Libya noticed by President Obama ?
Obama initially issued the order in February of 2011, and despite a US and NATO imposed regime change which followed soon after it has been renewedannually since then.
By Ayman Amzein.
When US officials talk about Iran, that Israeli objection has increasingly colored their statements, as they try to downplay the chances of any deal under any circumstances and try to spin their own demands as every bit as unreasonable as the Israelis would want.
It is now confirmed that both Boeing and General Electric, to major US aerospace companies, have applied for export licenses covering the six-month window of the interim deal, with an eye toward exporting jet parts to Iran.
http://www.debka.com/article/23702/Assad%E2%80%99s-army-hits-border-areas-as-US-Israel-Jordan-enlarge-South-Syrian-foothold-
It is more likely than not that the new pro-American Syrian rebel force mustered under Israel’s nose is also guaranteed Israeli military insurance against a surprise attack or any hostile attempts to wipe it out. It stands to reason that this function was closely examined during the visit Israeli leaders paid to the Golan last week and is also the subject of intensive talks between Jerusalem and Washington.
In the last two days, the Syrian army has moved in for an offensive on the environs of Quneitra to corner the new rebel command center. Two outlying villages, Rasm al-Hour and Rasm al-Sad, fell into the hands of government forces.
Furthermore, a bomb car which exploded Sunday at the town of Atmeh on the Syrian-Iraqi border targeted a rebel-run military field hospital. At least nine people were killed.
This was another message from Damascus – this one picked up in Jerusalem that the field hospital set up on the Golan for injured Syrians is also in the sights of the Syrian army.
http://m.jordantimes.com/syrian-troops-advance-near-golan-heights-city
Western officials are complaining already, with British Foreign Office officials terming it “not adequate” and saying it would keep the plan for having all those chemicals destroyed by June 30 from being met. The US, which is planning to disincorporate the chemicals at sea, says it needs 90 days from receipt to destruction.
Iraq.......
http://m.jordantimes.com/militants-shoot-down-iraqi-helicopter-occupy-northern-town
Obama Order: Libya an ‘Extraordinary Threat’ to US Foreign Policy
Extends State of Emergency for Another Year
by Jason Ditz, February 21, 2014
President Obama’s “state of national emergency” related to Libya has been extended yet another year today, with the latest executive order declaring Libya still poses an “extraordinary threat” to US foreign policy interests.
Obama initially issued the order in February of 2011, and despite a US and NATO imposed regime change which followed soon after it has been renewedannually since then.
The regime change was presented as setting the stage for major new oil exports from Libya, which have not materialized as the new pro-West regime has been unable to retain control of the ports.
Internally Libya continues to struggle with unrest, with militias demanding new elections, and a parliament that has decided to indefinitely extend its term in office. They also dealt with a military plane crash today in neighboring Tunisia, which killed 11 people, including Islamist militia leader Meftah Daouadi. Officials said the crash occurred under “mysterious circumstances.”
How any of this constitutes a “national emergency” for the United States anymore is unclear, and indeed it no longer seems “extraordinary” at all, but just business as usual in the new Libya.
Libya Herald items....
Libya Herald items....
RPG attack on Tunisian Consulate in Benghazi
By Noora Ibrahim.
Benghazi, 22 February 2014:
Unknown assailants fired an RPG at the Tunisian Consulate in Benghazi this evening causing some limited, superficial damage to its outer wall.
Spokesman for Benghazi Joint Security Room, Ibrahim Sharaa, told the Libya Herald that the RPG was fired from a vehicle at around 10pm and most probably targeted, but missed, the car of diplomatic police stationed outside the consulate. No one was injured in the attack.
The Tunisian Consulate in Benghazi was attacked by Ansar Al-Sharia in June 2012 allegedly for insults said made by Tunisian artists against Islam.
Diplomatic buildings have been subject to frequent attacks by armed groups since the revolution. The French and Russian Embassies were attacked in Tripoli last year as well as the infamous attack on the US diplomatic premises in Benghazi in September 2012 which claimed the life of ambassador Chris Stevens.
Tripoli hotel set ablaze during armed clashes
By Ashraf Abdul Wahab.
Tripoli, 22 February 2014:
A private hotel in Tripoli’s in downtown Belkhair district was set ablaze last night during armed clashes in the area, according to the civil defence force. Combatants were reported to have opened fire at a fire engine when it sought to quell the flames at the Al-Khair hotel.
The clashes between two groups of young people in the district are said to have begun over a grudge dating back to last year. They lasted until the early hours of the morning. No casualties have been reported as a result.
Judges suspend work over assassinations and
intimidation
By Ahmed Elumami.
Logo of the Libyan Judicial Organisation (Photo: LJO)
Tripoli, 22 February 2014:
Judges across the country have stopped hearing cases until their safety can be guaranteed. They say judicial assassinations have become all too prevalent and that they face daily intimidation.
