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Lebanese Fear Collateral Damage From Syrian Crisis. NPR. Excerpts:
The unrest in neighboring Syria has the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on edge. Thousands of refugees have poured over the border, the demand for weapons is skyrocketing, and the pro-Syrian Alawite minority is warning of chaos if Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime falls.
Though Hezbollah is the best known of the pro-Syrian actors in Lebanon, residents in Tripoli are more worried about the Alawites, members of the same minority that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years. Their numbers may be small, but they are well-armed and fiercely loyal to Damascus
The Alawite community of Jabal Mohsen stands on the hill above Bab al-Tabbaneh, a poor Sunni neighborhood in Tripoli. Three years ago, it was the scene of intense armed clashes that left dozens dead and hundreds of families displaced. Nobody here wants to see that repeated.
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Rifaat Eid, who heads the Alawite Arab Democratic Party, agrees with Syria's argument that chaos will erupt across the region if Assad's regime is threatened.
"If anything happens in Syria, all the Middle East will be divided," he says. "The serious danger in this is that all the minorities will end in the Middle East, especially the Christians, OK? And I will tell you, as minorities the Jewish will — can't — afford to stay in the Middle East."
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Sunni leaders see the situation differently. Lawmaker Khaled Daher says the catastrophic warnings from Syria and its supporters are simply a tired replay from the Arab dictator's playbook: Back me or face chaos.
"The Syrians are very good at putting fear into people," he says. "I mean, their problem is with their people. They want rights, democracy; this is what they should be working on, their problems with their people. Instead, what are they doing? From the beginning, you know, the Syrians have tried to move the focus from their problem to others."
Egypt gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan explodes BBC. Found it on Godlike Productions.
"An unknown armed gang attacked the gas pipeline," an unnamed security source told Reuters, adding that the flow of gas to Israel and Jordan had been hit.
No letup in Syrian crackdown on protesters Arab News. Excerpts:
Residents of the southern Syrian city of Daraa braved sniper fire Tuesday to pull the bullet-riddled bodies of the dead from the streets and hide them from security forces, a day after a brutal government crackdown on the popular revolt against President Bashar Assad, witnesses said.
As heavy gunfire reverberated through Daraa, a Syrian human rights group said authorities detained dozens of people across the country, mainly in several Damascus suburbs, including the town of Douma and in the northern coastal city of Jableh.
A relentless crackdown since mid-March has killed more than 400 people across Syria, with 120 dead over the weekend, rights groups said. That has only emboldened protesters who started their revolt with calls for modest reforms but are now increasingly demanding Assad’s downfall.
Trying To Make Sense Of The Arab Spring The Moderate Voice. Excerpts:
* The big story is the feeling of empowerment that has swept the region. Arabs of all backgrounds now demand to be heard. This is primarily because of Al-Jazeera and social media.
* The dramatic three-week uprising in Egypt that culminated with the fall of Hosni Mubarak is, taking the most optimistic point of view, only the end of the beginning. The same applies to other countries where there have been successes.
* The need for a vigorous American public diplomacy has never been greater, but many of the very Republicans who excoriate the White House and State Department for its diplomatic efforts want to dramatically slash funding for such efforts.
* The sense of stalemate is palpable in much of the region, which makes it even more important that there be a clear U.S. policy and that it be hewed to for the long-haul. That, of course, has to include Israel, Palestine and Iran.
Yemen Parties to Meet in Saudi Arabia to Sign Accord for Saleh Departure
Yemeni opposition and ruling party officials will sign an accord for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down within 30 days and guarantee him immunity, said Mohammed Basendwah, head of the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue.
The agreement, brokered by ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, will be signed early next week in Saudi Arabia, Basendwah said in a telephone interview from Sana’a. His committee, created in 2008 to help navigate an earlier political crisis, includes opposition, business and regional leaders. The accord came as anti-government protesters clashed with police today in two Yemeni cities.
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GCC officials are seeking to avert an escalation of the violence in Yemen or a deadly military divide like the one in Libya. Rising social unrest also threatens to strengthen al- Qaeda as it seeks to use Yemen, the poorest Arab nation, as a base from which to destabilize neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil.
