Iran......
http://news.yahoo.com/syria-government-pursues-local-cease-fires-171628127.html
( Rebel fighting in and around Damascus( by moderate rebels ) ending with a whimper , and not a big bang ? )
Antiwar.com recorded 1,284 dead and 2,088 wounded in
January, with 556 of the fatalities belonging to militants alone. These
militants, in both February and January, were mostly killed in Anbar province
and likely belonged to the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIS) or as they are locally known, ad-Dawla al-Islāmiyya fi
al-’Irāq wa-sh-Shām (DAASH). This figure is only an estimate. The
true number of dead may never be known due to the lack of independent
confirmation of casualties in the war zone.
Confronted with serious charges of corruption in the government revealed by the graft probe made public on Dec. 17 last year, Erdoğan immediately described the investigation as a coup attempt against the government in an effort to cement supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) together in the face of corruption allegations.
The prime minister has put the blame on a “parallel structure,” a clear reference to sympathizers of the Hizmet (Service) movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. “The nation first and then the judiciary will call [members of the parallel structure] to account for this [Dec. 17] coup attempt,” Erdoğan said in his parliamentary group meeting in the past week.
Instead of letting prosecutors work on the corruption allegations or offering reasonable explanations for tapes leaked that reveal alleged wide-scale corruption in the government, Erdoğan has crafted an international conspiracy theory to explain the corruption scandal in which Hizmet sympathizers -- which the prime minister claims to be nested within the state -- are accused of being “domestic collaborators.”
A deputy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) enumerated in a recent parliamentary question 20 different “lobbies,” that prime minister has so far referred to in an attempt to divert people's attention and to get around allegations that purportedly worked to push the government out of office. “What is the reason for you to accuse so far 20 imaginary lobby groups including 'robot' [lobby]?” Umut Oran, CHP deputy chairman, said in his question.
Interest-rate lobby, Jewish lobby, stock exchange lobby, capital lobby, media lobby, blood lobby, lobby of those who miss darkness (the reference is to those days when military tutelage, powerful business, media groups had the possibility of imposing their will on the government in Turkey), lobby of losers, alcoholic beverages lobby, porn lobby, potatoes lobby, white beans lobby, preacher lobby, lobby of those who can not get backing of people, pineapple lobby, war lobby, terrorism lobby, chaos lobby and robot lobby are those enumerated on Oran's list of Erdoğan's lobbies.
Here are explanations for some of the lobbies Erdoğan has so far referred to, most commonly since the days of wide-ranging Gezi Park protests that rocked Turkey at the beginning of last summer.
Interest rate lobby: During the Gezi Park protests that, after Erdoğan's insulting, dismissive discourse towards protesters, turned into an anti-government protests all over the country, Erdoğan blamed a so-called interest-rate lobby for protests, implying that foreign countries and powerful financial institutions were, along with local collaborators, plotting against the government.
Chaos lobby: Right after the corruption probe was made public on Dec. 17, Erdoğan, seemingly to divert people's attention from corruption, put the blame on a certain chaos lobby group that purportedly worked to unseat the government by false accusations of corruption.
Porn lobby: Erdoğan did not use this term himself, but he lambasted demonstrators against a draconian bill aiming to censor Internet content as defenders of immorality, referring to an article in a pro-government daily that said the opposition against the bill is administered by a “porn lobby.”
Preacher lobby: Erdoğan's reference is to Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar who has been an inspiration for the faith-based Hizmet movement. Following the graft probe, Erdoğan blamed Hizmet, though implicitly, and accused them of treason, claiming that some sympathizers of Gülen “nested” in the judiciary and the police force cooperated with some transatlantic foreign powers to produce “false” accusations against the government.
Robot lobby: In the ruling party's parliamentary group meeting in the past week, the prime minister accused a “robot lobby” of attacking the government over Twitter by messages. “They established the robot lobby over the social media attacks with tweets,” the prime minister said.
The expression “robot lobby” was uttered by the prime minister at a time when a voice recording allegedly featuring Erdoğan and his son, Bilal, had been leaked onto the Internet. According to the recording, Erdoğan instructed Bilal, on the morning of Dec. 17 -- the day the graft probe was made public by prosecutors -- to get rid of the money at the family house.
Nurullah Albayrak, Gülen’s lawyer, said in a statement that the prime minister is hurling baseless accusations and slander against Gülen, wrongly accusing the Islamic scholar of contriving an ongoing corruption scandal in a bid to unseat him.
Erdoğan portrayed the sweeping corruption scandal, which broke on Dec. 17 and implicated his close associates and even his own family, as a plot by the Gülen movement, a civil society organization inspired by the scholar that seeks to improve education and interfaith dialogue around the world, to weaken his government ahead of critical local polls scheduled for March 30.
Gülen and his followers are at the center of Erdoğan’s accusations, although the prime minister has so far failed to present solid evidence to prove that the Hizmet movement is behind the Dec. 17 anti-corruption operation. Moving on to this day, Erdoğan’s government reassigned thousands of police officers and purged more than 200 prosecutors in a major reshuffle, a policy which critics say enables the prime minister to impede any investigation of corruption.
Albayrak said Erdoğan’s claims against Gülen are groundless and do not reflect reality. Among dozens of accusations, Gülen is accused of working to unseat Erdoğan’s government by triggering the anti-corruption investigation. Strongly rejecting such an accusation, Albayrak also touched upon other claims brought up by Erdoğan on a number of occasions leading up to the local elections.
