Category Archives: Obama administration

Potential nuclear deal would allow Iran to keep some nuclear facilities

Barbara Slavin reports: As Iran, the United States and their negotiating partners prepare to meet again in Geneva this week, a potential compromise is taking shape that would allow Iran to keep all or most of its declared nuclear facilities, but under strict monitoring and other restrictions that would make it extremely difficult to build weapons. Even if such a deal was to be concluded, however, it’s not an outcome that would be easily accepted by Israel and its more hawkish allies on Capitol Hill.

Officials familiar with the negotiations suggest that the emerging compromise formula could satisfy the urgent non-proliferation concerns of the U.S. and the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1) group, while also allowing Iran to say that its right to a peaceful nuclear program had been respected.

Declared opponents of such a compromise — including Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – insist that Iran be required to dismantle most if not all its nuclear infrastructure, especially the underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow and a heavy water reactor under construction at Arak which, when completed and brought online, would yield plutonium, another potential bomb fuel. However, even if Iran proves willing to accept new limits on its production of nuclear fuel and more intrusive monitoring of its facilities, it’s unlikely to agree to destroy infrastructure for whose construction it has paid such a heavy economic and diplomatic price. (Even if it did agree to their dismantling, Iran would retain the know-how to rebuild them.) Former and current U.S. officials – and even several Israeli security experts – have told this author that any realistic diplomatic solution would leave Iran with some enrichment capacity. [Continue reading…]

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Barack Obama: Suspected war criminal

Shuaib Almosawa writes: Arfag al-Marwani finished his last minute shopping for the Eid al Fitr holiday by midnight, just enough time to enjoy a few hours of rest before the holiday’s dawn Fajr prayers. A 28-year-old laborer, Arfag had recently returned from working in Saudi Arabia and planned on spending the time with his family. It was August 8.

Just before making his final holiday preparations, he received a troubling phone call. Before the holiday celebrations could begin, he would have to carry out one final task.

There had been some sort of car accident involving his brothers: 24-year-old Abdullah, 17-year-old Hassan and 16-year-old Hussein. They too were on their way to the family home after finishing some last minute Eid shopping. Arfag’s thoughts drifted to news reports of the seven U.S. drone strikes in the past 11 days — one of which already targeted al Qaeda suspects in his home province of Marib. Arfag hoped that his young brothers weren’t somehow caught in the drone crossfire.

It took Arfag half an hour to reach the wreckage. Amidst the eerie quiet of the Maribi countryside, smoke still rose from the smoldering remains of his brothers’ mangled vehicle.

The strike that killed Arfag’s three brothers was the eighth out of nine total air attacks launched between July 27 and August 10. It was part of a spastic attempt to thwart what U.S. officials claimed was an al Qaeda plot to attack American interests. But the drone campaign may have only created more support for the militants, if Arfag and his grieving family are to be believed.

Government officials told the press that the strike’s targets were all al Qaeda militants. But the victims’ families say just the opposite was true: that the two teenagers and their older brother were innocent bystanders.

“Everything inside the car seemed to have been flung out of the windows by the force of the blast,” said Arfag, describing what he found at the wreckage that night.

“I found their bodies lying nearby — decapitated.”

Arfag carried the bodies of Abdullah, Hassan and Hussein to the trunk of his car one by one along with what remained of Eid gifts his brothers’ had purchased just a few hours earlier.

“They purchased two outfits for their little nieces, deserts, and a lot of fireworks. We all enjoy the Eid fireworks — they weren’t just for the boys,” said Arfag.

Arfag notified the rest of his family before he began the 50 mile drive north where the family would prepare the bodies for burial in a nearby cemetery the following day.

“Mom took pictures with her mobile phone of all of them, along with the [charred] gifts they had bought,” Arfag continued.

The August 8 strike has outraged the residents of Marib, a governorate where al Qaeda maintains a strong presence. According to some security analysts, that outrage over drone strikes directed toward the U.S. may do more harm than good in a long term struggle against AQAP, as the local Qaeda affiliate is known.

“This case gets at what I believe to be the Achilles heel of the U.S. in a place like Yemen: a lack of good, on-the-ground human intelligence,” said Gregory Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen and author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, al Qaeda and American’s War in Arabia. [Continue reading…]

Jeffrey Bachman asks: Is President Obama a suspected war criminal?

