new democracy.

The law requires party lists for legislative elections to be half women and half men. It also allows members of the authoritarian regime ousted in 2011 to run for office.

The elections are now expected no later than Nov. 23.

The members of the National Constituent Assembly approved the law Thursday after weeks of heated debate over its 270 articles. The overall law was approved 132-11 with nine abstentions.

Tunisia's path to democracy has been rocky but is seen as a model for other countries, after street protests overthrew a dictator and unleashed uprisings across the region known as the Arab Spring

Breakthrough law strives to bring gender equality to Senegal’s government

Breakthrough law strives to bring gender equality to Senegal’s government

    Friday, May 02, 2014   No comments

The women of Senegal are entering an unprecedented age of political empowerment. A breakthrough law doubled the number of women in the country’s parliament, far surpassing the United States’ female representation in Congress. Women all over the country are mobilizing to meet the new opportunity head on. But how is the traditional, patriarchal West African nation responding to the sudden change?

Syrian forces poised to recapture Homs after truce agreed with rebels

Syrian forces poised to recapture Homs after truce agreed with rebels

    Friday, May 02, 2014   No comments

48-hour ceasefire will allow hundreds of rebel fighters blockaded in old quarters of city to flee north, activists say

Syria's government and rebels have agreed to a ceasefire in Homs to allow hundreds of fighters holed up in the old quarters of the city to leave – a deal that will bring the country's third-largest city under the control of forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad.

If the agreement holds, the capture of the city will be a significant victory for Assad weeks before presidential elections set for 3 June.

Homs, in the central western plains of Syria, was one of the first cities to rise up against Assad's rule three years ago, earning it the nickname of the "capital of the revolution". After waves of protests, it was the first city to be largely taken over by armed rebels as the uprising evolved into outright civil war.

Assad's forces have been engaged in gruelling urban warfare trying to wrest Homs back. For the past months, rebels were isolated and blockaded in neighbourhoods centred on the historic old quarters, battered by heavy government air strikes and artillery.

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Iraq’s Kurds Keep One Eye on Iraqi Elections, Another on Local Polls

Iraq’s Kurds Keep One Eye on Iraqi Elections, Another on Local Polls

    Thursday, May 01, 2014   No comments

For the second time in seven months Iraqi Kurds head to the polls on Wednesday, this time to elect new representatives for the Iraqi parliament and provincial councils for their own autonomous Kurdistan Region.


Five major Kurdish parties are vying for voters, with rivalries divided into geographical areas where each party feels it has strongest support.


The largest Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) enjoys a strong popular base in the Kurdish capital of Erbil, where it sits in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and in Duhok. The Partriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), meanwhile, is most confident in Sulaimani province and the Garmiyan region.

The reformist Change Movement (Gorran), born after breaking away from the PUK in 2009 and newly powerful after beating the PUK in Kurdish legislative elections in September, has supporters across Kurdistan. But its strength also lies in Sulaimani, where it once held the governorship.


The Islamic Union (Yekgirtu) and the Islamic League (Komal) have also entered the election campaign full scale. Yekgirtu has historically fared well in Sulaimani, and to some degree in Duhok. Komal’s voters are seen scattered in Erbil and some of the smaller towns in Sulaimani province.

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Secretary of State John Kerry: If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state

Secretary of State John Kerry: If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state

    Monday, April 28, 2014   No comments

Senior American officials have rarely, if ever, used the term “apartheid” in reference to Israel, and President Obama has previously rejected the idea that the word should apply to the Jewish state. Kerry's use of the loaded term is already rankling Jewish leaders in America—and it could attract unwanted attention in Israel, as well.

It wasn't the only controversial comment on the Middle East that Kerry made during his remarks to the Trilateral Commission, a recording of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. Kerry also repeated his warning that a failure of Middle East peace talks could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. He suggested that a change in either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership could make achieving a peace deal more feasible. He lashed out against Israeli settlement-building. And Kerry said that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders share the blame for the current impasse in the talks.
Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.”

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Hemmed in by hate, last Muslims in Central Africa capital pray for escape

Hemmed in by hate, last Muslims in Central Africa capital pray for escape

    Friday, April 25, 2014   No comments

Hundreds of Muslims, among the last remaining in the Central African Republic’s capital after months of brutal sectarian violence, are trapped in a slum desperately hoping to be saved from militia attacks.
Some 1,300 refugees are thought to be holed up in the PK-12 neighbourhood — an area 12 kilometres outside the capital Bangui — having fled from all corners of the conflict-ravaged country. Many have been here for months. Almost 100 were evacuated under international protection on Monday, but the rest are stuck, hemmed in by the mostly Christian “anti-balaka” militias that have launched fierce attacks against the Muslim community.

Once, Muslims and Christians and a variety of ethnic groups lived comfortably together in Bangui. But the cycle of sectarian violence that broke out last year has caused almost the entire Muslim population of the city to flee, leaving their houses abandoned.
The anti-balaka have taken a merciless vengeance on the community after the Seleka, a mostly Muslim rebel group, temporarily seized power in a coup in March 2013. Anti-balaka means “anti-machete” in the local Sango language and refers to the weapon of choice wielded by the Seleka — but also taken up by the vigilantes.
Those stranded in PK-12 have only one wish: to slip quietly into a protected convoy of vehicles headed across the border to Chad.  “We came for two days, but we’ve been here for five months,” said Yaya Yougoudou, one of the community’s elders.
When the Chadian government decided to stop evacuation operations earlier this month — having already brought tens of thousands over the border — it left the families in PK-12 stranded and surrounded by anti-balaka. Their days are a relentless agony. Emaciated faces betray the hunger and disease that run rampant in this slum, now reduced to just two or three rows of houses, where food is increasingly scarce.
“Look over there! The people waiting are anti-balaka. That little bridge is our limit,” said Abacar Hassan, one of the few original inhabitants of the area.
“Over there” is just 100 metres away on the road out of town, which marks a frontier between life and death. Any Muslim crossing that line would be lucky to survive more than 20 seconds.
To the south, on the other side of the road towards Bangui, a French armoured vehicle is the only thing protecting them. Beyond that is nothing but destruction. A few walls are still standing, but all the roofs have collapsed. A small suitcase lies on the ground, ripped apart amid a few discarded plastic objects.

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U.N.: Hundreds of civilians killed in South Sudan ethnic massacre

U.N.: Hundreds of civilians killed in South Sudan ethnic massacre

    Wednesday, April 23, 2014   No comments

U.N.: Hundreds of civilians killed in South Sudan ethnic massacre

Rebels slaughtered hundreds of civilians when they seized the South Sudan oil hub of Bentiu, hunting down men, women and children who had sought refuge in a hospital, mosque and Catholic church, the United Nations said on Monday.

Rebel troops overran Bentiu, the capital of the oil producing Unity State, on Tuesday. More than 1 million people have fled their homes since fighting erupted in the world's youngest country in December between troops backing President Salva Kiir and soldiers loyal to his sacked vice president, Riek Machar.

The fighting has exacerbated ethnic tensions between Kiir's Dinka people and Machar's Nuer.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan said that its human rights investigators confirmed that rebels "searched a number of places where hundreds of South Sudanese and foreign civilians had taken refuge and killed hundreds of the civilians after determining their ethnicity or nationality."

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