Being a local partner in a foreign plot, cooperating with international powers to unseat the government, enslaving the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to make them pursue its own political bidding, holding the national will and democracy captive, installing a bugging device at the Prime Minister’s Office are several of the accusations made by Erdoğan against Gülen and the Hizmet movement, Albayrak said in his statement. He went on to say that the prime minister also accused the movement and its spiritual leader of forming a gang within the police and the judiciary, threatening politicians and businessmen, plotting against the opposition CHP and MHP, as well as plotting against former CHP leader Deniz Baykal and other deputies.
Albayrak called on Erdoğan to prove his claims, or stop with the slander and smear campaign.
Incessantly accusing the movement of being the culprit behind any plot in Turkey’s political drama, Erdoğan has so far failed to present any persuasive evidence and has not appealed to a court, Albayrak stated.
Five suspects, including the sons of two former ministers and an Iranian-born Azeri businessman, who were detained in a 2013 graft probe, were released Feb. 28 by court pending trial.
Barış Güler, the son of former Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Azeri businessman Reza Zarrab, the main suspect in the graft investigation, and the son of ex-Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Kaan Çağlayan, as well as two other suspects were banned from traveling abroad by the court and will have to visit the closest police station once a week.
The court said there was no possibility that the suspects would flee or tamper with evidence, as they have official residential addresses and that all evidence related to the case had already been collected.
The suspects were released from prison on the afternoon of Feb. 28.
With the releases, there are no more suspects under arrest in the graft operation, although 24 people were arrested in the initial stages of the probe.
Barış Güler and Kaan Çağlayan were accused of facilitating bribery while Zarrab was accused of giving bribes and founding an organization to commit crime.
The release of the suspects caused a public outcry, especially among the relatives of coup plot suspects who have spent years under arrest before being convicted. “I’m looking for a volunteer to go to Silivri [prison] instead of me and look in the face of my father, who has been asking what his crime is for six years but has not been given a proper answer,” Nazlıcan Özkan, daughter of Ergenekon suspect Tuncay Özkan, wrote on her Twitter account.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said the decision was not a surprise. “We said earlier that they would be released, they are trying to cover up corruption,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said the decision on the arrests and the releases belonged to courts. “I cannot say any more since the investigation is going on.”
Zarrab allegedly gave bribes to Barış Güler, Kaan Çağlayan, and former Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Aslan in order to facilitate the transactions of money and gold between Turkey, Iran and Russia.
Aslan, who was found to be in possession of $4.5 million in cash stashed in shoeboxes when police raided his house on Dec. 17, was released on Feb. 14.
Zafer Çağlayan and Muammer Güler were removed from the Cabinet a week after the operation in an unexpected reshuffle.
The graft probe was launched on Dec. 17, but the government has consistently denounced it as “a plot” conducted by the Fethullah Gülen community.
The government has removed hundreds of prosecutors and thousands of police officers since Dec. 17 on the grounds that the civil servants are under the control of the Gülen community.
In the meantime, prosecutors appointed to a second graft investigation, which was allegedly halted by the government, have ordered the destruction of investigation files collected after Dec. 15, daily Hürriyet has reported.
The case, which implicated several prominent businessmen and the son of the prime minister, was sensationally made public after prosecutor Muammer Akkaş announced that investigation files had been taken from his hands after he issued arrest orders.
According to Hürriyet, the new prosecutors appointed to the case have now ordered the destruction of all the evidence – including wiretappings – collected after Dec. 15, two days before the massive raids conducted as part of the initial graft operation. Barış Güler, Kaan Çağlayan and the son of another former minister were detained during the first graft raids, along with influential businessmen, rocking Turkey’s political and business landscape.
However, the Istanbul Police Department, which keeps hold of all evidence according to the law, responded that all files had been erased from the archives by the officers who were relocated in massive purges.
“It has not been possible to take any action regarding the prosecution’s demand, as the requested files were erased by the reassigned officers in total violation of archive regulations,” the police department reportedly said in internal correspondence.
The latest report comes as debate continues about whether allegedly wiretapped phone conversations between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son, Bilal Erdoğan, which were leaked online this week, could be considered as pieces of evidence. Along with questions about whether they are authentic, the recordings need to have been conducted legally by the police in order to be considered evidence.
According to Hürriyet, if the evidence collected after Dec. 15 is destroyed by prosecutors, voice conversations allegedly recorded on Dec. 17, the day of the first graft raids, would not be able to count as evidence despite being made with a court order.
Up to 41 suspects were to be arrested in the second probe, according to investigation files obtained by the media. However, the new prosecutors appointed to the case first lifted the arrest orders before removing all asset freezes issued for the suspects by Akkaş.
Meanwhile, lawyers commenting on the orders to destroy the investigation files have suggested that this act could be considered a crime under the Turkish Penal Code.
“This seems to be an order to erase and destroy all the files, which means tampering with evidence. The institution that carries this out and the one that orders it are both committing a crime,” said lawyer Hasan Gürbüz.
Turkey’s main opposition is set to re-file an appeal that the Constitutional Court annul the recent Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) bill after two previous applications were returned.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) will apply to the top court today after it rewrites its petition, the party said in a written statement. The CHP’s first appeal was rejected as it was done before the law was put into force. Its second application was returned late on Feb. 28 due to procedural problems.
The CHP is rushing to demand the law’s annulment because it believes the motion will result in the complete subjugation of the judicial system under government control, arguing that the law is unconstitutional and gives extraordinary authority to the justice minister.
On Feb. 28 after the law entered into force, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ appointed key officials to the HSYK, namely, its secretary-general and disciplinary board head.
The law also drew reaction from the European Union, which underlined that it threatened to violate the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers.
Protesters took to the streets in Istanbul and Ankara on March 1 to protest against corruption and bribery allegations that have shaken the country since last December.
Protesters were triggered by new leaked phone conversations incriminating Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of corruption, as well as the release of key suspect and sons of ex-ministers who were detained on Dec. 17, 2013, in the major operation.
