Iran and GCC News items.....
The navy claimed it had captured the Morning Glory earlier this afternoon and was sending it to Misrata, but there is no indication the ship ever arrived, and now its location is totally unknown.
The officials say months of efforts to secure the release of the nuns suddenly started making fast progress when the offensive began, as the rebels were losing the areas around where the nuns were being held and faced the prospect of making a deal or risking losing them entirely.
What’s Going On in the Gulf? Unsurprisingly, It’s
Probably About Iran
by Derek Davison, March 11, 2014
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all recalled their ambassadors from Qatar on Wednesday, citing Qatar’s alleged support for organizations and individuals that threaten “the security and stability of the Gulf states” and for “hostile media.”
This came right on the heels of a U.A.E. court sentencing Qatari doctor Mahmoud al-Jaidah to seven years in prison on Monday, for the crime of aiding a banned opposition group called al-Islah, which the U.A.E. government alleges has operational ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
This was a coordinated move, led by the Saudis, to punish Qatar for supporting Muslim Brotherhood interests around the Middle East (and also for assuming a more prominent role in pan-Arab politics in general), but beyond that it reflects the Saudis’ deep and ongoing concern about an Iranian resurgence in the Gulf.
From the Saudi perspective the Qataris have been punching above their proper weight, and making nice with the wrong people.
Qatar’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are clearly the public justification for this row; it is no mystery why Saudi Arabia followed up Wednesday’s diplomatic swipe at Qatar with a decision on Friday to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
The Saudis, while they share certain conservative Islamic principles with the Brotherhood, are more than a bit put off by the group’s opposition to dynastic rule. Despite that feature of Brotherhood’s ideology, though, the very dynastic Qatari monarchy has been a strong supporter of Brotherhood-allied movements throughout the Middle East and North Africa, in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt (especially), and Syria.
Their rationale for doing so has been two-fold: one, they feel that supporting the Brotherhood abroad should insulate them from the Brotherhood at home, and two, Qatar has been predicting that the Brotherhood would be the main beneficiary of the Arab Spring.
Had they been right in their prediction, Qatar’s regional influence would have been significantly increased as a result, but by the looks of things, they were wrong. The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is now outlawed in Egypt, its Ennahda Party in Tunisia has voluntarily agreed to give up power, and it has lost most of its influence within the Syrian opposition.
Last November’s reorganization of Syrian opposition groups from the Qatar-financed Syrian Islamic Liberation Front to the Saudi-backed Islamic Front can be seen as evidence of the Brotherhood’s, and thus Qatar’s, loss of stature.
A related complaint that these countries have with Qatar is with the country’s Al Jazeera television news network (the “hostile media”).
Al Jazeera has continued to provide media access to Muslim Brotherhood figures in Egypt even as that organization was outlawed by the interim Egyptian government, to the extent that several Al Jazeera journalists are currently on trial in Egypt for aiding the Brotherhood.
These countries are also angry about the fact that Al Jazeera continues to give airtime to Brotherhood-affiliated cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi is actually wanted for extradition to Egypt over his comments about the coup that removed the Brotherhood from power there, and he recently lambasted, on Al Jazeera’s airwaves, the U.A.E., for “fighting everything Islamic.”
The reported pressure being placed on Saudi and Emirati journalists working in Qatar to quit their jobs and return home undoubtedly has something to do with the overall irritation with Qatari media.
However, there is another factor at play here: Qatar’s close – too close for Saudi comfort – ties with Iran (the real “organization” that threatens Gulf – i.e., Saudi – security), which has to do largely with natural gas. Qatar shares its windfall natural gas reserves with Iran, in what’s known as the North Dome/South Pars Field in the Persian Gulf.
The International Energy Agency estimates that it is the largest natural gas field on the planet. Qatar has been extracting gas from its side of the field considerably faster than Iran has been, for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, the North Dome side of the field (the part in Qatari waters) was discovered in the early 1970s, whereas the South Pars side was only discovered about 20 years later, so Qatar had a lot of time to get a head start on developing the field.