If you have read the recent reports on drone strikes by Ben Emmerson, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, there is only one answer to this question … and it is not the answer most would want to hear.

If you have not read the reports, let me provide you with a brief summary of the common themes. The reports repeatedly criticized President Obama for what has been a near complete lack of transparency. Lack of transparency, according to the reports, impedes accountability. By failing to acknowledge responsibility for drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, there can be no accountability to those who have wrongfully had their innocent loved ones killed in attacks.

Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, noted the role the right to information plays in promoting good governance. La Rue added that there exists a right to know the truth because the truth enables access to other rights: in this case, the right to reparations and accountability for the wrongful deaths of loved ones. [Continue reading…]

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NSA reluctant to concede any of its power

The New York Times reports: The Obama administration has told allies and lawmakers it is considering reining in a variety of National Security Agency practices overseas, including holding White House reviews of the world leaders the agency is monitoring, forging a new accord with Germany for a closer intelligence relationship and minimizing collection on some foreigners.

But for now, President Obama and his top advisers have concluded that there is no workable alternative to the bulk collection of huge quantities of “metadata,” including records of all telephone calls made inside the United States.

The administration’s reviews are being conducted in secrecy in part because of the secret nature of the N.S.A.’s operations. Initially, the reviews focused on domestic “bulk collection” programs begun after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which eventually led to the N.S.A. program to collect the billing records of all calls, and, for a while, to collect a large volume of emails as well. (The email program ended, the N.S.A. says, in 2011.) In an interview last month, General Alexander said he was “open” to any alternative to having the government maintain that database of calls.

But General Alexander’s deputy, John C. Inglis, who has spent nearly three decades at the N.S.A. focused on the technology of intercepting and decoding foreign communications, told Congress last week that so far there was no satisfying alternative to a government library of calls and, seemingly by extension, text messages and many Internet searches.

“It needs to be the whole haystack,” Mr. Inglis said. If the United States was looking for the communications of a terrorism suspect, he said, “it needs to be such that when you make a query you come away confident that you have the whole answer.”

There is a simple yet deceptive logic to the idea that unless the surveillance net can be cast across the totality of electronic communications, then vital pieces of information are at risk of being missed. Why deceptive? Because as we already know that the communications that a terrorist organization wants to keep secure will not be transmitted electronically. They will be conveyed by couriers invisible to the NSA.

A recent report on the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s principle intelligence organization, made the ridiculous statement: “The DIA needs to know what’s happening everywhere at all times.”

The NSA has similarly grandiose pretensions as it endeavors to listen to the whole world, yet the communications revolution of the last few decades has not changed the fact that in all spheres many of the most important exchanges occur the same way they have for the last two hundred thousand years: by word of mouth.

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The U.S. plan to build a Libyan army

Frederic Wehrey writes: Last month, discussing the Obama administration’s plans for a more modest Middle East policy, National Security Adviser Susan Rice noted that Washington “can’t just be consumed 24/7 by one region, important as it is.” From now on, she implied, countries in the region, including Libya, would be relegated to second-tier priority.

As she spoke, the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) was preparing to step up its assistance in Libya to help the country rebuild its weak security sector. Over the summer, AFRICOM, along with the militaries of Italy, Turkey, and the United Kingdom committed to help train, advise, and equip a new Libyan army — a “general purpose force,” in formal military terms — with the United States responsible for approximately 5,000 to 8,000 soldiers. The plan seems reasonable on paper. Trained at overseas bases outside Libya, the new force will allow the government to project its own authority, protect elected officials and institutions from the militias operating within the country, and compel the militias to demobilize and disarm. Washington sees the effort as a crucial step in Libya’s democratic transition and as a way to halt extremism and prevent the country’s lawlessness from spilling over its borders.

But the force’s composition, the details of its training, the extent to which Libyan civilians will oversee it, and its ability to deal with the range of threats that the country faces are all unclear. And the stakes are enormous. There are signs that some militias within Libya are trying to bloody the new army’s nose before it even enters the fight: a campaign of shadowy assassinations against military officers, particularly in the east, is likely half vendetta against representatives of the old order and half attempt to deter the central government’s monopolization of military force.

