War watch - Focus on Egypt ( Government plant to slow walk protest break up rather than take a sudden and decisive step - embarrassment of potential high death counts serve to hold the hand of the Military for now ) Yemen - commentary from a Yemeni youth activist ( life under the fear of sudden drone death ) and an analysis by a leading Yemeni Al Qaeda expert - doubt cast on terror threat claims ( recent drone attacks hit only low level foot soldiers and civilians , none of AQAP leadership - also note the reason for the worldwide terror alert in the first place hotly in dispute ) .... Iraq death dealing continues - 93 deaths just on Saturday as Iraq Kurds contemplate intervening to assist Syrian Kurds.... ......Lahore , Pakistan withdrawal of US Consulate personnel - another phantom menace not unlike Yemen ?

Seems like we finally are getting some commentary as to the Terror - Rama Scam.....

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/09/there_is_no_terrorist_threat_the_feds_want_you_to_think_there_is_compliant_media_goes_along/


FRIDAY, AUG 9, 2013 10:08 AM EDT

There is no terrorist threat: The feds want you to think there is, compliant media goes along

"Chatter" from "affiliates" causes a "crisis," while media reports nonsense generated to justify NSA surveillance

BY PATRICK L. SMITH

 
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TOPICS: TERRORISM, NSA, EDWARD SNOWDED, BARACK OBAMA, BOB SCHIEFFER, MEDIA CRITICISM,EDITOR'S PICKS, AL-QAIDA, YEMEN, NEWS, POLITICS NEWS

Bob Schieffer (Credit: AP/Charles Dharapak)

Summertime, and the chicanery is easy. The Obama administration’s latest rendering of our invisible but eternal “terrorist threat,” I mean.

After a week of ghost stories about an imminent but vaporous plot on the part of an al-Qaida “affiliate” — this is the big new word — it is hard to decide which is more disheartening: 1) The White House’s blithe if clumsy deployment of factoids, 2) the supine complicity of the media (and this, frankly, is my choice), or 3) the willingness of honorable liberals and capital-D Democrats to go along with the show simply because Obama is maestro and one stays with Obama no matter what he does.

Nothing can be said for certain as to what prompted the State Department to close more than 20 embassies and consulates in the Middle East and North Africa last Sunday, and this is by design. But it is no excuse not to raise the possibility that Americans are eating a summer salad of nonsense served to justify objectionable surveillance practices now coming in for scrutiny.

This prospect seems so self-evident that one feels almost silly raising it, except that so few have. Let us insert it into the conversation. To me, the silence among our newspapers and broadcasters on this point confirms only how dangerously circumscribed American political discourse has become. It is all text and subtext now, and the subtext, by definition, is known but never allowed to pierce the surface of silence.

Washington has been erecting a quite warped worldview atop the terror narrative since 2001, if there is anyone left who has not noticed. Our once-promising president has signed on, and plenty of people seem intent on not noticing this. But flinching is of no use. It is imperative that this nation come to clear, proper terms with the question of terror. Reversion to the paranoid style, a habit that dates to America’s founding, is already producing damaging consequences.

Now that we are onto history and the purposeful production of paranoia, let us revisit the late winter of 1947 — March 12, to be exact. That is the day Harry Truman began the Cold War, by the reckoning of many (not all) scholars. Truman wanted to send $400 million to the Greek monarchy to suppress a popular, mixed-bag rebellion. But would a stingy, isolationist Congress buy into this momentous move? The American public was in no mood, either. (In the bargain, the monarchy in Athens was crypto-fascist even by the accounts of State Department diplomats.)

---

Truman found a friend in the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Arthur Vandenberg, who delivered a line long famous among Cold War historians. Come to the Hill, Vandenberg urged. “Make a personal appearance before Congress and scare the hell out of the American people.” Truman did, Congress clapped, the Greeks got the military aid, and Americans got desirably scared. So ensued the wastage of the next 42 years.