This isn't good.. Bahrain expels Iranian diplomat as ties worsen
Bahrain ordered an Iranian diplomat to leave the island kingdom as ties between the two nations worsen and tensions rise between the Shiite powerhouse and Sunni Arab states in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
The state-owned Bahrain News Agency reported late Monday that Hujatullah Rahmani, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Manama, was declared persona non grata and ordered out within 72 hours.
Bahrain’s king declared martial law last month and invited about 1,500 Saudi-led troops from Gulf neighbors to help contain a Shiite uprising that Sunni leaders around the Middle East believe could open the way for greater influence by Iran.
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Opposition leaders in Bahrain have repeatedly denied Iran’s role in a wave of demonstrations and sit-ins by Bahrain’s Shiite majority demanding greater political freedoms and equal rights.
Desperate emails speak of 'genocide' as doctors who have treated injured protesters are rounded up. Klassy with a K. Excerpts:
The intimidation and detention of doctors treating dying and injured pro-democracy protesters in Bahrain is revealed today in a series of chilling emails obtained by The Independent.
At least 32 doctors, including surgeons, physicians, paediatricians and obstetricians, have been arrested and detained by Bahrain's police in the last month in a campaign of intimidation that runs directly counter to the Geneva Convention guaranteeing medical care to people wounded in conflict. Doctors around the world have expressed their shock and outrage.
And:
"Interrogation committees question me about our role in treating the injured protesters, who are considered now criminal for protesting against the government," he said, shortly before being detained. "We said we were there to treat patients and have nothing to do with politics.
"I don't have good feeling about things going on in Bahrain. So many of our consultant surgeon and physician colleagues been arrested at pre-dawn raids and disappear."
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There followed a long silence before he wrote again: "Three weeks of hell. The military took control of the Salmaniya Hospital, doctors, nurses, paramedics and patients treated as suspects by soldiers and policemen. Daily interrogation and detention to some of our colleges." He added: "Very much intimidated and frighten."
And, sad to say this is nothing new. Richard Sollom: The shocking thing is that Bahrain abuse is systematic.
In two decades of conducting human rights investigations in more than 20 countries, I have never seen such widespread and systematic violations of medical neutrality as I did in Bahrain.
Bahrain's ambulances, hospitals and medical clinics as well as its physicians, nurses, and medical staff are all being targeted. It's pervasive and ongoing. These attacks violate the principle of medical neutrality and are grave breaches of international law.
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While in Bahrain, we documented evidence of the hospital administration at Salmaniya calling doctors and nurses in for appointments, from which they were never seen again. Presumably they are taken to places of detention. One notable detention centre, Criminal Investigations Directorate at Adliya, is also an infamous centre of torture.
Unfortunately, the doctors do not have to be taken to detention centres to suffer violent attacks. We have documented the story of six doctors beaten by security forces in a Salmaniya staff room. When security forces are capable of such brutality in a hospital, one can only imagine what happens in a detention centre.
I'm sure Iran has taken note of this situation, among others. They seem upset.. This proxy-crisis feels like it will escalate very soon.
Libyan rebels: Gaddafi's forces attacking Benghazi From The Jerusalem Post.
US claims Libyan gov't violating ceasefire; French UN envoy says military intervention may be launched "hours after" upcoming int'l summit; Gaddafi calls UN resolution "blatant colonialism."
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Large explosions were heard in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi early on Saturday, and residents said that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces were attacking the rebel stronghold.
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A unilateral ceasefire declared on Friday by the Libyan government appeared to have done little to convince outside powers to hold off on plans for air strikes to force an end to an increasingly bloody civil war.
Other regimes emboldened by Gadhafi's tactics
..But in the end, it was Gadhafi's willingness to use brute force and the tools of his police state that has helped him so far avoid the fate of neighboring autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt who were swallowed up by popular revolutions.
Regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria appear to have taken note, confronting their uprisings with a hard wall of state-sponsored violence.
