History > 2011 > USA > International (XIV)

Syrian military assaults

intensify on Homs,

16 killed

AMMAN, July 19 | Tue Jul 19, 2011
10:07pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN, July 19 (Reuters) - Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed 16 people in attacks in the city of Homs on Tuesday, residents said, an escalation of a crackdown against a focal point for pro-democracy protests.

Among those killed were 10 mourners at a funeral for another 10 people who were killed by security forces on Monday, the Local Coordinations Committee, an activists group, said.

Syrian authorities have expelled most foreign journalists, making it hard to verify activist accounts or official statements.

"We could not bury the martyrs at the city's main cemetery so we opted for a smaller cemetery near the mosque, when the militiamen began firing at us from their cars," one mourner, who gave his name as Abdallah, told Reuters by telephone.

He said the bodies had been taken to Khaled Ibn al-Walid mosque in the eastern Khalidiya district of the city.

"Khalidiya is totally besieged by the military. We are cut off from the rest of Homs as if we are a separate country."

Homs has been a major center of protests against Assad's rule and tension has run high between the majority Sunni inhabitants and members of the Alawite minority, the same sect as Assad.

Khalidiya is inhabited by members of Sunni tribes from rural Homs while the nearby Nozha neighborhood is home to most of the country's security forces and militiamen, from the Alawite sect.

The 16 deaths reported in Homs' Khalidiya and Bab Amr neighborhoods on Tuesday brought the total death count since the weekend to at least 33, activists and residents said.

Another resident said: "There are troops and armored vehicles in every neighborhood. The irregular forces with them are death squads. They have been firing indiscriminately since dawn with rifles and machineguns. No one can leave their homes."

 

PRIVILEGES FOR RULING MINORITY

Troops and tanks first entered Homs, 165 km (100 miles) north of Damascus, two months ago and occupied the main square after large protests demanding political freedoms.

Homs, the hometown of Assad's Sunni wife Asma, has seen an influx of Alawites in the last 20 years as the community tightened its grip on security and public jobs.

The Syrian National Human Rights Organization said seven people were killed over the weekend in attacks by security forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bodies of 30 people were found in Homs over the weekend, and that some were mutilated.

"After failing to ignite a sectarian civil war, the regime is expanding military operations to subdue the mass protests in Homs," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Reuters.

Human rights organizations say troops, security forces and militiamen killed at least 1,400 civilians in Syria, adding that more than 12,000 Syrians and security personnel who refused to fire at civilians had been shot dead.

Syrian authorities blame "armed terrorist groups" with Islamist links for the violence and say at least 500 policemen and soldiers have been killed since March.

Assad had described the uprising as a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife. His opponents argue that the president has been playing on sectarian fears to maintain Alawite support and keep power for his family, which has ruled Syria for 41 years.

Once courted by the West as a possible moderate in the region, Assad is becoming increasingly isolated internationally, with Iran's Shi'ite clerical rulers maintaining their support, to the disquiet of Syria's majority Sunnis.

Diplomatic pressure mounted on Assad on Monday after Qatar, previously a major supporter, shut its embassy in Damascus and the European Union said it was considering tougher sanctions.

Qatar was a major backer of Syria until protests broke out in March, but relations deteriorated when Sunni Muslims began to be killed by Assad's security forces, whose leaders, like the president, belong to the minority Alawite sect.

In the tribal province of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria, residents of Albu Kamal, on the border with Iraq, said security had eased its grip after holding talks with the troops. Notables from the region want to avoid an assault after defections among security forces who had tried to quell street demonstrations.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Albu Kamal in a night demonstration on Wednesday demanding Assad's removal, activists said. They added that large protests also continued across Deir al-Zor, in the Qaboun district of Damascus and in other towns and cities across the country.

 

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Syrian military assaults intensify on Homs, 16 killed, R, 19.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/20/us-syria-idUSTRE76F26I20110720

Egypt Military Aims to Cement Muscular Role in Government

July 16, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — The military council governing Egypt is moving to lay down ground rules for a new constitution that would protect and potentially expand its own authority indefinitely, possibly circumscribing the power of future elected officials.

The military announced Tuesday that it planned to adopt a “declaration of basic principles” to govern the drafting of a constitution, and liberals here initially welcomed the move as a concession to their demand for a Bill of Rights-style guarantee of civil liberties that would limit the potential repercussions of an Islamist victory at the polls.

But legal experts enlisted by the military to write the declaration say that it will spell out the armed forces’ role in the civilian government, potentially shielding the defense budget from public or parliamentary scrutiny and protecting the military’s vast economic interests. Proposals under consideration would give the military a broad mandate to intercede in Egyptian politics to protect national unity or the secular character of the state. A top general publicly suggested such a role, according to a report last month in the Egyptian newspaper Al- Masry Al- Youm. The military plans to adopt the document on its own, before any election, referendum or constitution sets up a civilian authority, said Mohamed Nour Farahat, a law professor working on the declaration. That would represent an about-face for a force that, after helping to oust President Hosni Mubarak five months ago, consistently pledged to turn over power to elected officials who would draft a constitution. Though the proposed declaration might protect liberals from an Islamist-dominated constitution, it could also limit democracy by shielding the military from full civilian control.

The military is long accustomed to virtual autonomy. Its budget has never been disclosed to Parliament, and its operations extend into commercial businesses like hotels, consumer electronics, bottled water and car manufacturing.

Some are already criticizing the military’s plans as a usurpation of the democratic process. Ibrahim Dawrish, an Egyptian legal scholar involved in devising a new Turkish constitution to reduce the political role of its armed forces, said the Egyptian military appeared to be emulating its Turkish counterpart. After a 1980 coup, the Turkish military assigned itself a broad role in politics as guarantor of the secular state, and in the process, contributed to years of political turbulence.

“The constitution can’t be monopolized by one institution,” he said. “It is Parliament that makes the constitution, not the other way around.”

Jurists involved in drafting the text say the Egyptian military told them to draw from several competing proposals that are circulating in Cairo. At least one assigns only a narrow, apolitical role to the military as guardian of national sovereignty. But others grant it sweeping authority and independence or a writ to intercede in civilian politics similar to the Turkish model.

Mr. Farahat said he was unsure of the wisdom of granting the armed forces a role in Egyptian politics, but he said he supported shielding the defense budget from public scrutiny as a guarantee of national security and military independence.

Others picked by the governing council to draft the declaration have argued publicly for a broad, Turkish-style role for the Egyptian armed forces in post-revolutionary politics. “The military in Egypt is unlike militaries in other countries where the military is isolated from the political life,” said Tahani el-Gebali, a judge involved in the drafting. “The military’s legacy gives it a special credibility, and hence it is only normal that the military will share some of the responsibility in protecting the constitutional legitimacy and the civil state.”

She said that she would prefer the governing council submit the declaration for up-or-down approval in a referendum, but that if it did not pass as expected, the document would derive its legitimacy from the authority of the governing military council.

The announcement of the declaration is a setback for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group considered Egypt’s best-organized and most formidable political force. It was poised to win a major role in the new Parliament, and thus in the writing of the new constitution. The group has opposed liberal proposals to draft a constitution before parliamentary elections expected this fall or to postpone the elections long enough to let liberals catch up in organizing.

Liberals — most notably Mohamed ElBaradei, the former United Nations diplomat who is now running for president of Egypt — have advocated a code of agreed-upon universal rights as a compromise in the increasingly bitter debate between Islamists calling for an early election and liberals demanding a constitution first. Mr. ElBaradei, whose own proposal includes a provision that narrowly defines the military’s role guarding national security, said the declaration “really should be put to a referendum so it would have some legitimacy.”

That is especially relevant now, because the military council has come under mounting criticism for its opaque and inaccessible decision-making, occasionally heavy-handed tactics against civilian protesters, continued trials of civilians in military courts and intimidation of journalists who criticize it. Many have grown especially impatient with the pace of legal action against Mr. Mubarak and other former officials.

Demonstrators have returned to Tahrir Square with increasing frequency to voice their demands, culminating in a weeklong sit-in rivaling the days of the revolution. The military-led government, in turn, has appeared to respond to public demands with repeated concessions — including replacing an interim prime minister with the handpicked choice of the Tahrir protest leaders, arresting Mr. Mubarak and his two sons and releasing jailed activists. Last week, the government offered concessions, removing hundreds of senior police officers accused of killing protesters during the uprising. It also announced “the declaration of basic principles.”

This time, however, the demonstrators refused to budge. On Saturday afternoon, Gen. Tarek Mahdy, a member of the governing council, attempted to speak in Tahrir Square and was chanted off a stage, witnesses said. Many say they have grown increasingly cynical about the military. “They do comply with our demands, but within limits that they put on it themselves,” said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, one of the organizers of the revolution.

The protests are increasingly taking aim at the military. On Thursday, a coalition of 24 political groups and five presidential contenders endorsed a call by the young leaders of the protests for the military to cede more power to a civilian government now rather than wait for elections.

The military leaders are sounding increasingly exasperated. In a news conference, Major General Mamdouh Shaheen, the council member who reportedly suggested a Turkish-style military role, recalled the military’s support for the revolution and its pivotal decision not to help uphold Mr. Mubarak.

The military would not give up “until there is an elected civil authority,” he said, but “the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces “does not want to stay in power.”

 

Heba Afify contributed reporting.

    Egypt Military Aims to Cement Muscular Role in Government, NYT, 16.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world/middleeast/17egypt.html

The Revolution Is Not Over Yet

July 15, 2011
The New York Times
By HAMADI REDISSI

Tunis

SIX months ago, after weeks of protests, the Tunisian people gathered in front of the Interior Ministry to demand that their longtime president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, leave the country. He fled for Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14.

But the country’s future remains uncertain. Giant sit-ins by opposition groups plagued the interim government that replaced Mr. Ben Ali. As in the French Revolution, they came armed with “Lists of Grievances.” The standoff ended when an interim prime minister, Béji Caïd Essebsi, an old hand in Tunisian politics, took office at the end of February. He managed the trick of both placating the impatient and not alarming those who want nothing to change.

The key to establishing a new democracy will be how the interim government deals with members of the old regime. Unfortunately, it has been reluctant to bring them to justice immediately, opting instead to leave this pivotal responsibility to the government that will take power after elections in October.

There has been some progress. The assets of Mr. Ben Ali’s inner circle have been confiscated, his party has been dissolved, the secret police have been dismantled and a number of high officials are being investigated for abuse of authority and misuse of funds.

Yet the flawed and lumbering legal system has not satisfied a population yearning for genuine justice. So far not a single dollar transferred out of the country by the Ben Ali family has found its way back to the state’s coffers, not a single police officer implicated in the murders of almost 300 protesters has been convicted and not a single member of the ruling clan that fled the country has been extradited to Tunisia — including Mr. Ben Ali. The interim government has relied on a traditional legal process headed by the same magistrates who worked for the old regime rather than pursuing a system of transitional justice — with truth commissions and informal trials — which would be faster and more flexible.

The trial of Mr. Ben Ali and his wife took place on June 20, with the couple facing close to 100 charges, including conspiracy against the state and possession of drugs and weapons. They were sentenced, in absentia, to 35 years in prison and fined $66 million. But in the absence of both the accused and their foreign lawyers — Tunisian law prohibits Tunisians from being represented by foreign lawyers — many decried the trial as a mockery of justice.

But this is much ado about nothing. The justice system, albeit freed of the worst of its constraints, is still barely functioning. Judges in Tunisia are among the most poorly paid in the world, just behind their counterparts in Bangladesh.

The social problems that prompted the current unrest also continue to poison the transition process. Endemic unemployment and low levels of education could undermine Tunisia’s democratic transition. The school system, which has long hurt Tunisia’s competitiveness by favoring quantity over quality, desperately needs in-depth reforms. Meanwhile, more than 1.2 million Tunisians, over 11 percent of the country’s population, live in poverty. (The interim government’s estimates have placed the figure as high as 24 percent.)

Mr. Essebsi requested $25 billion in aid over five years at the recent meeting of the Group of 8 powers in Deauville, France. The G-8, along with other governments and institutions, endorsed a combined $40 billion aid package for Egypt and Tunisia — an amount that pales in comparison with the modern-day Marshall Plan that the region desperately needs.

On Oct. 23 Tunisians will decide whether they want a presidential or a parliamentary system, and elect a new government. More than 90 parties could appear on the ballot, meaning that a highly divided assembly is likely. Early polls show that Al Nahda — the previously banned Islamist party — enjoys the support of more than 20 percent of voters.

To its credit, Al Nahda accepts the rights that have long been enjoyed by Tunisian citizens — the most far-reaching in the Arab world — and the newly established principle that women and men should serve in the future democratic legislature in equal numbers. To placate the West, it wants to fashion itself in the image of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P.

Yet unlike the A.K.P., Al Nahda has never abandoned its hopes for an Islamic state and is strongly opposed to the separation of religion and the state. Moreover, it favors a draft constitutional provision, along with Arab nationalists and the extreme left, that would ban the normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel. This is a foolish position that harks back to the obsolete rhetoric of the 1960s.

Tunisia is seeking to fully integrate its Islamists — but perhaps at its peril. If Al Nahda emerges from the election with a dominant plurality, it may decide to be modest and support a government of national unity, so as to reassure Washington and the country’s foreign lenders. And if it ends up in a minority position, it will probably bide its time, knowing that one day it could win and run the country.

Whether Tunisia’s Islamists follow the moderate example of the A.K.P. or regress into radical Islamism will depend on the willingness of new leaders to chart a responsible course and on secular and moderate parties’ capacity to challenge pan-Arab and Islamist groups. Only then will we know whether Tunisia’s revolution represents a triumph of liberalism or an open door for extremists.

 

Hamadi Redissi is a professor of political science at the University of Tunis and president of the Tunisian Observatory for a Democratic Transition. This article was translated by Vivien Watts and Matthew Watkins from the French.

    The Revolution Is Not Over Yet, NYT, 15.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/opinion/16redissi.html

U.S. Recognizes Rebels in Libya

July 15, 2011
The New York Times
By SEBNEM ARSU and J. DAVID GOODMAN

ISTANBUL, Turkey — The United States formally recognized the rebel leadership in Libya as the country’s legitimate government on Friday, news agencies reported. The move ratcheted up the diplomatic pressure on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi amid a continuing NATO-led bombing campaign to push him from power.

Speaking at an international gathering here to discuss the five-month-old conflict in Libya, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States would join more than 30 countries in extending diplomatic recognition to the main opposition group, known as the Transitional National Council, The Associated Press reported.

“The United States views the Qaddafi regime as no longer having any legitimate authority in Libya,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And so I am announcing today that, until an interim authority is in place, the United States will recognize the T.N.C. as the legitimate governing authority for Libya, and we will deal with it on that basis.”

The step allows the United States and other countries to turn over to the rebel group some of the Libyan funds that have been frozen in foreign banks, to finance its efforts to oust Colonel Qaddafi and to administer the part of the country that the rebels control.

“We have a lot of frozen funds around the world, and now it would be up the country to release a certain percent under certain conditions,” said Mahmoud Shammar, a rebel spokesman. “We assured them in many ways that we are heading towards a democratic state and with the support of allies, friends we would make that happen.”

Even with a growing list of international allies, the rebels have made only halting progress in wresting control of the country from Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. On Wednesday, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, told Reuters that NATO was intensifying its military campaign in Libya.

With a “no-boots-on-the-ground policy” in Libya, the Obama administration is hoping that the rebels will be able to topple the Qaddafi government, assisted by airstrikes on Tripoli, the capital, and other Qaddafi strongholds. Several other countries, including Britain and France, have also sent arms, ammunition and other military supplies to the rebels.

At the meeting in Turkey, representatives of international organizations, including the Arab League, the European Union and the African Union, reiterated their support for the opposition, which is based in Benghazi in the east, and for a transition of power in Libya.

In a background briefing ahead of Friday’s meeting, a senior State Department official said that the “NATO operations continue at a very high pace,” with 5,000 air sorties since March, and that “we continue to believe that time is on our side.”

Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul, and J. David Goodman from New York.

    U.S. Recognizes Rebels in Libya, NYT, 15.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/world/africa/16libya.html

32 killed in Syria protests, Damascus moves: activists

AMMAN | Fri Jul 15, 2011
11:02pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yakoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed at least 32 civilians on Friday, including 23 in the capital Damascus, in an intensifying crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.

It was the highest death toll in the central neighborhoods of Damascus since the uprising erupted four months ago in the southern Hauran Plain near Syria's border with Jordan.

"Tens of thousands of Damascenes took to the streets in the main districts for the first time today, that is why the regime resorted to more killings," said one activist by telephone from Damascus. He declined to be named for fear of being arrested.

The killings prompted the opposition to cancel their planned National Salvation conference in Qaboun neighborhood of Damascus on Saturday after security forces killed 14 protesters outside a wedding hall where the conference had been due to take place, opposition leader Walid al-Bunni told Reuters.

"Secret police also threatened the owner of the wedding hall. We decided to cancel the meeting to save lives," Bunni said by telephone from Damascus.

Bunni said prominent opposition figures and activists would still hold a separate conference in Istanbul on Saturday.

The rest of those killed in Damasacus were in Barzeh, where one protester had died, and in Rukn al-Din quarter of the city, where security forces fired protesters killing eight people.

Two protesters were killed in the southern suburb of Qadam, said the Local Coordination Committees.

Assad, facing the greatest challenge to 40 years of Baath Party rule, has sought to crush demonstrations that broke out in March. But although rights groups say some 1,400 civilians have been killed, the protests have grown.

"These are the biggest demonstrations so far. It is a clear challenge to the authorities, especially when we see all these numbers coming out from Damascus for the first time," said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Activists and witnesses said police fired live ammunition and teargas in the capital Damascus and suburbs. They killed four in the southern city of Deraa, the cradle of the uprising.

Three protesters were shot dead in the northwestern province of Idlib, near the Turkish border, where troops and tanks have attacked villages, the witnesses and activists said. Two people were also killed in the city of Homs.

A witness in the Rukn al-Din district of Damascus said hundreds of young men wearing white masks resisted security forces with sticks and stones.

"Down, down Bashar al-Assad", they chanted.

In the city of Hama, scene of a 1982 massacre by the military, live video footage filmed by residents showed a huge crowd in the main Orontos Square shouting "the people want the overthrow of the regime".

At least 350,000 people demonstrated in the eastern province of Deir al Zor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian forces shot dead two pro-democracy protesters there on Thursday, residents said.

ALLIANCE WITH IRAN

Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Islam, is struggling to put down widening demonstrations in outlying rural and tribal regions, as well as Damascus suburbs and cities such as Hama and Homs.

Mass arrests and heavy deployment of security forces, including an irregular Alawite militia known as shabbiha, have prevented demonstrations in central neighborhoods of Damascus and the commercial hub of Aleppo, which are generally better off than the rest of the country.

Activists estimate the number of secret police on the streets of Damascus has more than doubled since protests started but the economy has stagnated and the Syrian pound is coming under pressure, with the exchange rate rising to 53 pounds to the dollar, compared with 46 pound to the dollar before the uprising erupted.

To counter that, Syria's main ally, Iran, is considering offering $5.8 billion in financial help, including a three-month loan worth $1.5 billion to be made available immediately, French business newspaper Les Echos said, citing a report by a Tehran think-tank linked to Iran's leadership.

International sanctions are targeted at Syria's leaders, not at its banks and companies. But France and the United States are pressing for tougher penalties, and a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown, following attacks on both countries' embassies in Syria.

 

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Andrew Quinn in Istanbul; Writing by Jon Hemming, Editing by Maria Golovnina)

    32 killed in Syria protests, Damascus moves: activists, NYT, 15.9.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/16/us-syria-idUSTRE76D7NP20110716

Crackdown escalates in east Syria, protesters killed

AMMAN | Thu Jul 14, 2011
7:46pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead two pro-democracy protesters on Thursday in eastern provincial capital Deir al-Zoran, residents said, as a crackdown escalated against dissent in the tribal region bordering Iraq's Sunni heartland.

Military intelligence agents also injured seven protesters who had gathered in the main square of the city on the Euphrates river to protest against President Bashar al-Assad whose family has ruled Syria with an iron fist since 1970.

Ultra-loyalist army units also expanded a campaign to crush dissent in the northwestern province of Idlib bordering Turkey and in the city of Homs, where residents said two civilians were killed when security forces stormed the Bab Sebaa neighborhood.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one soldier was also killed in the attack on the main residential district.

"A crowd of 1,500 had shown up for the usual noon demonstration despite the intense heat. Thousands more have descended on the square after the killings, and there are now around 10,000 people there," said one witness, a computer programer who declined to give his name for fear of arrest.

Despite being the center of Syria's modest oil production, Deir is among the poorest regions in the country of 20 million people.

The desert area has suffered water shortages for six years which experts say have been caused largely by mismanagement and corruption, and have decimated agricultural production.

Syrian authorities have allowed Sunni tribes in Deir al-Zor to carry arms against the threat seen posed by a Kurdish population further north.

MINORITY RULE

Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority sect, an offshoot of Islam, is struggling to put down spreading protests in rural and tribal regions, in suburbs of the capital and in cities such as Hama and Homs -- all demanding an end to his autocratic rule.

Mass arrests and the heavy deployment of security forces, including an irregular Alawite militia known as shabbiha, have prevented protests in central Damascus and the commercial hub of Aleppo.

Four villagers were killed on Wednesday in tank-backed assaults on at least four villages in the Jabal al-Zawya region in Idlib, activists said.

"We are seeing a military escalation following the regime's political escalation," said an activist in Idlib, referring to the thousands of arrests in a crackdown that has intensified in the last two weeks, according to human rights campaigners.

Among those arrested was physician Ahmad Tuma, a respected opposition leader from Deir, who was abducted from his clinic by Military Intelligence agents last week, his friends said.

Security forces arrested at least 30 people on Wednesday, including prominent film directors Nabil Maleh and Mohammad Malas, known for works chronicling malaise under Assad family rule, and actress May Skaf, during a pro-democracy protest in Damascus, rights organizations said.

They were among a group of artists who issued a declaration this week denouncing state violence against protesters and demanding accountability for the killings of civilians and the release of thousands of political prisoners held without trial.

International powers, including Turkey, have cautioned Assad against a repeat of massacres from the era of his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, who crushed leftist and Islamist challenges to his rule, culminating in the killing of up to 30,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982.

The U.S. and French ambassadors visited Hama in a show of support last Friday. Three days later their embassies were attacked by Assad loyalists. No one was killed in the attacks which were condemned by the United Nations Security Council.

 

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

    Crackdown escalates in east Syria, protesters killed, NYT, 14.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-syria-idUSTRE76D7NP20110714

Special report:

How fuel smuggling keeps Gaddafi machine running

ZOKRA, Tunisia | Thu Jul 14, 2011
9:45am EDT
Reuters
By Lamine Chikhi, Christian Lowe and Emma Farge

ZOKRA, Tunisia (Reuters)- Yacine, a 24-year old Tunisian in jeans and an oil-stained red T-shirt, has been busy since war broke out next door in Libya.

Yacine is the owner of a corrugated iron shack on the side of the road that cuts through the desert from the Tunisian town of Ben Gardane to the border with Libya.

Every day, hundreds of Libyan vehicles come to the shack, and a dozen others like it clustered in the tiny village of Zokra. There, they fill up with gasoline from jerry-cans Yacine has lined up on the roadside, then head to the Ras Jdir border crossing.

Once on the other side, they are in territory firmly under the control of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. A short distance from the crossing, the cars stop on the side of the road at informal collection points. Using lengths of tubing, they siphon the fuel out of their tanks and into blue and green jerry-cans.

Then, according to a Reuters reporter who witnessed the operation, they head back into Tunisia to collect another tank of gasoline.

"Business is good," said Yacine, who declined to give his family name because his business operates without a license. Asked where the fuel comes from, he replied: "The gasoline is Algerian, and it's available now."

This is the lifeline that is helping Muammar Gaddafi cling to power in spite of a five-month-old rebellion against his rule, a NATO bombing campaign, and international sanctions.

The areas of Libya under Gaddafi's control are suffering a shortage of fuel. Sanctions make it difficult to import fuel legally and Libya's own refining capacity has been severely curtailed by the conflict.

If supplies get tighter, most analysts say, Gaddafi will no longer be able to hold on. His troops will struggle to travel to the front line to take on the rebels, and the economy will grind to a halt.

But smuggling by networks like the one operated by Yacine and his colleagues bypasses the sanctions and -- combined with fuel from the one operational refinery under Gaddafi's control -- helps keep his government ticking over.

That's a problem for western powers as they try to tighten the noose around Gaddafi. While they can make it extremely difficult for ships to dock in Libyan ports with cargoes of gasoline, they cannot staunch the flow of smuggled fuel.

For that, they need to rely on Tunisia and Algeria, its oil-producing neighbor to the west and source of much of the gasoline smuggled into Libya.

Governments in Tunisia and Algeria say they are not supplying fuel to Libya, and that they are implementing United Nations sanctions.

