Iraqis lose patience with government inability to prevent violence

2013-07-21

By Ahmed al-Rubaye – BAGHDAD

With 10 days still to go, July is already second deadliest month of 2013 with death toll significantly higher than those of January and February combined.

Iraqis roundly condemned the authorities on Sunday for failing to prevent a wave of deadly violence including attacks that killed dozens of people the day before.

Another five people were killed in bombings on Sunday as the country struggles against a surge in violence that has plagued it since the beginning of the year.

More than 530 people have been killed in attacks so far this month, and almost 2,800 since January 1, making it the worst year since 2008, according to figures based on security and medical sources.

On Sunday, the death toll continued to mount.

In Taji, north of Baghdad, two roadside bombs exploded near an army base, killing three people and wounding at least 10.

And a bomb exploded in the garden of a house in Besmayah, southeast of the capital, killing two people and wounding four, all from the same family.

The blasts came a day after Baghdad was hit by 12 car bombs, a roadside bomb and a shooting, while another bomb blew up south of the capital. A total of 67 people were killed.

Attacks elsewhere killed another three people on Saturday.

The Baghdad attacks came as residents turned out to shop and relax in cafes after iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

On Sunday, Iraqis sharply criticized the authorities for failing to prevent the bloodshed.

“This is a cartoon government and its security forces cannot protect themselves, let alone protect the people,” one man said sadly near the site of one bombing in central Baghdad.

In Tobchi, a north Baghdad area hit in the Saturday attacks, another man resorted to sarcasm.

“These car bombs come to us from Mars, because the security forces are implementing strict regulations to prevent their entry here,” he said.

A third slammed the aloof attitude of the political elite, who rarely comment on the spiraling violence.

“Iraqis are being protected only by God, because the politicians only care about their positions and personal interests,” he said.

In the first 12 days of Ramadan, 334 people have been killed in Iraq violence.

And with 10 days still to go, July is already the second deadliest month of 2013 with a death toll significantly higher than those of January and February combined.

In May, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a shake-up of senior security officers, but the violence has continued unabated.

Iraq has faced years of attacks by militants, but analysts say widespread discontent among members of its Sunni minority, which the government has failed to address, has fueled this year’s surge in unrest.

In addition to security problems, the government in Baghdad is also failing when it comes to other basic services including electricity and clean water, and corruption is also widespread.

Political squabbling has paralyzed the government, which has passed almost no major legislation in years.

Source: Middle East Online.

Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60242.

Investigation – U.S. Bankrolled Anti-Morsi Activists

by Emad Mekay

21 July 2013

President Barack Obama recently stated the United States was not taking sides as Egypt’s crisis came to a head with the military overthrow of the democratically elected president.

But a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country’s now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi.

Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the US channeled funding through a State Department program to promote democracy in the Middle East region. This program vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011.

The State Department’s program, dubbed by US officials as a “democracy assistance” initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists, and to win back influence in Arab Spring countries that saw the rise of Islamists, who largely oppose US interests in the Middle East.

Activists bankrolled by the program include an exiled Egyptian police officer who plotted the violent overthrow of the Morsi government, an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force, as well as a coterie of opposition politicians who pushed for the ouster of the country’s first democratically elected leader, government documents show.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, interviews, and public records reveal Washington’s “democracy assistance” may have violated Egyptian law, which prohibits foreign political funding.

It may also have broken US government regulations that ban the use of taxpayers’ money to fund foreign politicians, or finance subversive activities that target democratically elected governments.

‘Bureau for Democracy’

Washington’s democracy assistance program for the Middle East is filtered through a pyramid of agencies within the State Department. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is channeled through the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), USAID, as well as the Washington-based, quasi-governmental organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In turn, those groups re-route money to other organisations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House, among others. Federal documents show these groups have sent funds to certain organisations in Egypt, mostly run by senior members of anti-Morsi political parties who double as NGO activists.

The Middle East Partnership Initiative – launched by the George W Bush administration in 2002 in a bid to influence politics in the Middle East in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks – has spent close to $900m on democracy projects across the region, a federal grants database shows.

USAID manages about $1.4bn annually in the Middle East, with nearly $390m designated for democracy promotion, according to the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

The US government doesn’t issue figures on democracy spending per country, but Stephen McInerney, POMED’s executive director, estimated that Washington spent some $65m in 2011 and $25m in 2012. He said he expects a similar amount paid out this year.

A main conduit for channeling the State Department’s democracy funds to Egypt has been the National Endowment for Democracy. Federal documents show NED, which in 2011 was authorized an annual budget of $118m by Congress, funneled at least $120,000 over several years to an exiled Egyptian police officer who has for years incited violence in his native country.

This appears to be in direct contradiction to its Congressional mandate, which clearly states NED is to engage only in “peaceful” political change overseas.

Exiled policeman

Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman – who served in Egypt’s elite investigative police unit, notorious for human rights abuses – began receiving NED funds in 2008 for at least four years.

During that time he and his followers targeted Mubarak’s government, and Soliman later followed the same tactics against the military rulers who briefly replaced him. Most recently Soliman set his sights on Morsi’s government.

Soliman, who has refugee status in the US, was sentenced in absentia last year for five years imprisonment by a Cairo court for his role in inciting violence in 2011 against the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two US allies.

He also used social media to encourage violent attacks against Egyptian officials, according to court documents and a review of his social media posts.

US Internal Revenue Service documents reveal that NED paid tens of thousands of dollars to Soliman through an organisation he created called Hukuk Al-Nas (People’s Rights), based in Falls Church, Virginia. Federal forms show he is the only employee.