The decision followes the death of South Benghazi Court judge, Mayloud Amar Al-Rajhi, who died in hospital following an assassination attempt on Thursday.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Libyan Judges Organisation (LJO) said it had suspended work throughout all the country’s judicial districts because judges could no longer contend with the current level of threats to their security. It also said that there was a systematic and deliberate plan to silence the voice of justice in Libya.
An LJO official told the Libya Herald judges were “not protected and as such cannot expect to work freely when implementing rules and regulations”.
The official said judges were now assassinated and intimidated on a regular basis. He added that authorities had neglected the Judicial Police, who are charged with the protection of the judiciary and who had also announced a strike over deteriorating security conditions on Thursday.
Qataris with forged Libyan passports arrested at Bengahzi airport
By Ayman Amzein.
Benghazi, 22 February, 2014:
Six Qataris were arrested at Benghazi’s Benina airport this morning in possession of fake Libyan passports while trying to take a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, officials at the airport have told the Libya Herald.
A source with the airline said that passport control officials became suspicious when they heard the men speaking with non-Libyan accents. The six were detained and Qatari passports were then found in their possession, he added. Other reports say that LD 180,000 was also found in their luggage.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry has confirmed the arrest. He added that the Ministry of Interior was launching an investigation into the incident.
Relations with the Gulf emirate, while officially close, have been strained by any number anti-Qatari incidents last year. They included protests alleging Qatar interference in Libya through support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and attacks on Qatar Airlines offices, forcing the airline to suspend flights to the country.
Qatar was a major supporter of the revolution in 2011.
Election re-runs next Wednesday says Elabbar
By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 21 February 2014:
Fresh Constitutional Committee elections in the 81 polling centres which could not operate yesterday because of violence or blockades will take place next Wednesday, 26 February.
The head of Higher National Elections Commission (HNEC), Nuri Elabbar, said at press conference today that every effort will be put into enabling those registered at the affected polling centres to vote. However, the authorities in the form of the General National Congress, the General Chief of Staff and the Ministry of Interior will have to provide full security to ensure the arrival of election material and the safety of the stations and voters, he insisted.
Violence in Obari, Derna and elsewhere forced polling centres to close yesterday while in Murzuk sub-constituency, a blockade by Tebus opposed to the vote prevented ballot papers getting to the centres. In all, 61 polling centres in Obari constituency were affected, 14 in Derna, three for Tebu voters in Kufra, two in Sebha and one in Ajdabyia constituency at the Sarir oil field.
The 34 polling centres did not open in the first place in the west of the country because of the Amazigh boycott will not be involved in the attempt at a re-run. They are subject to political negotiations between the Amazigh community and the General National Congress.
The process of counting yesterday’s votes had begun, Elabbar also said at today’s press conference. HNEC had already received the results from Azziziya, Zawiya, Khums, Tripoli, Misrata and part of the Jebel Nafusa. Results from the east and south areas would probably arrive tonight, Friday, he added.
The teams at the data and statistics department were starting the count in preparation for a preliminary announcement tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, Sunday, he explained. The timing would depend on the work needing to be done.
45 percent turnout in Constitutional Committee elections but 13 seats cannot be declared
By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 21 February, 2014:
The turnout in yesterday’s elections for the Constitutional Committee elections was 45 percent, the Higher National Elections Commission (HNEC) has said. But because of violence, disruptions and boycotts, 13 seats cannot be filled as yet.
A total of 497,663 of the 1.1 million people who registered to vote had done so, HNEC chairman Nuri Elabbar said at a press conference late last night. However, reports from twenty-nine centres in five Electoral regions were still awaited.
Violence, the fear of violence and blockades had prevented voting in 81 of the 1,577 polling centres, he said. They had either never opened or had to close. (A further 34 planned for Amazigh had never been activated in the first place because of the Amazigh boycott.)
There were 61 were in Owbari constituency, which included the two sub-constituencies of Owbari and Murzuk; 14 in Derna; three in the mainly Tebu areas of the Kufra sub-constituency, two in the Sebha sub-constituency, and one at the Sarir area of the Ajdabya constituency.
As a result, four seats in Murzuk (including one reserved Tebu seat), four in Obari (including one reserved Tuareg seat), two in Derna 2, and the reserved Tebu seat in Kufra 1. In addition, there are the two uncontested seats seat reserved for the Amazigh. There were no problems surrounding the reserved Tuareg seat in Ghadames; the vote there went smoothly, Elabbar stated.
Commenting on the violence in Derna which closed six polling centres (not five, as reported earlier), Elabbar paid tribute to local man Salem Attiya Boujidar Al-Mansouri who was murdered by militants when he tried to stop them breaking into a polling station at a school. He called him a martyr.