"We are rigorously enforcing the ... (U.N. resolutions). We have submitted a report on that to the United Nations and we invited the U.N. to monitor our implementation," Algerian Deputy Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel told Reuters.

"For us it's food products and pharmaceutical products (which are exported to Libya). All other products we consider are under embargo," he said, including motor fuel.

There is evidence that Algeria is taking a firm line on supplies to Libya. Last week, Algeria's government turned away a Libyan-flagged ship which tried to unload a cargo of gasoline in an Algerian port, probably for trucking overland to Libya, according to a western diplomat.

But stopping the smuggling routes altogether is tricky.

"It's hard to stop trucks from going back and forth," said Firas Abi Ali, the Deputy Head of Middle East and North Africa Forecasting at Exclusive Analysis, a consultancy. "The border with Tunisia is long and porous, making it suitable for smuggling."

TIGHTENING THE NOOSE

There is no fuel embargo on Libya per se, but dealing with specific individuals and organizations linked to Gaddafi is prohibited, so selling fuels to oil firms that may be linked to the Libyan leader carries considerable reputational and legal risks.

Most of the companies trading with Libya before the war stopped in March after sanctions came in. Other firms, lured by hefty premiums for gasoline, have found creative ways of delivering the fuels.

In one scheme unveiled by Reuters in April (link.reuters.com/rak62s), a ship docked in a Tunisian port loaded gasoline onto a vessel owned by the Libyan government's shipping arm, General National Maritime Transport Company (GNMTC). The firm does not appear on any sanctions list because European countries failed to agree to add it. But it is believed to be controlled by Gaddafi's son Hannibal, who is on a sanctions list.

Now though, even the most brazen of oil traders are running scared of dealing with the Libyan government and GNMTC has resorted to sourcing fuels itself using one of its own vessels, shipping and oil trading sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The Libyan-flagged, GNMTC-owned, tanker Cartagena has been trying to bring a cargo of 30,000 tonnes, or 250,000 barrels, home since mid-May. But it has been prevented by a hardening NATO line on fuel imports and, according to one source monitoring the vessel's movements, a mutinous Libyan captain.

"The captain had sympathies with the rebels and wanted to charter it east (to the rebel stronghold in Benghazi). Gaddafi had wanted to change the whole crew for a Libyan one, but in the end I believe they just changed the captain," said a western diplomatic source who has been tracking the ship.

The tanker loaded gasoline in a Turkish port. The Swiss company that sold the ship the fuel, speaking on condition it not be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters the buyer had duped them by placing Tripoli, Lebanon as the destination.

But when it left the port in early May, the vessel sailed west, not east to Lebanon. The actual destination was Zawiyah, a Gaddafi-controlled town and the main oil port adjacent to the Libyan capital.

NATO initially rubber-stamped the deal, saying the gasoline shipment to Libyan distribution company Al Sharara Libya Oil and Gas "does not raise concerns", according to a May 4 fax obtained by Reuters and apparently sent in response to a request for NATO clearance.

But while the Cartagena was en route to Zawiyah, NATO diverted another west-Libya bound fuel tanker on the grounds that the fuel would be used for military purposes.

The Cartagena, carrying enough fuel to fill nearly a million cars, then spent the next month anchored off the Mediterranean island of Malta while the Libyan government tried to come up with another means of unloading it. In early July, it headed for the port of Annaba on the northeastern tip of Algeria, according to AIS Live ship tracking data based on satellite signals sent from the vessel itself.

The plan was to unload the fuel there and transfer it via Tunisia and into Libya through a smuggling network, according to the western diplomatic source.

But Algerian authorities, who had discussed the shipment with European Union authorities, stopped it from berthing.

"It was refused permission to dock. The Algerians were persuaded to stand down," said the source.

The vessel's satellite signals show it did not enter the port as planned on July 2, and instead has lingered about 80 km (50 miles) north in the Mediterranean, posting no new destination port.

"We are working on the assumption that the noose is tightening around Gaddafi, and that we are entering the final stage," said the diplomatic source.

BICYCLES IN DEMAND

Western efforts to choke off fuel to Gaddafi are certainly having an effect in Tripoli. There, long lines of cars waiting to refuel snake several kilometers back from gas stations.

"If I stay in the normal queue it takes me four or five days. I cannot do that," said one Tripoli resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Some people, they stay for more than five days. I know one of my relatives spent about eight days (in a queue)," he said.

The long lines breed anger and frustration that sometimes spills over into violence. "In the gas stations there is lots of fighting, sometimes guns shooting," said the resident.

The shortages have given rise to a flourishing black market, but fuel obtained this way is expensive. One liter of black-market gasoline costs 5 Libyan dinars a liter, or $3.03 at the unofficial exchange rate. That compares to an official price at the pump of 0.15 Libyan dinars per liter.

Ordinary Libyans accustomed to cheap and plentiful fuel are having to learn to eke out their gasoline. Drivers travel with the air conditioning turned off to cut fuel consumption. Some have switched to bicycles and motorcycles.

The problems have eased a little after the government introduced a form of fuel rationing, according to the resident. Motorists now register their vehicle at a gas station and are given an appointed time to collect their ration, usually limited to about 30 liters a week.

"Before there was a lot of tension and there was anger but now things have normalized a little bit because the gas stations have introduced this system," he said.

Once Africa's third biggest oil producer, Libya has long struggled to refine enough fuel to meet domestic requirements. Even in peacetime it relied on imports.

Trade and diplomatic sources told Reuters the Zawiyah refinery -- the only one still operating in Gaddafi-controlled territory -- is producing: they know because they can detect heat coming off it. "It's only about 35 or 40 percent (of normal capacity) but that's not enough," said the western diplomatic source.

A Libyan energy official, who spoke to Reuters on condition he not be identified, said production of diesel and gasoline was running at 3,500 tonnes a day, which he said left the country with a daily shortfall of 1,500 tonnes.

Diesel appears to be more readily available than gasoline. A large part of the trade being done by the illicit sellers in the Tunisian desert is to take diesel from Libyans and swap it for about one third the quantity of gasoline.

The impact of the shortages on Gaddafi's machinery of government is hard to assess because reporters are not allowed to move around freely. Anecdotal evidence suggests it is causing problems.

Foreign journalists and their government minders who were on a trip to Bani Walid, about 170 km southeast of Tripoli, at the end of June had to transfer to another vehicle when their bus ran out of fuel.

"The regime has run out of money, it has run out of fuel," said a spokesman for Mustafa Zarti, a former deputy chief executive of Libya's sovereign wealth fund who broke with Gaddafi's government and is now in Vienna. "It could happen any day but he (Zarti) thinks it won't be more than three weeks until the regime collapses."

LUCRATIVE TRADE

But the fuel smuggled into Libya could also offer Gaddafi a reprieve.

The illegal chain begins at fuel stations in Algerian towns like Tebessa and El Tarf, close to the border with Tunisia. Smugglers buy from the gas stations, then sneak the fuel across the border into Tunisia. It is a frontier that stretches for 965 km, much of it through empty desert.

Algerian media reports describe some smugglers using donkeys to carry contraband across on their backs. They are trained to follow the path without a handler, so if border guards catch them, there is no human to arrest.

Once on the other side of the border, the fuel is sold onto the Tunisian informal market. Transporting it from Tunisia into Libya is straightforward. Over several hours spent at the Ras Jdir border crossing, a Reuters reporter did not see officials check the contents of a single vehicle.

Samir, a Tunisian involved in the trade near the border with Libya, joked: "I hope Algeria doesn't build a pipeline to distribute gasoline to Libya because it will kill the business."

Algeria and Tunisia deny authorizing deliveries of fuel to Libya. Algerian customs documents seen by Reuters showed that no fuel was officially exported from Algeria to Libya in the first four months of this year. The same documents also show that officially, no significant volumes of motor fuel were exported to Tunisia in the first five months of 2011.

The senior Libyan energy official in Tripoli said Gaddafi's government had asked Algeria to either provide technical help with increasing production from its refineries, or to sell them 1,500 tonnes of fuel a day.

Asked about that request, an Algerian diplomat cited the international sanctions on Libya. "That is an impossible demand," he told Reuters.

Likewise, an official with the Tunisian industry ministry said there were no legal exports of fuel to Libya.

"Apparently it is all going through clandestinely, with either Libyans or Tunisians who take large quantities across the border far from the eyes of the customs officers," said the official.

There is no suggestion that the authorities in either Algeria or Tunisia are deliberately letting fuel reach Gaddafi-controlled parts of Libya.

But there is evidence that smuggled fuel is reaching the Libyan rebels. Opposition forces are importing fuel by ship into Benghazi to supply their territory in the east, but rebels trapped in the western part of the country are also resorting to smuggling over the Tunisian border, a source working with the rebels in that part of Libya told Reuters.

It is impossible to quantify how much Algerian fuel is going to Tunisia and on to Libya. "There has been an increase in the quantity of fuel transported by smugglers, especially on the eastern border," said one Algerian official who nevertheless dismissed the quantity getting to Libya as "insignificant."

What is clear is that fuel supplies inside Algeria are unusually tight. Oil trading sources said last week that Algeria had bought four gasoline cargoes of between 25,000 and 30,000 tonnes each on the Mediterranean market. Traders said Algeria does not normally need to import gasoline.

An Algerian energy official said 95 percent of the increase in demand was domestic, not smuggling. "The smuggling is a phenomenon which has existed for a long time."

"CAN'T CONTROL THE BORDER"

There are signs that Algeria is taking steps to curb the smuggling. The Algerian diplomat said instructions had gone out to local authorities in border areas to step up monitoring of fuel stations. Another official said customs units on the borders with Tunisia and Libya had been beefed up.

Ultimately, though, there is a limit to what Algeria and Tunisia can do. Large communities in both Algeria and Tunisia depend on the illegal trade for their livelihoods. Authorities in both countries also worry about provoking further unrest in their countries.

"I can't control the border," said one senior Algerian official, speaking privately. "There is illicit trade between all countries. There is illicit trade between France and Luxembourg."

(Lamine Chikhi reported from Zokra, Emma Farge from London and Christian Lowe from Algiers; additional reporting by Tarek Amara in Tunis, Nick Carey in Misrata and Michael Shields in Vienna; Writing by Christian Lowe and Emma Farge; Editing by Claudia Parsons and Simon Robinson)

    Special report: How fuel smuggling keeps Gaddafi machine running, R, 14.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/14/us-libya-fuel-idUSTRE76D32M20110714

Vive la Similarité

July 13, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID McCULLOUGH

West Tisbury, Mass.

THE recent arrest in New York of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then the head of the International Monetary Fund, has caused some people to question the American-French relationship. Though we will probably never see a Bastille Day when French flags fly along Main Street and strains of “La Marseillaise” fill the airwaves, July 14 would not go so largely unobserved here were we better served by memory. For the ties that bind America and France are more important and infinitely more interesting than most of us know.

Consider that the war that gave birth to the nation, our war for independence, would almost certainly have failed had it not been for heavy French financial backing and military support, on both land and sea. At the crucial surrender of the British at Yorktown, for example, the French army under Rochambeau was larger than our own commanded by Washington. The British commander, Cornwallis, was left with no escape and no choice but to surrender only because a French fleet sailed into the Chesapeake Bay at exactly the right moment.

The all-important treaty ending the Revolutionary War, wherein King George III recognized the United States to be “free, sovereign and independent,” was signed in Paris. The plan for our new capital city on the Potomac was designed by a French engineer, Pierre Charles L’Enfant. The first great statue of our first president was the work of a French sculptor, Jean-Antoine Houdon. The first major study of us as a people, “Democracy in America,” was written by a French historian, Alexis de Tocqueville. Published in 1835, it remains one of the wisest books ever written about us.

To be sure, our relations with France have not always been smooth. Tensions over a diplomatic snafu called the “XYZ Affair” led, in 1798, to an actual but undeclared shooting war at sea that could have flared into full-scale war had it not been for the level-headed judgment of President John Adams.

But the rewards of our ties with France have far exceeded any difficulties there have been. With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, the size of the country was more than doubled. The Statue of Liberty, one of our most treasured symbols, was a gift from France.

No less conspicuous are the number of French names all across the map of America — cities and states, rivers and lakes: Baton Rouge, Des Moines, New Orleans, St. Louis, Terre Haute, Louisiana, Vermont, the Au Sable River, Lake Champlain. And then there are colleges and universities like Lafayette, Duquesne, Marquette, Notre Dame.

More than nine million of us are of French descent. Over a million American students are taking French, making it, after Spanish, the most commonly studied foreign language in our schools.

Times continue to change, yet we remain conspicuously fond of all manner of things French. We deck ourselves out in French fashions, French lace, French cuffs, spend small fortunes on French perfume and French luggage. We love French doors, French cheeses. We’ve made French fries a national staple, and in time-honored tradition raise glasses of French Champagne at important celebrations.

For well over 200 years, our most gifted American writers, artists, architects, composers, musicians and dancers have flocked to Paris to study and work, nearly always to their benefit and ours. John Singleton Copley, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Edward Hopper, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Richard Wright, Louis Gottschalk and Louis Armstrong, Cole Porter, Isadora Duncan and Josephine Baker, and, of course, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The list goes on and on.

Especially for American women and for African-Americans, Paris provided an atmosphere of freedom and of acceptance such as they had never experienced.

Less well known but of great importance were the hundreds of young Americans who went to study medicine in France in the 19th century, when Paris was the medical capital of the world and who brought home ideas and skills that would transform American medicine and medical education.

And there is a further reason France should hold a prominent place in our memories and in our hearts. More American history has unfolded in France and more Americans are buried there than in any other country but our own.

During World War I more than two million American soldiers served “Over There.” In World War II another generation of American soldiers numbering more than 800,000 served in France. In all, more than 60,000 Americans are buried in French soil, at Meuse-Argonne, Normandy and nine other cemeteries. At the Meuse-Argonne, the largest, lie fully 14,246 American dead. The grave markers are a sight never to be forgotten.

Though I love France and greatly value the friends I have made there, I am not an overboard Francophile. But as an American I think it is well past time to get back to respect and affection between our countries, on all fronts and with all possible good will.

For my part this Bastille Day, I intend to raise a glass or two of Veuve Clicquot in a heartfelt toast: “Vive la France!”

David McCullough, a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes,
is the author, most recently, of “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.”

    Vive la Similarité, NYT, 13.7.2011,, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/opinion/14mccullough.html

All Hail the (Democratic) King

July 11, 2011
The New York Times
By AHMED CHARAI and JOSEPH BRAUDE

Rabat, Morocco

IT isn’t news anymore when an Arab ruler facing mass protests pledges sweeping reforms. But Morocco’s July 1 constitutional referendum may be the most significant development in the Arab world all summer. For the first time since the Arab Spring began, a population broadly embraced its leader’s reforms and scaled back antigovernment demonstrations. In the weeks before the referendum, over 100,000 people had taken to the streets; after the vote only about 10,000 did.

A sizable majority of Moroccans approved the new Constitution, which calls for King Mohammed VI to cede half his power to a prime minister appointed from the parliament’s majority party and ensures the rights of women and non-Arabs, including the country’s large Berber population.

Morocco appears to have found a new model for political transition. If the constitutional experiment succeeds, the country will have the opportunity — and responsibility — to take on the regional leadership role that has traditionally been played by Egypt.

The major parliamentary opposition parties, including the main Islamist party, endorsed the Constitution. Those rejecting it, including a radical Islamist group which aims to overthrow the king and install a caliph, had the chance to make their cases on public radio and television. Some officials believe this new openness is serving as a force for moderation. “The more the extremists go on TV, the more ridiculous they look,” said Nawfel Raghay, who manages the country’s broadcasting authority. “We should have done this 20 years ago.”

The Constitution’s power split provides a check against Islamists, if they were to win elections. In the event of an Islamist landslide, a new Shariah-minded prime minister would have the authority to appoint all senior civil servants and oversee domestic security. However, control over the army and foreign intelligence services would rest with the king. The monarch would also retain his traditional role as the country’s highest religious authority — meaning that he could block attempts to use mosques, the news media and religious education to impose chauvinist religious mores.

This novel arrangement also addresses the historic dilemma between values and interests the West has faced in its relationship with Morocco. The country has long been regarded as a constructive player in regional affairs, but its pro-Western authoritarian elite has a troubling human rights record and has constrained political and economic opportunity for the country’s impoverished majority. The Constitution could allow the emergence of new elites and open up the political arena.

It is important for America and its allies that Morocco achieve this balance at a time when Egypt is not in a position to serve as a regional powerbroker. Under its former president, Hosni Mubarak, Egypt served as a bridge between Arab monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Arab dictatorships like Syria and Libya. But today, there is a new Arab political divide — between autocracies and countries undergoing democratic transitions. Morocco, a transitioning government itself and a prospective member of the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council, is uniquely positioned to bridge this divide.

Whereas Mr. Mubarak mediated between Israelis and Palestinians, the new Egyptian government has yet to form a coherent policy on that conflict, let alone earn the trust of both sides. Morocco, by contrast, has a history of doing so. Years before Egypt normalized diplomatic relations with Israel in 1980, the Moroccan king Hassan II was a liaison between Israel and its neighbors. The country’s distance from Israel was not a serious disadvantage then, and it is even less so today in the era of instant communication and intercontinental strategic partnerships.

Morocco also has a deep historical bond with the Jewish people: the king protected 200,000 Moroccan Jews from the Nazis during World War II, and nearly one million Israelis have Moroccan roots — including some senior political and military officials. Morocco can extract concessions from both parties to the conflict that Egypt never could.

The Moroccan constitutional model sets an obvious example for Jordan, whose king also claims some religious authority and remains relatively popular. For the more embattled Sunni kingdom of Bahrain, a similar pact of electoral power-sharing with the Shiite majority may be the only way, in the long run, for Bahrain’s dynasty to survive.

Before the referendum, scores of protesters were wounded by the police, and one was killed. While this violence is deplorable, it is a far cry from that of Egypt, where hundreds died, let alone Libya and Syria, where state security forces have killed thousands.

There is great optimism in Morocco today. Millions have signaled their desire for freedom and opportunity within a constitutional framework. If parliament is vigilant in ensuring that the reforms are swiftly applied, Morocco can set an example for peaceful political transitions across the Arab world.

 

Ahmed Charai is publisher of the weekly Moroccan newspaper L’Observateur. Joseph Braude is the author of “The Honored Dead: A Story of Friendship, Murder, and the Search for Truth in the Arab World.”

    All Hail the (Democratic) King, NYT, 11.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/opinion/12Charai.html

Offering Slow, Small Changes,

Morocco’s King Stays in Power

July 10, 2011
The Nerw York Times
By NADIM AUDI

RABAT, Morocco — With the pace of democratic change stalled or staggering under violent crackdowns in the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco’s recent decision to alter its Constitution provides what some see as an alternative to the bloody confrontations that have marked the Arab Spring.

Morocco’s decision — in the form of a referendum to give more powers to elected leaders — was offered as a unique answer to the insistent calls for democratic change that have swept through Arab countries since Tunisians unexpectedly toppled their longtime dictator in January.

For now the electoral victory in Morocco remains largely symbolic. King Mohammed VI proposed the referendum himself, but the revisions to the Constitution it allowed ensure that he maintains nearly absolute political power and unquestioned control over the military. And the Constitution’s ability to bring real change to this centuries-old monarchy will largely depend on how the text is applied to everyday politics.

But supporters of the new Constitution argue that moving slowly may be the surest way to achieve sustainable change, and analysts say that even baby steps may be enough to inspire others in the region to follow suit eventually. At the least, the events in Morocco provide a striking counterpoint to those in Egypt and Tunisia, where leaders’ concessions appeared to work against them, emboldening protesters.

“It’s a peaceful revolution, and the major difference with other countries in the region is that protesters never called for the fall of the regime,” said Mokhtar El Ghambou, who is helping to found Rabat International University. “There was no bloodshed. I think it shows there are two options; the first one is radical change, the second is change with continuity.”

For some, that is a good thing. For others, Morocco’s example is troubling, providing ammunition for rulers and counterrevolutionaries intent on breaking the momentum for sweeping reform that was in protesters’ favor for months.

“If the Egyptian revolution fails to bring change, with places like Morocco in mind, there will be a big backlash against the revolutions,” Mr. El Ghambou said.

Morocco’s evolution was inspired by many of the same issues that birthed the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

The kingdom, on the western edge of North Africa, has a large population of restless young people, many of them unemployed, and the country is troubled by a level of nepotism reminiscent of Tunisia’s and a yawning gap between rich and poor.

At first, the nation’s reaction to the stunning news from Tunisia and Egypt tracked with those of others in the region. Protesters took to the streets with their grievances, and the government cracked down, sometimes violently.

But the narrative diverged from there. Government troops beat demonstrators, but did not fire on them, and the protesters themselves were more interested on pushing their king toward a true constitutional monarchy than pushing him out.

Mohammed VI already had a well of good will to draw on. He is considered forward-thinking and a gentler leader than his father, King Hassan II. Early in his reign he took steps to modernize the kingdom, including promoting a family law that raised the age for women to marry and allowed them to seek a divorce.

With the rise of radical Islam, however, the king slowed the pace of change, frustrating many of his subjects. Over time, he was also accused of tolerating corruption and of allowing advisers and former schoolmates to amass fortunes from state contracts.

He began to propose major changes again only after protests roiled major Moroccan cities this year. He proposed the constitutional changes that went to a vote on July 1, and pardoned scores of prisoners who the opposition said were jailed for their political beliefs.

Under the new provisions, which fell short of demands for a real constitutional monarchy, the prime minister will still be appointed by the king, but will now need to be chosen from the party with the parliamentary majority. In a change from the past, the prime minister will be charged with appointing government ministers, but the king still needs to approve those choices.

The constitutional changes — and the reality that 98 percent of an unusually high turnout of voters approved them — has left some Moroccans, especially on the left, disillusioned.

“The king gives the impression of giving the keys to the prime minister, while keeping a copy in his pocket,” wrote Karim Boukhari, editor and publisher of the francophone weekly Tel Quel. “Morocco deserves much better, and right now.”

Members of the February 20 Movement for Change, which coordinated the country’s demonstrations, have vowed to keep up weekly protests.

“This text is not acceptable, it was cooked up in the hallways of the palace,” said Zineb El Rhazoui, a journalist and human rights advocate, who is active in the protest movement. “It’s all cosmetic.”

Whether Morocco’s example can be replicated is an open question. Relative to its neighbors, the country was more open to reform.

Analysts said that other monarchies, including those in the gulf, were unlikely to follow suit in good part because their populations were both wealthier and more conservative, and therefore less likely to agitate for democracy.

The leaders of two other Arab countries, Jordan and Algeria, have at least suggested political reforms, but it is unclear if they will move ahead.

The situation in Jordan more closely mirrors Morocco’s: it is a monarchy with close ties to the United States, and King Abdullah II has recently reshuffled his cabinet to try to appease protesters. But analysts said regional realities might doom more significant changes, especially as Syria descends further into chaos, with the government unable to quell unrest despite a fierce crackdown.

“They’re closely watching the situation in neighboring Syria, and are very worried about being destabilized by events there,” said Muhammad Abbas Nagi of the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, a government-financed research center. “They’re not comfortable with what could happen if they start answering the protesters’ calls for change.”

It is also in Jordan’s economic interest to maintain close ties with countries like Saudi Arabia, which balks at change in the region and sent troops into Bahrain to support the monarchy after weeks of protests. A recent offer to consider including Jordan as a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council has been perceived as an effort to buttress the monarchy and keep Jordan in the fold.

But even if no country follows Morocco’s example in the near future, the king’s ability, at least so far, to satisfy critics and still maintain power presents an alternative for reformers searching for new ways to wrest power from leaders who have clung to their positions for decades..

“On one side, you have Libya, which is exactly where Arab populations want to avoid going; on the other, you have this Moroccan counterpoint, which showed it was possible to absorb discontent through reforms,” said Haoues Seniguer, a professor and researcher at Lyon’s Institute for Political Studies. “What is certain is that some governments might be inspired by this successful strategy to diffuse protests.”

In the end, whether others follow Morocco’s lead may depend in part on whether the country’s experiment turns out to be a true template for change.

One of the first tests of the king’s commitment to reform will come after parliamentary elections, expected this fall. Detractors will be watching closely to see whether the elections are fair and whether he chooses as prime minister someone anxious for reform or someone who is merely acceptable to the winning party.

For the king’s many supporters, the changes may be imperfect, but they are the best way forward.

“People in Egypt are still throwing rocks at each other, and we already have a new Constitution,” said Rachid Benmami, 55, as he sat in a coffeehouse in Casablanca, Morocco’s economic capital. “The king knows what’s good for his people,” he said, removing an aging picture of Mohammed VI from his wallet.

“We thank God for our king,” he said as he kissed the picture.