Always useful to revisit the past. In this case, one can decently suggest what I will now: It is more plausible to look upon the embassy closures and the official accounts thereof as political theater and insulting, cynical manipulation than it is to accept them at face value.

The Cold War was a dread, if we ever get around to looking at it squarely. And we are at it again, the nation that seems to know itself only by way of a constant enemy. It is so uncannily the same: another gross corruption of democratic principle even as we have not recovered from the last one, another squandering of our time as the world moves on.

There is a chronology to consider, and it has the virtue of being factually so, however material it may prove. I put the start of recent events back to last May, when Obama spoke at the National Defense University. His topic was the “war on terror,” and the piece was stirring — bold, new, encouraging. “This war, like other wars, must end,” Obama said. “That is what history advises. That is what our democracy demands.” As to al-Qaida, he had decapitated it, the president said proudly, and the group was “on the run.”

In my interpretation, this was too much for the defense and intelligence establishments. And it shortly became more than too much when Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor, began releasing the documents he had lifted to expose the NSA’s excesses. There followed the unwelcome light that now shines on the constitutionality of surveillance laws passed in the years after the attacks of 2001.

Now we find that al-Qaida was not on the run after all. It has fragmented, and this is where all the “affiliates” come in. There are said to be enough affiliates to keep the NSA supplied for years. In this case, intelligence picked up a telephone conversation (those incautious Islamists) between a powerful giver of orders in Pakistan — from the decapitated, fragmented al-Qaida — and an underling in an affiliate in Yemen. The alleged command was to attack.

The rest is smoke. No what, no when, no where.

So many curiosities come with this narrative. Although an attack was “imminent” and its likelihood “extreme,” and although 20-odd diplomatic stations had to shut, we here in America did not have to do anything. Why was this? It is a legitimate question. It reminds me of George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 tragedy: We are at war. Now get out there and shop.

Among my favorite moments was one last Sunday on “Face the Nation,” the CBS interview show. It was shortly after the “threat” announcement, and Bob Schieffer was talking to Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Schieffer lobbed a softball as to a connection between the intercepts revealing a threat of attack and the NSA’s constitutional travails post-Snowden. “I perceive the attack as very imminent,” McCaul intoned. And then this: “Of course, when you let them know you know, they often back down.”

The fun hardly starts and they are getting us ready for nothing to happen. Go figure, as we used to say.

Credit to Schieffer for even raising the issue. His query was so twisty you could hardly understand it, but since that early moment in the drama the question itself has been banned. We have had instead an astonishing display of patriotic guile in the media. The New York Times acknowledged that it had consulted Washington before printing the reporting its correspondents filed — and then withheld some. It is a disgraceful practice extending back at least to the WikiLeaks sensation of late 2010, when the Times brought a long checklist to Washington and in many cases accepted administration advice. As the crafters of newsmagazine clichés say, “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

The latest chapter in the story came just the other day, when Yemen announced it had apprehended a terrorist plot right after Washington ordered its embassy closed. A stunt, the State Department scoffed. The proper perspective on this is simply that it takes one to know one. Our terrorist threat is better than Yemen’s terrorist threat, so do not upstage our terrorist threat.

There is a larger, more disturbing prospect before us now. I wept when Obama was first elected, and I will never cease respecting the man I take him to be. But in office he has given voters a few too many letdowns and too many allowances to the defense and intelligence bureaucracies. America’s political crisis cannot be personalized, and neither can its solution; it was and remains systemic. George W. Bush was not the problem in the years following 2001. Just so, time to recognize Obama is not the solution.

Among the many liberals defending Obama over the past few days has been Karen Finney, one of MSNBC’s presenters. On Al Sharpton’s show at midweek, she fought the corner against Republican barrages by arguing that the president had proven himself plenty tough. “This is the new reality,” she said of the never-ending fight for truth and the American way.