HNEC is legally required to state within 24 hours how, when and where alternative elections can be held to enable voters who were unable to participate to cast their votes and elect the 13 representatives, Elabbar said. An attempt would be made today, but if it were not possible the issue would have to be handed over to the General National Congress to resolve, either by appointment of the members of the committee or by other means.
Despite these problems, the polling had conducted as planned in the overwhelming majority of areas and had been an “historic event” in building the state, he said.
Votes cast in the 19 overseas centres where voting had taken place from 15 to 17 February were now starting in those centres, Elabbar added, and the results would be sent to HNEC.
The 45-percent turnout, although lower than hoped for, is seen as more than sufficient to avoid accusations that the Constitutional Committee has no legitimacy. However, the appointment of if not all the 13 seats, certainly almost all, is another matter.
Iran........
US Adopts Israeli Demand to Bring Iran’s
Missiles Into Nuclear Talks
by Gareth Porter, February 22, 2014
The Barack Obama administration’s insistence that Iran discuss its ballistic missile program in the negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear agreement brings its position into line with that of Israel and senators who introduced legislation drafted by the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC aimed at torpedoing the negotiations.
But the history of the issue suggests that the Obama administration knows that Iran will not accept the demand and that it is not necessary to a final agreement guaranteeing that Iran’s nuclear program is not used for a weapon.
White House spokesman Jay Carney highlighted the new U.S. demand in a statement Wednesday that the Iranians “have to deal with matters related to their ballistic missile program.”
Carney cited United Nations Security Council resolution 1929, approved in 2010, which prohibited any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including missile launches. “So that’s completely agreed by Iran in the Joint Plan of Action,” he added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif not only explicitly contradicted Carney’s claim that Iran had agreed to discuss ballistic missiles but warned that a US demand for discussion of its missile program would violate a red line for Iran.
“Nothing except Iran’s nuclear activities will be discussed in the talks with the [six powers known as the P5+1], and we have agreed on it,” he said, according to Iran’s IRNA.
The pushback by Zarif implies that the US position would seriously risk the breakdown of the negotiations if the Obama administration were to persist in making the demand.
Contrary to Carney’s statement, the topic of ballistic missiles is not part of the interim accord reached last November. The Joint Plan of Action refers only to “addressing the UN Security Council resolutions, with a view toward bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the UN Security Council’s consideration of this matter” and the formation of a “Joint Commission” which would “work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present issues of concern”.
It is not even clear that the US side took the position in the talks last fall that Iran’s missile program had to be on the table in order to complete a final agreement. But in any event it was not part of the Joint Plan of Action agreed on Nov. 24.
Past US statements on the problem of the Security Council resolutions indicate that the administration had previously acknowledged that no agreement had been reached to negotiate on ballistic missiles and that it had not originally intended to press for discussions on the issue.
The “senior administration officials” who briefed journalists on the Joint Plan of Action last November made no reference to ballistic missiles at all. They referred only to “possible military dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program and to “Iranian activities at Parchin”.
The demand for negotiations on Iran’s missile program originated with Israel, both directly and through Senate Foreign Relations Committee members committed to AIPAC’s agenda.
Citing an unnamed senior Israeli official, Ha’aretz reported Thursday that Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz had met with Sherman and senior French and British foreign ministry officials before the start of the February talks and had emphasized that Iran’s missile program“must be part of the agenda” for negotiation of a final agreement.
By early December, however, Israel was engaged in an even more direct effort to pressure the administration to make that demand, drafting a bill that explicitly included among its provisions one that would have required new sanctions unless the president certified that “Iran has not conducted any tests for ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 500 kilometers.”
Since Iran had obviously tested missiles beyond that limit long ago, it would have made it impossible for Obama to make such a certification.
Although the bill was stopped, at least temporarily, in the Senate when enough Democratic members refused to support it, Republicans on the committee continued to attack the administration’s negotiating position, and began singling out the administration’s tolerance of Iranian missiles in particular.
At a Feb. 4 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the ranking Republican on the Committee, Sen. Robert Corker, ranking Republican on the Committee, ripped into Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator in the nuclear talks with Iran.
After a highly distorted picture of Iran’s readiness to build a nuclear weapon, Corker asked, “Why did you all not in this agreement in any way address the delivery mechanisms, the militarizing of nuclear arms? Why was that left off since they breached a threshold everyone acknowledges?”
But instead of correcting Corker’s highly distorted characterization of the situation, Sherman immediately reassured him that the administration would do just what he wanted them to do.
Sherman admitted that the November agreement covering the next months had not “shut down all the production of any ballistic missile that could have anything to do with delivery of a nuclear weapon.” Then she added, “But that is indeed something that has to be addressed as part of a comprehensive agreement.”