The case of a separate and underreported U.S. effort to train a small Libyan counterterrorism unit inside Libya earlier this year is instructive. The unit, set up by U.S. special operations forces, was hardly representative of Libya’s regional makeup: recruitment appeared to be drawn overwhelmingly from westerners to the exclusion of the long-neglected east. In addition, the absence of clear lines of authority — nearly inevitable given Libya’s fragmented security sector — meant that the force’s capabilities could just have easily ended up being used against political enemies as against terrorists.

Things came to a head in August, when a tribal militia launched a pre-dawn raid on the poorly guarded training camp near Tripoli. No U.S. soldiers were there, but the militia did make off with sensitive U.S. military equipment. And that spelled the end of the mission; the effort was aborted and U.S. forces went home. (The Libyan government and U.S. special operations forces are currently searching for a new training site inside Libya to restart it.) Drawing lessons from this fiasco, the United States and its NATO partners have wisely decided that the new training mission for the general purpose force will take place outside Libya — in Bulgaria, Italy, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. But that alone won’t be enough to ensure that the effort doesn’t face more significant hurdles. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Heavy fighting between militias using rifles, grenades and anti-aircraft weapons erupted in several parts of Tripoli on Tuesday in the worst violence in the Libyan capital for weeks.

Fighting started in Tripoli’s eastern Suq al-Juma district and a central area where two burned out pick-ups belonging to a militia on the government payroll could be seen. Libyan news websites said at least one person had been wounded.

The shooting started after a member of a militia was detained at a checkpoint after which fellow fighters arrived trying to free him, a militia source said.

Reuters reporters in Tripoli could hear shots from rocket propelled-grenades and anti-aircraft guns throughout the night. Tripoli was quiet on Tuesday morning but occasional rifle shots could still be heard.

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Syria: A war with no end in sight

Stuart Montgomery writes: The Syrian Civil War has been raging for two years. Countless casualties have been sustained on each side, and the humanitarian problem continues to worsen.

So how do you end a civil war?

There are three potential outcomes: regime victory, rebel victory and a negotiated settlement. Currently, the last option is the championed outcome in the international context of the Syrian Civil War. Recently, the United States and Russia, reeling on the recent success of the chemical weapons deal, announced plans to convene an international conference to negotiate peace. Turkey, France and the United Kingdom, countries once considering military action, now support a peace settlement. Political pundits point to the example of Kosovo, as they argue for a quick, clean and negotiated peace. Respected strategist Edward Luttwak argued that a negotiated settlement would best serve U.S. interests. This option has appeal, because it avoids a messy military intervention. However, a negotiated peace is not risk-free.

Historically, negotiated settlements ending civil wars, are temporary at best. Angola, Sudan and Lebanon provide unfortunate examples of civil wars that were only temporarily halted by a negotiated peace. Another example, Kosovo is now relatively stable, but has been governed by a large, expensive, U.N. force for over a decade.

Why do negotiated settlements break apart?

Conflict reignites, because the issues that are at the root of the war are never truly resolved. Monica Duffy Toft, professor at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, argues that rebel victories result in a more stable peace in her book Securing the Peace, on civil war termination. Shouldn’t the choice be clear? Unfortunately supporting Syrian rebels is unpalatable, because of their fractious nature and key groups’ affiliation with Al Qaeda. Supporting Bashar al-Assad is equally unattractive, and unrealistic. Therefore, wouldn’t a negotiated settlement, even if temporary, best protect U.S. security interests?

A negotiated peace is not without problems. First, both Assad’s regime and Al Qaeda affiliates would continue to exist and be armed in some power sharing structure in Syria. Without the presence of a large peacekeeping force, which is unlikely with the lack of support and enthusiasm in the United States and abroad, each side would have little incentive to disarm and cooperate. Instead, these factions would focus on outmaneuvering each other for survival, rather than rebuilding Syria. [Continue reading…]

CNN reports: Al Qaeda has swept to power with the aim of imposing a strict Islamist ideology on Syrians across large swathes of Syria’s rebel-held north, according to a CNN survey of towns, activists and analysts that reveals an alarming increase in al Qaeda-linked control in just the past month.

Al Qaeda-backed militants known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are the predominant military force in northern Syria, according to activists and seasoned observers, and have a powerful influence over the majority of population centers in the rebel-held north.

Rami Abdul Rahman, from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said: “ISIS is the strongest group in Northern Syria — 100% — and anyone who tells you anything else is lying.”