You cannot agree. It is not new, and it is not reality. Terror is politics now, and politics is spectacle.

Egypt.....

Egypt: Food Crisis looms as Interim Gov’t decides to disperse Muslim Brothrhood Protesters Peacefully

Posted on 08/11/2013 by Juan Cole

In the midst of its political crisis, Egypt also faces rising food prices that are hitting the poor hard. This rise comes on top of tremendous price increases for staples under deposed president Muhammad Morsi this past year, as a result of the government not importing enough wheat and the 15% fall in the price of the Egyptian pound. The fall of the pound made all imported goods, including wheat for flour and therefore bread, more expensive. The high food and diesel costs were among the things that made Morsi increasingly unpopular with the peasant and working classes.

Bel Trew reports from Cairo for RT:

Meanwhile, the USG Open Source Center translates an article by Abd al-Sattar Hutaytah, Cairo, in the Pan-Arab, London-based daily, “al-Sharq al-Awsat” [The Middle East] for Aug. 10, which details the plans of the interim government in Egypt to disperse the Muslim Brotherhood slowly over three months rather than with a sudden attack that would risk high rates of fatalities.

Courtesy VOAnews

“Al-Sharq al-Awsat” has details of the Egyptian plan to break up the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) sit-in in Rabi’ah al-Adawiyah Square. The plan adopts a “gradual” rather than a “decisive” approach to ending the protest, in which tens of thousands of people demanding the return of former President Muhammad Mursi to power are participating. Mursi was ousted by the Army under tremendous popular pressure in early July. The Egyptian authorities two days ago announced the failure of the international efforts to resolve the crisis, which might lead to a cycle of violence in the country, especially after the Islamists threatened to escalate violence against the state in case the Rabi’ah al-Adawiyah sit-in, in which fugitive MB leaders are barricading themselves, is broken up.

Sources said that top Egyptian leaders held several high-level meetings in the past two weeks “to deal with the MB problem” as mediation efforts by international parties from the United States and Europe ended with the MB insisting on its rejection of the new situation and refusal to end the protests. They said the plan that the Egyptian leaders drew up, and which will be implemented in the next 48 hours, seeks to break up the protest “gradually”, not through “a sudden attack or a single blow” as some people expected. The aim is to “evade the fall of a large number of victims.” The sources said the meetings, in which Army and security leaders took part, were held based on “the popular authorization” that the new authorities obtained on 26 July.

About 10,000 MB supporters are staging another sit-in in Nahdat Masr Square in Al-Jizah Governorate, which is adjacent to Cairo. But the sources said this sit-in is “much easier and less costly” to break up compared to Rabi’ah al-Adawiyah sit-in, which is located in the middle of a residential area in eastern Cairo. One source — an official involved in the negotiations among the Egyptian leaders that ended yesterday with the adoption of the new plan to break up the MB protest in Rabi’ah al-Adawiyah — said the reports that the Interior Ministry submitted after the Council of Ministers entrusted it with breaking up the protest showed that the operation would cause big human losses, which might harm the country’s reputation…

The source said the Interior Ministry’s reports that were submitted and studied by the senior officials estimated that “breaking up the protest by force and in a swift manner will lead to the death of between 3,000 and 5,000 people.” The source said part of the discussions in those meetings concluded: “If a large number of people are killed, we will be in an embarrassing situation. We do not want to have an economic problem with the world.” The source added: “There is now something like a thin thread in Egypt that we do not want to pull too hard so as not to break, not for the sake of the MB but for the sake of the state.”

The source added: After studying the Interior Ministry’s assessment of a speedy dispersal of the demonstrators in Rabi’ah al-Adawiyah, “which would result in a large number of victims,” it was agreed that this option “will probably constitute a blot of shame in Egypt’s history. It will be used by foreign forces against the state at a time when we want to show the world a civilized image of Egypt.”