After he was awarded a 2008 human rights fellowship at NED and moved to the US, Soliman received a second $50,000 NED grant in 2009 for Hukuk Al-Nas. In 2010, he received $60,000 and another $10,000 in 2011.

In an interview with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley, Soliman reluctantly admitted he received US government funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, but complained it wasn’t enough. “It is like $2000 or $2,500 a month,” he said. “Do you think this is too much? Obama wants to give us peanuts. We will not accept that.”

NED has removed public access to its Egyptian grant recipients in 2011 and 2012 from its website. NED officials didn’t respond to repeated interview requests.

‘Pro bono advice’

NED’s website says Soliman spreads only nonviolent literature, and his group was set up to provide “immediate, pro bono legal advice through a telephone hotline, instant messaging, and other social networking tools”.

However, in Egyptian media interviews, social media posts and YouTube videos, Soliman encouraged the violent overthrow of Egypt’s government, then led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party.

“Incapacitate them by smashing their knee bones first,” he instructed followers on Facebook in late June, as Morsi’s opponents prepared massive street rallies against the government. Egypt’s US-funded and trained military later used those demonstrations to justify its coup on July 3.

“Make a road bump with a broken palm tree to stop the buses going into Cairo, and drench the road around it with gas and diesel. When the bus slows down for the bump, set it all ablaze so it will burn down with all the passengers inside … God bless,” Soliman’s post read.

In late May he instructed, “Behead those who control power, water and gas utilities.”

Soliman removed several older social media posts after authorities in Egypt took notice of his subversive instructions, court documents show.

Egyptian women supporters of ousted president Morsi [EPA]

More recent Facebook instructions to his 83,000 followers range from guidelines on spraying roads with a mix of auto oil and gas – “20 liters of oil to 4 liters of gas”- to how to thwart cars giving chase.

On a YouTube video, Soliman took credit for a failed attempt in December to storm the Egyptian presidential palace with handguns and Molotov cocktails to oust Morsi.

“We know he gets support from some groups in the US, but we do not know he is getting support from the US government. This would be news to us,” said an Egyptian embassy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Funding other Morsi opponents

Other beneficiaries of US government funding are also opponents of the now-deposed president, some who had called for Morsi’s removal by force.

The Salvation Front main opposition bloc, of which some members received US funding, has backed street protest campaigns that turned violent against the elected government, in contradiction of many of the State Department’s own guidelines.

A longtime grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy and other US democracy groups is a 34-year old Egyptian woman, Esraa Abdel-Fatah, who sprang to notoriety during the country’s pitched battle over the new constitution in December 2012.

She exhorted activists to lay siege to mosques and drag from pulpits all Muslim preachers and religious figures who supported the country’s the proposed constitution, just before it went to a public referendum.

The act of besieging mosques has continued ever since, and several people have died in clashes defending them.

Federal records show Abdel-Fatah’s NGO, the Egyptian Democratic Academy, received support from NED, MEPI and NDI, among other State Department-funded groups “assisting democracy”. Records show NED gave her organization a one-year $75,000 grant in 2011.

Abdel-Fatah is politically active, crisscrossing Egypt to rally support for her Al-Dostor Party, which is led by former UN nuclear chief Mohamed El-Baradei, the most prominent figure in the Salvation Front. She lent full support to the military takeover, and urged the West not call it a “coup”.

“June 30 will be the last day of Morsi’s term,” she told the press a few weeks before the coup took place.

US taxpayer money has also been sent to groups set up by some of Egypt’s richest people, raising questions about waste in the democracy program.

Michael Meunier is a frequent guest on TV channels that opposed Morsi. Head of the Al-Haya Party, Meunier – a dual US-Egyptian citizen – has quietly collected US funding through his NGO, Hand In Hand for Egypt Association.

Meunier’s organization was founded by some of the most vehement opposition figures, including Egypt’s richest man and well-known Coptic Christian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, Tarek Heggy, an oil industry executive, Salah Diab, Halliburton’s partner in Egypt, and Usama Ghazali Harb, a politician with roots in the Mubarak regime and a frequent US embassy contact.

Meunier has denied receiving US assistance, but government documents show USAID in 2011 granted his Cairo-based organisation $873,355. Since 2009, it has taken in $1.3 million from the US agency.

Meunier helped rally the country’s five million Christian Orthodox Coptic minority, who oppose Morsi’s Islamist agenda, to take to the streets against the president on June 30.

Reform and Development Party member Mohammed Essmat al-Sadat received US financial support through his Sadat Association for Social Development, a grantee of The Middle East Partnership Initiative.

The federal grants records and database show in 2011 Sadat collected $84,445 from MEPI “to work with youth in the post-revolutionary Egypt”.

Sadat was a member of the coordination committee, the main organizing body for the June 30 anti-Morsi protest. Since 2008, he has collected $265,176 in US funding. Sadat announced he will be running for office again in upcoming parliamentary elections.

After soldiers and police killed more than 50 Morsi supporters on Monday, Sadat defended the use of force and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, saying it used women and children as shields.

Some US-backed politicians have said Washington tacitly encouraged them to incite protests.

“We were told by the Americans that if we see big street protests that sustain themselves for a week, they will reconsider all current US policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood regime,” said Saaddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American politician opposed Morsi.

Ibrahim’s Ibn Khaldoun Center in Cairo receives US funding, one of the largest recipients of democracy promotion money in fact.

His comments followed statements by other Egyptian opposition politicians claiming they had been prodded by US officials to whip up public sentiment against Morsi before Washington could publicly weigh in.

