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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Now we arrive in the Middle East as smiling supplicants, blessing any “people’s change” (unless it is any monarchical autocracy of the Gulf)

Now we arrive in the Middle East as smiling supplicants, blessing any “people’s change” (unless it is any monarchical autocracy of the Gulf)

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

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Middle East and NA

But never before has America joined in our European submission. Take the Obama policy, constructed on the colossal wreck of Bush’s New American Century. Barack Obama held out his hand to Iran. They bit his hand. He supported Mubarak. Then he no longer supported Mubarak. He supported the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt after he won the elections. And he – and the repulsive Tony Blair – now support the Egyptian army. Blair was bad enough. Egypt was in danger of “sliding into total chaos”, he has now told us, and we have to help the country “go back [sic] to democracy” after the “virtually unique situation” in which “either the army intervened or the country collapsed”.

But now listen to William Burns, the US Under-Secretary of State and allegedly the most powerful diplomat in America – and thus the world – as he arrived in Cairo last week. “I did not come with American solutions, nor did I come to lecture anyone. We will not try to impose our model on Egypt.” Just what that “model” is was a mystery to Egyptians, but Burns’ inevitable visit to the lads in khaki who staged the latest coup suggests that, once again, Washington prefers generals to democrats in hot places.

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Syrian Kurdish forces freed a local leader linked to al Qaeda as part of an agreed ceasefire to end fierce fighting with Islamist rebels in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad on Sunday

Syrian Kurdish forces freed a local leader linked to al Qaeda as part of an agreed ceasefire to end fierce fighting with Islamist rebels in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad on Sunday

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

In return, Islamist rebels have promised to release hundreds of Kurds taken hostage as collateral from the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), known as Abu Musaab.

The sporadic fighting in the northern Syrian border region over the past five days has signaled a growing power struggle as Islamists work to cement control of rebel zones while Kurds assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish parts of the region.

The tensions highlight how the two-year insurgency against 43 years of Assad family rule is spinning off into strife within his opponents' ranks, running the risk of creating regionalized conflicts that could destabilize neighboring countries.

Pro-opposition activists said that Turkish military forces had been reinforced on Turkey's side of the frontier near Tel Abyad on Sunday, but the Turkish army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier this week.

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David Cameron: The Assad government may have got "stronger" in recent months, but more can be done to help Syria's opposition forces

David Cameron: The Assad government may have got "stronger" in recent months, but more can be done to help Syria's opposition forces

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

The UK prime minister told the BBC there was a "stalemate" on the ground, but work must continue internationally to try to find a solution.

UK military chiefs have warned of the risks of arming rebel groups.

Mr Cameron said there was "too much extremism" among the opposition, but moderate groups still deserved support.

Syrian government forces have taken the initiative in recent months, and have been bolstered by the capture of the strategically important town of Qusair in the west of the country in June.

Most of the much bigger city of Homs has been recaptured by government troops backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah.
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Killing in Cairo: the full story of the Republican Guards' club shootings

Killing in Cairo: the full story of the Republican Guards' club shootings

    Sunday, July 21, 2013   No comments

In the early hours of 8 July 2013, 51 Muslim Brotherhood supporters camped outside the Republican Guards' club in Cairo were killed by security forces. The Egyptian military claimed the demonstrators had attempted to break into the building with the aid of armed motorcyclists.

After examining video evidence and interviewing eyewitnesses, medics and demonstrators Patrick Kingsley finds a different story – a coordinated assault on largely peaceful civilians. 'If they'd just wanted to break the sit-in, they could have done it in other ways. But they wanted to kill us,' a survivor says...

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Momentum Shifts in Syria, Bolstering Assad’s Position: “If the revolution continues like this, the people will revolt against us,” said a rebel commander from the central city of Homs

Momentum Shifts in Syria, Bolstering Assad’s Position: “If the revolution continues like this, the people will revolt against us,” said a rebel commander from the central city of Homs

    Thursday, July 18, 2013   No comments

In recent weeks, rebel groups have been killing one another with increasing ferocity, losing ground on the battlefield and alienating the very citizens they say they want to liberate. At the same time, the United States and other Western powers that have called for Mr. Assad to step down have shown new reluctance to provide the rebels with badly needed weapons.

Although few expect that Mr. Assad can reassert his authority over the whole of Syria, even some of his staunchest enemies acknowledge that his position is stronger than it has been in months. His resilience suggests that he has carved out what amounts to a rump state in central Syria that is firmly backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah and that Mr. Assad and his supporters will probably continue to chip away at the splintered rebel movement.

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Although Iran deems the recent popular-backed military ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi “unacceptable”, analysts believe the move is unlikely to affect future relations between Egypt and Iran

Although Iran deems the recent popular-backed military ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi “unacceptable”, analysts believe the move is unlikely to affect future relations between Egypt and Iran

    Monday, July 15, 2013   No comments

The first official Iranian reaction came five days after Morsi’s removal earlier this month, when Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said on July 8 that “the intervention of the Egyptian armed forces in political affairs is unacceptable and disturbing.”

