Tuesday, January 7, 2014

CANADA MILITARY NEWS: This Muslim on Muslim hate wars destroying our planet/Arabs and Persians and their hate factions are killing millions of innocent Muslims- and the world is tired of this shit

CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Say it ain't so USA- This Report- USA is the Creator and Sustainer of Chechen Terrorism??/ Our Global Youth are competing at Sochi Winter Olympics/Paralympics 2014 Mother Russia- we must protect and honour our athletes- it's about them- all about our young athletes.

http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2014/01/canada-military-news-say-it-aint-so-usa.html
TWITTER
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Say it ain't so USA- This Report- USA is the Creator and Sustainer of Chechen Terrorism/SOCHI nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2014/01/canada…
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BLOGGED SOCHI WINTER OLYMPICS/PARALYMPICS 2014- MOTHER RUSSIA

SOCHI OLYMPICS/PARALYMPICS- Dec31-Jan 2014 -WE REMEMBER BOSTON- All Nation countries band 2gether 2 BRING THE BEST OF THEIR BOMB DOGS AND HUNTERS- who are the world's best at catching the coward Heretic Muslim Monsters- - The Winter Olympics/Paralympics of Sochi, Mother Russia are 4 the global children of this world 2 honour the best of the best of all that is good about our world class athletes.... All nations stepping up.... 4 Sochi.... r kids matter

http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2013/12/sochi-olympicsparalympics-dec31-jan.html

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BLOGGED:

CANADA MILITARY NEWS: SOCHI- Dec 10 -we are told 2 get with the fact- it's about global team spirit of global athletes who have worked 4 years 2 compete with world's best - NOT POLITICS OR INTERVENTIONS- Canada loves lost in beautiful translations... SOCHI, SOCHI, SOCHI- won't apologize 4 Ukraine love but will focus on Athletes- which had been doing mostly.... this is such an exciting time... especially 4 the old Canadians who may NOT get 2 watch another Winter Olympics/Paralympics- updates
http://nova0000scotia.blogspot.ca/2013/12/canada-military-news-sochi-dec-10-we.html
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CANADA

Federal Court upholds government stopping funding to Canadian Arab Federation over concerns it appears to support terrorist organizations

TORONTO — The Federal Court has upheld the government’s decision to stop funding the Canadian Arab Federation over concerns it appears to support terrorist organizations and anti-Semitism.
Justice Russel Zinn ruled the decision to not renew the Toronto-based pro-Palestinian lobby group’s $2.5-million in public funds was reasonable, given the conduct of its outspoken executives.
“All of the statements and actions raised by the Minister can, in my view, reasonably lead one to the view that CAF appears to support organizations that Canada has declared to be terrorist organizations and which are arguably anti-Semitic,” the judge wrote.
“Aside from the Minister himself reaching this view, the record is replete with news articles and statements of others to the same effect, all of which support that it was not unreasonable for the Minister to reach that conclusion.”
The CAF had been receiving about three-quarters of its budget from Ottawa. The government funding was specifically for language and settlement programs for immigrants provided by the CAF.
But Jason Kenney cut off that funding in 2010 after he become Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In an email, he called the CAF “radical and anti-Semitic” and said it was “shameful” it was receiving public money.
The decision followed six specific incidents, the court said, including a pamphlet forwarded by CAF President Khaled Mouammar that attacked Liberal MP Bob Rae and his wife for their involvement in the Jewish community.
At a 2009 rally organized by the CAF and other groups, the flag of the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah was flown and a protester screamed, “Jewish child, you are going to f—cking die. Hamas is coming for you.”
The CAF’s website had also linked to videos and images of Hamas operatives undergoing training, as well as the flags of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Palestinian terrorist groups notorious for their suicide bombing campaigns.
The CAF’s vice-president Ali Mullah attended a conference in Cairo where Hamas and Hezbollah were present. In addition, the CAF had honored Zafar Bangash, who “has referred to Canadians as ‘infidels or non-believers’ in the past and reported on the September 11 attacks in a way that was unsympathetic to the victims,” the court said.
Quite simply, the CAF cannot completely disassociate itself from the content of web links it includes in its materials, or from comments, distribution of materials, or attendances at meetings and conference by its executives
While the CAF said it had not authorized any of the incidents cited by the minister, “this defense ignores the maxim that ‘one is known by the company one keeps,’” Justice Zinn wrote in his 42-page decision.
“Quite simply, the CAF cannot completely disassociate itself from the content of web links it includes in its materials, or from comments, distribution of materials, or attendances at meetings and conference by its executives.”
Our Government’s position is clear: organizations that appear to promote hatred, including anti-Semitism, or excuse violence and terrorism do not have the right, and should not expect, to receive tax dollars to deliver Government services
The court said those who enroll in government-funded settlement programs are being “orientated to the Canadian way of life” and that the suitability of the program provider was therefore critical. The funding deference decision was a matter of broader public policy and the minister should therefore be “granted deference,” the judge wrote.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies applauded the ruling, saying in a statement that “newcomers to this country should be educated about Canadian values of respect and human rights, and not be inspired to form anti-Semitic and hateful opinions.”
Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, called the ruling “a victory for common sense” and the rule of law. “Our Government’s position is clear: organizations that appear to promote hatred, including anti-Semitism, or excuse violence and terrorism do not have the right, and should not expect, to receive tax dollars to deliver Government services,” he said.
National Post
• Email: sbell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: @StewartBellNP

http://wordpress.com/read/post/feed/49258/347111114/
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Al-Qaeda, NATO’s Timeless Tool

Veritas / 2 days ago
The discovery of links connecting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Al- Qaeda is upsetting Turkish politics. Ankara not only actively supported terrorism in Syria, but did so as part of a NATO strategy. The case also shows the artificiality of armed groups fighting against the government and the Syrian people.
So far, the authorities of the Member States of NATO affirm that the international jihadist movement, whose training they supported during the Afghan war against the Soviets (1979), would have turned against them upon the liberation of Kuwait (1991). They accuse Al-Qaeda of having attacked embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998) and of plotting the attacks of September 11, 2001 but admitted that, after the official death of Osama Bin Laden (2011), some jihadist elements again collaborated with them in Libya and Syria. However, Washington would have ended this tactical rapprochement in December 2012.
Now, this version is contradicted by the facts : Al-Qaeda has always fought the same enemies as the Atlantic Alliance, as reveals once again the scandal currently shaking Turkey.
We are learning that the Al-Qaeda banker, Yasin al-Qadi, who was designated as such and pursued by the United States since the attacks against embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998), was a personal friend of both former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. We discover that this ” terrorist” led a lavish lifestyle, traveling by private plane and mocking UN sanctions against him. Thus, at least four times, he visited Erdoğan in 2012, arriving by the second Istanbul airport where, after disconnecting the cameras, he was welcomed by the head of the Prime Minister’s guard without going through customs.
According to the Turkish police and judges who revealed this information and incarcerated the children of several ministers involved in the case, December 17, 2013 – before being divested of the investigation (relieved of their duties) by the Prime Minister -, Yasin al-Qadi and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had developed an extensive system of diversion of funds to finance al-Qaeda in Syria.
At the same time that this incredible double play was exposed, the Turkish police stopped a truck carrying weapons for Al-Qaeda near the Syrian border. Of the three people arrested, one said he was conveying the load on behalf of IHH, the ’humanitarian’ Association of the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood, while another claimed to be a Turkish secret agent on a mission. Ultimately, the governor prevented the police and justice from doing their work, confirming that the transport was a covert MIT (Turkish Secret Service) operation, and ordered that the truck and its load continue their journey.
The investigation also shows that the Turkish financing of Al- Qaeda used an Iranian company both to act undercover in Syria and to conduct terrorist operations in Iran. NATO already had accomplices in Tehran during the “Iran-Contra” operation in former President Rafsandaji’s inner circles, such as Sheikh Rohani, who has become the current president.
These facts come into play as the Syrian political opposition in exile launches a new theory on the eve of the Geneva 2 Conference: The al-Nosra Front and the Islamic Emirate in Iraq and the Levant (ÉIIL) would be façades of the Syrian secret services trying to frighten the population to keep it under control. The only armed opposition would be that of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which recognizes the authority of the Syrian political opposition. There would be no problem of representativeness at the Peace Conference.
We are therefore asked to forget all the good that the same opposition in exile was saying of Al-Qaeda for three years and the silence of NATO members on the spread of terrorism in Syria.
Therefore, if we can allow that most of the leaders of the Atlantic Alliance were unaware of the support of their organization for international terrorism, we must also allow that NATO is mainly responsible for world terrorism.
Translation
Roger Lagassé