CNN conducted dozens of interviews with activists, local and international observers and residents of the towns affected by ISIS in preparing this study. Many of the Syrians CNN spoke to talked anonymously for fear of angering ISIS, saying ISIS has in some areas made it a crime punishable by flogging to even say their name.

The swift al Qaeda expansion poses a severe policy dilemma for the United States and its European allies who have long delayed their promised armed assistance to rebel groups as they struggled with fears that the weapons could end up in the hands of al Qaeda-backed extremists.

Observers say the delay has provided a vacuum in the often chaotic rebel ranks that the organized and fearless Islamists have moved to fill.

Many observers explain that the extent of ISIS’s discipline and resources — they are said to have considerable cash at their disposal — means that the other rebel groups operating in the north do not seek to confront them.

Charles Lister, analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, said: “Although not a numerically dominant force, ISIS is playing an increasingly pre-eminent role in the northern Syrian insurgency.

“Much of this is a result of its capability to exploit superior levels of financing and resources — essentially, to spread itself thinly enough to exert influence and/or control, but not too thin as to be overpowered by rivals.”

Most activists point to a clear strategy by ISIS — which aims to dominate a large swathe of the north from the north-western town of Idlib to the north-eastern city of Raqqa and beyond — of focusing on population centers on the edges of rebel-held territory and slowly choking off central areas. Some ISIS figures have described a broader aim of trying to link the Sunni province of Anbar in Iraq to the Mediterranean coast, near the Syrian town of Latakia.

Reuters reports: The international body tasked with eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons has raised only enough money so far to fund its mission through this month, and more cash will have to be found soon to pay for the destruction of poison gas stocks next year.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which won the Nobel Peace Prize last month, is overseeing the destruction of Syria’s nerve agent stocks under a U.S.-Russian agreement reached in September.

It has so far raised about 10 million euros ($13.5 million) for the task.

“It is the assessment of the Secretariat that its existing personnel resources are sufficient for operations to be conducted in October and November 2013,” said an October 25 OPCW document seen by Reuters. At the time, its account held just 4 million euros.

Lally Weymouth interviews Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki:

What do you and your country think is the best outcome in Syria?

The best outcome is to stop the killing.

How?

We had a proposal, put forth by our foreign minister, that you have to level the playing field. And that means Bashar’s military superiority has to be checked by giving the opposition the means to defend themselves. You’re not talking about sending troops on the ground. Over the past two and half years, if anti-tank, anti-aircraft defensive weapons had been distributed to the opposition—and not all the opposition, [but] the opposition that is for an inclusive Syria—then they would have been able to checkmate the military superiority of Bashar al-Assad and force him to come to the negotiating table. Unfortunately, that did not happen. While Europe and America continued to deny the opposition the means to defend against Bashar’s lethal weapons, the Russians and the Iranians continued to supply Bashar with whatever he needed.

So it’s up to the United States and the Europeans to arm the opposition?

Absolutely. The Europeans put an embargo on arms to Syria. They could see … that that embargo wasn’t affecting Assad but it was definitely denying his opponents … weapons. It took the Europeans two and a half years to change their view and finally say “OK, we can afford to sell these weapons to the opposition.” But none of these countries did. The Americans have not only not sold them, but they have declared they have no intention of providing these weapons to the opposition. So how can you level the playing ground if one side is continually supplied with what it needs by the Russians and the Iranians, and the other side is continually denied those things?

Do you think your country will sit by?

My country has been trying to push not just the United States but the Europeans as well.

Do you feel Saudi explanations fall on deaf ears with the Obama administration?

Every day there are more than 50 to 100 people killed in Syria. And the world sits back and watches.

Do you feel President Obama just doesn’t get it?

I don’t know if he gets it or not. But I think the world community is definitely at fault here. The Russians because they are supporting Bashar and allowing him to do the killing. The Chinese because they have vetoed any measures in the United Nations to prevent him from doing that. The Europeans for not supplying the opposition with weapons. The United States for continually not supplying the opposition with what they need. It’s a worldwide apathy—a criminally negligent attitude toward the Syrian people.

So what do you think will happen in Syria?

They are going to continue the killing.

And Assad will stay in power as things stand now?