Because of all these reasons, the source said, “an alternative plan to break up the protest has been adopted.” Under this plan, “anyone who leaves Rabi’ah al-Adawiyah Square will not be allowed to return to it. Food will not be allowed to enter the square, and water and electricity will be cut from the area where the protestors are gathered.” The plan also includes “attacking protestors with water cannons, teargas canisters, and other means used to break up sit-ins and demonstrations that close roads, as happens all over the world.” The source said “this operation will continue over stages and might take several weeks or months. But the plan has a maximum time limit of three months.”

Yemen......

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-innocents-caught-under-the-drones-for-fearful-yemenis-the-us-and-alqaida-look-very-similar-8755940.html?printService=print

Farea al-Muslimi

Sunday, 11 August 2013

I have encountered two separate Yemens this past week: the one portrayed in Western media outlets and the other reality of living in Sana'a. One was rife with conflict and insecurity, the other associated with the navigation of the capital's gridlocked traffic. Yet the two Yemens collided in a visceral way for most people.

The al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) plot, described vaguely by President Obama as a "threat stream", and the subsequent US embassy closure in Sana'a were far from the minds of most Yemenis. Most were more preoccupied with the approaching conclusion of Ramadan, the Eid al-Fitr celebrations and the political direction of the nation, most notably the United Nations-backed National Dialogue Conference, which 
aims at drafting a new constitution before elections in February.

Then, the calm and pre-Eid excitement in Sana'a was punctured on Tuesday morning, two days before the end of Ramadan. Sana'a residents were shocked and terrified by the strange buzzing sound that accompanied an unfamiliar aircraft hovering above the capital, which followed a morning drone strike in the Hadramaut region.

The buzzing induced terror in residents, and speculation between friends and family as well as on social media. The capital was abuzz with concern about drone strikes in different sections of the city. The terror was unquantifiable.

The resumption of US drone strikes in late July unleashed terror in the regions that were most affected: Hadramaut, Abyan and Ma'rib. Photos of the plane circulated on social media. In response, experts from around the world assured me and other Yemenis that this was "merely" a US P3 surveillance plane and not an actual drone. It was remarkable to witness foreigners assure us that an actual strike drone was not overhead, as if that was meant to provide some comfort.

In less than a week, the US conducted eight drone strikes in different parts of the country – a record in Yemen. The myopic focus of the world's media on these strikes only seemed 
to fuel the drone activity and, by extension, drive insecurity for most Yemenis.

 

After the eighth drone strike, I sat helpless in my room reading a message from a friend in the eastern province of Hadramaut. Our last five phone calls had focused on the drone strikes. The frustration and disappointment I felt was nothing compared to what my friend or people like him were going through. I wanted to know why more people were not reporting what was happening and what the drone attacks would change. They will just be new statistics added to the superficial reporting about Yemen.

Nobody is yet sure of the identities of those killed in the attacks. But I knew that media would report "suspected militants" were killed.

We have yet to read the real truth about the killing of five militants in Wessab, my home village, in April. The attack was included in my testimony before the US Senate the same month as a writer and human rights campaigner. Speaking to families of the people killed, I found what had happened was the opposite of what we were being told.

These were not militants who were killed. The four men were just locals who did not even know that the guy they were with was the target of a US drone. One of them was waiting for the military college to open. His father told me his son had wanted to join the military and work to secure our country and combat bad people – the targets of the Americans.
He asked me if what I did would change anything. A world of disappointment was in his eyes when I told him I did not know. My testimony may have brought too much hope to too many people. It did nothing to change the problem other than elicit a disappointing speech by the US President in an attempt to absorb the local and international anger against the use of deadly drones that kill my countrymen, and supposedly secure America.

Contrary to US claims about the conditional use of drones – that they should be used when the cause is just – the recent strikes have made them more than just a tool to eliminate al-Qa'ida leaders.