The Rise of Secular Liberal Takfirism

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Veritas

Without understating the existential threat which religious “takfiris” (those who accuse other Muslims of apostasy) pose to our region, we must also be equally wary of the secular liberal takfirism which is now on the rise. Like the religious kind, the secular variant is also rabidly sectarian though the sectarianism it practices is not doctrinal, i.e. based on the religous beliefs of its opponents, but political; anyone who dares digress from the Saudi-Western manufactured narrative adopted by the Syrian opposition is ipso facto declared a sectraian Shia/Christian/self-hating Sunni and political heretic who has veered from the mainstream. Thus for example, journalists like the highly respected Sunday Times correspondent, Hala Jaber are branded “sectarian Shia” and “Hizbullah/Assad groupies” by secular liberal opposition supporters for daring to commit political blasphemies like clarifying the origins of a misattributed photo and interviewing President Assad . More than this, secular liberal takfiris find common cause with their religious cohorts in so far as they wax lyrical about the “Shia threat” while cheering on religious takfiris like the al-Nusra/Islamic Front/ Jaish al Mujahideen’s recent assault on ISIS, in a very twisted bid to rebrand them as “moderate” Takfiris—you know, the kind of takfiris who merely flog you for not performing the Friday prayers as opposed to beheading you for lesser offenses. Were it not for the Dahyeh bombings and the journalists and others whose lives they are endangering , secular liberal takfirism could be quite funny.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/5cols/leading_images/28241590141001816_0.jpg
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Forget Democrazy, Give Me Safe Borders
Alexandra Valiente / November 4, 2013