As things stand now, Bashar al-Assad is under the protection of the Security Council because of the chemical weapons resolution.

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Growing calls for Germany to offer Snowden asylum

Der Spiegel reports: There are growing calls in Germany not only to question Edward Snowden in connection with the ongoing NSA scandal, but also to offer him safe passage and asylum. Yet the heads of the two major political camps fear the wrath of the United States.

Hans-Christian Ströbele, a lawyer and parliamentarian for Germany’s Green Party, turned 74 this year. He has devoted more than 50 of those years to the political struggle for justice and for what is good in the world – or at least that’s how he sees it. “Have you ever been on the wrong side of things?” Ströbele was asked in a recent television interview.

“Politically speaking?” he asked the interviewer, glancing at the ceiling. For two seconds, it seemed as if he had to consider the question, but he quickly regained his composure and emphatically replied: “No.”

Now Ströbele is waging another political battle, probably the most noteworthy one of his life. Last Thursday, he went to Moscow and spent three hours speaking with Edward Snowden, the man whose revelations about the spying activities of the United States have both captivated the world for months and deeply changed its perceptions.

Ströbele, a lawmaker from the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg election district in Berlin, was the first politician in the world to meet with Snowden in his Moscow exile. Snowden’s mission is now Ströbele’s mission. He wants to bring the American whistleblower to Germany to testify before an investigative committee of the German parliament, the Bundestag, and in doing so provide him with a secured right of residence in Germany.

Ströbele knows that granting Snowden the right to stay in Germany would create problems for German-American relations. The Americans have already submitted an extradition request, just in case Snowden ever sets foot on German soil. But Ströbele doesn’t care. He sets his own priorities and, once again, he believes himself to be on the right side of history, notwithstanding Germany’s trans-Atlantic partnership with the United States. “If the political will exists, as well as the courage, including the courage to stand up to presidents, then it’s possible,” Ströbele said after returning from Moscow.

Germany now faces a test of courage, one that affects the German parliament, the heads of the two major parties, the conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), who are currently hammering out the details of a grand coalition government in negotiations set to conclude by Christmas. Most of all, it affects Chancellor Angela Merkel.

So should the Bundestag hear Snowden’s testimony before an investigative committee? The answer seems straightforward. Why shouldn’t German lawmakers hear what he has to say, the man on whose revelations the entire NSA scandal is based and who has already told Ströbele that he is willing to come to Germany?

The second, more fundamental question is harder to answer: whether Snowden should be granted the right to live in Germany or a comparable country, and therefore protection from the Americans. This is precisely the condition Snowden has set for his willingness to testify. He knows that his asylum in Russia is limited to one year, which means that it expires in nine months. He is testing the waters to see where he could live safely in the future. Germany appears to be his top choice. [Continue reading…]

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A resumption of history in the Middle East

Rami G Khouri writes: Observing the Middle East from the United States, where I have spent the last month, has been fascinating, because historic changes are occurring in some relationships between these two regions. This includes evolving American ties with the five key strategic players in the region: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, Turkey and Egypt. The most important changes are taking place in the triangular relationship among the United Sates and each of Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Three simultaneous things are occurring here that are intriguing, but their permanent implications remain unclear because events are in their early days.

The first is the United States’ resumption of direct and serious talks with Iran in a more positive atmosphere that seeks to end the dispute over Iran’s nuclear capabilities while also addressing Iranian concerns about American policy toward Iran. Should the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 powers succeed, as I expect, this could mark a revolutionary new era when Iran would slowly resume normal ties with global powers and reshape its relations within the Middle East. This in turn could have major implications for Saudi Arabian and Gulf Cooperation Council policies, as well as conditions in Syria and Iraq, and the status of Hezbollah and Lebanon.

Washington’s evolving perceptions of Iran reflect the second change, which is a rare case of the U.S. pursuing policies in the Middle East that are not fully in line with Israeli fears or wishes. Israel and its influential American mouthpieces in Washington have lobbied overtime in recent months to prevent a U.S.-Iranian dialogue or serious negotiations that could lead to a rapprochement. They have failed to date in this. Washington has tried to placate Israeli concerns with the rhetoric that Israel expects to hear from its friends in the U.S., but President Barack Obama has ignored Israeli exhortations and moved ahead sharply to negotiate with Iran. We can expect major consequences from a U.S. foreign policy that is shaped by U.S. national interests, rather than by Israeli dictates, fears and manipulations. [Continue reading…]

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Morsi calls trial in Egypt ‘illegitimate,’ and case is delayed

When America’s obsequious Secretary of State John Kerry met Egypt’s ruling generals yesterday, he claimed they appear to be following a “road map” back to democracy — even though they have not pledged to lift emergency rule. Neither did he raise the issue of Morsi’s trial.