Close to 600 people, shouting “They are thieves” and “Government, resign!” gathered in Ankara’s central Kızılay square.
Some demonstrators were seen handing out fake euros in a mock protest over leaked audio tapes that allegedly put Erdoğan himself at the heart of the corruption scandal.
Istanbul police also attacked protesters who shouted slogans against the government when they tried to march from Galatasaray Square to Taksim Square.
Some protesters were detained, the reports said.
Other protests were staged in Mersin and Denizli.
With the releases of five individuals detained on Dec. 17, there are no more suspects under arrest in the graft operation, although 24 people were arrested in the initial stages of the probe.
Resolving Nuclear Arms Claims Hinges on Iran’s
Demand for Documents
by Gareth Porter, March 02, 2014
The Barack Obama administration has demanded that Iran resolve “past and present concerns” about the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program as a condition for signing a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Administration officials have suggested that Iran must satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding the allegations in the agency’s report that it has had a covert nuclear weapons program in the past.
But the record of negotiations between Iran and the IAEA shows Tehran has been ready for the past two years to provide detailed responses to all the charges of an Iranian nuclear weapons work, and that the problem has been the refusal of the IAEA to share with Iran the documentary evidence on which those allegations have been based.
The real obstacle to providing those documents, however, has long been a U.S. policy of refusing to share the documents on the assumption that Iran must confess to having had a weaponization program.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, declared Feb. 12, “The authenticity of each allegation should be proven first, then the person who submitted it to the agency should give us the genuine document. When we are assured of the authenticity, then we can talk to the agency.”
Neither the IAEA nor the Obama administration has responded publicly to Salehi’s statement. In response to a query from IPS, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, said the NSC officials would have no comment on the Iranian demand for access to the documents.
The spokesperson for IAEA Director Yukiya Amano did not answer a request from IPS Thursday for the agency’s comment.
But a draft text of an agreement being negotiated between the IAEA and Iran dated Feb. 20, 2012, shows that the only difference between the two sides on resolving issues about allegations of Iranian nuclear weapons work was Iran’s demand to have the documents on which the allegations are based.
The draft text, which was later published on the website of the Arms Control Association, reflects Iran’s deletions and additions to the original IAEA proposal. It calls for Iran to provide a “conclusive technical assessment” of a set of six “topics”, which included 12 distinct charges in the report in a particular order that the IAEA desired.
Iran and the IAEA agreed that Iran would provide a “conclusive technical assessment” on a list of 10 issues in a particular order. The only topics that Iran proposed to delete from the list were “management structure” and “Procurement activities”, which did not involve charges of specifically nuclear weapons work.
The two sides had agreed in the draft that the IAEA would provide a “detailed explanation of its concerns”. But they had failed to agree on provision of documents to Iran by the IAEA. The IAEA had proposed language that the agency would provide Iran with the relevant documents only “where appropriate”. Iran was insisting on deletion of that qualifying phrase from the draft.
The first priority on the list of topics to which both sides had agreed in the draft was “Parchin” – referring to the claim of intelligence from an unnamed state that Iran had installed a large cylinder at the Parchin military reservation.
A November 2011 IAEA report suggested the cylinder was intended for testing nuclear weapons designs and had been built with the assistance of a “foreign expert”. Iran also agreed to respond in detail on the issue of the “foreign expert”, who has been identified as Vyacheslav Danilenko, a Ukrainian specialist on nanodiamonds.
The evidence associated with that claim and others published in the 2011 report shows that they were based on intelligence reports and documents given to the IAEA by Israel in 2008-09. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei referred to a series of documents provided by Israel in his 2012 memoirs.
Iran also agreed to respond in detail to allegations that Iran had sought to integrate a nuclear weapon into the reentry vehicle of the Shahab-3 missile, and that it had developed high explosives as a “detonator” for a nuclear weapon.
Both alleged activities had been depicted or described in documents reported in the US news media in 2005-06 as having come from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Those documents, about whose authenticity ElBaradei and other senior IAEA officials have publicly expressed serious doubts, have now been revealed as having given to Western intelligence by an anti-regime Iranian terrorist organization.
Former senior German foreign office official Karsten Voigt revealed in an interview last year for a newly-published book by this writer that senior officials of the German intelligence agency BND had told him in November 2004 that the BND had gotten the entire collection of documents from a member of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) who had been one of their sources, and that they did not consider the source to be reliable.
The MEK, considered by the United States and European states as a terrorist organization, had been used by Saddam Hussein’s regime to support the war against Iran and by Israel to issue intelligence and propaganda that Mossad did not want attributed to it.
ElBaradei, who retired from the IAEA in November 2009, had declared repeatedly that sharing the documents was necessary to ensure “due process” in resolving the issue, but the United States had prevented him from doing so.
In his final statement to the Board of Governors on Sept. 7, 2009 he appealed to “those who provided the information related to the alleged weaponization studies to share with Iran as much information as possible.”
A former IAEA official, who asked not to be identified, told IPS that the United States had allowed only a very limited number of documents to be shown to Iran in the form of Power Point slides projected on a screen.
A May 2008 IAEA report described a number of documents purported to be from the Iranian weapons program but said that the IAEA “was not in possession of the documents and was therefore unfortunately unable to make them available to Iran.”
Around 100 pages of documents were given by the United States to the agency to share with Iran, the former official said, but none of the documents described in the report were among them.
The US policy of denying Iranian access to the documents continued during the Obama administration, as shown by a US diplomatic cable from Vienna dated Apr. 29, 2009 and released by WikiLeaks. At a P5+1 technical meeting, both US and IAEA officials were quoted as implying that the objective of the policy was to press Iran to confess to the activities portrayed in the papers.