Democracy program defense

The practice of funding politicians and anti-government activists through NGOs was vehemently defended by the State Department and by a group of Washington-based Middle East experts close to the program.

“The line between politics and activism is very blurred in this country,” said David Linfield, spokesman for the US Embassy in Cairo.

Others said the United States cannot be held responsible for activities by groups it doesn’t control.

“It’s a very hot and dynamic political scene,” said Michelle Dunne, an expert at the Atlantic Council think-tank. Her husband, Michael Dunne, was given a five-year jail sentence in absentia by a Cairo court for his role in political funding in Egypt.

“Just because you give someone some money, you cannot take away their freedom or the position they want to take,” said Dunne.

Elliot Abrams, a former official in the administration of George W. Bush and a member of the Working Group on Egypt that includes Dunne, denied in an email message that the US has paid politicians in Egypt, or elsewhere in the Middle East.

“The US does not provide funding for parties or ‘local politicians’ in Egypt or anywhere else,” said Abrams. “That is prohibited by law and the law is scrupulously obeyed by all US agencies, under careful Congressional oversight.”

But a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, said American support for foreign political activists was in line with American principles.

“The US government provides support to civil society, democracy and human rights activists around the world, in line with our long-held values, such as respecting the fundamental human rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, and human dignity,” the official wrote in an email. “US outreach in Egypt is consistent with these principles.”

A Cairo court convicted 43 local and foreign NGO workers last month on charges of illegally using foreign funds to stir unrest in Egypt. The US and UN expressed concern over the move.

Out of line

Some Middle East observers suggested the US’ democracy push in Egypt may be more about buying influence than spreading human rights and good governance.

“Funding of politicians is a problem,” said Robert Springborg, who evaluated democracy programs for the State Department in Egypt, and is now a professor at the National Security Department of the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California.

“If you run a program for electoral observation, or for developing media capacity for political parties, I am not against that. But providing lots of money to politicians – I think that raises lots of questions,” Springborg said.

Some Egyptians, meanwhile, said the US was out of line by sending cash through its democracy program in the Middle East to organisations run by political operators.

“Instead of being sincere about backing democracy and reaching out to the Egyptian people, the US has chosen an unethical path,” said Esam Neizamy, an independent researcher into foreign funding in Egypt, and a member of the country’s Revolutionary Trustees, a group set up to protect the 2011 revolution.

“The Americans think they can outsmart lots of people in the Middle East. They are being very hostile against the Egyptian people who have nothing but goodwill for them – so far,” Neizamy said.

Source: allAfrica.

Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201307220534.html?viewall=1.

Jordan King in Egypt: First visit by Arab leader since Morsi’s ouster

2013-07-20

After being among first leaders to congratulate Egyptians, King Abdullah II arrives in Cairo amid heightened political tensions.

CAIRO – Jordan’s King Abdullah II arrived in Cairo on Saturday, in the first visit by a head of state to Egypt since ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, state media reported.

The monarch had been among the first leaders to congratulate Egyptians after the army overthrew Morsi following mass protests calling for him to resign.

Abdullah, who faces challenges at home from Islamists, was met at the airport by military-backed interim Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi, the official MENA news agency reported.

Both Jordan and Egypt have been key mediators between Israel and the Palestinians, which the United States says have agreed to lay the groundwork to resume peace negotiations.

Abdullah is likely to discuss the renewed talks with Egypt.

But his visit may also be aimed at conferring legitimacy on the new military-installed regime, which is fighting a public relations war abroad to burnish its credentials as a legitimate regime.

Source: Middle East Online.

Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=60232.

In Jordan, the Arab Spring Isn’t Over

JUL 19 2013

DAVID ROHDE

The country’s leadership must realize that growing authoritarianism won’t foster stability.

Amman, Jordan — After the Egyptian army toppled President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the U.S. Congress expressed the sentiment of many in Washington.

“The army is the only stable institution in the country,” he said.

In the Western media, Arab Spring post-mortems proliferated, including a 15-page special report in The Economist that asked, “Has the Arab Spring failed?” The answer: “That view is at best premature, at worst wrong.”

Here in Jordan, Arab Spring inspired protests demanding King Abdullah II cede power to an elected government has petered out. A crackdown on the media that shut down 300 websites last month elicited little protest.

“We are witnessing a swift return to a police state,” said Labib Kamhawi, an opposition figure accused last year of violating a law that bars Jordanians from defaming the king. “You will find everything controlled.”

Yet analysts, opposition members and former government officials say that the Arab Spring has paused here — not ended. The underlying economic issues which prompted the protests that toppled governments across the Middle East and North Africa remain in place. Arab rulers and U.S. officials are both mistaken if they think they can rely on generals and regents to produce long-term stability.

“The political energy that was released around the Arab world and Jordan in 2011 has not dissipated,” said Robert Blecher, a Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group. “The problems that gave birth to the Arab uprisings have not been solved.”

What, then, is happening in Jordan? Simply put, Jordanians look north to Syria and southwest to Egypt and are frightened by what they see. Brutal civil wars and street clashes have tempered the desire for rapid change. Though Abdullah limits speech here, he is not nearly as brutal as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And events in Egypt have made young, secular Jordanians loathe to live under the Muslim Brotherhood. In short, Jordanians are waiting.

“I’m less aggressive toward the king because I saw what the Islamists could do, I see what is happening in the region,” said Alaa Fazzaa, the editor of one of the shuttered websites. “I’m waiting for the right time to attack.”

In a region where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 30, the economic problems are colossal. And a younger generation bent on economic opportunity and basic political rights will not accept a permanent return to authoritarianism. Jordan is a case in point.