The New York Times reports: As Egypt’s new military-led government consolidates its power, Mohamed Morsi, the deposed president, went on trial on Monday, facing charges of inciting the murder of protesters, but he rejected the court’s authority and proclaimed himself to be the country’s legitimate ruler.

The trial got off to a late start, and the case was soon adjourned until Jan. 8.

The trial’s brief opening was Mr. Morsi’s first public appearance since his removal from office on July 3 and, in a dizzying turn for Egypt, the second criminal trial of a former head of state in less than three years. Former President Hosni Mubarak, ousted in February 2011 and now under house arrest in a military hospital, is facing a retrial at the same site, the auditorium of a police academy.

According to the website of Al Ahram, Egypt’s flagship state newspaper, the trial got under way as Mr. Morsi and 14 other Islamist defendants appeared in a caged dock and court officials called out their names. But news reports said the hearing was first delayed and then suspended after Mr. Morsi refused to dress in prison clothing and chants by his co-defendants drowned out the proceedings.

Journalists who were allowed into the courtroom were not permitted to take telephones or other communications devices, limiting the flow of information. But witnesses in the courtroom said that Mr. Morsi declared, “This trial is illegitimate,” and said he was still Egypt’s lawful president.

Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood had called for major protests against the trial, and the Interior Ministry said it had deployed thousands of riot police officers to secure the streets. Shortly before 11 a.m., as the trial began, the streets remained quiet, but the number of demonstrators began to grow from only a few dozen to perhaps 100 in two locations outside the court.

Pro-Morsi demonstrators gathered in larger numbers at the Supreme Constitutional Court in the Maadi district of southern Cairo, witnesses said.

BBC News reports on the changing tactics among Muslim Brotherhood protesters.

Protesters gather in small numbers in many different locations rather than holding mass rallies in one location like that of the Rabaa al-Adawiya or al-Nahda squares.

It’s been a little over two months now since security forces cracked down on those two squares where supporter of former President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood gathered in their thousands.

Since then almost all the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its supreme guide, have been arrested.

Many supporters have also been rounded up and thrown in jail. A recent incident in Alexandria saw more than 20 women supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood arrested in clashes with residents of one of the city’s most crowded neighbourhoods.

But all of that doesn’t seem to deter supporters of the ousted president from taking to the streets.

“It’s important to keep the momentum going,” said Yomna, a university student in her final year.

Yomna didn’t want her last name revealed. She said that as a Morsi supporter, she had to be careful not to reveal her identity. That alone shows how different things have become here in Egypt.

Despite what happened in Rabaa or even because of it, many Muslim Brotherhood supporters insist that the only way for them is the street.

“We’re tired but we are not defeated, we’re still in the street because people know that this is where they should be,” Yomna said.

“This trial will be a chance for us to regroup and unite again,” she added.

“Seeing that they have put our president on trial will make us even more determined.”

Despite this determination, Yomna admits that these past few months have been extremely difficult for her and many like her who still want Mohammed Morsi to be returned to office.

“Look what happened to those girls,” she said, referring to the women who were arrested in Alexandria recently.

“As a Morsi supporter I feel vulnerable to arrest at any time now. I’ll keep protesting but I know next time it could be me.

“Sometimes I feel like I no longer live in my own country.”

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Israel furious at White House for leaks on Syria strike

The Times of Israel reports: Israel conveyed a series of bitter protests to the White House and to others in the US administration over the weekend over the Obama administration’s confirmation that it was the Israeli Air Force that struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia last Wednesday.

Israel has not acknowledged carrying out the strike, one of half a dozen such attacks widely ascribed to Israel in recent months, but an Obama administration official told CNN on Thursday that Israeli warplanes had indeed attacked the Syrian base, and that the target was “missiles and related equipment” set for delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This US confirmation, which was not the first case of the administration leaking word of Israeli strikes in Syria, risked causing a flare-up that could “endanger the security of Israel and the region as a whole,” Israel claimed in its protest messages to the US according to a report in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Sunday.