US officials said that a failure by Iran to “disclose any past weaponization-related work” would “suggest Iran wishes to hide and pursue its past work, perhaps to keep a future weapons option”.
IAEA Safeguards Chief Olli Heinonen made it clear that no copies of the relevant documents charging Iran with weaponization would be provided to Iran and complained that Iran had continued to claim that the documents were fabricated.
In its report of Nov. 14, 2013, the IAEA said it had received more information – presumably from Israel – that “corroborates the analysis” in its 2011 report.
The past unwillingness of the Obama administration to entertain the possibility that the documents provided by the MEK were fabricated or to allow Iran the opportunity to prove that through close analysis of the documents, and the IAEA’s continued commitment to the weaponization information it has published suggest that the issue of past claims will be just as contentious as the technical issues to be negotiated, if not more so.
Syria.....
( Rebel fighting in and around Damascus( by moderate rebels ) ending with a whimper , and not a big bang ? )
BEIRUT (AP) — In one besieged neighborhood after another, weary rebels have turned over their weapons to the Syrian government in exchange for an easing of suffocating blockades that have prevented food, medicine and other staples from reaching civilians trapped inside.
The local cease-fires struck in at least four neighborhoods in and around the Syrian capital in recent weeks have brought an end to the shelling and most of the fighting in the affected areas. While deep distrust lingers on both sides, in some neighborhoods the lull has prompted residents displaced by earlier violence to return.
The government touts the truces as part of its program of "national reconciliation" to end Syria's crisis, which has killed more than 140,000 people since March 2011. But activists and rebels describe the deals as the final stage of a ruthless tactic President Bashar Assad's government has employed to devastating effect: shelling and starving fighters and civilians alike in opposition-held areas into submission.
With two rounds of United Nations-brokered peace talks with the political opposition in exile failing to make any substantial progress, and neither side able to clinch a military victory, Assad may be counting on such local truces to pacify flashpoint areas around the capital.
The deals carry two additional benefits for Assad: they free up troops in his overstretched military to be shifted to fighting fronts elsewhere in the country; and they allow the government to present itself abroad as a responsible actor actively trying to broker peace at home.
"It's important for the regime to have reconciliation," said an activist in Damascus who goes by the name of Abu Akram. "They want us to submit or be hungry. They want to free up their troops for other battles."
The exact terms have varied depending on the balance of power in each area, but the truces generally have followed a basic formula: the rebels relinquish their heavy weapons and observe a cease-fire in exchange for the government to allow aid into the communities.
In many cases, gunmen also have had to hand themselves over to authorities. Some have returned from government custody, others have not, activists say.
"Part of the regime strategy, virtually since the beginning of the armed struggle, has been to separate the people from the rebels. To try to break the connection between the rebels and their popular support base," said Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at The Washington Institute.
The authorities have relied on individuals with good government ties from the respective communities to act as middlemen and shuffle between the sides to broker the agreements.
The first major deal was struck in the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh, where residents raised the two-starred government flag over the city in late December. The latest truce took hold last week in the capital's Babila neighborhood, where news cameras captured footage of armed opposition fighters with full beards standing next to government soldiers in camouflage uniforms.
In between, cease-fires also have been struck in Beit Sahim, Yalda, Barzeh, as well as a shaky agreement in the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus. A pause in the fighting also allowed aid shipments in and civilians out of the Old City of Homs.
Rebels in Barzeh, a strategically located neighborhood in northeast Damascus where fighters had battled the military to a stalemate, wrangled the most favorable terms. Fighters there have kept most of their weapons, and now man joint checkpoints with government forces.
In most of the other areas, however, the truces swing heavily in the government's favor.
In Moadamiyeh, for example, the military pounded the community with artillery and airstrikes for nearly a year. Government forces eventually encircled the town with checkpoints, then refused to allow in food, medicine, clean water and fuel.
Conditions turned desperate for the estimated 8,000 civilians still inside. Malnutrition was rife. Residents resorted to eating boiled grape leaves and raw olives because they had run out of food. Activists said children and the elderly were badly affected and frequently fell sick with illnesses exacerbated by hunger.
With little hope of breaking the siege, the town west of Damascus agreed in late December to the government's terms. Since then, conditions have improved, and some residents who fled have returned. But the government hasn't lifted the siege. Rather, it permits food shipments to enter in small batches, a tactic that allows the authorities to maintain their leverage over residents.
"The siege wasn't broken, they still have their tanks and troops and checkpoints," said Qusai Zakarya, an activist from Moadamiyeh who recently fled to Beirut after being held by authorities for 17 days. "Everybody who wants to go in and out should have their permission. It's like a prison."
He said authorities stopped food shipments into Moadamiyeh this week after the rebels refused to hand over all of the weapons the government demanded, and for siphoning some of the aid for residents to families from the nearby town of Daraya, which is still under government siege.
Daraya provides a stark example of the price of rebuffing truce overtures. For weeks, government helicopters have conducted a brutal aerial campaign to devastating effect, pounding the suburb with massive barrel bombs — large containers packed with fuel, explosives and scraps of metal.
For rebels, the cease-fires are a particularly bitter tactic because Syrian officials paint the "reconciliation committees" as peace makers.
"It's a submission strategy," said a rebel in the besieged neighborhood of Mleiha who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Mansour.
While Mleiha has held out so far, Abu Mansour said he understands why some neighborhoods opt to accept the government's terms, even if they are unfavorable.
"The people are tired. They will do anything to let in food," he said. "I'm not talking about rebels. I'm talking about people: the barber, the grocer, the housewife. They are the people who are blockaded. They don't have water. They don't have food. They have no communication with the outside world. There's nothing."
White said the starvation and use of barrel bomb tactics have the effect of pacifying rebellious areas.