http://mideastshuffle.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/628x4711.jpg?w=700
By Sharmine Narwani
Almost three years after the Arab Spring began its region-wide sweep – ostensibly in search of democratic change – scant attention has been paid to one of its most dangerous consequences: the fraying of borders.
Weapons, militias, foreign Special Forces, smugglers, gangs and crooks now regularly traverse borders from the Levant to the Maghreb to the Persian Gulf. And these territorial infractions across Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and other states will inhibit prospects for “democracy” more than any single development in the region.
The logic? Very simply, this: If you don’t have territorial integrity, you don’t have a “state.” If you don’t have a state, you cannot build institutions. If you don’t have institutions, you will never have representative government.
The foreign geniuses who thought they could invade and “regime-change” their way to “democracy” with first Iraq and Afghanistan, then Libya and Syria, forgot the foundational elements of a nation-state – namely, sovereignty and territorial integrity. When you cross a border uninvited and undermine a central government, you rip at the seams of the state itself.
And so we call them “failed states” sometimes, pretending that these entities still retain some semblance of statehood for which parliaments and constitutions and armies can legitimately be assembled.
I chuckle at the attempts of Lebanese politicians to cobble together a new government while gunmen traipse across their borders, unimpeded, just a few miles away. I roll my eyes at the “elected” and “selected” Syrian external opposition – disembodied pashas who don’t have a square-inch of land to call their own. And I cringe when “experts” reference democratic underpinnings in Libya, Tunisia and Iraq, where central authority is as evasive as border security.
“But you have no state,” I want to say.
It is an as-yet unframed idea, yet the clever Arab Street seems to sense this where others don’t – hence the dramatic recent rise in fortunes of national armies, possibly the only functioning institutions in many of these wobbly states, and the only entity that can safeguard borders.
Egypt gets it. Syria gets it. Iraq cannot, nor can Yemen, Libya or Lebanon – they don’t have strong centralized armies or authorities that can credibly work toward shutting down borders and re-establishing security. When Egyptian General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ejected an elected government, he understood that lawlessness in the Sinai and calls for Jihad in Syria, Libya and elsewhere would erode the Egyptian state. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called for reinforcement to fight the tide of foreign fighters flooding Syria’s borders, this was a rallying call for Russia, Hezbollah and Iran to protect their own borders.
Dictators? Tyrants? Maybe, maybe not. But also perhaps the last buffers against the destruction of the nation-state.
Porous borders will delegitimize any central authority over time. And the lack of sovereignty will in turn breed the kind of lawlessness that further erodes territorial integrity.
Yes, “statelessness” is the biggest threat to “democracy” in the Middle East today.
A Threat to the Global Order
Writing about military interventions in general, and in Syria in particular, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pointed out last year: “In the absence of a clearly articulated strategic concept, a world order that erodes borders and merges international and civil wars can never catch its breath.”
Kissinger was, in effect, questioning whether the endless stream of US interventions under the guise of “humanitarian” or democracy-promoting militarism, was not fundamentally eroding the world order established in 17th century Europe by the Treaty of Westphalia.
The Westphalian system – which sought to inhibit warring European armies from imposing their religious beliefs on each other – was the precursor to the establishment of the nation-state, which Kissinger calls “the basic unit of international order.”
The nation-state, in turn, is predicated on two commonly acknowledged qualities: sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But a quick glance at the Middle East today will show the precarious position of the nation-state in this region:
Sovereignty, which is essentially the recognition of “authority” over a geographic area, is being expediently dismissed by regional and international foes in a very dangerous way. Foreign demands that “Assad must go” or “Qaddafi must leave” or “Ahmadinejad is illegitimate” are quick sovereignty-busters – leadership changes must only manifest through an internal process via consensus, whether it is at the ballot box or through domestic dissent of the majority.
Territorial Integrity was once viewed as an integral principle of international relations whereby states would not impose border changes by force or subversion, but today the concept of “humanitarian intervention” under the banner of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has fundamentally challenged this tenet of the nation-state system.
As things stand now, if you can convincingly demonize a foe, you can bulldoze through sovereignty and territorial integrity under cover of R2P with nary a concern for undermining international law.
But each time this happens, we destroy another foundational brick propping up our global system. And it won’t be long before Massachusetts decides it has nothing in common with Texas, and Wales tells England to take a hike.
The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) published its forecast on global trends earlier this year and warned of the scenario of a “Nonstate World” in which governments relinquish much of their responsibilities to self-governed enclaves. That scenario is already playing out in the Middle East, and unless we move to preserve the current system of statehood, it will fast become the new world order.
Sabotage, Jihadists
While foreign military invasions are a sure-fire democracy-buster, just as insidious is the subversion of governments and populations via propaganda, sabotage, assassinations and “dirty tricks.”
Take, for instance, Iran. The Islamic Republic should technically be able to enjoy a flourishing democracy, given that it vigorously controls its borders and has a strong, elected, central government. But the country cannot stretch its wings because of the daily barrage of information warfare, cyber warfare and foreign-backed dirty tricks focused on undermining the central authority, its various institutions, and its armed forces.
The Arab uprisings, however, brought with them a whole new set of challenges. Sudden instability arose across the region with the rapid removal of long-term governing authorities – inviting aggressive competing interests seeking to establish their own power bases. Weapons flowed across borders and jihadists began an ideological trek that has now breached the security of all states involved in uprisings.
Salafist extremist groups, which reject the nation-state system, were natural entrants into the fray. They thrive where there is chaos; they gravitate toward security vacuums. These are the very environments and conditions in which extremists can usurp authority, lay down Sharia law and erect their “Caliphates.”
And they leap from local to transnational jihadi networks in an instant. Ideologically extremist fighters from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya and dozens of other nations make their way toward the “fight” and the new “base” in Qalamoun or Sinai or Anbar – wherever the call for Jihad beckons.
We are in a tough place in the Middle East today. Between Western-GCC-Turkish-backed regime-change operations and the jihadist lava pouring over our borders, the nation-state is eroding before our very eyes.
Democracy? Forget it.
Give me a strong army that will shoot down armed men crossing over my border. Give me a national leader who will show no mercy in facing down car-bombings, assassinations, sabotage. Give me a statesman who will respect your religion but blow you into your “janna” if you try to snuff out mine.
Yes, I want governance based on consensus, rule of law and justice. But give me safe borders, first.
before
after
THE YINON DOCUMENT: THE ZIONIST AGENDA FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
PROJECT FOR A NEW MIDDLE EAST
THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST PROJECT
ARAB SPRING
THE SABAN-BROOKINGS PLAN FOR REGIME CHANGE IN SYRIA
SNIPERS AND DEATH SQUADS: TERROR TACTICS OF US SOFT POWER
GOING ROGUE: AMERICA’S UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICAN INITIATIVE: AN OVERVIEW
THE BALKANIZATION OF SUDAN: THE REDRAWING OF THE ME AND NORTH AFRICA
DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL AND LIBYA: PREPARING FOR THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR
JUMPSTARTING THE PROCESS OF ARAB REFORM
COLLECTION OF ARTICLES ON THE GMEI
THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST INITIATIVE: REGIME CHANGE, NEOLIBERALISM AND US GLOBAL HEGEMONY
LIBYA, SYRIA AND THE WESTERN AGENDA
TURKEY’S POSITION IN THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST PROJECT
THE IMPACT OF THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST INITIATIVE ON THE PERSIAN GULF
AMERICA, RUSSIA AND THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST
GLOBALIZATION AND THE WAR ON LIBYA [I – III]
CIA-NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL: MAPPING THE GLOBAL FUTURE
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION FOR A GREATER MIDDLE EAST [I - III]
PREPARING FOR THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
THE BLOODY ROAD TO DAMASCUS: THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE’S WAR ON A SOVEREIGN STATE
THE ROAD TO TEHRAN GOES THROUGH DAMASCUS
THE SECRET WARS OF THE SAUDI-ISRAELI ALLIANCE
TARGETING SYRIA: CIA-MI6 REVISIT 1957 ATTACK PLANS
BERNARD-HENRY LEVY’S “SOS SYRIE” CONFERENCE: ZIONISTS, MUSLIM BROTHERS AND CHANGE AGENTS
BERNARD HENRI-LEVY DECLARES WAR ON ASSAD
THE DESTABILIZATION OF SYRIA AND THE BROADER MIDDLE EAST WAR
SYRIA: A CONSPIRACY REVEALED
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: PLAN TO TAKE OUT 7 COUNTRIES IN 5 YEARS
LIBYA AND SYRIA: NEOCON PLAN TO ATTACK 7 COUNTRIES IN 5 YEARS
THE DECISION TO ATTACK SYRIA WAS MADE AT CAMP DAVID IN 2001
TARGETING SYRIAN CHRISTIANS AND BLACK LIBYANS: THE “CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS” IS ON THE MARCH
R2P AND IMPERIAL DOCTRINE
THE OLD IMPERIALIST PROJECT TO DIVIDE LIBYA IN THREE HAS BEEN EXECUTED
AN IMPERIALIST PROJECT TO CREATE THREE LIBYAS
GLOBALIZATION AND THE WAR ON LIBYA SERIES – PARTS I-III
THE LABRYNTHINE INTERNATIONAL GEOPOLITICS OF THE LIBYAN CONFLICT
PARTITION OF LIBYA UNDERWAY?
THE IMPERIAL ANATOMY OF AL-QAEDA: THE CIA’S DRUG RUNNING TERRORISTS AND THE ARC OF CRISIS
CREARING AN ‘ARC OF CRISIS’: THE DESTABILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA
GLOBAL POWER AND GLOBAL GOVERNMENT [PARTS I-III]
SYRIA’S TRUE FRIENDS AND EFFECTIVE RESISTANCE TO THE GMEI
SYRIA’S DAY AFTER: IMPERIALIST PLANS FOR POST-ASSAD SYRIA
IRAQ REDUX: THE COMING US-NATO OCCUPATION OF NORTHERN SYRIA
IS TURKEY IMPLEMENTING THE BROOKING’S PLAN?
SYRIA, YEMEN AND AMERICA’S QUEST FOR IMPERIAL DOMINANCE
WELCOME TO THE “KURDISH SPRING”
KURDISH POPULAR COMMITTEES: SYRIA WILL BECOME A GRAVEYARD FOR ANY INVADER
GREATER KURDISTAN: THE NEW ACTOR ON THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST STAGE
TURKEY STANDS WITH AL QAEDA AGAINST THE KURDS

http://libya360.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/forget-democrazy-give-me-safe-borders/


