Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanon: Militants' Morale crumbling as they start surrendering
2007-06-06
According to the latest news from Nahr-el Bared refugee camp, the morale of Fatah al-Islam is crumbling and their leader Shaker al-Absi has rolled up his prayer mat and caught the last flying carpet to Damascus threatened to kill all those that surrender. But many fighters have surrendered or in the process of doing so. According to the latest report 22 have surrendered to Fatah mainstream organization. Fatah mainstream is fully supportive of the army and it is expected that all those that surrender will be turned over to the justice department.
D'ya think Hezbollah will lend out an old rusty amb'lance shot full of holes by Israeli American missiles?
Lebanon’s prime minister Fouad Siniora has promised all those that surrender a fair trial.
Right after a fair execution
Fighting nevertheless continues at Nahr-el Bared amidst reports that the army has tightened its grip on the terrorists to finish them off as planned. Lebanon is battling on several fronts to crush Islamist militants after deadly firefights broke out in a second Palestinian refugee camp and another bomb blast struck the capital. The situation remained tense around two refugee camps at opposite ends of the country where the army has been fighting armed militias which operate outside the control of the Lebanese authorities. In all, 108 people have been killed in 17 days of bloodshed, the deadliest internal feuding since the 1975-1990 civil war that has added to tensions in a country already in the grip of an acute political crisis.

The unrest is centered around the Nahr al-Bared camp on the shores of the Mediterranean in northern Lebanon where troops have been laying siege to Al-Qaeda inspired Sunni Muslim extremists from Fatah al-Islam. But fears it could spread through other camps were fuelled when deadly fighting broke out Sunday at the Ein al-Helweh camp between the army and members of another shadowy group known as Jund al-Sham or Soldiers of Damascus.
I thought it was "Soldiers of the Levant," but I guess they're better at Arabic than I am.
And underscoring the fragile security situation, a bomb ripped through a public bus in Christian east Beirut on Monday, wounding at least 13 people, a security source said. The explosion in the mixed residential and industrial district of Sed al-Baushrieh was the fourth to rock Lebanon since the clashes between the army and the Islamists broke out on May 20. "The bombings and the clashes are connected," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said after an emergency cabinet meeting.

Footage broadcast by Lebanese television showed the bus had been burned out by the force of the explosion. Several parked cars and the facade of a nearby shopping centre were also badly damaged. The security source said one suspect had been arrested.

The blast came as sporadic battles erupted again around Nahr al-Bared, where the well-armed band of Fatah al-Islam fighters have been able to resist the superior firepower of the Lebanese military for more than two weeks. However, the situation remained calm around Ein al-Helweh in the southern city of Sidon on Tuesday after the fighting that left two Islamists and two soldiers dead on Monday. "We cannot feel safe when there are lawless areas with armed Islamists," complained businessman Mohamad Zein as hundreds of Palestinian refugees set up temporary homes in the city's parks.

The latest flare-up raised concerns the violence could spread to more of the 12 camps which hold well over half the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, mostly in conditions of abject poverty, and have become breeding grounds for extremism. Jund al-Sham, which has no clear hierarchy or particular leader, is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

In north Lebanon, army troops including about 1,000 crack commandos were tightening the noose around the militants holed up in Nahr al-Bared, where both sides are vowing to fight to the end. "We will never surrender... we will fight till the last drop of blood," Fatah al-Islam spokesman Abu Salim Taha told Al-Jazeera television on Sunday. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has warned Fatah al-Islam to surrender or be wiped out.

Washington announced it was considering sending more supplies to the Lebanese army after Congress last month approved a seven-fold increase in military assistance for 2007 to 280 million dollars. "There are some additional items that are already under consideration that we are talking about with the Lebanese forces," said US national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The earlier US aid package had already drawn strong criticism from Russia whose Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned of its potential to "destabilize" Lebanon. But Lebanon’s prime minister responded by saying” Who will defend Lebanon if our army is weak ?"

It is not known whether the army is planning to enter the Nahr al-Bared camp for a final ground assault . By longstanding convention, it does not enter Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, leaving security inside to militant groups. Fatah al-Islam, a tiny but well-armed band of Sunni extremists which first surfaced only last year, is believed to have about 250 fighters, according to the prime minister.
Link


China-Japan-Koreas
US expects APEC statement on North Korea
2006-11-18
HANOI (AFP) - The White House has said that it expected leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific countries meeting here to issue a statement calling on North Korea to renounce nuclear weapons and return to disarmament talks.
Kimmie's going to be even more ronery ...
"There is a statement, I think it's pretty well agreed. There are a couple, sort of, issues remaining, dealing mostly with the form, not the substance of that statement," said US national security adviser Stephen Hadley Saturday. "I think we're pleased with that statement, and I think it will be a good contribution to the diplomacy," Hadley told reporters at a briefing on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ( APEC) summit.