On Friday, government agents fired on a peaceful protest in Yemen, security forces in Syria reportedly shot several demonstrators dead, and Bahrain's ruling monarchy tore down a 300-foot sculpture at Pearl Square, where protesters had been routed in a deadly confrontation just two days earlier.
Libya shuts air space in face of strikes
Libya shut down its air space on Friday as Britain and France were expected to scramble fighter jets against Moammar Gaddafi's forces after they secured the UN Security Council's blessing.
Eurocontrol, the continent's air traffic agency, said Tripoli "does not accept traffic" until further notice, citing information from Maltese authorities, as France announced air strikes would be imminent.
Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam said Friday his family was "not afraid" as the Libyan foreign ministry said Tripoli was ready for a ceasefire but wanted to discuss its terms.
Meeting Thursday, the UN Security Council voted by 10-0 to permit "all necessary measures" to establish the no-fly zone, protect civilian areas and impose a ceasefire on Gaddafi's military.
This paragraph is of long(looonng) term interest..
Five countries on the 15-strong council abstained, including permanent members China and Russia, who did not use their veto power. India and Brazil also abstained in addition to Germany.
Brazil
Russia
India
China..
and
Germany.
BRIC plus Germany. This is not a coincidence.
Gadhafi plays deadly war games
Trying to outmaneuver Western military intervention, Moammar Gadhafi's government declared a cease-fire against the rebel uprising faltering against his artillery, tanks and warplanes. The opposition said shells rained down well after the announcement and accused the Libyan leader of lying.
Wary of the cease-fire, Britain and France took the lead in plans to enforce a no-fly zone, sending British warplanes to the Mediterranean and announcing a crisis summit today in Paris with the U.N. and Arab allies. In Washington, President Barack Obama ruled out the use of American ground troops but warned that the U.S., which has an array of naval and air forces in the region, would join in military action.
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Parts of eastern Libya, where the once-confident rebels this week found their hold slipping, erupted into celebration at the passage of the U.N. resolution. But the timing and consequences of any international military action remained unclear.
Britain, France and NATO held emergency meetings Friday on using military force to enforce the no-fly zone, which was approved by U.N. Security Council on Thursday. Officials announced that the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and the chiefs of the United Nations and Arab League would join other world leaders for the emergency summit on Libya today in Paris.
France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, told BBC Newsnight that he expected military action to begin in Libya within hours of the Paris meeting.
Libya accuses revolutionaries of breaching truce
So far Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Qatar, Spain, Sweden and the United States have said they will help to implement the no-fly zone.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said "everything is ready" to intervene in Libya, but he refused to give a timetable.
And:
Some 300,000 people have already fled Libya since the rebellion began and many more are expected to leave if full-blown war breaks out, the agencies said.
EU to back sanctions on Libya oil company next week
The European Union will move to add Libya's National Oil Corp. to its list of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi's government at a summit on March 24/25, EU diplomats said on Friday.
The move follows Thursday's U.N. Security Council resolution which authorised a no-fly zone over Libya and expanded sanctions against Gaddafi and his inner circle that were first imposed in February. These measures include an order to freeze the assets of the oil company as well as Libya's central bank.
Indict Muammar Gaddafi now for War Crimes in Sierra Leone
With international pressure already mounting on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and with the International Criminal Court now in the process of gathering information on civilian deaths in Libya, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court have a profound opportunity to indict Gaddafi for war crimes and crimes against humanity he has committed in Sierra Leone. The United Nations has already sanctioned Gaddafi’s government, and now it’s time his prior crimes in West Africa are brought to justice, too.