The global economic slowdown halved economic growth in Jordan from 6 percent to 3 percent over the last three years. Jordan’s official unemployment rate is 12.5 percent, with youth unemployment estimated to be twice that. More than 550,000 Syrian refugees have flooded the foreign-aid-dependent, oil- and water-starved desert kingdom of 6 million.

Oraib al Rantawi, the director of the Al Quds Center for Political Studies here, said that the biggest concerns that Jordanians express in opinion polls are not political.

“The top five priorities for Jordanians are economic,” he said. “You will find political reform on number 10 or number 11.”

To his credit, Abdullah, 51, is one of the most liberal monarchs in the Middle East. After he ascended to the throne in1999, he was widely hailed as a modernizer. Yet in recent years, his reforms have slowed and popularity ebbed.

A March profile of the king published in The Atlantic provoked fury in Jordan. In the piece, which the palace disputed, the king was quoted as disparaging intelligence chiefs, the Muslim Brotherhood, tribal elders, U.S. diplomats, regional leaders and his own family. He said local politicians had failed to take advantage of reforms he enacted and mocked one nascent party’s social and economic manifesto.

“It’s all about ‘I’ll vote for this guy because I’m in his tribe,'” the king said in the Atlantic story. “I want this guy to develop a program that at least people will begin to understand.”

But critics insist Abdullah’s reforms are illusory. Jordan has a prime minister and an elected lower house of parliament, but the regent can fire the prime minister and dissolve parliament at will. In the past five years, he has sent six prime ministers packing.

Luckily for Abdullah, Jordan’s wing of the Muslim Brotherhood is proving as politically clumsy as its Egyptian brethren. The Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood boycotted legislative elections this year. A decent turnout allowed Abdullah to declare the elections credible and left the country’s largest opposition group without a voice in parliament.

At the same time, as fighting rages in Syria and Secretary of State John Kerry pushes for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Washington needs Abdullah. Calls for reform from Washington have grown muted of late.

“In 2011, they were saying do reform and do it quick,” said Blecher, the ICG analyst. “The message is much weaker now.”

Vast economic problems remain in Jordan. Next month, the government will carry out a long delayed, International Monetary Fund-mandated increase in electricity prices. When an IMF required cut in fuel subsides was enacted last fall, riots erupted.

Believing that kings and generals can bring instant stability to today’s Middle East is fanciful. Abdullah must enact sweeping economic reforms, crackdown on corruption and begin to cede power to an elected government. And Washington should encourage him every step of the way.

The clock cannot be turned back in the Middle East. In the short term, more turmoil lies ahead. In the long-run, growing economies, not growing authoritarianism, will foster stability.

Source: The Atlantic.

Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/in-jordan-the-arab-spring-isnt-over/277964/.

Syrian Islamist rebel leader freed after clashes among rival rebels

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT | Sun Jul 21, 2013

(Reuters) – The local commander of a Syrian rebel group affiliated to al Qaeda was freed on Sunday after being held by Kurdish forces in a power struggle between rival organizations fighting President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.

However, the pro-opposition activists gave conflicting reports of how the Islamist brigade commander in the Syrian town of Tel Abyad near the Turkish border had come to be free.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamist rebels had exchanged 300 Kurdish residents they had kidnapped for the local head of their group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS). Other activist groups challenged this account, saying Islamist fighters had freed Abu Musaab by force, with no Kurdish hostages released.

Sporadic fighting over the past five days in towns near the frontier with Turkey has pitted Islamists trying to cement their control of rebel zones against Kurds trying to assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish areas.

The trouble highlights how the two-year insurgency against 43 years of Assad family rule is spinning off into strife within his opponents’ ranks, running the risk of creating regionalized conflicts that could also destabilize neighboring countries.

The factional fighting could also help Assad’s forces, who have launched an offensive to retake territory.

BELT OF TERRITORY

Assad has been trying to secure a belt of territory from Damascus through Homs and up to his heartland on the Mediterranean coast and, with the help of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, has won a string of victories in Homs province and near the capital.

On Sunday his forces ambushed and killed 49 rebels in the Damascus suburb of Adra, the Observatory said.

The town was once a critical point along the route used by rebels to bring weapons to the capital, but Assad’s forces recaptured it a few months ago and have been working to cut off rebel territories in the area.

To the north, activists reported Turkish troops reinforcing their side of the frontier near Tel Abyad, but the army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier in the week.

The Observatory said the alleged prisoner exchange was part of a ceasefire agreed after a day of fierce clashes in Tel Abyad, but other activists said there was no deal and reported that many Kurdish residents were being held by ISIS fighters.

The Observatory said the fighting in Tel Abyad started when the local ISIS brigade asked Kurdish Front forces, which have fought with the rebels against Assad, to pledge allegiance to Abu Musaab, which they refused to do.

Other activists said the clashes were an extension of fighting that broke out last week in other parts of the northern border zone.

Opposition activists also reported the killing of at least 13 members of a family in the Sunni Muslim village of Baida on Sunday, in what they described as a second sectarian massacre there.

FIGHTING NEAR THE COAST

The killings followed a rare eruption of fighting between Assad’s forces and rebels in the coastal province of Tartous, an enclave of Assad’s Alawite minority sect that has remained largely unscathed by the civil war.

Syria’s marginalized Sunni majority has largely backed the insurrection while minorities such as the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, have largely supported Assad, himself an Alawite.

The Observatory said four women and six children were among those killed in Baida.