Another White House official, who requested anonymity, said it would be a written statement but that it was unclear whether the statement would be separate from the summit's final communique. But the official said the statement would condemn North Korea's October 9 nuclear test, urge it to comply with international demands to abandon its atomic weapons programs and come back to six-party disarmament talks. "It will reiterate APEC leaders' concern over the missile launches and then the nuclear test and urge the North Koreans to comply with (UN Security Council Resolution) 1718 and to get back to the six-party talks," the official said.

Thai foreign ministry spokesman Kitti Vasinonh said the statement would be separate from the leaders' wide-ranging end-of-summit communique but that differences remained on the format. "The reasons for having a separate statement is for members of APEC to give their common concerns on the Korean peninsula," he said. "There are still different views on how to proceed even though there is consensus on common concerns from all APEC economies on the situation in the Korean peninsula," the spokesman said.

"The question is, how to move on the so-called joint statement, whether it is a written statement or a verbal statement, and the language," he said.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Israeli security cabinet dampens military response
2006-07-05
DEBKA is pissed
Israeli security cabinet dampens military response to Hamas missile offensive which climaxed in Ashkelon Tuesday. The decisions reached by the security cabinet presided over by Ehud Olmert Wednesday, July 5, in the aftershocks of a Palestinian missile exploding at a school in the Ashkelon town center and the abduction of a soldier, boil down to nothing much in the way of concrete action.

A brief lexicon is in order here.

Following the cabinet meeting, Olmert and defense minister Amir Peretz continued to discuss with IDF and defense officials more detailed operational plans – meaning, the cabinet approved no operational plans, but rather the outer limits of such plans.

The operation will be broadened to target “institutions and infrastructure facilitating terrorism.” The Israeli air force has long been bombing vacant land and empty buildings to little effect. No change is indicated and no takeover of Palestinian territory.

The IDF’s operation will be prolonged and incremental – meaning nothing is changed from the current activity.

The IDF will broaden its operations to reduce Qassam fire. Israel will consider creating a buffer zone in northern Gaza to block Qassam missile fire against Ashkelon and Sderot. Here too there is no departure from the present tactics – certainly no commitment to deepen the Israeli incursion. If those tactics did not work before, why expect them to work now?

“We must prepare to change the rules of the game” in our dealings with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, based on the parameters presented by the defense establishment.” No one seriously pretends this was anything more than another “media slogan.”

It is no secret that Israel’s Operation Summer Rain has involved no serious counter-terror combat in the eight days since the first Israeli troops entered the southern Gaza Strip on the heels of the Hamas-led assault inside Israel that left two soldiers dead and a third, Corp. Gilead Shalit kidnapped,.

This make-believe offensive has had several consequences:

1. Gideon Shalit is now out of reach unless the IDF can stage a surprise rescue assault to free him. This option was allowed to float over the heads of the cabinet ministers Wednesday, but nothing specific was said.

2. Hamas is stepping up its efforts to kidnap Israelis – servicemen and civilians.

3. Missiles continue to rain down on Sderot, the western Negev villages, Ashkelon and Netivot. Hamas and its allied terrorist groups will persist in their effort to achieve Israeli casualties.

4. The Palestinians are in the midst of a new terror offensive from the West Bank aimed at bringing suicide bombers into Israeli towns for civilian massacres. There were several foiled attempts this week. In Jenin, Israeli troops defused two large car bombs destined for a central Israeli city, followed by the interception of a Palestinian wearing a bomb vest on his way to an industrial zone north of Tel Aviv.

5. Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist groups based in Lebanon will be encouraged to launch attacks on northern Israel in support of Hamas.

Israel’s sluggish and ineffectual responses to Hamas aggression coincide with the test-firing of seven ballistic missiles by North Korea, one capable of reaching the American mainland, in the face of Washington’s threats to shoot them down.

After the US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said on Tuesday that the launch of 6 missiles by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) posed no apparent threat to U.S. territory as “a missile that fails after 40 seconds is not a threat to the United States,” Pyongyang followed up Wednesday with a seventh missile.

Tehran is displaying the same defiance to Washington and the West. After weeks of Iranian procrastination, the big powers demanded a reply to their proposed incentives for Iran to halt uranium enrichment by July 12, but the Iranians are leaving them to cool their heels until late August.

Other powers, including Russia, are taking advantage of the Bush administration’s perceived immobilization by the Iraq imbroglio to pursue their own interests. In other times, Israeli prime ministers David Ben Gurion and Menahem Begin used similar periods for stunning military operations to extricate the country from extreme peril. Failing bold action against escalating Palestinian terror initiatives, Israel will continue to fall back in the face of this spiraling threat.
Link


Home Front: WoT
Khamenei calls on US to quit Iraq
2006-03-21
IRAN'S supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on the United States today to leave Iraq, saying any eventual talks with Washington would not touch on other issues.