The US is running to drones every time its counter-terrorism efforts fail. On each occasion the public rage against al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula grows and its image is tarnished, and the US – via drone strikes – restores it again. In its recent actions, the US has become al-Qa'ida's public relations officer.

Who else, other than al-Qa'ida, would benefit from the sudden, ill-thought-out and unneeded evacuation from Yemen by the US? If al-Qa'ida's main goal is to spread fear, this has given it a free shot at doing just that.

If the threats the US talks about are real, why would it not leak the content of the conversations it claims to have recorded between two senior figures, including leader Ayman al-Zawahiri? In not doing so, the US is giving al-Qa'ida a credit note for fear, and is leaving Yemen alone in its struggle.

The evacuation of US embassies has raised serious questions about the sincerity of the US commitment to fighting al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Despite all of Washington's recent commitments and actions in supporting the transition towards democratic elections in Yemen, the drones did nothing but edge Yemenis in the opposite direction. More than 10 million Yemenis remain in need of humanitarian assistance but none of that is on the tongues of policymakers in the west. Donor pledges of almost $8bn (£5.16bn) for Yemen, via the Friends of Yemen, seem nothing more than a lie.

The US comprehensive policy towards our country is comprehensive only on paper. Yemen is, once again, in the West's view, a country where problems come from.
As the country was waiting for Eid to finish so that the US-funded and supported National Dialogue Conference could resume and eventually finish negotiations on the coming constitution, the US suddenly, via the drones, sent a message that such an entity and its delegates were much less important, and would be taken less seriously, than the shared enemy of both Yemenis and the US – al-Qa'ida.

It is obvious, as never before, that outside interference in Yemen has been intended not to create a better, democratic and stable Yemen, but instead to prevent its security problems getting worse in the eyes of pilots of drones based thousands of miles away.

The gap between the US – the US of hovering planes and deadly drones – and al-Qa'ida has actually shrunk in the eyes of many Yemenis: there is very little difference between what the two are doing to ordinary people. Innocent lives are lost due to the actions of both. They are both hurting people and distorting the image of Yemen. The only difference is that the US shapes its thinking on Yemen by studying statistics. The other knows Yemen's history, culture, memories, sensitivities, laws and traditions. Both are now seen to destabilise the country almost equally and lead it toward less peaceful choices.
Al-Qa'ida is taking advantage of Yemen's struggles by committing terrorism against 

Yemen and other countries. The US is dumping its allies, not differentiating between local people and al-Qa'ida, ignoring peaceful Yemenis and delegitimising an already weak government.

The US is forcing radical politics on susceptible young people and, worse, leaving Yemen to deal with the ensuing mess it has created.

Farea al-Muslimi is a Yemeni youth activist

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/08/08/yemeni_al_qaeda_expert_casts_doubt_on_terror_threat_claims.html

Yemeni Al Qaeda expert casts doubt on terror threat claims

Yemen’s foremost Al Qaeda researcher says recent U.S. drone strikes have failed to kill senior leaders of the organization, and he dismisses claims that a plot to bomb a Canadian-owned oil facility was foiled by Yemeni authorities.

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A soldier mans an anti-aircraft machine gun on a military vehicle during a patrol in Sanaa, Yemen, on Thursday. Yemen has been on high alert amid U.S. claims of a terrorist threat "emanating from the Arabian Peninsula."

By: Michelle Shephard National Security Reporter, Published on Thu Aug 08 2013

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Yemen’s foremost Al Qaeda researcher says recent U.S. drone strikes have failed to kill senior leaders of the organization, and he dismisses claims that a plot to bomb a Canadian-owned oil facility was foiled by Yemeni authorities.

Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a journalist and researcher who has been given exclusive access to the terrorist group’s Yemen branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), said the series of drone strikes in the past 12 days have killed 32 people, including low-level foot soldiers and civilians.

“Among those killed are the ones who are largely . . . on the periphery of the organization,” Jamal said from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in a wide-ranging phone interview with the Toronto Star on Thursday.