“A relative came to look for them today and found the men shot outside. The women’s and children’s bodies were inside a room of the house and residents in the area said some of the bodies were burned,” said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory.

In May, pro-Assad militias killed more than 50 residents of Baida and over 60 in the nearby town of Banias. In those killings, some bodies, many of them children, were found burned and mutilated.

The anti-Assad revolt has evolved from its origins as a peaceful protest movement in March 2011 into a civil war that has killed over 100,000 people and turned markedly sectarian.

The ethnic Kurdish minority has been alternately battling both Assad’s forces and the Islamist-dominated rebels. Kurds argue they support the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.

The Kurdish people, scattered over the territories of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, are often described as the world’s largest ethnic community without a state of their own.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Jonathan Burch in Ankara; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: Reuters.

Link: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/us-syria-crisis-idUKBRE96J06D20130721.

Inmates riot, escape, set fire to Indonesia prison

July 12, 2013

MEDAN, Indonesia (AP) — Authorities were searching for scores of inmates, including terrorists, who escaped a crowded Indonesian prison that was still burning Friday after prisoners set fires and started a deadly riot at the facility in the nation’s third-largest city.

Thousands of policemen and soldiers are deployed around Tanjung Gusta prison to blockade roads linking Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, to other provinces were blockaded while fire brigades were battling the fires.

About 200 prisoners escaped following the riot late Thursday in which three prison employees and two inmates were killed. Officers deployed to hunt the escaped inmates have re-arrested 55 of them and still searching for remaining inmates who still at large, said local police chief in Lt. Col. Nico Afinta. Three of 22 convicted terrorists have been recaptured.

He said the prison employees who died, including a woman, were trapped and killed in an office building that was burned by prisoners during late Thursday’s riot. The riot appeared to have been triggered by a power blackout that knocked out water pumps, leaving inmates without water since Thursday morning.

Inmates forced their way out from the prison while others set offices on fire and held about 15 officers captive inside the prison, prison directorate spokesman Akbar Hadi said. None of the hostages was still being held Friday morning.

The facility holds nearly 2,600 prisoners while its normal capacity is 1,500, Hadi said. Witnesses said gunshots were heard from inside the prison, and television footage showed security forces carrying a white body bag into an ambulance from the burning prison. The fire sent raging orange flames jumping several meters (yards) into the air and a huge column of black smoke billowing over the jail.

Hadi estimated about 500 inmates were resisting calls to stop the riot and said an evacuation was planned for the safety of inmates who could become hostages as tensions showed no signs of easing. Vice Minister of justice Denny Indrayana, who is in Medan overseeing the operation, has requested evacuation of all inmates and appealed those remain escape to give themselves to the authorities.

“Legal action will be taken to chase them, and tougher action will be applied to those who refuse to surrender,” Indrayana said. No further information was available on injuries.

Malala celebrates 16th birthday with UN address

July 12, 2013

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Malala Yousafzai celebrated her 16th birthday on the world stage at the United Nations, defiantly telling Taliban extremists who tried to end her campaign for girls’ education in Pakistan with a bullet that the attack gave her new courage and demanding that world leaders provide free education to all children.

Malala was invited Friday to give her first public speech since she was shot in the head on her way back from school in Pakistan’s Swat Valley last October. She addressed nearly 1,000 young leaders from over 100 countries at the U.N.’s first Youth Assembly — and she had a message for them too.

“Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons,” Malala urged. “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first.”

The U.N. had declared July 12 — her 16th birthday — “Malala Day.” But she insisted it was “the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.” The Taliban, which has long opposed educating girls in Pakistan as well as neighboring Afghanistan, said it targeted Malala because she was campaigning for girls to go to school and promoted “Western thinking.”

In what some observers saw as another sign of defiance, Malala said the white shawl she was wearing belonged to Pakistan’s first woman prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December 2007 when she returned to run in elections.

Malala recalled the Oct. 9 day when she was shot on the left side of her forehead, and her friends were shot as well. She insisted she was just one of thousands of victims of the Taliban. “They thought that the bullets would silence us,” she said. “But they failed. And then, out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Malala began her speech with a traditional Muslim prayer and later accused terrorists of “misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits.” She wore a traditional pink patterned South Asian dress and pants called a shalwar kameez and a matching head scarf.

Malala said she learned to “be peaceful and love everyone” from Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi and other global advocates of non-violence; from the compassion of religious figures Mohammad, Jesus Christ and Buddha; from the legacy of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who led Pakistan to independence in 1947.

“I’m not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban, or any other terrorist group,” she said. “I’m here to speak about the right of education for every child.”

“I want education for the sons and daughters of all the Taliban and all the terrorists and extremists. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hands and he stands in front of me. I would not shoot him,” she said.

Malala said her main focus was on the education of girls and the rights of women “because they are suffering the most.” “We cannot succeed when half of us are held back,” she said, urging all communities to be tolerant and reject prejudice based on caste, creed, sect, religion or gender.

A report by UNESCO and Save the Children issued just before Malala’s speech said 57 million youngsters were out of school in 2011, down from 60 million in 2008. But it said the number living in conflict zones rose to 28.5 million in 2011 and more than half were girls.

Malala said extremists kill students, especially girls, and destroy schools because they are afraid of the power of education and the power of women, “and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring into our society.”

She also decried the fact that wars, child labor and child marriage are preventing boys, and especially girls, from going to school. Malala received several standing ovations and everyone joined in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.” In U.N. corridors, her speech got rave reviews with some diplomats and observers predicting a future political career.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown, the U.N. special envoy for global education who helped organize the assembly, called Malala “the most courageous girl in the world.” She was airlifted to Britain for treatment and returned to school in Birmingham, where her family now lives, in March.