Muammar Gaddafi was the mastermind and key financier of the brutal war that left hundreds of thousands dead in Sierra Leone in West Africa in the 1990s. The war would not have happened in the first place had it not been for the desire of the Libyan leader to punish the government of Sierra Leone for what he regarded as its siding with the West in the 1980’s when Gaddafi was at loggerhead with particularly the United States and Britain. It was also part of Gaddafi’s broader agenda including his geopolitical ambition to destabilize much of West Africa and establish satellite states in the region to be headed by puppet regimes that will be doing his biddings. The decade-long war ripped Sierra Leone apart. Thousands of its victims, whose arms and limbs were chopped off by rebels, were reduced to paupers, roaming the streets as beggars in Freetown and other cities. Children as young as a day old were also among those whose arms and limbs were hacked off by Gaddafi’s rebels. Pregnant women, too, were disemboweled with delight in their display of ghastly brutality.
Vision: What's Next in Egypt and the Middle East?
Keep in mind that the hated emergency laws from the Mubarak era, part of what provoked the Egyptian uprising to begin with, are still in place and that the country’s intellectuals, its political parties, labor unions, and the media all fear a silent counterrevolution. At the same time, they almost uniformly insist that the Tahrir Square revolution will neither be hijacked nor rebranded by opportunists. As the ideological divide between liberalism, secularism, and Islamism disintegrated when the country’s psychological Wall of Fear came down, lawyers, doctors, textile workers -- a range of the country’s civil society -- remain clear on one thing: they will never settle for a theocracy or a military dictatorship. They want full democracy.
Democracy outlook dims in much of Mideast
Gadhafi Forces Drive Rebels From Key Oil Town
Moammar Gadhafi's forces swept rebels from a key oil town Sunday with waves of strikes from warships, tanks and warplanes, closing on the opposition-held eastern half of Libya as insurgents pleaded for a U.N.-imposed no-fly zone.
Gadhafi's troops have been emboldened by a string of victories in the struggle for Libya's main coastal highway but their supply lines are stretched and their dependence on artillery, airstrikes and naval attacks makes it hard for them to swiftly consolidate control of territory, particularly at night.
The insurgents claimed they moved back into the strategic town of Brega after dusk in a fast-moving battle with a constantly shifting front line, destroying armored vehicles and capturing dozens of fighters from Gadhafi's elite Khamis Brigade.
Pro-Democracy Protests Spread to Oman
Most Americans are not familiar with the sultanate of Oman. The mostly desert country the size of Kansas wraps around the Arabian peninsula's southeastern corner, bordering Yemen on its southwest and the empty quarter of Saudi Arabia along most of its inland border. Oman's long seacoast runs along the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. And its northern tip forms one side of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz across from Iran.
Oman's autocratic monarchy has long been one of the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East. And, as with authoritarian U.S. allies in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen, a largely nonviolent, pro-democracy struggle has arisen in Oman as well.
Protests began in the capital of Muscat on February 19 but soon spread to other cities across the country. Similar to the other largely nonviolent insurrections taking place elsewhere in the Arab world, the protests have been centered on demands for democracy, human rights, economic justice, and curbing official corruption. As in Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, and other monarchies that have witnessed protests in recent weeks, most protesters are not demanding the abolition of the monarchy. They're seeking an elected parliament with real power, essentially transforming the current absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy.
And they're getting fired upon. Imagine if they wanted total overthrow of the government?
Bahrain lawmakers ask King to impose martial law
A parliament group asked Bahrain's king on Monday to impose martial law after a month of unrest that has left the tiny Gulf nation sharply divided between minority Sunni Muslims backing the ruling system and Shiites demanding sweeping changes.
There was no immediate response from Bahrain's monarch, but authorities have expressed increasing frustration that opposition groups have not accepted offers to open dialogue aimed at easing the crisis.
A military-run clampdown would risk further polarizing the strategic island kingdom - home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet - and send a chill through the many international banking and financial companies that use Bahrain as their Gulf hub.
Five Killed, Over 100 Wounded as Yemen Cracks Down on Protests
At least five people were killed Sunday and 105 others wounded in violent regime crackdowns against the nationwide protests. The heaviest clashes were reported at Sanaa University in the nation’s capital, while the southern city of Aden also saw violence.
The protests across Yemen have been growing for weeks, with the protesters demanding that long-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh resign and allow free elections. Saleh, for his part, has ruled out such a resignation, saying it would bring “chaos.”
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