Video

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It is not uncommon to have conflicting reports about those killed in drone attacks — AQAP leaders have been reported dead, only to release statements weeks later.

The Associated Press reported that 34 suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed in recent strikes, including 12 deaths in three strikes on Thursday. Reuters put Thursday’s death toll at eight, for a two-week total of 25 suspected militants.

The contradictory claims add to confusion about why the U.S. has dramatically increased its drone strikes in Yemen, and what prompted it to issue a worldwide travel warning last Friday and keep 19 embassies throughout Africa and the Middle East closed this week.

Jamal says he is skeptical of many of the recent reports on the matter, including a claim that the unprecedented security measures are due to an intercepted direct communication between AQAP leader Nasser al-Wahishi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became Al Qaeda’s leader in 2011 after Osama bin Laden was killed. U.S. officials have stated that Wahishi was recently appointed to Al Qaeda’s No. 2 position.

“I did not hear any of this through the usual channels,” Jamal said. But he noted that “whether Wahishi is No. 2 or 10 or 20, it’s irrelevant. Al Qaeda’s activities continue as usual.” In addition, AQAP operates independently and would not need direction from Zawahiri, he said.

Jamal is considered among journalists to have the best access to AQAP’s inner circle, although he said he has not personally met Wahishi or the group’s elusive bomb-maker,Ibrahim al-Asiri.

In 2011, Jamal spent weeks with AQAP members when the group had control of the town of Zinjibar, leading some critics to accuse him of writing sympathetic portrayals of the organization. Jamal also interviewed a top Al Qaeda leader, Fahd al-Quso, before he was killed in a drone strike in Yemen last year. Quso was the alleged planner of the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors. 

Two of Thursday’s drone strikes reportedly hit Yemen’s eastern province of Hadramaut, where Yemeni authorities claimed AQAP was poised to take over the provincial capital Mukalla, a key sea port, and attack the Canadian-owned Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal nearby.

“It’s not true at all,” Jamal said. “Al Qaeda does not attack places of public interest.” He accused the Yemeni government of “spreading this talk to justify the drone attacks by the U.S.”

Jamal is not the only one doubting claims by Yemeni government officials.

“Along with many, I’m skeptical of the reports that AQAP was about to seize ports in Yemen,” Gregory Johnsen, a Princeton scholar and expert on Yemen, wrote on TwitterWednesday.

“I second that,” responded Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, contradicting the claims of the government he represents.

Earlier in the day Albasha wrote: “For the record: AQAP doesn’t have the manpower nor the capabilities to capture a city the size of Mukalla.”

Foreign-owned oil facilities and Western embassies have always been considered “legitimate” targets by AQAP, Jamal said, but he questioned whether the threat was high enough now to prompt the current terror alert.

The U.S., Britain and other European governments evacuated non-essential personnel from Yemen earlier this week and the U.S. embassies in the region were shut due to an unspecified threat “emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.” Some U.S. officials have warned that it’s the greatest risk since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I don’t think Al Qaeda will do anything in the coming weeks because their military activities had been reduced in Sanaa,” Jamal said. “A military operation would distract them from expanding into other areas, where it wants to increase its presence.” 

So what is behind the threat?

“Yemenis are asking the very same question and they can’t find an answer,” Jamal said. “Most of them don’t think it has anything to do with Al Qaeda,” he said, echoing a popular theory in Sanaa that the U.S. has evacuated its citizens in advance of a planned military operation.

He says he has watched anti-U.S. sentiment spike in recent days — especially in light of the manned P-3 surveillance aircraft that is buzzing over the capital, which is commonly mistaken for an armed drone.

“Yemeni people live in fear that the drones will attack at any time,” he said. “We in Sanaa cannot sleep because of the sound of the drones. Yemenis believe that the drones are the ones who are ruling over Yemen . . . so that explains why there is resentment toward American and Western policies in general.”