He said she was doing exactly what the Taliban didn’t want her to do, and announced that 4 million people had signed an online petition calling for education for everyone. One of the main U.N. goals set by world leaders at a summit in 2000 is to ensure that every child in the world gets a primary education by the end of 2015.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged stepped-up efforts to get 57 million youngsters into school in the next 900 days. He said it won’t be easy given the first decline in international aid for basic education in a decade and recent attacks on students and schools in Nigeria, Pakistan and elsewhere.

“No child should have to die for going to school,” Ban said. “Nowhere should teachers fear to teach or children fear to learn. Together, we can change this picture. … And together let us follow the lead of this brave young girl, Malala. Let us put education first.”

Egypt forms committee to amend constitution

July 20, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s interim president selected a team of legal experts Saturday to rewrite controversial portions of the Islamist-drafted constitution, as the military-backed leadership moved quickly to try to capitalize on the coup that ousted the country’s first freely elected leader.

While supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi still protest in the streets, Egypt’s new prime minister called for consensus and participation of all political groups. But Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group officially has refused to negotiate with the new government, saying they are open for talks only after he is reinstated.

The persistent protest and clashes, however, continue to rock hope for stability in the country. Moves to amend the constitution are the latest push by the country’s new leadership to move ahead with a military-backed timetable for a return to democratic rule to Egypt. The drafting of Egypt’s constitution was one of the most divisive issues that came to characterize Morsi’s first and only year in office.

In his decree Saturday, interim President Adly Mansour appointed the 10-member committee of judges and law professors that will propose amendments to the constitution. They have 30 days to suggest amendments. A second committee, comprised of 50 public figures including politicians, unionists and religious figures, then will have 60 days to review those amendments.

After that, citizens will vote on the proposed amendments in a referendum, according to the military-backed timetable. Parliamentary elections are to follow. In an interview with Egyptian state television aired Saturday night, Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said it is vital that Islamists take part in the political process, though none of Morsi’s supporters are in the new Cabinet he leads.

“We cannot write a constitution when the country is divided. The country needs consensus,” he said. “It is important we return to a country of laws.” The Brotherhood say the only legitimate constitution is the one approved in a nationwide vote and ratified by Morsi in December. The military suspended the constitution after the July 3 coup.

El-Beblawi also denied that the country’s army chief, Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, was pulling the strings from behind the scenes, saying he only spoke to the interim president regarding the formation of Cabinet.

Liberals twice walked out of committees drafting the constitution under Morsi, complaining that the Brotherhood and its allies dominated the process and stifled their suggestions. Protests over the constitution and the direction of the country turned deadly after Morsi issued temporary decrees in late November that put himself and the drafting committee above judicial oversight. The charter was then finalized in a rushed overnight session and passed in a referendum.

Unlike the previous drafting committee under Morsi, at least 20 percent of the second committee is to be represented by young Egyptians who helped galvanize street movements and women. Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, a leading figure in the Tamarod petition drive that mobilized the massive street protests that led to Morsi’s ouster, said his group has launched a new initiative to collect suggestions from Egyptians on the constitution.

“We want to reach a constitution that is representative of the people’s will,” Abdel-Aziz told The Associated Press. He declined to comment on which articles the group wants amended. Meanwhile Saturday, a security official said unidentified assailants threw a bomb at a police station in the governorate of Ismailiya, between Cairo and the volatile northern region of the Sinai Peninsula. Part of the building and a police vehicle were damaged, but no injuries were reported, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

Clashes between protesters and security forces have erupted into violence several times since Morsi’s ouster, killing more than 60 people. The most recent incident occurred Friday night in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura when unidentified assailants opened fire at a Brotherhood-led march, sparking a melee that killed three female protesters, authorities said.

The Brotherhood said two were killed by gunshot and one died after suffocating on tear gas. Medical officials said the protesters’ bodies were examined Saturday. The prime minister and Vice President Mohammed ElBaradei condemned the incident in separate posts on Twitter.

The Brotherhood said the killings “shed light on the bloody nature of dictatorship and the police state under a military coup.” Authorities are clamping down on the group, with eight top Islamist figures are under arrest. Prosecutors issued another arrest warrant Saturday for the Brotherhood’s top figure, Mohammed Badie, and four others. The latest warrants accused them of inciting violence with police that led to the deaths of seven pro-Morsi supporters in Cairo this week.

Morsi has been held incommunicado at an undisclosed military facility since his ouster. He has not been charged with any crime. The Brotherhood’s television channel and others sympathetic to the group have been taken off the air. On Saturday, security officials said that police raided the Iranian Alalam TV station and arrested its manager. Authorities said the station did not have the proper permits to operate in Egypt. An employee at the station told BBC Arabic that they had applied for permits, but, as has happened with other stations in the past, authorities delayed issuing them licenses to operate.

Rights groups have criticized the clampdown and Morsi’s detention, as well as the deaths of dozens of protesters in recent weeks. In another sign of the interim government’s drive to move on with the transition, Jordan’s King Abdullah met with the country’s president, army chief and other top figures Saturday in the first visit by a head of state to Cairo since the coup. The king’s visit highlighted his support of the coup that ousted the Brotherhood from power.

Additionally, Egypt’s new foreign minister Nabil Fahmy said Egypt continues to support the Syrian uprising but has no intention of supporting a jihad — or holy war — in the nation. Fahmy said that “everything will be re-evaluated” regarding the country’s stance toward Syria. Morsi had severed diplomatic ties with Damascus just weeks before his ouster.