    Offering Slow, Small Changes, Morocco’s King Stays in Power, NYT, 10.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/world/africa/11morocco.html

French See Case Against Strauss-Kahn as American Folly

July 3, 2011
The New York Times
By STEVEN ERLANGER

PARIS — The stunning reversals in the criminal case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a putative French presidential candidate, have reawakened a dormant anti-Americanism here, fueled by a sense that the raw, media-driven culture of the United States has undermined justice and fair play.

There was shock in France after the arrest of Mr. Strauss-Kahn in May and intense criticism of the manner in which he was displayed in handcuffs, pulled unshaven into a televised court session and stuffed into a Rikers Island cell under suicide watch. There was confusion and criticism over the glee with which the New York tabloids in particular highlighted every humiliation and turned to clichés about the French — “Chez Perv” and “Frog Legs It” — in the coverage. And there was a sense that it was not just Mr. Strauss-Kahn who was being so jauntily humiliated, but France itself.

Now, with the case appearing to collapse over questions about the credibility of the hotel housekeeper from Guinea who accused him, and Mr. Strauss-Kahn freed from house arrest, the French are feeling a kind of bitter jubilation of their own, and renewing their criticisms about the rush to judgment, the public relations concerns of elected prosecutors and the somehow uncivilized, brutal and carnival nature of American society, democracy and justice.

Former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said Friday that “he was thrown to the wolves” in the American system; a former justice minister, Robert Badinter, called Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s treatment “a lynching, a murder by media.”

In an editorial this weekend, Le Monde wrote that “the least one can say is that the vagaries of the American procedure” had “condemned Dominique Strauss-Kahn before even the start of a serious inquiry.” Criticizing the “media-judicial machine,” the paper said the costs to Mr. Strauss-Kahn were heavy, including the loss of his job and his political future. The paper said that with the American system of an elected prosecutor dependent on the voters and the way it functions with the press, with police leaks and “terrible photos illegally transmitted to the press and then also illegally reproduced by certain newspapers — everything was done to place Mr. Strauss-Kahn in a situation of extreme weakness before even the beginning of an inquiry.”

Noëlle Lenoir, a former European affairs minister, said many French felt insulted. “People were shocked by the media circus,” she said. “They thought the prosecution was making common cause with the tabloids. So there is a bit of revenge for what is seen as very anti-French behavior.”

Though it was the American prosecutors who revealed the housekeeper’s various fabrications about her background, her asylum application and her taxes, the turnabout “does wake up this slumbering anti-Americanism, and the great losers are American justice and the New York police,” said Dominique Moïsi, a longtime analyst of French-American relations who has studied and taught in the United States. “The case does damage to the image of America and recreates negative stereotypes that existed before.”

Even in the 1990s, “when we were so close, when the cold war was over and before the second Iraq war, we were divided along the line of the death penalty,” Mr. Moïsi said.

“There is a sense in Europe that you can’t be fully civilized with the death penalty,” he said. “Now this feeling is reinforced — that the United States is not a fully civilized country with a police that behaves like that, that wants to humiliate,” he continued. “There is a sense that it’s a dangerous country.”

These cultural differences, highlighted by the brashness of the American news media coverage, prompted the indulgence in cultural clichés on both sides of the Atlantic, reminiscent of the period when France refused to support the Bush administration’s war in Iraq and some Americans responded with “freedom fries” and called the French “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”

The French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy, an outspoken friend and defender of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, was ubiquitous, writing and speaking of his continuing anger at the “pornographic” nature of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s treatment and the “obscene” press conference that the accuser’s lawyer held detailing her physical injuries as he tried to rescue her status as victim. Writing for The Daily Beast, the American media Web site, Mr. Lévy criticized the black-and-white handling of the case, “the cannibalization of justice by the sideshow.”

He accused the United States of having a simplistic moral and political compass, saying that the housekeeper, “because she was a poor immigrant, was inevitably innocent, and Mr. Strauss-Kahn, because he was powerful, was inevitably guilty.”

He demanded that Mr. Strauss-Kahn be fully exonerated on the charges against him, which include felony counts of committing a criminal sex act, attempted rape and sexual abuse.

And Mr. Lévy scolded the United States from a particularly French intellectual height. “America the pragmatic, that rebels against ideologies, this country of habeas corpus that de Tocqueville claimed possessed the most democratic system of justice in the world, has pushed this French Robespierrism, unfortunately, to the extremes of its craziness,” he wrote, invoking the ideological bloodletting of the French Revolution. “All this calls, at the least, for serious, honest, and substantial soul-searching.”

More broadly, the French news media, which had kept track of every anti-French insult in the New York media — Le Monde, for instance, had an article called, “Trash — the D.S.K. affair as told on the front pages of The New York Post” — was full of astonishment this weekend at “The U-turn of the American Media,” as The Journal du Dimanche said, suddenly attacking the housekeeper with the same tabloid breathlessness.

Ordinary French people have been left with unease over the American handling of the case and the anti-French sentiment that came with it. Kevin Benard, 28,a real estate agent, said the initial treatment of Mr. Strauss-Kahn had given the impression that he was guilty before the investigation had even begun. “America has a very harsh justice system,” he said. “We believe in people being innocent before they are proven guilty, and not the other way round.”

Patrice Randé, 50, who was visiting Paris from Bordeaux, said that if Mr. Strauss-Kahn turned out to be innocent it would reveal “the colossal error” made by the American justice system — and, he feared, stoke more anti-Americanism. “For French-American relations it would actually be better if he was proven guilty,” Mr. Randé said.

Marc Placet, 30, said he had been in New York a week ago, and was struck by the anti-French sentiments there. “I think that the D.S.K. affair has woken up a form of French bashing in the U.S.,” he said. “In New York, people in bars or on the street would make fun of me being French.” They would invariably bring up Mr. Strauss-Kahn “and call the French ‘perverse’ and things like that,” he said.

Emilie Destot, 26, a student, was ambivalent. “I was shocked when I saw those pictures of Strauss-Kahn handcuffed, not shaven. But I guess it’s the way things work there, and even if it is too spectacular, it sometimes proves to be quick and efficient.”

Some political observers said that fears of an anti-American backlash were exaggerated and harmful. Arlette Chabot, editor in chief of Europe 1 radio, said, “I’ve always thought the talk of French anti-Americanism was overstated,” citing the French love for Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton — but not their visceral contempt for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Mr. Moïsi thinks that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, whose next hearing is set for July 18, may end up politically ahead. The Socialist Party wants to win at all costs, he said, and they may decide that Mr. Strauss-Kahn has a new cachet. “If D.S.K. returns triumphantly as a victim of American justice that may change everything,” he said.

 

Katrin Bennhold contributed reporting.

    French See Case Against Strauss-Kahn as American Folly, NYT, 3.7.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world/europe/04france.html

Clinton slams Gaddafi threat to attack Europe

MADRID/TRIPOLI, July 2 | Sat Jul 2, 2011
9:23pm EDT
Reuters
By Arshad Mohammed and Lamine Chikhi

MADRID/TRIPOLI, July 2 (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped up Western calls on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to quit, brushing off his threat to attack Europeans in their homes and offices.

"Instead of issuing threats, Gaddafi should put the well-being and the interests of his own people first and he should step down from power and help facilitate a democratic transition," Clinton told reporters on a trip to Spain.

In an address relayed to some 100,000 supporters in Tripoli's Green Square on Friday, Gaddafi urged NATO to halt its bombing campaign or risk seeing Libyan fighters descend on Europe "like a swarm of locusts or bees."

"Retreat, you have no chance of beating this brave people," Gaddafi said.

"They can attack your homes, your offices and your families, which will become military targets just as you have transformed our offices, headquarters, houses and children into what you regard as legitimate military targets," he said.

NATO announced it had stepped up strikes on Gaddafi forces in west Libya including the capital Tripoli, saying it had carried out more than 50 attacks since Monday.

Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez said the alliance stance was unchanged.

"Spain's and the international coalition's response is to maintain the unity and determination with which we have been working these past months," she said..

Libyan rebels who had advanced to within 80 km (50 miles) of the capital were stopped in their tracks on Friday by a barrage of rocket fire from government forces, underlining the dogged resistance of Gaddafi troops to a five-month revolt.

"(It) was obviously a strategic withdrawal because of the battlefield situation and the amount of bombardment that the revolutionary forces were receiving," said rebel spokesman Ahmed Bani. "But we hope to counter that within the next 48 hours."

In Tripoli, a senior source in Gaddafi's government said there was reliable intelligence indicating the rebels were planning to attack oil export terminals in the eastern towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf.

"The Libyan government will do whatever (possible) to prevent such attacks," the source, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters.

"It urges international oil companies as well as international insurance companies to put pressure on their governments to force the rebels, who are supported by NATO, to stop their destructive operations,"

HELICOPTER ATTACKS

Coalition military officials refuse to characterize the situation on the ground as a stalemate after a 104-day bombing campaign that has strained alliance firepower and tested unity, with internal divisions over strategy surfacing.

Analysts say part of NATO's strategy is to use the attacks to hinder efforts by authorities to put down any future uprising in Tripoli.

Britain's Defense Ministry said Apache helicopters hit three tanks and a bunker firing position in an attack on an army camp west of Tripoli late on Friday. Libyan state TV said NATO also bombed the central Al-Jufrah region on Saturday.

A document seen by Reuters showed African Union leaders had agreed on Friday that member states would not execute the arrest warrant for Gaddafi, leaving open the possibility that he could go into exile in one of the African Union's 53 nations.

The grouping also offered to host talks on a ceasefire and a transition to democratic government, but did not call on Gaddafi to step down and left open whether he had a future role.

Mansour Sayf al Nasr, the rebels' representative in France, told reporters at the summit in Equatorial Guinea: "We understood that the spirit of the document is that Gaddafi will not have a role to play in the future of Libya."

Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the Benghazi-based rebel council, told Reuters:

"We reject the African Union proposal because it includes nothing concerning our demands. We are only demanding one thing: Gaddafi's resignation ... We can gain freedom and democracy only if Gaddafi steps down.

"I think we can obtain freedom only through military operations and we will be able to do this."

In Tripoli, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim did not comment on whether any AU-hosted negotiations should start on the assumption that Gaddafi would step down, saying only: "We have been saying for months that we will have talks with all parties."

 

(Additional reporting by Maria Golovnina in Benghazi; Lutfi Abu-Aun in Tripoli; Tarek Amara in Tunis; Mike Holden in London; Pete Harrison in Brussels; and David Lewis in Malabo; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

    Clinton slams Gaddafi threat to attack Europe, R, 2.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/03/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110703

Protests set after Moroccan king wins vote landslide

RABAT | Sat Jul 2, 2011
11:17am EDT
By Souhail Karam and Mark John

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco's "Arab Spring" protesters vowed on Saturday to pursue demonstrations after King Mohammed scored an avalanche referendum victory on constitutional changes they say do nothing to ease his tight grip on power.

Preliminary results of Friday's poll showed 98.5 percent of voters approved the text on turnout official estimated at 73 percent. Opposition said the turnout figure looked inflated and alleged irregularities in voting procedures.

The charter explicitly grants executive powers to the government but retains the king at the helm of the cabinet, army, religious authorities and the judiciary.

The result followed a state media campaign in favor of the 'yes' vote that appealed to a widespread sense of loyalty to the head of the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty. It will be studied by Gulf monarchies who have so far dodged reform calls.

"We shall continue to be the only real opposition in this country, the opposition in the street," Najib Chawki, one of the coordinators of the leaderless "February 20" street movement.

"Tomorrow we will see how people react," he said of nationwide rallies called by the group for Sunday. Protests staged last Sunday drew tens of thousands to the streets of the capital Rabat, economic hub Casablanca and the port Tangiers.

Ali Bouabid, of the executive committee of the main Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) party, queried voting procedures at his local polling station on his Facebook page.

"I handed in my voter's card and asked if they should verify my identity. I was told 'we don't do this'," he wrote.

Others questioned why only 13 million voters were registered from a total of nearly 20 million Moroccans of voting age.

The street movement has failed to attract the mass support of popular uprisings that toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt, and the vote result could be a further blow to its credibility.

France, which maintains close links with the North African state which was once its protectorate, said the results appeared to show Moroccans had taken a "clear and historic decision."

"In the restive regional context, where the democratic process has been forced to impose itself by sometimes violent confrontation ... Morocco has managed in four months to take a decisive step forward peacefully and through dialogue," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement.

A staunch Western ally, Morocco has stepped up cooperation against terrorism and illegal migration, notably with the European Union which is keen to avoid the spread of Islamic militancy along its southern shores.

The 47-year-old king has had some success in repairing the legacy of human right abuses, high illiteracy and poverty he inherited after his late father's 38-year rule ended in 1999. Yet critics say there remains a wide disparity between rich and poor, and complain of human rights and rule of law failings.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris;

Writing by Mark John; Editing by Jon Boyle)

    Protests set after Moroccan king wins vote landslide, R, 2.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/us-morocco-reform-idUSTRE76019220110702

Syrian forces kill 24, protesters tell Assad to go

Fri, Jul 1 2011
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed 24 civilians on Friday, a prominent rights lawyer said, as tens of thousands of people called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down in some of the biggest demonstrations since a three month uprising.

Defying Assad's military crackdown, demonstrators took to the streets again after Friday prayers across the country, from towns near the western Lebanese border to the desert regions near Iraq in the east.

"Bashar get out of our lives," read placards carried by thousands of Kurds who marched in the northeastern city of Amouda, according to a YouTube video taken by resident.

Encouraged by the widening protests, prominent opposition figures plan to convene a 'national salvation' conference in Damascus on July 16 to reach a broad based blueprint for solving Syria's political crisis.

"In light of the military solution chosen by the regime to end the revolution, the conference aims to reach a consensus guided by the popular protest movement for a transitional period and a national salvation government that lays the foundation for a new constitution and free elections," said a statement by the organizers, which was sent to Reuters.

The statement was signed by 50 figures, including Kurdish leader Mishaal al-Tammo, former judge Haitham al-Maleh, Nawaf al-Bashir, a tribal leader from the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, economist Aref Dalila, a fierce critic of the Assad's family's involvement in business and Walid al-Bunni, a physician who played a major role in a movement for democracy crushed by Assad ten years ago known as Damascus Spring.

With an intensifying security campaign that rights campaigners said resulted in arbitrary arrests of over 1,000 people over the last week alone, organizers said the conference would be far more difficult to convene than a meeting of intellectuals allowed by the authorities last week that gave a rare platform to several opposition figures.

Lawyer Razan Zaitouna told Reuters by phone that the 24 dead included seven protesters in the central city of Homs, scene of widening protests against Assad and 14 villagers in the northwestern province of Idlib, where troops backed by tanks and helicopters have been storming villages to subdue dissent.

The assaults concentrated on the northern section of Jabal al-Zawya region, home to 15,000 people, many of whom are trying to flee to Turkey, which already has 10,000 refugees from attacks in Idlib earlier this month.

"Troops have heavily blocked the roads leading out of Jabal al-Zawya and only tens of people have made it to Turkey. The roads are also dangerous because there is random gunfire from helicopters and tanks," a resident of the region said.

In the city of Hama, video footage appeared to show tens of thousands of protesters massed in a central square. Witnesses and activists said demonstrators in Hama and in Kurdish eastern areas carried red cards, employing a soccer symbol to demand Assad's "sending off."

Authorities have banned most international media from operating in Syria since the outbreak of the protests in March, making it difficult to verify reports from activists and authorities.

State television said gunmen had fired on security forces in Homs in several other towns, wounding two of them.

In the old Homs district of Bab Sbaa, a witness said several armored vehicles deployed and soldiers fired at protesters from road blocks set up in main streets in the city of one million.

Another activist in Homs said troops surrounded a private hospital in Bab Sbaa and several wounded people rushed to another hospital on the outskirts of the city where security forces were not present.

ASSAD "RUNNING OUT OF TIME"

Protesters have taken to the streets for 14 weeks to protest against Assad in unrest which has claimed the lives of around 1,300 civilians, with security forces arresting over 12,000 people and shooting security personnel who refused to fire on civilians, according to rights groups.

Authorities say 500 police and soldiers have been killed by gunmen they also blame for most of the civilian deaths.

Alongside the military crackdown, Assad has promised a national dialogue on political reforms.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "disheartened" by reports of continued violence near the Syrian border with Turkey. Monday's meeting in Damascus, she said, was not enough on its own to address demands for reform.

"It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time," she said during a visit to Lithuania.

"They are either going to allow a serious political process that will include peaceful protests to take place throughout Syria and engage in a productive dialogue with members of the opposition and civil society, or they're going to continue to see increasingly organized resistance."

Around 100 people crossed over into Lebanon early on Friday, witnesses said. Thousands have fled to Lebanon during the three months of unrest, but many have returned and it is unclear how many remain in Lebanon.

Syrian television showed a pro-Assad demonstration of around 100 people in the northern city of Aleppo on Friday, and state media reported several other large gatherings organized by the authorities on Thursday which they said expressed support for Assad's proposed reforms.

The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Assad and his top officials in response to the violent repression of the protests.

On Wednesday the U.S. Treasury Department said it was also imposing sanctions against Syria's security forces for human rights abuses and against Iran for supporting them.

The Treasury named the four major branches of Syria's security forces and said any assets they may have subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen and that Americans are barred from any dealings with them.

Damascus and Tehran both deny Western accusations that Iran has supported the crackdown on Syrian protesters.

 

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Vilnius; Writing by Dominic Evans;
Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

    Syrian forces kill 24, protesters tell Assad to go, R, 1.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/02/us-syria-protests-idUSTRE7601NA20110702

Egypt police fire teargas at protesting youths

CAIRO, June 29 | Tue Jun 28, 2011
9:08pm EDT
Reuters
By Patrick Werr

CAIRO, June 29 (Reuters) - Police fired teargas in Cairo's central Tahrir Square overnight on Wednesday at several hundred mainly Egyptian youths, some of whom threw stones and demanded that trials of former senior officials proceed more swiftly.

Clashes broke out late on Tuesday in a nearby area of Cairo where families of some of the more than 840 people killed in the uprising that led to Hosni Mubarak's overthrow in February had gathered to honor those killed.

The Interior Ministry blamed a group seeking to disrupt the event and stir up a riot. It was the first such violence in weeks in Tahrir Square, the center of the revolt that led to Mubarak being toppled. Police in riot gear and with shields blocked protesters from marching toward the ministry.

Ambulances workers treated people mostly for inhaling teargas. A Reuters correspondent saw several people with minor wounds, including some with cuts on their heads.

"The people are angry that the court cases against top officials keep getting delayed," Ahmed Abdel Hamid, 26, a bakery employee, said at the scene. He clutched stones in his hands.

He said police clashed with some of those gathered at the event to honor the "martyrs," as those killed in the uprising are called. This prompted protesters to move to Tahrir.

"The people want the fall of the regime," some chanted in Tahrir.

Others called for Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the military council now ruling Egypt, to step down.

The ministry said in a statement that a group of people had been stopped from joining the event at a theater to honor the "martyrs" and had tried to barge their way in, prompting the police to intervene.

The group moved to other areas. Police detained seven people it blamed for stirring up riots, the ministry said.

Political activists who have helped organize other recent protests in Tahrir said the angry scenes on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday were not part of any planned protest.

Egypt's former interior minister, Habib al-Adli, has been sentenced to jail for corruption but he and other officials are still being tried on charges related to killing protesters. Police vehicles were stoned by protesters at Sunday's hearing.

Police used batons, teargas, water cannon and live ammunition against protesters in the first days of the 18-day uprising before they were ordered off the streets and the army moved in. Mubarak then handed power to an army council.

The former president, now hospitalized, has also been charged with killing protesters and could face the death penalty. Mubarak's trial starts on August 3.

 

(Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

    Egypt police fire teargas at protesting youths, R, 29.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-egypt-protest-idUSTRE75R7ZM20110629

International court orders Gaddafi's arrest

THE HAGUE/TRIPOLI | Mon Jun 27, 2011
6:02pm EDT
Reuters
By Aaron Gray-Block and Nick Carey

THE HAGUE/TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on Monday for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and rebels trying to oust him said their forces had advanced to within 80 km (50 miles) of the capital.

The Hague-based court approved warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity. ICC prosecutors allege they were involved in the killing of civilian protesters who rose up in February against Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

"To prevent them covering up ongoing crimes and committing new crimes, they should be arrested. This is the only way to protect civilians in Libya," said ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who had sought the arrest warrants.

Reading out the warrant at the court in The Hague, presiding judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng said Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was accused of having "conceived and orchestrated a plan to deter and quell by all means the civilian demonstrations". Senussi was accused of using his position to have attacks carried out.

However the warrant is unlikely to lead to Gaddafi's arrest as long he remains in power and inside Libya, because the court does not have the power to enforce its warrants.

"Libya ... does not accept the decisions of the ICC which is a tool of the Western world to prosecute leaders in the Third World," Justice Minister Mohammed al-Qamoodi said.

"The leader of the revolution and his son do not hold any official position in the Libyan government and therefore they have no connection to the claims of the ICC against them," Qamoodi told a Tripoli news conference.

Gaddafi's government says he holds no formal post despite ruling for 41 years. The administration has denied targeting civilians, saying it has taken justified military action against armed criminal gangs and al Qaeda militants.

Celebrations erupted in the rebel-held city of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, after the ICC's decision. Insurgent officials said the move meant negotiations with Gaddafi were impossible.

"After this warrant, it is all irrelevant. We cannot negotiate with war criminals," Jalal al-Galal, spokesman of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) told Reuters.

The move also was welcomed by NATO and alliance members.

"It's another indication that Muammar Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

In a separate blow to the Gaddafi family, Western diplomats said a U.N. Security Council sanctions committee had banned Gaddafi's wife from traveling outside Libya.

Although Gaddafi and other members of his family have been on a U.N. blacklist since February, Russia had blocked the inclusion of Gaddafi's wife Safia on the list of individuals facing a travel ban and asset freeze until last week.

 

BREAKTHROUGH

Anti-Gaddafi rebels, based in the Western Mountains region southwest of Tripoli, made their biggest breakthrough in weeks to reach the town of Bir al-Ghanam, where they are now fighting pro-Gaddafi forces for control, their spokesman said.

The move took them 30 km (18 miles) north of their previous position and closer to Tripoli, Gaddafi's main power base.

"There were battles there most of yesterday," Juma Ibrahim, a rebel spokesman, said by telephone.

"Some of our fighters were martyred and they (government forces) also suffered casualties and we captured equipment and vehicles. It's quiet there today and the rebels are still in their positions," he said from the nearby town of Zintan.

The rebels have been battling Gaddafi's forces since late February, when thousands of people rebelled, prompting a fierce crackdown by Gaddafi's security forces.

The revolt has turned into the bloodiest of the Arab Spring uprisings against autocratic rulers across the Middle East.

In Nalut district by the Tunisian border, rebels said power and water infrastructure had been hit by pro-Gaddafi bombing.

"There is a crisis here," a spokesman, identified as Mohammed, said. "We are without electricity after the brigades hit high-voltage electricity posts ... and the power problem affected water supplies."

A Reuters reporter in the center of Tripoli heard at least two loud explosions on Monday coming from the direction of Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziyah compound, repeatedly targeted by NATO.

Later, government officials took reporters to the compound. They showed them a burned-out bus which, they said, belonged to Gaddafi and had been hit by two NATO missiles.

 

ISOLATION

Gaddafi is the second sitting head of state to have an ICC arrest warrant issued against him. One was issued previously for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Securing arrests, however, has proven difficult for the ICC, which has no police force and relies on member states to enforce arrest orders. Some states have refused to arrest Bashir, who is still able to travel to friendly states.

Mohammed al-Alagi, justice minister for the Libyan rebels, told reporters in The Hague that, depending events, they might opt to prosecute Gaddafi in Libya.

Some military officials within NATO have been warning for weeks that alliance resources are being stretched thin by a bombing campaign that has so far failed to dislodge Gaddafi.

Germany's Spiegel Online cited government sources as saying Berlin had agreed to a request to supply NATO with bomb components, the latest indication of the strain on alliance munitions supplies from its three-month bombing campaign.

Germany broke ranks with NATO allies to abstain in the United Nations vote allowing military action and has not participated in the campaign. France and Britain, which have carried out most of the bombing, have been given U.S. bombs.

A German defense ministry spokesman said a request for supplies came from the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, but declined to give details. "The general willingness to provide support was signaled," he said.

In neighboring Tunisia, three Libyan ministers, including the foreign minister, were holding talks with "foreign parties," the Tunisian state news agency reported, in a possible sign some in Gaddafi's circle were seeking a settlement.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington could not confirm the talks were taking place but said any discussions must focus on Gadaffi's departure.

"He's got to end the violence, he's got to pull back and he's got to step down from power. So if that's the tenor of the conversation, we'd be interested to hear about it," Nuland said.

 

(Additional reporting by Maria Golovnina in Benghazi and bureaus in Berlin, Tunis, Algiers, Cairo, the United Nations, Washington and Brussels; Writing by Christian Lowe and Mark John; Editing by Michael Roddy)

    International court orders Gaddafi's arrest, R, 27.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110627

Tunisia's Ben Ali sentenced in absentia to 35 years in jail

TUNIS, Jun | Mon Jun 20, 2011
7:07pm EDT
Reuters
By Tarek Amara

TUNIS, Jun (Reuters) - A Tunisian court sentenced former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in absentia on Monday to 35 years in jail, six months after his overthrow in a revolution helped to inspire the "Arab Spring."