Iraq.....

Iraqi Kurdistan President Poised for Intervention in Syria

Sends Aides to Northeast Syria to Investigate Situation in Kurd Areas

by Jason Ditz, August 10, 2013

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With the Syrian Civil War already spilling over into a number of neighboring regions, a secondary war between Syrian Kurds and Islamist rebels looks set to draw in some regional fighters of its own, with Iraqi Kurdistan’s President Masoud Barzani suggesting his government is prepared for direct intervention in that fight.

In a public statement posted online, Barzani reported deploying aides to West Kurdistan (the Syrian part) to investigate the fighting, saying that if the initial reports prove true his government is prepared to use “all of its capabilities” to defend Syria’s Kurds.

Those capabilities are significant, as Iraqi Kurdistan has the loyalty of an army of upwards of 300,000 armed fighters, the Peshmearga, who have successfully held the Iraqi military at bay during recent territorial disputes.

A deployment of Peshmearga into West Kurdistan could change the game in Syria, giving the Kurdish factions in Syria an overwhelming power edge over Jabhat al-Nusra and the other Islamist rebels. Though neither Iraq nor the Syrian government in likely to object in the near-term, it sets the stage for more regional battles in the long run.

Kurdish autonomy in Syria will also push Turkey into even more overt backing of al-Qaeda factions in the hopes of tamping down Kurdish independence bids, further straining the Turkey-PKK peace process.

Iraq: 93 Killed, 377 Wounded in Saturday Savagery

by Margaret Griffis, August 10, 2013

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The brief respite from violence ended resolutely today with a string of coordinated bombings across Baghdad and cities to the south of the capital. At least 93 people were killed and 377 were wounded across the country.

A string of coordinated attacks, some occurring within minutes of each other, left 51 dead and 159 wounded in Baghdad alone: A bomb in Jisr Diyala left seven dead and 20 wounded. Seven people were killed and 15 more were wounded in Hussainiya.Six people were killed and 15 more were wounded in a pair of blasts in Shabb. A car bomb killed three and wounded 16 in Saidiya. A bomb in Doura killed five people and wounded 15 more. Five people were killed and 14 more were wounded in Kadhimiya. A bomb in Abu Dsheer killed four people and wounded 15 more. One person was killed and 12 more were wounded in a car bombing in Baghdad Jadida. InZaafaraniya, one person was killed and nine others were wounded in a bombing. As many as six people were killed and 28 more were wounded in two Amil blasts. A blastkilled four people, including two children, at a park. Also, two gunmen were killedduring a security operation; one of them was a foreign national.

Elsewhere, more car bombs and other attacks left 42 dead and wounded 218 more.

A very destructive car bomb in Tuz Khormato left 11 dead and 60 wounded.

Three bombs killed four people and wounded 67 more in Nasariya.

In Karbala, five people were killed and 11 more were wounded during a car bombing.

A bomb in Dhi Qar killed four people and wounded 20 others.

One person was killed and 20 more were wounded in Kirkuk.

A bomb killed one soldier and wounded two more in Samarra.

When a bomb he was defusing in Muqdadiya exploded, an explosives expert was killed and two other people were wounded.

A bomb at a Madaen video game shop exploded, killing an eight-year-old and wounding three other children. A military official’s bodyguard was shot dead.

A colonel was killed during a home invasion in Qayara.

A roadside bomb in the Thar Thar region wounded two soldiers.

In Jurf al-Sakhar, mortars wounded two policemen at the station.

Near Tikrit, gunmen killed a policemen and his wife who were traveling by car.

An al-Qaeda commander and his assistant were killed during a clash in Abu Ghraib.

Seven people were wounded in Mussayab, when a car bomb exploded. Two people were killed and eight more were wounded in small arms attacks. Two policemen were wounded in mortar fire.

In Falluja, a suicide bomber killed two soldiers and wounded four more. A sticky bomb killed one person and wounded another.