Fahmy also said Cairo is also “seriously assessing” its relations with the Syrian regime’s key regional backer Iran. Morsi moved to improve diplomatic ties with Tehran.

Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef and Mariam Rizk contributed to this report.

Many neighbors tire of pro-Morsi sit-in in Egypt

July 20, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — After three weeks, some local residents have started to have enough with Islamist supporters of Egypt’s ousted President Mohammed Morsi camped out outside a Cairo mosque in their neighborhood to demand he be restored to office.

Residents are complaining that the sit-in camp is blocking the roads leading to their homes, garbage has piled up on side streets and parks have been trashed. Speeches from the stage blare late into the night in the neighborhood around Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque.

At the same time, the complaints have been sucked into Egypt’s bitter polarization over the military’s removal of Morsi on July 3. Anti-Islamist media have taken up the residents’ backlash as evidence the country has turned against the protesters, who vow to continue their street campaign.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, in turn, has sought to show it has the backing of its neighbors, announcing that residents have been bringing the camping protesters sweets and food. The protest camp also issued a statement this past week offering nearby residents “24-hour medical, electricity, plumbing or other services.”

Morsi supporters have been gathering in the broad intersection in front the mosque since just before the giant protests by millions nationwide against the president that led to his ouster began on June 30.

Now they have settled in for a seemingly permanent presence on the edge of the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City. At least a thousand people camp there in tents overnight and crowds swell at times to tens of thousands for evening rallies. Throughout the day, speakers ranging from ultraconservative clerics to Brotherhood figures to people from the crowd deliver speeches from the stage to rally the audience.

“We thought they were just having a protest for the day … we assumed they’ll leave after the revolution (Morsi’s fall) but they didn’t and life started becoming a tragedy,” Sarah Ashraf, a 25-year-old resident, told The Associated Press.

Constant noise from fireworks and the speeches is one big issue for the residents. Another is the tone of some of the speeches, with hard-liners denouncing their opponents. “On their stage, Christians are constantly being threatened and insulted; this is scaring us,” said Ashraf, who is Christian. She said she has to wear long-sleeve shirts and more conservative clothing because otherwise she feels uncomfortable passing by the crowd, largely made up of ultraconservative Islamists, with men in long beards and many women veiled.

Sandbag walls have gone up at some parts. Fearing attack by opponents, the protesters have a “self-defense” contingent of young men with sticks and makeshift armor. Those entering or passing through the sit-in section must show IDs at protester checkpoints, and the tents are spread across sidewalks in front of building entrances. In nearby gardens and garages, protesters have put up structures of blocks and bricks as toilets.

“They took off the paving stones from the sidewalks and used them to build a wall where they stand behind with their primitive weapons,” resident Mohammed Wasfy said. “They have sticks in their hands all the day as a show of force; the youngest of them is holding a stick as long as he is,” he added.

Several dozen residents held a counter-protest near the pro-Morsi encampment late Thursday, chanting “the Brotherhood is a shame on us.” They held signs reading: “You are free unless you harm me.” There were no frictions between the two groups. But the protesting residents issued a statement with a list of demands and gave Morsi supporters until Saturday night to carry them out. Among the demands, move the stage, clear side streets, stop using fireworks, turn speakers off, clean the area regularly and make sure no one has weapons in their crowds.

Some residents have moved out to live elsewhere temporarily. Others stick to their homes. “We’ve been trapped here for three weeks; my parents don’t allow me out except to the supermarket under my house,” Ebtihal Hazem, a 21-year-old business student, said over the telephone from her nearby home.

Nora Mohammed, a 30-year-old woman among the pro-Morsi protesters, insisted they were being good guests. “This street was full of garbage and the Brotherhood protesters came and cleared it,” she said. “They have no right to complain. It’s the military trucks that are making the problem and blocking some of the main roads.”

The military is blocking at least two of the main roads leading into and out of the sit-in area. Residents also complain that other nearby mosques are being used by protesters for shelter, sleeping and showering. “A nearby state school was also used for shelter and cooking purposes. … It’s a usual scene to see them in pajamas with towels on their shoulders,” said Karim Hazem, a 21-year-old resident.

Looming over the situation is the fear of violence — by either side. More than 50 Morsi supporters were killed by troops last week amid clashes at another sit-in not far away. Other sites have seen violence between protesters and police or local residents.

“We don’t feel safe anymore,” Hazem said.

Protests for Egypt’s ousted leader amid tension

July 20, 2013

CAIRO (AP) — With the military beefing up security, tens of thousands took to the streets Friday in a determined push for the return to power of Egypt’s ousted Islamist leader, while Mohammed Morsi’s opponents staged rival rallies, raising fears of a fresh round of clashes.

In the only reported deadly violence Friday, angry residents of the delta city of Mansoura clashed with pro-Morsi protesters. Gunshots and birdshots were fired, though it was unclear by whom, security officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said a 25-year-old woman and a young girl were killed in the late night violence. A local rights activist who was at the hospital, Abdullah el-Nekeity, said three women were killed, including a 17-year-old girl, and 13 other people were injured.

El-Nekeity said a mob attacked the pro-Morsi demonstrators with dogs, gunfire birdshots and knives. The marchers fled, some hiding in residences until the police arrived, el-Nekeity said. A statement from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood party said those killed were supporters of the ousted government and blamed hired thugs for shooting them.

The army warned it wouldn’t tolerate any violence and sent fighter jets screaming over the capital and helicopters hovering over the marches. Publicizing their protests for days, Morsi’s supporters vowed Friday would be decisive in their campaign to try to reverse the military coup that removed the country’s first democratically elected president after a year in office, following massive protests against him.