Israel’s fury was conveyed directly to the White House, as well as during meetings and conversations between senior Israeli officials and their US counterparts in the Pentagon, the CIA and the State Department, the report said.

Israel’s shocked complaints produced no American explanation or reaction whatsoever, the report went on, which Israeli officials ascribe to embarrassment on behalf of the administration. Israel believes the leaks may be “a consequence of negligence.” [Continue reading…]

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Gulf officials, tired of waiting for U.S., move to boost aid to Syrian rebels

The Washington Post reports: Gulf officials emphasized that the U.S.-Saudi relationship, spanning eight decades since the kingdom’s founding, is based on a range of issues, including energy, counterterrorism, military ties, trade and investment, that remain important to both.

Any major attempt at outside intervention in Syria on behalf of the opposition would be limited without the participation of U.S. equipment, personnel, and command and control. Although France, for example, shares some of the Saudi concerns and the French defense minister met with King Abdullah and discussed major new defense contracts in Riyadh early this month, the United States’ partners in Europe have long expressed reluctance to intervene in Syria without a mandate from the United Nations or NATO.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron’s support for the U.S. strike option being prepared this summer was abandoned when Parliament voted against any participation.

Turkey, a NATO partner that has long protested what it sees as Obama’s tepid Syria policy, has branched off on its own in terms of support for the rebels. Although the administration has long described Iranian support for Assad as crucial to the Syrian president’s survival, foreign ministers from Turkey and Iran met in Ankara last week to voice their shared concerns about the increasingly sectarian nature of the war. [Continue reading…]

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Kerry paints rosy picture of Egypt moving towards democracy

Reuters reports: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that there are indications Egypt’s generals intend to restore democracy, after an army takeover that prompted Washington to freeze some aid to its long-standing ally.

Kerry, the most senior U.S. official to visit Egypt since the overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July, said Cairo was a vital partner, apparently trying to repair ties strained by the partial freeze in U.S. aid, pending progress on democracy.

“Thus far there are indications that this is what they are intending to do,” Kerry said after a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart, referring to his recent remarks in Pakistan that Egypt’s military was “restoring democracy”.

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Angry Pakistan to assess U.S. ties after drone strike disrupts peace talks

Reuters reports: Pakistan is to review its relationship with the United States, the prime minister’s office said on Sunday, following the killing of the Pakistani Taliban leader in a U.S. drone strike.

But a top-level meeting to examine relations, scheduled for Sunday, was postponed at the last minute without explanation.

Some politicians have demanded that U.S. military supply lines into Afghanistan be blocked in response.

“It is clear that the U.S. is against peace and does not want terrorism to subside. Now, we only have one agenda: to stop NATO supplies going through (the northern province of) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” Asad Qaiser, the speaker of the provincial assembly, told Reuters.

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U.S. has no interest in Pakistan’s ability to negotiate peace

BBC News reports: The US has responded to accusations from Pakistan that a drone strike that killed Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud had destroyed the country’s nascent peace process.

A state department official said talks with the Taliban were an internal matter for Pakistan.

The statement insisted Pakistan and the US had a “shared strategic interest in ending extremist violence”.

It also said it could still not confirm that Mehsud had been killed on Friday.

Pakistan has summoned the US ambassador to protest over Friday’s drone strike that killed Mehsud.

The country’s foreign minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said the strike on the local Taliban leader “is not just the killing of one person, it’s the death of all peace efforts.”

It came a day before a Pakistani delegation had been due to fly to North Waziristan to meet Mehsud.

Mr Nisar accused the United States of “scuttling” efforts to begin peace talks, and said “every aspect” of Pakistan’s co-operation with Washington would be reviewed.

Information Minister Pervez Rashid said: “The US has tried to attack the peace talks with this drone but we will not let them fail.”

The US state department spokesman said: “The issue of whether to negotiate with TTP is an internal matter for Pakistan, and we refer you to the government of Pakistan for further details.”

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Pakistan Taliban rules out dialogue with government, branded as ‘U.S. slaves’

Geo TV reports: The proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has ruled out the possibility of holding a dialogue with the Pakistan government, saying talks with the ‘US slaves’ were no longer possible, Geo News reported Sunday.