The Yinon Plan: Panoramic Chaos in the Arab World
Alexandra Valiente / August 26, 2013
THE YINON DOCUMENT: THE ZIONIST AGENDA FOR THE MIDDLE EAST
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The Middle East and North Africa have been turned into an arc of instability all the way from Iraq and the Persian Gulf to Libya and Tunisia. Chaos and violence seem to be in almost every corner of the Arab World and the Middle East. The bloodletting does not seem to stop.
One country in the region, however, is gleaming with satisfaction. Tel Aviv has been given a free hand by the instability that it has helped author with Washington in the region. The chaos around it has allowed Israel to move ahead with its annexation of more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while it pretends to be talking peace with the Palestinian Authority of the irrelevant Mahmoud Abbas. All it needs now is for the US to lead a war against Iran and its allies.
The current upheavals actually have a resounding resemblance to the objectives of the Yinon Plan of 1982, named after its author Oded Yinon from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which calls for the fracturing of North Africa and the Middle East. The Israeli document may have been written in 1982, but it represents the strategic goals and ideas of Israel. «Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel», according to it. It is a continuation of the colonial project of the British in the region and has been transmitted to American foreign policy, which explains the views of the neocons and Ralph Peters about the «New Middle East» that they seek. The «Clean Break» documented authored by Richard Perle for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also based on the Yinon Plan and informs the current position of the Obama Administration and Netanyahu’s government on Syria.
Undemocratic Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula is a powder keg that is waiting to explode. All the regimes are fragile and cannot survive without US and foreign patronage. Their main concerns are survival, but the lack of freedom and oppression is like a toxic buildup waiting to ignite an epic fire that will burn all Arabia. «The entire Arabian Peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia», according to Israel’s Yinon Plan.
Generally, the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, aside from the Sultanate of Oman, have actively been instigating Shia-Sunni divisions internally and regionally as part of their attempt to gain some legitimacy for the dictatorships of their ruling families and feudal hierarchies. This is part of their survival strategies, but is detrimental to them. The Saudi military has intervened in both Bahrain and Yemen and claimed to be fighting an Iranian regional conspiracy and Shiite Muslim treachery. Aside from discrimination, the Shiite Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula have been accused of being tied to Iran, and this has been used to justify their oppression. In the words of the Saudi Ayatollah Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, however, they have no ties with Iran or any other state nor do they have any loyalties any of them.
The world has watched as the unarmed people of Bahrain have faced the brutality of the Khalifa regime and their army of predominately foreign security enlistees from places like Jordan, Yemen, and Pakistan. Bahranis, specifically the indigenous Baharna, are being further marginalized by the Khalifa’s population transfer and settlement programs that are naturalizing foreigners or importing them to displace the Baharna and other Bahraini communities. The majority of Bahrainis are being systematically discriminated against and ghettoized, because they are barred from the prominent jobs or government positions that are instead being given to foreigners. In addition to the Khalifa reign of terror and the secret police, the Khalifa’s are deliberately stoking Shia-Sunni tensions as a means of keeping Bahrainis divided, keeping themselves in power, and trying legitimizing themselves. Bahrain is basically under foreign occupation.
In Saudi Arabia, the throwback kingdom of misogyny and horrors, there has been agitation by the people against the Saud regime. Despite the brutal crackdowns, there have been consistent protests since 2011 across Saudi Arabia demanding equality, basic freedoms, and habeas corpus. Speculation and rumours about palace coups in Saudi Arabia have also been rife too. The latest of which is that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah had Prince Khalid bin Sultan put under house arrest shortly after he was dismissed from his post as Saudi deputy defence minister.
In reality, the Arab petro-sheikhdoms are fragile constructs that have wobbly foundations. Their princes are united by their insecurities, but have a list of animosities against one another that could breakout under the proper circumstances. The sedition and terrorism that petro-sheikhdoms are spreading across the region will eventually blow back in their faces. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia already fear the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Persian Gulf.
In Yemen, the republican exception to the royalties of Arabia, there is a risk that the country could revert back to the two parts that united in 1990, respectively North Yemen or the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen or the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and North. A Houthi rebellion in the north against the embattled Yemeni government, which has been accused of discriminating against the Zaidi Shiite Muslims by the Houthi, and a strong secessionist movement in the southern areas have brought the state near the point of collapse and allowed Yemen to become a playground for the US and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), specifically Saudi Arabia. Yemen has turned into the Obama Administration’s drone firing range.
Bloodletting in the Mashreq: Mesopotamia and the Levant
Instability and terrorism has gripped Iraq. The groups that can be referred to as Al-Qaeda in Iraq are set on turning Iraq into a failed state by working to implement a wave of terror and violence in Baghdad and across Iraq as a means of making the Iraqi government collapse. These terrorist attacks are actually tied to the regime change agendas of the US, UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey in Syria. The terrorist groups in Iraq have also crossed the border into Syria to join the insurgency there and form what they call the «Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant». They run a twin strategy in Iraq and Syria.
Iraq has devolved into three sections. The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq is virtually independent while countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey are taking advantage of the feeling of disenfranchisement among the Sunni Arabs. Outside powers are doing nothing short of stoking division among Shias and Sunnis and between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq, just as they are pushing for communal division in Syria.
This is what Oden Yinon had to declare about Iraq: «Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north».
Syria is bloodletting even more than Iraq. Israeli and American analysts, experts, and policymakers keep insisting that the country will fall apart. The foreign-sponsored anti-government forces are killing civilians on the basis of their community affiliations as a means of spreading sedition and hate.
Harking back to Israel’s Yinon Plan, it states: «The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shiite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan».
In tiny Lebanon tensions have been building as a result of the events in Syria and with the help of foreign powers trying to ignite another Lebanese civil war, specifically between Muslims. There has been agitation by a loud set of small deviant groups that support the anti-government militias in Syria and Al-Qaeda, which have been supported by Saudi Arabia and the GCC and given a political cover by Saad Hariri’s Future Party and March 14 Alliance. «Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab World including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula», according to the Yinon Plan.
A new wave of terrorism in Lebanon has started off by deliberately targeting two Shiite Muslim areas in Beirut and then the Sunni Muslims in the Lebanese port of Tripoli. The aim is to make it look like the Shiite and Sunnis are committing terrorism against one another and that the bombing in Tripoli was a Shia response to the bombings in Beirut.
North Africa
Tunisia has been facing a growing crisis. There have been clashes between Tunisian security forces and militant groups near the Algerian border. Two opposition politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohammed Brahmi of the People’s Movement Party, have been murdered. There have been increasing protests that include demands by Tunisian opposition parties and unionists that the Ennahda Movement government of Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh be dissolved.
Next door Libya is in even worse and used to smuggle weapons into Tunisia and the other surrounding countries. There have been clashes and strikes at its oil terminals and the country is effectively divided. The Libyan government has little control of the country. The real control is in the arms of the militias in the streets. Tensions are also escalating with the fears that the militias from Misrata may make a power play for control of even larger chunks of the country and confront Zintan.
Observers have warned that Sudan, which was divided into two parts in 2011, could face even more violence as tribal conflicts intensify and the government in Khartoum loses control over them. Although South Sudan has become a neoliberal paradise for investors to exploit its wealth and people, it has been plagued by lawlessness, ethnic tensions, and violence. A lesson is to be learned here. South Sudan was a far better and more peaceful place when it was a part of Sudan.
Now reports are emerging that there has been a merger of two armed groups in North Africa. Mokhtar Belmoktar, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, has announced a new collation with the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). These groups have been active in places like Algeria and Mali and provided the perfect excuse for external powers to intervene in North Africa. Now they declaring that they plan on getting involved in Egypt in a new war that will rage on from North Africa’s Atlantic coastline to the Nile Delta.
Bloodbath in Egypt
The Arab Republic of Egypt, the largest of the Arab countries, is going down the path of Algeria. The military is determined to keep its power. Egypt has also been central in keeping the Arabs paralyzed in Israel’s designs. Yinon’s averred thus about Egypt: «Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt».
The Yinon Plan says two important things about Egypt. The first is thus: «Millions are on the verge of hunger, half the labour force is unemployed, and housing is scarce in this most densely populated area of the world. Except for the military, there is not a single department operating efficiently and the state is in a permanent state of bankruptcy and depends entirely on American foreign assistance granted since the peace.»
The second is this: «Without foreign assistance the crisis will come tomorrow.»
Oded Yinon must be smiling from wherever he is. Things seem to be going his way, at least in parts of the Arab World.
Note: All quotes are from the Yinon Plan.