"Our clear viewpoint about Iraq is that the US government should leave this country and stop provoking the tribes and creating insecurity in Iraq so that the Iraqi people govern their own country," he was quoted on television as saying.
"We will not talk with the Americans about any other of the disputed issues between Iran and the US," he said, addressing pilgrims at a shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

Last Thursday, the head of the Supreme National Security Council said Iran was ready to negotiate with the "Great Satan" to help stabilise neighbouring Iraq.

"We agree to negotiate with the Americans," Ali Larijani said, who is also Iran's nuclear chief. "Iran accepts the demand of (Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz) Hakim to resolve the Iraqi problems and issues with the goal of creating an independent (Iraqi) government."

Mr Hakim, leader of one of Iraq's main Shiite parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, had called a day earlier for a dialogue between longtime foes Iran and America.


Advertisement:
In reaction, Ayatollah Khamenei, who is considered close to Mr Larijani, said today that "if the involved Iranian official can make the Americans understand Iran's point of view about Iraq, these talks were okay".
"But if it means opening a scene for the cunning Americans to continue their bullying, the negotiations with the Americans on Iraq will be forbidden."

Ayatollah Khamenei also vowed to resist American efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear program at the UN Security Council.

If things go against Iran's interests, "we will resist", Ayatollah Khamenei said.

"Haven't you (America) already sanctioned us. Haven't the Iranian people suffered under your sanctions, your bullying power. All the progress we have achieved so far was exactly under the same sanctions situation."

The White House said on Saturday that the Islamic republic's offer to hold talks on Iraq was probably just a ploy to "divert pressure" Tehran has drawn over its nuclear program.

Iran waited months to agree to a US proposal to take up the issue, and did so only after Tehran's atomic program was referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, said US national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its program is only for peaceful purposes, mainly to fuel its power plants.

Washington announced in November 2005, to little publicity, that it was ready to have direct talks with Tehran about Iraq, seeking to discuss charges that Iranian weapons have been finding their way to Shiite fighters in Iraq.

Link


Terror Networks
Rabia kept a low profile
2005-12-06
For a man reputedly at the forefront of Al Qaeda's global terror operations -- with one finger in plots to target America and another in attempts to assassinate Pakistan's president -- Hamza Rabia kept a remarkably low profile.

The Egyptian wasn't on the FBI's list of the world's 15 most wanted terrorists, nor had he made Pakistan's most wanted list. In fact, there had been little public mention of Rabia before he was apparently killed last week in an explosion at his tribal hideout.

US officials haven't confirmed the death, despite claims by Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, that he is ''200 percent" sure Rabia died. Yet officials in Islamabad and Washington have been quick to agree that Rabia's demise would be a major blow to Osama bin Laden's terror network, saying he ranked in the top five of its hierarchy.

US national security adviser Stephen Hadley described Rabia as Al Qaeda's head of operations, adding in an interview with ''Fox News Sunday" that ''we believe he was involved in planning for attacks against the United States."

How could a man so powerful, in such a critical position, escape attention for so long?

Skeptics are demanding more information about Rabia's role in alleged plots, and pointing to what they see as a troubling trend in Pakistan and the United States of hyping counterterrorism successes that may not be as big as claimed.

''He may be a serious planner that has been lurking in the shadows, but I would like to see more evidence of his terrorist credentials before saying he's a particular number in the hierarchy. I think these are relatively low-level operators," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College, referring to Rabia and his associate, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who was captured in Pakistan in May.

Pakistan says both men had a hand in twin attempts to assassinate Musharraf in December 2003.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the Associated Press that Rabia was Al Qaeda's No. 5 leader. Two US counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said he was possibly as high as No. 3, just below bin Laden and his lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri.

But Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said Rabia appears to have been more of a ground commander, not a key international terror mastermind.

''There have been so many people suggested as the No. 3 in Al Qaeda that I would not go along with that, though he is clearly a valued member of the hierarchy," he said. ''We can't really say that he will be a major loss in terms of planning because he didn't have a profile in that area."

Almost nothing of Rabia's background is known publicly.

Three Pakistani intelligence agents told AP yesterday that he came to the country from Afghanistan in 2003, and that he is believed to have largely remained in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of their work.

Rabia is said to be Egyptian, but Pakistani and American officials have not said where in Egypt he is from, nor whether he was wanted by authorities there. One Pakistani intelligence official said he is believed to have been in his 40s.

While Hadley said Rabia was linked to plots against the United States, US and Pakistani officials haven't given specifics and it's not clear how long Rabia had been an Al Qaeda member.