Sherman also suggested at one point that there would be no real need to prohibit any Iranian missile if the negotiations on the nuclear program were successful. “Not having a nuclear weapon,” she said, “makes delivery systems almost — not wholly, but almost — irrelevant.”
That admission underlined the wholly political purpose of the administration’s apparent embrace of the Israeli demand that Iran negotiate limits on its ballistic missiles.
The Obama administration may be seeking to take political credit for a hard line on Iranian missiles in the knowledge that it will not be able to get a consensus for that negotiating position among the group of six powers negotiating with Iran.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov clearly implied that Moscow would not support such a demand in a statement Thursday that Russia “considers that a comprehensive agreement must concern only and exclusively the restoration of trust in a purely peaceful intention of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Although US, European and Israeli officials have asserted consistently over the years that Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles are designed to carry nuclear weapons, Israel’s foremost expert on the Iranian nuclear program, Uzi Rubin, who managed Israel’s missile defense program throughout the 1990s, has argued that the conventional analysis was wrong.
In an interview with the hardline anti-Iran Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in September 2009, Rubin said, “The Iranians believe in conventional missiles. Not just for saturation but also to take out specific targets…. Remember, they have practically no air force to do it. Their main striking power is based on missiles.”
Since 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency has accused Iran of working on integrating a nuclear weapon into the Shahab-3 missile reentry vehicle in 2002-2003, based on a set of drawings in a set of purported Iranian documents. The documents were said by the George W. Bush administration to have come from the purloined laptop of a participant in an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons research program.
But that account turned to be a falsehood, as were other variants on the origins of the document. The documents actually came from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, the anti-regime organization then listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department, according to two German sources.
Karsten Voigt, who was the German foreign office coordinator, publicly warned about the MEK provenance of the papers in a November 2004 interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Voigt, who retired from the foreign office in 2010, recounted the story of how an MEK member delivered the papers to German intelligence in 2004 in an interview last year for a newly-published book by this writer.
US Officials Sending Mixed Signals on Iran Talks
After Productive Vienna Talks, Officials Still Panning Negotiations
by Jason Ditz, February 21, 2014
Israel has made no bones about it. They oppose the interim nuclear deal with Iran, they oppose negotiations with Iran, and they’re not thrilled with anything else that doesn’t lead to a full-scale US war with Iran.
When US officials talk about Iran, that Israeli objection has increasingly colored their statements, as they try to downplay the chances of any deal under any circumstances and try to spin their own demands as every bit as unreasonable as the Israelis would want.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, speaking at Beth El synagogue in Bethesda, Maryland, tried to shift the US demands a bit, saying the goal was not just to prevent Iran having a nuclear weapon, but prevent them having the “capacity” to make one.
That mirror’s Israel’s own statements, and the deliberately vague concept of “capacity” or “capability” means there’s no real way for Iran to meet the requirement, or even any obvious way to tell what the requirement would look like. Israeli hawks, fond of the term, have often presented any civilian nuclear program or theoretical know-how at all as de facto capacity, meaning unless all Iranians can be forced to unlearn how nuclear physics works, they must remain hostile toward them.
Top Obama aide Gary Samore also went into the successful Vienna talks panning negotiations in general, insisting there was “no chance of success” and tacking on myriad demands that have never even been broached at the P5+1 meetings, and would clearly be non-starters.
His rhetoric, too, looks to come straight out of Likud, with claims Iran could conceivably keep its perfectly legal civilian program as is, or shut it down entirely, or anything in between, and still come up with a wholly independent, wholly secret military program.
Boeing, GE Seek Export Licenses to Sell Jet Parts to Iran
Amid Rapprochement, US Companies Aim to Get a Foot in the Door
by Jason Ditz, February 21, 2014
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have repeatedly made much of their determination to continue to bar international trade with Iran, despite an interim nuclear deal and growing international rapprochement making such sanctions less and less tenable. Even US companies are now aiming to test those restrictions.
It is now confirmed that both Boeing and General Electric, to major US aerospace companies, have applied for export licenses covering the six-month window of the interim deal, with an eye toward exporting jet parts to Iran.
GE confirmed the effort, saying they’ve been trying to get permission for such shipments since 2004 for safety reasons, since many of Iranair’s passenger jets are several decades old, and have not had access to replacement parts because of US sanctions.
Boeing declined comment on the matter at all, referring questions to the State Department, who similarly declined comment, referring questions to the Treasury Department. They too refused to comment, but didn’t refer questions anywhere else.
GE says they don’t intend to make a profit on the sales, and will either sell parts at cost or give the proceeds to charity. Industry experts say the companies are eager to get a foot in the door in Iran’s aerospace market, as Iranian officials have said that if a deal is reached and sanctions are lifted, they could buy as many as 400 new jets.
Syria.....