For another thing, the North Dome field is pretty much the only game left in Qatar, whose Dukhan oil field is clearly on the decline. Qatar has a huge incentive, then, to develop as much of the North Dome as they can as fast as they can in order to fund their numerous development projects.
There is a potential conflict here, though. Natural gas, like any other gas, tends to flow toward areas of low pressure. So when one end of a gas field is being drained of its gas faster than the other end, some of the gas in the less exploited end may flow to the more exploited end.
This is fine when an entire field is controlled by one country, but in this case, one can easily envision a scenario in which, several years from now, the Iranian government is accusing Qatar of siphoning off its gas.
What this means is that Qatar has a strong incentive to maintain friendly relations with Iran, and on this they have considerable disagreement with their Saudi neighbors.
To Saudi Arabia, Iran is a potential regional rival and must be countered at every turn; their opposition to easing international sanctions against Iran, for example, is not so much about the threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon as it is about fear of Iran escaping from the economic cage in which those sanctions have trapped it.
The proxy war taking place between Saudi and Iranian interests in Syria is the most obvious example of the rivalry between the two nations, and the Saudi move against Qatar can be seen as another front in that proxy war.
Qatar, although it has backed the Syrian opposition, sees things differently where Iran is concerned; in January, Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammad Al-Attiyah publicly called for an “inclusive” approach to Iran, which he argued “has a crucial role” in ending the crisis in Syria.
There is enough historic tension between the Qataris and the Saudis for this kind of disagreement over foreign affairs to provide the basis for a wider fracturing of relations.
For its part, Bahrain has every reason to go along with a Saudi diplomatic move against a suspected regional ally of Iran; after all, it was Saudi intervention that saved Bahrain’s ruling al-Khalifa family from a Shia-led rebellion in 2011, a rebellion that Bahrain accuses Iran of fomenting.
Look, though, at the two GCC members that did not pull their ambassadors from Qatar: Kuwait, where the Brotherhood’s Hadas Party is out of favor, but whose relations with Iran are “excellent”; and Oman, where Sultan Qaboos has been critical of the Brotherhood, but who is close enough to Iran to have served as a go-between for back-channel U.S.-Iran negotiations.
If the issue were really Qatar’s support for the Brotherhood, and not its relationship with Iran, both of these countries may well have joined the others in recalling their ambassadors.
The one country for which this explanation does not make sense is the U.A.E., whose relations with Iran are improving after the two countries recently reached an accord over the disposition of three disputed Gulf islands. In this case, it may really be that Qatar’s support for the Brotherhood, and especially the Jaidah case and Qaradawi’s criticisms, motivated their action.
Qatar’s failed bet on the Muslim Brotherhood made this the right time for the Saudis to move against them, but Saudi fears about an Iranian resurgence may well have been the real reason for their action.
Libya......
Ship leaves Libya rebel port carrying oil, official and gunmen say
Posted, 2014-03-11
ES SIDER, Libya (Reuters) - A North Korean-flagged tanker that loaded crude oil at a rebel-held port in eastern Libya is now in international waters, rebels at the harbor and a state oil company official said on Tuesday. If confirmed, the news would be a huge embarrassment for the government after top...more »
Libya Rebels Deny Reports Oil Tanker Was Captured by Navy
Ship's Location Unknown After Leaving Port
by Jason Ditz, March 10, 2014
The fate of the North Korea-flagged Morning Glory oil tanker, and the $36 million worth of Brent Crude loaded on it, remains shrouded in mystery tonight, as rebels from the port where the oil was loaded denied military claims of having captured the ship.
The navy claimed it had captured the Morning Glory earlier this afternoon and was sending it to Misrata, but there is no indication the ship ever arrived, and now its location is totally unknown.
The ship belongs to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, but they say they lost control of the crew some time ago and have no operational control over the ship anymore. Libya’s Defense Ministry tried to order the Air Force to blow the tanker up, but they refused.
The Obama Administration insists any attempt to buy oil from a Libyan port without Libyan government permission “amounts to theft from the Libyan people” and would expose the buyers to sanctions. Libya’s oil production was 1.6 million barrels a day before the NATO-imposed regime change, and is now just over 200,000.
Syria.......