"It doesn't necessarily transfer them to full regime control, but for the regime it's working," he said.
One place where a tentative truce has been reached to allow in small, intermittent shipments of aid is the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk in Damascus. The conditions there provide a window into the desperation weighing down all of the besieged areas.
The head of the U.N. relief agency that supports Palestinian refugees, Filippo Grandi, visited the camp this week, and described the haunting scene of emaciated and desperate people emerging from a cityscape of charred, blown-out buildings and gray, rubble-strewn streets to collect aid shipments.
"It's like the appearance of ghosts," Grandi said. "These are people that have not been out of there, that have been trapped in there not only without food, medicines, clean water — all the basics — but also probably completely subjected to fear because there was fierce fighting and noisy fighting going all along, and that was the most shocking point. They can hardly speak."
Af- Pak......
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-03/02/c_126208697.htm
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| English.news.cn 2014-03-02 01:31:26 |      |
ISLAMABAD, March 1 (Xinhua) -- At least 95 people were killed and 388 others injured in 40 bomb blasts in Pakistan during February as the militants carried on terrorist attacks across the country, according to official statistics.
Out of total 40 bomb attacks, six were of suicide nature that killed 34 people and injured 118 others in different areas of the country.
According to the statistics, the number of causalities during February were almost 44 percent less than the causalities occurred in January 2014.
On month-on-month basis, comparison showed that the number of killing in bomb blasts during Feb. 2014 decreased by almost 38 percent compared to the same period last year.
During February, no high profile official came under attack, but militants targeted civilians, security forces and police.
The worst attack of the period came on Feb. 13 when a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying police personnel in the country's southern port city of Karachi, killing 14 personnel and leaving 58 others injured.
In another incident on Feb. 11, at least 13 persons were killed and 19 others injured when three back-to-back explosions occurred inside a cinema in the northwestern provincial capital of Peshawar.
On Feb. 23, a remote controlled blast hit a passenger vehicle and killed at least 13 persons including a woman and a child and injured 14 others in the northwestern district of Kohat.
Pakistani Taliban, whose intermediaries have been holding peace talks with the government, claimed responsibility for the attacks at the police and security forces.
The Taliban spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, said the attacks were conducted to avenge the killing of Taliban members who were killed in different areas of the country by the police and security forces.
Most of the attacks were conducted with improvised explosive device (IED) by planting it on the roadsides or in vehicles and were detonated with remote controlled devices.
Regarding the number of causalities, Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the worst hit with 18 attacks that killed 62 and injured 139 others.
The country's southern province of Sindh was second most hit region where 24 people lost their lives and 129 others sustained injuries in 11 bomb attacks.
The most populated eastern province of Punjab, that had been usually remained peaceful for months, was hit thrice with a bomb attack at a train and a suicide attack at police killing six people and leaving 70 others injured.
At least three people were killed and 34 others injured in four bomb blasts that hit the southwestern province of Balochistan.
Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan was the last most affected with four explosions in which only 16 people sustained injuries.
Official statistics revealed that the terrorists carried out 40 bomb attacks, including six of suicide nature, at 40 targets during and killed 77 civilians as well as four personnel from security forces and 14 policemen.
Overall, the militants conducted two direct attacks on security forces and four at police during the month.
Majority of the bomb attacks remained unclaimed, but the major attacks were owned by the Pakistan Taliban and its affiliated groups.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/world/asia/afghan-broadcaster-says-us-soldiers-abused-him.html?_r=0
KABUL, Afghanistan — Qazi Nasir Mudassir said he had expected that if armed men climbed over the walls of his radio station’s compound, they would probably be Taliban insurgents coming to make good on death threats because of his broadcasts.
Instead, by his account and that of the local Afghan police, the armed men were American Special Forces troops, who scaled his walls with ladders on Thursday, arresting Mr. Mudassir and two other employees of Radio Paighame Milli.
The station, which Mr. Mudassir owns, broadcasts in the Mohammad Agha district of Logar Province, an area troubled by insurgent activity, just 30 miles south of Kabul.
After all three were released without charges the next day, Mr. Mudassir at first refused to discuss what happened, but on Saturday he accused American soldiers of beating him and threatening to kill him to extract information during his detention. They were apparently unaware, he said, that his radio station is supported in large part by pro-government, pro-coalition propaganda advertisements paid for by the American military.
The arrests, which briefly cut off the station’s broadcasts, also drew protests from Afghan journalists’ groups.
The American military initially had no comment beyond a tersely worded statement released Saturday in the name of the International Security Assistance Forces Joint Command, claiming that the raid was a largely Afghan operation.
“We can confirm an Afghan-led combined operation occurred on Feb. 27 in Mohammad Agha district due to reporting of potential enemy activity,” the statement said. “Afghan forces detained three individuals until the presence of heavy weapons and fighting positions at the location could be investigated further.”
Spokesmen for the Afghan Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of police units, and the Ministry of Defense, said they were unaware of the operation.
The Afghan police chief in the Mohammad Agha district, Abdul Wakil Haqyar, said the local police had not found out about what he said was an American Special Forces operation until it was already underway on Thursday. “The operation was independent and not coordinated with us,” he said. No Afghan police units, local or national, were involved in the operation, he said.
The American military maintains that it no longer conducts unilateral raids and operates only in conjunction with Afghan units, according to an agreement with the Afghan government. But many Afghan officials have complained that during operations by Special Operations and Special Forces troops, Afghan units are still often given only a secondary or token role if they are present.
Mr. Mudassir said a force of more than two dozen Americans carried out the raid, ransacking his premises and damaging much of the broadcasting equipment, as well as seizing computers, phones and recording gear. “They even put that black hood over my head and slapped me and beat me,” he said.