“The (Pakistan) government has given us the present of Hakimullah Mehsud’s dead body,” said Shahidullah Shahid, spokesman of the banned TTP, in a media statement which has come amid optimistic statements from the Pakistan government regarding the fate of the proposed peace talks.

Shahidullah Shaid said the selection of the TTP’s successor will be made in the next couple of days.

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Snowden asks U.S. to stop treating him like a traitor

The New York Times reports: Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American security contractor granted temporary asylum by Russia, has appealed to Washington to stop treating him like a traitor for revealing that the United States has been eavesdropping on its allies, a German politician who met with Mr. Snowden said on Friday.

Mr. Snowden made his appeal in a letter that was carried to Berlin by Hans-Christian Ströbele, a veteran member of the Green Party in the German Parliament. Mr. Ströbele said he and two journalists for German news outlets met with Mr. Snowden and a person described as his assistant — probably his British aide, Sarah Harrison — at an undisclosed location in or near Moscow on Thursday for almost three hours.

Mr. Ströbele had gone to Moscow to explore whether Mr. Snowden could or would testify before a planned parliamentary inquiry into the eavesdropping. Any arrangements for Mr. Snowden to testify would require significant legal maneuvering, as it seemed unlikely that he would travel to Germany for fear of extradition to the United States.

In his letter, Mr. Snowden, 30, also appealed for clemency. He said his disclosures about American intelligence activity at home and abroad, which he called “systematic violations of law by my government that created a moral duty to act,” have had positive effects.

Yet “my government continues to treat dissent as defection, and seeks to criminalize political speech with felony charges that provide no defense,” Mr. Snowden wrote. “However, speaking the truth is not a crime. I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United States will abandon this harmful behavior.” [Continue reading…]

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NSA chief Keith Alexander blames diplomats for surveillance requests

The Guardian reports: The director of the National Security Agency has blamed US diplomats for requests to place foreign leaders under surveillance, in a surprising intervention that risks a confrontation with the State Department.

General Keith Alexander made the remarks during a pointed exchange with a former US ambassador to Romania, lending more evidence to suggestions of a rift over surveillance between the intelligence community and Barack Obama’s administration.

The NSA chief was challenged by James Carew Rosapepe, who served as an ambassador under the Clinton administration, over the monitoring of the German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone.

Rosapepe, now a Democratic state senator in Maryland, pressed Alexander to give “a national security justification” for the agency’s use of surveillance tools intended for combating terrorism against “democratically elected leaders and private businesses”.

“We all joke that everyone is spying on everyone,” he said. “But that is not a national security justification.”

Alexander replied: “That is a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don’t come up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements.”

He went on: “One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors.”

Alexander said the NSA collected information when it was asked by policy officials to discover the “leadership intentions” of foreign countries. “If you want to know leadership intentions, these are the issues,” the NSA director said.

The exchange on Thursday night drew laughs from the audience at the Baltimore Council on Foreign Relations, but did not seem to impress the former ambassador, who replied: “We generally don’t do that in democratic societies.” [Continue reading…]

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Obama administration seems ‘almost helpless’ in face of NSA scandal

Der Spiegel reports: German diplomats have traveled to Washington to express anger over surveillance of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone — but they have yet to make headway. The Obama administration seems “almost helpless” in the face of continued leaks, says one diplomat.

Both groups sit together in a White House conference room for about 90 minutes. On one side are a half a dozen members of the European Parliament. Facing them is an equally-sized American delegation, including Karen Donfried, senior director for European affairs in the National Security Council (NSC) and a fluent German speaker.

The agenda is full of issues that have become day-to-day business in trans-Atlantic relations: the scandal surrounding US monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone, NSA espionage and accusations of spying. They’re all uncomfortable topics that diplomats of allied nations usually prefer to keep quiet about. But shortly before the meeting’s end, the Americans appear to look inward. How should we proceed, they ask contemplatively.

“They seemed almost helpless, as if they’d become obsessed,” says Jan Philipp Albrecht, a Green Party MEP and one of the participants in the meeting. “The US government representatives honestly looked like they didn’t know what to do. And they left no room for doubt that more spying revelations are to be expected.” The odd exchange is an accurate reflection of the mood in Washington. [Continue reading…]

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