Ben Ali, who has been in Saudi Arabia since he was forced from power, was found guilty after just one day of deliberation of theft and of illegally possessing jewelry and large sums of cash.

The same sentence was handed down to his wife Leila Trabelsi, a former hairdresser whose lavish lifestyle and clique of wealthy relatives were symbols of the corruption of the Ben Ali era for many Tunisians.

Ben Ali and his wife flew to Saudi Arabia on January 14 after mass protests against his 23-year rule. The Tunisian government said in February it had asked Saudi Arabia to extradite Ben Ali.

During his time in office, members of his extended family accumulated fortunes while his security forces routinely arrested anyone who dared to dissent.

Tunisia's revolt electrified millions across the Arab world who suffer similarly from high unemployment, rising prices and repressive governments. Ben Ali's case has been watched closely in Egypt, where former president Hosni Mubarak is due to stand trial over the killing of protesters.

In a statement issued by his lawyers earlier on Monday, Ben Ali denied all the charges against him, saying that he was the victim of a political plot. He said he had been tricked into leaving the country.

"What a moment," said Meriam, a student who was one of a handful of people waiting late into the evening outside the courthouse to hear the verdict. "After 23 years when he manipulated the courts, today a very fair court has returned to us a little bit of our honor."

"My brother was put in prison for nothing ... and the other one was forced to stay in Europe in exile for nine years," she said. "This (verdict) gives us some peace."

STEALING

Judge Touhami Hafian, who read out the verdict and sentence in the Palace of Justice in the Tunisian capital, also ruled that Ben Ali and his wife would have to pay fines totaling 91 million Tunisian dinars ($65.6 million).

The judge said the verdict on other charges, relating to illegal possession of drugs and weapons, would be handed down on June 30, according to a Reuters reporter who was in the courtroom.

During the hearing, a prosecutor had asked the judge to hand down "the most severe punishments for those who betrayed the trust and stole the money of the people for their personal gain .... They did not stop stealing for 23 years."

Ben Ali's defense lawyers refused to comment after the sentence was passed. Abderrazak Kilani, a senior lawyer who was not involved in the trial, told Reuters: "They have been given the heaviest sentence in this type of case."

Earlier, Ben Ali's lawyers had given the first detailed account of the events that led to his departure from Tunisia.

At the time, thousands of protesters had gathered in the center of the capital Tunis to demand that he step down, the culmination of three weeks of demonstrations which police tried to disperse by firing on the crowds.

The statement issued by his lawyers said that the head of presidential security had come to Ben Ali in his office and told him that "friendly" foreign intelligence services had passed on information about a plot to assassinate the president.

He was persuaded to get on a plane that was taking his wife and children to safety in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but with the intention of returning immediately, the statement said.

"He boarded the plane with his family after ordering the crew to wait for him in Jeddah. But after his arrival in Jeddah, the plane returned to Tunisia without waiting for him, contrary to his orders.

"He did not leave his post as president of the republic and hasn't fled Tunisia as he was falsely accused of doing," the statement said.

Ben Ali's version of events is unlikely to draw sympathy from the majority of Tunisians. They are now enjoying relative freedom after decades when most people would not speak openly for fear of arrest by the secret police.

In his statement released on Monday, Ben Ali said the weapons he was accused of possessing illegally were gifts from other heads of state and the jewelry had been given as presents to his wife by foreign dignitaries.

The money and drugs had been planted in his home and the presidential palace after his departure as part of the plot against him, he said in the statement.

 

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by David Stamp and Elizabeth Fullerton)

    Tunisia's Ben Ali sentenced in absentia to 35 years in jail, R, 20.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/20/us-tunisia-benali-trial-idUSTRE75J2A020110620

Factbox: Ben Ali's two-decade rule in Tunisia

Mon Jun 20, 2011
3:20pm EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - Here are some facts about former Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, whose trial in absentia began on Monday.

BEN ALI AS LEADER:

* Ben Ali was declared president in November 1987, six weeks after becoming prime minister, when he arranged for doctors to declare Habib Bourguiba -- the founder of modern Tunisia and then president-for-life -- senile and unfit to rule.

* He was elected unopposed for a first five-year mandate in 1989 and re-elected, as sole candidate again, in 1994.

* In 1999, Ben Ali won a new five-year term with 99.4 percent of the vote, despite the introduction of multi-party politics. The figure raised eyebrows in the West and human rights groups called the election a sham.

* A referendum in 2002 on a new constitution allowing Ben Ali to extend his rule theoretically until 2014 was approved with more than a 99 percent majority.

* Ben Ali won 94.4 percent of the vote in the 2004 presidential election. In 2009 he was re-elected to a fifth term with 89.62 percent of the vote. Ben Ali rejected allegations the vote was unfair and said anyone spreading lies to damage the country's image would be prosecuted.

* Clashes broke out in December 2010 around the country as students, professionals and youths protested against corruption, a shortage of jobs and restrictions on public freedoms.

-- Nearly 150 people were killed in the protests, according to the United Nations.

-- On January 14, 2011, Ben Ali stepped down, ending 23 years of autocratic rule. He flew to Saudi Arabia, where he has been living in Jeddah.

* Ben Ali has stayed out of sight since he was ousted. In the first detailed account of the events leading up his ouster, he said through his lawyers on Monday that he was tricked into leaving Tunisia, and denied he had fled.

THE TRIAL:

* Ben Ali and his wife are charged with theft, and with unlawful possession of about $31 million in cash, jewelry, weapons, archeological artifacts, and nearly 2 kg of illegal drugs.

* Ben Ali has said that his trial is an attempt by the country's new rulers to distract attention from their failure to restore stability.

* Speaking through his lawyers, Ben Ali denied the charges against him and mounted a defense of his time in office, which many Tunisians say was marked by autocratic rule, corruption and abuses of human rights.

LIFE DETAILS:

* Ben Ali was born in September 1936 in Hammam Sousse in the Sahel, near the city of Sousse.

* Educated in France and the United States, while still a young staff officer he created in 1964 the Military Security Department which he ran for 10 years. In 1974, he was appointed military attache to Morocco and Spain and then Director General of National Security in December 1977.

* He was appointed as Tunisia's ambassador in Warsaw from 1980 to 1984. He became minister of national security from 1984-86, interior minister from 1986-87 and prime minister in October 1987.

* Ben Ali was the ubiquitous face of Tunisia. His portrait adorned practically every shop and public building.

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com)

(Writing by Maghreb bureau and David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)

    Factbox: Ben Ali's two-decade rule in Tunisia, R, 20.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/20/us-tunisia-benali-profile-idUSTRE75J4Z820110620

NATO admits Libya air strike led to civilian deaths

TRIPOLI | Mon Jun 20, 2011
1:17am EDT
Reuters
By Nick Carey

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - NATO has admitted it destroyed a house in Tripoli in which Libyan officials said nine civilians were killed, an incident likely to sow new doubts inside the alliance about its mission in Libya.

The air strike was the clearest case yet of NATO bombing causing multiple civilian casualties, and comes at a time when NATO is already under strain from a campaign that is taking more time and resources than it expected.

A NATO statement said a military missile site was the intended target of the air strikes but that it appeared one of the weapons did not strike that target.

"NATO regrets the loss of innocent civilian lives and takes great care in conducting strikes against a regime determined to use violence against its own citizens," said Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's operations over Libya.

"Although we are still determining the specifics of this event, indications are that a weapons system failure may have caused this incident," he said.

Reporters taken to the residential area in Tripoli's Souq al-Juma district by Libyan officials early on Sunday saw several bodies being pulled out of the rubble of a destroyed building.

Later, in a hospital, they were shown the bodies of two children and three adults who, officials said, were among those killed in the strike.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi said the NATO strike was a "pathetic attempt .... to break the spirit of the people of Tripoli and allow small numbers of terrorists to cause instability and disorder in the peaceful city."

"We will never forgive, we will never forget, we are here; on our land, united with our leader, ready for peace and ready for the fight for our freedom and honor," he told a news conference.

But a spokesman for the rebels fighting to end Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year rule said the Libyan leader was to blame.

"We are sorry for the loss of civilian life that was caused by air strikes carried out by NATO," said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council.

"We hold the Gaddafi regime responsible for having placed its military (installations) near civilian areas," he said. "So these losses are to be expected."

 

ALLIANCE UNDER STRAIN

NATO has been pounding targets in Libya since March 19 in what it says is an operation to protect civilians who rebelled against Gaddafi's 41-year rule. The Libyan leader says it is an act of colonial aggression designed to steal oil.

Strains are appearing within NATO member states as the campaign drags on for longer than envisaged and Gaddafi remains in power -- even making a show of defiance last week by playing chess with a visiting official.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believed NATO should be allowed to stick at its task. "I think this is going to end OK. I think Gaddafi will eventually fall," he told CNN.

At the scene of the destroyed building on Sunday, clothes, smashed crockery and a rubber duck littered the area.

The building is in a neighbourhood where security forces have in the past few weeks put down anti-Gaddafi protests.

"Why is NATO doing this to us? Why?" asked Ibrahim Ali, who said he lived on the same street as the wrecked building. "NATO is a big problem for the Libyan people. NATO doesn't have any business here, this is between the Libyan people."

Another man, who gave his name as Tony, nodded toward the remains of the building and said: "They (local people) don't like this ... But they don't like the regime either."

 

(Additional reporting by Matt Robinson in Misrata, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Maria Golovnina in Benghazi and Washington bureau; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Jon Hemming)

    NATO admits Libya air strike led to civilian deaths, R, 20.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/20/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110620

Israel asks U.S. to let spy out of jail for funeral

JERUSALEM | Sun Jun 19, 2011
1:13pm EDT
Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel appealed to the United States Sunday to allow imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard out of jail to attend his father's funeral, Israeli Army Radio reported.

Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, has been serving a life sentence in the United States since he was caught spying for Israel in the 1980s, triggering a scandal that rocked U.S.-Israeli relations.

Israeli media said Pollard's father died in an Indiana hospital Saturday. Army Radio said a top advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent an official request to the White House to allow Pollard out for the funeral.

An Israeli government official, who asked not to be named, said that "such a message has been sent to the White House," but would not give further details.

Pollard, who admitted spying for Israel, was arrested in 1985 and sentenced for providing tens of thousands of pages of classified information to Israel. Netanyahu in January asked U.S. President Barack Obama to grant him clemency.

 

(Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jan Harvey)

    Israel asks U.S. to let spy out of jail for funeral, R, 19.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/19/us-israel-us-pollard-idUSTRE75I1UW20110619

Clashes between army, militants in Yemen kill 21

ADEN | Sun Jun 19, 2011
12:17pm EDT
Reuters

ADEN (Reuters) - At least 12 militants and nine soldiers were killed in three clashes on Sunday in southern Yemen, where Islamists and separatists have launched several attacks during the country's bloody political crisis.

Twelve militants and two soldiers were killed outside Zinjibar -- the capital of the flashpoint southern province of Abyan, a military official said.

A local official later told Reuters that five soldiers were killed in a separate attack by militants near Zinjibar.

In the southern province of Lahej, a local official said two soldiers were killed in a shootout.

Thousands of people have fled the clashes between the army and militants believed to be close to al Qaeda in the southern province of Abyan, after its capital Zinjibar fell to militants last month.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's opponents have accused him of handing over Zinjibar to Islamists to reinforce his threat that the end of his three-decade rule, as demanded by protesters, would amount to ceding the region to al Qaeda.

In Lahej, where both separatists and Islamist forces have as much or more sway than the central government, gunmen have launched bold attacks in recent weeks.

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and Western countries fear protracted chaos could give al Qaeda a foothold in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state.

Yemen straddles oil export routes and has been a cornerstone of U.S. counterterrorism strategy.

Saleh's supporters say he will return in days from Saudi Arabia where he is being treated after being wounded two weeks ago in an attack at his presidential palace.

 

(Reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaf; Editing by Jan Harvey)

    Clashes between army, militants in Yemen kill 21, R, 19.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/19/us-yemen-clashes-idUSTRE75I1FO20110619

NATO Says It Mistakenly Hit Libyan Rebels Again

June 18, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

TRIPOLI, Libya — NATO acknowledged Saturday that its aircraft had mistakenly hit a column of rebel military vehicles last week near the Libyan oil port of Brega, and early Sunday morning the Qaddafi government showed reporters a destroyed cinder-block house that neighbors and the government said was hit by an errant NATO airstrike in the capital.

Two bodies were pulled from the rubble, and at the Tripoli Central Hospital, government officials showed reporters three others, including an infant and a child, who they said were killed in the house.

It was the first time in three months of airstrikes that the Qaddafi government has presented credible evidence of what appeared to be direct civilian casualties of NATO attacks. Although the government has often claimed large numbers of civilian deaths, it has never previously presented bodies or consistent facts about the dead.

The destroyed building was far from any obvious military facility, in the Souq al Juma area, which is known for its hostility to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and some neighbors who said they opposed him nonetheless confirmed the government’s account of an airstrike. Still, journalists visiting the site found no pieces of a bomb. NATO could not be reached for comment, and it was impossible to rule out another explanation.

Neighbors said that three or more families lived in the building, and government officials said it housed 15 people in an extended family with the last name al-Ghrari. Moussa Ibrahim, a Qaddafi government spokesman, called the leaders of the NATO countries criminals and said they were “planting the seeds of hatred for generations to come.”

The number of casualties from the strike on the convoy of vehicles, meanwhile, could not be determined.

“We regret any possible loss of life or injuries caused by this unfortunate incident,” NATO said in a statement. The attack was at least the third such episode since the air campaign began three months ago.

The strike, which occurred Thursday, took place against a backdrop of blurry battle lines as the rebels challenging Colonel Qaddafi pushed against his forces near Brega in the east, outside Zlitan in the midcoast, and in the Nafusa Mountains to the west. The fighting on each of the three fronts has been mired in a back-and-forth pattern without much movement for about five days, and Qaddafi forces have been using civilian vehicles like pickup trucks, just as the rebels do, in an apparent effort to confuse NATO.

In this case, NATO said in its statement, its surveillance had spotted the column of military vehicles, which included tanks, in an area where Qaddafi forces “had recently been operating.” The statement added, “In a particularly complex and fluid battle scenario, it was assessed these vehicles were a threat to civilians.”

In April, NATO admitted its planes twice hit rebel positions, killing more than a dozen men.

Around the same time as Thursday’s mistaken strike, rebels based in the city of Misurata were complaining that NATO had been telling their fighters to hold back from the battlefront near Zlitan to avoid getting caught in attacks on Qaddafi forces there. The rebels said NATO had failed to deliver the promised attacks on the Qaddafi forces and in the process slowed the rebel advance.

“If it wasn’t for NATO, we could have moved the combat line much further from Misurata,” said Mohamed, a rebel spokesman, though it is far from clear that the rebels could have held their ground without NATO support. The spokesman’s full name was withheld to protect his family.

    NATO Says It Mistakenly Hit Libyan Rebels Again, NYT, 18.6.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/world/africa/19libya.html

Syria forces kill 19 in biggest protests: activists

Fri, Jun 17 2011
AMMAN | Fri Jun 17, 2011
8:10pm EDT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces shot dead 19 people on Friday when they fired at demonstrators demanding the removal of President Bashar al-Assad in the biggest protest since unrest against Baathist rule erupted in March, activists said.

European powers, which had initiated a detente with Assad prior to the street protests to try to draw the Syrian leader away from Iran and also stabilize Lebanon, said Damascus should face tougher sanctions for the violence.

Tens of thousands of people rallied across the country, defying Assad's military crackdown and ignoring a pledge that his tycoon cousin Rami Makhlouf, a symbol of corruption, would renounce his business empire and channel his wealth to charity.

"Protests last week were big and this week they are bigger still. The demonstrators have not held squares consistently yet in big cities like we had seen in Egypt, but we're heading in this direction," opposition figure Walid al-Bunni told Reuters by telephone from Damascus.

"The security grip is weakening because the protests are growing in numbers and spreading, and more people are risking their lives to demonstrate. The Syrian people realize that this is an opportunity for liberty that comes once in hundreds of years," said Bunni, who was a political prisoner for eight years.

The worst bloodshed was in Homs, a merchant city of one million people in central Syria, where the Local Coordination Committees, a main activist group linked to protesters, said 10 demonstrators were killed. State television said a policeman was killed by gunmen.

One protester was also reported killed in the northern commercial hub of Aleppo, the first to die there in the unrest.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which operates from Britain, said it could confirm only 10 civilians killed overall in Syria.

The Syrian government has barred most international journalists from the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.

Syrian authorities blame the violence on "armed terrorist groups" and Islamists, backed by foreign powers.

Friday Muslim prayers have provided a platform for the biggest protests, inspired by revolts across the Arab world.

Witnesses and activists said tens of thousands of people protested in the southern province of Deraa where the revolt began, as well as in the Kurdish northeast, the province of Deir al-Zor, which borders Iraq's Sunni heartland, the city of Hama north of Damascus, the coast and suburbs of the capital itself.

Two towns on the main Damascus-Aleppo highway north of Homs were also encircled by troops and tanks, residents said, five days after the army retook the town of Jisr al-Shughour, sending thousands feeling across the nearby border into Turkey.

Refugees from the northwestern region said troops and gunmen loyal to Assad, known as 'shabbiha' were pressing on with a scorched earthed campaign in the hill farm area by burning crops, ransacking houses and shooting randomly.

 

MORE REFUGEES

The International Federation for Human Rights and the U.S. based Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies said in a statement that, according to local sources, the Syrian forces killed more than 130 people and arrested over 2,000 in Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages over the last few days.

The number of refugees who had crossed over from Syria has reached 9,600, and another 10,000 were sheltering by the border just inside Syria, according to Turkish officials.

Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people have been detained since March.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.

Assad has responded to the unrest with a mix of military repression and political gestures aimed at placating protesters.

Assad faces international condemnation over the violence, and has seen the first signs of cracks in his security forces after a clash in Jisr al-Shughour earlier this month in which the government said 120 security personnel were killed.

There have been no mass desertions from the military, but the loyalty of Sunni Muslim conscripts might waver if the crackdown on mainly Sunni protesters continues.

Assad's family and many military commanders are members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

 

SECURITY COUNCIL DEADLOCK

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, trying to break a deadlock over a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria's crackdown.

Their discussion focused on "how the U.S. and Russia can work together to make sure that we can get to a U.N. Security Council resolution," a State Department spokeswoman said.

Russia and China dislike the idea of any Council judgment on Syria and have played little role in discussions on a draft resolution to condemn Syrian bloodshed against protesters.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France and Germany had agreed to lobby for stronger sanctions against Syria for "unacceptable actions and repression" of protesters.

"I believe there is a realization that force is being used against the people in a way that is not acceptable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after talks with Sarkozy. "Therefore both of us will talk to Russia in our own ways to (ensure) we are successful."

A witness in the Damascus suburb of Irbin said protesters burned a Russian flag to protest against Moscow's stance.

In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli two people were killed in a clash between Sunni and Alawite residents, a military source said, after an anti-Assad demonstration erupted following noon prayers.

 

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Tulay Kardeniz in Guvecci, Yann Le Guernigou and Stephen Brown in Berlin, Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Syria forces kill 19 in biggest protests: activists, R, 17.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/18/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110618

Morocco King to lose some powers, remain key figure

RABAT | Fri Jun 17, 2011
6:17pm EDT
Reuters
By Souhail Karam

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco's King Mohammed promised a new democratic constitution on Friday that would devolve some of his powers to parliament and the government, adding Moroccans would be able to vote for the changes in a July 1 referendum.

The reformed constitution will shift some powers to government and hold officials more accountable, but the king will retain his grip on security, the army and religion, according to a draft seen by Reuters earlier in the day.

Addressing the nation in a TV address, Mohammed said he would vote for the new charter and urged Moroccans to do likewise.

"We have managed ... to develop a new democratic constitutional charter," he said.

"I am addressing you today to renew our joint commitment to achieving a significant transition in completing the construction of a state based on the rule of law and on democratic institutions, and ... good governance"

After facing the biggest anti-establishment protests in decades, King Mohammed in March ordered a hand-picked committee to discuss constitutional reform with political parties, trade unions and NGOs. The brief was to trim the 47-year-old monarch's clout and make the judiciary independent.

The moves by King Mohammed, who heads the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty, are being closely monitored by Gulf Arab monarchies which have so far dodged calls at home for reforms and are concerned the Moroccan model may raise expectations in their countries.

The final draft of the reformed constitution explicitly grants the government executive powers, although the king would keep exclusive control over military and religious fields and pick a prime minister from the party that wins the polls.

Ministers, ambassadors and provincial governors, who are interior ministry representatives, would be proposed by the prime minister although the king has to approve the choices.

"The constitution gives the head of government (prime minister) the power to propose and dismiss cabinet members, to steer and coordinate government action, and to supervise public service," Mohammed said in his speech, but he added that he was "the trustworthy guide and supreme arbiter."

"Appointments in the military remain an exclusive, sovereign prerogative of the King, Supreme Commander and Chief of Staff of the Royal Armed Forces," he said.

Further, the prime minister would be able to dissolve the lower house of parliament after consulting the king, house speaker and head of the constitutional court.

The new constitution would "enshrine citizenship-based monarchy and the citizen king," Mohammed said.

Najib Chawki, an activist from the February 20 Movement, said the constitutional reform draft "does not respond to the essence of our demands which is establishing a parliamentary monarchy. We are basically moving from a de facto absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy."

The movement has called for the creation in Morocco of a parliamentary monarchy, an end to the influence of the king's inner circle, the dismissal of the government, and for officials and businessmen it accuses of corruption to be put on trial.

 

SECURITY ROLE

Driss Lachgar, Minister in charge of relations with parliament, called the draft "a real revolution and laid the foundations for a parliamentary monarchy."

Protesters have also demanded that the king fight corruption and limit the influence of the secretive palace elite.

But they have not gone as far as demanding an end to the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty and have failed to win the sort of mass popular support that toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt, uprisings which inspired the February 20 Movement.

They have, however, attracted activists of various ideological backgrounds from extreme-left to Islamists and from wealthy businessmen to indigenous Amazigh activists.

The reformed constitution allows the king to delegate the task of chairing ministerial council meetings to the prime minister, which can appoint provincial governors and ambassadors -- prerogatives currently exclusive to the king.

The February 20 Movement plans to push ahead with protests planned for Sunday. "We will continue to mobilize Moroccans for a democratic constitution that widens the scope of public freedoms," said Chawki.

Under the proposed reforms, the king would still be able to dissolve parliament but only after consulting the chairman of a newly introduced Constitutional Court, of which half the members will be appointed by the king.

The reform will introduce a Supreme Security Council which will be chaired by the king as a platform for consultations on domestic and foreign security issues.

It will include among its members the prime minister, speakers of the bi-cameral parliament and senior army officers.

The reformed constitution also recognizes Tamazight as an official language alongside Arabic, a move which looks set to appease Amazigh activists within February 20 Movement. Amazigh are North Africa's original inhabitants before Arabs conquered it in the seventh century to spread Islam.

 

(Editing by John Irish; Editing by Jon Boyle)

    Morocco King to lose some powers, remain key figure, R, 17.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/us-morocco-reform-constitution-idUSTRE75G69820110617

Yemen gunmen attack in south, Saleh vows to fight on

SANAA/ADEN | Thu Jun 16, 2011
3:01pm EDT
Reuters
By Mohammed Ghobari and Mohammed Mukhashaf

SANAA/ADEN (Reuters) - President Ali Abdullah Saleh vowed on Thursday to overcome Yemen's crisis, signaling once again he has no plans to quit, and in the latest in a wave of raids, gunmen attacked government buildings and a checkpoint.

Gulf Arab states have seen Saleh, forced to have surgery in Saudi Arabia after an attack on his palace this month, thwart three diplomatic bids to ease him from power and end a political crisis that has threatened to descend into civil war.

"Yemen is capable of overcoming the crisis and achieving the supreme interests of the Yemeni people," state media quoted Saleh as telling Bahrain's king by telephone.

Months of pro-democracy protests against Saleh's 33-year rule have nearly paralyzed the country, leading to severe shortages of electricity, water and fuel.

Shipping sources said a tanker carrying 600,000 barrels of oil arrived at the port of Aden as part of a grant of 3 million barrels promised by Saudi Arabia. The sources said it would go to Aden's refinery, idled since a blast in April cut the pipeline on which it relies.

The gift underlined how fearful oil giant Saudi Arabia is that a bloody political crisis will tip its poor southern neighbor into chaos and give militants a foothold next to oil shipping routes.

ATTACKS IN THE SOUTH

Opponents of Saleh say he has let his forces hand over power to Islamist militants, who seized Zinjibar -- the capital of the flashpoint southern province of Abyan -- last month, in order to stoke fears that only his rule prevents an Islamist takeover.