Related: 
THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST PROJECT
Arabs, Beware the “Small States” Option

http://libya360.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/the-yinon-plan-panoramic-chaos-in-the-arab-world/


Egypt: The Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Consequences for Hamas

Veritas / 2 days ago

“The Brotherhood is the mother of all Islamist terrorist organisations, of Jihad, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. This is what the government should make it clear to the world. It must also make clear how the group has been used by the West to resist the spread of communism, as an alternative to anti-Western nationalist regimes or, as in the Turkish model, to replace a military-backed system with one under Western supervision.”
- Ammar Ali Hassan

The Fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Consequences for Hamas

The recent designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation has raised questions about the status of Hamas in the region.
While the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt dealt a blow to Hamas and meant that it lost one of its main regional allies, the designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation could well be an even harder blow that will increase the group’s political isolation.
On the official level, Egypt has not designated Hamas — an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood — a terrorist organisation. However, it has not excluded that option in the future.
Ahmed Al-Boraai, Egypt’s minister of social solidarity, said that the government was not presently considering designating Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but the matter “could be discussed” in the future.
However, he added that Hamas was part of the international Muslim Brotherhood organisation and that Egypt would not allow that organisation to interfere in its internal affairs.
Yasser Othman, Egyptian ambassador to the Palestinian Territories, said that Hamas’s behaviour would determine its future relations with Egypt. “The government decision includes the Brotherhood inside and outside Egypt, but it does not include Hamas,” he added.
However, another diplomat who talked on condition of anonymity said that the Egyptian government decision had left Hamas with two alternatives: either to officially declare its disengagement from the Muslim Brotherhood or risk being listed as a terrorist organisation.
Nabil Zaki, spokesperson of the leftist Tagammu Party, said that the government should work on “exposing” Hamas and removing it from power in the Gaza Strip.
“The government’s job is to secure the lives of Egyptians and protect the economy. Hamas is exposing Egyptians to danger by supporting terrorist groups in Sinai and wrecking the economy by smuggling goods from Egypt to Gaza via the border tunnels,” he said.
He said that Egypt was the only ally Hamas had left after it had lost the support of Syria, the Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah and Iran.
Hamas, which depends on its allies for financial, military, and political support, severed ties with Syria last year because of the crackdown orchestrated by the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on the predominantly Sunni opposition.
As a result, Iran stopped its financial aid to Hamas.
Egypt took the decision to list the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation last week in the wake of the earlier attack in the Delta city of Mansoura that left 15 killed and more than 130 injured.
The blast caused major damage to the city’s council building, a state-owned theatre and a bank.
Hamas has denied any involvement in the blast, claiming that it had no link to that attack or to any other attack in Egypt, according to movement spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri in a statement last week.
Hamas has reacted with defiance to the Egyptian decision, ruling out any move to sever relations with the Brotherhood. Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said that the group was proud of its ties with the Brotherhood and would not disengage “for any reason.”
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, said this week that “we will not give up our relation with the Muslim Brotherhood to satisfy Egypt, and we will not hand over any of our members to it.”
Relations between Egypt and Hamas have been tense since the ouster of former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in early July last year.
Since then, the Egyptian government has embarked on a campaign against Hamas because it considers it to be the supporter of militant groups who have been stepping up their attacks against Egypt’s security forces in Sinai.
Hamas has repeatedly denied these accusations.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian army has destroyed more than 300 tunnels used for smuggling on the Egyptian border with Gaza.
Palestinian sources said that 90 per cent of the tunnels had been closed, leading to the potential loss of nearly 40 per cent of Hamas’s revenues.
Hamas has also been accused of being involved in the early days of the 25 January Revolution against ousted former president Hosni Mubarak, when Egyptian prisons were stormed and hundreds of detainees freed, most of them Muslim Brothers, as well as Hizbullah and Palestinian operatives held in Egypt for terrorist activities.
The Egyptian Armed Forces also accuse Hamas of harbouring the militants that killed Egyptian officers and soldiers in Sinai in the summer of 2012. Hamas is additionally accused of harbouring the new Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide, Mahmoud Ezzat, in Gaza.
In the post-Morsi period, the Egyptian authorities have only intermittently opened the Rafah border with the Gaza Strip. The crossing is the only official gateway for the 1.7 million people who live in the Strip, which is being blockaded by Israel.
Egypt has allowed only authorised travellers such as foreign nationals, visa holders, and patients seeking medical treatment, to cross.
One day after the government’s decision to designate the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, the Palestinian movement Fatah called on Hamas to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood in the interest of the Palestinian cause.
A Fatah spokesman said the continuation of Hamas’s “subordination” to the international Muslim Brotherhood would put millions of Palestinians, especially those in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, in a position of confrontation with several Arab states, including Egypt.
Leaders from various factions in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on Saturday echoed Fatah’s call and urged Hamas to dissociate itself from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The division between Hamas and Fatah began in 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in Gaza.
In the following year, clashes erupted between Fatah and Hamas, leaving Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in control of the Israeli occupied West Bank.
In a separate development that could further increase Hamas’s political isolation, the Tamarod Movement in Gaza called on the Arab League, the United Nations, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and the Arab states to list Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