Officials: Syria Nuns’ Release a Result of West Syria Offensive
Losing Territory Around Where Nuns Were Held, Nusra Cut a Deal
by Jason Ditz, March 10, 2014
Lebanese officials familiar with the situation say that the release of 13 nuns by al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra came in no small part because of a Syrian military offensive against western Syria.
The officials say months of efforts to secure the release of the nuns suddenly started making fast progress when the offensive began, as the rebels were losing the areas around where the nuns were being held and faced the prospect of making a deal or risking losing them entirely.
The nuns were transferred to Lebanese officials over the weekend in return for Syria’s release of 153 female prisoners, and a ransom payment to the fighters who originally kidnapped the nuns.
The nuns are believed to have been held in Yabroud, along the border with Lebanon, but as Syria’s offensive has taken more and more of the area and surrounded Yabroud itself, it was clear the region was falling out of their sphere of influence.
Iraq......
18 Killed, 38 Wounded Across Iraq
by Margaret Griffis, March 10, 2014
At least 18 people were killed and 38 more were wounded in today’s violence.
In Anbar:
A targeting an army convoy near Amiriyat al-Falluja wounded 11 soldiers.
An army officer was killed and three others were wounded in a Haditha bombing.
Six militants were killed and 14 more were wounded in Falluja. One militant is a Libyan.
Elsewhere:
Two bodies were found in Taji.
In Baghdad, security forces killed a militant.
A roadside bomb in Abu Ghraib killed one person and wounded two more.
In Mosul, gunmen wounded an imam and a guard at a mosque. Two soldiers were wounded by a blast. Security forces killed a gunman.
A bomb in Baquba killed a child and an elderly man, while also wounding four others.
Gunmen killed an imam in Muqdadiya. Two policemen were shot dead.
In Zubayr, gunmen killed a civilian.
and....
Massive Bombing near Baghdad; 97 Killed 237 Wounded Across Iraq
by Margaret Griffis, March 09, 2014
Attacks left 97 dead and 237 wounded across Iraq today. The worst attack occurred south of Baghdad. Local officials blamed the attack on the situation in neighboring Anbar province. Militants still control sections of two major cities there and have staged attacks in nearby provinces.
In Hilla, at least 45 people were killed and 157 more were wounded when a suicide bomber driving a mini-bus filled with explosives attacked a crowded entrance to the city. Dozens of cars waiting to be inspected alongside the bus were set aflame,trapping many of the victims inside them. The building housing the checkpoint was partially demolished. A provincial deputy chairman blamed the attack on tensions in neighboring Anbar province.
Near Hilla, gunmen killed two policemen and wounded four more.
In Anbar:
In an around Falluja, shelling left six dead and 17 wounded, mostly women and children. Three soldiers were killed and four more were wounded. Two militants were killed.
Two people were killed in shelling in Numaniya.
In Ramadi, clashes that recovered territory from militants killed or wounded a number of them. At least four soldiers were wounded in a clash. An I.E.D. killed a young man and wounded two others from a family that had fled Falluja. An entire apartment house was blown up but no casualties were reported.
A roadside bomb in Zaidan killed one soldier and wounded four more.
Elsewhere:
Four soldiers were killed in a small arms attack in Abu Ghraib. A bomb killed a soldier and wounded three others.
Gunmen targeting North Oil Company employees in Tuz Khormato killed three of them and wounded seven more.
In Mosul, gunmen killed a brigadier general. Two soldiers were shot dead at a checkpoint. A bomb wounded five people, including two civilians. Gunmen killed an intelligence officer.
A bomb targeting a female member of parliament wounded two bodyguards and nine bystanders in Mahoot.
A bomb in Arab Jabour killed two adults, one of them a Sahwa member, andwounded two children.
Two policemen were killed and two more were wounded in a Taji bombing.
A bomb in Khirbit Aziz killed a captain and wounded three others.
Security forces killed a suicide bomber in Tal Afar.
In Baghdad, the body of a government employee was found.
A civilian was shot dead in Madaen.
Six militants were killed in Kirkuk. Three more were killed in a southern suburb.
A gunman was killed when he attacked a Jurf al-Sakhar checkpoint.
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