The Jordanian government Sunday, Feb. 23 vehemently denied reports that Syrian rebels were undergoing training by American and its own military instructors and being sent back to fight government forces. According to US intelligence sources, those training camps have been turning out 250 rebel fighters per course and some 1,000 trainees all told are already in action on Syria’s battlefields. The Syrian government journal Tishrin has repeatedly warned Jordan that it is “playing with fire.”
On Feb. 18, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, quite openly visited injured Syrians at an IDF military field hospital on the Golan. They chatted with wounded rebel soldiers. But on the quiet, our sources report that they took a good look at Quneitra (pop: 10,000), which is located close to Israeli lines on the Syrian side of the enclave.
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that a new Syrian rebel command center has been set up there, with the help of the US, Jordan and Israel. The CIA is investing great effort into restoring the combat capabilities of the disbanded Free Syrian Army and incorporating splinter militias likewise opposed to radical Islamist groups in a revived rebel fighting force under the command of Brig.Gen. Abdul-Illah al-Bashir
Based in the tiny Golan town of Quneitra, he has been given the grand title of “Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.”
Gen. al-Bashir defected from the Syrian army in 2012. His main qualification for the new job is his membership of the Syrian Bedouin Al Nuaim tribe, which ranges through the Golan and southern Syria. When he defected, he was followed by army officers who are fellow tribesmen.
The rebel force shaping up in Quneitra therefore consists of many indigenous fighters and a large component of local Al Nuaim tribesmen.
It is more likely than not that the new pro-American Syrian rebel force mustered under Israel’s nose is also guaranteed Israeli military insurance against a surprise attack or any hostile attempts to wipe it out. It stands to reason that this function was closely examined during the visit Israeli leaders paid to the Golan last week and is also the subject of intensive talks between Jerusalem and Washington.
But meanwhile Syrian President Bashar Assad is not standing idle.
Exactly a week ago, Saturday night, Feb. 15, the Syrian army ambushed a group of trained Syrian rebels as they crossed in from Jordan. Middle East sources reported that many were killed and others took to their heels and fled.
In the last two days, the Syrian army has moved in for an offensive on the environs of Quneitra to corner the new rebel command center. Two outlying villages, Rasm al-Hour and Rasm al-Sad, fell into the hands of government forces.
Clearly, the US-Israeli-Jordanian effort to establish a rebel-controlled border strip across the Syrian border will not be a cake walk.
Furthermore, a bomb car which exploded Sunday at the town of Atmeh on the Syrian-Iraqi border targeted a rebel-run military field hospital. At least nine people were killed.
This was another message from Damascus – this one picked up in Jerusalem that the field hospital set up on the Golan for injured Syrians is also in the sights of the Syrian army.
Syrian troops advance near Golan Heights city
AP | Feb 22, 2014 | 23:08 Updated: Feb 22, 2014 | 23:22
Children sit near to the body of their mother after she died from explosive barrels dropped by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to activists, in Al Andhirat neighbourhood of Aleppo on Saturday (Reuters photo by Hosam Katan)
BEIRUT — Syrian government forces captured Saturday two rebel-held areas on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after days of intense fighting near a decades-old cease-fire line between Syria and Israel, state TV said.
The violence came as the UN Security Council unanimously demanded immediate access everywhere in Syria to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of people in desperate need.
Russia and China, strong supporters of the Syrian government, joined the rest of the council Saturday in sending a strong message to President Bashar Assad’s government that civilians caught in the three-year conflict must be helped.
The resolution doesn’t threaten sanctions but it does express the council’s intention to take “further steps” if the resolution isn’t implemented. The government and rebels hold several areas in the country under siege, leaving tens of thousands of people suffering from lack of food and medicine.
The Syrian TV report, citing a military official, said troops and pro-government gunmen known as National Defence Forces captured the areas of Rasm Al Hour and Rasm Al Sad, south of the town of Quneitra. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed troops were on the offensive, adding that the air force was taking part in the attack.
The Syrian army has been reinforcing its positions in Quneitra as part of efforts to drive rebels from the area, which is near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, since the opposition named a new military chief on Monday.
Brig. Gen. Abdul-Ilah Al Bashir hails from southern Syria and was an army commander in Quneitra until 2012, when he defected to the opposition.
In December, the UN Security Council strongly condemned all military activity on the Golan Heights by the Syrian army and opposition fighters, warning that it could “jeopardise the ceasefire” between Syria and Israel.
The council then approved a resolution extending the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force until the end of June. The force, known as UNDOF, was established after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Israel occupied the Golan Heights during the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in 1981.
Also Saturday, Syrian activists said Kurdish fighters captured a northeastern town near the Iraqi border after days of combat with members of an Al Qaeda breakaway group.