Sinai jihadists target the Delta

Although it claimed responsibility for the deadliest terrorist attack in years Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (ABM) remains a footnote in a national debate dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood which was designated a terrorist group by the cabinet on 25 December. The designation was announced a day after a suicide bomb attack on the Daqahliya Security Directorate killed 16. Senior security officers were among the dead.
On Thursday interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim told a news conference that seven people, including the son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, have been arrested in connection with the attack. Ibrahim identified the leader of Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis as Tawfiq Mohamed Freig, also known as Abu Abdullah. Assailants communicated with the Gaza-based Hamas for help and support ahead of the Daqahliya bombing, he said.
Little is known about AMB or the unfolding jihadist map in Sinai. The lack of knowledge is largely a result of a state-imposed media blackout.
It was the third time since September that ABM’s name has surfaced outside Sinai.
On 28 December a video was released by an ‘Al-Battar media group’, introducing Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis and its mission. The 3:55 minute video featured edited footage from earlier ABM releases of their operations in North Sinai and Cairo accompanied by a voiceover in a dialect neither Egyptian nor Sinai Bedouin which referred to ABM as “our brothers in Egypt”.
The narration said ABM surfaced under the rule of Hosni Mubarak in response to military campaigns targeting jihadis in Sinai. The video also claimed ABM had itself been targeted because of the missiles it fired against Israel and for repeatedly sabotaging the Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline that extends across Sinai.
The pipeline attacks stopped after Cairo cancelled its agreement to sell gas to Israel in April 2012 following a court verdict ordering it to do so. It was only after the January 2011 Revolution that the Al-Qaeda inspired ABM revealed its existence and claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement that posited its mission as being primarily against “the Zionist entity”. Israel considers the group responsible for a majority of cross border attacks originating in Sinai in recent years.
The recent Al-Battar video said that despite army “provocations” under both the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and Mohamed Morsi ABM had refused to be dragged to a confrontation but this changed following Morsi’s ouster and the subsequent “massacre of Muslims in Egypt”. The police, military and intelligence were subsequently targeted, said the video, to “avenge” Muslims. Although critical of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist Nour Party for engaging in politics and the democratic process, which they deem un-Islamic, the video invited them to join forces with the jihadis “against tyranny”.
Experts say the video’s narrative is consistent with the jihadist group’s actions and earlier statements. It remains unclear, however, why Al-Battar and not ABM released the video.
“Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis is a Salafist jihadi and not a takfiri [who deem others, including Muslims, apostates] group,” says Ismail Alexandrani, one of a handful of Egyptian experts on Sinai-based jihadi groups. “They are very well trained in logistics and seem to have access to intelligence information.” Although they keep their identities secret their leaders were not unknown to the military leadership during Morsi’s reign and they have a Shura council, he said.
Founded by Egyptians, the group has members with experience in Afghanistan and Syria, “but they don’t want to antagonise the public” and are eager to prove that they don’t target ordinary Egyptians. “They seek popular support.”
According to Alexandrani, who conducts month long field visits to North Sinai, ABM is also a “regional” group, which explains the dialect on the Al-Battar video. As such the group is “not immune to penetration by regional forces”.
Sinai, off limits to the military since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli agreement in 1979 — it limits Egyptian forces in Area C, which runs along Egypt’s eastern border and covers approximately one-third of the peninsula, to a lightly-armed police presence — has become a proxy battlefield for competing regional agendas over the years, says Alexandrani.
The agreement’s security clause was temporarily suspended in August 2011, allowing the military to launch Operation Eagle against Islamist militants. The army deployed 2,500 troops in Area C. Eagle 2 began in August 2012 after 16 Egyptian border guards were killed at their checkpoint. No one has claimed responsibility for the massacre.
A research paper on the war in Sinai by Alexandrani published by the Arab Reform Initiative in September 2013 argues that the military’s declaration of war against the armed groups came at a price: it gave jihadi groups a justification to divert their attention away from Israel and point their guns at an “infidel” army they view as coordinating with the “Zionists”. The group claimed credit for several deadly attacks on military conscripts in Sinai.
ABM’s operations outside Sinai have all been high profile. On 4 September it was behind the attempted assassination of Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim in front of his home in East Cairo. Three weeks later, also in East Cairo’s Nasr City, Mohamed Mabrouk, a senior national security officer, was assassinated.
The Daqahliya Security Directorate attack is their biggest and most destructive operation to date. Five days later a bomb exploded outside the intelligence headquarters in Sharqiya, also in the Nile Delta, injuring four soldiers. No one has claimed responsibility for the bomb.
In a 17:36 minute video released on 1 December in which ABM proclaimed that the “war has yet to start” the jihadi group showed footage of victims of the violent police dispersal of the pro-Morsi sit-in in Rabaa Al-Adaweya which resulted in hundreds of deaths. The clip also included images of the corpses of children in Sinai and of the 21 female Muslim Brotherhood protesters behind bars in the Alexandria court that sentenced them to 11 years in prison (the sentence was later suspended).
The video cited audio clips by late Al-Qaeda leader Abu Mosaab Al-Zarqawi and the spokesman of Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS) Abu Mohamed Al-Adnani Al-Shami urging Egyptians to take up arms against the military.
ABM “sees the coup and ongoing crackdown as a chance to advance their cause” says David Barnett, a research associate at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies in DC who monitors jihadists in Sinai and Gaza. The ongoing crackdown gives the group “the opportunity to offer themselves as the defenders of those who are being targeted and possibly garner support for their violent ways”.
According to Alexandrani, ABM is the strongest group in Sinai and the one most likely to appeal to disenfranchised youth seeking vengeance on the authorities. “The current climate is ideal for recruiting,” he says.
Since Morsi’s ouster there have been at least 256 attacks reported in Sinai according to Barnett. But in recent months the number of reported attacks in North Sinai has declined to “only about 15 in December” while attacks outside North Sinai have increased and are likely to continue.
“Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis appears to have adapted on some level to the army’s operations in North Sinai and is now more focussed on less frequent but bolder and bloodier attacks in the Nile Delta and even Cairo,” said Barnett. Furthermore, there is “likely recognition within the group that attacks in North Sinai will not garner as much attention as bombings in the Nile Delta or Cairo.”

‘Game-changing’ designation

In the wake of the 25 December decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi said the government had contacted the Cairo-based Arab League and requested it follow suit. On Sunday Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi announced that “the League has informed all member states of the Egyptian government’s decision”.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Atti indicated that the decision had won the immediate backing of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “Just as they were the first to show support for the 30 June Revolution, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also the first to endorse the government’s decision aimed at proscribing Muslim Brotherhood,” said Abdel-Atti. “We are now in the process of contacting other countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Morocco and Jordan — to secure their official endorsement. We will make it clear that we do not ask them to proscribe Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated political parties working within their borders but we are urging them to officially recognise our designation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a terrorist organisation.”
“The support of two influential, oil-rich Arab Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE will push other Arab and Muslim countries towards approving the decision. We have high hopes this approval will help drain foreign funding of the Brotherhood in line with Arab and international conventions on the suppression of terrorism and facilitate the extradition of any of its leaders charged with inciting violence in Egypt.”
Abdel-Atti added the Foreign Ministry has contacted the UN and Interpol informing them of the government’s decision. “We are currently collating documents in support of the designation and addressing all the political and legal aspects necessary to make it applicable worldwide.”
The spokesman conceded, however, that the United States and Western European governments remained unconvinced. He said US Secretary of State John Kerry had called Fahmi asking for more information about the government’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
In Washington State Department spokeswomen Jen Psaki queried Abdel-Atti’s account. In his phone call with Fahmi, she said, Kerry “expressed concern” about the terrorist designation and recent detentions and arrests in Egypt. A Reuters report from Washington cited a US official as saying that the Egyptian government was going “way too far” in its crackdown on the Brotherhood though the Obama administration was not planning to take any action against Cairo in response.
Rightwing US conservative CNSNews accused Washington of “double standards” in its designation of Islamist groups as terrorist organizations. The report noted the Muslim Brotherhood had never been listed as a foreign terrorist organisation although its Palestinian wing, Hamas, has been a designated such since 1997. “Also, the US has barred entry to the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Youssef Al-Qaradawi, and the US Treasury Department in 2008 added the Union of Good, a coalition of charities led by Al-Qaradawi, to a list of organisations sanctioned for links to terrorism.”
The CNSNews.com report continued by lambasting the White House for not designating the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation when some of the world’s leading terrorists had past ties with the group, including Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahri, 9/11 architect Khaled Sheikh Mohamed and Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, now serving a life sentence in a US prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.
Hafez Abu Seada, chairman of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, told private television channel CBC on Saturday that “the timid reaction of America not only offers a new example of the West’s double-standards in dealing with terrorism but also reinforces the impression held by many Egyptians that the Obama administration was supportive of Muslim Brotherhood and played a dominant role in helping it reach power after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak.”
According to the CNSNews.com report, “under its ‘We the People’ initiative the White House undertakes to respond formally to any petition which within 30 days attracts 100,000 signatures. The 30-day deadline for a petition calling for the Brotherhood to be designated a foreign terrorist organisation was 6 August, and by that date it had received almost 190,000 signatures. More than four months later, the petition has still brought no response from the White House although it now has just under 197,000 signatures.
“The double standards of the West,” charges Abu Seada, “are not just confined to official circles but extend to include civil organisations like the New York-based Human Rights Watch [HRW].”
Abu Seada denounced suggestions by HRW that the Egyptian government’s decision to label the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation was politically motivated.
“As a leading human rights organisation in Egypt and the Arab world which plays a major role in exposing the autocratic practices of Arab regimes HRW’s statement was itself politically driven and motivated,” claimed Abu Seada. “I can understand that HRW might reject the government’s decision on the grounds that it was not adequately documented but for the HRW to give such a hasty judgement about the decision clearly shows its statement is part of a political agenda.”
HRW, says Abu Seada, like most American media “adopts a politically-driven stand against the government of Egypt, insisting on describing it as autocratic and manipulated by the Egyptian army — a thing which is far from truth”.
“Why have we never heard HRW describing the American government’s decision to label Islamist organisations like Hizbullah and Hamas as terrorist as politically driven? Isn’t this another glaring example of the double standards of these Western organisations which claim to defend human rights impartially?” said Abu Seada.
According to Abu Seada the government’s 25 December fully complies with international conventions on terrorist crimes. “Some might argue that the government’s decision was not supported by final judicial rulings but I say the investigations carried out by prosecution authorities on several Brotherhood terrorist activities in 2013 and beyond are perfectly sufficient to justify the government’s designation.”
Shawki Al-Sayed, an independent lawyer, argues “the judicial ruling issued by the Urgent Matters Court on 23 September ordering that the Muslim Brotherhood be dissolved and its assets confiscated lends credibility to the government’s decision, especially given the group’s attempts to twice appeal the ruling failed”. The Supreme Administrative Court is expected to give a final ruling in February. Most commentators expect it will adopt a recommendation by its Panel of Commissioners that the Brotherhood be dissolved and all its activities banned.
Hossam Eissa, the leftist deputy prime minister, insists the government’s decision is in line with Article 86 of the Egyptian Penal Code. Article 86, he explains, is very clear in defining terrorist organisations: they resort to violence with the aim of spreading terror and disrupting public order, the constitution and national unity.
Muslim Brotherhood lawyers claim the designation was made under pressure from secular forces which have directly accused the Muslim Brotherhood of being behind the recent deadly Daqahliya bombing. They contend the decision reflects the government’s failure to contain peaceful protests organised by the group’s members.
The Brotherhood has repeatedly denied any links to militant attacks against the state and quickly condemned the Daqahliya bombing. It insists its protests have been and always will be peaceful, an assertion unlikely to convince anyone who has had the misfortune to be caught up in the violence that has become a trademark of Brotherhood demonstrations.
Ammar Ali Hassan, an expert on political Islam, views the government’s designation as a game-changer.
“Since it was established in 1928 the Brotherhood has faced dissolution and numerous bans but it has never before been labeled as terrorist despite a history of militant activity that began with the assassination of prime minister Ahmed Maher in 1945.”
“The Brotherhood is the mother of all Islamist terrorist organisations, of Jihad, Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. This is what the government should make it clear to the world. It must also make clear how the group has been used by the West to resist the spread of communism, as an alternative to anti-Western nationalist regimes or, as in the Turkish model, to replace a military-backed system with one under Western supervision.”
While the decision to brand the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group received local and Arab support the reaction from the US and Europe was less positive.