On Thursday, masked gunmen, whom Yemen's army called al Qaeda members, briefly took over a security headquarters and government building in Masameer, southern Yemen, residents told Reuters by telephone.

"There was a long battle with the security forces," one resident said. The gunmen retreated after using up their ammunition, the resident said.

One gunman was shot dead and three soldiers were wounded in an attack on a checkpoint in a nearby town, residents said.

Three guards were killed on Wednesday when gunmen stormed other state buildings in the city of al-Hota, close to the site of Thursday's attack in Masameer. Southern separatists and Islamist fighters are both active in the region.

Yemeni forces said they caught ten suspected al Qaeda operatives trying to sneak into the southern port city of Aden late on Wednesday. Aden sits by strategic shipping lanes along which some 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.

At the same time, thousands of refugees have been fleeing to Aden since militants took over Zinjibar.

A local security official said military checkpoints and patrols of banks and government buildings in Aden had been stepped up and that an attempt to blow up a hotel there had been foiled.

"Security forces captured saboteurs who were trying to plant an explosive device in a hotel in Aden," he said. Five more people were detained for firing on residents and raiding stores in the Mansoora area of the city, he said.

Yemen's Defense Ministry said two people were killed on Thursday after "terrorists" fired mortar rounds in the city of Zinjibar, most of whose population has fled.

Yemen scholar Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University said both the government and the opposition had tried to use al Qaeda's presence in Yemen to their advantage in the media.

"We're not sure what's going on in Abyan or in Lahej (in the south) or even in Aden," he said, expressing skepticism toward state reports of the capture or killing of al Qaeda militants.

"On the ground of course, al Qaeda exists ... but not all militants in Yemen are al Qaeda," Johnsen said.

Yemeni scholar Ali Seif Hassan said the rise in violence suggested militant groups that had previously cooperated with Saleh were no longer doing so as his power waned.

"When the new regime comes, they will negotiate with them. They are not al Qaeda, to some extent they are like al Qaeda."

 

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Sudam in Sanaa; Humeyra Pamuk and Nour Merza in Dubai; Writing by Erika Solomon in Manama and Firouz Sedarat in Dubai; Editing by Louise Ireland)

    Yemen gunmen attack in south, Saleh vows to fight on, R, 16.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-yemen-militants-idUSTRE75F2WG20110616

Assad's tycoon cousin, target of protesters, quits

Thu, Jun 16 2011
BEIRUT | Thu Jun 16, 2011
8:13pm EDT
By Mariam Karouny

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian tycoon Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of President Bashar al-Assad and focus of anti-corruption protests, is quitting business, state media said, in a major concession to demonstrations against Assad's rule.

The announcement came on the eve of weekly Muslim prayers, which have usually witnessed the biggest protests and the heaviest bloodshed of the three-month unrest, and as army units circled two restive towns in the north of the country.

Makhlouf controls several businesses including Syria's largest mobile phone operator, duty free shops, an oil concession, airline company and hotel and construction concerns, and shares in at least one bank.

He has been subject to U.S. sanctions since 2007 for what Washington calls public corruption, as well as EU sanctions imposed in May, but repeatedly maintained he was a legitimate businessman whose firms employ thousands of Syrians.

A childhood friend of Assad's who expanded his business since the president assumed power 11 years ago, Makhlouf will channel his wealth into charity and development projects, according to state media.

"As for his businesses, they will be directed so that they ... create jobs and support the national economy. He will not enter into any new project that (brings) him personal gain," Syrian television said.

State news agency SANA quoted Makhlouf as saying he will put his 40 percent holding in Syriatel, up for sale in an initial public offering, with profits allocated to humanitarian work and families of those killed in the unrest.

Syrian rights groups say 1,300 civilians and more than 300 soldiers and police have been killed since the protests broke out in March against 41 years of rule by the Assad family.

 

UN APPEAL

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had spoken to Assad and urged him to halt the violence.

"I again strongly urge President Assad to stop killing people and engage in inclusive dialogue and take bold measures before it's too late," Ban told reporters in Brazil.

Syrian forces, which retook the rebellious town of Jisr al-Shughour near the Turkish border on Sunday, have circled two nearby towns on the main north-south road linking Damascus with the second city of Aleppo.

Army units "have deployed near Khan Sheikhoun and Maarat al-Numaan to ensure the safety" of the highway, SANA said.

Thousands of refugees have fled into neighbouring Turkey, many of them from Jisr al-Shughour, but residents have also reported an exodus from Maarat al-Numaan in anticipation of an army assault there.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held talks with a Syrian envoy in which he called on Damascus to end the violent crackdown and pass democratic reforms.

"Yesterday I clearly saw the fear in the eyes of the people," Davutoglu said in Ankara, a day after he visited a border camp in Yayladagi, about 20 km from Jisr al-Shughour, and talked to refugees.

Syria says thousands of people have returned to Jisr al-Shughour. But Turkish officials said 8,900 Syrians, many from that town, were still in Turkey. Activists say another 10,000 have been sheltering by the border just inside Syria.

"We are hearing that they are calling for people to return, but we know that we will die if we go back," said a refugee on the Turkish side of the border who gave his name as Ahmed.

Activists said the announcement of Makhlouf stepping down would not put a halt to the protests unless it was part of a wider package of reform.

The Local Coordination Committees said that nightly demonstrations, aimed at circumventing heavy daytime security, continued across Syria, including in the Damascus district of Qaboun, Dael in the southern province of Deraa, Deir al-Zor in the east of the country and Homs to the north of Damascus.

 

(Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Assad's tycoon cousin, target of protesters, quits, R, 16.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110617

Rebels dismiss election offer, NATO pounds Tripoli

TRIPOLI | Thu Jun 16, 2011
6:34pm EDT
Reuters
By Nick Carey

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - NATO planes resumed bombardments of Tripoli after Muammar Gaddafi's son said the Libyan leader was willing to hold elections and step aside if he lost, an offer rejected by rebels and the United States.

Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam told an Italian newspaper that the elections could be held within three months and transparency could be guaranteed through international observers.

He said his father would be ready to cede power if he lost the election, though he would not go into exile.

But Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi appeared to throw the potential concession into question, saying on Thursday that the leader of the revolution was not concerned by "any referendum."

A visiting Russian envoy said the Libyan leadership had reiterated that Gaddafi's departure was a "red line."

The rebel leadership in the eastern stronghold of Benghazi rejected Gaddafi's son's election offer.

"We tell him (Saif al-Islam) that the time has passed because our rebels are at the outskirts of Tripoli, and they will join our people and rebels there to uproot the symbol of corruption and tyranny in Libya," rebel spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told Al Jazeera television.

A U.S. State Department official also dismissed the election idea, saying it was "a little late for that."

The proposal -- which follows a series of moves the Libyan leader's officials portray as concessions but Western powers dismiss as ploys -- comes at a time when frustration is mounting in some NATO states at slow military progress.

Rebel advances toward Tripoli have been slow, while weeks of NATO strikes pounding Gaddafi's compound and other targets have failed to end his 41-year-old rule.

In the latest raids, eight loud explosions were heard in southeast and southwest Tripoli late on Thursday and planes could be heard overhead. Libyan state television said NATO had hit targets in the Al-Ferjan district of the city.

 

REBEL ADVANCE

The NATO intervention in Libya has been going on for nearly 13 weeks -- longer than many of its backers anticipated -- and the strains are beginning to show within the alliance.

NATO officials have said they may not have the resources for a sustained campaign, and Republicans in the U.S. Congress have questioned the legal grounds for continued U.S. involvement.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said lawmakers had options for dealing with the conflict, including "the power of the purse" -- an implicit threat to cut off funding.

Libya-watchers say Gaddafi is using his political skills, honed during decades when he was able to survive despite being an international pariah, to try to exploit divisions.

Adding to the pressure on NATO, Russia and China issued a declaration underlining their concerns about the air strikes.

Russia and China decided in March not to use their veto power at the United Nations to block intervention on Libya, but have said NATO risks going beyond the U.N.-authorised mandate to protect civilians.

Rebel forces are now fighting Gaddafi's troops on three fronts: in the east of the country around the oil town of Brega, on the road to Tripoli from the rebel-held port of Misrata, and in the Western Mountains southwest of Tripoli.

They have made slow but important gains in the past few weeks in the mountains and near Misrata, bringing the front closer to Tripoli from the east and southwest.

Gaddafi has called the rebels "rats" and says NATO's campaign is colonial aggression to steal Libya's oil.

In Misrata, the rebels say they are recruiting fighters from the government-held neighboring town of Zlitan before advancing.

Zlitan, just 160 km (100 miles) from Tripoli, is the next major town on the Mediterranean coast road to the capital. Capturing it would be a major victory.

Kalefa Ali, a rebel spokesman in the Western Mountains town of Nalut, told Reuters that despite shelling by Gaddafi forces in Nalut and the Wazin border crossing with Tunisia on Thursday, the rebels would push forward.

"We think we will be able to drive Gaddafi's forces out of the Western Mountains altogether within days," he said.

 

(Writing by John Irish; editing by Mark Trevelyan)

    Rebels dismiss election offer, NATO pounds Tripoli, R, 16.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110616

Syrians flee northern town as tanks close in

AMMAN | Wed Jun 15, 2011
8:54pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Thousands of Syrians have fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape troops and tanks pushing into the north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

In Turkey, which has been receiving thousands of Syrian refugees escaping military assaults, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan held talks on Wednesday with an envoy of Assad as Ankara pressed its southern neighbor to end military attacks n Syrian cities and towns that it has called "savagery."

Residents said an armored column had reached the village of Mantas, 15 km (10 miles) to the east of Maarat al-Numaan while another column was 20 km west at the village of al-Khwein. Troops also continued to be air lifted by helicopter to a staging camp 2 km from the town, residents said.

"The troops are firing randomly at the outskirts of al-Maarat al-Numaan to scare the population, which drove more people to flee tonight," one witness in the village of Maarshamsha on the edge of Maarat al-Numaan told Reuters by telephone.

He said the gunfire killed one man, Mohammad al-Abdallah, and that the shooting was so heavy that he had to be buried in the backyard of his house.

"Cars are continuing to stream out of Maarat al-Numaan in all directions, People are loading them with everything: blankets, mattresses on roofs," another witness said from the town of 100,000, which straddles the north-south highway linking Damascus with Syria's second city, the commercial hub of Aleppo.

On the edge of a limestone massif in an agricultural area in the northwest, Maarat al-Numaan is a center of Muslim pilgrimage and the site of a medieval massacre by Crusaders. In modern times it was the focus of a campaign to crush Islamist and leftist challengers to Bashar's father, the late Hafez al-Assad.

In the conservative Damascus suburb of Harasta, security forces fired live ammunition to disperse a night protest by 200 women demanding the release of their husbands and relatives, arrested in an intensifying security sweep to put down the three-month uprising, a witness said.

"They carried placards saying 'where is my husband' and 'where is my brother' and pictures of the prisoners. No one was hurt but it was barely 10 minutes into the demonstration when they opened fire," said the witness.

 

DESTINATION TURKEY

Maarat al-Numaan's residents said thousands of people headed to Aleppo and to Turkey, adding to a refugee flow following a military assault this week on Jisr al-Shughour, a town near the Turkish border which had also seen large protests.

The official state news agency said an army assault in Jisr al-Shughour had restored security there and thousands of people were returning. But Turkish officials said 8,500 Syrians, many from Jisr al-Shughour, had sought sanctuary in Turkey, which has set up four refugee camps across the border.

Refugees said there had been no mass movement back and another 10,000 were sheltering inside Syria close to the border.

"The Turks are not letting us in as before. Otherwise thousands more would cross," said Khaled, one of the refugees on the Syrian side who had escaped Jisr al-Shughour.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who speaks Arabic, went to the border and talked to refugees, including wounded men lying on beds in camp hospitals.

Seeing Davutoglu approach, the Syrians -- men, women and children -- gathered together chanting "Freedom" and "Erdogan."

"I'll talk to Turkmani (Assad's envoy) and will share with him with all frankness what I saw. We are seeing a humanitarian situation here and developments are concerning," Davutoglu told reporters after visiting a camp in Yayladagi, across from the town of Jisr al-Shughour, 20 km (13 miles) away.

A Reuters correspondent said Turkish authorities have tightened control over the border, making it harder for Syrians to cross unofficially.

A Turkish Red Crescent official, who requested anonymity, said more tent camps were being prepared at the eastern end of the 800 km border, near the Turkish city of Mardin, far from where the current influx of refugees is concentrated.

Fleeing refugees described shootings by troops and gunmen loyal to Assad, known as "shabbiha," and the burning of land and crops in a scorched earth policy to subdue people of the region. The government has accused "armed groups" of burning crops in an act of sabotage.

Syrian authorities said 120 security personnel were killed earlier this month in Jisr al-Shughour. It also said the army had found a second mass grave in the town containing the bodies of soldiers and police killed by "armed terrorist groups."

Witnesses said residents and deserting security forces attacked a police compound in Jisr al-Shughour about 10 days ago after police killed 48 people. They said 60 police, including 20 deserters, were killed.

In the tribal east, where Syria's 380,000 barrels per day of oil is produced, tanks and armored vehicles pulled back from the city of Deir al-Zor and from around Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, a week after tens of thousands of people took to the streets there demanding an end to Assad's autocratic rule.

"The authorities are negotiating with the leaders of the street demonstrations in Albu Kamal to try and avoid an assault," one activist in the region said.

In Damascus, thousands of Assad supporters lined one of the capital's main thoroughfares on Wednesday and lifted a 2,300-meter-long tricolour Syrian flag, while waving pictures of the president. State media said it was a demonstration of national unity and "rejection of foreign interference in Syrian internal affairs."

The protests erupted on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa on the border with Jordan, which was later attacked by forces loyal to Assad. Witnesses said the Deraa border crossing with Jordan partially re-opened to cargo traffic on Thursday.

Syrian rights groups say 1,300 civilians and more than 300 soldiers and police have been killed. Rights campaigners said many of the soldiers were shot by secret police or by loyalist forces for refusing to fire on civilians.

(Additional reporting by Tulay Kardeniz in Guvecci, Turkey; Simon Cameron-Moore and Ibon Villelabeitia in Ankara; Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Syrians flee northern town as tanks close in, R, 15.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110616

NATO strikes Tripoli, Libyan rebels make gains

TRIPOLI/KIKLA, Libya | Wed Jun 15, 2011
12:50am EDT
Reuters
By Nick Carey and Youssef Boudlal

TRIPOLI/KIKLA, Libya (Reuters) - NATO warplanes attacked Tripoli on Tuesday night after Libyan rebels pushed back forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi on three fronts, bringing them closer to the capital.

The strikes followed a lull in NATO bombing of Tripoli on Tuesday, but in the evening loud blasts rocked the city with plumes of smoke filling the sky to the east and aircraft flying overhead.

Libyan state TV said the bombs had struck military and civilian targets in Firnag, one of the most populated areas in the capital, and Ain Zara. It said there were casualties.

Earlier in the day rebels tried to advance in the east, setting their sights on the oil town of Brega to extend their control over the region, epicenter of the four-month rebellion against Gaddafi's four-decade rule.

NATO defense chiefs met in Belgrade to discuss the mission, after Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused some European allies of failing to pull their weight.

A senior NATO commander appeared to raise questions about the alliance's ability to handle a long-term intervention in Libya.

"We are conducting this operation with all the means we have, and the best we can. If the operation were to last long, of course, the resource issue will become critical," General Stephane Abrial said.

In a sign that Gaddafi forces may be getting stretched, the rebels seized the town of Kikla, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Tripoli. They also pushed several kilometers west of their Misrata stronghold to the outskirts of government-held Zlitan.

 

NATO LEAFLET WARNING

The push to Kikla followed weeks of deadlock between the rag-tag rebel army and government forces, though air strikes by NATO have taken their toll on Gaddafi's better-equipped troops.

A NATO leaflet drop warning of helicopter strikes prompted some rebels to retreat from their newly captured positions outside Zlitan.

"We came back because of the leaflets from NATO. I hope there is some coordination between the fighters and NATO ... Is it logical that NATO has no idea we took those positions?" said local commander Mohammed Genei.

A NATO official said the alliance did drop leaflets warning of the possibility of attack by helicopters, but said this was west of Misrata, and closer to Zlitan.

Even without the threat of NATO attack, the rebels said they would not attack Zlitan, citing tribal sensitivities. Instead they would wait for the local inhabitants to rise up.

A NATO official said warplanes had hit an ammunition store at Waddan, not far from Al Jufrah, after Libyan television said Al Jufrah, in central Libya, had been bombed for a second day.

Tunisia flew an F-5 warplane and a helicopter along its border with Libya after Libyan troops fired several rockets into Tunisia.

The explosions, close to rebel territory in Libya's Western Mountains southwest of Tripoli, caused no damage or injuries.

A Reuters journalist in Ryayna, 15 km east of Zintan in the Western Mountains, said rebels had taken the village and pushed back Gaddafi's forces.

The rebels, who had been trying to seize Ryayna for several weeks, said two of their fighters had been killed, but they had taken prisoners, including foreign fighters.

"We have captured 15 pro-Gaddafi soldiers, three of them were Libyans and the remaining 12 were either Chadians or Touaregs," rebel spokesman Abdulrahman said from Zintan.

 

(Additional reporting by Sami Aboudi in Cairo and Souhail Karam in Rabat; Writing by John Irish; editing by Tim Pearce)

    NATO strikes Tripoli, Libyan rebels make gains, R, 15.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/15/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110615

Tanks deploy in east, Syrians flee assault on north

AMMAN | Tue Jun 14, 2011
8:00pm EDT Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Thousands of Syrians fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape tank forces thrusting into the country's north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

In the tribal east, where all of Syria's 380,000 barrels per day of oil is produced, tanks and armoured vehicles deployed in the city of Deir al-Zor and around Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, a week after tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding an end to Assad's autocratic rule.

"The army is coming, find safety for yourselves and your families!" residents said mosque loudspeakers announced on Tuesday in Maarat al-Numaan, a town of 100,000 that straddles the main north-south highway linking Damascus with Syria's second largest city, the merchant hub of Aleppo.

Syrian forces pushed toward Maarat al-Numaan after arresting hundreds of people in nearby villages close to Jisr al-Shughour, residents said.

Syrian state television said security forces "are pursuing and hunting down the remnants of the members of terrorist armed organisations in the areas surrounding Jisr al-Shughour in order to enable the residents to return to their neighborhoods."

Residents from Maarat al-Numaan, Jisr al-Shughour and surrounding villages streamed toward Aleppo and to villages in the desert to the east, while some headed to neighboring Turkey, where more than 8,500 Syrians have already fled.

They sought shelter across the border to escape Assad's latest assault on protests demanding more freedoms in a country dominated by the Assad family, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, for the last 41 years. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslim.

Around 70 percent of Maarat al-Numaan's residents have fled, Othman al-Bedeiwi, a pharmacy professor there told Reuters by telephone. He said helicopters, which also fired at protesters on Friday, had been ferrying troops to a staging camp in Wadi al-Deif, several km (miles) from the town.

Syria has banned most foreign correspondents since the unrest began, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

On the edge of a limestone massif in a relatively prosperous agricultural area, Maarat al-Numaan is a center of Muslim pilgrimage with a rebellious history.

It was the site of the massacre of thousands of men, women and children by Crusader forces in 1099. In modern times, the town was focus of a brutal campaign to crush Islamist and leftist challengers to Bashar's father, the late Hafez al-Assad.

 

CO-RELIGIONISTS

In the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, witnesses said several tanks deployed inside the provincial capital, on the Euphrates river, after security forces pulled out from the streets last week.

But protests continued and a violent confrontation occurred this week between Assad loyalists and protesters during which several people were seriously injured, they added.

"A pattern keeps repeating itself across Syria. The local garrison goes to their headquarters and leaves a city to try and create disorder, then tanks and troops are sent in to subdue protesters," an activist in the city said.

"Sadly the invention of rubber bullets has not reached Syria," he said. "It is live ammunition on protesters or nothing."

Rights campaigners said around 20 tanks and armoured vehicles also deployed around the town of Albu Kamal to the east of Deir al-Zor city, which is also an official crossing point to Iraq, but said there were no troops inside the town.

Deir al-Zor province borders Iraq's Sunni heartland. The two sides are linked by family ties and trade routes that preceded the creation of the two states by colonial powers in the 1920s.

France, with British support, has spearheaded efforts for the United Nations Security Council to condemn Assad's repression of the protests. But Russia and China have suggested they might use their veto power to kill the resolution.

Turkey has set up four refugee camps just inside its borders and the state-run Anatolian news agency said on Tuesday authorities might provide more. It said the number of refugees, mainly from the Syrian northwestern region of Jisr al-Shughour, had reached 8,538, more than half of them children.

Fleeing refugees described shootings by troops and Alawite gunmen loyal to Assad, known as "shabbiha," and the burning of land and crops in a scorched earth policy to subdue people of the region after large protests.

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Tanks deploy in east, Syrians flee assault on north, R, 14.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/15/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110615

Syrian Unrest Stirs New Fear of Deeper Sectarian Divide

June 13, 2011
The New York Times
By ANTHONY SHADID

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government’s retaking of a town this weekend that had teetered beyond its control is sharpening sectarian tensions along one of the country’s most explosive fault lines: relations between the Sunni Muslim majority and the minority Alawite sect to which the family of President Bashar al-Assad belongs, residents and officials say.

Each side offered a litany of complaints about the other, according to interviews with refugees, residents and activists, suggesting, even in a small sample, deepening animosities in a country where the fear of civil war is at once real and used as a pretext for suppressing dissent. Syria is a volatile blend of Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Kurds and others inhabiting the same land, but with disproportionate political power vested in the Alawite elite.

Jisr al-Shoughour, where the government used tanks and helicopters to crush what it called “armed terrorist gangs,” sits in a landscape as complicated as anywhere in Syria. It is a Sunni town with an Alawite town less than a mile to the south, interspersed with Christian and more Sunni settlements.

One Sunni resident of Jisr al-Shoughour said he received a text message from an Alawite friend asking if his family was O.K. “I replied, ‘My two sisters with a baby have been killed,’ ” said the resident, who gave his name as Mohammed. Others accused Alawite neighbors of taking part in the crackdown, some coming from a town less than a mile away.

Some suggested that those same neighbors set up checkpoints on nearby roads, ostensibly to detain government opponents.

Alawites, on the other hand, shuddered at the prospect of Sunni insurgents who they believe may have helped wrestle Jisr al-Shoughour, at least momentarily, from government hands.

“I’m so worried that the country might be dragged toward a sectarian confrontation,” said Aqsam Naisi, an Alawite lawyer and human rights activist in Damascus. “Jisr al-Shoughour is one example, and I hope it will be one that passes.”

The prospect alarms outsiders as well, and has been one reason that the United States and Arab neighbors have as a whole been reluctant to push out President Assad. “The sectarian aspect, the divisions and the animosity are getting worse,” said an Obama administration official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“I don’t think it will go away,” the official added. “What happened in the northwest will only harden the Alawite feelings, harden them as a group, harden their animosity toward the Sunnis and vice versa. It will only harden this divide.”

The depth of sectarian divisions in Syria — a country no less diverse than Iraq and Lebanon, both neighbors that fought civil wars — remains in dispute, though they already have punctuated protests and crackdowns in towns like Baniyas, on the Mediterranean coast, and Tel Kalakh, near the Lebanese border, since the uprising erupted in March.

Syrian officials have suggested that militant Islamists have manipulated popular grievances and warned that the government’s collapse would endanger the relative security of Christians and other minorities there. Opposition activists have played down sectarian divisions, which they describe as a government ploy to sustain its four decades of rule. If anything, they say, the government has stoked tensions in a cynical bid to divide and rule.

The events in Jisr al-Shoughour are opaque — whether an armed uprising, a rebellion led by army deserters or a mixture of both.

But anger has clearly grown along with the uprising. Or, as another resident put it, “They are turning this into a sectarian battle.”

The prospect of sectarian strife underlines the very ambiguity of the Syrian protests, which erupted after the arrest and ensuing torture of 15 youths in the poor southern town of Dara’a. The demonstrations quickly spread across the country, building off everything from misery inflicted by a devastating drought in the countryside to the utter unaccountability of security forces in rural regions long neglected by Mr. Assad’s state.

While opposition activists and American officials have portrayed the protests as largely peaceful, even they acknowledge that armed elements have carried out attacks on security forces. The government says hundreds in its security forces have died, though the number pales before the opposition’s count of more than 1,300 protesters killed.

“We see the elements of an armed opposition across Syria,” the American official said. “In the northwest, we see it as having taken over. There are a lot of them.”

“We don’t really know who these armed groups are,” the official added, but noted that they are “religiously based, absolutely.”

The repercussions of the events in Jisr al-Shoughour have already reverberated across Syria’s border. By Monday, Turkey said nearly 7,000 refugees had fled across its border and, though it promised to care for them, the prospect of more displaced Syrians has alarmed officials there.