“They treated us inhumanely even though we were very pro their presence, and pro-government,” Mr. Mudassir said. He said that he had been taken to the United States Army’s Special Forces base in Logar and held overnight, and that interrogators had tried to get him to identify photographs of people suspected of being insurgents. “They said, ‘You better tell the truth because you know if we want to kill you we can.’ “
Radio Paighame Milli, which has been operating for 11 years, broadcasts a mixture of news, cultural and religious programming. Abdul Hameed, the governor of the Mohammad Agha district, praised it as a positive force.
Mr. Mudassir said one of his major advertisers was ISAF, which pays him to run about 10 pro-government announcements a day. For doing so, he said, he has received death threats from the Taliban. Six years ago, the station’s compound was damaged in a Taliban attack, said the police chief, Mr. Haqyar.
According to Mr. Haqyar, during the raid the Americans confiscated two AK-47 assault rifles, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and ammunition for both. Mr. Mudassir said he needed the arms to defend himself from insurgents. Mr. Haqyar said he should have left the security arrangements to the police, who had a checkpoint nearby.
The police said Mr. Mudassir had permits for the assault rifles, but not for the grenade launcher.
Later Saturday, an American official said Afghan National Security Forces conducted the operation with American assistance in response to intelligence related to a militant network. “The search was conducted after ANSF received reports of pro-Haqqani network message broadcasts and insurgents using the facility for weapons storage,” the official said, declining to be identified by name as a matter of military policy.
The official also said, “No equipment or material was broken during the operation.”
Sediqullah Tawhidi, who runs the Nai Media Watch unit, a group that campaigns to protect journalists in Afghanistan, said the raid “was an illegal act.”
“So far as I know this was a unilateral operation conducted by ISAF forces,” Mr. Tawhidi said, “and they released the three radio staff they detained, which shows they did not have evidence to prove their guilt.”
The journalists’ association in Logar Province has threatened to go on strike over the arrests, said a member, Khanwali Ahmadzai.
Mr. Mudassir said he would continue to broadcast the ISAF announcements. “It’s my responsibility, and they’ve paid me,” he said.
Iraq.....
Iraq Attacks Continue into March: 70 Killed, 50 Wounded
by Margaret Griffis, March 01, 2014
At least 70 people were killed and 50 more were wounded in today’s attacks. Meanwhile, the United Nations, Iraqi government and Agence France-Presse releasedtheir casualty figures for February. All three found that more than 700 people were killed in Iraq during the month — not counting militants. Including those militants, Antiwar found that at least 1700 people were likely killed.
Near Falluja, security forces killed six militants. One child was killed and nine others were wounded during a shelling attack in nearby towns.
Gunmen killed two soldiers and wounded three more at a Khalidiya checkpoint.Four policemen were killed in a drive-by shooting.
A car bomb in Hit killed one person and wounded two more.
Security forces killled one militant and wounded two more in Ramadi.
West of Ramadi, seven gunmen were killed.
Outside of Anbar province:
Security forces killed 31 militants in southern Nineva province.
In Mosul, six militants were killed.
Three militants were killed in a clash in Latifiya. A sticky bomb wounded an officer inLatifiya.
A bomb killed three people and wounded 10 more in Tuz Khormato.
An I.E.D. in Baiji killed two soldiers and wounded four more.
A woman was killed in a double bombing in Balad Ruz that also left five women and a child wounded.
One patrolman was killed and three more were wounded in an I.E.D. blast inShurqat.
A soldier’s body was found in Dibiss.
In Abu Saida, gunmen killed a civilian.
A bomb killed a military official in Hawija.
Six people were wounded in a blast in Baghdad. A kidnapped girl was rescued.
In Kirkuk, a rocket wounded a family of four.
Over 1700 Killed in February Iraq Bloodshed
February: 1,705 killed, 2,045 wounded
by Margaret Griffis, March 01, 2014
More than 1,705 people were killed across Iraq during
February, according to figures compiled by Antiwar.com. This number is up
considerably from last month owing to a large number of militant casualties,
particularly in Anbar and the northern provinces. At least 804 of the dead were
militants, bombers or gunmen. Another 2,045 people were wounded, about
the same as in January.
February, according to figures compiled by Antiwar.com. This number is up
considerably from last month owing to a large number of militant casualties,
particularly in Anbar and the northern provinces. At least 804 of the dead were
militants, bombers or gunmen. Another 2,045 people were wounded, about
the same as in January.
Antiwar.com recorded 1,284 dead and 2,088 wounded inJanuary, with 556 of the fatalities belonging to militants alone. These
militants, in both February and January, were mostly killed in Anbar province
and likely belonged to the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIS) or as they are locally known, ad-Dawla al-Islāmiyya fi
al-’Irāq wa-sh-Shām (DAASH). This figure is only an estimate. The
true number of dead may never be known due to the lack of independent
confirmation of casualties in the war zone.
Agence France Presse, the Iraq government and the United
Nations released their figures today, as well. AFP reported
744 fatalities and said the Iraq government released a higher figure of 790
deaths. The United Nations also confirmed
over 700 deaths in February, and noted that another 300 militants were killed.
Our figure for civilians and security personnel alone was 901 deaths.
Nations released their figures today, as well. AFP reported
744 fatalities and said the Iraq government released a higher figure of 790
deaths. The United Nations also confirmed
over 700 deaths in February, and noted that another 300 militants were killed.
Our figure for civilians and security personnel alone was 901 deaths.
Turkey......
Embattled PM's way of evading allegations, protests: inventing lobbies
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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Photo: Today's Zaman)
2 March 2014 /AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to have a peculiar way of handling -- or circumventing, to be more precise -- allegations, protests against him, the government: to accuse those who utter allegations against him, as in an ongoing graft probe, of being part of a lobby group or plot against the government, usually with backers abroad.