مصر تؤكد تورط حماس في عمليات عنف في البلاد والأخيرة تنفي

Jamahiriya News Agency / 3 days ago
مع الصحفية في صحيفة الفجر المصرية فاتن غلاب
أجرى الحوار : نواف ابراهيم
نص الحوار:
سؤال: أستاذة فاتن نتحدث عن آخر تطورات الأوضاع في مصر، هناك أوضاع كثيرة سياسية وميدانية واقتصادية، حبذا لو نأخذ فكرة واضحة عن الوضع العام في مصر ومن ثم ننتقل إلى بعض التفاصيل التي تخص التحضير إلى الاستفتاء وبعض الأخبار الأخرى؟
جواب: الأوضاع السياسية في مصر حاليا تميل إلى الاستقرار بشكل كبير، هناك حالة من الأمن سيطرت على كافة شوارع القاهرة الكبرى والجيزة بالإضافة إلى هناك بعض من رجال الشرطة منتشرين أيضا في الشوارع استعدادا للاستفتاء، كذلك ما يقارب أكثر من 200 ألف جندي من الجيش المصري أيضا لديهم استعداد للنزول وتأمين الاستفتاء، كل هذا يدل على أن الوضع في مصر في حالة استقرار تام، ما عدا بعض الهجمات التي تثير الارتباك في بعض المناطق من قبل جماعة الاخوان الإرهابية وهذا ما يتم السيطرة عليه، ولكن بالفعل هناك ضحايا.
سؤال: أستاذة فاتن أنت تحدثت عن هذه عملية التحضير للاستفتاء، ولكن هل ترون أن الاستفتاء سيحظى بإقبال شعبي كبير كما يرد في بعض وسائل الإعلام ، وبعض الخبراء يتحدثون عن ذلك؟ ألا يوجد هناك تخوف من بعض العمليات الإرهابية التي تحدث بين فترة وأخرى؟
جواب: نعم هناك تخوف ولكن الشعب المصري بأكمله سينزل إلى أماكن اللجان ومقر اللجان التي سيتم فيها الاستفتاء للإدلاء بتصويته وإثبات حرية الشعب المصري في كافة المحافظات، نحن كصحفيين قمنا بزيارات عديدة إلى بعض المحافظات الكبيرة في القاهرة مثل الاسماعيلية والسويس وبور سعيد والاسكندرية لمعرفة ما تقييم المواطنيين للدستور والاستفتاء، بدون استثناء كل المواطنين المصريين لديهم استعداد كامل للنزول حتى لو كان هناك خطر أو كان هناك أي نوع من التهديد لهم، فهم مستعدون للنزول الاستفتاء خلال هذه المرحلة.
سؤال: هل هناك تهديدات كانت واضحة أو مبطنة من بعض الجهات أو هل سجلت تهديدات من جهات معينة بما يخص الاستفتاء لإرهاب المجتمع المصري كي لا ينزل إلى الاستفتاء؟
جواب: نحن في مطار القاهرة الدولي قامت قوات الأمن بالقبض على مجموعة من الأتراك والمصريين التابعين لجماعة الاخوان المسلمين، وحتى أنه في نهاية الأسبوع الماضي تم القبض على مجموعة اخوانية شهيرة تملك مدارس خاصة في القاهرة ولا داعي لذكر اسمها، ولديها بعض الخرائط.
سؤال: ما الذي يمنع من ذكر الاسم؟
جواب: لدواعي أمنية لا نذكر الاسم، نحن لا نتهم أحدا حتى تثبت إدانته ولديه أقراص سيدي وكافة الأشياء التي توعي الشعب المصري بعدم النزول إلى الاستفتاءن وتهديدات أيضا ومحاضرات كاملة مسجلة من قبل الاخوان المسلمين القائمين منهم في تركيا لإفشال عملية الاستفتاء في مصر.
سؤال: لا بد من أن يطرح نفسه سؤال حول اتهام الحكومة المصرية حركة حماس رسميا بأنها تدرب عناصر الاخوان المسلمين عسكريا ولها يد في عمليات عنف في مصر، فبرايك بعد هذا الاتهام الواضح والصريح كيف ستتعامل الحكومة المصرية مع هذا الشأن وسوف ينعكس داخليا على الوضع في مصر وغزة؟
جواب: الحكومة المصرية دائما تنظر للأحداث بشكل بعيد النظر، ولا تحكم على الشعب الفلسطيني بعدم زيارة مصر وكذلك العكس، ولكنها سوف تتخذ حتما إجراءات ضد من اتهم في عدة تفجيرات في سينا وفي القاهرة وآخرها مبنى مديرية أمن المنصورة وكل هذا سوف يكون له إجراءات.
سؤال: هل أثبتت التحقيقات بالفعل أن لحماس دور في التفجيرات؟
جواب: بالتأكيد، لأنه تم القبض على مجموعة من عناصر حماس الموجودين في القاهرة وفي التفجير نفسه الذي حدث في مدينة المنصورة.