Even Rabia's apparent death is murky.

Tribesmen recovered the remains of what appear to be a US Hellfire missile from the wreckage of the house where Rabia reportedly was killed Thursday near Miran Shah, in the tribal North Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan. The metal pieces bore the designator ''AGM-114," the words ''guided missile" and the initials ''US."

But Pakistani leaders insisted yesterday that Rabia and three others died in an accidental explosion while making a bomb. Washington has declined to confirm any involvement in the attack, though an NBC television report, citing unidentified officials, said a US drone launched the strike. It wasn't even clear whether Rabia's body has been recovered.

Pakistani officials wouldn't say whether they have Rabia's body, saying only that DNA tests and communication intercepts confirm he is dead. Karachi-based Dawn newspaper, citing officials it did not identify, reported his body had been retrieved by associates from outside Pakistan.

Ranstorp said he feared the story was being touted in Washington and Islamabad for political reasons. The two countries are allies in the war on terrorism, both with a stake in showing their uneasy partnership is bearing fruit.

''I think it is a legitimate question to ask whether this guy was really such a big fish," he said. ''There has been an unending cavalcade of faces that roll by of people who supposedly represent a clear and present danger to [US] national security, and all this deflects attention away from the incredible failure of the war on terrorism to capture bin Laden or al-Zawahri."
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Sustained US pressure could pose problems for Syria's Assad
2005-03-14
That's the point.
CAIRO, Egypt - Even if Syria does in the end fully withdraw from Lebanon, Syrian President Bashar Assad may not be off the hook. Instead, US pressure is expected to shift to issues of reform, cross-border infiltration into Iraq and Syrian links to militant Arab groups.

Squeezing Assad further could present the young Syrian leader with serious domestic problems at a time when some question the extent of control he has over his Arab nation. "The pressure will continue until Syria achieves every US goal," said Ayman Abdel-Nour, a prominent member of Assad's ruling Baath party. "Syria will be left alone only when it no longer has a regional role, its influence in Iraq is gone, it severs links with Hamas, Jihad, Iran and Hezbollah," he said from Damascus.
That'll do for a start ...
Faced with mounting pressure from the United States and key Arab and European nations to withdraw from Lebanon, Assad last week announced that Syria's 14,000 troops would be redeployed to Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley by March 31, but that a complete pullout would be deferred until after later negotiations.

However, there are signs that Washington may be looking for much more from Syria than just pulling out its troops from Lebanon. "The sequence needs to be: Get Syrian troops out of Lebanon, get free and fair elections, get a democratic government in place," US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said on Sunday American talk shows. Aside from its military role in Lebanon, Syria has maintained a strong influence over Lebanese politics.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Syria was "out of step" with what she called the growing desire for democracy in the Middle East, suggesting that Assad needed to introduce economic and political reforms at home. "If the pressure grows and the Americans begin to hint at regime change, some here may be tempted to think they are the substitute the United States is looking for," George Jabour, a member of Syria's parliament and an eminent political scientist, said from Damascus. "But this may not happen for some time yet," he said.
This is W we're talking about, I wouldn't go long on this one.
The United States also has been urging Syria to stamp out the flow of Muslim militants crossing into Iraq to join the fight against Iraqi forces and their US allies. Remnants of Saddam Hussein's own Baath party also are thought to have found refuge in Syria, from which they are bankrolling Iraq's insurgency.

Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Jihad, which between them are responsible for scores of suicide bombings against Israeli targets, also have offices in Damascus, something that Washington views as proof of Syria's support for terrorism. Syria is also Iran's closest Arab ally and both countries are thought to cooperate in security matters. Washington suspects that Tehran's clerical regime is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.

Already, some experts on Syria say, images of Syrian troops heading home from Lebanon gave the impression of an army in retreat, thus hurting Assad's standing as the armed forces' supreme commander and prompting some in Syria to ponder whether his more politically savvy father would have handled the crisis differently.

"Syria will lose its traditional regional role when the withdrawal from Lebanon is complete," said Michel Kilo, a prominent Syrian writer and a government critic. "Now, reforms at home must be a top priority," he said from the Syrian capital. Kilo, like many Syrians, is hopeful the ruling Baath party will announce a comprehensive reform plan when its much-heralded national conference takes place later this year. The gathering was scheduled to take place late last year, but it was postponed, giving rise to intense speculation in Damascus that differences existed within the party leadership.
No kidding. They're Ba'athists fergawdsake.
BSigns of impatience with the lack of progress in reform are beginning to show, albeit rarely. On Saturday, Mohammed Ibrahim al-Ali, commander of the Popular Army - a paramilitary force with a mandate to protect cities in the case of war - called on state Syrian television for the dismissal of Baath party leaders known to be opposed to reform. 
Link



Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-6 More