Unlike other demonstrations held in the evening after breaking the daylong Ramadan fast, the pro-Morsi rallies took place throughout the day. Organized by the Muslim Brotherhood party and dubbed “Breaking the Coup,” they included marches in Cairo’s streets, outside military installations and in other cities, including Alexandria and several Nile Delta provinces.

The rival gatherings came just days after a new interim Cabinet was sworn in that includes women, Christians and members of a liberal coalition opposed to Morsi, but no Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood has refused to take part in talks with the interim leadership.

The country has been deeply polarized since the ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in February 2011, following massive rallies. The divisions only deepened over the July 3 military coup supported by millions who accused Morsi of abusing his power and giving too much influence to his Muslim Brotherhood group.

Friday’s rallies coincided with the 10th day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which Egyptians celebrate as the day their armed forces crossed the Suez Canal in the 1973 war with Israel. The surprise assault led to the return of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been occupied by Israel.

The occasion was a chance for the rival camps to focus on the military, which was instrumental in removing Morsi. At pro-Morsi gatherings, protesters extolled the virtue of the armed forces but drew a distinction with its leadership, which they accused of treason for turning against Morsi.

Waving Egyptian flags and pictures of the ousted leader, they chanted slogans against army chief Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi. “El-Sissi is a traitor!” they shouted. “Morsi is our president!” Organizers played Morsi’s old speeches, referring to him as the nation’s leader and the supreme commander of the armed forces.

“The problems of the first years could have been solved by dialogue, but the opposition always refused,” said 28-year-old Osama Youssef, who traveled to Cairo from the eastern province of Sharqiya to show his support for Morsi. “The opposition didn’t succeed in getting power through constitutional measures, so it chose to take power by staging a military coup.”

Sayed el-Banna, a 45-year-old Brotherhood member who came to Cairo from the Delta province of al-Sharqia, said it was important to have many people in the streets. “It is to send a message to those in the army who disagree with el-Sissi to stand with us and support us,” he said.

Meanwhile, several thousand anti-Morsi protesters gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and outside two presidential palaces to celebrate their gains. “The people and the army and the police together against terrorism,” declared a banner stung across a stage set up at the presidential palace.

Army choppers flying overhead dropped gift coupons and Egyptian flags on the gathering in Tahrir Square and a police choir performed nationalist songs in a party that lasted late into the night. The presence in the streets of the rival sides had raised fears of clashes, and military and police were deployed heavily in areas where the two crowds might collide. In one incident, near the presidential palace, security forces lobbed tear gas at an approaching march by Morsi supporters to prevent it from reaching an area where anti-Morsi demonstrators were holding their own rally.

Only minor incidents of violence were reported in the capital. Pro-Morsi supporters and opponents shouted at one another after Friday prayers in the main Al-Azhar Mosque and police detained six Islamist protesters for throwing rocks. Separately, a man was stabbed and hospitalized when a crowd of the deposed president’s supporters questioned his identity and found out he was a policeman in civilian clothing.

In the Sinai peninsula, where militants long active in the area have intensified their attacks against security forces following Morsi’s ouster, two civilians were killed when armed militants fired rockets at a military checkpoint, but hit a residence nearby.

In a clear attempt to widen their base of support, Brotherhood members appealed to people join their rally, insisting the coup was about to be reversed. “To those hesitating, wake up, the time for the end of the coup is nearing,” senior Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian wrote in a posting on his Facebook page.

Yasser Meshren, a Brotherhood supporter who came to Cairo from the southern province of Bani Sueif, accused the military of tricking the people by overseeing the elections only to then remove Morsi, disband the country’s interim parliament and suspend the constitution, which was approved in a referendum.

“You stole my mother and my sister’s voice,” Meshren said of the military leadership. During their marches, the protesters made a concerted effort to distinguish between the leaders of the military and the troops. At one point, a group of pro-Morsi supporters approached a military checkpoint offering them flowers.

Police and military troops and armored vehicles were deployed heavily in Cairo around security and military installations, court houses, and the capital’s entrances. Fighter jets flew over the protesters and military spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali issued a stern warning on Facebook, telling civilians not to pose as military personnel or approach military installations or troops, saying anyone doing so risked death.

The military also dropped flyers warning against violence as a crowd of some 400 pro-Morsi protesters marched through northern Sinai’s main city of el-Arish. The flyers urged people to protect the Sinai Peninsula from “terrorists” and provided two numbers for people to call to report suspicious behavior.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood said seven leaders of its parent group, including the former speaker of the parliament and an ultraconservative Salafi preacher, were transported to a heavily guarded prison, a move the group said was illegal because the men have not yet been charged. They have been accused, among other things, of inciting violence.

The ousted president, who has been replaced by interim leader Adly Mansour, has been held incommunicado at an undisclosed military facility since his ouster. He has not been charged with any crimes. The Brotherhood’s TV channel has been taken off the air along with other Islamic channels seen as sympathetic to the group. Al-Jazeera’s Egypt affiliate was raided by security forces, and on Friday, the channel’s signal, along with its flagship English and Arabic news channels, were intermittently interrupted. The reasons for the disruptions were not clear.

Pro-Morsi protester Mostafa Fathi, a 33-year-old accountant, said he viewed Morsi’s ouster and the closure of the TV channels as signs the country was targeting Islamists, as it did during Mubarak’s near three-decade-long rule.

“We don’t want to go back to a police state or a state of injustice.”

Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy contributed to this report.