Criticism by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who considers Mr. Assad a friend, has consistently grown. Last week, Mr. Erdogan called the behavior of Maher al-Assad, Mr. Assad’s brother, who is said to have commanded the forces that retook Jisr al-Shoughour, “brutish and inhuman,” deeply angering Syrian officials.

The episode may have a more lasting impact as well.

So far, the government has relied on its support within the military and, more importantly, the intelligence services; the business elite; and the country’s religious minorities, namely Christians and Alawites. After recent events, Turkish and American officials say they believe that some of the business elite have begun to turn against the state.

Minorities, meanwhile, are said to be growing more fearful over a government that has promised to deliver stability but instead finds itself in a protracted crisis.

In the hinterland of Jisr al-Shoughour, a predominantly Sunni region once a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood and known for its opposition to the Assad family, criticism was directed as much at Alawite neighbors as at the Syrian leadership.

Hamza, a 28-year-old day laborer, who like most interviewed refused to provide his last name, said some neighbors from Ishtabraq had joined paramilitary forces there. Another accused the government of arming Alawite neighbors, a longstanding charge.

“People in Jisr know each other very well, and they know the villagers around us and we know these villagers are Alawites from Ishtabraq,” another resident there said.

Human rights activists cautioned that the anger was that — just anger.

“If there is no political will on the part of the opposition to turn this into civil war, how would the dirt of the regime be turned into mud?” said Wissam Tarif, head of Insan, a human rights group. “I don’t think it will turn into civil war, I just don’t see it.”

But the man who received the text message on Monday from an Alawite friend of 25 years was grimmer, in words that suggested inevitability.

“As people, we don’t want anything to happen between us,” Mohammed said by phone. “But the people in this regime are forcing us to hate Alawites.”

 

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.

    Syrian Unrest Stirs New Fear of Deeper Sectarian Divide, R, 13.6.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/world/middleeast/14syria.html

Syrian forces round up hundreds near northwest town

AMMAN | Mon Jun 13, 2011
12:47pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops rounded up hundreds of people in a sweep through villages near Jisr al-Shughour on Monday, fleeing residents said, after President Bashar al-Assad's army retook the rebellious northwestern town.

Nearly 7,000 Syrians have fled the region around Jisr al-Shughour, seeking sanctuary in neighboring Turkey, while thousands more are sheltering in rural areas just inside Syria, activists say.

Monday's wave of arrests followed an assault by troops, tanks and helicopters to regain control of the town, one week after authorities said 120 security personnel were killed there in fighting they blamed on "armed groups."

Some residents said those killed were soldiers who had mutinied, refusing to shoot protesters and joining demonstrators calling for an end to Assad's rule.

The town of 50,000, just 20 km (12 miles) south of the Turkish border, is the latest focus of a military crackdown on the protests which have swept Syria for nearly three months and continue despite the deaths of hundreds of civilians.

Refugees from Jisr al-Shughour said the military was combing villages to the east of the town and arresting hundreds of men between the ages of 18 and 40, in a pattern seen in other military crackdowns since the unrest started in March.

Residents said the army unit that took the town was commanded by Assad's brother Maher.

Ahmad Yassin, 27, said he left his 7,000 sq meter plot of land east of Jisr al-Shughour early on Monday when a force of 200 soldiers and men wearing black came in armored personnel carriers and cars and poured petrol on the wheat crops.

"I tried to save my three cows but there was no time. I put my wife and two children in the car and drove straight to the border," he said.

His account of troops setting fire to crops echoed reports from other refugees, but the official state news agency has accused "armed terrorist groups" of burning land as sabotage.

Syrian rights groups say 1,300 civilians have been killed since the start of the uprising. One group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, says more than 300 soldiers and police have also been killed.

Syria has banned most foreign correspondents, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

 

ARMY TAKES CONTROL

The government says the protests are part of a violent conspiracy backed by foreign powers to sow sectarian strife.

Army units "have taken total control of Jisr al-Shughour and are chasing remnants of the armed terrorist gangs in the woods and mountains," the Syrian news agency said on Sunday.

It said a soldier and two armed men were killed in clashes around the town. The army defused explosives planted on bridges and roads and uncovered mass graves holding mostly mutilated bodies of 12 security men killed by armed groups, it said.

Thousands of people from Jisr al-Shughour, located on a vital road junction, had already fled to Turkey before Sunday's assault. Turkey has grown increasingly critical of Assad and has now set up four camps to accommodate refugees.

In a sign of tension between Syria and Turkey, which had close trade and political ties before the crisis, supporters of Assad protested outside Turkey's embassy in Damascus on Sunday.

Turkey's Anatolian news agency said some people climbed the embassy walls and hung a Syrian flag, and Syrian security forces prevented some protesters from trying to lower the Turkish flag.

A resident said the crowd then tore down tourist posters on the outside wall of the embassy.

France, with British support, has led efforts for the United Nations Security Council to condemn Assad's repression of the protests but Russia and China have suggested they may use their veto power to kill the resolution.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said newly re-elected Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan welcomed British efforts to put pressure on Assad at the United Nations.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said Assad had lost the legitimacy to rule Syria.

The White House condemned the Syrian forces' latest violence in the "strongest possible terms" and said Assad should step aside if he will not lead a democratic transition.

Assad, who inherited power when his father died in 2000, has offered some moves aimed at appeasing protesters, lifting a 48-year state of emergency and promising a national dialogue -- steps which have been dismissed by many activists.

The privately owned Syrian newspaper Al-Watan said a committee formed to investigate the unrest had imposed a travel ban on the former governor of Deraa, where protests broke out on March 18, and its head of security. It said there would be "no immunity for people who committed crimes."

 

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Guvecci, Turkey;
Writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Tim Pearce)

    Syrian forces round up hundreds near northwest town, R, 13.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/13/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110613

What the Inspectors Say

June 12, 2011
The New York Times

Iran continues to stonewall about its illicit nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency isn’t falling for it. Nobody should.

The agency’s latest report is chilling. While Tehran claims that its program has solely peaceful ends, it lists seven activities with potential “military dimensions.” That includes “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile”; new evidence that Iran has worked on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology; and research on missile warhead designs — namely “studies involving the removal of the conventional high explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab 3 missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload.”

After the Iraq debacle, all claims must be examined closely. The I.A.E.A. has a strong record — in the run-up to the war it insisted there was no evidence that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program — and no ax to grind. There are still more questions to be answered.

American intelligence agencies, rightly chastened by their failure in Iraq, concluded in 2007 that Tehran had halted the weapons portion of its nuclear program four years earlier. United States officials now say that Iran’s massive “Manhattan Project” ended then but that many of the same scientists are still engaged in weapons-related pursuits. Meanwhile, Yukiya Amano, the head of the I.A.E.A., said in a news conference last week that “the activities in Iran related to the possible military dimension seem to have been continued until quite recently.” More explanation is needed.

Tehran insists the agency’s allegations are fabricated. At the same time, it is refusing to answer the inspectors’ questions about possible work on weapons designs and is blocking their access to sites, equipment and documents. Five years after the United Nations Security Council ordered it to halt uranium enrichment, Iran still has thousands of centrifuges spinning at its Natanz plant.

We don’t know if any mixture of sanctions and incentives will change that behavior. We are certain that without more pressure Tehran will keep pushing its program forward. The major powers’ last attempt at negotiations, in January, hit a wall, but Washington and its allies should keep looking for diplomatic openings. The fourth round of United Nations sanctions, imposed a year ago, is starting to bite, reducing Iran’s access to foreign capital, trade and investments. But implementation is still lagging.

The European Union finally moved last month to rein in the Iranian-owned bank in Germany, the European-Iranian Trade Bank, which is accused of facilitating billions of dollars of transactions for blacklisted Iranian companies. China has yet to sufficiently crack down on the Chinese firms that still do business with Iran’s sanctioned entities. Turkey, India and the United Arab Emirates, a major hub for Iranian commerce, are still too cozy with Tehran.

Iran has not wasted the intervening year and is always looking for signs of weakness. The United States and its allies need to tighten the current round of sanctions and start working on another Security Council resolution with even tougher sanctions.

If there is any good news in the I.A.E.A. report, it appears that Iran’s enrichment program is not advancing as fast as many feared — the result of the Stuxnet computer virus and sanctions that make it harder for Tehran to import needed materials from overseas. That has not blunted its ambitions. The Iranians said on Wednesday that they plan to triple production of the most concentrated nuclear fuel — the kind that could get them closer to a bomb.

    What the Inspectors Say, NYT, 12.6.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opinion/13mon1.html

Saudi Arabia’s Freedom Riders

June 12, 2011
The New York Times
By FARZANEH MILANI

Charlottesville, Va.

THE Arab Spring is inching its way into Saudi Arabia — in the cars of fully veiled drivers.

On the surface, when a group of Saudi women used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to organize a mass mobile protest defying the kingdom’s ban on women driving, it may have seemed less dramatic than demonstrators facing bullets and batons while demanding regime change in nearby countries. But underneath, the same core principles — self-determination and freedom of movement — have motivated both groups. The Saudi regime understands the gravity of the situation, and it is moving decisively to contain it by stopping the protest scheduled for June 17.

The driving ban stems from universal anxiety over women’s unrestrained mobility. In Saudi Arabia that anxiety is acute: the streets — and the right to enter and leave them at will — belong to men. A woman who trespasses is either regarded as a sinful “street-walker” or expected to cover herself in her abaya, a portable house. Should she need to get around town, she can do so in a taxi, with a chauffeur (there are 750,000 of them) or with a man related to her by marriage or blood behind the wheel.

Although the Islamic Republic of Iran could not implement similarly draconian driving laws after the 1979 revolution, given that women had driven cars there for decades, the theocratic regime did denounce women riding bikes or motorcycles as un-Islamic and sexually provocative. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, proclaimed in 1999 that “women must avoid anything that attracts strangers, so riding bicycles or motorcycles by women in public places involves corruption and is forbidden.”

The Saudi regime, like the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the military junta in Sudan and the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, ordains the exclusion of women from the public sphere. It expects women to remain in their “proper place.”

Indeed, the rulers in Saudi Arabia are the most gender-segregated in the world today. In official ceremonies, and in countless photographs, posters and billboards, the royal family seems to be composed solely of men.

This desire to deny women entrance into the public arena is inaccurately presented as a religious mandate. Yet there is no basis for such exclusion in the Koran. On the contrary, in the early years of Islam, women were a vital presence in Muslim communities. They attended mosques, engaged in public debates and got involved in decision-making processes. Aisha, one of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad, commanded an army of men while riding on a camel. If Muslim women could ride camels 14 centuries ago, why shouldn’t they drive cars today? Which Koranic injunction prohibits them from driving?

Gender apartheid is not about piety. It is about dominating, excluding and subordinating women. It is about barring them from political activities, preventing their active participation in the public sector, and making it difficult for them to fully exercise the rights Islam grants them to own and manage their own property. It is about denying women the basic human right to move about freely.

That is why the women defying the ban on motorized mobility are in fact demanding an eventual overhaul of the entire Saudi political system. They want not just to drive but to remap the political geography of their country.

These women know the value of a car key. Like the man who faced down tanks in Tiananmen Square, like the unprecedented number of women participating in protests across the Middle East and North Africa, the Saudi women’s campaign for the right to drive is a harbinger of a new era in the region.

It may require decades to see an end to the Middle East’s gender apartheid and the political reconfigurations that would necessarily follow. One thing is certain though: the presence of women and men demonstrating side by side in the streets of Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria is a sign of more seismic upheavals ahead. Old categories have broken down and the traditional distribution of power and space is no longer viable.

The women demonstrating for the right to drive in Riyadh are seasoned negotiators of confined spaces and veteran trespassers of closed doors and iron gates. They are a moderating, modernizing force to be reckoned with — and an antidote to extremism.

Their refusal to remain silent and invisible or to relinquish their rights as citizens is an act of civil disobedience and moral courage. Their protest, and those of their sisters across the Middle East, represent a revolution within revolutions — and a turning point in the contemporary history of Islam.

 

Farzaneh Milani, chairwoman of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia, is the author of “Words, Not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement.”

    Saudi Arabia’s Freedom Riders, NYT, 12.6.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opinion/13Milani.html

Syria uprising killings rise to 1,300: activists

AMMAN | Sun Jun 12, 2011
4:54pm EDT
Reuters

AMMAN (Reuters) - The main Syrian activist group organizing protests said on Sunday a violent crackdown has killed 1,300 civilians and called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down to transform the country into a democracy.

The Local Coordination Committees said in a statement power must be handed to the army and an internationally supervised conference should convene within six months to write a new constitution and "stop Syria from sliding into chaos and guarantee a peaceful transfer of power."

"The regime... has forced the army into a confrontation with its own people, as if Syria did not have land under occupation (to be liberated). It has worked on stirring sectarian fears without any consideration for national cohesion," it said.

The conference would include "regime politicians with no blood on their hands," representatives of the opposition and activists on the ground, the statement said.

"Syria is a civic nation, not the ownership of an individual, a family or party. It is not a possession to be bequeathed," it said, referring to 41 years of Assad family rule.

More than 10,000 Syrians have been arrested since the uprising erupted in the southern Hauran Plain three months ago, the statement said.

 

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Louise Ireland)

    Syria uprising killings rise to 1,300: activists, R, 12.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/12/us-syria-killings-idUSTRE75B21U20110612

Syrian forces take border town as inhabitants flee

AMMAN | Mon Jun 13, 2011
3:51am EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian troops backed by helicopters and tanks took control of the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour as President Bashar al-Assad continued his crackdown against dissidents challenging his 11-year rule.

Thousands of residents of the town of 50,000 people, located on a vital road junction, fled to Turkey, about 20 km (12 miles) away, before Sunday's assault, leaving much of the town deserted.

A man identifying himself as a Syrian army defector, whose comments were streamed on the Internet and translated by Britain's Sky News television, said anti-government forces had set traps to delay the advance by Syrian troops, to let people escape.

"We waited to get about 10 percent of the population out. The remaining 90 percent had already managed to leave," the man, identifying himself as Lieutenant-Colonel Hussein Harmoush, told the online Ugarit News video news channel.

"At the moment Jisr al-Shughour is totally devoid of civilians. We are the only people that remain here."

The main Syrian activist group organizing protests said the crackdown on activists demanding democratic freedoms and an end to oppression has killed 1,300 civilians since February. Human rights groups previously had put the toll at about 1,100.

More than 5,000 Syrian refugees crossed into Turkey and a U.N. refugee spokesman said the Red Crescent was preparing a fourth camp with room for 2,500 more.

Witnesses said some 10,000 Syrians were sheltering near the border and residents said most of Jisr al-Shughour's population had fled the town.

The government said last week that "armed gangs" had killed more than 120 security personnel in the town after large demonstrations there.

Refugees and rights groups said the dead were civilians killed by security forces or soldiers who had been shot for refusing to fire on civilians. It was also possible the troops were killed by rebelling soldiers.

Syria has banned most foreign correspondents, making it difficult to verify accounts of events.

The government says the protests are part of a violent conspiracy backed by foreign powers to sow sectarian strife.

"Units of the Syrian Arab Army have taken total control of Jisr al-Shughour and are chasing remnants of the armed terrorist gangs in the woods and mountains," the Syrian news agency said.

It said one soldier and two armed men had been killed in clashes around the town, and that that army units had defused explosives planted on bridges and roads.

Leading opposition figure Walid al-Bunni told Reuters by phone from Damascus the military attack was a pyrrhic victory.

"I feel ashamed as a Syrian that the authorities are taking pride in occupying their own villages and towns and that repression is making people destitute and driving proud soldiers to take refuge in Turkey," Bunni said.

"The Syrian people have gone out in the street demanding their freedom and they will not leave until we get it. We saw how in Deraa when the army left the city for hours thousands were back in the streets," Bunni said.

He was referring to the southern city where a protest demanding Assad quit erupted again Friday. The cradle of the uprising, Deraa was also the first city assaulted in a military build-up to and crush the protests.

 

MUTILATED BODIES

The Syrian news agency said government forces had uncovered mass graves containing mostly mutilated bodies of 10 security men killed and buried by armed groups in Jisr al-Shughour.

A senior Western diplomat in Damascus told Reuters: "The official version is improbable. Most people had left Jisr al-Shughour after seeing the regime's scorched-earth policy, shelling and the heavy use of armor in the valley."

"The refugee exodus into Turkey is continuing and the numbers are higher than those officially counted so far."

Residents said the army unit attacking Jisr al-Shughour was commanded by Assad's brother Maher and employed the same tactics used to crush protests in other areas.

The United States has accused the Syrian government of creating a "humanitarian crisis" and urged it to halt its offensive and allow immediate access by the International Committee for the Red Cross to help refugees, detainees and the wounded.

 

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Guvecci, Turkey;

Editing by Michael Roddy)

    Syrian forces take border town as inhabitants flee, R, 13.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/13/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110613

Battle for Libya oil town, fighting near Tripoli

BENGHAZI/ZAWIYAH, Libya | Sun Jun 12, 2011
11:00pm EDT
Reuters
By Maria Golovnina and Nick Carey

BENGHAZI/ZAWIYAH, Libya (Reuters) - Rebels fighting against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi say they were repulsed by his forces in a battle to retake the eastern oil town of Brega, suffering at least four dead.

In the west, rebels said they were fighting Gaddafi's forces for a second day in the town of Zawiyah Sunday, bringing the revolt against his rule closer to the capital.

The rebels said they had lost at least four killed in fighting between Brega and Ajdabiyah. At least 65 fighters were wounded, doctors at the hospital in the rebel stronghold city of Benghazi said.

"We attacked them first but they attacked us back. We tried to get to Brega but that was difficult," Haithan Elgwei, a rebel fighter, said after returning from the front with the wounded.

"NATO (aircraft) were covering us from above but Gaddafi troops fired rockets and mortars outside Brega," Akram, 24, a wounded fighter, said.

"We will not retreat. We look forward to taking Tripoli," he added.

The fresh outbreak of fighting in Zawiyah, west of Tripoli and home to a big oil refinery, marks the closest the armed rebellion has come to Gaddafi's stronghold in the capital for months.

Reporters taken by the government to see Zawiyah, which saw intense fighting at the start of the anti-Gaddafi uprising in February and has changed hands several times, found it eerily quiet Sunday, with almost no one in sight.

Saturday, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said there was "no serious fighting" there.

Sunday, he told reporters that no more than 100 rebel fighters who had attacked to the west of the city were holed up after suffering losses and the government was trying to negotiate their surrender.

"They were defeated after a few hours of scattered skirmishes with the army," he added.

Not long after the reporters left Zawiyah, rebel spokesman M'hamed Ezzawi said by phone there was heavy fighting 400 m (yards) from the main square.

"The brigades are using heavy weapons. They are better equipped than the revolutionaries," he said. "We have no statistics so far as to the number of martyrs but there are at least seven wounded among the revolutionaries."

 

"DAYS ARE NUMBERED"

After the nationwide rebellion against Gaddafi's 41-year rule erupted in February, his security forces snuffed out the rebels in Zawiyah, a prelude to the revolt elsewhere in Libya losing its initial momentum.

Three months later, the war has shifted again, with Gaddafi's grip on power weakened by defections, the impact of sanctions on supplies and NATO air strikes that have struck his compound in Tripoli.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, in an interview with Reuters, said there was a growing confidence that Gaddafi's "days are numbered."

Libyan state television broadcast images of Gaddafi -- who has been keeping a low profile since NATO began its air strikes -- meeting Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the international chess federation.

Ilyumzhinov, quoted by Russian news agencies, said he played a game of chess in Tripoli with the Libyan leader, who told him he had no intention of leaving his country.

 

REBEL RECOGNITION

The United Arab Emirates said it had recognized the rebel Transitional National Council, based in Benghazi, joining a small but growing list of states which view the council as Libya's legitimate representatives.

Gaddafi has called the NATO intervention with warplanes and attack helicopters an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya's plentiful oil.

In Tripoli residents have told Reuters of anti-Gaddafi protests, though these have been quickly dispersed by his security forces.

"The districts of Tripoli are waiting for a signal so they can all rise up together," said a resident of the city who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals.

NATO member states are keen for a quick resolution in Libya because their voters do not want another long, costly conflict along the lines of those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Mussab Al-Khairall in Tripoli, Matt Robinson in Misrata, Kate Kelland in London, Andrew Hammond in Dubai and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

    Battle for Libya oil town, fighting near Tripoli, R, 12.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/13/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110613

Jordan King promises to speed democratic reforms

AMMAN | Sun Jun 12, 2011
5:11pm EDT
Reuters
By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan's King Abdullah said on Sunday he was committed to pushing ahead with democratic reforms, but believed street pressure for change was a recipe for chaos.

The monarch, speaking in a televised speech marking his 12 years as ruler and ninety years of the state's creation, said he backed a new electoral law proposed by a government-appointed panel that would allow for a cabinet to be elected by a parliamentary majority rather than being chosen by him.

"We hope these recommendations ensure a modern electoral law that leads to a parliament that is representative of all Jordanians," he said.

Parliaments are currently elected under laws that ensure a pliant pro-government assembly composed of tribal loyalists.

The Islamist-led opposition has expressed disappointment over the limited nature of the reforms proposed by the committee that they boycotted and which came after weeks of street protests earlier this year calling for political changes.

The proposals unveiled last week keep intact a gross underrepresentation of Jordan's cities, mostly inhabited by Palestinians, to ensure a dominance by rural, sparsely populated tribal areas over the large cities, including the capital which have long been the opposition Islamist strongholds.

"As we witness the changes in the region, this demands making a difference between the required democratic changes and between the dangers of chaos and (fitna) sedition on the other," he said.

The Hashemite monarchy is viewed as an arbiter among feuding tribes and a unifying force that holds together the country's two main competing groups, East Bank native Jordanians and their countrymen of Palestinian origin.

The monarch has faced pressures for reforms by a broad calls from the Islamists, the country's largest political force to leftists and tribal figures, to relinquish his extensive powers, ranging from appointing cabinets to dissolving parliament.

Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, the largest political party, and liberal politicians alongside opposition tribal figures say political freedoms in Jordan have been eroded in recent years and accuse the authorities of resisting change.

The monarch defended his reformist credentials since he ascended the throne in 1999, saying he had long pushed for reforms which he has long accused vested interests within the establishment of derailing.

King Abdullah said he wanted a empowered legislature and amendments to the constitution that would usher greater political rights but could not accept reform pressures from unnamed radical groups that agitated through street protests.

"Our reformist vision is through speedy reforms that respond to our peoples desires... away from recourse to the street and the absence of reason," he said.

The kingdom has not seen the turmoil that has spread across the Arab world since January, leading to the overthrow of long-time regimes in Tunisia and Egypt as well as clashes in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain.

 

(Writing by Suleimen al-Khalidi; Editing Matthew Jones)

    Jordan King promises to speed democratic reforms, R, 12.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/12/us-jordan-king-reforms-idUSTRE75B28P20110612

Bin Laden will "haunt" America: al Qaeda deputy

Wed, Jun 8 2011
Reuters
By Sami Aboudi

CAIRO (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's longtime lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, said the United States faces rebellion throughout the Muslim world after killing the al Qaeda leader, according to a YouTube recording posted on Wednesday.

In what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death in a U.S. commando raid in Pakistan last month, the Egyptian-born Zawahri warned Americans not to gloat and vowed to press ahead with al Qaeda's campaign against the United States and its allies.

"The Sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr, and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," Zawahri said in the 28-minute clip.

"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group ... but a rebelling nation which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance challenging it wherever it is."

Zawahri's association with bin Laden's predates the al Qaeda attacks on the United States in September 2001 that led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While the bespectacled Zawahri has been touted as successor to bin Laden, experts on al Qaeda say that another Egyptian militant, Saif al-Adel, is in interim command of al Qaeda.

In the video, Zawahri warned Americans not to rejoice at bin Laden's death. "You should await what will befall you after every celebration," he said.

He condemned U.S. forces for burying bin Laden at sea, a move opposed by senior Muslim clerics as un-Islamic. The Americans said the burial included Muslim rite and took place at sea to deny bin Laden's followers a shrine.

"He terrified America when he was alive and is terrifying it as a dead man, to the point that they shudder at the prospect of giving him a grave because of what they know of the love of tens of millions for him," he said.

Bin Laden, Zawahri said, would continue to "haunt America and Israel and their Crusader allies, their corrupt agents."

"His famous pledge that 'you won't dream of security until we live it as a reality and until you depart the land of Islam' will continue to deprive them of sleep."

Zawahri pledged allegiance to Taliban leader Mulla Omar, who is spearheading fighting against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, calling him the "emir of the faithful."

Zawahri praised the citizen revolts in his native Egypt and other Arab countries, calling on Pakistanis to follow suit: "Shake off the dust of humiliation and overthrow those who have sold you in the slave market to the United States."