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http://libya360.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/egypt-the-fall-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-the-consequences-for-hamas/


Egypt Prepares for Referendum Amid Escalating Violence

Veritas / 2 days ago

Security forces kill activists, arrest others, while bombings spread throughout the countryhttp://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/aGxg7jUKuYx0V_wzVK9euA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTUwNTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz03Njg-/http:/media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/a2d6542753c255493d800c1d47a9421dc7b501bb.jpg

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Libya 360°
A 50-person committee to draft an amended Egyptian constitution completed its work in December and dates for a referendum have been set for January 14-15. The military-appointed regime which came to power through an army coup on July 3 of last year is encouraging people to vote in the upcoming national poll.
Concerns are growing among the regime operatives that a low turnout will damage the coveted “legitimacy” that they so desperately crave. A number of organizations have already called for a boycott of the vote based upon the undemocratic character under which the process was conducted.
Opponents of the referendum include the Muslim Brotherhood as well as some secular left and liberal organizations which had initially supported the military coup of July 3. A new coalition has been formed calling itself the Way of the Revolution Front which includes the April 6 Youth Movement, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Egypt Strong Party.
Nonetheless, the Salafist Al-Nour Party, which had fallen out with the government of Mohamed Morsi during 2013, is supporting the referendum. Other supporters of the referendum are the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, the Popular Current, the National Salvation Front as well as the leadership of the Copts Church representing the Christian community in Egypt which constitutes approximately 10 percent of the overall population.
Other Islamist groups are also boycotting the referendum including the Salafist Front, reputed to be one of the largest of such organizations in the region. In addition, the al-Gama’a al-Islamiyaa, another religious party, is also rejecting the referendum vote.
The so-called Tamarod, or rebel group, which is credited with organizing the anti-Morsi demonstrations last June prior to the coup, says that it is supporting the referendum vote and has in the past encouraged military strongman, Gen. Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, to enter the upcoming presidential race.
In an article published by the state-owned Ahram online website in Cairo it points out that on January 6 “Interim President Adly Mansour amended the political rights law. Citizens can now vote at polling stations not affiliated to their registered addresses in the upcoming constitution referendum.”
This new declaration is a clear attempt to encourage people to participate in what many in Egypt consider to be an illegitimate process. Rules that had prevailed during the local and national elections of 2011 and 2012 are being altered based upon a governmental decree.
The same Ahram online article points this out by noting that “Special polling stations will be designated to receive voters who do not reside at their registered addresses. Voters in parliamentary polls in 2011, as well as the presidential election and constitution referendum in 2012 had to vote at specific polling stations linked to the addresses mentioned on their national identity card or passport.”
If the proponents of the military coup which deposed the elected government of ousted President Mohamed Morsi, who ruled on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood allied Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), were certain that their actions enjoyed the approval of key sections of the Egyptian population there would not be these efforts which can provide the ability to manipulate the vote in the upcoming referendum.
Clashes Continue Between Coup Opponents and Security Forces
During the period of examinations at some of the leading universities in Egypt, students have been boycotting and staging mass demonstrations. Late last year the Egyptian interim government imposed a ban on unapproved protests.
Numerous activists have been arrested and sent to prison for their involvement in actions that both oppose the law banning demonstrations as well as the existence of military rule and the staging of a national referendum to legitimatize the current political order. On December 22 activists Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel, both of the April 6 Youth Movement and blogger Ahmed Douma were sentenced to three years in prison in addition to monetary fines for violating the law prohibiting unapproved demonstrations.
On January 3 at least 17 people were killed in clashes between coup opponents and the security forces in Cairo, Alexandria, Fayoum and Ismailia. Some 50 others were injured as police violently suppressed efforts to protest against the upcoming referendum.
Also on the same day 122 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested. The movement has been banned and labelled a “terrorist organization.”
RT.com reported on January 4 that not only has the Muslim Brotherhood been banned but leading members of the organization have been faced with economic sanctions. These actions are an attempt to make it almost impossible for the group to function.
According to RT.com, “Furthermore, Egypt froze the assets of 132 senior Brotherhood members following a court decree in September which banned the Islamist movement. On Wednesday (January 1), an additional 572 Brotherhood members had their assets frozen by the state which also took over 87 schools run by the Brotherhood.”
A series of bomb attacks have also escalated tensions inside the country. These incidents have been blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood by the military regime even though they have been claimed by another organization, Ansar Bait Al-Maqdis.
On December 24, fifteen people were killed in a bombing at the security directorate in the city of Mansoura in the Nile Delta region. Later on December 29 another intelligence building was destroyed in Sharqiya also in the Nile Delta where four soldiers were wounded.
Also on December 29 a bomb was defused at a building in the Al-Azhar University medical complex at New Damietta city north of Cairo. Later on January 1 a bomb exploded near a bus in Nasr City in eastern Cairo wounding four people.
In the Sinai region fighting has been taking place as well over the last several months. Reports indicate that some 100 police and military personnel have been killed in this natural gas producing region of Egypt on the border with the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza.
In response to these attacks, the United States Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel pledged Washington’s support in investigating the incidents. Egypt is the recipient of $1.5 billion in annual assistance from the administration.
Although the Obama administration claimed earlier in 2013 that it was suspending some aspects of its aid to Egypt, Secretary of State John Kerry later said during a brief visit to Cairo that this was not a comprehensive halt and that the U.S. would continue to maintain relations with the military regime in Egypt.
Hagel said in a statement that Washington expressed its condolences for those killed in the bombings and “condemned the attacks and offered the assistance of the Department of Defense to help the Egyptian government investigate. We are expressing concerns about the political climate in advance of the constitutional referendum, including the continued enforcement of a restrictive demonstrations law.”(AFP, December 29)
Repressive Policies Impacting International Relations
The politically sensitive situation in Egypt has created concern over criticism outside the country as well. Both the governments of Qatar and Iran have been cited by the Egyptian regime for alleged interference in the country’s internal affairs.
In a report published by Reuters news agency on January 6 it notes that “Egypt on Monday summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires in Cairo to protest over recent Iranian statements on Egypt, the foreign ministry said. Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said last Saturday that her country was worried by the recent escalation in violence between Egypt’s army and protesters supporting former Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.”
The Qatar monarchy’s representative as well has been summoned by the Egyptian authorities. The government of Qatar had supported the previous government of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and pledged billions of dollars in financial assistance.
However, a report by the Fars news agency said on January 6 that “The Egyptian authorities will recall their ambassador to Qatar after holding the vote on the draft constitution in mid-January for consultations. ‘The decision to recall the ambassador is a protest over the rejected Qatari interference in the Egyptian domestic affairs,’ official news agency MENA quoted a governmental source as saying. ‘”
These developments indicate that the current Egyptian government is placing a tremendous amount of weight on carrying out the January 14-15 referendum. The outcome of the vote and the new reconfiguration of political forces will determine the future of the struggle inside the country.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire , an international electronic press service designed to foster intelligent discussion on the affairs of African people throughout the continent and the world. The press agency was founded in January of 1998 and has published thousands of articles and dispatches in newspapers, magazines, journals, research reports, blogs and websites throughout the world. The PANW represents the only daily international news source on pan-african and global affairs. To contact him, click on this link >> Email

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