Two days later, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry labeled the Iranian reaction as “unacceptable interference,” adding it was based on Iranian misunderstanding of the Egyptian domestic developments.

Analysts say Iran seems to have reconsidered its position and thought it might not want to base its ties with Egypt on Morsi’s issue, which is shown by the recent statement of Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi in which he urged Egyptian political groups to consolidate national unity.

“Egypt’s fate should be determined by its own nation and any decision made by the Egyptian people should be respected by all,” Salehi told his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Kamel Amr in a phone call Thursday, adding that “the Islamic republic has always sought and will seek the best relations with Egypt.”

Ambassador Mahmoud Farag, Egypt’s former charge d’affaires in Tehran, told Xinhua that he does not expect the ouster of Morsi to negatively affect the gradual normalization of the Egyptian-Iranian ties that suffered a three-decade rift.

“I do not think Morsi’s removal will affect ties with Iran, which are already stagnant for other reasons including the positions on the Syrian crisis and the ideological differences between Egyptian Sunnis and Iranian Shiites,” the ex-diplomat explained.

Ties between Egypt and Iran were cut off after Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. But after Egyptians in early 2011 ousted Hosni Mubarak, “a breakthrough” in the tense Egyptian-Iranian ties emerged.

The icy bilateral relations started to thaw after ousted Morsi paid his first visit to Tehran last August to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, which was followed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cairo in February to attend an Islamic conference.

Farag said that the relations between the two did not witness a great development except for exchanging diplomatic visits.

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Mohammed Morsi to be the president of Egypt... some foreign countries did not financially support the Morsi government during his one-year presidency; however, the same countries have pledged to provide $16 billion to the coup regime in Egypt

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Mohammed Morsi to be the president of Egypt... some foreign countries did not financially support the Morsi government during his one-year presidency; however, the same countries have pledged to provide $16 billion to the coup regime in Egypt

    Sunday, July 14, 2013   No comments

“Currently, my president in Egypt is Morsi because he was elected by the people. Therefore, if we don't consider the situation like this, we would disregard the people of Egypt. Disregarding the will of the Egyptian people means disregarding yourself because in Turkey we respect the will of the people. We would respect the coup regime if they had won at the ballot box,” said Erdoğan at a fast-breaking dinner.

Stating that it is not the duty of the army to govern the country, Erdoğan underlined that the sole role of an army is to protect a country's borders.

“Why is there a ballot box? From the results of the box, a government would emerge through the will of the people and that government would govern the country. That government may be successful or not. If the government stops being successful, then the ballot box will come to the fore. When it comes to the fore, then you can say that the government has failed,” said Erdoğan.

Erdoğan underlined that some foreign countries did not financially support the Morsi government during his one-year presidency; however, the same countries have pledged to provide $16 billion to the coup regime in Egypt.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait have provided a total amount of $12 billion to Egypt following the recent struggles in the country.

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Egypt's energy crisis sparks conspiracy theories

Egypt's energy crisis sparks conspiracy theories

    Sunday, July 14, 2013   No comments

It is one of the first concrete changes observed since Mohammed Morsi’s ousting: power outages and queues at petrol stations seem to have miraculously disappeared. Speculation as to why is running rampant.
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Shortages in the past, shortages in the future?

On the other hand, Halime does not trust the explanation offered by the Muslim Brotherhood. “Intentionally planning shortages would have required a lot of effort,” she said. “If that theory proves to be true, it’s very worrying. That means that a whole group of people is responsible for the difficulties the country has been facing.”

Whatever the likeliest explanation may be, Egyptians may be celebrating too soon. Less than ten days after Morsi’s arrest, queues at petrol stations have already been reported at Beni Suef, in central Egypt, and certain neighbourhoods in Cairo have had temporary power outages.

According to experts, Egypt’s energy crisis is indeed far from being resolved. The sector is plagued by aging infrastructure and is supported by costly government subsidies (accounting for 6% of the GDP and 70% of all government subsidies).

“Egypt pays a lot for its energy and re-sells it very cheaply,” Halime noted. “The system more or less worked before the revolution in 2011, but it’s no longer sustainable. There were shortages in the past, and there will be shortages in the future.”

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Turkish police have cleared Istiklal Avenue, firing water cannon and tear gas at hundreds of protesters as they gathered to march to Gezi Park

Turkish police have cleared Istiklal Avenue, firing water cannon and tear gas at hundreds of protesters as they gathered to march to Gezi Park

    Saturday, July 13, 2013   No comments

Turkish police have cleared Istiklal Avenue, firing water cannon and tear gas at hundreds of protesters as they gathered to march to Gezi Park. The park has been a cradle of anti-government unrest for weeks.

Demonstrators have been protesting against a recently imposed law which blocked the authority of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) from approving urban planning projects. They gathered at Istiklal Avenue to march to Gezi Park, which is located a short walking distance away. 

The crowd was chanting anti-government slogans and screaming, “This is just the beginning. The fight is continuing.” 

As police approached the crowd and asked them to exit the area, some of the protesters refused to leave the street. Riot police then responded by using tear gas and water cannon.