The observatory and a Syria-based activist who identified himself as Salar Al Kurdi said members of the so-called People’s Protection Units captured Tel Brak earlier in the day. It was the latest gain by Kurds in almost a year of fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“There are few civilians in the areas since many of them fled because of the fighting over the past months,” Kurdi said via Skype.
The units are dominated by members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, Syria’s most powerful Kurdish group. Since mid-2013, Kurdish fighters have been on the offensive capturing wide areas in northeastern Syria from the ISIL.
The Tel Brak battle left some 19 people dead, of which 16 were ISIL fighters, the observatory said.
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, making up more than 10 per cent of the country’s 23 million people. They are centred in the impoverished northeastern province of Hassakeh, wedged between the borders of Turkey and Iraq. The capital Damascus and Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, also have several predominantly Kurdish neighbourhoods.
Syria Offers 100-Day Plan on Chemical Weapons Shipments
British Officials Complain Plan Is 'Not Adequate'
by Jason Ditz, February 21, 2014
Expectations that Syria would have the last of the chemical precursors from its dismantled weapons program shipped out of the country by February 5 have proven over-optimistic, and even the end of the month plan seems in tatters, as Syria has now offered a new “100-day plan” that would get things done around the end of May.
Western officials are complaining already, with British Foreign Office officials terming it “not adequate” and saying it would keep the plan for having all those chemicals destroyed by June 30 from being met. The US, which is planning to disincorporate the chemicals at sea, says it needs 90 days from receipt to destruction.
US officials once again accused the Syrians of “dragging their feet” on the shipment, but the problem is much more complex than that, with the ships expected to come out of Latakia, which is deep in rebel-held territory.
Islamist rebel factions have already made multiple attempts against the chemical shipments in the past, and the danger of getting the massive amount of precursors out of the country through rebel territory has stalled the shipments repeatedly.
Syrian air force steps up attacks in southFebruary 22, 2014 12:13 AM
| The Daily Star |
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| Men carry the body of a girl from under the rubble of collapsed buildings after what activists said was an air raid by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in the Bab al-Nayrab district in Aleppo February 21, 2014. (REUTERS/Jalal Al-Mamo) |
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BEIRUT: The Syrian army intensified its aerial bombardment Friday of southern Syria as opposition fighters were preparing to launch a wide offensive in a province bordering Jordan, activists said.
The Local Coordination Committees opposition network and an anti-government activist in the area said air raids and government shelling in the southern province of Deraa killed at least two people.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another activist group, reported that airstrikes on several areas in Deraa killed a man and a child. It said warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked the towns of Inkhil and Ghabagheb, as well as the village of Naima and the capital of Deraa province that carries the same name.
Deraa is where Syria’s uprising started nearly three years ago with anti-government protests that later spread throughout the country.
The army in recent days also has stepped up its use of barrel bombs in deadly airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Deraa. The crude bombs – barrels filled with explosives, fuel and scraps of metal – had so far been used mostly against rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo and near Damascus, Syria’s capital.
Barrel bombings in Aleppo injured dozens more Friday, in the areas of Al-Bab, Salaheddine and Sheikh Najjar, activists reported. They say over 800 people have been killed in the strike campaign, which began in mid-December.
An amateur video released by activists showed smoke billowing from Naima after being struck by barrel bombs. Another video showed men running through dust created by a strike in the city of Deraa before reaching a two-story house bombed into a pile of rubble. A man could be heard shouting in the background: “My father!”
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded with other reporting of the attacks.
Activists said the attacks come as opposition fighters were preparing to launch a push from Deraa toward Damascus in the coming days. The rebels tried several times over the past two years to reach the capital but were crushed by Syrian troops.
The activists, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were speaking of military plans, claimed thousands of U.S.-trained rebels are getting ready to attack government positions throughout Deraa province.
Syria’s Al-Thawra newspaper, a mouthpiece of President Bashar Assad’s government, harshly criticized Jordan Thursday, accusing it of taking part in a U.S.-backed conspiracy against Damascus.
There is an “official Jordanian role in coordination with intelligence services from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel, with some Gulf Arab mix,” the paper said. It added that Jordan was taking part in an “American escalation” after the second round of peace talks between rival Syrian groups in Geneva ended without any progress.
Moscow meanwhile accused Washington of prolonging the Syrian conflict by supporting the opposition ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote Saturday that threatens to further deepen big power divisions.
Speaking in Baghdad Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said America’s policy on Syria “encourages extremists who are financing terrorism and supplying terrorist organizations and groups with weapons.”
“In the end, this will not result in anything except the escalation of the Syrian conflict,” he said in remarks translated from Russian into Arabic.