The prime minister has put the blame on a “parallel structure,” a clear reference to sympathizers of the Hizmet (Service) movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. “The nation first and then the judiciary will call [members of the parallel structure] to account for this [Dec. 17] coup attempt,” Erdoğan said in his parliamentary group meeting in the past week.
Instead of letting prosecutors work on the corruption allegations or offering reasonable explanations for tapes leaked that reveal alleged wide-scale corruption in the government, Erdoğan has crafted an international conspiracy theory to explain the corruption scandal in which Hizmet sympathizers -- which the prime minister claims to be nested within the state -- are accused of being “domestic collaborators.”
A deputy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) enumerated in a recent parliamentary question 20 different “lobbies,” that prime minister has so far referred to in an attempt to divert people's attention and to get around allegations that purportedly worked to push the government out of office. “What is the reason for you to accuse so far 20 imaginary lobby groups including 'robot' [lobby]?” Umut Oran, CHP deputy chairman, said in his question.
Interest-rate lobby, Jewish lobby, stock exchange lobby, capital lobby, media lobby, blood lobby, lobby of those who miss darkness (the reference is to those days when military tutelage, powerful business, media groups had the possibility of imposing their will on the government in Turkey), lobby of losers, alcoholic beverages lobby, porn lobby, potatoes lobby, white beans lobby, preacher lobby, lobby of those who can not get backing of people, pineapple lobby, war lobby, terrorism lobby, chaos lobby and robot lobby are those enumerated on Oran's list of Erdoğan's lobbies.
Here are explanations for some of the lobbies Erdoğan has so far referred to, most commonly since the days of wide-ranging Gezi Park protests that rocked Turkey at the beginning of last summer.
Interest rate lobby: During the Gezi Park protests that, after Erdoğan's insulting, dismissive discourse towards protesters, turned into an anti-government protests all over the country, Erdoğan blamed a so-called interest-rate lobby for protests, implying that foreign countries and powerful financial institutions were, along with local collaborators, plotting against the government.
Chaos lobby: Right after the corruption probe was made public on Dec. 17, Erdoğan, seemingly to divert people's attention from corruption, put the blame on a certain chaos lobby group that purportedly worked to unseat the government by false accusations of corruption.
Porn lobby: Erdoğan did not use this term himself, but he lambasted demonstrators against a draconian bill aiming to censor Internet content as defenders of immorality, referring to an article in a pro-government daily that said the opposition against the bill is administered by a “porn lobby.”
Preacher lobby: Erdoğan's reference is to Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar who has been an inspiration for the faith-based Hizmet movement. Following the graft probe, Erdoğan blamed Hizmet, though implicitly, and accused them of treason, claiming that some sympathizers of Gülen “nested” in the judiciary and the police force cooperated with some transatlantic foreign powers to produce “false” accusations against the government.
Robot lobby: In the ruling party's parliamentary group meeting in the past week, the prime minister accused a “robot lobby” of attacking the government over Twitter by messages. “They established the robot lobby over the social media attacks with tweets,” the prime minister said.
The expression “robot lobby” was uttered by the prime minister at a time when a voice recording allegedly featuring Erdoğan and his son, Bilal, had been leaked onto the Internet. According to the recording, Erdoğan instructed Bilal, on the morning of Dec. 17 -- the day the graft probe was made public by prosecutors -- to get rid of the money at the family house.
Gülen to file lawsuit against PM Erdoğan over defamation campaign
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1 March 2014 /İSTANBUL, TODAY'S ZAMAN
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen plans to file a lawsuit against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for an endless smear campaign and slander, accusing Erdoğan of pursuing a concerted effort to foment animosity and hatred in society through the use of hate speech in rallies, meetings and TV interviews, Gülen’s lawyer said late on Friday.
Erdoğan portrayed the sweeping corruption scandal, which broke on Dec. 17 and implicated his close associates and even his own family, as a plot by the Gülen movement, a civil society organization inspired by the scholar that seeks to improve education and interfaith dialogue around the world, to weaken his government ahead of critical local polls scheduled for March 30.
Gülen and his followers are at the center of Erdoğan’s accusations, although the prime minister has so far failed to present solid evidence to prove that the Hizmet movement is behind the Dec. 17 anti-corruption operation. Moving on to this day, Erdoğan’s government reassigned thousands of police officers and purged more than 200 prosecutors in a major reshuffle, a policy which critics say enables the prime minister to impede any investigation of corruption.
Albayrak said Erdoğan’s claims against Gülen are groundless and do not reflect reality. Among dozens of accusations, Gülen is accused of working to unseat Erdoğan’s government by triggering the anti-corruption investigation. Strongly rejecting such an accusation, Albayrak also touched upon other claims brought up by Erdoğan on a number of occasions leading up to the local elections.
Being a local partner in a foreign plot, cooperating with international powers to unseat the government, enslaving the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to make them pursue its own political bidding, holding the national will and democracy captive, installing a bugging device at the Prime Minister’s Office are several of the accusations made by Erdoğan against Gülen and the Hizmet movement, Albayrak said in his statement. He went on to say that the prime minister also accused the movement and its spiritual leader of forming a gang within the police and the judiciary, threatening politicians and businessmen, plotting against the opposition CHP and MHP, as well as plotting against former CHP leader Deniz Baykal and other deputies.
Albayrak called on Erdoğan to prove his claims, or stop with the slander and smear campaign.
Incessantly accusing the movement of being the culprit behind any plot in Turkey’s political drama, Erdoğan has so far failed to present any persuasive evidence and has not appealed to a court, Albayrak stated.