Gunmen in an-Neil killed the mayor and his son, while wounding his wife.

In Jurf al-Sakhar, the body of an al-Qaeda leader was found.

A girl was wounded in a rocket attack in Tal Afar.

In Mosul, an I.E.D. wounded four people. Gunmen wounded an army officer.

A car bomb was found in Suwayra.

Pakistan......

US Withdraws Staff From Lahore, But What’s the Threat?

City Has Rarely Been Target of Terror Attacks

by Jason Ditz, August 10, 2013

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The US State Department has followed up on yesterday’s decision to withdraw most of its personnel from the US Consulate in Lahore warning Americans against travel to Pakistan, citing the threat of “foreign and indigenous terrorist groups.”

Early analysis has tried to attribute this to the violence in Pakistan and in particular recent attacks by militants in Quetta, but this doesn’t make a lot of sense, since Quetta is 600+ miles away, and the consulates in Peshawar and Karachi, much closer to Quetta, remain entirely open.

The official explanation for Lahore’s closure is “threats” but the nature of those threats remain entirely unclear, and while much of Pakistan is constantly awash in violence, Lahore has rarely seen attacks of any significance.

Though various Pakistani Taliban factions have had designs on Lahore, that’s true of most cities in Pakistan, and while every other place the US has offices in Pakistan has seen major attacks, Lahore hasn’t. The nature of the threat remains entirely a mystery.

Syria - balkanization continues.....FSA talk of Kurds acting on behalf of foreign powers , which is what FSA is doing !

Fighting intensifies in northern Syria

Government forces and rebels clash in Idlib province amid fears the country is disintegrating along sectarian lines. Last Modified: 11 Aug 2013 19:54

Rebels and Syrian government forces have clashed in the country's Idlib province, as fighting intensified in northern areas of the country. Government jets on Sunday pounded the town of Binesh in Idlib, while rebels shelled a government checkpoint in Saida, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Also on Sunday, a father and his three children were killed in Raqa province when government planes bombed their home, the observatory said. The attacks follow days of fighting in Latakia province, which borders Idlib, with concerns growing about the country disintergrating along sectarian lines. The coastal Latakia province is the stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority and has remained relatively immune to violence. However, rebel groups have captured about 10 Alawite villages in the mountainous Jabal al-Akrad area of the province. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Antakya in neighbouring Turkey, said the rebels now controlled areas in Latakia's countryside. However, they have not yet been able to advance to the coast. The government has hit back, sparking fierce fighting that has left dozens dead on both sides, according to the observatory. On Saturday, at least 20 people were killed in several government air strikes on the Sunni rebel-held town of Salma in the Jabal al-Akrad area, it said. At least six of those killed were Syrian rebels, while four were foreigners, said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the observatory. She said that while the government maintained the upper hand, losing Latakia would be a symbolic blow. Concerns of divisions Al Jazeera's Khodr said that there are worries now of the possibility of the country disintergrating, with no political solution in sight. She said that rebel groups have declared war on the Syrian Kurdish party, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has long identified its support for Assad. "Long standing tensions are now open confrontation after the PYD declared its intention to set up its own temporary administrations." "There is fear that could lead to an autonomous region in the northeast, the heartland of Kurds, Syria's largest ethnic minority," said Khodr. "It is not very clear what a post-Assad Syria will look like - but already one divided on geographic lines seems to be emerging," said Khodr. The regime controls much of southern and central Syria, and the Latakia pocket, while fighters hold northern areas near the Turkish border and along the Euphrates valley towards Iraq. The northeast corner of the country is now an increasingly in Kurdish control.  Colonel Abdul Jabar al Okaidi, of the FSA's military council, told Al Jazeera: "The idea of division by some Kurds is dangerous. These Kurdish groups are acting on behalf of foreign powers. We will fight to prevent the division of Syria."

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