 

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy and Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Sami Aboudi)

    Bin Laden will "haunt" America: al Qaeda deputy, R, 8.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/08/us-binladen-zawahri-idUSTRE7573GV20110608

Gaddafi vows to fight on, NATO jets pound Tripoli

TRIPOLI | Tue Jun 7, 2011
1:57pm EDT
Reuters
By Peter Graff

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Waves of NATO aircraft hit Tripoli on Tuesday in the most sustained bombardment of the Libyan capital since Western forces began air strikes in March.

By Tuesday afternoon, war planes were striking different parts of the city several times an hour, hour after hour, rattling windows and sending clouds of grey smoke into the sky, a Reuters correspondent in the center of the city said.

But Muammar Gaddafi vowed on Tuesday to fight to the death.

U.S. President Barack Obama said it only a matter of time till Libyan leader goes.

The Libyan government attributed earlier blasts to NATO air strikes on military compounds in the capital. Bombs have been striking the city every few hours since Monday, at a steadily increasing pace. On Tuesday they began before 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) and were continuing five hours later.

Air strikes were previously rarer and usually at night.

"We only have one choice: we will stay in our land dead or alive," Gaddafi said in a fiery audio address, calling on his supporters to flock to his vast Bab al-Aziziya compound, which was hit several times by NATO air strikes on Tuesday.

Describing planes flying overhead and explosions around him, Gaddafi was defiant.

"We are stronger than your missiles, stronger than your planes, and the voice of the Libyan people is louder than explosions," he said in his customary impassioned tone.

He said he was ready to unleash between 250,000 to 500,00 armed Libyans to swarm across the country to cleanse it from "armed gangs," a reference to rebels controlling eastern Libya.

Gaddafi was last seen on state television on May 30.

 

BOMBING RAIDS

Major-General Nick Pope, Britain's Chief of the Defense Staff's Strategic Communications Officer, said several operations carried out by British fighter aircraft had targeted Gaddafi's secret police headquarters and a military installation on Tripoli's southwestern outskirts.

"The missions were flown as part of a coordinated series of precision attacks throughout the day and night by NATO aircraft targeting intelligence and military facilities," he said, adding the bases were "engaged in the brutal repression of the civilian population and therefore a legitimate focus for NATO action."

Libya's state news agency Jana said NATO flew bombing missions over Gaddafi's vast compound 12 times.

Obama said there had been "significant" progress in the NATO operation. "What you are seeing across the country is an inexorable trend of the regime forces being pushed back, being incapacitated," Obama news conference in Washington.

"I think it is just a matter of time before Gaddafi goes."

Gaddafi's troops and the rebels have been in stalemate for weeks, neither able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah, which Gaddafi's forces shelled on Monday, and the Gaddafi-held oil town of Brega further west.

The U.N. refugee agency warned on Tuesday that an aid crisis is looming, as shortages of fuel and other essentials grow in both rebel and government-held areas

Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and the range of mountains near the border with Tunisia. They have been unable to advance on the capital against Gaddafi's better-equipped forces, despite NATO air strikes.

By Tuesday, pro-Gaddafi forces had pulled back to high ground outside Yafran, 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Tripoli, after the rebels lifted a weeks-long siege of the town. There were heavy exchanges of fire between the two sides, with anti-aircraft gun being used to hit targets on the ground.

 

DIPLOMATIC CONTACT WITH REBELS

A NATO official in Naples, headquarters of the alliance's Libya operation, confirmed the strikes were the heaviest so far.

"Definitely there are more strikes going into Tripoli than there have been ... This is just to increase the pressure on the Gaddafi regime," he said. "The targets are the same ... -- command and control, ammunition storage, vehicle storage."

Gaddafi says he is supported by all Libyans apart from a minority of "rats" and al Qaeda fighters, and that NATO strikes are a Western plot to steal Libya's oil.

"We believe that NATO understands quite well that it's military campaign against the Libyan nation is failing miserably," government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said in Tripoli.

As bombing intensifies, world powers were making diplomatic overtures to the rebels, including Russia and China -- despite misgivings about interference in Libya's sovereign affairs.

Mikhail Margelov, Special Representative for the President of Russia for Africa, told reporters in the rebel capital of Benghazi on Tuesday that Gaddafi can no longer represent Libya.

"We highly believe that Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy after the first bullet shot against the Libyan people," he said.

"Russia is ready to help politically, economically and in any possible way ... That is why we have established a direct relationship with the national council here in Benghazi."

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said an Egypt-based Chinese diplomat had visited Benghazi for talks with the rebel-led National Transitional Council, adding to signs that China too is courting the insurgents.

China has declined to take sides, but its moves reflect recognition that Gaddafi's days may be numbered, said Yin Gang, an Arab expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Libya's pro-Gaddafi Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi is visiting China as a "special envoy" for his government and will hold talks with his counterpart Yang Jiechi on "the situation in Libya and (finding) a political solution to the Libyan crisis," the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement that France -- the first country to recognize the rebels -- sees the National Transitional Council as representative of Libya.

"After being found guilty of the most serious crimes against the Libyan people ... authorities related to Col. Gaddafi cannot claim any role in representing the Libyan state," Juppe said.

 

(Additional reporting by Sherine El Madany in Benghazi, Youssef Boudlal in Yafran, Joseph Nasr in Rabat, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, Tim Cocks in Tunis, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Matt Spetalnick and Laura MacInnis in Washington, Michael Holden in London and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Gaddafi vows to fight on, NATO jets pound Tripoli, 7.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110607

Obama: Matter of time before Gaddafi is ousted

WASHINGTON | Tue Jun 7, 2011
1:48pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday it is just a matter of time before Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is ousted, after NATO intensified air strikes on Tripoli.

Obama, speaking at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, described "significant" progress in the NATO drive to protect Libyan civilians and rebels from attacks by Gaddafi loyalists.

"What you are seeing across the country is an inexorable trend of the regime forces being pushed back, being incapacitated," Obama said at the White House. "I think it is just a matter of time before Gaddafi goes."

Obama and Merkel steered clear of any public comment on differences over the Western-led air campaign. The United States and other key allies endorsed military action against Libya but Germany confounded its NATO partners by refusing to commit its forces.

Obama handed control of the air campaign in Libya to NATO after initial strikes crippled Gaddafi's air defenses and he has made clear the United States, already entangled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would stick to a limited military role.

Obama said Germany's deployment of additional personnel and resources in the war in Afghanistan had freed up other NATO allies to increase support for the Libya mission.

Echoing Obama's comments, Merkel told reporters: "Gaddafi needs to step down and he will step down. I'm convinced of that because we have made great progress."

She suggested Germany would find other ways to help.

"When we have the talks on this, we agree that Germany ... will be showing that it is responsible and committed to the Libyan cause. There will be a lot of problems still to contend with," Merkel said.

NATO aircraft hit the Libyan capital on Tuesday in the most sustained bombardment since Western forces began air strikes in March. A defiant Gaddafi vowed to fight to the end.

Gaddafi's troops and the rebels have been in a stalemate for weeks, neither able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah and the government-held oil town of Brega.

Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and mountains near the border with Tunisia. They have been unable to advance on the capital against Gaddafi's better-equipped forces, despite NATO air strikes.

 

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Laura MacInnis; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

    Obama: Matter of time before Gaddafi is ousted, R, 7.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/us-libya-usa-obama-idUSTRE75656L20110607

Libyan Who Claimed Rape in Romania

June 7, 2011
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TIMISOARA, Romania (AP) — A Libyan woman who claims she was raped by Moammar Gadhafi's troops has arrived at a U.N. refugee center in Romania, an official said Tuesday.

Iman al-Obeidi, 29, made headlines around the world in March when she rushed into Libya's Rixos Hotel and told foreign reporters covering the country's pro-democracy insurgency that she had been gang raped by Libyan troops who detained her at a checkpoint in Tripoli.

Since then, al-Obeidi's ordeal has taken her to Tunisia, Qatar, Italy and now Romania, and her sister says the refugee's ultimate goal is to start a new life in the United States.

She is staying at the U.N. refugee transit center in the western Romanian city of Timisoara, the only one of its kind in Europe. It is a temporary haven for refugees from around the world awaiting resettlement to a third country.

Al-Obeidi will "have the same treatment as other refugees: medical treatment, psychological counseling and interviews with authorities from the country where she will be relocated," said UNHCR spokeswoman Claudia Liute. "It is a delicate case and I can't say more. She will leave Romania in a maximum of six months."

UNHCR representative Machiel Salomons urged journalists to give al-Obeidi and other refugees at the camp "space and privacy" as they begin to recover from their traumatic ordeals.

Salomons said al-Obeidi was evacuated from Libya on Sunday by UNHCR staff and flown to Romania via Italy, arriving at the refugee camp late that day.

Liute said she could not discuss al-Obeidi's medical condition, how long she will remain at the U.N. center or where she wants to relocate. But al-Obeidi's sister, Marwa, has said Iman wants to move to the United States.

Tripoli's Rixos Hotel is where all foreign correspondents are forced to stay while covering the part of Libya under Gadhafi's control in his battle against the rebels.

When Iman al-Obeidi rushed into the building in March, she shouted out her story about being stopped at the Tripoli checkpoint, dragged away and gang raped by soldiers. As she spoke emotionally, and as photographers and reporters recorded her words, Libya government minders, whose job is to escort reporters around the area, jumped her and dragged her away.

She disappeared for several days, then turned up in Tunisia and later Qatar. She was rarely heard from until Thursday, when she was suddenly expelled from Qatar and ended up in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Libya. Qatar offered no explanation.

Al-Obeidi has said she was targeted by Gadhafi's troops because she is from Benghazi. Her rape claim could not be independently verified. The Associated Press identifies only rape victims who volunteer their names.

____

Alison Mutler and Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest, Romania, contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects that al-Obeidi was accompanied to the U.N. center by UNHCR staff. Adds background, contributors' line.)

    Libyan Who Claimed Rape in Romania, R, 7.6.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/06/07/world/middleeast/AP-Libya-Woman-Attacked.html

U.S. urges Yemen to move to swift transition

SANAA | Mon Jun 6, 2011
8:59pm EDT
Reuters
By Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's government should seize on President Ali Abdullah Saleh's absence to bring about a swift and peaceful handover of power, the United States suggested.

While Saleh remains in Riyadh recovering from his wounds from Friday's rocket attack on his palace, there is a chance that Yemen can avoid the descent into chaos that Saudi Arabia and the United States are anxious to avoid, analysts say.

"We are calling for a peaceful and orderly transition," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Washington. "We feel that an immediate transition is in the best interests of the Yemeni people."

Yemen's acting leader, Vice President Abu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, said Saleh would return within days, but the attitude of Saudi Arabia, which has traditionally played a neutral role in Yemeni politics, could now be decisive.

Saudi officials insist they will not interfere with Saleh's decision to return to Yemen or stay in the kingdom, but behind the scenes the United States and Europe are likely to be pressing the Saudis to ensure Saleh's stay becomes permanent.

"The Saudis will seize the opportunity ... to extend his medical recovery into a political rest," said Yemen expert Khaled Fattah. The risk of Yemen descending into Somalia-style anarchy was "a nightmare for Saudi national security."

In the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a Saudi-brokered truce was holding after two weeks of fighting between Saleh's forces and a powerful tribal group in which more than 200 people were killed and thousands forced to flee.

But there was fresh fighting in the southern city of Taiz, and also in the southern province of Abyan, where armed men killed seven soldiers and wounded 12 others in clashes in Zinjibar on Monday, a local official and witnesses said.

An army force had tried to storm the town of 20,000. Last month, dozens of armed men believed to be from al Qaeda stormed into Zinjibar, chasing out security forces.

POWER TRANSFER

An opposition party coalition, which joined months of street protests to end Saleh's three-decade rule, said it backed transferring power to the vice-president.

The Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council urged all parties to work to end violence and said it was continuing its efforts to negotiate a power-transfer deal. Saleh has three times agreed to hand over power and three times reneged on the deal.

In a joint statement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the Prime Ministers of Britain, Spain and Italy, thanked Saudi Arabia for receiving Saleh for treatment, and called on all parties in Yemen to "find a means of reconciliation on the basis of the GCC initiative."

Yemen, which relies on oil for 60 percent of its economy, has been dealt a heavy blow by the closure of an oil pipeline that trade sources said has caused a fuel shortages.

But the future of Yemen, riven by rivalries among tribal leaders, generals and politicians, remains uncertain.

"Saleh's departure to Saudi Arabia isn't just courtesy from the Saudi ruling family," said Egyptian political analyst Nabil Abdel-Fattah. "The security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf is linked to security in Yemen."

 

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden and Jonathan Saul in London; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Diana Abdallah)

    U.S. urges Yemen to move to swift transition, R, 6.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/us-yemen-idUSTRE73L1PP20110607

Israel sees Syrian hand in Golan clashes, 23 dead

JERUSALEM | Mon Jun 6, 2011
7:41pm EDT
Reuters
By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel, with U.S. backing, accused Syria on Monday of orchestrating deadly confrontations on a ceasefire line between the two countries as a distraction from Damascus's bloody crackdown on an 11-week-old revolt.

Syria said 23 people, including a woman and a child, were killed and 350 wounded on Sunday when Israeli troops fired on Palestinian protesters who surged against the fortified boundary fence on Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said live Israeli fire had caused casualties and U.N. monitors were "seeking to confirm facts."

Russia voiced "deep concern" about the flareup and the shooting of unarmed demonstrators, while the United States said it was "deeply troubled" by attempts to breach the Golan disengagement line and urged restraint on both sides.

Washington backed Israel's charge that by permitting the protests to take place, President Bashar al-Assad was trying to shift world attention from the security forces' killing of at least 1,100 Syrians engaged in anti-government protests.

"This is clearly an attempt by Syria to incite these kinds of protests," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, saying Damascus hoped to divert attention from its own problems."

"Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself," Toner added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "The events along the Syrian border did not erupt by chance. There is an attempt being made here to heat up the border and to try and breach our borders."

Netanyahu, speaking to reporters at Israel's parliament, said Israel would defend its borders and charged Syria with "an attempt here to divert international attention from what is going on inside Syria and the difficult events in Hama."

Sunday's protest was held to mark the 44th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured the Golan Heights, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where Palestinians want to establish a state.

Although Israel and Syria are technically at war, and Syria is home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war of Israel's foundation, the Golan Heights had long been quiet.

That changed on May 15, when scores of flag-waving Palestinian activists flattened a fence on the demarcation line and briefly rallied inside Israeli-controlled territory.

 

LEGITIMACY

Rattled by the breach, Israel beefed up its defenses and warned that lethal force could be used. A Reuters reporter at the scene on Sunday saw Israeli sharpshooters firing at demonstrators at the fence and 10 people taken away on stretchers by comrades.

With U.S.-brokered peace efforts stalled, some Palestinians inspired by non-violent popular revolts sweeping the Arab world are trying to adopt similar tactics against Israel.

Israeli leaders said they feared such marches would recur ahead of the Palestinians' campaign to secure recognition of their claim to statehood at the United Nations in September.

The official Syrian news agency SANA put Sunday's death toll at 23 and quoted Health Minister Wael al-Halki as saying a woman and child were among the dead. It said 350 people suffered gunshot wounds.

The Israeli military said it believed a blast from what it said was a Syrian land mine detonated accidentally by petrol bombs thrown by protesters had caused 10 casualties. But it gave no overall figure for the dead and wounded.

Before the Golan violence, Israel rarely censured the Assad government for its domestic crackdowns. Successive Israeli governments have sought peace with Assad, seeing his government as a possible anchor for wider Israeli-Arab accommodation.

 

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Quinn in Washington, Thomas Grove in Moscow, Dominic Evans in Beirut; Editing by Dan Williams and Janet Lawrence)

    Israel sees Syrian hand in Golan clashes, 23 dead, R, 6.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-palestinians-israel-idUSTRE7541PF20110606

Syria to send in army after 120 troops killed

BEIRUT | Mon Jun 6, 2011
7:00pm EDT
Reuters
By Mariam Karouny

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces fought gunmen in battles that left more than 120 members of the security forces dead, state television said in the first report of large-scale armed clashes in the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

The television said on Monday armed groups set government buildings ablaze in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughour, stole five tonnes of dynamite and were firing at civilians and security forces with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades.

"The security forces have managed to end a blockade of one of the neighborhoods that was seized by the gunmen for awhile and are now battling them to end the blockade of the other neighborhoods," the television said.

"The gunmen mutilated some of the bodies and threw some into the river. The people in Jisr al-Shughour are urging the army to intervene speedily," it said.

Opposition activists earlier said a security operation had been under way in the town since Saturday in which they said at least 37 residents and 10 police had been killed.

But it was impossible to verify the conflicting accounts of the violence from activists and officials as authorities have prevented most international media from operating in Syria.

Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar said authorities would respond firmly to armed attacks and Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud said the army, which has so far stayed out of the town, "will carry out their national duty to restore security."

Rights groups say 1,000 civilians have been killed in the protests which have swept from the southern city of Deraa to the Mediterranean coast and eastern Kurdish regions.

ARMED REBELLION

But the ferocity of the crackdown could increase further if the government comes up against an armed insurrection.

Syrian forces crushed an armed Islamist uprising in the city of Hama in 1982 on the orders of Bashar's father, President Hafez al-Assad, killing up to 30,000 people.

An activist told Reuters that police and members of the security forces in Jisr al-Shughour were killed by gunmen.

"Some people in some areas have taken up arms," he said.

"The situation is grave, what is happening is an armed rebellion. I oppose violence from whatever side it comes from."

Residents said violence erupted in Jisr al-Shughour on Saturday when snipers on the roof of the main post office fired at a funeral for six protesters killed the day before.

Angry mourners set fire to the post office, a history teacher in the town called Ahmad said. State television said eight members of the security forces were killed when armed gunmen attacked the post office building.

It said at least 20 security force members were killed in an ambush by "armed gangs," and 82 were killed in an attack on a security post. It said the overall death toll for security forces was more than 120.

A rebellion in Jisr al-Shughour was crushed by Bashar's father in 1980 with scores of deaths.

Assad has sent in tanks to crush demonstrations in certain flashpoints.

He also has made some reformist gestures, such as issuing a general amnesty to political prisoners and launching national dialogue, but protesters and opposition figures have dismissed such measures.

 

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Jon Hemming)

    Syria to send in army after 120 troops killed, R, 6.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-syria-ambush-idUSTRE7553AI20110606

Egyptians honor activist whose death sparked revolt

Mon, Jun 6 2011
CAIRO | Mon Jun 6, 2011
5:23pm EDT
By Dina Zayed

CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of Egyptians took to the streets on Monday and stood in silence in memory of activist Khaled Said, beaten to death outside an Internet cafe exactly a year ago by two police officers in the coastal city Alexandria.

Pictures of the 28-year-old's battered face and body quickly spread via the Internet, sparking public anger in Egyptian cities that grew into the revolt that eventually toppled President Hosni Mubarak on February 11.

Mostly young Egyptians, draped with national flags, some clutching copies of the Koran, others holding the Christian cross, paid tribute to the man who became a symbol of their uprising and called for justice for victims of police brutality.

"Khaled Said died but brought the voice of justice to life," said Soha Fathy of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. "But a year has passed and his rights have not been returned."

Said posted a video that he said showed two policemen sharing the spoils of a drug bust. Witnesses say the policemen dragged Said out of an Internet cafe and beat him to death. Authorities said Said choked on illegal drugs he had swallowed.

Two policemen were put on trial last year, and a verdict is expected later this month.

"I hear the voice of a martyr calling, asking 'where are my rights and where are the rights of my nation,'" hundreds chanted outside Said's home in Alexandria, denouncing the slow progress of the investigation and trial.

"We feel great grief on this day because Khaled is not with us but it is also mixed with pride, because it was Khaled who sparked the revolution," said Zohra Said, Khaled's sister. "But we are still waiting for justice."

REJECTING TORTURE

Hundreds gathered outside the interior ministry in Cairo, a scene impossible to imagine before the uprising when the building was cordoned off and difficult even to walk past, chanting "do not worry Khaled, we have avenged your death."

"I'm here because this is the least I can do. It is not acceptable for people to die at the hands of security officers," Sara Hussein said, standing outside the building while activists climbed on walls to draw graffiti images of Said.

"We are reminding authorities that we will not stand for torture and brutality," Hussein said. "It isn't just about respecting his memory. We are sending the message to those who may think we will let the system return to what it was."

Protesters voiced concern that officials responsible for opening fire at protesters have not yet been held to account. At least 846 people died in the uprising and more than 6,000 were injured.

"We are calling not just for a faster trial of those officers responsible for the death of Said and others," but also a complete restructuring of the role of the police, said potential presidential candidate Ayman Nour said.

Last year, at the first rally after Said's death, activists stood with their back to the land and looked out to sea, often having to move because of harassment by security men.

On Monday, hundreds stood on Cairo's Qasr El Nile Bridge and hundreds more stood on the corniche in Alexandria, facing busy streets with pictures of Said in their hands.

"Last year, I stood with my back to the land because it was a message to the regime that we had lost hope. Today, I'm looking in, because I have faith and a will to build a new Egypt," activist Mohamed Abdel Kareem said.

 

(Additional reporting by Abdel Rahman Youssef in Alexandria and Amr Abdullah;

Writing by Dina Zayed, editing by Tim Pearce)

    Egyptians honor activist whose death sparked revolt, R, 6.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-egypt-activist-idUSTRE7555OY20110606

Explosions in Tripoli, rebels seize Libyan town

YAFRAN/TRIPOLI | Tue Jun 7, 2011
12:59am EDT
Reuters
By Youssef Boudlal and Peter Graff

YAFRAN/TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Loud explosions shook Tripoli early on Tuesday morning in what appeared to be stepped up NATO air strikes on the Libyan capital, and rebel forces seized a town in the west, driving out Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Explosions were heard in Tripoli on Monday night and into Tuesday morning -- the latest in several rounds of bombings in the last two days, a Reuters witness said.

Libyan TV said al-Karama neighborhood was hit by NATO forces, which have been bombing targets of Gaddafi's government since March.

It later said a telecommunications station was hit in a bombing.

"The crusading colonial aggressor this evening hit and destroyed a communications center west of Tripoli, severing land communications in some areas. The station is civilian," it said.

Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and the range of mountains near the border with Tunisia. But they have been unable to advance on the capital against Gaddafi's better-equipped forces, despite NATO air strikes.

Rebels seized Yafran, 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Tripoli, on Monday after British warplanes destroyed two tanks and two armored personnel carriers on June 2.

Yafran is spread over a hill, the bottom part of which had been controlled by pro-Gaddafi forces for more than a month and used to besiege the rebel-controlled part.

Food, drinking water and medicines were running short.

Asked about reports of rebel gains in the Western Mountains area, Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Khaled Kaim told reporters government forces could retake rebel territory in hours, but were holding back from doing so to avoid civilian casualties.

APACHES ATTACK

NATO attack helicopters were in action in the east on Sunday. Apaches destroyed a rocket launcher system on the coast near the eastern town of Brega, Britain's Defense Ministry said.

A French military source said French planes and helicopters had been in Libya every night since Friday, but gave no details.

Gaddafi's forces also fired rockets into the rebel-held town of Ajdabiyah in the east on Monday and clashes broke out on the main road further west, rebel sources said.

Gaddafi's troops and the rebels have been in stalemate for weeks, with neither able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah and the Gaddafi-held oil town of Brega further west.

The new deployment of the helicopters is part of a plan to step up military operations to break the deadlock. Critics say NATO has gone far beyond its U.N. mandate to protect civilians.

In a report on Monday, the International Crisis Group (ICG) urged the rebels and their NATO allies to propose a ceasefire.

"The (rebels) and their NATO supporters appear uninterested in resolving the conflict through negotiation," it said.

"To insist, as they have done, on Gaddafi's departure as a precondition...is to prolong the military conflict and deepen the crisis. Instead, the priority should be to secure an immediate ceasefire and negotiations on a transition."

Western governments and rebels say a combination of NATO air strikes, diplomatic isolation and grassroots opposition will eventually bring an end to Gaddafi's rule.

But Gaddafi says he has no intention of stepping down. He insists he is supported by all Libyans apart from a minority of "rats" and al Qaeda militants, and says the NATO intervention is designed to steal Libya's abundant oil.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen sidestepped questions on whether more helicopters were needed, but he said he would repeat calls for NATO allies to step up involvement during a NATO defense ministers meeting this week.

"In general terms, I will request broad support for our operation in Libya, if possible increased contributions, if possible more flexible use of the assets provided," he said.

NATO last week decided to extend operations in Libya for another 90 days, or until the end of September.

Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez will travel to the Libyan city of Benghazi to meet rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil on Wednesday, her ministry said in a statement on Monday.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said an Egypt-based Chinese diplomat also had visited Benghazi for talks with the rebel-led National Transitional Council, adding to signs that China is courting the insurgents.

The diplomat went to the city to "understand the local humanitarian situation and the state of Chinese-funded firms," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mfa.gov.cn) late on Monday.

The diplomat met leaders of the rebel council, the statement said, without giving details.