The CIA has led U.S. outreach to the rebels outside Syria, meeting them at refugee camps and towns along the Turkish and Jordanian borders. CIA paramilitary officers, as well as special operations trainers, have trained select groups of rebels in Jordan on the use of encrypted communications equipment – the nonlethal aid provided by President Barack Obama’s administration – and they have helped the rebels learn how to fire anti-aircraft weapons and small arms provided by Gulf states.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees also reported heavy clashes Friday in the southern region of Qunaitra. The army has been reinforcing its positions in Qunaitra as part of an effort to dislodge rebels from the area that is near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Russia, with support from China, has blocked three previous resolutions aimed at pressuring the Damascus regime since the crisis began, with an estimated 250,000 people across Syria awaiting help.
The resolution calls on all parties to immediately provide humanitarian access to populated areas, including the besieged city of Homs.
It also demands the “the immediate cessation of all attacks against civilians,” such as the use of barrel bombs, a clear reference to army tactics used in Aleppo, in the north.
And it calls for all parties, in particular the Syrian regime, to authorize humanitarian groups to deliver aid across front lines and borders.
Humanitarian groups have been seeking cross-border access for some time to allow aid to be shipped directly into Syria from neighboring countries such as Iraq or Turkey.
The Local Coordination Committees opposition network and an anti-government activist in the area said air raids and government shelling in the southern province of Deraa killed at least two people.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another activist group, reported that airstrikes on several areas in Deraa killed a man and a child. It said warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked the towns of Inkhil and Ghabagheb, as well as the village of Naima and the capital of Deraa province that carries the same name.
Deraa is where Syria’s uprising started nearly three years ago with anti-government protests that later spread throughout the country.
The army in recent days also has stepped up its use of barrel bombs in deadly airstrikes on rebel-held areas of Deraa. The crude bombs – barrels filled with explosives, fuel and scraps of metal – had so far been used mostly against rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo and near Damascus, Syria’s capital.
Barrel bombings in Aleppo injured dozens more Friday, in the areas of Al-Bab, Salaheddine and Sheikh Najjar, activists reported. They say over 800 people have been killed in the strike campaign, which began in mid-December.
An amateur video released by activists showed smoke billowing from Naima after being struck by barrel bombs. Another video showed men running through dust created by a strike in the city of Deraa before reaching a two-story house bombed into a pile of rubble. A man could be heard shouting in the background: “My father!”
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded with other reporting of the attacks.
Activists said the attacks come as opposition fighters were preparing to launch a push from Deraa toward Damascus in the coming days. The rebels tried several times over the past two years to reach the capital but were crushed by Syrian troops.
The activists, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were speaking of military plans, claimed thousands of U.S.-trained rebels are getting ready to attack government positions throughout Deraa province.
Syria’s Al-Thawra newspaper, a mouthpiece of President Bashar Assad’s government, harshly criticized Jordan Thursday, accusing it of taking part in a U.S.-backed conspiracy against Damascus.
There is an “official Jordanian role in coordination with intelligence services from the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel, with some Gulf Arab mix,” the paper said. It added that Jordan was taking part in an “American escalation” after the second round of peace talks between rival Syrian groups in Geneva ended without any progress.
Moscow meanwhile accused Washington of prolonging the Syrian conflict by supporting the opposition ahead of a U.N. Security Council vote Saturday that threatens to further deepen big power divisions.
Speaking in Baghdad Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said America’s policy on Syria “encourages extremists who are financing terrorism and supplying terrorist organizations and groups with weapons.”
“In the end, this will not result in anything except the escalation of the Syrian conflict,” he said in remarks translated from Russian into Arabic.
The CIA has led U.S. outreach to the rebels outside Syria, meeting them at refugee camps and towns along the Turkish and Jordanian borders. CIA paramilitary officers, as well as special operations trainers, have trained select groups of rebels in Jordan on the use of encrypted communications equipment – the nonlethal aid provided by President Barack Obama’s administration – and they have helped the rebels learn how to fire anti-aircraft weapons and small arms provided by Gulf states.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees also reported heavy clashes Friday in the southern region of Qunaitra. The army has been reinforcing its positions in Qunaitra as part of an effort to dislodge rebels from the area that is near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Russia, with support from China, has blocked three previous resolutions aimed at pressuring the Damascus regime since the crisis began, with an estimated 250,000 people across Syria awaiting help.
The resolution calls on all parties to immediately provide humanitarian access to populated areas, including the besieged city of Homs.
It also demands the “the immediate cessation of all attacks against civilians,” such as the use of barrel bombs, a clear reference to army tactics used in Aleppo, in the north.
And it calls for all parties, in particular the Syrian regime, to authorize humanitarian groups to deliver aid across front lines and borders.
Humanitarian groups have been seeking cross-border access for some time to allow aid to be shipped directly into Syria from neighboring countries such as Iraq or Turkey.