No suspects left in jail in Turkey's corruption probe
Five suspects, including the former interior minister's son Barış Güler, have been released. DHA Photo
Barış Güler, the son of former Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Azeri businessman Reza Zarrab, the main suspect in the graft investigation, and the son of ex-Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Kaan Çağlayan, as well as two other suspects were banned from traveling abroad by the court and will have to visit the closest police station once a week.
The court said there was no possibility that the suspects would flee or tamper with evidence, as they have official residential addresses and that all evidence related to the case had already been collected.
The suspects were released from prison on the afternoon of Feb. 28.
With the releases, there are no more suspects under arrest in the graft operation, although 24 people were arrested in the initial stages of the probe.
Barış Güler and Kaan Çağlayan were accused of facilitating bribery while Zarrab was accused of giving bribes and founding an organization to commit crime.
The release of the suspects caused a public outcry, especially among the relatives of coup plot suspects who have spent years under arrest before being convicted. “I’m looking for a volunteer to go to Silivri [prison] instead of me and look in the face of my father, who has been asking what his crime is for six years but has not been given a proper answer,” Nazlıcan Özkan, daughter of Ergenekon suspect Tuncay Özkan, wrote on her Twitter account.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said the decision was not a surprise. “We said earlier that they would be released, they are trying to cover up corruption,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said the decision on the arrests and the releases belonged to courts. “I cannot say any more since the investigation is going on.”
Zarrab allegedly gave bribes to Barış Güler, Kaan Çağlayan, and former Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Aslan in order to facilitate the transactions of money and gold between Turkey, Iran and Russia.
Aslan, who was found to be in possession of $4.5 million in cash stashed in shoeboxes when police raided his house on Dec. 17, was released on Feb. 14.
Zafer Çağlayan and Muammer Güler were removed from the Cabinet a week after the operation in an unexpected reshuffle.
The graft probe was launched on Dec. 17, but the government has consistently denounced it as “a plot” conducted by the Fethullah Gülen community.
The government has removed hundreds of prosecutors and thousands of police officers since Dec. 17 on the grounds that the civil servants are under the control of the Gülen community.
In the meantime, prosecutors appointed to a second graft investigation, which was allegedly halted by the government, have ordered the destruction of investigation files collected after Dec. 15, daily Hürriyet has reported.
The case, which implicated several prominent businessmen and the son of the prime minister, was sensationally made public after prosecutor Muammer Akkaş announced that investigation files had been taken from his hands after he issued arrest orders.
According to Hürriyet, the new prosecutors appointed to the case have now ordered the destruction of all the evidence – including wiretappings – collected after Dec. 15, two days before the massive raids conducted as part of the initial graft operation. Barış Güler, Kaan Çağlayan and the son of another former minister were detained during the first graft raids, along with influential businessmen, rocking Turkey’s political and business landscape.
However, the Istanbul Police Department, which keeps hold of all evidence according to the law, responded that all files had been erased from the archives by the officers who were relocated in massive purges.
“It has not been possible to take any action regarding the prosecution’s demand, as the requested files were erased by the reassigned officers in total violation of archive regulations,” the police department reportedly said in internal correspondence.
The latest report comes as debate continues about whether allegedly wiretapped phone conversations between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his son, Bilal Erdoğan, which were leaked online this week, could be considered as pieces of evidence. Along with questions about whether they are authentic, the recordings need to have been conducted legally by the police in order to be considered evidence.
According to Hürriyet, if the evidence collected after Dec. 15 is destroyed by prosecutors, voice conversations allegedly recorded on Dec. 17, the day of the first graft raids, would not be able to count as evidence despite being made with a court order.
Up to 41 suspects were to be arrested in the second probe, according to investigation files obtained by the media. However, the new prosecutors appointed to the case first lifted the arrest orders before removing all asset freezes issued for the suspects by Akkaş.
Meanwhile, lawyers commenting on the orders to destroy the investigation files have suggested that this act could be considered a crime under the Turkish Penal Code.
“This seems to be an order to erase and destroy all the files, which means tampering with evidence. The institution that carries this out and the one that orders it are both committing a crime,” said lawyer Hasan Gürbüz.
February/28/2014
Main opposition CHP to make 3rd appeal to top court on HSYK law
CHP's second application was returned late on Feb. 28 due to procedural problems. DHA Photo
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) will apply to the top court today after it rewrites its petition, the party said in a written statement. The CHP’s first appeal was rejected as it was done before the law was put into force. Its second application was returned late on Feb. 28 due to procedural problems.
The CHP is rushing to demand the law’s annulment because it believes the motion will result in the complete subjugation of the judicial system under government control, arguing that the law is unconstitutional and gives extraordinary authority to the justice minister.
On Feb. 28 after the law entered into force, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ appointed key officials to the HSYK, namely, its secretary-general and disciplinary board head.
The law also drew reaction from the European Union, which underlined that it threatened to violate the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers.
March/02/2014
Protesters rally against corruption in Turkey
AFP Photo
Protesters were triggered by new leaked phone conversations incriminating Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of corruption, as well as the release of key suspect and sons of ex-ministers who were detained on Dec. 17, 2013, in the major operation.
Close to 600 people, shouting “They are thieves” and “Government, resign!” gathered in Ankara’s central Kızılay square.
Some demonstrators were seen handing out fake euros in a mock protest over leaked audio tapes that allegedly put Erdoğan himself at the heart of the corruption scandal.
Istanbul police also attacked protesters who shouted slogans against the government when they tried to march from Galatasaray Square to Taksim Square.
Some protesters were detained, the reports said.
Other protests were staged in Mersin and Denizli.
With the releases of five individuals detained on Dec. 17, there are no more suspects under arrest in the graft operation, although 24 people were arrested in the initial stages of the probe.
March/02/2014
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