 

(Additional reporting by Sherine El Madany in Benghazi, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, Tim Cocks in Tunis and Chris Buckley in Beijing; Writing and additional reporting by John Irish in Rabat; Editing by Michael Roddy)

    Explosions in Tripoli, rebels seize Libyan town, R, 7.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/07/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110607

Factbox:

Saleh family entrenched in Yemen security, business

Mon Jun 6, 2011
7:34am EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - Yemenis celebrated on Monday what many hope will be a new era without President Ali Abdullah Saleh, now recuperating in Saudi Arabia after an operation to remove shrapnel from his chest the previous day.

But the struggle for Yemen's future could be bloody as Saleh's family members remain in key political, security and economic positions.

Below is a list of Saleh family members in senior security and military roles and another of relatives who hold influential positions in Yemen's business community.

SALEH FAMILY MEMBERS IN SENIOR SECURITY AND POLITICAL ROLES

* SON: Brigadier General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, Commander of the Republican Forces

* NEPHEW: Brigadier General Yehia Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, Commander of the Central Security Forces

* NEPHEW: Brigadier General Tareq Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, Commander of the Private Presidential Guards

* NEPHEW: Brigadier General Ammar Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, Deputy Head of the National Security Organization (intelligence)

* NEPHEW: Colonel Haytham Mohamed Saleh al- Ahmar, Deputy Commander of the Private Presidential Guards

* SON: Lieutenant Khaled Ali Abdullah Saleh, officer in the Republican Guards

* HALF-BROTHER: General Mohamed Saleh al- Ahmar, Commander of Yemeni Air Forces

* HALF-BROTHER: General Ali Saleh al- Ahmar, Director of the office of the High Commander of the Armed & Security Forces

* SON-IN-LAW: Colonel Senan Ahmed Douwayed, officer in the Presidential Guards

* BROTHER-IN-LAW: Abdul Rahman al-Akwa, Secretary of Sanaa, former information minister, former youth minister

* BROTHER-IN-LAW: Ahmed Abdullah al-Hajri, Governor of Ibb province

* BROTHER-IN-LAW: Abdul Wahab al-Hajri, Ambassador to Washington for the past 13 years

* BROTHER-IN-LAW: Mutahar al-Hajri, member of parliament

* SON-IN-LAW: Khaled Esmail al-Arhabi, Assistant Secretary General of Presidency

SALEH FAMILY MEMBERS IN SENIOR ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS ROLES

* FATHER-IN-LAW, Mohamed Ali al-Akwa, owner of huge lands and properties all over Yemen

* BROTHER-IN-LAW: Ismail Mohamed al-Akwa, wealthy businessman

* NEPHEW: Tawfiq Saleh Abdullah Saleh, Chairman of the National Matches and Tobacco Company

* SON-IN-LAW: Abdul Khaleq Saleh al-Qadi, Chairman of Yemenia Air Lines Company

    Factbox: Saleh family entrenched in Yemen security, business, R, 6.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-yemen-family-power-idUSTRE7551UY20110606

Syria forces killed 70 protesters Friday: activists

BEIRUT | Sat Jun 4, 2011
3:07pm EDT
Reuters
By Mariam Karouny

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed at least 70 protesters Friday, activists said, one of the bloodiest days since the start of an 11-week revolt against the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Friday in defiance of security forces determined to crush the uprising, and some activists said the death toll could hit 100.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 60 people were killed in Hama, where Assad's father Hafez crushed an armed revolt 29 years ago by killing up to 30,000 people and razing parts of the city.

A political activist in Hama said tens of thousands of people were attending the funerals of dead protesters on Saturday, and that more protests were planned later in the day.

"Anger is very high in the city, people will never be silent or scared. The whole city is shut today and people are calling for a three-day strike," the activist, who gave his name as Omar, told Reuters by phone from the city.

"We expect protests after the evening prayers."

Residents and activists said that security forces and snipers fired at demonstrators who thronged Hama Friday.

On top of the casualties there, Syrian human rights group Sawasiah said one person was killed in Damascus and two in the northwestern province of Idlib. Seven people were killed in the town of Rastan in central Syria, which has been under military assault and besieged by tanks since Sunday.

Rights groups say security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians during the uprising, provoking international outrage at Assad's ruthless handling of the demonstrators.

Assad has tried brute force and political concessions, often simultaneously, to quell protests. The tactic has so far failed to stop the revolt against 41 years of rule by the Assad family, members of the minority Alawite sect in mainly Sunni Syria.

In Deraa, birthplace of the revolt, hundreds defied a military curfew and demonstrated Friday, two residents said.

Syrian forces fired on demonstrations in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and in Damascus' Barzeh district. Activists and residents said thousands marched in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Kurdish northeast, several Damascus suburbs, the city of Homs and the towns of Madaya and Zabadani in the west.

"It is worth noting that Hama and Idlib, where the biggest demonstrations occurred, used to be the stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood," said one activist who declined to be named.

"The number of people who took to the streets could be a message from the (Muslim) Brotherhood to the regime that: "now we are taking part in the revolution in full weight.""

 

ACTIVIST FREED

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was "deeply concerned" by reports that Internet service and some mobile phone networks had been shut down in much of Syria.

"We condemn any effort to suppress the Syrian people's exercise of their rights to free expression, assembly and association," she said in a statement. "Attempting to silence the population cannot prevent the transition currently taking place... the Syrian people will find a way to make their voices heard."

Syrian authorities released a prominent activist Saturday who had been in jail since 2008, Abdulrahman said.

Ali Abdallah, in his 50s, had criticised Syria's ally Iran. He was a member of the Damascus Declaration, a rights movement named after a document calling for a democratic constitution and an end of the Baath Party's five-decade monopoly on power.

Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed groups backed by Islamists and foreign powers, and say the groups have fired on civilians and security forces alike. Authorities have prevented most international media from operating in Syria, making it impossible to verify accounts of the violence.

Activists say there have been some instances of citizens resisting security forces with personal weapons, and of security police shooting soldiers who refused to fire at protesters.

Assad has sent in tanks to crush demonstrations in some flashpoints but has also offered some reforms, such as an amnesty for political prisoners and a national dialogue -- measures dismissed by opposition figures as too little too late.

The United States, the European Union and Australia have imposed sanctions on Syria, but perhaps because of reluctance to get entangled in another confrontation after Libya, their reaction has been less vehement than some activists had hoped.

 

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, editing by Tim Pearce)

    Syria forces killed 70 protesters Friday: activists, R, 4.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/04/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110604

Former Secretary of State Eagleburger dies

WASHINGTON | Sat Jun 4, 2011
2:05pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who served under George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, died on Saturday at the age of 80, a spokeswoman for his family said.

He died in Charlottesville, Va., after a short illness, the spokeswoman said.

Eagleburger headed the State Department from August 1992 to January 1993, capping a diplomatic career that spanned eight presidents, both Democrats and Republicans.

President Barack Obama in a statement said Eagleburger had "helped our nation navigate the pivotal days during the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War" when he led the State Department.

Eagleburger entered the foreign service in 1957, but his career took off when he became an assistant to President Richard Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, in 1969.

Self-described as a moderate Republican, Eagleburger was widely regarded as a tough pragmatist in foreign affairs.

After Republicans lost the White House to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Eagleburger was asked to stay on and served as ambassador to Yugoslavia in the Democratic administration.

He also served in the State Department during the Reagan administration, leaving in 1984 to become president of Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm founded by Kissinger.

Bush brought him back to government in 1989 as deputy secretary of state, the No. 2 job, even though he had not been a member of Bush's inner circle of advisers headed by Secretary of State James Baker.

Eagleburger became acting secretary when Baker left to run Bush's re-election campaign in August 1992 and was sworn in officially on December 8, 1992 for the last month and a half of Bush's presidential term.

In 2006 Eagleburger was a late addition to the Iraq Study Group headed by Baker and former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton that gave a report on the Iraq war to President George W. Bush.

An avuncular, cane-carrying figure who suffered from chronic asthma and a muscle disorder, Eagleburger was a heavy smoker known as crusty, charming and wisecracking.

He named each of his three sons Lawrence -- but all with different middle names. Asked to explain that move he reportedly said: "First of all, it was ego. And secondly, I wanted to screw up the Social Security system."

(Reporting by Dave Clarke, Editing by Vicki Allen)

    Former Secretary of State Eagleburger dies, R, 4.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/04/us-usa-eagleburger-idUSTRE7531MB20110604

NATO uses helicopters to strike Libya targets

BRUSSELS | Sat Jun 4, 2011
5:41am EDT
Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO employed attack helicopters to hit targets in Libya for the first time on Saturday, an alliance statement said.

"The targets struck included military vehicles, military equipment and fielded forces," the statement said, without giving details of the location of the strikes.

France and Britain said last month they were making attack helicopters available to NATO to step up pressure in an air war against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces launched in March.

Britain's Sky News said the attacks were carried out by British Apache helicopters from HMS Ocean on the town of Brega in eastern Libya, site of important oil facilities.

Two targets were hit and an armored vehicle at a checkpoint, a Sky correspondent on HMS Ocean reported.

The NATO statement said the use of attack helicopters provided increased flexibility to track and attack pro-Gaddafi forces attempting to hide in populated areas.

Military analysts say it also greatly increases the risk of Western forces suffering their first casualties of the campaign, given the vulnerability of helicopters to ground fire.

The commander of NATO's Libya force, Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, said the first engagement had been successful and shown the unique capabilities of attack helicopters.

"We will continue to use these assets whenever and wherever needed," he said.

Military analysts say attack helicopters will allow more precise strikes against forces in built-up areas than high-flying jets used until now, while reducing the risk of civilian casualties.

NATO has said their deployment would not presage the deployment of ground forces in Libya, which Western countries have ruled out.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

$INS01; Line LNY Insave:- TI line name (Map report)

    NATO uses helicopters to strike Libya targets, R, 4.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/04/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110604

Sanaa residents flee after attack on Yemen's Saleh

SANAA | Sat Jun 4, 2011
5:31am EDT
Reuters
By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) - Thousands fled Sanaa on Saturday a day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh was wounded in an attack on his compound that marked a new stage in fighting which has brought Yemen closer to civil war.

Saleh's forces retaliated by shelling the homes of the leaders of a powerful tribal federation fighting an urban battle to oust Saleh.

The clashes have killed nearly 200 people over the last two weeks and turned areas of Sanaa into ghost towns after residents fled for safety.

Global powers are worried that Yemen, home to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and bordering the world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia, could become a failed state, raising risks for regional security and Gulf oil shipments.

Several officials injured in the palace attack, including the speakers of both houses and parliament and the deputy prime minister were flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment, a medical source said without offering details on their condition.

Several officials were injured and seven killed when shells hit a mosque in the presidential palace, state media said. A senior diplomat said the prime minister, his deputy, the parliament speaker and other aides were hurt in the attack.

Saleh, a tenacious political survivor who has clung to power for nearly 33 years, said in an audio address late on Friday that an "outlaw gang" was behind the attack, which he blamed on the Hashed tribe led by Sadeq al-Ahmar. A tribal spokesman denied responsibility.

"I salute our armed forces and the security forces for standing up firmly to confront this challenge by an outlaw gang that has nothing to do with the so-called youth revolution," Saleh said. "Seven officers were martyred."

The deputy information minister said that Saleh, 69, had suffered minor injuries but was in good health. The president has not been seen in public since the attack.

'BULLETS EVERYWHERE'

Intermittent blasts and sporadic fire fights with automatic weapons punctuated the predawn hours in Sanaa and roads were clogged when the sun rose by civilians trying to flee the fighting that has engulfed more parts of the city.

"Bullets are everywhere, explosions terrified us. There's no chance to stay anymore," said Sanaa resident Ali Ahmed.

Nearly 400 people have been killed since a popular uprising against Saleh began in January, inspired by the movements in Tunisia and Egypt that toppled their long-standing leaders.

The battles are being fought on several fronts, with popular protests in several cities and military units breaking away from Saleh to protect the protesters.

There has also been a nearly week-long campaign in Zinjibar by locals and Saleh's soldiers to oust Islamist and al Qaeda militants who seized the southern coastal city near a shipping lane where about 3 million barrels of oil pass daily.

Saleh has exasperated his former U.S. and Saudi allies who had once seen him as a key partner in efforts to combat al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Defying world pressure, Saleh has thrice reneged on a deal brokered by Gulf states for him to quit in return for immunity from prosecution, even as he loses support at home.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed al-Ramahi in Sanaa, Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden, Khaled al-Mahdi in Taiz, Mahmoud Habboush and Jon Herskovitz in Dubai and Samia Nakhoul in London; writing by Jon Herskovitz and Tim Pearce; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

    Sanaa residents flee after attack on Yemen's Saleh, R, 4.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/04/us-yemen-idUSTRE73L1PP20110604

Iran backs Arab uprisings unless pro-U.S.: Khamenei

TEHRAN | Sat Jun 4, 2011
5:26am EDT
Reuters
By Robin Pomeroy

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran backs all Muslim uprisings except those stirred up by Washington, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, a stance that explains Tehran's lack of support for anti-government protesters in ally Syria.

Addressing a crowd commemorating the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei said the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution had predicted events in the Middle East over the last few months where Arabs have risen up against oppressive regimes.

Non-Arab, predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran relished the fall in February of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a U.S.-backed secularist who made peace with Israel.

Tehran has also voiced support for pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the region, especially Bahrain where the Sunni monarchy was aided by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to put down democracy protests led by majority Shi'ite Muslims.

But the Islamic Republic, which crushed its own mass protests after the disputed re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, has not expressed backing for demonstrators in Syria where President Bashar al-Assad is a key regional ally.

"Our stance is clear: wherever a movement is Islamic, popular and anti-American, we support it," Khamenei told the crowd which punctuated his speech at Khomeini's mausoleum on the outskirts of Tehran with chants of "Death to America."

Without mentioning Syria by name, he continued: "If somewhere a movement is provoked by America and Zionists, we will not support it. Wherever America and the Zionists (Israel) enter the scene to topple a regime and occupy a country, we are on the opposite side."

AHMADINEJAD

Washington has accused Tehran of helping Syria crush protests, an accusation both countries deny. A Syrian human rights group said 63 civilians were killed in the latest clashes on Friday.

Iran's adversaries fear its influence in the Middle East could increase due to the shake-up in the region where Syria has been one of its few allies. The United States and Israel say they suspect Iran uses Syria as a conduit for weapons to militant groups in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, a charge Iran and Syria deny.

The president attended the commemoration but, unlike last year, did not speak himself.

One week before the second anniversary of Ahmadinejad's re-election which the opposition movement wants to mark by a "silent rally" in Tehran, Khamenei said there was room for dissenting voices as long as they did not seek to topple the Islamic system.

"We cannot deprive people of justice and security just because they have different political opinions but they don't want to overthrow the establishment," he said.

Opposition leaders Mehdi Karoubi and Mirhossein Mousavi have been held under house arrest since February when they called their supporters to the streets in solidarity with the Arab uprisings.

Two people were shot dead at the march in Tehran on February 14, the first "Green Movement" demonstration for more than a year after opposition protests were crushed by security forces at the end of 2009.

Members of parliament have called for the Green leaders to be hanged for sedition.

(Additional reporting by Ramin Mostafavi; Writing by Robin Pomeroy)

    Iran backs Arab uprisings unless pro-U.S.: Khamenei, R, 4.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/04/us-iran-khamenei-idUSTRE7530SX20110604

U.S. says worried by cyber-attacks; committed to Asia

SINGAPORE | Sat Jun 4, 2011
4:17am EDT
Reuters
By Raju Gopalakrishnan and David Alexander

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The United States is seriously concerned about cyber-attacks and is prepared to use force against those it considers acts of war, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a security meeting in Asia on Saturday.

He also assured Asian allies that the United States would protect sea lanes and maintain a robust military presence in the region despite a severe budget crunch and the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We take the cyber threat very seriously and we see it from a variety of sources, not just one or another country," Gates said at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, an apparent reference to reports that several of the attacks may have originated in China.

"What would constitute an act of war by cyber that would require some kind of response, either in kind or kinetically?" he said.

"We could avoid some serious international tensions in the future if we could establish some rules of the road as early as possible to let people know what kinds of acts are acceptable, what kinds of acts are not and what kinds of acts may in fact be acts of war."

Earlier this week, Google said it had disrupted a campaign aimed at stealing passwords of hundreds of Google email account holders, including senior U.S. government officials, Chinese activists and journalists.

It was the latest in a series of cyber attacks that have also targeted defense contractor Lockheed Martin and Sony Corp. Google said the latest breach appeared to originate in China but neither the company nor the U.S. government has said the Chinese government was responsible.

But the U.S. State Department has asked Beijing to investigate.

British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said cyber attacks were now regular and in large numbers. "It's....the war of the invisible enemy," he said, adding that it had become a matter of urgency and was firmly on top of the security agenda.

 

CHINA TIES

Gates said it was difficult to identify where the perpetrators of such attacks were based and added that military ties with China were improving.

But he also said the U.S. was preparing weapons systems and capabilities that would allow U.S. forces "to deploy, move and strike over great distances in defense of our allies and vital interests." Although he gave few other details, the plans could worry China, U.S. officials privately said.

Asked whether China wouldn't see the remarks as a concern, a senior U.S. defense official said it was an example of the need for greater military transparency between the two sides.

"Without transparency, we obviously have to do certain things and make certain preparations because it's not quite clear what everybody's intentions are," the official said. "So the more ... clear it is about what China's military investment is aimed at, the more clear it us for us what's going on in the region and what intentions are."

Gates said the United States was committed to its Asian allies although a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan had strained U.S. ground forces and exhausted public patience, while the recession had left Washington with huge budget deficits and looking to cut military spending.

"Irrespective of the tough times the U.S. faces today, or the tough budget choices we confront in the coming years, ... America's interests as a Pacific nation -- as a country that conducts much of its trade in the region -- will endure," he said.

"The United States and Asia will only become more inextricably linked over the course of this century. These realities ... argue strongly for sustaining our commitments to allies while maintaining a robust military engagement and deterrent posture across the Pacific Rim," he said.

 

(Additional reporting by Kevin Lim and Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

    U.S. says worried by cyber-attacks; committed to Asia, R, 4.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/04/us-singapore-defence-idUSTRE7530O920110604

Factbox: Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh

Fri Jun 3, 2011
3:12pm EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was slightly wounded in an attack on his palace in the capital Sanaa, on Friday, a Yemen-based Western diplomat told Reuters.

Here are some facts about Yemen's long-serving leader:

* SALEH AS PRESIDENT:

-- Saleh, in power for more than three decades, has used internal conflicts with Houthi Shi'ite rebels in the north, Marxist rebels in the south and al-Qaeda operatives to the east to draw in foreign aid and military support and solidify his power base. Al Qaeda has already used Yemen to attempt attacks in Saudi Arabia and the United States in the past two years.

-- Saleh presided over the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990 and has fended off rebels and separatists to prevent Yemen sliding into becoming a failed state.

-- He was elected president by parliament in October 1994, and first directly elected president in September 1999, winning 96.3 percent of the vote. Most recently, he was re-elected in September 2006 to a seven-year term.

-- A string of Saleh's allies has defected to protesters, who are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment. Some 40 percent of the population live on $2 a day or less, and one third face chronic hunger.

-- Saleh has made many verbal concessions during the protests, recently promising to step down in weeks in return for immunity from prosecution. The opposition agreed to the peace plan, which was negotiated by the Gulf Cooperation Council.

-- However, Saleh has yet to sign any plan and the latest refusal, on May 22, has sparked more street battles in Sanaa this time between his security forces and a powerful tribal group, the Hashed tribal alliance, led by Sadeq al-Ahmar whose family has backed protesters demanding Saleh's overthrow.

-- The fighting forced thousands of residents to flee Sanaa and raised the prospect of chaos that could benefit the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda and threaten neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter. More than 370 people have been killed around Yemen since January when the protest movement began.

-- Saleh was slightly wounded when shells struck his palace on Friday, a Yemen-based Western diplomat said. The government blamed the tribesmen but Sadeq al-Ahmar blamed the government to help justify its escalation of street fighting in the capital.

* LIFE DETAILS:

-- Born in March 1942 into a tribe living near Sanaa, he received only limited education before taking up a military career, beginning in 1958 as a non-commissioned officer.

-- His first break came when North Yemen President Ahmed al-Ghashmi, who came from the same Hashed tribe as Saleh, appointed him military governor of Taiz, North Yemen's second city. When Ghashmi was killed by a bomb in 1978, Saleh replaced him as leader of the North.

-- However, the severity of his rule aggravated tension with the South, and sporadic clashes escalated into open conflict between the two states in 1979. The brief war went badly for Saleh.

-- However, Saleh was seen as a survivor. He crushed an attempt to overthrow him only months after he took power in North Yemen, and swept to victory when southerners tried to secede from united Yemen in 1994.

Sources: Reuters/Globalsecurity.com

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

    Factbox: Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh, R, 3.6.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/03/us-yemen-saleh-profile-factbox-idUSTRE7526DK20110603

Syrian forces shell town kill 41, lawyer says

ANTALYA, Turkey | Wed Jun 1, 2011
6:57pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Oweis

ANTALYA, Turkey (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed 41 civilians in an effort to crush pro-democracy protests, a human rights lawyer said on Wednesday, as opposition leaders met in Turkey to plot the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Lawyer Razan Zaitouna told Reuters by telephone from Damascus the 41 dead in Rastan included a four-year-old girl killed as government forces shelled the central town on Tuesday.

Five of them were buried in Rastan on Wednesday, she said.

Syrian forces also killed nine civilians on Tuesday in the town of Hirak, rights campaigner Ammar Qurabi said on Wednesday.

The nine, among them three doctors, one dentist and an 11-year-old girl, were killed by snipers and during the storming of houses in Hirak, where tanks had deployed this week, Qurabi, who heads the Syrian Human Rights Organization, told Reuters.

Rights groups say 1,000 civilians have been killed as Assad seeks to crush a revolt which has turned into the gravest challenge to his 11-year rule. The severity of the crackdown has provoked international condemnation and sanctions.

"The revolution inside Syria has declared 'the people want the overthrow of the regime'. We echo it. The price of the blood being shed can only be freedom," Abdelrazzaq Eid, a senior figure in the Damascus Declaration umbrella opposition group, told a conference in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya.

The gathering is the first official meeting of activists and opposition figures in exile since protests erupted 10 weeks ago in Deraa, a poor, agricultural city in southern Syria.

"The dictatorship has presented nothing to show a modicum of good intentions. It has lost any legitimacy by firing at and killing its own people," Eid said, to the applause of delegates.

Syrian authorities blame armed groups, backed by Islamists and foreign agitators, for the unrest and say more than 120 police and soldiers have been killed.

The meeting in Turkey brought together a broad spectrum of opposition figures driven abroad over the last 30 years, from Islamists crushed in the 1980s, to fleeing Christians.

A regional Middle East player, Assad has sought since succeeding his father in 2000 to maintain Syria as an ally of Iran and supporter of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah while seeking better ties with the West and peace with Israel.

But Assad's handling of the protests has triggered U.S. and EU sanctions on members of the ruling hierarchy, including himself, after four years of detente with the West. Syria's backer Turkey has also begun to criticize Assad.

"SACRIFICES"

Delegates in Turkey said an ultra-loyalist army controlled by Assad's brother Maher, and a security apparatus which has suppressed dissent for decades, were preventing Damascus and Syria's biggest city Aleppo from joining the demonstrations.

But they said international pressure and a series of gruesome killings have turned Syrian public opinion against the 45-year-old leader, pointing to a slow but steady expansion of demonstrations, despite an intensified military crackdown.

"I am afraid there will be more sacrifices before Assad goes, but this is the nature of revolutions," said Naim al-Salamat, a researcher who lives in Ireland.

Thirteen-year-old Hamza al-Khatib has become a potent symbol to protesters after video of his bloodied corpse was posted on the Internet. Activists say he was tortured and killed by security forces. Syrian authorities deny he was tortured and say he was killed when armed gangs shot at government forces.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "very concerned" about Khatib's case.

"I think what that symbolizes for many Syrians is the total collapse of any effort by the Syrian government to work with and listen to their own people," Clinton told a news conference.

"I can only hope that this child did not die in vain."

Assad has issued decrees aimed at appeasing public grievances. Opposition leaders say they would not change the nature of a repressive political system in which arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture of political detainees are common.

State news agency SANA said on Wednesday Assad ordered the formation of a committee tasked with setting the framework for a national dialogue.

On Tuesday he announced an amnesty for political prisoners, but rights campaigners said the decree had numerous exceptions, specifying reduced sentences for many cases rather than release.

France said the amnesty had come too late.

"The Syrian authorities' change of direction will have to be much clearer and more ambitious than a simple amnesty," France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told France Culture radio.

(Editing by Jon Hemming and Michael Roddy)

    Syrian forces shell town kill 41, lawyer says, R, 1.6.2011
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/01/us-syria-idUSLDE73N02P20110601