Militants shoot down Iraqi helicopter, occupy northern town
Reuters | Feb 22, 2014 | 23:12
An Iraqi soldier holds his weapon during clashes with Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the city of Ramadi, 100km west of Baghdad, on Friday (Reuters photo)
BAGHDAD — Sunni Islamists shot down a helicopter on Saturday and briefly occupied a town overnight, in an escalating turf war with Iraq’s Shiite-led government that has killed at least 25 people in two days, police said.
All four crew members were killed when their helicopter was downed during a reconaissance flight over the town of Karma in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, where the army is engaged in a standoff with anti-government fighters.
Sunni Islamist insurgents have been gaining ground in Iraq over the past year and in recent weeks overran several towns, raising the stakes in a conflict that made last year the deadliest since sectarian civil strife began to abate in 2008.
Late on Friday, dozens of militants in SUVs drove into the small town of Al Sainiyah near Baiji, some 180km north of Baghdad, after bombing the local police headquarters, and fought troops for several hours overnight, witnesses said.
At least four policemen and two Sunni government-backed militia members were killed in the fighting, officials said.
The militants raised the black flag of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) over government buildings in the town, recording their victory on video, before withdrawing on Saturday morning.
“The attack started at 7:30pm [Friday] when we heard intense gunfire and successive mortar explosions near the police department. This situation lasted for around three hours,” a resident called Yasser told Reuters by telephone.
He said the militants drove round the town all night, blasting religious anthems glorifying ISIL from their cars.
‘War of attrition’
Police sources said the militants came from Anbar province, where the Iraqi army has been laying siege to the city of Fallujah since early this year, when ISIL and other militant groups took it over.
A suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives blew himself up at the entrance to a military base in the east of Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, killing at least six people on Saturday, security sources said.
Security officials say ISIL, which is also active in neighbouring Syria and seeks to establish a Sunni state spanning the border into Iraq, wants to divert the security forces’ attention away from Fallujah.
“It’s a war of attrition and they are attempting to exhaust the capabilities of the army by dragging it into sporadic fighting here and there,” a senior security official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
“ISIL is still looking to find a suitable land to plant the seed of their Islamic emirate.”
By Saturday, troops had regained control over most of Sulaiman Pek, another town in northern Iraq overrun last week by militants who also raised ISIL’s banner, senior security officials said.
Three villages in the area surrounding Sulaiman Pek, 60km north of Baghdad, remain under the control of militants, they said.
Separately, five policemen were killed when gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint in a village east of Baqouba, 65km northeast of Baghdad, police said.
A further three policemen were killed in three car bomb explosions on Saturday near the homes of police commanders in Tikrit, 150km north of Baghdad, said police.
Police declared a curfew in the city and its suburbs in response, anticipating more attacks.
Last year was Iraq’s bloodiest since sectarian violence began to abate in 2008.
Deteriorating security in northern and western Iraq has raised doubts that parliamentary elections can be held nationwide in April as scheduled.
Iraq Army Fails to Oust ISIS Fighters from Suleiman Beg, Local Officials Say
By RUDAW 21/2/2014
KRG officials denied that Peshmarga forces had been called in to help. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – For more than a week Iraqi forces have failed to flush out Islamist extremists from Suleiman Beg, a district in Salaheddin province suffering from insecurity and inadequate security, water, food, electricity and shelter, its director complained.
“The situation of Suleiman Beg is the same and the Iraqi army has not achieved any progress,” said district director Talib Ahmed Bayati, referring to the military’s failure to oust militants of the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“It has been a week that the village is under the control of ISIS forces and it seems that the army is unable to control the situation,” he said, adding that residents were struggling to meet daily needs.
Islamic militants in Iraq have intensified their war against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. ISIS fighters reportedly stormed into Suleiman Beg a week ago in a bid to take over government institutions. Intense clashes have been reported, including reports of air raids by Iraq fighter jets.
Meanwhile the mayor of the nearby town of Tuz Khurmatu, which administers affairs in Suleiman Beg, said that things had been quieter for the past two days in the area.
“So far the Iraqi army has failed to control Suleiman Beg and part of it, the Muradli neighborhood, is under the control of ISIS,” Tuz Khurmatu MayorShalal Abdul told Rudaw.
“So far, the government has failed to retake control of Suleiman Beg. I think this shows the weakness of the Iraqi army,” he said.
He added that, according to his information, the Iraqi forces have asked the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to send in Peshmarga troops to help the army.
But Jabar Yawar, head of the Peshmarga ministry, said that was not true. “We have not received any request, neither from the ministry of defense nor from any other forces to participate in any military operations,” he told Rudaw.
“Only the president of the Kurdistan Region, who is the commander-in-chief of the Peshmarga forces, can decide whether to decline or accept such a request,” Yawar added.
Reports: Iraqi Jets Exchanged Fire With Peshmarga Forces in Tuz Khurmatu
By RUDAW 20/2/2014